text:
Andrew Bird performs earlier this year in California.
WireImage Enlarge
LEXINGTON — Among the modest breakthroughs in the unobvious pop career of Andrew Bird was a journey to New Orleans to record with the famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band for its 2010 benefit album, "Preservation."
It was a homecoming for Bird on several levels. Now an established and stylistically indefinable artist (but we will use tags like "classically trained," "pop-bred" and "folk-informed," for now), he was returning to a city and sound he knew well. Bird cut one of his first albums, 1996's "Thrills," there with his then-band Bowl of Fire at a time when he was infatuated with the vintage jazz that has come to define Preservation Hall.
"I went back there thinking they were going to be these grumpy old jazz guys," Bird, 39, recalled. "I was explaining to one of them I used to play this kind of music and he just smiles and goes, 'Oh, we know who you is."
These days, many people have come to know Bird, thanks to a sizeable indie fan base that has latched onto a folk-pop sound rooted somewhere between tradition and psychedelia with instrumentation built around violin and animated human whistling and stage shows that blend band interplay with looped melodies and orchestrations.
These are fruits of a career Bird built from scratch. A Chicago native, he began classical music studies at Northwestern University before branching out into music he found more spontaneous and challenging. Touring relentlessly, Bird developed an audience for a patchwork pop sound that grew steadily with the release of solo albums including 2007's "Armchair Apocrypha," 2009's "Noble Beast" and especially 2012's "Break It Yourself."
"I think I now see the benefits of sticking to my guns, enjoying slow growth and not having obvious radio hits that would create expectations. The only expectations I have right now would be that I am always expected to go off the map a little bit, which is great. That's my impulse. I tend to be restless. I don't feel satisfied after a show unless I've done something that has pushed me, something that is a little new or a little precarious.
"The first eight to 10 years were lean. It felt like I was kind of seeing the same 150 to 200 people wherever I played. I wasn't really growing exponentially. I was like, 'Man, I could really see the benefit of being associated with some kind of movement.' I'm so glad now that never happened, because those things come and go."
The songs for "Break It Yourself" began coming to Bird as he was composing the score for the 2011 indie film "Norman." While the resulting soundtrack album stands as one of his most inviting and atmospheric works, bridging the film's fleeting sense of innocence with his own darker musical impulses wasn't always an easy process.
"I was adapting songs to certain scenes and even shifting some lyrics around just to have the music make more sense within that scene. Some of the scenes are these sort of tender coming-of-age, first-love situations. And my lyrics can maybe be a little more, well, cryptic than what would be appropriate for this type of thing. So there was that part of it. The music for the score — for me, anyway — tended to be more dreamy. With 'Break It Yourself,' I wasn't so into doing that. I was more into a no-production, no-overdubs sort of realism — you know, just four guys in a room playing these songs together."
That four-guys-in-a-room feel will be expanded upon with an upcoming EP disc, "Hands of Glory." It's a grab-bag of country work tunes ("Railroad Bill"), covers (Townes Van Zandt's "If I Needed You"), rootsy revisions of songs from "Break It Yourself" ("Orpheo Looks Back") and a psychedelic slant on Ryan Adams-style Americana ("Three White Horses").
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Video search
Please review.
So far, it's a basic site... had the domain and wanted to put something quick up... I will put some more graphics up over the next few days - probably in a fader/JavaScript. I made the design with Gimp, Fireworks and Dreamweaver.
I've got a lot of vide sites up there listed with a CSE (Custom Search Engine) that will search them all in one search.
Also made a search engine that searches four of the top video sites at once in a four paned window... that's kind of cool.
Another search will search only the foreign sites...
If you know of any video sites I missed, please let me know! Thanks!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
"Bender is the best hammock." - Bender
"Bender is the best hammock." - Bender
"Im in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love.″ John Steinbeck
Not sure if this one has been said, but in the first episode of the first season of the original A-team, near the end when they are in the Mexican bar(cantina) there is a white hammock hanging against the wall
I ha e ine of theze for my dog. He loves it. He is a golden incidentLly
Travel Journal: http://clackstont100.weebly.com/
I don't recall seeing this one before:
smith mansion:pine hammock.jpg
It's a pine hammock at the Smith Mansion in the Wapiti Valley, Wyoming, east of Yellowstone. Smith's daughter and a dedicated group of volunteers are trying to restore the mansion, but right now it's a little disheveled! You can see the creativity Smith had in designing this interior hammock for his wacky mansion.
Mountains have a dreamy way
Of folding up a noisy day
In quiet covers, cool and gray.
---Leigh Buckner Hanes
Surely, God could have made a better way to sleep.
Surely, God never did.
While not a direct hammock photo. The music festival dedicated an area
where about 2 dozen hammocks were strung up for the patrons to "chill out" in.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench,a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free,and good men die like dogs.There's also a negative side"
Hunter S. Thompson
Temporary Baby Hammock made by tying cloth around a table.
My friend, Darin Alexander, owner of ArtCords LLC, manufactures custom 100% mohair cinches for saddles. He recently posted this unique hammock on his FaceBook page. Just for fun, he made a GIANT cinch big enough for a hammock. Sorry for the dang thumbnail, I forgot how to insert full size pictures.
Love your enemies, but keep your gun oiled!
I am a CONCENTRATED vegetarian. I let the cows eat all the grass, and then I eat the cows!
Mountains have a dreamy way
Of folding up a noisy day
In quiet covers, cool and gray.
---Leigh Buckner Hanes
Surely, God could have made a better way to sleep.
Surely, God never did.
Have seen several of those postcards with naval hammocks.
Always hanging quite tight, and usually on the side and/or with an arm out to fit. Seems uncomfortable, really.


text:
[University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor Diana Hess] is a nationally renowned expert on curriculum and instruction with a special focus on helping teachers in the art of leading students in effective, respectful debate of controversial topics. A key motivator: her research shows that high school students are more open-minded and intellectually flexible than adults.Reading that, I can't help worrying that what teachers will really try to do is indoctrinate students in liberal ideology. Can we trust them to put the development of young minds first? Or will they take advantage of their "intellectually flexible" minds and the opportunity to displace conservatism that parents may have instilled.
"A lot of parents want schools to reflect their own ideological views," Hess says in an interview. "I argue that parents shouldn't want that. If they do, they need to rethink why they have their kids in school.
"It's not to suggest schools should be working against parents' values," she continues, "but we want schools to be ideologically diverse places. That's how we educate citizens."
The backdrop, of course, is one in which political incivility and intolerance seems ever more toxic in Wisconsin and across the nation. Hess agrees that the culture outside schools is more polarized than when she started focusing on the subject in 1997.But it was specifically teachers who were at the core of the Wisconsin protests, vilifying conservatives.
And as for parents needing "to rethink why they have their kids in school." Let's be clear: Schooling is compulsory. The government forces parents to send their children to school. (Yeah, they have a right to opt out of public school if they can swing it, but it's not easy and schooling is still required.) Teachers should never forget that they have their students trapped in their classroom by the force of law.
But sure, let's teach kids how to talk about controversial issues, support their arguments, and listen to divergent opinions respectfully and critically.


text:
The Institute communicates its scientific and educational information in a number of ways. One major outlet is peer-reviewed publications and reports. Cary Institute staff regularly publish in the best-rated journals in their respective fields.
Export 19 results:Sort by: Author Title Type [ Year]
Filters: Author is Gutiérrez, Jorge L. [Clear All Filters]
Mollusks as ecosystem engineers: The role of shell production in aquatic habitats", Oikos, vol. 101, p. 79-90, 2003., "
Conditional function of habitat structure: An example from intertidal mudflats", Oecologia, vol. 139, p. 572-582, 2004., "
Reproductive cycle of the stout razor clam, Tagelus plebeius (Lightfoot, 1786), in the Mar Chiquita Coastal Lagoon, Argentina", J. Shellfish Res., vol. 23, p. 443-446, 2004., "
Spatial heterogeneity and species responses to fishing disturbance: Are the effects of clam harvesting spatially consistent?", Fish. Res., vol. 67, p. 55-70, 2004., "
Identifying repaired shell damage and abnormal calcification in the stout razor clam Tagelus plebeius as a tool to investigate their ecological interactions", J. Sea Res., vol. 54, p. 163-175, 2005., "
Small and large-scale effect of the SW Atlantic burrowing crab Chasmagnathus granulatus on habitat use by migratory shorebirds", J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol, vol. 315, p. 87-101, 2005., "
The contribution of crab burrow excavation to carbon availability in surficial salt-marsh sediments", Ecosystems, vol. 9, p. 647-658, 2006., "
Ecological importance of passive deposition of organic matter into burrows of the SW Atlantic crab Chasmagnathus granulatus", Mar. Ecol. Progr. Ser., vol. 312, p. 201-210, 2006., "
Linking ecosystem engineers to soil processes: A framework using the Jenny State Factor Equation", European J. Soil Biol., vol. 42, p. S39-S53, 2006., "
Physical ecosystem engineers as agents of biogeochemical heterogeneity", BioScience, vol. 56, p. 227-236, 2006., "
On the purpose, meaning, and usage of the physical ecosystem engineering concept", in K. Cuddington, J. E. Byers, A. Hastings, A. and W. G. Wilson (eds.). Ecosystem Engineers: Plants to Protists, 2007, p. 3-24., "
Ecosystem engineers", in Encyclopedia of Life Sciences Online, 2008., "
A framework for understanding physical ecosystem engineering by organisms", Oikos, vol. 119, p. 1862-1869, 2010., "
Physical ecosystem engineers and the functioning of estuaries and coasts", in Heip, C. H. R., C. J. M. Philippart, and J. J. Middelburg, (eds.). Functioning of Estuaries and Coastal Ecosystems, Volume 7, Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science, E. Wolanski, E., and McLusky, D. S. (Series eds.), Academic Press, Waltham, 2012, p. 53-81., "
Endolithic invertebrate communities and bioerosion rates in southwestern Atlantic intertidal consolidated sediments", Marine Biology, vol. 161, no. 10, p. 2279 - 2292, 2014., "
Toward an integrated ecosystem perspective of invasive species impacts", Acta Oecologica, vol. 54, p. 131 - 138, 2014., "
Wave action limits crowding in an intertidal mussel", Marine Ecology Progress Series, vol. 518, p. 153 - 163, 2015., "
Increased algal fouling on mussels with barnacle epibionts: a fouling cascade", Journal of Sea Research, vol. 112, p. 49 - 54, 2016., "


text:
'Hitchcock' is a solid biopic that doesn't get too psycho
Updated 5:19 pm, Thursday, November 29, 2012
"Hitchcock" tells the story of the making of "Psycho" - or, as Alfred Hitchcock pronounced it, "Psyyyy-cow" - a film that was trauma and a sensation in its own time and still has the capacity to shock. Released in 1960, that movie retains an aura of the forbidden, of something sordid and unwholesome, bordering on a snuff film. So imagine how studio heads reacted when Hitchcock, hot off the success of "North By Northwest," insisted on making an ugly, grainy, black-and-white movie about a serial killer.
"Hitchcock" stars Anthony Hopkins as the Hitchcock of legend, seemingly implacable, and always dressed in his regulation dark suit and skinny tie. (Actually, JFK dressed in a similar way, but somehow the vibe was different.) The film begins with his deciding on "Psycho" for his next film and takes him through the process of raising money, casting, filming, editing and premiering the new picture. Along the way, "Hitchcock" emerges as an entertaining, economical and thoroughly enjoyable glimpse into a familiar artist's creative process.
This time Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, gets her due as a collaborator working in every phase of production. She is far from just a sounding board, but a screenwriter and story editor with the authority to take over on the set when Hitchcock is ill and the ability to help save the picture during the editing.
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Hopkins is a fundamentally benign Hitchcock, hiding his vulnerability, neuroses and unrealized longings behind a mountain of impassivity and corpulence. He is a nice man, though the real Hitchcock seems to have been a more complicated figure. Likewise, no matter how much Helen Mirren tries to suppress her feistiness and allure as Alma Reville, she can hardly disappear.
And so when Hitchcock begins to worry that his wife has become interested in another man, it means something different that Mirren is the source of the worry - Mirren is still a woman who can wreck a man's life. The real Reville wasn't that kind of siren.
In this way, "Hitchcock" is made to please a modern audience, providing us with a Hitchcock we can like and an Alma we must respect. Scarlett Johansson, at her most charming, plays Janet Leigh with a sweet deference, as though it were she, herself, getting a miraculous, time-travel chance to work with the master of suspense. Finally, there's James D'Arcy playing Anthony Perkins and doing the best Perkins imitation the world has ever seen, all angles and elbows and with an apology in every glance.
If "Hitchcock" has a fault, it's that there is too little to challenge us, too little that's unexpected and nothing to rub us the wrong way. It's not at all like a Hitchcock movie. In a series of fantasy sequences, Hitchcock is tormented by thoughts of Ed Gein, the murderer who inspired Robert Bloch's original novel, but these hardly take us into Hitchcock's unsavory depths. Speaking of unsavory, the film doesn't bother to mention that Hitchcock got the rights to "Psycho" through a blind bid, so as to lowball Bloch with a miniscule offer. The movie ended up grossing $15 million, while Bloch walked away with less than$7,000.
There's not enough in the writing of Hitchcock to allow for a great performance from Hopkins, but he's certainly game, even if he does occasionally sound as much like Michael Caine as he does Hitchcock. Ultimately, what saves him and everyone connected with the picture is that "Psycho" is just so interesting and "Hitchcock" commits itself to dramatizing its creation.
It's fascinating to see a classic that the world knows well being built from the ground up, to see it fail and then burst to life in the editing process, and to see Hitchcock standing in the lobby listening as the audience reacts to the shower scene.
"Hitchcock" isn't ambitious or complicated. It's simple, does what it sets out to do and gets out before anyone even thinks about checking the time. More movies should be made in its image.
Rated PG-13: for some violent images, sexual content and thematic material
Running time: 98 minutes


text:
Australian students are encouraged to keep up to date with their student assistance payments using the Express Plus Students mobile app, said Minister for Human ServicesSenator the Hon Marise Payne.
Instead of visiting a Centrelink office, students can check their Youth Allowance, Austudy or ABSTUDYpayments with the app.
Users can find out what their next payment will be, report their income from casual or part-time work, and update their study details.
According to Payne, many young people start managing their own finances when they move away from home to start university.
The app is designed to help students who may find this challenging.
"There is a range of assistance available for students through income support payments and additional support they may be eligible for, like Rent Assistance, Fares Allowance, the Student Start-up Scholarship and Relocation Scholarships," Payne said.
"Regional students who move from their parental home to the city may also be eligible for a higher rate of payment."


text:
CHICAGO – The chairman of Metra, one of the largest commuter rail agencies in the country, on Wednesday defended a costly buyout of its former executive director against criticism that it represents a shocking misuse of taxpayer money.
Threats of a lawsuit by former CEO Alex Clifford if his contract were not renewed forced the agency into months of negotiations and finally mediation that produced a deal under which Clifford could reap as much as $718,000, Metra Chairman Brad O'Halloran said. The expense is far less than the millions needed to go to court, he said in an appearance before the Regional Transportation Authority, which has financial oversight of transit networks in northeastern Illinois.
"Neither I nor any of our directors who voted for this deal liked it," O'Halloran said. "But we liked the alternatives less. ... We have more important things to do than fight a lawsuit."
The costly internal battle between Metra's board and its former CEO has added to the woes of a transit agency that, like others across the country, is struggling to make improvements and keep its vast network in working order. Tough economic times, high borrowing costs and a divided Congress have forced public transit agencies around the country into a scramble for cash.
In the midst of that crunch, the large severance package for Clifford announced on June 21 angered state lawmakers who decried the blow to taxpayers from an agency still trying to move forward after Clifford's predecessor was accused of defrauding Metra out of about $475,000. Lawmakers will hold their own session Thursday to question O'Halloran, and perhaps Clifford.
O'Halloran's remarks Wednesday were the first public comments on the severance negotiations and the falling out with Clifford, who was hired a little over two years ago to help turn the agency around after the scandal involving its former director. A confidentially clause in the deal keeps the parties from discussing it, except when called to do so by public oversight bodies like legislative committees or the RTA, which is conducting a detailed audit of the severance deal.
O'Halloran said Clifford bristled at the board's efforts to assert greater oversight of major infrastructure projects and hiring decisions, and that there were major areas of disagreement with Clifford on the agency's direction and the pace of improvements.
Before the severance deal, Clifford suggested in a newspaper interview that he was being pushed out in retaliation for resisting pressure to hand out patronage jobs.
O'Halloran said Metra took those allegations to Chicago's inspector general and had a former U.S. attorney investigate them. So far, nothing has been found to substantiate Clifford's claims, O'Halloran said Wednesday.
He said Clifford only raised the allegations after a board member informed him that his contract might not be renewed.
The claims have nonetheless led some to characterize the large settlement as "hush money."
"There have been a lot of aspersions cast at me and at the board. ... Most of the critics have been flat-out wrong," O'Halloran said. "The most reckless charge has been that we paid Clifford hush money."
Seeking to justify the buyout, O'Halloran said a protracted legal battle would also have been a major distraction from planned improvements like on-board Wi-Fi and allowing riders to pay with credit cards on trains.
For the final year of Clifford's 26-month severance deal, Metra will pay only the difference between what he earns in any lower paying job he might take and his Metra salary, which will reach more than $284,000.
Metra attorney Joseph Gagliardo said in a best-case scenario the deal would cost Metra a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Court costs that could have stretched into the millions would have left Metra with a much tougher explanation for taxpayers, he told the RTA board.
Efforts to reach Clifford through his attorney were unsuccessful Wednesday.


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All this caring about what foreigners think sounds Unamerican to me.
All this caring about what foreigners think sounds Unamerican to me.
I agree, bring back Arnie!
Oh wait...
I imagine it must be far more than the lost business.
What does the dgse and other agencies do all day?
What does the dgse and other agencies do all day?
Evaluate the data they receive from NSA.
Pointing out someone else also kills puppies is no basis for a defense for you killing puppies.
That's not the point. If you are not going to transact business in a country specifically over the concern about your puppies being killed, you should be aware of which other countries kill puppies as a matter of routine governmental intelligence gathering. And by which others, I mean all of them. In fact, I would say that any country who doesn't kill puppies as part of their internal intelligence operations either has no significant stake in world affairs or is lying. Killing puppies is a fact of modern in
Nonsense. There's a HUGE difference between being spied on by our own government which IS accountable to us, ultimately, and some foreign superpower that isn't. Sorry but that's the crux of it. We can do something about the first situation, democratically. What can we do about that bunch of evil sociopaths you voted in? Not a damn thing.
It's already happening. Watch your cloud providers collapse, and you brought it on yourselves. Well done (slow handclap).
It's the "everybody does it" defense -- a favorite defense of those who are obviously guilty.
Nope. DOS games. Xbox might have a backdoor.
Seriously. We've been saying this for decades. Secure it.
Top to bottom encryption, compartmentalization, etc.
Make it so the NSA just can't tap your communication.
Seriously. We've been saying this for decades. Secure it.
Top to bottom encryption, compartmentalization, etc.
Make it so the NSA just can't tap your communication.
Microsoft helped the NSA get around their encryption [guardian.co.uk]. Securing technology only works as long as the company securing it does so against everyone. How can you tell whether the company you're working with has a quiet deal with the government?
I know one response will be "open source!", but how many people actually go through OS code looking for hidden back doors? And it's not like we can all run our own infrastructure, you've got to trust someone at some point, and how can you tell whether or not they've got a quiet deal going on in the background?
Well, at least with open source, I can decide whom I want to trust, if anyone. With Microsoft or Apple, what are your choices? The various officers of either company can make statements that "You can trust us!" but there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that ANYONE can inspect the code to find those back doors.
I'm far less than competent at reading code, but I can actually step through some of it, with open source. I can do it openly, without fear of someone finding out that I "hacked" the code. I can look at it all day. If I find something that I don't like, I can contact someone - anyone - to find out what it is. My buddy, down the street, who is a little more competent than I am. People on a support forum, some of whom are actually competent. The developers themselves, if I think I've really got something.
Try that with Microsoft or Apple. You might want to consult with a good lawyer before doing so.
Air gapping isn't good enough because that only concerns hacking.
What about intentional collusion between your service provider and a third party? THAT is at least half the problem.
Many companies do have good security that would give the NSA a hard time. BUT all the NSA has to do is make a phone call and the company just hands over the data.
That is unacceptable. As a result, systems need to be set up in such a way that information is decentralized thus making it harder for any one source to compromise you entirely. And the information must be encrypted using private encryption keys that the company doesn't have access to... That is, they store and transfer your data but they don't decrypt it. It decrypts and is encrypted on your systems.
Its really all about control and "what is possible"... To make ourselves secure, we need to make it more and more impossible to get data. Make it theoretically unlikely or literally impossible for them to breach your data without basically blackjacking you and then water boarding the information out of you.
There are systems that cannot be breached. They are generally very inefficient but we have processing power, storage, and bandwidth to spare. Especially concerning high security data we can afford to make our systems literally unhackable.
A proper air gap, in which your own data is stored on your own servers, and only accessed under rigorous guidelines, wouldn't be crossing your ISP's infrastructure. Therefore - the ISP can't hand it over to the government. No one can reach what is inaccessible from the internet, unless then come in to your place of business, to gain physical access to your servers. That might be done with a secret warrant from a secret court - but the moment they come through your doors, it's no longer very secret. You
"American envoys are now pressing the Australian government to alter its official guidelines on data security."
Don't do it. It's a trap, plain and simple. "Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly."
but if it's done in america you can't trust the compartmentalization. maybe through open source, but even then it's a bit iffy.
you see, the problem is that you can't trust that the american offices weren't visited by men in black.
The point is not for any one thing to make you 100 percent bullet proof.
The point is to make getting your data without your approval annoying, inefficient, and incomplete.
When we over centralize and give our hosting companies total access to our data then there is only one place the "men in black" need to go to get everything. They don't need to force hack anything because the company will just give up the security keys.
Break things up while avoiding big companies that it becomes unlikely that your host will have any "deal" with the NSA or FBI.
Furthermore, no reason for the host to even be able to give the NSA what they want. Use them to HOST your data... not manage its encryption.
There are methods of encryption that can't be breached or are so difficult to breach that they'll be secure for generations. That's good enough. When the NSA wants your data they're going to have a very short attention span about it. Tell them it will take 10 years of super computer time to break something and they'll opt for plan B... which might be actually sending you a court summons or something.
Point being... we're making it too easy for the NSA by over centralizing and placing too much trust in our hosts. Reverse that policy and the NSA will find very little they can exploit.
In the case of corporate infrastructure, like you describe, it's much easier. If you have knowledgeable people designing and running the system, you can make it quite easy for the end users. It's easier to justify the expense and hassle of crypto dongles (or smartcards) to take key management away from the users. You can set policies on the systems to force the use of encryption.
It gets hard when you start dealing with random people, your grandparents, and friends. They can't keep their computers free of ma
Seccede from the union? Then you're just as much a furriner to the NSA as the rest of the world. And thus fair game to spying operations that have gotten a little out of hand. To the point that you can no longer say "don't do that" to the people doing it. It is so much out of control that you have to shut down the machine entirely and scap it. And please don't rebuild it, not even from scratch.
This also shows how utterly provincial the USoA really is. It takes an outlier like California to look outside the borders with anything but thinly-veiled suspicion. And that also means that the USoA is not really fit for playing the world's neighbourhood cop, since that is a position of trust, not power. It doesn't surprise, then, that there's quite a difference between how the rest of the world sees what it's done and the stellar job it itself thinks it has done.
If you demonstrate that your industry is an arm of state surveillance, why would you be surprised that when this is revealed people stop trusting you?
Every other country in the world now more or less has to assume that these American companies can (and will) provide their data for US national intelligence -- at which point the logical choice is to stop using those US companies.
Much like if companies from another country were found to be enabling widespread spying on US citizens, there would be outcry in the US and backlash.
I don't see why anybody should be surprised that if you undermine trust, there will be consequences.
Some of these companies were already very casual with what they were collecting (eg Google and the wifi passwords when doing Street View). If they were likely handing this kind of stuff over to the US government, even less so.
Once damaged, trust is a very difficult thing to get back. If Google and everyone else though they were under scrutiny for their privacy policies before, then they should really expect a lot more of it.
It is called "blowback". No surprise there.
If you demonstrate that your industry is an arm of state surveillance, why would you be surprised that when this is revealed people stop trusting you?
No one is surprised, and suggesting otherwise is disingenuous douchebaggery. Just as when a slashdot headline is a question the answer is no, so too is the answer no when a comment title asks one.
I don't see why anybody should be surprised that if you undermine trust, there will be consequences.
I can't even figure out on what specious basis you're claiming that people are surprised.
I can't even figure out on what specious basis you're claiming that people are surprised.
The entire tone of TFA is one of "what happens now". It's full of things like:
Will tourists balk at visiting us because they fear U.S. monitoring? Will overseas business owners think twice about trading with us because they fear that their communications might be intercepted and used for commercial gain by American competitors? Most chilling of all: Will foreigners stop using the products and services of California technology and media companies â" Facebook, Google, Skype, and Apple among them â" that have been accomplices (they say unwillingly) to the federal surveillance?
I'm not saying nobody didn't see this as a possible outcome -- but it certainly reads like now that people are realizing the potential scope of the impact they're wondering what they can do to mitigate it.
Even before this was revealed many people were already saying that, due to the PATRIOT Act, you shouldn't be trusting these companies with your data. Now it's been confirmed. US based cloud services might suddenly find a lot of doors closed to them -- it's not a surprise in the "wow, who saw that coming?" send, but people are acting like the "what next" part is coming as a surprise.
Hell, I'd go so far as to say that a lot of these companies should have been saying to themselves "if this ever gets out, there is a real chance of business risk". Now that it has, there is. If they didn't have a plan in place for what to do, then that's their problem.
I'm not saying nobody didn't see this as a possible outcome -- but it certainly reads like now that people are realizing the potential scope of the impact they're wondering what they can do to mitigate it.
The truth, though, is that now that the scope of the impact has been publicized, corporations who already knew that data they shared with U.S. corporations was being Hoovered into the government's databases are now having to deal with the backlash from their customers.
Hell, I'd go so far as to say that a lot of these companies should have been saying to themselves "if this ever gets out, there is a real chance of business risk". Now that it has, there is. If they didn't have a plan in place for what to do, then that's their problem.
It's a Monday, and
What's less obvious is how much NSA snooping hurts US companies. I doubt it's nearly enough to be able to call it a justification for dismantling the infrastructure.
Anti-terrorism is the excuse for spying. Business is the real purpose. When the countries we spy on the most can be ranked in terms of size of economy, there is no fucking way the government can keep claiming that the purpose for these spying programs is anything other than to keep the powerful people powerful.
For example, revelations were made that we target Germany for spying. It only makes sense if you look at the size of the economies. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/nsa-spies-on-500-million-german-data-connections-a-908648.html [spiegel.de]
Yes, NSA spying will hurt California's business.. and it should. Instead of giving in to the secret government's secret demands, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and everyone else should be fighting these anti-democratic efforts tooth and nail.
Yes, NSA spying will hurt California's business.. and it should. Instead of giving in to the secret government's secret demands, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and everyone else should be fighting these anti-democratic efforts tooth and nail.
It's too late. IBM and Microsoft have both been in bed with government since time was time, for them anyway. Social networks and other data aggregators are also obvious allies; the aggregators can't even do what they do without government complicity.
As to this story, in the end there is no way to entirely eliminate geopolitics from globalization. But it is a matter of degree and I agree it has got out of hand in the wake of 911, although I am really only upset about the domestic side of it.
German citizen here, and one working it IT Security for almost two decades now. I have been advocating the use of strong encryption and keeping the crown jewels "in the house" to my employers and customers all the time, but managers would often not listen in order to save the odd buck on the next outsourcing deal.
By launching and funding the spy programmes the US government has willingly accepted possibly detrimental effects on the economy.
In my opinion it serves the US companies right that finally the time has come that companies and people all over the world actually start looking at whom they make business with. The USA have decided to spy on every single person on this planet - OK, but now don't complain that this hurts your economy. If US companies don't like what's happening then they should complain to your government and make them change things.
A lot of trust has been destroyed, and it will take the US economy some effort to regain it. Work hard, and maybe some day in the future I will no longer advise my customers and friends to avoid US services.
We repeatedly hear that NSA is spying for industrial reasons. To give advantage to American companies. But the NYSE is full of foreign companies that are traded here. And those companies are in complex derivative markets. And the retirement portfolios of Americans. If its an truly international market now, but American companies are benefiting from the spying, then Americans are being hurt. Perhaps the difference is that foreign companies cannot contribute to politicians and political parties. Maybe that is the difference.
There's not going to be any problem with anyone hosting anything in the US. What do you think all these lovely "trade agreements" are about?
The NSA will promise to "partner" with friendly foreign intelligence services and it will all be one big happy family except daddy has his hand under your skirt.
I guess the best we can hope for now is that there are some more brave whistleblowers out there who will risk their lives to keep this story front and center. And if that fails, the best we can hope for is tha
Are you considering not dealing with the US over concern that the NSA is spying on your communications which pass through the US? I ask because the CIA are spying on pretty much every one else internationally. Oh, and should you feel that other countries are *not* spying on your communications...well, that's the kind of naivete they're counting on so that they can expect that you won't be moving to any annoying end-to-end communication encryption any time soon.
Have a great day!
I have been saying this since the Snowden releases -- because all of US products compromised by the NSA/CIA/FBI and used as spy devices, people will change the way they feel about US products and services INCLUDING communications.
I would find it not hard to imagine that other nations would begin setting up additional/supplemental communications links across the world to avoid passing through US controlled circuits. It simply makes sense to route around the damage. And F/OSS is also looking REALLY attracti
This reminds of how they got Capone on income-tax evasion: it wasn't his (allegedly) serious and morally reprehensible crimes which did him in the end. Likewise, the overreach (such an understatement) of the NSA and "justice" department is now having serious consequences, not just the ones you would expect (e.g,. widespread moral outrage, constitutional crisis, shutting down and arrests). Things will change because of money, not moral outrage.
Secede. Get rid of the federal beast sucking at your throat while simulatenously choking it.
It'll make it easier for the rest of us to do the same, and then maybe we can finally know some peace.
+1 - unlike most states, California could actually pull secession off. Big population, lots of industry, geographically diverse and geographically isolated. Great trade connections. Plus most of the rest of the US wishes they'd fall off the edge of the continent already.
Good luck getting much water out of the Colorado river post secession, but that's been drying up anyway.
If California were to secede, I would move back in a heartbeat.
I was recently at an IT conference in Geneva.
A speaker from a large company there warned those attending (mainly from Europe) to avoid US cloud companies because of NSA spying. Not just US-based servers, but also any company with SUPPORT STAFF located in the US as well, even if the servers are located outside of the US.
Reason 1 is the risk of private company information flowing to competitors through the NSA either officially or through corruption.
Reason 2 is the legal risk of falling afoul of EU privacy laws by hosting in the US or with US support staff.
That's the report from Europe folks. You can call it FUD, but it is there nonetheless.
Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work. -- John G. Pollard


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A new case was just opened in the Bankruptcy Court. The case number and the debtor's name/adversary complaint plaintiff(s) and defendant(s) are: 16-50451- Giuliano, Chapter 7 Trustee for LTC Holdings, Inc. v. Cellco Partnership.
This is a breaking news story. More details about this bankruptcy court filing are available on Chapter11Dockets.com.


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Editor's note: The following column was submitted by Neil Tibbott, who has applied for appointment for the vacant Position 6 on the Edmonds City Council. We welcome submissions by any other candidate who wants to share why they are interested in the position.
By now, anyone who watches what happens in Edmonds knows that our city council has a vacancy and 15 people have applied to fill that spot. Some of them may be familiar to you because they've been active serving Edmonds for some time. Even those who aren't familiar to you have a story that prompted them to submit an application.
Here's my story…
My first experience with the Edmonds City Council happened over 14 years ago when my wife and I began organizing neighbors to slow the speed of traffic on our street. One of our neighbors suggested we speak to the City Council and then nominated me, the newbie, to go make an appeal. The process was simple enough, I signed up on a sheet of paper by the front door and waited to make my comment. When my turn came up, I asked for the council to look into the unsafe walking conditions for kids going to and from Seaview Elementary.
From my perspective, no one on the council heard our concern. I watched a few more people make comments and concluded visiting the council was a waste of time. But before I could get all the way out of the building one of the councilmembers, Michael Plunkett, left his seat and met me at the doorway and offered to help. The following week another councilmember, Lora Petso, contacted me by letter offering her support and, much to my surprise, a phone number.
That contact with our City Council led our neighborhood group to a full year of exploring options, eliminating possibilities and trying things that didn't pan out. Eventually a new city engineer came on the job and helped us create a lasting solution that continues to make a difference to this day.
I learned three things in that exercise: 1. Five years is a short time span in the life of a city. 2. Common sense is always trumped by laws, codes and regulations. 3. Compromise is a beautiful word.
We didn't get everything we wanted to resolve our transportation issue, but we got enough to make it better. We worked harder than we expected to reach a solution, but eventually we found one that the neighbors, city and state could live with.
You may be wondering, how my work on traffic issues propelled me to throw my name in the hat to fill the current council vacancy. The fact is, one thing led to another and I found that I could make a difference by serving our city and by helping others make a difference too. Edmonds is a wonderful place to live partly because so many people are willing to pitch in to make it a great place.
In case you're wondering… there is still a lot of room for citizens to get involved in Edmonds. Whether you participate in public hearings, strategy sessions, service committees, sports programs or art events, there is a place to get involved. What are your interests? What do your neighbors want to work on together? What project could your civic group or team undertake for Edmonds?
Just remember it might take longer than you think, be more complicated than you expected and require a willingness to compromise.
— By Neil Tibbott


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To facilitate the reduction of ongoing waste and toxins generated by building occupants and building operations that are hauled to and disposed of in landfills or incineration facilities.
Conduct a waste stream audit of the building's entire ongoing consumables waste stream (not durable goods or construction waste for facility alterations and additions). Use the audit's results to establish a baseline that identifies the types of waste making up the waste stream and the amounts of each type by weight or volume. Identify opportunities for increased recycling and waste diversion. The audit must be conducted during the performance period.
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I switched from GNOME to XFCE some time back. I was unable to figure out how to make thumbnails work for video files. I tried adjusting a few things, installed things that looked vaguely like they might help... But basically groped around in the dark until I gave up & installed PCFileMan (every week or so I'd run it, navigate to each of my directories, and exit the app - and, as all files then had thumbnail images, Thunar would display them, lol). "A bit" unwieldy, but it worked.
I was quite happy when later updates meant that Thunar started crating thumbnail images. So happy that I forgot about asking this for a while:
When I used GNOME, its file manager also provided audio "thumbnails" (probably incorrect term); whenever I would hover my mouse cursor over an audio file (icon) that was in a format that my system had the correct codecs to play, GNOME's file manager would start playing the audio. When I moved my cursor away, the audio would stop.
Can this currently be done somehow in XFCE? If so, how does one configure it? If not, I would like to request it... If more people are interested in the feature than just myself. Tips on presenting my request might be helpful; for example, would the developers know about this or would I have to find a webpage that explains how it works in GNOME's file manager and reference it when submitting such a request?
Mountain Dew Maniac
How to Ask for Help <=== Click on this link
I think the closest you're going to be able to get is a custom action - but that won't be activated by a hover, but rather with a right-click and selection. The hover aspect will need to be programmed in. However, there is this patch. Doesn't look like its been implemented though.
Bummer. And I suppose that if it wouldn't be activated with a hover, it wouldn't be deactivated by the cessation of, er, a hover.
So at this point, it'd be both easier and more sensible to double-click on a file and let whichever app it is that the system currently has assigned to the role of audio file player deal with it. Shame.
I wonder how Nautilus manages it? If it does it natively or if it uses one or more helper files?
I haven't used GNOME's file manager since they were still doing GNOME 2.x. Probably pull in a lot of other files, tax an already overtaxed system, and not integrate well.
Mountain Dew Maniac
How to Ask for Help <=== Click on this link
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SEMI Oral History Interview
Rick Heim
Interviewed by Craig Addison, SEMI
Rick Heim has worked in the semiconductor industry for more than 40 years. After three years in the U.S. Army he starting his professional career with Bendix Corporation in the early 1960s and joined RCA Labs in 1965. In 1969, Heim was recruited by Kasper Instruments, where he stayed for 10 years in a variety of roles including field service, applications engineering, development engineering, and marketing. He went on to work for Cobilt, Machine Technology and XMR before becoming a trade show consultant in 1990 with SHO Inc. From 1994 until he retired in 2003, Heim served as senior vice president of expositions and information technology for SEMI.
CA: Could you start by talking about your very first job in the semiconductor industry?
RH: My first job was with Bendix Corporation in Holmdel, New Jersey. That was back in 1962 and I actually moved transistors from the plating room to the testing area and I did that for a couple of months…it was kind of funny. I remember the director of HR saying I was maybe a bit arrogant because I went in and told him that the job was an insult to my intelligence and he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "This is silly. All I am doing is moving plated material back and forth between two places." I said, "I'm smarter than that." And he said, "What do you want to do?" And I said, "I want to be an engineer. I want to work in engineering." He said, "You have to take a test." I said, "Give me the test." And they did and I passed.
They moved me into engineering. I'd been there about a week, I think, and they had a layoff. They laid me off and said, "You can bounce back into the union. That's why we chose you instead of one of our other engineers because it keeps you here in the company." I said, "No, I'll take the layoff. I worked really, really hard to move into engineering. I'll just take the layoff." And the rest was history. They called me back two weeks later and I worked for them for three years. RCA Labs had a technician opening that my boss told me about. My boss used to be my neighbor. I went to RCA Labs in 1965 and worked there until 1969 when, having worked with Kasper Instruments for about a year purchasing some equipment from them, Kasper decided, I guess, I was too much of an annoyance as a customer so they decided to hire me.
CA: Before we move on to Kasper I want to fill in some of the gaps. Bendix is not a name that you normally associate with transistors. Did they go out of the business pretty quickly?
RH: Yeah, probably pretty quick. Bendix Semiconductor sold their semiconductor division to Soletron because Bendix said the integrated circuit would never work and Soletron proved it. They went out of business too. Bendix Semiconductor probably went out of business in the early '70s.
CA: So that was really your steppingstone into engineering; is that what you gained from your time at Bendix?
RH: What I gained from my time at Bendix was just the basic knowledge of semiconductors. I worked in engineering doing aluminum evaporations and it was very interesting work. It was kind of like the leading edge in a way of that technology because we were also making gallium arsenide devices in those days so it was the early, early days of silicon, photo resist, lithography and aluminum evaporation. I was just kind of researching the aluminum stuff and this opening at RCA came up and it looked like a real deal. I was taking chemistry… going to college at nights at Rutgers University so it kind of fit with that. It turned out to be a great job. I worked for a great guy there [Werner Kern] and stayed there for five years.
CA: At RCA Labs, what specifically were you involved with?
RH: I was a research technician and I started out doing chemical vapor deposition researching silane-based depositions from the gas phase down to the solid phase, making SIO2 basically from a gas. We also did boron and phosphene doped depositions. I worked for Werner Kern. He is very well known in the industry, specifically in the CVD deposition area and if my memory serves me correctly he received the SEMI award some years ago.
Then I got involved in photo resist and was given an assignment to put together a new photo resist lab, did some research on new equipment. In those days everything was done manually. There was essentially no automation. I remember going to RCA Mountaintop to look at the way their photolith process worked. The operators looked through a magnifier, one of these fluorescent halos with the magnifying glass on it, and they'd have finger cots on their fingers. Vaseline was placed on the backside of a mask and they would manipulate the wafers with their finger to align them to the mask. Then they'd put them in a vacuum exposure system which clamped the mask and wafer together and exposed them. Keep in mind these were power devices so geometries were large and alignment was not super critical. At RCA labs we thought, well, if we are going to build a new lab, we probably should look at what's available for the next generation, moving into some sort of automated handling. So that's what I went out looking for. If we did research with a given tool, we could then move it to the production area.
CA: Just going back to the CVD, was that equipment all made in-house?
RH: Oh yeah, we made everything in-house…you wouldn't believe. We had gas bottles, stainless steel tubing, hot plates, small bell jars and gear driven turn tables where three wafers rotated individually. It was really interesting. I learned how to do all the stainless steel plumbing, flow meters etc. We would route the tubing and include the flow meters so we would know the rate and ratios of gases. Wafers at that time were about an inch in diameter. The gases came in from the top into a little quartz bell jar/gear assembly that was sitting on the top of a ceramic hot plate and all of a sudden you had SIO2. Silicon dioxide on a wafer.
CA: At that time could you have bought any of that equipment?
RH: No, no. It was the infancy of vapor phase deposition.
CA: With the photo resist lab, again, was all that equipment made in-house by RCA?
RH: No, for the photo resist lab we bought equipment. As I recall we bought a Headway spinner, we had a Platt General alignment tool, we probably had a Zeiss microscope over the alignment tool. There was just nothing automated. Everything was manual, but we didn't make that equipment. The real in-house manufactured equipment in those days was made by the Fairchilds and the TIs that were just getting into mass production of semiconductors and they couldn't buy it any place so they built it.
CA: At RCA Labs, what products were being made?
RH: We didn't make any products at the Labs. We were purely research but we would work with RCA Sommerville who had a small bipolar line and RCA Mountaintop who had what we called a mesa line or a power transistor line. It wasn't high volume in those days at all.
CA: Were there any inklings of the integrated circuit research at RCA?
RH: Not that I recall, no. But we had lots of labs around RCA. I think we had five buildings in Princeton. I'd maybe work a little bit in conjunction with a lab in building one but I was in building three… it was a big place.
CA: Any challenges or setbacks that come to mind during your time at RCA?
RH: There was always the danger, in a way, of working with toxic gases. We had to be very, very careful. Everything was done in a fume hood. We had to go for x-rays every six months to make sure we didn't get silicon in our lungs [silicosis]. There was a risk factor. Running hydrogen through a furnace wasn't the safest thing in the world to do but I don't recall any setbacks. Everything was an interesting challenge since we were basically on the cutting edge of making devices.
CA: So there were no accidents.
RH: I recall one but it was minor. A nitrogen bottle…in one of the labs, I don't recall how it fell, but a nitrogen bottle fell over. The neck broke off and that thing took a ride down the hallway like a torpedo and went through a couple of walls, but that's the only thing I recall. We changed our safety procedures after that.
CA: Can you talk a little bit about the photo resist. Kodak was the major supplier of that, correct?
RH: Kodak was the major supplier, yes. Headway was the leading spinner manufacturer probably in those days but it was a single spindle, you manually loaded a wafer on to the spindle, you injected photo resist on to the wafer from a syringe, you tried to get the same amount every time and then hit the button to start it. It was really archaic when you think about what was developed over the next ten years.
CA: Did you absorb much technology from outside? Being on the East Coast people have told me that that was a little bit of a disadvantage in later years because a lot of things happened in Silicon Valley.
RH: It probably was because so much of the research and transferring of research to manufacturing happened on the West Coast. [But] I don't think it was like a silo. We always went to the American Chemical Society meetings. As a matter of fact, I remember Werner gave a couple of papers on CVD deposition at ACS and Werner and I co-authored a couple of papers. We kept abreast of what was going on in the industry. It wasn't a silo at all. It was too exciting and too new to lock yourself in a room and forget about everybody else.
CA: Was there any interaction with Bell Labs or any technology licensing that was going on?
RH: Not that I can recall. My interaction with Bell Labs would have been in later years with Kasper but not necessarily with RCA. As a technician, you are kind of restricted to what you do in your lab and maybe one other lab.
CA: Maybe we can move on now to how you became involved with Kasper Instruments.
RH: Well, we were building this new photo resist lab and part of the job for this new lab was to assist the facility in Mountaintop to achieve greater efficiency. We were dealing with one inch wafers in those days. Everything was done with tweezers and by hand so we had a couple of options. We were using a Platt General at the labs and we had two options for a more modern production worthy piece of equipment. Probably the most popular option in those days was K&S. Kulicke & Soffa actually used to be in the aligner business. A lot of people probably don't realize that today but they did. And the other company was this new upstart that everybody was hearing about but nobody knew anything about and that was Kasper Instruments. So I went up to the IEEE show at the [New York] Coliseum in 1968 looking around for an aligner manufacturer that we could use that was somewhat geared towards manufacturing and not just R&D. Platt General didn't have anything, although they were there. They really were still in the R&D mode. K&S had an interesting tool but it was still pretty much manual loading of wafers into the workstation but it did have a split field microscope [which] became extremely important in future years for making alignments. This company, Kasper Instruments, we heard was at the show but I couldn't find them. They weren't in the [exhibitor] book. It turned out they were a late entry for the event.
I was going down the escalator from the third floor and I looked up to the top of the escalator and there was a sign that said "Kasper Instruments – Booth four hundred and something or other – fourth floor." So I went back upstairs and found their booth and they had exactly what we were looking for minus a couple of features which we talked about and they developed while we were going through the negotiation phases of whether we could really use this tool or not. We purchased one and when it was delivered I couldn't get a hold of a service engineer. They were evidently pretty busy, so I got frustrated and installed it myself. I had a couple of questions, so I called the factory, got very familiar with the unit, took it apart a couple of times because things didn't quite come out right after shipping. I just had this great relationship working with them and would ask them if they could do these kinds of things because we were looking towards going to a more automated line, mass production. Finally one day Carl Story said, "I'm coming out to see you. You are a pain in the-you-know-what as a customer. I want to hire you." And that was the beginning of a ten-year experience with Kasper.
CA: Talking about the market for aligners…Platt General, I haven't heard of that company. What did they do?
RH: I don't even know. I think they were just a small company. I don't know if they had a parent company or not but they made just a little station with a vacuum hold down on it and a couple of thumbscrews that gave you an XY table and you could mount a mask over it and then flip a lever, clamp the wafer tight to the mask, and expose it with a Sylvania Sun Gun. I don't know if you know…a Sylvania sun Gun was an old light unit that we used to use for 8 mm movie cameras years ago and that was how you exposed wafers in those days. No Osram Lamps or anything like that. I guess K&S probably was the first one to use the high intensity ultraviolet 200 watt lamps.
CA: Did you say K&S was out of the aligner business by the time you were looking for one.
RH: No, K&S was still in the aligner business. They were in contention. I did consider them. Both companies had split field microscopes. When you looked through a split field microscope in those days you saw two different sites on the mask/wafer. These two sites were spaced about half an inch apart, for one inch wafers. The mask has horizontal and vertical "streets". These streets eventually become the scribe lines for separating the die. When you looked at these two sites on the mask they were slightly skewed. This can be very tiring if you sit at the alignment tool for a few hours. You are basically looking through two microscopes at the same time with the images coming up to a prism and appearing in the binocular viewer as one image but separated by a vertical line. The vertical line is created by a hair that is mounted over the apex of the prism. If you rotate the mask you could remove the skew in the image and the horizontal street would appear continuous through the field of view. Neither K&S nor Kasper had this rotational capability of the mask at the time. Kasper had many other interesting features and said that they were considering a feature for rotating the mask. We made a deal and shortly after receiving the tool I received a replacement mask holder for the original tool and this one had rotational ability.
CA: You said Kasper was very busy because you couldn't get the technician support. Were a lot of these being bought at that stage?
RH: I don't really know what the problem was. I just know I couldn't get a technician to come down and install it and I'm a "let's get it done" kind of guy. I'm still that way and I certainly was that way almost 40 years ago now. Kasper had a very good manual, so I just took the manual and said, "I can install this thing." There was only one thing that didn't work. I called the factory and they told me how to take it apart and I took it apart and put it back together. I found what was wrong on the inside, put it back together again and that's when Carl Story finally said, "We are going to hire that guy." And I remember flying to Chicago to meet the president of the company who flew from San Francisco to interview me and then we both went back home the same night.
CA: Who was the president?
RH: That was Bob Johnson.
CA: George Kasper was the founder, right?
RH: George was the founder and I was fortunate to meet George. He had started another company. To be honest with you, I don't remember what George was making. It wasn't competitive that I recall but George every now and then would stop by. He was a bright guy, really neat guy, but he brought Bob Johnson in to basically turn the company into more of a sales and marketing type of company and take this new product to market.
CA: Do you know the origins of the company? Was it formed to serve the semiconductor industry?
RH: I believe George came out of Fairchild but I'm not 100 percent sure about that. I think that's where he came from and he saw the same need that everybody else saw that we needed a manufacturing tool, not a research tool.
CA: How long had Kasper been going by the time you joined them?
RH: Less than two years probably.
CA: So this aligner was their first product?
RH: Yes, absolutely it was their first product. Relay logic. This was long before semiconductors ran things for us.
CA: What did Carl Story do?
RH: Carl was our vice president of sales and Carl was actually the guy with a couple of others that started III Industries which later spun off into Silicon Valley Group.
CA: Can you talk about your first few months at Kasper, what you were doing?
RH: It was quite interesting. When I went to California to get trained on how to really take this thing apart and put it back together again, the first job they put me on was to debug the relay logic on a new machine they were building for Motorola…probably my first three or four weeks of training was to just de-bug and redesign the relay logic controller. It was a special machine they built for Motorola. With the other things I was doing, I eventually learned how to properly service the machines and they sent me back to the East Coast. I was responsible for everything from Canada to Florida to the Mississippi for about the first year and then they started moving me around the country a lot. I would travel all over the U.S. to try to help troubleshoot. I remember going to Japan in 1970. I thought that was really cool.
CA: You obviously had a very interesting insight into the device companies.
RH: Very interesting. I'll never forget going to Japan to work on tools and they would actually take the aligner out of the fab area, the clean room area, and put it on a loading dock. They wouldn't let us in the clean rooms…they put it on a loading dock so that I could rebuild the microscope. That's not a very clean environment. Rebuild the microscope, get it done and they'd put it back in the clean room and use it. We were not allowed into the clean rooms for a long time.
CA: Was that because they didn't want you to see what they were doing?
RH: I'm sure it was. And that went on for a while but eventually there was this trust built up and we got into lots of the clean rooms and kind of impressed on them how silly it was to take this thing out into the dirtiest environment you could think of, outside on a loading dock, rebuild it and then put it back in a clean room. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. Those were interesting years.
CA: Did Kasper have a rep in Japan?
RH: Yes, our rep was Dainippon Screen who, to the best of my knowledge, never went into the aligner business but they were a major player in the track business in later years, not so much in those days when they were our rep but they certainly did develop tracks and became a major player here in the United States.
CA: Did you go back to Japan often?
RH: 1970 was my first trip and I spent a lot of time in Japan with Kasper back and forth over the next nine years…did field service for them. They moved me to California in 1974. I ran field service and applications engineering, and then a couple years after that they moved me into engineering. I ran a couple of engineering groups. Kasper was eventually purchased by Cutler Hammer. Then Cutler Hammer bought what we called III and then subsequently Eaton bought Cutler Hammer which meant they now owned Kasper and III. Just before Eaton came in, Bill Butler became our president…a really, really neat guy. He didn't come out of the semiconductor industry. We were in Boston at SEMICON East and Bill said, "Join me for a drink at the Sheraton." I did and he said, "I want you to move from engineering to marketing," and I said, "You've got to be kidding me. Those are the guys with the black hats. I don't want to do that." "No, no, I really need somebody to move to marketing that understands the engineering side of it, understands the customer, and can interface between the factory and the customer. We need that interface. Not a sales guy but somebody that can talk technically to the customer." So I did it and it was fun. I really enjoyed it a lot.
I was technical director of marketing for a while. And then I remember we were sitting in a staff meeting. We had just developed a new track line which was really the III line, but we had integrated it to aligners so you could actually run from the track to the aligner back to the track again. That was what Kasper/III did under the Cutler Hammer umbrella. We were coming out with this new line that we wanted to release and engineering had made a couple of prototypes. Our next step was to begin manufacturing these units but our manufacturing manager said they wouldn't take the manufacturing responsibility until the bill-of-materials was complete. Being the marketing guy and being the hyper guy that I am, or was, whatever, I got a little excited and I said, "This is ridiculous. We have a market window. That market window is not going to stay open forever. We need to get some of these things through a pilot production line out into the market." I thought it was understandable but unreasonable that manufacturing wouldn't take them because they didn't have a "completed" bill of materials, so I said, "Why not set aside a manufacturing group that does nothing but build a minimal number of these tools and clean up the bill-of-materials while doing so?" And Bill Butler said, "You go do it." So that got me into operations and that's pretty much what I did the rest of my career in the equipment business…the operations side.
CA: So you survived all those acquisitions.
RH: I survived most of them. I left in '78 so I'd been there from '69 to '78, so ten years.
CA: Who owned it at that stage?
RH: Eaton. By then we had wire bonders, die bonders, ion implant systems wafer inspection stations and aligners. A lot of companies had been acquired and a great deal of engineering was going on, so it got to be a pretty big organization.
CA: While we are on this topic, I've asked a number of people the same question. Those conglomerates really didn't succeed. Why do you think they didn't succeed?
RH: I guess you always have to wonder today, with all the knowledge we have on history, why they'd try to put so may unlike products and the manufacturability of them under the same roof. General Signal was somewhat successful for a while but General Signal didn't do it under the same roof. They did it under separate companies. I really don't know why it didn't work in the long run. Maybe the transition to a high pressure development/manufacturing environment was just too much. Any type of development can be frustrating but in the case of semiconductor equipment manufacturing it was even more so due to the urgent need for equipment. You promise a customer that it's going to ship on May 1st but something went wrong in the manufacturing process and it doesn't ship until June 1st. That's frustrating for the customer. I'm sure it's not any different in many other industries but the constantly changing technology hurdles made it even more so. I think it was also difficult to transition from semiconductor manufacturing to equipment manufacturing, which many tried to do. Why these companies didn't make it I really don't know. Eaton wasn't successful with putting all those guys together. General Signal turned out to be more successful than most with all the conglomerate growing they had done but even they eventually closed their doors.
CA: What about GCA. They bought a lot of companies.
RH: GCA just did tracks and steppers as I recall. But they did buy a lot of companies on the outside. GCA bought Tropel but their product was an integral and important part of the basic stepper. There are other people from the industry who could give you a much better analysis on this subject but in my mind there is a lot to be said for "sticking to your knitting". I think there was just too much diversification going on.
Now, there's one company you can't argue about and that's Applied [Materials]. They've been extremely successful at that kind of diversification. They are the 800 pound gorilla today. So a lot of it has to do with the kind of management and business philosophy. I think when Jim Morgan came in, he came in with a completely different idea of how to run a company coming from the banking world, and he did a phenomenal job.
CA: You made a comment that the semiconductor guys and the equipment guys were different animals. But you made that change and a lot of people do switch from one side to the other. Is adjusting to that transition quite difficult?
RH: I think any kind of transitional adjustment can be difficult. The transition for me from field service to marketing…that was a difficult transition. I'm not a sales guy. I love going out with the sales guys and talk about the technical aspects of a product, but I hated the idea of going into a lobby where I didn't know anybody, knocking on the door and saying, "Hey, I'm Rick Heim from Kasper Instruments," or whatever, "and I want to sell you a diz-widget." But I loved working as a marketing guy with the sales guys. I never could have transitioned to sales. It just wouldn't have worked for me. So transitions are easy for some people and for others not so easy. We'd get individuals from completely different industries that couldn't transition in and we'd get others that fit like a glove. I remember I hired a young kid from RCA Mountaintop, Pennsylvania. He came on as a service engineer for me at Kasper, ended up later moving to Cobilt. I don't recall if he went directly to Cobilt as sales or went into field service and moved up to sales, but he became one of the most successful sales reps in the semiconductor industry. Completely different transition from working in a factory as a maintenance guy. He made that transition and was darn good at it.
CA: Talking about Cobilt, they seemed to be a rising star at the time and kind of went away. Any stories about competing with them?
RH: It was interesting. We both had automatic aligners when I moved from Kasper to Cobilt. Cobilt was owned by ComputerVision. It was the ComputerVision technology that Cobilt was using for the automatic aligner. ComputerVision was suing Kasper for patent infringements. Whether they existed or not, I don't know, but they certainly thought they did. Things got a little nasty because they started going after Kasper customers which was kind of weird. Why tick off your potential customer because they are buying a competitors tool? If you want the customer to buy your tool, I don't think it's so smart to sue them and then expect them to come running to you to fulfill their needs. The automatic aligner in those days worked in some areas, some types of processes. It didn't work with every type of because the contrast was different on the surface from device type to device type and process to process. I think Cobilt did the same thing that Kasper/Eaton did…they tried to do too much. They went from the contact aligner, that they were very successful at, to the projection aligner, to track gear, to probers. Personally I think it was just to much. It's not sticking to your knitting and, once again, it was all integrated in one place, in one company. The prober and track gear technology Cobilt ended up selling to TEL. The projection aligner I guess died a natural death. I think the diversification and not being ready for it or not understanding how to manage all of it is what probably was the downfall of all those companies. I'm sure there are a lot of individuals around today that were more involved in management in those days than I was and they'll have a different scenario, but that's just kind of the way I look at it. It's just trying to do too much at one time.
CA: So you did actually go to Cobilt after Kasper?
RH: I left Kasper in '78 and went to Cobilt as vice president of product planning.
CA: Why did you leave Kasper?
RH: I think I recognized it was time to make a change. It maybe was getting a little bit too diversified. I felt it was certainly getting too defocused on the aligner side of things. That was the part I really knew well and it seemed like they were defocusing their efforts on aligners and looking at ion implanters. Ion implantation was more exciting than contact aligners. A good friend of mine, Ed Segal, was at Cobilt. We used to work together at Kasper when we were both on the East Coast. We'd chat every now and then and sometimes he'd dig me a little bit and say, "Hey, Rick, it's time for you to come over here." So I did. I went over and interviewed and they hired me. I worked for Roger Emerick there for a couple of years and then he left to pursue other interests. We hired a new general manager in October of 1980 and in November/December we were evaluating all of our product lines and Computervision upper management joined us in these discussions at our facility in Santa Clara. Some product lines were not doing well and I think it was kind of shocking for Computervision to find out that one of the suggestions was that maybe we should drop them. That's when we found out the company was for sale. It was around May when the sale was finalized and Applied Materials was our new owner. It was difficult talking to Applied about our product lines during the due diligence period. The end result was the new GM and myself were asked to leave. A year or so later at SEMICON West I ran into the individual who had to give me the layoff news that previous year. We had a nice chat and he said to me, "Rick, you got the good deal." I guess that's one of those equipment acquisitions that didn't work for Applied.
CA: In that short time at Cobilt, what did you learn?
RH: Oh, boy. It just reinforced what I was pretty sure I knew, that in those days, with the way things were structured, diversification wasn't always the smartest thing to do. Building a tool or telling the customer you are going to build a tool just because your competitor builds one may not be the best way to run your business. Matter of fact, I wasn't with the company three months when I was asked to go to Japan and tell our customer in Japan, who Cobilt had sold a tool to… that we couldn't make it but we would buy our competitor's tool for them and that was a hell of a long meeting. I will never forget that meeting. Two and a half hours. I think that's a lot of what hurt the equipment industry in those days is just trying to do too much with maybe too little knowledge or resources.
CA: Of course, everybody says that the reason Japanese device makers didn't want to buy from the U.S. was for that very reason, that they may get let down in the end.
RH: Yeah, and I really feel that in the early days of selling to the Japanese, we didn't support them very well and we basically created our own competitor over there. If they couldn't get the support from the U.S., their only solution was to build it.
CA: So your take on that whole thing is that the U.S. lost the opportunity.
RH: I think so, yeah. If you look at all the semiconductor manufacturing tools that are produced in Japan the Japanese now pretty much command those businesses. Projection equipment is a good example. GCA was first but I'm assuming Nikon and Canon are now the primary players. I don't really know where ASML sits any more [because] I've been out of the industry too long. The U.S. for whatever reason lost many of these businesses. Whether it was for lack of support or technology transfer we are no longer the big dog in the pack. This is of course not true for Applied Materials. It's my personal feeling that we created a great deal of this by not supporting the Japanese in the very beginning. We left them no choice but to develop their own.
CA: How did you see the different attitudes between the two sides, U.S. and Japan?
RH: Boy, I kind of hate to say it this way…but I think our biggest problem is that we will do anything for a buck and we sold it all to them. We sold everything we had to the Japanese it seems to me. We shipped our highest technology tools to Japan. What did they do? They copied them. Now, did they violate patents? Who knows? They probably did violate some and some they found ways to get around and improve. I think in those days the Japanese were excellent at not necessarily replicating but doing the same job better. I really think we either gave it to them or sold it to them. And it could happen again. China is a sleeping giant. How will they get the technology? We will sell it to them one way or another they and will compete with us. All for the mighty buck. I guess you can say I am a bit cynical about this but I hate to see so much of what the U.S. has invented over the years being imported to the U.S. rather than exported.
CA: So what happened after Cobilt when they asked you to leave?
RH: Well, my wife says I sat by the pool for four months and she was afraid I'd never go back to work. [laughs] But I did some consulting work. I did a little consulting work for Roger Emerick when he'd gone over to OSI and then Gary Hillman looked me up and I did some consulting work for Gary. He asked me to research a company for him he was looking at buying. I went back to Gary and I said, "Why do you want to do this?" And he said, "I need to get in the aligner business because I make track gear and I want to integrate tracks to aligners." I said, "Why don't you develop an integration business then? Why get in the aligner business? Keep your track business in New Jersey. Why don't we start an integration company? And that company's responsibility will be to take your tracks and integrate them to anybody else's aligner for more automated manufacturing." I remember we sat down, had some discussions on this new product line. The controller they had…there was no way [it] was going to work for the next generation of their equipment. They'd have to go out and buy another controller, one that was more versatile or design and build one. I said to Gary, "You are handcuffed. You can't do things with your tools because you are at the mercy of a company that makes a controller who's probably not going to change that controller because it's universal for him. So you probably need to get into the electronics business to support your base products." So we actually started a Machine Technology division on the West Coast to develop software and electronic control systems. We did all their software development and we made all of the electronics here in California and shipped it back to New Jersey for integration into the tracks. We also started doing the track to aligner integration. They'd finish the track system in New Jersey and ship it to California and we'd integrate it to an aligner. I worked for Gary for a great ten years.
CA: So when you started doing consulting for him, he hadn't started this company?
RH: He hadn't started the West Coast operation yet. No. He had a sales operation on the West Coast and he had a small manufacturing operation making mask cleaners.
CA: What was the name of that company?
RH: It was Machine Technology. It was still MTI. But when we started the software, electronics and systems integration we called it Machine Technology, Systems Division.
CA: Could you give a little bit of history of your ten years with Machine Technology? What were the highlights and what you did and what you learned.
RH: We did a lot. As I recall, I joined MTI in 1981. Our first task was to develop and build the electronics for them. At the same time, on the East Coast we started discussions on building a whole new track and that was what we eventually called the MultiFab. In 1981, when I joined the company, they were around $3, $3.5 million [in sales]. We introduced Multi Fab in early 1984 and in either late 1984 or 1985 we were at $16 million. That Multi Fab line really launched MTI. Gary then started a sputtering operation on the West Coast that operated out of our building. I moved the operation from 12,000 square feet on River Oaks Parkway [San Jose] to 52,000 square feet right off of Highway 237 [in Santa Clara, California]. That new facility was specifically set up to manufacture our ion implanters, electronics and controllers and do systems integration to steppers. We had 15 stations for the implanters. It was an interesting move. Those were the days when you could really strike deals for real estate and I remember getting together with a realtor. We looked around and we found this building that might work. It was a shell, we got all the numbers together and the owners [agreed to] put in all the electrical, and believe me, there was three quarters of a million dollars of electrical in that building because of the ion implant stations. I sent all the information back to our office in New Jersey and our attorney said, "There's something wrong. Nobody would do a deal like that." So he flew out to California to see exactly what was going on and he was shocked to find out that I wasn't kidding him and we actually moved from 12,000 square feet to 52,000 square feet and saved a half a million dollars in rent that year. Those were the crazy real estate years.
CA: It sounds like you were biting off a lot in this company.
RH: We did. I don't know if Gary would agree with me today, but unfortunately I think once again this expensive diversification of going into the sputtering business was the downfall of Machine Technology. In my opinion Gary got bad advice from people who said they could put him in the business for a million bucks. Larry Hansen [of Varian] told him, "It will cost you no less than $12 million." Larry was closer to right than wrong. Not sticking to your knitting strikes again. Maybe it's the emotion of trying to do something that's more exciting than what you are already doing.
CA: So what specifically were you doing with MTI?
RH: I ran West Coast operations for them.
CA: Were you still involved in engineering?
RH: Oh yeah, engineering reported to me. Manufacturing reported to me. Sales and marketing did not report to me. That reported to the East Coast but we had a sales and marketing arm in the new building here in California.
CA: Did you go and visit customers a lot?
RH: Oh sure. I went out with sales a lot of times to go to customers. We had customers come to our factory. We gave presentations to customers and often times I was called in to do presentations to customers or they would come to us. We always had kick-back Friday. On all other days of the week I wore a tie, but Friday was casual. Now casual meant I'm dressed in slacks and a shirt, not jeans and a T-shirt, and I came in this particular Friday in dress slacks and a shirt and one of our salesmen went crazy because Intel was coming in for a presentation. Our CFO was visiting and the salesman went running to him and said, "Oh, my God, I can't believe it. Look at Rick. He's not wearing a suit." And Sandy [the CFO] says, "So what? He's still probably better dressed than most of the guys that are coming here for the presentation." [laughs] We had a lot of fun over the years, we really did. It was a great, great experience. Every company I worked with I had a good time and we made progress every place I went. Not that I made the progress but we always made progress. One of the best engineering groups I ever worked with was at MTI. Really fun and smart people to work with.
CA: What ultimately happened to that company?
RH: MTI was sold off. And then there was a spin-out of MTI called S3. I don't remember what it stood for but a couple of ex-MTI guys started it. They serviced MTI equipment and sold spare parts. The MTI technology was sold to a different company. Art Zafiropoulo [of Ultratech] could tell you who the company was because Art finally bought the technology from that company. I remember Art called me across the street from SEMI to his office one day and he presented me with plaques he had made for two patents that I had and he said, "Rick, you are like family. I own that technology and I bet you didn't get one of these when you were at MTI." I'll never forget that. I still get a lump in my throat when I think about it. That was such a generous thing he did and I have those plaques right over my computer station in my home office.
While still at MTI I was asked to come over to another company [called XMR] as a consultant, which Gary gave me permission to do, to help them electronically in developing a machine for a new process. The process was called ablating aluminum. It's really melting aluminum on wafers with a laser. I ended up moving over to that company. We developed a complete new machine and processed a lot of wafers for companies. Bell Labs in Murray Hill [New Jersey] came in and ran some wafers and wrote a paper on the process. After three years or so we found out we were really messing with Mother Nature. It was very interesting but the process was too unpredictable. Eventually I decided to leave XMR and I joined my wife's company (SHO) in the tradeshow business. That was 1990.
CA: OK, Rick, let's finish up there. We'll do another session in the future on your SEMI years, so thank you.
Rick Heim was interviewed by April 3, 2007 by Craig Addison of SEMI.


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The week before Christmas was a big one for J.J. Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot, with the wide release of "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol." which quickly gave Bad Robot the bragging rights to the biggest hit of the holiday season. But the week was also notable for another landmark: Bad Robot is now in the iPhone app business.
The app is called Action Movie FX and it gives users the ability to insert special effects into any video they take with Apple's smartphone. The two effects included with the app are a missile attack and car smash, allowing anyone to get all Michael Bay on unsuspecting family members, sleeping pets or the guy who cut them off on the 405 Freeway.
In an e-mail interview, Abrams called Action Movie FX the first of a "slew" of "cool projects" that his Bad Robot is working on in the interactive space.
"I think it should be noted that this is the first time I have used the word slew,'" the filmmaker noted, adding that the endeavors include "movies, some TV shows or books, some short-form filmed and animated projects, some music and some apps."
The app was financed by Bad Robot and overseen by Andrew Kramer, the visual effects wizard whom Abrams plucked from his website, Video Copilot, to work on the opening credit sequences of the Fox series "Fringe" and the 2009 feature film "Star Trek." He and Bad Robot executive David Baronoff worked on the app with a small team of outside programmers for about two months.
"I just loved the idea that people could add high-quality visual effects to their footage, all with a phone they already carry with them," Abrams said of the app.
Kramer said the biggest challenge was getting the app to track moving images while also making the interface as foolproof as possible. "We went through so many different versions while wondering, 'How are people going to use this app? Should we have director's notes? What about on-screen tips?'"
"Action Movie FX" debuted Dec. 22, and surged to No. 1 on the list of most downloaded free entertainment apps and since then it ranked consistently among the top 25 free apps of all kinds.
There are four additional effects — a helicopter, a tornado, an aerial bombing and a machine-gun attack — that can be bought for 99 cents a pair. And Bad Robot is working on more options for your inner commando, so the mayhem is just beginning.
Baronoff sent links to some YouTube videos featuring clips people have made of the app. He added that people may not have to search the video site to find such clips in the future, though. "A destination website could be in the works," he stated.
He also gave Hero Complex readers a cryptic hint about where to find a special Easter egg hidden in the Action Movie FX app. "It's one of J.J.'s favorite things," he said.
— Ben Fritz
Cumberbatch headed to Federation space
Abrams: 'Revolution' is 'undeniably good'
Jan. 7: Abrams, 'Super 8' cast in Santa Monica
Shatner: Why my new book is like a dead rat
'Trek' writers: We broke the story for sequel
Zachary Quinto getting in Spock shape
Spielberg: 'Super 8' is first true Abrams film
Nimoy: 'Live long and prosper, my friends'
Nimoy: 'Trek' fans can be scary
Abrams: 'Star Trek' still in shadow of Lucas


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ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- District 205's new career academy model has another opportunity for students to earn college credit. The school board has approved a partnership with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Rockford School Board members approved the deal with Embry-Riddle tonight, that provides a new class for students interested in aerospace. It's called Principles of Aerospace Science and will teach students about the aerospace industry, including flying and design; kids will get to build their very own aircraft.
Students will also learn about the engineering and maintenance aspects as well as space flight. District leaders say it's all to help kids after high school and the community.
"Our community has over 170 companies that are related to the aviation/aeronautics industry. So we have a huge number of job opportunities available for our students and it's critical to our community that we have the talent pool to fill the needs of all of those companies moving forward," said David Carson, director of College and Career Readiness.
Students who take this class will earn six college credits that can transfer after they graduate. The class will pilot at Jefferson High School in the fall. The contract will cost the district $41,000 for the 2013-2014 school year.
An instructor still needs to be hired and he or she could come from within or outside the district, since there are qualifications to teach the course. One of those requirements is that the teacher have a pilot's license.
Also at tonight's school board meeting, members approved paying 13 school police officers an extra $50,000 in overtime, to start a half hour earlier every day. There was some concern that officers weren't able to be at school when classes started because of the addition of a seventh period. With the overtime, officers will now be there on time.


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Dutch golfers defeat Brockway 235-248
The St. Marys Flying Dutchmen golf squad picked up a win over visiting Brockway on Thursday afternoon at the Bavarian Hills Golf Course, defeating the Rovers 235 to 248. "The team played really well today," said St. Marys coach Dan Vollmer following the match. "It was a much-needed win and we look forward to our home match against Ridgway and Kane next week."Medalists for the day were St. Marys' Sam Miller and Brockway's Andy Genevro and Bret Corr, all of whom shot 11-over-par rounds of 46. Behind Miller for St. Marys were Rudy Gleixner, Quinn Cunningham and Jacob Lechner with 47s, followed by Justin Beimel with a 48. Other Dutchmen scores were Owen Schreiber with a 50, Garrett Wendel 52, and Dillon Gallagher 53. Behind Genevro and Corr for Brockway was Fabio Fortunado with a 48, followed by Sam Hawkins with a 51 and Alec Bouch with a 57. Other Brockway scores were Darren Olivio with a 57, Bryce Buesink with a 59 and Dean Davido with a 63. St. Marys will return to action on Wednesday, Sept. 14 when they host both Ridgway and Kane for a tri-match, which is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m.