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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4029
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Blog.print(“Hello World”)
So, this is my blog. Me being Colin, you being the Google web crawler bot, most likely. There are many blogs like it, I’m sure. I can promise you my posts will be sporadic, rambling, and generally incomprehensible, which I think covers all my bases as far as “necessary components of an author’s blog” go. Also, because it needs to be said: No, Mom, this isn’t where you go to search for things — you want Google.
To be honest, I don’t really have any concrete plans for this place. I started this mostly because I wrote a book, and sometimes I’d like to talk about it with people who aren’t my wonderful wife, Carly (MWWC for short) or my Dad, both of whom will probably hang themselves the first chance they get if they have to hear about “the book” anymore. I don’t intend to post exclusively about that, though, mostly because I’ll hang myself if that’s all I talk about.
If you can tell by my Twitter account, following Arsenal FC occupies a fair amount of my time. To any of you misguided souls who have the misfortune of supporting any other soccer/football club, you have both my condolences and assurances that I do not gloat about the Arsenal — I fear the karmic wrath of the football Gods in the same way I fear a President Donald Trump. I also grew up playing video games, and since I have yet to actually grow up, I still do, so I imagine that topic will crop up on occasion.
Whatever happens, hopefully this will be the first post of many to come. I doubt it, because, ya know, ME, but still. Positive thoughts.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4035
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Type in the full discussion title or a part of it.
Discussion Title Created date
How to tell which USB Com port is which
Make y'all a deal - I'll teach you English and you teach me Python... More seriously, thanks for the recommendations. Will hunt a few of them down. ...
Sun. Sep 3, 2017 - 06:41 AM
C code meets assembler - And falls down
Here is a snippet of my luverrly C code that doesn't work: ... uint8_t volatile *Ready = &PINE; uint8_t volatile *Bus = &PINB; ... while ((*Ready...
Sun. Apr 3, 2011 - 01:28 PM
LUFA and C and me and decrementing For loops (bug?)
Hi, all, I have finally moved on from writing everything in assembler and tried out C, mostly to grasp and fiddle with USB on AVR, with LUFA! Yay! First, kudoes: It just...
Thu. Mar 10, 2011 - 09:17 AM
In-system programming daisychain?
Hi all, I have four ATtiny2313 chips on one board sharing an eight-bit bus on their B ports. They also have their /RESET pins bussed together. The ISP signals are on the...
Wed. Apr 28, 2010 - 04:09 PM
Port A and external clocks on tiny2313
Hi all, I was wondering if it was possible to use port pin PA1 (on the XTAL2 line) on a tiny2313 while it is being driven on XTAL1 by an external clock. The datasheet for the...
Wed. Feb 17, 2010 - 11:27 AM
Convincing Studio 4 to program an old chip
Hi folks, I've got AVR Studio 4.13 build 528, and a large pile of 90S2313 (and a few 90S1200) chips. The programmer is a USB ISPII. Problem is, Studio won't let me select a...
Fri. Feb 8, 2008 - 07:25 AM
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4050
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sunday survey: andy’s slam?
TSF on Wimbledon: Men’s preview | Women’s preview
(adidas Murray image via Tennis Buzz/Flickr)
One Response to “sunday survey: andy’s slam?”
1. dr ss love Says:
read my mens preview: http://25twofour.com/2011/06/19/back-on-the-grass-our-2011-wimbledon-preview/#more-1803
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4054
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Calculates the right-tailed probability of a chi-square distribution
What is the CHISQ.DIST.RT Function?
The CHISQ.DIST.RT Function is categorized under Statistical functions. It will calculate the right-tailed probability of a chi-square distribution. We use this function to compare observed and expected values. So, the χ2 distribution is associated with an χ2 test.
In financial analysis, the function can be to find out and compare observed and expected values. For example, we can find out a link between our revenues and the geographical location of our customers.
If we get a small value from the chi-square table, it means that there is not much of a relationship between the two given variables. However, if we get a larger value, it indicates a greater relationship between the two variables.
The CHISQ.DIST.RT function uses the following arguments:
1. X (required argument) – It is the value at which the chi-square distribution is to be evaluated. It should be greater than or equal to zero.
2. Deg_freedom (required argument) – It is the number of degrees of freedom. It must be an integer between 1 and 1010.
To learn more, launch our free Excel crash course now!
How to use the CHISQ.DIST.RT Function in Excel?
To understand the uses of CHISQ.DIST.RT function, let us consider an example:
Suppose we are given the following data:
The formula for calculating the one-tailed probability of the chi-squared distribution is:
CHISQ.DIST.RT - Example 1
We get the result below:
CHISQ.DIST.RT - Example 1a
Few notes about the CHISQ.DIST.RT Function
1. If the deg_freedom argument is not an integer, it is truncated by MS Excel.
2. The function belongs to the CHISQ group of functions. It was introduced in MS Excel 2010 and hence is unavailable for earlier versions. The CHISQ.DIST.RT function is an updated version of the CHIDIST function.
3. #VALUE! error – Occurs when any of the arguments provided is non-numeric. Remember, CHISQ.DIST.RT will accept only numeric datasets for both arguments and return numeric data.
4. #NUM! error – Occurs when:
1. The given value of x is negative.
2. The deg_freedom argument is less than 1 or greater than 1010.
Additional resources
CFI is the official global provider of the FMVA Financial Analyst Certification, designed to transform anyone into a world-class financial analyst.
Thank you for reading this guide to important Excel functions and formulas! By taking the time to learn and master these functions, you’ll significantly speed up your financial modeling To learn more, check out these additional resources:
Free Excel Tutorial
To master the art of Excel, check out CFI's FREE Excel Crash Course, which teaches you how to become an Excel power user. Learn the most important formulas, functions, and shortcuts to become confident in your financial analysis.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4076
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You’ll Wonder Why You Didn’t Do this Sooner
“Your appointment is confirmed.”
You set appointments all the time, with doctors, dentists, accountants, contractors and hair salons. More often than not the appointments you set actually take place. Once in a while you have to cancel an appointment, but that’s okay, because you reschedule it and place the new date and time on your calendar.
There’s one person, though, that you might never think to set an appointment with. That person is you!
Why not schedule an appointment with yourself and write it on your calendar? Schedule some time to do something fun with yourself. Make it a definite date.
When the time comes, keep the appointment, just as you would any other. After a few appointments with the all-important you, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.
©Jane Powell – Meditations for Women
Today’s Affirmation: I am making and keeping appointments with myself.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4110
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More free code
Posted up 3 more pieces of code on the code page. One more command line utility, an Atari 2600 demo, and a hack that I actually had to use at work.
I still have more code in the vault that I’ll be digging out over the next few days, so keep checking back.
About this entry
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4112
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Qore Programming Language Reference Manual
All Classes Namespaces Functions Variables Groups Pages
Exception Handling
Exceptions are errors that can only be handled using a try catch block. Any exception that is thrown in a try block will immediately cause execution of that thread to begin with the first statement of the catch block, regardless of the position of the program pointer of the running thread, even if nested function or object method calls have been made.
Exceptions can be thrown by the Qore system for a number of reasons, see the documentation for each function and object method for details.
Programmers can also throw exceptions explicitly by using the throw and rethrow statements.
Information about the exception, including the context in which the exception occurred, is saved in the exception hash, which can be retrieved by using a parameter variable in the catch block.
The exception hash is defined in the ExceptionInfo hashdecl.
System exceptions always throw at least 2 values, populating the "err" and "desc" keys of the exception hash, giving the exception string code and the exception description string, respectively, and occassionally, depending on the function, the "arg" key may be populated with supporting information. User exceptions have no restrictions, any values given in the throw statement will be mapped to exception keys as per the table above.
See the on_exit, on_success statement, and on_error statement for statements that allow for exception-safe and exception-dependent cleanup in Qore code.
Classes that assist in exception-safe lock handling are the AutoLock class, the AutoGate class, the AutoReadLock class, and the AutoWriteLock class.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4121
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Phorum turns 10
So, I am at the MySQL Conference this week with my Phorum co-developers. We got to talking last night about how old Phorum is. We knew it was about 10 years. We pulled up some old archived zip file of version 1.5 and found in the this in the comment block.
* Created 04/16/1998
Whoa! That means that yesterday was the 10th birthday of the Phorum project. I would guess that is the date I originally put the code up on my personal web site for people to download. I remember sending that email to the PHP General mailing list. I told people they could have the code if they would help debug it. Later I officially made a GPL license and then a BSD style license as I became more knowledgeable about the open source and free software world.
So, for kicks we decided to install version 1.6 on the phorum.org site. Keep in mind the release date for that was March 30, 1999. The only hurdles were a default value on an auto increment column in the .sql file, needing register_globals and adding .php3 to be parsed as PHP. That got it up and running. I had hoped to post the URL for fun, but sadly, 5 lines in were sql injection vulnerabilties. Ah, the good ol’ days.
Sadly, I don’t have my emails from 1998. I lost everything in 2001 due to either a hard drive crash or some shady deal I had with someone hosting the Phorum site at the time. I can’t remember. If anyone happens to have UseNet archives or mailing list archives of the PHP General list from April 1998, please let me know. I would love to have that old stuff.
3 Responses to Phorum turns 10
1. Das PHP-Message-Board Phorum feiert sein 10-jähriges Jubiläum. Dabei hätte man …
2. […] Moon just realized that phorum turned 10 last week. What is that about a billion years in internet time? var dzone_url = […]
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4135
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You Can Eat Lunch And Propose At Panera Bread Today
posted by Chase Matthews -
First off: Happy Valentine's Day Y'all! Well you know 12 years ago today I asked my wife to marry me, and we're still going strong. Today is a popular day to pop the question. Panera Bread wants you to do it in their restaurants. And if you do, you have the chance for them to cater your wedding. I know the Panera here in Florence is a good spot. There are some rules to be eligible though, so hit the link for the full story and details:
Chase Matthews
Chase Matthews
Want to know more about Chase Matthews? Get their official bio, social pages & articles on Eagle 92.9! Read more
Content Goes Here
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4136
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A Realistic Look at Trump’s First 100 Days
Written by iPatriot
Democrats try to make their polls depicting President Trump as “the most unpopular president ever” significant. Leftists war on America to keep the people from recovering from the destruction wrought by Obama.
The first problem with the media is the rush to be the first to report a story. 90% of the time the first reports contain incorrect facts. But the leftwing media, rather than correct their errors, perpetuate them. Case in point their Michael Brown “Hands up, don’t shoot” meme which turned out to be pure propaganda. It takes a week to get most all the facts of a story correct. Instant media is more like the gossip column living by Mark Twain’s axiom;
The second problem with the media is that they are in bed with the Left. Over 90% of the media is Democrat controlled propaganda and write negative stories about anything and everything regarding the Trump presidency. For example, Democrats say they will shut down the government if Trump doesn’t do what they want. This is a false threat as only the President can shut down the government as proven by Clinton and Obama who both blamed the Republican majorities. But even a congressional majority cannot shut down the government. The Democrat minority in Congress has the power to shut down nothing because the majority is still working. Sen. Ted Cruz didn’t shut down the government by himself as Obama claimed. That was Obama’s sole doing. That is under the executive’s sole control. Clinton shut down the government in ’95 to keep from having to sign the Republican Congress of Speaker Newt Gingrich’s balanced budget and welfare reform. Obama shut down the government in 2013 to screw over Republicans who wanted to defund ObamaCare. Democrats have no power to shut down the government over funding the wall because Republicans have the votes and the presidency.
The media, which is all on the side of the Democrats, perpetuates this falsehood as if it was possible just as they perpetuate the lie that CO2 is killing the planet and, of course, blames the Republicans and President Trump. What President Trump has accomplished in his first 100 days has largely gone unreported by the Left. His dismantling of Obama’s Executive Orders shutting down coal and oil and border patrols has mostly occurred without the majority of people noticing. His efforts to battle terrorism have been largely thwarted by leftwing activist judges making law against the law by which the president abides. What the people have heard most is about Rus…
Read the rest of the story at www.iPatriot.com
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4164
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classroom objects
EstelaMaris 2011-11-06 20:45:23
Match and join classroom objects
The above downloadable handout is a great resource for elementary school students at Beginner (pre-A1) and Elementary (A1) level. It was designed for working on your class' Writing skills. It is about the topic and words of Classroom.
Copyright License: This file is licensed by EstelaMaris under the iSLCollective Copyright License
Upload date: 2011-11-06 20:45:23
Author: EstelaMaris
from Spain
EstelaMaris is from/lives in Spain and has been a member of iSLCollective since 2011-10-27 20:28:08. EstelaMaris last logged in on 2015-11-30 21:23:38, and has shared 12 resources on iSLCollective so far.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4165
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Present Simple vs Present Continuous
1mada 2012-01-29 17:47:53
Five tasks to practise Present Simple and Present Continuous. 1) Students add -s and -ing to the verbs, 2) order the words to make sentence, 3) write am, is, are, do or does, 4) choose the correct option and 5) complete the sentences with the Present Simple or Continuous form of the verbs. Greyscale and KEY included. Hope you find it useful.
This downloadable handout is recommended for high school students, elementary school students and adults at Elementary (A1) and Pre-intermediate (A2) level. It is a useful material for practising Present continuous (progressive) tense in English, and is useful for improving your students' Spelling, Speaking, Reading and Writing skills. The answer key is provided, too.
Copyright License: This file is licensed by 1mada under the iSLCollective Copyright License
Upload date: 2012-01-29 17:47:53
Author: 1mada
Honorary member from Spain
I'm also a member of ESLPrintables.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4167
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Open main menu
Wiktionary β
There exists an abbreviation for Visual Studio .NET called VS.NET, but it seems to me that Wiktionary cannot create entries for abbreviations that include a dot. This is not the case in the Wikipedia, where exists such a link. Do you know the reason for this different behaviour of the two related wiki sites, or how to get around it? Sae1962 07:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Actually, there's nothing to stop creating such an entry. Equinox 23:42, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
Return to ".NET" page.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4168
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Open main menu
Wiktionary β
• Isn't 'sorry' also used to express sympathy? As in, "I'm sorry that your cat died." It might be ambiguous to 'sorrow,' but maybe it should be mentioned.
Thesublime514 01:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• Isn't sorry also used as "no"? Like "Do you have any more butter?" "Sorry, we're all out." Or is that just a shorter form of "nope, sorry", which doesn't really count? 07:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
• No. That is simply an expression of regret. SemperBlotto 07:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
sorry in other languagesEdit
Sorry is used verbatim in a number of languages as a slang or colloquial equivalent of the native word, in non-Roman based languages they are transliterated - ソリー (ja), сорри/сори (ru). The other popular words are thank you (Hindi, Chinese, Japanese), bye/bye-bye (many languages), hello (Sinhalese) and sometimes please. I wonder if these English derivations need to be added as translations or they are still considered "English words spoken by speakers of other languages". --Anatoli 02:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Return to "sorry" page.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4172
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Charles Otis Whitman
From Wikiquote
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Charles Otis Whitman (18421910) was an American biologist at the end of the nineteenth century who espoused a non-Darwinian theory of evolution.
• Darwin's] triumph has won for us a common height from which we see the whole world of living beings as well as all inorganic nature; phenomena of every order we now regard as expressions of natural causes. The supernatural has no longer a standing is science; it has vanished like a dream, and the halls consecrated to its thraldom of the intellect are becoming radiant with a more cheerful faith.
External links[edit]
Wikipedia has an article about:
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4173
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Ernst Mach
(redirected from E. Mach)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus.
Mach, Ernst
(ĕrnst mäkh), 1838–1916, Austrian physicist and philosopher, b. Moravia. He taught (1864–67) mathematics at Graz and later, until his retirement in 1901, was professor of physics at Prague and Vienna. Mach, one of the leaders of modern positivism, did his major work in the philosophy of science. Following strictly empirical principles, he strove to rid science of all metaphysical and religious assumptions. He felt science should confine itself to the description of phenomena that could be perceived by the senses. This view challenged science's traditional claim of yielding absolute knowledge and was greatly influential in the development of logical positivismlogical positivism,
also known as logical or scientific empiricism, modern school of philosophy that attempted to introduce the methodology and precision of mathematics and the natural sciences into the field of philosophy. The movement, which began in the early 20th cent.
..... Click the link for more information.
. Mach also did research in the field of ballistics; the Mach number is named for him. His works include Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung (1883; tr. The Science of Mechanics, 1893); Die Analyse der Empfindungen (1886); Erkenntnis und Irrtum [perception and error] (1905).
Mach, Ernst
Born Feb. 18, 1838, in Turas, now Tufany, Czechoslovakia; died Feb. 19, 1916, in Haar, near Munich. Austrian physicist and idealist philosopher.
Mach was educated at the University of Vienna. Subsequently he was a privatdocent at the University of Vienna (from 1861), a professor of physics in Graz (from 1864), a professor of physics and rector of the German university in Prague (from 1867), and a professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna (1895-1901).
Mach conducted a number of important investigations in physics. His first works were devoted to the study of processes of hearing and vision—explanation of the action mechanism of the vestibular apparatus and discovery of an optic phenomenon referred to as the Mach rings, or bands. In 1881 he began to study the aerodynamic processes accompanying the supersonic flight of projectiles (for example, artillery shells). He discovered and researched a specific wave process, which subsequently was called a shock wave. In this field, a number of values and concepts have been named after him: Mach number, Mach cone, and Mach angle, for example. He proposed the principle according to which the inertia of any body arises from the gravitational interaction of the body and all the matter of the universe. He was an opponent of the atomic theory.
Mach’s philosophical works became well known at the turn of the 20th century owing to Mach’s attempt to resolve the crisis in physics by means of a new interpretation of the primary concepts of classical (Newtonian) physics. To the concepts of absolute space, time, movement, force, and so forth, Mach opposed a relativistic understanding of these categories, which he believed to be subjective in origin. In the spirit of subjective idealism he asserted that the world is a “complex of sensations,” and accordingly, the task of science is to describe these sensations. Mach exerted considerable influence on the formation and development of the philosophy of neopositivism. His subjectiveidealist ideas were sharply criticized by V. I. Lenin (Materialism and Empiriocriticism 1908; published in 1909) and G. V. Plekhanov (in the collection Against Philosophical Revisionism, Moscow, 1935).
Grundlinien der Lehre von den Bewegungsempfindungen. Leipzig, 1875.
Die Prinzipien der Wärmelehre. Leipzig, 1896.
Kultur und Mechanik. Stuttgart, 1915.
In Russian translation:
Vvedenie k ucheniiu o zvukovykh oshchushcheniiakh Gel’mgol’tsa. St. Petersburg, 1879.
Analiz oshchushchenii i otnoshenie fizicheskogo k psikhicheskomu, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1908.
Poznanie i zabluzhdenie. Moscow, 1909.
Mekhanika: Istoriko-kriticheskiiocherk ee razvitiia. St. Petersburg, 1909.
Populiarno-nauchnye ocherki, 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1920.
Printsip sokhraneniia raboty: Istoriia i koren’ ee. St. Petersburg, 1909.
Henning, H. E. Mach ah Philosoph, Physiker und Psychologe. Leipzig, 1915.
Thiele, J. “E. Mach—Bibliographic.” Centaurus, 1963, vol. 8.
Heller, K. D. E. Mach. Washington-New York, 1964.
Thirring, H. “Ernst Mach als Physiker.” Almanach der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1966, vol. 116.
Einstein, A. Ernst Makh: Sobr. nauchnykh trudov, vol. 4. Moscow, 1967. Page 27.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4189
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Big animals that people like. When environmentalists talk about conservation, one of their complaints is that it's a lot easier to get people to do something to save animals like the elephant, panda or tiger than to convince them that the fate of the Visayan warty pig or the Hell Creek crayfish is worth caring about, regardless of the relative worth of the animals to their ecosystems.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4229
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Cambridge 640c output voltage?
I'm looking into buying a passive preamp for my system, and the manufacturer is asking for the output voltage of my cd player. For the life of me, I can't find it. I've looked in the manual, on the website, and even emailed the U.S. distributor, to no avail. Does anyone know this info or how I can find it? Thanks in advance.
I have used the 640c with a Passive Pre-Amp (FT Audio's LW1S2) with no difficulties, so the output is likely north of 2.5v.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4231
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Wolcotts - who can troubleshoot/service them?
I thought I was going to get a schematic to give to my tube tech (30 yrs McIntosh Labs) but it never came - asked for it two years ago!
Symptoms - original Russian output tubes are blowing. Replacement Chinese EL34Hs recommended by factory rep bias up but I have no sound.
Should I go back to new original Russian tubes?
None of the components (resistors) are fried.
Ivanj, the title of your thread says Wolcott, is that the amp that's going through tubes and no sound?
What factory rep recommended the Chinese tubes? Are you speaking to a tube rep or someone from Wolcott?
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4235
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No announcement yet.
Controlling X10 devices with Insteon 2242-222 Hub
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• Controlling X10 devices with Insteon 2242-222 Hub
[COLOR=#666666]I have an X10 system which is controlled by a Controller/Transponder (model TR16A). I have acquired an Insteon 2242-222 Hub. It is my understanding that it is possible to control my X10 devices with this Hub. Please explain the process.[/COLOR]
I am aware that there is a web page which deals with "X10 Programming for Insteon Devices" but I am looking for the reverse "Insteon Programming for X10 Devices.
• #2
You would use the owners manual found on Insteons website. The instructions for controlling X10 can be found there.
• #3
Thank you. I looked at the manual. It refers to X10 only in the Specifications (without instructions). What I don't know is whether the Insteon hub communicates with the X10 transponder or the X10 device directly.
• #4
The 2242-222 Hub has the ability to send X10 On/Off commands and limited scheduling for X10
Just go to "add a device" inside the app and scroll down to the bottom of that page. You will see an add X10 icon. When you select it you will be taken to a screen where it will ask you to pick a House/Unit code, name, icon, etc..... After you set that up an icon will appear in the main app for you to send the On/Off commands.
• #5
The hub controls your X10 devices directly not the transponder
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4239
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Dismiss Notice
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A Parent Trapped! (223)
Discussion in 'Pokémon - Master Quest' started by Serebii, Oct 23, 2004.
1. Serebii
A Parent Trapped!
Butch & Cassidy have taken the baby Lugia, however they want something much bigger...it's parent. Ash & co. want to help free the Baby Lugia and protect the Parent Lugia. Will they succeed?
Visit The Episode Guide
2. Sharpshooter
Sharpshooter Battle Factory Champion
Part two of the triple header with Butch/Cassidy and Richie. They stepped up the excitement levels on this one, the battle between Ash and Co. and Butch and Cassidy was cool, probably one of the few times Team Rocket have defeated them (although somewhat dubiously!). Team Rocket's method of actually getting Lugia was quite clever, and in contrast the other Team Rocket, Jesse/James, were a complete waste (although funny) when Meowth scratched it's claws into the blow-up Lugia lol.
Why did Lugia hit Ash and Co. and not Butch and Cassidy, I couldn't understand that, unless it thought Team Rocket were defending the Lugia, which they were in an odd way.
3. [Cano]
[Cano] Sig [Cloud] Mugen
What I don't understand is how a baby Lugia is even possible! I thought Legendaries were genderless. Not to mention there's only supposed to be one! And that doesn't seem to be the same Lugia from Pokemon: 2000 The Movie, but I guess the movies aren't connected with the show, which would explain some things, but not others. So anyone have a possible answer? Anyone?
4. Dogasu
Dogasu Frustrated Elf
That's in the video games. This is the anime, where the rules are very different. That's really all the explanation you need.
5. Dimitar
Dimitar Sandslash+Lugia fan
Well, I think that most legendaries are more than one in the anime, but they lead a secretive life, so people think there exeists only one. And no, I don't think this is the same Lugia as from the movie, as it talked with a male voice, while the one in the episode was clearly female. Also, there was another episode in which one guy (I don't remember his name) tried to photograph an Arcticuno that most likely wasn't the one from the movie.
I think they made these episodes particularly to show legendaries aren't one-off. Not to talk about the fact that the anime, the games, and the movies are all made by different companies and people.
6. wobbanut
wobbanut Team Awesome
This part was not as good as part three turned out to be, but I liked the dramatic tension in the episode. With things going from bad to worse with the rage devices and with Silver and Lugia being kidnapped, they really set up things well for the next episode. It was great to see Zippo again too. :) I also liked the part where Jessie was trying to get James and Meowth to blow up a Lugia decoy, then Meowth accidentally rips it. LOL
7. Satoshi
Satoshi メイの大切の彼氏
Not to mention, this Lugia doesn't even talk. o_0;
8. Team Rocket Admin
Team Rocket Admin Well-Known Member
God I hated the episodes around this time, they really ****** me off.
9. This Forum needs more elaborate, well thought-out posts like this one. Why can't you all be more like TRA? ._.
Number of errors in this episode, I noticed. The famous Crobat discoloring was in this episode. It was blue and had purplish wings. And there is also the lesser known discoloration near the end. As Lugia Sr. is being withdrawn into the base, its tail spikes were white, not black.
Nice touch with the gang searching for the base, rather than spontaneously knowing where to find it.
Lol, TR's efforts were totally destroyed in this episode by Meowth
Speaking of Meowth, I liked his remark about everything looking good on him XD
I may not like Butch and Cassidy, but Nanba is a cool villain. Better than Giovanni, really.
Those Pokémon Provokers(can't remember the full name for the life of me, but I know "Nasty" and "Nanba" are thrown in there somewhere >_>) are ingenious, but its the inhumanity that makes me dislike them. But hey, it's an evil villain's machine, it's not supposed to be nice :rolleyes:
They re-used that "Lugia Dodging the Attacks" scene way too much.
I actually felt bad for Lugia, because it was mistrusting the people who wanted to help it. I understand why, though, they just started attacking it out of the blue, or at least it seemed so to Lugia.
Silver had maybe two different cries, and that was it. There was one that was rather like a crescendo, and then one that was a decrescendo(lol arpeggio). Variation plzthnx.
Heh, Totodile's reaction to being suspended in mid-air was excellent XD
Overall rating:
7.9 out of 10
Probably the low point of this arc, but not necessarily bad. Builds the important tension for the finalé(especially as CN decided to show the finalé next week on its own ¬_¬).
The 8th Champion
10. The carter
The carter Marsh Trainer
I totally agree with you ,it still annoys me ,since lugia is my favorite legendary and they really pulled one over on him with this one......
A Baby ,A female?!?!?! You gotta be F-ing kidding me? These 4 eps are simply a disgrace to pokemon and should be removed and erased ,thats all I got to say about this. I would really like to meet the damn n00b who came up with the idea to feature lugia in the anime with a damn baby!! Way the go you morron ,now everybody thinks of all the legends lugia is lowest in rank ,since thats the only one ever showcased with a baby!!!
And some legends are really 1-ffs , namely Groudon/kyogre/rayquaza,suicune,entei,raikou,Mewto, Parukia/diaruga and Ho-ho.
Pretty disapointing that my favorite gets raped like this ,it's an outrage ,I hope the dude who wrote these eps ,got is N00bish ***** Fired!! And if he isnt ,they should do that RIGHT NOW before HE/She messes up more!
11. This one was alright, I don't mind the idea of a baby Lugia, it's pretty cute actually
12. WaterDragon trainer
WaterDragon trainer Freak Like Me
This episode was good. I wonder if that attack Lugia used when it was mad was Hyper Beam. Then again, Hyper Beam is usually yellow or orange so I assume it could be Aeroblast.
13. bhrettzerda053
bhrettzerda053 I have returned.....
It's the saddest episode among the others because both the baby Lugia named Silver and Lugia got kidnapped by Nanba himself along with Butch and Cassidy. It's no surprise they recited the motto of Team Rocket(To protect the world from devastation, to unite our peoples from within our nation(Sorry if I got the lines wrong.) To denounce the evils..........)Sure, does Lugia learn Hyper Beam or Aeroblast, the attack only a Lugia can learn?
14. Battra
Battra Well-Known Member
Another great episode, not only has TR taken Silver but now they've caught the parent Lugia to use in their nefarious schemes. Nice to see that Zippo has evolved into a Charmelon and that it actually listens to Ritchie unlike Ash's Charmelon. Alos anyone else notice Brock's Crobat had it's color's reversed when it returned so it looked more like a Golbat than than a Crobat.
15. Torpoleon
Torpoleon Pokémon Sun!
This is one of the worst things Team Rocket has ever done!
16. Tadashi
Tadashi kiss my greens
D'aww, baby Lugia! What a cutie!
But I agree with Torpoleon, it is one of their worst endeavors. I'm glad they get foiled in the end ^_^
17. pokeguru
pokeguru I like to play hero!
It then gets better at the end. Much better.
18. Igottapoo
Igottapoo In my nightmares
This was a sad episode. To see Lugia like that and all.
19. (s.i.e)
(s.i.e) ★skydragon★
i have to agree with that, it looked so sad being locked in a cage.
20. Littlemyuu
Littlemyuu Orig. Solar-Sceptile
It was a nice episode, now i know there is not only 1 Lugia in that world
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Chapter 105
PSA.105:1 Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!
PSA.105:2 Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works!
PSA.105:3 Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD!
PSA.105:4 Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore!
PSA.105:5 Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth,
PSA.105:6 O seed of Abraham His servant, You children of Jacob, His chosen ones!
PSA.105:7 He is the LORD our God; His judgments are in all the earth.
PSA.105:8 He remembers His covenant forever, The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations,
PSA.105:9 The covenant which He made with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac,
PSA.105:10 And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel as an everlasting covenant,
PSA.105:11 Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance,”
PSA.105:12 When they were few in number, Indeed very few, and strangers in it.
PSA.105:13 When they went from one nation to another, From one kingdom to another people,
PSA.105:14 He permitted no one to do them wrong; Yes, He rebuked kings for their sakes,
PSA.105:16 Moreover He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread.
PSA.105:17 He sent a man before them-Joseph-who was sold as a slave.
PSA.105:18 They hurt his feet with fetters, He was laid in irons.
PSA.105:19 Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the LORD tested him.
PSA.105:20 The king sent and released him, The ruler of the people let him go free.
PSA.105:21 He made him lord of his house, And ruler of all his possessions,
PSA.105:22 To bind his princes at his pleasure, And teach his elders wisdom.
PSA.105:23 Israel also came into Egypt, And Jacob dwelt in the land of Ham.
PSA.105:24 He increased His people greatly, And made them stronger than their enemies.
PSA.105:25 He turned their heart to hate His people, To deal craftily with His servants.
PSA.105:26 He sent Moses His servant, And Aaron whom He had chosen.
PSA.105:27 They performed His signs among them, And wonders in the land of Ham.
PSA.105:28 He sent darkness, and made it dark; And they did not rebel against His word.
PSA.105:29 He turned their waters into blood, And killed their fish.
PSA.105:30 Their land abounded with frogs, Even in the chambers of their kings.
PSA.105:31 He spoke, and there came swarms of flies, And lice in all their territory.
PSA.105:32 He gave them hail for rain, And flaming fire in their land.
PSA.105:33 He struck their vines also, and their fig trees, And splintered the trees of their territory.
PSA.105:34 He spoke, and locusts came, Young locusts without number,
PSA.105:35 And ate up all the vegetation in their land, And devoured the fruit of their ground.
PSA.105:36 He also destroyed all the firstborn in their land, The first of all their strength.
PSA.105:37 He also brought them out with silver and gold, And there was none feeble among His tribes.
PSA.105:38 Egypt was glad when they departed, For the fear of them had fallen upon them.
PSA.105:39 He spread a cloud for a covering, And fire to give light in the night.
PSA.105:40 The people asked, and He brought quail, And satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
PSA.105:41 He opened the rock, and water gushed out; It ran in the dry places like a river.
PSA.105:42 For He remembered His holy promise, And Abraham His servant.
PSA.105:43 He brought out His people with joy, His chosen ones with gladness.
PSA.105:44 He gave them the lands of the Gentiles, And they inherited the labor of the nations,
PSA.105:45 That they might observe His statutes And keep His laws. Praise the LORD!
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The Twilight Zone's Effect on Sci-Fi, Anthologies, and Modern Storytelling
Without it, there'd be no Black Mirror, Man in the High Castle or Westworld; how The Twilight Zone changed everything.
"Next stop, the Twilight Zone..."
For over five decades, the moment that people heard Rod Serling's classic opening narration, everyone knew that all bets for normalcy were off. Even today, anyone who's ever watched television has heard references to the classic TV show.
Now considered to be one of the most timeless sci-fi television series of all time, The Twilight Zone once began as a simple, unassuming TV show back in 1959.
Written and directed by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone was once hailed by Newton Minow of the National Association of Broadcasters as the only weekly show that he found "dramatic and exciting" in a sea of formulaic comedies and unimaginative shows.
It was a show that proved that science fiction can be great television.
Prior to the debut of The Twilight Zone, television shows that shared a sci-fi theme were often hackneyed, hokey, and focused around a two-dimensional hero traveling through space. The genre itself was often greeted with eyerolls by executives, and was typically relegated to children.
The Twilight Zone wasn't like this in the least bit. Instead of featuring a two-dimensional beefcake's adventures in outer space, the show focused on realistic characters and situations that began much like any typical day in the 1950's. It was reality with a surreal plot twist - and that's what made it so golden.
Thanks to Serling's amazing plot lines and characters, people began to rethink science fiction. Sci-fi was no longer stories about fictional trips through the cosmos; it became a way of saying that anything was possible.
Serling's storylines also offered poignant commentaries on society, humanity, and life in general.
Though Aesop and other classic authors used the idea of adding morals to stories, this practice was one that had faded into nonexistence by the time that writers began to create scripts for the small screen.
Serling brought it back by introducing stories in which twists and turns revealed true human nature - and the consequences of cruel behavior. It's hard to deny how powerful the imagery and plots were, especially considering how little they had in terms of special effects.
For example, in "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street," neighbors turned against one another when they believed that aliens were coming. In the end, the aliens observed them and said, "They pick the most dangerous enemy that they can find... and it's themselves."
Meanwhile, in the story the "Eye Of The Beholder," Serling made people question what beauty really is worth in society's eyes, and if beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Both lessons are as timely today as they were in the 50's and 60's.
Every story had an innate ability to be cerebral enough to unleash a person's inner philosopher, yet easy enough for a child to understand. To this day, science fiction writers still view The Twilight Zone as the gold standard in television writing.
Better still, it's a show that questioned the build of anthologies.
For readers who had the Twilight Zone book anthology, they already may have noticed the impact the show had on typical anthologies. The Twilight Zone as an anthology was different from most others on the market. Unlike Nancy Drew's anthologies, The Twilight Zone didn't follow adventures of a random fictional character.
Instead of focusing on the adventures of a bunch of set-in-stone characters, The Twilight Zone as an anthology focused on a certain ambiance and writing style filled with plot twists. You didn't need to read the prior anthology story to understand what was happening - and that alone was both a novel idea and a huge breath of fresh air.
The written anthology was extremely successful, and ended up inspiring hundreds to write their own Twilight Zone style stories. Moreover, the anthology's success also convinced publishers to follow suit with similar "pick and choose" anthology collections in other fields of literature.
The Twilight Zone introduced themes that still are found in today's sci-fi shows.
Fearless as a television show, The Twilight Zone broached topics that were either never acknowledged or just never imagined. Some of these topics ended up becoming permanent fixtures in modern television - and many ended up bleeding into other genres of storytelling as well.
One of the most obvious examples of themes that The Twilight Zone introduced was the idea of the "suburban nightmare." Serling was one of the very first television writers to remind people that the seemingly stable image of beautiful suburban America always has murky, often hideous secrets that lie right beneath that idyllic veneer.
Nowadays, the trope of a suburban dystopia can be found in a small library of different movies including Pleasantville, Donnie Darko, the Stepford Wives, and of course, Disturbia.
This is far from the only allegory introduced by The Twilight Zone; a quick watch through the episodes reveal many, many more.
We've entered the Age of the Twilight Zone, and we can't go back.
The biggest impact that The Twilight Zone had was that it raised the bar for modern television, science fiction, and even modern acting. It opened our eyes to the full potential of what television can be; once we knew what sci-fi writing and TV presentation was capable of, we could never go back to the hackneyed stories of old.
In 1959, audiences were first introduced to The Twilight Zone - and it mesmerized them. With every major twist and turn, it continued to captivate us, remaining in its own dimension of television and storytelling, timeless as infinity, with possibilities as vast as our universe itself.
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Guild Wars 2: Mega Server
Hello everybody, Geek Generation here.
Initially, Anet said that the Mega Server system would be implemented only in the starter maps and would be fully rolled out in December. But it appears that most of the maps already are in Mega Server build. It truly is good news for new players since it increases the population in the player’s map by a significant amount. Maps no longer appear like dead zones which tend to happen in games that has moved on to end game content.
However, the Mega Server system poses a problem for guilds doing guild missions. Before i talk about the problems, i have to talk about the cap (the maximum amount of players allowed on a map) system in Guild Wars 2. The cap system is divided into soft cap and hard cap with the former being a lower number than the later. When soft cap is reached, only players who are party members with a player that’s already in the map can join it. When the hard cap is reached, a player can only join a map only if an existing player in the map leaves.
This soft cap allowance creates a unique work-around for large numbers of people who need to be in the same map, namely guilds doing guild missions. Guilds would have to form taxi parties to ferry guild members into the same map when the soft cap limit has managed to cut the guild in half. Which needless to say, is utterly immersion breaking.
In the guild mission that my guild was doing, the map was already hosting players from several other guilds. The first few members from the guild entering the map pushed the map population into soft cap limit causing the entire guild to be split into two instances of the map. The end result was alot of the ferrying of guild members via taxi parties.
Here i propose a possible solution to this splitting of the guild doing guild missions.
In the guild missions screen, the ui (user interface) should have a button to allow guild members to join once the guild mission is started. All members who joined would have the same priorities, as if they were all in a party, for the map-instance allocation system. This would prevent the soft cap causing guild members to end up in different instances of the same map.
In addition to that, if there were such a “join mission” system in place, the map-instance allocation system would have advance information on the amount of players, as a guild, coming in for guild missions. This would then allow the system to place the incoming guild into a a wholly new instance if the incoming guild was large enough to breach the soft cap and hit the hard cap of the existing instances.
Ok so much for now. Hope Anet takes this suggestion into consideration. Geek Generation out.
Posted on 21 April, 2014, in Gaming, Guild Wars 2, MMORPG and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.
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Today is Thursday, 21st June 2018
Posts Tagged ‘China’
Video: China – Mini Van Driver Caught Transporting 64 Children
It actually had 66 Chinese passengers total — 2 adults and 64 kids. Wow. The seats in the back were replaced with benches too to support all the people! lol. That may be staying “green” by car pooling…but that is completely against the law of course! Was he really taking them / bussing them to school? Or just escorting them to a party? Who knows!
Quirky little adapter turns your iPod touch into a full phone
Well not so much little, per se. The “Apple Peel” 520 is a case that fits around an iPod touch and plugs into the bottom, adding a microphone, SIM card slot, speaker, and various apps that apparently turn your iPod into a fully functional phone, with SMS and voicemail and whatnot. The price? $70 USD, although only available in China right now.
Incoming search terms:
• ipod touch phone attachment
• ipod touch attachment phone
Transformer Assembled from Junk
Via Engadget comes this snippet and rather breathtaking photo of a full-scale replica of Optimus Prime in his full Transformers film glory in China, apparently built completely from junk parts found in one of China’s many landfills.
Built totally from junk in Chinese landfills.
Don’t know whether this is more a testament to Chinese creativity or the sheer volume of crap in Chinese landfills. Probably the latter. Either way, it’s certainly greener than the nearest equivalent in Tokyo, Japan.
An astute blogger at CNET apparently sees the possibilities here too.
A Reason to Never Give Money to Hoboes
You don’t know who could turn out to be a Terminator:
GoDaddy Stops Registering Domains in World’s Biggest Emerging Market
Today, in a Congressional testimony, senior executives from announced they would stop registering domain names in China, effectively ceasing their entire business operations in the country. This isn’t due to just riding on Google’s happy internet freedom bandwagon either; GoDaddy was recently handed new regulations to follow by the Chinese government meant to create clearly identifiable profiles of people registering domains by the service.
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Histograms and density estimation
It is a common practice in the statistical analysis of data to group the samples into bins or categories. The goal is usually to extract some structure that is useful and often hidden from us when looking at direct plots of the sample set.
For instance, a time series plot of the change in stock price may appear erratic and contain no order, but observing the frequency of certain price-changes may help us realize that on average there is no change as well as give us an idea as to the practical bounds to how much the price will change.
The purpose of this note is to speak a little to the role of histograms in statistics and probability. While a variety of complications arise when using them for the estimation of a probability density function, they serve as a very practical (and efficient) tool in exploratory data analysis and provide a grounding for other forms of density estimation.
Histogram Construction
• For a given a sample, what bin does it belong to?
• How many samples are in a given bin?
• What is the numerical range or volume of a given bin?
From here forward, we consider data samples which can lie in some region of the real number line (e.g. integers, fractions, and roots of integers). We’ll represent a sample of numbers by the vector \mathbf{x}, say \mathbf{x}=(1.2, 3.002, 1, 1, 2).
Basic histogramThe diagram outlines some relevant quantities of a histogram. The minimum and maximum values of the sample (1 and 3.002 in the example above) help define the range that we will distribute our bins in. We represent the bin width as h. It is not required that a histogram have fixed-width bins, but this is one of the most commonly used and useful formulations.
The starting offset (0 \leq b < h) is also a useful quantity. For instance, if the first bin starts at \min(\mathbf{x}) or b=0, any number falling in the range (\min(\mathbf{x}) \leq x < h) contributes to the quantity of elements in that bin. For h=0.3, the range of the first bin in the example above is (1 \leq x < 1.3). The two 1s and 1.2 will fall in the first bin.
Suppose we shift the bins a little to the left (i.e. b=0.1). The range of the first bin is now (.9 \leq x < 1.2). The two 1s fall in the first bin while 1.2 falls in the second. So it is easy to see how both the bin width and offset affect our view of the histogram.
The total number of bins in a histogram can be represented as:
m=\left \lceil \frac{\max{(\mathbf{x})}-\min{(\mathbf{x}})}{h} \right \rceil + 1
where the \lceil x \rceil represents the next integer larger than x, and this follows analogously for \lfloor x \rfloor. We add 1 to the traditional bin count to accommodate our offset b.
Integer bins in histogram
When constructing a histogram on a computer, we desire a function \text{bin}(x) that maps a sample to an appropriate bin index k=(0,1,\ldots,m-1). Assuming that we begin the bins at 0, the bin index can be determined by dividing the sample from the bin width: \lfloor x/h \rfloor. For h=0.3, it’s easy to see that numbers less than 0.3 will fall in bin 0, while a number twice as large will fall in the second bin, and so on. Accounting for the offset, we have:
\text{bin}(x) = \left \lfloor \frac{x-\min{(\mathbf{x})}-b}{h} \right \rfloor
We also desire a function that will allow us to compute the start of the interval for a given bin index:
\text{interval}(k) = kh + \min{(\mathbf{x})}-b
The formulation above allows us to experiment with the two essential qualities of a histogram (bin width and offset) and it should be straightforward to see how this simple approach generalizes for multi-dimensional histograms of equal bin widths, except we then consider more generally the bin volume (e.g in the three-dimensional case the volume v=h^3).
In the terminology of computer science, these are constant time procedures. If the bin widths are not fixed and arbitrarily set by the user then a more complicated method is required. One can use a specialized function or binary search for finding the appropriate bin in this case [1]. Histograms can also accept a variety of types (e.g. integers, single- or double-precision floating-point numbers) as inputs and if the compiler knows about this information ahead of time, it can optimize its code even further while providing a general interface of accumulators [2].
Histograms as density estimates
We now turn to a more mathematical perspective on histograms. It is natural to treat a histogram as the estimation of a probability density function. Once armed with the density function a variety of tools from probability and information theory are at our disposal, but we must take caution that the estimates of the density function hold true to the data sample and question whether we should be estimating the densities in the first place to solve the desired problem.
To get a taste for what this is like, we will derive the maximum likelihood estimator for a mathematical step function that represents the histogram.
Step function view of a histogram
Here, the function has m parameters: \mathbf{c}=(c_0,c_1,\ldots,c_{m-1}). Provided our data sample and a given bin k, what is the optimal height, c_k^*, of the step function?
To find an estimate of the density function p_H(x; \mathbf{c}) we express the likelihood of our sample of data given the model parameters as:
\mathcal{L}(\mathbf{x}|\mathbf{c}) = \displaystyle \prod_{i=0}^{n-1}p_H(x_i; \mathbf{c}) = \displaystyle \prod_{k=0}^{m-1} c_k^{n_k}
Here, n_k represents the number of observed samples in bin k. In other words, we’d like find c_k^* that maximizes the probability that we’ll find n_k items in bin k. This optimization is subject to the density function constraint:
\displaystyle \sum_{k=0}^{m-1} c_k v_k = 1
where v_k is the volume of the given histogram region.
Constrained optimizations of this form can be solved using the method of Lagrange multipliers. In this case, we have a multidimensional function:
f(\mathbf{c}) = \log \mathcal{L}(\mathbf{x}|\mathbf{c}) = \displaystyle \sum_{k=0}^{m-1} \log c_k^{n_k} = \displaystyle \sum_{k=0}^{m-1} n_k\log c_k
subject to the constraint that:
g(\mathbf{c})= 1- \displaystyle \sum_{k=0}^{m-1} c_k v_k = 0
Note that we took the log of the likelihood function so we can deal with sums rather than products. This will come in handy when taking derivatives in a moment and is a common practice.
The gradient of a multidimensional function results in a vector field where each point–in our case represented by \mathbf{c}–has an associated vector of steepest ascent or descent on the multidimensional surface [3]. Our goal is to find where the steepest ascent of f(\mathbf{c}) is equal in magnitude and direction to that of g(\mathbf{c}). This equality is represented as:
\nabla f(\mathbf{c}) = \lambda \nabla g(\mathbf{c})
And we can express this combined optimization with:
\nabla \Lambda(\mathbf{c}, \lambda) = \nabla f(\mathbf{c}) - \lambda \nabla g(\mathbf{c}) = 0
where \Lambda(\mathbf{c}, \lambda) is called the “Lagrangian”. Computing the derivatives:
\frac{\partial \Lambda(\mathbf{c}, \lambda)}{\partial c_k} = \frac{n_k}{c_k} - \lambda v_k = 0
From this, we can see that
\frac{1}{\lambda}n_k = c_kv_k
Since \sum_{k=0}^{m-1} c_k v_k = 1 and \sum_{k=0}^{m-1} n_k = n, \lambda=n. Thus our optimal height and estimate of the density is:
c_k^*= \hat{p}_H(x) = \frac{n_k}{nv_k}, \; \text{for all } x \text{ in bin } k
While this estimator is actually quite an intuitive result, it is important to observe that this only in the special case of step functions with varying volumes predefined. What if, for example, we wanted to see what the best estimator is given a piecewise linear function or a spline between bins? Or what if we want to find out what the bin volumes v_k should be as well? This question motivates a general discussion on the estimation of the probability density function given the data sample \mathbf{x}, and these “data-driven” approaches are dubbed non-parametric [4].
Similar issues as those brought up in density estimation also arise in the estimation of mutual information [5].
[1] Given a sample, start at the center-most bin. If the sample is greater than that value, then start at the center most bin of the right half, otherwise do the same to the left. Recurse this procedure until the desired bin is found. The running time of this scales like \log_2(m). The GNU scientific library provides utilities in this spirit
[2] See the C++ Boost Accumulator library for more information on this.
[3] For a more detailed tour of why this is as well as an intuitive contour plot geometrical interpretation of this, consult an introductory applied math text. Setting f=c, we can study the function’s “surface contours”. By definition, a vector \mathbf{x} along this contour does not change the value of f, therefore \nabla \cdot \mathbf{x} = 0. Because of this, \nabla f must be normal to \mathbf{x}.
[4] Scott DW, Sain SR. “Multidimensional density estimation”. Handbook of Statistics: Data Mining and Computational Statistics 23. 297-306 (2004). Gentle JE. “Nonparametric estimation of probability density functions”. Elements of Computational Statistics. 205-231 (2002).
[5] Paninski L. “Estimation of entropy and mutual information”. Neural Computation 15. 1191-1253 (2003). Fraser AM, Swinney HL. “Independent coordinates for strange attractors from mutual information”. Physical Review A 33. 1334-1140 (1986).
1. Erik · November 17, 2008
I like the new blag.
…further depressing the poor investors. Seriously, Geet, can’t you find a statistical method that will fool us into thinking we’re making money?
2. nequitans · November 17, 2008
Ha, I should have qualified that statement with a phrase like “daily change ratio”.
3. nequitans · December 3, 2008
Update: \mathcal{L}(\mathbf{c}|\mathbf{x}) was changed to \mathcal{L}(\mathbf{x}|\mathbf{c}) . The original notation implies the “chance of the model parameters given the data” and what we’re interested in is maximizing “likelihood of our observed data given some model parameters”. We therefore always keep our data set fixed and change the parameters so that the overall probability is maximized. This notational difference may seem pedantic, but it is important from the perspective of statistical theory. The latter notation doesn’t require a “prior” probability. Unfortunately, I think some literature can be a little ambiguous on the matter. I like to think of the likelihood itself as a conditional probability, but some literature (especially those that aren’t particularly statistically-bent) will not treat the function like that and place less importance on “what’s given what”.
4. Max Blome · January 3, 2017
Hello very cool site!! Man .. Beautiful ..
I’m glad to find a lot of helpful information here within the put up,
. . . . .
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Messed up Again? Don’t Worry. God Won’t Let You Go
When you give your life to Christ, at that point, God gives you a supernatural gift of faith to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. This gift from God is by His mercy and grace. It is not a temporary gift, but a permanent gift, one that God will never revoke.
But, even as a Christian, you try so hard and still have moments, or seasons, of failure. You wonder sometimes if God will give up on you because you just can’t seem to measure up to where you think you should be. Would He ever revoke His promise?
Likewise, Peter was very prone to failure. He messed up more than any disciple, denying Jesus three times and trying to convince Jesus not to be crucified. Peter, as a disciple, was mislead and used by Satan at times.
• “Simon, Simon [Peter], Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I [Jesus] have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” Luke 22:31-34
But, through all of Peter’s failures (including denying Jesus), the Lord still loved Him and protected Him. Peter never lost his salvation. Later, the Lord used Peter in great ways to preach the Gospel throughout the land, even healing people through him.
• “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up.” Acts 9:34
Jesus loves His disciples (including you and I) so much, that He continuously intercedes and prays for us. I don’t believe that Father God would choose to not answer His Son’s prayers, so be certain that His prayers are for you, as a Christian, spoken from the very mouth of Jesus. What He says will be fulfilled, no matter how you are feeling or how many times you have fallen.
• “Therefore [Jesus] is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because He always lives to intercede for them.” Hebrews 7:25
Saving faith cannot fail…ever! If you are truly in Christ, you will stay in God’s mercy and grace, even if you continue to mess up from time to time. You will be saved until the end.
Because of our weaknesses, God knows we will fail if left on our own. So, God, Himself, has taken upon His shoulders the task of bringing us through this life. This should give you some relief and thanksgiving!
True believers persevere and keep their faith. False believers eventually fall away and never return.
• “As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—eternal life.” 1 John 2:24
Persevering by faith, though, is not unaccompanied by some failure, though our lives should not see a growing pattern of sin, but instead, a growing pattern of righteousness.
True believers care about the voice of God, seek His voice, and attempt to follow it. False believers live for themselves and follow their own voice, not caring what God thinks.
• “Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.” 1 Timothy 20:21 [Non-sheep listening to the voices of man]
Being saved doesn’t mean that we, as Christians, never fail, seriously & severely, and over and over again…. Yes, we do fail because corruption remain on this earth. But, what being saved means is that we, as Christians, will not completely fail in finality. God will not have it! He will continue to pick us up on our feet again, pulling us further along.
Sinning, grieves the Spirit of God and, if left unchecked and unrepentant, hardens our hearts towards others and towards God, yielding temporary judgments. Don’t let sin go unchecked and unrepentant. This is your job to keep examining yourself.
Thank you, God, that you will never let us go! Praise be to God!
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A Hateful Prophet’s Message Converts A Nation
Jonah was not too happy that God gave him a message to deliver to the people of Nineveh. He was so disgusted with the message, that he fled in the complete opposite direction hoping to run from God. Why? He despised the people of Nineveh in all that they did and all that they were for the city was filled with sin. Jonah wanted them to be destroyed without mercy. But, God had a different plan as we are familiar with the story of Jonah ending up in the belly of the fish for 3 days until he repented and returned to God.
We see then that God asks one more time and this time. Jonah knows he can’t get a way with running away even though he is still reluctant and not too happy about delivering the message. His judgemental, hateful thoughts about the Nineveh people had not changed, but he decided that he’d half-heartedly tell them anyway, just so God would leave him alone.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey[a] in extent. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”” Jonah 3:1-4
A miraculous thing happened even with Jonah’s weak deliverance of the message. The city immediately turned around and repented of their wickedness and were spared from God’s judgement.
How do we know that Jonah’s heart was still filled with anger towards Nineveh even while delivering the message?
We might ask why did Nineveh turn so quickly from their sins? Was it Jonah’s incredibly convincing, powerful sermon that he barely got out and even at best, half-heartedly? I highly doubt it.
I just came across this information today and found it very interesting and probably the reason that Nineveh turned so quickly. When we research the historical cuniform tablets called the Assyrian Eponym Canon we find a very interesting event that occurred just prior to Jonah’s preaching in the city. We find that Nineveh experienced one of the most famous solar eclipses in all of ancient history. This Eclipse was even given the name, “Bur-Sagale Eclipse,” and occurred over Nineveh on June 15, 763 BC during the reign of King Ashur-Dan III. This eclipse turned the land to night during the middle of the day and the people knew full well that this was an omen from the true God. Then, when Jonah came to deliver the message shortly after, or perhaps even the next day, the people realized this was the answer to their question about why they fell in complete darkness. They knew that God wanted them to repent and return to Him or He would judge them. Thank God for His sign to them and thank God that He kept on Jonah to get his job done, and thank God for His incredible mercy to forgive an entire nation of their sins if they would just repent and return to Him.
We see that God can use the lights that He has established in the sky to show us signs of things to come. The ancient people knew that, but many today are unfamiliar with how God continued to use them in His Word and still uses them today.
“Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs [appointed times] and seasons [set feasts], and for days and years;” Genesis 1:14
Jesus told the Pharisees that He would give them one sign, and this was the sign of Jonah, which to us would mean that He would be raised in 3 days from the dead as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three ways, but could it also mean that the same Eclipse that went over the land of Nineveh as a warning of darkness to them would be the same sign in the sky when Jesus took His last breath, giving them a warning to repent and return to Him?
Thank you God for your incredible mercy on us. We do not deserve for our sins to be washed away, but you’ve set your heart upon us and have given us a way to be forgiven through faith in the blood sacrifice of your Son, Jesus. We are eternally grateful for all that you have done for us. Help us to not be like Jonah, but instead be willing to do your work no matter what it is, and help us to have hearts which are like yours, full of mercy and love for everyone. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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November 30, 2006
November Recap: New Answers for Old Problems
Problem: Google Checkout is not successful.
Solution: Free processing and other incentives for holidays.
Problem: orkut doesn't do well in the US.
Solution: make it available to everyone and integrate Google Talk.
Problem: Gmail needs some Web 2.0 changes.
Solution: a new design for displaying messages.
Problem: Vista comes for Google Desktop too.
Solution: a transparent sidebar.
Problem: Windows Live Local has click-to-call.
Solution: add click-to-call to Google Maps.
Problem: it's hard to read books in Google Book Search.
Solution: new Adobe Reader-like design. Still few full-view books.
Problem: very few people use Google Answers.
Solution: delete Google Answers and come up with a better service. This time a free service.
Problem: people want charts in Google Spreadsheets.
Solution: new functions, easy-to-publish spreadsheets and an API. Also kill iRows.
Comment of the month (from Jon):
"This is sad. Yahoo Answers is pitiful. It should be renamed Yahoo Preteen Opinions, because that's the quality of "answers" one will find there. Unresearched, juvenile, illiterate, asinine, absurd, naïve, giggly, drivel is about the extent of what you will find there. Oh, but wait, at least they have disgusting, cutesy little avatars.
OK, maybe it's not all that bad, but Yahoo Answers does not even come close to the quality of the Google Answers website. The only reason it has succeeded is that there are far more people wishing to hear free, feel-good, life-affirming drivel (and see cutesy avatars), than those who will pay for well-researched answers (life-affirming or not). Just sickening."
No idea why, but people found my 10 tips for Google Image Search useful.
Google Spreadsheets Has an API
{ Found on Blogoscoped. }
Pieces of Google
If you have a screenshot of a Google product taken in a special moment, if you found something interesting at Google.com and want to share it with the world, if you have a meaningful photo related to Google, post a link in the comments.
The best photos will be a part of an album that will be available at the end of the year.
* Don't submit copyrighted photos. Your photos will be licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike license, unless you request otherwise. Please remove personal or sensitive information.
Update: 12 pieces of Google.
November 29, 2006
More Feed Actions in Google Reader
Google Reader shows more contextual actions for each feed. Now you can rename the feed's title and change the tags without going to the settings. And if you do go to the settings, Google Reader Team says everything will load faster.
If you subscribe to a feed, you'll see a text that says: "You have subscribed to [this feed]. Add to a folder." Hopefully, all your feeds will be categorized. (And hopefully, someone will decide between tags, folders and labels.)
The new features were available last week for a while, but some problems with Internet Explorer 6 caused a roll back until they were fixed.
If you have suggestions for Google Reader, check this wiki at Google Groups.
Google Display Advertising Network
John Chow has been invited to join Google Display Advertising Network, a new CPM network that uses image and video ads.
"The Google Display Advertising Network was created so Google can go after Fortune 1000 companies, which buy advertising to build a brand more than to sell a product. (...) Every display network member negotiates a flat CPM rate with Google. The contracts are one year long and publishers have to guarantee Google that they will provide a minimum amount of ad inventory each month."
There's no mention of this network on Google's sites and the only way to become a part of it is to be invited by Google.
Major Update in Google Spreadsheets
Google Spreadsheets continues to be surprising and miles ahead of the other half of the package, Google Docs. This is probably the biggest update since the product has been launched.
Now you can publish a spreadsheets in every imaginable format (HTML, PDF, XLS, ODS, CSV) or as a feed. What's great is that the file is automatically updated, so you'll be almost certain that someone gets the latest version. You can also publish all the sheets or only some of them. But the coolest thing you can do is to embed a spreadsheet into your blog or site. The spreadsheet you can see here shows the top 20 queries for this blog's search from April 1st until yesterday.
Google Spreadsheets shows you all the revisions of a spreadsheets, so it's easy to go back to an earlier version. And there are two new functions that use information from the web:
* GoogleFinance("symbol", "attribute") that returns information about a stock. GoogleFinance("GOOG", "price") returns the current price for GOOG.
* GoogleLookup("entity", "attribute") that returns answers to simple questions like: population of Italy, Jay Leno's date of birth, that usually appear at the top of search results in Google.com. GoogleLookup("Italy", "population") will return the population of Italy.
Don't forget to place an equal in front of the function name.
The Failure of Google Answers
Google Answers, the service where you could ask questions in exchange of a sum of money, is now officially dead. "We considered many factors in reaching this difficult decision, and ultimately decided that the Answers community's limited size and other product considerations made it more effective for us to focus our efforts on other ways to help our users find information."
The problem? While Google Answers is almost invisible, Yahoo Answers is a big success, produces results for many search results page and has a big community. The big difference between the two services is that Yahoo Answers doesn't involve money: no one pays or gets paid. But, as I showed in Asking the Internet, "while Google's researchers give more detailed answers, Yahoo uses the advantage of having a strong community" and sorts the good answers.
So what happened to Google Answers? Let's see what Google Answers experts have to say:
"The quality of GA has become diluted with spam questions that are conceivably attempts from credit card thieves to verify the validity of stolen credit card numbers, webmasters realizing that a mention of their website in a GA question may boost their ranking in the search results (although this may have been resolved), and the disappearance of researchers."
"It would be nice to think that G-A has itself reduced the demand for search assistance by demonstrating how to search and how to use search features that are not immediately obvious to the layman/woman). But it could be that people have just become more savvy to the system by themselves."
"I think a big problem is that there is no obvious link to GA anymore from Google's homepage."
"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they're not accepting new researchers? I answered two questions (correctly, I might add -- one $5 and one $20) before I realized that I had to be a "researcher" in order to submit an actual answer (as opposed to a comment) and get paid for it."
The problem seem to be that people don't want to pay some experts to get detailed answers, they just want simple answers from the man on the street. People don't have time to read books, newspapers with a lot of pages and long articles, but they're eager to watch reality shows. Listening people as clueless as you gives you a comforting feeling.
November 28, 2006
Offline Google
Felice M., from Italy, sent me this:
Opera Mini 3.0 Launched
The new version of the best free mobile browser is out. Opera Mini 3.0 includes a feed reader, makes it easier to share photos, has support for secure connections (SSL) and it's optimized for AJAX web pages. In addition to being slick, fast and easy to use.
You can test it using this Java emulator on your computer or just point your mobile phone to operamini.com to download it.
Opera Mini does a much better job than Google's transcoding and tries to keep the browsing experience intact, so you'll see a single page instead of multiple smaller pages, most of the time.
Mobile YouTube
New York Times reports that a select number of YouTube videos will be available next month to Verizon Wireless subscribers. Despite the fact that the service won't be free, YouTube expects to be successful. Modern people don't have patience anymore and don't know how to enjoy the rare quiet moments, so they'll go to YouTube on their mobile phone to view some funny videos.
"Verizon Wireless and YouTube said the service would be available early next month. The companies would not discuss the financial terms of their deal but said Verizon would have the exclusive rights to distribute YouTube videos on mobile phones for a limited period of time."
If the experiment is successful, expect more carriers to make deals for mobile YouTube videos.
Almost a mobile Google Video
Google Video remote control
Historical Trends in Google Finance
Google Finance shows historical data in the charts, so now it's easier to see the evolution of a stock. The earliest year available in Google Finance is 1970 (until this update it was 2001), while Yahoo Finance shows data from 1962.
Yahoo Mail Maps Addresses
Yahoo Mail has become a little smarter. If you receive an email that includes addresses, Yahoo Mail recognizes them and underlines them, so you can easily view on a map, get directions or add to the address book. Yahoo Mail also underlines email addresses and phone numbers.
Yahoo has a very broad definition for addresses because even country names are underlined. But instead of the "add to Address Book" option, you'll see search results. If you don't like the new features, you can go to Mail Options and turn them off.
Gmail had this feature for a long time, but the integration is more subtle.
Refine search results in Yahoo Mail
The new Yahoo Mail, slowly released
November 27, 2006
The $100 Laptop (Video)
One Laptop per Child is a non-profit organization that develops a $100 laptop, so that every child can have access to education and technology.
The actual specifications aren't very different from what Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop per Child, envisioned. "The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3x the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data."
The first machines have already been built, as you can see from these pictures. And here's a small demo that shows the user interface. Note that the operating system is emulated using VMware.
Daylight Map
Google Checkout for Holiday Shopping
The new Google Checkout site created for holidays is now live and includes a small selection of colorful, popular gifts. Google says thousands of merchants accept Google Checkout and, using this payment system, you'll eliminate 15 steps, on average. Another incentive is that you'll get $10 off purchases of $30, or $20 off purchases of $50 and more. You can also go to that site to make donations to charities: for the first donation of $30 or more, Google adds $10.
These days, Google Checkout is almost everywhere. Let's recap a list of places where you might see Checkout's shopping cart:
* searching for products, you'll see a Froogle OneBox and a link to products that can be bought using Checkout.
* you may see Google ads that have a small shopping cart.
* stores that accept Checkout and search results that can be bought from these stores are clearly marked at Froogle.
* many stores show a "Google Checkout" option.
Update: John Battelle had a bad experience with Google Checkout and took a closer look at the privacy policy.
Google's Ranking Algorithm
Many people have tried to find how Google ranks web pages. While the algorithm is still secret and in continuous change, we know it uses more than 200 signals, one of the most important being PageRank.
As Google explains... "the heart of our software is PageRank, a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of our web search tools."
Compiling the opinions of webmasters, search engine optimizers and Google's explanation, Google Ranking Factors - SEO Checklist is a long list of positive and negative factors that may influence a page's ranking. While the list contains a lot of interesting observations and suggestions, you should take everything with a grain of salt.
The Full Google Master Plan 1.0
Google's Master Plan, from the lobby whiteboard, has been erased two months ago. Chris diBona says: "It was getting kind of crufty." The mix of serious plans with geek humor shows a lot about Google's culture. From hiring hardware engineer to redesigning TCP/IP and HTTP, from the space elevator to buying AOL, from Google OS to Noosphere, and finally to saving the world.
You can see the now-erased Master Plan in a series of photos taken by Chris diBona and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license if you go to this album (you should click on magnify button to see each photo clearly). Or you could check the plan in one single high-resolution image from Undergoogle.com.
{ Rediscovered by Googlified. }
November 26, 2006
Powerful Search Features in Netvibes
Here's an interesting new feature from Netvibes, probably the best personalized homepage. Now you can perform a search in all your feeds simultaneously. You can filter only recent content from your feeds, and also from other modules like Gmail or ToDo list. While searching your feeds is not something innovative, this feature is powerful because you can see each feed separately.
But the fun starts when you add search modules for web search, image search etc. If you click on Search, you'll get results from all the search engines and for all the search flavors simultaneously. To see the snippets, you have to hover over each search result, but that's the price you have to pay in order to see all this information in one place.
I know what Google would say: "but we have Google Ajax Search API", and it's very nice, but Netvibes' solution is simpler and works for almost any module.
What's the Best Embedded Video Player?
Lyrics Plugin
Good things are simple and come in small packages. If you wanted a plugin for your music player that finds and displays lyrics for your songs, Lyrics Plugin is a good answer. It's free, small (around 60 KB) and available for Winamp and Windows Media Player. You don't have to configure anything, the plugin works well out of the box.
The drawback of this plugin is that the lyrics database is not very big, so you may still find famous songs that don't have lyrics. But it's easy to add them.
November 25, 2006
Annotate Gmail Messages
Sometimes people forget to write descriptive subjects when they send mail. Sometimes they just drop some files there and send a message with a blank body. And if the attached files have names like 1.doc, your chances to find that mail later are almost null. Unfortunately, Gmail doesn't have an annotation feature that would let you insert some comments in a mail you've just received. To make sure you'll find that messages, you could send a reply to yourself that contains a small description of the attachments.
It's a small compensation until Gmail has an option to search the contents of attachments.
Google Video - Legal Problems in Europe
November 24, 2006
The Venice Project - the Future of TV?
Preview Gmail Conversations
Mihai Parparita from Google created a brilliant Greasemonkey script last year. The script lets you right-click on a Gmail conversation and get a preview in a bubble. This way, you can read your mails faster, especially if you only want to read some of them.
The new Yahoo Mail and Windows Live Mail have a reading pane where you can preview your messages, but that takes a lot of space. This solution has the advantage that it's available on demand.
I know this is far from being new, but I've always wanted this feature in Gmail.
Greasemonkey details:
You need to have Greasemonkey in Firefox or Trixie in IE
Then install the script
The Inefficiency of Feed Readers
Closed universe
Lack of order
Sense of guilt
No related universes
November 23, 2006
Gaia - Open Source Google Earth
Gaia is "an attempt to reverse engineer Google Earth and implement its functionality in open, portable, customizable and [extensible] way".
Although the project is far from being completed, Gaia supports Keyhole authentication, 3D earth view, navigation, layers, NMEA GPS.
It will be interesting to watch this project and the added functionality. Google Earth is a proprietary application that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, but lacks a real API. An open source alternative to Google Earth is NASA World Wind, which, ironically, is a Windows-only application.
{ Thank you, Artur Klauser. }
Google Video Recommendations
Remember the gadget called "Interesting Items for You", that shows recommended web searches, pages and gadgets? Now you can also get video recommendations. And if you click on the thumbnail, a small video player will appear.
It would be nice to see recommendations in Google Video. People are always happy to see there's something just for them on a site.
The gadget for Google Personalized Homepage is available here.
PortableApps Suite
PortableApps Suite is a sort of Google Pack with portable versions for important software. You can get Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Gaim, ClamWin Anti-virus and more in a single download and then copy these applications to your USB Flash drive. There's even a replacement for Start menu that lets you launch the applications.
Google Blog Search OneBox
Andy Boyd spotted a new Google OneBox, for blog search, at the bottom of the search result page. The integration seems to be just an experiment and it's visible only to a small number of users.
Google has recently added links to Blog Search in Google News.
OneBox results
Why Use Google Book Search?
Google Book Search is a service that lets you search more than 500 million pages of scanned books and the number grows every day. But why would you need that when you could go to a library? Well, sometimes it's hard to discover books only from the title and description and once you discovered them it's hard to actually find them in libraries and book stores.
1. You have a quote from a book, but you don't know where it's from.
2. You have a quote from a book, and you want to find the context. Maybe you want to read the poem that contains the famous "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind".
3. Maybe you have a book and you want to read again a certain fragment. But it's hard to find it, even though you remember some keywords.
4. Search your bookshelves. You can't restrict the search to your books, but if you enter something unique (name of a character), you'll discover the book.
5. Search within books published in a certain year, to see different perspectives on a subject.
6. Find references from other books to a certain book.
7. Search for an affirmation or the prefix of an affirmation ("Paris is the only city...").
8. Find contexts for rare or difficult words (ineluctable).
9. Read out-of-copyright books online or download them as PDF files.
10. Detect plagiarism, as this article shows.
Google's Digital Library of Alexandria
Download public domain books
November 22, 2006
Google Data API Supports JSON
Google Data API has support for JSON. For the moment, the JSON output can be used in Blogger Beta, Calendar, and Google Base. As you probably know, JSON is an easy way to obtain data, parse it and use it in your web application. And because JSON uses JavaScript, the output can be used directly in the code.
Examples and details for the implementation can be found in Google Data APIs Developer's Guide.
Unofficial JSON API for Google Search
The Network Will Truly Be the Computer
Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, wrote some interesting things in The Economist, and most of his beliefs are reflected in Google's plans.
The internet is much more than a technology—it's a completely different way of organizing our lives. But its success is built on technological superiority: protocols and open standards that are ingenious in their simplicity. Time after time they have trounced rival telecommunications standards that made perfect commercial sense to companies but no practical sense to consumers. (...)
In 2007 we'll witness the increasing dominance of open internet standards. As web access via mobile phones grows, these standards will sweep aside the proprietary protocols promoted by individual companies striving for technical monopoly. Today's desktop software will be overtaken by internet-based services that enable users to choose the document formats, search tools and editing capability that best suit their needs. (...)
Today we live in the clouds. We're moving into the era of "cloud" computing, with information and applications hosted in the diffuse atmosphere of cyberspace rather than on specific processors and silicon racks. The network will truly be the computer. (...)
Although Google doesn't want to admit they want to beat Microsoft, they bet on Internet's power to beat the desktop monopoly.
Google Puts Ads on the Map
There are new ads on Google Maps. Until now you could see sponsored links similar to the ones from web search, that sent you to a web page. But this new breed of ads is visible on the map and also has a distinctive icon. When clicked on the ad from the left sidebar, Google shows you information about the business and locates it on the map.
While they have different icons and there's a clear label for "sponsored links", organic search results and paid results are treated the same.
November 21, 2006
The New Google Book Search
Google Book Search has a completely new interface that uses AJAX. Unlike before, you can read a book without clicking on the "next page" button. You can just use the scrollbar or the arrow keys, like in Adobe Reader. There are new options: zoom in, zoom out that increase / decrease the size of the text in a book, and there's even a full screen mode.
The table of contents is displayed in the right sidebar, so it's easy to go to another section. Searching inside a book is much faster, as the results are displayed without reloading the page.
Google offers for each book a dedicated page (like this one) where you can find the description, related books, references from books and scholarity works and some key terms that may help you discover other interesting books.
Now you can actually read books in Google Book Search (of course, if copyright laws allow you).
GOOG, More Than $500
CNN Money reports that for the first time, Google stock jumped above $500. "Google is up more than 20 percent this year, far outperforming fellow Internet giants Yahoo!, eBay and Amazon.com, whose shares have all slumped in 2006. Google went public in one of the most widely awaited IPOs in recent memory in August 2004 at $85 a share."
Google shares closed at $509.65.
Private Picasa Web Albums? Almost
I don't see why the concept of private album should be debatable. An album is private if it can be accessed by the author and a list of persons invited by the author.
Google decided to replace the concept of private album with unlisted album. Basically anyone can access that album if he knows its title and the Gmail address of the author or the URL of a public album. Google even suggested to choose strange names for the unlisted albums, so they're difficult to guess.
Now Google adds a parameter to the URL of an unlisted albums, like:
http://picasaweb.google.com/[gmail address]/AlbumName?authkey=blabla, and denies you access if you don't specify that authentication key. But there's still a problem: anyone who enters the complete address can see the album, the address can be indexed by search engines if someone links to it. So much for a private album.
More context:
Picasa Web Albums launch
No private albums
Authkey parameter makes its appearance
Faster, More Convenient Holidays With Google Checkout
I don't know why, but every news about Google Checkout has something ridiculous and earthly. But the latest news is just too much: "According to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Google Checkout, 40% of employed U.S. adults say they'll be doing at least some of their online holiday shopping from work this year, with 1 in 4 of those shoppers logging on to track down that perfect gift on Monday, November 27 (57% plan to shop during coffee and lunch breaks, while 34% will wait until the end of the workday)." So 10% of employed U.S. adults will try to find the perfect gift on Monday, November 27. And Google decided to launch a version of Checkout for holidays on Monday to capitalize on this. Buyers will get $10 off purchases of $30, or $20 off purchases of $50, while sellers get free processing. And everyone will be happy. Google executives thought this holidays are the last chance for Google Checkout and they'll do everything to make their product successful. "Trying to squeeze online holiday shopping into already busy schedules, shoppers will be looking for even more speed and convenience this year. And while there are many online shopping options to make finding the right gift relatively easy, online shoppers still have to deal with hassles, such as entering billing, shipping, and contact information multiple times as they move from site to site. Google Checkout eliminates an average of 15 steps from the online checkout process, in many cases making checking out as simple as entering a single login. This can save a lot of time for online shoppers, who will visit an average of 5.5 websites for holiday gifts this season, according to the survey." Squeeze, shoppers, hassle. More speed, convenience. Happy holidays!
November 20, 2006
New in Page Creator: Photo Editing and Mobile Sites
When you add a photo to Google Page Creator, you'll see new options. You can now crop a photo, rotate it, change the brightness, mix it with another photo, change the contrast, reduce the colors or sharpen the photo. Basically you can apply simple effects from your browser. In the screenshot below, I've used the mash-up effect.
Now every page created in Google Page Creator can be easily accessed from a mobile phone, as Google redirects it to the transcoded version, the same way it does with the search results. Of course if you manage to enter the long URL correctly.
Also interesting:
Hide a site in Google Page Creator
Page Creator supports JavaScript
Extra Storage for Picasa Web Albums
Chris L. found an option to get more storage in Picasa Web Albums.
* Up to 250GB of storage space in your Picasa Web Albums account.
* 12 months of hassle-free uploading and sharing
No complicated monthly bandwidth limits to keep track of.
Each year, we'll automatically renew your account. But don't worry, we'll always contact you with the option of cancelling before charging your credit card.
You can always use your free Picasa Web Albums account without upgrading.
Choose the amount of storage you want:
6.25GB ($25 per year)
25GB ($100 per year)
100GB ($300 per year)
250GB ($500 per year)
These options seem to be available only for the US users. On the other hand, Yahoo Photos, that has been recently updated, has free unlimited storage and more features than Picasa Web Albums (like tags, ratings, search, photo editing, private albums).
XSS Vulnerability in Google Search Appliance
Maluc found a cross-site scripting vulnerability in Google Search Appliance, a box that indexes documents from intranet and web sites. If you set the output encoding to UTF-7, the appliance doesn't validate the query and you can pass JavaScript.
Here's one example for Stanford's site that uses Google Search Appliance: stanford.edu.
November 19, 2006
Secret Google JSON API
Google already offers feeds for Google News, Blog Search, Google Video, so you can use the search results in your applications or sites. There's also a Google API for web search that uses SOAP, but it's limited to 1000 queries per day.
For the first time, Google offers a new kind of API, unified for web search, image search, blog search and video search. The API uses JSON, so creating applications in JavaScript is easy. You must know that this API is unofficial, so the details can change.
Google JSON API is the foundation of SearchMash, an experimental site created by Google.
So how do you get the search results using this API? You just load this page:
http://www.searchmash.com/results/[query]. You just have to replace [query] with the actual query. If you use this format: http://www.searchmash.com/results/[query]?i=11&n=10, you request 10 search results, starting with the result number 11. The formats for image search, blog search and video search are:
The JSON object you get from Google has a list of members that are very easy to understand, like: estimatedCount (the number of search results) or results, which is an array that describes the search results. To make cross-domain requests, you may need to create a web proxy, like shown here.
Hide a Site in Google Page Creator
Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously
From Wikipedia:
November 18, 2006
Smarter Search Results in Google Video
Google Video shows a new link next to search results: "Start playing at search term", that sends you to the first occurrence of your query in the video. This works only for videos that have closed captions and it's useful if a video is long. Soon you'll be able to search inside a video.
For the moment, there aren't too many captioned videos, but you can try the new feature for Google TechTalks videos.
Universal Extractor
Universal Extractor is an application that lets you extract files from all kinds of archives and installers. You can use it to extract resources from Windows Installer files, Inno Setup and NSIS executables, InstallShield packages, MHTML files, Microsoft Compiled Help files, any archive type that can be extracted with WinRAR (rar, zip, ace, cab, 7zip, etc), CD-ROM images, Linux packages and more.
I find this useful because it provides a consistent way to see files that contain other files. You may need to extract the files from an installer to create a portable version of an application (like this portable IE7), to read the help file before installing it or to get a file. Instead of using the command-line and different small utilities, you can try Universal Extractor, an open-source Windows application.
Talkonaut, Google Talk for Mobile Phones
Expanding GTalk2VoIP, a service that lets you transform Google Talk into a true VoIP client, Talkonaut is a Java client that can be installed on your mobile phone and gives you access to Google Talk.
As expected, you can use this service only for text messages. If you want to make voice calls, you can't do that for free. "Talkonaut utilizes callback technique to make voice calls. This means, when it is necessary, our system (GTalk2VoIP gateway) calls back to your mobile phone, then calls to your recipient, after that it merges two voice calls in one."
Talkonaut works with any Jabber account and looks better than MGTalk, another mobile client for Google Talk, which is open source.
Google China Shows Related Searches
In an interesting twist, Google China shows related searches at the bottom of each search results page. You can see the suggested searches for "censor" (someone who censures or condemns).
As you might know, Google agreed to censor the search results from Google.cn.
November 17, 2006
SearchMash Remixes Search Results
Remixing the search results might be the answer for a better search engine. SearchMash, Google's playground, has been updated and now includes results from blog search and video search, which are displayed on-demand in the right sidebar. Now when you choose to see the results from a certain type of search, you can still view the top results from the other search types.
While Google's experiments are interesting, I think a better idea would be to integrate other search flavors into the main index and enable them if the query is appropriate.
Previously in SearchMash:
SearchMash is found (10/02)
Sections make an appearance (11/05)
Yahoo Maps Is Out of Beta
The Flash version of Yahoo Maps replaced the old-school version at maps.yahoo.com and got out of beta. Unlike Google Maps, the new Yahoo Maps lets you have "multi-point routing", so you can define a path using more than just two points and get directions.
Yahoo Maps added street-level coverage for Europe for most capitals and other cities, but the coverage is inferior to Google Maps. Yahoo continues to have a distinct local search engine, so you can't search for businesses on Yahoo Maps. But you can find unrelated animated ads, though.
Mobile Versions for the Major Search Engines
I rarely do a search on my mobile phone, but when it happens, I want simple information. All the major search engines have a mobile version, so I decided to compare them.
Google ( google.com on your phone, google.com/xhtml on your computer)
Google offers links to Gmail, Personalized Homepage and Google News and has mobile versions for web search, image search, local search, mobile and news search. Unlike the standard Google search, the mobile optimized version shows smaller snippets, adds numbers in front of the search results so you can use it as shortcuts, and renders the pages using a transcoder.
Windows Live ( mobile.live.com/Portal )
Microsoft shows you information about weather, stock quotes and news. Instead of showing more types of searches, Windows Live has an universal search that groups web search, local search, news search and Space search (Microsoft decided to search only the blogs created on its platform). The result page shows you at most 2 results from each type of search, even if a search for "flowers" shouldn't trigger news results.
Yahoo ( wap.oa.yahoo.com )
Yahoo lists a lot of links on its homepage, including a link to Yahoo Search. Here you can find local search, image search and web search (in this order). Yahoo shows fewer search results and combines searching web pages with mobile web pages. When you click on a search result you get a warning that says "External web pages may not work with your phone" and this is quite true.
Ask.com ( m.ask.com )
Ask shows links to its services, including its various search types. While featuring fewer search results than Google, Ask shows options that can help you expand or narrow your query and more OneBox results at the top of the page. Ask also shows numbers next to the search results and has shortcuts. Ask is also the only search engine (from the four analyzed here) that includes a mobile version for blog search.
Google and Ask.com have the most easy to use mobile versions for their search engines. Google has the best search results, but Ask has many smart answers that can help you a lot.
November 16, 2006
Commercial Software Available for Free 24 Hours
So what do you think? Will this site succeed?
HandyFind - Search as You Type
Free utility for Windows 2000, XP - 585 KB.
I've never liked Window's standard find dialog. You know that modal dialog that forces you to enter your query and press enter, while preventing you from using the application. Microsoft loved their tiny find dialog so much that you can see it even in the latest version of Internet Explorer.
HandyFind is a free tool that lets you find as you type in almost every Windows application. And that includes Internet Explorer, Notepad, Word, or help files. The default shortcut that triggers a search is Ctrl-Space, but you can change that.
What's really cool is that you can use it to search in applications that don't have a find feature, but contain text boxes.
Yahoo and Microsoft Support Google Sitemaps
Whenever you write a blog post, there's a big chance your blogging platform automatically pings a dedicated server. This way, a blog search engine (like Technorati or Google Blog Search) can discover new stuff to index.
If you create a standard web page, and upload it to a server, no search engine will find out unless there's a link to that page somewhere or you manually submit it. Sitemaps protocol, developed by Google, and supported by three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN, wants to overcome this problem.
"A Sitemap is an XML file that can be made available on a website and acts as a marker for search engines to crawl certain pages. It is an easy way for webmasters to make their sites more search engine friendly. It does this by conveniently allowing webmasters to list all of their URLs along with optional metadata, such as the last time the page changed, to improve how search engines crawl and index their websites.
Sitemaps enhance the current model of Web crawling by allowing webmasters to list all their Web pages to improve comprehensiveness, notify search engines of changes or new pages to help freshness, and identify unchanged pages to prevent unnecessary crawling and save bandwidth."
There are many tools that can help you generate a sitemap for your site, including a Python script created by Google.
The fact that Yahoo and Microsoft support this protocol is a big step towards a wider acceptance.
Here are the announcements from: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
Google Universal Search
November 15, 2006
Gmail to Fax
TPC Fax is a free service that lets you send text faxes by email. It doesn't have a huge international coverage, but it works for most big cities.
To send a fax, you need to drop a mail to:
remote-printer.recipient_name@fax_number.iddd.tpc.int. For details about the syntax, go to this page
Adrian Hristov, who sent me this tip, has an interesting idea: what if you forward all your mails from Gmail to a fax number using this service? You could also use a filter to forward only some of the mails.
Click-to-Call in Google Maps
Justin Uberti reports from Google's Kirkland office that Google Maps will soon include a new feature: click-to-call. If a business has a phone number, you'll be able to call it for free through Google. You just have to enter your phone number, Google calls the company and you'll get a phone call from that company (without giving your precious phone number to that company). The feature is already available in Windows Live Local.
Update: the feature is live.
Search Public Events with Google Calendar
Google Calendar has a new feature that lets you search public events. You can restrict your search to a location or a period. If you click on an event, you'll see details, the address and a map that shows you how you can find that address. It's easy to copy an event to your calendar.
Even if you have a private calendar, you can mark certain events as public, from the privacy section of Options, so your events can be included in the search results.
Google's implementation is nice, but not better than the community-driven Upcoming, where you can easily find interesting events in your area.
November 14, 2006
Google Hires iRows' Founders
{ Via TechCrunch and Philipp Lenssen. }
Google Desktop 4.5 Has Transparent Sidebar
Google Desktop has a new version that includes support for Microsoft Office 2007 formats, Windows Vista and Firefox 2.0.
But the most visible change is the new sidebar, that looks much better. You'll find transparent areas, new icons, easier to use options. All in all, the sidebar will look closer to the desktop and the gadgets will have a distinct touch.
"The new Sidebar is transparent, so it fits seamlessly with your desktop environment. Gadgets that fought for attention now look right at home, and content-heavy gadgets get new frames and icons that make it easier to tell them apart. All of this leads to a better place to find your email, news, feeds, stock prices, weather and other essential information," concludes Google Desktop blog.
Another change is that Google Desktop sends you to the cached version if you click on a search result that has been deleted or moved, so you no longer get an error message. The site: operator can now be used in Google Desktop, to search the web history.
It will be interesting to see how many Vista users decide to install Google Desktop. As you know, Microsoft Vista includes a sidebar and has a built-in desktop search. So maybe we can expect more from Google Desktop 5.0.
Google Desktop started as a desktop search tool available from your browser, and became a central point for user's information flow.
One Checkbox, More Settings - a New Google Practice?
It's so nice to be helpful and provide options for your customers, don't you think? What if next time you install an update for your favorite music player you see this:
Your favorite music player has new features that will help you organize your music collection. Using Enhanced Media Library, you can automatically get metadata for your audio files, get recommendations and auto-playlists tailored to your music tastes. MusicRank is a new feature that shows you the popularity for each song you play.
* Enhanced Media Library and Hi-Fi Sound send usage data to our servers.
[.] Enable Enhanced Media Library and MusicRank.
[.] Disable Enhanced Media Library and MusicRank.
It's nice that I am offered a choice, but why mixing something useful (Enhanced Media Library) with something less useful and potentially confusing (MusicRank)? Google does this in Google Toolbar for Firefox with PageRank and Enhanced Safe Browsing. They use two radio buttons instead of two checkboxes for each feature.
They also do that in Google Toolbar for IE, where there's a single checkbox for two options: "Set Google as default search and notify me of changes".
In the same IE toolbar there's a single option for "PageRank and page information", where page information include the cached version of the page and links to the current page. Why mixing a feature that sends data to Google (that is PageRank) with other harmless features?
Google Desktop also has an option for "advanced features". But what are these options? "Information about web pages you visit may be sent to Google to personalize features such as the news shown in Sidebar. Other non-personal usage data and crash reports may be sent to Google to improve Desktop." But Google mixes a lot of things in this broad definition. It would be nice to have separate options for news personalization, crash reports etc.
How Google Video Search Works
Hunter Walk, product manager at Google Video, talked to Beet.tv about advertising and search in Google Video. Google looks at the metadata provided by the video's author, the data provided by the community (labels, comments) and tries to analyze the video in order to understand it. When talking about content analysis, he gives as an example speech-to-text, and that might mean Google will incorporate that explicitly in the future.
November 13, 2006
Google Earth Promotes Geography Awareness Week
As part of this year's Geography Awareness Week, an event that promotes the importance of geography in the U.S. and Canada, Google Earth includes more interesting layers:
* Rumsey Historical Maps: 16 maps that show different regions of the world between 1680 and 1892. If you want to see more maps from David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, you can visit this site.
* Tracks 4 Africa: roads, points of interests and beautiful pictures from Africa. You can use it to learn more about this continent.
* Spotlight on Africa: flags and information from CIA World Factbook for each African country.
* National Geographic Quiz on Africa: test your Africa IQ, by answering 10 multiple-choice questions. If you can't find this layer in Google Earth, you can add it from here.
* European Space Agency: interesting images of the Earth seen from space.
All these layers and many others can be found in the Layers sidebar, Featured Content section.
Naked Google SERP
A naked Google search result page shows only the URL for each result. You won't see titles, snippets or links to the cache version. You may think there are entries in the robots.txt files that prevent Google to index these pages, but that's not the case.
Click on the screenshot to see the top 10 search results. Note that there's a good chance you can't reproduce it.
Google Apps Has a Start Page
As reported in September, Google Apps for Your Domain now includes a personalized homepage, "a central place for your users to preview their inboxes and calendars, access your essential content, and search the web". The page is similar to what you see in Google's IG, except that administrators have more control over the page. They can lock down the left column, provide a list of recommended gadgets and change the logos, colors, and fonts.
For more information about the personalized start page, visit the help center.
Google Apps for Your Domain
Homepage 2.0
Sun Open Sources Java
Sun decided to release the code for Java under the version 2 of the General Public License. Programmers can choose a different license for their applications.
"In the case of Java SE (Java Standard Edition), we're enhancing (the GPL) with the classpath exception. So when you're working on top or shipping applications with the (Java) libraries and virtual machine, you're not affected by the Java license," said Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president of software.
The reason why Java hasn't been open sourced until now was the code forking and compatibility problems that could result from that.
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Without doxxing details of how I started down the nostalgia path today, I went down the rabbit hole of old country music loved by my grandfather and parents - Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, Johnnie Horton, Tom T. Hall - that generation of music.
The link is to a song that still makes me smile. My brother and I would always add random stuff to the list and laugh our heads off.
I Love
What songs from your childhood, loved by your parents/grandparents more so than you, still bring good memories?
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Global localization of 3D anatomical structures by pre-filtered Hough forests and discrete optimization.
Abstract : The accurate localization of anatomical landmarks is a challenging task, often solved by domain specific approaches. We propose a method for the automatic localization of landmarks in complex, repetitive anatomical structures. The key idea is to combine three steps: (1) a classifier for pre-filtering anatomical landmark positions that (2) are refined through a Hough regression model, together with (3) a parts-based model of the global landmark topology to select the final landmark positions. During training landmarks are annotated in a set of example volumes. A classifier learns local landmark appearance, and Hough regressors are trained to aggregate neighborhood information to a precise landmark coordinate position. A non-parametric geometric model encodes the spatial relationships between the landmarks and derives a topology which connects mutually predictive landmarks. During the global search we classify all voxels in the query volume, and perform regression-based agglomeration of landmark probabilities to highly accurate and specific candidate points at potential landmark locations. We encode the candidates' weights together with the conformity of the connecting edges to the learnt geometric model in a Markov Random Field (MRF). By solving the corresponding discrete optimization problem, the most probable location for each model landmark is found in the query volume. We show that this approach is able to consistently localize the model landmarks despite the complex and repetitive character of the anatomical structures on three challenging data sets (hand radiographs, hand CTs, and whole body CTs), with a median localization error of 0.80 mm, 1.19 mm and 2.71 mm, respectively.
Type de document :
Article dans une revue
Liste complète des métadonnées
Contributeur : Bjoern Menze <>
Soumis le : lundi 2 décembre 2013 - 14:26:25
Dernière modification le : lundi 2 décembre 2013 - 14:26:25
Lien texte intégral
René Donner, Bjoern H Menze, Horst Bischof, Georg Langs. Global localization of 3D anatomical structures by pre-filtered Hough forests and discrete optimization.. Med Image Anal, Elsevier, 2013, 17 (8), pp.1304-14. 〈〉. 〈10.1016/〉. 〈hal-00912645〉
Consultations de la notice
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About me
halley2In 2015, I received my Ph.D. from the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington. As a previous postdoc for Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) studying offshore aquaculture, the work motivated Ben Halpern and me to continue the science by co-founding the Conservation Aquaculture Research Team (CART) at the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis (NCEAS). CART uses interdisciplinary synthesis science to explore the interactions and conservation implications of marine aquaculture, climate change, and larger food systems, in collaboration with our global partners (e.g., TNC, NOAA, UW). Through CART I intend to continue pursuing my ultimate goal of becoming a marine fisheries and aquaculture ecology professor.
University of Washington, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences
Doctor of Philosophy, Marine Ecology & Fishery Sciences, 2015
University of California, Davis, Agricultural & Environmental Sciences
Bachelor of Science, Animal Biology, 2009
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What we CHOOSE to believe
Superman can fly high, way up in the sky
‘Cause we believe he can
So what we choose to believe can always work out fine
It’s all in the mind
shits stinks because there is not a God
It’s frustrating. It’s like witnessing 2 people talking, but with a language barrier, which one person attempts to overcome by raising their voice. That is what it is like when people tell me that they feel badly that I do not have a relationship with God, such as they. It’s like we are not speaking the same language. Apparently, there has been discovered a protein that exists in chicken’s ovaries necessary for the production of eggs, therefore not present in the egg in that it precedes, thereby proving that the chicken came before the egg. That should put the argument to rest. For me, it was the fact that the egg would have needed to gestate and incubate, it would have needed something to care for it at birth, to protect from predators, to transport it, just like every animal and insect does.
The problem with this God figure, is that God is who people need him to be, and in the worst way. God can be described as jealous and vengeful, notwithstanding the punishment set forth from the onset- suddenly, there was a sense of shame to gaze upon the naked body, and women would have painful menses, labor and delivery, and then the subsequent unleashing of wraths — floods, firestorms, mass deaths of male offspring, plagues and such…and despite that once one gets older and realizes, not only did it not make sense back then, but now there is more knowledge available to society at large; the individual has enough basic education and knowledge to know that Woman is not born of Adam’s rib, Man was not created in the image of a floating spirit, beyond the clouds there is outer space as opposed to heaven…
I stress and emphasize common sense, & will give the following example: shit stinks, because God does not exist. I hate roaches. I used to have nightmares about giant roaches. I hate maggots and meal worms. Even typing it made me envision it, made me almost gag. I hate vomit. I’m actually emetophobic. I used to say that when I die, I am going to ask God why He created these disgusting things. A person of faith will feed you the crap that we are all God’s creatures and beautiful in our own ways, but science will tell you that evolution is to blame and science will make sense. The key to developing critical thinking skills is to transfer concepts to new scenarios. In fact, that is the key to learning anything–the ability to transfer and apply knowledge elsewhere. Nonetheless, this brings me to feces. Once I had had a course or 2 in biology and chemistry (and wherever I learned about evolution), I was able to discern that, perhaps, the reason feces smells is that there was a time that people had no toilets and to come upon some feces, one needed to know, beyond a doubt, to stay away. After knowing that bacteria gives off waste and releases odors and having a concrete understanding of digestion, I was able to deduce that this is a function of evolution. Evolution is large scale adaptation and the function of adaptation is survival and only that which has been able to evolve i.e. adapt i.e. grow and change, persists. This being the reason that fish, birds and mammals all know not to eat shit. But wait! Dogs eat shit. There’s exceptions to every rule.
The point is, that it is, without a doubt, a failed, although well orchestrated, attempt to explain the origin of the universe and all that it contains as the work of an entity called God. What has clearly happened is that throughout history, Man has attributed what is out of his own control, to be the work of volatile, extraterrestrial characters, that are for some reason, highly invested in the daily goings-on of the inhabitants of Earth. It is quite clear that the more that science revealed to us, the more upheaval arose in traditional societies. New belief systems, and therefore customs by which to adhere, were being introduced all in the attempts appease the gods in exchange for favor, if not in life, then in the afterlife. Rules about how to conduct oneself were imposed as truths. History and geography outlay patterns in religious themes and timing. All of these patterns are simply ignored by believers. Patterns of huge populations being misguided, yet faithful worshipers are examples of the fog that I reference in my blog title. The Christians see the oppression of the Muslims, the Muslims see the heathenism of the Westerners, the Jews see the money (jk, just seeing if you’re playing attention). How can one subscribe to the belief that the Greeks, Romans, Hindu, Mayan, Egyptians and various other worshipping populations were wrong about their gods because the one true God allowed all these other children of His to be so literally out of touch that, unless they are fortunate to run into one of his saved children, their souls shall simply perish.
Some people are born blind or without a limb, or mentally challenged or actually unattractive. Some people are born with intelligence, healthy bodies and great looks. This is not the work of God. It’s the work of the human body. Going back to the way that evolution, adaptation and biology work, and similar to the creation of the Earth and it’s atmosphere, there are a series of processes taking place unbeknownst to Man.
what a fool believes
I use the term “fool” loosely and only to bring to mind the lyrics of the song by that title:
But what a fool believes … he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems … to be
Is always better than nothing
Here’s the thing: sometimes, and often as a coping mechanism, a person can believe what’s easier to accept; not necessarily what is true. We can lie to ourselves (or choose not to see) the affair our partner is having, the drugs our child is doing, the poor decisions that we have made for ourselves, et al. When it comes to religion, people become sheep of unyielding, blind obedience. I especially question those that are scholarly (Mayim Bialik) or that are well-versed in the psychology of Man and how ideas impregnate and propagate; how history is edited and “facts” are created, yet continue to worship the elusive Supreme Being. We’ve all played the game of telephone and possibly believed that someone deliberately altered the story for it to have been so inaccurate by the time it reached the other end of the line. When it comes to studying for the sake of worship, once experience, science or common sense have debunked even 3 of the ideologies or “facts” this doctrine perpetuates, that should offer enough reasonable doubt to stop defending what one clearly does not understand. Allow me to enumerate some pretty basic precarious proclamations:
The Bible pretty much starts off shaming women for their menstrual cycle. I knew a female growing up, that was not [permitted] to go to church while menstruating, as she was considered impure. The Bible explains that the pain of childbirth and the menstrual cycle are a punishment for the misdeeds of Eve in the Garden of Eden. So women have to blame this this pseudo-ancestor for the horrors of childbirth and menstrual cramps and, provided that Eve has been dead for 6 millennia, there’s no chance of her repenting, so this is a cross women are to bear. Then, what happens when you go to school, take health and biology courses and learn the function of the menstrual cycle? What happens when you find out that dogs also have periods? What happens when you take into account that the Bible was written at a time more than a thousand years before for The Plague that took out 1/3 the population Europe–the Plague that was essentially ‘cured’ with hygiene? What then, do you do when you take into account that not up until the late 1800’s (in the United States) was public education available for girls. So many years after the Bible was written, edited and, until the past 50 or so years was interpreted exclusively by men, blind sheep pride themselves on being such avid, unwavering, faithful followers.
There is episode of Family Guy that addresses the ironic and somewhat comical and arbitrary rejection of advanced technology in the Amish community. The purpose is to not be seduced by the luxuries and temptations of the “outside world” that may lure them away from their Amish family, community and beliefs. This is ironic because the Amish do utilize some extent of technology, only it’s the technology that was available during the lifetime of it’s founder. This is to suggest that what was considered too luxurious, too distracting from worship was relative to the technologies available at that time. The question then is, if the religion was founded in Medieval times, would the Amish be allowed to ride bicycles? For the Amish, when it comes to such concepts as food storage, in many cases (depending on how orthodox one may be) one must decide whether to get an ice box (and regular ice deliveries), pitch-in for community storage (minimized use of electricity), get a gas-powered refrigerator or break down and use electricity. Living a simple life is commendable–they are a close-knit, private, self-sustained community. The problem is that should one decide that they seek more out of life (such as furthering their education), they risk being shunned. Again, a religion that teaches temperance and love of thy neighbor fails to teach tolerance and frowns upon educating oneself. The religion is not about the individual, but sustaining a community and passing on a heritage. Cool. As it so happens, it doesn’t appeal to most people.
The Bible says that God plucked a rib from Adam to create Eve. While the sentiment is sweet, a couple of biology and history courses should clear that right up. For, we find in nature that opposite genders are an attribute of species that practice sexual (as opposed to asexual) reproduction.
We are told that all was well and all were nude in the Garden of Eden, but as part of the punishment, they became aware of their nakedness and felt a new sense of shame. Well, when it boils right down to it, every culture treats nudity and sexuality differently. Throughout the world, most civilizations cover, if nothing else, their genitals. This has everything with preserving your ability to procreate. Every life form seeks to replicate itself. Men cover these parts so that they are not vulnerable to injury, an enemy (one could cripple their opponent by rendering them unable to reproduce), to keep their testicles warm and to even the playing ground when seeking a mate (as opposed to being chosen based on size alone). Women cover their genitals for practically the same reasons. Additionally women cover themselves to thwart advances, not for shame. The shame that we feel is something that we develop during adolescence. Toddlers do not have such shame. The shame stems from standards of beauty imposed by society that we may not live up to. The embarrassment of being seen naked is more of a feeling of vulnerability. When we are naked, it’s like letting the table see your hand. We are not ashamed to be naked when it is by our choice or to our benefit.
One of the most disturbing tendencies of theists is their assumption that they are morally superior. It might even be cause for alarm, that people rely on pious rhetoric as their moral foundation. Perhaps theists simply don’t realize that many of the most revered individuals throughout history have been nonbelievers and morally upstanding citizens all at once. Religious folk tend to spend more time trying to appear holier than they are or ever will be. These religious folk have great nerve to speak of love, all the while ridiculing the fornicators, the gays, the unwed mothers, the prostitutes, the foreigners, etc. The Ku Klux Klan are, typically, Southern, white, God-fearing Christians. KKK often doesn’t have to answer to local authorities because they ARE they local authorities. Notwithstanding that killing is illegal, it’s one of the Ten (pretty simple) Commandments. It goes to show that not even they believe the shit they preach: we are all God’s children. These people go out of their way to distance themselves from what they deem morally inferior, all the while shoving their own skeletons back into the closet. There are pastors screwing members of the congregation, priests raping or molesting boys, preachers that publicly denounce homosexuality up until the moment they’re caught bent over with their pants down. There are places in the world where a female pregnant out of wedlock is expected to kill herself, rather than bring shame on her family. Although that expectation is based in culture, as opposed to religion, the people that uphold these traditions are worshippers. On what moral ground does the father stand that lets his daughter kill herself for after impregnated out of wedlock, even if she was raped? Had it not been for disbelief and dissidence, civilization would be stuck in the Stone Ages.
and that is??
and that is??
This was in my newsfeed on Facebook. I wanted to ask the poster, “and who would that person be?” Certainly you do not suggest the hand of God wrote the excerpts carefully selected to be included in the Bible. And the Lord, Jesus, didn’t write any of the books in the Bible. And in fact, every chapter in the Bible is written by a different person.
the chicken and egg
Which came first: the chicken or the egg? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
My take:
The chicken came first. The tree makes a sound. These are not mysterious to me, although philosophically stimulating to many. I say the chicken came first because something had to incubate the egg. Adaptation and evolution would explain the disparity concerning origin, because as each generation of species adjusts or adapts to their environment, the offspring evolve. Thus, the offspring possess traits that the predecessor does not. This is to say that the chick that we know today is not the same as the original offspring. Therefore, over the scope of time, whatever would have been born of the organisms that originated in the oceans, including chickens, would have to be the product or offspring of something else. The fact is that all organisms have to go through an infancy and then a reproductive phase as a fact of life. In order for an egg to exist, it would have to come from something that reproduced (re i.e. again and produce i.e. create) a virtual copy of itself.
As for the tree in the forest: I get it. If no one is there to receive the vibrations, is there a sound? Similar to Schroedinger’s theory of the cat being both dead and alive, as it is neither until it is observed and declared to meet the criteria of one or the other. The thing is, the definition of sound is independent of human observance. I realize that even time is a human-conceived concept, but it is based on observable scientific law. I would liken this question to be equivalent to asking whether time passes if you aren’t looking at the clock. There are pre-existing criteria that define both “time” and “sound” that are met whether there is a human to observe and acknowledge them.
How do the bugs get into the ceiling light? I never looked it up, but I would imagine that since bugs are attracted to light, and heat is used to incubate eggs, and light produces heat, that insects are laying eggs in or near the lights that eventually hatch. I could look this question up to find someone else’s answer, but that one satisfies my common sense.
My point is that it can be that simple to come to a reasonable explanation without listening to and spreading the dogma of whichever doctrine to which one subscribes as opposed to simply being true to oneself and recognizing that many of us take for granted that what we learned growing up is the truth–simply because it’s what we were taught. We take for granted that, no matter what extent, a good amount of what we believe is what was recited to us and committed to our memory over time. Unless you stop, question, identify and test what you have come to believe, you will continue to believe what is most familiar or comfortable but not necessarily what makes sense.
because I lived through a recent fire that consumed almost all of my possessions, many people sought to be encouraging by telling me that it was a sign that God is not through with me. Someone told me that it proves there is a God. Really? And what of the people that don’t live through fires, that get raped and murdered and dismembered, that are victims of natural disasters, congenital diseases…
Clearly a matter of perception
there is nothing to be gained from ignorance
When I read some of these theists’ posts, I feel disheartened and frustrated. It seems a lost cause. Apparently, putting things into layman’s terms doesn’t even make a dent, and of this they are proud because it is a testament to their degree of faith. They want to believe, therefore they become deaf to contention.
Once you learn that a day- 24 hours, is a measurement of the time it takes for the Earth to complete a rotation, this should call into question your acceptance of the Earth being created in 6 days. Days, as we understand them, are the result of the Earth’s rotation. If the Earth was not yet created and rotating, what is the standard of measurement for the passage of time, or does time even exist? Even if we say God finished the Earth in one day, immediately set it into rotation and therefore time had begun, this is refuted by our scientific understanding of how the Earth and the moon were set into motion. If we refute the scientific understanding of the creation of the Earth, then we are also undermining logical, plausible, demonstrable explanations of volcanoes, salt in the oceans, thunder, storms, lightening, ozone, energy, etc…all of nature and the laws by which it so effectively functions. To accept the Biblical telling of the creation of Earth and life is to contradict science and leaves the questions that science has already answered, unresolved. However, by studying science and the laws of nature, medicine and monuments were created. Everything that has come to be is a reaction from the initial burst of energy that created the universe. That energy caused particles to move, combine, interact and react. Those reactions created elements, molecules, chemicals as well as what we have come to know as stars, black holes, comets, planets, moons and galaxies. Within these galaxies are worlds that prevail contingent upon the conditions in which they were born. For instance, the Earth’s live-supporting properties rely heavily upon it’s distance from the sun. Should the distance change, so does the capacity to support various forms of life. These deductions cannot be made from any of the ‘facts’ in the Bible no matter how many times you interpret it.
Arguing with a theist is like arguing with a toddler. It’s senseless. A toddler is not rational, nor does it become rational after further reasoning. (Never argue with a fool; from a distance, you can’t tell who’s who). To be rational, you have to start from rational. Here’s what we are to believe (even though we now know more about the universe’s multiple galaxies, at the time the Bible was written, they didn’t even know there was a Western Hemisphere or a round Earth): Long long ago, but no too long ago, there was a spiritual being that decided that he was going to create mini-me’s and let them live naked and happy in paradise. This paradise was somewhere in the Middle East. He wanted to test these “children” so he made an arbitrary rule about not eating fruit from a specific tree in the garden (already with the games). They didn’t listen (he should have known that they wouldn’t) so he punished them–banished them, made them suffer and then hundreds of years later, sent a son to save them…(whaaat?) And by son, it means born of God and a virgin (which translates to: Mary got knocked up and we don’t know who the father is). In order to save humanity, this son had to allow fellow man to crucify him. He gave his creations free will. However, they are not free to use that will if they want to make it back to the Kingdom of God. Instead, they must adhere to a book of rules and stories that was written by various hands over decades with edits and omissions. This book will not be updated to coincide with the times but will be reinterpreted over and over and again until denominations are born. The language will remain vague and contradictory. When it’s all over, the son of God will come back, have a fight with the devil and the people that believed and gave their lives to Christ will rise into the heavens (which we now know to be outer space).
God sounds more and more human based on these trust games and emotions e.g. God is a jealous God: how could God be jealous? I thought he’d be above all those human sentiments. Especially because part of jealousy is feeling threatened. How can the supernatural creator feel threatened by his mortal creation–especially if the creator already knows the end to the story? Sounds a bit immature.
I could never understand where God came from. Everything has to start from something, right? What was God doing before he made humans? Why the hell did he make roaches? I hate roaches. Does he like roaches? What is God’s retirement plan, you know, after the second coming (of Christ)?
I understand that believing in God is comforting; so is sucking on a pacifier. Incidentally, the latter is a habit that we break. The former, people lose lives over.
And this heaven place. How big is it? One portion of the Bible says that you will not know your loved ones in heaven but will love everyone alike. That would mean that when a person gets to heaven no one is familiar and there are no relationships. Also, it’s assumed that the form one takes in heaven is the same as the form we are on Earth. This means that we will have noses to breathe even though we don’t need to, and we will see, hear and feel without use of our brains. Does this also mean that we will have anuses? Apparently (evidenced by those that believe they will be met by 27 virgins), we would keep our genitals, even though there’s no need to reproduce since the population growth would be pretty steady; not to mention there is a maximum occupancy. And if it’s ok to have recreational sex in heaven, why is it a sin to fornicate while still alive? –thall shall be done on Earth as it is in Heaven
On my “about” page, I mentioned that life is a common experience made up of common experiences. So, since the beginning of mankind, the process is that you are born into a clan. This clan is responsible for teaching you the ways of the world. You are innocent, fresh-minded and curious. You crave knowledge. You imitate the behaviors you observe. You have questions and the big people around you seem to have answers. You believe what they tell you until you learn otherwise. Meanwhile, as adults, the big people are only passing down what they have learned and were taught as a child–right or wrong. In your teens, you shed the wonderment of childhood and enter the emotional, hormonal commencement of adulthood. You question authority, including your parents; you feel enlightened from your prepubescent ignorance. Along with the ignorance of childhood, you long ago shed the belief in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the stork. Still, because your parents or community reinforce it, you believe in God.
There is no way to justify a god that created the sun, the moon, the Earth and the stars but never introduced himself to the Mayans, Egyptians, Inca, Greeks, Romans, etc. This god does reveal himself to a select few–the chosen people that we later refer to as prophets. Unfortunately, different religions have different prophets that made different prophecies. There’s no way to justify a god that has a “chosen people”. There is no way to justify a god that loves us so much that there are impoverished nations and millions of diseased and starving children. And for those that are pro-life, there is no way to justify a god that chooses to create deformed and disabled children. We can tell the story of Job as consolation, but the fact is that an omnipotent, omniscient and philanthropic god would not justifiably subject his creation to the horrors and atrocities of life.
Ever noticed that the educated-most people are the least religious? Hmm…seems to be a correlation. Seems to be that the more you know, the less willing you are to eat crow. The more you know, the more the pieces fit together. The more you know, the more obvious it becomes. If there is one God then we should all be worshiping Him. If there is one God, there would not be religions, there would be one understanding.
It’s simply more comforting (as it was meant to be) to believe in a cozy, happy, peaceful after life when trying to cope with the harsh, miserable ills of life. So I used to say that I prefer to believe in God. After all, ignorance is bliss. But after awhile, with the more knowledge that is sought and gained, the more ignorance turns into denial. Ignorance became literally ignoring my own logic in order to believe . I could not do this. Prayers didn’t get answered and I didn’t get mad once I realized that I am praying to myself and that the only players involved in my destiny are myself and the laws of nature. To pray is less useful than to take action. And in times that no actions can be taken then it’s best to understand the laws of nature.
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The Low Histamine Diet Foods FAQ
That depends on which list you follow. Histamine in foods varies depending on: the country grown in, whether pesticides were used, climate, transportation, ripeness when picked, how long on the supermarket shelf, bacterial contamination. In particular the level varies in flesh. The reason for which is that bacteria release histamine (and other amines) as the flesh decomposes. The freezing and thawing and re-freezing in particular that occurs in the typical farm to supermarket cycle leads to high histamine levels in food. For fish: how long since it was fished, how it was handled, if it was frozen and then thawed at any point, if it’s contaminated etc. Beef is generally hung for at least two weeks to tenderize the meat. This accounts for the high levels of histamine in the flesh. Some methods of slaughter, including halal (Muslim), do not involve long hanging times, and as such may be fresher.
The Spanish DAO Society has this list.
I have a list I was given by my practitioner (now retired). For legal reasons I am not allowed to share it, but all my recipe books are based on this list.
And finally – your reaction to a food may vary from day to day depending on how high your histamine is that day. Some days just adding a smidge of histamine into an almost overflowing bucket can tip you over the edge.
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Comfrey Tea
Comfrey Herb
Ancient herbalists once listed comfrey tea as one of the best remedies for many serious ailments. The great herbalist Nicholas Culpepper (1616-1654) described comfrey tea as a remedy for internal bruises, 'spitting of blood', and many diseases. Today, research provides a mixed picture of comfrey as both a healing herb and an herb that may cause liver damage and cancer. Herbalists recommend comfrey for external use only, and comfrey remains a useful curative when used on broken bones, sprains and other external ailments. Comfrey tea also makes an excellent organic fertilizer for the garden.
Properties of Comfrey
Comfrey (Symphytum officianale) has been used since ancient times as an herbal remedy. The name "comfrey" comes from the Latin words "con firma." In ancient Greek and Roman medicine, comfrey was also known as "knit bone" for its ability to speed healing of broken bones. The roots were soaked in wine or boiled in water, and a compress of the resulting comfrey tea or the boiled roots themselves were applied to the wound.
Native to Europe, comfrey grows wild in damp, grassy places like riverbanks and ditches. While skilled herbalists may harvest it in the wild, most people interested in comfrey either purchase it from a reputable seller or grow cultivated comfrey.
Comfrey as a Healing Herb
Comfrey's healing properties are legendary. In addition to Culpepper's extensive writings on comfrey, comfrey is mentioned throughout many herbal and medical texts since Greek and Roman times. When few alternatives were available, people turned to comfrey to cure:
• Broken bones
• Sprains
• Bruises
• Arthritis
• Gastric ulcers
• Burns
• Acne
Modern herbalists recommend using comfrey only as an external herbal remedy for broken bones, sprains, bruises and burns. Recent research indicates that certain chemicals in comfrey tea may cause liver damage, cancer, or contribute to pre-cancerous conditions. An FDA report also implicates comfrey in the death of two people in the United States. These people took excessive amounts of comfrey, but the FDA thought it prudent to issue a warning against consuming comfrey tea until more data demonstrated its safety.
Much of the research demonstrates conflicting results, but until the final word is in, it may be best to exercise caution and use comfrey only as an external treatment.
Uses of Comfrey Tea
If you choose to take comfrey tea, it is strongly recommend that you do so under the guidance of a qualified herbalist or physician. Comfrey tea is often recommended for colds, sore throats, and bronchitis.
Used externally, comfrey appears to be relatively safe. The Comfrey Clearninghouse provides an overview of comfrey's use in herbal medicine and the author's personal research into medicinal uses of comfrey. An external salve or ointment of comfrey may be used to speed healing of broken bones, cuts or wounds. Never apply comfrey to broken skin. Apply it instead to the skin around the affected area.
Comfrey Research
Present-day research points to comfrey's drawbacks and limitations as an herbal remedy, but it also provides compelling evidence for some of comfrey's healing benefits. One of the most interesting studies on comfrey's use as a bone treatment involved a study of rats given a homeopathic dose of comfrey after oral implants were surgically inserted. Although this was only a small study, the images taken of the implant area among the group given comfrey demonstrated an increased bone density, thereby supporting comfrey's reputation as a 'bone healer'.
Another European study examined comfrey ointment use on sprained ankles. Studies indicated that patients using the comfrey salve experienced less pain and swelling than those with sprained ankles who did not use the comfrey salve.
Use of Comfrey in Agriculture
Comfrey also contains several other unusual and beneficial properties. It contains a very high amount of vegetable protein, and in some places may be used as a livestock feed or supplement. Gardeners may also brew and cool comfrey tea to sprinkle over the garden as an organic fertilizer. It's high in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium or potash, the nutrients needed for plants to grow, and completely natural.
Comfrey Tea
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Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Something's very wrong when they can't tell the difference
Take a cup of consecrated host and another cup of unconsecrated ones. Pour their contents into a jar, put the lid on and mix well. Now ask the Pope, cardinals, and bishops to sort the wafers. Quite patently, they won't be able to. Both chanted over and untransubstantiated crackers look, feel, taste, weigh, and test exactly the same.
Take ten new empty vials from the same production batch and in a class 1 cleanroom fill nine of them with triple distilled water. Using the same batch of distilled water, using new and ultra clean beakers/flasks and pipettes/droppers, and in the same clean 1 room, proceed to make a 30X homeopathic remedy. Doesn't matter what type so long as you end up with a 30X dilution (that is, the amount of active ingredient is 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). In a double-blind test have homeopaths determine which vial is the homeopathic dilution. They can use whatever instrument, equipment, machine, and laboratory they want. Have this test performed many times. You can bet that as more trials are done, homeopaths' performance will converge toward 1X--they will get it right 10% of the time, which is the probability of being right by chance alone.
Being a fan of James Randi I naturally tend to look at weird and pseudoscientific claims from the perspective of testing them in a controlled fashion. Prof. Chris MacDonald on the other hand looks at homeopathy from the point of view of business and consumer protection. Although he doesn't believe it to be so, for the sake of argument he assumes that homeopathy actually works. He then asks,
How do we detect phoney homeopathic preparations? In order to protect consumers, we need to be able to detect fake remedies — fake versions (sold by counterfeiters) that are really just inert look-alike copies of genuine remedies. In an age of international trade and Internet-based pharmacies, phoney pills are a big problem. So, is there any way to test a homeopathic preparation to verify that it is genuine? If I buy homeopathic tablets, is there any test that can be done to see if they’re real or counterfeit? If authorities suspect a criminal organization of selling fake homeopathic tablets, how can they tell the difference between the criminal organization’s tablets and those manufactured by an honest homeopathic pharmacy?
I'd very much like to hear the dilutionists' answer to this as well.
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Visiting the Swiss Cottage, Singleton Park, Swansea, Wales: Dating From 1826, Designed by Peter F. Robinson
Updated on March 23, 2018
Flag of Wales
Flag of Wales | Source
Swiss cottage in Singleton Park
Swiss cottage in Singleton Park | Source
'A Dame's School'. Collection of National Media Museum/The Royal Photographic Society (Peter Henry Emerson)
Formerly the home of a dame school in the 1820s
This colourful structure, painted in red, white and blue, is known as the Swiss Cottage, and is located in Singleton Park (Welsh: Parc Singleton), in Swansea (Welsh: Abertawe), Glamorgan (Welsh: Morgannwg). It dates from 1826, the work of architect Peter. F. Robinson. Interestingly, one of Architect Robinson's other works is the Swiss Cottage at Regent's Park, London (1).
Features of this two storey building include a conspicuous apex of an overhanging roof, scalloped barge boards, and a slate roof.
Sarah Vivian, of the prominent Vivian family, to whom Singleton Park once belongs, used the Swiss Cottage as a Dame School in the 1820s (2). Mrs. Vivian, wife of local industrialist John Henry Vivian who was known to compel his workers to fulfill 24-hour shifts, must have come across as somewhat severe; historian Ralph A. Griffiths writes:
'Sarah bore her devoted husband nine children in 22 years — and then survived him by 30 years more. Known for her sharp tongue, she presided over Singleton (i.e., their home at nearby Singleton Abbey) in the same masterful way as her husband presided over his works — much to the chagrin of her sons.' (3)
In addition to Sarah Vivian's involvement with the dame school at the Swiss Cottage, the Vivians used their wealth to found and support schools at Hafod for their workers' children.
Severely damaged by a fire in 2010, the Swiss Cottage was painstakingly restored by 2014 (4), under the auspices of Cadw, the Welsh government's heritage body.
It may be thought that mountainous Wales is exactly the sort of place where a Swiss-style cottage would blend in. Well, much of Wales is indeed mountainous, but Swansea, though overlooked by some hills, can hardly so be described. But P. F. Robinson's structure fits in well to Singleton Park, in any case!
In recent years there was some controversy about the spelling of a German inscription on the wall of the Collage, following a restoration; efforts were subsequently made to restore the correct spellings! (5)
Swansea City Council was recently considering offering the Swiss Cottage for commercial use, or making it available for community functions.
February 3, 2015
(1) Other works by Architect Robinson include: Singleton Abbey, Sketty Hall (both in Singleton Park); Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London (demolished in 1905); properties in Cadogan Square and Clarendon Place, London. A somewhat melancholy footnote to the career of Peter F. Robinson is that he died in self-imposed exile at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, owing to financial difficulties.
(2) A dame school was essentially a private, elementary school usually taught by women. When in 1870 schooling became compulsory in England and Wales, dame schools had become less common. Establishments patronized by the daughters of upper class and affluent families were often known as 'finishing schools'.
(3) Ralph A. Giffiths, Singleton Abbey and the Vivians of Swansea, Swansea: Gomer Press, 1988, p. 37. The Vivians were a family of local industrialists, who were socially prominent; John Henry and Sarah Vivian's son Henry Hussey Vivian was to become the 1st Lord Swansea in 1893; a grandson was Admiral Algernon Walker-Heneage-Vivian.
(4) See also:
(5) See also:
Map location of Swansea, Wales
Map location of Swansea, Wales | Source
Also worth seeing
In Swansea itself, the nearby Singleton Abbey belongs to Swansea University; Sketty Parish Church; Swansea Castle, in the Downtown area, dates from the 12th century; visible remains date from the late 13th or early 14th century; the Guildhall and the Brangwyn Hall form a fine, Neo-Classical and Art Deco complex; Oystermouth Castle, Mumbles, is a ruined Norman structure dating from the 11h century, situated near the scenic Gower Peninsula.
Afan Forest Park, Visitor Centre and South Wales Miners Museum (distance: approx. 27 kilometres) contains many, scenic walks, with copious local information.
How to get there: United Airlines flies to London Heathrow Airport , from where car rental is available. London Heathrow is 286 kilometres from Swansea. There are also rail (from London Paddington railroad station) and bus links to Swansea. Please note that some facilities may be withdrawn, without notice. You are advised to check with the airline or your travel agent for up to date information.
MJFenn is an independent travel writer based in Ontario, Canada.
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How to Remove Scratches From Hubcaps
by Richard Ristow
When not tended to, hubcaps can look unsightly. Grime gathers and discolors caps, and scratches can happen. Removing the scratches is fairly easy, and you can clean and polish the hubcaps at the same time. However, how to remove the scratches depends on how deep they are. Still, tending to the caps is relatively easy, and the job can take anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour.
Assess the severity of the scratches. You can do this by running your fingernail over the scratch to gauge it.
Dot the hubcap with plastic cleaner. Squeeze a little from the tube at a time. Place some on the scratched area, as well as the rest of the of the hubcap.
Dampen a sponge, and spread the plastic cleaner over the hubcap in small circular motions.
Apply pressure to the scratched areas, until the scratches are gone.
Wipe the hubcap down with a microfiber towel. Continue to use circular motions, until the polish is removed, and the hubcap looks buffed.
Reexamine the scratched area. If the scratches are there, you will need more than plastic cleaner/polish.
Soak a fine-grit piece of automotive sandpaper in a glass of water, and wait about ten minutes. The grit level will depend on the severity of the scratch, but it should be above 600. This is essentially the same process as removing scratches from a headlight.
Scrub the scratches with the wet sandpaper until the scratches are gone. If the scratch is deep, follow up with a finer grit of sandpaper, 1000 grit or more. This will also have to be soaked. Once finished, remove the excess grit with a microfiber towel.
Reapply the plastic cleaner, and buff the hubcap again.
Items you will need
About the Author
Richard Ristow has written for journals, newspapers and websites since 2002. His work has appeared in "2009 Nebula Showcase" and elsewhere. He is a winner of the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Rhysling Award and he edits poetry for Belfire Press. He also holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and has managed an automotive department at WalMart.
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• Kraig Scarbinsky/Digital Vision/Getty Images
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DJ Screw: The “Chopped & Screwed” Urban Culture & Genre Will Live On For Eternity
Chopped and Screwed (sometimes called screwed and chopped or slowed and throwed) refers to a technique of remixing hip hop music which developed in the Houston hip hop scene in the 1990s. This is accomplished by slowing the tempo down to between 60 – 70 quarter-note beats per minute and applying techniques such as skipping beats, record scratching, stop-time, and affecting portions of the music to make a “chopped-up” version of the original.
Preceding the early 1990s, most Southern hip hop was upbeat and fast, like Miami bass and crunk. In Houston, a different approach of slowing music down, rather than speeding it up, developed. It is unknown when DJ Screw definitively created “screwed and chopped” music: although people around Screw have indicated any time between 1984 to 1991, Screw said he started slowing music down in 1990 and also in Tulsa Oklahoma Dj Dinero And Dj Z-Nasty helped popularize Chopped And Screwed music in the Mid South.[2] There is no debate, however, that DJ Screw invented the music style.”[3] He discovered that dramatically reducing the pitch of a record gave a mellow, heavy sound that emphasized lyrics to the point of almost storytelling. After messing around with the sound for a while Screw started making full length “Screw Tapes”. At first the music was only referred to as “Screw music”, was limited to the South Side of Houston, and was seen as laid-back driving music. As Screw’s tapes started to gain popularity he started selling his tapes for around $10.[4] Screw was known to feature some of Houston’s most renowned rappers from the South Side. This eventually led to the formation of the Screwed Up Click.
Between 1991 and 1992, there was a large increase in use of purple drank in Houston.[1] Purple drank has been considered to be a major influence in the making of and listening to chopped and screwed music due to its perceived effect of slowing the brain down, giving slow, mellow music its appeal. DJ Screw, however, repeatedly denounced the claim that one has to use purple drank to enjoy screwed and chopped music. Screw, a known user of purple drank, said he came up with chopped and screwed music when high on marijuana.[2]
In the mid-1990s, chopped and screwed music started to move to the North Side of Houston and to such people as DJ Michael “5000” Watts[1] and OG RON C. It wasn’t long until a rivalry between north and south Houston started over who were the “originators” and who were the “adopters”. Michael “5000” Watts always gave credit to DJ Screw as the originator of chopped and screwed music. It is also believed that Michael “5000” Watts came up with the term “screwed and chopped”. As time passed and a younger generation got into the style, there became less worry over who was an originator of the style and who was an adopter. In the late 1990s, with the help of P2P groups such as Napster, chopped and screwed music spread to a much wider audience.
In 1999, PSK-13, an associate of DJ Screw and the Screwed Up Click (also a member of the South Park Coalition), released a screwed version of his album Pay Like You Weigh 5000 [5] which was one of the earliest examples of a full length album being given the treatment.
On November 16, 2000 DJ Screw died from a lethal combination of codeine and alcohol. Shortly after the passing of Screw, screwed and chopped music spread all over the southern United States.[citation needed] Later in 2000, the Memphis based group Three 6 Mafia came out with their song “Sippin’ on Some Syrup”. The song at first was just a minor hit but later became one of Three 6 Mafia’s most popular songs.
In 2001, 8Ball & MJG released a screwed version of their album Space Age 4 Eva (2000). The mixing was handled by Michael “5000” Watts of the famed Swishahouse, being the first screwed and chopped release on a major label.
In 2003, David Banner released a screwed and chopped version of his album Mississippi: The Album, being a first by an artist from Mississippi.
In 2005, the first screwed and chopped albums were added to the iTunes shop catalog.
In 2006 Chamillionaire’s The Sound of Revenge (Screwed & Chopped) by OG Ron C became the most successful screwed and chopped album to date.
In 2010 a Chopped n Screwed app was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch in the iTunes App Store.
In 2011,University of Houston Libraries acquired over 1,000 albums owned by DJ Screw.Some of the albums will be part of an exhibit in early 2012 and the rest available for research in 2013.[6]
Today it is still common to see screwed and chopped versions of mixtapes and albums released alongside the regular speed versions, sometimes in a double disc format with one disc screwed and the other regular speed.
Chopped and screwed music was created by DJ Screw in the early 1990s. Part of the chopped & screwed music scene is a beverage known as purple drank (the active ingredients being codeine and promethazine; the color purple, which is usually present as a dye in the “drank,” has also become a symbolic color or motif to identify chopped and screwed versions of songs or whole albums. The 2007 documentary film Screwed In Houston produced by VBS/Vice Magazine details the history of the Houston rap scene and the influence of the Chopped and Screwed sub-culture on Houston hip-hop.
*Article Published By Mississippi Sipp Of Kandy Paint Content on behalf of Wiki and the Chopped & Screwed Culture.
Please Support Mississippi Sipp Google Play Musik Store:
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How to fly for free
Scott Ford from Pack a Bag and Go explains how he managed to fly for free for 52 weeks.
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“You are either talking yourself into the things you want to experience or your are talking yourself out of it. You are either giving into your potential or your are conceding to false limits. Notice the relationship you hold to the things you desire and you’ll be able to measure where you are on that relationship scale.”
– via Kidest OM | http://ift.tt/1PBEHez (via kidestom)
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handyman kirkproject
April 19, 2004
Handyman of the Moment
I was delighted with how well my hacked up closet rod solution came out: rather than the very-breakable wall attachments in the plaster, I put 'em across some modular storage from Bed Bath and Beyond. $45 to make 4 stacks of 3 to put the 2 rods in. Plus, my cousin Ivan and I did SO much yardwork, like 15 or 16 yardbags full.
Meme of the Moment
Memepool linked to this article on personal ads, as well as this kind of odd Supermodel Personals parody site. "It's so fun when you're pretty and go grocery shopping. You can laugh and make fun of everything, and race the carts the around, and take 100 items to the express lane, and everyone thinks it's cute and endearing instead of obnoxious and stupid."
Articles of the Moment
Slate with good articles on Osama's "offer of truce": William Saletan argues that it's just a power play, and Lee Smith on how much trouble our government has in moving beyond the Cold War-like "single organization" mentality.
Enigma of the Moment
Machine of Mystery! How very "Myst" like...
More Housework of the Moment
So Peterman thought with a title like "Handyman Kirk" more photos were in order.
You know, in general housework isn't quite as bad as I tend to remember, it is relatively satisfying...the trouble is every task goes on longer than you want it to, and it really helps to do it with a buddy. Half of why I bribed Ivan to help out was for the company...
Steps Before
Steps After (still drying)
(Thanks Peterman!)
Bags o' Yard Waste Ahoy
(Thanks Ivan!)
furniture that looks like it has been placesprojectramble
August 24, 2004
Project of the Moment
So, FoSO and I worked together on an interesting furniture project. I think the idea was mine, but the details and the lion's share of the labor ended up being hers. (Which is good, because I'm lazy, but also bad, because I didn't learn quite as much as I had hoped.) My bathroom is desperately short on selfspace, and I'd always been trying to think of a cool project to utilize these beautiful authentic travel stickers that were attached to a crumbling valise I got at an estate sale kind of thing. So, a bunch of slicing, scanning (just in case), staining with wood stain, gluing with Mod Podge, coating with polyurethane, and touching up with a hand sander later, and this is the terrific result:
Front Inside
Progamming Thoughts of the Moment
Been thinking a little bit about programming rules in general. Here are some rules I've decided I (and maybe everybody) should try and follow...I welcome feedback from my fellow coding geeks.
K.I.S.S.: Don't over-engineer.
I have seen so much over-designed stuff, with layer after layer after layer. Following the programming execution over a single call becomes an enormously difficult task. If any given interaction goes much deeper than 3 or 4 levels, something might well be wrong.
Keep a clean modular approach to your systems.
Have a core engine that drives everything and uses the rest of the system as an API. Think Unix's philosophy of "do one task and do it well"...this guideline comes from stuff I'm dealing with at work. They've developed these APIs, but the APIs are so tightly integrated with the logging and configuration, it's sick. For example, they made a wrapper to a Castor routine that converts an object into an XML representation. You would think that if your central program says "make me an XML representation of this object and put it in such and such a file" it would do just that, right? But no. See, it goes ahead and checks the configuration on its own accord, and then might or might not do the conversion. And whether it tries or not, or if it succeeds or fails with some error, it will do so SILENTLY, catching any exception that occurs, because heaven forfend that the main program has to worry its sweet little head about everything collapsing underneath it... Hideously redundant, impossible to follow.
Keep a devnotes.txt file
I find it useful to have a single text file where I jot things down as I figure them out...usernames, passwords, techniques, etc. It saves me a lot of time.
Consider disabling web access during the workday.
Sometimes it's easier for a programmer to get distracted, especially when things aren't going well. The worse things are going, the more slashdot and various techie websites beckon. ("This task at hand isn't working out but maybe I can learn something else new!"). If your main browser is IE, the easiest option might be to go into Tools|Internet Options|Coonections|LAN Settings and setup a bogus proxy server. Sometimes just putting in that little gatekeeper is enough to make me reconsider a wayword path.
Keep your unit tests close and your smoketests closer
If your environment is at all complex and N-tiered, avoid the trap of your system breaking down and you don't know when and you don't know why by setting up good smoke and unit tests and running them extremely frequently.
Product of the Moment
Making the rounds is this story about a cellphone based Virtual Girlfriend product...unfortunately (or fortunately for the company) you spend non-virtual money to buy her presents and what not, otherwise she gets all mad and sulky.
Man, what a potential goldmine if they find guys who get really into this. Being able to sell trivial virtual goods for real cash...there's that other company that lets people buy each other little iconic gifts, I heard it's a reasonable hit...it becomes a social thing I guess, if you can show off your gifts like some kind of trophyroom.
Strange world.
the projectsproject
February 26, 2005
Quote of the Moment
"Every human being has a project."
--Sartre as paraphrased by Colin, a high-functioning artistic autistic (thanks LAN3) cartoonist who writes a letter to Harvey Pekar of "American Splendor" fame. Google doesn't seem to think that it's an exact quote, but its a neat idea.
It's fun to figure out your project. I think for a lot of people it's their kids. I think that's a new development in some ways...in at least some points in history, men got to pick their own projects, and women got assigned the projects of the kids. Now that we lived in a somewhat more symmmetrical society, women have more freedom in their choice of project, and men are expected to make the kids their project as well.
Something like that.
Personal Semi-Triumph of the Moment
So JoustPong lives again! The game was "off the market" at AtariAge after Atari (in its newish, French-owned "Infogrames" form) sent a nastygram claiming the name of "Pong" as their intellectual property. I'd argue that the concept has gone generic ala "Kleenex" -- they certainly haven't been defending their intellectual property very well, Google has pages and pages and pages of links without a hint of Atari around.
But now the game has returned in a new incarnation -- FlapPing (a name suggested by brilliant 2600 coder Thomas Jentzsch on an AtariAge forum...quite clever.) I updated the title screen, switched the "Atari Fuji" symbol for "Computer Controlled Player" to a little 1s and 0s thing, fixed a minor conceptual score display bug, and best of all Atari Age Al and I got Dave LiveInABin Exton to make some nifty new artwork for it. Here's the image he ended up using without the title or Alien Bill or AtariAge logos:
Nice, huh? You can see the evolution of it, including the other video game art that inspired it, at the Flapping Development Journal, though really his first sketch is more-or-less what we ended up going with.
In other news, a recent issue of the UK's Retro Gamer magazine published a brief interview with me. (I heard there's an interview with Pitfall! legend David Crane as well as with Atari Age Al.) Al was kind enough to scan the page with the interview (150K jpeg) for me, but the result was so heavily edited that I've published the original e-mail Q+A between Peter Latimer and me...I worked to give some quality answers to his very good questions. Unfortunately, the article gives the new name of the game as "FlipPing"...ah well.
the hand that builds the cradleproject
April 19, 2005
Project of the Moment
Lately I've been lax in charging my cellphone, and I realized that that might partially be due to not having a "cradle" for it...it seems like a small thing but being able to plop a phone into a handy little throne for it is a lot easier than fiddling with a wire and plug. So I thought I'd haul out my legos, too long dormant, and get buildin', just a kind of wrapper for the wire I already had.
This is what the table I dumped my Lego bin onto on looks like. I do have a lot of Legos. It looks more impressive in real life, I think, because it's a deep layer for pretty much the whole thing. This is one of the first times I decided to go with a table top as work space rather than the traditional floor...it might've been a mistake. Legos are falling off in all directions.
Close up of the pile, meant to give a slightly better sense of scale...
Here's the final result. Bigger and clunkier than I envisioned, but I was so happy to get something that seemed structurally sound while still allowing for easy connection and disconnection of the phone and the little plug that I don't want to give it another go. I didn't spend too much time on aesthetics but did add a few frills at the end.
Man, I almost hate to say it, but it actually feels like I might have "too many Legos". It was tougher than I remember to find the pieces I was after, though maybe I'm just out of practice. I think Legos meant more to be as a 3D modelling tool before computers and video games could render 3D images with no problem.
By the way, I'm sure there are Lego lawyers who wish I would call them "Lego bricks" rather than "Legos". Well, nyah, that's not how Lego works, but as long as you keep your quality edge you can still have your niche over junk like Mega Blox even if your name gets "Kleenexed/Xeroxed".
Funny of the Moment
Q. "How's your wife?"
A. "Compared to what?"
--Henny Youngman routine, via this Slate article on Michael Eisner.
September 5, 2008
We have a weird problem in one of our conference rooms... the WiFi connection is shaky and there's a history of people stealing cords or otherwise messing with the switchbox that would let people cable up their laptop to the network. Today I dropped the switch in my old courier bag, connected 5 ethernet cords to it draping out of the bag (along with the powercord) and attached the following sign:
We'll see how it goes! I'd hate for anyone to lose their eternal soul 'cause they couldn't keep their hands off an ethernet cable!
Creepiness of the Moment
Play with Spider, a virtual Spider tromping across the map of Europe, following the mouse... rather lifelike and creepy. (via Archmage)
Quote of the Moment
"Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again."
--Silicon Wisdom.... it took me way too long that this is probably just a 'bot going through the ol' Unix "Fortune" file... or rather I guessed that, but I didn't realize it was doing it alphabetically.
Uma Thurman has, like, giant nostrils.
McCain wants to spin an urge to kick Repubs out on isolated corruption? Try an inability to run an economy and a penchant for the wrong war!
Heh. Penn Teller are also anxious for "immortality through their work" but they're more succesful at it than I'm likely to be...
DUH:Copley sign for Faneuil Hall's Newbury Comics..."wonder if there's one nearer here?" (12 hours to recall I was a block from Newbury St)
"C'est la Vie!" / accepting that / "this should not be!" / but coping / more stoically; / philosophically-- / "C'est la Vie..."
I'm getting a little worried that my typing seems to be getting worse, in terms of phonetic and sometimes conceptual typos...
so one of few nights I need to be punctual(drive-in movie plans w/ friends)NO E LINE-against the Tao to kick against the sticks hop a cab?
I use the term sophomoric too freely, maybe. There isn't much daylight between my use of that and wisdom so time tested it's trite.
load and lockgeekproject
April 24, 2013
My bike lock succumbed to salt and I replaced it with a Wordlock brand steel cable lock, where you can choose your own 4-letter word, with each letter drawn from a pool of 10 possibilities.
Here was each set of letters:
I ran that against a list of the 5,000 most frequent words in English, and in order the 360-odd make-able words were:
that, they, from, that, what, make, will, time, when, them, some, take, than, like, then, more, want, look, more, find, here, many, well, tell, work, last, feel, when, most, mean, same, seem, help, talk, turn, hand, part, most, week, work, play, like, hold, must, home, book, word, head, line, lose, meet, team, best, lead, sure, walk, food, foot, send, home, fall, plan, late, hard, pass, sell, mind, pull, free, less, full, form, site, base, land, wall, test, film, tree, look, soon, less, term, well, fire, bank, west, seek, deal, past, fill, drop, plan, fine, than, dead, fund, list, hard, loss, deal, bill, miss, sort, dark, help, form, seat, that, firm, ball, talk, head, base, play, best, deep, past, heat, fall, whom, test, beat, tend, task, shot, born, wind, fast, like, bird, hurt, turn, date, hole, park, boat, wood, farm, band, tool, wild, tiny, feed, shop, folk, warm, past, deny, burn, shoe, bone, wine, mean, hell, fire, hire, will, lean, tall, hate, male, lots, fuel, pool, lead, salt, poll, desk, like, last, mark, loan, deep, male, meal, link, file, duty, wake, warn, meat, late, part, host, hall, tank, bond, file, mean, seed, busy, mass, tone, hill, hand, land, milk, mind, weak, list, wrap, mark, diet, post, dark, bike, link, mass, lake, bend, walk, sand, pose, sale, mine, tale, pass, dust, sure, boss, mood, boot, bean, peak, wire, holy, toss, bury, pray, pure, belt, moon, soon, line, date, pink, poem, bind, mine, drop, fast, flat, snap, teen, bell, beat, wind, lost, like, pant, port, dirt, pole, bake, sink, tire, free, hold, mask, load, fate, poet, mere, pale, load, flee, plot, palm, pile, fund, mall, heel, tent, bite, pine, boom, host, wise, firm, sake, dare, mess, hunt, pill, bare, shop, pump, slam, melt, park, fold, dose, trap, lens, lend, warm, last, leap, past, pond, dump, tune, harm, horn, beam, fork, disk, hook, mild, doll, hers, bite, fist, bold, tune, hint, peel, bias, feel, lamp, pump, silk, wake, hook, seal, sink, trap, fool, mate, slap, heat, barn, post, lane, seal, bull, loop, pork, seat, lion, harm, sort, soap, shed, heal, damn, mill, hike, tray, sole, weed, deem, pile, fame, toll, butt, bulk, part, poke, fare, soak, slot, tile, till, bolt, till. Oddly the word I chose was a real world that wasn't on the list, so maybe my method wasn't so good.
I know this lock isn't too secure, but A. I want more flexibility than with a U-shaped lock, B. my old steel cable lock probably was only a minor inconvenience for a thief and C. it's a cheap bike.
--Varys on Littlefinger in Game of Thrones
"The old scholar was watching the noisy young people around him and it suddenly occurred to him that he was the only one in the whole audience who had the privilege of freedom, for he was old. Only when a person reaches old age can he stop caring about the opinions of his fellows, or of the public, or of the future. He is alone with approaching death and death has no ears and does not need to be pleased. In the face of death a man an do and say what pleases his own self."
--Milan Kundera, from "Life is Elsewhere"
--Roger Ebert, from his famous review of Freddy Got Fingered
via-- man that's a tall bike!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/photos-you-really-need-to-look-at-to-understand Lauren Garside's new favorite thing.
death and taxes -- help on one of thoseproject
April 15, 2014
April 15 "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes" Today we are releasing an online comic to help you deal with one of those: http://SoYoureGoingToDie.com , "the Skeptical Nerd's Comic Guide to Coping with Your Own Mortality".
It's beautifully illustrated by UK artist James Harvey, and has 8 small chapters, each one presenting a different way of coping with the fact that some day, for each of us, This Ends. Everyone has to make their own peace with that, but over the years I've had people write to me that the ideas here, now newly illustrated, are legitimately comforting.
We're trying to generate attention for this work, both because we know seeing it in its current web format can be useful to people who don't feel certain of a hereafter and because we'd like to pursue some print publishing options, so please share and pass around the link as you see fit.
I just found out the old Exidy arcade game "Car Polo" exists. This is exactly the game I would have wanted to have made in that era.
Car Polo:
"Canada is just, like, the B-side."
--J.M. (Who is thinking about moving back...)
October 9, 2015project
Thinking about the "Freedom Caucus" that is stopping the Republicans from having an orderly transition of Speaker of the House. In my naive understanding, it seems a bit like a parliamentary system where there are multiple parties and the need for coalition governments: Republicans have 247 seats (vs Democrats' 188) but since 42 of them are "Freedom Caucus" they have veto power over some things that need a majority of Congress (218) to run. (It would be even more ironic if Republicans minus FC was less than Democrats, but since the 2015 election that's not the case.)
Lets hope the "Freedom Caucus" doesn't get much more power. They're willing to trash the economy with their debt ceiling terrorism.
from my FB post: The PVC scaffolding for the JP Honk hoop banner underwent a major upgrade, thanks to Tuba Honker Kirk and his buddy "'EB". Instead of just being 2 loooong poles and 2 short ones making a rectangle to hang the hoops on (see last years picture below) the new design comes apart, with two fold out bits (kind of like the stand for a tv tray) and two shorter connecting pipes. It should be a lot easier to travel with, a bit sturdier, it can be carried by two people or maybe even one, and should do a better job of standing on its own when the band isn't on the march.
the pitchprojectcomic
October 17, 2015
The Pitch @ MICE: "Cures crippling existential dread or your money back!" And I mean it.
(PS, many thanks to Liz for hauling me over and helping me set up stuff, and then even running back to the house to grab by business cards, which by chance had a sample of art from a prior draft of the book)
September 20, 2016project
Dead Man Talking: A Dialog with Tom Parmenter. In 2013, Tom Parmenter died. But, he got better. He lived - and is still living - a rich life, with journalism and music and his lovely wife Ann. In 2016 we met over dinner and had lovely conversation. I recorded it and had it transcribed.
Two excerpts, for flavor...
On "Do you keep any kind of bucket list?"
I'm alive, I've been alive a long time. I've done a lot of things. I'm still alive, I'll still do some more but do I really need to go to New York? A bucket list ... The universe in a grain of sand has always been my motto and there's as much interesting going on between your toes - particularly if there's sand there - as anywhere else
On working on the Chicago afternoon papers:
That was the deal, you'd get street sales. It's definitely a more sensational journalistic environment. I worked there and a lot of these guys were legendary journalists. Harry Romanoff, a city editor he had been the night city editor since the 20's or something. A long time. He could talk a tan off a bathing beauty.. just so... You really had to sort of be corrupt to be employed, because poking into people's private business and so forth. I remember one night I was talking to someone who's husband had died and said something about "I'm sorry to disturb you at a time like this" and she said "I wasn't sleeping anyway..."
Andrew Sullivan on How his need to connect to the infosphere almost killed him. I don't have it nearly as bad as this guy, and I feel that the simple pleasures of this world (reading a book, taking in the moment) are still readily accessible to me. Still, I know I turn to this kind of distraction too often as stress relief when a task seems even slightly daunting or less than worthwhile.
"Death would be much more terrifying if it was actually possible to live forever"
September 23, 2017project
The second redeeming feature (alongside Samantha Mathis' amazing purple-fading-into-white dress) of the widely reviled movie "Super Mario Bros." was that it had a good soundtrack, with Roxette, Divinyls, George Clinton - even US3's "Cantaloop". (Actually think there was a law in those times that every movie had to have that song - "Renaissance Man", "Sisters", "It Takes Two", etc.)
The oddest song, though, is Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch's "I Want You"... its mostly a goofy, bubblegum romance rap, but the funny part is how it starts with 45 seconds of slow piano and a woman sensually whispering and sighing "I want you..." -- interrupted by a full rap swagger "yeah baby, I want you too" and the drums kicking in - a kind of hilarious shifting of emotional gears.
The really weird thing is it wasn't on any of the lyrics sites. But... I have fixed that. No need to thank me, world.
September 27, 2017project
I'm getting some tuba bell costumes printed up for halloween for Scheiny and the horn of my buddy Ezequiel... I described some hacking I did to make these in a entry on my devblog:
"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have."
--Søren Kierkegaard
How Trump Is Ending the American Era. One point I hadn't thought of, for people who liked his being a businessman, and thought it a plus- someone "who has spent a career in charge of a small, family-run corporation without shareholders [isn't] likely to pay much attention to external views." Even with the premise that a someone strong in business (which is a dubious description in Trump's case; he's more of a study in the power of marketing and branding, powered in large part by the mellifluous name his grandfather had to replace "Drumpf") brings something good to the political table, there would be more to if that personal history involved being accountable to external stakeholders, outside a narrow little circle of family and sycophants.
Not to tempt Murphy and His Immortal Law but I'm glad that when it comes to overthrowing the ACA, the GOP is more like the Republican'ts.
October 6, 2017project
I made a custom case with James Harvey art from my comic on mortality...
It's got it all! Artsy-Fartsiness (it's a Picasso), Boobies (it's a Picasso), an encouraging aphorism, my own head, a hoodie, and I can take photos through the physical form of it. (and the material is maple so I can always knock on wood) And then I made an artsy lock screen from a different panel of the same comic:
Me and my the shadow of my own mortality!
The only way these two things could be more Kirk-y is if they had Alien Bill and/or Tubas.
FOLLOWUP: I think it's too much! I like the lock screen but might look to change the case.
FEMA Deletes Information About Lack of Water and Electricity in Puerto Rico. When you start hiding relevant objective facts, you're doing evil, from the NRA blocking statistics being gathered to the DOE being told they can't use the term climate change. In denial and fucking evil. It's one thing to disagree on interpretation and meaning and making value judgements and priorities, but when your ideology goes downward to change the scene on the level of facts rather than the flow of influence going the other way, that's evil.
Lego Giraffe near the Assembly Square AMC - work field trip to see the new Blade Runner... we are so coddled.
November 14, 2017project
new logo tech'd up on my devblog
Stuart: You don't get things by not asking for them.
You don't get things by not wanting them, either.
Gillian: One of the things I've always tried to teach the girls is that there's nothing particularly good or virtuous about wanting something. I don't put it like that, of course, in fact I frequently don't put it at all. The best lessons children learn are those they learn for themselves.
--Julian Barnes, "Love, etc". He truly is a fine novelist.
CompuServe's forums, which still exist, are finally shutting down Always sad when an old service gets its plug pulled, I'm sure someone's going to miss that particular community.
they say the neon lights are bright on lansdowne... project
May 3, 2018
I took the raw parts from my collaborator Katie and made this: That's the Orange Barrel Media billboard almost overlooking Fenway... Since I don't know many official animation tools, I used p5.js, making a primitive timeline in json that the app would then use to push around some layers. You can play around with the p5.js tool I used to generate the frames before using ffmpeg to glue 'em all together as mov.
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Planning My Financial Future
Lindsay Lohan
How are you financially planning for your future?
Buy everything I can think of possibly someday needing???
Does that count as planning for my Financial Future?
The way I see it, if I already have it I won't need to buy it, if I don't need to buy something I don't need money. Therefore any money I do have is surplus to my needs.
That is the definition of wealth.
What's the hardest part about looking for a new job?
Lindsay Lohan
What's the hardest part about looking for a new job?
The hardest thing about looking for a new job is keeping the inspiration that drove you to start your search.
Just when you have your heart set on a new plan of action you have a really good day that makes you question if you really want things to change.
Less than a week later you remember why you wanted a new job... DAMMIT!!
Moral of the story: When you get in inspired, Act fast!
I am LiLlo!
Lindsay Lohan
My favorite Lindsay Lohan character to date is Rachel in Georgia rule, now I'm sure i can see this same character of sorts played by Hilary Duff in her new movie Greta, i have only seen previews but from what i can see her character is much more developed.
I loved Lindsays character but maybe i have to admit that she could have been so much more...
My favorite TV show is skins, just finished watching season 3, can you guess? my favorite character is Effy. She has this exact same type of character, except this is one really messed up girl, more like Lindsay in real life except still somehow 100 times worse.
Now i'm starting to think it might be a little messed up that i'm so intrigued by this character type, the more i see of it...
See in Georgia rule, it now seems like such an innocent example of it by comparason, but it shows all these girls are messed up emotionally by things that have happened in their lives and this is their way of dealing with that. Kind of having this I don't give a shit attitude, and hurting others so they don't get hurt so much themselves.
Effy is a real piece of work, who you would like to say that you should stay the hell away from, but really there's more to her inside. In fact there is more inside all of these girls. They are all hurting emotionally. They want the easy way out and not have to face up to how they ever really feel, emo these girls ain't, dispite Gretas journal writing, it ain't poetry by any means.
They are actually the type of girl who someone needs to be brave and actually give a shit about them, care about them, respect them, make their life worth giving a shit about.
Maybe then I can see a little of this character in me after all, that girl inside that feels misunderstood sometimes, that just wants someone to reach out and give a damn, whether or not they understand.
So I guess I can be a little relieved that I am by no means as messed up as any of these characters.
Writer's Block: Heavenly Bodies
Lindsay Lohan
aren't you meant to name them after yourself somehow ...traditionally?
i shall call it LiLlo :P
It's Omegle ...Bitch!
Lindsay Lohan
Pretty safe to say I'm addicted to this. OMG how funny and completely amazing is it?! It's hard to believe this only launched on the 25th of March, I wouldn't go as far as saying it has taken the world be storm yet, but it does appear to have taken over LJ, amongst other forums out there, and is growing in popularity everyday
i really want to post up on ONTD but i'm not a member yet ***insert sad face*** i feel so left out, but i'm following the thread, well most of the 150 pages that have already been posted, and all i can say is LOL. This is some great time wasting fall off your chair laughing fun!!
Now you can have a chat about anything you like but let's face it we have all decided that this is a game ...and it must be played or you will be disconnected. basically the aim is to stay in character or the theme and not break it, people have different versions but they all work.
I have been using Britney Spears songs. It's amazing I thought more people would know the words but don't. So yes it is AMAZING when someone plays along, whether they help you write out the lyrics or you have a conversation using those lines, or variations of them.
I even wrote what can only be described as an emo poem will some random stranger, maybe they are emo or maybe they just like me played with what we had at the time, but the result was, yes, AMAZING! and this is why this is addictive.
you may get asked gaga or britney. gaga, no fail. hmmm it's britney ...bitch. in retrospec that one was obvious, but are the answers always obvious or are people sometimes just asking if you have the same taste as them? and you fail if you don't, doesn't matter it's their game, you play yours, they can fail that too. but the idea is to work with each other, but sometimes that's hard ...especailly if you haven't memorised every line from twilight and harry potter before you jump on Omegle. you will feel a little overwhelmed by all the dazzling.
edward? bella is that you? dazzle me!
god? yes my son...
Question:Why does EVERYONE seem to be from brazil? really it's like automatic disconnect when that comes up ...i wonder if they are feeling that? LOL's not racist it's a case of i don't want to actually chat thanks ...asl?? PLEASE!!'s all about THE GAME!!
What do you do when someone wants cybersex? hmm i just busted out Ashlee Simpson lyrics "Lala" ...LOL they didn't even realise!
Seen Lindsay Lohan's new ad for Fornarnia? You might want to memorise those random words after all or you will FAIL ...everything in the world is fair game for THE GAME the more you know the smarter you can be at playing, i just busted out a "Lilo" cause i couldn't remember the lines and they were typing fast ...that was good enough ...but I think this is a case of embrace your Poco!
have you seen my pokerface? ...LOL
Question:What does BB actually mean?
Well it's almost been two weeks of this fun, will we still be talking about this after that or was this a passing fad? Only time will tell
xoxo labellavitall
Omeegah is a brand-new service for meeting a new friend who's never online. When anyone uses Omeegah, we connect you with this specific one person and let you try to have a one-on-one chat with each other. Chats are completely anonymous, although there is nothing to stop you from revealing personal details to this person if you would like. He's honestly never online anyway, so go ahead and say whatever you want. Sigh...
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4417
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Launch A Web Application in Compact Mode using Chrome
I have been looking for a kind of launcher for web application, for example email, CRM app, WordPress Admin page, etc. that works like desktop client application. So I can have more space and focus on the application I am working with.
Sometime a go, Chrome had an experiment feature that enable you to hide tabs, address bar. But the feature somehow no longer there. I just found that Google has creatively create a (new to me) feature that help you do this.
To do this is very simple. For example I would like to create a shortcut for WordPress Admin page, or for any webapp that you’d like to have.
1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Open your WordPress Admin page, example:
3. Click the Menu icon on the right-top corner, then select More Tools, click Add To Taskbar..
4. Rename the title as you like. Check the Window chexbox. This will hide tabs and addressbar when you open the shortcut. Then click the Add button.
That’s it. Now you have your application shortcut in your taskbar. To delete it just right click and unpin it.
2 Responses to Launch A Web Application in Compact Mode using Chrome
1. si la familia figueroa es solo una familia en todo el mundo su origen es hebreo judios por naturaleza y somo la familia mas bonita ok Click
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4427
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Always Kiss The Cook.
Always Kiss The Cook.
So the industrial wave is in full effect. What better to industrialize than your kitchen! Where can you find all the best items, SaNaRae. Who is responsible for this fabulous kitchen, loaded with animations, Chez Moi!
The set is loaded with tons of single, couple, and scene animations. The fridge door opens and closes, filled with food. You can set up the table to be filled with different dishes to match your ideas, and you don’t even have to sweat over the stove to do so.
You really wanting to kiss the cook? Don’t worry, you can do that and so much more with this set. You’ll have until the 18th of November to run and grab your own!
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4428
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Why does Obama administration say ‘ISIL’ rather than ‘ISIS’?
You may have noticed the president, when referring to the former “jayvee” terrorists who are now feared to have infiltrated the U.S. mainland, calls them “ISIL.” So do members of his administration, right down to Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby:
It has become noticeable primarily because media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press, seem to refer almost exclusively to the same group as ISIS.
So why is the administration odd man out on this nomenclature? Here is one theory, advanced by retired U.S. Army Captain Terry Michael Hestilow:
Howard Portnoy
Howard Portnoy
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4453
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Papika, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Let’s go adventuring again, okay?
Flip Flappers Papika Cocona adventure
Flip Flappers is the type of anime that invites dialogue—character-driven, stylish, rich in symbolisms, and, perhaps most importantly, darker than its visuals would suggest. However, for all the attention that Flip Flappers has received, surprisingly little has been written about Papika.1 And for a good reason.
Papika is the literal and metaphorical manic pixie dream girl for Cocona. But little more.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4465
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In the Spirit of Tradition: Old and New Classic Yachts
The term classic yachts invokes many images: long bow sprits, impeccable sheer lines and tiny transoms, teak decks, varnished trim, and sparkling brass. Some of the great sailboats come to mind: Altair, Lelantina, So Fong, and Ticonderoga, to name a few. But there are also the motor yachts such as Principia or the classic J boats Shamrock V and Endeavour. Some feel that classic yachts have to be at least fifty years old and built of wood, and while In the Spirit of Tradition is primarily about old wooden boats, there are some new yachts as well, such as Hetairos and Radiance, true to the classic style. Fifty yachts are shown with historical and current photographs and textual information. Additionally, there are profiles of the people today who love and restore classic yachts. This lush, beautiful book is the most complete, up-to-date book on classic yachts ever produced.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4469
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Unsolvable: Rupture Part 4
Posted on January 5, 2012
The voice was a distant whisper.
A little closer now. She was barely conscious.
It taunted her. She slowly opened her eyes. Everything was white and blurry.
Cate sat up and looked around. Hers widened. “No…” She whispered.
Cate looked to her left. The Counterpart stood over her, hands on hips, smiling fiendishly.
“Tell me Cate, you ever wondered why your life was such a shit hole?”
She looked at him angrily and snapped her fingers. “No.”
The scenery turned into the edge of a cliff, which Cate sat on. The Counterpart fell, arms and legs spread, laughing.
“Really?” He shouted back up at her.
“Really,” she said to herself, and snapped her fingers. A giant boulder appeared over the Counterpart. She imagined his arrogant smile had faded.
“Not really.”
Cate looked behind her. There he stood, still smiling. He began walking toward her. “It’s always fun to see what you humans come up with to try and destroy me. It’s always something new and exciting.”
The Counterpart stopped. It felt like the bottom end of a cold soda can was being pressed on the back of his head. He reached back to find out what it was.
The shotgun discharged, and his head exploded in a gory mass of blood, brain matter and bone fragments. Most of which ended up on Cate. The body fell forward before her. She spat on the dirt and looked up at Eman.
“Really, Eman?”
“Sorry honey.”
She looked at the headless corpse in front of her and stood. She closed her eyes, resisting the urge to vomit.
“Make it go away.”
She heard Eman snap his fingers twice. She opened her eyes. The corpse was gone. She looked at Eman, confused.
“Why’d you snap your fingers twice?”
“To clear all that stuff off your beautiful face.”
He walked up to her and kissed her. Their lips were locked for a long moment before they parted. She smiled at him, and he at her.
“You always were pretty cheesy.”
Eman rolled his eyes. “Thanks.” He snapped his fingers. A red door appeared behind him.
“How did you find me?” Cate asked.
Eman unlocked the door with a key he pulled out of his pocket. He looked back at Cate and took her hand. With his other hand, he grasped the doorknob and turned it.
“I’ll show you,” he said. And they walked through the door.
Eman and Cate entered a dimly lit concrete bunker. In the corner next to them was a lantern on a wooden crate. Stacked all around the bunker were munition boxes, opened wooden crates containing various automatic weapons. Cate held Eman close.
“Why are we in a bunker?”
“Because there’s a war going on.”
A man in all black military fatigues stepped out of the darkness before them. He looked at Eman and nodded, then looked back at Cate.
“The Angel Counterpart created an army of mindless Counterparts loyal to him in order to hold off the rest the Counterparts who already mimicked human minds.”
“Who is the Angel Counterpart?”
“Our creator.”
“But if he’s your creator, couldn’t…”
Cate couldn’t finish the thought.
“Yes, he could destroy us. But he would have to take control of all of us again to do so. To create a Counterpart, he only has to will it into existence, and he can will as many of them into existence at one time as he pleases.”
“What about to take control again?”
“To take control of us would take a while. We have our own wills now. He’d have to break our wills before taking complete control again. And our wills are strong.”
An explosion sounded outside, followed by heavy gunfire.
“Shit.” The man grabbed his magnum from its holster. “You two stay here!” He turned to run when Cate called after him.
“Wait! Do you have your own names too?”
The man nodded. “The human I mimicked was called Jimmy.” He then ran into the darkness.
Cate and Eman sat near the crate with the lantern and held each other tight.
After a few moments of sitting in silence, save for the muffled sounds of battle outside, Cate spoke.
“You said you were going to show me how you found me.”
“I did. Jimmy showed me the door that led to you.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I was in a psych ward in another part of the Realm when he appeared.”
“Psych ward?”
“Yeah. Seth was there, along with another Counterpart. A doctor…” His voice trailed off. Stevens’ death replayed in his mind. Cate nudged him.
“What happened, hun?”
” He had told me Seth’s mind was the key to destroying the Angel Counterpart. Then he…he was…destroyed.”
“How is Seth’s mind the key?”
“Because it was made up entirely of negative energy. That’s how we have the upper hand here, except our mind’s were only made up partially with negative energy.”
Cate was silent for a few minutes, taking all of it in. The she spoke again. “So I don’t get how Jimmy found you.”
“Jimmy somewhat mentioned this, but the way it works here is like a beehive. The Angel Counterpart sees, hears, feels, and knows what all the Counterparts know. And the same goes for the Counterparts themselves.”
“So every other Counterpart knew where you were.”
“What about Seth?”
“He’s in the medical bay down the hall.”
The sounds of battle died down a little. Cate yawned and shut her eyes, her head resting on Eman’s shoulder. It wasn’t long before she was asleep. Eman stayed awake, thinking about Seth and the Angel Counterpart.
He whispered to himself. “What am I going to do?”
Posted in: Stories
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4485
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Posts Tagged ‘Bible in Context’
Anna Ruth Henriques, Song of Songs- Verse III, 1993-94 on wood
When I was in college we worked through Tommy Nelson’s notoriously eisegetical series on the Song of Solomon (or better, ‘Song of Songs,’ ~yrIßyVih; ryviî). The series construes the Song of Songs as being a poetic manual for “courtship” and takes some rather breathtaking liberties with the text. It has always struck me as odd that evangelical ministers who are deeply concerned about chastity would recommend a book as risqué as the Song of Songs to single college students to guide their romantic lives. The Rabbis forbade the young and immature to read it precisely because of the book’s intense prima facie eroticism.
Leaving aside questions of whether the Song should be read as a unified story or as an anthology, as genuine erotic poetry or as an allegory, there is one verse in particular that has always stuck out to me when I think about my old college Bible-study: chapter 6, verse 8. In Hebrew the verse reads,
rP”)s.mi !yaeî tAmßl'[]w: ~yvi_g>l;yPi( ~ynIßmov.W tAkêl’M. ‘hM’he’ ~yViîvi
Now, a word of caution: if you do not read Hebrew and have looked the verse up in an English translation, there is one word that is consistently ignored in translations: the plural third person pronoun, ‘hM’he’, which is usually translated “they,” “these.” English translations typically mute the pronoun, rendering the first phrase of the verse, “There are sixty queens…” (e.g., ESV, KJV, NRSV, TNK). But, if one gives the pronoun it’s due weight, the verse reads, “There are these sixty queens…” or even “These are sixty queens….” Read this way, it would seem that the verse has a specific group of women in view. Because this particular group of women is composed of queens, concubines and damsels (tAmßl'[]w:, not “virgins”!) most likely what we have here is a harem.
One of the odd things about the pronoun in this verse is that it is masculine, making its fit with its feminine referents a bit awkward. But the reason for this, I would suggest, becomes clear when one reads the next verse:
ayhiÞ hr”îB’ HM’êail. ‘ayhi tx;îa; ytiêM’t; ytiän”Ay ‘ayhi tx;îa;
`h’Wl)l.h;y>w:) ~yviÞg>l;ypi(W tAkïl’m. h’WrêV.a;y>w:) ‘tAnb’ h’WaÜr” HT’_d>l;Ay*l..
Only one is my dove, My perfect one, The only one of her mother, The delight of her who bore her. Maidens see and acclaim her; Queens and concubines, and praise her. (JPS Tanakh)
Here the pronouns become the singular feminine ‘ayhi and they all refer to the speaker’s beloved. More strikingly the verbs describing the actions of the maidens, queens and concubines are all given masculine conjugations. The pattern of the pronouns and conjugations paint a pretty clear picture. The speaker is striking a stark contrast between his harem and his beloved. So great is her perfection, her ideal beauty that the very femininity of other women is diminished. In her presence, other women seem a bit mannish, as it were.
In short, the speaker uses his harem as a foil for the ideal femininity of his beloved (not a particularly flattering role). But, the fact remains: he has a harem! Of course, this observation should come as no surprise to readers who identify the male voice in the Song with that of Solomon, who famously had 700 wives and 300 concubines from various and sundry countries (1 Kings 11:1-3; cf. 2 Chr 9:7). Even if the speaker is not identified with Solomon, he does seem to be royalty (6:12) and in the Ancient Near East with royalty comes polygamy.
Whether this observation surprises you or not, the point is that it seriously problematizes any attempt to straightforwardly use the Song as a handbook for Christian dating or marriage. Again, we run up against a massive divide between the context of the text, where polygamy, especially amongst kings, was a given, and our own context, where polygamy is anathema. All too often readers, especially evangelical readers, make a quantum hermeneutical leap over this gap without ever realizing what exactly it is that they are doing.
To clarify the matter, we have in the male protaganist of the Song, not a single young man on the prowl, but rather a multiply-married man with many mistresses on the side who has fallen head over heels for another woman. Of course, in an Ancient Near Eastern context, this situation poses no problem at all. But in modern America any attempt to straightforwardly model one’s love life on the Song is likely to get one thrown in jail or worse. So what then are we to do with the Song? If the Song is not for providing plain and simple dating advice, what in the world is it for?
To begin answering that question we must first pose another, namely, What is any song for? In my humble opinion, songs are for inspiring. They may do any number of other things as well, but inspiration, I think, is their base function. The quality of a song is judged not by whether it is true or false, whether it is authoritative or whether it alters social reality, but, rather, by whether or not it inspires. Songs, unlike paintings and sculpture, achieve this function by means of evocative language and music.
What, then, does the language of the Song of Songs evoke? The Song of Songs evokes the sort of intense, unbearable, irrational, hormonal, heart-palpitating, palm-perspiring, gastro-intestinal-butterfly-stirring puppy love that afflicts every adolescent sooner or later. And it does so splendidly. But why, we must ask, was this saccharine paean to eros considered sacred writ? At this point, we can only guess. Perhaps it is because it lays bare the aching beauty of one of the deep elements of the created order that God declared to be “very good.” Perhaps in the Song we hear the sentiment only whispered by Adam, “This one at last Is bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh!,” set to music and blared at 1,000,000 decibals. Perhaps, in a sense, the Song of Songs represents the canonization of passion.
However one slices it, the Song of Songs, like Virginia, is for lovers, whether, as ancient interpreters held, lovers of God or, as modern interpreters suggest, lovers in thrall to earthly romance. But to woo this ancient, exotic Song into our lives now, I would suggest, requires a more supple, sensitive, rapturous and, dare I say, poetic hermeneutic than the wooden would-be literalism to which we evangelicals have become accustomed.
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As I enjoyed my morning coffee earlier today, I was struck by these lines in the Amarna Letters:
To the king my lord say: Message fo Abdi-Hepa your servant. At the feet of the king my lord I have fallen seven and seven times…. (El Amarna, 290; trans. by Michael Coogan, my italics)
To the king my lord, my god, my sun-god say: Message of Shuwardatu, your servant, the dust under your feet. I have fallen at the feet of the king my lord, my god, my sun-god, seven and seven times…. (El Amarna, 271; ibid., my italics)
The Amarna Letters are 350 pieces of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV’s (Akhenaten; 1352-1336 BCE) royal correspondence, recovered from the ruins of his capital city, Akhetaten (modern-el Amarna). Many of the letters were written by rulers of independent states like Assyria and Babylonia. Others were written by vassal kings who were subject to Egyptian rule at the time, like those from Palestine. The Letters give us a great window into the politics of the Ancient Near East in the 14th century, the Late Bronze Age.
What jumped out at me about the lines quoted above was their parallel in Genesis 33:1-3:
Looking up, Jacob saw Esau coming, accompanied by four hundred men. He divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maids, 2 putting the maids and their children first, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. 3 He himself went on ahead and bowed low to the ground seven times until he was near his brother.
One of the Amarna Letters from Rib-Addi, king of Byblos, to Akhenaten
We see illustrated in the introductions of the Amarna Letters and here in Genesis 33 a stereotyped gesture of deference common in the Ancient Near East. It is also worth noting that the vassal king I first cited, Abdi-Hepa, was the king of Jerusalem. Of course, nobody needed the Amarna Letters in order to figure out that Jacob’s sevenfold bow was an act of deference toward Esau (of whom he was understandably terrified). But parallels like these furnish us with salutary reminders of the fact that the Bible was not simply dropped out of the sky into the Church but rather was born out of the contexts, cultures, conceptualizations and, in this case, customs of the Ancient World.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4494
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(redirected from cuttlefishes)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia.
A homeopathic remedy formulated from the cuttlefish, a soft mollusk native to the Mediterranean Sea; it is used primarily for female disorders, such as premenstrual syndrome, physical and emotional changes during pregnancy, prolapsed uterus and pain with sexual intercourse. Sepia is also used for abdominal bloating, violent coughing, fatty food-related indigestion, genital herpes, hair loss, headaches, itching, increased sweating, “liver spots” on skin, low back pain, motion sickness, sinusitis, varicose veins and vertigo.
Computer software in the UK used to maintain data about care performance.
a member of the Cephalopoda family of molluscs with a bony structure (gladius) internally. This boatlike structure is a common finding at the sea's edge and is much used as a dietary supplement and plaything for caged birds.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4500
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How the internet unleashed a burst of cartooning creativity
The Economist
So thankful for XKCD, Oatmeal and more of this ilk. Our lives are so much the richer because of what these creative minds drew and wrote.
Also fascinating, how the macro trend, of the disappearance of gatekeepers combined with ease of creating has spawned so many of these new “jobs”-
1. The digital creative aka XKCD etc
2. The youtube pop-star
3. The Airbnb hotelier — Rents her house and manages 5 other properties
4. The uber entrepreneur — Drives a car himself and uses that to finance 5 other cars to increase income.
5. The kickstarter product genius
Waiting for a lot more of these to come as more gatekeepers disappear and creating becomes even more easy.
Like what you read? Give Prateek Sharma a round of applause.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4502
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Missing Persons
Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately.
I was kidnapped by pirates.
Yes, that’s an artist’s rendition of me.
Uh, what do you mean, what do you mean, you don’t believe me? Of course it happened. Really. How could you not believe me? How do I not come across as a lusty pirate wench?
Oh, yeah, the nerdiness. Right.
Well, actually, I was abducted aliens. I bet you totally buy that, right? Took me up into their spaceship, too. The weather on Alderran was awesome, right up until the planet exploded.
Oh, you saw that, too?
Uh, sorry.
Anyway, I’ve barely blogged on my own site, and I promise to do better.
Unless I get kidnapped by aliens again.
Or pirates.
4 thoughts on “Missing Persons”
1. I really am, aren’t I? Well, okay, the hubby wishes I were, but… (did I mention the nerdiness? It extends to pirates. I LOVE pirates. Not real ones, but imaginary ones… Oh yeah. And in my imaginings, I look like that, and the hub wears a triangle hat)
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4513
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Zend Optimizer is a well-known software, which is needed to run files protected with Zend Guard. The second encodes files written in PHP 4 and PHP 5 in order to protect them from reverse engineering and illegal use, thus guarding copyrighted source code. When you'd like to protect your custom script, for example, you are able to employ Zend Guard and your code won't be human readable, but you will also need Zend Optimizer on the server where you host your blog. A large number of pre-made script-driven apps, in particular ones which are paid, also need Zend Optimizer so as to work efficiently as their core code is usually not free to change. Internet sites which use the instrument are normally quicker because their program code is already optimized and pre-compiled.
Zend Optimizer in Shared Hosting
Zend Optimizer is installed on all the servers that are part of our state-of-the-art cloud web hosting platform. Regardless of which shared hosting plan you get, you'll be able to use the instrument to guarantee that any kind of script application that requires it will operate perfectly in your account. By using a handy tool in the Advanced area of the Hepsia Control Panel which is included with all of the website hosting accounts, you will be able to activate and deactivate different options with one button. Zend Optimizer will be one of these, so even if this happens to be your first website hosting account ever, you won't experience any problems. In the same area you can also select the PHP version for your account - 4 and multiple versions of 5, therefore whenever you change to one that you haven't used yet, you can enable Zend Optimizer for it with a click. Since our platform enables you to employ a couple of PHP versions simultaneously, more experienced users can enable the instrument for a specific website with a php.ini file in a specific domain folder as well.
Zend Optimizer in Semi-dedicated Servers
We offer Zend Optimizer with all of our semi-dedicated hosting plans. It is available on our revolutionary cloud platform, so if any script-driven application that you wish to use requires it to function, you just need to enable it with a click from your Hepsia Control Panel. You'll find Zend in the PHP Configuration section where you can also switch the PHP version which your website hosting account uses. For any new release which you set, simply click on the On button for Zend Optimizer and you will be all set. Hepsia will remember your choice for previously used releases of PHP, so you won't have to do that each time. In the event that you have more experience, you can benefit from the versatility of our cloud platform and use a php.ini file to set another PHP release and enable/disable Zend Optimizer for a specific domain without the need of altering the overall settings for the whole semi-dedicated server account.
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English does not make sense!
Hi, everyone! 😀
You might be surprised by the title of this post and I confess: me too! This morning, while I was checking the news on Engvid’s Facebook page, this was their latest post and I got myself reflecting on how it is challenging to study and get fluent in any additional language.
As our choice is for English, watch here Ronnie’s latest lesson showing some words and expressions that just do not make sense and take the quiz here after watching it.
And more: some time ago, I read this text by chance on the internet and I decided to share it with you. It is always marked as by anonymous when any attribution is given and you can read its full version here.
“We’ll begin with box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
If one is a tooth, and a whole set is teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?
If the singular is this, and the plural is these,
Why shouldn’t the plural of kiss be kese?”
Tell me: have you ever seen any word or expression that drove you nuts because it makes no sense?
If so, share with us in our comments section!
The most important, however, is to use these challenges as MOTIVATION to keep on pursuing our goals instead of getting frustated with them. Do you agree?
Have an awesome day! 🙂
2 thoughts on “English does not make sense!
1. Wesley Henrique Pereira (Nem) says:
That teacher is very cool, she talks with a funny way kkkk. Well about the words, what can we do? This is english, however, soccer was the best. kkk Thanks again Mirelle!
Liked by 1 person
• mirellenascimento says:
Hey, dear! Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
Yeah, I also enjoy her lessons a lot! As you said brilliantly, what can we do? We’ve gotta read and be open to learn! And yeah, soccer was the best! kkk
Glad you liked it!
Bye! See you soon! 😉
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Protein Linguistics
For over a decade now I have been working, essentially off the grid, on protein folding. I started thinking about the problem during my undergraduate years and actively working on it from the very beginning of grad school. For about four years, during the late 2000s, I pursued a radically different approach (to what was current then and now) based on ideas from Bayesian nonparametrics. Despite spending a significant fraction of my Ph.D. time on the problem, I made no publishable progress, and ultimately abandoned the approach. When deep learning began to make noise in the machine learning community around 2010, I started thinking about reformulating the core hypothesis underlying my Bayesian nonparametrics approach in a manner that can be cast as end-to-end differentiable, to utilize the emerging machinery of deep learning. Today I am finally ready to start talking about this long journey, beginning with a preprint that went live on bioRxiv yesterday.
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The Quantified Anatomy of a Paper
previously blogged on my adventures in self quantification (QS). In that post I wrote about the general system but did not delve into specific projects. Ultimately however the utility of self quantification is in the detailed insights it gives, and so I’m going to dive deeper into a project that passed a major milestone earlier today: publication of a paper. If you’re interested in the science behind this project, see my other post, A New Way to Read the Genome. Here I will focus on the application and utility of QS as applied to individual projects.
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A New Way to Read the Genome
I am pleased to announce that earlier today the embargo was lifted on our most recent paper. This work represents the culmination of over two years of effort by my collaborators and I. You can find the official version on the Nature Genetics website here, and the freely available ReadCube version here. In this post, I will focus on making the science accessible to the lay reader. I have also written another post, The Quantified Anatomy of a Paper, which delves into the quantified-self analytics of this project.
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What Does a Neural Network Actually Do?
There has been a lot of renewed interest lately in neural networks (NNs) due to their popularity as a model for deep learning architectures (there are non-NN based deep learning approaches based on sum-products networks and support vector machines with deep kernels, among others). Perhaps due to their loose analogy with biological brains, the behavior of neural networks has acquired an almost mystical status. This is compounded by the fact that theoretical analysis of multilayer perceptrons (one of the most common architectures) remains very limited, although the situation is gradually improving. To gain an intuitive understanding of what a learning algorithm does, I usually like to think about its representational power, as this provides insight into what can, if not necessarily what does, happen inside the algorithm to solve a given problem. I will do this here for the case of multilayer perceptrons. By the end of this informal discussion I hope to provide an intuitive picture of the surprisingly simple representations that NNs encode.
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It is tempting to assume that with the appropriate choice of weights for the edges connecting the second and third layers of the NN discussed in this post, it would be possible to create classifiers that output 1 over any composite region defined by unions and intersections of the 7 regions shown below.
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The Federal Government is Not Useless
There has been much haranguing about the apparent uselessness of the federal government. While I am no political pundit, I can speak about my little corner of the universe. The US federal government includes something called the National Institutes of Health or NIH, which happens to be the largest scientific research organization in the world. With a budget of over $30 billion, it spends more on research than Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Google, and Apple combined, supporting over 300,000 researchers nationwide. It also employs 6,000 scientists internally, who collectively produce more biomedical research than any other organization in the United States. What does it mean for the NIH staff to be furloughed? It means that every single day, 16.4 research years are wasted, or about three Ph.D. theses. This is likely to be an underestimate because the scientists employed by the NIH are professionals whose scientific output exceeds that of graduate students, and the quality of NIH-produced research backs this up. What kind of research will be delayed every day? You can read the list yourself, but it includes things like deciphering the genetic code, inventing MRI, and sequencing the human genome. This is not hyperbole; all these discoveries were made by NIH-supported researchers, who have received 83 Nobel prizes in total.
The US is the world’s preeminent scientific superpower, “a player without peer” as Nature recently put it. Only through profound and self-inflicted displays of stupidity such as we have witnessed during the past 24 hours will this cease to be the case.
Predictions Are Cheap in Biology
I just came back from ICSB 2013, the leading international conference on systems biology (short write-up here). During the conference Bernhard Palsson gave a great talk, which he ended by promoting a view that (I suspect) is widely held among computational and theoretical biologists but rarely vocalized: most high-impact journals require that novel predictions are experimentally validated before they are deemed worthy for publication, by which point they cease to be novel predictions. Why not allow scientists to publish predictions by themselves?
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ICSB 2013
I recently had the pleasure of attending the 14th International Conference on Systems Biology in Copenhagen. It was a five-day, multi-track bonanza, a strong sign of the field’s continued vibrancy. The keynotes were generally excellent, and while I cannot help but feel a little dismayed by the incrementalism that is inherent to scientific research and that is on display in conferences, the forest view was encouraging and hopeful. This is one of the most exciting fields of science today.
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10 Months at Harvard, Quantified
I will soon reach the one-year mark of my fellowship at HMS, which seems like a fitting time to examine how effectively I have spent my time here so far. I have been a practitioner of self quantification long before the movement acquired its name, having tracked some aspect of my life since I was 16. Given the movement’s growing popularity, I thought it appropriate to share some of my life hacking experiments. My approach has cyclically peaked and waned in sophistication, something that I will expound upon later in the post, but I believe that the overall trajectory of my effort has been that of increasing usefulness. Any lifestyle change, particularly one that involves compulsive tracking of one’s behavior, ought to result in actionable information that is demonstrably useful and not merely be a quantitative exercise in vanity. In this post I hope to show that this can in fact be the case for self quantification.
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Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Py3k status update #12
This is the 12th status update about our work on the py3k branch, which we
Here's an update on the recent progress:
• Thank you to everyone who has provided initial feedback on the PyPy3 2.1 beta
1 release. We've gotten a number of bug reports, most of which have been
• As usual, we're continually keeping up with changes from the default
branch. Oftentimes these merges come at a cost (conflicts and or
reintegration of py3k changes) but occasionally we get goodies for free, such
as the recent JIT optimizations and incremental garbage collection.
• We've been focusing on re-optimizing Python 2 int sized (machine sized)
We have a couple of known, notable speed regressions in the PyPy3 beta release
vs regular PyPy. The major one being with Python 2.x int sized (or machine
sized) integers.
Python 3 drops the distinction between int and long types. CPython 3.x
accomplishes this by removing the old int type entirely and renaming the long
type to int. Initially, we've done the same for PyPy3 for the sake of
simplicity and getting everything working.
However PyPy's JIT is capable of heavily optimizing these machine sized integer
operations, so this came with a regression in performance in this area.
We're now in the process of solving this. Part of this work also involves some
house cleaning on these numeric types which also benefits the default branch.
Armin Rigo said...
We should note that the re-optimization is different than CPython's. In the latter they use a "long" implementation which they heavily optimized for the common case of small integers. In PyPy instead we use two really different implementations (like "int" and "long" on Python 2); they just happen to be exposed at the user level with the same Python type in Python 3.
Anonymous said...
I just have to say, the PyPy team is doing a great job.
Well done guys!
Alessandro said...
I know nothing on pypy, but I'm interested. I have a doubt: Will the PyPy version with python 3 support leverage all of the progress of the python 2 pypy version?
Like for example, will current numpypy be able to work on PyPy3k ?
Alessandro said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
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How the Morphing Cylinders of the 'Illusion of the Year' Work
The brain loves a right angle.
Michael Byrne
Michael Byrne
Like most people sharing this around today, the Neural Correlate Society's "Illusion of the Year" blew my mind a bit the first few times I watched it. But, even then, I got the sense that this is probably pretty simple and the illusion probably has to do with the actual real geometry of the shape, which doesn't appear to resolve to a proper circle and also doesn't seem to have the shadows we'd expect with a proper circle.
Googling around, I found a brief paper explaining the "ambiguous cylinders" from the illusion's creator, Kokichi Sugihara of the Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences in Tokyo. Indeed, the explanation is that the shapes in reality are just perfectly in between cylinders and squares, geometries that the eye naturally wants to resolve into one or the other. If you pause the video at :15 seconds, you can see that the tops of the shapes are not actually flat.
"Although we know in our logical part of our brains that we are looking at the same object directly and through the mirror, our brains usually do not correct this kind of contradictory perception," Sugihara writes. "This is a typical character of optical illusion."
"I conjecture that our brains interpret the image as the cylinder whose section is generated by a perpendicular cut, that is, the section is the intersection of the cylinder and a plane perpendicular to the axis of the cylinder. The actual edge of the cylinder is a space curve which is not embedded in a single plane."
We want to see the top of the cylinder as being a perfect flat cross-section because the brain is predisposed to right angles, Sugihara supposes in a separate paper on "anomalous mirror symmetry." This is illustrated by the Ames room illusion:
So, in terms of our cylinders, what we want to see is the image in the middle, even though the reality may be the image on the right.
Then, in using a mirror, it's possible to generate both the apparently conflicting images b and c at the same time. We see comforting squares while the world is in fact much more warped.
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Neptune Planet
Listing Began:: Aug 18, 2016, 7:37 am
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Jul 23, 2016, 1:51 pm
The farthest planet in order from the Sun is the eighth planet, Neptune. It was discovered way back in September 23, 1846. It is also one of the coldest planets (-218 °C) as it is very far away from the Sun. This planet is about 17 times the mass of the Earth. It is named after the Roman god of sea, Neptune.
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My Medications List
بـ JCMatt Software
My Medications List is an app for Windows created by JCMatt Software, The most recent version 6.0.1, was updated 2961 days ago, on 13.05.10. The app takes up 2.56MB, with the average size for its category, الصحة, being 6.72MB. This app is translated to العربية and works with the minimum operating system version . My Medications List holds the ranking of 34 in its category and holds the position number 8410 in Uptodown’s overall ranking. Some similar programs are: FriendEye, WinBraille, Yoga, Advanced Woman Calendar, Subliminal Flash, Butterfly.
تقييم هذا التطبيق
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The Monsters Inside
We all have them, we all need to bind and release them! We keep them caged, thinking they will never do any harm but they whisper in our ear and rage comes.
It begins with a scratching, a clawing from within and suddenly it’s just beneath the skin. A monster which feeds off of nightmares and fears. Down inside the monster sleeps, waiting for the perfect chance to make its appearance. Bold in its steps it creeps up, pushing through awaiting the moment you self-destruct.
Is your monster under lock and key? Do you keep it caged, fearing the rise of its anger? It’s hiding in the dark and wants your very soul. Sometimes it just makes you want to scream.
The radical thing is that most people don’t admit to having these monsters. These monsters are called demons. And they possess us because they have no physical body of their own and they want to exist in our world, controlling and manipulating us.
Most don’t know we have so many demons that roam the earth that if they actually saw them, it would cause heart attacks. The stark realization is that this is true. Not only do they surround us but we are infested with them internally. Some consider this kind of manipulation just a combinations of sins we carry and this may be true for some but many of us carry demons inside. We must use prayer to ask Jesus Christ to release them, and to bind and cast them out in the name of Jesus Christ. Seriously many people think this is a view of a fanatical Christian but the supernatural forces are so strong we must take these views. Many of us carry multiple demons, and this accounts for our many strange behaviors.
Some believe because we are believers then there is no way we can have demonic oppression, but this is not true. As a mater of fact, we are prime targets!
When you ask Jesus to come in your heart, you are born again. You get saved. Tell me something. You are a body, soul and spirit. Which part of you is saved? It’s the spirit, because you are still having trouble with your mind. You are still having trouble with your body? Your soul is made up of your mind, will and emotions.
There are demons of every type, some are because you haven’t forgiven someone, some are making you sick-physically sick. Others are oppressing you because you may have been interested in the occult such as Ouija boards, tarot, witchcraft, mediums, psychics, horoscopes, contacting the dead etc.
What some may not understand is that our family can cast shadows upon our lives by the experiences they had. Generational curses do apply and can remain active until you bind and cast them out of your lives. Maybe you were abused in some way and this has a hold on your life. Not only can GOD release those holds and emotional barriers but demons can follow you because of the emotions held within us.
There is no doubt that we each have our own angel protecting us, but we can call forth GOD’s warrior angels to help guide us and protect us. There are various deliverance pastors out there but Win Worley was one of the best.
PDF—Warfare Prayers-Win Worley
Now, we come to the binding and loosing thing. If you go to the 16th chapter of Matthew, in verse 19, you’ll find out this binding and loosing is the keys to the kingdom. You hear a lot of talk
about the keys to the kingdom. The keys of the kingdom are given to believers who take their authority to bind and loose.
Then we some to (Matthew) 18:18. All of a sudden verse 18 and Matthew 18 begin to take on a new significance. “Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” Basically all that verse means is whatever you bind on earth, you also bind in heaven– in the Name of Jesus”. You can loose the angels of GOD to help you too, hence the binding and loosing. So bind the demons and loose GOD’s angels. This uses incredible amounts of force in the spiritual world.
Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven. He said, “the Illuminati has been so messed up, the principalities that guide all the wicked movements of the new age movement, the economic block, the political and the financial maneuverings and meanderings are guided by principalities and powers who work through thrones, dominions and all these other various step-downs. They issue orders and power going down through the channels to arrange the disaster that gets down here. The bottom line is the human dupes like Rockefeller and the others who are highly demonized who are running around doing their bidding. They are so demonized they don’t even know what they’re doing, but they’re following the dictates of the master plan of Satan. But this demon said, “things are in so much confusion because those stupid simple minded idiots across the country. They pick up that blankety blank warfare thing. Every morning, hundreds of them! They pick it up, here they go, ‘now Lord, let me see…we bind in Jesus’ Name, we send legions into the principalities and powers,’ and they go right down the stupid list and here comes legion after legion of angels with chains coming and binding.” And he said, “about the time they get one flight, here they come from another direction with some more idiots busy, and they’re just sending them from everywhere. The angels of God are coming, and they’re throwing everything into confusion.” He said, “they bind them, they gag them, they put sacks on their heads.” He said, “It’s disgusting!” He said, “Not only that, they cut down all the communication lines and the runners, you might say the spiritual runners that take messages down to the earth, can’t get through, they’re blocked and hamstrung and thrown down and hindered, and the principalities and powers are busy trying to fight off these hordes of angels that come from those idiots. And it’s all your fault. You and those idiots that are teaching this, you’ve got to stop it.”
JESUS is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIGHT
He can bring calm to the rage
He brings water when you thirst
He can stop the whispers in the dark
He can be your whirlwind
Artist–Lorelain Winkler
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The Daily Nash-on
a mindstream from just another statistic…
How the companies of the InfoAge got their names….
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Oh yeah, this is not like those silly forwards that come with false information. I actually looked this up.
Apache – It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA’s httpd daemon. The result was ‘A PAtCHy’ server — thus, the name Apache
CISCO – It’s not an acronym but the short for San Francisco.
Google – the name started as a jockey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named ‘Googol’, a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders – Stanford grad students Sergey Brin and Larry Page resented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to ‘Google’
Intel – Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ‘Moore Noyce’ but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.
Lotus (Notes) – Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from ‘The Lotus Position’ or ‘Padmasana’. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Acronym for: One Real Asshole Called Larry Ellison?
Red Hat – Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone!
SAP – “Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing”, formed by 4 ex-IBM employees who used to work in the
‘Systems/Applications/Projects’ group of IBM.
SUN – founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford University Network.
Xerox – The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say dry’ (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer’ means dry.
Yahoo! – the word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.
Written by Nash
June 2, 2005 at 11:06 am
Posted in Uncategorized
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Introductory Essay to John Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ
I.The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is a polemical work, designed to show, among other things, that the doctrine of universal redemption is unscriptural and destructive of the gospel. There are many, therefore, to whom it is not likely to be of interest. Those who see no need for doctrinal exactness and have no time for theological debates which show up divisions between so-called Evangelicals may well regret its reappearance. Some may find the very sound of Owen’s thesis so shocking that they will refuse to read his book at all; so passionate a thing is prejudice, and so proud are we of our theological shibboleths. But it is hoped that this reprint will find itself readers of a different spirit. There are signs today of a new upsurge of interest in the theology of the Bible: a new readiness to test traditions, to search the Scriptures and to think through the faith. It is to those who share this readiness that Owen’s treatise is offered, in the belief that it will help us in one of the most urgent tasks facing Evangelical Christendom today—the recovery of the gospel.
This last remark may cause some raising of eyebrows, but it seems to be warranted by the facts.
There is no doubt that Evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement. In such matters as the practice of evangelism, the teaching of holiness, the building up of local church life, the pastor’s dealing with souls and the exercise of discipline, there is evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with things as they are and of equally widespread uncertainty as to the road ahead. This is a complex phenomenon, to which many factors have contributed; but, if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the biblical gospel. Without realising it, we have during the past century bartered that gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. The new gospel conspicuously fails to produce deep reverence, deep repentance, deep humility, a spirit of worship, a concern for the church. Why? We would suggest that the reason lies in its own character and content. It fails to make men God-centred in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be “helpful” to man—to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction—and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel was “helpful,” too—more so, indeed, than is the new—but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of Divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its centre of reference was unambiguously God. But in the new gospel the centre of reference is man. This is just to say that the old gospel was religious in a way that the new gospel is not. Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach men to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better. The subject of the old gospel was God and His ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.
From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of “helpfulness.” Accordingly, the themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for His sheep, are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not “helpful”; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. (The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered; it is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem.) However this may be (and we shall say more about it later), the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. Thus, we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of His redeeming work as if He had done no more by dying than make it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God’s love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence “at the door of our hearts” for us to let them in. It is undeniable that this is how we preach; perhaps this is what we really believe. But it needs to be said with emphasis that this set of twisted half-truths is something other than the biblical gospel. The Bible is against us when we preach in this way; and the fact that such preaching has become almost standard practice among us only shows how urgent it is that we should review this matter. To recover the old, authentic, biblical gospel, and to bring our preaching and practice back into line with it, is perhaps our most pressing present need. And it is at this point that Owen’s treatise on redemption can give us help.
“But wait a minute,” says someone, “it’s all very well to talk like this about the gospel; but surely what Owen is doing is defending limited atonement—one of the five points of Calvinism? When you speak of recovering the gospel, don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”
These questions are worth considering, for they will no doubt occur to many. At the same time, however, they are questions that reflect a great deal of prejudice and ignorance. “Defending limited atonement”—as if this was all that a Reformed theologian expounding the heart of the gospel could ever really want to do! “You just want us all to become Calvinists”—as if Reformed theologians had no interest beyond recruiting for their party, and as if becoming a Calvinist was the last stage of theological depravity, and had nothing to do with the gospel at all. Before we answer these questions directly, we must try to remove the prejudices which underlie them by making clear what Calvinism really is; and therefore we would ask the reader to take note of the following facts, historical and theological, about Calvinism in general and the “five points” in particular.
First, it should be observed that the “five points of Calvinism,” so-called, are simply the Calvinistic answer to a five-point manifesto (the Remonstrance) put out by certain “Belgic semi-Pelagians” in the early seventeenth century. The theology which it contained (known to history as Arminianism) stemmed from two philosophical principles: first, that divine sovereignty is not compatible with human freedom, nor therefore with human responsibility; second, that ability limits obligation. (The charge of semi-Pelagianism was thus fully justified.) From these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions: first that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible human act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of Him; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ability to believe must be universal. Hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions: (1.) Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him, nor (2.) is he ever so completely controlled by God that he cannot reject it. (3.) God’s election of those who shall be saved is prompted by His foreseeing that they will of their own accord believe. (4.) Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone (there is no such gift); what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe. (5.) It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost. Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and, because his own, not God’s in him.
The Synod of Dort was convened in 1618 to pronounce on this theology, and the “five points of Calvinism” represent its counter-affirmations. They stem from a very different principle—the biblical principle that “salvation is of the Lord”; and they may be summarized thus: (1.) Fallen man in his natural state lacks all power to believe the gospel, just as he lacks all power to believe the law, despite all external inducements that may be extended to him. (2.) God’s election is a free, sovereign, unconditional choice of sinners, as sinners, to be redeemed by Christ, given faith and brought to glory. (3.) The redeeming work of Christ had as its end and goal the salvation of the elect. (4.) The work of the Holy Spirit in bringing men to faith never fails to achieve its object. (5.) Believers are kept in faith and grace by the unconquerable power of God till they come to glory. These five points are conveniently denoted by the mnemonic TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Preservation of the saints.
Now, here are two coherent interpretations of the biblical gospel, which stand in evident opposition to each other. The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content. One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God Who enables man to save himself. One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit—as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly. The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, those who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that any man’s salvation is secured by any of them. The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms. One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man; one regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, Who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it. Plainly, these differences are important, and the permanent value of the “five points,” as a summary of Calvinism, is that they make clear the points at which, and the extent to which, these two conceptions are at variance.
However. it would not be correct simply to equate Calvinism with the “five points.” Five points of our own will make this clear.
In the first place, Calvinism is something much broader than the “five points” indicate. Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavour to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God’s own Word. Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible—the God-centred outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace. Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form. And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of His great preordained plan for His creatures and His church. The five points assert no more than that God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that He is sovereign everywhere.
Then, in the second place, the “five points” present Calvinistic soteriology in a negative and polemical form, whereas Calvinism in itself is essentially expository, pastoral and constructive. It can define its position in terms of Scripture without any reference to Arminianism, and it does not need to be forever fighting real or imaginary Arminians in order to keep itself alive. Calvinism has no interest in negatives, as such; when Calvinists fight, they fight for positive Evangelical values. The negative cast of the “five points” is misleading chiefly with regard to the third (limited atonement, or particular redemption), which is often read with stress on the adjective and taken as indicating that Calvinists have a special interest in confining the limits of divine mercy. But in fact the purpose of this phraseology, as we shall see, is to safeguard the central affirmation of the gospel—that Christ is a Redeemer who really does redeem. Similarly, the denials of an election that is conditional and of grace that is resistible, are intended to safeguard the positive truth that it is God Who saves. The real negations are those of Arminianism, which denies that election, redemption and calling are saving acts of God. Calvinism negates these negations in order to assert the positive content of the gospel, for the positive purpose of strengthening faith and building up the church.
Thirdly, the very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are really inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them. For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners. God—the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing. Saves—does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies. Sinners—men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners—and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedaling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the “five points” are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.
This leads to our fourth remark, which is this: the five-point formula obscures the depth of the difference between Calvinistic and Arminian soteriology. There seems no doubt that it seriously misleads many here. In the formula, the stress falls on the adjectives, and this naturally gives the impression that in regard to the three great saving acts of God the debate concerns the adjectives merely—that both sides agree as to what election, redemption, and the gift of internal grace are, and differ only as to the position of man in relation to them: whether the first is conditional upon faith being foreseen or not; whether the second intends the salvation of every man or not; whether the third always proves invincible or not. But this is a complete misconception. The change of adjective in each case involves changing the meaning of the noun. An election that is conditional, a redemption that is universal, an internal grace that is resistible, is not the same kind of election, redemption, internal grace, as Calvinism asserts. The real issue concerns, not the appropriateness of adjectives, but the definition of nouns. Both sides saw this clearly when the controversy first began, and it is important that we should see it too, for otherwise we cannot discuss the Calvinist-Arminian debate to any purpose at all. It is worth setting out the different definitions side by side.
(i.) God’s act of election was defined by the Arminians as a resolve to receive sonship and glory a duly qualified class of people: believers in Christ. This becomes a resolve to receive individual persons only in virtue of God’s foreseeing the contingent fact that they will of their own accord believe. There is nothing in the decree of election to ensure that the class of believers will ever have any members; God does not determine to make any man believe. But Calvinists define election as a choice of particular undeserving persons to be saved from sin and brought to glory, and to that end to be redeemed by the death of Christ and given faith by the Spirit’s effectual calling. Where the Arminian says: “I owe my election to my faith,” the Calvinist says: “I owe my faith to my election.” Clearly, these two concepts of election are very far apart.
(ii.) Christ’s work of redemption was defined by the Arminians as the removing of an obstacle (the unsatisfied claims of justice) which stood in the way of God’s offering pardon to sinners, as He desired to do, on condition that they believe. Redemption, according to Arminianism, secured for God a right to make this offer, but did not of itself ensure that anyone would ever accept it; for faith, being a work of man’s own, is not a gift that comes to him from Calvary. Christ’s death created an opportunity for the exercise of saving faith, but that is all it did. Calvinists, however, define redemption as Christ’s actual substitutionary endurance of the penalty of sin in the place of certain specified sinners, through which God was reconciled to them, their liability to punishment was for ever destroyed, and a title to eternal life was secured for them. In consequence of this, they now have in God’s sight a right to the gift of faith, as the means of entry into the enjoyment of their inheritance. Calvary, in other words, not merely made possible the salvation of those for whom Christ died; it ensured that they would be brought to faith and their salvation made actual. The Cross saves. Where the Arminian will only say: “I could not have gained my salvation without Calvary,” the Calvinist will say: “Christ gained my salvation for me at Calvary.” The former makes the Cross the sine qua non of salvation, the latter sees it as the actual procuring cause of salvation, and traces the source of every spiritual blessing, faith included, back to the great transaction between God and His Son carried through on Calvary’s hill. Clearly, these two concepts of redemption are quite at variance.
(iii.) The Spirit’s gift of internal grace was defined by the Arminians as “moral suasion,” the bare bestowal of an understanding of God’s truth. This, they granted—indeed, insisted—does not of itself ensure that anyone will ever make the response of faith. But Calvinists define this gift as not merely an enlightening, but also a regenerating work of God in men, “taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.” Grace proves irresistible just because it destroys the disposition to resist. Where the Arminian, therefore, will be content to say: “I decided for Christ,” “I made up my mind to be a Christian,” the Calvinist will wish to speak of his conversion in more theological fashion, to make plain whose work it really was:
“Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night:
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke; the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off: my heart was free:
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
Clearly, these two notions of internal grace are sharply opposed to each other.
Now, the Calvinist contends that the Arminian idea of election, redemption and calling as acts of God which do not save cuts at the very heart of their biblical meaning; that to say in the Arminian sense that God elects believers, and Christ died for all men, and the Spirit quickens those who receive the word, is really to say that in the biblical sense God elects nobody, and Christ died for nobody, and the Spirit quickens nobody. The matter at issue in this controversy, therefore, is the meaning to be given to these biblical terms, and to some others which are also soteriologically significant, such as the love of God, the covenant of grace, and the verb “save” itself, with its synonyms. Arminians gloss them all in terms of the principle that salvation does not directly depend on any decree or act of God, but on man’s independent activity in believing. Calvinists maintain that this principle is itself unscriptural and irreligious, and that such glossing demonstrably perverts the sense of Scripture and undermines the gospel at every point where it is practised. This, and nothing less than this, is what the Arminian controversy is about.
“There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all;
He died the we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good;
That we might go at last to Heaven,
Saved by His precious blood.
“Surely all that Owen is doing is defending limited atonement?” Not really. He is doing much more than that. Strictly speaking, the aim of Owen’s book is not defensive at all, but constructive. It is a biblical and theological enquiry; its purpose is simply to make clear what Scripture actually teaches about the central subject of the gospel—the achievement of the Saviour. As its title proclaims, it is “a treatise of the redemption and reconciliation that is in the blood of Christ: with the merit thereof, and the satisfaction wrought thereby.” The question which Owen, like the Dort divines before him, is really concerned to answer is just this: what is the gospel? All agree that it is a proclamation of Christ as Redeemer, but there is a dispute as to the nature and extent of His redeeming work: well, what saith the Scripture? what aim and accomplishment does the Bible assign to the work of Christ? This is what Owen is concerned to elucidate. It is true that he tackles the subject in a directly controversial way, and shapes his book as a polemic against the “spreading persuasion…of a general ransom, to be paid by Christ for all; that he dies to redeem all and every one.” But his work is a systematic expository treatise, not a mere episodic wrangle. Owen treats the controversy as providing the occasion for a full display of the relevant biblical teaching in its own proper order and connection. As in Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the polemics themselves are incidental and of secondary interest; their chief value lies in the way that the author uses them to further his own design and carry forward his own argument.
“You talked about recovering the gospel,” said our questioner; “don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”
“Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved to sin no more
(2.) that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is a perfect Saviour for sinners, even the worst;
(3.) that the Father and the Son have promised that all who know themselves to be sinners and put faith in Christ as Saviour shall be received into favour, and none cast out (which promise is “a certain infallible truth, grounded upon the superabundant sufficiency of the oblation of Christ in itself, for whomsoever [few or more] it be intended”);
The preacher’s task, in other words, is to display Christ: to explain man’s need of Him, His sufficiency to save, and His offer of Himself in the promises as Saviour to all who truly turn to Him; and to show as fully and plainly as he can how these truths apply to the congregation before him. It is not for him to say, nor for his hearers to ask, for whom Christ died in particular. “There is none called on by the gospel once to enquire after the purpose and intention of God concerning the particular object of the death of Christ, every one being fully assured that his death shall be profitable to them that believe in him and obey him.” After saving faith has been exercised, “it lies on a believer to assure his soul, according as he find the fruit of the death of Christ in him and towards him, of the good-will and eternal love of God to him in sending his Son to die for him in particular”; but not before. The task to which the gospel calls him is simply to exercise faith, which he is both warranted and obliged to do by God’s command and promise.
“This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die? why will ye perish? why will ye not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching?… Look unto me, and be saved; come unto me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest unto your souls. Come, I entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eternity lies at the door…do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by me.
“These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners…. He doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you…. He hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations which are given you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.”
“Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him”
The Death of Death is a solid book, made up of detailed exposition and close argument, and requires hard study, as Owen fully realised; a cursory glance will not yield much. (“READER…. If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again—thou has had thy entertainment; farewell!”) Owen felt, however, that he had a right to ask for hard study, for his book was a product of hard work (“a more than seven-years’ serious inquiry…into the mind of God about these things, with a serious perusal of all which I could attain that the wit of man, in former or latter days, hath published in opposition to the truth”), and he was sure in his own mind that a certain finality attached to what he had written. (“Altogether hopeless of success I am not; but fully resolved that I shall not live to see a solid answer given unto it.”) Time has justified his optimism.
Goold’s summary of the Saumur position may be quoted. “Admitting that, by the purpose of God, and through the death of Christ, the elect are infallibly secured in the enjoyment of salvation, they contended for an antecedent decree, by which God is free to give salvation to all men through Christ, on the condition that they believe on him. Hence their system was termed hypothetic[al] universalism. The vital difference between it and the strict Arminian theory lies in the absolute security asserted in the former for the spiritual recovery of the elect. They agree, however, in attributing some kind of universality to the atonement, and in maintaining that, on a certain condition, within the reach of fulfilment by all men…all men have access to the benefits of Christ’s death.” From this, Goold continues, “the readers of Owen will understand…why he dwells with peculiar keenness and reiteration of statement upon a refutation of the conditional system…. It was plausible; it had many learned men for its advocates; it had obtained currency in the foreign churches; and it seems to have been embraced by More.”
More is described by Thomas Edwards as “a great Sectary, that did much hurt in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire; who was famous also in Boston, (King’s) Lynn, and even in Holland, and was followed from place to place by many.” Baxter’s description is kinder: “a Weaver of Wisbitch and Lyn, of excellent Parts.” (More’s doctrine of redemption, of course, was substantially Baxter’s own.) Owen, however, has a poor view of his abilities, and makes no secret of the fact. More’s book, The Universality of God’s Free Grace in Christ to Mankind, appeared in 1646 (not, as Goold says, 1643), and must have exercised a considerable influence, for within three years it had evoked four weighty works which were in whole or part polemics against it: A Refutation…of Thomas More, by Thomas Whitfield, 1646; Vindiciae Redemptionis, by John Stalham, 1647; The Universalist Examined and Convicted, by Obadiah Howe, 1648; and Owen’s own book, published in the same year.
James Innel Packer
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12th July 2014 – The Cosmological Argument
I realised I haven’t posted for a while and I still haven’t uploaded my research plan… I have started researching but the plan was saved on the college VLE which I couldn’t access because the server was being moved so here it is:
Time Plan
As you can see, I am currently reading Lee Strobel’s ‘Case for a Creator’ so here are my first few notes:
• Modern cosmology points towards the universe having a beginning
• Hubble’s discovery that the universe is expanding at the same rate in all directions so if we were to go backwards it would get smaller until there would have to have been a beginning (hence the Big Bang occurred)
• The Cosmological Argument was formulated by al-Ghazali who proposed a simple argument: whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
• Let’s look at the first premise:
1. It seems ‘bewildering’ to believe that things can just ‘pop into existence, uncaused, out of nothing’.
2. We can never see this happen in daily life (things just springing into being) so the first premise (that everything that begins to exist has a cause) is constantly confirmed by rational logic and experience
3. This principle is more plausible than its denial
4. A fluctuation in a quantum vacuum is when things can materialise out of the vacuum and vanish into it again.
5. This is spontaneous and the creations (mostly subatomic particles called virtual particles) last extremely briefly.
6. This argument could explain how nothing came to be something
7. But even then: how did the quantum vacuum come to exist?
8. This just pushes back the issue of creation
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Monday, April 27, 2015
I was hoping not to write about the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but people are taking it way too seriously. Here's Ezra Klein:
The White House Correspondents' Dinner has become a strange event. It is, ostensibly, an evening when the president and the press can come together to share a few lighthearted laughs. But it's evolved into a recital of brutal truths -- albeit one neither side ever really admits happened.
The joke of President Obama's performance on Saturday was that he wasn't joking. Everyone just had to pretend he was.
Of course the president wasn't joking, and of course the seriousness of what he said won't be acknowledged. The point of the WHCD is that it's a ritualized event at which people say what they mean about the Beltway's conflicts, but everyone agrees not to get real about resolving those conflicts, because, hey, it's just a fun, silly night, right? It's not that people won't admit it ever happened -- it's that it's neatly pigeonholed as not serious -- which is why real things can be talked about there. It's like a Feast of Fools at which the political order is mocked, even though the feast never really challenges the political order -- the feast is a safe space for blowing off steam.
The WHCD is when Washington roasts itself -- and, remember, if you want to land a blow that leaves a mark, you don't do it at a roast. Fox News doesn't broadcast roasts of Democratic politicians -- it frames its attacks as news and packages them as serious stuff. Subjecting yourself to a roast is a way of quarantining the worst things said about you. That's why you see Justin Bieber, a teen idol turned noxious adult, subjecting himself to a Comedy Central roast. It places the criticism of him in a safe, harmless space. It does no damage to his career.
Yes, I know: some on the right, particularly Power Line's John Hinderaker, are whimpering about the mean things Obama said at the dinner, particularly about climate change in the segment featuring Keegan-Michael Key as Luther, the president's "anger translator":
That's fun, and it's fun to imagine that Hinderaker's whingeing and whining represents genuine hurt feelings. (The portrayal of Luther, a regular feature on Comedy Central's Key and Peele, is, Hinderaker says, a "hateful bit.") But Hinderaker is a soldier in the Koch army -- Think Progress remind us in 2011 that Hinderaker's law firm, Faegre and Benson, represented Koch Industries, and it was noted in 2012 that the Kochs had tried to place Hinderaker on the board at the Cato Institute. So he's just using the president's remarks as an excuse to do his usual climate bamboozlement on behalf of energy billionaires. The plutocrats' army of climate distorters is now so huge -- at this point it includes pretty much every elected Republican in America -- that even a forthright defense of climate science by the president of the United States in a highly visible forum changes nothing about the ongoing debate. Everyone went home after the dinner and resumed their old stances. It's still the official policy of the GOP that climate change is a non-issue because it snows sometimes.
So, yes, I wish what the president said mattered. It doesn't.
Victor said...
It was a GREAT bit!
Obama's a pretty funny guy.
But yeah, much ado about nothing...
Marc said...
O is going to troll the heck out of the conservatives for the remainder of his time in office - probably a good while after. They can whine all they want, but it really does not matter - he isn't up for reelection, and while they will campaign against him in 2016, he can just add them to his bucket list.
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Monday, May 30, 2016
The stupid! It scathes!
Happy Memorial Day! This is another long one (mainly because of quotes)—would have made it shorter but I didn't want to take the extra time—
I vote for Gene too. Mara's honest-and-trustworthy numbers are going through the floor. Image tweeted sometime in late March by Stacy Smallwood.
Mara Liasson on NPR yesterday morning:
This was a bad week for Hillary Clinton. The State Department inspector general released a report that was very scathing. And it contradicted a couple of assertions she's made in the past about her using a private server for her emails. She'd said in the past that the arrangement was allowed. Now, she never said she asked for permission and got it. But she did say it was allowed. And the inspector general said no, it wasn't allowed. And if she had asked us, we wouldn't have let her do it, or we would've told her not to do it.
The report was "very scathing"? What was the thing about it that "scathed", "scorched", "seared", or "assailed with withering denunciation"? The next sentence begins with "And", indicating that it's about something in addition to the scathe factor, which remains unexplained. The report's conclusion, in full, states:
Longstanding, systemic weaknesses related to electronic records and communications have existed within the Office of the Secretary that go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of State. OIG recognizes that technology and Department policy have evolved considerably since Secretary Albright’s tenure began in 1997. Nevertheless, the Department generally and the Office of the Secretary in particular have been slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications, particularly as those risks pertain to its most senior leadership. OIG expects that its recommendations will move the Department steps closer to meaningfully addressing these risks.
They certainly did criticize her, particularly for taking a rather long time to turn all the emails over:
At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act...
But they also noted repeatedly that this issue had been "mitigated" by her cooperation since then, and the department has no outstanding problems. I really don't see the scathe here.
The something in addition hardly scathes either. Liasson alleges that Clinton contradicted herself on "a couple of" claims she's made, which generally means about two, but only mentions one: that she said having a private email server was allowed when it wasn't allowed. Which leaves out an important half of the story, which is that it wasn't disallowed either. Had Clinton asked the appropriate parties it apparently would have been disallowed, but she didn't. As the anonymous State Department officials explained at their press briefing on the release of the Inspector General's report,
To your two questions about why Secretary Clinton didn’t use email and why she didn’t seek approval for her personal system, unfortunately I don’t think we can speak to that and we’d have to refer you to Secretary Clinton and her team. The OIG report does not get into that and doesn’t make findings with respect to that.
You did ask about or recite several of the (inaudible) provisions that were in place during Secretary Clinton’s tenure. And one thing that is clear is that the policies on email evolves over time and our guidance to officials on how to comply with them evolved and improved over time. Some of the most relevant NARA guidelines on the use of personal email were not issued until 2013. And to this day, the Federal Records Act still permits the use of personal email to some extent provided that you follow the key principle, which is to capture them.
So while we would never – while we wouldn’t encourage the use of a personal email, there was no absolute prohibition on it during this or any other tenure, administration. And while it may have been difficult to approve such a system in light of the policies, we think it’s very important to note that both the OIG and NARA have said by going out and getting records back from Secretary Clinton that we have mitigated the past problems associated with this use.
There's more of a case that the IG "contradicted several of Clinton's long-standing points" in an analysis at, which notes that she "had an obligation" to discuss the email system with cybersecurity administrators (even though her private server was more secure than the State Department's!), but offers no evidence that she or her staff knew about the obligation; that she wasn't in compliance with department policy in taking 21 months to turn over all the emails, as mentioned above; and that although all her official emails were preserved in the government servers on the accounts of the officials she corresponded with, that was not "an appropriate method of preserving any such emails that would constitute a Federal record", contrary to her beliefs.
That last bit is an important detail. She is not accused at any point of lying about the policy, only of not knowing clearly what the policy was, which is at least partly the Department's fault—
I don’t think it’s a finding in the OIG report, and I don’t believe it’s a finding by the Department that anyone was above or not subject to the rules. It’s just that we didn’t do a great job ensuring that they were followed.
She did make one arguable misstatement, when she said that "all her predecessors" did the same thing, when in fact only Colin Powell did, and it wasn't exactly the same thing, though it too was in violation of the policy. Then again, since Powell was the only previous secretary to use email, it's absolutely the case that 100% of her predecessors did it if they were in a position to.
Liasson goes on:
But I think the bottom line of all this is that the emails are the root of her biggest problem, which is that she is seen as dishonest and untrustworthy and her numbers on that are getting worse and worse. And it's depressing her overall numbers with voters.
The real phenomenon, the "bottom line", for the horserace journalists like Liasson that cover the campaign, isn't the story of what she did, it's the story of what poll respondents think about it. Liasson doesn't feel any obligation to report the email issue accurately, because that's not important; what's important is her numbers, and the effect of the story, regardless of whether it's true.
[RACHEL] MARTIN: Meanwhile, the apparent GOP nominee Donald Trump keeps saying he believes Hillary Clinton should be indicted for this. Is that even a possibility?
LIASSON: We don't know if she'll be indicted or not. We know that the FBI says it wants to bring this investigation to a close relatively soon. There are many people who cover the Justice Department who think she won't be indicted because she didn't commit a crime. But we simply don't know.
I am not a lawyer, Mara, but when your friends on the DOJ beat say Clinton won't be indicted because she didn't commit a crime I think they're on pretty solid ground. When somebody hasn't committed a crime, that's a classic reason for not indicting them.
(Though it doesn't apply in a case like the ongoing Brazilian crisis where the people doing the indictment are known criminals themselves.)
Compare how, in the same segment, Liasson treats the case of Trump University, which is currently the subject of three civil actions including the class action being heard in federal court in San Diego for fraud, false advertising, unfair business practices, and "financial elder abuse" and the suit prosecuted by New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman accusing Trump of fraudulently bilking the students of $40 million, both likely to come to trial this fall. Nothing about whether he's seen as "honest and trustworthy" or the cases themselves at all; it's all about whether he's polite to Mexican American voters:
Just when you think he's going to be magnanimous in victory or make that much promised presidential pivot, he doesn't. There he was in San Diego railing against the Mexican judge who is hearing the case against Trump University. In Albuquerque, he gratuitously insulted Susana Martinez who's the governor of New Mexico, the only female Hispanic governor in United States history.
The nameless "Mexican judge" is Gonzalo Curiel, whose parents were Mexican, but the judge is from Indiana. In dehumanizing him by omitting his name and misstating his nationality, Liasson is following Trump's playbook to the letter. Also in suggesting there's just one case when there are three. She needs to be scathed.
Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.
Victor said...
It's only the end of May, which means 5 more months of anti-Hillary media shit-storms!
FSM, I should have moved to Canada or Yurp decades ago!!!!!
John Taylor said...
Trump trying to intimidate a judge. This is a bad omen if this spoilt child is elected.
Feud Turgidson said...
In common with Bbbeeennnggghhhaaazzziii!!!, when the right wing hype turned out unsupported by the facts, the GOP reacted by declaring victory.
And it works! If there's no prospect of a definitive showdown, they can claim victory for eternity, with no fear of being finally refuted,ever!
Hell, the South doesn't even acknowledge losing the Civil War - or even what it was about. And they've got arguments! Sure: crappy arguments, crazy arguments, anti-democratic and inhuman arguments, ranging from overty racist thru laughably stupid to ultimately both irrational and self-destructive. But they cling to them nonetheless, regardless of quality, and trot all of them out on the slightest excuse or provocation.
If they're not going to concede after getting crushed, with hundreds of thousands of their dead, wounded and personally devastated, an entire culture ripped up and burned to the ground, they'll sure as hell declare a nothing burger a feast.
Jeff Ryan said...
@Feud Turgidson: To paraphrase Chris Rock, facts are like kryptonite to Republicans. That the Republican senate campaign is raising "scandals" in which Hillary was cleared, as if they prove she was guilty, is simply business as usual.
They have no shame and no morals. I just reread David Brock's Blinded by the Right, and it seems nothing has changed.
sdhays said...
I like NPR reporting on other issues, but any reporting they do with regard to American politics is just garbage.
Tengrain said...
And once again I have to say it: Mara Liasson
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4587
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Explaining and Troubleshooting Write Cache Disk Drive Letter Assignment
Home / Citrix / Explaining and Troubleshooting Write Cache Disk Drive Letter Assignment
This blog explains the process involved on drive letter assignments for target devices and how to troubleshoot write cache drive letter changes.
Mount Manager is the component responsible for managing volume names and drive letter assignments on windows. It has a database that is recorded on the registry under the HKLM/SYSTEM/MountedDevices key. When a new disk is installed on the system, the Mount Manager Creates a new unique ID for the disk and saves it into the registry with the “??Volume{GUID} naming scheme, this is unique and persistent for this system. If the disk is plugged on another system, a new unique ID is created. The uniqueid key is stored as a binary registry and has on its data the MBR Disk Signature, which is unique to the disk and will persist among all the systems where the disk will be plugged, for example:
After the volume is formatted and a drive letter is assigned, one new key is created with the letter assignment, it has the DosDevices{Letter} naming scheme, and is stored as binary registry with the same contents as the uniqueid key, as displayed:
For consistency, just one DosDevices{Letter} registry is created for each letter, therefore if a new disk with different signature is added to the system, windows overwrites the registry and assign the letter for the new disk. You come across this behavior when a target device starts as standard on a new target (physical or virtual) that was not cloned from the golden image. To ensure that the new system will be consistent with the drive letter assignment, you must change the unique id for the writecache disk to match the master target device disk.
The following is the procedure to complete the task:
• On the Golden Image (running as private), assign the letter as required:
For test purposes, let us use W:
• Open a command prompt and run the command “diskpart”, on the diskpart command line, run list disk:
• Select the write cache disk using the command “Select disk {writeCache disk}”
• Run the command “uniqueid disk” and note the result:
• Now, Log on the target device that is starting with the different drive letter, as displayed in the following screen shot:
• Open command prompt and run the same commands used on the Golden Image:
Note: Note that the Disk ID is different.
• Using the Disk ID from the Golden image, run the command “uniqueid disk ID={ID}” this changes the id to match the same from the golden image.
• Restart the target device.
• The Write Cache Drive letter should be the same:
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The Complete Magazine on Open Source
How to begin programming with shell scripts
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The power of scripting lies in the fact that you get to program with commands you already know, from various computer languages. Scripting provides a means to substitute really complicated and convoluted commands and if there is something repetitive, then a script can probably remove the tedium in your work.
Imagine that you are doing some important task on your computer system and, suddenly, you get a black screen with something being automatically typed on it. I am sure many of us have experienced such system reboots that take place on their own due to some hardware or software issues. When this happens, our pulse rate shoots up, and we hope and pray that the task that was being performed has been saved, or else, everything will have to be started afresh.
Have we ever given a thought to how all this happens on its own? Well, it’s shell scripting that drives such processes automatically. A newbie in the computer programming arena generally gets anxious just seeing the black screen on the computer, assuming the programming involved is quite difficult.
In shell scripts, the term ‘shell’ defines the interface between the user and the different services of an operating system such as Linux, UNIX, Windows (to some extent) or Mac. Apart from the shell, the kernel is the other main component of an operating system. It’s the kernel that makes the communication between the hardware and software possible. The interface can be created by a shell through different command line interfaces (CLI) or in a graphical manner (using the GUI). A shell takes input from us in the form of commands, processes it and then gives an output. It can be accessed by a terminal, which runs it.
Whenever we run the terminal, the shell actually issues a command prompt, where we can type our own input, which is then executed when we hit the Enter key. The output is thereafter displayed on the terminal. The shell basically wraps around the delicate interior of an operating system, protecting it from any accidental damage and, hence, the name. There are different types of a shell, such as Korn shell (ksh), Bourne shell (sh), C shell (csh), Bourne Again shell (bash), a remote shell (rsh), etc. A script written in any such environment is referred to as a shell script.
The different operations that can be performed by shell scripts include file manipulation, execution of programs, and printing text. A script that sets up the specific environment, runs the program, does clean-ups if necessary, does logging, etc, is basically called a wrapper, which refers to the automated mode of running a specific operating system shell. In different operating systems, shell scripts are referred to by different names such as batch files (OS/2, MSDos-Win95 stream), command procedures (VMS), and shell scripts (Windows NT stream and third-party derivatives). Mainframe operating systems are associated with a different set of terms.
Shell scripts help us to program different commands in chains and have the system execute them as a scripted event —the same as batch files. They also allow us to perform far more useful functions, like command substitution. We can invoke a command, like date, and then use its output as part of a file-naming scheme. We can even automate backups, and each copied file can have the value of the current date appended to the end of its name. Shell scripts are not just invocations of different commands either, but are programs in their own right. Shell scripting also allows us to use different programming functions – such as if/ then/ else statements, ‘for’ loops, and so on – directly within our operating system’s interface. We don’t have to learn another language because we are using what we already know—the command line.
Figure 1: A shell acts as an interface between the user and the OS
Different features of shell scripts
Let’s have a look at the different features of shell scripts.
Running batch jobs: Shell scripts allow different sets of commands that are entered manually at a command line interface to be executed automatically, without having to wait for a user to separately trigger each stage of the sequence. For example, in a directory that has three C source code files, instead of manually running the four commands which are required to build the final program from them, one could create a C shell script, and keep it in the directory along with the C source code files, which would ultimately compile them automatically. The script would further allow a user to save the file being edited, pause the editor, and then just run the shell script to create the updated program, test that, and return to the editor again.
Different shortcuts to perform specific functions: We can use the different available shortcuts in shell scripting to perform some specific action. These shortcuts are short commands written for specific utilities. They are like inbuilt functions, which we use in different programming languages. A shell script can also provide convenient variations of a system command, where different special environment settings, post-processing or command options apply automatically, but in such a way that they allow the new script to still act as a complete normal UNIX command. For example, to create a version of the ls command to list different files, it can be given a shorter command name of ‘l’. This shorter command will be normally saved in the bin directory of a user as /home/username/bin/l and a default set of different command options will be pre-supplied. The user can then use ‘l’ for most commonly used short listings.
Generalisation: Simple batch jobs are usual for isolated tasks, but at the same time, using shell loops, variables and tests provides much more flexibility to users. Let’s look at a bash file (shell script) to convert different JPEG images to PNG images, in which the names of images are provided on the command line—possibly using wildcards. Instead of each of the names being listed within the script, they can be created with this file, typically saved in /home/username/bin/jpg2png. So we can directly run this command on an entire directory of JPEG images with just /home/username/bin/jpg2png *.jpg.
Flavour of programming: Many modern shell scripts also supply various features which are usually found only in more sophisticated programming languages, such as control-flow constructs, comments, variables, subroutines, arrays and so on. With such features available, it is quite possible to write reasonably sophisticated applications using shell scripts. However, they are still limited by the fact that most shell scripting languages have little or even no support for data typing systems, threading, classes, complex math and other such common language features. They are also much slower than the compiled code or interpreted languages that are written with speed as a performance goal. The standard UNIX tools, Awk and Sed, provide extra capabilities for shell programming. Perl can also be embedded in different shell scripts as can other scripting languages such as Tcl, etc.
Figure 2: The different functions of a shell
Verisimilitude: A key trait of different shell scripts is that the invocation of their interpreter is considered as a core operating system feature. So, instead of a user’s shell only being able to run different scripts in that shell’s language or a shell script only having directives of its interpreter handled correctly, if it is run from a shell (both were limitations in the early Bourne shell’s script handling), shell scripts are set up and executed by the OS itself. Nowadays, a modern shell script is not just on the same footing as the system commands, but rather, many of the system commands are actually shell scripts. This extends to the returning exit codes like other system utilities in order to indicate success or failure, and also allows them to be called components of the larger programs, regardless of how all those larger tools are implemented. Like different standard system commands, shell scripts omit any kind of file name extension unless it is intended to be read into a running shell using a special mechanism for this purpose (such as csh’s source or sh’s ‘.’).
Shell scripting on various operating systems
It is possible to leverage the various advantages of shell scripting on different operating systems (other than UNIX and Windows) as well with the help of interoperability software. Let’s have a look at some of these options.
1. Interoperability software like Cygwin, Interix (which is available in the Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX), MKS Toolkit, UWIN (AT&T UNIX for Windows), Hamilton C shell, and others, allow UNIX shell programs to be run on different Windows NT machines and all their successors, with some loss of functionality on the MS-DOS-Windows 95 branch, as well as earlier MKS Toolkit versions for OS/2. At least three DCL implementations for Windows OS – apart from XLNT, a multiple-use scripting language package (which can be used with the command shell), CGI programming and Windows Script Host — are available for these types of systems as well.
2. In addition to all these tools, some OS/2 and Posix functionality can also be used with the corresponding environmental sub-systems of the Windows NT OS series up to Windows 2000 as well. A third 16-bit sub-system, often called the MS-DOS sub-system, uses which is provided with these OSs to run all the just-mentioned MS-DOS batch files.
3. Different console alternatives such as 4DOS, 4NT, 4OS2, Peter Norton’s NDOS, FreeDOS, and the GUI Take Command, which add the functionality to Windows NT-style Cmd.exe, OS/2’s Cmd.exe, MS-DOS/Windows 95 batch files (run by, and 4NT, respectively, are similar to the shells that they actually enhance and are much more integrated with the Windows script host. The Windows Script Host comes with three engines (VBScript, VBA and JScript ) that are pre-installed, and to which a number of third-party engines can be added with Perl, Rexx, Python, Tcl and Ruby with pre-defined functions in 4NT. PC DOS is also quite similar to MS-DOS, while DR DOS is quite different. Various earlier versions of Windows NT are able to successfully run contemporary versions of 4OS2 with the help of the OS/2 sub-system.
4. Scripting languages can be extended; for example, Windows NT and MS-DOS/Windows 95/98 type systems allowed for batch/shell programs to call different tools like KixTart, QBasic, Rexx; various Basic, Python and Perl implementations; and the Windows Script Host and all its installed engines. On UNIX and other Posix-compliant systems, Sed and Awk are used to extend the string and the numeric processing ability of shell scripts. Tcl, Rexx, Perl and Python have graphics toolkits that can be used to code different procedures and functions for shell scripts. This poses a speed bottleneck (Fortran, C, and Assembly language are much faster still) and adds functionality such as sockets and other connectivity functions, which are not available in the shell language. VBA and VBScript can be easily used to communicate with databases, spreadsheets, scriptable program of all types, development tools, telecommunications software, graphics tools and other software that can be accessed using the Component Object Model.
Figure 3: Path shortcuts in shell scripting
Writing your first shell script
Well, we are now at the most interesting part, which is, programming using the shell script. So we will actually follow three simple steps in order to successfully write our first shell script, which is the famous program to display ‘Hello World’. The pre-requisites are:
• You need to have Linux installed on your system.
• You need to have a text editor (select from Vim, kwrite, etc), as well, on your system.
Now, let’s follow the three simple steps.
1. Write the script
A shell script is basically a file that contains ASCII text. In order to create a shell script, we use a text editor, which is nothing but a program, similar to a word processor, which reads and writes different ASCII text files. There are many text editors available for our Linux system, both for the GUI environment and the command line environment. Here is a list of a few:
1. Vi or Vim
2. Emacs
3. Nano
4. Gedit
5. kwrite
Now, we can type in the first script using any of the above text editors, as follows:
# My first script
echo "Hello World!"
The above script has three lines.
• The first line is a special clue given to the shell in order to indicate what program is used to interpret this script. In this case, its /bin/bash. Other scripting languages such as Awk, Perl, Tcl, Tk, and Python can also use this type of mechanism.
• The second line is just a comment. Everything that comes after a ‘#’ symbol is all ignored by bash. As our scripts become larger and more complicated, comments become important. They are basically used by programmers to explain what’s going on, so that others can understand.
• The last line is the echo command, which just prints whatever is given on the display. Once we have written the above script, we can save this file using any name. Here, we save it as First_Shell_Script.
2. Give the shell permission to execute it
The next thing we need to do is to give the shell permission to execute our script. This is done using the chmod command, as follows:
[[email protected] me]$ chmod 755 my_script
The ‘755’ will give us permission to read, write and to execute. Everybody else will just have read and execute permission. If we want our script to be private (so that only we can read and execute), we use ‘700’ instead.
Figure 4: Output redirection and piping in shell scripting
3. Put it at the location where the shell can find it
We now need to run our script by typing the following command:
[[email protected] me]$ ./First_Shell_Script
Now, you should see ‘Hello World!’ displayed. If we don’t, then we need to check what directory we saved our script in, so that we can go there and try again.
Before we go further, let’s discuss paths a little bit. When we type in the name of a command, our system does not search the entire computer in order to find where the program is located. That would really take a long time. You will have noticed that we don’t usually have to specify the complete path name to the program we want to run; the shell just seems to know that. The shell maintains a list of different directories where executable files are kept, and it just searches for the directories in that list. If it’s not able to find the program after searching each of the directories in the list, it will throw up the error: Command not found.
This list of directories is called the path. Let us look at some of the commands related to this along with their possible output.
• The command for viewing the list of directories is as follows:
[[email protected] me]$ echo $PATH
The output: A colon-separated list of directories which will be searched if a specific path is not given when a command is attempted.
• The command for adding directories to the path, where directory_name is the name of directory we want to add, is:
[[email protected] me]$ export PATH=$PATH:directory_name
The output: directory_name will be added to the path.
• The command for creating a bin directory, which is a sub-directory of our home directory, is as follows:
[[email protected] me]$ mkdir bin
The output: The bin directory will be created.
Shell scripting can be used in the following cases:
1. To create our own command or tool.
2. To monitor several tasks like disk usage, etc.
3. To take data backup and snapshots.
4. For automatic system booting.
5. For automatic installation of different application packages.
6. To automate different aspects of computer maintenance and user account creation.
7. To create startup scripts for different unattended applications.
8. To kill or start multiple applications together.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4608
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Grant Development Process
Typical Steps for the Grant Development Process
1. Define funding objectives, e.g. what projects you want funded
2. Grant search to meet your strategic objectives
3. Analysis of opportunity based on decision-criteria
4. Decision to pursue a specific opportunity
5. Outline, identify elements of response, support, input
6. Develop support, partnerships, memorandums of agreement, letters of support
7. Provide readily available existing information
8. Gather data and information for gaps
9. First draft
10. Feedback, and continuous elaboration
11. Second draft (if needed or as time permits)
12. Continuous improvement
13. Final draft
14. Feedback, improvement, completion
15. Final product and submission
These are typical steps in a grant development process, all projects are unique and our services our tailored to meet the customers specifications.
Example: a customer may desire to conduct their own grant search and develop their own support with partners to include letters of support.
After speaking with you about an opportunity we will propose a project plan/checklist for the development of a grant application, to include: activities, responsibilities, and timelines.
Contact Us: Christopher Semler, 585-364-3439 or
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4609
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Topic Tuesday #154 2015/06/30 "Leap Second"
Long ago, I wrote about the origins of the calendar. #24
But what I didn't discuss was corrections to timekeeping.
See the calendar that we eventually landed on is not perfect, by a long shot. This is why every 4 years we add a day (24 hours) to February. This keeps the calendar in sync with the planet's seasons. Today, June 30th, the last minute of the day has 61 seconds as we add a leap second in order to keep the time of day close to the mean solar time, or UT1. Without such a correction, time reckoned by Earth's rotation drifts away from atomic time because of irregularities in the Earth's rotation. Since this system of correction was implemented in 1972, 26 leap seconds have been inserted, including today's. Ideal implementation adds a positive leap second between "second 23:59:59" of a chosen UTC calendar date (the last day of a month, usually June 30 or December 31) and "second 00:00:00" of the following date.
Peter Whibberley, senior research scientist at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL), said: "Because they depend on measurements of the Earth's rotation, which varies unpredictably, leap seconds occur at irregular intervals. Leap seconds are announced only six months in advance. This means computers and software cannot be supplied with leap seconds programmed in, and they must be inserted manually," he explained. "Getting leap seconds wrong can cause loss of synchronisation in communication networks, financial systems and many other applications which rely on precise timing. Whenever a leap second occurs, some computer systems encounter problems due to glitches in the code written to handle them. The consequences are particularly severe in the Asia-Pacific region, where leap seconds occur during normal working hours."
Due to these complications many would like to do away with the practice of adding leap seconds. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is set to discuss the topic at the World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva this November.
There was some jargon in there, like "Mean Solar Day" and "UT1". Let me do the work for you and tell you what those are.
The duration of daylight varies during the year but the length of a mean solar day is nearly constant, unlike that of an apparent solar day. An apparent solar day can be 20 seconds shorter or 30 seconds longer than a mean solar day.
UT1 is the principal form of Universal Time. While conceptually it is mean solar time at 0° longitude, precise measurements of the Sun are difficult. Hence, it is computed from observations of distant quasars using long baseline interferometry, laser ranging of the Moon and artificial satellites, as well as the determination of GPS satellite orbits. UT1 is the same everywhere on Earth, and is proportional to the rotation angle of the Earth with respect to distant quasars, specifically, the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), neglecting some small adjustments. The observations allow the determination of a measure of the Earth's angle with respect to the ICRF, called the Earth Rotation Angle (ERA, which serves as a modern replacement for Greenwich Mean Sidereal Time). UT1 is required to follow the relationship
ERA = 2π(0.7790572732640 + 1.00273781191135448Tu) radians
where Tu = (Julian UT1 date - 2451545.0)
Around the world, we try to use UTC, (oddly acronymed for Coordinated Universal Time, because French.)
UTC is an atomic timescale that approximates UT1. It is the international standard on which civil time is based. It ticks SI seconds, in step with TAI. It usually has 86,400 SI seconds per day but is kept within 0.9 seconds of UT1 by the introduction of occasional intercalary leap seconds. As of 2015, these leaps have always been positive (the days which contained a leap second were 86,401 seconds long). Whenever a level of accuracy better than one second is not required, UTC can be used as an approximation of UT1. The difference between UT1 and UTC is known as UT1.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4612
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[NEWS] Dragon Essence website is now online!
photo tumblr_m9qtp2I3Ri1r1rn8qo1_1280_zpsgi8niwtk.jpg
Since I played the demo before and have no actual idea how I found it, I thought I should at least share the homepage which seems to be now online. Dragon Essence is the newest otome game by Zeiva.inc, the others being X-Note and Area-X. Dragon Essence is not yet out but there is a demo for you to check out!
Here is the website
In a world where humans worship dragons as their gods, a human girl and a dragon boy meet each other by chance.
A feudal fantasy Visual Novel – follow the story of Chi An as she struggles between the responsibility towards her family, society, and freedom to pursue her own happiness.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4629
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Why Indian engineers are unemployed?
This is a critical question that every engineer seeks an answer. Stick until the end and you might know the answer and probably avoid falling into that category!!!
“India is one of the largest producers of engineers in the world.Yet the quality of engineering is so poor that only 7-8% of engineering graduates are employable”.
The above excerpt from Wikipedia says it all about our stagnant condition.
India produces more than 1.5 million engineers every year which is more than the engineers produced by USA and China combined. The total engineering colleges in India boasts a whopping number of more than 3500 colleges and the number is increasing rapidly every year.
But employment rates were just 4-8% in the software industry with an overall average of 14 %.
What makes a student opt for engineering?
Despite negative statistics and high unemployment rates Indian student live in an illusion that :
After the become engineers they will work in swanky air-conditioned offices, drive lambos , live in luxurious penthouses, fly in business class every weekend and what not. But the bitter truth is that most students find it very difficult to find a decent opening which can sustain their basic needs. I mean boy! Your dad puts lakhs of money into your course, you write assignments like donkeys, run behind your teacher to get it signed like mad dogs and what you get at last?
Alas! God dammit you get nothing.
Nothing really and I mean it.
Most teachers in engineering colleges will convict students like ” Hey look punks today is the test of what I taught yesterday!! If you get suppose 2/10 you donkeys will write the whole test for
And 8*2=16 times!!!
What a great logic!!! Fuck it
I ask what is the fuckin outcome of this shit?
” Listen donkeys you punks might think that what you will get after writing this punishment? You will feel more improved after writing the punishment” This would be the nasty reply of the teacher.
I honestly doubt this theory.Can you transform a donkey into a horse?
Even I didn’t feel any improvement in writing test punishment for hours( Most of you would agree with me).It just made my hand numb and my ears deaf ( I listen to Eminem while writing punishment at full bass:P)
Absolutely not !! It will not serve any purpose except making our father say ” Hey look our child is working so hard”
Now talking serious, the students are so chained in clerical and theoretical work that they hardly get time and the push to go beyond the books.
We are yet to break the shackles of British education system. The Britishers introduced English in India just because they can easily communicate with us.They created a system which would produce clerks and translators. Their ultimate goal to educate Indians was to use them as slaves.
After so many years of independence, we are following the same lead.We, engineers, are master at mugging up and puking everything on exam sheets.
Now the question arises:
1. Why is syllabus nostalgia of products and methods?
2. Why does student memories long answers when the industry demands skill and not even remotely concerned with power to memorize?
To keep you going let us look at the story
“A rich father was very happy as his son completed his degree in computer science that too with a gold medal. Therefore he was proud and overwhelmed that he decided to throw a party at his house. He invited all his family members and friends.
Party began. There was music, drinks, foods and what not.The mood was all set but suddenly the music stopped.Everyone started looking at the DJ.” Ahh fuck man, my lappie went down again. The son of a bitch”. Mom said ” Hey call someone to repair it.The show must go on”
The proud father who was drunk a bit said ” Why should we call someone.My son is a computer engineer and that too gold medalist.He will get it fixed in a blink of a second”
The son replied ” Father they didn’t teach us this at the college”
Palm slap moment!!! (:P Universal truth in India)
What is the solution?
Readers, it would be a sheer injustice to pin the responsibility of this on just one set of stakeholders. It is our “collective responsibility” to get this problem solved.
“Success has many fathers, failure has none”
We take pride to celebrate the accomplishment of Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadela and many Indians which made us proud.But we forget the plight of millions of engineers who are still unemployed.
We cannot make the system as a culprit every time.Our system is vague, disgrace, vain but it can be improved by collective efforts of teacher and students.
There are egoistic teachers who are not willing to teach and there are some who lack skills. Some professors of tier 2,3 colleges don’t even have a proper grasp on English (such freaks should be banished 😛 Imfao)
Enough of bitching about teachers. Now students of engineering also lack discipline and dedication.
Tell them that tomorrow’s test is canceled. They will stop studying immediately. This is not acceptable in the industry because no employer has the patience to ensure that there is always a carrot on the stick to keep you focussed ( You are humans, Not bunnies Lmfao)
PS:- Now let me conclude the whole shit.
” The race is not the supply vs demand instead its quality vs demand. Rest is discarded”
This world is so vast that you will be lost and beaten down by everybody in its infinite wilderness.
If you want to transform yourself then dedication, discipline, and determination are the 3’Ds to be successful.
Now if you are still reading go work hard boy! I have thrown a lot of inspiration towards you for today!!!
Let me know if you caught it…below in the comments.
19 thoughts on “Why Indian engineers are unemployed?
1. Great writing! Made all the points succinctly and made me laugh, so for sure I will remember. I know an English fellow working hard to change that educational system back in England as it’s having the same effect there. In the US we can’t even get the students into the IT curriculum at all, they are so used to watered down learning, they won’t take a hard course unless they are exceptional in some way. Then they complain when unemployed Indians come here to work. I never know whether to laugh or cry.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4640
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hgweb: when no agreement on compression can be found, fail for v2
Needs RevisionPublic
Authored by joerg.sonnenberger on Jan 12 2018, 3:04 AM.
Group Reviewers
When the client supports v2 responses, the fallback to the legacy
response is undesirable. If the zlib is acceptable for the client,
it should have said so in first place.
Diff Detail
rHG Mercurial
Lint Skipped
Unit Tests Skipped
indygreg requested changes to this revision.Jan 12 2018, 8:20 PM
indygreg added a subscriber: indygreg.
We're not using the Accept* HTTP headers, so the use of HTTP 406 is not appropriate. See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7231#section-6.5.6. I believe if you scour the mailing list or even the commit messages, you'll find text explaining why we explicitly chose to not use the Accept headers for protocol negotiation.
I do think I'm OK with aborting the request if the client request is "malformed." Although it's a BC break and needs to be called out as such. Since we already shipped forgiving code, others may insist we keep the existing behavior. They have a point.
This revision now requires changes to proceed.Jan 12 2018, 8:20 PM
Which status code shall we use then, just plain 400?
Which status code shall we use then, just plain 400?
Good question.
We use 400 for parts of hgweb. But not the wire protocol parts. And the use of 400 should arguably be avoided because it is supposed to mean the HTTP request message itself was malformed. A lot of people (including our uses in hgweb) extend 400 to mean things like the query string parameters are invalid. RFC 7231 is still vague in its wording and does seem to allow liberal use of this status code. That's probably because of common use of 400 in the wild.
In the wire protocol today, it looks like we use 200 and a Content-Type: application/hg-error to indicate error. I think this is what we should use here (assuming existing client codes handles the error sanely). It should, since httppeer.py always checks for this content-type as part of processing every HTTP response.
For the next submission, please add a test showing that an hg operation hitting this error in the context of hg pull or hg clone does something reasonable.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4652
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Meta Rate My Team PokéBase - Pokémon Q&A
0 votes
For moves that do 150 damage, 90 accuracy, requires to recharge, can they be critical hits, super-effective and STAB?
Eg. Diagla used Roar of Time, 150 damage, critical hit, Super-effective and STAB
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2 Answers
3 votes
Just like any attack with a Base Power; yes.
In your example, you're completely right! Roar of Time will hit other Dragons for Super-effective damage, gets STAB from Dialga's Dragon typing, and can be a Critical Hit if you get lucky.
answered by
2 votes
Yes, of course it's possible! you can get a critical hit, super effective, and get a STAB on Roar of Time! however, as you know, HyperBeam is a normal type. so, you only can get a critical hit and a STAB on HyperBeam...
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Meta Rate My Team PokéBase - Pokémon Q&A
0 votes
So say I have a shiny Vileploom. Will it have the same IVs as another shiny Vileploom and a shiny Sharpedo? (these are just examples not specific cases)
asked by
2 Answers
1 vote
Best answer
They can but no the wont always have the same IVs because shininess is determined by Personality Values.
answered by
selected by
1 vote
If you mean if all shiny Pokemon have the same IVs, then no.
All IVs are random.
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Zitácuaro-Valle de Bravo volcano
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Carleigh Crouch
on 23 February 2016
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Transcript of Zitácuaro-Valle de Bravo volcano
Zitácuaro-Valle de Bravo volcano
Extra Facts
It is located in Central Mexico
It is 11,483 feet tall
It’s current status is dormant (temporarily inactive)
Zitácuaro-Valle de Bravo volcano is a volcanic field in the central part of the Mexican Volcanic Belt 80 km SW of Mexico City.
The last eruption in the volcanic field was west of the Valle de Bravo lake
Last known eruption of Zitácuaro-Valle de Bravo was 3050 BCE
All Done!!!
Latitude: 19.4 N
Full transcript
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4674
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• Compatible Apps:
• Illustrator
• Photoshop
A set of 16 grunge textures in EPS vector format and high resolution transparent PNG format. All the textures can be seen from the previews above.
Thank You!
Tugcu Design Co.
Tugcu Design Co.
Founding Shop
Heya! I'm an Istanbul based designer with a square jaw, a large forehead, a lust for gaming and a thirst for all things design.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4681
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Skip to main content
Avatar for rebeling from
Joined on Nov 3, 2014
2 projects
Last released on Jul 29, 2017
Create an amp version of your website.
Last released on Mar 3, 2017
Anchorman takes a list of terms and a text. It finds the terms in this text and replaces them with another representation.
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4694
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Fictionalizing Your Life – Using People You Know to Help Your Writing Grow
I’m an emotive writer. I don’t mean I start crying over words on a page. I mean that people and events that have touched me personally will more than likely show up in my work somewhere. It’s not due to lack of imagination; I just use my own experiences as a base to create characters, scenes, and plots.
For characters, this is nothing new. Actors use this method to create the right emotion to react to a stimuli. So do songwriters: every sad song ever written came from at least one broken heart. The good news is that in writing you have a lot more freedom because you’re doing it on your own.
Think about your best friend. What do you like and dislike about him/her? Heighten it. If they’re a neat freak, make your character obsessively neat. If your friend “plays the field”, have your character’s cell phone constantly ringing. If your friend obsesses about their weight, give your character a laxative addiction. And then examine these traits to varying degrees.
I’m not suggesting you create a cast of obsessive-compulsives. I’m only suggesting this method as a starting point to build your characters on. Suggestions like those above don’t even have to be the strongest character traits; just little subtleties to give your them new dimensions and motivations.
I find it works for me. And that’s why I love my characters so much.
So, if I know you personally, thanks for the inspiration, however I portrayed you. Not that I’ll ever tell.
Next: Personalizing Events, Personal Therapy
Author: Richard S. Todd
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4702
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This is my entry into the Xamarin Recipe Cook-Off. Recipes, in Xamarin terms, are very simple demonstrations of how a single feature or piece of functionality is implemented. I thought background fetching would be useful to many developers, and it’s pretty easy to implement, especially after reading this recipe.
I’ve also included the recipe in this blog post:
Background Fetching Data
This recipe shows how to register your application to perform background fetching on intervals.
1. Recipe
In your application’s Info.plist file, add the value fetch to the UIBackgroundModes (Required background modes) property.
Next, in your AppDelegate class, in the FinishedLaunching override method, add the following code to register your application for background fetching:
UIApplication.SharedApplication.SetMinimumBackgroundFetchInterval (UIApplication.BackgroundFetchIntervalMinimum);
Finally, in your AppDelegate class, override the PerformFetch method.
This method will be executed by the operating system when it sees best fit (eg: when the device is awake and connected already). You do not have complete control over how often or when fetching happens.
You should execute your own code to fetch new data in this method. It’s important to call the Action<UIBackgroundFetchResult> completionHandler parameter which is passed into this method with the appropriate result when you are done.
2. Sample PerformFetch
In this sample, a weather service is called by background fetching so that when the user opens the app, recent weather is available. The weather is cached locally after it’s fetched in the background, and the UI is also updated if there is new weather info.
public override async void PerformFetch (UIApplication application, Action<UIBackgroundFetchResult> completionHandler) {
Console.WriteLine ("PerformFetch called...");
//Return no new data by default
var result = UIBackgroundFetchResult.NoData;
try {
//Get latest weather
var w = await GetWeatherAsync("Windsor, Canada");
if (w != null) {
//Cache the weather locally
//Update the UI
//Indicate we have new data
result = UIBackgroundFetchResult.NewData;
} catch {
//Indicate a failed fetch if there was an exception
result = UIBackgroundFetchResult.Failed;
} finally {
//We really should call the completion handler with our result
completionHandler (result);
3. Additional Information
• Your PerformFetch has about 30 seconds to run before it’s killed
• The operating system is more likely to grant more time (and more often) to your application for background fetching if you are efficient, which means executing quickly, and always calling completionHandler with an accurate result
• You can tell the operating system the minimum time to sleep between waking up your application and calling its PerformFetch method if you know your app only updates at a certain interval, to avoid extra calls to PerformFetch and wasting battery life. You would specify the minimum time in seconds in the UIApplication.SharedApplication.SetMinimumBackgroundFetchInterval (double minimumBackgroundFetchInterval) method
• You can actually make calls to update your UI from the PerformFetch method so that the next time the user launches the app, everything is up to date
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Adrift in Book or Dissertation-Writing Land? Try Making a Book Jacket!
when will it end- (1)Having written a 400 page dissertation and being two years into revising it for a, considerably shorter, book manuscript, I can attest to the fact that the “dissertation to book” advice can only get you so far. If you’re currently reading one of these, here’s what they can do:
-give you a template of a successful book
-remind you, a billion times, that a “dissertation is not a book”
-offer thin-lipped pep talks about believing in yourself (and although true not particularly useful)
-scare the sh*! out of you about the publishing industry, the standards of your committee, and all of the ways that your project might yield you neither money nor job
And many of these things are important to keep in mind. You do need to write for a more sophisticated audience. Neither your dissertation nor the book will, by itself, just automatically land you a job. And writing a dissertation is very different than writing a book and writing a book is very different from writing a book proposal.
But when you’re 300 pages deep with paragraphs strewn across OneDrive folders as far as the eye can see, picking up one of these books or advice columns doesn’t get you the answer you want: how do I turn this dissertation into a book! How do I actually sit down to WRITE this book proposal!
I have a strategy for you: write a practice book jacket blurb. And hell, if you like Photoshop or have spare time to roam the internet, you could even start fantasizing about your cover photo, but I don’t consider that an important part of your time.
Instead, follow these steps and, when you find yourself adrift in the sea of the document, take a break a work on your book jacket:
1. Find your dream book. Go get a book that you love, something that makes you think, “this is the kind of book I want to write because this is the kind of book I want to READ.” I, for one, am digging so hard on Eugenie Brinkema’s Forms of the Affects right now.
2. Find your dream book’s publisher. So, for me, that’s Duke University Press. Go to the website and find the book. Don’t go to Amazon or Google Books; you need the publisher’s website.
3. Open a new document.
4. Think carefully about where you store the document and DO NOT store any drafts. If it were me, I would put this somewhere away from the dissertation or the albatross of a cloud where your book folders are currently stored. The project should be exciting, pithy, and fun. Some ideas:
-store it on your desktop if you don’t store things on your desktop already
-make a google document unless your google drive is already ridiculous
-start a new gmail, call yourself “dr. so and so” “or Author Extraordinaire” and create a NEW drive where your blurb can live.
-use’s “Drafts” section to just put the damn thing out into the open immediately!~
-write it as a blog post
5. Copy into your free-standing, non-stressful google document the Title, Description, Table of Contents, Keywords, and Author Bio from your dream book’s publisher’s website. This should be roughly one page long. DO NOT exceed one page.
6. At all costs keep your book jacket fantasy to ONE page. If you’ve copied too much from the publisher’s website, delete things like keywords and the author bio. At minimum keep description and table of contents.
7. Seriously keep it to one page. A two-sentence bio is all you really need because ultimately that’s all that would be on a book jacket anyway.
8. After you’ve made sure everything will fit on one page, start writing! There are lots of things you SHOULD do: borrow phrasing from your dream book that suits you, ask and answer exciting questions, pretend someone is going to read this in Barnes and Noble with a latte in one hand and some indie album in their headphones, do google image searches for phrases like “play of the signifier” and “syntax sins” to break up the monotony. Use clever turns of phrases. And, most importantly, GET TO THE POINT. What is the book’s argument? What is it going to investigate? Why should somebody read it? What important life/society conundrum is it going to solve? Then there are many things you should NOT do, including:
1. Do not define key terms. Use words that a person can understand without needing explanation. If you don’t think people know what “syntax” is, then say “word order” or “the arrangement of sentences.”
2. Do not use dyads. (the book investigates and researches, the book uses theory and practice, the dissertation offers timely and timeless advice, etc.)
3. Use very few lists. Places where lists are acceptable: case studies (you probably have several), fields of study (you should have 2-3), intriguing questions to incite reader interest (you can use 2-3). Otherwise, do not use lists.
4. Do not say WHAT you are going to do–say what the reader will know after they have read the book. So rather than, “this book investigates cultural controversies to understand how people relate to each other in a mediated world” say “the book argues that in a mediated world people relate to each other more through fantasy than they ever have before.”
Then write yourself a quick table of contents, just to round things out, and enjoy looking at a project that is finally, completely done! Now, when you get back to your writing, keep your eye on the prize. The book jacket was pithy, to the point, and insightful without excessive jargon or over-explanations; you’re book and dissertation (to a lesser extent) should be the same.
9. Circulate! Words are meant to be written. Post your book jacket fantasy publicly, share the link to your google doc, take a photo of it, add an image, and put it on social media. Hell, write fake advertisements for the book and tell your friends and network, “coming in 2020…The Dissertation!.” Trust me, no one is going to scoop you. And when you are sending out interesting ideas into the world you find the kind of motivation and excitement that will get you through the drudgery of explaining the difference between contemporary and 20th century Soviet approaches to film and montage.
But, then again, do you really need to explain it? Or can you just write it, the first time, in accessible language and then just get to the point.
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Dalmatian puppy playtime is definitely a cuteness overload
DalmatiansPublished: March 9, 2016274 plays$0.53 earned
Published: March 9, 2016
It's everything you never knew you always wanted to see! Watch as Louie and Lady and their 12 pups romp and play in the yard. First you'll see the clips in regular time and then in slow motion. You're welcome!
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4751
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Day 27. TEDxCanberra
In September 2012 on September 8, 2012 at 7:39 am
Today is TEDxCanberra.
Backing up on 2010 and 2011 events, the organising team has managed to pull together another bag of mixed lollies for the mind – with every bite different from the last, each morsel sure to tantalise and inspire.
Without a ticket and/or not in Canberra? Fear not! You can join in too – the livestream will be available all day (see here or here), and twitter coverage available by following #TEDxCanberra.
Amongst the other amazing speakers, here’s whom I’ll be listening out for in particular:
Session 1: Observe (from 9.00am AEST)
Session 2: Consider (from 11.20am AEST)
Session 3: Decide (from 2.05pm AEST)
Session 4: Transform (from 4.25pm AEST)
See the full list of presenters here.
[image of TEDwina taken at TEDxAdelaide 2011]
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4760
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He Is Not Here, For He Has Risen
Today is Resurrection sunday, the third day after Christ was crucified and He rose again. The gospels record that, on the third day after His crucifixion, at dawn, some ladies went to the tomb to attend to His body: “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him” (Mark 16:1).
While with His disciples, Christ spoke often of His death and resurrection (Mark 8:31). However, the events after His crucifixion gives us an indication His own disciples didn’t believe it when He spoke of His resurrection. His death dashed their hopes. They thought He was the deliverer of Israel from Roman oppression (Luke 21:13-21). But here, the one they have sunk all their hopes in has been brutally murdered. Their hope was gone. The women who went to the tomb encountered an angel and the conversation points us to three proofs of the resurrection:
1: The Empty Tomb:
“He is not here…Come, see the place where he lay”
These words point us to the truth of the risen Messiah. There was no body to be anointed by the women. The tomb was empty. Again, so the women will be certain of the angel’s proclamation, he bid them further “Come, see the place where he lay”. The Empty tomb is there to prove Jesus resurrected. The empty tomb is very crucial a sign of the resurrection because the events surrounding the burial of Jesus makes it impossible for the tomb to be empty apart from a bodily resurrection. Before He was buried, there was the fear His body will be stolen to prove a resurrection by the disciples. So the chief priest and the Pharisees approached Pilate to ensure maximum security was available: “Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard ( Matthew 27:65-66).
By the gospels narration, there is no reason to believe the disciples stole Jesus’s body to fake a resurrection. These were men who were terrified and were no where to be found during His crucifixion. Peter had denied Him thrice and from the conversation on the road to Emmaus, the disciples were expecting no resurrection. How could they, who were not expecting a resurrection and had lost all hope, spoof a resurrection story?
He resurrected. The empty tomb is proof.
2: Jesus’ Own Words
“for he has risen, as he said”
If we trust Christ, we must trust His words. The angel’s announcement carried weight. He reminded the women Jesus resurrected as He promised. Indeed, one of the charges against Him was that He had said they should destroy the temple in Jerusalem and in three days He will raise it up again (John 2:19).
Later John will tell us that, when Jesus spoke about the temple, He was talking about His body:
But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken (John 2:21-22).
Do we believe in the words of Jesus? Every word He spoke? Then His resurrection must be believed.
The bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ which we celebrate in this season as Easter is one of the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. He died and rose again thus reconciling sinful humanity to the Father through the efficacy of the finished work on Calvary. He died in our place as a ransom for our sins. He appeased God’s wrath for the punishment of our sins. (See Isaiah 53:4-6).His death and resurrection paved the way for everyone who will believe in Him to have a relationship with the father and also to have eternal life.
3: Eye Witnesses
“he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him”… And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!”
Jesus didn’t just resurrect and vanish into thin air. He actually revealed Himself to His disciples and some other people. Paul, recounting the death and resurrection of Jesus said:
Paul, prior to his conversion, he was Saul, a vicious enemy of the Christian faith. However, he embraced the Christian faith and became its number one advocate. What happened? He experienced the resurrected Christ. He became an eye witness of what he was opposing. On a journey to Damascus to apprehend Christians and execute them, he met with the Lord Jesus.(Acts 9). This same enemy of Christ and Christianity, later on wrote to defend the resurrection (1Corinthians 15:12-18).
There is no hope for the Christian without the resurrection. But because He rose, we have cause to be hopeful.
Because I live, you also will live (John 14:19).
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4774
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HopeNYC is heading out to Baisely Pond park on Sunday June 10th to have FAMILY DAY: AVENGERS EDITION!
Ever had a picnic or sports day with your family? Imagine that but larger with over 400 people! There will be tons of games for ALL AGES! Running races, Go cart racing, volleyball, cricket, dodgeball, 🎲 and so much more team games! Can’t walk? There will be table games like checkers and cards that will also be worth points! If you look out in the park for HopeNYC on Family Day, it will surely be the large, loud, colorful crowd of people!
allery ids="10716,10701,10702,10711,10705,10707,10709,10714,10703,10710,10712,10706,10713,10699,10700,10704,10708" type="slideshow"]
It’s not too late! You can visit HopeNYC for service on June 10th at 10:30am! Right after everyone will go to the park. You can be assigned to one of the 4 teams: Iron Man, Spider-Man, Black Panther or Thor.
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‘How Did We Get Here?’ The Creation Argument from the debate with unTheist
The following was the opening salvo for the Creation/Evolution debate with unTheist on BlogTalkRadio’s Atheist versus Theist Radio Hour on Sunday, June 14, 2009 11pmEST. The show was originally planned for one hour but was extended by a half hour. The full audio of this live debate is available at:
Tell me what you think!
-Rev Tony Breeden
The Origins Argument isn’t about facts. The creationist and the evolutionist have exactly the same evidence: we have the same universe, the same Earth, the same physics, mathematics, rocks, fossils – the same facts. And FACTS are not self-explanatory. Facts must be interpreted… usually according to our pre-existing beliefs and assumptions.
And it’s not about science. There’s plenty of evidence for a Creator, if we’re at least willing to entertain the possibility that He exists! Still, when I announce that I’m a Creationist, some people ask, “How can you reject the same science that put man on the moon?” The irony is that it was a Creationist rocket scientist, Wernher Von Braun, who got us to the moon. He did it without need of evolution.
Many inventions and discoveries and scientific disciplines that were founded were the work of Bible-believing scientists, who didn’t need evolution. The Scientific Method itself is credited to one of these Bible-believing scientists, Sir Francis Bacon, and is based on the idea that we have an orderly universe that may be rationally understood because both it and our minds were designed by a Creator.
It’s about authority: The revealed Word of an infallible, infinite God versus the ever-changing word of fallible, finite men who reject Him and who weren’t there.
The Scientific Method works for the excellent reason that universe we observe is orderly, containing precisely set constants, beautiful mathematics, fine-tuned physics and follows definite laws. The existence of such specified information implies purpose. Why should undirected randomness produce any sort of order, much less useful information precisely tuned for a Just Right universe? Especially when things have a tendency toward disorder. Explosions in print shops don’t produce encyclopedias! Yet it’s not only ordered; for the evolutionist, it’s much worse than that. The state of the universe is exactly what is necessary for human life to exist. We live in the perfect type galaxy of the right shape, on the right piece of the arm of the spiral. Our sun is exactly the right size, color, mass, distance, orbit. This incredible string of Free Lunches goes on and on. Each time, the evolutionist invokes chance because they refuse to allow a Divine foot in the door whether the evidence might allow for it or not.
The Bible claims the cosmos was framed by the word of God. God spoke, and light, life and all the rest came into being at His Word. Frankly, those who object to this as a possibility have already ruled God out as a possibility. In all fairness Even Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog & certainly no friend of religion, conceded that given a Deity, he would have no difficulty in conceiving that where nothing had existed, the universe could suddenly appear out of nothingness, at the volition of that Deity. We also must not forget that a Creator is an artist. Just as Da Vinci didn’t have to paint the Mona Lisa as a baby and then wait for baby Mona Lisa to grow up on canvas, God could create the cosmos with apparent age.
Now, Life does not spring from nonlife, and this also points to Creation. All experiments to prove the viability of chemical evolution so-called have only shown how extremely difficult it would be to accomplish even ON PURPOSE. and how ludicrous that it should have occurred by chance. To get the cell itself… well, the cell has turned out to be a miniature universe all its own, full of incredibly complex, interconnected molecular machines. Six feet of DNA is coiled in each cell and contains more information than all the world’s libraries. Experience teaches us that such ordered information, like the arrangement of notes in a symphony or the letters of a novel, such specified complexity has an intelligent source.
The Bible states that God created plants and animals “after their kind” and told them to be fruitful and multiply “after their kind.” [Gen 1:12,25] To the creationist, this implies variation within fixed limits, which Mendel confirmed in his studies on heredity and which we observe in nature. If you look at Darwin’s finches or dog breeding you can see the potential packed into each created kind: For example, dogs: Be it a wolf, fox, English bulldog or Chihuahua, a dog remains a dog and does not change into anything else. A fruit fly remains a fruit fly, even if it becomes so specialized that it only exists in a certain location. An influenza virus may mutate to beat a vaccine but it remains the flu. Incidentally, it adapts by a loss of genetic information. Evolutionists claim that this sort of limited, horizontal change within a kind is proof of vertical particles-to-people evolution, but nothing in the evidence suggests this. They interpret the data this way because they assume evolution is true to begin with.
The Creationist notes that, Having a common designer, it’s no surprise that many animals are similar and utilize common [homologous] design elements, aesthetic features are repeated, body plans, that sort of thing. And creatures of a more similar appearance and design would have more similar DNA encoding, said encoding being necessary for reproduction of the species after their initial creation
To correct a common misconception, Creationists DO believe in Natural selection, but as a conservative force rather than a creative force. It weeds out harmful adaptations and uses this God-given genetic potential to allow animals to adapt and survive in a Fallen world. But we must point out that Natural selection operates by decreasing genetic information, not by the increases of information and complexity required by evolution. The more specialized an animal becomes the less overall potential survival adaptability it has remaining in its genetic coding. This is what we observe in nature and is consistent with the fossil record.
Stephen Jay Gould noted that “The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism [ie- traditional evolution]: 1. Stasis. Most species appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; A dog is still a dog and recognizably so. 2. Sudden appearance. A species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; by traditional evolution, No, it appears all at once and `fully formed.'” (Gould, Stephen J. [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University, USA], “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5, May 1977, p.14).
This observation is confirmed in present biology and is consistent with the Creationist theory of variation within fixed created kinds. The dots are only connected in their minds, not in the fossil record nor in observable biology. Rather than seeing new kinds of animals appear, we’re seeing species go extinct! 150 years after the publication of Origins, rather than the innumerable transitional forms predicted by Darwin’s theory, we have only a handful of disputable candidates when our museums should be full of them!
Meanwhile, As Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis puts it, the fossil record evidences billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the Earth. Fish fossilized in the act of eating another fish. Polystratic tree fossils, which run vertically through several strata of rock and therefore… several long ages? Mass graves the world over where dinosaur fossils are jumbled together like so much flotsam after a flood — and little wonder if the Bible is true! The Bible tells of a world-wide Flood in the days of Noah. Everyone knows the story. There are flood legends from nearly every ancient culture confirming this event.
If one accepts the probability of world-wide Flood, it adds credence to the Bible’s claims, and one cannot fail to note that the Bible says this Flood was sent in judgment of man’s sin. Many people are opposed to the very idea of a Creator because it suggests that Man might be accountable to someone else. Again, the Origins Argument isn’t about facts or science; it’s about authority. Who gets to make the rules: God or men?
I have to point out that There IS a universal Moral sense that pervades humanity. Most people call it a conscience.The Bible calls it God’s Law written on our hearts. We know what we ought to do, even if we do otherwise. The presence of a universal Moral Law implies a Law Giver & strongly suggests accountability to that Lawgiver. The ability to ignore or act contrary to our conscience confirms that we have free will. That the Lawgivers will is revealed but not imposed upon us suggests that He values free will, That He wants our willing compliance, That He cares what decision we make.
If so, As the Lawgiver, He would also want to reaffirm His will and make it plain, since our moral sense can be corrupted willfully or passively, through social conditioning for example. God would reveal Himself somehow but in a way that would not impose upon the free will he bestowed upon Man, when he made man in His own image. He’d give us too little evidence to be sure, but too much to deny. The Bible claims to be just such a revelation from the Creator of the cosmos.The Bible has been demonstrated to be historically, archaeologically and – if fulfilled prophecy and the evidence or Christ’s resurrection are taken into account – even supernaturally true.
The Bible also accurately describes the world. The picture given of man is that He has a sin nature, he’s depraved by the Fall of Adam, but he’s also made in God’s image and has a conscious, God’s law written on his heart, so that Man is capable of great evil but also great nobility. The Bible does not deny evil or suffering or promise its adherents unrealistic reprieve from calamity. I could go on. Suffice it to say that the Bible resonates with the human experience.
The Bible identifies Christ Jesus as the Creator who even stepped into history to reconcile His creation to himself. The veracity of His Word, including His claims to deity, is validated by the resurrection and by fulfilled Messianic prophecy.
So again, there is ample evidence of Creation if only we keep an open mind. But it’s not about facts and it’s not about science. It’s about authority: The revealed Word of an infallible, infinite God versus the ever-changing word of fallible, finite men who reject Him and who weren’t there.
3 Comments Add yours
1. Vlatko says:
It isn’t easy to become a fossil… Only about one bone in a billion, it is thought, ever becomes fossilized. If that is so, it means that the complete fossil legacy of all the Americans alive today – that’s 270 million people with 206 bones each – will only be about fifty bones, one quarter of a complete skeleton. That’s not to say of course that any of these bones will actually be found. Bearing in mind that they can be buried anywhere within an area of slightly over 3.6 million square miles, little of which will ever be turned over, much less examined, it would be something of a miracle if they were.
Fossils are in every sense vanishingly rare. Most of what has lived on Earth has left behind no record at all. It has been estimated that less than one species in ten thousands has made in into the fossil record. That in itself ia a stunningly infinitesimal proportion. However, if you accept the common estimate that the Earth has produced 30 billion species of creature in its time and that there are 250.000 species of creature in the fossil record, that reduces the proportion to just one in 4.000. Either way, what we possess is the merest sampling of all the life that Earth has spawned…
…It is almost impossible for us whose time on Earth is limited to a breezy few decades to appreciate how remote in time from us the Cambrian outburst was. If you could fly backwards into the past at the rate of one year per second, it would take about half an hour to reach the time of Christ, and a little over three weeks to get back to the beginnings of human life. But it would take twenty years to reach the dawn of the Cambrian period. It was, in other words, an extremely long time ago, and the world was a very different place…
…Like most things that thrive in harsh environments, lichens are slow-growing. It may take a lichen more than half century to attain the dimensions of a shirt button. Those the size of dinner plates, are therefore likely to be hundreds if not thousands of years old. It would be hard to imagine a less fulfilling existence. They simply exist testifying to the moving fact that life even at its simplest level occurs, apparently, just for its own sake.
It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yes its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, a I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all leaving things, they will suffer hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life in, short, just wants to be. But – and here’s an interesting point – for the most part it doesn’t want to be much.
This is perhaps a little odd because life has had plenty of time to develop ambitions. If you imagine the 4.5 billion odd years of Earth’s history compressed into a normal earthly day, than life begins very early, about 4 a.m., with the rise of the first simple, single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next sixteen hours. Not until 8:30 in the evening, with the day five-sixths over, has Earth anything to show the universe but a restless skin of microbes. Then, finally, the first sea plants appear, followed twenty minutes later by the first jellyfish and the enigmatic Ediacaran fauna.
At 9:04 p.m. trilobites swim onto the scene, followed more or less immediately by the shapely creatures of the Burgus Shale. Just before 10 p.m. plants begin to pop up on the land. Soon after, with less than two hours left in the day, the first land creatures follow. Thanks to ten minutes or so of balmy weather, by 10:24 the Earth is covered in the great carboniferous forests whose residues give us all our coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Dinosaurs plod onto the scene just before 11 p.m. and hold sway for about three-quarters of an hour. At twenty-one minutes to midnight they vanish and the age of mammals begins. Humans emerge one minute and seventeen seconds before midnight.
The whole of our recorded history, on this scale, would be no more than a few seconds, a single human lifetime barely an instant. Throughout this greatly speeded-up day continents slide about and bang together at a clip that seems positively reckless. Mountains rise and melt away, ocean basins come and go, ice sheets advance and withdraw. And throughout the whole, about three times every minute, somewhere on the planet there is a flesh-bulb pop of light marking the impact of a Manson-sized meteor or even larger. It’s a wonder that anything at all can survive in such a pummeled and unsettled environment. In fact, not many things do for long.
Perhaps an even more effective way of grasping our extreme recentness as a part of this 4.5-billioniyear-old picture is to stretch your arms to their fullest extent and imagine that width as the entire history of the Earth. On this scale the distance from the fingertips of one hand to the wrist of the other is Precambrian. All of complex life is in one hand, and a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history.
Fortunately, that moment hasn’t happened, but the chances are good that it will. I don’t wish to interject a note of gloom just at this point, but the fact is that there is one other extremely pertinent quality about life on Earth: it goes extinct. Quite regularly. For all the trouble they take to assemble and preserve themselves, species crumple and die remarkably routinely. And the more complex they get, the more quickly they appear to go extinct. Which is perhaps one reason why so much of life isn’t terribly ambitious…
…It is a curious fact that on Earth species death is, in the most literal sense, a way of life.
1. Sirius says:
That was a lovely bedtime story.
I note that I backed my arguments with actual arguments and evidences, but you simply spin a yarn. Try again. Or don’t. Whichever.
-Sirius Knott
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1st Grade Websites
Reading/Language Arts
First Grade ABC Interactives- Games to learn your ABC's
Guided Reading Games- More activities to help students with guided reading.
Literacy Center- Learn common words in Spanish here.
Online Language Arts Games- Learn about letters, words and more.
PBS Kids-Check out the different learning activities offered by IPT.
Reading Games- Learn about alphabetical order, consonant blends and more.
Spell City-Practice your spelling words here.
Starfall Reading- Learn to read words here.
Math Sites-
Coin Counting- Learn about counting money here.
First Grade Math- Counting, comparing, fractions, +, -, money, time, measurement and more.
First Grade Math Games- Counting, comparing, one digit, two digit numbers.
First Grade Math Skills- Learn about addition, subtraction, time, money, measurement and more.
Learning Math for Kids- Algebra, geometry, data and number sense.
Math Activities for Kids- Check out the different games for 1st graders.
Math Magnets- Figure these challenging puzzles out in addition, subtraction and more.
Math Probes-Games, videos and worksheets for 1st grade students.
Online Math Games-Graphing, money, time, and a whole lot more here.
Science Sites-
Fun Science for Kids- Physical science, life cycles, health and more here.
Online Science Games- Weather, space, animals, plants, biology, anatomy and physics.
Primary Science Games- Look at grade 1 column for science related activities.
Social Studies Sites-
Ben's Guide K-2 Social Studies- Learn about history, government, our nation and lots more.
Interactive Social Studies-Learn about cultures, history, states, flags and more.
Online Social Studies activities-Maps, history, world, presidents, flags, and states.
Place the state-Test your skill on where each state belongs.
Multi Subject Sites-
ABCya Math-Practice math and language arts skills here.
Dosity- Math and Language arts activities for grade K-2.
E-Z School-Math and Language arts interactive games.
Electric Company- Learning games for kids.
First Grade Classroom- More math and language arts games.
***4Kids***- Math, word, typing, and more activities for kids.
Free Online Activities- Check out the science and other fun activities. Watch for your grade level.
Fun School- Math Art, Language and more here.
Internet4Classrooms-Practice math and language arts activities here.
***IXL***- Math and Language Arts activities.
Kidport- Math, science, social studies, language arts.
Learning Planet-Math and language arts games.
MiKids-Animals, Colors, Science and more.
Primary Games-A variety of games for kids.
***Recess Room*** - Math and Language Art activities.
Sesame Street- Activities to learn your letters, numbers and more.
Softschools- Learn about math, science, social studies, language arts etc. (printable worksheets avail.)
Turtle Diary- Learn math and language arts activities.
Miscellaneous Sites-
Congitive Activities- Check out these cognitive skills for kids.
Fun School- A variety of fun games for kids.
Playhouse Disney- Check out the Disney kids website.
Scholastic News- Check out stories from around the world.
Yahooligan for kids- Search engine for kids.
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Friday, February 25, 2011
Forecast For The Digital Age Is Fair to Partly Cloudy
Do you stare at clouds searching for familiar shapes? Pretty soon, whether or not you realize it, we all will be doing just that. Only the shapes that we see aren’t going to be sheep and butterflies…they'll be our work in progress.
According to Wikipedia, the key characteristic of cloud computing is that the computing is "in the cloud" i.e. the processing (and the related data) is not in a specified, known or static place. This is in contrast to a model in which the processing takes place in one or more specific servers that are known.
Basically, cloud computing is internet-based computing whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Google docs is an example of cloud computing, so is Blogger, heck…Google has an entire app store with hundreds of things that use cloud computing and you can check out the link right here.
What are the types of cloud computing? SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).
1) IaaS is a provision model in which an organization outsources the equipment used to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers and networking components. The service provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and maintaining it. The client typically pays on a per-use basis. Think of which the hacker group Anonymous claimed was unassailable because they have so many computers available to run their servers.
2) PaaS is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack as a service. PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities. They provide all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet.
3) SaaS sometimes referred to as "software on demand," is software that is deployed over the internet and/or is deployed to run behind a firewall on a local area network or personal computer.
But is cloud computing secure? According to a recent article published by M.I.T., this depends on your viewpoint. For many potential users it’s like trusting the telephone company--or Gmail, or even the post office--to keep your communications private. People frequently place confidential information into the hands of common carriers and other commercial enterprises. There is another class of user who wouldn’t use the telephone without taking security precautions beyond trusting the common carrier. If you want to procure storage from the cloud you can do the same thing: never send anything but encrypted data to cloud storage.
No matter what your personal opinion is of Julian Assange, when WikiLeaks published thousands of classified diplomatic cables, it highlighted the fairly ramshackle state of data security, particularly when it comes to dealing with insider threats.
Questions come to mind: 1) Does transparency open the door to unintended disclosure? 2) If these kinds of cables can be so easily published to the world, what about information sharing via social networks or even through cloud computing? 3) For us writers who may be using Google docs or similar platforms, could someone steal our writing? As far fetched as it sounds, it can happen. There was supposed to be a fifth Twilight book and so much of it got leaked online and distributed that Stephanie Meyer canned the whole project. :/
For the average person, they're basically a nuisance. I myself have had a keylogger on my computer before which stole my password for my World of Warcraft account. All of my stuff on the character I'd worked hard on was gone, disenchanted, or sold off by some gold farmer in China for real money. It took me a week and a dispute with the parent company, Blizzard, to get everything back and now I have an authenticator on my game account. I've also had my social security number stolen for a D.U.I. and a credit card stolen in which someone charged $1,000.00 in stuff before I realized what was going on. Again...nuisances...fixed with a few hours on the phone and faxing some documents. But how much worse could it get?
Well with the Stuxnet worm, the answer is pretty bad. Stuxnet is one example of a new reality for all of us because it is a worm that crossed the line between cyber and traditional warfare. The worm is sophisticated. Its creators aren't known, but the consensus among analysts was that it was the work of a team with considerable resources. The effort involved would need to be measured in years and it required access to expensive and regulated hardware as a test bed, and it apparently took advantage of detailed intelligence about its target.
What did it do, you might ask? It targeted a specific process control system to disrupt uranium enrichment (most likely in Iran), however, it ended up infecting 60,000 other systems. The idea that an organization out there operating outside of government could design a worm to disable or affect nuclear weapon systems is a little scary. It almost reminds me of a Hollywood movie plot where skynet takes over the world and kills all the humans. Terminator anyone? Anyway, how do you anticipate approaching the whole "cloud computing" thing or would you feel more secure storing your work on your own p.c.? Steve Jobs says that "Cloud Computing" is the future. Who knows...maybe all those billions of dollars he's made means he's right about everything.
1. In the early years of computing there were only thin clients, which is what cloud computing feels like the industry is trying to return to. I know dummy clients are easier for the average user to use just because there's no upkeep involved but I don't want to trust google anymore than I have to. Especially after that social security requirement debacle with the students entering google's doodle competition.
2. Well, I've come a little closer to figuring out what Cloud Computing is...but I'm still lost!
3. Stephanie, it's just a term to describe services that aren't on your computer. So anytime you word process or game and the software, etc. is not actually on your p.c. but is somewhere else then that is a version of cloud computing.
4. I so need a grenade with a usb cord now.
5. Couldn't find any skunk mice...just mouse pads.
6. SaaS is something I recognise from my library job - we are on a library management system that is NOT SaaS, and it pretty well sucks because it means relying on ... our IT dept. GASP! hehe. So hopefully we'll be getting rid of that someday soon (we've also had it for about 12 years, which is a LONG time for any library to have the same system, so it's getting to be time to move on!).
7. I remember hearing about that worm and SkyNet was what I thought of too. In the 3rd Terminator movie it's a "virus" that has the military activate SkyNet and blow us all to hell.
8. Very well written article, Mike.
9. Trisha, at one time I thought my dream job would be to work in some huge library. I'm glad that never panned out...I'm better off working in technology. It's funner.
10. This cyber hacking stuff is scary. We've had a problem where I live with people putting data loggers on ATMs and stealing people bank info. There's really no way to be 100% safe anymore. I wish we didn't have to worry about this kind of stuff. :/
11. Makes me feel like I'm way to trusting. I need to start working in a bubble.
12. LOL, Charlie!
My personal feeling about the people who come up with cloud computing is this. Theoretical World is a happy, shiny place where everything works the way it ought to. Real World is where I can't get onto Twitter because it's always overcapacity.
13. Yikes... that's scary! Very informative post :)
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Sleep Disorders
From sleep paralysis to narcolepsy, sleepwalking to exploding head syndrome, we take a look at the myriad of sleep disorders that affect millions round the world.
nocturnal asthma
What is nocturnal asthma?
Asthma is a serious breathing condition caused by inflammation in the airways that lead to the lungs. It affects up to 20 million Americans. Nocturnal, or night... Read More...
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4804
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“Seeking Peace Through Violence…”
Posted: August 20, 2017 by gamegetterII in Uncategorized
The Defensive Training Group
Isn’t that the same thing the Islamists require through submission? In fact, it is.
The Left is now, ‘seeking peace through violence,’ or, in other words, ‘you will have peace when you submit.’
From Breitbart, here.
“Antifa leaders admit they’re willing to physically attack anyone who employs violence against them or who condones racism — as long as force is used in the name of eradicating hatred,” CNN reports.
Hmmm…”eradicating hatred.” “Hatred” is an emotion, right? Extrapolating this ‘ideal,’ that means that until and unless all people submit to Antifa’s version of acceptable emotions, thought, and deed, there is no peace.
Look at the picture in the linked article. Lots of bats, cameras, and screaming mee-mees. First of all, they look a LOT like a Muslim ‘religious police’ outfit, only larger. However, there’s not a single rifle or outfitted citizen to be seen. While smart for the photo…
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Cop Violence on black people.
in police • 24 days ago
A quick thought on protests against cop violence on black people (and the recent protests in the NFL, led by Kaepernick):
Some conservatives like to pass around a graphic that claims 97% of violence on black people is committed by other black people, that only 2% is committed by cops. Because cop violence is so small, the protesters are somehow hypocritical. Assuming this figure to be accurate, it misses the point. In fact, the figure is completely irrelevant to the discussion on the whole.
Ultimately, we are discussing law here. And as such, we need to discuss the legitimacy of the police force involved, regardless of how large or small their actions are.
Where does the authority of law come from? At least in the West, it comes from reciprocity: that the law will protect you and that promise is immutable in exchange for obedience to the law. For many blacks, such reciprocity does not exist. They are not treated with deference but rather suspicion. White people and cops, however, do tend to have a more deferential relationship. This is clearly not a reciprocity, and as such, the law loses some of its authority. This point alone justifies some of the protests.
Further, it should be noted that my above argument does not depend on the level of violence. There could be no violence whatsoever, or even more whites attacked by cops than blacks, and the argument does not change. The point is the reciprocity and the uniformity of interactions between the agents of the law (cops) and the subjects of the law (everyone, including cops). If there is no reciprocity, if there is no uniformity, then the law loses its authority, which leads to legal anarchy.
19th Century French liberal Frederic Bastiat once said:
The protests surrounding the cop violence matter are making exactly this point. The law has lost its authority, and as such we must choose between obeying an illegitimate law or obeying a moral code of justice for all.
Edit: in the interest of clarity, I want to be specific: I take no position on either side with this post. My opinions on the matter are my own. This post is just a humble contribution to clarify the issues around which the discussion is occurring
Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
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We all have red blood in our veins, we are all going to die and the worms eat us. We must reflect because we are all human beings, whether we are white or black.
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/ Savoir_Vivre
Summer's coming
Alright, so the current semester is almost over, and then summer will be here. To be exact, it already is, but not that I would know. I sit at home, in front of my computer, doing stuff I don’t need to do, neglecting stuff I should do. The only thing that makes me realize that summer has come is the scorching heat bulding up in the apartment, making me wish for winter again. So, summer actually is nothing to me, except the prospect of working at a factory (which is not in Vienna but about 900 km away) for the most part of my vacation, and then returning to Vienna with a lot more money than before and the prospect of being able to live in an apartment with temperatures below 50° Celsius. I hope your summer will be as fun as mine,
Have a nice day
PS: Oh, and of course I’ll be able to use gmail, hahaha.
PPS: Actually, I’ll be having a white-collar job at the factory, so everything’s really not that bad.
PPPS: But my girlfriend will be working in Vienna for the most part of my vacation, so it really is that bad.
PPPPS: And she’ll have to endure the scorching heat in our apartment, which is really, really bad for her.
PPPPPS: I guess she’s already looking forward to the end of summer too.
Summer's coming
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4819
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Mission Statement
Stretch here. Humming songs by Various Productions, does that mean I’m ultra cool or stupid. Listening to their Versus album. Starts off with a remix of a Sugababes song, but unfortunately it still feels like a Sugababes tune, so nothing really has changed. Not happy, VP have now lost their ultra-coolness. Didn’t expect it, but I suppose all these things eventually happen. It’s life telling you that nothing is perfect and that all you can really expect from a happy life is gout and a head full of tablets. I remember, back in the day, when music wouldn’t disappoint you, you stared up at the spinning mobile and said to yourself, “y’know, that song ain’t bad.” As you grow older and experience more and more music, more and more hard disk space is taken up with music that you love and hate at the same time. You sometimes wish you were like those people who think that a Keane gig is the best, oh the best thing they’ve EVER experienced. I’m not like that. Never have been, never will. The torture continues. I’m Stretch MacGibbon and I’m going to explain to you exactly what is wrong with you, and believe me when I say I’m excited already. Oh yeah!
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4 5⁄8 x 6¼ 117/159mm PAGES 130 US$9.95 ISBN 978-1-60988-152-8
Gardens of the Heart
Love is like the fragrance of a rose. It’s like waking up in the morning and feeling the freshness of spring, especially when you were a little child, when you didn’t have a care in the world. And the birds were singing, the sky was blue and the clouds were billowy. And all you had to be concerned with was the grass and flowers—playing and springtime.
Download Chapter 1 Free: click here
Buy Print Book:
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Rights Sold:
French, Germain, Portuguese
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4827
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If you see an error with the detail "Class not registered" when attempting to open the Server Settings in DataPA Enterprise Dashboard, it may mean that Internet Explorer has been disabled on your machine.
To remedy, open "Turn Windows Features On or Off" via the Windows Control Panel, and tick the box named "Internet Explorer <version>" (e.g. Internet Explorer 11).
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global_01_local_2_shard_00001658_processed.jsonl/4828
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BigPanda Integration Workshops
What is it?
This integration workshop is your chance to get hands-on with the xMatters - BigPanda integration and build one of your very own. An experienced xMatters consultant will provide in-depth recommendations for solving business challenges, and show you how to get the most out of your integration.
What's required?
For best results, you'll need at least a passing familiarity with JavaScript, a nodding acquaintance with xMatters communication plans, Developer access to your favorite xMatters instance, and API access in the system you're integrating with.
What's included?
In this workshop, we'll cover the following topics:
• How to determine what information BigPanda is sending to xMatters
• Sending notifications with relevant content to on-call resources
• Inviting people from multiple teams to a conference call
• Using xMatters REST API endpoints - which ones, and when
• Creating and using shared libraries to enhance your integration
When is it?
This workshop is scheduled for the following dates - register soon as space is limited!
Date Time Register
6/12/18 1:00PM - 3:00PM EDT Registration closed
6/19/18 9:00AM - 11:00AM EDT Click here to register
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CFP: Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Physics Graduate Conference, University of Western Ontario, 5-6 June 2014
The 14th annual Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Physics Graduate Conference will take place on Thursday-Friday, June 5-6, 2014, at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada.
We are pleased to announce that Doreen Fraser (University of Waterloo) will be giving the keynote address.
Call for Papers
Graduate students who have not yet defended their PhD thesis are invited to submit papers on any topic in philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of physics.
Papers in philosophy of physics will be considered for the 11th Annual Clifton Memorial book prize. The contest will be adjudicated by philosophy of physics faculty members at Western.
Submission Guidelines
The maximum paper length 5,000 words, including footnotes and appendices (but not references). If the paper includes tables, figures, or equations, an appropriate number of words should be subtracted from the limit. Papers are to be prepared for anonymous review, and should be accompanied by an abstract (no longer than 300 words). Co-authored papers are not eligible for submission.
Deadline: Papers should be submitted via EasyChair by February 24th, 2014.
Authors of accepted papers will be limited to 30-35 minutes for presentation, followed by a 20-minute period of discussion. We will endeavor to make accommodations available to all visiting graduate students. This year, the 2014 LMP Conference will precede the 18th annual Philosophy of Physics Conference, Metaphysics Within and Without Physics, taking place June 7-8.
Additional information can be found on our website:
Please send questions to the LMP Conference Committee:
We look forward to receiving your submission,
Melissa Jacquart, Olivia Komorowski, Josh Luczak, Nathan Moore, Jared Richards, and Jessey Wright (2014 LMP Conference Committee)
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Filed under Calls for Abstracts/Papers/Contributions, Conference announcements/CFPs, Graduate student corner, wuthrich
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Enjoyed reading
Worship The Lord Jesus
In Acts chapter 21, Paul learns that when he journeys to Jerusalem, he will be captured by the Jews and handed over to the Gentiles.
Paul’s response here is very important. He says, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 21:13) The key phrase is “I am ready”. This tells me that Paul was already aware, at least, that something unpleasant was going to…
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(Not) Like Ike
May 19, 2008
Why McCain’s attempt to run as an ‘Eisenhower’ Republican is a mistake
Given that I consider myself a Blairite, the British equivalent of the American liberal hawks, as opposed to a libertarian, I don’t usually agree with anything written in Reason magazine. However, I think the recent article by Matt Welch pretty much hits the nail on the head. In it Welch argues that, ‘McCain is lobbying hard, and with some success, to be seen as an “Eisenhower Republican”—a doctrine-straddling “moderate” between idealists (a.k.a. “neo-cons”) and Henry Kissinger-style realists’. This is not by any means a new trend as Ryan Lizza talked about, ‘McCain’s transformation between 2000 and 2008—from a Teddy Roosevelt Republican to an Eisenhower Republican’. Tellingly, McCain’s adverts also reference Winston Churchill, whose second stint as Prime Minister (1951-55) most closely paralleled that of Eisenhower. In effect he seems to be reinventing himself as a more hawkish version of Collin Powell.
Now it could argued that there is nothing wrong with this strategy. After all, Churchill did win the 1951 election and Eisenhower won in 1952 and 1956. Indeed, I have to admit that ‘Wrightgate’ and Obama’s neo-pacifism means that a Collin Powell (or John Warner) style Republican could probably beat Barack Obama. However, one has to remember that McCain, unlike Churchill and Eisenhower, does not have the benefit of running against an unpopular government (or in Eisenhower’s case an unpopular lame duck President), but it is he who is struggling get out from under the shadow of George W Bush. Of course one could argue that since McCain is going to win a national security debate anyway, it make sense for him to be as inclusive as possible. However, again this ignores the fact that that articulating a clear and simple strategic and moral justification is a better way to convince people than watering down his message. Since McCain is more interventionist than his statements would suggest, they undermine his ‘straight-talking ideal, making it harder to attack Obama when he tries to reinvent himself as moderate on foreign policy.
It could also be argued that reducing the volume on national security will allow other issues, which are generally much less favorable to McCain to emerge. Indeed, the crux of my argument about this election is that the Republican’s real problems onwards have been whenever they have moved away from national security they have been confronted with the reality that America has real problems with inequality, access to healthcare, a failing education system and the growing power of special interests. The Iraq war, far from being a drain on Bush’s popularity, has been the sole reason why the Republican have remained viable for so long. It is no coincidence that Bush’s popularity started to collapse once he starting wobbling on national security with the disastrous decision to convene the Iraq Study Group. This is why, instead of throwing hawks and neoconservatives under the bus, McCain needs to emphasize his foreign policy credentials, while throwing ‘no-government anarchism’ out the window.
That said, it is important not to lose a sense of perspective here. McCain did not commit to unilateral withdrawals, only hoping that the situation would permit such withdrawals. His optimism that Iraq can be stabilized is positive. At the same time, as several people on various forums have pointed out, he only hopes that “By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq war has been won’. If you were especially pedantic you could argue that McCain is echoing FDR by allowing himself the option of rotating fresh troops into Iraq. However, if that is the case McCain needs to balance such optimism with a signal that a McCain administration will focus on achieving goals, not clockwatching, and that if necessary America will, ‘any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty’. Explicitly allying himself to both the Kennedy and Truman doctrines (as opposed to the Powell Doctine) and selecting Joe Lieberman as his running mate will go some way towards making this clear.
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