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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58898 | New species of pterosaur found in mass grave
Paulo Manzig et al
A rare stash of thousands of ancient bones found in Brazil has turned in a magnificent find: over 47 skeletons of a single, new species of Upper Cretaceous pterosaur.
Discovered in an old lake deposit on the outskirts of Cruzeiro do Oeste in the southern state of Parana, the bones are unusual for two reasons: firstly, that pterosaur bones had never been found in the southern part of Brazil, with all other pterosaur material found in the northeast.
Secondly, the size of the cache, found over a space of about 20 square metres, is deeply impressive. Pterosaurs seem to have lived on the coast, and recovered remains are usually limited to fragments of a single specimen. Although the researchers confirmed 47 individuals, they estimate the actual number to be well into the hundreds.
Maurilio Oliveira/Museu Nacional-UFRJ
"Most pterosaurs are known from ancient coastal or shallow marine deposits and the number of species that lived deep inside the continents is limited, particularly from desert environments," the research paper, published in the journal PLOS One, reads.
The new species has been named Caiuajara dobruskii, and the cache contained bones from several stages of development, from young to adult, with wingspans ranging from 0.65 metres to 2.35 metres. The pterosaurs' heads are also adorned with a large crest, which grew in prominence as the animals matured. The size of the grave suggests that they were a social species, living and flying in colonies, developing flight from a very young age.
As for how the grave came to be, evidence suggests that the site -- an oasis -- was a habitat for the pterosaurs for a very long time, and they did not all die simultaneously.
"Episodic events (e.g., desert storms) likely carried the disarticulated and partially articulated skeletons to the bottom of the lake where they got eventually preserved. The presence of three main levels of accumulation in a section of less than one meter suggests that this region was home to pterosaur populations for an extended period of time," the paper reads.
"It is also plausible that Caiuajara was a migratory pterosaur that visited this area from time to time, although the first possibility is favoured here. The causes of death remain unknown, although similarities with dinosaur drought-related mortality are striking. However, it is also possible that desert storms could have been responsible for the occasional demise of these pterosaurs."
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ASP.NET Image Manipulation Examples: Adding, Zooming, Enlarging
, 6 Apr 2004 342.5K 8K 131
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.NET image manipulation examples, as an ASP.NET Project. Good application-savvy effects.
This is a sample project to do image manipulation in ASP.NET projects, using .NET's GDI library, and related classes.
The project demonstrates dynamically 'Adding two images', 'creating zoom effects', and 'enlarging images'.
Some notes on displaying dynamically generated images
If we have to generate an image dynamically and show it on a webpage, we have to do the image generation coding on a separate page and call it in our src="" attribute of the <img> tag.
<img src="imager.aspx"/>
This is the common and as-far-as I know, the only way to display dynamic images on a webpage, and not specific to the ASP.NET framework alone. It applies to whatever language and webserver you might use. And fortunately, this method is compliant with any client browser, since the process happens server-side.
Generating images
You would typically use all (or some) of the below .NET namespaces to generate / load preexisting images.
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Drawing.Drawing2D;
You can draw lines, arcs and do a lot of things using the Drawing namespace and the GDI/ GDI+ libraries... you should see articles on the same for doing that. In this article, we will only try manipulating pre-existing images.
The rest of this article will use classes and methods in the above mentioned namespaces.
Loading and Displaying an Image
To load and display an image, you would create a separate file such as imager.aspx and put no controls or anything on it... but just code for the Page_Load event as below:
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
Bitmap objImage = new Bitmap(strBasePath + <A href="file://images//fruity.jpg">file://images//fruity.jpg</A>);
The above code loads an image from the images directory of the web project and pushes it to the OutputStream which is the response header that will be sent to the client.
Done that, we can put a call to the image as mentioned before:
<img src="imager.aspx"/>
Ex1: Adding two images
Sample screenshot
Having discussed displaying a single image .. it's very obvious now as to how to add two images and send to the client.
The simplest way being to push two images to the response stream. Or you can add the two images to a new image and push this image to the response stream as below:
Bitmap oCounter;
Graphics oGraphics;
oCounter = new Bitmap(23,15);
oGraphics = Graphics.FromImage(oCounter);
Bitmap objImage = new Bitmap(strBasePath + <A href="file://images//1.gif">file://images//1.gif</A>);
objImage = new Bitmap(strBasePath + <A href="file://images//2.gif">file://images//2.gif</A>);
Note: when drawing the second image, it's important to paste it at the proper position.. or else it overwrites or draws itself over the old image... this we do by manipulating the top left position of the drawimage() method, attributes... int X, and int Y.
If you are wondering why I named the final image object oCounter: typical application of adding two images would be generating 'hit counter' images for your clients.
Ex2: Zooming images
Sample screenshot
Sample screenshot
There are two ways of zooming an image.. or rather bringing out a zoom-effect on images.
1. Enlarge the image to a larger size (this is discussed in the EX3).
2. Copy a portion of the image and enlarge it to the size of the original image.
We discuss method (2) here.
In the sample project, I create the image using an ImageButton aspx control. This is to allow users to click on the image and pass x, y params to the server so that the clicked area of the image is zoomed (or technically enlarged).
The only function to learn to do this is:
DrawImage() accepts:
• a source Rectangle (defining which portion is to be drawn),
• a destination Rectangle (defining the target size and position of the image).
And if the destination rectangle is larger than the source rectangle, .NET automatically scales the image thereby getting our zooming effect.
Yes! This is important: "DrawImage() scales the image automatically if needed".
//get the portion of image(defined by sourceRect)
//and enlarge it to desRect a zoom effect.
////if image has high resolution.. effect will be good.
In the above code block, oItemp contains the image... the rest is clear I suppose.
Zoom - effect Logic
I think I should explain the logic I have used in my code (downloadable with this article - see top of article for download link).
What I do is I handle the image button click event, and get the x, y position where the user clicked on the image. I then do some basic calculation and mark my source rectangle around this click source rectangle is 60% the size of the actual image itself. Since we discussed that source rectangle should be somewhere smaller than the destination rectangle for the scaling to happen. May be you can have a 50% size also, in which case the image gets zoomed more...
float iPortionWidth=(0.60f*oI.Width);
float iPortionHeight=(0.60f*oI.Height);
//oI is the image.
Multiple zooms..
I allow the user to click on the enlarged image also.. that means zoom it further and further. I achieved this with the below logic:
I have two hidden fields on the form.. where I store the user clicked positions like:
xpos = 100 ypos = 200
On the second click, the hidden fields take the values:
xpos = 100,322 ypos = 200, 123
and so on.. so I have a track of all the clicks the user made. I then split this string of values and perform the zoom operation on the original image multiple times.
That means, if user clicked at 100,200 first time and on the zoomed image he clicked at 322,123, then in the second postback of the form, I scale the image twice using a for loop every time at the respective points.
Hope that sounds clear. Anyways, the code is also well-documented.. and you will see it work as you break-into the code.
EX3: Enlarging the image (zoom-effect 2)
Auto-scaling doesn't alone happen with the DrawImage() method, it also can happen when you load the image.
1. load an image to actual size
2. create an Image object and load the object (from prev step), with a width and height
Bitmap oImg, oImgTemp;
oImg = new Bitmap(oImgTemp,600,400);
That's it.. the result is an enlarged image.
I worked through this example creating all bitmap objects from the class Bitmap.
But when I tried the zoom-effect Ex:2, the Bitmap object won't scale to a new size whatever I do, .. but good fortunes, auto-scaling happened with the Image object.
The problem was with the DrawImage() method which would not do auto-scaling for bitmap image objects (supplied as the first argument)..
Hence, the below wont work.
//oBitmap is an instance of class 'Bitmap'
While, this will...
//oItemp is an instance of class 'Image'
Change History:
Change 1:
Suppose you zoom the image (in EX2) once or twice, and then click button 'Original' and then again zoom once.. you will see the wrong result. It would have zoomed once + no. of times zoomed earlier before pressing 'original'. The problem is I am not clearing the hidden fields when 'original' button is pressed.
I forgot this.. really. Blush | :O )
I have now updated the download on this page (as on 8/Apr/04).. If u don't have the new download.. the only correction is:
//in index.aspx.cs page
private void Button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
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Questionthanks Pin
mez018-Dec-12 9:09
membermez018-Dec-12 9:09
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Josep Maria Roy21-Jul-10 23:38
memberJosep Maria Roy21-Jul-10 23:38
GeneralIn VB Pin
david4life8-Feb-09 9:14
memberdavid4life8-Feb-09 9:14
Questionhow to rotate image Pin
shaktisanjeev14-Oct-08 3:14
membershaktisanjeev14-Oct-08 3:14
GeneralAdd two bmp images Pin
msurni24-Aug-08 23:19
membermsurni24-Aug-08 23:19
GeneralIMPORTANT: standards browser compliance Pin
metalmonkey3-Apr-08 15:58
membermetalmonkey3-Apr-08 15:58
AnswerI need your code Pin
Member 428602626-Feb-08 18:11
memberMember 428602626-Feb-08 18:11
Generalasp imaging Pin
Member #365008411-Feb-07 17:53
memberMember #365008411-Feb-07 17:53
GeneralExcellent work done Pin
Imransyed636-May-06 21:46
memberImransyed636-May-06 21:46
Questionzooming Pin
K.SARAVANA KUMAR26-Jan-06 19:50
memberK.SARAVANA KUMAR26-Jan-06 19:50
QuestionHow to pan the image Pin
kumarrajt2-Dec-05 0:20
memberkumarrajt2-Dec-05 0:20
Questioncan we zoom out the image Pin
kumarrajt30-Nov-05 22:13
memberkumarrajt30-Nov-05 22:13
AnswerRe: can we zoom out the image Pin
Harish Palaniappan1-Dec-05 20:37
memberHarish Palaniappan1-Dec-05 20:37
Generalunable to load the jpg image Pin
kumarrajt30-Nov-05 0:38
memberkumarrajt30-Nov-05 0:38
Questionabout enlarging image which will be retrieved from database Pin
farhana afroz19-Nov-05 19:01
memberfarhana afroz19-Nov-05 19:01
AnswerRe: about enlarging image which will be retrieved from database Pin
Harish Palaniappan20-Nov-05 8:24
memberHarish Palaniappan20-Nov-05 8:24
GeneralRe: about enlarging image which will be retrieved from database Pin
farhana afroz22-Nov-05 17:44
memberfarhana afroz22-Nov-05 17:44
GeneralAutomatic image resize Pin
zioturo3-Nov-05 21:45
memberzioturo3-Nov-05 21:45
GeneralLoad Images Pin
JineteMarmoreo12-Jul-05 6:42
memberJineteMarmoreo12-Jul-05 6:42
GeneralZooming Pin
JHarcourt13-Sep-04 12:09
sussJHarcourt13-Sep-04 12:09
Here's one issue I've come across with your code.
The original size of my image is rather large. When I originally tried you code, it worked fine, but the Image Button resized to the size of the image. This is bad. So I resized the Image Button to be much more managable. The image now comes up the size of the Image Button, which is much smaller than the actual image size.
So when I click on the button, your code tries to zoom in, but it's zooming based not on the size of the image on the screen, but based on the size of the of the original image.
I also added a Zoom Out button that strips the last ",x" and ",y" from txtPosX and txtPosY.
Now what about scrolling up and down? That would be nice.
GeneralAbout loading and displaying img Pin
ArpanetGuru15-Jun-04 20:02
memberArpanetGuru15-Jun-04 20:02
GeneralOnline test Pin
kraftspl6-May-04 11:34
memberkraftspl6-May-04 11:34
Generalabout Multiple Zooming Pin
xidu7-Apr-04 5:54
memberxidu7-Apr-04 5:54
GeneralRe: about Multiple Zooming Pin
Harish Palaniappan7-Apr-04 18:37
memberHarish Palaniappan7-Apr-04 18:37
GeneralRe: about Multiple Zooming Pin
ahnan7-Apr-04 19:05
memberahnan7-Apr-04 19:05
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58914 | The Phantom Pains, Part Five: Choke wiki last edited by Billy Batson on 06/24/13 08:45AM View full history
John Constantine has faced many demons in his career, but none have affected him like this one: his niece, Gemma, who hates her uncle with demonic fury. Now she will have her revenge. He's already lost a thumb – now he might lose something even more precious…
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58915 | The Lady Tiger Fist wiki last edited by Icarusflies on 06/06/13 09:23AM View full history
Lady Tiger Fist is a villain of Batman Japan, and an agent of the Japanese branch of Leviathan.
While her involvement in events is somewhat unclear, she controlled a group of motorcyclists who had been enhanced and deformed by nanotechnology. They inadvertently led Batman Japan and Shy Crazy Lolita Canary to Lady Tiger Fist's secret lair (which appears to be protected by Boom Tube technology, or something similar).
Lady Tiger Fist attempted to bit them with her robot tiger hands, and seemingly crushed Shy Crazy Lolita Canary underfoot. However, it was all a ploy by the two heroes; she was actually trapped in the Internet 3.0.
At this point Lady Tiger fist expresses her regret at her inability to text with tiger hands. And voice recognition software doesn't recognize her accent!
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58919 | The Cancun Setup
Published on
Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF)
The Cancun Setup
The first thing to say about the climate negotiations - meeting soon in sunny Mexico - is that they're teetering at the edge of what, back in the day, we used to call a "legitimation crisis." On every side, folks are eager to suggest the negotiations have become a waste of time. It's gotten to the point where people are apologizing for going to Cancun, as if it were bad for their image to be seen at the climate talks.system_change_climate_change.jpg
Which is an odd turn of events. Because if ever there were a moment, it's this one, midway through the cycle of negotiations (Copenhagen 2009, Cancun 2010, South Africa 2011) that will determine the shape and direction of the post-Kyoto climate regime. What happens now matters, particularly because, all else being equal, the eventual end of the economic crisis will be accompanied by another rapid rise in global emissions. The only way to avoid that rise, and many others, is to escape the logic of the business-as-usual world. Despite the coming low-carbon energy revolution, we can't expect to make that escape without systems -- of global cooperation, burden sharing and accountability -- that can only be rooted in a fair multilateral accord. Which is to say that the climate talks may not be fun, and may not even be the main event, but there's no real hope without them.
Copenhagen, unfortunately, was a grave disappointment and was quickly followed by a cascade of others: the "Climategate" fiasco; the beltway realists' failure to deliver a U.S. climate bill; the explosion of denialist populism on the American right; and, of course, the midterm American elections. Even worse, from the point of view of the climate talks - the success of which depends on international cost-sharing - is the emergence of an Austerity Panic Party in Europe, as well as the United States, that pretends that the North is bankrupt amid unprecedented inequality and unprecedented wealth. Why the pretense? To project a story of the future in which declining "foreign aid" is as inevitable as the decimation of domestic social services.
The discouraging pace of the international talks is anything but unique. Right now, nothing is working particularly well. The United States, in particular, is a model of dysfunction, eagerly playing the international "blame game" that is now in full swing. Nor is this a simple "climate problem." The truth is the climate challenge is tightly bound to a larger political crisis. Neither is likely to be resolved without the other. So, to be clear - there is no "deadlock" in the global negotiations. Nor is there a "North / South impasse." What we're seeing, rather, is a political and governance disaster of the first order. Despite its many critical international dimensions, this disaster is centered in the wealthy world.
And the Winner Is...
In the United States, China-bashing is much in vogue. Lately, China has developed a taste for bashing back. After a recent climate meeting in Tianjin, one of its senior negotiators compared the United States to a pig preening itself in a mirror. It was perhaps an undiplomatic comment, but it's hard to deny that the United States makes a tempting target. If there were a climate-spoiler sweepstakes, it would have to be the presumptive winner. It's the United States that knocked the Kyoto Protocol down to near irrelevance and led the Copenhagen charge to abandon top-down emissions targets in favor of a bottom-up process of voluntary "pledge and review." It's the United States, in the person of Obama's climate chief Todd Stern, that insisted on a "new paradigm for climate diplomacy," one that rejects a "Berlin Wall between developed and developing countries" and asserts instead a world in which the developed countries are no longer presumed to bear the overarching, if inconvenient, obligations of the rich and the responsible. And it's the United States that avoids even the limited pragmatic obligations of flexibility, in the face of the "innovative finance" proposals (ranging from the auctioning of emissions entitlements to an "aviation levy" to the "Robin Hood Tax") that look to be our best way forward at this point.
Is this too harsh? Perhaps. There are extenuating circumstances in today's America, where the "tea party" - a corporate-funded creature of self-satisfied, self-destructive, flat-earth libertarianism - has emerged to oppose even climate science, let alone international solidarity. It's a heartily unwelcome development, and it almost makes a good excuse.
However, there's plenty of competition for the role of the world's leading climate spoiler. The Saudis (and, really, the entire global carbon cartel), the Russians (who haven't yet fully digested the world-historic heat wave that just ravaged their country), and the World Bank (you want coal with that?) are still around, and largely unreformed. There's the usual symbiotic crew of denialists and disoriented reporters (with their usual convenient failure to understand, let alone explain, the South's position). There are the Chinese, who, it must be said, are playing more than one set of cards. There are the endless ranked phalanxes of corporate opportunists. And, as always, there are the subtle Europeans, who until recently proposed to strengthen their emission-reduction target from 20 percent to 30 percent below 1990 levels in 2020. At the same time, they were defending emissions-accounting loopholes designed to render such strengthening almost meaningless.
They've since given up on the 30 percent, but the loopholes remain.
Issues abound, and it's hard to know who to forgive for what. The global climate wish list is, after all, long and extremely daunting. Just for starters, it includes: science-based targets; a democratically governed global climate fund; a fair-shares global effort-sharing system; an honestly scaled and funded adaptation framework; technology and investment cooperation on a grand and global scale; a strategy for finessing intellectual property and trade disputes; a forestry and land-use agreement that's both pro-poor and effective; the closing of the accounting loopholes; and national low- and zero-carbon development plans all around.
This isn't even a comprehensive list. So it's probably fortunate that coming up to Cancun, the focus is on a small set of key issues, which must be at least provisionally resolved before the bigger problems can move onto the stage. Which is to say that what we really need - an open and creative debate about the architecture of global climate justice - is not on the Cancun agenda. What is on the agenda is "fast-start finance," finance in general, and the linked issue of transparency. And the Kyoto Protocol. Most obviously, the climate talks can only advance if the North's negotiators rise, somehow, to the occasion.
The North's Move
Recall that Copenhagen ended with a shaky, acrimonious, and altogether unsatisfying political deal - the Copenhagen Accord - wherein most (but not all!) countries, industrialized and developing, agreed to openly publish their emission-reduction pledges and actions. This in itself wasn't a bad idea. The problem was rather that, in Copenhagen, the move toward transparency came packaged with the repudiation of legally binding targets and timetables, particularly by the United States. The Accord was immediately (and predictably) used to take the spotlight off the North's long recognized obligation (enshrined in 1992's Framework Convention, 1997's Kyoto Protocol, and 2007's Bali Action Plan) to "take the lead." It's a long story, but worth recalling, especially to get beyond the China-bashing and posed pessimism that have come to dominate international climate coverage.
The bottom line here, one rarely explained, is that the so-called North / South impasse will not be broken until the North begins to meet its obligations, or at the very least, to keep its promises. Which is why talk of a North / South impasse implies a false, non-existent symmetry. The Southern elites, to be sure, are hardly above criticism - they have badly mixed loyalties. Like elites everywhere, they are often short-sighted and self-interested. With the financial crisis fading into a crisis of trade and development that neither the United States nor China cares to honestly face, there's plenty of criticism to go around. Still, it remains the North's move, particularly when it comes to climate. No amount of "balance" is going to change this fundamental reality.
An Interim Deal?
The hope in Cancun is an interim deal that would change the tone, encourage statesmanship, and just maybe, set us up for a more meaningful breakthrough in December 2011 in South Africa, when the next milestone climate meeting is scheduled to take place. Whose fault will it be if such an interim deal fails to materialize? That is the question that all good climate watchers must now prepare to answer.
What's on the table, basically, is "finance for transparency." For the North, this means delivering on its Copenhagen promise to provide $30 billion in "new and additional" fast-start finance, designed to support mitigation and adaptation in the South and establish a working modicum of trust. The South, in turn, would agree to a significant measure of transparency. India has already signaled that it's willing to accept a "facilitative process for transparency and accountability." Brazil and China, not surprisingly, have expressed "cautious support" for such an approach. Transparency is a natural tradeoff for the developing world, which is already doing a great deal, particularly when its efforts are measured against its relatively limited wealth and capability.
Leaving aside the details, this transparency entails that both wealthy and developing countries would publish low-carbon transition plans and package those plans into manageable strategies. They'd also provide clear visibility for their efforts to shift to new kinds of development paths. These are the keywords -- measurement, reporting, and verification. This "MRV" would not be restricted to actions that are "supported" by international finance and technology. It would also apply to the support itself - the wealthy world's often obscure and corrupt channels and devices - and as quickly as possible it would apply to "unsupported" actions. The goal - essential to any cooperative strategy for rapid global transformation - would be to make it possible for everyone to tell what everyone else is doing. Or not doing.
The transparency problem is not a small one. Verification is a charged and intrusive process in which industrial secrecy and state sovereignty are both at risk. But the deeper issue, now as always, is the South's fear that the climate transition will mean the end of its dreams of development. A fear that even as the ice melts and the storms rage, endless negotiations will unfold into a trap with an ever-narrowing series of gambits and tradeoffs. And, in which the powerful North shifts the burdens of transition to the weaker, and far less culpable, South. In this context, transparency means lost flexibility and thus risk. Nor is this a paranoid view of the situation. The recent positions of the United States - which seems to have taken its domestic travails as license for bluster and aggressiveness - have done much to make it credible, and to exacerbate distrust.
Finance proves the point. It's now clear that the finance pledge made in the Copenhagen Accord - "to provide new and additional resources, including forestry and investments through international institutions, approaching USD 30 billion for the period 2010 - 2012 with balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation" - is not going to be met any time soon. There are many key words in this passage, but attend for the moment to "new and additional," because the bulk of the pledges are, in the scrupulous words of the World Resource Institute, "restated or renamed commitments already made in the past." Most, moreover, are intended for mitigation projects, with a mere $3 billion earmarked for adaptation. And they are slated to be delivered, if indeed they ever are, though bilateral channels and multilateral agencies (like the World Bank) that the North controls in ways that are anything but transparent and straightforward.
In the longer term, the forecast is more of the same. This, at least, is the easiest conclusion to draw from the just-released final report of the Secretary General's High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, which explores options for raising $100 billion annually, starting in 2020. Here, too, is a story that fails to inspire confidence. For one thing, the $100 billion figure is entirely arbitrary, with absolutely no relationship to the likely costs of a rapid global climate transition. For another, Northern functionaries still stonewall the most promising ideas for innovative global finance. With deadly consistency, they remain enthralled by the habits of neoliberalism. Realism-as-usual is still the order of the day. Despite the severity of the climate crisis, the wealthy world continues to limit funding options by offering instead small amounts of public finance padded out with loans, repurposed and non-additional assistance already in the pipeline, and, of course, a great deal of private (profit-seeking) money.
Will the South eventually accept such an offer? Or, even, should it? After all, by accepting the offer, the South might be agreeing to a future in which the high-minded aspirations that launched the climate talks back in 1992, aspirations that echo in the UN Framework Convention's invocation of "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities," are set aside in the interests of short-term northern realpolitic. Many people will say that the South has no choice. But what if the consequence is a muddle of inadequate policies that, while better than nothing, still fall tragically short of both moral and scientific necessity?
Placing New Bets
Consider finally the Kyoto Protocol, the fate of which remains strangely, and strongly, explosive. Why do so many of our dearest comrades - delegates and activists alike - continue to aggressively defend Kyoto, despite its manifest, even absurd, inadequacy? The answer, perhaps, is that the Kyoto Protocol, almost alone on the negotiating table, represents the obligations of the wealthy world. For many, this trumps even its rude, unscalable, architecture. Nor is this difficult to understand. These negotiations, from Copenhagen on, mark a time of decision. It's one we simply can't afford to get stupidly wrong. We can't, in particular, follow Todd Stern, casting aside Kyoto's blunt recognition of the North / South division with rough talk of an obsolete "Berlin Wall." To do so would be to cast aside reality. It would not be statesmanship, or even realism, but rather abdication.
It's time to place new bets. Here's mine: at Cancun, the lines will be starkly drawn. The logic of pledge and review will come to be widely recognized as collective suicide. The negotiating halls will seethe with better ideas, straining for traction. And, despite all, there will be a drive towards compromise and face saving. Whether it will succeed, I do not know.
I have hopes, too. I hope we'll manage a recovery, in which emissions do not immediately accelerate. I hope the finance problem (which could, actually, be solved) will at least be faced, coldly and dead on. I hope the rules of a new game will become increasingly discernible, a game of building blocks and momentum in which the obligations of the rich and the responsible can be openly and productively debated. And I hope that we'll wake soon to a world where calls for extremely rapid global emission reductions are no longer invitations to despair.
It's still possible. And by the way, Cancun will not be boring.
Tom Athanasiou
Tom Athanasiou directs EcoEquity, an Earth Island Institute-sponsored project, and is a member of the Greenhouse Development Rights authors’ group. His books include, Slow Reckoning: The Ecology of a Divided Planet and Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58923 | Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs Review
After Matt Groening's dystopian vision of the future was given a welcome revival with Bender's Big Score, Groening and company have delivered the second of four direct-to-DVD Futurama movies. With the triumph and novelty out of the way, the adventures of unfrozen twentieth-century human Fry (voice of Billy West), the unrequited one-eyed mutant love of his life Leela (voice of Katey Segal), and his miscreant robot best friend Bender (voice of John DiMaggio), among others, can continue with its typical invention. The Beast with a Billion Backs isn't precisely the same as a sequel -- these DVD movies occupy a strange netherworld between supersized episode and full-blown saga -- but if it was, it'd be one of the good ones, like an even-numbered Star Trek movie.
Beast picks up on a dangling plot thread from Score and runs with it; when the Planet Express crew ventures out to investigate a tear in the space-time continuum, they and the rest of Earth (eventually) encounter an encompassing, tentacle-heavy alien life form called Yivo (voiced -- also eventually; Futurama movies offer plenty of skillful digressions -- by David Cross). Yivo's methods are reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers; its motivations, though, have the murky mix of creepiness and hope more akin to a particularly odd Twilight Zone episode.
The new project doesn't have the emotional heft of Score's best moments -- in fact, the Fry-Leela romantic angle is curiously absent from a story with plenty of musings on sex and relationships (the story finds room for a marriage and Fry's brief attempt at a polyamorous human relationship). It does, though, continue to fulfill the promise of long-form Futurama. Though the show's approach to science-fiction is more freewheeling -- subject to the flukiness of comedy rather than, say, the solemn rules of Star Trek -- its conceptualizing is often brilliant. The characters are hurtled through an alien invasion-slash-romantic dilemma that eventually considers the global logistics of religion, heaven, and hell. Or religion and heaven, anyway. Hell, as we see, may be other robots.
The science may be shaky-to-nonexistent, but the fiction is sound; The Beast with a Billion Backs has a spoofy title but boasts a more imaginative vision of mankind's collective follies than roughly 90 percent of theatrically-released science-fiction movies. The movie's incorporations of its subplots are more fleeting and less episodic than before; initially, Bender's entrance into the secret and apparently quite slothful League of Robots seems like a leftover from the series, but it snakes around to form clever ties with the fate of Earth's population.
Beast's laughs are frontloaded -- the mysterious endangerment of Earth, a frequent occurrence in the Futurama universe, always leaves room for brilliant throwaway gags with characters like the belligerent alien newscaster Morbo and the cocksure space captain Zapp Brannigan. Once the plot is up and running, there's less time to cut away for a left-field sequence of "Deathball," best (if incompletely) described as a futuristic decision-making sport -- though the creative team does save space for callbacks.
But unlike certain other once-canceled Fox animated series, Futurama can actually sustain a story and develop its characters without cutting away to a meaningless pop-culture reference or slapstick gag. These DVD movies may lack the enclosed elegance of the best 22-minute episodes of the series, but quasi-cinematic releases still make sense; Futurama in any form is almost better than TV deserves.
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
Facts and Figures
Run time: 90 mins
In Theaters: Tuesday 24th June 2008
Distributed by: Fox Home Entertainment
Production compaines: 20th Century Fox Television
Contactmusic.com: 4 / 5
IMDB: 7.3 / 10
Cast & Crew
Director: Peter Avanzino
Producer: Claudia Katz, Lee Supercinski
Starring: as Fry/Farnsworth/Zoidberg/Brannigan, as Turanga Leela, as Bender, as Kif Kroker, as Amy Wong, as The Robot Devil, as Hermes Conrad, as Yivo, as Colleen O'Hallahan
Also starring: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58926 | Pop superstar Madonna has ordered her entire entourage to wear white when she and 2,000 members of The Kabbalah Centre celebrate the Jewish New Year in the Middle East next week (begs20SEP04).
The MATERIAL GIRL has also banned pens, computers and cameras from the pilgrimage and insists the colour rule applies to all journalists reporting on the press conference for the mystical Jewish Kabbalah faith, because the colour represents peace and optimism.
A source says, "Insisting the group wear the same colour might work at an all-night sermon in the US, but not on a foreign excursion. And the mind boggles about why she should ban pens.
"What's the point of a press conference if journalists aren't allowed to write anything down?"
17/09/2004 14:04 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58955 | mvnForum Homepage
Posted by dmsmith at Mar 29, 2009 6:04:27 PM
Most of the SWORD applications allow you to right click (or otherwise) select a word and look it up in a dictionary.
Some will look up on your "preferred" dictionary. Some in all installed dictionary.
You didn't mention which SWORD program you were using (BibleTime, Bible Desktop, Xiphos, The SWORD Project for Windows, MacSword, ....). If you are referring to a specific one please let us know. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58969 | When it comes to producing consistently good results, Wells Fargo is the poster child. The bank reported fourth-quarter numbers today, and long-term investors were surely impressed.
In this segment of The Motley Fool's financials-focused show, Where the Money Is, banking analysts Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson discuss the details of Wells Fargo's earnings and how banks can weather the storm while some wrestle with the mortgage slowdown.
Is Wells Fargo the best long-term buy?
The article Here's How Wells Fargo Managed to Set Record Earnings Again originally appeared on Fool.com.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58984 |
I. An Enterprise Win For Microsoft, Windows 8.1
A press release by Microsoft describes:
Delta's flight operations SVP, Capt. Steve Dickson, remarks:
Delta Surface 2
Surface 2
II. Pilots are Reportedly Disgruntled, Employee Accusations Mount
Surface 2
Pilots reportedly wanted an Apple iPad.
The Surface 2 packs a faster Tegra 4 processor from NVIDIA.
Sources: Microsoft, Delta, Apple Insider
Comments Threshold
RE: Ummm...
By Tony Swash on 10/1/2013 6:01:36 PM , Rating: 0
...or maybe the pilots are "in bed with" Apple? Or would like to be in bed with Apple? Or maybe they're just a bunch of self-righteous d-bags who think they get to dictate what device their company gives them.
Or maybe they prefer the iPad because they think it's a better tablet?
These are serious professionals, forcing them to use inferior technology or kit they are not happy with just because the pathetic (and soon to be extinct) dinosaurs in corporate IT break into a sweat every time they have adapt to new technology (or face lose their Microsoft sweeteners) is a joke.
Ultimately this sort of thing won't stick. You can't make people use stuff they don't want anymore, not as a permanent lasting solution. That's one of the key differences between the desktop PC/Wintel/Corporate IT era, thankfully fading, and the era of the mobile device and the empowered user.
RE: Ummm...
By Cerin218 on 10/1/2013 6:27:15 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. I mean it's pretty normal for IT executives to wake up in the morning with random desires for hardware and software that will run multimillion dollar companies. They don't take hardware needs, software needs, existing infrastructure needs into account. They don't discuss with their staff or debate the pros and cons. They just wake up, choose something THEY want and laugh evilly as they FORCE people to deal with the choices.
You CAN make people use things they don't want. Espceially when you are an organization that can make those decisions. Our company forces me to use an iPhone as their supported corporate phone. That people actually PAY to use this piece of crap is beyond my comprehension. It's like Playskool created a phone. The saving grace is that it makes me appreciate my Windows phone SOOOO much more.
Your assessment of corporate environments is quick hilarious. There is no empowered users. You use what you are told to use. Even if that means your company uses Lotus Notes against your heavily vocal objections.
RE: Ummm...
RE: Ummm...
By chripuck on 10/2/2013 4:44:29 PM , Rating: 2
Oh come on, I have multiple iOS devices and if I want to be productive I pull out my Windows laptop. "Mobile OS" and "productive" don't belong in the same sentence.
RE: Ummm...
By InsGadget on 10/2/13, Rating: 0
RE: Ummm...
By Tony Swash on 10/2/2013 9:43:30 AM , Rating: 2
Keep telling yourself that PCs are dying. Sales are marginally lower, yes, but there are still going to be 318 million PCs sold in 2013. That number will stay above 300 million for years to come. Not exactly a dying market, just a saturated one.
The cliff is clear than you think
RE: Ummm...
By Cheesew1z69 on 10/2/2013 9:47:36 AM , Rating: 2
Right, because Win8 is the ONLY OS available... get a clue would you.
RE: Ummm...
By retrospooty on 10/2/2013 3:20:47 PM , Rating: 2
LOL... He says that as if Mac is gaining. It's been at 7% global for several years and hasn't increased a bit. Win8 isnt gaining fast enough, but 7 is still gaining. Mac is standing still.
RE: Ummm...
By retrospooty on 10/2/2013 3:18:45 PM , Rating: 3
Tony, call us when Apple figures out how to make a SINGLE iDevice without using PC's. Every iDevice and Mac is made in factories that run their businesses of MS PC's. Every planning, purchasing, inbound logistics, warehousing, shop floor, shipping, accounting, reverse logistics, CRM software etc etc... It all runs on PC's.
That drives you nutz doesnt it? /snick snick
No-one else is even working on an alternative. It's firmly entrenched with no change in site, not even at the end of the tunnel... :P
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58990 | ‘Best Funeral Ever’ premieres on TLC
Photo: Lara Solt/Staff Photographer
John Beckwith Jr. (center), owner of Golden Gate Funeral Home, and funeral home employee Dr. John Mosley (right), greet each other at the red-carpet event for the new reality TV show Best Funeral Ever.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58998 | All Threads by Date
What are some of Emmanuelle Riva's other good movies/performances?
Along with the rest of America I have developed a case of Riva Fevah! (Mary I know.) I'm not familiar with the rest of her filmography and wondered if anyone could suggest some of her other great films?
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/58999 | All Threads by Date
eBay in trouble to holocaust memorabilia auctions
With all due respect, what is the difference between selling holocaust items as opposed to say items belonging to slaves, other war memorabilia, etc. it's not like the money made is supporting the Nazi regime. If anything, it puts these historical items in the hands of people who will hopefully preserve them for future generations. I don't see why it's so wrong. In fact, I think it's the best way to pass on items of the diseased victims as a way to memorialize them.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59001 | This deal is expired!
Olay | $20 rebate with $50 purchase
Purchase $50 worth of Olay Facial Moisturizers, Facial Treatments, or Facial Cleansers and get a $20 Rebate by mail.
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kodell Jul 19, 2011
I love Olay, especially their day lotion with 30 SPF.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59063 | What is Bernard909's problem?
Started Apr 1, 2011 | Discussions thread
ForumParentFirstPreviousNextNext unread
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Regular MemberPosts: 125
What is Bernard909's problem?
Apr 1, 2011
Surely a photographic challenge is about photography?
What is this guys hang-up with rules?
I understand we need rules but surely it's the picture we should be looking at?
I spent hours choosing the 'right' picture for his zoo challenge only to come home and find the following email;
has been disqualified from the challenge called Zoo for the following reason:
Pictures aspect ratio must be 2:3 or 4:3 or 16:9 or 1:1 and 1600 pixels on the largest side (1% tolerance) Actually it's 2944
WTF? Now the challenge is full and so I cannot submit my picture.
I am quite a busy man and I enter these challenges for FUN, that's FUN.
I didn't have time to look at the rules and chop my picture around so it fits the "aspect ratio" or chop the size down to fit into 1600 pixels (with a 1% tolerance!).
To be honest, after spending so long finding what I considered to be the right picture for the challenge, I didn't even have time to read the rules fully, (which is why I fell foul of them), but really? Lets get real, it is a photography challenge not a read the rules with a 1% tolerance challenge!
Please dont take the fun out of these challenges by being so anal about aspect ratios with or without 1% tolerances. There is no prize money, no entry fee it is for FUN, a PHOTOGRAPHY challenge for FUN!
Rant over, I thank you.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59073 | An Easy Way to Set Infinity Focus on DP Merrill Cameras
Started Feb 14, 2013 | Discussions thread
Veteran MemberPosts: 6,922
Re: How does it know "real" infinity?
In reply to victorgv, Feb 15, 2013
victorgv wrote:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner wrote:
Scott Greiff wrote:
Fukui-san today wrote a post today that gives a super-easy way to set the DP Merrill cameras to infinity focus. The original article is here:
The procedure is:
1. Set the camera to Auto Focus.
2. Turn off the camera.
3. Turn the camera back on. When the camera restarts, focus will be set to infinity.
4. Turn the camera to Manual Focus to ensure the shutter won't auto focus.
It works and it faster then manual adjustment. . It focuses past the infinity but may be they did it such that when you use aperture around f11 you still be able to blur everything but very distant objects.
ability to 'focus past infinity' is by design to accommodate potential temperature (climate) changes, which as you can imagine heat etc.. makes things expand (eg. lens elements) etc.. and therefore affect where 'infinity', as denoted by the lens barrel, really is.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59112 |
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Saturn by Terry Allan Hicks
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Journey into space and find out all there is to know about Saturn.
Marshall Cavendish; Read online
Title: Saturn
Author: Terry Allan Hicks
Buy, download and read Saturn (eBook) by Terry Allan Hicks today!
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59114 | @techreport{Czarnitzki2012Collaborative, abstract = {The ability of firms to establish R&D collaborations that combine resources, exploit complementary know-how, and internalize R&D externalities has been shown to be of high importance for the successful creation and implementation of new knowledge. We argue in this article that collaborative R&D may not only be beneficial in terms of appropriability of returns to R&D investment, access to the partner's knowledge base and the exploitation of scale and scope in R&D, but that it may also be a strategy to cope with financing constraints for R&D. Studying panel data we show that collaboration with science alleviates liquidity constraints for research. Horizontal collaboration reduces liquidity constraints for both research as well as R and D. Vertical collaboration has no such effects.}, address = {Mannheim}, author = {Dirk Czarnitzki and Hanna Hottenrott}, copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen}, keywords = {O31; O32; O38; 330; Collaborative Research; Industry-Science Links; Research and Development; Liquidity Constraints; Innovation Policy; Industrielle Forschung; Forschungskooperation; Forschungsfinanzierung; Verschuldungsrestriktion; Sch\"{a}tzung; Flandern; Belgien}, language = {eng}, note = {urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-324963}, number = {12-049}, publisher = {Zentrum f\"{u}r Europ\"{a}ische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)}, title = {Collaborative R&D as a strategy to attenuate financing constraints}, type = {ZEW Discussion Papers}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/60478}, year = {2012} } |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59115 | EconStor >
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dc.contributor.authorLiu, Qianen_US
dc.contributor.authorNordström Skans, Oskaren_US
dc.description.abstractWe study how the duration of paid parental leave affects the accumulation of cognitive skills among children. We use a reform which extended parental leave benefits from 12 to 15 months for Swedish children born after August 1988 to evaluate the effects of prolonged parental leave on childrens test scores and grades at age 16. We show that, on average, the reform had no effect on childrens scholastic performance. However, we do find positive effects for children of well-educated mothers, a result that is robust to a number of different specifications. We find no corresponding heterogeneity relative to parental earnings or fathers education, or relative to other predictors of child perforÿmance. We find no effects on intermediate outcomes such as mothers subsequent earnÿings, child health, parental fertility, divorce rates, or the mothers mental health. Overall the results suggest positive causal interaction effects between mothers education and the amount of time mothers spend with their children. Since the institutional context is one in which the alternative is subsidized day care, the results imply that subsidizing longer parental leave spells rather than day care reinforce the relationship between matÿernal education and school outcomes.en_US
dc.publisherInst. for Labour Market Policy Evaluation Uppsalaen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesWorking paper // IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation 2009:14en_US
dc.subject.keywordMaternal employmenten_US
dc.subject.keywordHuman capitalen_US
dc.subject.keywordCognitive skillsen_US
dc.titleThe duration of paid parental leave and cildren's scholastic performanceen_US
dc.typeWorking Paperen_US
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59129 | Let 'em Have It Lyrics
What, yeah
Shoutout Minister Server
Word up Super J
My man Byron is goin off
Marlowe, Inebriated Beats, word
Uhh, you know what this is, word up
Who be rockin it constantly? (KRS)
Who be droppin philosophy? (KRS)
For the real it got to be (KRS)
Them niggaz ain't stoppin me (KRS)
Whack rappers they got to go (let 'em have it)
So they front on that microphone (let 'em have it)
I be comin in all wild with raw styles
Goin that long mile, makin 'em all smile
Make it happen, MC'n no rappin, believe me I'm strappin
YOu see me I'm slappin, believe me you deceive me
It can greasy, I'm cappin, bring the action, ADD the clips
Start subtractin, multiply them shots, you a fraction
Raise up, blaze up, get made up
You wanna bug out you'll get, sprayed up - NOW~!
(Bo bo bo bo... yeah!)
It's the Temple, expandin your mental
Inebriated instrumentals believe me nothin defends you
When I spit, rappers be runnin out really quick
They come with that silly shit, but them not really it
Kris is it, them an idiot, if it wasn't for radio programmin
you wouldn't be feelin it, or willin it
Original, metaphysical, meta-lyrical
Forever spiritual, really man, I ain't feelin you
(Yeah! Yeah! Whattup?)
I'm somethin like a phe-nom-enon, fast like ramadan
You can never tell what style I'm on
Wise like Solomon, unlike any udda mon
If you lookin for that bling bling, go check dat udda mon
What I utter mon be butter mon, straight from the gutter mon
Boxcutter in one hand, buck in the other one
Lyric I got a ton of 'em, gunnin 'em, not frontin 'em
Back again, it's KRS-One and them, OHH~!
(Woooo! ... So)
[Outro: KRS-One]
Feel it (let 'em have it)
So they front on the microphone (let 'em have it)
Y'all better catch up! Ha ha
Y'all better catch up! Word up
Correct these lyrics
these lyrics are submitted by kaan
Watch Krs-One Let
Songwriter(s): David Karl Aastroem
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59138 | Here's a nice tribute to the late Steve Jobs: A working iPod interface using HTML.
While the iPod was the consumer electronic device that helped Apple go beyond the Mac, it's important to remember the iPod gave rise to the iPhone before the iPad.
The story goes that Steve Jobs realized smartphones would eventually be able to conveniently play music on them, and that a competitor would eat the iPod's lunch. So he decided to launch the iPhone, which was an internet communications device, a phone and an iPod. The rest is business history, as the iPhone has become a huge revenue stream for the company.
This article was originally published on Tuaw. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59139 | Samsung's rumored dust and waterproof Galaxy S 4 Active shows up in Bluetooth certification
Samsung's Galaxy S 4 Active -- a dust and waterproof version of the company's flagship -- is currently just a rumor, but documentation has started popping up online to lend some corroboration. A handset going by the handle GT-I9295, which SamMobile has linked to the S 4 Active, has shown up in a Bluetooth SIG filing. Furthermore, a user agent profile for the same model lists the display resolution as 1080p, matching that of the standard GS4. With all these small clues pointing in the same direction, the existence of an S 4 for outdoorsy types is starting to look more like a dead cert.
Public Access |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59142 | Draenei artcraft
Just the other day Artcraft revealed the new male tauren models--complete with animations and videos--and today they're at it again with a sneak peek at the (real) new draenei female model. This is a quick look, as emphasized in the post itself, because the model has yet to be sent to the animation team. As a result you'll notice her posture in this preview is quite different from the draenei model we know and love. That will change once the animation team gets a chance to properly rig and pose the model, but for now we're getting a glimpse of a work very much in-progress.
At first glance, the new draenei model doesn't seem as different from the old one as the tauren or orc models, for example, but this is to be expected. The original draenei (and blood elf) models, implemented in Burning Crusade, were a significant step up from the models of classic WoW. That being said, there's marked improvement in these previews. The hair, the detail of the leg musculature, and in particular the hands all give our beloved draenei much more depth and finesse in the body. The curvature of her head-tentacles is also much smoother and more realistic-looking. This is a nice upgrade from the current draenei, and I look forward to seeing more.
Gallery | 91 Photos
New character models
This article was originally published on WoW Insider.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59149 | Homework Help
How do I do formalist criticism of "Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams, and how...
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ssdude2004 | Student, Undergraduate | (Level 2) Honors
Posted August 27, 2010 at 12:54 AM via web
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How do I do formalist criticism of "Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams, and how can it be related to subject and theme?
Instructions: Formalist criticism involves a close reading of the poem and a step-by-step analysis of the elements of the poem. Because this is not intended to be a long essay, you might want to limit your discussion of formal elements in some way, such as discussing a poem’s metaphors and similes, its rhyme and meter, or some other element that allows you to critically approach the poem’s subject and theme. Make sure this essay has a clearly stated thesis or argument and is grammatically correct and logically developed.
1 Answer | Add Yours
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Karen P.L. Hardison | College Teacher | eNotes Employee
Posted August 28, 2010 at 6:20 AM (Answer #1)
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In formalist literary criticism, the important thing is the process by which the work is created. Formalism doesn't engage in evaluating the work in terms of truth or morality. On the other hand, one of the goals of formalism is to evaluate the structure of the text. Formalist critic Viktor Schlovsky said that a work, like a poem, is "equal to the sum of processes used in it." Therefore, fomal criticism is an objective examination of literary style and technique in order to explain as well as evaluate the text's structure.
In William's "Spring and All," two very prominent structural elements, which can be related to a discussion of subject and theme, are his use of enjambment and closely related line-end punctuation. Enjambment is used by a poet to carry an idea or expression of a thought from one live to the next. Williams has only scattered instances in which he does not use enjambment in "Spring and All," thereby making enjambment a primary structural element.
There are also no end-stops (periods) in the poem, not even one on the last line, though there is one line-end comma in "They enter the new world naked,". A striking stylistic technique in punctuation is Williams' use of dashes. Often dashes in poems indicate a pause longer than a period, thus they are often related to rhythm instead of to meaning, whereas in prose, dashes are used to interject explanatory information that is closely related to meaning. A question can be raised as to how Williams is using the dashes: Are they rhytmic or integral to meaning? These examinations are examples of that which will lead to explanations and evaluations of the structure of "Spring and All" and that can be further related to subject and meaning.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59202 | Experience Project iOS Android Apps | Download EP for your Mobile Device
First And Last Love
I think back to when I was 16 years old and I was dating my first boyfriend, Ben, who has now become my fiance. Those first times with him were truly something special. He was the first boy I ever danced with, first boy who ever held my hand, first boy to ever kiss me, first first first... You get the idea. Those first days were something magical to me. Like as if I were Cinderella who had dressed up for the ball and danced with her prince before she had to leave once the clock hit 12. My life was a fairy tale and I believed in that true love. I looked to Ben, saw past all his flaws, and loved him unconditionally.
But like every fairy tale in reality, we were met by opposition. After only a short month of dating, Ben broke up with me. I was heart broken! But I still loved him and I still believed in our true love. I decided to wait for him for as long as my heart called me to do so. While waiting, I’d occasionally try chasing away all the other girls he dated while also frequently scolding him for not taking relationships seriously.
I remember that it was during this time of my greatest sorrow that I truly pondered the meaning of relationships. I pondered why I felt Ben never should have left me. I pondered why I felt that we should be together forever, never parting.
My first thoughts went to the world’s perspective: The first love is just a test drive, you should date as many different people as you can, you need to meet lots of people to find what you like and can put up with, you’re too young for a serious relationship, true love doesn’t exist, you can’t promise forever, there’s no such thing as real life fairy tale stories, etc... But then I thought, “Well, that’s a load of bull.”
When I thought about all this junk that others tried to fill me up with, I began thinking about happy ever afters. I began to think, “Why can’t I live happily forever after? Won’t heaven be that way? Why can’t I just make my life life like a heaven on Earth? Why wait for that happiness because of my age? Who am I to decide when God will bring the right man along? Happiness will only happen with my faith and trust in God regardless of what the world thinks.”
And as I thought about happy ever afters, and how I believed in them, I thought about all the princess movies I watched growing up as a little girl. Cinderella, the Swan Princess, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty all had something in common. The only had one man! You don’t see these princesses wandering around, dating lots of different boys, trying to find the right guy. They met one guy they really liked, or came to like, and then fell in love forever. That is to say, each of these princesses only had one love and lived happily ever after. Oh how beautiful I then thought that was! Life in this world is hectic and so often times imperfect, but is that not the way it ought to be?
As I thought this, a thought cam to my mind, “The first is last, and the last is first. And the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning. For all things are eternal.” Oh how much more beautiful then, I thought, if my first boyfriend could be my last boyfriend, and my last boyfriend the first? How beautiful would it be if the beginning of Ben and I’s relationship was the end of it, but that end was our true beginning for all eternity!
And once I got on that mindset... Then I got thinking about Mark 10: 2-9 “And the Pharisees came to [Jesus Christ], and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. And [Jesus] answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
What stood out to me in remembering these verses was that for the hardness of men’s hearts does God allow for divorce to happen, but from the beginning it was not so. Rather, two people are to come together and never part. My mind then took it to a deeper level. For the hardness of men’s hearts, God does allow for people to date many in relationships. But from the beginning, it was not so. For Adam and Eve came together as one, and never divided, never having competition. Therefore ought we not to be the same? And have our first boyfriend/girlfriend become our soulmate also? So then by that logic, by having many more relationships than one, you’re undergoing a divorce each time you break it off to find some one new. And if you’re constantly divorcing (breaking up) with people... then as Matthew 5:32 states, “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”
Whoa! So then by that logic, whosoever has had more than one boyfriend/girlfriend is guilty of a spiritual adultery. Not literal adultery, however, because you can still be a literal virgin when you lose your spiritual virginity. Break ups should only happen under the same circumstances in which divorces are okay: cheating. Of course you should break up with an abusive person too. You need to be with someone who will treat you, children, and your family righteously... so be careful who you go into a relationship with! Makes lots of friends and get to know people before you make any commitments because I’m sorry, but a relationship is a commitment that should be forever. There should never be such a thing as a casual relationship that you can leave at any given time.
All this is what I thought of at the age 16. After all these thoughts came to me, I became very solid in these beliefs. I felt that if Ben were never to repent and ask me to take him back eternally, then my second boyfriend would be as if he were my first! Still, even though I became solid in this belief window... I had a weak spot. I’m not perfect and I’ve dated a boy named CJ awhile after Ben and I broke up. I really regret it because it felt so wrong to do it. It woke Ben up to realizing where his own wrongs were taking him, but I still shouldn’t have done it. I’m sad to have had that weakness of wanting a new boyfriend before I was ready. I was too heart broken over Ben to even think about moving on. I do remember trying telling CJ I wasn't ready, but he kept hitting on me. I guess I could blame CJ for being too flirtatious and taking advantage of my weakness... And I guess I could also blame Ben for breaking my heart for not wanting to promise me forever...? Well even if some of the blame could go on them, I still did it and I regret it.
Anyway, I think there’s no sin in sleeping with your first boyfriend/girlfriend so long as you understand eternity and that once you have done it, you need to get married. Exodus 22:16 "And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife." 1 Corinthians 7:36 "But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry." What I think is that if you didn’t commit a spiritual adultery... you’d actually be a whole lot better off then all those people who had many boyfriend/girlfriends and waited until marriage. Now I ask to please not get me wrong. You should absolutely do everything you can within your power to wait until marriage to have sex. Even if your heart is pure and you love the person you're dating with all your heart, you want to be certain they'll make that eternal commitment with you before you give them all of yourself. The commandment of having no sex before marriage is for your own protection as it protects you from certain heartbreak when you have sex with someone who doesn't care about you.
So I guess what I'm encouraging is utmost commitment in your first relationship, taking dating seriously, and not to judge others for making love before marriage. If you still think to judge those who make love before marriage... Ponder this: God judges the heart and not the outward appearance of things. What is a marriage contract other than a formality of love between two lovers that already exists?
I know this may be awkward for some, but I do also want to give some sex advice. Even once you're married, don't rush into it. Take your time and make sure you enjoy one another. Take your time and don't worry if things don't work out the way you plan it. Life together isn't about perfection, but how devoted you are to one another. Also, I recommend that you never lust after your own lover or anyone else. Rather, I think making love is about desiring to feel oneness with the other person while physically showing love to one another. It shouldn't be about personal gain or pleasure.
So anyway, I’d argue that spiritual adultery (breaking up and dating others) is just as bad if not worse than literal adultery (divorcing and marrying another). Each time you do this, you soil dreams and possibilities. I cannot think of anything worse than robbing a person of hopes of loving you forever by breaking their heart. Can you?
I hope you understand my opinions. To wrap things up, Ben is with me now we’re going to be together forever. He has long since repented and begged for my forgiveness on his knees with tears in his eyes. I forgave him with all my heart! Everything’s all happy now. We have our struggles, but I think we’ll work things out one way or another. I love him too much not to! I never let anything he does annoy me or get me angry for any longer than a fleeting moment. I love him unconditionally and I do not judge him for the things he does or the things he believes. I love our relationship because we can tell each other anything and know everything will work itself out. I never hold a grudge against the things he does because I love him. True love is unconditional, and if you want it for yourself, you have to first love others that same way.
Call me crazy, but this is what I believe and this is what I live by. ^_^
deleted deleted 26-30 4 Responses Jun 6, 2012
Your Response
This is absolutely beautiful,, although i disagree with some of your statements , I feel that more people should have a view like this about love , it is hard finding people who have the same opinion on the subject of love and marriage. God should always be a great part in a relationship between two people. Thanks for this story . I have quite alot to think about and consider. .
how did you know that Ben is the right man for you???
While I do agree that the world’s philosophy is garbage, I don’t agree with other things you’ve said. The only time I remember seeing anything like “the first is last, and the last is first” is in the gospel when Christ is speaking of prominence in the kingdom. Not all things are eternal. The only “relationship” God speaks of as being lasting and binding is marriage, and even that has an end at death. Christ himself said that there is no marriage in heaven.<br />
<br />
The passage you’re referring to in Mark 10:2-9 has nothing to do with dating, even if you try to stretch the interpretation. In fact, dating isn’t even mentioned in the Bible. The only relationships that are mentioned in the Bible are friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, espousal and marriage. That being said, we can’t compare dating to marriage, they are two completely different things. One is a relationship made by man and the other is a covenant instituted by God. I can’t prove it Biblically, so I won’t go into my definition of a “soulmate” as the Bible never describes it (although I can give it to you later if you’re interested), but I can tell you is that just because someone is a “boyfriend” or a “girlfriend” that doesn’t make them soulmates. Also, divorcing and breaking up only have the breaking up in common. Like I said, God didn’t create dating nor does he address it, so to compare it to divorce by quoting Matthew 5:32 isn’t accurate.<br />
<br />
None of the references to “spiritual adultery” or “spiritual virginity” apply here, or are even found in the Bible. Breakups are not governed by the same principles as divorce because like I said, God never addresses it. Dating is not vital to marriage. There are arranged marriages (which God neither condemns nor condones) that work just fine because the two learn to love and sacrifice for each other. I’m not saying that it’s ok to cheat on someone your dating or be abusive, but while committed boyfriend/girlfriend relationships should be honored, they are in no way the same thing as marriage. I do agree that you should be careful in whom you decide to be in a relationship with, but at the same time, if a couple breaks up there is nothing binding between them because they are not married.<br />
<br />
There is nothing wrong with dating while you’re not in a relationship, nor is there anything wrong in refraining from dating. I don’t believe you did anything wrong in doing so. Dating is not eternal and neither is marriage, quoting Matthew 22:30 Jesus says “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”, so no one can promise forever, only until death. Even if I marry again, I won’t be married to her in heaven.<br />
<br />
In that light, it is still a sin to sleep with your boyfriend/girlfriend no matter how many you’ve had. It’s a sin called fornication, and because neither are married it can’t be considered adultery. The quote from Exodus is pertaining to the Law, which those who believe on Christ are not under. As for 1 Corinthians 7:36, the man in question is the virgins father, who made a vow not to let her marry. If there was any guilt over the vow, she was of the right age and there was a need, he could let her marry. This has nothing to do with sex.<br />
<br />
When God says that something is a sin (i.e. fornication) then a Christian is supposed to be opposed to the sin. I don’t condone or support and I speak out against these things. While God does judge the heart, he does not tolerate sin. Marriage is a covenant, not a contract, and unless you’re in a marriage covenant, sex has no place in it. Once you’re married there are no bounds outside of respecting your spouse.<br />
<br />
There is no such thing as spiritual adultery, because earthly relationships don’t carry over into. I do agree that devotion is necessary, but if a breakup happens before marriage then that’s all it is, a breakup. The only way you would have sinned is if there was some sin involved with the breakup. But as I said, since God never addresses dating then we can’t compare it to marriage or divorce.<br />
<br />
I’m glad you love Ben and are devoted to him, but even when you marry the marriage will end at death. No one is married in heaven, as I showed you from the Bible. Just be faithful to him, as I’m sure you will be.
Did God give you a scripture from the Bible to back eternal marriage up? He's not going to contradict himself when he already said that there are no marriages in heaven in Matthew 22:29-30. I can claim with confidence that the Bible trumps whatever you claimed to have heard or felt. By the way, feelings can be deceptive, whereas the Bible can always be trusted. --- With dating, I don't know why God is silent on the issue, but I can say this, those who date many and remain a virgin before marriage are not worse than those who date one and lose their virginity to that person before marriage, even if they marry them. --- Umm, if a man has sex with a virgin it is still fornication. The word literally means "harlotry" in the Greek and does not need either party to be married to someone to commit it. That's what adultery is, having sex with someone other than your husband or wife. The fact that there are two separate terms for it show that while they are both sins before God, he decided to identify them separately. Sex before marriage is a sin whether they marry or not. It is an act meant only for those who are married.
I have to agree. Sex is strictly for marriage.
I love your story! My first love recently left me....and i'm really broken up about it, but after reading your story, i want to believe in love again. Because it's real and maybe this just wasn't mine but i know when love is real it finds a way. The next time i date, it will be with the only person that will ever be mine :-) |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59285 | Total Time
1hr 15mins
Prep 15 mins
Cook 1 hr
This was adapted from another vegan pumpkin pie recipe. It won a taste-test comparison against a non-vegan pumpkin pie a few years ago. Wholly Wholesome makes a gluten-free frozen pie shell that's vegan. If you can't find it, this pie is better crustless than unmade. Organic pumpkin didn't crack like the Libby's brand did.
Ingredients Nutrition
1. Cream pumpkin and sugars in food processor.
2. Add salt, spices, and tofu. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59302 | Not a member? Existing members login below:
Three Proven Ways to Make Money Online
What is a Traffic Exchange?
A Traffic Exchange (or hit exchange as they are sometimes referred) is a green
Traffic Alternative. In simple terms, you get exposure for your web site, banner ads,
and even text links by looking at the sites and ads of other people.
But before you close down this ebook because you're thinking......... 'I don't have the
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Traffic Exchange programs give you a very powerful and cost efficient way to :
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Its essential to open an account with each exchange you intend to use, because
Traffic Exchanges are member based. This can be done in minutes, and for
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Traffic Exchanges make use of a credit system. Members earn credits by getting
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So now I've filled you in on the ground work, you will now need to know what kinds of
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There are Manual Traffic Exchanges and Auto Surf Traffic Exchanges:
1 Manual - These are the exchanges that I tend to use, because you have to click to
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2 AutoSurf - Try to avoid these if possible.....because members can just switch it on
and leave it scrolling from site to site whilst say watching their favourite program. No
one actually needs to see your page and in my experience in the industry, many if
not all don't see your pages. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59309 | Click to expand
User avatar #364 - corpseloaf (05/19/2013) [-]
Hmm, gotta see how blue mine is
#368 to #364 - konradkurze (05/19/2013) [-]
your name is gay pastel blue
User avatar #372 to #368 - corpseloaf (05/19/2013) [-]
No, my name is corpseloaf.
#378 to #372 - konradkurze (05/19/2013) [-]
corpseloaf in a gay pastel blue color
User avatar #390 to #378 - corpseloaf (05/19/2013) [-]
It has been far too many cold and lonesome moons since the last time I've felt the warm, loving embrace of another man. Oh, how I miss his scruff against my cheek as we lay in wondrous slumber and his musky cologne from the moment he woke, worn through the sweat of a long days work. I could look in his eyes, and he into mine, and we would be complete. Or so I believed.
#392 to #390 - konradkurze (05/19/2013) [-]
here, have a thumb for being a good sport
User avatar #394 to #392 - corpseloaf (05/19/2013) [-]
As your will calls, so it shall be, my liege. That comment was about as much gay as I can muster from my loins for one night.
#377 to #372 - konradkurze has deleted their comment [-]
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59310 | Click to expand
Fuck me, right?
• Recommend tagsx
Views: 11365
Favorited: 10
Submitted: 02/12/2013
Share On Facebook
Add to favorites Subscribe to iliekcereal submit to reddit
#7 - Maroon (02/12/2013) [+] (1 reply)
What the **** for? You are so not a bro.
User avatar #1 - garymotherfinoak (02/12/2013) [+] (10 replies)
because you are lacking in morals and no better than the rest of the ignorant majority at your school. apologize to him and admit you only told him he was your cousin because you were jealous.
User avatar #8 - astrozombies **User deleted account** (02/12/2013) [+] (1 reply)
You cock blocked your best friend. What were you thinking?
#25 - ehzio (02/13/2013) [+] (1 reply)
You ain't no nobodies ***** no more
You ain't no nobodies ***** no more
User avatar #27 to #25 - iliekcereal (02/13/2013) [-]
I apologized and came clean immediately, we spent the rest of the night talking about chicks and trading nudes of girls we know.
#16 - feffog (02/13/2013) [-]
when i was a kid in school we played with gamebows not syphilis
#12 - isuckdickformoney (02/12/2013) [+] (3 replies)
don't worry about things like that .
see im a man , with no gag reflexes , im also ginger and have long hair .
my friend recently got his first ever girl and i invited them round and went to make us some drinks and a banana because **** you i like bananas . i came back to find them kissing so i just stood next to them deep throating that banana in font of his face , not once blinking or missing eye contact .
#45 - unmercifulgod (02/13/2013) [+] (1 reply)
Comment Picture
User avatar #22 - tehrox (02/13/2013) [+] (15 replies)
Hey FJ, here is the situation: me and my friend both like a girl, He liked her first but has no chance and keeps acting like he does but I have become good friends with her, and know he has no chance, me and the girl both like eachother though, and to make things worse, he thinks I am his wingman and trying to get him the girl. Is there anything I can do to get girl and keep friend,both people are important to me.
User avatar #17 - maxismahname (02/13/2013) [+] (3 replies)
you asshole, but to be honest i might have done the same thing. dickface buddies for life
User avatar #18 to #17 - iliekcereal (02/13/2013) [-]
To be fair, I came clean right after he said he'd let her go. I'm always doing this type of **** , and normally my shenanigans go exactly as planned. This one didn't:/
#48 - pedrophile (02/13/2013) [-]
> Be me
> Math class
> Teacher wants us to memorize First 20 digits of Pi
> Raise hand tell her shes crazy
> She wants to see me after class
> FML.jpg
> Come in class for detention
> Ask her why its necessary for us to memorize Pi
> Walks over to me stares at me in the eyes
> ******* .jpg
> Grabs inside pants
> What a twist
>Takes out calculator and begins to say Pi = 3.14159 26535 89793 23846
> Round off????
> 3
MFW Half-Life 3 Confirmed...
#47 - endface ONLINE (02/13/2013) [-]
#44 - anonymous (02/13/2013) [-]
The **** man.
#11 - anonymous (02/12/2013) [-]
if this is true then you're a ******* faggot and don't deserve friends
User avatar #9 - spikethepony (02/12/2013) [+] (1 reply)
Sir, on behalf of bros everywhere, I am afraid that I must confiscate your bro card for violating the Brode of Honor. You may have it returned upon admitting your douchiness to your friend and rectifying your error.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59317 | Question from meganerd18
Where is Gemini Spark?
I've talked to Pat in Wazzup Ruins and he tells me to "meet him inside the ruins". Well where the hell is that?
Accepted Answer
vboy12 answered:
Whazzap Ruins 2
1 0
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59320 | Question from Evergleam
How do you turn off the driving line?
How do you turn off the driving line?
Top Voted Answer
snake5354 answered:
After selecting a race event, DON'T select start. Select the "DRIVING OPTION" where you can turn off driving line.
4 0
This question has been successfully answered and closed
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Driving options? Answered MaxCHEATER64
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Ghost driving online? Open greenjade1000
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59333 | Assassin's Creed III Trilogy (you know it will happen), Theories?
#1 Posted by hawkinson76 (398 posts) -
Welcome to the Specultorium, where facts are non existent and the loudest person wins.
Since the ongoing theme of the games is the Templar's attempts to maintain control of humanity (to guide us to a future that can survive a catastrophic event in the far future?), the arc of an Assassin's Creed III trilogy would have to be about taming the newly independent republics in the Western Hemisphere, probably from within.
Shays Rebellion/Whiskey Rebellion? That would reflect the theme, but that may occur too soon in the timeline to be one of the sequels, maybe lost memory DLC?
Arg, I'm sure I'm not thinking outside of the box enough. The Louisiana Purchase! Travel with Ben Franklin to Paris (a new setting), kill some people, results in Paris selling all that land. Thats about 25 years after the Revolution, maybe too far, or maybe that is the third game.
I bet in the second you go to England, London is the City. You could get away with just the one city, like with Rome.
Will they address Slavery? That institution probably suited the Templars, but I don't know if Ubisoft has the stomach. Then again, think about the ending to ACII.
#2 Posted by thedj93 (1260 posts) -
whatever happens, i hope historically-creative espionage is involved
#3 Posted by LTSmash (700 posts) -
ACIII: American Revolution
ACIII 2: War of 1812
ACIII 3: Napoleonic Europe
#4 Posted by NTM (8373 posts) -
Yes, and the last Assassin's Creed game won't be for the next gen consoles, it'll be on the generation of consoles after this next gen.
#5 Posted by hoossy (1047 posts) -
I have no idea what the plot of AC is anymore since Brotherhood.
#6 Posted by wemibelec90 (2114 posts) -
I'd be perfectly happy if they just stopped after this one. They've done enough with the franchise. I really hope they don't drag this protagonist out as long as Ezio.
#7 Posted by mutha3 (5025 posts) -
They didn't hold a million interviews about how this will mark "the end of desmond's journey" or whatever, so no way in hell will anything get resolved in AC3.
You bet they're going to keep stretching this dumb storyline out.
#8 Posted by Z3RO180 (272 posts) -
@LTSmash: that would be cool if they did that .
#9 Posted by jillsandwich (804 posts) -
I don't think there will be three Assassin's Creed III games.
#10 Posted by BombcastGoldthwait (256 posts) -
No clue & usually try not to speculate because my ideas are either better and the reality is a downer or my ideas are worse and and the reality is I am an unimaginable douche, which is the truest downer of them all.
#11 Posted by Vinny_Says (5911 posts) -
@jillsandwich said:
I don't think there will be three Assassin's Creed III games.
Twist is there will actually be four.
#12 Edited by Mikemcn (7454 posts) -
A Whiskey Rebellion sequel would be... interesting, the Templars used the Apple to piss off a bunch of farmers and make them hate taxes, so Assassin President Washington showed up with a bunch of militia and crushed the rebellion with almost no violence. ROLL CREDITS
A War of 1812 Sequel would be more than appropriate, Conner will still be around when the British comeback. The British HMS Leopard raided a US ship that was smuggling the Apple of eden and the US got pissed! THINK ABOUT IT!!Ubisoft can give him a beard like they did Ezio!!!
I should work at ubi. I'll have to learn French i guess.
#13 Posted by Z3RO180 (272 posts) -
@Mikemcn: im not an american so can you plz fill me on on the whisky rebellion because i am finding your idea very intersting.
#14 Posted by tariqari (478 posts) -
I guarantee you the American Civil War will be a DLC and the assassination of Lincoln...or maybe they won't because of controversy?
#15 Posted by QKT (254 posts) -
arent they trying to coincide the in game events to the real date?
if theyre committing to that, then no trilogy.
#16 Posted by JamesKM716 (6 posts) -
They could do the French Revolution for one sequel...
#17 Posted by Ubersmake (771 posts) -
For a moment, let's ignore the fact that the Animus is a super-convenient way of time-traveling back into the past to stab dudes, and for Ubisoft to continue to keep putting out games and other AC-related media.
Isn't Desmond's storyline supposed to end? Like, there's an event that's going to happen (this year, 2012!) that's mentioned multiple times in the games that provides a stopping point to Desmond's story.
#18 Edited by Dixavd (1505 posts) -
Up-to Revelations Spoilers ahead:
I bet that the story goes that the Library in the original Assassin's Hideout in Masyaf will be a big part. I bet at the end of 3 Desmond travels there and goes inside to find the room full of chairs filled with Assassin's and one space on the right of Altair’s skeleton. Desmond is then told to sit and die there like Altair did (Like I bet all the other playable Assassin's are told to by their Eagle vision at some point too). From the seats you can tell which are all the important Assassin's going forward (And in turn how many Era's and protagonists there could eventually be for Assassin's Creed). Then once all of them are together some Ancients' Magic will occur (likely something to do with all of the Apple's of Eden being in the same place or something) to bring back the Ancients leaving the next game being you play as an Ancient in modern times.
But as for an Arc around Connor (or an AC III arc if you will) then I bet it will go like this:
• AC: III is about Connor's life up to when he is about to find a really important Ancient Artefact
• When I picks it up he sees a future link with Desmond - sort of like how Ezio did, especially like it was in Revelations
• However, it isn't current playable Desmond; it is a future Desmond that is very old.
• The last shot of AC III is this older Desmond walking into Masyaf Library and sitting on one of the seats, closing his eyes and Fade to black.
• AC III: 2 and 3 are then a build up of Desmond asking questions as to what it is about.
• AC III: 2 is about Connor's story in the transition of the US Civil war, while at the same time Desmond travels to and tries to get into Masyaf but it blocks him out.
• At the end of AC III:3 we see Connor get to Masyaf and go into the Library leaving a message to Desmond for how to get in.
• ...AC: IV
If I am close to what actually happens at all then I will probably be pretty angry about it (it is a pretty shit way of making the series effectively-infinite while also giving a set end date; i.e. when all the Library seats have been filled by Assassin's) but this is basically a mad guessing thread so this is my extreme prediction.
#19 Edited by TheCreamFilling (1230 posts) -
Assassin's Creed: Reservations.
#20 Posted by Klei (1799 posts) -
When AC decided to add in some 2012 end of the world bullshit and pre-human civilisation, they lost me. I fucking love those games, but the storyline itself should have stayed about templars and assassins.
#21 Edited by Zella (978 posts) -
I doubt they will do a trilogy, max one spin-off then AC 4 with Des as main character. For everyone saying Civil War it would make no sense for Conner to be there, he would be over a 100 years old, the Devs have said ACIII covers before and after the revolution which began in 1775, the civil war wasn't until the 1860s. War of 1812 could work though having Conner similar to Ezio in Revelations in age. I'm Canadian so most early US history is unknown to me, but a quick google search shows the impossibility of Conner fighting in the Civil War. As JamesKM716 said they could possibly move Conner to France for the later part of their revolution, continuing the themes of liberty and revolution.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59346 | jesus did not abolish the old covenant (mosiac law)
Discussion in 'Religious Issues' started by Geko45, Oct 26, 2012.
1. Gunhaver
Gunhaver the wrong hands
Great. When the majority decides that you can't own guns then I guess you'll just accept that their opinion is valid and cheerfully give them up.
Some things shouldn't be voted on because they are inherent rights. It's only when you can show clear and definite harm to the society as a whole that any activity should be prohibited. You don't want freedom for all, only for those that you agree with. Ironic (not to mention hypocritical) that this is the same mindset that says women should never been allowed to vote because they base decisions on emotion rather than logic.
Wanna kill these ads? We can help!
2. Geko45
Geko45 Smartass Pilot
Wrong again. We don't live in a democracy, we live in a democratic republic. What that means is that certain things are not subject to popular vote. Freedom of speech, press, religion, the right to bear arms and peaceably assemble are all examples of individual liberties that can't simply be voted away (at least not legally). The right to marry whoever you choose (pursuit of happiness) is another example.
3. The point is you have the freedom to vote for the person that is most aligned with your values. To clarify I don't have issues with those who are openly gay. I do disagree with marriage though.
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4. Geko45
Geko45 Smartass Pilot
I can vote for a candidate that supports gun control. He can push through a law prohibiting firearms ownership. The courts then strike it down as they never had the constitutional authority to enact such a law in the first place.
5. It has to affect your "chick's" daughter. Don't you see that? If if doesn't concern me, why did you respond to a post by me with this information................very disturbing.
6. Yeah, it is hard keeping up with the gang( from another post), so please give a post # to help me...............
7. My "work" has been done. Your boy won't answer questions and it appears that he's deleted posts to remove incriminating evidence. Go back to your homosexual "work" of defending a perverted lifestyle.....................
8. At this point your arguing for the sake of it. Agreed we don't always get what we want, but I'm all ears.if you have a solution for implementing a new system. Your system sounds like it would likely support your views however, and to that point it would be no better than what we have now or another system which you force your views on others. The argument can be made both ways. So in one post you talk about individual liberties, and the in another you complain.about that system. So are you or are you not satisfied with our governmental process? I think we can agree its not perfect, and not.every single person can be pleased. This is where I again say lets agree to disagree and stop making arguement for.the sake of it.
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9. Homosexuals are free to get married the same as heteros are. All they have to do is find a willing member of the opposite sex.
What you're talking about is changing the age-old definition of marriage. If we let libs get away with changing word definitions all the time to bolster whatever their current craze may be, we'll have anarchy. But that's what cultural-Marxist desinforatsiya-artists want, isn't it? Sow confusion, promote unhealthy lifestyles to weaken and kill, wreak destruction in free society so that totalitarian elements can take over.
10. Geko45
Geko45 Smartass Pilot
False Equivalence.
No, our positions are not the same at all. Your position is that other people should not be able to do what they want even though it doesn't effect you at all. My position is to stop you from being able to implement your position on others. You can do whatever you want with your own life as long as it does not affect others. We should all have that sort of liberty. I'm in favor of letting everyone have exactly that. You are opposed to it.
11. Geko45
Geko45 Smartass Pilot
You have become your own worst enemy. You can't identify a direct victim if homosexual marriage were legalized therefore you make a generic plea against "anarchy" and how it would be bad for "society" as a whole. That is the very definition of a socialist argument (arguing based on what you perceive as best for soceity in general). You are not on the side of individual liberty on this issue.
#251 Geko45, Nov 6, 2012
Last edited: Nov 6, 2012
12. Would the atheists on the board please clarify this for me? Is homosexuality a lifestyle which you;
A) practice
B) approve but do not practice
C) no comment
Let all the atheists participate, OK?
13. Geko45
Geko45 Smartass Pilot
Your list is not complete.
D. Do not practice. Do not condone nor condemn. Just realize it's none of my business (and none of yours as well).
#253 Geko45, Nov 6, 2012
Last edited: Nov 6, 2012
14. The points your putting forth have nothing to do with the discussion on homosexualality. I believe in equal right for men and women, and that's an entirely different topic so lets stay focused here. Regarding gun control; we have the right to.bear arms from a tyrannical government. If that right is talent away then do something about it. That's why you and I have the right. The 2nd amendment wasn't.written for.hobbyist and hunters. Again this is entirely a.different topic. Lets stay on point, but really I have said many times.the same points over and over. The only arguments that you have put for are nit picking for the sake of arguement.We disagree, leave it at that. Nothing you say will change my position.
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15. hence, "no comment", thought that was self explanatory.So your answer is? D ?
16. If rather than "no comment" you had "none of the above" then it would have been appropriate, but I imagine for many people none of the options were valid. "No comment" is also not an appropriate answer because I have a comment, but you are trying to silence it. The correct answer would be Geko's (D).
Could you please answer the following...
When did you stop beating your wife?
(a) Years ago?
(b) Months ago?
(c) Days ago?
(d) No comment?
Any answer other than a, b or c (including silence) will be interpreted as "no comment".
17. Geko45
Geko45 Smartass Pilot
My answer is my D, but also very different than your "no comment" category.
18. So your answer is "D". But I enjoyed the pointless diatribe, lol . No other participants?
19. Actually you don't and it's not, but you don't even see it.
Teri wants to get married.
Jack wants to marry Teri.
Christina wants to marry Teri.
Teri is female.
Jack can marry Teri because because he has a p*nis.
Christina cannot marry Teri because she has a v@gina.
Tell us again how you're for equal rights.
20. So you voted for Obama...............
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59381 | Mashed Potatoes Recipes
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59444 | 19 Dec. 45
those aims which I submit as criminal was a plan to dominate Europe, and that the SS was one of the means by which that was to be done.
Now, this is just one aspect of the SS criminality. I am quite ready not to proceed any further with the point if the Court already has the point, and thinks that the evidence of that aspect of its criminality is sufficient. I certainly do not want to labor the point too hard.
I now proceed further with the point as to the building up of the SS as a racial elite to take over; but I do think one other thing is important, and that is the negative side of that racism: the hatred for other races. And Himmler made some very striking points along that line as to what the SS was to be taught. I quote from his Posen speech, that is, our Document 1919-PS. The passage in question appears on Page 23 of the original speech, middle of the page, and will be found on Page 1 of the English translation, third paragraph. I quote:
"One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the SS man. We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest."
The next few sentences from that same paragraph have already been read into evidence, and I shall not repeat them. But I do want to quote, in the same paragraph, the conclusion that Himmler draws from what he just said. This sentence is about seven lines from the bottom of the paragraph, beginning:
Now these principles — that is, the conception of being an elite which was to take over Europe and the conception of hatred towards inferior races, which was instilled in the SS — these were principles which were publicly reiterated over and over again so that the newest recruit was thoroughly steeped in them.
I quote from Himmler's Kharkov speech, which appears in the same Document 1919-PS.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Can't you just give us the meaning Of the speech without quoting from it; can you just refer to it?
MAJOR FARR: I will be very glad to do that, if the Court will take judicial notice of it. I will refer you to the passage I have in mind. The passage in question appears on Page 14 of the translation, about 15 lines from the bottom of the page; it appears on Page 17 of the original, at about the middle of the page. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59448 | 2001 Honda CR-V MOUNT, CONDENSER (UPPER) - (80107SS0000)
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Part #80107-SS0-000. This MOUNT, CONDENSER (UPPER), is a genuine OEM part for your 2001 Honda CR-V,
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59472 | Ben Affleck's Elizabeth Warren Fundraiser: Star Teams Up With Matt Damon, John Krasinski For Event
Posted: Updated:
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Ben Affleck joins the ranks of George Clooney, Ryan Murphy and other Hollywood figures who are throwing their celebrity behind the Democrats this election season. The actor hosted a massive fundraiser for Elizabeth Warren, who is running to take Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts senate seat back for the Democrats from the incumbent, Scott Brown.
The guest list for the event reads like a red carpet tip sheet at an awards show, with "The Office's" John Krasinski, Matt Damon, Jennifer Garner (Affleck's wife), Reese Witherspoon, Zach Braff, Tobey Maguire and other celebrities in attendance. Unsurprisingly, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and a host of other Hollywood bigwigs sent checks.
Sources tell THR that well over $250,000 was raised for Warren's campaign at the event, which took place at J.J. Abrams' studio in Santa Monica. Though it's a far cry from the $15 million Clooney and company raked in for the president, it will still bolster Warren in an already exceedingly expensive race.
Warren herself has been busy batting away attacks, including allegations of plagiarism. National Review Writer Katrina Trinko accused the candidate of lifting copy in a 2006 book, but Salon's Alex Pareene quickly debunked those claims by proving that it was, in fact, Warren who was the victim.
A longtime consumer advocate and legal scholar, Warren formerly oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program and helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She recently called for the immediate resignation of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon from the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, citing his company's $2 billion loss as irreconcilable with the need for "responsibility and accountability" in finance.
For more attendees and details, head over to THR.
Around the Web
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Damon, Affleck, Krasinski hosting Elizabeth Warren fundraiser |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59497 | CPES logoCollaborative Psychiatric
Epidemiology Surveys
<-- previous variablenext variable -->
Variable Label: Extent to which condition interfered with ability to work
link to respondent booklet (RB, PG 64)
(Think about the month or longer in the past 12 when [(RANDOM CONDITION)] consequences were most severe. Using the 0 to 10 scale, where 0 means no interference and 10 means very severe interference, what number describes how much [(RANDOM CONDITION)] consequences interfered with each of the following activities during that time?)
Your ability to work?
(IF NEC: How much did [(RANDOM CONDITION)] interfere with your ability to work during that time?)
• Valid N: 6665
• Refused: 29
• Don't Know: 14
• Missing (Other): 242
• Missing (System): 13063
MeanStd DevMedianMinMax
• Valid Range: 0 - 10
• Total Cases: 20013
<-- previous variablenext variable --> |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59552 | @article {Nahas:2002-06-15T00:00:00:1532-0820:258, author = "Nahas, Kamil and Baneux, Philippe and Detweiler, David", title = "Electrocardiographic Monitoring in the Göttingen Minipig", journal = "Comparative Medicine", volume = "52", number = "3", year = "2002-06-15T00:00:00", abstract = "The purpose of the study reported here was to determine conditions for electrocardiographic monitoring in the Göttingen minipig in view of its use as a second non-rodent species in toxicology studies. Electrocardiograms were recorded from conscious minipigs (6/sex) maintained in a sling. The three standard bipolar limb leads (I, II, III), the three augmented unipolar limb leads (aVR, aVL, aVF), the triangular Nehb-Spöri leads (dorsal, axial, ventral) and their corresponding unipolar leads were recorded, and automated analysis of amplitudes and intervals was made.
Major QRS patterns were not observed for any of the bipolar and unipolar leads. For triangular leads, the amplitude of waves was higher than that for limb leads, and the rS pattern dominated for dorsal, axial ventral and aVF-Ventral leads. The qR pattern dominated in the aVR-dorsal lead, whereas consistency and dominant patterns were not observed for the aVL-axial lead. For limb leads, the position of the electrode affected the ECG. Electrodes placed on the cubital and stifle joints were the preferred positions since the P- and R-waves were clearly identifiable with amplitudes > 0.2 mV. Also, the T-wave amplitude was (positive or negative) > 0.2 mV in at least two leads, making the determination of the QT-interval accurate. For the triangular leads, the position of the electrode had less influence on the amplitude of deflections. However, if the axial lead is to be used for calculation of intervals and amplitudes, the xyphoid process is the preferred position. In conclusion, the triangular lead system is recommended for recording ECGs in minipigs. Limb leads could be used in connection. The cubital and stifle joints for standard limb leads and the neck, sacrum, and xyphoid process for triangular leads are the preferred positions for electrodes.", pages = "258-264", url = "http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aalas/cm/2002/00000052/00000003/art00011" } |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59554 | Skip to main content
French Politics Culture and Society is the journal of the Conference Group on French Politics & Society. The journal is jointly sponsored by the Institute of French Studies at New York University and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.
Publisher: Berghahn Journals
47 issues are available electronically
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59555 | Skip to main content
The virulence of phytopathogenic fungi associated with the bark beetles Tomicus piniperda and Orthotomicus erosus in Tunisia
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Phytopathogenic fungi associated with the bark beetles Tomicus piniperda and Orthotomicus erosus were isolated in various pine forests of Tunisia. Tomicus piniperda and its galleries yielded Leptographium wingfieldii, Ophiostoma minus, and Ophiostoma ips. Ophiostoma minus was the most frequent species associated with T. piniperda, in both the attacking and the emerging beetles. It was collected from most investigated forests, whereas O. ips and L. wingfieldii were obtained only from forests located in Central and Northern Tunisia. Frequencies of association with T. piniperda were always low, reaching 11.1% only once, for O. ips. Ophiostoma ips was the only blue stain fungus associated with O. erosus and its galleries. It was found in all the localities, but at a low and variable frequency, exceeding 15% very rarely. The virulence of 16 fungal isolates was tested by single inoculations into Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine) at two localities. Differences were detected among species; L. wingfieldii was the most virulent and O. minus the least virulent species in terms of phloem reaction zone formation and fungal growth in the phloem. In a separate experiment, mass inoculations (400 and 800 inoculations per m2 of bole on 1-m high belts) were performed with two isolates of L. wingfieldii on Aleppo pine and on Pinus brutia (Brutia pine). Three months later, measurements of sapwood status (% of conductive transversal section) and of its specific hydraulic conductivity, as well as of the phloem reaction zone lengths, did not show any isolate or density effect. At these experimental sites, Brutia pines appeared significantly more susceptible than Aleppo pines.
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Laboratoire d'Entomologie Forestière, INRGREF, Ariana, Tunisie 2: Laboratoire de Biologie des Ligneux et des Grandes Cultures, Université d'Orléans, 45067 Orléans Cedex 2, France., Email: 3: Unité de Zoologie Forestière, INRA, Ardon, Olivet, France 4: Laboratoire d'Entomologie-Biologie, INAT, Tunis, Tunisie 5: Laboratoire d'Amélioration Génétique, INRGREF, Ariana, Tunisie
Publication date: February 1, 2007
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59560 | Jump to content
Member Since 04 Jun 2008
Offline Last Active Jun 29 2009 09:29 PM
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Download speed, Windows/Leopard
08 June 2008 - 02:06 PM
When I installed leopard my download speed was 1 mb/s, but on windows xp and vista it is only 320 kb/s maximal :S
I installed leopard on my intel computer ofcourse, and I got a 11 mb/s internet connection. I used the same wireless usb stick for both speeds. Does anyone know how I can increase my download speed on XP/Vista?
Thanks in advance! |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59584 | 1. National
May diagnosed with diabetes
Home Secretary Theresa May has revealed she is suffering from Type 1 diabetes. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, the Conservative MP said doctors have told her to inject herself with insulin at least twice a day for the rest of her life.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59587 | Windows 8 security: What's new
Windows 8 is a major OS overhaul, but some of the most important additions might be the ones you can't see.
Antivirus Comes Preinstalled
For the first time in the history of Windows, you'll enjoy protection from viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, rootkits, and other malware from the very first day you turn on your Windows PC--without spending a cent. Windows 8 comes with an updated version of Windows Defender that includes traditional antivirus functions in addition to the spyware protection and other security features that it has offered since Windows Vista. Windows Defender now provides similar protection--and a similar look and feel--to that of the free Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus program, which Microsoft has offered to users as an optional download since 2009.
Since Windows Defender will provide at least basic virus and malware protection, purchasing yearly antivirus subscriptions (such as from McAfee or Norton) or downloading a free antivirus package (like AVG or Avast) is optional, whereas before it was pretty much required if you wanted to stay virus-free. Of course, you may disable Windows Defender and use another antivirus utility that promises better protection and more features, but at least everyone will have basic protection by default.
Better Download Screening
When Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9, it updated the browser's SmartScreen Filter to help detect and block unknown and potentially malicious programs that you download; the function complements IE's website filtering, which works to block phishing and malicious sites. Starting with Windows 8, the program-monitoring portion of the SmartScreen Filter is built into Windows itself, and it will work whether you're using IE, Firefox, Chrome, or any other browser.
In Windows 8, the first time you run a program that you downloaded from the Internet, the SmartScreen Filter checks it against a list of known safe applications, and alerts you if it's unknown and therefore has the potential to be malware. If the alert does pop up, you could then further investigate the program (and the source where you downloaded it) before running it.
Since Microsoft is adding the SmartScreen feature, the company is removing the previous Security Warning alerts that appeared when you first opened a downloaded program (the old alert would show the verification status of the program publisher and warn you about running programs downloaded from the Internet).
This is a welcome change, as it cuts down on the number of alerts you have to click through--with Windows 8, you'll see an alert only when something's amiss.
Faster, More Secure Startup
Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft will begin to promote a new type of boot method, UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), which improves upon and replaces the archaic BIOS boot system that most PCs have been using for decades. I won't get into the technical details here, but UEFI offers better security, faster startup times, and a number of other benefits.
Thanks to this new boot method (and other system enhancements), your PC will start up more quickly--in as little as 8 seconds, from the time you press the power button to when Windows fully loads to the desktop. But you're sure to appreciate the less noticeable improvements too. The Secure Boot feature of UEFI will prevent advanced malware (such as bootkits and rootkits) from causing damage, and it will stop other boot loader attacks (such as malware that loads unauthorized operating systems) as well.
Though Windows 8 will work on PCs with the old BIOS boot system, Microsoft will require new PCs that carry the Windows 8 Certification to use the UEFI boot system with the Secure Boot feature enabled by default. This Secure Boot requirement is causing some concern within the PC industry and among power users, as it could complicate the process of using Linux distributions or dual-booting multiple operating systems. However, Microsoft has promised to keep boot control in users' hands, and the company requires system makers participating in Windows 8 Certification to offer a way for users to disable the Secure Boot feature on PCs (but not on tablets).
Two New Password Types
Windows 8 introduces two new password types that you can use when logging in to your Windows account: a four-digit PIN and a "picture password."
Even if you decide to use these new password types, you still must set up a regular password. A PIN offers a faster way to log in, and a picture password gives you a more creative and fun way to do so. Sometimes you'll have to enter the regular password, such as when you need administrative approval for changing system settings as a standard user, but you can log in to your account using the PIN, the picture, or your regular password.
Other Noteworthy Defense Measures
The enhanced Windows Defender, SmartScreen, boot system, and password protection are the most noticeable security improvements in Windows 8. But the new OS has even more system enhancements that you won't see at all. A few core Windows components (such as the Windows kernel, ASLR, and heap) have been updated to help reduce common attacks and exploits even further.
This story, "Windows 8 security: What's new" was originally published by PCWorld.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59588 | Windows 7 on multicore: How much faster?
Performance benchmark results for three versions of Windows
Benchmarks (bigger is better)
Windows XP SP3
Windows Vista SP2
Windows 7 Ultimate
SPEC Viewperf 10
(SMT off)
SPEC Viewperf 10
(SMT on)
Cinebench 10
(SMT off)
Cinebench 10
(SMT on)
What might be surprising is that Windows 7's multithreading changes did not deliver more of a performance punch. The explanation for this lies in what changed in how Windows 7 manages threads. The principal changes consist of increased processor affinity (see the sidebar, "How Nehalem processors and Windows 7 work together") and changes to the Windows kernel dispatcher lock. This eye-glazing term refers to a core aspect of modern operating systems: how the kernel prevents two threads from accessing the same data or resource at the same time.
Anytime a thread wants to access an item that might be claimed by another thread, it must use a lock to make sure that only one thread at a time can modify the item. Prior to Windows 7, when a thread needed to get or access a lock, its request had to go through a global locking mechanism. This mechanism -- the kernel dispatcher lock -- would handle the requests. Because it was unique and global, it handled potentially thousands of requests from all processors on which Windows ran. As a result, this dispatcher lock was becoming a major bottleneck. In fact, it was a principal gating factor that kept Windows Server from running on more than 64 processors.
New locking mechanism
The new improved processor affinity discussed in the sidebar does not show up in the performance results. On runs with SMT disabled, this was expected because the benchmarks use all resources available; no Turbo Mode boost is possible. When we ran the four-thread Viewperf benchmark with SMT enabled (giving the benchmark eight processing pipelines), the results were essentially unchanged. That is, the differences were immaterial, which suggests that Turbo Mode works best in narrowly constrained settings, rather than the typical threaded applications we tested. Despite several requests, Microsoft would not comment on these results.
The Cinebench benchmark is a ratio that measures how much faster the multiple threads are than running the benchmark with one thread; it's a true measure of how the threading scales when measured by rendering performance. Cinebench showed negligible differences in performance across the three operating systems -- both with SMT disabled and with SMT enabled. However, unlike with Viewperf, the results for all three Windows were distinctly better with SMT enabled; i.e., Cinebench rendering ran nearly 20 percent faster on eight threads (SMT on) than four (SMT off), regardless of the version of Windows. This divergence between the two benchmarks regarding SMT's benefit underscores the need for testing its effect on your existing applications before deciding whether to enable it.
Energy consumption
As explained in the sidebar, Windows 7 performs several tricks to keep threads running on the same execution pipelines so that the underlying Nehalem processor can turn off transistors on lesser-used or inactive pipelines. The primary benefit of this feature is reduced energy consumption. To quantify this benefit, I ran the four-thread version of Viewperf with SMT enabled. This configuration meant that roughly half the pipelines would see little or no activity. I expected, therefore, to see some power savings for Windows 7. My results appear below.
Watts consumed at three points in Viewperf benchmark
Viewperf Energy Consumption
Windows XP SP3
Vista Ultimate SP2
Windows 7 Ultimate
(average of three test points)
247 W
248 W
207 W
The Windows 7 advantage is indeed significant. Note that this 17 percent decrease in power consumption is for the exact same software running unchanged on the same machine. Only the versions of Windows are different. That's a substantial savings, and there is every reason to believe that other software will similarly benefit from Windows 7's ability to leverage Intel's processor magic.
Wrapping it all up
Tight integration between Intel processors and Microsoft operating systems has been a constant thread in the history and evolution of the PC. This linkage has been dubbed by some a virtuous circle, although not every iteration of the cycle has produced substantial end-user benefits. This time, though, the cycle indeed delivers key advantages: Nehalems are much more powerful than predecessors, and they provide, as we have seen, considerable energy savings when teamed up with an OS that leverages them effectively. Among Microsoft offerings, Windows 7 is the software that does this best.
This story, "New multithreading in Windows 7: How much faster?", was originally published at Follow the latest developments in Windows, client and server hardware, and Windows 7 and Intel Nehalem at
Andrew Binstock is senior contributing editor of the InfoWorld Test Center.
This story, "Windows 7 on multicore: How much faster?" was originally published by InfoWorld.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59591 | Creating a Raw Image in iText
also read:
Creating a Raw Image
An image consists of a series of pixels. Each pixel has a color. The color value of the sequence of pixels can be stored in a byte array, and the byte array can be compressed, for instance, using zlib/flate compression. Figure 1 shows some images that were created byte per byte.
Figure 1 Images built using raw image data
Let’s have a look at the source code that was used to create these images.
Listing 1
(int i = 0; i < 256; i++) A
gradient[i] = (byte) i; A
Image img1 = Image.getInstance(256, 1, 1, 8, gradient); 1
img1.scaleAbsolute(256, 50);
byte cgradient[] = new byte[256 * 3]; B
cgradient[i * 3] = (byte) (255 - i); C
cgradient[i * 3 + 1] = (byte) (255 - i); D
cgradient[i * 3 + 2] = (byte) i; E
Image img2 = Image.getInstance(256, 1, 3, 8, cgradient); 2
img2.scaleAbsolute(256, 50);
Image img3 = Image.getInstance(16, 16, 3, 8, cgradient); 3
img3.scaleAbsolute(64, 64);
A Create image data
1 Create a DeviceGray/8 bpc image
B Create image data
C Red
D Green
E Blue
2 Create an RGB/8bpc image
3 Create an RGB/8bpc image
We’re creating three images in listing 1. The first one has 256 × 1 pixels. The colorspace is DeviceGray (1 component), and we’re using 8 bits per component (#1). When we create the image data, we let the color value vary from 0 to 255. This produces the gradient from black to white in figure 1. (Note that we scaled the height of the image.)
For the second and third images, we use three components with 8 bits per component. This means that we’ll need 256 × 3 bytes to describe an image that consists of 256 pixels. We use the image data to create an image of 256 × 1 pixels (#2), and to create an image of 16 × 16 pixels. Note that this image uses the DeviceRGB color space. If you create an image with four components, you’re working in the DeviceCMYK color space. The getInstance() method used in listing 1 also accepts an extra parameter to define a transparency range.
What we’re doing manually in this example, is done automatically with GIF, PNG, BMP, and some TIFF images internally. These bytes are added to a zipped stream using the zlib/flate algorithm, except for some TIFF and PNG images that are CCITT-encoded.
In this article, we discussed creating an image manually or byte per byte. This operation is done automatically with GIF, PNG, BMP, and some TIFF images.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59601 | Thread: South Park
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Old 04-30-2010, 10:07 AM
Yeah that was WAAAAAAY more like it. I absolutely loved this episode, it was classic Southpark stuff. Ripping on pop culture like there's no tomorrow, making the handicapped kids act like looney tune characters is a stroke of genius and Towelie is among the absolute best SP characters.
Really loved this one from start to finish. So much better than the previous two.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59626 | JustMommies Message Boards
- - Hearing problems? (http://www.justmommies.com/forums/f1944-2012-playroom/2628823-hearing-problems.html)
SarahxSyanide February 24th, 2013 10:24 AM
Hearing problems?
Genevieve doesn't respond to noises behind her. I've shaken pill bottles, clapped, dropped books and nothing. She'll blink at the pill bottle if it's close to her. She responds to her daddy saying her name when she's asleep. If you're out of her view and talk to her, she won't really know until you're in her face. She babbles, laughs, and squeels. I read that she can still do that even if she couldn't hear. I'm worried she's had hearing loss. She did respond to me shaking a bottle when her eyes were closed.
Maybe she can only focus on one thing at a time?
Her 4 month appointment is on the 4th.
TVH February 24th, 2013 01:12 PM
Re: Hearing problems?
Did they do a hearing test in the hospital?
Christie doesn't always respond to noises, it seems to depend on her mood and the noise. Dogs barking right next to her typically causes no reaction yet if she hears her daddy she starts looking around for him.
SarahxSyanide February 24th, 2013 04:35 PM
Re: Hearing problems?
They did. She got 10 out of 10 and 9 out of 9..If thats right. she got the full score out of her tests..I don't remember the numbers.
She wasn't looking at me and I shook a bottle of pills and it startled her, so she can definitely hear.
Belita February 24th, 2013 06:11 PM
melaniek85 February 24th, 2013 09:26 PM
Re: Hearing problems?
A few weeks ago I started worrying that Frankie couldn't hear. I'd walk into his room, while he was in his crib awake but facing away from me. I'd say his name and he would not turn his head, I'd tap his crib and nothing. It didn't seem like he'd respond much to sound, except smile when I talked. But over the last week or two he seems to really respond, I'll say his name and he'll turn to look at me, he hears everything now and sounds wake him up (kind of annoying lol) and loud noises startle him. It seemed like for a while, he just didn't notice noises...
NewGurl February 25th, 2013 05:14 AM
Re: Hearing problems?
not responding doesnt mean they didnt hear think about how many sounds we ignore every day imagin trying to do anything if you turned around every time someone took a step picked something up typed on a keyboard ect ect if they nvr ever responded that whould be differnt but everything sounds normal to me.
Glycerin19 February 25th, 2013 07:54 AM
Re: Hearing problems?
I agree with the others. It's likely she's just choosing not to respond. Norah doesn't always look at a noise, but sometimes the slightest little sound will frighten her. Norah also "plays" this game where she will purposely not look or respond when we try to get her attention. She will look in the opposite direction from what we are on. Perhaps there is a little of that going on too.
Leanne78 February 26th, 2013 09:17 AM
Re: Hearing problems?
Since you mentioned in another post that she has excessive ear wax or something leaking out of her ear, she might have an ear infection or maybe just a plugged up ear? Or like the other ladies said "selective" hearing. Cam is usually pretty attentive but when she is really fixated on something, I could do a song and dance routine from Chicago and she wouldn't look at me.
Elevin26 February 28th, 2013 12:20 PM
Re: Hearing problems?
Hi there just saw this post and I am an audiologist (hearing doctor) so wanted to add in that babies under 6 mth of age do not have the proper head control to know how to look for sounds all the time. They are still trying to make sense of sounds and don't really know how to respond properly at this young of an age. Most will respond to sounds in front of them or things they know (mom and dads voice) If they passed a hearing test at birth I wouldn't worry, but mention it to your dr and they can have the newborn test repeated. By 6 mths if still concerned, then they can be put in an actual soundbooth and tested that way. Hope this helps and if any other questions feel free to PM me.
SarahxSyanide March 1st, 2013 06:58 PM
Re: Hearing problems?
Thank you for responding! That was very helpful and put my mind at ease.
lilsuma March 13th, 2013 10:08 AM
Re: Hearing problems?
i should have looked further back as i just posted asking the same question. how did it end up going at the appt?. my son goes for his hearing test in may
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59755 | add artist photo
Add Explanation
Add Meaning
Sa Kanya lyrics
New! Read & write lyrics explanations
• Highlight lyrics and explain them to earn Karma points.
Mymp – Sa Kanya lyrics
Namulat ako at ngayo'y nag-iisa
Pagkatapos ng ulan
Bagama't nakalipas na ang mga sandali
At nagmumuni kung ako'y nagwagi
Pinipilit mang sabihin na ito'y wala sa akin
Ngunit bakit hanggang ngayon, nagdurugo pa rin
Sa kanya pa rin babalik, sigaw ng damdamin
Sa kanya pa rin sasaya, bulong ng puso ko
Kung buhay pa ang alaala ng ating nakaraan
Ang pagmamahal at panahon alay pa rin sa kanya
At sa hatinggabi ay nag-iisa na lang
Ay minamasdan ang larawan mo
At ngayo'y bumalik nang siya'y kapiling pa
Alaala ng buong magdamag
Kung sakali mang isipin na ito'y wala sa akin
Sana'y dinggin ang tinig kong nag-iisa pa rin
[Repeat Chorus 2x]
Ang pagmamahal at panahon alay pa rin
Sa kanya, sa kanya, sa kanya, hah-ooh
Sa kanya.
Lyrics taken from
• Email
• Correct
Corrected byanjanettejavier
• u
Sa kanya is a song na talagang nakakalungkot. Kahit tinalikuran ka na niya you are still willing to give him all of yourself. Kaya nga sa kanya.
Para kasi sa kanya lahat ng maibibigay niya. Sayang wala na sila. And this girl na who will give everything to her love is still hoping that he will come back. But anyway this song for me is something touching. Kahit na wala pa akong boyfriend and never pa akong nagkaroon saludo ako mymp.
Add your reply
• h
For me its for sum1 who really love somebody, willing give everything, but that somebody doesn't worth, somebody who left someone, somebody who don't care, and since someone really love somebody; someone can't let go, can't move 4rward; that's y someone keeps on waiting somebody to comebck. Keeps on w8ting never give up that's what love is. Lahat nagiging tanga, lahat nagiging bulag at lahat nagiging bobo. Powerful ang love noh? Jejeje.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59764 | WP Database Abstraction must write to the wp-content/fields_map.parsed_types.php file located at D:/home/site/wwwroot/wp-content/fields_map.parsed_types.phpEither the file does not exist, or the webserver cannot write to the file
Installation and Upgrade Instructions for Wordpress Database Abstraction Plugin
The WP-DB-Abstraction Plugin can only be installed as a Must Use plugin. This means that updates and installations must be performed manually and cannot be done using the Plugin Administration area of your wordpress site.
1. Always back up your database before beginning an upgrade or install. If you are migrating from MySQL to SQL Server, make sure export your database information as xml.
2. Download the latest version of the plugin from the plugin directory
3. Unzip the files
4. Find your wp-content folder. The default location is wordpress/wp-content Make sure this directory is writeable by your webserver
5. Put the wp-db-abstraction directory and the wp-db-abstraction.php that you unzipped into wp-content/mu-plugins If the mu-plugins directory does not exist, please create it first. It should be parallel to your "themes" and "plugins" directories in wp-content. If you already had the plugin installed, simply overwrite any existing files in this directory.
6. Open up wp-content/mu-plugins/wp-db-abstraction . There should be a file called db.php. Copy that file from its current location into wp-content . It should now be located in the same place as your mu-plugins directory, your plugins directory, and your themes directory. If you had the plugin installed previously, simply overwrite the existing db.php file. If you have a db.php file from a different plugin you'll need to rename the old db.php ($pluginname-db.php for example), copy the new db.php file from wp-db-abstraction to the wp-content directory, open the db.php file in a text editor and add include '$pluginname-db.php'; to the bottom of the new db.php file.
7. If you are migrating from MySQL to SQL Server or this is a new installation please visit $your_wordpress_url/wp-content/mu-plugins/wp-db-abstraction/setup-config.php to generate your wp-config.php. Then follow the regular Wordpress installation steps. If you are migrating, you may then import the xml data you exported in step one using the Wordpress Administration Area.
8. Make sure you have a file called fields_map.parsed_types.php in your wp-content directory after installation. The plugin will not function correctly without this file. If your wp-content directory was not writeable or some other error kept this file from being generated, you may copy the fields_map.parsed_types.example-3.2.1.php file from wp-content/mu-plugins/wp-db-abstraction to wp-content and rename it to fields_map.parsed_types.php |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59774 | Too much technology too fast
Novelist Douglas Coupland
Book cover of Generation A
Kai Ryssdal: Douglas Coupland hit the collective consciousness almost 20 years ago with his first novel "Generation X." Besides getting him credit for naming a whole generation that book started Coupland on a career in which he's made a habit of writing about our relationship with technology. In a way his newest novel "Generation A" comes full circle. Taking us through a world in which bees are extinct and interpersonal communication is a dying art. Welcome to the program.
Douglas Coupland: Pleasure, thank you.
Ryssdal: You have somehow commingled the death of bees, bees are non-existent in this book, with the death of communication and conversation between people. What inspired that?
Coupland: I remember the first time, I heard about bees having the colony collapse disorder, syndrome, and I just about wanted to vomit. It was such a frightening thing to even consider. And at the time when people began to notice that colonies were leaving home and never coming back, it was postulated that it was cell phones that were causing it, the cell phone towers and the waves. And I thought to myself, oh boy, Doug, you're a human being, you know your species, if people had to choose between bees or cell phones, what would they choose? And everybody would probably say, oh, bees, of course, but then they would be secretly off in the garage or the stairwell making cell phone calls. And that got me confused and worried about communication and what it does to us.
Ryssdal: I wonder if you'd read a little bit of this book for us, since this is a book of characters telling stories. Go to the one by your character Samantha, I'm on page 203 here, it's called "The Anti-Ghosts."
Coupland: Her story goes there was once a group of people whose souls had been warped and damaged and squeezed dry by the modern world. One day their souls rebelled altogether and fled the bodies that had contained them. And once a soul leaves a body it's all over, there's no going back. The thing is the bodies that had created the souls remained alive and continued their everyday activities, such as balancing checkbooks, repairing screen doors, and comparison shopping for white, terry-cotton socks at the mall, while their souls met in small groups at the intersection of roads confirming with each other that what had happened was real and it was. And that they hadn't all turned clueless at once. So are we ghosts? Well, I don't think so because the bodies we came from are still alive. Well, are we monsters then? No, because monsters can interact with the world and all we can do is drift around, and pass through walls and live a life of perpetual mourning. Well, then are we the undead? No, we're not, but we sure aren't alive either.
Ryssdal: I don't want to negatively impact your Amazon ratings too much, but this was a very, not an uplifting book, I thought.
Coupland: There is hope at the end of it.
Ryssdal: Yeah, there is.
Coupland: I'm not a pessimist. I'm not a Pollyanna. I'm kind of realistic about human behavior. I think that in the end we're 50 percent plus one more to the good than we are to the bad. But I do worry about people a lot, actually.
Ryssdal: Does technology, modern technology as we know it, help us with that or does it make us less able to deal with figuring out what people are?
Coupland: I think we've just had to absorb too much too quickly. I've asked people who are much older than myself, I'm 47, which seemed more startling at the time, the introduction of television or the introduction of the Internet. And everybody goes slamdunk the Internet. I remember the 70s that all we really did in society is we went from rotary phones to bush-button phones, and that was it for the decade. And then the 80s came and we had music videos. And then the 90s and the Internet. We have absorbed so much in the last, not even five years, three years, it's crazy. It's almost like we want a year out to absorb it all, but we can't. And it's probably going to get thicker and faster. And again, that's where stories come in, it's a way of finding new ways of looking at ourselves, and finding new ways of surviving psychically during all this change and turmoil.
Ryssdal: Douglas Coupland. His new book is called "Generation A." Thanks very much for your time.
Coupland: Kai, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.
About the author
Book cover of Generation A
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59790 | Best Buy Proudly Offers Yet Another Fictional Service
Pulkit Chandna
The news first appeared on the blog HD Guru. These guys even contacted not one but three different Best Buy stores. But Best Buy employees remained brazed in their defense and went as far as concocting 3D shutter glasses with IP addresses. According to Best Buy employees that HD Guru talked with, the 3D glasses need to be synced with the Blu-ray player either wirelessly - the IP address has a significant role - or using the “USB port” on them.
Image Credit: Gizmodo
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59799 | Quick Links
Resident Faculty Fellows
Professor Mark Antaki
Faculty of Law
Attunement and Resonance
I have several current projects that touch on the theme of memory and echo. One project involves inquiring into several taken-for-granted keywords of Canadian constitutional law to see (and hear) how they resonate in contemporary legal rhetoric. Some of these words are used and turned to with no memory of their initial use and sense - but their initial use and sense does leave an echo in contemporary usage. A second project involves tracing some of the relation of politics and law with what has come to be known as aesthetics. In particular, I am working on the turn to the imagination in contemporary legal theory and its relation to the question of the enchantment of the world - and engaging with the work of political theorists for whom enchantment and imagination are important questions. Finally, I am inquiring into the idea of the exemplary – worthy of both memory and of imitation - by way of a reading of Plato’s Republic. I am interested in exploring Plato’s confrontation with the exemplary by way of his treatment of mimesis and of the relations human beings entertain with both “origins” (to use temporal or historical language) and “originals.” I am also interested in the various ways in which The Republic can be read, and has been received, as a, if not the, exemplary work of philosophy.
Professor Antaki's Faculty Page
Mark [dot] Antaki [at] mcgill [dot] ca (Contact Professor Antaki)
PLAI courses taught by Professor Antaki |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59811 | Lars von Trier, cinema's greatest provocateur, dips his toe in porn with "Nymphomaniac: Vol. I." Dull, carnal, and explicitly so in both regards, it's a slow-moving slog through one crushed soul as she relates the empty, passionless pursuits of her youth.
She proceeds to relate her sexual history, from childhood games of discovery and gym class rope-climbing "sensations" to the perfunctory way she proposes to lose her virginity to a motor-scooter buff played by Shia LaBeouf. There are carnal contests with a pal on trains, where they see how many men, young and old, they can seduce and service in the restrooms, to tedious monologues about the logistics on managing 8-10 sex sessions a day while supposedly supporting herself with a real job and juggling the occasional real boyfriend.
Sophie Kennedy Clark as B and Stacy Martin as young Joe in ’Nymphomaniac: Volume I.’ (Christian Geisnaes/Magnolia Pictures)
Sophie Kennedy Clark as B and Stacy Martin as young Joe in 'Nymphomaniac: Volume I.' (Christian Geisnaes/Magnolia Pictures)
The story is broken into chapters, a curse of von Trier's dullest films -- "Chapter Four: Delirium" and the like. The framework plays like the "Let me tell you a dirty story" of the earliest bawdy novels, such as "Tom Jones" or "Tristram Shandy," but rendered humorless and bland thanks to Gainsbourg's flat delivery and the poker-faced performance of Stacy Martin as the young Joe. The entire enterprise has a whiff of homage to the Golden Age of Arty Porn, the '70s, when pretentious life narrations interrupted the assorted exotic sexual encounters of "The Story of O" or "Emmanuelle."
When the older Joe asks, plaintively, "Am I boring you?" we smile in agreement, even as Seligman and von Trier (a long way from "Breaking the Waves") are urging her on and on.
The one explosion in the film is its best scene. A shattered, embittered wife (Uma Thurman, brilliant) shows up at Joe's apartment after Joe has finally talked a lover into leaving that wife. In half a dozen searing moments, she weeps her way into rage as she tells her small sons to remember this confrontation with the father whose lives he (and Joe) have destroyed: "It'll stand you in good stead when you're in therapy."
The sex scenes (LaBeouf's character turns up several times over the course of Joe's narrative) leave little doubt at their authenticity. But the object lesson in this -- fornication without feeling is lust without love -- merits a "Well, duh" in every world but von Trier's.
* ½
Rating: NR (explicit sex scenes, profanity)
Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Stacy
Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Uma Thurman
Director: Lars von Trier
Running time: 1 hour,
57 minutes |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59816 | • Network: NBC
• Series Premiere Date: Sep 25, 2006
Season #: 1, 2, 3, 4
Generally favorable reviews - based on 29 Critics
Critic score distribution:
1. Positive: 18 out of 29
2. Negative: 4 out of 29
1. Reviewed by: Brian Lowry
This is... one of those concepts seemingly destined to leave a small but outspoken fan contingent grumbling next summer at Comic-Con about its cancellation.
2. It's an entertaining TV show that easily could translate to a terrific comic book.
3. NBC's "Heroes" is the best pilot of fall 2006. Whether it continues to soar in future episodes remains to be seen.
4. Reviewed by: Matt Roush
Too much pretentious hooey about destiny obscures an unfocused saga of normal folks with odd powers.
5. 80
Like "Lost," it has the potential to grow into a cross-genre drama that reaches beyond cultiness to all kinds of TV viewers.
6. 75
Dense, dark, a little dreary and yet oddly intriguing, Heroes seems destined to attract an audience that is more loyal than large.
7. "Heroes" may be the dark horse among this year's serialized dramas. It also might be a dud down the road. Because after two episodes, it's not even remotely clear what these "special" ordinary people are capable of.
8. 10
9. A big, colorful, messy, involving, funny explosion of a show. If it's not the best new series of the season, it's definitely the most memorable.
10. 100
The show's fun, and a little freaky. [2 Oct 2006, p.45]
11. In a season overrun with "Lost" wannabes, "Heroes" zigs where so many zag, keeping the ethnic diversity, the hidden connections between the characters and, of course, the overarching mystery, but infusing them with something that feels entirely fresh and yet whose appeal is as old as comic books.
12. It does get a little pretentious at times, especially during the opening and closing narrations, but its pretensions are very much comic-book pretensions, and therefore allowable in what is, fundamentally, a comic book.
13. “Heroes” tries very hard to spook viewers with hints of science fiction and dark conspiracies. But its main appeal is the curious link among complete strangers.
14. Reviewed by: James Poniewozik
15. 60
If not exactly compelling, the pilot episode is engaging and often quirkily funny.
16. 20
A largely dreary dirge.
17. Despite oodles of cool effects, it lands, splat, in a pile of nonsense and dim dialogue.
18. 80
Heroes offers uneven acting, clunky dialogue and some flat figures.... Yet Heroes overcomes its flaws to present arresting, off-the-wall entertainment.
19. Reviewed by: Diane Werts
A soul-deep sense of humanity grounds "Heroes."
21. 75
You don't have to be a fantasy or sci-fi geek to have fun with it
22. What makes this intriguing and ultimately irresistible serial thriller one of my favorites of the fall season are its characters.
23. If you don't take it too seriously, it can be tremendous fun in a Saturday matinee kind of way.
24. 100
25. 30
26. 75
When I was watching the first three episodes of "Heroes" provided by NBC, I couldn't wait for Hiro's scenes, which is not to say you should dismiss the rest of the characters on "Heroes."
28. Oka is pure delight as a wage slave who's broken the space-time continuum, and... Grunberg shines as a telepathic cop. [29 Sep 2006, p.71]
User Score
Universal acclaim- based on 367 Ratings
User score distribution:
1. Negative: 15 out of 194
1. Oct 3, 2010
2. Nov 9, 2012
3. Apr 17, 2015
Very captivating and a truly unique take on the superhero genre! I found myself hooked watching most of the season from 11 to 5 am. Its reallyVery captivating and a truly unique take on the superhero genre! I found myself hooked watching most of the season from 11 to 5 am. Its really cool how it somewhat differs from other known brands like Marvel and Dc with their own set of heroes yet this portrays a new perspective on powers already known and unkown with engaging characters that many will find interesting in their own way. Although realism wasn't seen much in the series with no strong scientific statements or footage on how the powers really work on the body or how they're even possible to exist but either way it has an interesting story and cast that will make you want more... Although i wouldn't say much about the rest of the seasons but they're worth a watch. Full Review » |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59849 | 50 Cent Bulletproof: G Unit Edition (PSP)
Critic Score
100 point score based on reviews from various critics.
User Score
5 point score based on user ratings.
Not an American user?
50 Cent Bulletproof: G Unit Edition is the PSP version of the console game 50 Cent: Bulletproof, and features the same story as the other versions. It does however, differ from the console versions by switching the third person perspective to a top down perspective. It also adds multiplayer via the PSP's ad-hoc wireless functionality.
The game revolves around you playing as Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, as he and his crew sets about freeing his kidnapped friend, K-Dog. Helping you along is the rest of the G-unit, each of whom has a particular speciality that include a weapons expert, locksmith and demolitions expert that you will be able to put to use as you progress through the story. When not using their abilities, they will simply provide additional fire. It also features cameo appearances from Dr. Dre and Eminem.
There are no PSP screenshots for this game.
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
There are no reviews for this game.
Critic Reviews
PGNx Media Oct 30, 2006 7.5 out of 10 75
Game Chronicles Nov 04, 2006 5.2 out of 10 52
GameTrailers Sep 11, 2006 5.2 out of 10 52
IGN Aug 28, 2006 5 out of 10 50
Eurogamer.net (UK) Nov 12, 2006 5 out of 10 50
GameZone Sep 24, 2006 5 out of 10 50
videogamer.com Nov 09, 2006 5 out of 10 50
Play.tm Nov 08, 2006 40 out of 100 40
1UP Aug 30, 2006 D+ 33
Digital Entertainment News (den) Oct 31, 2006 3.1 out of 10 31
There are currently no topics for this game.
There is no trivia on file for this game.
havoc of smeg (15582) added 50 Cent Bulletproof: G Unit Edition (PSP) on May 15, 2010 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59850 | Half-Life 2: Episode Pack (Windows)
Published by
Developed by
Critic Score
100 point score based on reviews from various critics.
User Score
5 point score based on user ratings.
Not an American user?
Half-Life 2: Episode Pack is a special retail package that contains the following games:
There are no Windows screenshots for this game.
Alternate Titles
• "ハーフライフ2 エピソードパック" -- Japanese spelling
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
There are no reviews for this game.
Critic Reviews
Cheat Code Central May, 2008 4.8 out of 5 96
GameZone May 13, 2008 9.5 out of 10 95
There are currently no topics for this game.
There is no trivia on file for this game.
Foxhack (12550) added Half-Life 2: Episode Pack (Windows) on Apr 10, 2008 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59851 | Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix (Xbox)
missing cover art
Critic Score
100 point score based on reviews from various critics.
User Score
5 point score based on user ratings.
There are no credits for the Xbox release of this game.
The following releases of this game have credits associated with them: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59872 | Skip to main content
Columbus Circle synopsis
After living as a shut-in for two decades, an heiress must confront her fears when detectives arrive to investigate the murder of her neighbor.
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• Murder by Decree (1979)
• Alex Cross (2012)
• The Two Faces of January (2014)
• Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! (1989)
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59873 | Skip to main content
Land of Liberty
Not Yet Rated| 1 hr. 38 min.
Plot Summary
Clips from Hollywood films, shorts and newsreels trace the history of the United States, from the arrival of Colonial settlers to the year 1939.
Genres: Historical drama
Land of Liberty (1939)
Release Date: January 1st, 1939|1 hr. 38 min.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59875 | Skip to main content
Mission Hill synopsis
An abandoned woman's (Barbara Orson) daughter (Alice Barrett) turns singer and her son (Brian Burke) turns thief in a rough Irish section of Boston.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59878 | David La Haye Movies and Career Information
David La Haye profile image
Apr 19, 1966
Actor, Director and Writer
David La Haye is a Canadian actor. He won the 1996 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Water Baby.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59885 | 1. Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Big Bird and Cynthia Gregory
Discussion in 'Sesame Appearances' started by zns, Dec 31, 2011.
1. zns
zns Well-Known Member
I just found this funny picture of Big Bird dancing with ballet star, Cynthia Gregory on ebay. This was taped for a PBS pledge special during either the late-70's or early-80's.
What makes it interesting is that Caroll Spinney talks about this moment in his autobiography. He has admitted that he is a terrible dancer both in and out of the bird. But he claims it was the first time he ever got good enough to do it after taking some advice from Richard Hunt on pretending that Big Bird could dance.
Anyway, here's the photo. Enjoy. :wisdom::wisdom::wisdom:
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59905 | Google buys major military robot maker: Why does search giant want to be 'BigDog' of automation?
WORCESTER, MA - JULY 23: Worcester Polytechnic Institute students received ATLAS, a 330-lb. humanoid robot, that they will use to compete in a Darpa r...
Google's master plan remains a secret
So far, Google isn't sharing much about the purchases augmenting it's newly-launched robotics division. "It is still very early days for this, but I can't wait to see the progress," Larry Page wrote in a Google+ post, when the New York Times revealed news of the robotics operation.
"I think it will be the transformation of our society — how we work, how we learn, take care of our sick, conduct our commerce, explore, handle disasters, fight wars... everything," Peter Diamandis, big-thinker and founder of the X-Prize Foundation, wrote in a Google+ post on Friday.
Mechanical monster hounds and more
Boston Dynamics tackles the challenge of locomotion on uneven turf — a hurdle to roboticists who design machines that move. Compared to existing home robots like the iRobot's floor-cleaner Roomba, Boston Dynamics' zooniverse of animal-based robots built for climbing hills, clearing walls, and surviving wars are made of some serious metal.
Started by Marc Raibert, a roboticist who taught at MIT and Carnegie Mellon University, and author of "Legged Robots That Balance," the company channels funding from DARPA and various arms of the military into a steadily expanding family of robots that can tackle almost any terrain.
"We have had a great time at Boston Dynamics, building our menagerie of robots and bringing them this far along," Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics, wrote in an email to NBC News. "Now we are excited to take the next step, to see how much further ahead we can take robotics, working with Google’s gangbuster team."
The not-so-distant future of Google robots
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59906 | @techreport{NBERw18982, title = "Patent Trading Flows of Small and Large Firms", author = "Nicolas Figueroa and Carlos J. Serrano", institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper", series = "Working Paper Series", number = "18982", year = "2013", month = "April", doi = {10.3386/w18982}, URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w18982", abstract = {This article presents the results of an analysis of the patent trading flows of small and large firms and the determinants of these firm's patent sale and acquisition decisions. We also examine whether these transactions lead to an excessive concentration of patent rights. We show that small firms disproportionately sell and acquire more patents than large firms, and find no evidence that patent trading brings about a significant concentration of patent rights in the hands of large firms. We find that the match between new patented innovations and the original inventor's patent portfolio plays an important role in how successful firms are at generating value from their patents, and in the decision to sell a patent. And among the traded patents, we show that patent acquisitions respond to complementarities between the acquired patented innovation and the buyer's technological capabilities to adopt it. Our empirical analysis uses a new, comprehensive data set that matches information on patent trades and the identity of patent owners over a patent's lifetime.}, } |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59934 | Last updated: June 03, 2015
Is this how we will all look in a hot future?
Top stories
RYAN Hopwood's future human is a man of hooked thumbs, hugely powerful legs and ballooning membranes of skin down his sides like a sugar glider.
That's because on Ryan's future Earth gravity has massively decreased.
While the spotlight has been on how humans are altering the Earth through climate change, Sydney TAFE students have been asked to ponder the opposite: how could a drastically different future Earth change humans?
Ryan's "Homo Velum" is a small human who has evolved into a tree dweller, using a world with lesser gravity to help glide between branches on skin membranes supported by extended ribs.
Homo Velum's thumbs have migrated around the hands to create hooks - perfect for climbing tree trunks - while its feet can grasp branches for a quick snooze, upside-down like a bat.
What do you think the future holds as mankind continues to evolve?
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59983 | View Single Post
Old 12-18-07, 07:36 PM #33
Smeg Head
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Leeds, UK
Posts: 158
Originally Posted by m3dude
hes referring to the fact that on crts, as u increase your resolution, you 'effectively'(not technically) decrease your pixel pitch making jaggies less noticeable. this occurs because your increasing resolution while maintaining screen size. hes just too dumb to explain it in a way that makes sense, because he doesnt understand exactly whats happening. that said this doesnt rly make his claim of pistol aa any less retarded and moronic. also the slight amount of aa he gets from playing at 1920x1440 on a 19inch crt isnt comparable to the amount of aa gained when u downsize a pic from the former to 1280x960. completely different methods at work here. playing at 1920x1440 on a 19 inch monitor just means that smaller pixels are being used to construct the image. downsizing however is downsampling an entire image and using all the extra pixels for blending and sampling calculations. the 2 arent even comparable from a quality standpoint
Nanosuitguy: You need to re-read and COMPREHEND this paragraph by m3dude.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/59993 | (Page 3 of 4)
IT WAS IN 1980 THAT Smith's literary agent, Knox Burger, sent the completed manuscript of ''Gorky Park'' to Random House, suggesting Joe Fox as an appropriate editor. Fox had admired Smith's previous book, ''Nightwing,'' a horror story about murderous bats, but even so, considering Smith's motley background, it was with some audacity that Burger let Random House know that ''Gorky Park'' had a price tag attached to it: $1 million.
''I didn't take it very seriously,'' recalls Fox. ''I figured, O.K., he wants substantial money. I thought he was speaking metaphorically.''
Beginning with three faceless bodies discovered in the snow in Moscow, ''Gorky Park'' reverses the traditional casting expected by American readers, pitting the good guy, Moscow's chief police investigator, Arkady Renko, against a cold-blooded American villain. In tracking down the killer, Renko is also confronted at every turn by the KGB, and by the colossal and corrupt socialist bureaucracy. As his marriage fails, he falls in love with Irina, initially a suspect. There's a burgeoning alliance with a KGB officer. He ultimately joins forces with an American policeman, the brother of one of the victims, and they trace the murderer's motive to profit; he's a smuggler. Amazingly, the novel ends with Renko exhausted and wounded, more or less triumphant, at a sable farm on Staten Island.
It's a wild, dense book. Still, with its portrayal of Renko as a man with gifts and problems, and as a Russian patriot, however dispirited by the travails of socialist repression, ''Gorky Park'' was hailed not only for its twisting plot and harrowing suspense, but as the first detailed and sympathetic picture of life in Moscow by an American writer. It didn't start out that way. In 1972, inspired by an article about a Russian anthropologist who reconstructed the (Continued on Page 50) heads and faces of prehistoric men from their skull remains, and who was occasionally called in to do forensic work, Smith wrote a 40-page proposal for a book called ''Portrait of Valerya,'' and sold it to G. P. Putnam's Sons.
''It was going to have an American cop who went to Moscow and got involved, and had to connect with a Soviet cop,'' Smith recalls. ''But then I went to Moscow, and the obvious idea came to me: It was crazy to have an American hero.''
Smith spent 15 days in the Soviet Union, including just five in Moscow, where, though he put in his time with organized tour groups being shephered around to look at monuments, he managed to operate pretty much on his own, taking the metro and the buses, getting lost in the factory district, drinking in a worker's bar. He stood outside the police station, making sketches and taking notes. He visited Mosfilm, the state movie company; he wasn't allowed inside there either, but ''I did get a sense of who was coming in and out. I didn't know Irina was going to be working there, but then I saw it, and it was natural that she would.''
It was in Moscow that Arkady Renko was born. Flabby, a smoker, he is physically unimposing yet capable of heroics and attractive to attractive women. ''I've always thought Bill was Renko,'' Emily Smith says, to which the author replies: ''I really think she believes that, and it's very flattering.'' Then he laughs. ''Renko is me if someone could rewrite me 15 times.'' Certainly, Renko is a romantic figure. Much of his appeal derives from characteristics shared by a wide range of Western detectives, from the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes to the consoling, shambling demeanor of TV's Columbo. Like P.D. James's Adam Dalgliesh, Renko is a tormented intellectual, a reader of poetry and history. Like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, he's a cynic, resigned to societal unfairness and accustomed to villainy in privileged places. Out of sheer weariness, Renko proves seducible - though he is never, ultimately, seduced - by his own selfish desires. Devoted to the culture of his homeland and despairing of its politics, he is given a background to grapple with - his father was one of Stalin's favored generals. But all of this, Smith says, emerged from nothing. ''I knew he was going to be an honest man,'' Smith says. ''But when I decided I needed someone like Arkady Renko, I had to build him up from thin air. The name itself - Renko - means 'son of.' But son of what? It's a mystery name. And Arkady, of course, harks back to a certain purity and innocence: Arcadia.''
With the novel thus inventing itself in his mind, he returned from Moscow and began writing. The initial story of the face reconstruction began to recede. At 240 pages, nearing a deadline and short on funds, he showed the book-in-progress to his editor at Putnam's. ''That's when they got a chance to see how things had changed,'' he says. The publisher balked, resisting the notion of a Soviet protagonist, and insisted Smith return to the parameters of his original proposal. Smith refused. ''I went back to what I was doing before,'' he says. ''Did some novelizations, did some Nick Carters, did the spy series. There were some great titles: 'The Last Time I Saw Hell.' 'Last Rites for the Vulture.' 'His Eminence Death.' Each book was better than the one before, and each sold less than the one before. I'd buy myself a week or two and write some more of 'Gorky Park.' I remember at one point I bounced 37 straight checks. I had a very sympathetic bank officer.'' |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60005 | THERE was a time each year, soon after Alexis Lichine had returned to New York from the harvest at Prieure-Lichine, his chateau in Bordeaux, when we would drive up to Westchester to have lunch with Alfred A. Knopf.
In the course of publishing Mr. Lichine's books, Mr. Knopf had come to know and love wine. And so at one lunch in the early 1980's he announced that we would be drinking the four Bordeaux first growths from 1945: Latour, Margaux, Lafite-Rothschild and Haut-Brion. He had opened them earlier, he said, to let them breathe. Alexis and I exchanged concerned looks and, when we sat down to eat, our fears were fulfilled. All four wines were dead. Letting them breathe had not improved them; it had killed them.
How often have you heard a waiter or a wine steward say at the beginning of a meal: ''I'll just open this now and let it breathe''? Breathing is one of the least understood components of wine service and wine drinking, in restaurants or at home. Once, at Harry's Bar in Venice, I ordered a nondescript Italian white wine as an aperitif. A few minutes later, I was astonished to see the waiter decanting the bottle.
''To let it breathe,'' he explained.
Breathe? That wine needed to breathe about as much as the mineral water.
Alfred Knopf's wines were too old, the Harry's Bar wine too young. So when exactly does a wine need to breathe? The answer is: almost never. Certainly white wines don't. Occasionally, when a powerful red wine is opened before its time, aerating it may soften its rough, tannic edges. But this can be just as easily accomplished by pouring the wine into glasses and then letting it stand for a while before drinking it.
Simply uncorking the bottle early is practically useless. It will expose an amount of wine in the neck of the bottle equal to the size of the bottom of the cork. In other words, almost no wine at all. Mostly it gives the waiter or wine steward a bit of stage business to help inflate the pourboire. A really harsh young wine can be smoothed out a bit by decanting, but again, letting it sit in the glass for a while will accomplish much the same thing.
In 1863, when the French railroads began carrying wine from the Mediterranean to northern cities, Emperor Napoleon III called on Louis Pasteur to determine why so much wine was going bad in transit. Pasteur found that air, or more precisely, the oxygen in air, was the villain. Too much air, he discovered, allowed the growth of vinegar bacteria. On the other hand, he learned, small controlled amounts of air matured wine.
Wine matures in the bottle because of the oxygen that is found in the wine itself and in the small space between the wine and the cork. The process, oxidation, is the chemical reaction of oxygen with another chemical. And so steel rusts, copper turns green and a sliced apple becomes brown.
Oxidization in wine begins when the grapes are first picked, which is why they are rushed to the wineries, where oxygen contact can be eliminated or controlled.
The other legitimate reason for decanting wine is to avoid sediment. As they age, wines produce a deposit. It is harmless stuff, but many wine drinkers, and particularly American wine drinkers, prefer their wine squeaky clean. Filtration, a common practice in the wine industry, has mostly obviated any need for decanting; it strips out most particles before the wine is bottled. Critics say it can strip away the elements that give a wine its character and flavor.
But there is one wine that should always be decanted: vintage port. Vintage port spends long years, sometimes more than half a century, in the bottle, is never filtered and can have a considerable amount of sediment. It is often decanted over a candle. The candle light shows when sediment begins to flow through the neck of the bottle, and when the decanting process should stop.
In her Oxford Companion to Wine (1994), Jancis Robinson comes down against ever decanting wine to aerate it. She cites the great French enologist Emile Peynaud, who held that exposing wine to too much air begins a process of destroying its aroma. With very old wines, like Mr. Knopf's 1945 Bordeaux, prolonged exposure to air can be fatal, even when the surface area exposed is small. Chances are those wines would have died soon after pouring even without the previous exposure.
The difference between death and glory can be minutes. I recall a half bottle of Chateau Filhot 1911, at the Tour d'Argent in Paris. It was offered on the wine list for 100 francs or $20, hardly exorbitant for what was a 75-year-old Sauternes. The first glass was glorious. It had the intensity and richness of a wine a fifth its age; its color more burnished brass than gold, its bouquet redolent of flowers, its taste recalling the honeyed influence of botrytis.
Fifteen minutes later the wine was dead, its color muddy brown, its taste that of bitter, dried leaves. Locked safely in the restaurant's damp cool cellar, a few yards from the Seine, it might have lasted another 20 years. With its cork pulled, its life was quickly over.
I was lucky; I had a glass of a once great wine -- before breathing claimed another fragile victim. Good thing it was a half bottle. It would have been tragic to watch helplessly while a full bottle died that way.
Photo: IT'S JUST FOR SHOW -- Uncorking a bottle early does not accomplish much. (Jeffery A. Salter/The New York Times)(pg. F8) |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60006 | I've been spending a lot of time crawling around on my hands and knees lately.
The reason is a self-assigned experiment: to spend two weeks listening only to music streamed or downloaded from the Internet. These were not consecutive weeks. The first took place last winter, just before a United States Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling ordering Napster to halt unauthorized exchange of copyrighted songs. The second took place a few weeks ago, in a post-Napster online universe.
I had been listening to music online for years, but only as a supplement to my CD collection and the radio. Now I wanted to make the Internet my jukebox. This was not to see if it was possible (for some, traditional CD's already seem like antiques), but to see how it changed the experience of listening to music. After all, it is an old chestnut of cultural theory that society is shaped more by the media that transmit information than by the information itself.
As a critic whose job is based on listening to new music, I have never been exposed to more high-quality artists in a shorter amount of time. Any musicians complaining about song-sharing services like Napster, any record executives trying to work out an Internet business model, and any fans who wants a glimpse of the way music consumption and distribution will change in the future should put aside their stereos and try this experiment first.
The requirements are simple: a decent computer, a pair of speakers, a portable MP3 player (for listening to downloaded music outside and in the car), and a dedicated high-speed link to the Internet for fast downloads.
One thing to be learned is that the popularity of Napster and other music file-sharing services stems from one of the main problems of the current record industry: people want to consume more music than they can afford. And, online, to quote a Robert Earl Keen song I downloaded, ''The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.''
In the first days, I immersed myself in a maze-like world, with each song a forking corridor leading to another forking corridor. Listening to an unreleased song by the parody-rock group Tenacious D on Napster, called ''Tribute to the Best Song in the World,'' I was inspired to download songs that it reminded me of, including ''Devil Went Down to Georgia'' by the Charlie Daniels Band and ''The Ride'' by David Allan Coe. Those songs, in turn, inspired me to listen to Robert Johnson and Hank Williams, which led me to search for obscure sides by the 1920's country star Vernon Dalhart and the devilish bluesman Peetie Wheatstraw -- but he didn't have any songs on Napster, thus blowing the claim that every popular recording in history lay therein. (In week two, however, I found a dozen Peetie Wheatstraw songs on a Napster clone, Aimster.)
Not too long ago, the wry Scottish songwriter Momus came up with his own twist on Andy Warhol's aphorism, claiming that in the future, everyone will be famous not for 15 minutes but to 15 people. That exaggeration was the essence of listening to music online for me: It was all about discovering new artists (many without record deals); about typing in a single word to unearth every single piece of music that contains that word; about twisting through Web pages, links and file downloads to stumble upon just the right new song.
Because most file-sharing programs work like a standard Internet search engine, displaying all songs that contain a certain word, the nature of browsing is changing: a teenager looking for the Shaggy hit ''Angel'' may come across the Sarah McLachlan or Jimi Hendrix song of the same name, and get turned on to a different genre of music.
As the Week 1 progressed, it became clear how the different way one apprehends music online is likely to change the nature of music making. If the long-playing record brought about a culture in which musicians aspire to the full-length album as their ultimate creative expression, then the Internet promises to return us to a world in which the song stands alone. As a result, the process of promoting music will change. If a band wants to call attention to itself in the retail world, it does so with eye-catching CD covers, displays and advertisements; but in the online universe ruled by the search engine, song titles are key. If a young band wants to reach a wide audience, the smartest thing it could do would be to give one of its songs a title similar to that of a current hit. Then, when users of a file-swapping service search for Usher's ''U Remind Me,'' they'll stumble across a song of the same title by the new band as well. Actually, with Napster not currently functioing and most of the substitutes offering software and film downloads as well, it might be a better idea to name that new song after a video game or dirty movie.
I also discovered new music through the simplest way of listening to music online: streaming radio, which involved simply heading to a site like www.shoutcast.com or the home page of a favorite radio station and listening to the live broadcast. At www.billboard.com, I checked in on the hits by listening to a Top 40 countdown; at www.drugmusic.com, I drifted off to sleep to a program of droning psychedelic rock; at phusion.fromdj.com, I received my hip-hop fix with D.J. mix tapes; and at www.radioparadise.com, a personal favorite, I spent hours listening to the type of music that regularly makes critics' Top 10 lists (from artists like Radiohead, Nick Drake, Bjork, Randy Newman and Lucinda Williams). |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60011 | OCR Document
Language Education and Foreign
Relations in Vietnam
Sue Wright
Astan University
A study of the history of Indo-China makes it very easy to understand why fi
foreign language learning has been problematic for recent governments of
Vietnam. Four decades of conflict with five different enemies preoccupied the
Vietnamese and soured relations with a large number of countries in the
aftermath of the various wars. The languages of Vietnam's enemies disappeared
from the school curriculum. Moreover, the enormous cost of keeping a large
standing army and reconstructing the country after massive damage, together
with a period of economic mismanagement, kept the education budget severely
depleted. There has not even been_ enough money to make primary education
universal and free. Thus, skill in many of the international languages was not
only undesirable for patriotic _ reasons; it could not be afforded.
. Nor was widespread language education necessary. The ideological division
of the world and the isolation of Vietnam, gravitating in turn to one or another
of the factions of the Communist world, limited the inter national networks in
which the Vietnamese were involved and restricted both the desire and the need
for foreign language acquisition.
When the Vietnamese government decided in 1986 to change political
direction, liberalize the economy, and attract foreign investment, it was clear
that it would also need to implement educational changes so that
the Vietnamese population could benefit from these developments. If incoming
companies could not recruit suitable staff from the autochthonous population,
they would go elsewhere or, if allowed, bring in staff recruited abroad. Thus, in
the past decade, improving foreign language skills among the population has
become one of the prime requirements for Vietnam's successful incorporation
in the world economic market. Yet this task has not been easy, given the weight
of Vietnam's history. This chapter will examine how foreign language study in
Vietnam historically has been a barometer of Vietnam's relations with other
countries and how the foreign language curriculum has been directly affected
by those relations.
The Chinese ruled Vietnam for 1,000 years, from 111 BC to 938 AD. During
this time, they created asystem of schools to train first their own children and
subsequently the children of the Vietnamese aristocracy to staff the state
bureaucracy, the mandarinate. Under the Tang dynasty (618-907), the
competitive examination system was introduced. Education was in Chinese and
followed the Chinese model. Outstanding students were sent to study in China.
In 939, Vietnam became independent. As a number of relatively stable
feudal dynasties succeeded each other during the medieval period, the influence
of China remained strong. An institution of higher education, Quoc Tu Giam,
was established in Hanoi in 1076, in the first instance to teach the royal family.
In the 13th century, this school, renamed Quoc Tu Vien, admitted commoners
as well to prepare them for the mandarinate. Chinese remained the language of
state; formal education was conducted in Chinese using Chinese text books (Lo
Bianco, 1993). The Chinese system of competitive examination, which had
lapsed, was also reintroduced at this time. The Van Mieu, the Temple of
Literature, was of great importance as a center of Vietnamese literature and
Taoist-Confucian thought (Pham Minh Hac, 1998). It was here in the course of
the 13th century that scholars developed Nom, a script for the Vietnamese
language based on Chinese characters. A complex diglossia resulted, with
Chinese used as the written language appropriate for law and government, Nom
used as the written form for Vietnamese culture, and the various (mutually
intelligible) dialects used in spoken exchange (Nguyen Phu Phong, 1995).
From the 16th to 18th centuries, Vietnam was tom by civil strife. In the
unstable conditions of this period, European adventurers and missionaries were
able to gain a toehold in the country. The Portuguese arrived in 1516,
with Dominican missionaries following in 1527, Franciscan missionaries
In 1580, and the Jesuits in 1615. The Church had much greater success
In penetrating Vietnamese society than the traders. Although the French
Nere not the only Christian missionaries in Vietnam, their influence was
:he greatest, particularly after Bishop Pigneau de Behaine recruited
French idventurers to help put down the Tay Son rebellion and establish
Nguyen Anh as emperor.
Taking the name Gia-Long, Nguyen Anh brought political unity to
the country and founded a dynasty that would last until 1945. State
power was centralized, as Gia-Long created a new legal code,
strengthened the army, and invested in education. A national academy
was built in the imperial deity of Hue (Osborne, 1997). Gia-Long was
open to French influence in that he saw, for example, the utility of
fortresses constructed on the Vauban model. Nevertheless, in cultural
and political spheres, French influence did not extend very deeply and
was comprehensively rejected by Minhrienh, Gia-Long's successor.
Minh-Menh was a Confucian scholar who built a solid
administrative framework for the country and elaborated and extended
the competitive examination system, using it to recruit his elites.
Although the mandariate was chosen by merit, certain families
dominated, taking on the character of hereditary public servants. Their
children inherited cultural capital Bourdieu, 1989) that gave them greater
opportunity to achieve the levels of scholarship necessary to succeed in
the meritocracy. However, as Osborne (1997) argues, it was possible for
a scholar with no connections to rise through ability alone. An advanced
Vietnamese scholar in this period would master the Four Books that
collated the precepts of Confucius and his followers, as well as other
important works of the Confucian non. Literacy was primarily in
classical Chinese. Most scholars also had a knowledge of Nom that
allowed access to the Vietnamese literary tradition.
Few among the elite, either emperors or mandarins, showed
great interest in the ideas or languages permeating Asia from Western
Europe. However, Christian missionaries had adapted the Roman
alphabet so that could be used to write Vietnamese. This endeavor is
usually attributed to Alexandre de Rhodes, a French missionary working
in Vietnam in the early 17th century, although the writing system is
clearly based on other) Romanized systems in Southeast Asia
developed by Portuguese missionaries. Although Romanized
Vietnamese is called Quoc-Ngu, or national language, in its first two
centuries of existence it had very limited use, beingS the language of
literacy for those converted to the Catholic faith and educated in the
mission schools. It had, however, one vital advantage: It is much easier
to learn than the ideograms based on Chinese.
By the end of the 18th, century the French had lost their first colonial empire to
the British and so the French government, seeking to redress the balance in the
race for colonies, looked to Vietnam as an area where French commercial
interests could be furthered and imperial ambitions realized. This colonial
interest in Vietnam coincided with the evangelical aspirations of the French
Catholic Church, which was coming increasingly to see Indo-China as its
preserve. In return for Louis XVI's help in his bid for the throne, Cia-Long had
promised both exclusive commercial privileges to the French and protection of
Catholics. After his accession to the throne in 1802, he reneged on both these
promises. Under his successor, Minh-Menh, the persecution of Catholics was
intensified. At first France was in no position to retaliate, but by 1843 part of
the French fleet was permanently deployed in Asian waters, and there were
several clashes between French forces and the Vietnamese. In 1862, the
emperor, Tu Duc, was forced to sign a treaty with the French, granting them
religious, economic, and political concessions. In 1867, the south of the
country, which the French termed Cochinchina, became a French colony. In
1883, Annam and Tonkin in the north of present day Vietnam became French
protectorates and in 1887 France created the Indo-Chinese Union, bringing
together all the territory they had acquired: the protectorates, Cambodia, and
French colonialism was marked by the theory of assimilation and the policy
of direct r:ule. The French did not generally attempt to administer their colonies
through the existing ruling class and according to prevailing so_ial norms, as
was largely the case during the British Raj in India. Indeed, there was a desire
to assimilate the regime to French ideals and to create a francophone,
francophile native administration. However much their actual deeds may have
belied this, the French subscribed wholeheartedly to the idea that their
colonialism was a mission civilisatrice, in which imperial ambition could be
made to benefit the colonized as well as the colonizers. In 1898, Bishop
Depierre, the bishop of Cochinchina, expressed this belief in the following way:
The precise honour of our country is to place intellectual, culture and moral
progress above any other preoccupations. Instead of exploiting its subjects and
pressuring them to death as is still done in the Indies and to some extent
throughout the Anglo-Saxon world, Frenchmen have always made it a point
of honour to bring to the nations in which they establish themselves their ideas,
their civilization and their faith (quoted in Osborne, 1997, p. 42).
For the task of assimilation, France had a ready ally in the Vietnamese
Catholics, who had benefited from French protection and shared the same
belief system. Educated in mission schools, they had become literate in Quoc-
Ngu. The Vietnamese Catholics provided the local work force of the new
administration and native soldiers for the French army. In the south, where
French influence and power were most concentrated, Confucian thought and
Chinese characters waned as the mandarins withdrew. A small minority of
French colonialists, such as Luro and Philastre,l regretted this, seeing many
qualities to admire in the mandarinate; the majority of French colonialists,
however, disagreed and the mandarinate is portrayed in much French
contemporary writing as corrupt and inefficient (Osborne, 1997). Quoc-Ngu
soon became the written form of Vietnamese throughout the French Indo-
Chinese Union. Colonial policy was to use the Romanized script for
Vietnamese as a first step to an eventual shift to French (Osborne, 1997). By
1878, only Quoc-Ngu and French were permitted in official documents. Thus
colonization brought about the fall of the old Mandarin class and the rise of a
new elite of French-speaking Vietnamese administrators.
The first civilian governor of Cochinchina, Le Myre de Vilers, appointed in
1879, carried out a number of policies aimed at promoting French culture and
language. The French legal system was introduced; French medium education,
begun in 1861, was extended; and a branch of the Alliance Francaise was
established to further promote the learning of French. A few young Vietnamese
were sent to France to complete their education so that they might return “in
some way impregnated with our national genius, informed of the causes and
effects of our civilization" (Le Myre de Vilers, 1908, quoted in Osborne, 1997,
p. 50). When six Vietnamese were appointed to sit on the Colonial Council, the
action was criticized because they could not speak French.
The term in the literature for the French-speaking elite required by the
colonial regime is “collaborateurs,” which may have a pejorative sense, de-
pending on the stance of the author. Because of the language issue, it was
perhaps inevitable that linguists would play a central role in the collaboration
process. For instance, Petrus Ky and Paulus Cua, two noted linguists, were
Catholics educated in the French missionary schools and literate in Quoc-Ngu.
Ky was one of the first interpreters for the French, working both with the army
in the south and with the negotiators of the treaties. He then taught in the
College des interpretes, produced French-Vietnamese teaching materials, edited
Gia-Dinh Bao, the French government sponsored
1 Luro and Philastre were in the Service of Native Affairs in Cohinchina. They may have
admired the Vietnamese, but they were nonetheless men of their time and committed to the
colonial adventure, even if they wished conquest to be "by peace and good administration, by
the propagation of our civilisation" (Luro, 1975, quoted in Osborne, 1997, p. 440).
newspaper published in Quoc-Ngu, and acted as an advisor to the French
administration. Cua joined the French administration in the south in 1861 and
remained a colonial civil servant until 1907. He was also a scholar, translating
numerous Chinese texts into Quoc-Ngu and French. In 1896, he published a
Quoc-Ngu dictionary. He too was closely associated with the newspaper, Gia-
Dinh Bao.
Nevertheless, it is important not to overestimate the numbers of Vietnamese
who were educated in French. French medium education continued to be
available only to a tiny minority until the end of the colonial period. Although
statistics are scarce and sometimes unreliable, this general point is
incontrovertible (see Osborne, 1997).
The early colonial regime had started its education program rigorously,
requiring each commune to provide one or two children to be taught Quoc-Ngu
and French in government schools, yet there was scant enthusiasm among the
Vietnamese. Communities often fulfilled their obligations by paying the
children of the poorest families among them to attend. The bourgeois class still
valued Confucian education, which continued in private establishments. In
1919, however, these were banned.
Having acquired a small core of French speakers for the administration of
the colony, the French were concerned to develop education "horizontally not
vertically," in the words of Governor General Merlin in 1924 (quoted in Pham
Minh Hac, 1998, p. 4). Primary schools were the main concern, together with
technical training colleges. These schools were to provide the workforce and
medium-level technicians necessary for the colonial economy. The higher
education sector remained small. From 1919, there was a university level
Natural Science Faculty, and beginning in 1923, a Medical Faculty. A Legal
Faculty opened in 1941 and Agriculture in 1942. These schools constituted the
Indo-Chinese University. Enrollment in the 1939-1940 school year was only
582 students.
Despite Merlin's goal of extending participation in the school system,
numbers remained low. Pham Minh Hac (1998) gives the figures in Table 11.1
for the public school system at the end of the colonial period.
TABLE 11.1
Public School Enrollment
Number of Schools
Number of Pupils
Senior secondary level
3 652
Junior secondary level
16 5,521
Primary level
503 58,629
Basic primary
8,755 486,362
Pham Minh Hac. 1998.
When the figures in Table 11.1 are taken together with private, education
(mainly Catholic establishments) and compared to the total population of 22
million, the restricted nature of education becomes clear. Only about 3% of the
Vietnamese were in school in 1941-1942, the great majority enrolled only for
three years, to a level that could not guarantee literacy in Quoc Ngu nor
competence in French (see also Sloper & Le Thac Can, 1995).
Only a small Vietnamese elite was educated in French to secondary level.
The traditional French practice was to deliver the same curriculum as in the
metropole with the same rigor, to the same standards, and leading to
competition in the same examinations. A small proportion of this group could
progress to third-level education, either in France or in Indo-China. As events
developed, it included both those who served the colonial power and those who
would fight to depose it. Ho Chi Minh and many of the revolutionaries of his
generation were educated in the French tradition. For instance, the Thang Long
school a private establishment set up in 1919 to increase the very limited
provision for Vietnamese in Hanoi, functioned on the French model and was
overseen by the colonial administration. Nonetheless, it became the nursery of
the revolution, with a teaching staff that included Vo Nguyen Giapand Dang
Thai Mai. In 1938, the group associated with this school created an
organization to promote Quoc-Ngu (Nguyen Van Ky, 1997).
Dang Thai Mai, president of the Writers Association, expressed the com-
plexity of the position for many of this group:
Although we fought the French we grew up with a life plan derived from French culture.
We had schooled ourselves in French literature and art. We oriented ourselves according to
European philosophy…. French literature, classic as well as modern, was close to my heart.
I found in it the will to think things through and to analyse the human condition. I found
high moral and ethical values (quoted by Weiss, 1971, p. 45).
At the other end of the spectrum, however, the vast majority of the
population received no schooling. Most were peasants or workers on the tea,
coffee, and rubber plantations, in the coat tin, tungsten, and zinc mines, and in
other industrial enterprises run by the colonialists. For most of these people,
contact with the French was minimal. Of course, some Vietnamese did speak
French in their capacity as servants, employees, and workers. However, for the
vast majority the language of contact was a Vietnamese/French pidgin, with a
limited vocabulary and simple syntax, and documented in much French
literature where the pidgin is reproduced (e.g., Delpey, 1964).
It would thus be erroneous to believe that the colonial period left a reserve of
French language skills in Vietnam. In present day Vietnam, those
who were educated through French are a very tiny and aging proportion of the
population. Moreover, the colonial regime was a harsh one, the French
colonialists notorious for low wages and inhuman treatment. The great majority
of Vietnamese who served (rather than profited from) the French were unlikely
to cling to an idiom associated with “so painful a period of social and political
turmoil that even five decades later the scars still remain visible" (Nguyen Xuan
Thu, 1993).
THE FRENCH WAR, 1945-1954
The seven decades of French colonial rule were marked by active defiance,
revolt, and resistance. The harsh economic exploitation of the colony led to
inevitable unrest that nationalists were able to harness. In the period between
the two World Wars, the leaders of those who were opposed to French rule
were a cohesive and increasingly revolutionary group.
When the metropole capitulated in 1940 and the French government
collaborated with the Germans, the colonies followed suit. The Governor
General accepted the Japanese occupation of Indo-China and continued to
govern in collaboration with them. The only resistance in the country was led
by Ho-Chi-Minh and the Viet Minh, which he founded in 1941. As the sole
opposition to the Japanese, they were given a small amount of logistical support
by the Americans.
In March 1945, under the pressure of the advancing Allied forces, the
Japanese demanded that French troops in Vietnam be put at their disposal.
When this was refused, they took over, declaring the country independent under
the rule of their puppet, the emperor Bao Dai. The meeting of the Allies at Pots
dam in July came to the agreement that the Chinese would liberate Indo-China
from the north, the British from the south. When Japan capitulated in August
1945, the Allies had not yet arrived in Vietnam and thus there was a power
vacuum. On September 2nd, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of a
united Democratic Republic of Vietnam. During September, Chinese, British,
and Free French troops arrived in the country. When the French declared a
colonial crisis, the country was divided between a reinstated colonial regime in
the south and a Vietnamese nationalist regime in the north. After elections in
the north in January 1946, confirmed Ho Chi Minh as leader, the French offered
to recognize Vietnam's independence within the French Union, a newly
conceived body which would replace the colonial system with a kind of
commonwealth. However, what both sides understood by this was
irreconcilable. Ho Chi Minh wanted a unified Vietnam; the French wanted to
retain control in the south. In 1947, negotiations broke down and the French
attacked Haiphong
in the start of a campaign to retake the north by force (Aldrich, 1996). The
Franco- Vietnamese war lasted until 1954, when the French were defeated at
the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The Geneva Conference of 1954 divided Vietnam
along the 17th parallel, pending national elections. Refusing to participate in the
nationwide elections, Ngo Dinh Diem, the prime minister in the south, took
power in a coup d'etat. In the context of the Cold War, the communist regime of
Ho Chi Minh in the north and the American-backed regime in the south were
poised for conflict (Karnow, 1994).
In his Declaration of Independence, Ho Chi Minh promised that his government
would combat famine, ignorance, and foreign aggression. To achieve the
second aim, the revolutionaries started to establish basic education for the
masses, with a goal of full literacy throughout the population. Literacy was to
be in the national language, and Quoc-Ngu was the script to be used. Additional
educational goals included free and obligatory schooling the primary years,
improvement in peasants' agricultural and technical skills and an increase in the
education of women.
Despite the war footing of the society and the incredible economic
difficulties and pressures of the period, the government claimed moderate
success in its main educational aims. The literacy campaign, begun in July,
1948, in the areas controlled by Ho Chi Minh's forces, included education for
adults who had not received schooling as well as schooling for primary age
children. Nineteen schools of secondary professional education were
established between 1947 and 1950 to train teachers and agricultural specialists.
Three university centers were set up: higher level teacher training in Thanh Hoa
and Nanning,2 and medicine and pharmacy in Viet Bac (Sloper & Le Thac Can,
1995). During the literacy campaign, a reported 10 million northerners became
literate (UNESCO, 1979). During the nine years of resistance to the French,
literacy levels in the national language rose to a reported 90% or more in the
cities, lowlands and midlands of the north, although it needs to be understood
that "literacy" covered a wide range of competence (Pham Minh Hac, 1995).
In terms of foreign language acquisition, the situation changed dramatically
after 1947. Obviously knowledge of French was not an asset in the
2Nanning is actually in China, just across the border, a detail that underscores the close
relationship between Vietnam and China at that time.
Viet Minh controlled areas. Bui Tin3 (1995) recalls that possessing copies of
Baudelaire and Lamartine was considered evidence of bourgeois leanings in the
purges of the 1950s. He was accused of decadence because of his French
medium schooling and was only saved by being able to prove that he had been
a member of the Communist Party as early as 1945. As the People's Republic of
China supported the Vietnamese Communists with military and civilian aid,
there was a steady stream of cadres from Peking to advise the Vietnamese.
Thus French was replaced by Chinese as the most desirable foreign language
(Bui Tin, 1995). Chinese books, films and songs poured across the border.
Young Vietnamese were encouraged to learn to read and speak Chinese, and a
favored few were sent to university ill China.
However, education to degree level, indeed past primary level, was a luxury
in a society where the young were needed as soldiers. Bui Tin's memoirs refer
to the fact that the political elite that took over from the Ho Chi Minh/Giap
generation were generally uneducated in the traditional sense. They had been
formed in prison and battle. Bui Tin sees many of the mistakes of the post war
era as stemming from the lack of formal education among that group of
political leaders.
American involvement in Vietnam brought English into the linguistic equation.
English had no presence in the area before World War II. The first contacts
with English speakers in any numbers were with the Allied troops who
appeared briefly in 1945. The next contacts were the American "advisers" who
arrived to train soldiers to fight the Communists, beginning in January 1955.
From 1964, D.S. involvement in the war between the north and the south
escalated. At its height, there were more than half a million U.S. troops in the
country (figures from 1968). Obviously, a large number of Southern
Vietnamese had to acquire some competence in English, including politicians
and bureaucrats, as well as ordinary soldiers who fought with the Gis. Outside
the barracks, drivers, shop keepers, servants, bar staff, and prostitutes who
serviced the needs of the largely monolingual U.S. military were also pushed to
accommodate to the English speakers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the
situation replicated the accommodation of the
3Bui Tin was a noted North Vietnamese soldier and journalist who documented the land
reform purges, the fall of Saigon, and the Cambodian war before leaving Vietnam in 1990 in
order to be able to comment freely on the situation in Vietnam.
French colonial period, with many South Vietnamese in lowly positions
developing an English-Vietnamese pidgin to meet communication needs.
As the southerners adapted to the developing situation, the foreign language
learning statistics for South Vietnam for the period 1958 to 1968 reveal the shift
from French to English. In 1958-1959,34,774 secondary pupils were learning
French and 18,412 English. In 1968-1969, with more children being schooled,
the number learning French had doubled to 76,628, but the number learning
English had increased sevenfold to 112,657 (Republique du Vietnam, 1968-
1969). The utility of French was still very evident; South Vietnam continued' to
employ it for administrative purposes. Nonetheless, the elite in Saigon saw the
advantage in their children acquiring the language that gave access to American
military and political influence. Outside the school system, there was a
mushrooming of private English language schools hoping to profit from the
need of so many to acquire some English (Crawford, 1966).
This is not to say that American involvement in Vietnam left significant
numbers of English speakers. First, the period in which large numbers of
English speakers were present on Vietnamese territory' was very limited. (The
Paris cease fire agreements, ended U.S. military involvement in the war in
March, 1973.) Second, the victory of the Communists and the fall of Saigon in
1975 led to a massive exodus of perhaps 100,000 people, though exact numbers
are unclear (see Terzani, 1997). Finally, the violence of the war, including 1.5
million civilian deaths (Vietnam Courrier, 1982), fuelled a virulent anti-
Americanism. Those who had acquired a smattering of English found it
expedient to forget it quickly in the aftermath of the Communist victory.
After the victory of the north, the southern Vietnamese who had opposed the
Communists were portrayed as nguy (puppets) under the influence of decadent"
American imperialist" influences. The end of the war was to be seen as the
defeat of the foreigner and the victory of all Vietnamese. Thus a key national
goal of the post-war period was the need "to eliminate the enslaving decadent
culture that destroys the old and beautiful traditions of the Vietnamese people"
(quoted in Terzani, 1997, p. 176). Two carriers of this decadent culture were the
English and French languages. Thus both disappeared from the educational
system and from individuals' linguistic repertoire.
Because of financial difficulties and the demands of reconstruction after the war
education was severely under-funded in the first two decades after
reunification. The lack of formal education of the majority of the leadership
may also have led to education being a low priority. For whatever reasons,
education was not generally a success in this period and the focus of the
curriculum narrowed. After the 1981 reform, emphasis was on ideological and
moral training first and acquisition of technical and scientific skills second
(Pharm Minh Hac, 1998). The traditional humanities, including foreign
languages were largely absent. Funding was never adequate. State investment
was low, amounting to only 1 % of GDP in 1989, much less than in
neighboring countries such as Thailand (3.5%) and China (3.4%). Participation
was never 100%. This stems in part from the fact that schooling is not free in
Vietnam, and although the fees are modest, for the poorest families they are a
considerable disincentive. Universal education has still not been achieved
despite the National Assembly's 1991 law which aimed to make it so. Groups
such as the hill tribes in the north and the fishing communities of the Ha Long
Bay and Mekong Delta areas continue to have very low rates of participation.
Finally, the average number of years of attendance remains low, only 4.5 years
in 1990 (Chan Weng Khoon et al., 1997). The poor in both rural and urban
areas do not stay in education long enough to acquire significant skills. Thus,
the fight against illiteracy, apparently so successful in the early years of the
revolution, has been undermined by new cohorts of young illiterates (Pham
Minh Hac, 1998).
After 1975, education at all levels suffered from staffing difficulties.
Teachers' pay was not enough for the teachers to support themselves or their
dependents; a tradition evolved of teachers having other work to supplement
their incomes. The deleterious effect that this has on their performance and
commitment is recognized (Khoon et al., 1997). In addition, many teachers
were under qualified for the work that they were doing in comparison with
neighboring countries. In the late 1990s, only 30% of teachers had relevant
qualifications; in the universities only 19% of the lecturing staff possessed
postgraduate qualifications (Kl1,oon et al., 1997).
The departure of thousands of Vietnamese by boat, beginning in 1978, and
more recently by other means, had unplanned side effects on the nation's
language skills. First, the "boat people" of 1978-1982 were disproportionately
Vietnamese of Chinese origin; perhaps a half million of this group may have
left (Bui Tin, 1995; Rigg, 1997). Although not all spoke one of the varieties of
Chinese, many did, and as they left the country, so too did a pool of
competence in Chinese and literacy in the Chinese script. Second, the boat
people often came from the old bourgeois - the people most likely to be
educated and perhaps to have received education in French and English.
Yet the language competence of the population was not of great official
concern in the immediate post war period. By 1978, Vietnam was at war again,
intervening in Cambodia to stop the genocide of the Pol Pot
regime and to counter the threat from Khmer Rouge incursions along the
Vietnamese border. In 1979, war broke out also along the border with China.
Though lasting only a few weeks, the war caused the two countries to sever
relations, which were not renewed until November 1991. Thus Chinese joined
French and English as the language of an enemy of the Vietnamese state. From
1975 to 1986, provision for these three foreign languages almost completely
disappeared (though they were not banned). There were other priorities for the
education system and no sufficient reason to institute large scale teaching of the
languages of states with whom Vietnam had no' diplomatic relations. A limited
number of special secondary schools provided foreign language courses and
one institute of higher education specialized in foreign languages. Outside the
education system, the acquisition of a foreign language could be suspect.
Language learning for the purpose of studying Confucian or Catholic teachings
or to prepare for leaving the country clandestinely could bring retribution.
A continuing issue was the ideological and experiential gap between those
who fought the war and those who did not. Bao Ninh's novel, The Sorrow of
describes the distance between the guerrilla fighters and those who did not
share their terrible experiences. The novel paints a bleak portrait of soldiers'
lives as they struggled to come to terms with the legacy of their experiences.
The narrator has contempt for the college graduate who spoke two foreign
languages and lived "an easy life" (Bao Ninh, 1993, p. 56).
One consequence of the American war was an increasing flow of aid, material,
and advisors from the Eastern Bloc to Vietnam. Of particular interest for
patterns of language use were the university scholarships granted to
Vietnamese. Between 1965 and 1974, 26,000 Vietnamese gained first degrees
in the Soviet Union (USSR) or Eastern Europe and 3,000 gained postgraduate
qualifications (Vietnam Courrier, 1982). In the period 1975-1991, the USSR
became the main supporter of an impoverished Vietnam, isolated from the
Western capitalist world by the U.S.-led trade embargo, from China after the
1979 border war, and from the rest of its neighbors because of fears of
Vietnamese expansionism after the invasion of Cambodia. The COMECON
countries (communist trading block) became the principal trading partners of
Vietnam and the sole providers of technical assistance and training.
Thus Russian became the most commonly taught language in the secondary
school system. A number of "friendship schools" were set up to give school
children some contact with the world outside Vietnam and
to promote the learning of Russian and to a lesser extent the other Slavic
languages. The only non-Slavic educational links in 1990 were those with Cuba
and the Netherlands (Vietnamese Ministry of Education, 1990). Pham Minh
Hac (1998) records that Vietnamese pupils were among those winning prizes
for Russian-speaking in international competitions in 1987. Despite such
achievements, the number of Vietnamese learning Russian was not large, and
the number of pejorative terms for Russians coined in that period suggests that
the Vietnamese never accepted them wholeheartedly.
The reliance of the Vietnamese on COMECON was so great that its collapse
in 1991 nearly brought economic ruin to Vietnam. Trade aid relationships
ceased and the Russian language quickly disappeared. Although prior to 1991
Russian was learned at secondary school level by the brightest pupils and many
of the political and technological elite completed their studies in the USSR,
there is little evidence that significant numbers of Vietnamese still possess this
foreign language skill. Few of the present generation are now learning it.
Indeed, teachers of Russian are being retrained (interview, Vietnamese Ministry
of Education, 1999). Thus the large collection of Russian language books
donated by Moscow to the National Library is now a resource impenetrable to
many of the young students who use the library. In a study on higher education,
Pham Thanh Nghi and Sloper note that study is difficult for this generation
because "materials are either written in languages they do not understand or
from ideological perspectives that are no longer dominant" (Pham Thanh Nghi
& Sloper, 1995, p. 114).
In 1986, under the influence of Russia and following the pattern of Gorbachev's
economic reforms, the Vietnamese introduced their own version of perestroika.
Called "Doi Moi," this change was to entail economic liberalization only,
accepted as a necessity after a disastrous period of incompetent government and
economic isolation that had brought the country close to famine. Like Deng
Xiao Ping's reforms in China, Doi Moi did not include a political thaw.
However, it did involve increased contacts with other countries, as Vietnam set
out to build economic relations with the West. In consequence, the early 1990s
witnessed exchanges between Hanoi and non-communist regimes on an
unprecedented scale, including France and neighboring Thailand.
Commercial relations increased rapidly under a 1987 Foreign Investment
Law that permitted foreign business to invest in joint ventures (Sadec Asia
Pacific, 1999). From 1988 to 1995, capital flowed into the country from
Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Switzerland, and
France (see Vietnam Investment Review figures, 1996; Nguyen Tri Dung,
1998). After ten years of liberalization, Vietnam had developed trade relations
with more than 100 countries and direct investment from more than 50
Analyses of this rapid increase in international business in Vietnam cite two
major difficulties. The first was a shifting legal environment, in which "officials
trained in the universities of Eastern Europe or in the guerrilla camps of the
war" were often out of sympathy with developments and interpreted legislation
inconsistently and unsympathetically (Birolli, 1999;'Carlson, 1998). The second
difficulty was lack of foreign language competence. Investment analysts
advising foreign businesses reported that those Vietnamese who had completed
12 years of national education were well prepared for technical work but had
low levels of competence in the languages of potential investors (Carlson,
1998; Dickson, 1998; Sadec Asia Pacific, 1999). Nguyen Tri Dung suggests
there were cultural as well as language barriers: "The lack of knowledge on
business practices, laws and a poor knowledge of foreign languages are some of
the main reasons many people fail to perform in foreign companies" (Nguyen
Tri Dung, 1998, p. 10).
In the late 1990s, foreign investment slumped by as much as 40%, in part
due to the Asian financial crisis (Pham Ha, 1998 Economist, 2000). However,
in this period, Vietnam normalized its foreign relations: ASEAN (Association
of South East Asian Nations) admitted Vietnam in 1995 and the United States
established diplomatic relations after having lifted its trade embargo. Vietnam
also became a member of AFTA (Asia Free Trade Area) and APEC (Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation). The language of business in these groups is
mostly English or Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin), leading to a demand for
Vietnamese who speak these languages (CNN, 1996). This is not a demand that
can be easily met.
Although in the latter half of the 1990s, the interest of most foreign investors in
Vietnam decreased, investment from France tripled. The French were also
present in Vietnam as participants in a large number of non-profit programs in
medicine, psychiatry, dentistry, pollution control, environmental health, and
sustainable development operated by non-governmental organizations and
private associations. Indeed, the French government seems to be using the
former colonial links between France and Vietnam to create a special
relationship in the diplomatic and educational spheres. Its motivation stems
from the French belief that former Indo-China can
be cultivated as an area in Southeast Asia where Francophones can challenge
Anglophone-dominated globalization. The French president, J acques Chirac,
was quite explicit:
Asia, already a major center for economic development and world trade, will also
realize its full political importance in the near future, fulfilling the promise of its
ancient and wonderful civilizations, and truly reflecting its dynamism and its power. . .
Francophonie already possesses a historic base in Indo-China and in the Pacific. . .
Francophonie is perhaps above all a certain vision of the world. We are building a
political association founded on a virtual community, that of the language that we have
in common and which unites despite our cultural diversity. . . Our raison d’etre stems
from a conviction that in the 21st century language communities will be key actors on
the international political stage (Chirac, 1997).
Chirac admitted that competence in French had been "eroded" among the
Vietnamese, but was optimistic that French could be reintroduced. This
optimism was based in no small part on the generous funding and vigorous
efforts that the French government was making to extend French-medium
education and French language learning in Vietnam.
For its part, Vietnam has seen membership in Francophonie as one of the
ways out of isolation. (South) Vietnam had become a member of the first
institution set up by Francophonie, ACCT, the agency for technical and cultural
cooperation, at its creation in 1970. This historical link provided a rationale for
representatives of the SRV (Socialist Republic of Vietnam) to attend the first
Francophone Summit in 1986. Vietnam then became a full member of
Francophonie and in 1997, hosted the 11th Francophone Summit, the first
intergovernmental meeting to be held in Vietnam.
Membership in Francophonie was also one of the ways to gain aid for the
Vietnamese educational system. In the 1997-1998 school year, the Francophone
agency, AUPELF, financed 14,000 school children in 491 bilingual (French-
Vietnamese) programs staffed by teachers from Francophone countries,
principally France. These programs are generously funded, with new text books
and audio-visual and computer technology that are largely absent in the
Vietnamese system. Entry is by competitive examination, with scholarships
available for families unable to fund extended education. The scheme has
acquired a reputation for high standards and rigor, and there is intense
competition to be admitted. The bilingual secondary streams lead into a
university program in which, in 1997, 5,000 Vietnamese students were being
taught medicine, management, law, basic science, agricultural science,
engineering, and computer science through the medium of French. Moreover,
these students are then eligible for work experience in a variety of Francophone
businesses that are in partnership in the scheme and recruit from among the
graduates. These companies
include giants such as Alcatet Rh6ne-Poulenc, Credit Lyonnais, and Air France.
The goal of this program is that 5% of all those completing 12 years of
schooling (6-18 years) in the full Vietnamese primary and secondary system
should do so in a bilingual French-Vietnamese stream. To this end, AUPELF
plans to augment the number of classes available by 125 per year through 2010.
In addition, there are small numbers attending the Lycee Francais and learning
French with the Alliance Francaise. As the major funder of AUPELF, France
now educates a greater number of Vietnamese than during the colonial period.
Given present trends, it seems likely that French will continue to gain in
importance in Vietnamese society.
Although the French initiative has had some impact on language learning in
Vietnam, English is the language that most Vietnamese wish to acquire. As the
lingua franca of the ASEAN and APEC countries with which Vietnam does
business and the language of globalization, it is widely perceived as having the
greatest economic value. Australia is currently the major provider of long-term
overseas scholarships and of English language training to teachers and
personnel in key ministries in Vietnam, through AUSAID, the Australian
agency for international development. More than 2000 Vietnamese students per
year have studied in Australia in the last five years (for budgetary data, see
Fatseas, 1998). The Australian International Education Foundation (AIEF)
organizes links between universities and joint publications.
Despite the presence of government agencies from Australia and to a lesser
extent other English-speaking countries, English language teaching is
dominated by the private sector. International organizations have set up schools
in the main towns and there has been a growth of small enterprises, often
established by travelers who have decided to stay in the new Doi Mai Vietnam.
These programs are of varying quality and often ephemeral. Their success and
proliferation, despite their obvious deficiencies, are evidence of the strong
feeling among the Vietnamese that English is now an important asset.
In the cash-strapped public education system, the main foreign language is
English. There is no foreign language in the basic general prov:ision, which
now has well over 10 million pupils. There is a possibility for foreign language
study in basic secondary (11-15 years), which has over four million pupils,
although how far this part of the curriculum is fully implemented depends very
much on the availability of teachers,
particularly in English. In upper secondary, there are over one million 15-18
year-olds in education, the great majority studying a foreign language for three
hours a week (pham Minh Hac, 1998). The Ministry of Education and Training
(MOET) recognizes that this is an area where staff with appropriate
qualifications are urgently needed (personal communication, MOET, 1998).
MOET also recognizes that English pedagogy needs to be reviewed. The
traditional emphasis on accuracy in the written language rather than the
acquisition of fluency in the spoken language is inappropriate for many
Vietnamese today (Lo Bianco, 1993). Given the importance of spoken fluency,
there is growing likelihood that changes in pedagogy will be forthcoming. .
The history of Vietnam has been marked by war and troubled relations with the
outside world. Given the strong sense of national identity and diplomatic
isolation in the post-1975 period, it is understandable that formal foreign
language provision has been a low priority and that individuals until recently
have not taken the personal initiative to acquire foreign language skills.
However, as Vietnam industrializes, language learning is necessary if the
country is to participate in international networks and profit fully from fore.ign
investment. The need for high quality language education can only grow as
Vietnam seeks to create a new kind of knowledge based economy, where access
to information is overwhelmingly in other languages, particularly English. Thus
a sizeable investment and much effort is needed in foreign language education.
This undertaking is understandably difficult. However, unless Vietnamese
workers acquire the languages demanded by investors, Doi Moi is unlikely to
succeed in bringing employment for the Vietnamese, except in the most modest
The group that has begun to take advantage of the demand for language skills
is the Vietnamese who left the country and are fluent in both Vietnamese and
the language of their adopted country. In the late 1990s, the Vietnamese
government abolished the heavy taxes on expatriate money, lifted other
restrictions, and invited the overseas Vietnamese (Viet Kieu) to return. Of the
two million overseas Vietnamese, the number returning is relatively small, and
most returnees have kept their foreign passports as a precaution in case policies
change and they are no longer welcome (Lamb, 1996). Since the Viet Kieu are
primarily based in the United States, Australia, and France, most returnees have
competence in the languages
most in demand. As the children of the capitalist and bourgeois classes expelled
by the revolutionaries, they also have access to capital for investment. Yet their
return involves a risk: If they are perceived as the main beneficiaries of
economic development, resentment and conflict could result.
In Vietnam, foreign language learning has always reflected historical events
and been a barometer of waxing and waning relationships with other powers.
This is, of course, the case in all foreign language learning, which inevitably
reflects economic and political association. The interesting aspect of the
Vietnamese case study is the abruptness of the changes and the very evident
cause-effect relationships.
In the future, foreign language learning will no doubt continue to be a
barometer of social change in Vietnam and play a central role in the important
economic and political developments taking place. In a follow up visit to South-
East Asia in January 2001 I encountered an informal opinion among English
mother tongue journalists that the communication difficulties they had been
experiencing in Vietnam appeared to be easing, and that more English speakers
could be found among the younger members of the Vietnamese political and
business elites than was the case a few years ago. When this can be confirmed
and quantified, it will indicate the beginning of a new phase in this narrative.
Aldrich, R. (1996). Greater France: A history of French overseas expansion. London:
Annee du Vietnam. (1997). Un septieme sommet francophone, March.
Bao Ninh. (1993). The sorrow of war. London: Secker and Warburg.
Birolli, B. (1999, August 18). Le Iezard qui n'est pas devenu dragon. NouveI Observateur 12,
Bourdieu, P. (1989). La noblesse d'Etat, grandes ecoles et esprit de corps. Paris: Minuit.
Bui Tin. (1995). From cadre to exile: The memoirs of a North Vietnamese journalist. Chiang
Mai: Silkwonn Books.
Carlson, J. (1998). Vietnam: Great or not-so-great for foreign investment? Vietnam venture
groupbusiness and investment articles. www.vvg.hcm/vn.com.
Chirac, J. (1997, November). Opening address to the 7th Francophone Summit, given by the
President of the French Republic, Hanoi.
CNN. Vietnam looks to former enemies for investment. (1996, May 2)
Crawford, A. (1966). Customs and culture of Vietnam. Vennont: Tuttle.
Delpey; R. (1964). Soldats de la boue. Paris: PlC.
Dickson, C. (1998). Study of labour market and foreign enterprise in Vietnam. Vietnam
Commerce and Industry, 19/12,15-16.
Economist. Goodnight Vietnam. (2000, January 8), 74-76.
Fatseas, M. (1998). Education and training links between Vietnam and Australia. Vietnamese
Studies, 3, 29-36.
Karnow, S. (1994). Vietnam: A history. London: Pimlico.
Khoon, C. w., Lin, A. L Y.,& Sin, P. C. (1997). Development of education, training and
investment opportunities in Vietnam. In T. T. Meng, et al. (Eds.), Business opportunities in
Singapore: Prentice Hall.
Lamb, D. (1996). Viet Kieu: A bridge between two worlds. The Vietnam Review, 1. 420-426.
LoBianco, J. (1993). Issues and aspects of Vietnam's language policy: Some reflections after a
Journal of Vietnamese Studies, 6, 24-32.
Nguyen Phu Phong. (1995). Questions de linguistique vietnamienne. Paris: Presses de I'Ecole
fran_aise d' extreme-orient.
Nguyen Tri Dung. (1998). Ten years of renovation and Vietnam foreign investment. Vietnam
3 , 5-10.
Nguyen Van Ky. (1997). Le modele francais. In G. Boudarel & Nguyen Van Ky (Eds.), Hanoi
Collection memoires, no. 48, 56-83.
Nguyen Xuan Thu. (1993). Education in Vietnam: An overview. Journal of Vietnamese Studies,
6, 5--23.
Osbome, M. (1997). The French presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia. Bangkok: White
Lotus Pham Ha. (1998). Practical foreign investment. Vietnam Commerce and
19/12, 13. Pham Minh Hac. (1995). The educational system of Vietnam. In
D. Sloper & Le Thac Can (Eds.), Higher education in Vietnam: Change and response.
Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Pham Minh Hac. (1998). Vietnam's education: The current position and future prospects.
Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers.
Pham Thanh Nghi & Sloper, D. (1995). Staffing profile of higher education. In D. Sloper & Le
Higher education in Vietnam: Change and response. Singapore: Institute
of Southeast Asian Studies.
Republique du Vietnam. (1968-1969). Evolution des effectifs des professeurs de langue vi
vante et des eleves choisissant le fran9ais ou l'anglais comme premiere langue vivante.
Annuaire statistique de l'enseignement.
Rigg, J. (1997). Southeast Asia: The human landscape of modernization and development.
London: Routledge.
Sadec Asia Pacific. (1999). Investment rating fact sheets. www.sadec.com/profile/viet.html.
Sloper, D. & Le Thac Can. (1995). Introduction. In D. Sloper & Le Thac Can (Eds.), Higher
education in Vietnam: Change and response. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian
Terzani, T. (1997). Saigon 1975: Three days and three months. Bangkok: White Lotus.
UNESCO. (1979). The elimination of illiteracy and the use of complementary education in the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Bangkok: Ministry of Education of SRV.
Vietnam Courrier. (1982). Education in Vietnam. Hanoi.
Vietnamese Ministry of Education. (1990).45 Years of educational development in Vietnam.
Hanoi: Educational Publishing House.
Weiss, P. (1971). Notes on the cu/tural life of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. London:
Calder and Boyars.
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Pets Blog
The Reluctant Cat Lady
By jim Published: July 17, 2009
I am a Cat Lady. Reluctantly. I didn’t start out that way; I’ve never owned a cat or any pet as an adult until I purchased my first home. I bought a home from a 90 year old woman who was not aware two mother cats with a litter of kittens each had given birth under her house. Okay, no problem, I thought. They are adorable kittens and they will get adopted out quickly. Who can resist a fuzzy adorable kitten?
This was the beginning of my education on the huge problem of pet overpopulation in the United States. I called several shelters in my county and the neighboring county and no shelter-public or private-- would take the kittens. They were all bursting beyond capacity already. County Animal Control (the “dog catcher”) would take them, but they would be euthanized at the end of the week if no one adopted them. Could I stomach putting kittens on death row? No, I could not.
I was referred to an organization called Alley Cat Rescue. They do a program called Trap/Neuter/Release (TNR) for feral cats. Cats are caught, they are neutered/spayed, given basic shots including rabies, and ear-tipped (the tip of their ear is cut off so they can be identified as an animal that has been sterilized). The cats are then released back to the location where they were caught. Many people do not agree with re-releasing the cats. Once caught, why not send them to Animal Control? Because cats are territorial and new cats that are not sterilized will take over that area and start breeding. The kitten cycle repeats. At some point it is necessary to sterilize the animals in a given location.
I had no idea of the scope or scale of the enormous problem of feral cats until I bought a house. Through the TNR program, I have caught well over 40 cats in my own backyard. Many of the cats I see in a humane trap in the morning are cats I have never seen in daylight. There is a whole nocturnal cat subculture I am not aware of, but I assure you that they are there and they are breeding. Some of the cats I have caught have been wandering pets from the neighborhood. I get them fixed, too. Is it wrong to fix a neighbors cat? Given the choice of dealing with an angry pet owner and a litter of unwanted kittens, I will take the angry pet owner. Negligent people are what cause the pet over-population problem. You cannot blame an animal for doing what comes naturally, but you can hold an owner responsible for allowing animals to breed or wander if they are not fixed.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60034 | 1 of 12
When Lisa Ling visits The Oprah Show, you're likely to go someplace you've never been before. She has given viewers rare looks inside places as remote as North Korea and Uganda and as close as secretive polygamous communities in America.
But it's likely you've never seen anything like "freegans." This growing grassroots subculture is made of people who have decided to live outside consumer society. Freegans say our culture's emphasis on buying the newest products—and throwing away perfectly fine older things—is a waste of the world's resources. Instead, they focus on buying less and use only what they need. One of the main ways freegans do this is by salvaging food and other goods from the trash.
Three years ago, Madeline was an executive living in New York City earning a six-figure salary. After a six-month period of conversion, she says she became a freegan who gets almost all her food from what other people throw away. "I started thinking about what I was consuming," she says. "I started looking at how much I was consuming and how consumerism is really driven by corporations who make lots and lots of money by getting us to buy things."
FROM: Living on the Edge: Lisa Ling Reports How Far Would You Go?
Published on February 27, 2008 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60056 | It’s Not All Going to Be Okay, and That’s Okay
I get asked sometimes why I spend so much time critiquing the church from the inside. Why offer up strange church signs rather than walking away from the religion that churns them out? Why point out the oft-employed cliches of Christianity, rather than simply coming to terms with the fact that words mean different things [Read More...] |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60057 | Occupy Wall Street Protests Don’t Have a Song
Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City.
James C. McKinley, Jr. recently wrote a thought-provoking piece in the New York Times. In “At the Protests, the Message Lacks a Melody,” McKinley contrasts the current Occupy Wall Street protests with their ancestors. His article begins: “Every successful movement has a soundtrack,” the songwriter Tom Morello told reporters after he had tried to fire [Read More...] |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60093 | Theory CANADA 2
Conference Date:
Wednesday, June 7, 2006 (All day) to Saturday, June 10, 2006 (All day)
The Theory Canada II conference will have a proceedings and the resulting volume will be published by the Canadian Journal of Physics and edited by Tom Osborn. All speakers are urged to write up an account of their presentations. Below are the relevant details.
1. Each 20 min talk is allotted a 6 page article while each 30 min talk is allotted a 9 page article.
2. The standard Canadian Journal of Physics publication rules apply: each article will require 2 referees (which the editor will find). (NB: The content need not be totally original. It is possible for the articles to summarize prior published results.)
3. The preferred format for the papers is latex which utilizes the NRC style file nrc1.sty. The page counts above are based on this format. The submitted manuscript should be a pdf file.
4. The deadline for the submission is set for August 31, 2006.
The papers may be submitted in one of two ways. E-mail your paper to [email protected] or submit it via the Canadian Journal of Physics website here. CJP website submissions should choose the topic area "Mathematical and Quantum Physics" and enter a modified version of the title with the phrase Theory Canada II at the end. |
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good chemistry is complicated,
and a little bit messy -LW
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There's no way you can decide whether a word is English, German, French, Italian, or whatever other language based on the word alone. Think about it - if it was that simple, there wouldn't be reason to markup the words to aid the speech sofware - the software would already know.
You can't use a simple lookup in a database, there are words in English that exists in other language as well - which sometimes a totally different meaning. If you are going to automate this (and this isn't an easy task, people have been working on this for decades), you will have to look at the context. You will have to parse the sentences, and actually understand each word. And even then you might have problems with sentences like 'time flies like an arrow'.
I suggest that you research the literature on computarized linguistics, automatic translations, and speech software.
In reply to Re: detecting the language of a word? by Abigail-II
in thread detecting the language of a word? by domm
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It looks like the author copied the idea from Apache::Session::Generate::MD5.
Perhaps the idea, but neither algorithm nor source. Apache::Session::Generate::MD5 uses substr(Digest::MD5::md5_hex(Digest::MD5::md5_hex(time(). {}. rand(). $$)), 0, $length), with $length initialised to 32. It has the same problems with time(), $$, and rand(). Due to the use of the concat operator, rand() returns a string, where most of the bits are constant (0-9 differ only in the last four bits), but it returns a lot more bits. This difference should not really matter for MD5 hashing, rand() will give about 2RANDBITS different values, perhaps only 2RANDBITS-1 due to runding. (Ab-)using the address of an anonymous reference as another entropy source is a nice idea, but how does perl (and the OS) randomize the address? Running perl -e 'print "".{}' on my Strawberry installation returns ZERO random bits, the value is constantly HASH(0x3f9b9c). On Slackware 13.0, I see differnt values, perl -e 'system $^X,-E=>q[say "".{}] for 1..1000'|sort -u|wc -l gives 936. Not too bad. But from where comes the entropy used to randomize the address? From the same source used for rand()? That would be pretty bad.
Because md5_hex() always returns 32 chars, substr is pretty useless. But the surrounding code may reduce $length, making colliding IDs more probably.
CGI::Session::ID::uuid appears to use better algorithms.
At least, there are short comments in the code about the external UUID generators used. Too bad they aren't shown in the documentation.
Using time-based UUIDs (v1 and v2) gives a new, unique ID every 100 ns, that should be sufficient for a session ID. <update>Of course, most bits of those UUIDs can be guessed by an attacker, so using them directly as a session ID would be a bad idea.</update> The other UUID variants are either constant (name-based, v3 and v5) or depend on a random number generator (v4). When that generator is a pseudo-random number generator, the quality of the UUID depends on the quality of the pseudo-random number generator implementation.
In reply to Re^6: Randomness encountered with CGI Session by afoken
in thread Randomness encountered with CGI Session by Anonymous Monk
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Re: IPv6 Sockets
by quester (Vicar)
on Dec 10, 2012 at 08:06 UTC ( #1008067=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??
in reply to IPv6 Sockets
It works for me... my IPv6 output is:
:: 49527 2000:1234:5678:9abc::eeff 23456
You might want to check for an outdated module (or perl, or operating system). I'm using:
perl 5.14.3 Fedora 17 Linux, kernel 3.6.9 IO::Socket::INET6 2.69 IO::Socket 1.32 Socket 2.001 Socket6 0.23
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Re^2: IPv6 Sockets
by nitin1704 (Sexton) on Dec 10, 2012 at 09:10 UTC
I was trying it from a CentOS 5 VirtualBox VM. But then I tried from real Windows and Ubuntu machines and it worked just fine. Probably the VM has something to do with it?
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Think about Loose Coupling
Re: how to permanently monitor a directory
by l2kashe (Deacon)
on Aug 14, 2003 at 13:59 UTC ( #283876=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??
in reply to how to permanently monitor a directory
#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use DB_File; my $base = '/some/dir'; # dir to check my $data = '/some/file.db'; # file name cache my $sleep = 100; # how long to sleep for my $maxtime = 86400; # max time before key removal while (1) { # # we need to tie and untie each time just to be safe due # to file caching and flushing, which sometimes doesnt # happen untill the file has been untied. # If another monk can help here that would be nice. # tie(my %files, 'DB_File', $data, O_RDWR, 0644) or die "Cant tie $data: $!\n"; opendir(BASE, $base) or die "Cant open dir $base: $!\n"; for ( grep(!/^\./, readdir BASE) ) { # avoid . and .. :) if ( $files{$_} ) { $files{$_} = time(); } else { do_something(); $files{$_} = time(); } } closedir(BASE); for ( keys %files ) { # remove the file if it hasnt been around for a week delete($files{$_}) if ($files{$_} >= $maxtime); } untie(%files); sleep $sleep; }
use perl;
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Old 01-21-2013, 05:36 AM #43
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hey Shalu, I think you were using the wrong formula to calculate "OD Efficiency" in column 5. I believe you should have divided the lumen/watt figure by 1, 2, 3 or 4 X the lumen/watt figure for the 1 X test (respectively). For example, The "OD Efficiency" for the T8 bulb at 4X overdrive should be 4.6/(4x3.8)=.30 According to your data, you should have concluded that T8 bulbs at 4X overdrive are less than 1/3 as efficient as 1X factory T8 bulbs. Your conclusions were completely wrong. Fluorescent bulbs do become markedly less efficient the more you overdrive them, not more! Your own data demonstrates that! I wish you were right, but you are not. Does anybody else agree with me?
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60132 | Thread: Event Challenge Bowl '12
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Old November 1st, 2012 (12:53 PM).
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Alli Alli is offline
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I feel so lame... you didn't even add me to the participants list...
If you had been reading my updates, you'd know that I am adding people after I lock the thread and the event is over. So don't feel lame.
That being said, thanks for participating, everyone! Emblems will be given to everyone after I find something to make Oh Macbook, y so confusing? Hope you all had a great Halloween btw! |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60148 | Cat Scientist: Cicada
[23 October 2006]
By Neal Hayes
Without question, Cicada by Cat Scientist is a good album. The album’s lighthearted, bouncy guitar riffs are a perfect complement to deliberately ridiculous lyrics that include such topics as cats in danger of terrorist attacks, and the band displays a highly developed sense of songcraft. Whether or not this album is worth buying, however, depends totally upon the individual preferences of the listener. Some people love hyper, brainy dance pop and will find Cicada perfectly suited to their tastes. All other listeners, however, will likely become exasperated with Cat Scientist’s antics at some point during the 50-minute long album. The band bears the influence of the Talking Heads, but lacks the lyrical and musical impact that made that legendary band so successful. Listeners should conduct independent research to confirm the results of these Scientists before they purchase Cicada.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60190 | Protocol Online logo
E. coli not growing in liquid cultures :( - (Aug/27/2010 )
Hi Bioforumers,
I have a ligated mix from restriction digests which I transform into XL2 Blue cells. I select colonies by blue-white color screening on LB-Amp plates containing X-Gal and IPTG. At this point I assume that my ligation product would be found in the white colonies so I pick a few and I inoculate 5mL LB-Amp cultures. Incubation takes place at 37C O/N. The problem is the white clones are not growing in the liquid culture whereas the blue clones (negative control) are growing! :(
I have been trying to obtain my DNA from the white clones for the past week but my starter cultures are not growing! :(
Can someone please advise and give any suggestions??
Many Thanks
Are the white colonies you're picking all in close proximity to blue colonies? Perhaps they're satellite colonies, and thus are not really transformants (and thus are not resistant to ampicillin because they don't actually contain the plasmid). Pick all the white colonies using sterile toothpicks or pipette tips and patch them to a fresh L-amp plate; see if they grow.
If u incubate for more days satelite colonies will appear. pick 24 hrs white colonies and patch xgal, iptg antibiotic plates with sterile tooth picks.
So yesterday I decided to pick some white clones and streak them on fresh LB-Amp plates. Incubated O/N at 37C. Result: NO COLONIES! :(
A colleague of mine suggested to try transforming into XL10 cells instead of XL2 Blue's.
Does anyone have any experience with these?
Thanks for your suggestions guys
Your problem is unlikely to be due to the recipient strain used. More probably you're incubating your transformant plates too long, allowing satellite colonies (which will be white) to appear around the blue colonies (assuming there were blue colonies on your plates), or the Amp concentration in your transformation plates is too low. Streak some of your untransformed reciepient strain to your Amp plates -- they should not grow. Another possibility is that you forgot to add X-gal to your transformation plates; thus all colonies will be white. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60215 | Standards for the English Language Arts
In 1996, the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English published Standards for the English Language Arts. The document is the result of a project that involved thousands of educators, researchers, parents, policymakers, and others across the United States. Its purpose is to provide guidance in ensuring that all students are proficient language users so they may succeed in school, participate in society, find rewarding work, appreciate and contribute to our culture, and pursue their own goals and interests throughout their lives.
The full document (The full document is available for download or purchase as an illustrated, bound volume) describes the process of arriving at the 12 standards for learning presented below, and gives details related to each. Although we present the standards here as a list, it is important to note that they are interrelated and should be considered as a whole.
The Standards
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[dm-devel] [PATCH v2 00/12] dm: enable discard support for more targets
v2 rebases all patches to Alasdair's latest editing tree and
linux-2.6-block's 'for-2.6.36'.
This patchset enables discard support for most of the DM targets that
discards are intended to be supported on.
This patchset is also available here:
The stripe target's discard support was the most tedious and
challenging to implement. It may see further edits before it lands
The mirror target still needs discard support. Either I or someone
else (nudge: Mikulas and/or Jon? :) will need to implement that.
The snapshot and crypt targets will not have discard support.
Snapshots must preserve any data that is deleted so the value of
discard is negligible. Discard support for the origin target may be
considered in the future (could be especially useful if origin and COW
are different devices and origin is a thinly provisioned LUN).
Crypt devices are concerned with security and, until proven otherwise,
it is believed that discards will leak too much pattern information to
the crypt device's underlying storage (especially when underlying
storage uses discards that zero data).
Mike Snitzer (12):
dm: rename map_info flush_request to target_request_nr
dm: introduce num_discard_requests in dm_target structure
dm: remove the DM_TARGET_SUPPORTS_DISCARDS feature flag
dm: use common __issue_target_request for flush and discard support
dm: factor max_io_len for code reuse
dm: split discard requests on target boundaries
dm zero: silently drop discards too
dm error: return error for discards too
dm delay: enable discard support
block: update request stacking methods to support discards
dm mpath: enable discard support
dm stripe: enable efficient discard support
block/blk-core.c | 5 +
drivers/md/dm-delay.c | 1 +
drivers/md/dm-linear.c | 2 +-
drivers/md/dm-mpath.c | 1 +
drivers/md/dm-snap.c | 2 +-
drivers/md/dm-table.c | 2 +-
drivers/md/dm-target.c | 3 +
drivers/md/dm-zero.c | 3 +
drivers/md/dm.c | 89 +++++++++++++-------
include/linux/device-mapper.h | 11 ++-
11 files changed, 253 insertions(+), 46 deletions(-)
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60262 | Rhapsody App for
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Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Edgy emo band Scary Kids Scaring Kids hails from Gilbert, Arizona where they formed in 2002. They named themselves after a song by emo pioneers Cap'n Jazz, and eventually solidified a membership of vocalist Tyson Stevens, guitarists Steve Kirby and Chad Crawford, keyboardist Pouyan Afkary, bassist DJ Wilson, and drummer James Ethridge. Their first EP, After Dark appeared in 2005 and the debut LP, The City Sleeps In Flames came that same year. In 2007 they released their eponymous sophomore LP.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60273 | Blizz-Card: Hearthstone – Heroes Of Warcraft
PAX East is happening right now and even though I’m not there to watch people announce things on stages, I’ve recently discovered a magical portal that allows me to read about reactions to things that are happening on the other side of the world. Currently, the tiny aperture is bursting with words and letters, things like ‘CCG’, ‘Free to play’, ‘first’, ‘Warcraft’, ‘Blizzard’ and ‘oh…really? Oh’. It would appear that the denizens of whatever land exists at the other side of the portal are discussing the announcement of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard’s first free to play game, which is a strategic collectible card game. Either that or they’ve all gone mad.
Made by a smaller team within Blizzard, the reasoning behind Hearthstone is as follows:
Packs of cards can be earned in-game or purchased for around one USA BuckDollar. Card crafting is also possible and is achieved, from what I can gather, by destroying gathered cards and using the remnants to construct new ones. I’m guessing that magic is involved at some point. There’s more info here.
There’s an official website where you can sign up for the beta and even a trailer, which is just down there. Right there!
Beta is scheduled to start this summer and the game should be available by year’s end. If you don’t like this announcement, you can burn it and use the ashes to build a new one.
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1. Shakermaker says:
• Dances to Podcasts says:
Card games tend to do that, I guess. I felt the same about Mojang’s card game.
• Noburu says:
Yes and especially being Blizzard. At this point I dont care one way or another for anything they do.
• mouton says:
I dunno, they were capable of innovation a decade ago. So you never know.
2. Moraven says:
CCG is all the rage now on mobile devices.
As long as the grind is not to bad and made essentially into pay to win that the tedious CCGs that are out there now.
• pakoito says:
What games are worth playing? Most I tried were at best a ad/cashscam, like that Blood of Behemoth one.
• domogrue says:
None of them. They all are $$ for #s around a non-game
• angrychair says:
Shadow Era, Order & Chaos: Duels and Urban Rivals are the best CCGs I’ve found on iOS. They are all proper games, not those awful treadmills where you do nothing but push a button over and over again.
• pakoito says:
I played Urban Rivals for years on the PC. May try the others, but as an Android user I’m limited.
• Teovald says:
Freemium & In App Payments is all the rage in mobile gaming. CGG fits pretty well with this.
3. Brun says:
Yeah, my initial reaction to this was a huge “meh.” I don’t really see anything wrong with the game but it just doesn’t have any appeal to me – I imagine most RPS readers will feel the same way.
4. Premium User Badge
bglamb says:
That link goes to the US version of Blizzard. I tried to log in there and they locked my account. Boo :(
• AraxisHT says:
I’m American and it locked mine too.
• Premium User Badge
jrodman says:
Blizzard is getting seriously stupid about “suspicious login activity” lately. OH NO YOU GAVE YOUR ACCURATE INFO TO THE CORRECT PLACE (but the link was our other domain).
I logged into my blizzard account after not logging into it for 3 months. They called that suspicious.
This broke my ability to play starcraft 2 ???
5. kyrieee says:
Someone wake me up when Blizzard writes its first non-cringeworthy line of dialogue.
6. Fyce says:
So, you buy cards to melt them into a magical online furnace in order to make new one more powerful.
Can I melt my ‘USA BuckDollar’ directly instead of going to the online shop? It would be faster and thus, people will be able shout at me directly for spending money to have better cards than they do.
CCG like we all love them.
• Premium User Badge
bglamb says:
For sure though The Forge is gonna be the way to play. It’s basically drafting, so no need to buy cards.
7. tyren says:
I was….. surprisingly interested in this. I tend not to enjoy TCGs unless I have some connection with the setting AND enjoy the ruleset itself (despite being a Pokemon fanatic as a kid the Pokemon TCG wasn’t really my thing) so it’s hard for me to find an online TCG I like. The shoutcasted match they played at the announcement looked fun as hell, so I’ll probably end up giving this a try.
• Fyce says:
Except that “TCG” means “Trading Card Game”. There seems to be absolutly no trading involved in this whatsoever.
So it’s just you, your cards and your money. It’s really the worse kind of card game, even if the gameplay and the graphical theme are great.
• pakoito says:
All-in-one with standalone expansions (Summoner Wars) and LCG (Warhammer, A Game of Thrones) are current good business models. M:TG, not so much anymore, and even worse if we’re talking digital goods.
• pkt-zer0 says:
LCGs eliminate the randomness of boosters, but the designers are still incetivized to continuously bloat the game so they keep making money. So I wouldn’t necessarily call it a good business model.
It is what makes money, unfortunately, so that what publishers are gonna go for.
• pakoito says:
You are right, new cards tend to make old ones worse, but there’s at least a small shrewd of balance compared to MTG’s bloat of common 2M 2/2 Flying.
• tyren says:
Since you can earn boosters without paying and their crafting sounds like it all uses one “resource” (unlike, say, TF2’s, which I’ve always thought had some weirdly specific requirements) I can deal.
• Fyce says:
If you have the time and the patience to earn your cards without paying a dime AND don’t get pissed if you go against a guy who spent his whole salary to build an awesome deck which will cruch yours (at equal game level, indeed), then, by all means, go for it.
• Apocalypse says:
Just play draft games and enjoy your free casual game ;-)
I actually like this whole idea just for this.
But if they try to force me to buy cards they can burn in hell, I already have 10 000 magic cards, I am done with buying new cards ;-)
8. Hoaxfish says:
Is this the thing they were trailing? Because I thought that was supposed to be something completely new?
9. Rao Dao Zao says:
I’ll trade you five Footmen for that Illidan.
10. Xocrates says:
Why did they use the same animation style for the cinematic as Duels of the Planeswalkers? Is there a rule somewhere that all CCGs must use that?
• Namey says:
At least in the case of DotP, they do that because they’re animating two dimensional card art, moving the layers around and adding some effects. Every “scene” is actually on a card. They’re probably doing the same here.
• Dances to Podcasts says:
It’s also easier and cheaper to do, which matches the small team/quick production mentality behind this game.
11. Seiniyta says:
They said: It’s not an expansion, not a sequel, nor the rumoured MMO. and the announcement page also said “something little new” So people expecting like something huge were dumbasses to expect that.
Looks really fun for a online tcg. Since Magic the gathering online kind of sucks, Pokemon tcg is cool but still quite buggy. This looks pretty neat.
12. 2helix4u says:
Give us your money! In return we will continue to mishandle our own franchises!
~actiblizzard Fel Hybrid
13. Cruyelo says:
I watched the demo (online, wasn’t there) and honestly… It looks fun.
I’ll give this a try; I don’t mind if gaining new cards for free takes a while. As long as it’s a possibility and the game is fun, I’ll give it a shot.
14. Westcreek says:
Hmm, i thought they already made a cardgame cashcow? What did i miss..
• Premium User Badge
jrodman says:
That other one is offline and a partnership.
This one is online and fully owned by Actiblizzard, and thus potentially far more profitable.
15. Eddard_Stark says:
Somebody please remind Blizzard that April’s Fool is still a week away.
16. DrZhark says:
woot! a new CCG!!
I can’t wait to try this (and spend more money than planned on it)
17. TsunamiWombat says:
In the words of my tribe: toplel
18. Blackcompany says:
How are people still falling for this business model. I ask this as a recovered mtg addict, mind. And I mean addict. Finally woke up to their pay more to win philosophy.
19. derella says:
I had low expectations when they teased their announcement. Thank God.
20. zeroskill says:
Sounds good. Kinda like the Team Fortress 2 crafting system. Should be fine. I’ve been looking desperately for a very good TCG on the PC for a long time, since I don’t know many RL people that play this sort of thing. I hope trading….cards will be involved, or even an android app/version? Maybe this will be what i’ve been looking for, for so long.
• Themadcow says:
$1 is very good for this kind of game. The top earning mobile CCG (Rage Of Bahamut) charges up to £40 for a pack that isn’t even guaranteed to have a decent card in it. Sadly, there are people on that game who have spent thousands of dollars for digital cards…
• zeroskill says:
I gave Rage of Bahamut a shot, but turned away from it pretty fast. Then there is also Shadow Era, which I tried. It was ok, but it didn’t fully capture me.
On the Hearthstone FAQ page there is the info that this game will eventually be available on iOS, so there is hope they will also bring this to Android. If it all works out, this could be good.
• Derppy says:
Magic Online has a very dated user-interface and you can burn tons of money on it, but I’d say it’s still easily the best PC TCG.
All the cards and formats are there, it has just as much depth as the physical version. The economy of the game is based around event tickets (~$1/ea IIRC), which you can buy to access tournaments, or trade to other players/bots for cards.
While taking part in drafts and tournaments can get very expensive, one fun and cheap way to play is to grab a few tickets with your friend and see what kind of decks you come up with. One ticket can get you hundreds of common cards, tens of uncommons or a couple of rares, with the exception of the most recent set or cards that are considered very good.
You can build the deck entirely from scratch and there’s tools to tell you statistics like cost, mana and card type balance. You’ll make miserable decks that flat-out fail, but at least for me doing just that and improving/optimizing the decks, coming up with crazy combos is 70% of the fun in TCGs, which is why games like Duels of the Planeswalkers just won’t cut it for me.
I’ve barely tried the WoW TGC, but I really hope this works like MTGO and gives you total freedom over what you want to do, rather than limiting you to a few premade decks.
21. rockman29 says:
The heck…
Whatever, just make Warcraft 4, except don’t butcher the story.
22. Maka Albarn says:
@pakoito: So far the good ones I’ve seen are Assassin’s Creed: Recollections (iPad Only), Shadow Era, and the almost-in-beta SolForge (which is my favorite).
• pakoito says:
I know the guys behind Solforge from Ascension, but it’s iOs only. I’ll try Shadow Era.
23. DickSocrates says:
Should people who enjoy card battling be allowed to marry?
24. shockwave says:
And out comes the Blizz-hate, this time for *absolutely* no reason.
Let’s take a step back here. A top gaming company has decided to go out of their comfort zone and release a minor game with minimal interference to their other projects. Oh, and it’s free to play.
What’s the problem here?
25. Premium User Badge
Malibu Stacey says:
Never seen the point in a digital version of a card collecting game. Abstracting the mechanics of a game which abstracts the mechanics of another game?
Also whatever happened to that Blizzard Dota thing? Been awfully quiet while Dota 2 keeps on growing.
• Chris D says:
Not quite sure where you’re getting all those layers of abstraction from. Card games tend to be fairly abstract by their nature, but they’re not really abstracting other games, they’re their own thing.
A digital version isn’t really abstracting anything else either. You’re removing the physical cards but in most cases all the systems remain the same.
• zeroskill says:
Last thing I heard about the Blizzard Dota thing is that they are redesigning it. It will also be a standalone game, free to play, and not, how it was believed, a Starcraft 2 custom map made by Blizzard. However it matters little, it is widely believed not to be much more then Blizzard fan service. At least that’s the word from the Dota 2 community. I don’t think the two will directly compete. Dota players already have what they wanted all those years. Dota 2.
• tyren says:
It’s not exactly hard to translate the mechanics of most card games into a non-physical format. Does it count as “abstraction” when the mechanics of the game are identical?
For that matter, there are things you can do on computers that would be harder to represent using physical cards, and I hope they take advantage of that.
26. Don Reba says:
Or maybe just a lot of scotch tape. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60276 | Image of Tainted (Blood Lily Chronicles, Book 1)
Image of Tainted (Blood Lily Chronicles, Book 1)
A charismatic heroine with sassy wit makes this apocalyptic story of good
vs. evil entertaining. Kenner's first in the Blood Lily Chronicles skillfully brings Lily's first-person narrative to life. The plot is fast paced and contains some
violence, but this is urban fantasy with appealing characters, solid dialogue and an unpredictable storyline.
Lily Carlyle's younger sister is brutally attacked by Lucas Johnson. When Lily goes after him, he kills her, and Lily awakens in a new body with a new name, Alice. She wants revenge, but that's not why she's been given a second chance at redemption. A group of demons is preparing to open the last of the nine gates to hell. That's where prophesied super chick Lily comes in. Now she's an assassin for the forces of good, and all she has to do is stop the demons and lock the gate. (ACE, Nov., 320 pp., $7.99)
Reviewed by:
Gail Pruszkowski |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60278 | Sacred Texts Islam Index Previous Next
p. 136
Concerning Repentance
O thou of whose life seventy years have passed, perhaps thou hast slept in negligence that thy days have been thrown to the winds. Worldly aims hast thou well pursued; no preparations hast thou made for the departure to that world to come.
On the Judgment Day, when the bazar of Paradise will be arrayed, rank will be assigned in accordance with one's deeds.
If thou shouldst take a goodly stock of virtues, in proportion will be thy profit; if thou be bankrupt, thou wilt be ashamed.
If fifty years of thy life have passed, esteem as a precious boon the few that yet remain.
While still thou hast the power of speech, close not thy lips like the dead from the praise of God.
One night, in the season of youth, several of us young men sat together; we sang like
p. 137
bulbuls and raised a tumult in the street by our mirth.
An old man sat silent, apart; like a filbert-nut, his tongue was closed from speech. A youth approached him and said: "O old man! why sittest thou so mournfully in this corner? Come, raise thy head from the collar of grief and join us in our festivity."
Thus did the old man reply: "When the morning breeze blows over the rose-garden, the young trees proudly wave their branches. It becomes not me to mingle in thy company, for the dawn of old age has spread over my cheeks. Thy turn it is to sit at this table of youth; I have washed my hands of youthful pleasures. Time has showered snow upon my crow-like wings; like the bulbul, I could not sport in the garden. Soon will the harvest of my life be reaped; for thee, the new green leaves are bursting. The bloom has faded from my garden; who makes a nosegay from withered flowers? I must weep, like a child, in shame for my sins, but cannot emulate his pleasures."
Well has Luqman said: "It is better not to live at all than to live many years in sinfulness."
p. 138
[paragraph continues] Better, too, may it be to close the shop in the morning than to sell the stock at a loss.
To-day, O youth, take the path of worship, for to-morrow comes old age. Leisure thou hast, and strength—strike the ball when the field is wide. 35
I knew not the value of life's day till now that I have lost it.
How can an old ass strive beneath its burden?—go thy way, for thou ridest a swift-paced horse.
A broken cup that is mended—what will its value be? Now that in carelessness the cup of life has fallen from thy hand, naught remains but to join the pieces.
Negligently hast thou let the pure water go; how canst thou now perform thy ablutions, except with sand? 36
One night in the desert of Faid 37 my feet became fettered with sleep. A camel-driver awoke me, saying: "Arise; since thou heedest
p. 139
not the sound of the bell, perhaps thou desirest to be left behind! I, like thee, would sleep awhile, but the desert stretches ahead. How wilt thou reach the journey's end if thou sleepest when the drum of departure beats?"
Happy are they who have prepared their baggage before the beat of the drum! The sleepers by the wayside raise not their heads and the caravan has passed out of sight.
He who was early awake surpassed all on the road; what availed it to awaken when the caravan had gone?
This is the time to sow the seeds of the harvest thou wouldst reap.
Go not bankrupt to the Resurrection, for it availeth not to sit in regret. By means of the stock that thou hast, O son, profit can be acquired; what profit accrueth to him who consumeth his stock himself?
Strive now, when the water reacheth not beyond thy waist; delay not until the flood has 'passed over thy head.
Heed the counsel of the wise to-day, for to- morrow will Nakir 38 question thee with sternness. Esteem as a privilege thy precious soul,
p. 140
for a cage without a bird has no value. Waste-not thy time in sorrow and regret, for opportunity is precious and Time is a sword.
A certain man died and another rent his clothes in grief. Hearing his cries, a sage exclaimed: "If the dead man possessed the power he would tear his shroud by reason of thy wailing and would say: ° Do not torment thyself on account of my affliction, since a day or two before thee I made ready for the journey. Perhaps thou hast forgotten thine own death, that my decease has made thee so distressed.'"
When he whose eyes are open to the truth scatters flowers over the dead, his heart burns. not for the dead but for himself.
Why dost thou weep over the death of a. child? He came pure, and he departed pure.
Tie now the feet of the bird of the soul; tarry not till it has borne the rope from thy hand.
Long hast thou sat in the place of another; soon will another sit in thy place.
Though thou be a hero or a swordsman, thou wilt carry away nothing but the shroud.
p. 141
If the wild ass break its halter and wander into the desert its feet become ensnared in the sand. Thou, too, hast strength till thy feet go into the dust of the grave.
Since yesterday has gone and to-morrow has not come, take account of this one moment that now is.
In this garden of the world there is not a cypress that has grown which the wind of death has not uprooted.
A gold brick fell into the hands of a pious man and so turned his head that his enlightened mind became gloomy. He passed the whole night in anxious thought, reflecting: "This treasure will suffice me till the end of my life; no longer shall I have to bend my back before any one in begging. A house will I build, the foundation of which shall be of marble; the rafters of the ceiling shall be of aloe-wood. A special room will I have for my friends, and its door shall lead into a garden-house. Servants shall cook my food, and in ease will I nourish my soul. This coarse woollen bed-cloth has
p. 142
killed me by its roughness; now will I go and spread a carpet."
His imaginings made him crazy; the crab had pierced its claws into his brain. He forsook his prayers and devotions, and neither ate nor slept.
Unable to rest tranquil in one place, he wandered to a plain, with his head confused with the charms of his vain fancies. An old man was kneading mud upon a grave for the purpose of making bricks. Absorbed in thought for a while, the old man said:
"O foolish soul! hearken to my counsel. Why hast thou attached thy mind to that gold brick when one day they will make bricks from thy dust? The mouth of a covetous man is too widely open that it can be closed again by one morsel. Take, O base man, thy hand from off that brick, for the river of thy avarice cannot be dammed up with a brick.
"So negligent hast thou been in the thought of gain and riches that the stock of thy life has become trodden underfoot. The dust of lust has blinded the eyes of thy reason—the
p. 143
simoom of desire has burned the harvest of thy life."
Wipe the antimony of neglect from off thine eyes, for to-morrow wilt thou be reduced to antimony under the dust.
Thy life is a bird, and its name is Breath. When the bird has flown from its cage it cometh not back to captivity.
Be watchful for the world lasts but a moment, and a moment spent with wisdom is better than an age with folly.
Why fix we thus our minds upon this caravanserai? Our friends have departed and we are on the road. After us, the same flowers will bloom in the garden, together will friends still sit.
When thou comest to Shiraz, 39 dost thou not cleanse thyself from the dust of the road?
Soon, O thou polluted with the dust of sin, wilt thou journey to a strange city. Weep, and wash with thy tears thy impurities away.
p. 144
I remember that, in the time of my childhood, my father (may God's mercy be upon him every moment!), bought me a gold ring. Soon after, a hawker took the ring from my hand in exchange for a date-fruit.
When a child knows not the value of a ring he will part with it for a sweetmeat. Thou, too, didst not recognise value of life, but indulged thyself in vain pleasures.
In the Day of Judgment, when the good will attain to the highest dignity and mount from the bottommost depths of the earth to the Pleiades, thy head will hang forward in shame, for thy deeds will gather around thee.
O brother! be ashamed of the works of the evil, for ashamed wilt thou be at the Resurrection in the presence of the good.
Some one reared a wolf-cub, which, when grown in strength, tore its master to pieces. When the man was on the point of death a sage
p. 145
passed by and said: "Didst thou not know that thou wouldst suffer injury from an enemy thus carefully reared?"
How can we raise our heads from shame when we are at peace with Satan and at war with God?
Thy friend regards thee not when thou turnest thy face towards the enemy.
He who lives in the house of an enemy deems right estrangement from a friend.
Some one robbed the people of their money by cheating, and whenever he had accomplished one of his nefarious acts he cursed the Evil One, who said:
"Never have I seen such a fool! Thou hast intrigued with me secretly; why, therefore, dost thou raise the sword of enmity against me?"
Alas! that the angels should record against thee iniquities committed by the order of the Evil One!
p. 146
Go forward when thou seest that the door of peace is open, for suddenly the door of repentance will be closed.
March not under a load of sin, O son, for a porter becomes exhausted on the journey.
The Prophet is the Mediator of him who follows the highway of his laws.
In the time of my childhood I went out with my father during the Id Festival, and in the tumult of the mob got lost. I cried in fear, when my father suddenly pulled my ear, and said: Several times did I tell thee not to take thy hand from the skirt of my robe."
A child knows not how to go alone; it is difficult to travel on any road unseen.
Thou, poor man, art as a child in thine endeavour; go, hold the skirt of the virtuous. Sit not with the base, but fasten thy hand to the saddle-straps of the pious.
Go, like Sadi, glean the corn of wisdom so that thou mayest store a harvest of divine knowledge.
p. 147
In the month of July, a certain man stored his grain and set his mind at ease concerning it. One night, he became intoxicated and lighted a fire, which destroyed his harvest.
The next day he sat down to glean the ears of corn, but not a single grain remained in his possession. Seeing him thus afflicted, some one remarked: "If thou didst not wish for this misfortune, thou shouldst not in folly have burned thy harvest."
Thou, whose years have been wasted in iniquity, art he who burns the harvest of his life.
Do not so, O my life! Sow the seeds of religion and justice, and throw not to the winds the harvest of a good name.
Knock at the door of forgiveness before thy punishment arrives, for lamentation beneath the lash is of no avail.
He who supplicates the Deity by night will not be shamed on the Day of Judgment.
p. 148
If thou art wise, pray for forgiveness in the night for the sins that thou hast committed in the day.
What is thy fear if thou hast made thy peace with God? He closes not the door of forgiveness upon them that supplicate Him.
If thou art a servant of God, raise thy hands in prayer; and if thou be ashamed, weep in sorrow.
No one has stood upon His threshold whose sins the tears of repentance have not washed away.
Next: Chapter X. Concerning Prayer |
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Dan, your best bet to stay 100% legal is to buy a radio like an older Icom 710 or a new 802(?) which is manufactured and approved for both services. It will have drawbacks, but so will anything else.
As long as your radio is legal for use in your home country, it will be legal around the world by reciprocal treaties via the ITU. (Of course, if you are visiting "Red" China you'll need a permit, because bringing in an unlicensed ham radio is quite literally an espionage conviction there.)
Marine HF radios are "channelized" so you can dial up a channel number. Ham radios use tuning dials/pads, because hams don't use numbered channels. A case can be made for having two radios--unless the new Icom gives you both options.
As xort mentions, it is rare for anyone to get busted for offshore use of anything--as long as there are no complaints. INshore...that's something else, since marine radios are much 'cleaner' than ham radios with regard to spurious emissions, and have a more limited audio range--so a good ear can quite literally tell what you are using by the sound of it, and the frequncy spatter.
I'm sure you'll find older threads on this subject here, if not on other web and ham forums.
If you are not technically inclined, and don't want to invest in one of the dual-purposed ICOMs (I don't know if any other vendor makes similar radios), I'd suggest spending money on the marine HF, and then adding a lower cost used ham radio form a reputable source (i.e. one of the stores) to supplement it. That way you are fully legal, fully redundant (if you use two antennas) as well. And there are plenty of HF ham radios, used, at reasonable prices.
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global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60310 | Application Note: Highly Specific Detection of Bacteria and Fungi with Hybcell compact-sequencing
17 Feb 2012
Detection of bacteria and fungi can be challenging due to the small amounts of DNA present in a blood sample which contains large amounts of human DNA. This poster describes how fast and cost-effective, revolutionary compact-sequencing© technology could rival that of the latest generation sequencing platforms. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/60314 | It was my last night before flying home, and I had agreed to go over to my neighbor’s to play some poker. I wanted to ditch it and hang out with my friends, but he was a nice guy and had done a lot for me before I had gone off to college. Plus, poker meant beer, something I wouldn’t be getting anywhere else that night. I went over around 7:00 and decided I would try to enjoy the night as best I could.
Eventually my neighbor’s friends showed up, and we cracked the beers and started playing. I was doing pretty well, but I would have been doing better if I wasn’t so distracted by his daughter, Rachel. I had known her since they moved in next door, and while I always thought she was cute I also knew that she was too young for me, even now at 19 the more than three year difference was significant. Maybe it was the beer or the fact that college had changed me, but I couldn’t keep my mind off her that night.
Eventually the poker wrapped up and everyone started to leave. I only lived next door and it was my last night in town, so I hung out for a while, even after everyone had gone to bed except for Rachel and me. I usually try to stay up pretty late before an early flight so I can catch some sleep on the plane ride. Since I was staying up anyway I thought I might as well hang out with her next door as opposed to alone next door.
After an hour or so alone chatting about high school and college life, we both went outside. I was still a little drunk and, as teenagers are known to do, I challenged her to a friendly game of truth or dare. It started off innocent enough, but as these games always do it started to turn more sexual in nature, with us asking each other about past relationships, how far each of us had gone, etc. I was surprised to learn that this sweet little catholic girl who went to church every week had lost her virginity at a younger age than I had, not to mention a few other things.
I was still feeling the effects of the alcohol, and as the game went on I grew more and more bold, until I dared her to take her shirt off. She hesitated and I thought to myself that I should have kept my damn mouth shut, but after a second she did it, to my surprise. Even more to my surprise was when she asked me to do the same on her next turn. Emboldened not only by my success but also by her response, I figured why not go further, and a few turns later dared her to take her pants off. Again she complied, and soon enough mine were off as a result of her challenge.
So here I was, sitting outside in my boxers next to a girl in nothing but her underwear. I doubted I’d get another chance like this anytime soon, so I decided to see just how far my luck would take me tonight. I gathered my courage and finally dared her to take off her bra and walk across the street and back topless, hoping to god that I hadn’t gone and ruined what I had right in front of me. I was holding my breath when she turned to look at me for a moment, and breathed a huge, silent sigh of relief when she slowly took her bra off and sexily got up, walked across the street and back, putting just a little bounce in her step that I was sure was just for me.
By this time I have a raging hard-on and I was sitting with my knees against my chest in order to prevent it from poking straight out of my boxers like a tent pole. I was praying that she would stay topless when she got back, and lo and behold my prayers were answered. I was hoping that this game would never stop when she dared me to go one further and walk across the street completely naked. I stood up, rock-hard cock and all, stripped off my boxers, and walked. I had never been so turned on in my life. When I got back I knew what I had to do, and after a few words and a quick walk we were both sitting completely naked on her lawn, and I was wondering how the hell I had gotten so lucky to wind up here.
I was just about heartbroken when she told me she was cold and wanted to go inside, but my mood jumped right back up when we went downstairs to her basement. It was there that truth or dare went further than I had ever hoped, with her immediately daring me to strip naked and give her a lap dance, which I did with pleasure. Too focused on her sweet naked body to think of anything else, I dared her to do the same thing, and soon her amazing tits were pressed hard against my chest, and her naked things only inches away from my throbbing cock.
I knew I couldn’t do this, she was my neighbor and way too young for me, but when she said how hard it was to resist kissing me, I couldn’t help myself and kissed her deeply, almost as deeply as she kissed me back. It was only a few moments before I laid her on her back on the couch and started massaging her beautiful young body, starting at the shoulders and moving on to her bare breasts and then down to her things and legs. I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t help myself, and soon enough ended up with my face between her thighs, eating her pussy slowly and then quicker and more fiercely.
I licked on and around her clit as she moaned in pleasure, and she almost woke her parents up when I put my tongue up her wet, succulent pussy. By this point she was so wet and I was so hard that she didn’t need to work on my cock at all, and throwing everything I had ever been taught about condoms, birth control and STDs I shoved my cock deep into her young pussy. I started off slowly, but I couldn’t help but speed up as I looked at her beautiful face and lovely tits, realizing that I was actually fucking the young, hot high school girl next door.
I fucked her harder than I had ever dreamed I could, and I had to put my hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming as I drilled her pussy. When I finally felt ready to cum I was so far beyond caring that I blew my entire load right in her pussy, and didn’t stop pounding her until I couldn’t take it anymore. I slowly pulled my still rock-hard cock out of her and she eagerly licked off all of the remaining cum and juice, licked all around my dick and even sucked on my balls for good measure.
I started to get up and she asked me if I was going to leave, and I said that I should probably get going. She begged me to stay, and looking at her hot, naked body I couldn’t refuse. After ten minutes or so of sitting there with this gorgeous girl next to me I felt myself get hard again, and when Rachel saw my growing cock she told me she had one more dare for me. After what had already happened I was more than ready to oblige her, and when she dared me to fuck her in the ass I was as happy as a kid in a candy store.
I put my now fully hard cock in her mouth and she took me all the way down her throat, and after a few minutes I couldn’t wait any longer. I pulled out of her mouth, pushed her over the couch and started pounding her ass as hard as I could. Rachel told me to spank her and I happily complied, hitting her sweet cheeks harder and harder with each successive thrust. Her sweet asshole was even better than her pussy had been, and I could hear her moans through the pillow she was biting on as I kept pushing further and further up her ass. When I came in her pussy I thought that was the best orgasm I had ever had, but jizzing in her ass was even better. Even though I had spent my load before I stuck my cock in her mouth after just for good measure, and she licked me clean as a whistle again.
We sat together naked after that until I had to leave, wishing I could stay longer, but as I left I somehow knew it wouldn’t be long before I came back to see Rachel again.
Anonymous readerReport
2014-03-26 06:05:02
Dude, fix your fucking spelling. Things and thighs are not the same word, Morton!
anonymous readerReport
2013-11-15 06:26:55
I would like to Fuck her
anonymous readerReport
2013-11-06 02:27:40
im wet...... this story is awsome....
anonymous readerReport
2013-10-24 18:56:56
im 51 and fucked my daughters 13 yr old friend and loaded her tight pussy with all my cum
anonymous readerReport
2013-03-31 00:02:14
Did you fuck her again after that incident . If yes please write that also.
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Thread: Compiling PHP4
1. #1
SitePoint Wizard
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Apr 2000
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I've just got a Linux box running with SuSe 6 - appears to be working well.
It comes as standard with Apache, Perl 5 and PHP 3 but I'd like to upgrade PHP3 to v4. So I downloaded the latest source from and extracted all the files. The instructions say to run this command:
$ gunzip -c php-4.0.x.tar.gz | tar xf -
$ cd php-4.0.x
$ make
$ make install
The first two commands run fine, but the ./configure line isn't working correctly. It outputs lots of stuff, ending with:
configure: error: no acceptable cc found in $PATH
I'm a complete Linux newbie so have no idea what it means/how to solve it
Thanks in advance for your help
I'm sure there will be quite a few of my Linux threads floating around over the next few weeks/months as I configure this server hope you can bear with me while I get it going.
2. #2
SitePoint Wizard
Join Date
Nov 2000
Chico, Ca
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This what I did when I installed MySQL, apache1.3.14 and PHP
1. copy Mysql to /usr/local/
2. go to the /usr/local/ directory
3. gunzip mysql....
4. tar -xvf mysql..
5. cd mysql ...
6. type ./scripts/mysql_install_db
That is it for MySQL
1. download the lastest verions of apache.. I beleive it is 1.3.14.
2. copy it to the /usr/local Directory
3. gunzip it
4. tar -xvf apache_1.3.14.tar
5. cd apache directory
6. ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache_1.3.12 --enable-module=so
7. type make (and of course press enter)
8. type make install
9. after that you need to edit the httpd.conf file for the server address and the serveradmin e-mail address
10. to start it type ./bin/apachectl start (from the apache directory)
1. download the latest verison of php which I beleive is php-4.0.4
2. copy to the /usr/local directory
3. gunzip php-4.0.4.tar.gz
4. tar -xvf php-4.0.4.tar
5. cd php-4.0.4
6. type the following to build php4
7. ./configure --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql-3.22.32.pc.linux-gnu-i686/ --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache_1.3.14/bin/apxs
8. type make (enter)
9. type make install (enter)
10. open httpd.conf in editor (I like to use vi) and find the section that say 'And for PhP 4.x. use :
you will see some lines of code that have # in front of them, remove # for both lines, then on the top line insert .phtml infront of .php.
That should be it !
When I tried to install this on to Suse 6.x it said something like the C+ library was out of date .. and to please update it. So I went ahead and installed Suse 7.0 which had most of the current stuff. If you don't know this you can type in the first copy charactors of say a long file name or directory then it tab and it should fill the rest of the file name or directory in.
The only draw back about this method is that I have yet to get apache to start up at bootup( if anyone out there is reading this and you know how let me know!) But since my server is always up .. and when it goes down I just log on and manually start it again. I never tried to update the C+ libraries because I had Suse 7.0 on disk I was just to lazy to upgrade. But if you want to upgrade the library I am sure that there are some How-to's on the net.
Good Luck
3. #3
SitePoint Wizard
Join Date
Apr 2000
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Thanks a lot for the help Chuckie
I think I should really just get SuSe 7 as its been a pain all day trying to get the GCC libraries updated properly.
But I'll certainly use your instructions when I manage to get suse 7 running
Thanks again
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Facebook connection ends trial and possibly sends juror to jail
16 June 2011 BY
A remarkable story in Manchester shows that nothing can be done secretly on Social Networks, or more specifically Facebook, anymore. A female juror will probably be going to jail herself instead of the defendant because she friended the defendant on Facebook.
The juror is now charged with contempt which could mean she could go to jail for a maximum of two years. Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, seems to be tempted to make a statement that a line has crossed, not only for the juror at trial, but for every juror out there.
Joanne Fraill was a juror on the case against defendant Jamie Sewart, who was charged in a million dollar drug case. Sewart was not convicted but after the trial it came out that Fraill had friended her on Facebook after she was cleared, but the trial wasn’t over then. It was only part one of the trial which was against four people. Sewart actually asked Fraill to put in a word for her friend who was still on trial.
One of the other defendants who was convicted is now appealing on the basis of alleged jury misconduct, referring to the conversation which had taken place.
The 6 million pound trial which had been running for 10 weeks now seems to be useless and the juror might go to jail, based on a Facebook friendship. You would think the juror would have been smarter than that.
• Barry Adams
Jury trials are nonsensical anyway. The cause of Justice shouldn’t be left to laypeople who are easily manipulated by the media, lawyers, and legalese nonsense. Justice is too important to be left to amateur nincompoops.
• Lee
Why is this person being sent to jail for merely exercising her basic human rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association? And two years? She could have committed a very serious violent crime and not got this long a sentence.
• Kathryn Wells
@Lee She might go to jail because her actions called into question the level of bias that she maintained before and during jury deliberation. That demonstrated bias caused a 6 Million Pound waste of a trial. This is not an issue of human rights. She was explicitly instructed—as I’m sure all jurors are before the proceedings go under way—that she is not to have contact with either defendant or plaintiff during the trial proceedings so as not to affect the trial results.
• Lee
As a juror, she did not volunteer, she was coerced…any contract not freely entered into is null and void. Therefore it doesn’t matter what the judge says, she’s free to ignore it.
As for bias; well so what? When you’re tried by your peers, some will be biased and prejudiced, as in society as a whole.
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