id
stringlengths 50
55
| text
stringlengths 54
694k
|
|---|---|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67314 | Coconut Salad Dressing Recipes
165 recipes to browse.
Filtered by
• vinegar
• oil
Narrow your search
Use the filters in this column to find the perfect recipe.
Ingredient Filters
meats vegetables fruits hot & spicy uncategorized seasonings & flavorings
Cook Time Filters
Maybe List
When you're ready, we'll help you decide between similar recipes.
Holding 0 recipes |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67317 | Main Dish Recipes
21 recipes to browse.
Filtered by
• broth
• japanese
Narrow your search
Use the filters in this column to find the perfect recipe.
Ingredient Filters
meats vegetables fruits hot & spicy uncategorized seasonings & flavorings
Cook Time Filters
Maybe List
When you're ready, we'll help you decide between similar recipes.
Holding 0 recipes |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67322 | Jerusalem must be shared by both Israelis and Palestinians, a leftist activist group said Thursday, in response to Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel's ad in the Washington Post last week.
"For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics," Wiesel wrote in the ad, titled "For Jerusalem." To this, the group responded by saying that as long as the city remains occupied it cannot be holy.
"It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture - and not a single time in the Koran...the first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem," Wiesel had written.
Wiesel also wrote that Jews, Christians and Muslims were able to build their homes anywhere in Jerusalem and that only under Israeli sovereignty had freedom of worship for all religions been assured in the city.
"The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory," he wrote.
In the open letter made public Thursday, activists in the Just Jerusalem group, which includes Israel Prize laureates Avishai Margalit, Zeev Sternhell as well as former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, said they wanted to express their "frustration, even outrage" at Wiesel's letter, saying that "Jerusalem must be shared by the people of the two nations residing in it."
"Only a shared city will live up to the prophet's vision: Zion shall be redeemed with justice," the letter said.
The letter's signatories said that their "Jerusalem is concrete, its hills covered with limestone houses and pine trees; its streets lined with synagogues, mosques and churches." They added that that Wiesel's Jerusalem, on the other hand, was "an ideal, an object of prayers and a bearer of the collective memory of a people whose members actually bear many individual memories."
The letter's signatories also said that the reason they found Wiesel's ad so troubling wasn't only "because it is replete with factual errors and false representations, but because it upholds an attachment to some other-worldly city which purports to supersede the interests of those who live in the this-worldly one."
Jerusalem, the letter continued, was not, as Wiesel claimed in his ad, above politics since "contemporary Jerusalem was created by a political decision and politics alone keeps it formally unified."
"Second, your attempt to keep Jerusalem above politics means divesting us of a future. For being above politics is being devoid of the power to shape the reality of one's life," letter writers continued.
The signatories culminated their response by appealing Wiesel to visit Jerusalem for himself, thus seeing "with your own eyes the catastrophic effects of the frenzy of construction."
"You will witness that, contrary to some media reports, Arabs are not allowed to build their homes anywhere in Jerusalem. You discover see the gross inequality in allocation of municipal resources and services between east and west," the writers said.
The letter culminated by reiterating the chant used by Sheikh Jarrah activists in their weekly rallies: "Nothing can be holy in an occupied city!" |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67332 | Thread: Case Pics
View Single Post
#8 (permalink)
Old February 10, 2007, 10:02 AM
cdn_Madrach's Avatar
cdn_Madrach cdn_Madrach is offline
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Miramichi, New Brunswick
Posts: 631
Just thought I'd show my first LC.
Last edited by cdn_Madrach; February 10, 2007 at 10:05 AM. Reason: forgot to add pics:(
Reply With Quote |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67371 | 2000 Honda S2000 BOLT, HANDLEBAR - (90161SV4003)
• $5.22
• $1.46 (28% off)
• $3.76
Genuine Honda Parts
Honda Parts
• Honda
• 90161-SV4-003
Product Description
Part #90161-SV4-003. This BOLT, HANDLEBAR, is a genuine OEM part for your 2000 Honda S2000,
This Part Also Fits: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67384 | Hotel Vermion
Situated at the foot of Vermio in perennial plane and on the shores of Arapitsa offers relaxation and tranquility.
A paradise awaits you all year.
Download files |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67396 |
Caitlyn Becker Headshot
Why Isn't Anyone Telling Justin Bieber He's Acting Like a D-bag?
Posted: Updated:
Justin Bieber's current string of arrests, mishaps and hijinks is annoying. It isn't sad or unfortunate; it's irritating. Sorry Beliebers. You know that kid in grade school who constantly got the whole class in trouble because they kept acting out and thought they were being funny? Yeah, that's Justin... only he's 19 and instead of the threat of after-school detention, it's the threat of federal detention.
The Biebs is not a unique snowflake: This story isn't new. It's been repeated and recycled a million times. And as much as we hate to admit it, there is something sort of cool and sexy about bad boys -- Robert Downey Jr, anyone? -- but not JB. Because there is nothing sexy about acting like a petulant child.
Let's start with egging people's homes. When you're 12 years old it's something that happens on mischievous night. You and your bonehead friends inevitably get caught, parents get into the mix and you're probably grounded. When you're 19, it's felony vandalism and you could go to jail.
And how about that DUI arrest. First of all, if he's struggling with substance abuse, then his getting help is something I wholly support. However, his tox screen seems to suggest this isn't about abuse. There were negligible amounts of alcohol in his system -- he blew a .04, which isn't even legally drunk if you're 21 -- and the toxicology report showed he smoked pot and had the main ingredient for Xanax in his system. Naturally, when he was with the cops, his gut reaction was apparently to make his problem someone else's fault. He squealed on who gave him the Xanax and blamed his mom. Really? Mommy said it was okay? Sorry to break it to you, dude, you're a legal adult now and you can't pass the buck onto Mommy when you get in trouble.
Turns out Mom's not the only one in the mix. Reports say that Papa Biebs was actually with his son the night of his arrest and allegedly helped block the street off so the crew could drag race. Shame on the adults in this situation who allegedly gave into temper tantrums and put lives at risk. Can't you just picture it? Daddy, I want a goose that lays golden eggs and I want it nooooowwwwww. Daddy, I want to race the big fancy car and I want to do it noooowwwwwww. What would have happened if someone said no? Would Justin have rolled around on the ground kicking and screaming? Perhaps tried to hold his breath until someone gave in? He's 19 ... not 9.
Now, the latest offshoot of the Bieber mess is the felony assault charge in Toronto. You know, the one where the cops allege someone, AKA Justin Bieber, repeatedly beat a limo driver on the back of the head. You have to wonder what transpired before the alleged altercation. What made someone think they had the right to put their hands on another person? We learned this lesson in kindergarten, didn't we? That is some pure diva shit right there. What's worse, he's not even original or badass when he's throwing a hissy fit -- that move is straight out of the Naomi Campbell history book. What's next? Hurling his phone at the maid?
At this point acting like a tool doesn't just make him a loser, it could mean jail time. Not sure how many Beliebers there are in lockup. To be fair, I understand that 19 years does not a mature adult make, but has no one explained that there are consequences in the real world? Enough is enough with allowing Bieber to run around acting like a spoiled brat.
You have to wonder though, can he redeem himself? I know we love a comeback story but can you come back from being douchey? |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67398 | Huffpost Religion
David Nichtern Headshot
The Future of Buddhism in the West
Posted: Updated:
Over the past 50 years or so, the Buddhist teachings have taken root (to a certain extent) in our Western culture. Many great teachers have worked hard to translate these teachings and practices into English and European languages and into forms that are accessible to Western students. Within some Buddhist schools, on the other hand, the students have been required to learn the traditional forms in their original language and cultural setting.
The process of transplanting the Buddhist teachings in the West seems to have evolved in several different ways:
1. The traditional form is transplanted, takes root and grows (e.g., a Zen monastery in the West where the chants are recited in Japanese and to a large extent the original forms are copied precisely).
2. A hybrid plant, a mix of the original Asian culture and language and the "host" culture and language, grows. For example, the Shambhala Buddhist lineage (which I am part of) has mixed certain elements of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon with certain uplifted aspects of European and American traditions.
3. Complete transformation of the original traditions into Western modalities (e.g., well-being, medical, psychological, holistic, new age, healing, stress management, relaxation, mindfulness, etc.) where the language and cultural flavor is overwhelmingly Western with perhaps only a faint trace of the Asian traditions that perhaps inspired these approaches.
Despite exhortations of the Buddha himself and, in fact, many great Buddhist masters -- that the student should verify everything that he or she learns based on direct personal experience -- Asian Buddhism (or at the very least Tibetan Buddhism) evolved toward a very high degree of respect, devotion and even subservience to the teacher. This devotion is actually found in many other Asian teaching systems. It would not be unusual for a sitar student of a great Indian master to bow to her teacher and place the teacher's feet on her own head, but it's hard to visualize that happening at Juilliard or Berklee!
Despite their emphasis on encouraging critical intelligence and open exploration, most Buddhist teaching systems are autocratic and very much oriented toward the establishment of hierarchy and proper decorum in relating to that hierarchy.
In Vajrayana Buddhism, the guru is considered to be enlightened and equal in value to the Buddha -- in some sense even more valuable than the Buddha because you have not had (nor will you have) the good fortune to meet the Buddha in person. The guru is completely identified with enlightenment, and his or her instructions are to be carefully followed.
At the same time, the guru is telling you to use your own intelligence to find out the truth. Even within the Asian Buddhist system this dichotomy can catalyze a creative tension in the student's learning process, but mixed with our Western democratic bias, there can be at times an almost insurmountable dissonance in the student, who is now struggling to synchronize two very divergent leadership models, democracy and monarchy.
It might be too early to talk about "American Buddhism." History tells us that it could take several hundred years to really have some perspective on this kind of evolution. But it is intriguing to look back over the last 50 years and also look at the current situation.
The fact is that many Western students who have moved into the teacher role within their Buddhist communities have been able to manifest as mentors, guides, teachers, or "spiritual friends" for newer students. It is safe to say that there are many very highly qualified Western dharma teachers serving in this capacity. But it is also worth noting that there are few who would make the claim to, or would be acknowledged by others as having achieved the level of, the kind of mastery that would warrant the unflinching devotion, respect and subservience that is directed at many of the Asian teachers. Just visualize a Western teacher sitting on a high brocade throne (upon which the Dalai Lama looks so natural to us), and everybody taking that in stride. It is still a difficult image to visualize for many of us.
Your thoughts, comments?
Follow David on his website (, Facebook (, Twitter (, or YouTube (
Around the Web
Buddhism in the West - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67408 | Huffpost Religion
Rev. Jim Ball Headshot
Hope on Climate Change: Young Evangelicals for Climate Action
Posted: Updated:
Their Call to Action states:
We believe that God is calling us to take action towards overcoming the climate crisis. For us, this means living as good stewards of God's creation, advocating on behalf of the poor and marginalized, supporting our faith leaders when they stand up for climate action, holding our political leaders accountable for responsible climate policies, and mobilizing our generation and the larger church community to join in.
That's a pretty tall order, but they believe with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26; Philippians 4:13).
As an example of how God is working, here is the story of one of these young leaders named Brittany:
Climate used to seem like an unchangeable thing to me ... I was homeschooled ... I was taught about the numerous famous scientists who were also Christians, and how important science is to society. Yet, when I got to my senior year in high school, my textbooks ended by describing evolution and global warming as two major hoaxes pre-occupying modern science. Though I wasn't quite convinced, I was discouraged. I decided to pursue education in teaching, and join in community at a nearby Christian college. I came to know scientists and science students who were also Christians ... I was still critical though, and avoided really thinking about climate change until my final year ... I had conversations with a man living in Bangladesh, whose country is experiencing the literal first waves of climate change...
I'm concerned about climate change because of how people are affected by it...
I hope that more young people and evangelicals will take a rooted and energetic stance in these challenges. I hope that our presidential candidates are paying attention to the needs arising from climate change. The candidate I can give support to will be one who shows strong commitment to addressing these needs.
Brittany's story -- a homeschooled Christian taught that climate change is a hoax who now helps lead an effort to overcome it -- might strike you as improbable. But it is actually a fairly common one for the young Christians leading Y.E.C.A.
When those who should lead don't, God finds a way. And we still have hope that, with Y.E.C.A.'s encouragement, our leaders will lead on climate action.
In the meantime, we could use your help. Share the good news about Y.E.C.A's existence with others, especially any young evangelicals you may know so they can join up. Thanks.
The Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D., is author of 'Global Warming and the Risen LORD.' |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67414 | Chapter 13
Procedure Following a Day Engagement
Section I. General
1300. The procedure to be adopted following a day engagement depends upon many factors, among them:
1. The extent to which the enemy force has been defeated and disorganized and the extent to which our own forces have suffered in the engagement, as well as the supply of fuel and ammunition remaining in our ships.
2. The strategical situation including the position of the enemy with reference to his bases and our position with reference to our bases or destination.
3. The existing weather conditions.
1301. The officer in tactical command indicates to his force the general plan to be followed. If the results of the engagement have been favorable to us, his decision includes any of the following general plans of action:
1. Pursuit or chase of the enemy.
2. Maintenance of contact with the enemy in order to:
1. Resume the engagement at a later time.
2. Launch air attacks against enemy.
3. Make night attacks on the enemy.
3. Withdraw from action if unable for any reason to pursue or attack the enemy.
1302. If the results of the engagement have not been favorable to us, his decision includes any of the following general plans of action:
1. Maintenance of contact with the enemy in order to:
1. Make night attacks on the enemy, the results of which may make engagement possible with the enemy on the next day under favorable conditions.
2. Launch air attacks against enemy.
3. Move our principal force away from the enemy principal force if further engagement would result in disaster.
2. To withdraw from action if compelled to withdraw before overwhelming enemy force.
3. Fight our way through the enemy force in order to reach a secure base.
1303. The following instructions are applicable to most conditions following an engagement:
1. Action between battle lines is broken off when directed by the officer in tactical command.
2. Ships which have become separated from their own divisions or their own proper tactical commands join the nearest division or command of similar type.
3. The officer in tactical command broadcasts or otherwise keeps our forces informed of the position, course, and speed of our battle line or principal combatant force and of other important units such as a train or convoy. A train or convoy normally is directed to take a specific course or direction.
4. The officer in tactical command designates suitable units for maintaining contact with the enemy or for making night attacks on the enemy. Other units, not engaged
in such operations or in chase, are directed to steer a specific course or they are directed to form a disposition suitable for the situation.
1. A reference position of the fleet guide, or battle line, or other unit is signaled in order that units may assemble or otherwise regulate their movements. A rendezvous is designated by the officer in tactical command prior to commencement of an engagement.
Section II. Chase
1304. In these instructions "pursuit" has been used to designate the operations of following or endeavoring to bring to action an enemy force which is employing retiring tactics or is withdrawing or delaying action and which is still an organized force subject to the control of its commander. "Chase" is used to designate the pursuit of a disorganized enemy force that has definitely withdrawn from action and whose efforts are primarily directed toward escape. Under such conditions, and owing to differences in the remaining speed of enemy vessels and the courses taken by different enemy units, there may be a wide dispersal or scattering of enemy vessels.
1305. Victory is not complete unless the enemy force is annihilated. Every enemy unit, if possible, is destroyed. If impossible to destroy enemy vessels, effort is made to force them ashore or into neutral ports for internment.
1306. The action to be taken in chase follows the turn of events and is according to the circumstances of the situation. Besides the material condition of the enemy vessels and our vessels and the direction or directions of flight of the enemy vessels, the proximity of land, enemy air bases, shoals, mine fields or ports of refuge for the enemy are factors which will influence the action that can be taken.
1307. Chase is normally initiated by the officer in tactical command and when practicable he issues appropriate instructions to insure that our efforts to complete the victory are coordinated.
1308. In the absence of any special instructions from him, subordinate commanders, when a chase is ordered, take the initiative in forming suitable units for the chase and in selecting suitable objectives for such units. The senior officers in the different parts of the battle area take appropriate action to insure a coordinated effort by our force.
1309. The following instructions are applicable to most conditions of chase:
1. Appropriate types of available aircraft are employed in the chase, their effort being primarily directed against capital ships which are outdistancing our surface units and secondarily against enemy units which are faster than our vessels. Aerial photography is employed as feasible to assist the officer in tactical command in selecting a course of action.
2. All available combatant units are employed in the chase.
3. The chasing units are composed of vessels of similar type and approximately equal maximum speed, adhering to the existing organization as far as practicable. The units should be of adequate strength to destroy enemy vessels of similar type.
4. Chasing units normally select as their objective enemy vessels of similar type.
5. The slower chasing units follow the faster units, engaging the enemy's slower units and any of the disabled vessels from faster enemy units that may have dropped behind.
6. Chasing units proceed at maximum speed consistent with adequate concentration. Small units or individual ships avoid becoming isolated and overwhelmed by superior enemy strength.
7. In order to avoid mines, ships do not follow directly in the wake of enemy vessels.
8. No attempt is made to accept the surrender of disabled enemy ships or to rescue survivors of enemy ships by vessels which have any chance of overtaking or destroying other enemy vessels. It is desirable that vessels which have no prospect of taking further
part of the action occupy enemy vessels before they are destroyed or sunk by the enemy, and rescue enemy survivors.
1310. The chase, as long as there remain enemy vessels to be destroyed, is not broken off at nightfall or when low visibility conditions are encountered unless because of shortage of fuel, ammunition or for other necessary reasons it is not wise to continue the chase. An enemy fleeing may scatter under cover of darkness with intention of permitting some units to escape.
1311. Aircraft, provided flying conditions are satisfactory, maintain contact with fleeing units at night and attack as practicable. Enemy heavy units are primary targets.
1312. Contact is maintained at night and tracking is accomplished on all targets that radar is capable of indicating. Enemy heavy units may possibly be definitely located by knowledge of radar indications. Attacks are made on these targets as opportunity affords and as frequently as possible by our destroyers, the larger units lending gunfire support as feasible and as required. The remainder of our force follows the general movement of the enemy as developed by tracking in anticipation of inflicting more damage as opportunities arise.
1313. Contact may be lost by enemy speed enabling them to reach beyond our radar range in which case the enemy may escape unless our aircraft can effectively slow them down or destroy them. But if contact is lost during the night because of radar being ineffective, suitable units with adequate speed are so disposed as to intercept the enemy the following day. Normally cruisers cover the enemy position circle of the following daylight preparatory to scouting.
Section III. Disabled Vessels After Action
1314. Battleships and other large combatant ships which are incapable of fighting and incapable of towing other disabled vessels, but which are able to steam proceed to the nearest friendly port or to the designated rendezvous, or proceed as directed.
1315. Battleships and other large combatant ships whose ammunition is exhausted, or whose speed is so much reduced that they cannot keep up with effective units, but are capable of towing, may be utilized, if the situation permits to tow disabled vessels or to rescue survivors. They are not used for these purposes if there is any possibility of enemy submarines being in the vicinity or if possibility of air attack exists.
1316. Destroyers and other light vessels whose speed is reduced so that they cannot keep up with effective units of their type or cannot be used as screening vessels for effective large combatant vessels, are employed to screen or assist other disabled vessels, to rescue survivors, or to tow light vessels.
Section IV. Assistance to Disabled Vessels and Rescue of Survivors After Action
1317. The officer in tactical command after an action issues appropriate instructions regarding rendering assistance to disabled vessels and regarding the rescue or search for survivors. He uses his discretion as to the numbers and types to be employed. The existing situation determines whether it is prudent to use effective combatant vessels for this purpose and what precautions are necessary to safeguard the vessels engaged in assisting disabled vessels and picking up survivors.
1318. The commander usually designates in advance of an action an agency, normally a carrier, to correlate reports of downed aircraft and to control rescue operations using the available rescue facilities. Such rescue facilities may include submarines, destroyers, or specially designated and equipped aircraft or rescue boats.
1319. A rescue vessel having unwounded aviation personnel among the survivors picked up makes every effort possible to return them to their own ship in order to make them available for operations.
Table of Contents * Previous Chapter (12) * Next Chapter (14)
Transcribed and formatted for HTML by Patrick Clancey, HyperWar Foundation |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67466 | Christina Patterson: What teenagers can learn from a few hours of standing still
The Saturday Column
Related Topics
It was an astonishing feat of endurance.
Sure, the teenagers who survived for 50 days adrift in the Pacific, eating only a few coconuts and the raw meat of a single seagull (well, we don't know its marital status, but we do know that when it laid down its life it was alone) and drinking the few drops of water that they managed to capture in a tarpaulin, who were then spotted by a passing vessel whose first mate asked if they wanted help, and who replied, with impeccable manners untarnished by near-starvation, "very much so!", did pretty well, but they were Samoan teenagers. It's possible that for Samoan teenagers 50 days without meals, protection from the weather or access to a toilet is perfectly normal. No, the astonishing feat of endurance was here. In a mass display of stamina unseen in this country for quite some time, British teenagers managed, for several hours, to stand still.
Standing still was not necessarily what was planned, on the Facebook and Twitter campaigns that actually got teenagers out of their bedrooms. What was planned was, I think, quite a lot of marching up and down, waving placards saying thing like "David Cameron is a Voldemort", which didn't mean a lot to those of us who've never read a word of Harry Potter, and "I will never meet my prince at uni now", which, to those of us who think that the fuss over one prince who met his soon-to-be-princess "at uni" is quite enough for one lifetime, sounded like a blessing, and "Fine! I'll be a stripper", which sounded like a promise, but may have been a threat. And there was some marching up and down, and some dancing, and some creeping, in rather fetching leggings and hideous Ugg boots, over cars. But there was also a mass outbreak of shock.
The shock was that the teenagers were, perhaps for the first time in their lives, not allowed to do what they wanted. What they wanted was to express their outrage to a government that seemed determined to spoil things for them, but while also keeping warm, having a snack when they wanted to, having a pee when they wanted to, and going home for tea when they wanted to. When the police, who had been humiliated by their failure, a couple of weeks before, to stop teenagers from storming the British Bastille, made it pretty damn clear that nobody was going anywhere until they said so, which, out of sheer spite, wouldn't be for quite a while, the teenagers sent shocked text messages to their mums, some of whom had phoned their teachers to explain why Elsa (they all seemed to be called Elsa) would be missing double citizenship studies.
The pictures, I have to say, were rather touching. What's not to like about a group of young girls, all, apparently, with long blonde hair and film-star smiles, waving signs (handwritten! correctly spelled!) saying "We Hate David Cameron"? If they address their studies with the same precision they bring to the application of their eyeliner (which shames some of us who've been messing it up every day for years and years) they're clearly the Martha Lane Foxes and Susan Greenfields of the future and should not be allowed to slink off to work at the checkout at Tesco. One could only applaud them, too, for outfoxing Clare Solomon, the ghastly thirtysomething president of the University of London Union, whose asymmetric haircut, and belligerent performances on the Today programme and Newsnight make the Chinese approach to political dissent really rather tempting, and who tried to lead the London march, with a megaphone and the support of her far-left rabble, but found her directions overruled by teenagers whose role models tend more towards Lady Gaga than Marx.
The truth, however, is that not too many of those teenagers are likely to end up working at Tesco. Labour's abolition of student grants didn't stop the number of young people going to university from going up. It's likely that most of the people on the march who want to go to university will still go to university, and it's fairly unlikely that the placards they were waving will persuade a state-shrinking Tory-led government that university education, like air (but not water and certainly not gas, whose privatised profits have gone up 40 per cent in the past quarter) should be free.
It's a tough time to be a teenager. Children born to parents who didn't have to pay a penny for their university education, and who went on to get nice, interesting jobs, and managed, often with the help of their own parents, to buy a flat or house that didn't cost 20 times their salary, were led to expect that things for them will be similar, and they won't. The world has changed. For reasons to do with demography, globalisation and some unattainable notion of aspiration that means that a population whose average salary is £26,000 won't countenance higher rates of tax, even for people who earn £150,000, life is going to be tougher for everyone. Apart, of course, from the rich.
If a few hours struggling to control their bladders, and to silence their rumbling stomachs, has helped some of our young people to realise that the people we elect to our Parliament, unlike the people we elect out of jungles, or TV talent shows, actually have a real effect on our lives, and one beyond clever quips on Twitter, that can only be a good thing. And if they actually start thinking about how, in a country with an ageing population, in a globalised world, to create a society that works for as many of its citizens as possible, and how much tax they're prepared to pay to make it, that can only be a good thing, too.
Yesterday morning, Ed Miliband told John Humphrys on the Today programme that he was "tempted to go out and talk to the students". He was, he said, worried about the "squeezed middle". The "squeezed middle", it turned out, was about 90 per cent of the population, which sounded like a lot for a middle, but then it turned out that he was worried about the other 10 per cent too, because he was "concerned about everybody". We had, he said, "to go on a journey". We had, perhaps, to go on a march.
He sounded like a student. If this is the best that opposition can offer, those teenagers might do well to stick to Lady Gaga, or Marx.
Wrong man, wrong intelligence, wrong war
If you start a war without really thinking about how you're going to win it, and then realise that you can't, but don't want to lose face, either to the people you're meant to be defeating or to the people whose sons and brothers and husbands are dying for no very good reason, you can see why you might clutch at any straws that offered hope of some kind of, albeit profoundly compromised, peace. You can see, too, why it might be a bit tricky, when you're talking to the Taliban, to work out just who are the Taliban, particularly since they're quite keen on covering their faces and hiding in caves.
But the discovery that the man you've summoned for talks, and who you've flown to Kabul to meet the President, and who you've been throwing money at, not as any kind of bribery, obviously, but as some kind of very subtle and coded incentive, and who you assumed was a very big cheese in the Taliban, is, in fact, a shopkeeper from Quetta who may have nothing in common with the Taliban apart from a shared love of turban-type scarves, must surely be a little bit embarrassing. It might also indicate that the people who are meant to be prosecuting this war, and, ideally, at some stage, ending it, not least by supplying what's called, but clearly inappropriately, "intelligence", don't have the tiniest smidgeon of a clue what they're doing.
In the beginning was the (wonderful) word
A very posh reception on Tuesday at the Banqueting House, attended by Prince Philip and an awful lot of men in suits, most of whom appeared to be slightly closer in age to Prince Philip than to Eminem, launched the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible with calls for it to be a key text in schools. It should. You can't understand English literature, or culture, without it. And where else do you get the erotic thrill of "kisses of his mouth" that are "better than wine", or breasts "like two young roes"?
React Now
Latest stories from i100
Have you tried new the Independent Digital Edition apps?
iJobs Job Widget
iJobs General
Recruitment Genius: Business Development Manager / Sales - OTE £45,000
Recruitment Genius: Sales Executive - OTE £45,000
Recruitment Genius: Test Development Engineer
Recruitment Genius: Trainee Motor Engineer
Day In a Page
Read Next
Kennedy campaign for the Lib Dems earlier this year in Bearsden
Charles Kennedy: A brilliant man whose talents were badly needed
Baroness Williams
Charles Kennedy: The only mainstream political leader who spoke sense
Tim Farron
Does Blatter's departure mean Fifa will automatically clean up its act?
Don't bet on it, says Tom Peck
The baby of the House who grew into a Lib Dem giant
The future of songwriting
How streaming is changing everything we know about making music
Recognition at last
Beating obesity: The new pacemaker which helps over-eaters
Beating obesity
The new pacemaker which helps over-eaters
9 best women's festival waterproofs
Ready for rain: 9 best women's festival waterproofs
Wiggins worried
On your feet!
Liverpool close in on Milner signing
Liverpool close in on Milner signing
Reds baulk at Christian Benteke £32.5m release clause
The big NHS question
Big knickers are back: Thongs ain't what they used to be
Thongs ain't what they used to be
Big knickers are back
Thurston Moore interview
Thurston Moore interview
On living in London, Sonic Youth and musical memoirs
In full bloom
In full bloom
Floral print womenswear
From leading man to Elephant Man, Bradley Cooper is terrific
From leading man to Elephant Man
Bradley Cooper is terrific |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67501 | Noble Families
User avatar
Posts: 5
Joined: 09 Jan 2006, 00:00
Noble Families
Postby donpippo » 10 Jan 2006, 07:22
I am Pippo.
I would like to know more about noble family last names: for example, how do we recognize a noble or former noble family last name than a "regular" or "normal" one ?
Thank you,
Return to “Italian History & Culture”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67550 | Keepapitchinin, the Mormon History blog » Faith is a Heritage — Chapter 10
Faith is a Heritage — Chapter 10
By: Ardis E. Parshall - January 02, 2012
Christie Lund Coles
Previous Chapter
Chapter 10
As time went on, Enid made up, in every way possible, to Sharon for the lonely little girl years. There were barbecue suppers in the back yard, buffet suppers for the crowd, more formal dinners.
It did something to Sharon to know that she belonged, to know that she could carry her end in all her social contacts, that she needn’t be afraid to accept an invitation for fear she couldn’t return it properly.
Enid tried to give her the good things. At the same time, she had to help her keep a sense of the greater values. Sometimes, Enid wasn’t too sure she was succeeding. Sharon was so alive, so full of fun, and she seemed to expect too much from life. Was she prepared to return in full for other things, as she did for the social obligations? It was hard for Enid to judge, as she had had the entire responsibility of rearing Sharon.
Yet, all seemed well. Sharon was selected valedictorian of her high school class, which seemed to Enid to be a signal honor. She ached with pride in this tall, beautifully poised young woman, who so recently had been her baby.
On the night before the graduation exercises, Enid sat stitching on the white tulle with its delicate pink and blue embroidery. As she finished the last, tiny stitch, she laid the dress carefully over a large chair where Sharon would see it first thing when she came from the party. Enid didn’t wait up for her any more. Keeping house, teaching, entertaining, drained too much of her strength. Besides, she knew her daughter resented, just a little, her sitting up, and, after all, Sharon didn’t need to be watched; she could be depended upon to do the right thing.
Tonight, however, Enid would have liked to have waited up for Sharon, to have seen her when she picked up the billowy white dress, to have heard her exclamation. Enid wanted very much to have a heart-to-heart talk with her, to know what the girl planned to say tomorrow in her speech.
Enid wondered if she were a little jealous because life was taking Sharon away from her so much of the time, a little jealous that Sharon had prepared this speech without any help, any suggestions. They had been so close, always, that it seemed impossible now that there could be any gulf between them, anything unshared.
Enid decided that she wasn’t jealous, that she just wanted to be sure she had done a good job, so that whatever might happen to Sharon, she would have something within her that would give her the strength to meet life.
The next day, as she helped Sharon get ready, Enid was patient with her in her excitement and nervousness.
“Oh, Mother,” cried Sharon, “I’m scared to death. I’ll never get through this … I just won’t ever.”
Enid said something which she had told herself she would not say, hoping the girl herself would mention it first. “Don’t … don’t you think you should read me your speech, let me hear how it sounds before you give it? You’ve been so secretive about it.”
Sharon avoided meeting her mother’s eyes, pretended interest in the way her skirt fell about her hips. “I’d rather not, Mother … if you don’t mind. You come up there and hear it.”
“All right … if that’s how you want it. But we haven’t ever had any secrets. Don’t let’s start.”
“This isn’t a secret, Mom. It’s just … Oh, I can’t tell you.”
Her young face was so pained that Enid smiled at her reassuringly. “Forget it. And hurry! Ray will be here to pick you up in a few minutes.”
“You like him, don’t you? You think he’s nice?”
“Yes, I like him very much, but I don’t want you to get too serious.”
“We won’t … not for a few years. You can be sure of that.”
Later, Enid dressed and went to the commencement exercises. She saw Mr. Fletcher sitting on the stand. He was to be one of the speakers. Enid knew that since she had given him a definite “no” for an answer, he had been courting a widow from a neighboring town, but it didn’t mean anything to her. Even with the loneliness of her life crowding upon her, she knew that there could be nothing between them. She had known something so real, so wonderful, once, that she could not be satisfied with something inferior.
She took her seat as near the front as she dared to sit without appearing to be too anxious. Her heart was pounding harder than if she herself were to deliver the address. She kept praying that Sharon would do all right, would not be too nervous.
She was startled from her thoughts by a voice beside her saying, “Hello. Do you remember me?”
She looked up to see the tall figure of Mr. Richards, Billy Richards’s father, who had visited her at school the day Miss Nobbit had died. “Of course I do,” she assured him, putting her hand rather spontaneously into his. “How are you?”
“Wonderful,” he beamed upon her. “Are you saving this seat for anyone special?”
“Not unless it is for you,” she told him, feeling young and gay for the first time in ages. “Sit down.”
He talked to her freely until the program started, and told her they had discovered a rather rare mineral on his farm, which might mean a great deal to him. “Of course, I’ll keep on farming,” he said. “It’s sort of in my blood. I like the look of the earth, new-turned by a plow; the first green showing above it. I like to get out at sunrise and look at the quiet and beautiful world on all sides of me, to feel myself part of it.”
“Why, you’re a poet,” she murmured, delighted. “You could convert a whole city full of people to becoming farmers with such language.”
“Maybe I could convert you to coming out to see it. I’ve thought of you many times since that day. But … I didn’t dare ask you for a date. I heard you were going with Mr. Fletcher. Then, just the other day, I heard he was going to marry some woman from out of town.”
“Is he? I hope he’ll be happy,” she replied. Then she turned back toward the stage. “Sh …” she whispered, “they’re going to begin.”
The first part of the program did not register much with Enid because of the excitement of waiting for Sharon, of seeing her on the stand, her slender hands folded in her lap, her head held high.
Then, it was time for Sharon’s speech. She came forward rather slowly. No one would have dreamed that she was frightened, but Enid knew by the way she steadied herself with her hand on the small table. Her words began, they flowed out, thoughtful, sincere, beautiful words.
She said, in part, “We do not ask an easy life, we ask, instead, strength for a hard one if it comes. We ask courage and faith similar to that which those we love have shown through all the years that we have known them.
“We are the new leaf upon which will be written the story of our generation. We are not so different from those who have gone before us. We ask only to be worthy of their approbation, only to be deserving of their faith. For faith is the greatest heritage which anyone can receive.”
Enid felt the tears sting her eyes. She remembered saying those words to her daughter. The words about faith being a heritage. Sharon had remembered. Enid felt sure she would always remember. She knew now why Sharon hadn’t wanted to read the speech to her. It lay too close to her heart, too intimate. Youth had a pride that recoiled from revealing the best that was in them for fear it might appear as a weakness. But it was there, just the same. Enid knew. Here, in these words, was the answer to all her questions, the recompense for all her years, fulfillment of her prayers.
Wherever Tom was, she felt that he could see and hear and understand. She was sure his spirit had been with her all the way.
The diplomas were given out, people began to leave. Bill Richards stepped back to let her go before him. He seemed not to notice her tears, and said only, “You’ve done a good job.”
She smiled at him tremulously. He knew, as only one who had shared a similar experience could know. She appreciated his words.
They walked out together and met Sharon at the door. Enid couldn’t find words to speak, neither could her daughter. They merely looked at one another and the tears welled from their bright, bright eyes.
Bill Richards said, “It’s stuffy in here. Maybe you and your daughter would like to drive out to my farm and have some homemade ice cream.”
Sharon wrinkled her nose at him. “Oh, boy! We certainly would. Can Ray go along?”
“Bring anybody you want,” he assured her, good-naturedly. “We’ll be out front.”
They drove west of town, saw the green, lush fields, the tall poplars bordering the road, the streams that gurgled and sang over the rocks as though repeating the words, “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.”
Enid smiled to herself in complete contentment, in utter, joyous peace. She knew that, as the past had been good, the future, too, would be taken care of, would be rich and full.
If she kept her heritage of faith.
(The End)
1. Well, good. That ended the way I needed it to. The ending was a little heavier on the heritage of faith than I expected since we didn’t hear so much about it along the way. But that’s okay. Enid kept her standards and her priorities, and she was lucky to have a daughter who embraced them.
Comment by Ellen — January 2, 2012 @ 6:18 pm
2. Yeah. This ending was more satisfactory to me than most, if only because it didn’t require any drastic change of behavior in anyone. We simply needed to learn that Enid had been successful as a mother, and that Sharon was on her way to living as she had been taught. And now we can cheer for Enid and Bill as they start a new chapter.
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — January 2, 2012 @ 6:37 pm
Leave a comment
RSS feed for comments on this post.
TrackBack URI |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67619 | Kathmandu, Nepal
Nepalese Hindu pilgrims, or Bolboms, during the hours-long procession to worship Lord Shiva at Pashupati temple in Kathmandu. The temple is one of the world's largest Hindu temples of Lord Shiva, the god of creation and destruction. More than 50,000 Hindu devotees from Nepal and India gathered in the holy city Sundarijal, north of Kathmandu, where they collect water claimed to be holy. Narendra Shrestha / EPA |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67624 | 3 mill levy >> Regarding the person questioning what a three-mill building tax was and how much it was going to cost him. You can Google it, but one mill is the equivalent of 1/10th of a cent or 0.001 cent. Property taxes are calculated by multiplying the assessed property value and the mill rate and dividing by 1000, so it's really quite small.
Spaceport >> I am Yellow Dog Democrat, but for once in my life I'm going to agree with Republican Lee Cotter about the spaceport tax. That was never intended to be a continuing tax. It was only to pay off the spaceport building.
Medicare >> In answer to Sound Off about the 83-year-old's free medical insurance. Medicare is not free. Medicare recipients pay for Medicare every month. It is deducted from their Social Security benefits.
Benefits >> I'd like to make a comment about the people feeling the employer should provide them with health care. Where did they ever get the idea that the employer is obligated to take care of their health care and that the government is obligated to take care of them for two years with unemployment benefits?
Executive orders >> Now, Pearce and his Republicans in Congress are voting on a resolution to keep President Obama from using constitutional executive orders. They know that it is ridiculous and has no merit because the constitution provides for executive orders. Why weren't they up in arms against Reagan, who set the record for executive orders?
Tea party >> The reason the tea party is weakening is because people have found out it's the Koch brothers who started it and they don't go along with the Koch brothers way of thinking, because they are just for the 1 percent and trying to stick it to the 99 percent.
Developers >> I see in the Sun-News that the bond issue for the schools has cleared $4 million for land acquisition for future schools. I wonder which developer is going to get that money for dirt cheap desert land. More taxpayers' money for developers to build things we don't want or need.
President Obama >> Since Obama has declared himself a self-anointed emperor, we apparently have no more use for Congress.
Minimum wage >> Successful businesses like La Posta plan ahead for price increases in supplies. Why do they scream so loud about a decent minimum wage but are able to manage upturns in supplies year after year? Why don't people count?
Krauthammer column >> Mr. Krauthammer ponders why Republicans failed to capitalize on Dr. Gosnell's illegal abortion "clinic" trial. It could be the inescapable fact that if pro-criminalization Republicans have their way, his butchery will once again become the norm.
Krauthammer column >> Curiously, Mr. Krauthammer refers to "late term abortion" as "late second trimester or third trimester," and also as any beyond 20 weeks. It is so hard to decide if his problem is math, biology, or honesty.
Jobs >> President Obama could help job creation by telling Harry Reid to let the Senate consider the 40 jobs bills the House passed that are gathering dust on the leader's desk.
National monument >> The city of Las Cruces can't even take care of it's own infrastructure much less take care of a proposed national monument.
Virgin Galactic >> The biographer of Sir Richard Branson claims Virgin Galactic's hybrid rocket motor for SpaceShipTwo is not powerful enough to reach 68 miles above earth.
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67638 | Accessing SQLite in C
create table people (
id integer,
firstname varchar(20),
lastname varchar(20),
phonenumber char(10)
It's reassuring to see that the identical syntax works with SQLite that worked with Postgresql. In fact, SQLite supports much of the SQL 92 standard.
Assuming that these SQL statements were in a file called create.sql, we would create our database and populate it with a command like:
sqlite3 ljdata.sl3 < create.sql
The SQLite website recommends using the “sl3” extension to signify that we're working with an SQLite version 3 database.
If we examine the resulting file, ljdata.sl3 using the strings command, we see that not only is all of our data there, but so is all of the information needed to create the table structure.
# strings < ljdata.sl3
SQLite format 3
id integer,
firstname varchar(20),
lastname varchar(20),
phonenumber char(10)
So just like in the previous article, it's time to look at some code.
1 #include <stdio.h>
2 #include <sqlite3.h>
4 int main(void) {
5 sqlite3 *conn;
6 sqlite3_stmt *res;
7 int error = 0;
8 int rec_count = 0;
9 const char *errMSG;
10 const char *tail;
12 error = sqlite3_open("ljdata.sl3", &conn);
13 if (error) {
14 puts("Can not open database");
15 exit(0);
16 }
18 error = sqlite3_exec(conn,
19 "update people set phonenumber=\'5055559999\' where id=3",
20 0, 0, 0);
22 error = sqlite3_prepare_v2(conn,
23 "select lastname,firstname,phonenumber,id from people order by id",
24 1000, &res, &tail);
26 if (error != SQLITE_OK) {
27 puts("We did not get any data!");
28 exit(0);
29 }
33 while (sqlite3_step(res) == SQLITE_ROW) {
34 printf("%s|", sqlite3_column_text(res, 0));
35 printf("%s|", sqlite3_column_text(res, 1));
36 printf("%s|", sqlite3_column_text(res, 2));
37 printf("%u\n", sqlite3_column_int(res, 3));
39 rec_count++;
40 }
43 printf("We received %d records.\n", rec_count);
45 sqlite3_finalize(res);
47 sqlite3_close(conn);
49 return 0;
50 }
Here, I've tried to reproduce all of the functionality from the previous article's program, but as you'll see, this pointed out an important difference between the two libraries.
Compiling this program simply requires that we link against the sqlite3 library like so:
gcc ./db.c -o db -lsqlite3
Lines 1-10 are just boilerplate declarations and definitions. I declared main as main(void) because this is a demonstration and isn't meant to accept any command-line parameters.
In lines 12-16, we start talking to the database. Here we see that I've opened the database file, ljdata.sl3 in the current directory. We pass in a pointer to the sqlite3 structure pointer so that the sqlite3_open function can allocate memory and populate the structure for us. When the function returns, this variable contains a pointer to this structure. This function also returns an error value that we test in line 13.
Lines 18-20 perform a simple database update, as in the previous article. Here sqlite3_exec() receives the conn variable that we discussed as part of the sqlite3_open() function, and of course, an SQL statement to execute. But you'll also notice 3 additional parameters. The third parameter is a pointer to a callback function that would be called for each row that that SQL query returned. The fourth parameter is a pointer to what would be the first parameter of the callback, if we chose to use that feature. Being able to use a callback to process the rows returned by a query is nice, but it's overkill for this particular query, which only performs an update on the database.
The last parameter to the sqlite3_exec() function is a cheat on my part. This parameter is a pointer to a char array and is meant to contain an error message, should our query generate an error. Again, this is a simple query and I don't expect any errors. In production code, I'd be a bit more defensive.
Things get a bit more interesting in lines 22-29. These lines begin the prepare, execute, loop, close paradigm that almost every other database access library implements. As an aside, it's interesting to note that the sqlite3_exec() function is actually a convenience function implemented in terms of the functions we'll be talking about in the remainder of this program.
So, we start out by preparing our query for execution with a call to sqlite3_prepare_v2() in line 22. This causes the SQLite library to compile our query into a byte-code for later execution; our query won't be run at this time.
Intuitively, you might expect this function to be called something like sqlite3_prepare(), and this points out one of the differences between SQLite and most other database libraries. The API has undergone some changes over the years. Rather than break existing code with subtle changes to how the library behaves, the SQLite developers have simply added to the API while maintaining backward compatibility. So, there actually is an sqlite3_prepare() function, but it behaves slightly differently than the “v2” function. The v2 function is the recommended function for new code.
Our call to sqlite3_prepare_v2() accepts the connection handle and an SQL query string, just as we expect. However, the sqlite3_prepare_v2() call can be used to prepare multiple SQL statements in the same query string, so we pass in the maximum length of our query string much like the strncmp() function. Next we pass in a pointer to sqlite3_stmt pointer. This pointer will contain a “statement” object that we will use later to get the results of our query, just as we did in the Postgresql version.
Finally, we pass in a “tail” pointer that sqlite3_prepare_v2() will use to keep it's place within our query in the event that our query string contains more than one SQL statement. This sure beats clobbering the query string like strtok() does.
In lines 26-29, we check for errors and bail ungraciously at the first hint of problems.
Line 31 points out a subtle difference between the Postgresql version and the SQLite version of this program. In the Postgresql version, we were able to determine how many records our query had retrieved, without having to loop over the dataset, as we will in the SQLite version. It turns out that the SQLite version doesn't actually retrieve all of the data at once. Instead, we have what resembles a cursor that we have to loop over to get our results, one row at a time.
We loop over this “cursor” in line 33 with repeated calls to sqlite3_step(); Each call to the sqlite3_step() function returns the SQLITE_ROW constant until we've reached the end of the dataset. When this occurs, our loop terminates.
Inside the while loop, we see another deviation from other common database access libraries. Here we see type-specific “column accessor” functions. On line 34, see a call to sqlite3_column_text(). This function takes our statement object, as well as an integer that designates which column we want to retrieve. As you can see, the first 3 columns, 0-2 are text, char, or varchar values. In line 37, we see an almost identical call to sqlite_column_int() in order to get the integer-valued id field from our dataset.
We count the records as we retrieve them in line 39 so that we can reproduce all of the functionality of the previous article's program.
Lines 42-43 finish off the report and print the record count.
The call to sqlite3_finalize() on line 45 returns any resources that were in use by our statement object. Finally, we close our database connection on line 47 with a call to sqlite3_close().
Miraculously, this program weighs in at almost exactly the same number of lines as the equivalent Postgresql version!
And, just like last time, the output looks like this.
# ./db
We received 3 records.
I found the Postgresql library to be a bit more approachable than the SQLite library. The Postgresql website had sample code. The SQLite website had a lot of very well written documentation, but because of the changes in the API, it was a bit daunting at first. But as you can see, neither library is difficult to use. Each library solves particular database access problems that the other library might not solve as well. For large databases where the client-server model makes sense, the Postgresql library is the way to go. On the other hand, for client-side, or self-contained databases, SQLite is really neat. Either way, it's fun for the whole family!
Comment viewing options
Перевёл Себе
Валерий's picture
Перевёл Себе на блогпрограммирование-на-с-для-sqlite/
akm's picture
SQLite is a very good stand-alone database. There is also a very convenient GUI tool for creating and manipulating the initial database. It is called SQLite Manager and is an add-in to Firefox browser.
just when I need it
Caleb Cushing (xenoterracide)'s picture
I was looking for this last night... so you posted just in time for me to get something done with C and sqlite. haven't tried it yet but hopefully it'll be enough of what I need.
thanx for the article.
Anonymous's picture
thanx for the article. sqlite is very good at what it does.
i second the above post about the segfault.
as mengjun said, the problem is with the nByte parameter of sqlite3_prepare_v2(). i found out that if you omit the sqlite3_exec() call, it doesn't segfault. this is a libsqlite3 problem (bug?) - your code is ok according to the lib's docs.
according to the documentation, a nByte positive value equal to strlen(statement) should be passed for minor performance gains or a negative value if you want the library to determine itself the statement's length, losing the aforementioned gain; although this may not be a problem, since you have the overhead of str(n)cpy()/strlen() calls you might make before the sqlite3_exec() if you don't go the hard-coded way.
so, by passing -1 as nByte there's no segfault.
again, thanx for the provided code+article. i read your postgresql article as well and it was very interesting!
a minor issue about sqlite3_prepare_v2()
Mengjun Xie's picture
Hello Mike,
Your article is very good for SQLite beginner like me. I really enjoy it. After reading it, I cannot help repeating what you did. However, I found the program, which is copied from the code on this page, always runs into a segmentation fault. The function that causes segfault is sqlite3_prepare_v2. I found the value '1000' for the third argument of sqlite3_prepare_v2() is the root of the problem. After I change the value to the real length of the sql query statement, the problem is gone. (The problem also vanishes if I replace the sql string literal with a char array and set the third argument as the string length.) According to the "SQLite C Interface (", the function prototype of sqlite3_prepare_v2 is as follows:
int sqlite3_prepare_v2(
sqlite3 *db, /* Database handle */
I guess on your machine the code runs perfectly fine. However, it might be better to put some reasonable number for 'nByte' to make the code run across different machines. Thanks!
Geek Guide
The DevOps Toolbox
Tools and Technologies for Scale and Reliability
by Linux Journal Editor Bill Childers
Get your free copy today
Sponsored by IBM
8 Signs You're Beyond Cron
Scheduling Crontabs With an Enterprise Scheduler
On Demand
Moderated by Linux Journal Contributor Mike Diehl
Sign up and watch now
Sponsored by Skybot |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67639 | leon20008's picture
No favorites yet. Check out what's popular today.
Geek Guide
The DevOps Toolbox
Tools and Technologies for Scale and Reliability
by Linux Journal Editor Bill Childers
Get your free copy today
Sponsored by IBM
8 Signs You're Beyond Cron
Scheduling Crontabs With an Enterprise Scheduler
On Demand
Moderated by Linux Journal Contributor Mike Diehl
Sign up and watch now
Sponsored by Skybot |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67640 | Phil Hughes
Geek Guide
The DevOps Toolbox
Tools and Technologies for Scale and Reliability
by Linux Journal Editor Bill Childers
Get your free copy today
Sponsored by IBM
8 Signs You're Beyond Cron
Scheduling Crontabs With an Enterprise Scheduler
On Demand
Moderated by Linux Journal Contributor Mike Diehl
Sign up and watch now
Sponsored by Skybot |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67652 | View Full Version : Dumbest thing since a screen door on a submarine
Autobot Traitor
09-29-2004, 06:17 AM
While browsing the net, I came accross this little attrosity. I don't know if anyone else has seen this, but some dork is trying to make himself available to hire to make skins for people. Not only are the skins freakishly overpriced and reborn reskins, but this blows the cap of the bottle of copywrite rules. Selling mods is a big no-no. Check out his site.
And who the hell would pay 14 USD for this?!
Here's his joke-of-a-site.
09-29-2004, 06:44 AM
Whats the point. Unless its widely distributed noone else can see it.
I'd pay $15.
Spider AL
09-29-2004, 07:11 AM
"At TemplaStorm,.." BAHAHAHAHAHAA...
Someone needs to report him to LEC on the offchance that they'll do something to him.
He deserves it, just for calling his little cottage-cheese industry "TemplaStorm."
I'd pay $15.One born every minute. :p
09-29-2004, 07:18 AM
Heh, I sent an e-mail to sim. I said that if he does not take that site down, he'll get sued by LEC. Can't wait to see what he does.
Master William
09-29-2004, 08:53 AM
09-29-2004, 09:40 AM
Nokill <<--sended an email to Lucas to sue the guy from this site
now he is so done for selling bad detaild skins on the net using othere ppl there idears :mad:
its good that its illegal ;)
09-29-2004, 12:17 PM
What a joke. Did this guy really think he could get away with something like that?!
Besides, there are too many Reborn skins out there already.:p
09-29-2004, 12:36 PM
After reading what I could of this atrocity, you should all be banned from the internet.
That is all.
09-29-2004, 01:21 PM
Rumour already bought one
Autobot Traitor
09-29-2004, 02:19 PM
Originally posted by iamtrip
Rumour already bought one
Seriously though Rumour, why are you making it like were the cons?
09-29-2004, 03:50 PM
Gee wiz! Look at those prices!
And $2 for a bot file! :drop2:
What a rip off!
I mean, c'mon, seriously, he's (or they as the case may be) for the most part just editing pre-existing stuff which doesn't take that long. And these are just clan skins which means they are basically just texture edits of the Reborn or Stormtrooper anyway.
Game developers get paid for what they do (at 6 or 7 bucks a skin that's an hour to complete a skin at above min. wage), but the fact is there are plenty of skinners and modelers out there that do much better for free, and those are the rules. Taking advantage of the gullible and uninformed...
09-29-2004, 07:22 PM
Originally posted by Rumor
That is all.
Huh? :confused:
Uh Rumor, I hope you realize that none of us actually bought anything from this guy (or gal). I have in no way, shape or form supported this illegal (and stupid) operation.
09-29-2004, 08:38 PM
nobody shoud buy anything fron this guy its so easy to make this yourself why woud anyone pay $15,- if thay can learn it themselfs in 5 min :eek:
and i think he yust copy pasted soem picture probally also stolen :mad:
09-30-2004, 12:39 AM
Well if some kind souls could warn this guy/gal or group before they get in trouble, that would be cool.
Anyway, point made, it's DEFINATELY NOT a site we endorse, and what's been said has been said.
Thread closed... |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67658 | LucasForums (
- General MI Discussion (
- - monkey island 1 no crack (
nizcoz 06-08-2007 08:27 PM
monkey island 1 no crack
Hi, i am from argentina. This page is very beautiful. I need monkey island 1 cd without crack, ORIGINAL VERSION. Quiero que me pida las claves, busco la version no crackeada. Saludos.
Joshi 06-09-2007 04:45 AM
Either E-bay or amazon will hold it. I'd suggest some other online shop if they don't have it.
Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
LFNetwork, LLC ©2002-2011 - All rights reserved. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67659 | lfnetwork.com mark read register faq members calendar
Thread: Lego Star Wars 2 - your thoughts Send Page to a Friend
Your Username: Click here to log in
Image Verification
Recipient Name:
Recipient Email Address:
Email Subject:
LFNetwork, LLC ©2002-2011 - All rights reserved.
Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67660 | lfnetwork.com mark read register faq members calendar
Thread: What's everyone's favorite map in battlefront 2 ??? Send Page to a Friend
Your Username: Click here to log in
Image Verification
Recipient Name:
Recipient Email Address:
Email Subject:
LFNetwork, LLC ©2002-2011 - All rights reserved.
Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67661 | Thread: Hoth Siege
View Single Post
Old 11-12-2003, 10:32 AM #18
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 38
"Second question, how do you changed the clocks display? I've seen it counting up sometimes, counting down sometimes... Is there are button to control that?"
You don't. Team 1 has 20 minutes (default) to beat the map in. Team 2 must beat team 1's time, so it'll count down from whatever time it took team 1 to complete (or 20 minutes if they didn't complete).
The winner of siege is the team with the lowest completion time.
I'll post some jedi tips for Hoth later maybe
Blankie is offline you may: quote & reply, |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67663 | Thread: Le Parkour
View Single Post
Old 08-13-2005, 04:17 PM #33
Senior Member
Gabez's Avatar
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Oxford, England
Posts: 3,147
Incidentally, doesn't le parkour mean "death" in Spanish or something?
Trying to think back to Nighlight Productions and Tierra De Los Meurtos...
Gabez is offline you may: quote & reply, |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67698 | Plea deal if Manning rats out Assange?
The Independent is reporting that Private First Class Bradley Manning has been offered a plea deal to reduce his sentence if he agrees to name Julian Assange as a co-conspirator in the famous/infamous leaks. Manning, of course, was the guy who loaded all those documents onto a disc labeled "Lady Gaga", the documents then made their way to Wikileaks. If this is true it's an interesting strategy: going easier on the guy who actually lifted the sensitive documents, crack down on the guy who published them. This comes as Assange supporters say that a grand jury is being impaneled in northern Virginia for possible charges against Assange. The Justice Department didn't comment.
About the author
I agree to American Public Media's Terms and Conditions.
With Generous Support From... |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67704 | get (serial)
Serial port object properties
out = get(obj)
out = get(obj,'PropertyName')
get(obj) returns all property names and their current values to the command line for the serial port object, obj.
out = get(obj) returns the structure out where each field name is the name of a property of obj, and each field contains the value of that property.
out = get(obj,'PropertyName') returns the value out of the property specified by PropertyName for obj. If PropertyName is replaced by a 1-by-n or n-by-1 cell array of strings containing property names, then get returns a 1-by-n cell array of values to out. If obj is an array of serial port objects, then out will be a m-by-n cell array of property values where m is equal to the length of obj and n is equal to the number of properties specified.
This example illustrates some of the ways you can use get to return property values for the serial port object s on a Windows® platform.
s = serial('COM1');
out1 = get(s);
out2 = get(s,{'BaudRate','DataBits'});
ans =
More About
collapse all
Refer to Displaying Property Names and Property Values for a list of serial port object properties that you can return with get.
When you specify a property name, you can do so without regard to case. For example, if s is a serial port object, then these commands are equivalent.
out = s.BaudRate;
out = s.baudrate;
See Also
Introduced before R2006a
Was this topic helpful? |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67717 | Try digitalPLUS for 10 days for only $0.99
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
Long-term weather trends affect climate change
Last month was one of the coldest Februarys on record in the Lehigh Valley, prompting several letters to the editor with the this-proves-there's-no-global-warming theme. These letters reveal a common misperception about global warming. That is, that global warming is generally uniform. We know that it isn't. For example, while we shivered here in the Northeast, the western states and Alaska were experiencing record-breaking heat. In fact, there was such warm weather and a lack of snow in Alaska that the organizers of the Iditarod dog sled race had to move the race course 250 miles north. A weather event like the cold snap that we have just experienced will often raise the... |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67736 | Nonika M.
Oakland, CA
Member since:
May 4, 2011
Hello, I like to do lots of different things and this seems like a good group for that. Nonika
People in this
Meetup are also in:
Sign up
Meetup members, Log in
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67737 | Josephine Mc N.
Member since:
October 28, 2012
Thanks for joining us, please tell me how did you hear about the group? Please note that not all our Rambler members use Meetup so there will always be more people on our walks than appear on this website
I love walking outdoors,so searched for these types of groups.
Hi my name is Jo I live in Staines with my partner & cat!
People in this
Meetup are also in:
Sign up
Meetup members, Log in
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67743 | The Karate Kid - At UK Cinemas 18th June 2010
Uploaded on January 06, 2010 by Way To Blue
In Columbia Pictures' The Karate Kid, 12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) could've been the most popular kid in Detroit, but his mother's latest career move has taken them to China. Dre immediately falls for his classmate Mei Ying, but cultural differences make such a friendship impossible. Even worse, Dre's feelings make an enemy of the class bully, and kung fu prodigy, Cheng. In the land of kung fu, Dre knows only a little karate, and Cheng puts "the karate kid" on the floor with ease. With no friends in a strange land, Dre has nowhere to turn but maintenance man Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), who is secretly a kung fu master. As Han teaches Dre that kung fu is not about punches and skill, but maturity and calm, Dre realizes that facing down the bullies will be the adventure of a lifetime.
Karate, Kids, Film, Jackie Chan, Jaden, Smith, Kung Fu, China, Entertainment
Comments on The Karate Kid - At UK Cinemas 18th June 2010 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67744 | Generally favorable reviews - based on 5 Critics
Critic score distribution:
1. Positive: 4 out of 5
2. Negative: 0 out of 5
1. Apr 25, 2012
I honestly had more fun with this game than Angry Birds. The element of passing the ammo between sheep made it feel like a more complex puzzle game than Angry Birds. And the game looks incredible on the new iPad's Retina display.
2. Apr 27, 2012
Saving Private Sheep 2 is a smart physics-puzzler in a familiar outfit.
3. Apr 24, 2012
Less a sequel and more a re-imagining of the original, Saving Private Sheep 2 uses a slingshot and coin-collecting mechanic rather than a block-elimination technique to thwart the kidnapping plans of the evil foxes.
4. Apr 25, 2012
Though it puts its own spin on the genre, Saving Private Sheep 2 doesn't really do much to stand out from others of its type. But what it does, it does well enough.
5. May 2, 2012
Another physics flinger based on a fun premise that will offer some amusement before you move onto the next 'flavor of the month' in this genre.
There are no user reviews yet. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67773 | Star Reach (DOS)
Critic Score
100 point score based on reviews from various critics.
User Score
5 point score based on user ratings.
Advertising Blurbs
Press Release:
Interplay Releases Star Reach Available Now for IBM Computers
Irvine, California - December 22, 1994 - Interplay announced today the release of Star Reach, a fast-paced strategy game of galactic conquest, now available for IBM and 100% compatible computers. Set in the distant future where alien races battle it out for domination over the galaxy, Star Reach is a stateof-the-art strategic action game that uses 32-bit programming, stereo sound-effects and a host of additional features to produce a visually stunning, lightning fast challenge. "Star Reach is an awesome game of strategy and action and the diversity of it is so great, it'll appeal to a wide variety of gamers," said Jerry Luttrell, marketing manager of Interplay Productions. "From the novice player to the hardcore demanding gamer, there is enough here to engage everyone. Star Reach will be that type of game you play over and over again as you learn its intricate strategies."
Designed and developed by Techtonics, Star Reach features split-screen action to allow two opponents to play head to head, or against computer opponents. Players can also go it alone and play against one to three computer opponents. Programmed in 32-bit protected mode, players will thrill to the real-time, simultaneous strategy with over 20 scenarios, a 4-channel digital soundtrack and digitized speech. With stereo music, 3-D rendered battle-space ships, multiple scenarios and seven alien species, multiple combinations assure that the player will never get the same game twice. For those with a preference, Star Reach supports different playing styles from all-out arcade action to pure strategy, or combinations of both.
Controlling a vast fleet of space craft and troops, players attempt to rule the galaxy through planetary colonization, economic decision making and space combat. With six different planet types to choose from and with different resources on each, players may capture a mineral-based planet for its mighty resources, build a domed community on a world of ice or outmaneuver and destroy ruthless enemies bent on taking over their planets. Players control all the action as they make every decision and move simultaneously with their opponents.
Players can customize their fleets to use the types of ships that fit their playing style from light fighters, destroyers, satellites, troop-carriers, pirate ships, and many more. Players will establish colonies on conquered planets and make use of available resources. Stereo sound effects bring each and every battle to life in native sound board support for most major sound cards.
Star Reach was produced by long-time Interplay producer Thomas R. Decker. His other achievements include the best-selling Mario Teaches Typing CD-ROM and the soon to be released Kingdom: The Far Reaches.
Star Reach is available for IBM/Tandy and 100% compatibles for both CD-ROM and floppy disk. System Requirements include: 386DX-33 or faster, with 4mb RAM, 256 VGA video card, DOS 5.0 or higher, with a hard drive and 3.5" floppy disk required; joystick and Microsoft Mouse supported. Digitized speech is supported by the Sound Blaster Pro Series and Sound Blaster Pro, Gravis Ultrasound, Aria and Pro Audio Spectrum Series.
Contributed by skl (1138) on Feb 19, 2004. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67774 | DOOM³ (Linux)
DOOM³ Linux One of the many strange sights encountered in the Delta Complex... pickled Imp.
Critic Score
100 point score based on reviews from various critics.
User Score
5 point score based on user ratings.
Not an American user?
The third game of the DOOM series which takes gamers through the depths of Hell where technology and demons meet.
You start as a marine soldier sent to Mars where a corporation named The Union Aerospace Corporation makes secret experiments. People around the base are on the edge, something is not right. You receive your first simple mission and when you go off, the Hell unleashes.
This third major release of Doom series is especially based on single player experience. As in most First Person Shooter Games, you aim, you shoot, you run...
DOOM³ Linux You did not expect anything to come from above did you!
DOOM³ Linux And you thought they were ugly normally.
DOOM³ Linux This is what Anorexia will do to you!
DOOM³ Linux Doom 3 can be scaled down to an amazing extent in order to run on older hardware.
Alternate Titles
• "毁灭战士3" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
• "Doom 3" -- Alternative spelling
• "둠 3" -- Korean spelling
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
Critic Reviews
There are no critic reviews for this game.
There are currently no topics for this game.
1001 Video Games
DOOM³ appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Board Game
This game was loosely adapted into 2004's DOOM: The Boardgame.
The budget for this game was US$15 million.
Cut Content
Original concepts for the game included:
• Longer outdoor excursions that got scrapped mostly due to engine considerations. Their removal being quoted as the final nail in the coffin for the inclusion of a railgun (the weapon from Quake was originally going to be in the game as the long-range/sniper weapon).
• More female personnel in Phobos, including a never confirmed female receptionist and an apparently complete topless dead female modeled by Kenneth Scott that was to be found on an autopsy table later in the game.
• A flamethrower was at one point considered, and the PDA was going to include a map feature like in the original DOOM games.
• Finally, (and most infamously) the game's initial concept called for a use key like in the original, but this feature was removed by head honcho John Carmack who called the feature "just a gimmick".
German Release
In Germany, the game was released unlocalized and uncut, both which are very unusual.
The name of the doctor responsible for the disaster is Dr. Malcolm Betruger. "Betrug" is the German word for fraud or deceit, which is exactly what the doctor does.
The Doomguy speaks only one word in the entire game. That word is "God..." as he sees the Cyberdemon. Incidentally, this is the first time the main character in a DOOM game talks.
As of 2009, two novels based on the game have been released, Doom³: Worlds on Fire, and Doom³: Maelstrom. Both were written by author Matthew J. Costello, who helped writing the story and dialog on DOOM³ and its expansion pack, DOOM³: Resurrection of Evil.
References: General
• In a certain section of the Delta Complex, the player comes across a whole area of employee offices. The names on the door are names of actual id Software employees.
• On Site 3 and the Excavation Dig Site, there are four stone tables which the archaeologists had found. One of these is showing the ancient hero in a battle against the forces of hell. This ancient hero is actually the Marine from the original DOOM, and the stone tablet looks almost exactly like the front cover of the original US DOS DOOM box. Other examples of hidden images in the pentagram are the UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) logo and a Moon symbol (probably referring to the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, but it is not sure whether this really is a reference)
• At one point in the game, the player comes across a nearly-dead soldier named E. Webb. This is most likely a reference to id Software monkey Eric Webb.
• At certain points within the game, magazines with various covers can be discovered. One of them, called Booty actually sports a picture of Hunter's (a female character from Quake III: Arena) lovely backside.
• The game's intro (text and voice-over) and story bare an uncanny resemblance to Resident Evil: The Movie.
• Among the many names the game uses for owners of the PDF pads are Seamus Blake and Ben Wolfe. Besides being laborers who have turned into the undead, these people are also renowned contemporary jazz musicians.
• The logo of the Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3 mini-game is a parody on the Street Fighter Alpha 3 logo.
References: Internet
• id Software registered, making it look like the homepage of the Union Aerospace Corporation.
• The player will receive e-mails on their PDA that advertise for Martianbuddy (the greatest company ever conceived!). It is a jab at the annoying Bonzibuddy. When visiting, the player will receive the cabinet code 0508, which can be used prior to the end of Alpha Labs to unlock the chaingun and at the end of Delta Labs 2 to unlock the BFG9000.
• The player will get a message on their PDA that refers to the famous 419 Nigerian scams. The sender, John Okonkwo, is not a random name, just read this.
• Near the end of the game, there is a clickable brick on the wall bearing the id Software logo. Click it and a wall opens. Inside, a secret PDA can be found, with messages from the id employees thanking everyone for playing the game.
• The character who supplies the protagonist with the PDA turns back to typing after doing so. If the player takes a look on the man's screen, they can see him typing an e-mail about the main character being rude for watching over his shoulder.
• In the very first levels you can see UAC employees that can not be reached normally. When using the noclip cheat code and going through the walls to reach the unreachable areas, it can be seen that all of these employees share the name Joe.
• Try one of the old cheat codes from the other DOOM games; in addition to the obvious "unknown command" reply, the message "your memory serves you well" will also be shown.
Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3
After arriving in Mars City, go to the kitchen. There the arcade game Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3 can be played. The game looks like a previous DOOM game, except for the turkey of course. And so it plays (playing the Marine while he is in Berserk mode). After having punched enough turkeys and reaching a score of 25,000, the player receives an e-mail via their PDA saying: "Your parents can rest easier knowing they have raised another shining example of humanity. Due to the incredible amount of time you wasted punching poor defenseless turkeys, your vacation time has been docked two days."
• The game refuses to run not only if CD/DVD emulation software is installed on your computer (CloneCD, Alcohol), but certain burning software as well (Nero).
• According to the promotional video G4 History of Doom when DOOM³ was first demonstrated at the E3 Expo in 2002 the E3 Judges had to offer people to play a part of the game or to play the game themselves in order to show that the game being demonstrated on the screen was in fact real. People were that impressed by the graphics.
User Created Content
• While most new FPS games have outrageous minimum system requirements, especially for video cards (at least 128MB, Texture & Lightning required), the Doom III engine is, despite the hefty overall requirements, quite scalable. Some users have developed a small patch that makes the game compatible with the Voodoo 2 card, among others in the Voodoo line. These are some of the very first 3D cards and they often do not carry more than 12MB. The game does not look better than Quake II with such setup, but it still is a fine piece of programming.
• Within approximately 1 day of release, there was already a game modification which added a light to the pistol. In the game itself, players must swap between the flashlight and a gun.
• Computer Gaming World
• March 2005 (Issue #249) – Best Sound of the Year
• GameSpy
• 2004 – Special Achievement in Graphics Award (together with Far Cry)
• 2005 – #5 Xbox Game of the Year
• 2012 – #7 Top PC Gaming Intro
• Interfaith Center of Corporate Responsibility
• 2004 - one of the Top 10 Worst Violent Video Games of 2004
• Golden Joystick Awards
• 2004 - PC Game of the Year
• 2004 - Ultimate Game of the Year
• PC Powerplay (Germany)
• Issue 03/2005 - #4 Biggest Disappointment
Information also contributed by AHO, bobthewookiee, Hamish Wilson, Karthik KANE, lasttoblame, lvnvgmb, M4R14N0 Maw, piltdown man, Pseudo_Intellectual, Sciere, Silverblade, Steve ., Tiago Jacques, Xoleras, Zack Green and Zovni.
Related Web Sites
• A Guide for Beginners (IMG's introduction to playing Doom 3. )
• Doom 3 (Official game page on id Software's website)
• Doom 3 (Official website)
• Doom 3 HQ (A well-rounded Doom 3 fansite, with custom levels, game info and a forum.)
• Doom 3 on Win98 (A quick and easy to follow tutorial on running Doom 3 on Windows 98)
• Doom 3 Portal (Comprehensive fansite for all things Doom 3 from fan art and fiction to a mod index.)
• Doomworld (Website with classic Doom and Doom 3 news and forums.)
• Hints for Doom 3 (Question and answer type solution guide gives you nudges in the right direction before revealing the final solutions.)
• Lord FlatHead's Homepage (Hasn't been updated since Doom 3's release, but contains a lot of interesting articles about the technology behind Doom 3 and some speculation.)
• Once More into the Inferno (An Apple Games article about the Mac version of DOOM³ (February, 2005).)
• PlanetDoom (GameSpy's Doom Website)
Iggi (5840) added DOOM³ (Linux) on Dec 02, 2004
Other platforms contributed by Corn Popper (69644), Sciere (295141) and Lexicon Dominus (7) |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67775 | Sgrizam Amstrad CPC Title screen
Published by
Developed by
Critic Score User Score
Amstrad CPC
ZX Spectrum
Not an American user?
The mission of this game consists in rescuing a princess who has been kidnapped by the evil inhabitants of the Kindos planet, whom, in addition, have robbed the fabulous treasure of the Imperial Palace. This assignment has been entrusted to you by Emperor Cophenix II, who promised to give you the hand of his gorgeous daughter, plus half of his possessions.
The adventure starts in the entrance of the Kindos castle, you will have to cross the different passages which lead to the jail Princess Doxaphin is locked up. You will have to avoid certain enemies and face others. You can duck, jump or pull out your sword to aim an accurate thrust at your adversaries. But be careful, all these movements have to be made with extreme precision. Otherwise you will lose one of your three valuable lives.
Sgrizam ZX Spectrum This is the start of Phase / Level 1. It's a short animated sequence showing the hero walking down the steps to face whatever's down here
Sgrizam ZX Spectrum After avoiding half a dozen nasties and moving on to he right the player encounters this guy. As with the creeping / flying nasties, one touch from him is fatal
Sgrizam Amstrad CPC Title screen
Sgrizam ZX Spectrum The game begins. All sorts of things approach from the right. Contact with any one is fatal and costs a life
User Reviews
There are no reviews for this game.
Critic Reviews
Computer Gamer ZX Spectrum Nov, 1986 8 out of 20 40
There are currently no topics for this game.
There is no trivia on file for this game.
Contributed to by Kohler 86 (7282) |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67799 | Skip to main content
The Killing Room
R| 1 hr. 33 min.
Plot Summary
Paul (Nick Cannon) and three others are accepted as test subjects by the mysterious Dr. Phillips (Peter Stormare). Initially, they are asked only to work on a survey -- but things take a sudden, violent turn when one of the subjects is executed. It's soon revealed that the remaining participants' lives depend on how they respond to various situations. But as the subjects' desperation grows, Phillips' colleague, psychologist Emily (Chloë Sevigny), debates ending the sick test.
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Genres: Thriller, Horror
The Killing Room (2009)
Release Date: January 16th, 2009|1 hr. 33 min.
similar movies
• Saw (2004)
• Das Experiment (2001)
• Pi (1998)
• Sound of My Voice (2011)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
How do you watch stuff?
How else do you watch?
Select your online providers
My Settings
You are currently subscribed as: {email}
Weekly Newsletter
Daily alerts
You're not following any movies.
These are the movies you’re currently following.
Update settings |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67820 | Americans Coming to Their Senses
by Steven F. Hayward
Gallup’s annual survey on environmental issues is out, and it reports that for the first time in 25 years, a majority of Americans think economic growth should take precedence over environmental protection. This view has been steadily rising for the last decade, but this is the first year the economy broke out on top.
Just a few weeks ago, Gallup reported a separate poll showing a rising number of Americans think global warming is exaggerated. With all the millions that have been spend, it is increasingly clear that Al Gore and his friends are trying to sell the climate equivalent of an Edsel.
Expect the climate-alarm volume knob to be turned up to 11. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67824 | About this Recording
NA209812 - FLYNN, B.: Tale of Troy (The) (Unabridged)
Benedict Flynn
Benedict Flynn
The Tale of Troy
There really was once a time when the tall towers of a city called Troy reached gleaming into the sky; when its proud king fought against an invading army in a desperate siege. It was nearly four thousand years ago, in an age when the kings of golden Mycenae held sway over the mainland of Greece and Troy commanded the entrance to the Hellespont. Bronze Age peoples from Europe and Asia came to trade there, and the city overlooked a well-watered and fertile plain. It was a rich city, a prize to be won.
The Tale of Troy comes to us through a poet named Homer. He told the story as a poem, which he called The Iliad, because Troy was also known as Ilium. Homer wandered from town to town in ancient Greece repeating his poem; people would pay to listen to him. He sang another too, called The Odyssey, about how the Greek warriors made their way home when the siege ended.
The Iliad is where myth and history meet. It is a blurred memory, already five centuries old when Homer composed his poem, of the rivalries that led to the real Trojan War, and the siege. It is also the memory of an imagined golden age, a distant time of heroes, when great brave men performed deeds, and mortals were the pawns in the gods’ quarrels with each other.
Homer’s characters, the gods and heroes of the stories, were very real for the people to whom he sang. The gods were the way the ancient Greeks explained their world. If something unusual happened, there was probably a god behind it. And for every blessing, they said, the gods gave two sorrows. Ancient Greeks thought men resembled their gods, apart from being mortal. So because they felt emotions like desire, anger, or love, the Greeks assumed the gods also did. They weren’t expected to be good all the time — and they weren’t. Often they would disobey Zeus, and be punished by him.
Different gods looked after different aspects of their lives. Zeus was the father of the gods, and the most powerful. He ruled over the stormy sky with thunderbolts and lightning, enthroned on Mount Olympus. Poseidon was lord of the sea. Hades ruled the underworld, where the souls of the dead lived. Zeus’ sister Aphrodite ruled the realm of love. Zeus had many children by different wives — goddesses, nymphs and mortal women.
One son, Apollo, was the god of music and poetry and famous as a deadly accurate archer. A daughter, Athene, was the goddess of wisdom and courage. Another son was Ares, the god of war. Hephaestus, the god of the forge, who made the armor for Achilles, was the son of Hera, queen of the gods. Zeus’ infidelities annoyed her so much she produced him all on her own.
Heroes were the sons or daughters of a mortal and a god, like Achilles, the son of Peleus, Prince of Thessaly, and Thetis the sea nymph. Ordinary people admired them for their wonderful deeds, but heroes did not perform their feats for others. They sought after excellence and glory for themselves. When Achilles and Agamemnon quarrel in the story it is because Agamemnon refuses to show him enough respect for the deeds he has done, and not only because Agamemnon takes away the lovely Briseis.
The ancient Greeks used Homer’s poems like the Bible. They enjoyed the stories but they also learned from them how to behave in the right way. When Paris stole Helen away he broke the laws of hospitality. Everyone could learn from The Tale of Troy how furious that made the gods, and how Paris was punished. Or how Achilles’ uncontrolled anger and slaughter of Trojans after the death of his friend Patroclus hastened his end by angering the gods. Arguments were settled by referring to Homer, and children used the poems in their lessons.
Homer’s poem was sung everywhere — to halls of noblemen, at fairs to merchants, and farmers in their villages. The Tale of Troy was so important to the ancient Greeks that Homer became a kind of hero himself. Long after his death artists, thinkers and ordinary people still look to his tale for inspiration.
Notes by Heather Godwin
Close the window |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67828 | @techreport{NBERw5047, title = "Do Airlines in Chapter 11 Harm Their Rivals? Bankruptcy and Pricing Behavior in U.S. Airline Markets", author = "Severin Borenstein and Nancy L. Rose", institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper", series = "Working Paper Series", number = "5047", year = "1995", month = "February", doi = {10.3386/w5047}, URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w5047", abstract = {The behavior of firms in financial distress has attracted considerable academic and policy interest in recent years. The turmoil in the U.S. airline industry has triggered much of the public policy discussion, as some observers have argued that airlines in financial distress, particularly those operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, reduce prices to the point of harming themselves and their competitors. This study investigates the pricing strategies of bankrupt airlines and their rivals. The data suggest that an airline's prices typically decline somewhat before it files for bankruptcy protection and remain slightly depressed over the subsequent two or three quarters. We find no evidence that competitors of the bankrupt airline lower their prices, however, nor that they lose passengers to their bankrupt rival. These results indicate that bankrupt carriers do not harm the financial health of their competitors.}, } |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67835 | Improv on a Trash Bin
(vimeo link)
Sound Artist Diego Stocco is at the CES convention in Las Vegas. Sudden inspiration came from the resonant sound of a trash can, so he recorded this impromptu performance on his iPhone. -Thanks, Diego!
Newest 4
Newest 4 Comments
Lol! Let's get all dramatic like it's some kind of mind blowing performance. Dude, you're a yuppy without rhythm beating on a trash can like a two year old. Oh, what an age in which we live...
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Commenting is closed.
Email This Post to a Friend
"Improv on a Trash Bin"
Separate multiple emails with a comma. Limit 5.
Success! Your email has been sent!
close window |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67894 | Nonmetallic Inorganic Materials
Single Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
contact: Brandon Bürgler
Single Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SC-SOFC) can be understood as Fuel Cells with only one gas compartment (thus, „single chamber“). In conventional Fuel Cells of any type, the oxidant and the fuel are usually separated by a gas tight electrolyte. The cell has two gas chambers. The operation of a SC-SOFC relies on the selectivity of the cathode and the anode which are both exposed to the same gas mixture of fuel and air.
Differences to conventional Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
In conventional SOFCs there is only one reaction that is possible at the cathode, i.e. the reduction of oxygen. At the anode the oxidation of the fuel occurs. Thus, the electrode materials do not need to be selective for the anode or cathode reaction. They only need to have a high activity for the reaction taking place. However, in SC-SOFC apart of the high activity, the anode needs to be selective for the oxidation of the fuel whereas the cathode needs to exhibit selective reduction of oxygen and inertness to the fuel. The generation of an open circuit voltage (OCV) is due to the difference of catalytic activity. It is obvious that a cell with two electrodes made of the same materials can not generate electric power. Highly active standard materials used in conventional SOFCs like La0.8Sr0.2MnO3-x (LSM) La0.8Sr0.2Co0.2Fe0.8O3-x (LSCF), Ni-Zr0.8Y0.2O1.9 (Ni-YSZ) are not applicable in SC-SOFC because they do not exhibit high enough selectivity.
In principle the reactions at the two electrodes are the same for both types of SOFCs. Even so, in the SC-SOFC the selectivity of materials allows the omission of the gas separating membrane.
Principle of operation
The electrolyte is commonly referred to an ionic conductor, however, vacant oxygen lattice sites are the veritable charge carriers. Let us, thus, assume oxygen vacancies (VO**) to be the charge carrying, mobile species. The anode is the site where the oxidation of the fuel takes place. The fuel (hydrogen) and oxygen surface atoms (OOx) are consumed. Water, oxygen vacancies and electrons (e-) are created at the anode. The following reaction Equation describes what is happening at the anode:
H2 + OOx = H2O + VO** + 2 e-
At the cathode the reduction of the oxygen from air occurs, consuming the electrons that have flown through an electrical circuit and have emerged at the anode by the oxidation of the fuel. Oxygen vacancies are annihilated at the cathode by the reaction with gaseous oxygen. For every annihilated vacancy a pair of electrons is consumed. This reaction leads to the formation of regular oxygen ions in the crystal lattice at the surface of the electrolyte.
1/2 O2 (g) + 2 e- + VO** = OOx
It can be easily verified that the sum of the two reactions corresponds to the combustion reaction of hydrogen with water as the product. The electrons of the spatially separated redox reactions are forced to flow through an external circuit that includes the electric load (any electric power-consuming device). The electrodes are sites, where the charge carrying specie is converted from electrons to vacancies or vice versa.
At too high temperature (>700°C) both electrode materials act as a single phase combustion catalyst and the OCV vanishes. The introduction of ceria as low temperature electrolyte was thus a mandatory step for SC-SOFC to give reasonable power output.
Layout and Materials
Figure 1 shows the three basic and novel layouts possible with SC-SOFCs. The cells always have three basic components, electrolyte, anode and cathode. At the electrodes the electric current must be collected. This is done with so called current-collectors. The three cell designs are:
The materials used for SC-SOFC are Sm0.5Sr0.5CoO3-x (SSC) with perovskite structure as the cathode and Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95 (CGO) with fluorite structure as the electrolyte. A composite material of metallic Nickel and CGO is used as highly active anode (Ni-CGO). The microstructure of an anode can be seen in Figure 2.
SC-SOFC offer the following advantages:
We investigate alternative materials, fabrication processes, operating conditions and performance of SC-SOFCs with simple geometry. The performance of a cell at 600° C can be seen in Figure 3. The maximum power density at 100 ml/min methane and 200 ml/min air was approximately 450 mW/cm2. We also investigate the influence of Co-doped electrolytes on the fuel cell performance. We seek to understand how selective electrodes work, how we can improve the performance of SC-SOFC and what materials are best suited. The dependence of OCV and maximum power density on temperature, gas flows, gas compositions and geometry is also subject to current work.
1. Hibino, T. et al., A Low Operating Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cell in Hydrocarbon-Air Mixtures. Science, 2000. 288:2031-2033.
2. Hibino, T. et al., Improvement of a Single Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cell and Evaluation of New Cell Designs. Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 2000. 147(4):1338-1343.
Wichtiger Hinweis:
folgender Seite.
Important Note:
More information
© 2015 ETH Zurich | Imprint | Disclaimer | 26 March 2011 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67899 | 2.0 Accessing The Personal Management Utility
The Personal Management utility is represented by an icon in the notification area (system tray).
To launch Novell® SecureLogin:
1. Click Start > Programs > Novell SecureLogin.
After you successfully launch the Novell SecureLogin, the appears in the notification area.
Double-click this icon to launch the Personal Management utility.
This icon is a shortcut the Novell SecureLogin functionality on your workstation.
1. Right-click the Novell SecureLogin icon in the notification area.
2. Select the task you want to perform.
For example, select Add Applications to add, delete, and manage the applications.
Figure 2-1 The Advanced Preferences
The following table provides the information on the tasks available in the menu. If a task does not appear in the menu, your administrator has not enabled this functionality for you.
Add Application
Starts the Add Applications wizard. Enables an application for single-sign on by creating a script that automates the login.
Manage Logins
Launches the Novell SecureLogin Personal Management utility.
Adds login IDs (login credentials), links login IDs to applications, manages password policies, and manages Novell SecureLogin settings.
New Login
Enables you to create multiple single sign-ons or login IDs for an application. For example, if you have three accounts on the same application, SecureLogin manages the three sets of credentials.
SecureLogin provides the option to select the preferred account when the application starts.
Advanced > Change Preferences
Opens the Personal Management utility, with the Preferences option selected.
Advanced > Change Passphrase
Enables you to change your passphrase question or passphrase answer.
Advanced > Refresh Cache
Refreshes the local cache settings and updates caches with any changes made at the associated container or organizational unit level.
Advanced > Backup User Information
Backs up the Novell SecureLogin user information into a file.
Advanced > Restore User Information
Restores Novell SecureLogin information from the backup file.
Advanced > Work Online / Offline
Toggles between the online and offline states of SecureLogin. When you work offline, SecureLogin uses the local (secondary) cache rather than the directory.
This option is not displayed in Standalone mode
Determines whether SecureLogin is enabled (active) or disabled.
Displays the SecureLogin version number and the status of the data stores. The primary data store is the directory. The secondary is the local cache.
Log User Off Windows
Enables you to shut down all programs, including SecureLogin, and log out from the workstation. Performs the same function as the Shut Down > Log Off option on the Windows Start menu.
Shuts down SecureLogin. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67926 | To the Editor:
Victor Fleming died in 1949, long before the ''auteur'' theory happened to film study -- or even before film study happened to film [''A Forgotten Maker of the Unforgettable,'' Nov. 15]. That may explain why his work is often overlooked: because he wasn't around to explain himself.
It isn't fair to remember Fleming as the ''maker'' of ''The Wizard of Oz'' and ''Gone With the Wind,'' both of which -- as Michael Sragow's article states -- were take-over jobs for him. ''Wizard'' had two directors before Fleming and one after. (King Vidor took over when Fleming took over ''Gone With the Wind,'' and directed the Kansas sequences, including ''Over the Rainbow.'') Clark Gable, feeling that George Cukor was favoring ''Gone With the Wind'' 's female leads, demanded that Cukor be fired and Fleming brought on; Cukor was said to have continued to coach Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland on the sly.
Still, it's Fleming's name on those two classic films. So if he's indeed been ''forgotten,'' there are compensations.
Sunland, Calif.
Photo: Victor Fleming. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67949 | UCI's $45 million gadget
Dr. Stuart Nelson removes a port-wine birthmark from a young patient using his Dynamic Cooling Device. UC IRVINE
Dr. J. Stuart Nelson came up an idea that was simple and effective, an idea that has earned UCI $45 million in patent royalties to date.
Nelson, medical director at UC Irvine's Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, conceived the Dynamic Cooling Device, used to treat infants and children who are born with red patches known as "port-wine stains."
The red birthmarks, which look like spilled red wine, usually occur on the face.
The Dynamic Cooling Device works in tandem with a laser to eliminate the blood vessels below the skin that cause the marks.
The redness is removed by a series of repeated skin cooling spray bursts followed by laser pulses. The laser emits a yellow light which gets absorbed by the blood vessels that make the port-wine stain birthmarks.
A series of spray bursts at a temperature of minus 60 degrees Celsius are followed by laser pulses for five to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the mark. Darker skin requires longer cooling and longer laser exposure.
The earlier children are treated, the better the results, because children have less collagen and pigment in their skin. Normal pigment blocks the incoming laser light from reaching the targeted blood vessels and collagen scatters the light.
Here's the magic of the Dynamic Cooling Device: It only cools a select area of the top layer of skin in order to prevent scarring or changes in the skin pigmentation, leaving the deeper blood vessels vulnerable for laser-induced heating.
Nelson came up with the Dynamic Cooling Device while watching a baseball game at the Rusty Pelican bar with collaborators Thomas Milner and Lars Svaasand. The game prompted him to think of the way trainers sprayed a player's injury with ethyl chloride to numb the pain.
Nelson and his collaborators tested the cold spray using a Toyota Camry fuel injector as a nozzle. Nelson's arm is dotted with white spots, where he spray tested the device.
It took Nelson and his team about three months to put together a prototype.
The Dynamic Cooling Device was patented in 1998.
Candela Corp., part of Irvine-based Syneron Inc., licenses the device for commercial sales.
The Dynamic Cooling Device is used on about 20,000 lasers worldwide.
User Agreement
Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement
Programs & Promotions
Business Directory
Ads by Google |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67967 | Monthly Archives: February 2007
Türk İşaret Dili (Turkish Sign language)
Language, Sign language 12 Comments
Take a note, Bubbles
According to a recent post on Language Log, chimpanzees in the wild have been observed make pencil-like tools. They take sticks, tear off any branches, peel the bark off, and then sharpen one end. They then use the stick to make mark on large flat leaves. In one cases, a female chimp made marks on […]
Writing 10 Comments
Language exports
The other day I read in an article on the University of Notre Dame website that 51 universities outside Ireland teach Irish and that 29 of them are in the USA. Some of those studying Irish in the USA have Irish roots; others came to the language through an interest in Irish culture. The other […]
Education, Irish, Language, Language learning, Welsh 8 Comments
Language quiz
Here’s part of a song in a mystery language. Can you identify the language? By the way, the Omniglot forum in finally online at: Like this:Like Loading…
Language, Quiz questions 13 Comments
Language quiz
Here is a clip of part of a conversation in an unknown language. Any ideas what language it is? Like this:Like Loading…
Language, Quiz questions 6 Comments
Useful phrases
I’m just putting together a new phrases page – a collection of translations of the phrase “Could you write it/that down please?”. You can see what I’ve done so far here. Corrections and additional translations are very welcome. Are there any other phrases you’d like to see in the phrases section? Do you think that […]
Language, Words and phrases 23 Comments
Bangkok Danish
Language, Language learning 5 Comments
Green with envy
Language, Technology, Translation 15 Comments
‘Ōlelo Hawai’i ‘oe?
According to a couple of articles (here and here) I found today, a new PhD program focusing on the Hawaiian language and culture has recently been set up at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. This is apparently the first doctorate in the United States in a Native language. Five students are undertaking research into […]
Endangered languages, Hawaiian, Language, Language learning 15 Comments
Language, Language exchange, Language learning 4 Comments
%d bloggers like this: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67972 | Caged Combat Challenge en Hayastan Grappling Challenge & Caged Combat Challenge (April 17, 2010) <div class="field field-type-imceimage field-field-imce-featured"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item odd"> <img src="/system/files/images/Hayastan.JPG" alt="Hayastan Grappling Challenge" width="445" height="576" id="imceimage-field_imce_featured-" /> </div> </div> </div> <p></p><p>Hayastan Grappling Challenge Returns to Charlotte, NC! Plus the Caged Combat Challenge MMA show that same night!!!</p> <p>On April 17, 2010 the Hayastan Grappling Challenge will return to Charlotte, NC! This is a double elimination Gi and No-Gi event open to all Grappling styles and all skill levels.</p> <p>In addition to the tournament, there will also be a MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) cage fighting show that same evening. There are 12 fights scheduled by some of the best MMA talent in the Carolina’s and surrounding regions.</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"></div><p><a href="" target="_blank">read more</a></p> Grappling Mixed Martial Arts Top Stories Caged Combat Challenge Gokor Hayastan Grappling Challenge seminar Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:11:17 +0000 Paul Booe 1006759 at |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67975 |
Conversion of 1.2 schema to 2.x
I'm in the process of migrating my directory from 1.2 to 2.0. I'm using the smbldap scripts from ideax to do account creation, but I need a way to
a)migrate my 1.2 directory entries and
b) populate the ntpassword and lmpassword attributes from the existing userpassword attribute.
Aside from some search and replace operations for a few attribute names in the 1.2-generated ldif, is there anything else I need to be aware of? I really don't want to have to generate new passwords for all my users.
Jefferson K. Davis
Technology and Information Systems Manager
Standard School District
1200 North Chester Ave
Bakersfield, CA 93308
661-392-2110 ext 120 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67981 | Ann Curry
Photo: Getty Images
A few years ago I found a lump in my breast. My sister had had very aggressive breast cancer, so when I felt it, an alarm went off in my head. I rushed to the doctor and had tests done immediately.
Afterward I waited in a panic for the results. The doctor came in looking grave—then told me that I didn't have cancer. But that wasn't the end of our talk. He told me, "Every day I have to tell a woman she's got a disease that might kill her. Each one of them says, 'I didn't get a chance to do this,' or 'I should have done that.' I don't want you to be one of those women." He suggested I take one day a week to "connect"—not just with family or friends or God, but with myself. He said I ought to make sure I was setting aside time to do what fulfilled me.
At first I told him, "I'm a mom—I can't spend a whole day on myself!" But deep down I knew he was right. At that point in my life, I constantly felt as if I needed to prove my worth, and I was working way too hard to do it. People close to me called me "Curry in a Hurry." I was moving through life at 100 miles an hour trying to further my career and be a great mom and make everyone happy. But this conversation brought me to a screeching halt. My doctor wasn't just saying that I needed to find a hobby; he was saying I deserved to spend my time doing what I truly wanted to do.
Photography had always been on the top of my "shoulda coulda woulda" list, so once a week, I started telling my family, "I need 30 minutes to go shoot some pictures." I gradually upped the time, walking around my neighborhood snapping photos. My two kids protested my absence at first, but when they saw the pictures, they began to understand. I also started taking better care of myself—working out, eating my greens, and giving myself a breather when I need it. When you treat yourself right, you run better and more efficiently. Which means you don't have to go 100 miles an hour to get everything done.
In the time since I had that chat with my doctor, I've learned to be deliberate about how I spend my time on this Earth. I choose to fill my days with what I'm passionate about, and live with purpose. In the end, I want to be able to say, "My life was what I made it."
More Ways to Slow Down and Savor Life |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67982 | 12 Non-Dorky Backpacks for Grown-Ups
Baggu red backpack
Carry Something Bright
Yes, you can pull off a Crayola-inspired knapsack after you've graduated from elementary school—as long as it isn't covered in kiddie designs or doodles. (It doesn't hurt that this stylish option is made entirely of recycled cotton.)
$32, BagguBag.com |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/67984 | Top 10 Closet Must-Haves
Brooks Brothers white shirt
Kelly, Oprah's show stylist, reveals the top 10 classic items every woman should have in her closet. Use these key pieces to build your wardrobe, and you'll have a closet full of outfits that are always in style.
1. A Crisp White Shirt
The perfect white shirt can take you anywhere. Try Brooks Brothers no-iron cotton shirt (BrooksBrothers.com ). |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68000 |
Thread beginning with comment 424668
Who needs who most?
by bazaillion on Sat 15th May 2010 14:25 UTC
Member since:
I am curious who needs who most. It would be interesting to know what the number of Photoshop and Illustrator installs is worldwide on PC's and MAC's vs US Stats.
Because if Adobe cut support for the MAC they may be able to knock the legs out of Apple before they could create a product, and even if they did would it be accepted as industry standard. They may have to use virtualization to run a PC version.
Or if someone like Google or Microsoft bought Adobe they could force that hand by ending support. Its not like both those companies don't have an axe to grind with Apple.
Sure design shops are almost exclusive MAC's in US. I wonder what is used worldwide. I know in Hollywood a lot of things are actually done with custom software on linux boxes and not photoshop because of the massive file sizes.
Reply Score: 1 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68058 | note Laurent_R <p>I guess the OP must have change the original post, since I do not see any square bracket in the original post right now. </p> <p>The line now look like this</p> <c>test\abc\test </c> <p>As it is now, I would suggest the following (assuming the explored string is in the $_ special variable): </p> <c>$name = $1 if /test\\(\w+)\\test/; </c> <p>But I am not sure that the description of the original string is really adequate.</p> 1031624 1031624 |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68059 | Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
good chemistry is complicated,
and a little bit messy -LW
Just Another Perl Joke...
by monsieur_champs (Curate)
on Sep 06, 2005 at 23:08 UTC ( #489711=perlmeditation: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??
Last week, asked on the Cascavel-PM mailing list about what O'Reilly Perl PDF Books could be publicized on a non-authorized public downloadable web repository pointed by a Perl Mongers Group website (!!), I answered:
Here is the list of books that you can use this way, IMHO:
@free_publicable_books_from_oreilly = ();
Comment on Just Another Perl Joke...
Download Code
Re: Just Another Perl Joke...
by merlyn (Sage) on Sep 06, 2005 at 23:22 UTC
Re: Just Another Perl Joke...
by DrHyde (Prior) on Sep 08, 2005 at 10:05 UTC
I'm sure O'Reilly would be delighted with you publicising all of the books they currently have in print.
Log In?
What's my password?
Create A New User
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: perlmeditation [id://489711]
Approved by GrandFather
and the web crawler heard nothing...
How do I use this? | Other CB clients
Other Users?
As of 2015-06-03 00:31 GMT
Find Nodes?
Voting Booth?
What kind of chocolate gives you the most pleasure?
Results (116 votes), past polls |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68060 | Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Do you know where your variables are?
Re^3: Don't go all PerlMonks on me
by bobf (Monsignor)
on Apr 12, 2007 at 02:33 UTC ( #609551=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??
in reply to Re^2: Don't go all PerlMonks on me
in thread Don't go all PerlMonks on me
the help is amazing and my code is much more concise
Thanks! I think "amazing" is a bit more than I deserve, though. :-) No, I did not pay her to say that.
it is tougher to "read"
Well, I hope I never help so much that you don't understand what the code is doing - that's certainly not the intention.
Code readability is in the eye of the beholder, and striking an effective balance between concise idioms and step-by-step explicity is an art that is best appreciated at a given point in time (since that balance will likely change over time, especially when just starting to learn Perl and getting more comfortable with common Perl idioms). See threads such as What is code readability? and Should I leave behind beautiful code or readable code? for more discussion and debate on this topic.
For the record, I don't think I've ever told you to toss something into either Acme::BlahBlahBlah or Yada::Yada::Yada. ;-)
Comment on Re^3: Don't go all PerlMonks on me
Log In?
What's my password?
Create A New User
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: note [id://609551]
and the web crawler heard nothing...
How do I use this? | Other CB clients
Other Users?
Others about the Monastery: (2)
As of 2015-06-03 01:08 GMT
Find Nodes?
Voting Booth?
What kind of chocolate gives you the most pleasure?
Results (116 votes), past polls |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68061 | Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister
Perl Monks User Search
Author: Show nodes
Order by: starting at .
Node Type: Show Categorized Q&A (Why?)
These nodes all have stuff by dswimboy (showing 1-1 out of ~6?):
Node ID Writeup Created
66813 How do you save a perl script? 2001-03-24 05:51
Log In?
What's my password?
Create A New User
and the web crawler heard nothing...
How do I use this? | Other CB clients
Other Users?
Others exploiting the Monastery: (6)
As of 2015-06-03 00:23 GMT
Find Nodes?
Voting Booth?
What kind of chocolate gives you the most pleasure?
Results (116 votes), past polls |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68062 | Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
The stupid question is the question not asked
Comment on
Your reply above was why I had belated moved my comment about NT/Unix to a separate reply from my IBM history reply (I hadn't realized you were already composing a response - sorry about that). I wanted to see a fuller discussion from you.
I've been doing some more browsing because that memory of some ribbing in the press for "unix borrowings" (whatever that means) is fairly firm. Based on your comments above and also a book review I found covering a book on the development of NT, I suspect the ribbing quality came from some rather public anomisity towards Unix by the NT team, but I only suspect. I have no memory of that either way and haven't read the book - just the "so there" quality in the press.
The comment about claiming A is like B because of superficial similarities rings a bell. While browsing around the web looking for where and what was behind whatever it was I remember being reported, I came across an article in InfoWorld way back when in 1987 arguing that *DOS* "borrowed" from Unix because it had pipes. InfoWorld, Aug 3, 1987:
from the start, DOS has been influenced by Unix. DOS 2.0 explicitly incorporated directory structures, pipes, redirection and other features that had long been hallmarks of other systems.
It may also be that those reporting on NT and OS/2 development falsely understood the built-in POSIX support as "Unix borrowings". According to Wikipedia,
Windows NT-based operating systems up to Windows 2000 had a POSIX layer built into the operating system, and UNIX Services for Windows provided a UNIX-like operating environment.
My only quibble with your post is this line: "There are obviously many things that every OS has to have in common."
They may have to, but by what definition? There are many things we now assume as must haves in OS's that were not part of some early operating systems - including multi-tasking. I agree that superficial borrowings of features are not the same as borrowing core internal architecture. On the other hand, the features that eventually became attractive enough to be "must-have" s in other systems, were built-in right from the start in *nix.
I do think we have to be careful about assuming that what now seems to us a no-brainer was always commonly accepted as so. The best innovations are tricky that way: once they are stated they seem so obvious we wonder why they are even innovative.
In reply to Re^6: Nobody Expects the Agile Imposition (Part VI): Architecture by ELISHEVA
and: <code> code here </code>
• Please read these before you post! —
For: Use:
& &
< <
> >
[ [
] ]
• Log In?
What's my password?
Create A New User
and the web crawler heard nothing...
How do I use this? | Other CB clients
Other Users?
As of 2015-06-03 00:02 GMT
Find Nodes?
Voting Booth?
What kind of chocolate gives you the most pleasure?
Results (116 votes), past polls |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68063 | Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
more useful options
by larsen (Parson)
on Jul 22, 2001 at 15:35 UTC ( #98809=modulereview: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??
Item Description: QM-like superpositions in Perl
Review Synopsis:
<larsen> I think I'll add a disclaimer...
<larsen> "No cat has been hurt to write this review"
<neshura> lol
<neshura> IMPOSSIBLE
<larsen> hi neshura, I didn't noticed you
<larsen> :)
<neshura> now that you have noticed, bet you can't tell what my velocity is
-- Two monks on IRC :)
Quantum computing in a nutshell
One of the possible formulations of Church-Turing's thesis (actually it's not equivalent: is a reinforcement also known as thesis of sequential computing) says that every computing model is simulable by a Turing Machine with at most a polynomial overhead.
Quantum computing theory provides a model that seems to violate this assertion. Particularly, using a quantum computer (whatever it will be), it could be possible to efficiently solve classes of problems that are intractable nowadays using a classical computer, such as factorization.
How is this possible? Quantum computing relies on some strange properties of quantum mechanics, called superpositions, entanglement, quantum parallelism.
In order to take a brief look to these concepts, let's introduce quantum bits, a.k.a. qubits. They behave in part like classical bit, but they can also present "almost ghostly overlays of many different states", commonly known as superpositions of states. For example, it's possible for a qubit to be at the same time in its two states 1 and 2. Better, qubit is in a state where an observer has 1/2 probability to measure state 1 and 1/2 probability to measure state 0. With the notation commonly used in quantum theory:
1/2(|0> + |1>)
Unfortunately, measuring the state of a quantum bit alters its state. So if we measure the state of the qubit considered, we could measure state |1> or |0> with the same probability 1/2, but after the measurement the qubit will be in state |1> or |0>, depending on our measurement.
You could say this is not so useful. Yes. And no. Juxtaposing many qubits we can obtain quantum registers. For example, using 8 qubits in the state 1/2(|0> + |1>) we obtain a register where every state (0..28-1) can be measured, with the same probability. Every integer that can be expressed with 8 bits is "contained" (in the sense explained above) in this quantum register.
The interesting thing is that if we apply an operator to this register and we put the result in a second register, this register will contain every result that can be obtained applying the operator to the values that are contained in the first register.
As I said for qubits, the act of measuring alters the state of the registers. But if we measure the value of the second register, even the state of the first register will collapse to the correspondig value. This is called entanglement. So if we measure f(x) from the second register, we will measure x from the firsti one.
There's no quantum measurement possible to extract from the second register all the information about the function f. But note that the operator performed an exponential quantity of operations in an unitary time. This is called quantum parallelism. And, fortunately, there are other methods to obtain useful information about f. One of these methods (Discrete Fourier Transform, DFT) has been used by Shor to obtain a probabilistic quantum algorithm for factorization, that is known as an intractable problem in classical complexity theory. I think this is not the place to give other explanations: there's a lot of infos available on the net. I put some link at the end of this node.
I've shown that Quantum Computing model permits to perform multiple operations in a single step by mean of superpositions. Quantum::Superpositions adds new linguistic tools to Perl (any and all) inspired to quantum mechanics.
They both produce Superpositions, i.e. scalars that can partecipate to any arithmetic or logic operations due to their nature, but with "parallel semantic": when a Superposition partecipate to an arithmetic operation, this operation if perfomed in parallel on every element of the Superposition; when the Superposition partecipate in a logical operation, its truth value is true or false depending on the truth value of its elements, in a disjuntive or conjuntive way, depending on the operator used to build the Superposition (respectively: any or all). I've said "parallel semantic" but internals of this module actually cycle trough every value of the Superposition to perform the operation.
So, one could write this program using Quantum::Superpositions:
$product = any(1, 2, 3) * any( 2, 3, 4); print eigenvalues( $product );
$product is a new Superposition that contain every possible result of the multiplication of the numbers (1, 2, 3) and the numbers (2, 3, 4) ($product is any(8,9,2,3,4,12,6)). eigenvalues is a useful function that returns all the states that our Superposition represent (In this context. See the documentation for details).
Superpositions can also be passed to subroutines. The subroutine has not to know that what is going to be passed will be a superposition, but it will return a superposition of the results (as in the example of the operator applied to the quantum register).
Quantum::Superpositions also allows to express succinctly complex logical conditions. From the examples found in the documentation:
Here we build a disjunctive superposition of conjunctive superpositions (note the clarity with the concept of being the ideal is expressed). Then we cycle through a group of descriptions of (I guess :)) men, we build a superposition from the description (any(@features)) and we compare it disjunctively against our $ideal. In this case, is like cycling and comparing against our set of ideals: i.e. if (any(@features) eq all( "tall", "rich", "handsome")). We want that a subset of @features is equal to set ("tall", "rich", "handsome").
Using Quantum::Superpositions
First of all, a word about performance.
Quantum::Superpositions has not to be intended as a practical way to do things in Perl. While it provides very succinct and smart idioms, their implementations are easily less efficient than a "hand-made" solution, because Quantum::Superpositions actually emulates a quantum computer. It isn't, of course, true quantum parallelism. So, this apparently very efficient factorization algorithm (from the examples of module documentation):
sub factors { my ($n) = @_; my $q = $n / any(2..$n-1); return eigenstates(floor($q)==$q); }
...will be comparable to this one from the point of view of efficiency:
sub factors { my ($n) = @_; my @q = map { $n / $_ } (2..$n-1); return grep { floor( $_ ) == $_ } @q; }
Beware!, the output differ, because in floor($q)==$q we are asking for a numerical value of the superposition $q, that is generated by this code my @states = $_[0]->eigenstates; return $states[rand @states]. As I stated above, is in a state where we can measure with the same probability every value. Very funny, isn't it? :)
Also, Quantum::Superpositions provides some, let's say, extra-physics functions that have no counterpart in nature, such as the function eigenstates (remember, "there's no quantum measurement possible to extract all the information..."). So this module should be carefully used if you want to study quantum computing (but there are better tools).
Quantum::Superpositions is very useful to express, shortly, complex conditions that should be coded with grep/map combinations, as in the example of the ideal man. And it has great value, providing a good example of use of Class::Multimethods.
1. "Quantum Theory, the Church-Turing principle and the universal quantum computer". This classical paper could be find on David Deutsch's Home Page
2. Adriano Barenco, Quantum physics and computers. Contemporary Physics, 1996, volume 37, number 5, pages 375-389. I don't know if this article is available on the net.
3. Quantum Computing and Shor's Algorithm illustrates in detail Shor's factorization algorithm and contains a C++ implementation of the algorithm. Original paper is Shor, P.W., 1994, Proceedings of the 35th Annual Symposium on the Foundations of Computer Science, p.124.
4. The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. This book does not directly concern quantum computing, but provides a good introduction to foundations of computer science like Turing machines and recursive functions. It contains also a large section about quantum theory.
5. There's another module on CPAN inspired to Quantum theory: Quantum::Entanglement
Comment on Quantum::Superpositions
Select or Download Code
Re: Quantum::Superpositions
by John M. Dlugosz (Monsignor) on Jul 23, 2001 at 08:50 UTC
I had the chance to listen to Roger Penrose speak, and we asked him about Emporer's new Mind and other related topics. He didn't seem to feel that a quantum-computer violated the basic rules of computing--he said it's even been figured with an "oricle machine" and it still doesn't change what can and can't "be computed".
So, I suppose a q-computer can factor numbers a lot faster, but it wasn't "impossible" before.
Back to Reviews
Log In?
What's my password?
Create A New User
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: modulereview [id://98809]
and the web crawler heard nothing...
How do I use this? | Other CB clients
Other Users?
As of 2015-06-03 00:36 GMT
Find Nodes?
Voting Booth?
What kind of chocolate gives you the most pleasure?
Results (116 votes), past polls |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68064 | Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
good chemistry is complicated,
and a little bit messy -LW
Comment on
Is this a joke BUU?
Lets have a look at the code:
my(@array1, @array2) = @_;
So this line will magically split @_ into two parts, the first part will go into @array1 and contain the whole contents of @_, @array2 will be empty.
Good thing this loop never executes as its a pretty inefficient way to add elements to an array. Perhaps the author has never heard of push.
So this entire subroutine could be replaced by:
sub array_merge{ @_ };
In reply to Re^2: Concerning hash operations (appending, concatenating) by demerphq
in thread Concerning hash operations (appending, concatenating) by RazorbladeBidet
and: <code> code here </code>
• Please read these before you post! —
For: Use:
& &
< <
> >
[ [
] ]
• Log In?
What's my password?
Create A New User
and the web crawler heard nothing...
How do I use this? | Other CB clients
Other Users?
As of 2015-06-03 00:36 GMT
Find Nodes?
Voting Booth?
What kind of chocolate gives you the most pleasure?
Results (116 votes), past polls |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68065 | Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Perl Monk, Perl Meditation
Comment on
I personally googled for images of all these beasts, and most are small mouse- or rat-like ground dwellers (with the obvious exception of the kangaroos). But only one animal was truly cute, the numbat!
Check out the picture, it has six distinctive white stripes, could it be any more appropriate?
In reply to Re: The cutest Perl6 marsupial mascot would be... by BioGeek
and: <code> code here </code>
• Please read these before you post! —
For: Use:
& &
< <
> >
[ [
] ]
• Log In?
What's my password?
Create A New User
and the web crawler heard nothing...
How do I use this? | Other CB clients
Other Users?
Others imbibing at the Monastery: (4)
As of 2015-06-02 23:55 GMT
Find Nodes?
Voting Booth?
What kind of chocolate gives you the most pleasure?
Results (116 votes), past polls |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68068 | Compounding Medications
Veterinary & Aquatic Services Department, Drs. Foster & Smith
What is compounding?
Mortar and pestle used for compoundingCompounding is the professional and scientific preparation of a customized prescription medication. With a compounding prescription from your veterinarian, a compounding pharmacy can take FDA-approved, and/or pharmaceutical-grade chemicals and compound them into the correct dosage and administration method for your pet. Compounding allows your veterinarian to prescribe a particular medicine, dosage form, or strength not commercially available; change the form of a medication in order to make administration to your pet easier; combine multiple medications into one; or flavor your pet's medication, making it more palatable.
How can a compounded medication benefit my pet?
Prepare the proper strength of medication: Many commercially available medications may not come in the strength your pet needs. Your veterinarian can prescribe a specific dosage that can be compounded.
Applying Methimazole to a cat
Compounded Close-up: Methimazole
Methimazole, primarily prescribed in the treatment of hyperthyroidism in cats, is only commercially available in tablet form, often making it difficult to administer to cats. At the request of your veterinarian, many compounding pharmacies can compound methimazole into easier-to-administer forms, such as a tuna-flavored oral suspension your cat will eagerly lap up from a dosage syringe, or a transdermal gel you can massage onto the hairless front tip of your cat's ear for absorption through the skin.
Change the dosage form: Compounding pharmacies can make the administration of a medication easier by changing the form of the medication. For instance, medications in a tablet form may be compounded into a liquid form.
Provide some medications that are no longer available: Sometimes drug manufacturers discontinue certain medications, strengths, or dosage forms and there is no human equivalent available for your veterinarian to substitute. Working with a compounding pharmacy, your veterinarian can prescribe the specific dosage and medication your pet needs.
Combine multiple medications: In some cases, if your pet is on multiple medications, a compounding pharmacy can combine them into one medication making it simpler to administer your pet's prescriptions, and often saving you money.
Flavor the medication: Compounding pharmacies can prepare your pet's medication in a variety of flavors including beef, liver, chicken, tuna, cheese, sardine, bacon, fruits, vegetables, peanut butter, and many more; your pet will think he is getting a treat rather than medicine.
Are all medications able to be compounded?
Compounding is a useful and often necessary pharmacy practice. Unfortunately, not all medications can be compounded into all the different dosage forms due to any or all of the following reasons:
A medication is only effective when its active ingredient(s) are stable and working. Not all of the dosage forms are capable of maintaining the active ingredient. For example, an antibiotic may be stable for one year when formulated into a tablet or encased in a capsule, but it may degrade to the point of being ineffective after only fourteen days as a suspension.
Another factor that can affect stability is the medication's interactions with active and inactive ingredients contained within the dosage form. Some medications are incompatible with the inactive ingredients most often used in compounding. Some medications cannot be combined with other active ingredients (e.g., another medication) because they will not remain stable.
Compounding a medication that is soluble to liquidSolubility is an ingredient's ability to dissolve completely in a liquid. Some medications are very soluble allowing a large amount of the active ingredient powder to dissolve in a very small amount of liquid. Products of this nature can be easily formulated into a concentrated solution that can then be flavored to make the final preparation more palatable. Some medications are so insoluble that even a teaspoonful of active ingredient would not dissolve in a swimming pool of water. In this case, the medication would not be suitable for compounding into a liquid form.
If an active ingredient is stable in liquid, it can be compounded into a suspension instead of a solution. In a suspension, the medication is first coated, preventing the active ingredient from sticking together, then added to the liquid. This process aids in the even dispersion of the active ingredient throughout the entire volume and more accurate dosing.
Some medications are so bitter or metallic tasting that flavoring cannot cover the taste. Even though they may be suitable for any oral dosage form such as a tablet, they would be difficult to administer due to the taste. In this case, the medication could be incorporated into a hard gelatin capsule to prevent the taste buds from coming into contact with it.
What dosage forms are most commonly used in compounding?
For many medications, there are multiple dosage forms.
Compounding Options and Benefits
Dosage Form Administration Method Ease of Use
Suspensions/ Solutions Oral – Given via oral syringe or added to your pet's food for ingestion. Multiple palatable flavors are available for your pet, including chicken, tuna, cheese, sardine, bacon, various fruits, vegetables, and peanut butter.
Chewables Oral – The medication is mixed in a chewable treat base and can be flavored to your pet's preference. A great flavored treat alternative.
Capsules Oral – A solid drug form enclosed in a non-flavored, hard or soft gelatinous shell. Dosages are customized for your pet's specific needs. Easy to swallow and masks bitter tastes. Some pet owners also request flavoring so that they can pull the capsule apart and sprinkle the contents on their pet's food. If your pet is taking multiple medications, they may be able to be compounded into just one capsule so you do not have to give several different pills or capsules.
Concentrated Oils Oral – Given by dropper on your pet's tongue for ingestion. Medications can be given in higher concentrations, meaning smaller volumes compared to traditional dosage forms. (e.g., some medicines can be given in as little as three drops on your pet's tongue). The oils can also be flavored.
Ointments/Creams Topical – Typically rubbed onto the affected area of your pet's skin. Targets affected areas and are easy to administer.
Gels Transdermal – Simply rub a pre-measured amount onto a part of your pet's body with little hair, such as the inside tip of the ear or on the abdomen (dogs). The medication is absorbed through the skin, allowing your pet to be given their medication without the fuss of oral dosages. (Note: Care must be taken with this dosage form to protect the pet owner from possible self-contamination. Rubber gloves or finger cots should be used while applying this type of medication and hands should always be thoroughly washed after application.)
Disintegrating Oral Tablets Oral – This is a melt-in-your-mouth tablet that dissolves in seconds and is readily absorbed through the tissues in the mouth. This is a relatively new form of administering medication to your pet. The medication dissolves so quickly that it is difficult for your pet to spit it out. The medicine is then absorbed through the mouth where there is a good supply of saliva and good blood flow to get the drug rapidly into the body. These can be flavored, as well.
How can I find out if my pet's prescription can be compounded?
If you feel that your pet could benefit from having his or her prescription customized, you can check with a compounding pharmacy to discuss your options. Once you have the information on the possible dosage forms and alternatives available, discuss the options with your veterinarian, who can authorize the specific compounded prescription for you.
Click here for the web viewable version of this article.
Click here to email this article to a friend.
Reprinted from |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68081 | Five Annoying Status Updates That Will Get Your Unfriended On Facebook
By Elaine Chaney
"Playboy is...writing an article." Don't bore your friends with asinine status updates. Find out if your committing any social media sins.
A national poll was taken from selected individuals (and by that I mean a couple of my friends who’ve been to four states and screwed at least one hairy French guy) regarding Facebook statuses that make them want to gnaw off their toe nails and spit them in your face. However, since they’re no longer “bendy” like they used to be in high school, hiding your statuses from their newsfeed is about the best they can do.
Here are five Facebook statuses that qualify for an instant newsfeed ban:
“Johnny Haircut is…so super excited……..!”
Example: “Joan Lotadrama is: sick and tired of it.”
“Vaguebooking’ is defined by the Urban Dictionary as an intentionally vague Facebook status update that prompts friends to ask what’s going on, or is possibly a cry for help. It leaves your Facebook friends feeling like Chris Brown after a Good Morning America interview; provoked, confused and getting a sudden urge to throw a chair at a window. Especially if you’re complaining about a nameless someone because it’s about as useless to your friends as Justin Bieber is to lesbians.
Most likely, your selected recipient is totally oblivious that you’re even talking about them while all your other Facebook friends are now left wondering who/what you’re talking about and your egocentric Facebook friends inundate you with comments desperately wondering if you’re talking about them. Nut up and say what you need to say or leave your secret status messages for your decoder ring.
Serial Complainers
Example: “Walter Waahmbulance is: wondering if he has the energy to get through the day.”
We’ve all complained about a bad day, a bad cold, a bad haircut and a bad case of the runs every once in a while, but when every other Facebook status is an invite to your own personal pity party, you can guarantee that, by now, all your friends are wishing that your next ailment will put you into a coma so that you can no longer pollute their newsfeed with your incessant whining. The next time you feel like complaining about your non-ergonomic chair that makes your left butt cheek go numb, take a moment and think about what children from Calcutta would post as their Facebook status today.
Baha Udeen is: “Happy I didn’t get malaria from walking barefoot three miles to get a cup of brown water. Yay!”
So unless you woke up and your colon fell out and rolled under the bed (because THAT we want to hear about!), shut your pie hole already.
Captain Obvious
No fucking shit.
Example: “Ugh Mondays!” “TGIF!! ” “’s raining.”
The weekend is everyone’s favorite two pump chump, it feels wonderful in the beginning but after only a short two days, just when it gets really fun, here comes Monday dribbling all over our good time. If anything can bring this world together, it’s our mutual hatred for Mondays and our uncontrollable urge to run around naked with glee on Fridays. So yeah, we get it, which is why there’s absolutely no need to express your hatred or love for either day every week unless you really want your car keyed.
Your weather reports are also a pain in the ass considering, if we live near you, we can do a thing called “look out the window” and if we’re somewhere else, we don’t give two shit piles if you’re getting some mileage on your raincoat. Al Roker and his freakishly large head (that creepily still look like it belongs to fat Al Roker) have cornered the market on weather reports, so your services are not needed.
“Ya George, we know: you’re eating gnats. We’re all eating gnats. We’re always eating gnats!”
Example: “Heather Snorecastle is: ….at the bank.”
Before you whip out your phone and proclaim to your FB friends that you’re at KFC waiting for your heart attack in a bucket, take a moment and look around. Is there someone choking on a chicken bone? Do you see a strange man rubbing one out to the picture of Colonel Sanders? Is Tom Cruise there dressed like Katie Holmes being probed by John Travolta’s disco stick by the double fryers? If the answer is no, then the chances of friends being interested in your sudden craving to rape your face with a Double Down are ZERO. Unless you’re taking orders, in which case we’ll take a doublicious with some potato wedges and a Diet Coke. (We don’t like to drink our calories.)
Needy Re-posters
Just put the cursor down slowly and walk away, man. No one wants to get spammed here.
Example: “It has been said that if I don’t have anything interesting to say, reposting a badly written, pointless repost that requires my other friends to repost if they love me is a good attempt at being a needy douche wad. These friends have probably deleted me from their friends list no matter how long it has been or how far away they live. They all wish for hornets to fly up my ass and out my eyeballs for being an annoying twat. Re-post if you still haven’t deleted me. They will know who they are.”
Repost statuses are a stale, three layer cake of annoying. It’s unoriginal, needy and you’re ordering people to also be annoying to their other friends. It’s the Facebook locust, eating up all the interesting things on your newsfeed and replacing them with soul withering reposts. Even if the repost has good intentions, posting up a status for an hour to “show awareness” for club footed people doesn’t make their feet less clubby or do anything for their awkward gait.
Don’t feel bad if you’re guilty about posting one or more of these statuses, most of us have done it at least once, but the secret ingredient that forces friends to ban you from their newsfeed is repetition. Facebook statuses aren’t meant to be a dumping ground for every thought that squeezes out your ears or every bowel movement you have because hello, that’s what Twitter is for. On Facebook, status scarcity makes the heart grow fonder. Before you post your status, remember that you have an audience who’s probably on company time and being very ninja about their Facebook visits, don’t let it be all for naught.
Playboy Social |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68094 | Thread: Resueable TMs!
View Single Post
Old February 13th, 2013 (01:34 PM).
RoaringFlameCat's Avatar
RoaringFlameCat RoaringFlameCat is offline
Join Date: Feb 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 12
Quote originally posted by Cerberus87:
I loved it. I only spent TMs you could get again before 5th gen.
They fixed it by making the strongest TMs available very late in the game. What you said was true for older generations, when you could buy Fire Blast TMs and teach everyone in your party the TMs.
Oh I know about being able to buy Fire Blast, and the others, but those were the only ones. So there was still some strategy. Sure all of your pokemon could know it, but at the end of the day you have a move that's only good for five uses, I would rather have a move with 35 uses rather than the 5...
Reply With Quote |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68095 | Thread: Flirting
View Single Post
Old April 10th, 2013 (05:53 PM).
Honest's Avatar
Honest Honest is offline
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: New York City
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Nature: Jolly
Posts: 11,634
Send a message via Skype™ to Honest
♦ How do you react to being flirted with IRL and/or online?
I usually play along. It also depends on the context, though. If it's someone who I don't know and randomly starts flirting, I'll just ignore the person cause, well, who are you? If it's someone I've talked to a bit, I'm more comfortable with it.
♦ Do you flirt online/IRL?
Lol, yes. People call me out on it all the time. :c
♦ Are you a serious flirt or a joking flirt?
Always joking. If I actually liked someone that way (it's rare), I'll tend to be more serious with that person when it comes to the compliments. Or I'll just straight out admit I like them.
♦ When is flirting creepy?
When it's sudden, out of nowhere, and from a complete stranger.
I totally knew someone was going to make this thread when I saw the DCC :I
Reply With Quote |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68141 | Twitter Changing Search API to Include Popular Tweets
Adam DuVander
May. 05 2010, 01:47AM EDT
Twitter's platform is maturing and with it comes recognizing that some tweets just have more staying power. A recent addition to the search API means that popular tweets can be mixed in with realtime results. And in a future release that setting will be the default.
Popular tweets appears to be determined by the number of retweets (likely weighted higher for more recent retweets). Featuring them in search results, as Twitter now does on its own site, can help make sense of trends. Plus, if hundreds of other people found the tweet worthwhile, there's a good chance others will, too.
From a technical standpoint, Twitter added a new parameter option to its search API, "result_type." To keep the old method, with only realtime results, set it to "recent." The new default will be "mixed," with a combination of realtime and popular tweets. You can also use "popular" to only get the tweets that Twitter determines are exceptional.
Like retweets and promoted tweets (which were announced before Chirp), popular tweets have meta-data that declare them as special. You'll find it as "result_type" in the "metadata" section.
If your application uses the Twitter API and expects realtime results, you'll want to make a change to your code. There's no word on when Twitter will make the switch, but expect it soon.
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68158 |
Latest Vendor News
Addictive Desert Designs!
Bayou Goat Mounts
Conversation Between Twitch02x and HemiLonestar
Showing Visitor Messages 1 to 4 of 4
1. HemiLonestar
07-20-2012 01:42 PM
I don't think it will run right with that shit still in it as the lifters are designed to collapse so as not to open the valves when MDS is engaged (cam as well). If it's to replace your old engine you can swap it all and take the plugs from the old engine and use those. If not, the stock cam/lifters/plugs are relatively inexpensive.
2. Twitch02x
07-19-2012 10:26 AM
Ok so I can't get away with just putting motor in and running it as is
3. HemiLonestar
07-18-2012 10:04 PM
You'll need the non-mds lifters and to remove the solenoids and plug them.
4. Twitch02x
07-18-2012 08:39 PM
Hey bud do you know much about mds I was told I need to remove mds lifters and replace with non mds lifters if I'm gonna put the motor Into a non mds vehicle my number is 2818832807 if you have time gimme a call
= Copyright a Network Site =Ad Management by RedTyger
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, vBulletin Solutions, Inc. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68196 | Marble Banner
Circle Marbles Games
From the The Great American Marble Book on circle games:
The circular game of Ringer, played in the national championships, is the most complicated of the circle games. A circle of 10 feet in diameter is marked off (in Wildwood where the tournament is held permanent circles are painted on concrete blocks, buried beneath the sandy beach most of the year and uncovered only at tournament time in June). Thirteen marbles are placed in the center of this circle in the shape of a cross. The winner is the player who is the first to shoot seven marbles out of the ring. The eliminations are held over a week with players competing against each other on a round-robin basis. The finalists are, of course, those who win the most games in the round robin.
* * *
Ringer is merely a sophisticated derivative of Lag in which, according to Addy's Sheffield Diary, "A number of boys put marbles in a ring, and then they all bowl at the ring. The one who gets nearest has the first shot at the marbles. He has the option of either 'knuckling doon' and shooting at the ring from the prescribed mark, or 'ligging up' [lying up] -- that is, putting his taw [marble] so near the ring that if the others miss his taw, or miss the marbles in the ring, has the game all to himself next time. If, however, he is hit by the others, he is said to be 'killed.'" Much of the strategy lay in positioning the marbles.
Circle games abound. In England they are Taw as well as Lag and Ring Taw. In Australia they are called The Ring, Big Ring, Little Ring, Big Circle, Little Circle, as well as Jumbo, Poison Ring and Eye Drop. In the United States they are known as Ringer and Ring, as Potsies and Dubs, and in Italy as Pallina di Vetro. All of the games involve putting marbles in a ring and then shooting them out.
There are even half-circle games known as Half Moon, Townsey and Mooney Ted First.
* * *
This is probably the most universal of circle games. It is also called Dubs or 25-A-Dub or 100-A-Dub. Each player contributes a given number of marbles to the "pot," which is a large ring drawn on the ground. These are arranged in cross-fashion or in the form of a circle. The player who bowls closest to the ring goes first.
The object is to know marbles out of the ring while keeping one's own shooter inside. If the shooter goes outside the next player plays. The first player to obtain enough marbles necessary for a majority (13 in a 25-A-Dub, 51 in 100-A-Dub) wins and is entitled to take all the rest of the marbles in the ring. A big game for big stakes, and always played "for keeps."
* * *
Big ring
A circle from three to six feet in diameter is drawn in the dirt. Then one player collects from all of the others the agreed-upon stake (usually three to five marbles each), puts them all in one cupped hand, and then quickly drops his hand awat, letting the marbles fall helter-skelter into the circle. Players shoot from the edge of the ring, the aim being to hit the target marbles out of the ring while their shooter remains inside the ring. In this game shooters are permitted to raise their shooting hands one hand-length off the ground when they knuckle-shoot. This creates "English" and helps shooters "stick" in the ring. "Roundsters" is permitted, that is, players under this procedure may move about the perimeter of the ring -- as long as their distance to the edge remains the same -- to get a better shooting position.
* * *
In this game one player constructs a small pyramid -- actually a triangle flat on the ground -- out of his own marbles, then draws a circle about it. His opponent (this is a two-man game) shoots at the pyramid from a designated shooting line in much the same manner as a pool player "Breaks." He keeps any marble that rolls out of the ring and continues to shoot until he either misses or fails to shoot a marble from the ring.
His opponent then builds a pyramid with his marbles and the first builder becomes the shooter. This is billiards pure and simple.
* * *
Poison ring
In this Australian game, a concave hole is dug into the ground with a twist of the heel. This becomes the "Poison" and into it, each player puts his agreed-upon ante. Around this hole a circle is drawn which is called the "Ring."
Players bowl to see who comes closest to the ring and goes first. After this the emphasis is on shooting ability. A player must shoot a marble out of the ring, and his shooter must also leave the ring, or he has to give all of his winnings back to the "poison" pot. If he has no winnings he must pay a penalty of one or marbles. If he succeeds in both knocking a marble out and getting his shooter out, he becomes "poison" and can shoot at, and eliminate, other players. Only for the finest shooters.
* * *
Pot II
This is an adaptation of Potsies, and not nearly as involved. A circular "pot: is drawn in the dirt, and stake marbles are placed in it. Another ring is drawn around it and this becomes the shooting border. Players, using scaboulders or steelies, simply blast out the target marbles and keep blasting until they miss, keeping all the marbles they win. This was a Bronx game, and because it was usually played on concrete, and not dirt, it made for fast rolls and fast games.
* * *
Little Ring
One of those rare games that involves both a bowler and a shooter; blasting power and shooting skill. A small ring, about the size of a large diameter plate, is drawn in the dirt. Players put "two up" or "three up" or more into the circle, then bowl large-size marbles or steelies at the circle. There's a double objective: to knock out marbles (which one then keeps), to end up close to the ring, but not in it, so you can be the first shooter.
Once the bowling is finished, players switch to their shooters, usually aggies, and begin to go after marbles in the ring. In this game the skill lies in the glancing shot, for if your shooter remains in the ring, you are forced to return the marbles you shot out, are penalized two or more marbles (which are placed in the ring) and have to start from scratch by bowling again. A most frustrating game.
* * *
A circle about five feet in diameter is drawn in the dirt, creating a "pot." Players put in a designated number of marbles in the pot, choose by finger who goes first, then mark off a shooting area either by spanning with the hand a distance from the circle or, more commonly, by measuring two or three shoe lengths away.
In this game the object is to keep your shooter inside the circle and shoot the target marbles out. If a target marble is hit and comes within six inches of the perimeter, the shooter is given another try. Shooting in this game is "knuckles down."
* * *
In this marbles game, known as Fats in Australia, a football shape is drawn in the dirt, with a line connecting the two ends. Each player puts a marble on that line. Players attempt to knock the marbles off the line and out of the football. The game ends when all of the marbles are knocked out. The winner in this "for keeps" game is the one with the most marbles. The player who shoots closest to the football goes first. If his marble enters the football, he shoots again from the starting line. A Massachusetts variation uses the same figure without the center line and decrees that one's shooter is lost if it lands inside the enclosure.
* * *
Old Bowler
Squares are almost as popular as circle in surface marbles games, and are known by names equally as colorful -- Square Ring, Liney, Old Bolwer and Skelley. One of the oldest of these, Old Bowler, was reportedly a favorite of Abraham Lincoln's.
Draw a square in the dust with diagonal lines connecting the corners. Place a marble in each corner and another where the diagonals intersect. Bowl from a starting line to see who comes closest to the square. The one closest shoots first, and plays until he misses one of the targets. The four corner marbles must be disposed of first. Then the "old bowler." Inadvertently hit the "old bowler" before the others are eliminated, and you too are eliminated!
* * *
Similar to Old Bowler, but wihtout the drawn diagonals; in addition, players can shoot from elevated positions and can shoot at any of the marbles. For a marble to be counted and kept it has to go out of the square on the fly, without rolling. This calls for only the best aggie shooters. A West Bronx game for those with the most powerful shooting thumbs.
* * *
Square ring
A Long Island variation in which nine marbles are placed in a drawn square {tick-tac-toe style}. Players bowl for "firsties," then shoot "knuckles down tight" on the ground, aiming either to shoot marbles from the square or against each other to keep opponents away from the square. A game of strategy and defense, rare in "for keeps" marbles.
* * *
Corner the market
A "for keeps game. Each player puts a designated number of marbles in a square or a hexagon, drawn in the dirt. Often played with shooters, in which case skill is essential, but just as often played with oversized steelies or scaboulders with which the shooter simply bowls, attempting to wham the target marbles out of the drawn figure. With a good eye and a hot streak one could, in the words of the game, "corner the market" in immies in one's neighborhood. The steelies version has been favored by poorer shooters because of their blasting power.
* * *
Knuckle Box
This Brooklyn variation calls for a square with 18-inch sides. Players place a specified number of marbles inside, and finger-choose to determine who goes first. The winner spans from any side of the square (tip of the thumb to tip of middle finger) to establish his shooting spot. Shooting form here, he can keep all of the marbles he hits from the square; his shooter must leave the square too. He continues to shoot until he misses or until his shooter fails to rool out of the square. It then become a target marble and belong to whoever shoots it out. Depending upon neighborhood rules, the shooting line might be one, two or three spans away from the square.
* * *
This inversion of the general run of square game has been played on the east coast. A square is drawn and a white marble, a milkie of smoked glass, placed in its center. Each of the four players places his shooter outside the square, at a corner, and attempts, in turn, to shoot the milkie form the center of the square to any corner, without the milkie leaving the confies of the square.
If the milkie is hit to a corner, the player in that corner is eliminated. The danger is that you can come within a hair of your opponent's marble and be liable to be blasted yards away, and have to edge your way back in stages.
This is tournament stuff, with identical squares set up all over the lot, and eliminations held until there are four finalists around one square. Definitely a controlled shooter's game.
* * *
There are just a few triangle games; two of them Killy and Three-Corner Killy, are from Australia, a third, Three-And-Your-Own, is from Toronto, Canada. The first two are simple shoot-marbles-out-of-a-shape games, but the third is rather interesting. Three marbles are set down at the corners of a triangle, and a shooter attempts to hit them off the corner and out of the triangle. If he succeeds, he wins them from the player who put up the marbles stake. If he misses he loses his shooter to the triangle-maker. The triangle-maker usually wins.
It is not uncommon for a boy to come to school several hours early to stake out a particularly rough and uneven piece of concrete on which to set up his triangle. Often locations would be sold for a certain number of marbles. For the more adventuresome, Four-And-Your-Own and even Five-And-Your-Own games were set up, though this was rare.
* * *
An indoor game. On rainy days marbles players would congregate in homes (mothers willing) which had living-room Persian rugs and enough space for some decent shooting. White thread was used to outline a portion of the rug pattern. Four players were considered ideal and the one who shouted "last!" first had the advantage of being the last to place his marbles and the first to shoot. He could set up things pretty much to his liking. This was played "for keeps"; you kept any marble you shot out of the Persian outline. A shooter's game.
* * *
Song: "Dueling Banjos" |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68223 | Rhapsody App for
Rhapsody International, Inc.
Rich O'Brien
If you need one place to find all your non-rock string plucking needs, listen to this cowboy master. Rich O'Brien has mastered Django-influenced Western Swing, neo Classical, and Spanish guitar. It's to his credit that he holds all these different styles together with a heaping helping of cowboy charm. If you are having a picnic under open skies, this is your soundtrack. Don't know who's on the fiddle, but their licks are as tasty and fresh as cold chicken and lemonade.
Rhapsody app on your desktop or mobile device.
Listen to the songs you love. Anytime, anywhere.
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68224 | Rhapsody App for
Rhapsody International, Inc.
Kurt's Favorite Music
by Justin Farrar | April 5, 2014
I really don't feel like imparting any sappy or deep thoughts about the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's horrible, miserable suicide. After all, there's nothing I can say about the guy's legacy that Courtney and her proposed musical couldn't say better. (And yes, that statement drips in '90s-bred sarcasm -- my native tongue.) What I do want to touch on is, quite simply, Kurt the Fan. After all these years, the thing about him that still sticks with me is how he seemed to enjoy listening to rock music just as much as he did creating it (maybe more so, actually). In band interviews, both in print and on MTV, Cobain always appeared the most enthused and animated when talking about his favorite bands and records. In fact, he seemed to prefer that to any inane parsing of his lyrics or delving into what Nirvana means to the youth of America (Wipers reference, people). Hell, he even made his own band tees and, as the publishing of his Journals in 2002 proved, enjoyed scribbling lists of his all-time favorite albums in cheap spiral-bound notebooks.
That's true rock fanaticism. Best of all, he never did any of it in a pretentious, "I know about stuff you don't" manner. In other words, he never came off like the jerk-off record store clerk who believes he's hipper than Iggy Pop because he owns a first pressing of The Vaselines' Dying For It EP. Quite the opposite, actually. Cobain appeared to genuinely enjoy turning his fans on to the artists that had turned him on. Music meant the world to him, and he wanted to share it, plain and simple. This made him seem very down to earth and very real, as if he wasn't a bigger-than-life rock star, but rather just some cool, slightly older dude living down the street, whose awesome record collection plays a pivotal role in shaping (corrupting?) the tastes of the neighborhood kids.
I was an impressionable high school student for the majority of Nirvana's existence, and I can say with certainty that when Cobain referred to a particular record, name-dropped a specific group or wore his homemade Flipper shirt (screw you, Forever 21), it inspired kids to head down to the local record store and begin exploring the bins. Thanks in part to Cobain -- whose tastes were absurdly expansive, it should be noted -- I made the transition from clueless consumer of mainstream rock to hardcore music nerd obsessed with all manner of killer stuff, including Leadbelly, The Jesus Lizard, Daniel Johnston, The Frogs, Bad Brains, Beat Happening, Gang of Four and The Raincoats to name just a few. And let's not forget: This was before the rise of the Internet and digital everything. Actually scoring a copy of, say, Gang of Four's Entertainment! LP was the equivalent of discovering gold nuggets in your parents' backyard. With profound care, you pulled that sucker from the record bin and held on to it for dear life as you marched up to that jerk-off clerk to make your purchase.
Now, I know I swore off any sappy or deep thoughts, but I guess you could say my Kurt's Favorite Music playlist is something of a thank you letter for radically expanding my sonic horizons in the early '90s. It's not much, granted. But hopefully, there are some kids out there who, upon reading these words, will get turned on to this music the way I did. Thanks, Kurt.
Related Posts
Related Posts
Rhapsody app on your desktop or mobile device.
Listen to the songs you love. Anytime, anywhere.
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68252 | SailNet Community - View Single Post - Voltage tester idea
View Single Post
post #4 of Old 05-29-2012
Senior Member
asdf38's Avatar
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 740
Thanks: 1
Thanked 8 Times in 8 Posts
Rep Power: 5
Voltage tester idea
It will work fine. One thing to remember is where the lighter plug is wired. Any load between the battery and the point where the lighter is wired will cause a small around of voltage drop. This is probably at your panel so turning off loads will give you the best measurement.
Also be careful with the exposed wires. You could easily blow a fuse if they touch. If you want to use this often you might wire a series resistor of 100 to 1k. Then it's no big deal if you short the alligator clips.
asdf38 is offline
Quote Share with Facebook
For the best viewing experience please update your browser to Google Chrome |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68275 | Saturday, February 11 by
One of the less-remarked-upon aspects of espionage is the near-constant need to dispose of dead bodies. But on the FX animated sitcomArcher,” this fascinating aspect of every spy‘s job gets its due. In the above clip, you can see that this time it’s the Italian prime minister. If this sounds like your kind of corpse-disposing good time, you can check out the episode when it airs Thursday, February 16 at 10:00 PM ET/PT on FX.
Do you like this story?
More about...
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68283 | My father was a lonely man. Lonely in the sense that my mother wouldn't give him the time of day, sexually or otherwise. From time to time, while my mother was out running her errands, my dad would invite over a lady friend and fuck her senseless. He was oblivious to the fact that on many occasions I would watch him do this.
The first time I saw my dad having sex with another woman I was sixteen. Puberty hit me like a mack truck and left me with a thin waist, curvy hips, and a pair of size 34D breasts. I was about 5'6 and
my legs were long and slender.
When my father had finished with his girl of the day, she left in a hurry and I pretended like I hadn't seen or heard a thing. My mother returned home shortly after that and found a pair of panties that definitely weren't hers. From the argument that had ensued, I learned that this wasn't the first time a pair of panties had been left behind.
My mother was furious and I felt bad seeing my father being screamed at by a woman who wouldn't give him the time of day. And who wouldn't?! I had seen my father’s cock. It was at least seven inches
long and it was thick.
"They're my panties mom," I said.
"Excuse me?"
My father looked at me with wide eyes. "They're mine." I repeated. "I changed in your room earlier today because I saw a spider in mine. I must have left them in there."
My mother stared at me for a couple of seconds before seemingly believing the lie I had just told her. And this is when I began to devise my plan to seduce my father.
In the coming weeks, I watched as my father continued to bring home woman and fuck them. Each time I’d have to go to my room and play with my pussy afterwards, but I knew that no orgasm I had ever
experienced would compare to one that my father could give me.
Each time a girl of the day would leave, my mother would find something that was left behind. I knew that if my dad was fucking me each time my mother left he would never get caught.
One day, while my mother was out, my father brought yet another girl into their bedroom. She was on all fours, on the bed and my father was fucking her from behind. He was fucking her so hard that I could hear his balls slapping against her pussy. I watched as my father’s throbbing cock moved in and out of the woman’s pussy and I couldn't stop myself from sliding my hand into my shorts. I could fit only two
of my fingers into my tight pussy. I wasn't a virgin but I had only had sex a few times before. I pushed my two fingers into my pussy and matched my rhythm with that of my fathers. Every time his cock would
thrust into her, I would push my fingers deeper into my own pussy. The faster he moved the faster my fingers moved. My father began to moan and I was trying my hardest to hold in my own moans.
"Fuck Chrissie," He grunted.
I stopped what was doing and so did he.
"I'm not Chrissie!" The woman yelled.
"I'm sorry," My dad said. "I-"
Before he could say anything the woman moved off his cock and stood up. I hurried to move away from the door and just as I sat myself down on the couch the girl of the day and my father came running from
the bedroom. They yelled and argued until she was out of the house. My father slammed the door shut and sat on the couch next to me.
"Sorry about all the yelling just now Chrissie," He said. "That was someone from work. We disagreed on something."
I smiled. "Its okay daddy." I said.
The next time my mother ran her errands was a week later. My father was sick with a cold so he was in bed. My mother left and I was surprised when there wasn't a girl of the day walking through the
front door.
I walked to my father’s bedroom and saw him fast asleep. I was going to make sure my father felt better. I crept into his bedroom and stood at the end of the bed. I lifted the covers and climbed underneath them. My father mumbled something in his sleep but he didn't wake up. I climbed slowly until I reached his boxers. I slipped my hand into his boxers and pulled out his cock. It was soft but it was still nice. I put his cock in my mouth and within seconds, it was hard. My dad’s hands went to the back of my head.
He lifted the covers and when his eyes met mine, he pulled his cock out of my mouth.
"Chrissie, what are you doing?" He panted.
"I’m helping you feel better daddy." I said.
"Baby this isn't right," He said.
"But daddy it's fine," I insisted. "Mommy will never know."
My dad didn't stop me this time when I put his cock in my mouth. I bobbed my head up and down. My dad’s hand went back to the back of my head. He pushed my head down, forcing his cock into the back of my mouth. I gagged for a few seconds but not for long. My father started to thrust his hips, fucking my throat.
He pulled out of my mouth quickly. He tossed the blanket to the floor and pushed me onto my back. In one swift movement, he pulled my shorts and my panties off my body. He pulled me down to the edge of the bed and got on his knees. He pushed a finger into my pussy and let his tongue roll over my clit. I moaned as he moved his tongue faster. He pushed another of his fingers into my pussy. It hurt a little at
first but after a few seconds I was used to it and it felt good.
"Baby," he said. "Your pussy is so tight."
I moaned as he continued to move his fingers. "I want your cock daddy."
I only had to say it once. My father pulled his boxers down as he stood up and I could feel him trying to push his cock into my pussy.
"Baby, this is going to hurt." he said as he forced his entire length into me.
I cursed at the pain I was feeling right then. My father moved his hand to my pussy and began to rub my clit with his finger. While he played with my clit, he began to slowly move his hips causing his cock
to move a little bit inside of me. He pushed himself back in all the way, while he continued to rub my clit. The more he rubbed my clit the wetter my pussy became and it was easier for his cock to slide in and
out of my pussy. He pushed in all the way again and this time it felt amazing.
“God Daddy,” I moaned. “Your cock is so nice.”
I could feel his cock slowly stretching my tight pussy to fit his length. He never stopped playing with my clit and by now, his cock was sliding easily in and out of my pussy. He began to thrust harder as he reached his other hand up and grabbed one of breasts. Getting frustrated with my shirt, he tore it from my body leaving me completely naked. He began to grab my breast again, massaging it in his large firm hands. I moaned again.
“God baby,” He panted. “Your pussy feels so good on daddy’s cock.”
I moaned as he began to fuck me harder. He pulled all the way out and flipped me over. I had seen him do this with other girls, so I knew exactly what he wanted. I moved towards the middle of the bed and rose up on all fours. He didn’t hesitate to slide his cock back into my sopping wet pussy. He started off at a fast past, thrusting his entire length in and out of my pussy. I reached my hand down to play with my clit as my daddy continued to fuck me.
I moaned loudly as my father’s cock hit my g-spot dead on over and over again. My father began moaning again as well, and that was all it took to send me over the edge. I continued to rub my fingers over my clit as my orgasm ripped through me. The walls of my pussy gripped his cock harder and harder and he grunted as I felt his warm load shoot into my pussy. He rode out his orgasm and when he pulled his cock from my pussy, I felt the mix of our juices slide out of my pussy and down my ass.
“Next time,” He said. “I say we get another girl in here.”
I smiled. “I can’t wait Daddy.”
Anonymous readerReport
2015-04-07 22:01:04
You fuck your daddy after he fuck every woman he brought home you lie to your mom about the panties
Anonymous readerReport
2014-05-11 18:39:56
jIAVFA Wow, great blog.Really looking forward to read more. Really Great.
Anonymous readerReport
2014-04-01 17:43:44
wSuZr6 Thanks-a-mundo for the article.Really thank you! Great.
Anonymous readerReport
2014-03-22 12:02:47
OuUQ65 I loved your post.Thanks Again. Fantastic.
Anonymous readerReport
2013-12-28 21:56:11
Wow wasn't that awesome
You are not logged in.
Characters count: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68285 | Rory's got an exciting day ahead of her.
Rory stirred awake. She groaned as she took stock of her surroundings. These days she never knew where she was gonna wake up. Happy to find herself still at home, she glanced around her room, checking to see if anyone was there. Sure enough, a person was lying underneath a pile of blankets on her floor. Taking even more stock, she realized she was naked and the person underneath the blankets was Dean.
Now it was all coming back to her. Last night her and Dean had gone out to dinner and a movie. Even at dinner they had scarcely been able to keep their hands to themselves and were full on groping before the movie was over. He had carried her out to the car, where they sped back to Rory’s house, with Lorelai out due to Dean’s arrangement, and proceeded to fuck like rabbits all night. They had fallen asleep, exhausted, in Rory’s bedroom.
Now that Rory knew where she was and who she as with, she had to contemplate what to do next. Dean shifted, moving the blankets off of him. She took in his breath-taking hunkiness for a second. Contemplating starting his day off with a blowjob, she decided that since she was awake she would get to pleasure herself first. She lay back on the bed and slowly began to move her hand down her body. She circled one hand around her breast and soon moved both hands onto her chest. Slowly pinching her nipples, she moaned, just taking in the feeling. Quickly, she licked her fingertips and went back to massaging her breasts.
Her pussy was just beginning to get moist, so she moved one hand down there and began to just circle around her outer lips. Over time, she made smaller and smaller circles, until she couldn’t help but to dip one finger into her sexpot. Gasping at her own invasion, she preceded to pump her finger in and out. She started slow, but soon picked up speed, but then slowed down again. Taking her hands out, she brought them up to her nose, smelling her own juices. She smiled and was about to go back to rubbing off, when suddenly she felt hot breath at her pussy.
Rory felt her heart skip a beat, until she saw Dean’s head in between her legs. She smiled as he began to work his tongue around the mouth of her pussy. “Good morning honey,” he hummed, sending shivers up and down her spine and taking her breath away.
“Good morning hunk, “ she responded when she got her breath back. Right after the words had left her mouth, Dean took one finger, his middle, and shoved it right up her pussy. She yelped like a dog, as a small orgasm rode up and down her spine. He began to pump his finger in and out of her pussy, while continuing to dance his tongue around the outer part. Rory was heaven. Her hands were moving like lightening all over her breasts, until they moved down to behind Dean’s head, where they started to push it against her pussy. His finger was still pumping in and out of her pussy, when he thought she was ready he took two more fingers and just shoved them right up into her snatch.
The screams that left her throat were so loud, someone should have been afraid they would wake the neighbors. Luckily, the two teens were alone in this house and Rory’s screams soon were reduced to just loud moans. Dean took his mouth away and just began to move his fingers in and out of her snatch. “Oh, yeah. You like it when my fingers are in your pussy, don’t you?” Dean teased Rory.
All Rory could do was moan, “Harder Dean, harder!” And all Dean could do was oblige. He pumped his fingers in and out, in and out. Her hands were roaming all over; one would squeeze her breasts while the other played with Dean’s hair. Moving faster and faster, her hands were only adding to her pleasure. Dean felt the time was right and moved his mouth down to her pussy. Moving slowly, so she could enjoy the feeling of his hot breath, he reached his tongue out dipped it right between his fingers.
Rory shuddered, as now Dean’s fingers and his tongue were working in tandem on her pussy. He would move his fingers in and out and then quickly dive down to lap up whatever juices had been secreted. Then he would pull his little fuckers out. Dancing around her lips, Dean’s fingers were now the masters of tease. Spreading her lips and then jumping away, lightly massaging the skin right next to her pussy, his digits were never in the same place for more than one second. Unless they were plunged deep into her snatch, then he would keep them there as his tongue skillfully played with her clit. No pleasure was denied to Rory as Dean went down on her.
Rory’s voice had left her completely. All she could do was press her hands against the back of his head, making sure he never left there while she had anything to say about it. Every last moan was being ripped from her throat as his tongue took her closer and closer to orgasm. Finally, she could not hold back her climax any longer. She let out a shriek as she came all over Dean’s face. Her juices flowed and flowed all down his cheeks as he eagerly tried to lap them all up.
Having closed her eyes right after her orgasm, Rory basked in her post-climax glow. She could vaguely hear Dean moving about. When she opened her eyes, Dean was positioned right over her. She looked up into his eyes and saw a lust here, something she was more than willing to give into. Beads of sweat slowly dripped down his face and fell onto her flushed skin. His member was at the most erect she had ever seen it. She was entranced by it, mesmerized by it. It hardly registered to her that it was slowly moving to her well-lubed pussy.
“Are you ready for this, my little slut?” She hadn’t even heard him, his cock was just getting closer and closer. “I asked, are you ready for this, my little slut?” Dean practically shouted.
“Yes, yes, give it to me now!” Rory responded. With those words, Dean impaled her, all the way up to his balls. Momentarily saddened by the disappearance of the approaching pole. Rory quickly realized where that pole was now and screamed out in ecstasy. She pulled Dean’s face to hers and began to face-rape him, pushing her tongue so far into his mouth it almost didn’t feel like part of her body anymore.
Dean’s cock was quickly, but smoothly, moving in and out of Rory’s pussy. He was enjoying the feeling of her tight pussy and ravenous mouth. Suddenly, Rory pulled away from him and said in a husky whisper, “You call that fucking?” Not needing any more invitation, Dean began to pound in and out of his girlfriend. He wanted to make her scream.
And scream she did. Every quick thrust of Dean’s cock blew her mind. Her world had fused into one long experience of pleasure. Very long. She didn’t know what she was saying. It could have been his name, her name or just the dirtiest things that came to her mind. All she knew was the intense pressure of his body entering into hers.
Before long, he was calling out her name and she could feel that he was close to being finished, “Fill me with your seed!” she heard herself yell.
“What was that my slut?” he answered.
“Fill me with your fuck seed,” she gasped just as he shot his white hot sperm straight into her womb. This didn’t stop him from continuing his thrusting, and Rory continued to feel his warmth enter her as the fucking continued. Once he was emptied, he slowly began to slow down until he was stopped completely.
“I love you so fucking much, Rory,” Dean admitted as he leaned down to engage her in a passionate kiss. He pulled back, “And I love fucking you so much.” She giggled as he climbed off of her. “I’ve got to get to school, and so do you, missy,” he reminded her as he searched for his clothes. She jumped out of bed and gave him one last kiss, and his cock another nice squeeze before heading for shower.
She cleaned herself thoroughly, just as Tristan had commanded. She rushed out of the shower and put on her slightly modified Chilton uniform. The skirt was just a little shorter, and there was a zipper in back from easy access. The blouse was a bit more low cut. Not enough for Rory to get in trouble with the administration, but enough for Tristan to be satisfied. Glancing at the clock, she scurried out of the house, praying she wouldn’t miss her bus. She had to run a bit at the end, but all the bus drivers were nice in Stars Hollow and would wait for you, especially if your blouse was just a little more low cut than normal.
Rory paid her fare and then walked about two thirds of the way down the bus and plopped down in a seat. She glanced around and noticed a smoking hot black guy sitting in the back of the bus. His skin was a deep chocolate brown, and although he was sitting, Rory guessed he was at least six foot and change. He was wearing the uniform of Wester, a nearby all-boys private school, that nice accentuated his ripped body. She made eye contact with him and they both smiled.
Digging into her backpack, she pulled out a book, crossed her legs (making sure her skirt rode up just a little bit to give her new friend a show) and began to read. She kept on eye on the chocolate beauty in the back even as she read and noticed that more than once he had to shift his crotch around. By the looks of it, he had been blessed in that area.
Her stop came far to quickly. She gathered up her stuff. As she stood up to leave, she decided that she better say good-bye to the dark stranger and dropped the book in the aisle. Bending down to pick it up, she was sure that he could see Tristan’s other demand of her, that she never wear any underwear underneath her skirt. She turned, winked at the flabbergasted young male and got off the bus.
anonymous readerReport
2010-12-29 10:20:29
More please. How about a story about Rory getting gangbang at Wester the all boys school.
anonymous readerReport
2010-12-29 10:20:06
You are not logged in.
Characters count: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68286 | His sister comes home with her cheerleader team
Having a sister that was a cheerleader was a perk for Denny. And having a big yard was also good since that is where the team would practice when they could not find anywhere else. Denny got home early from work and headed out to the pool to relax and enjoy the quiet. Getting in his laps before anyone got home. He had just gotten out when he heard his phone and the tone for a text being sent to him go off. He picked up the phone and saw that it was from his Mom. “ Will be home late, Pizza is in the fridge for you and Dianne”. He texted his Mom back. “ Thanks I will let her know when she gets home from cheerleader practice”.
Denny decided to take a shower after swimming he was supposed to be playing Hockey later and wanted to get the clorine off of him from the pool. He had just gotten out when he heard his sister and the other Cheerleaders come in. His sister yelled to let him know that he was home. Her voice echoed thru the house since it was empty. He yelled back Ok.. He glanced over the rail to see the other girls that were with his sister. He saw Christine and a couple others. He had known Christine for over ten years. She was the Neighbor that lived two houses down from him. He has always had a crush on her for a while but since she was his sisters friend he just put it out of his head. But she was so fucking hot. She was about 5ft and she had long blonde hair. It went to just below her ass. She had dated the class president but had broken up when she found him with another girl. Still looking over the rail Chris looked up and waved to him. He waved back. Denny headed into his room to get his equipment together for later. Heading into his senior year he was hoping to be the starting Goalie for the Hockey team. He had gotten most of the starts in his Junior year but he was also not the only senior Goalie on the team.
Even with his door completely closed he could hear the girls downstairs. He headed downstairs to get some pizza from the fridge. All the girls had now gone down to the basement to practice. He grabbed two slices and tossed them into the toaster oven to heat them up. He grabbed a soda from the fridge as well. He heard two of the girls coming upstairs. One was Chris and the other was Jenny. She was a really hot Red Head. She was in his History class and he had once went out with her but she preferred the football players. Jenny was a little bit shorter than Chris. Chris said hi to Denny and smiled at him. He said hi back and smiled to her. He also said hi to Jenny and she just waved to him. Getting his pizza out of the toaster oven he was heading into the living room to eat and watch TV. Chris was looking for something in the fridge and bending over just so Denny could see her nice ass. He almost dropped the pizza that he had on the plate. Jenny headed back down to the basement. Chris was still in the kitchen when Denny headed to the living room. He picked up the remote to turn on the tv when Chris walked in to the room. She sat down on the chair next to him. She was wearing shorts that were really short. Not her Cheerleader uniform. She also had on just a white T Shirt and you could see her nipples sticking right out. Denny tried not to stare but there was no way not to.
Trying to watch TV and not stare to much at Chris’s Huge tits. She told him that she was planning on cutting her hair and donating it to a charity to make wigs for girls with Cancer. Denny told her that wow that is so nice. But he loved her long blonde hair. He had always wanted to have sex with her and have her hair flowing behind her when he fucked her. Chris got up and sat right next to Denny. She leaned over and whispered in his ear. Denny almost dropped the plate that he had when he heard what she had said. She said if you want to come upstairs I will show you. They both headed upstairs to his room. He opened the door to his room and Chris walked in first. She sat on his bed and he sat next to her. She asked him if it is ok for her to be in the room. Denny was a little bit nervous at first. He had dreamed out this but didn’t think he would ever have it come true. Chris got up and started to take off her shirt. She was not shy.. Her big tits free from the shirt. Denny could feel his cock getting big with his erection. She got in front of him and pulled down his shorts and since he had just gotten out of the shower he had not put on underwear. His cock shot out at her and she grabbed it with one hand and started to stroke it. She then took it into her mouth. She knew what to do. It must have been about three minutes when Denny was shooting his load deep into her mouth. She swallowed it all down. Getting up and cleaning the cum off her face she started to take off her shorts so that Denny could lick her pussy. Denny was so hoping that she didn’t have any hair on her pussy. She didn’t. She lay down on his bed and he started to lick her pussy. He had done it before so he knew what to do. Chris had her hair down and Denny always wanted to fuck her when her hair was down.
Licking her shaved pussy and listening to her moans as she was having orgasm after orgasm. His dick was now hard once again. Chris seeing his cock fully erect told him to stick his cock in her pussy. He got up and started to rub his cock against her clit and she was moaning again. He then put it in her cunt. He then pulled out of her cunt and started to grab a condom so that she would not get pregnant. He opened the package and put on the condom and once again stuck his cock in her. She was moaning and he was enjoying the moment. One that he only thought happened in his dreams. He pulled out and she decided to ride his cock. So he laid on his bed and she took his cock and put it against her clit and then sat down and took his whole cock all the way into her pussy. Denny was about 7 inches fully erect. They tried out at least four different positions. Denny feeling that he was about to cum asked Chris where she wanted him to cum. She told him that she wanted him to cum in her mouth so she can swallow it again. He pulled out of her pussy and took the condom off and shot his load in her mouth. Chris got up and cleaned off her face and then gave Denny a kiss on the cheek. She then got dressed and headed back to the basement to where the other girls were. Denny still on his bed could not believe that he had just had sex with Chris.
Denny had just gotten up off his bed when he heard a knock on the door. It was once again Chris. She told him she wanted to fuck him some more. She had gone down stairs to tell his sister that she was going home but she just went back upstairs. She once again got fully naked and Denny had yet to put on his clothes she got in front of him and started to suck on his cock. It didn’t take him long to get hard. He reached over to get a condom once again and she told him that she didn’t like the feel of them and that she was on the pill so as to not get pregnant. So Denny once again stuck his cock in her pussy. Once again they tried a couple of positions and Chris wanted him to cum in her pussy so bad. She once again started to ride his cock in reverse cowboy position and Denny feeling his cock about to send a load of cum in her. He told her he was ready to cum. She just kept bouncing up and down on his cock. And then Denny moaned as his load shot deep in her.. She got up and licked off the rest of the cum from his dick and swallowed it. Both spent from fucking lay down on his bed. They rested and when both were ok they fucked at least four more times. Everytime he shot his load in her pussy.
They had been dating about three months and Denny had been getting used to her with short hair, But she was letting it grow to be as long as it was before. They would wait until there was no one home in his or her house and have sex every chance that they could. All the time Denny would shoot his load in her pussy. Chris would not let him fuck her with a condom on anyway. One afternoon she told Denny that she was not feeling to well. She made an appointment with her Doctor. She felt it was just the flu since she was on the pill. But it was not the flu. Chris was pregnant..Her and Denny were going to wait until after graduation to get married. Their daughter was born with blue eyes and blonde hair just like her Mom..
Anonymous readerReport
2014-01-15 23:47:03
iKIbT2 Thanks so much for the article. Fantastic.
anonymous readerReport
2013-10-15 18:04:30
GA1Gay Im grateful for the blog post.Much thanks again. Want more.
anonymous readerReport
2013-09-13 18:40:55
XH4NG1 I really like and appreciate your blog article. Awesome.
anonymous readerReport
2013-07-20 12:15:25
Good story concept. Most of your stories have good ideas. Keep working on developing characters and situations. Good luck.
anonymous readerReport
2013-07-20 03:22:23
terrible writing style, told so badly to almost make it unreadable. boring
You are not logged in.
Characters count: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68287 | teen studs have some Friday night fun
Barn Banging
By Jimmy Seay
FROM THE AUTHOR - This is one of my very old stories - you can read my e-books by searching under the author name of Jimmy Seay at Amazon.
I stopped at Kevin Hunter’s place, and honked the horn. I watched the screen door fly open and Kevin stepped out on the porch. Even from the car, I could see Kevin was hot. He grinned at me as he walked down the steps; the grin caused a dimple to appear, making him even hotter looking. His brown eyes had a sparkle, expecting some fun perhaps.
He was wearing a loose black t-shirt tucked into old and faded, slim cut wranglers. Kevin was 18 or 19; a grown man by country standards. But the t-shirt emphasized his slim, boyish build. The wranglers waistband showed off his small, flat waist; and accented the rounding curves of his butt.
Kevin climbed into my Chevy Nova for some Friday night fun. He didn’t know he was going to be the fun. I let off the clutch and headed out.
“There’s some beer in the back seat,” I said, “Pop us open a couple!”
Kevin reached between the bucket seats, giving me another view of his wrangler covered butt. I nursed my beer as he swallowed his down. This would be an easy one.
In fact, Kevin had been real easy so far. He had just moved here; no car, no friends. As a good country neighbor, I had helped unload their furniture. I’d learned a lot helping them move in. Kevin was the only kid still at home; the rest of his brothers and sisters grown and married. It was easy to be-friend him, and two days later, he was in my car.
I told Kevin, “Get yourself another one, there’s plenty.”
Kevin grinned and reached back for another beer, once again giving me a view of the backside of them wranglers.
I headed towards the bowling alley. It was about the only place around to meet up at; no malls, no cinemas in the sticks.
Josh and the others were already there. There were 6 of us, counting me. We’d hung out as kids. We had played; in a way we still played. Only now our toys were guys like Kevin Hunter. All six of us were in the same age group, between 18 and 20. We’d pretty much had grown up together.
Even back then, Josh had been the leader. I’d always played second fiddle to Josh. There was just something about him; something commanding and different.
During puberty, it was Josh that had started the circle jerks we used to have. We’d been skinny dipping one afternoon. There’d been the usual butt slapping, and horse playing. Somehow we all ended up in the old barn. Somehow we ended up beating off together.
Jacking off, in a group, became a frequent thing. The rules changed, we’d have contest to see who could shoot the furthest, maybe who could shoot the quickest. No matter what the contest was, Josh always seemed to win.
It was about a year later, when Josh introduced Denny Lane into our group. Josh changed the rules again; we learned what it felt like to force our dicks into some ones mouth that night. Oh, Denny, well, he learned what it was like to be on the receiving end of 6 horny teen age country boys.
The games got more intense, I learned what it was like to fuck an unwilling ass. Denny was a lot of fun till he ran away a few months later. I still remember the look of shock when Josh popped his cherry.
Denny never told no one, never did the others. I guess it was too embarrassing, something a guy just don’t want known.
I pulled into the bowling alley. Kevin chugged down beer number 4. His eyes were bright, he had a sly grin on his face.
“Come on, Kevin,” I said as I watched his tongue flick at some beer suds on his lower lip. His lips were thin, but sexy, his tongue looked promising.
He didn’t stagger, but walked kind of stiff and slow. The beer had gotten to him some; he thrust his chest out, and walked into the bowling alley with a big grin.
Josh and the others were around a pool table. About 5 minutes later, Josh said “We’re gonna cut out of here, and go party!”
We whooped and hollered and hit the parking lot. As soon as Kevin got into my Nova, he was reaching for a beer. Kevin was going to be real easy. He didn’t even seem to notice where we were heading. He was occupied with the beer.
I was occupied too, wondering what Kevin Hunter’s ass would feel like around my dick. I looked over at him; he was grinning away, that dimple showing. I wanted to touch those sexy lips, but it wasn’t time. Not yet, but soon.
I pulled up to the old barn. We still used it. I grabbed the cooler; me and Kevin headed in. I’d driven slowly, giving the others a chance to get there first.
The barn was already set-up. A clean sheet lay in the middle of some bales of hay. Clean towels were here and there for later. A couple of half used up jars of Vaseline were in place.
I glanced at a wall. Kevin was too drunk to notice the ropes, and the leather strap hanging there. Josh and two of the others already had their shirts off. There was second cooler of beer; plenty to do the job.
I directed Kevin to a bale of hay and placed the cooler right in front of him as he sat down. We sipped and he guzzled. It was a warm night, soon all of us had stripped off our shirts except Kevin.
I took in a deep breath, enjoying the scent. I could smell the aroma of the beer, but it couldn’t cover the other scents. I could smell the fresh scent of the shirtless male bodies of my friends. I could smell the scent of the sex that this barn had contained.
I was hard as a rock, and could feel the stickiness of my leaking dick. I glanced around; the others were in pretty much the same shape as me.
Josh stood out from the rest of us; there was just something more masculine about him. He wasn’t handsome, but sex seemed to ooze from him. His smooth chest was tanned and hard slim muscle. His belly flat and hard as a board. His Levi covered legs were spread wide; no shame about the hard bulge that was obvious in his fly.
I’d seen Josh’s dick tons of times over the years. He packed about 6 inches; nothing huge, nothing special in its size. But somehow, his dick stood out; like it had more power, more confidence.
I thought of my own body. I was the only one of us with chest hair. I had a good build; and a rich covering of hair on my body. I’d started growing this hair at 15, and was kind of proud how it served to set me apart from my friends.
My dick was the only uncut one in the gang. I was proud of it’s seven inch length. I was proud of my hairy nuts sack containing my egg shaped balls. I had the low hanging kind that flop as I move.
The others? We all had similar rangy, country boy builds. Terry had the smallest dick, boned up, he hit only 5, but he sure like to use it. The others were about all the same, 6 to 6 ½. Then I fell into place, with my uncut log. Then there was James.
James was what is described as a ‘grower’, not a ‘shower’. When you saw James on soft, you’d never guess how much he packed. He was hung, well hung. When he boned up, he had a for real 9 incher. A long, thick, and hard piece of man meat.
Yet, it was Josh that could bring the loudest screams. It was Josh’s dick that seemed to make them tense up and struggle the most. It was Josh that could make their faces a screwed up mask of pain. There was just something different about Josh.
The warm night and the beer had finally got to Kevin. He fumbled as he pulled the black t-shirt from his jeans. He didn’t notice as he knocked over his beer.
We all watched as he awkwardly attempted to pull off his shirt. A strip of his skin showed now. I watched as more of it came into view.
I could see all his belly now; slim and tan, a light dusting of a treasure trail exposed. As nice as I had anticipated.
Kevin giggled; he had managed to get his t-shirt stuck covering his face. We all tensed, wondering if Josh would make his move now. Like a team, we were all ready to pounce and strip Kevin Hunter.
Josh gave a slight shake of his head, a definite no. He stood up and helped Kevin remove the shirt, laughing and joking about Kevin not being to hold his beer.
Kevin stood up, and staggered. He grabbed at his fly, “Gotta take a leak.” We watched his naked back and wrangler covered ass head for the door of the barn.
We could hear him, pissing. He sighed in pleasure as he let the beer escape. He came back, zipper half up, button unfastened. He grabbed another beer, and fell back onto the hay.
His eyes were glassy, his grin real big. I was horny as hell, wondering, what Josh was waiting on.
Josh moved closer to Kevin, their spread legs touching. Josh was changing the rules again. My dick twitched as Josh touched Kevin’s lips. Kevin drew his head back drunkenly.
Josh said, “You got some pretty lips, boy, you suck dick?”
Slowly, the grin disappeared from Kevin’s face. His voice slurred, “Not into that queer shit.”
Josh asked, “Is that right?” Joshes hand trailed down Kevin’s face, again touching the lips.
Kevin moved, falling off the hay, hitting the barn’s old wooden floor with a thump. Josh stood over him, placing a foot on Kevin’s crotch. Josh applied pressure, Kevin moaned in pain.
I stood up, stripping off my jeans, letting my hard cock free. I heard the other’s stripping around me.
Josh kicked at Kevin’s privates; his foot hit hard. Kevin curled into a ball, trying to protect his jewels. Josh reached down, and undid the half up zipper.
Kevin flounced around as Josh peeled his jeans down. The rest of us had formed a circle around them. I held my cock, staring as Kevin’s briefs came into view.
He moved around, trying to pull his jeans back up. They were trapped around his ankles now. Josh reached down, and grabbed Kevin’s briefs. A ripping sound echoed as the briefs wee ripped from Kevin’s body.
I moved closer, as close as I could. His butt was exposed, smooth, white globes, Kevin had more then the dimple on his face!
I dropped down, yanking off his shoes, as Josh finish tearing his briefs off. I grabbed one leg of the jeans, Josh the other. In seconds, Kevin was naked.
Kevin rolled over, facing us. His hands covered his privates. He looked bewildered, afraid.
He gave a weak grin, the sexy lips making me even hornier. “What’s going on?” He looked at me, not at the others.
I held my dick again, I stroked it. I stared at him, wondering what his hands were hiding. Kevin looked away, maybe he saw the hunger in my eyes, maybe he didn’t need his question answered. Or maybe, he didn’t really want the answer.
Josh produced a funnel. We had done this before, no explanation was needed. Kevin found his mouth being pried open, he gagged as the funnel penetrated his throat.
I popped the top on a beer, and poured it into the funnel. Josh rubbed his throat, the beer flowed down Kevin. Another can was already opened and ready. I emptied three cans, bringing back Kevin’s buzz.
Kevin’s high was back, he forgot his nudity, his hands clutched at his throat. He squinted his eyes, staring at us. We all stood around him, jacking slowly, as we looked at him.
With a nod from Josh, Kevin was lifted, and placed face down on the sheet. He struggled; as he was forced down. I took the place at his head, holding his face down, rubbing my fingers across the sexy lips.
My fingers were covered with the juices from my dick. I coated his lips with my juice, marking him with my scent. I watched as Terry rubbed the strap against Kevin’s butt.
Terry forced the strap between the ass cheeks, Kevin struggled as it made contact with his hole. Terry drew the strap back, I covered Kevin’s mouth as the strap flew, striking a milk white butt globe. Kevin’s muffled yell vibrated through my hand.
A few more blows, and I felt Kevin’s tears dripping down his face onto my hand. I watched urgently as Josh parted his ass cheeks.
I knew Kevin would possess a virgin, unused hole. I knew this straight country boy hadn’t been busted yet. But I wanted the proof, the knowledge that he was cherry.
Josh wet a finger; I watched as Josh sucked his finger, preparing it for entry inside of Kevin. This was a ritual we had developed. Josh would force a finger inside of our victim. He would announce if they hole was virgin.
He would then remove the finger. No foreplay, no readying, nothing to prepare the guy for a first fucking. Josh would always be first; no one questioned that. We would watch as he coated his dick would Vaseline. We would watch as he mounted. This was always my favorite part. To me, witnessing the first penetration, was even better then the sex.
I was second fiddle, that was a sexy thing, too. Being inside the same ass that Josh had just used, had just taken. Fucking the hole that Josh had just nutted inside of, my dick surrounded by his cum, his seed.
But watching Josh penetrate, witnessing the first time! My hand covering the mouth of the guy receiving Josh’s dick! Holding the head of a guy feeling a dick inside his body for the first time! Feeling the struggle, hearing the muffled scream, seeing the body jerk in an attempt to escape!
Something’s are better then sex. Seeing Josh cherry popping was one of those things!
Back to Top
Part 2
By Jimmy
Josh had placed his index finger in his mouth. I watched as his lips tightened around it. I could picture his tongue moving, wetting his finger. I wondered what his spit tasted like, wondered what it would be like to have my finger in his mouth.
Sometimes I wondered what it would feel like to have my dick inside Josh’s mouth. To fuck my dick in his face, to use his mouth to dump a load in.
Josh pulled his finger from his mouth. I saw a breath glimpse of his tongue. He held the finger up, letting us all see the glistening spit he had placed on it.
Even as he lowered his finger, Kevin’s butt cheeks were being parted, exposing the spot where the finger was going. Josh stared at the Kevin’s hole, “Three hairs,” Josh announced. “Three hairs around a nice little fuck hole.”
Kevin was drunk, but not so drunk he didn’t feel his ass crack being exposed, not so drunk that he didn’t hear the words. He squirmed, but didn’t get away.
Josh was a show-out, he slowly moved his finger towards Kevin’s ass hole. I moved my hand from Kevin’s mouth, wanting to hear him when Josh’s finger went inside.
I didn’t care if Kevin screamed bloody murder, there was no one to hear except us. I placed my hands over their mouths to more or less feel the screams, the vibrations of pain or fear. But sometimes, like now, I wanted to hear the sound.
I knew exactly when Josh’s finger touched Kevin’s hole. Kevin bucked, breaking almost free. He hissed, and his head tossed. I let my hold on his hold go for a second, and moved to the side. I wanted a better view.
I saw the look in Josh’s eyes, the look that made me sometimes wonder how sadistic he was. I saw the tip of Josh’s finger penetrate, and Kevin yelled. It wasn’t a word, it was a surprised sound of shock, more of an extremely loud gasp then anything else.
I looked from Kevin’s face to Josh’s. Kevin wasn’t registering pain, yet. He had a complete lack of expression, like he was trying to figure out what had just happened.
Josh, I’m not quite sure what I saw in his face, I’ve seen in there before. The closest I can come to explaining what Josh looked like is warrior like. I would think of an warrior winning a battle, a victory when Josh had this look.
Josh changed at times like this. At least he changed in my eyes. He would go from a confident, average looking guy to the most handsome, sexy guy in the world. At least, that’s how I saw it.
The whole finger was inside Kevin now, sunk deep inside, hidden away, just for a brief second in time. The finger was pulled out, held up for all of us to see.
Josh would show-out, into his performance again. Into the ritual we shared. He would stare at his finger for a minute, he would hold it close to his nose, and sniff.
Then he would nod his head and say, “We got us a cherry.”
So many times I had seen this, somehow it always seemed fresh and new. It always fascinated me; I think all of us. I wondered what would have happened if Josh ever said a hole wasn’t virgin.
I don’t remember when this part started, but I would open the Vaseline and pass it to Josh. He would reach into the jar and get a couple of fingers coated with the stuff.
He did all of that now, passing me back the jar, just like always.
He would move in front of the victim, I would hold their head up, by the hair.
Josh would apply the Vaseline to his dick, and speak. As he slowly greased his cock, he would tell them, “I’m gonna stick this in you! I’m gonna fuck your ass with this!” He would cover his dick with the grease, it would become shiny.
Like I said, it wasn’t a huge dick, nothing but normal. But to the victim, and even to me, it somehow appeared huge. It appeared menacing. Or maybe that’s how Josh appeared.
Some of them would beg, some cussed and threatened. Some of them stared thinking maybe it was just some kind of game. Not Kevin, I saw something different as Kevin looked at Josh.
I’m pretty sure I was the only one of us that saw the difference. Kevin didn’t look at Josh’s dick in fear, dread, or hatred. Kevin looked at it with something else.
For a brief second, I saw something in Kevin. I recognized it, maybe because the same thing was in me. I put it out of my mind, out of my thoughts; buried it for now.
None of us, Kevin included, moved or made a sound as Josh walked between Kevin’s legs. Josh nodded and we held Kevin tight, holding him down. I placed my hand back over his mouth, his lips were slightly parted.
Josh held his greased up dick like it was the biggest dick in the world. He lowered himself, slowly, showing out like usual. Slowly, he sank to Kevin’s back, slowly he placed his dick between Kevin’s buns.
Josh performed; he wasn’t going in yet, not Josh. He would move his dick around in the crack, I figure he did this to let them know what was about to happen.
Kevin grunted, twisted around some. I clearly heard him say the word ‘don’t.’
Josh heard the word, too. That’s all Josh was waiting for, that’s when Josh arched back a bit and placed his cock head against Kevin’s hole.
All of us knew this part; the part when an asshole feels its first penetration. The part when the guy struggles the most. Josh had a way of prolonging this part, he really liked to put on a show!
I let loose of Kevin’s mouth, I wanted to hear what came out of it. I saw every muscle in Josh’s body contract and tense! I saw his eyes roll back, saw his tongue stick out of his mouth, saw the sexy look that only he could have!
Kevin lurched, a shocked cry came from him, again not word, it was more of a very painful ‘uuuuuuu’ sound. Poor Kevin didn’t even know the half of what Josh was about.
We knew, it was the same routine every time, but Josh had away of making it different! It was the same, yet always different!
Josh would force just the head of his dick inside! Just the head! He would move slightly, moan some, and pull out! Before the victim could even react, Josh would plunge back inside! Again the head, but a fraction more! Just maybe a quarter inch more of his dick!
Each entry, he would move his body around slightly, but never more then that. His moans would fill my mind with needs; needs of sex. He would make it last and last; the first penetration would take him at least 15 minutes.
He’d always pull out, all the way out! He stab a bit more of his dick inside each time! He’d make them feel it! He would take his sweet time, making each of us want to be him!
He would make this part last; slowly violating the hole, slowly opening it, molding it to take a dick! Most of the victims would cry and beg! All of them struggled against the repeated pain!
Some of them tried to fight, some of them screamed so loud not even my hand could stop the screams.
Kevin was different; he reacted, he showed pain. Kevin struggled, but it was different! Between groans, I felt his tongue licking at my palm! I held him, the others held him, and he did try and break free, but I realized Kevin wasn’t fighting hard enough!
I knew when Josh had finally buried his dick all the way in Kevin! I managed to break away from Kevin’s face and look at Josh!
I saw something different in Josh, this time! Josh’s eyes were shut tight, his face had never looked like this! I looked at Josh’s body, It was different then all the other times! Every muscle was clenched, he was tight, he was powerful!
Just for a second, I was mad, almost crazy mad! I wanted to jump up and hit Josh, kick him off Kevin! I wanted to hurt Josh, just for a second. I looked back at Josh’s face; his eyes were open, he was looking right at me.
I relaxed, and looked back into his eyes. The anger left me. Something else filled me, I wasn’t sure what. I knew I didn’t want Josh fucking Kevin, I guessed I was jealous, being the second in charge and not the leader.
I stayed still, and watched the fuck began!
Back to Top
Part 3
By Jimmy
Josh continued the show, I watched as he plunged inside of Kevin’s ass; deep as he could go, a quick, hard ramming! Kevin let out a squeal of pain; I felt his face clench up underneath my hand.
Josh hesitated for a few seconds, balls deep up Kevin! Josh’s mouth was partially open; he breathed hard, in and out, like he had been running! Kevin held his breath, he was motionless.
Josh’s body moved; he pulled most of his prick out, then with a weird twisting motion, he fucked back in!
Kevin managed to raise his head, he looked me right in the eyes! I could see a desperate pleading, almost like he was asking for my help. He made a groan, part of it pain, part of it I don’t know what. I looked him right back, and said, “I’m gonna fuck you next!”
Kevin lowered his face, he seemed to surrender, he seemed to accept his fate. I kind of ignored Kevin at that point; I had a show to watch! But I was watching it differently this time; I was studying Josh’s fuck style.
I was determined to out fuck Josh this time! Yeah, he could put on his show, he could impress all of us! But my turn was coming up, so I had some quick learning to do from our fuck master!
I watched the way Josh moved; I really paid attention to Josh. Normally, during these banging sessions, I watched the victim. Not this time, I was watching Josh, looking to learn something.
Josh had been fucking Kevin about 10 minutes when I figured it out. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before! Josh fucked with his entire body; the rest of us fucked with our cocks.
Josh used his dick as a weapon, and used his body to drive and power the weapon! The rest of us fucked for pleasure; Josh seemed to fuck to dominate, to inflict pain!
Josh never once used the same fuck stroke; each one slightly different! It hit me that Kevin had no idea of what to anticipate. I watched as Josh’s hands moved from Kevin’s hip up to Kevin’s shoulders.
Again, Josh changed his fuck tactics; he fucked to the left, then the right, maybe dead center inside Kevin’s fuck hole. Sometimes he drove his dick in hard, so hard you heard the sound of the two bodies thumping together.
Sometimes, Josh fucked in slowly; gently! In this short time, I learned more about fucking then I had ever known. I had figured out the fuck masters secrets!
I looked around; we were all still holding Kevin down. Kevin, I don’t know; maybe he was defeated. I did know we didn’t have to hold him down anymore, somehow I knew that. His cries had stopped; he just was making little grunting noises as Josh fucked him.
Part of the ritual died for me. I knew it would never be as special for me again as in the past.
But, I was gonna sure enjoy my turn at Kevin’s ass! I grabbed the back of his hair, pulled his head up, and told him “I’m next, punk!”
Even as I spoke to Kevin, I continued staring at Josh. The fuck had gone on over 30 minutes by now. I wondered how Josh managed to hold back his nuts so long! I was determined to outdo him!
Josh’s face was damp with sweat. His eyes were closed tight! I watched him to learn how he held back! How could he fuck this long?
There! He was about to cum! I could see he was gonna cum! I watched him drive in hard, I saw his balls slam into Kevin! That had to hurt!
But Josh didn’t cum; I had a frown on my face, trying to figure it out. How was Josh doing this? How could you fuck a virgin ass and last and last?
It finally came to me! Josh was slamming his own nuts each time he almost came! Josh was using Kevin’s body to rack himself up! Every time I could see the nut building in Josh; he would deliberately pound his own nuts into Kevin!
Now, I felt confident; felt I could put our show off stud in place! Even if I couldn’t, I was about to learn what it felt like to really fuck! Not just to get off, but the really fuck!
I kept watching, but was bound and determined to put on my own show now! I was gonna become the fuck master, the stud! I was gonna tear Kevin a new asshole!
I felt calm, almost bored, hoping Josh would end this fuck, and let me began mine! Kevin didn’t matter, becoming number one was all that mattered to me!
I saw Josh’s eyes open, and heard him yell a cry; a cry that was a war whoop! Josh was cumming, filling Kevin’s ass with his seed! I could imagine all the sperm swimming around inside of Kevin!
But, it was gonna be my dick up that ass next! I was gonna make Kevin scream and squirm! I was gonna fuck his brains out!
Back to Top
Part 4
By Jimmy
Yeah, it was my turn now! My turn to go inside Kevin’s once used ass! It was a lot more then a turn to fuck; this was a chance to outdo Josh! A chance to show what I could do!
Josh looked at me, “Get moving, man! You’re holding up the show!”
I stood up, pulling at my dick, drawing attention to it’s size. The Vaseline was handed to me. I took a small amount, just a dab. I slowly rubbed it on my cock, the shiny grease made my dick skin shine in the dim light.
I walked towards Kevin’s head. “Hold the punks head up,” I demanded. Somehow my voice seemed strange to my own ears.
Josh grabbed Kevin by the hair, and pulled his face up. I held my dick, straight up, and said calmly, “This is gonna go up your ass, I’m gonna screw your fucking shit hole, man! I’m gonna dump my load in your guts!”
Kevin looked at my dick, he looked at my face. He said, “No, no man, don’t! Let me go, I ain’t gonna tell no one!”
I heard it in Kevin’s voice, I wondered if the other’s picked up on it. The ‘no’ wasn’t all that convincing, the way he had looked at my boner, it was a bit off.
I walked behind Kevin, stepping hard, making my dick and balls bounce. My show had began, and I was determined to make it better.
I lowered myself between his spread open legs. I rubbed my dick head against Kevin’s butt curves, smearing some of the Vaseline from my cock on his soft ass skin.
I rubbed as much of the grease as I could off my dick, I was gonna make this a pretty dry entry. Josh’s cum was up inside Kevin’s fuck hole, that should be more then enough lube. I just wanted a lot of friction when I stretched Kevin out!
“Cover his mouth” I said when I was in position. “He’s gonna really scream!”
I placed my arms on either side of Kevin’s back. I stabbed my dick between his butt cheeks, moving slowly, in search of his fuck tunnel. He squirmed when I found the spot.
“Scream, man!” I said and shoved all the way in, balls deep, with one shove!
Kevin screamed, struggled, and screamed some more. I head the sounds as I began ramming in and out of his tight, hot, chute! Oh, man, was he tight! Even with the warm load of cum Josh had left inside, this guy was tight!
Just a wonderful, warm, place to stick a cock in! It felt like second skin around my rod, deep, flexible, skin! And his beefy ass! Each time I plunged in him, I kind of bounced back up off his ass! The guy had a butt, and fuck hole from Hell!
I fucked his ass hard, and I made sure to use my dick like I had seen Josh do. Only my dick was bigger, longer, thicker! I hit the walls of Kevin’s ass as hard as I could; making him scream, and attempt to get away from my dick!
My balls slammed against his ass, also bouncing off, I felt some ball pain, but it was like good pain! I could feel sweat forming on me; I could smell it. Kevin’s ass still clutched and it just seemed to get warmer inside. I’d been fucking a good 15 minutes; and I lost it!
But even as I felt the cum leaving my balls and flowing through my cock, I kept pounding Kevin’s ass! As my balls fired, I just kept fucking as hard and rough as I could!
I think Kevin felt me cum; I think he thought it was over. It wasn’t over, I wasn’t gonna just nut and let Josh outdo me. No way, no fucking way! That’s when I pictured Josh. Sexy, hot Josh!
I began to pretend I was up inside Josh’s ass! Kevin became Josh during this fuck! In my mind, I had my dick inside Josh!
I don’t know how, but I started fucking harder! I was hitting Kevin’s back so hard, with so much force, that it sounded like I was hitting him with my fists!
It was Kevin under me, it was Kevin I was fucking! It was Kevin’s voice yelling! But, I pretended it was Josh!
Another 15, maybe 20 minutes passed. I was tired, worn out from fucking Kevin. I felt my nut build, it was time again, time to let it flow!
As my cum released, I looked up at Josh. I looked into his face, and I knew he knew! He knew what I had been thinking the whole time! He gave me a little smirk, a sexy little smirk that made him look even more sexual.
The show wasn’t over, when I came this time, I let my voice be heard! I yelled and talked dirty, I said words like cumming, nutting, any word that made my show better.
I sent another load up Kevin’s ass, buried it deep in his guts, let it mingle with Josh’s load. I kept the show up, and pulled out fast; hearing air escape from Kevin’s abused fuck chute.
I shook my still hard cock, and laughed, “Next!”
Josh high fived me, nodding, “Way to go, stud!” he said.
I sat beside him, my dick stayed hard as I stole peeks at him; at him and his sexiness.
Barn Banging
Part 5
By Jimmy
I sat next to Josh, watching the others take their turns. Kevin didn’t resist much anymore, he just seem to lay there, and take his fuckings.
It was Josh that spoke first. “You tried to outdo me, huh?”
“ I did more then try, Josh.” I answered.
I heard Josh chuckle, a sexy chuckle that made my dick start growing. Damn, I wanted this dude!
Josh said, “You fucked the fight out of him.”
He said it to compliment me, but we both knew Kevin didn’t resist very much.
I answered in a low voice, “Wasn’t much fight to fuck out. We both know he wants it.”
Josh’s hand rested on my shoulder as he said, “We both know a lot of things, man.”
I could feel the heat from his hand, I could feel it’s strength and power. I got goose bumps, just from his touch. My dick was on full bone now. Josh rubbed my skin with just a slight touch of his fingertips, just brushed it, and I tried to remember how to breath.
Josh continued to brush his fingers into my skin. I wanted to speak but couldn’t. I felt strange, horny, hot and strange. I tried to speak but just a gargle came out; I was speechless, I was under Josh’s power.
I stared, Kevin was getting the biggest dick now. His didn’t move, he just seem to accept it. I tried to think, I tried to talk. I couldn’t.
I felt Josh taking a hold of my hand. He pulled me up, and I let him led me away from the group. I let him guide me. I felt his hand on my ass.
“I’ve wanted some of your hairy ass for a long time, man, a long time,” Josh said in a low, husky voice.
My thoughts started working my mind screamed ‘No’! I wanted some of Josh’s ass. I didn’t want to get fucked! My thoughts worked, my mouth didn’t. Josh lead me, he controlled me. I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t do anything but let him guide me away. The further away we got from the group, the more stress I felt.
I don’t know how we got there, but we were outside, away from the others. One of Josh’s hands was around my own; guiding me. His other hand was on my ass; his fingertips once again doing their magic.
I fought my body for control, but Josh was somehow controlling me! He had me far away from the others. I watched him spitting on his fingers. I watched him rub his own spit on his dick. I looked at his dick in the moonlight! I saw it shine, I saw it’s power.
Josh said, “I don’t need to check for your cherry man, I know it’s there.”
I felt my head nodding in agreement. I felt Josh’s hands pushing me down, down on the dew dampened grass. I felt the coolness of the ground on my chest, the front of my legs, the sticky thick dew drops.
I felt Josh’s hands on my back, on my ass, and inside my crack. I was so overpowered by him, I just laid still!
Josh spread my ass cheeks apart and spit between them. I felt the spit land on my hole!
Suddenly, I knew there was no way I was getting fucked! My body started to work again, my voice started to work!
“It ain’t gonna be this way, Josh!” I said.
Josh looked at me, and I looked back into his sexy eyes. I was bigger and stronger. I jumped up and grabbed him!
We were face to face, when I looked into his eyes, I almost wished I had stayed on the ground! I almost wished I didn’t want his ass so bad. But my dick needed a planting in his ass!
Josh struggled for a second, then he spoke, “You don’t wanna do this man, you don’t!”
I answered, “I have to.”
“I don’t want this,” Josh yelled.
Once again, I told him, “I have to.”
Josh fought me as I tried to wet my dick, I gave up, deciding to dry fuck him.
He was a fighter all the way! When I pressed my dick head against his ass hole, Josh got all his fight back. He tried to get away from me, he did his best!
I stuck my dry dick in his hole, just the head of it, just the beginning of it! Josh fought at me, he cussed me, he yelled for help. Minutes before this, he was gonna take my ass!
I stuck an inch or so more into him……………. I started to cum………I sent my cum into Joshes ass…………. I cummed harder then I had ever done it, it just kept shooting, and shooting………
My dick stayed hard, and Josh fought as I forced more of me into him! As he fought against me, I made him take my dick, and I fought against losing control!
I listened to his yells as I forced all of my piece inside his ass! All of it, I rode him, held him, and he cussed the whole time!
Hr cussed me most of all, but he kept telling me how bad it was hurting. It felt so good to me, I had never been in anything like ,Joshes ass! My own cum was lubing my dick as I power fucked Josh!
I felt his ass open, I reached underneath him, and found his soft dick! At first I was thinking about jacking it, but I started fucking him harder, and twisting his dick!
I squeezed it, twisted it, and fucked! He fought me the way he could, and it was my chuckle that was heard when I began nutting deep in his ass, my dick deep!
He wasn’t no better then Kevin, his ass was tight, and felt good, but the same. But it was Josh I had just nutted inside of! Josh!
I pulled my cock out of him. I got off of him. He tried to punch me, and I caught his fist in my hand. My dick was on soft, it was shiny with ass juices. I grabbed one of his hands and made him touch it.
I saw his leg kicking out to me, he was aiming for my nuts! I caught his leg and threw him back down on the ground.
I spit on his face and left him there. I walked back towards the barn. My dick was getting hard again.
The End
2015-06-02 11:24:48
A bit of a surprise ending
You are not logged in.
Characters count: |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68290 | Ass backward
Red Wing's Korean chicken is pretty damn tasty -- at least the fried
CHEAP EATS The good news is that my asshole itself is just fine. It took me almost three days to convince the imbecilic network of Kaiser phone reps that no, it weren't hemorrhoids, you're going to have to actually fucking see me. Apparently my $350 a month isn't enough to warrant them having a look at my ass once every six years. Let alone sticking a finger in it.
"Probably hemorrhoids," they said. "Someone will call you." Which they didn't, so I called back, and back. Five, six times.
And they said hemorrhoids.
The fifth or sixth time they said hemorrhoids I said, "You don't understand. I haven't been constipated since the late 1970s. Constipated people call me from across the country. To chat! Just talking to me makes them have to use the bathroom. I'm serious, it's what mothers love about me. I get all the poopy diapers, and they get a regular baby. One mother called me — you're going to love this — I was on vacation, and her kid hadn't pooped since I left. Could she please just put him on the phone with me, maybe the sound of my voice would loosen him up. Which it did. And now you're trying to tell me I have a hemorrhoid? Do you know who you're talking to? Trust me. I wish I were sexy, like everyone else in the world. But I'm not. I'm good for something else: eating with, and talking shit. And yes, the two go hand in hand. As it happens, you probably-entirely-blameless representative of a crock-of-shit company, even what little sexy I am is mostly my mouth and my asshole, so can we please get this taken care of please, because I don't get a lot of love as it is, and my lover is visiting from New Orleans in a week. Plus I'm afraid to eat hot sauce, which is my muse and antidepressant. So ..."
"I'll have someone call you," they said.
And, you know, eventually, someone did. My old Rohnert Park doc, who is a superhero, must have called San Francisco (after talking with me) and explained that the crazy lady they'd been ignoring, losing in the system, and silencing with red tape really was the world's Most Regular Person — seen in a strictly gastroenterological light — and was more likely to be carrying the seed of an alien civilization in her asshole than a hemorrhoid.
I don't know if those would have been her exact words. But finally, after being in pain for nearly 60 hours — sitting, standing, walking, lying down — and 24 hours after the onset of general achiness and chills (possible symptoms of systemic infection, by the way), I was able to make an appointment!
It took the doctor less than 30 seconds to determine what I'd been trying to tell them for two days. It wasn't a hemorrhoid. It was an abscess or cyst or something, and it was infected. He put me on antibiotics and went to get someone to cut me.
And it was she, my cutter, who put her finger in and said that, yes, my ass was fine.
I'd been trying to tell people that for days, and in a larger sense, for years and years. "Thank you," I said.
My whole right cheek was red and swollen and incredibly painful to the touch, but she decided not to cut me for two days. I'd have argued otherwise, but I was already an hour late for dinner.
Luckily it was with Mr. Wong, my patientest of friends.
Over Korean fried chicken (or KFC) at Red Wings, just a hop, waddle, and short 38 ride down Geary, I related my Bukowskiesque ordeal, complaining about Kaiser much as I have just done toward you.
Minus the chicken, which was pretty not-all-that-half-bad — at least the fried. Mr. Wong got his roasted, with garlic and herbs, and I tasted it: dry dry dry.
"Well, look at it this way," Mr. Wong said, chomping chicken. "At least you have health insurance."
Also from this author
• Three! Out!
Baseball in Italy? Oh yes, it happened.
• Three! Out!
• Fire fight
|
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68412 | Video Screencast Help
Wait On External Event Component - Never Polls the wait model
Created: 08 Feb 2013 | 3 comments
I have created a new workflow of type Webservice (but not a descision only project). I am trying to use the "Wait on External Event Component" as per the guide I found here:
However when it comes to testing my Workflow, the debugger runs through the embedded descision model for the start process part of "Wait on External Event Component" however it seems to just end, it never runs the wait embedded model, never times out, in fact it just does nothing. The workflow statistics tab in the debugger shows "1" for current processes though.
The process that's started in the "Start Process" embedded decision model does run, upon hitting the end component the message appears with the a guid and auto closes in 6 seconds. Nothing further happens.
It's worth noting that in my Workflow, the Wait on External Event component is in an embedded model, however I've created a very basic workflow for testing, virtually mimicing the guide above and still run into the same problem, what am I doing wrong?!
Comments 3 CommentsJump to latest comment
rhamner's picture
It's normal for the project to return the tracking id when it hits a Workflow component, i,e. a component that persists the data and stops the flow. There are few things you can check.
1) What's the 'Time Between Checks' value? If its the default you'll have to wait an hour before something happens.
2) If that's not the problem are you sure the 'Wait Process' would be returning true on the Done property of the End component? You should see the execution of the model in the debugger, although you may have to switch the session which is the drop down box with time in the top right corner of the debugger.
3) In the bottom left pane of the debugger there are 3 tabs. On the Settings tab do you have 'Debug Into Embedded Models' checked
4) Finally, in the same place mentioned above but on the Workflow tab there is a 'Refresh Now' button. This kicks off the timeouts and escalations process manually. Try running it.
DanGordon's picture
I've just had a similar problem and found the solution posted here worked for me.
It does seem that only a local account in the Administrators group will work - I tried a domain account and it was still broken, but now at least the wait model is processing (along with all the other escalations and timeouts!).
rhamner's picture
That should do it if your workflow is using windows authentication. The Workflow Service calls into each workflow to 'wake them up' and make sure the Timeouts and Escalations processing thread is running. If it can't reach it because of authentication then it won't work. A good test to check for this problem is to browse to your project on the Workflow Server machine using localhost like: http://localhost/MyProject/MyService.asmx. Click on CheckTimeoutsAndEscalations then click Invoke. If it works then this is likely the problem. If not then something else is going on. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68431 | Heed Obelisk Si review
No existential crisis as Heed revives an integrated classic
TODO alt text
Our Verdict
Heed has produced an updated Obelisk with valve-like characteristics in an amp that's a lot 'greener' than its glass- powered alternatives. Its low power requires sensitive speakers for the best results, but its musicality will engender it to many
• Valve style clipping in a solid state package makes for an engaging sound
• Can also be upgraded with onboard DAC or phono stage, and outboard PSU
• Pearly controls feel great
• A lot of money for the power and features on offer
• Bass doesn't do justice to heavier material and edges at the frequency extremes
Back in the 1980s and 1990s an electronics engineer called Richard Hay designed a number of amplifiers under the Nytech and Ion Systems brand names that gained an almost cult following.
Unfortunately, despite Hay's enthusiasm, both Nytech and Ion failed, and with them, the popular Obelisk amp design disappeared from the market. Gone, but not forgotten: the Ion Obelisk still has its followers, especially within the Hungarian hi-fi fraternity at Heed Audio, makers of various electronics components including pre/mono amplifiers, headphone and phono amps and even turntable power supplies.
Heed's Zsolt Huszti decided to rebuild the Obelisk, basing its power amplifier on Richard Hay's design, albeit with heavy revision and the addition of his own preamp section.
The Obelisk Si (Super integrated) is the first example of what Heed intends to be a small range of amplifiers that will include an entry-level model and a power supply (X-2) that forms a dual-mono supply for the power amp section of the amp.
To this end, the Obelisk Si comes with a blank connector to bridge the power supply input, the presumption being that the external supply will be added at a later date. This is similar to the upgrade routes offered by Naim and Cyrus.
The Obelisk features one pre-output and five line inputs, one of which can have an internal card added to turn it into either a phono stage, or a digital to analogue converter (DAC). At the time of writing, neither were available.
Power is specified as 40 watts a side. Heed is at pains to point out that the Obelisk is not DC coupled, something which Zsolt has very little time for, although this hardly picks him out from the crowd. He also describes the power amp as a "valve amp built with transistors", the inference being that it clips in the smooth style of a valve amp.
The Obelisk does indeed display some valve-like traits, most notably a good grasp of dynamics that injects music with a liveliness and energy that is easy to enjoy. It doesn't, however, have a smoothed-off top end, but instead, seems to stretch further than one might expect of a compact 40 watt design.
Our reference speaker for an amp of this price is the ATC SCM19, which gives low sensitivity but offers a benign load, so much so that the 40 watt Edgar valve amp could deliver reasonable levels through it.
The same applies here, but the sound is distinctly different. The top end is more open and extended and there is clearly more attack to notes. Strangely, this extra edge does not seem to help the Obelisk when it comes to timing: in fact, it lags behind the Edgar in this respect.
Further investigation by us pinpointed the bass as the slowing factor. This could have something to do with the Obelisk having more bass extension as a result of its solid-state nature, although it's no heavyweight by any means.
An alternative reference point in the form of Cambridge Audio's 840A showed the Obelisk a thing or two when it came to power.
It delivered more body and weight, as well as extra headroom thanks to its 100 watts. However, the Obelisk does deliver a crispness and attack that is convincing. It makes metal instruments sound more real and allows good contrast between loud and soft notes.
It suits acoustic material very nicely, if the speaker is evenly balanced. It is also very musical, which is what Heed claims to be aiming for and seems to have succeeded in delivering.
Despite facing some strong competition at its price point, the Heed Obelisk warrants your attention. It really does make that solid-state valve-sound dream a little closer to reality. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68442 | Wednesday 03 June 2015
David Crystal set himself the challenge of covering the history of English in 100 words. He explains what his list tells us about the origins and evolution of our mother tongue – and we also invite you to get creative with our poetry competition.
If you can tell the history of the world in 100 objects, as the British Museum’s Neil MacGregor did last year, then it ought to be possible to tell the history of a language in a similar number. But, as with objects, it isn’t enough for each word to be interesting in its own right. It has to represent a whole class of words. It has to tell a story. And each of these individual stories should add up to the history of the English language as a whole.
When I embarked on this project, some words gave me no choice. They just had to be in – such as the earliest example of a written word in the language. Thanks to an exciting archaeological find, we know this to be roe. That starts the story. And the latest word to arrive? Well, as new words come into the language every day, all I could do here is choose an example which points to the future. I picked Twittersphere. That left 98 more to find.
We need principles on which to base a selection. The obvious one is chronological. The history of English is traditionally divided into periods: Old English, from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in AD 449 until the 11th century; Middle English from then until the 15th century; Early Modern English from then until the 18th century; and Modern English thereafter. It’s important to choose words that show the passage of time in this way.
But words are more than just linguistic objects. They are windows into the world of those who use them. Part of the challenge, then, is to find words that best give us a real insight into social history. For the Anglo-Saxons, my choice included loaf and mead, street and lea. For the medieval period, swain and pork, dame and royal. For the time of Shakespeare and the King James Bible, alphabet and dialect, shibboleth and potato. For the next centuries, gazette and fopdoodle, lunch and tea. And so to modern times, with jazz and Watergate, PC and apps, LOL and unfriend. They make interesting bedfellows.
At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects. The story of English has to show these differences too. In particular, the words we use when we speak are not the same as those we use when we write. It’s the colloquial words which tend to be neglected, and so in my list along with dialect and debt we find doobry and dilly-dally. And I include words that represent a history of debate over usage, such as ain’t and disinterested, as well as words that tell the story of regional dialects, such as brock, egg and wee. Far more people speak a non-standard variety of English than speak standard English, and their story must also be told.
Nor must we neglect the commonest everyday words. Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as and and what, or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as hello. These get my full attention. Apart from anything else, they provide some of the best stories – as do slang, cant and taboo words. There can’t be any pussyfooting if you’re a serious linguist. The rude words are just as much a part of our linguistic history, and they have to be represented too. I chose three, in this article, blushingly represented by their initials, A, B and C.
Professional words, such as those associated with the law, medicine, religion and academia, provide another historical strand. Of the million plus words in English, three quarters belong to the various domains of science and technology.
Words such as species, billion and DNA represent the tip of a huge lexical iceberg of scientific terminology. And along with professional language, we need to recognise the role of jargon and cliché, along with all the negative press they attract – as suggested here by cherry-picking.
Nor must a word book forget the nuts and bolts of language. Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using. Most words in English are in fact derived from other words. We start with one word, such as nation, and generate a word family: national, nationalise, nationalisation, denationalisation, antidenationalisation… That set of words makes use of prefixes and suffixes. But there are several other important processes of English word formation, and these also need to be represented in a wordbook.
A word like doable shows how a Germanic language element can be combined with an element from another language, such as French or Latin. Dilly-dally shows how words can be reduplicated. Edit and UFO show how they can be shortened or abbreviated. Brunch and webzine show how elements can be conflated or compounded. Ology shows how a suffix can turn into a word. Mega shows the same thing happening for prefixes. And names can become words – first names (valentine), surnames (Alzheimer’s), place names (Watergate) and product names (escalator).
English is also a playful language, whose speakers love to use their imaginations in creating new vocabulary, and who are prepared to depart from tradition when coining words. Not all languages are like this. Some are characterised by speakers who stick rigidly to a single cultural tradition, resisting loanwords and trying to preserve a perceived notion of purity in their vocabulary (as with French and Icelandic). English speakers, for the most part, are quite the opposite. Shakespeare was one of the finest rule-benders, showing everyone how to be daring in the use of words. That’s why you see such items as bone-house, undeaf, schmooze and muggle in the list.
The most interesting side to vocabulary, I find, is when the exploration of word origins (etymology) brings to light results that are unexpected or intriguing. We see people adapting the language in order to make sense of it, as in the case of bridegroom. We see extraordinary reversals of meaning over long periods of time, as with wicked. And we see some unexpected links between words, as in the surprising history of grammar. Not all word origins are known, and there have been some long-standing arguments. But every etymology at some point takes us by surprise. As I was researching each chapter of this book I learnt something new about the history of English words.
Some 80 per cent of English vocabulary is not Germanic at all. If a present-day Dr Who were to travel back to AD 449, when the first Anglo-Saxon boats arrived, his biggest issue would not be alien monsters, but getting the Anglo-Saxons to understand his alien words.
*To celebrate David Crystal’s The Story of English in 100 Words, the Telegraph and Profile Books are offering you the chance to take part in a competition. The challenge is to write a poem (on any subject) in no more than 100 words that uses at least 25 of David Crystal’s list (see below). The more of his words you can use the better. The winner will receive a signed copy of the book and £100 worth of books from Profile.
Email your entries to or post them to David Crystal Poetry Competition, Profile Books, 3A Exmouth House, Pine Street, London EC1R 0JH. The deadline is Monday November 7. The winning poem will be announced on December 10 and published by the Telegraph. The judges are David Crystal, Lorna Bradbury, Deputy Literary Editor of the Telegraph, and Sam Humphreys, an editor at Profile.
* The Story of English in 100 Words by David Crystal is published by Profile at t 11.99 from
1 Roe The first word (5th c)
2 Lea Naming places (8th c)
3 And An early abbreviation (8th c)
4 Loaf An unexpected origin (9th c)
5 Out Changing grammar (9th c)
6 Street A Latin loan (9th c)
7 Mead A window into history (9th c)
8 Merry A dialect survivor (9th c)
9 Riddle Playing with language (10th c)
10 What An early exclamation (10th c)
11 Bone-house A word-painting (10th c)
12 Brock A Celtic arrival (10th c)
13 English The language named (10th c)
14 Bridegroom Popular etymology (11th c)
15 Arse An impolite word (11th c)
16 Swain A poetic expression (12th c)
17 Pork An elegant word (13th c)
18 Chattels A legal word (13th c)
19 Dame A form of address (13th c)
20 Skirt A word doublet (13th c)
21 Jail Or Gaol? Competing words (13th c)
22 Take away A phrasal verb (13th c)
23 Cuckoo A sound-symbolic word (13th c)
24 C--- A taboo word (13th c)
25 Wicked A radical alteration (13th c)
26 Wee A Scottish contribution (14th c)
27 Grammar A surprising link (14th c)
28 Valentine First name into word (14th c)
29 Egg A dialect choice (14th c)
30 Royal Word triplets (14th c)
31 Money A productive idiom (14th c)
32 Music A spelling in evolution (14th c)
33 Taffeta An early trade word (14th c)
34 Information(s) (Un)countable nouns (14th c)
35 Gaggle A collective noun (15th c)
36 Doable A mixing of languages (15th c)
37 Matrix A word from Tyndale (16th c)
38 Alphabet Talking about writing (16th c)
39 Potato A European import (16th c)
40 Debt A spelling reform (16th c)
41 Ink-horn A classical food (16th c)
42 Dialect Regional variation (16th c)
43 Bodgery Word-coiners (16th c)
44 Undeaf A word from Shakespeare
(16th c)
45 Skunk An early Americanism (17th c)
46 Shibboleth A word from the King James Bible (17th c)
47 Bloody Emerging swear word (17th c)
48 Lakh A word from India (17th c)
49 Fopdoodle A lost word (17th c)
50 Billion A confusing ambiguity (17th c)
51 Yogurt A choice of spelling (17th c)
52 Gazette A taste of journalese (17th c)
53 Tea A social word (17th c)
54 Disinterested A confusable (17th c)
55 Polite A matter of manners (17th c)
56 Dilly-dally A reduplicating word (17th c)
57 Rep A clipping (17th c)
58 Americanism A new nation (18th c)
59 Edit A back-information (18th c)
60 Species Classifying things (18th c)
61 Ain’t Right and wrong (18th c)
62 Trek A word from Africa (19th c)
63 Hello Progress through technology (19th c)
64 Dragsman Thieves’ cant (19th c)
65 Lunch U or non-U (19th c)
66 Dude A cool usage (19th c)
67 Brunch A portmanteau word (19th c)
68 Dinkum A word from Australia (19th c)
69 Mipela Pidgin English (19th c)
70 Schmooze A Yiddishism (19th c)
71 OK Debatable origins (19th c)
72 Ology Suffix into word (19th c)
73 Y’all A new pronoun (19th c)
74 Speech-craft An Anglo-Saxonism
(19th c)
75 DNA Scientific terminology (20th c)
76 Garage A pronunciation problem
(20th c)
77 Escalator Word into name into word (20th c)
78 Robot A global journey (20th c)
79 UFO Alternative forms (20th c)
80 Watergate Place-name into word (20th c)
81 Doublespeak Weasel words (20th c)
82 Doobry Useful nonsense (20th c)
83 Blurb A moment of arrival (20th c)
84 Strine A comic effect (20th c)
85 Alzheimer’s Surname into word
(20th c)
86 Grand Money slang (20th c)
87 Mega Prefix into word (20th c)
88 Gotcha A non-standard spelling
(20th c)
89 PC Being politically correct (20th c)
90 Bagonise A nonce-word (20th c)
91 Webzine An internet compound
(20th c)
92 App A killer abb (20th c)
93 Cherry-picking Corporate speak (20th c)
94 LOL Netspeak (20th c)
95 Jazz Word of the century (20th c)
96 Sudoku A modern loan (21st c)
97 Muggle A fiction word (21st c)
98 Chillax A fashionable blend (21st c)
99 Unfriend A new age (21st c)
100 Twittersphere Future directions? (21st c)
How we moderate
blog comments powered by Disqus
More from the web
More from the web
More from the web
Back to top
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2015
Terms and Conditions
Today's News
Style Book
Weather Forecast |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68474 | Del Shores The Storyteller
Opened Jun 6, 2009
Legendary TV icon Rue McClanahan guests in Del Shores' (otherwise) one-man show Del Shores The Storyteller, to benefit NYC's Harvey Milk High School. Shores will share the real life stories that have inspired his writing and more. Yes, there was a man with two wooden legs. But did his grandmother trip over them and die while having a sordid affair? And did his mother really ask, "What exactly do you do...when you're gay?" If so, what was the acclaimed writer's response (Sordid Lives)? Yes, prayers were answered and a matching vein was found in a vein bank over in Baton Rogue to replace his Uncle Humpty's collapsed vein. But did Humpty lose the leg after all those prayers (Southern Baptist Sissies)? And what relative really shot a policeman in the "saliva gland" and shoulder (Trailer Trash Housewife)? Truth and fiction are finally separated in Del Shores The Storyteller.
Visit the Del Shores The Storyteller website:
Rue McClanahan to Guest Star in Del Shores The Storyteller - May 8, 2009
Read more related articles |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68499 | Writers' rooms: Frances Spalding
27.06.2009: Writers' rooms: Frances Spalding
Frances Spalding's writing room. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
Apart from its central chimney and platform base, this house is entirely made out of wood. And very sympathetic it is too. It was built for the artist Elisabeth Vellacott in 1959. She had very little money and so the architect, Peter Boston, insisted it had to be all roof. An A-frame building well suits an artist, for it permits a double-height window beneath the apex. But for a writer, it is less good, limiting opportunities for bookshelves as well as walls on which to hang pictures. I have, therefore, yet to achieve a library-room and still live with books and papers squeezed in wherever space allows.
But what I gained with this house was an enormous desk. It is an artist's working bench, with slots on one side where canvases can be stored. In Vellacott's day it was thick with oil paint and the grime of charcoal. Without my asking, the builders, while renovating the house, one day sanded the surface of the desk, to great effect. As a biographer and art historian, I often work with images and text. Recently, while coping with the last stages of my new book - John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art - the entire desk was covered with page proofs, making it possible to check illustrations against lists, sources and textual references.
With light coming in on all sides, the room absorbs the mood outside. Grey days here remind me of Stevie Smith and her "loamish landscapes". Despite having written her life, only now do I understand why an empty park, in the winter rain, had, for her, a "staunch and inviolate melancholy that is refreshing". Then, too, on sunny days, this room fills with light that quivers and slowly slides round the walls, sometimes forming diamond shapes. The novelist Rebecca Stott noticed this when viewing the house, after Vellacott's death. She eventually pulled out as its buyer, but recreated it and the surroundings in her novel Ghostwalk. So now, having been semi-derelict, the house lives on, in wood and words. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68506 | The ugly reason why American conservatives are picking on a 12-year-old kid.
It's rare in politics to find a debate that manages to dig down to ideological bedrock, but the current furor over the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-Chip) and the plight of a Baltimore, Maryland family that dared to speak out in favor of the program's expansion is just such a rare instance.
A few weeks ago both the house and senate passed a bill that would expand S-Chip so that working-class families, and not just poor families, would be eligible. President Bush vetoed the bill on purely ideological grounds, since it would expand the number of people covered by the government. The Frosts are just the kind of household that would benefit from the program. With three kids and a combined income of $45,000 they've struggled to find health insurance after a car accident left their son Graeme in a five-week coma and needing lots of medical care. Luckily for them, Maryland's S-Chip eligibility cutoff was high enough that they were able to secure health insurance for their children through the program. After the Democrats in Congress chose Graeme to give the party's response to the president's weekly radio address, right-wing bloggers, led by the odious Michelle Malkin, leapt into action. With neurotic obsession, they began raising questions about the family's financial status, claiming that their trappings of middle-class existence (a home, kids - on scholarship! - in private school) meant they were frauds or hucksters. But they're not. They're just a working family who suffered a tragedy and can't afford private health insurance. (Heck, they can't even buy private health insurance since Graeme's pre-existing conditions mean no insurer will go near them). Welcome to life in America in the third decade of conservative rule.
So why are conservative bloggers terrorizing this family? Why are they driving past their house and posting pictures of the school that Graeme attends? Why are they interrogating the Frosts' neighbors? Well, one theory is that they are a pitchfork-wielding mob of hate-filled sociopaths who saw an opportunity to extract their pound of flesh from some random and defenseless family that had dared to align themselves with their political opponents. That's pretty sound as explanations go, but I think there's a deeper strategic component to the ferocity with which conservative have attacked the Frosts.
It was back in 1993, as the Clintons prepared to roll out their new universal healthcare plan, that Bill Kristol wrote a memo to fellow conservatives and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill warning them that their goal must be to "kill," not amend, the Clinton plan. "Healthcare," Kristol wrote, "is not, in fact, just another Democratic initiative ... . It will revive the reputation of the ... Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests."
This is really the issue: from the New Deal through the Great Society, the Democrats dominated American politics by being first and foremost the stewards of social-democratic middle-class entitlements. In the wake of the Civil Rights Act, white southerners in particular and white middle-class voters in general, began to associate the Democrats with pursuing the interests of Others - minorities, homosexuals, welfare queens. Conservative political dominance in the post-Reagan era has rested on two pillars: preserving, at a rhetorical level, the conception of the Democrats as being beholden to "special interests" (who don't look like you) and, at the policy level, making sure Democrats never have an opportunity to pass legislation that would belie that claim.
That's the real reason this episode has unleashed such a fit of viciousness from the right. At some deep level conservatives recognize just how politically dangerous S-Chip is for their cause. Support for the program's expansion is running around 70% in polls, and Americans of both parties consistently rank healthcare as the most pressing domestic issue. But conservatives are simply way outside the mainstream of American opinion on this issue. Conservatives are of the belief that, in short, families like the Frosts should suck it up: work harder, sell their house to pay for medical bills, or just not get into car accidents in the first place. Stop whining.
This is not a very attractive ideology. What, for instance, would Bush, Malkin et al say to a woman in her 30s with an infant child and a husband who wants stay at home as the primary caregiver, but can't find affordable health insurance on the open market? A woman like the one who wrote this in 2004:
We discovered that the most generous plans in Maryland's individual market cost $700 per month yet provide no more than $1,500 per year of prescription drug coverage - a drop in the bucket if someone in our family were to be diagnosed with a serious illness."
The short answer is: nothing. Which is exactly the problem, because the woman who wrote that was none other than Michelle Malkin. Maybe the Democrats should have enlisted the 2004 version of her for their radio response last week. It would at least have saved the Frosts some grief. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68509 | Some brief commentary on the links in the sideblog: Islam turns into evangelism for business; if Starbucks were a church
I wasn't able to comment on the sideblog links yesterday so I wanted to do so before refreshing them today. Incidentally, a running feed of the items I star in my Google reader should be available here. Simon Sarmiento and others had asked for it. Let me know if it does not work.
Right, with the notices over, here's the sermon:
The video link to a Starbucks that sells the way churches do may be a little bit of an in-joke. But it's still interesting as showing the inside of a megachurch.
The invaluable BRIN has a piece on how lucky the British feel.
Richard Beck, a Christian psychologist, has a very interesting piece on the dynamics of arguments about same sex marriage. You may feel you have read everything anyone could say on the subject. You may be wrong. Beck's argument is that the losing side loses because their position comes to be considered shameful, and this may be the change we're seeing now.
Then there are two Muslim links, one wholly unpredictable. The review of a life of Ibn Taymiyya, the posthumous founder of Salafism, is a really interesting example of the ways in which religions change and renew themselves, sometimes for the worse, by re-interpreting their own pasts.
The Immanent Frame link describes a completely different re-oinvention taking place in modern Indonesia:
To address the problem of employee motivation and prepare for privatization, Krakatau Steel managers sought to (in their words) "develop" the Islamic faith of employees by contracting a Jakarta-based company, the ESQ Leadership Center, to implement Emotional and Spiritual Quotient training at the company. The brainchild of the charismatic businessman Ary Ginanjar, ESQ asserts that a work ethic conducive to business success is present in the five pillars of Islam and the six pillars of Muslim faith (iman).
All of these pieces are variously thought-provoking and I hope to come back to some of them. The trouble is that there is just too much out there. If I star everything that interests me in Google Reader it will rush past without time to read or think. So holding back to six bits a day is probably the right thing to do. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68518 | Climate change: the UK must end its double-dealing
Demonstrators protest Liberal Democrats
Demonstrators protest against the government's climate change policy outside the Liberal Democrat party headquarters in London on 16 May. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA
As David Cameron finally aims to put some muscle behind his supposed green credentials, by backing more ambitious domestic cuts in CO2 over the coming years, it's worth noting that there's still a fair amount of two-faced behaviour from his government. In particular, the UK's performance internationally has been more in the spirit of good old British neo-colonialism, that is: "Do as we say, not as we do."
While this week's commitment to achieve significant cuts by 2030 is to be praised, let's not forget that the UK has failed to meet previous pledges to cut emissions. In April, it was revealed that in fact the UK's CO2 emissions did not fall by 28 million tonnes between 1990 and 2008, as the official record indicates, but rose by a substantial 100 million tonnes.
The UK has been a leading advocate for highly flawed carbon markets to offset the disparities between rich and poor country emissions. We've already been experimenting with carbon trading through what's known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Yet the CDM has come under extensive criticism for structural flaws that keep carbon prices low, and effectively provide a "get out of jail free" mechanism for high-emissions nations like the UK. A 2008 working paper by two Stanford University academics concluded that "between one and two-thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts".
Meanwhile, the CDM has enabled polluting industries to buy cheap carbon credits to meet their emissions commitments and avoid shifting to more costly low carbon technologies, and has been slammed for backing projects that have had devastating impacts on local communities.
Nonetheless, the Department for Energy and Climate Change recently announced it is providing £7m to a new global scheme administered by the World Bank, designed to enable countries to set up their own carbon trading schemes.
The UK has also failed to live up to financial commitments to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change. Since the industrial revolution, the UK has contributed disproportionately to the excessive build up of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, and (for better or for worse) constrained the ability of the world's poorest countries to develop along similar lines. Even if we were to discount our historical track record, the fact remains that we emit more than 9 tonnes of CO2 per capita every year, compared, for example, with just 0.3 tonnes for the average Bangladeshi.
For this reason, the UK government does acknowledge that we must shoulder the lion's share of responsibility for paying to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change. It pledged £1.5bn at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, to be paid in 2010-2012.
So one would assume this money would be forthcoming in the form of grants to developing countries. But the UK's contribution for climate adaption has been made solely through a World Bank fund, the pilot programme for climate resilience, which in turn makes loans to developing countries. In other words, the UK is piling further debt onto poor countries, so that they can pay for the damage wrought by our own profligate use of CO2.
Meanwhile, the UN Adaptation Fund, the source by which poor countries can most easily access grants for projects to help them cope with the devastating impacts of climate change, has yet to receive a single penny from the UK, despite significant public pressure.
So where does this take us? In keeping with its surprise push to rapidly reduce its emissions, will the UK now take progressive steps internationally? One of the few positives from the UN talks in Cancún last December was the decision to "mobilise" $100bn for a new Green Climate Fund which developing countries can access to help meet the costs of adapting to climate change and pursuing low carbon growth. Just how this works in practice is still very much up for grabs, and this is where the concern lies.
Understandably, the main beneficiaries, developing countries, want the fund to be governed democratically and backed by guaranteed public money from rich nations, so that they can't escape their pledges when times are tough. They want the fund to be flexible, and accessible for investments that won't necessarily see returns, such as sea-wall defences, as well as those with income-generating potential such as renewable energy projects.
But Britain seems to prefer the traditional World Bank model – donor-controlled, top-down, relying on private sources of funding, with income-generating potential alone.
This two-faced approach to climate change, both domestically and internationally, risks entrenching the British government firmly within the camp of the world's worst climate rogues. With the prospect for an international climate agreement already hanging in the balance at the UN summit in Durban later this year, we can ill afford the UK tipping us into a political abyss of foot-dragging, false solutions, and fake financial pledges. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68520 | Today marks the start of a new ongoing discussion on Word of Mouth concerning anything and everything to do with any aspect of food
All questions welcome - should we eat caviar? Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features
'Dear Matthew', the email from a complete stranger began, 'I'm off to Paris for a few days. Can you recommend any interesting restaurants that aren't going to involve me re-mortgaging the house.'
Ah, those dear, dead days when mortgages were actually available. I rather like that familiarity, friendship even, that Guardian readers accord people who write in the paper and on its blogs (that doesn't stop you from dealing out moans, groans, brickbats and corrections with the same vigour). And it gave rise to the idea for a new column in Weekend magazine. You might call it a gastro agony aunt column, although I like to think if it more as a kind of ongoing discussion.
I see it working like this. One part will deal with the questions you want answered, things like: why didn't my Christmas pudding soufflé rise? What is argon oil? What can I use it for? Where can I find it? Do you know anywhere good to eat in or near Lowestoft? (No.) What's all this stuff about low temperature roasting? How do I spatchcock a chicken? Why don't we eat horsemeat in this country? What's the perfect way to poach an egg? What's the difference between a service charge and a tip? Should I be expected to pay both? What can I do with the salmon roe someone gave me for Christmas? What can I use instead of wheat flour if want to make pastry and bread? Should we eat caviar? What's the legal position if I don't want to pay my restaurant bill? What exactly is mutton? What are the principles of good kitchen design? How do I keep my knives sharp? How long do spices last?
In other words, ask about anything and everything to do with any aspect of food production, politics, history, theory, practice, cooking, eating in, eating out.
Over the years, I've reviewed restaurants, slaved over a fiery stove developing recipes, travelled the country in search of products and hung on the words of the people who produced them. I've thundered about the politics of food and commented fads and fancies. For me, it's an ever-interesting panorama. All aspects of human experience, past, present and future, meet on the plate, and that seems to be reflected in the range and curiosity of the queries I've had to deal with.
Anyway, along the way, I've picked up a certain amount of interesting and useful information. I'm not saying I know everything there is to be known about food and cooking, but I might well know someone who knows what you want to know.
And the other part works like this - if you have any bright suggestions, recipes, tips, knowledge of great producers, fabulous food shops, then let me know. I see this column as a kind of information trading post, where sooner or later everyone should be able to find something to their taste. I'll do my best to deal with questions, answers and your suggestions and points of view in the column in Weekend, the first of which will appear in the next few weeks, and through the blog.
As the sainted Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, pointed out, there are only two activities without which the future of the human race is doomed – eating and procreation. I can't do much on the procreation front, but I can encourage people to get more fun out of food. So please, get writing, emailing, suggesting - if you're too shy to do it here drop me a line at Feel free to heckle, hector, lecture, nag. The range and success of this column lies in your hands.
Incidentally, here's a suggestion for Paris: Le Violon d'Ingres, 135 Rue Saint-Dominique, 75007 Paris. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68550 | Wait, what?
Geekolinks 10/20
Heisenbark (1)
1. It’s the original version of “Manha Manha!” (Cue Animal flailing.) (Mental Floss)
2. Arrow‘s Steven Amell welcomed a baby girl this weekend (GossipCop)
3. Desolation of Smaug Funko Figures! Tiny Hobbits! (The Mary Sue)
4. GoldieBlox is back with a new engineering toy for girls. They rule. (GeekSugar)
5. Watch the very first trailers for the original Star Wars films (Open Culture)
6. BBC America hoping to replicate Orphan Black‘s success with Intruders (The Mary Sue)
7. Holy carp, this fish is big. (HuffPo Weird)
(Title pic via Reddit)
Filed Under |
© 2015 The Mary Sue | About UsAdvertiseNewsletterJobsContributorsComment PolicyPrivacyUser AgreementDisclaimerContact RSS
Dan Abrams, Founder
1. Mediaite
2. The Mary Sue
3. Styleite
4. The Braiser
5. SportsGrid
6. Gossip Cop |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68584 |
Foreign aid
March 11, 2013
Dear editor: How little our government cares: The day before sequestration takes effect the government announces they are going to furnish food,medical supplies,and an “additional 60 million dollars......
« Back to Article
sort: oldest | newest
Mar-11-13 6:44 PM
I'm not a grandpa yet, but I'm guessing that my grandchildren and their grandchildren won't want to pay for today's foreign aid, which is what is happening. We can't afford it. It reminds me of a young man I knew in Texas. He was about $8k in debt and wanted to declare bankruptcy to clean his slate. A lawyer told him that it would ruin his credit for 10 years, and that he shouldn't consider bankruptcy unless he was at least $10k in debt. What did he do? He went out and bought HIS NEIGHBORS a living room suit on HIS credit card, so he would have enough debt. Sounds like our gov't.
1 Agrees | 1 Disagrees | Report Abuse »
Mar-11-13 3:51 PM
The foreign governments should pay their wages and pensions.
1 Agrees | 0 Disagrees | Report Abuse »
Mar-11-13 8:33 AM
Don't forget about the 250 million we just promised Egypt.
The government will make sure they cut the programs that are the most visible and will hurt the public the most just to make a point. They didn't like being called out on their sky is following BS claims .
We are currently spending 4 BILLION a day more than we are taking in. If they ever tackle that problem there will be some suffering. What we see now is political theatre.
6 Agrees | 0 Disagrees | Report Abuse »
Showing 3 of 3 comments
Post a Comment
You must first login before you can comment.
*Your email address:
Remember my email address.
I am looking for:
News, Blogs & Events Web |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68613 | View Single Post
Old March 13 2009, 09:40 PM #7
Christopher's Avatar
Uhh... it's Dean Stockwell, not Spockwell. He doesn't have pointed ears.
And in 1969, William Windom would've been 46, closer to Al's age than Sam's. And he was definitely more the grizzled sidekick type than the leading man type.
And they did make QL 20 years earlier, and called it The Time Tunnel. Honestly, they have exactly the same setup. The main difference is that TTT was about travelling between different important historical events that could be represented by stock footage from old movies, while QL was an anthology disguised as an ongoing series, dropping its lead character into different dramatic situations at various points in recent history but shying away from big events.
If QL had been made in 1969, it probably would've been less like QL and more like TTT. Part of the reason for QL's format was that it was a reaction to decades of time-travel stories that focused on big historical events. To some degree, it was specifically trying to be different from TTT and other shows and films that used that cliche. 20 years earlier, it wouldn't have been seen as such a cliche, and television and popular culture in general wouldn't have been at a point where they sought to deconstruct previous pop-culture cliches.
On the other hand, QL's pseudo-anthology drama approach is very '60s in its way, reminiscent of shows like The Fugitive. So maybe a show using its format, taking a more grounded, dramatic approach and keeping the sci-fi elements (and associated expense) to a minimum, could've come along in the '60s, if it had occurred to someone to try it. Maybe Rod Serling could've pulled it off. It would've been seen as a very innovative approach to genre TV, bringing a new maturity to it, but that very maturity would've made it much harder to sell the idea to executives with preconceptions about what sci-fi was like. On the other hand, the pseudo-anthology format could've helped sell it, since it's a format the execs were already familiar with.
Written Worlds -- My blog and webpage
Christopher is offline Reply With Quote |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68615 | Thread: Minecraft
View Single Post
Old February 23 2012, 06:55 AM #1712
Itisnotlogical's Avatar
Re: Minecraft
There's one mod I always use, called Optifine. I need it to be able to play it at a bearable speed, because my computer is ass. Other than that they don't really interest me.
Itisnotlogical is offline Reply With Quote |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68622 | View Single Post
Old March 27 2013, 12:44 PM #11
Re: ST VI:TUC Out of character for McCoy?
-Spock graphically mind rapes Valaris in the middle of the bridge, and everyone just watches. Nobody tries to stop him. I pretty much pretend this scene never happened, since the way they played it, Spock might as well have bent her over the helm and everyone else is an asshole for just sitting there and allowing it to happen. Out of character for Spock and everyone else.
Do you realize that you come off as a disgusting sexist bigot here?
Is any confrontation between a man and a woman somehow "rape", unless the woman triumphs hands down, or is ugly, or fails to squeal? Is a woman sacrosanct just because of her gender even if she happens to be a key figure in a plot to kill trillions? What possible difference is there between this scene and the one where Spock brutally forces a hapless male guard to open a door the man doesn't want opened, in "A Taste of Armageddon"? Why didn't the other captives rush Spock and beat him on the head with a stool until he bled enough to realize how monstrous it was to violate people that way?
You really come off as beatifying rape as an institution. Or then diluting the meaning of the concept to nothing, which is pretty much the same thing.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo is offline Reply With Quote |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68641 | Doctor Who Gifset-You know what, erase this and add whatever caption you want to this, unless you want to keep mine on, but honestly I really don’t care. I am too sick to even think right now, except that he is really handsome in all of these. He is really extremely handsome as thoug my fever is rising type of handsome. I may need to see an actual doctor just for looking at The Doctor.
The Ghost of Me || One-Shot
Title: The Ghost Of Me
Rating: K+
Summary: –Sequel to A Meeting of Fate– A month after meeting Brona Croft, the Doctor finds himself back in Victorian London facing yet another Rose lookalike. But that’s impossible. Right?
Category: Hurt/Comfort
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Brona Croft/Lily Frankenstein
Notes: Yes it’s a sequel to the Penny Dreadful/Doctor Who story you never knew you didn’t want. This is still pre-Waters of Mars Doctor, and set after 2x05 for Lily (no spoilers).
Seriously recommend reading the first story before you read this one. You can find it here.
Lily took a deep breath as she stepped outside, letting the fresh air and sun wash over her. Victor didn’t let her out often, and never unsupervised – she knew it was just because he worried about her, but sometimes she felt like a prisoner in his home. Unintentionally, she knew – Victor would never want her to be upset or uncomfortable. And she never actually expressed her displeasure at being trapped inside so much, mostly because she couldn’t put the feelings into the words – the need to be out and about, to be in the heart of London, to explore, to see, to learn.
Sometimes the feelings got a little overwhelming, if she was honest with herself. She didn’t understand the desire to be in a place she had never seen before – it went so far beyond simple curiosity. Sometimes she felt like she belonged in London. But that wasn’t right, was it? Victor had said she was from the country. What did she know of city life? She attributed most of it to the accident which had robbed her of her memory – Victor had said she was a little different from who she used to be, after all.
Of course, she could tell herself that all she wanted but it did nothing to stifle the awful need to escape. So she took advantage of these times when Victor was away to just step outside and enjoy the fresh air for a bit. She had a few hours yet before he returned, though she doubted she would stay out for even an hour more – it made her feel strangely anxious to be exposed like this.
Especially without Victor at her side.
A light wind whipped to life and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. With the wind in her ears she missed the slightly wheezing sound echoing from nearby.
Keep reading
Foundations | Part 7/10
Rating: Mature
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Summary: Rose and the Doctor decide to have a baby together. After she becomes pregnant with his first womb born child, the Doctor realizes that he wants to raise a baby with more than just his best friend.
A/N: For allegoricalrose‘s baby!fic prompt.
Read on Teaspoon | AO3
Find other chapters on the Masterpost
Again, he winked and clicked his tongue. “You best be off to bed, hmm? I think I’ll find something we can both do after you’ve rested.”
Just when he was beginning to really break down her barriers with all of his tenderness, he had to pull his same old Doctor tricks on her. Rose felt like she awoke from a dream as she slid off the bed. It had been a long day, she sighed. She did need some rest. She could sleep for a week.
And she would, if her bedroom hadn’t disappeared.
“You know, you’ve never seen fit to interfere in my love life before,” the Doctor insinuated.
He was suspended on a swing in the bowels of the engine beneath the console room. His only connection to the rest of the TARDIS was a portable monitor propped up in his lap. He watched his girls resting in one of the parlors a few corridors down. Well, one of them was resting. The other was probably tenderizing her mum’s organs with her growing baby feet. When Rose first told him of this nighttime habit, she cited that although it was exhausting, she felt more at ease when the baby was moving around. If she was moving, then she must have been healthy, certainly alive in the very least. It wasn’t entirely unsound logic. It put Rose at ease, which was most important. She’d placed her full trust in the Doctor to monitor their child’s health, which was the perfect job for a man that didn’t sleep much.
Of course, this job didn’t entail the Doctor spying on Rose sleeping. But she was in a public area of the TARDIS. Resisting the temptation to watch them while he worked became an insurmountable task. He shut off the telly she’d been watching from the console room so that he could hear her breathing, her occasional sweet sighs, little snorts, and hums. He shifted the lighting just enough to allow him to see her shirt riding up her swollen belly. At times he forgot he was peering at her through a screen smaller than his face. The complex weave of wires, tubing and switches making up the TARDIS’s engine unraveled around him as he admired her.
Keep reading |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68648 | Season 2, Episode 5 The New Girl
First Aired: August 24, 2008
Joan might have found Don a perfect secretary; Peggy comes to the rescue when Don finds himself in the middle of personal issues between a TV comedian and the man's wife; Pete and his wife see a fertility specialist to deal with her inability to conceive.
Watch Now
Guest Cast
John Getz Dr. Eric Stone
Samuel Page Greg Harris
Melinda McGraw Bobbie Barrett
Myra Turley Katherine Olson
Peyton List Jane Siegel
Patrick Fischler Jimmy Barrett
Alison Brie Trudy Campbell |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68683 | As Obamacare's first enrollment period ends Monday (except for those who got an extension), the president's signature initiative is behind schedule, increasingly unpopular in polls and coming up short of the numbers the administration originally targeted. So should it be junked, as Republicans have been trying to do ever since it was passed?
Thanks to both administration incompetence and Republican intransigence, the Affordable Care Act is far from the runaway success its supporters imagined when President Obama signed the law four years ago. But neither is it the unmitigated disaster that opponents contend.
SEN. COBURN: Obamacare cuts choices, not costs
Let's start with the numbers. The newest ones will be spun all sorts of ways, but by themselves, they don't mean much. As a result of a pre-deadline surge, the White House says 6 million people have signed up for private policies on the new exchanges, which meets the lower goal set after the disastrous rollout of the federal website but still falls short of the original target of 7 million.
Either way, they're just a start on expanding coverage to a much larger group: the 50 million people who lack insurance. Still unknown is whether enough younger and healthier people signed up to keep premiums from spiking next year.
Even when that becomes clear — before the November elections — politics and perception will rule, and Democrats are on the defensive. Polls find support for the law as low as 26% in one survey, even though most people say they'd rather see it repaired than thrown away.
On that count, the Republicans are vulnerable, and as accountable for the law's shortcomings as the administration is, if not more so. They have gone to extraordinary lengths to make the law fail, refusing to expand Medicaid and open state exchanges, while discouraging registration. Trying to torpedo a program that seeks to rescue millions from insurance practices that punished people for getting sick should not be a point of pride, particularly when those launching the torpedoes refuse to offer an alternative.
That is the true disgrace of the last four years. Many aspects of Obamacare could be improved upon, but demonization alone achieves nothing, except to advance political opportunism.
At least a few GOP lawmakers are realizing that it's not enough to be for repeal, which would snatch insurance away from millions of people who've just gotten coverage. To be credible, they need a serious plan to replace it, which is anything but easy.
A new proposal by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and two other GOP senators, for example, derides Obamacare's "mandates" but keeps several. The plan also subsidizes coverage, with money from reducing the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance. That could raise taxes sharply for people with such coverage, a non-starter with other Republicans.
How humbling. Maybe as Republicans struggle to craft an alternative, they'll realize how much harder that is than bashing Obamacare — and how much the nation would benefit if both parties would work together to fix the law's flaws.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1geNNvU |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68734 | ‘Entourage’: The Boys Eat Mushrooms in the Desert
The boys, Eric Roberts, and Eric Roberts's drugs head to the desert for some high-spirited soul-searching — an obvious but gratifying plot that reminds us why Entourage is the show we can't stop watching–slash–can't stop hating ourselves for watching!
Business: Hollywood is still punishing Vince for spurning Aquaman 2. Who holds a grudge that long? "Women and gays," answers Drama. "It's true. Look it up." When Vince debates whether to accept a part in Benji Goes to Alaska or hope against hope for Smoke Jumpers, Eric counsels him not to make a decision based solely on money and promises to float him. But Drama has another strategy for making that sort of career decision, and it involves Joshua Tree National Park and a bag of mushrooms. "No phones, no fairies." When someone who isn't Ari (or Lloyd) gets that focused on homosexuality, we know that the episode promises plenty of warm, wet brotherly love.
Picking up Julia Roberts's brother (and his drugs) and convincing Ari to go with them to the desert is about as plausible as that very special Facts of Life episode where they go to Amsterdam, but, hey, whatever it takes to get Ari Gold high and begging Lloyd for help is fine by us. And it's probably fine by Lloyd, as his playing cell-phone Confucius (ah, racism) to his tripping boss is probably the only thing keeping him from taking the blame when Ari's wife arrives home unexpectedly to find her husband gone, his assistant dog-sitting, and 25 naked men in her pool.
An addled and sentimental Vince has an epiphany: getting a part in Smoke Jumpers is important to him because E found the script and said it was good — and because he wants people to know that it's Eric who makes Vince good. Awww! But when Turtle's Rottweiler chases Ari back to the boys, Vince interprets it as a sign: Take Benji. As they head back to L.A. in Roberts's Winnebago, they pass the charred remains of a convertible they saw on the way out. Luckily, the hot chicks who were in the car, and their expensive breasts, seem to be fine. Even luckier, Vince is still high: He sees his own face when one of the firefighters turns around and recognizes that as the real sign: Ari is just going to have to find a way to get him Smoke Jumpers. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68735 |
Authors: OscarCelma, GiovanniTummarello
Contributors: Michiel Hildebrand, CWI
Music Use Case
In recent years the typical music consumption behaviour has changed dramatically. Personal music collections have grown favoured by technological improvements in networks, storage, portability of devices and Internet services. The amount and availability of songs has de-emphasized its value: it is usually the case that users own many digital music files that they have only listened to once or even never. It seems reasonable to think that by providing listeners with efficient ways to create a personalized order on their collections, and by providing ways to explore hidden "treasures" inside them, the value of their collection will drastically increase.
Also, notwithstanding the digital revolution had many advantages, we can point out some negative effects. Users own huge music collections that need proper storage and labelling. Searching inside digital collections arise new methods for accessing and retrieving data. But, sometimes there is no metadata -or only the file name- that informs about the content of the audio, and that is not enough for an effective utilization and navigation of the music collection.
Thus, users can get lost searching into the digital pile of his music collection. Yet, nowadays, the web is increasingly becoming the primary source of music titles in digital form. With millions of tracks available from thousands of websites, finding the right songs, and being informed of newly music releases is becoming a problematic task. Thus, web page filtering has become necessary for most web users.
Beside, on the digital music distribution front, there is a need to find ways of improving music retrieval effectiveness. Artist, title, and genre keywords might not be the only criteria to help music consumers finding music they like. This is currently mainly achieved using cultural or editorial metadata ("artist A is somehow related with artist B") or exploiting existing purchasing behaviour data ("since you bought this artist, you might also want to buy this one"). A largely unexplored (and potentially interesting) complement is using semantic descriptors automatically extracted from the music audio files. These descriptors can be applied, for example, to recommend new music, or generate personalized playlists.
A complete description of a popular song
In [Pac05], Pachet classifies the music knowledge management. This classification allows to create meaningful descriptions of music, and to exploit these descriptions to build music related systems. The three categories that Pachet defines are: editorial (EM), cultural (CM) and acoustic metadata (AM).
Editorial metadata includes simple creation and production information (e.g. the song C'mon Billy, written by P.J. Harvey in 1995, was produced by John Parish and Flood, and the song appears as the track number 4, on the album "To bring you my love"). EM includes, in addition, artist biography, album reviews, genre information, relationships among artists, etc. As it can be seen, editorial information is not necessarily objective. It is usual the case that different experts cannot agree in assigning a concrete genre to a song or to an artist. Even more diffcult is a common consensus of a taxonomy of musical genres.
Cultural metadata is defined as the information that is implicitly present in huge amounts of data. This data is gathered from weblogs, forums, music radio programs, or even from web search engines' results. This information has a clear subjective component as it is based on personal opinions.
The last category of music information is acoustic metadata. In this context, acoustic metadata describes the content analysis of an audio file. It is intended to be objective information. Most of the current music content processing systems operating on complex audio signals are mainly based on computing low-level signal features. These features are good at characterising the acoustic properties of the signal, returning a description that can be associated to texture, or at best, to the rhythmical attributes of the signal. Alternatively, a more general approach proposes that music content can be successfully characterized according to several "musical facets" (i.e. rhythm, harmony, melody, timbre, structure) by incorporating higher-level semantic descriptors to a given feature set. Semantic descriptors are predicates that can be computed directly from the audio signal, by means of the combination of signal processing, machine learning techniques, and musical knowledge.
Semantic Web languages allow to describe all this metadata, as well as integrating it from different music repositories.
The following example shows an RDF description of an artist, and a song by the artist:
<rdf:Description rdf:about="">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="&music;Artist"/>
<music:name>Randy Coleman</music:name>
<music:city>Los Angeles</music:city>
<music:influencedBy rdf:resource=""/>
<music:influencedBy rdf:resource=""/>
<music:influencedBy rdf:resource=""/>
<rdf:Description rdf:about="|pe1|S8LTM0LdsaSkaFeyYG0">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="&music;Track"/>
<music:title>Last Salutation</music:title>
<music:playedBy rdf:resource=""/>
Lyrics as metadata
For a complete description of a song, lyrics must be considered as well. While lyrics could in a sense be regarded as "acoustic metadata", they are per se actual information entities which have themselves annotation needs. Lyrics share many similarities with metadata, e.g. they usually refer directly to well specified song, but acceptions exists as different artist might sing the same lyrics sometimes even with different musical bases and styles. Most notably, lyrics have often different authors than the music and voice that interprets them and might be composed at a different time. Lyrics are not a simple text; they often have a structure which is similar to that of the song (e.g. a chorus) so they justify the use use of a markup language with a well specified semantics. Unlike the previous types of metadata, however, they are not well suited to be expressed using the W3C Semantic Web initiative languages, e.g. in RDF. While RDF has been suggested instead of XML for for representig texts in situation where advanced and multilayered markup is wanted [Ref RDFTEI], music lyrics markup needs usually limit themselves to indicating particular sections of the songs (e.g. intro, outro, chorus) and possibly the performing character (e.g. in duets). While there is no widespread standard for machine encoded lyrics, some have been proposed [LML][4ML] which in general fit the need for formatting and differentiating main parts. An encoding in RDF of lyrics would be of limited use but still possible with RDF based queries possible just thanks to text search operators in the query language (therfore likely to be limited to "lyrics that contain word X"). More complex queries could be possible if more characters are performing in the lirics and each denoted by an RDF entity which has other metadata attached to it (e.g. the metadata described in the examples above).
It is to be reported however that an RDF encoding would have the disadvantage of complexity. In general it would require a supporting software (for example to be encoded as XML/RDF can be difficultly written by hand. Also, contrary to an XML based encoding, it could not be easily visualized in a human readable way by, e.g., a simple XSLT transformation.
Both in case of RDF and XML encoding, interesting processing and queries (e.g. conceptual similarities between texts, moods etc) would necessitate advanced textual analysis algorithms well outside the scope or XML or RDF languages. Interestingly however, it might be possible to use RDF description to encode the results of such advanced processings. Keyword extraction algorithms (usually a combination of statistical analysis, stemming and linguistical processing e.g. using wordnet) can be successfully employed on lyrics. The resulting reppresentative "terms" can be encoded as metadata to the lyrics or to the related song itself.
Lower Level Acoustic metadata
"Acoustic metadata" is a broad term which can encompass both features which have an immediate use in higher level use cases (e.g. those presented in the above examples such as tempo, key, keyMode etc ) and those that can only be interpreted by data analisys (e.g. a full or simplified representation of the spectrum or the average power sliced every 10 ms). As we have seen, semantic technologies are suitable for reppresenting the higher level acoustic metadata. These are in fact both concise and can be used directly in semantic queries using, e.g., SparQL. Lower level metadata however, e.g. the MPEG7 features extracted by extractors like [Ref MPEG7AUDIODB] is very ill suited to be represented in RDF and is better kept in mpeg-7/xml format for serialization and interchange.
Semantic technologies could be of use in describing such "chunks" of low level metadata, e.g. describing what the content is in terms of describing which features are contained and at which quality. While this would be a duplicaiton of the information encoded in the MPEG-7/XML, it might be of use in semantic queries which select tracks also based on the availability of rich low level metadata.
Motivating Examples (Use Cases)
Commuting is a big issue in any modern society. Semantically Personalized Playlists might provide both relief and actually benefit in time that cannot be devoted to actively productive activities. Filippo commutes every morning an average of 50+-10 minutes. Before leaving he connects his USB stick/mp3 player to have it "filled" with his morning playlist. The process is completed in 10 seconds, afterall is just 50Mb. he is downloading. During the time of his commute, Filippo will be offered a smooth flow of news, personal daily , entertainment, and cultural snippets from audiobooks and classes.
Musical content comes from Filippo personal music collection or via a content provider (e.g. a low cost thanks to a one time pay license). Further audio content comes from podcasts but also from text to speech reading blog posts, emails, calendar items etc.
Behind the scenes the system works by a combination of semantic queries and ad-hoc algorithms. Semantic queries operate on an RDF database collecting the semantic reppresentation of music metadata (as explained in section 1), as well as annotations on podcasts, news items, audiobooks, and "semantic desktop items" that is represting Filippo's personal desktop information -such as emails and calendar entries.
Ad-hoc algorithms operate on low level metadata to provide smooth transition among tracks. Algorithms for text analysis provide further links among songs and links within songs, pieces of news, emails etc.
At a higher level, a global optimization algorithm takes care of the final playlist creation. This is done by balancing the need for having high priority items played first (e.g. emails from addresss considered important) with the overall goal of providing a smooth and entertaining experience (e.g. interleaving news with music etc).
Semantics can help in providing "related information or content" which can be put adjacent to the actual core content. This can be done in relative freedom since the content can be at any time skipped by the user using simply the forward button.
Upcoming concerts
John has been listening to the "Snow Patrol" band for a while. He discovered the band while listening to one of his favorite podcasts about alternative music. He has to travel to San Diego next week, and he is finding upcoming concerts that he would enjoy there, and he asks his personalized semantic web music service to provide him with some recommendations of upcoming gigs in the area, and decent bars to have a beer.
<!-- San Diego geolocation -->
<foaf:based_near geo:lat='32.715' geo:long='-117.156' />
The system is tracking user listening habits, so it detects than one song from "The Killers" band (scrapped from their website) sounds similar to the last song John has listened to from "Snow Patrol". Moreover, both bands have similar styles, and there are some podcasts that contain songs from both bands in the same session. Interestingly enough, the system knows that the Killers are playing close to San Diego next weekend, thus it recommends to John to assist to that gig.
Facet browsing of Music Collections
Michael has a brand new (last generation-posh) iPod. He is looking for some music using the classic hierarchical navigation (Genre->Artist->Album->Songs). But the main problem is that he is not able to find a decent list of songs (from his 100K music collection) to move into his iPod. On the other hand, facet browsing has recently become popular as a user friendly interface to data repositories.
/facet system [Hil06] presents a new and intuitive way to navigate large collections, using several facets or aspects, of multimedia assets. /facet extends browsing of Semantic Web data in four ways. First, users are able to select and navigate through facets of resources of any type and to make selections based on properties of other, semantically related, types. Second, it addresses a disadvantage of hierarchy-based navigation by adding a keyword search interface that dynamically makes semantically relevant suggestions. Third, the /facet interface, allows the inclusion of facet-specific display options that go beyond the hierarchical navigation that characterizes current facet browsing. Fourth, the browser works on any RDF dataset without any additional configuration.
Thus, based on a RDF description of music titles] (see section 1) the user can navigate through music facets, such as Rhythm (beats per minute), Tonality (Key and mode), Intensity of the piece (moderate, energetic, etc.)
A fully functional example can be seen at
The following image depicts the system (courtesy of CWI):
Music Metadata on the Semantic Web
Nowadays, in the context of the World Wide Web, the increasing amount of available music makes very difficult, to the user, to find music he/she would like to listen to. To overcome this problem, there are some audio search engines that can fit the user's needs (for example:,,,, and
Some of the current existing search engines are nevertheless not fully exploited because their companies would have to deal with copyright infringing material. Music search engines have a crucial component: an audio crawler, that scans the web and gathers related information about audio files.
Moreover, describing music it not an easy task. As presented in section 1, music metadata copes with several categories (editorial, acoustic, and cultural). Yet, none of the audio metadata used in practice (e.g ID3, OGG Vorbis, etc.) can fully describe all these facets. Actually, metadata for describing music are mostly tags implemented in the Key-Value form [TAG]=[VALUE], for instance, "ARTIST=The Killers".
The following section introduces, then, the mappings between current audio vocabularies within the Semantic Web technologies. This will allow to extend the description of a piece of music, as well as adding explicit semantics.
Integrating Various Vocabularies Using RDF
In this section we present a way to integrate several audio vocabularies into a single one, based on RDF. For more details about the audio vocabularies, the reader is refered to Vocabularies - Audio Content Section, and Vocabularies - Audio Ontologies Section.
This section will focus on the ID3 and OGG Vorbis metadata initiatives, as they are the most used ones. Though, both vocabularies cope only editorial data. Moreover, a first mapping with the Music Ontology is presented, too.
ID3 metadata
The most important metadata descriptors are:
OGG Vorbis metadata
OGG Vorbis metadata, called comments, support metadata 'tags' similar to those implemented in the ID3. The metadata is stored in a vector of strings, encoded in UTF-8
RDFizing songs
In this section we present a way to RDFize tracks based on the Music Ontology.
<mo:Track rdf:about=''>
<mo:puid rdf:resource='2285a2f8-858d-0d06-f982-3796d62284d4'/>
<mo:puid rdf:resource='2b04db54-0416-d154-4e27-074e8dcea57c'/>
<dc:title>The Fly</dc:title>
<mo:MusicGroup rdf:about=''>
<foaf:img rdf:resource=''/>
<mo:musicmoz rdf:resource=''/>
<mo:discogs rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:homepage rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:member rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:member rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:member rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:member rdf:resource=''/>
<mo:wikipedia rdf:resource=''/>
ID3 to RDF Example
In this section we present a way to map ID3 tags with the Music Ontology.
<mo:Track rdf:about=''>
<mo:MusicGroup rdf:about=''>
<foaf:name>Blues Traveler</foaf:name>
<mo:discogs rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:homepage rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:member rdf:resource=''/>
<mo:wikipedia rdf:resource=''/>
<foaf:img rdf:resource=''/>
<dc:title>Back in the Day</dc:title>
<mo:puid rdf:resource='0a57a829-9d3c-eb35-37a8-d0364d1eae3a'/>
<mo:puid rdf:resource='02039e1b-64bd-6862-2d27-3507726a8268'/>
A possible scenario to exploit RDFized songs
[Pac05] "Knowledge Management and Musical Metadata", (F. Pachet) - Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management, 2005, in Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management, Schwartz, D. Ed. Idea Group, 2005.
[Hil06] "/facet: A browser for heterogeneous semantic web repositories" (Hildebrand, M., Ossenbruggen, J. R. van, Hardman, L.), in CWI. Information Systems [INS] ; E 0604. ISSN: 1386-3681, 2006. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68771 | Little background. A company that is non e-commerce and does not intend to be in the future (they are trying to build brands) had a internal employee decide what platform (he has no knowledge of industry and how it works ) is best for the company's main site and 3 supporting brand sites.
He decided Magento over WordPress, anybody agree with this decision? Here is the exact wording from winning development firm "These will have the same e-commerce functionality as the current corporate site, whereby each will be a catalog of products but no purchasing or customer log-in capabilities will be necesarry."
This is same employee two years ago that chose Magento, didn't work and now they are doing it again. I told them WordPress but my message has fallen on deaf ears.
I need feedback ASAP. |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68783 |
Westfield Moose Pinochle Results 03/04/13
March 13, 2013
Westfield Moose Pinochle Results Club Results Week of March 4, 2013 1. Kathy Meyers, 795 2. Reda Hoth, 603 3. Addie Meyers, 593 Pinochle is played on Mondays at the Westfield Moose Club at 12:30 p....
« Back to Article
sort: oldest | newest
No comments posted for this article.
Post a Comment
You must first login before you can comment.
*Your email address:
Remember my email address.
I am looking for:
News, Blogs & Events Web |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68784 | The Reel Truth
If you go to Rotten Tomatoes, the website that compiles more than 100 film critics' reviews each week, you will find at the top of the "Certified Fresh" list a single movie that was the very best-reviewed of 2005. It was not a remake or a sequel, nor did it cost $200 million and star a pubescent wizard or a computer-generated ape. It was a made-for-cheap documentary about men confined to scrap-metal wheelchairs who play a violent game of quadriplegic rugby, which involves rolling across gymnasium floors at high speed and hitting your opponent as hard as you can. If you knock him out of his chair, so much the better.
Titled Murderball, it was released in July to nearly unanimous acclaim, and the execs at THINKFilm, the New York City distributor that put Murderball into theaters, had every reason to believe that audiences would run to a funny, furious movie about men who cannot walk. Before its release, one of its stars, Mark Zupan, appeared alongside Jay Leno and David Letterman and was even touted on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as the summer's unlikeliest action hero. A&E Network bought Murderball for broadcast, MTV Films signed on as a promotional partner, and Reebok put up billboards pushing this latest extreme sport. And just a week before the movie came out, Participant Productions -- the socially progressive company owned by eBay founder Jeff Skoll -- partnered with THINKFilm to help give the movie a promotional push on the Internet.
"If you had asked me and a number of people in this company and a number of industry observers what the box office would be," says THINKFilm's Mark Urman, "I think everybody would have predicted multiple, multiple millions for Murderball."
Instead, it made just one million -- $1.5 mil, to be precise -- during its three-month theatrical run. The shoulda-been hit missed by a mile, which stunned Urman. All of the post-screening polling suggested it was universally loved: 99 percent of the men who saw it said they would recommend it; 100 percent of women said the same thing.
"The movie was going to be a big hit," Urman says. "Of course, that was a perfect illustration of what market research does. It tells you what you don't need to know and is often very misleading."
On the surface, the failure of Murderball would appear to render it one more casualty of The Year the Movies Died, a so-called trend trumpeted in newspaper headlines on an almost weekly basis. But don't weep for Mark Urman; the man ain't losing money, even on a money-loser at the theater. Welcome to the economics of Hollywood, where great apes and Jedi knights aren't the only computer-generated illusions.
Throughout the year, dozens of newspapers and TV news shows insisted studio revenues were off 5 percent from the same period in 2004; some had it as high as 7 or 8 percent. The most commonly cited stat was that Hollywood had lost $500 million, give or take, for the first half of 2005 compared to last year.
Which wasn't true. At all.
Fact is, the major studios took in more from the box office in the first quarter of 2005 ($870 million) than they did during the first quarter of 2004 (when receipts totaled $797 million). How do we know this? Because Edward Jay Epstein reported it on the online site Slate, where he contributes a weekly column called "The Hollywood Economist." Epstein got his numbers from "a secretive unit of the Motion Picture Association" called Worldwide Market Research, which provides revenue breakdowns to the highest-level studio execs but keeps those numbers away from journalists. Yes, Epstein says, audiences were down, but "this came mainly at the expense of independent, foreign and documentary movies." The studios, he insists, suffered no slump whatsoever.
Epstein, whose book The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood was published by Random House in February, has spent the better part of 2005 demystifying and debunking Hollywood's woes on Slate. He is no embedded trade-mag reporter, no Variety shill, but a writer of books on subjects ranging from the collapse of TV news to the Warren Commission to the diamond trade; he's a serious man of sober purpose. So his numbers ring true, as do his assertions that Hollywood is in the business of peddling not only big-screen myths, but business-pages ones, as well.
"The reason I have stayed on the subject all year is the inability or unwillingness of the media, of people who report on Hollywood, to try to get the real numbers and see what's really happening," Epstein says. "They have no willingness to accept that box-office numbers are not the studio numbers. They treat it as though it's some sort of a joke.... People say this film did this or this film did that, and it's like talking about how some clothing did at a fashion show rather than the retail store."
Spend an hour talking to Epstein, and he will run down his estimable list of myths promulgated by and about Hollywood. He will tell you studio execs hate making movies for kids, hate watering them down for the demo-pleasing PG-13 rating. "People in Hollywood are generally smart, thoughtful and pretty nice guys...and if they make movies that are terrible, they're not doing it because they want to," Epstein says. "It's because their business is to find audiences, and the audience they can find the easiest are teenagers, and the only movies they can get merchandising tie-ins for are children's movies."
He will tell you that the real money comes from DVD sales, not from theatrical release. He will tell you that theaters would prefer to let people in to movies for free so they can sell more popcorn and hot dogs and soft drinks, which is where exhibitors really make their money; but since studios don't make a cent from concessions, prices go up and audiences go down. He will tell you that studios don't really depend on foreign sales to make up their deficits; after all, the U.S. box office is still the dominant money machine, providing more than 60 percent in ticket sales worldwide. And he will tell you that even though Universal claims King Kong cost more than $200 million to make, it probably cost the studio next to nothing, once you figure in subsidies provided by the New Zealand government and German tax shelters and other pre-sold licensing rights. Telling audiences how much King Kong cost was just part of its pre-release hype -- a wowee stat aimed at impressing those who want to be part of a garish, expensive spectacle.
So, sure, the movies may have seemed terrible this year -- 2005 was, after all, the year of The Dukes of Hazzard, Bewitched, Be Cool, Domino and other lavish disasters -- but there are awful movies every year, just as, in the case of Murderball, there are always critical darlings that tank with the public. (None of the year's likely Best Picture Oscar nominees will have cracked the $100 million barrier.) If people are indeed staying away, it's because they just don't want to see any movies -- not now, anyway, not when they can avoid sticky and dingy multiplexes filled with ringing cell phones; not when they can spend the price of a ticket on a DVD ninety days after opening day; and not when they can see something on their plasma TV or computer screen or iPod whenever they want.
You don't even need a big hit to be a big hit: Mark Urman says it just doesn't matter that Murderball did poorly at the box office, because he'll make his money elsewhere -- specifically, on DVD. (In that top-secret report Epstein cites, DVD sales for the first quarter of 2005 were up $550 million -- from $2.7 billion to $3.2 billion.) That's why Urman plans to start releasing DVDs mere weeks after the movies hit theaters, which saves him time and money pimping the product. It all gets rolled into one giant ad campaign, after all.
"What we know about our customers is not that they won't go to the movies if they know it will be on DVD soon," Urman says. "Au contraire -- what we know about our customers is they will see it when they want to, if they want to, and how they want to, so I say let it all happen all at once."
Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, through their production companies HDNet Films and Magnolia Pictures and 2929 Productions, are already doing that very thing. This year they released the doc Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room in theaters and on Cuban's HDNet on the same day, which infuriated theater owners who claimed Cuban and Wagner were cutting into their business -- and yet it still made more than $4 million at the box office. And in late January, director Steven Soderbergh will simultaneously release his movie Bubble theatrically, on HDNet and on DVD.
Not only are Cuban and Wagner shortening the release window between movies and DVDs; they're jumping through it. But they can do this, because they're a small company. The studios are lumbering, bungling beasts. It's easy to turn a speedboat on a dime; it's impossible when you're steering the Titanic.
"Paramount's biggest DVD last year was Chappelle's Show, which they established on Comedy Central," Epstein says. "One of Warner Bros.' biggest DVDs was The Sopranos, established on HBO. And Harry Potter was established as a book first. In the future, the theater will be less and less important, and [studios are] just trying to keep them alive. Everyone understands it's an inefficient system, but if they kill the theaters, they will kill themselves. If you try to open Syriana or King Kong on HBO or as a network special, like a Super Bowl, and all the publicity was concentrated on it that way, you may make more money. But they don't know." Epstein laughs, then adds with dramatic understatement: "You know what? They're scared."
But not broke. Not by a long shot.
Sponsor Content |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68799 | TY - VIDEO DB - /z-wcorg/ DP - http://worldcat.org ID - 35155776 LA - Closed captioned for the hearing impaired. T1 - America's dream AU - Glover, Danny. AU - Snipes, Wesley. AU - Guy, Jasmine. AU - Toussaint, Lorraine, AU - Thompson, Ron Stacker. AU - Tyler, Ashley. AU - Sullivan, Kevin Rodney. AU - Duke, Bill, AU - Barclay, Paris. AU - Wright, Richard, AU - Clarke, John Henrik, AU - Angelou, Maya. AU - Home Box Office (Firm) AU - Carrie Productions. AU - HBO Video (Firm) PB - HBO Home Video CY - New York Y1 - 1996/// SN - 078310992X 9780783109923 AB - In "Long black song," a hard-working farmer invests what little he has in a gift for his wife, while back home, she falls for the advances of a traveling salesman. A small-town principal risks his career to defend a young boy's image of a black Christ painted for a state-wide competition in "The boy who painted Christ black." A jazz-joint piano player in "The Reunion" comes to terms with prejudices that have haunted her since childhood, when she is confronted by the source of her pain. ER - |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68800 | TY - VIDEO DB - /z-wcorg/ DP - http://worldcat.org ID - 80744042 LA - English T1 - Brother Minister the assassination of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik Shabazz) AU - Baxter, Jack, AU - Aalmuhammed, Jefri. AU - Chabriel, Joan Claire. AU - X, Malcolm, AU - Farrakhan, Louis. AU - Shabazz, Betty. AU - X-ceptional Productions. AU - Urban Swami (Firm) PB - Urban Swami CY - United States Y1 - 2005/// AB - This story is told through the eyes and voices of Malcolm's friends, his former enemies, assassination experts, dramatic re-enactments, rare archival footage and photographs, and the disclosure of recently de-classified FBI and NYPD counterintelligence documents. ER - |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68861 | Re: Bob DeHaan
From: Ted Davis <>
Date: Tue Apr 26 2005 - 10:32:30 EDT
I am also deeply saddened by Bob's passing. He and I exchanged messages
about ID (Bob was for it, I'm ambivalent) for several years, and we often
talked at the annual meeting. I last saw him, I think, at the ID conference
in Mequon, WI. His wife came with him, but she was really going downhill
fast at that point and he told me he had decided to get professional help
for her.
He had told some of his friends several months ago that he didn't have much
I have a reasonable hope, however, that our conversations will continue
after an interval.
Received on Tue Apr 26 10:34:26 2005
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Apr 26 2005 - 10:34:29 EDT |
global_05_local_5_shard_00000035_processed.jsonl/68880 | Skip to main content
About your Search
Search Results 0 to 1 of about 2
remarks from mitch mcconnel and harry reid. >> there is one mange sticking point. senate democrats wanted to use the revenue from where the thres hold is debt. not get rid of debt but use that extra money to pend actually. stiantor john kyle who is retiring, said the number of the spending is 600 billion and estimates new revenue from taxes will be same. what happened yesterday afternoon, there was a break down between harry reid and mitch mcconnel, and mcconnel sat down with the joe biden. maybe it is good cop and expect joe biden to be there to hammer out a deal between the two. >> this is what john thune has to say about republicans and what they want right now. >> republicans don't want to see new revenues and democrat tax increases used for new spending. that's where the members are trydrawing the line right now. senator bob corker is asking for specifics regarding the trillion in cuts that the president referred to on meet the press. and covering that from benghazi and on and on. >> and in your brew with david gregory you offered over one trillion and agreement with congress and ave
Search Results 0 to 1 of about 2 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.