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Various representatives and lawyers of numerous actors, models and companies have contacted JUB and requested that images of themselves, their clients or companies are not posted on, or linked to, JustUsBoys.
This list can be found here. It is reviewed and updated regularly. Please check it regularly - most recent updates are highlighted in RED.
Many thanks,

subset: commoncrawl


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Book Fest 2008: Part II: Walter Dean Myers, Ibtisam Barakat, and Jeanette Winter Discuss War and Peace in Books for Young People
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Walter Dean Myers has published more than 70 books for children and teens. He has received many awards for his work in this field including the Coretta Scott King Award, five times. Two of his books were awarded Newbery Honors. He has been awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the Virginia Hamilton Award. For one of his books, Monster, he has received the first Michael Printz Award for Young Adult literature awarded by the American Library Association. Monster and Autobiography of My Dead Brother were selected as National Book Award Finalists. His latest title is Sunrise Over Fallujah.
Growing up with war and occupation is the focus of Ibtisam Barakat's memoir, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood. In 2007, Booklist named it one of the top 10 biographies for youth, and it was listed as an American Library Association Notable. In 2008 the memoir won the International Reading Association's Best Non-Fiction Book Award for Children and Young Adults.
Jeanette Winter has written and illustrated many books for children based on true-life stories, including the highly acclaimed MAMA, The Librarian of Basra, and My Name is Georgia. The Librarian of Basra received a starred review in School Library Journal, was an ALA Notable Children's Book, a CCBC Choice and was the winner of the Bank Street College of Education Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for Nonfiction. Her most recent title is Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa.
Margaret Tice, assistant director for NYPL Children's Programs, introduced the panelists.


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Group buying stalls in Asia
Deal sites storm the exit doors
The Asia Pacific group buying market is in consolidation mode due to intense competition, according to a new report from Daily Deal Media.
According to the new report 798 daily deal sites shut down globally in the second half of 2011.
In Asia the contraction was profound with 1,348 Asian daily deal sites swithcing to becoming deal breakers during the back end of 2011.
Daily Deal Media CEO Boyan Josic said that the high rate of mortality for the Asian group buyers was due to China. "It's simply due to the sheer numbers of startups which was also followed by a large percentage of them failing," he told the Register.
He added that key factors to global consolidation include the increase in subscriber acquisition costs. With lots of deals sites covering the same ground, it's also hard for them to source quality deals, and investors are taking a "wait and see" approach, starving the sector of new capital.
Josic predicts that further consolidation will unfold this year, even more so than the carnage of the second half of 2011. "I also expect more startups to continue to innovate in the space, but the days of the Groupon clones that have no distinctive advantage may be coming to an end."
He added that a key trend will be the integration of daily deal sites with TV and radio editorial. ®
Sponsored: Minds Mastering Machines - Call for papers now open


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Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer is in talks over a new deal at Craven Cottage
Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer has revealed he has held talks with the club about a new deal at Craven Cottage.
By Pete O'Rourke - Follow me: @skysportspeteo
Last Updated: 11/02/13 2:50pm
Schwarzer's current deal expires at the end of the season, but the Australian is keen to extend his stay in West London.
Despite turning 40 Schwarzer has no plans to hang up his gloves and has his sights on playing for his country at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
"I feel really good and don't think the age thing is hindering my performances in any way," Schwarzer told the Fulham Chronicle. "I've had some initial discussions and the intentions are there at the club to keep me.
"But in what capacity we'll have to wait and see. I want to be playing each week - that's the key for me. I love playing and don't want to be No.2 anywhere.
"The World Cup is also a huge priority and the reality is if I am not playing I don't think it would be possible to be a part of the national team. I just want to be out there enjoying every minute - especially at this stage of my career.
"If that means I have to move on at the end of the season, then that's fine also. Let's just see how we go."


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Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site
by Sherri Duskey Rinker
Book list *Starred Review* To say that a book makes you yawn well, it's usually not a compliment. But in the case of bedtime books, it's high praise and well deserved by this engaging picture book. As the sun sets on a construction site, five big, tough trucks settle in for the night. After placing one last beam, hardworking Crane Truck folds his boom, grins sleepily, and tucks himself in for the night. Cement Mixer takes a bath before pulling up his chute and beginning to dream. Tired Dump Truck dims his lights and (loudly) snores. Nearby, sleepy Bulldoze. curls up in his soft dirt bed. while Excavator sets down his scoop and falls asleep. Rinker writes her first book in rhyming, rhythmic verses that read aloud well. Deceptively simple, they manage to be simultaneously absorbing and soporific. Lichtenheld, who illustrated Duck! Rabbit! (2009) and Shark vs. Train (2010), contributes dynamic oil-pastel illustrations ranging from comical close-ups of anthropomorphic trucks to lyrical scenes of the construction site and city skyline at dusk. With strong lines and effective use of shading, the scenes offer plenty of visual details for children to discover. Even the endpapers combine beautiful design with stealthy wit. A standout picture book, especially for those who like wheels with their dreams.--Phelan, Caroly. Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
School Library Journal K-Gr 1-After each truck completes its work for the day, it cuddles up and says goodnight. Crane Truck raises one last beam and then hugs his teddy and turns on his nightlight. Cement Mixer gives a final spin before snuggling with his blanket. Dump Truck delivers his last load, closes his eyes, and starts to snore. Bulldozer and Excavator follow suit until the entire construction site is tucked in tight. Lichtenheld's detailed and textured illustrations, rendered in wax oil pastels on vellum paper, perfectly complement the fun, rhyming text, cleverly personifying each truck with expressive eyes and amusing details. The bright, golden background changes to pinkish red as the Sun begins to set and then to dark blue when the Moon appears. The repeated refrain, "Shh. goodnight, Crane Truck [Cement Mixer, Dump Truck, Bulldozer, Excavator], goodnight," will invite participation. Recommended for vehicle- and bedtime-themed storytimes, this is sure to be a hit with truck-loving preschoolers.-Rachel Kamin, North Suburban Synagogue Beth El, Highland Park, IL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


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Spring 2013
7340 _SEM: Higher Education Law - OLIVAS- 38567
Changed to seminar and 3 credits, 9-20-12.
Michael Olivas (FACULTY)
Credits: 3
Course Areas: Constitutional and Criminal Law
Time: 4:00p-5:30p MW Location: 119 TU2
Course Outline: This course will cover legal and governance issues that affect higher education institutions: legal governance, academic freedom, faculty, students, and equity topics. The class will include law students and graduate students from other UH colleges. Each student will prepare and submit a seminar paper on an approved college law topic of your choice, which, with class participation, will result in the course grade.
Course Syllabus:
Course Notes:
Prerequisites: Yes Not open to 1Ls
First Day Assignments:
Final Exam Schedule:
This course will have:
Satisfies Skills Course Requirement: No
Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No
Experiential Course Type:
Bar Course:


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Sociology Professor Appointed Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Senegal
Moustapha Diouf will also serve as president of the $540 million Millenium Challenge Account
- 12-04-2013
- By Jon Reidel
Moustapha Diouf, associate professor of sociology, has long wanted to help improve the quality of life of the people of his native country of Senegal. He will get the chance as the newly appointed special adviser to the prime minister of Senegal and president of the Millenium Challenge Account (MCA) -- a $540 million foreign development project funded by the United States.
Diouf, who became friends with the new Prime Minister Aminata Toure while working on a master's degree in rural sociology at the University of Paris in the early 1980s, turned down previous job offers from Senegal officials, wanting to be in a position to have more of an impact on the economic development of the West African country. The addition of the powerful MCA position was exactly what he had in mind.
"They had been trying to lure me with the special adviser role, but the addition of the MCA position gives me more power vis-à-vis the U.S. government and how the $540 million will be spent," said Diouf. "The prime minister and I have shared the same dream for many years and are now in a position to realize that dream together."
Diouf, who expects to return to UVM in about two years, says he plans to spur economic development by using the MCA funds for infrastructure improvements with a focus on the building of roads and bridges so people can bring goods to market. He also hopes to improve health care, education and telecommunications access while keeping a close eye on the management of the funds. "There is great demand for social justice in Senegal," Diouf says. "Many African countries are fighting corruption and the mismanagement of public funds. They really have to monitor how money is being spent. I will work on bringing transparency, accountability, and checks and balances to the process."
In addition to his academic research as a rural sociologist, Diouf brings relevant field work to his new position as a former sociologist for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. While there, he was involved in the elaboration and implementation of development projects at UNESCO's Regional Office for Education in Dakar, Senegal, where he also assisted in the planning and organization of regional seminars and workshops for UNESCO's Eradication of Illiteracy in Africa program.
"UVM has given me everything for the past 24 years," says Diouf, whose scholarly work focuses on global and African development. "It is my affiliation with the university that allowed me to get this appointment. I intend to give back by sharing my experience with students and colleagues and converting my experiences into reality. Otherwise, it's just abstract theorizing. As a political sociologist, what we teach in the classroom should translate into the field. We all dream of having an impact on social policy, so I'm feeling very fortunate to be in a position to do so.


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West Ham have announced the signing of former Charlton midfielder Diego Poyet after the two clubs agreed a compensation package for the teenager.
The 19-year-old, son of Sunderland manager Gus Poyet, was named the Addicks' player of the year last season but departed at the end of his contract and has now penned an initial four-year deal at Upton Park.
Poyet has been capped at England under-17 level and becomes Hammers' boss Sam Allardyce's fourth summer signing following the acquisitions of striker Mauro Zarate, Senegal international Cheikhou Kouyate and full-back Aaron Cresswell.
It remains to be seen if Poyet will go straight into West Ham's first-team squad but he has linked up with his new team-mates at their pre-season training camp in France and is looking forward to trying to make a name for himself in the Barclays Premier League.
"It's massive to come to a Premier League club," he told West Ham's official website.
"It's what I wanted to do - I wanted a new challenge and soon as I heard there was a chance of stepping up I had to take it. It was a no-brainer to sign, I wanted to come out here to the training camp as soon as I could and I'm grateful that they've had me here.
"I'm very happy to be here. It took me by surprise a little bit and it all happened very quickly. It is a great club to be at and I know a few of the boys here already."
Having burst onto the scene at The Valley last year, Poyet is targeting a similar achievement with the Hammers ahead of the forthcoming season - with the prospect of nailing down a first-team berth his main goal.
"I played quite a few games last season with Charlton and I just want to push on now," he added.
"Like any young player, the first thing you want to do is get into the first team. I need to show the staff, players and the gaffer what I'm capable of doing and maybe pushing my way in.
"West Ham is a great club with a lot of tradition, moving to a new stadium and everything, it was a no-brainer for me because you never know if you're going to get that kind of chance again."
Source: PA


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If you scooped up some newly-minted tech IPOs at the start of this year, your portfolio would be looking pretty healthy. Shares of Trulia are up 42%; Yelp shares are up 9% and Zynga is up 19%.
And, if you look at how far they come from hitting their lows of 2012, they're looking relatively strong. In fact, one could say that the environment for tech IPOs is becoming more favorable.
Many tech companies have come out beating Wall Street's expectations for the final three months of last year, and you're thinking about getting in on these shares, you don't want to wait until too many of these quarters pass you by. Otherwise, the stocks will run away from you.
But will they?
Facebook shares at $27.13, while up 34% from a trough level of sub-$18 last year, are down 2% this year, and still well below their $38 IPO price.
It may be worth waiting for another quarter before making a decision. But in the meantime, it's probably good to brush up on how these companies and their respective shares have been in performing. Then you can decide whether they look appealing.
Facebook - market cap: $64.4 billion
Shares of Facebook are $27.13, down 2% this year. They're up over 34% from hitting a trough of $17.73 last year. At current prices, Facebook is trading at 9.9 times estimated 2013 revenue.
In the fourth quarter of 2012, Facebook posted revenue of $1.585 billion for the quarter, better than Wall Street's estimates of $1.52 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 17 cents in the fourth quarter, compared with the 15 cents a share that analysts were expecting.
Mobile MAUs were 680 million, an increase of 57% year-to-year. Mobile DAUs exceeded web DAUs for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2012. Mobile revenue represented approximately 23% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2012, up from approximately 14% of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2012.
Total dvertising revenue was $1.33 billion, or 84% of total revenue. It increased 41% from the same quarter in 2011.
Oddly, though, Facebook's stock has actually sunk since posting these numbers on January 30th. Earlier in the month, Facebook share closed above $30 for the first time since July 13. And, except for one day, the stock continued to close above that range every day for the rest of January. Since February 1st, though, the stock has closed below $30.
So why would the market react this way to Facebook posting better than expected numbers, especially ones that show it is improving both its mobile numbers and advertising revenue?
Some, like J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth and Andreas Pouros, COO at London-based digital marketing agency Greenlight, expressed surprise that the social network's mobile ad revenue was not even higher.
"Key to the demise of historical market leaders, such as Altavista in Search and MySpace in Social, was too much advertising", Pouros said. "It served to increase revenue in the short term but undermined utility and loyalty."
"Maybe this is why Facebook's mobile revenue numbers were lower than the market expected, with Facebook perhaps understanding this risk and not being as aggressive as it could have been with pushing ads to the masses. Doing so would have spiked short term revenue but at a potential long term risk."
Clearly the market wants to see more from Facebook before it will truly be confident in its ability to generate revenue in the long run.
The stock ended Friday down 0.56% to $27.13 a share.
Yelp - market cap: $1.4 billion
Shares of Yelp are $22.18, up over 9% this year. They're up 30% from hitting a trough of $15.22 last year. They're up 32% from the IPO in March 2012. Yelp is trading at 6.54 times estimated 2013 revenue of $214 million.
Yelp topped Wall Street's expectations by raking in $41.2 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012, up 65% over the year-ago period. This performance was at the high end of Yelp's own guidance and beat analysts' consensus expectations of $40.3 million. For the full year, Yelp generated $137.6 million in revenue, up 65% from $83.3 million in 2011.
But Yelp is still spending too much money. While it narrowed its fourth-quarter losses to $5.3 million from $9.1 million in the same quarter a year ago, for the full year, Yelp lost $19.1 million, more than the $16.9 million it lost in 2011.
After Yelp posted these numbers, JP Morgan's Anmuth wrote that while he does believe that Yelp will be able to continue to drive strong revenue, it may have impediments to profitability going forward.
"We believe Yelp's breadth and depth of review content, trusted brand, and large potential local advertising opportunity make it well positioned to continue driving strong revenue growth and margin expansion," he wrote.
"We view potential changes to Google's search algorithm (which drives 50% of Yelp's visits), a relatively unproven track record outside the US, and a significant implied profitability ramp as risks to the stock at current levels."
Yelp's stock has remained relatively steady. After posting the results, shares were down 2.8% in after-hours trading to $21.75. But they're up over 9% from $19.7 at the start of the year.
They're also trading 32% above their debut price of $15, but below the high-point of that day. Recall on Yelp's first day of trading in March 2012, shares rocketed nearly $10, or 67%, to $24.58, and ended at $24.50, up 63%.
Yelp ended trading Friday up 0.82% to $22.18 a share.
Trulia - market cap: $698 million
Shares of Trulia are $29.59, up over 42% this year. They're up 49% from hitting a trough of $15.02 last year. At current prices, Trulia is trading 6.97 times estimated 2013 revenue of $100 million.
Trulia also came out ahead of expectations in its quarterly numbers. It posted revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012 of $20.6 million, up 75% over the same quarter last year. Wall Street was expecting $19.1 million, according to data compiled by FactSet.
That higher-than-expected revenue didn't translate into a profit, though. The company reported a loss of $1.6 million, or $0.06 per share. That's a huge improvement over the 30-cent per-share loss in Q4 2011, but analysts had been expecting a loss of just 2 cents a share.
These numbers have helped Trulia's stock rise nearly $5, or 15%, since February 12. The stock ended trading Friday at $25.56 a share, down 9.36%.
Trulia debuted on NYSE in September and had a solid first day, raising $102 million as shares soared more than 40% above its IPO price of $17.
Anmuth raised his price target on Trulia's stock from $21 to $29 and was positive about the compan'y position in the market going forward.
"We believe Trulia's product platform and attractive agent ROI proposition—along with tailwinds from the secular shift online and a possible housing recovery—position it to significantly improve monetization and profitability over the next few years," he wrote.
Zynga - market cap: $2.5 billion
Shares of Zynga are $$3.19, up over 19% this year. They're up 29% from hitting a trough of $2.11 last year. But shares are down 68% from their IPO price of $10. At current prices, Zynga is currently trading at 2.77 times its estimated 2013 revenue of $900 million.
Zynga went public in December 2011, but I am going to count it along with these other 2012 IPOs anyway.
In its fourth quarter results, Zynga reported GAAP revenue of $311 million, flat year-over-year, with bookings of $261 million, down 15% year-to-year. Earnings per share came in down 6 cents, while adjusted earnings per share was a penny.
Analysts had been expecting to see a loss of 3 cents per share on revenue of $212 million.
The company experienced a net loss of $48 million for the quarter, down 89% from its net loss of $435 million a year ago.
Full year revenue for the company was $1.28 billion, up 12% year-over-year, and bookings of $1.15 billion, down 1% year-to-year.
Shares shot up nearly 10% the next trading day to $3. The stock continued to climb the next few days, peaking at $3.67 on February 11, before steadily coming down every since.
Despite these numbers, analysts remained skeptical of Zynga's ability to create profitable games going forward.
Stern Agree analyst Arvind Bhati noted that Zynga still had to prove it could create hit games after losing its favored status on Facebook.
"Mgmt's focus on preserving/growing free cash flow should help limit downside to the stock. However, for any sustainable appreciation in the stock, we think the company needs to prove it can still create hits profitably especially after its favored status on the FB platform dissipates," Bhatia wrote.
On its first day of trading, Zynga's stock broke through its IPO price of $10 a share and closed there. Zynga ended its debut day at $9.50, down 50 cents.
The stock has slipped quite a bit since then ending trading on Friday up 7.77% to $3.19 a share.
2011 stocks
Two companies that went public in 2011 also recently posted earnings, and have both seen their stocks rise as a result.
LinkedIn posted non-GAAP earnings per share of 35 cents on revenue of $303.6 million, up 81% from $167.7 million in the year-ago period, and well above the consensus estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters of 19 cents a share on revenue of $279.5 million. As a result, its stock rose 10% in after-hours trading to $136.75.
LinkedIn is currently trading at $160.45 a share, up 29% so far this year, and up more than three-fold from an IPO price of $45.
LinkedIn is trading 11.9 times its estimated 2013 revenue of $1.4 billion.
Pandora released its Q3 earnings report in December, reporting income of over $2 million, or one cent a share, on revenue of $120 million. The company was able to beat Street expectationf of one cent a share on $117 million in revenue.
Pandora projects a loss for the next quarter of between 6 and 9 cents a share, on sales of $120 million to $123 million. Analysts had been projecting Pandora to earn a penny a share on revenue of $130.2 million for the quarter.
As a result, Pandora shares plunged 18% to $7.74 after trading, but the stock has since bounced back and is now trading at over $12.13 a share.
Pandora shares are up over 21% so far this year but down 25% from going public $16 a share.
What does this mean for future tech IPOs?
While all of these companies showed the ability to generate greater revenue than Wall Street expected, the market still seems unsure if there is long-term sustainability with most of these companies. Or they're unsure whether they're cheap enough.
Facebook's stock has dipped, Yelp's has remained steady and Zynga's, after peaking, is coming back down to its previous level.
Trulia, LinkedIn Pandora all seems to have impressed investors enough that they have confidence in its long term ability, though investors initially seemed to be scared off by Pandora's lower than expected projections and Trulia's stock was down almost 10% on Friday.
In the wake of Facebook' IPO a number of tech companies cancelled their plans to go public, including Kayak and Evernote. While Kayak eventually did go public, Evernote has decided to delay its IPO until 2015, at the earliest.
In a recent interview with me, Evernote CEO Phil Libin said that he chose that date since "by then the markets will have settled down and made peace with technology companies."
In recent years, Libin told me, there has been a struggle between the public markets and the technology companies. Technology companies have to take long-term views, years ahead in some cases, while the markets react to things within seconds, buying and selling based on rumors. This is a recent problem, one that is "not good for anyone" and is bad for innovation. But it is also one that Libin believes will correct itself eventually.
Another company that has seen a lot of speculation about going public is Twitter. While the social is expected to announce that it is going public at some point in the next year or two, it recently made a move that could be designed to delay its initial public offering.
It was reported in January that Twitter was brokering a deal that would allow investment firm BlackRock to buy up to $80 million of stock from a number of Twitter's early employees, who have not had the opportunity to exercise their share options since Twitter's last $800 million fundraising round in the fall of 2011.
By offering employee shares to BlackRock, Twitter might be avoiding reaching the 500 shareholder limit that would force it to automatically IPO before it would be fully ready to take such a step. All you have to do is look at what happened to the stocks of Zynga, Facebook and Groupon to see why Twitter would be wary of going public too soon.
Both Evernote and Twitter seem hesistant to enter into a marketplace that still doesn't understand how to deal with tech companies, and it's hard to blame them when you look at how they have reacted to the good numbers that companies have been putting up lately.
(Image source: http://markoliqz.tumblr.com)


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Video: Sparks fly as Calif. high-speed pursuit comes to end
Joshua Beesley, 40, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer and felony evading
By Rick Hurd
Contra Costa Times
ANTIOCH — An Antioch man, who struck a police officer while pulling away from a traffic stop en route to leading police on a chase that reached 100 mph, was arrested Wednesday night, police said.
Joshua Beesley, 40, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer and felony evading, authorities said.
Richmond police detectives pulled Beesley over for a traffic violation in the area of G and Texas streets at 7:04 p.m., police said. Detectives saw knives and razor blades in the car near Beesley and suspected he might be under the influence of an unknown substance, said Richmond police Sgt. Nicole Abetkov.
When officers tried to remove him from the car, a struggle ensued, and Beesley took off, striking one of the officers with his side mirror, Abetkov said. The officer was not injured.
The chase occurred as officers working in partnership with multiple agencies, were enforcing traffic stops, serving warrants, conducting probation searches and "proactively policing," police said.
Richmond police, the California Department of Corrections, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Contra Costa District Attorney's Office worked in cooperation with the enforcement, Antioch police Sgt. Tony Morefield said.
Police deployed spike strips at several places during the pursuit, which lasted more than an hour and was continued by Richmond police after Antioch police halted their pursuit, officials said. The chase went through parts of Antioch, Pittsburg, Bay Point and Concord, Morefield said. Pittsburg police and the California Highway Patrol also joined the pursuit, he said.
The driver exited Highway 4 and ran over the strips, then circled the neighborhood on the car's rims until it finally became disabled in the 2900 block of Longview Road, Morefield said. The suspect then tried to run away from police but didn't get far before officers captured him, he said.
He was booked into the County Jail in Martinez.
Copyright 2013 the Contra Costa Times


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Student or Learner
"I was really happy to be shared with their culture."
The active voice version of this sentence is "I was really happy that they shared me with their culture." Am I right?
I understand the usage of "share something with a person", but this case is "share a person with a thing."
What does the sentence exactly mean?
Is this the same meaning as:
"I was really happy to be shared their culture with."
"I was really happy to be shared in their culture."
do all three sentences have different meaning?


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text:
Pursuing catcher, Texas talks to Pierzynski's reps
By T.R. Sullivan / 12/18/12 5:50 PM ET
ARLINGTON -- The Rangers spent Tuesday addressing their catching situation by talking with free agent A.J. Pierzynski and his representatives about the possibility of playing in Arlington.
Texas is also exploring signing free-agent outfielder/first baseman Nick Swisher as a way to reinforce their offense after the departure of Josh Hamilton. But catching seems to be a priority for the Rangers as the offseason moves past the halfway point.
The Rangers re-signed catcher Geovany Soto after non-tendering him at the end of November. But the 2008 National League Rookie of the Year who was acquired from the Cubs on July 30 hit just .198 in 2012, with 11 home runs and 39 RBIs in 99 total games. He also threw out just 13 of 65 (20 percent) attempted basestealers.
Pierzynski, who turns 36 on Dec. 30, is coming off his best season, hitting .278 with 27 home runs and 77 RBIs for the White Sox. His .827 OPS was the highest of his career since he started playing regularly for the Twins in 2001. He also threw out just 19 of 76 (20 percent) attempted basestealers. He was Chicago's starting catcher on its 2005 World Series championship team.
The left-handed-hitting Pierzynski batted .287 with a .536 slugging percentage against right-handed pitching in 2012. Soto is a right-handed hitter, so the two could end up in a platoon situation.
Pierzynski is looking for a multi-year contract, and the Rangers don't have a young catcher ready to take over in the next couple of years. Their top catching prospect is Jorge Alfaro, 19, who was at Class A Hickory this past season.
Pierzynski had some ill-feelings toward Rangers manager Ron Washington last July when he was left off the All-Star team. But the exchange also showed how Washington feels about Pierzynski as a player. After the American League All-Star team was announced, Washington said he felt bad that Pierzynski wasn't selected.
"The guy's having an outstanding year," Washington said at the time. "He's been working with a very good pitching staff over there with those Chicago White Sox for many years. I consider him a winning player because he beats you any kind of way he can. He beats you mentally, he beats you physically. So I feel really bad for Pierzynski."
Pierzynski, who has been known to be outspoken, replied by saying, "If he felt that bad, he would have put me on the team. He had an opportunity to and he didn't do it. Obviously, he can feel as bad as he wants, but he didn't feel that bad."
Pierzynski is known to have an abrasive personality that often irritates the opposition. But it's likely that Washington and Pierzynski would be able to smooth out any differences if the two sides can work out an acceptable contract. The Rangers are thin in catching depth behind Soto, and they claimed Eli Whiteside off waivers last week. Whiteside, Luis Martinez and Konrad Schmidt represent the depth behind Soto at this point.
Swisher, who is being pursued hard by the Indians, is of interest to the Rangers because he is a switch-hitter who can play first base or one of the corner outfield spots. He hit .273 with 24 home runs, 93 RBIs and a .473 slugging percentage this past season for the Yankees. For his career, he is averaging 28 home runs and 90 RBIs every 162 games. He also has a career .361 on-base percentage and a .467 slugging percentage.
Swisher is currently in the process of meeting with potential teams. He is viewed as the best middle-of-the-order offensive player left on the free-agent market now that Hamilton signed with the Angels.
Both Swisher and Pierzynski hit from the left side. The Rangers are looking for left-handed power in a lineup dominated by right-handed hitters Adrian Beltre, Ian Kinsler, Nelson Cruz and Elvis Andrus. David Murphy and Mitch Moreland are Texas' most proven left-handed hitters. Murphy and Cruz are both free agents after this upcoming season.


text:
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Hana Jirickova is Fascinated By Your Explanation of Game of Thrones
Staying Bright: A gentleman's guide to wearing white pants, courtesy of Esky's Big Black Book. For our money, we'd save the true whites for denim. [Esquire]
Today's Factory Tour: Behind the scenes at a t-shirt factory. [Free/Man]
Dressing Up: Rivieras get a floral upgrade. [Selectism]
The Climbers: Glenn O'Brien's opus on social climbing has finally hit the web. [GQ]


text:
Yes, "forensic" means "belonging to, used in, or suitable to courts of judicature or to public discussion and debate".
Well that explains a lot! I kept thinking that people were trying to give me stuff.
I think they're about 90 degrees off. In the modern usage it should probably be "pertaining to the reconstruction of past events through available evidence". In that modern usage, it fits perfectly with TFA.
Soo, you are saying that this research into an icy mudball is all wet?
Yeah but putting "forensic" in the title draws the CSI fans.
You could say...*puts on shades*...it's the star attraction.
I don't think you understand how this works.
adj. Pertaining to, connected with, or used in courts of law; suitable or analogous to pleadings in court.
It comes from the Latin word "forum," as in the Roman Forum, where public debates were held and legal proceedings were carried out. With CSI and such, it seems people think "forensics" means something like "finding and analyzing evidence," but unless that evidence is meant for a courtroom, it's not "forensics."
What this person is doing is historical research, pure and simple. It's what a historian does. If I discover the subject of a historical painting, am I doing "forensic
Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the study of how past people "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used phenomena in the sky and what role the sky played in their cultures."[1] Clive Ruggles argues it is misleading to consider archaeoastronomy to be the study of ancient astronomy, as modern astronomy is a scientific discipline, while archaeoastronomy considers other cultures' symbolically rich cultural interpretations of phenomena in the sky.[2][3] It is often twinned with ethnoastronomy, the anthropological study of skywatching in contemporary societies. Archaeoastronomy is also closely associated with historical astronomy, the use of historical records of heavenly events to answer astronomical problems and the history of astronomy, which uses written records to evaluate past astronomical practice.
For anyone interested, Dr. Anthony Aveni has written a lot of interesting stuff in the field.
In those days, the little town newspapers used boilerplate from the larger city newspapers and only added in a few local articles. So the fact that the meteor was reported in many newspapers means diddly squat.
Those were the days of the steam driven internet on rails - news travelled a little slower, but it was no different in concept from today where lots of papers and blogs quote the same text.
In those days, the little town newspapers used boilerplate from the larger city newspapers and only added in a few local articles.
Sounds just like today except the big town newspapers do it too. AP,Reuters,TASS, etc boilerplate is published everywhere.
Sounds just like today except the big town newspapers do it too. AP,Reuters,TASS, etc boilerplate is published everywhere.
Boilerplate doesn't refer to syndicated articles. It refers to a pre-printed front or front/back sheet with the national news. The newspapers would print their name on them, and then stuff them with their content. So it's nothing like today. We've had syndicated articles almost as long as we've had telegraph, and they're something else.
(Just fixing a bad mod by posting.) But yes, that's why they call them 'wire' articles.
In those days, the little town newspapers used boilerplate from the larger city newspapers and only added in a few local articles. So the fact that the meteor was reported in many newspapers means diddly squat.
I think that they would probably have only counted articles that were written in different styles or with local eyewitness accounts. I'm sure that a load of identical articles would have been very obvious.
In those days, the little town newspapers used boilerplate from the larger city newspapers and only added in a few local articles...
Now get off my lawn!
Ye Gods! You are old!
Correct me if I am mistaken, but I believe it was this poem:
Year of Meteors [1859-60]
by Walt Whitman
Year of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective some of your deeds and signs,
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad,
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the
scaffold in Virginia,
(I was at hand, silent I stood with teeth shut close, I watch'd,
I stood very near you old man when cool and indifferent, but trembling
with age and your unheal'd wounds you mounted the scaffold;)
I would sing in my copious song your census returns of the States,
The tables of population and products, I would sing of your ships
and their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan arriving, some fill'd with
immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold,
Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes would welcome give,
And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me, young
prince of England!
(Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds as you pass'd with your
cortege of nobles?
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;)
Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my bay,
Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was
600 feet long,
Her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I forget not
to sing;
Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring in heaven,
Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear shooting
over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over
our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
Of such, and fitful as they, I sing--with gleams from them would
gleam and patch these chants,
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good--year of forebodings!
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange--lo! even here one
equally transient and strange!
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this chant,
What am I myself but one of your meteors?
The young prince of England was winked at by the laureate poet, in pre-internet emoticons!
With attachment? What prescience!
I'm sure he will find a way back from the grave / freezer to sue you for breach of copyright.
... oh wait - that was the other Walt.
Maybe I'm biased, given my name, but wouldn't Halley's own sleuthing of the comet itself be a prime candidate for "the field of forensic astronomy" getting a start? It's not like he named this thing that appeared once-- he discovered that several historical sightings of similar objects were actually the same object on a periodic return.
I'd count dating historical observations of solar eclipses as forensic astronomy, and I think was done well before 30 years ago. Here [timeanddate.com] are some examples.
There are also celestial alignments of pyramids and stone circles - although it would have to be a stellar alignment to count, as the sun doesn't change its path over historical times.
I'll give you the "sun doesn't change its path" as common usage, but the earth does in fact change its path: http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm [montana.edu]
...the earth does in fact change its path...
Fascinating. I knew about the precession, but the other two are new to me. I also can't understand what would cause them, especially the change in the orbit itself. The only thing I can think of would be influence from other planets, but a variance of 5 % sounds like a lot, and I'd guess that the period would vary if that was the case.
Ah, Wikipedia to the rescue. [wikipedia.org]
Interesting indeed, thank you! It doesn't explain the variance in axial tilt, but I guess it has the same causes as the precession.
I once tried to match up the stone circle surrounding a 5000 year old burial tomb against how stars would appear on the winter solstice at that time. (there is a well-known solstice alignment with the associated passage tomb.) Nothing lined up until I noticed that my Amiga astronomy program turned off precession by default so that it's 7Mhz processor wouldn't have a conniption. Lo and behold, the stars of Orion's belt rose over this stone, Sirius over that one, the ecliptic aligned with those two...
[kicking Walt Whitman's tombstone]
Homer: Damn you, Walt Whitman! I-hate-you-Walt-freaking-Whitman! "Leaves of Grass", my ass!
Halley's comment.
This book [google.com] seems to indicate that it was John Brown, an anti-slavery terrorist.
4 years to the nearest Star, not 7 Minutes?
Call the Forensic Astronomers, somebody stole the Sun!
But even taking that example, if you look at the sun (not directly at the sun) you're still looking at where the sun was 7 minutes ago.
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."


text:
Facebook Acquires Feature Phone App Maker Snaptu 62
Krystalo writes "Facebook has agreed to acquire Snaptu, an Israeli startup that makes Java-based feature phone apps, for an estimated $70 million. The acquisition, for which neither company would reveal financial details, is expected to close within a few weeks. Earlier this year, Facebook worked with the mobile development firm to build a feature phone app that is accessible free of data charges in various overseas markets. The company says the Facebook for Feature Phones app currently works on more than 2,500 devices."


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Murphy, "I support the real 2nd Amendment, not the imaginary 2nd Amendment. And the real 2nd Amendment isn't absolute."
The statement was a precursor to his call for banning "assault rifles" in the wake of the Santa Fe High School shooting, even though "assault rifles" were not used in the attack.
Murphy said the "real 2nd Amendment…allows Congress to wake up to reality and ban these assault rifles that are designed for one purpose only – to kill as many people as fast as possible."
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said the Santa Fe High School attackers used a .38 revolver and a shotgun to carry out his heinous acts. Therefore, a ban on "assault rifles" would have done nothing to prevent the attack from occurring or the tragic loss of life from taking place.
It should be noted that Saturday was not the first time Sen. Murphy called the essence of the Second Amendment into question. On August 6, 2013, Breitbart News reported that Murphy told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that "The Second Amendment is not an absolute right, not a God-given right. It has always had conditions upon it like the First Amendment has."
Murphy did not grapple with the words, "Shall not be infringed."
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PHOENIX (AP) — The bodies of 19 elite Hotshot firefighters haven't been left alone since they were pulled from a charred Arizona mountainside last week. It's a tradition among the close-knit crews everywhere to stay by the fallen until they're handed off to families for burial.
Thousands of firefighters from around the nation are now expected to attend a memorial service for the men to pay final respects on Tuesday at a minor league hockey arena in Prescott Valley, not far from where they died Sunday, June 30.
Prescott's Granite Mountain Hotshots were overrun by smoke and fire while battling a blaze on a ridge in Yarnell, about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix. One member survived — Brendan McDonough, 21, who was serving as a lookout and wasn't in the immediate burn zone.
Dignitaries expected to attend the memorial include Vice President Joe Biden, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. McDonough will offer what's called "The Hot Shots Prayer," which ends with a line that will most certainly be difficult for the young man to read: "For if this day on the line ... I should answer death's call ... Lord, bless my hot shot Crew ... My family, one and all."
McDonough was assigned to give a "heads-up on the hillside" for the team on that fateful afternoon, said Prescott Fire Department spokesman Wade Ward. He notified the crew of the rapidly changing weather conditions that sent winds swirling erratically and caused the fire to cut off his team's escape route, then swiftly left his post for safety.
McDonough has not spoken publicly about the ordeal. Ward said it's just been too tough on him, but that "he did exactly what he was supposed to."
"He's trying to deal with the same things that we're all trying to deal with, but you can understand how that's compounded being there on the scene," Ward said last week.
The highly specialized crew was part of a small community of Hotshots nationwide, just about 110 of the 20-person teams mostly stationed west of the Mississippi River.
The blaze had burned about 13 square miles before firefighters gained control over the weekend.
The Tuesday memorial service, "Our Fallen Brothers: A Celebration of Life," will be the last of a handful of vigils for the men before the first of 19 funerals begin later in the week.
As final preparations were being made for the service, hundreds of people who were forced from their homes were allowed to return this week, finding a landscape drastically different than the one they remembered.
Vehicles lined up along the highway into Yarnell well before the evacuation order was lifted at 9 a.m. Monday. Authorities checked everyone's identification to prove their residency so they could have a couple days to sift through the ashes of their homes before the area opens to the public Wednesday.
Small shops that sell antiques, saddles and groceries remained intact, but the fire that broke out June 28 created a patchwork of destruction that destroyed more than 100 homes, many reduced to ashes.
"It's a bittersweet day today, driving through the town and seeing it burnt, and knowing a lot of people don't have homes," said Yarnell resident Tammy Consier.
But, she added: "This is an awesome community, there's going to be beauty from the ashes."


text:
Handbook of the Birds of the World; Volume 1 Ostrich to Ducks
This first volume covers the following families: ostrich; rheas; cassowaries; emu; kiwis; tinamous; penguins; divers; grebes; albatrosses; petrels & shearwaters; storm- and diving-petrels; tropicbirds; pelicans; gannets & boobies; cormorants; darters; frigatebirds; herons; hamerkop; storks; shoebill; ibises and spoonbills; flamingos; screamers; ducks, geese & swans.
- Editor(s): Josep del Hoyo, Andrew Elliott, Jordi Sargatal
- Stock Code: 7334092
- Format: Hardback
- Illustrations: Colour plates, Colour photographs, Maps
- Pages: 696
- Published: 1992
- Categories:
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Here in one volume is a synopsis of the diversity of all birds. Published between the two volumes of the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World, Bird Families of the World distills the voluminous detail of the 17-volume Handbook of Birds of the World into a single book. Based on the latest systematic research and summarizing what is known about the life history and biology of each group, this volume will be the best single-volume entry to avian diversity available.


text:
One of the arguments presented in favor of a rookie wage scale was that it would remove the incentive for underclassmen to leave school early and buy a ticket to the draft-day lottery. One of the arguments presented against a rookie wage scale was that it would encourage more kids to come out early so that they could begin to establish years of service and performance in anticipation of a big-money second contract.
So far, the latter argument seems to be the better argument.
The NFL has announced that a 73 players, including possible first overall pick Luke Joeckel, have been granted "special eligibility" for the draft. These players have satisfied the rule preventing entry into the draft until at least three years after the player's high-school class has graduated.
The league office advises that this is a record number of early entries.
The number has increased in 2013 from 65 in 2012. In 2011, 56 players left school early for the draft.
In 2010, the year in which plenty of players were believed to be attempting to beat the arrival of the rookie wage scale, only 53 entered the draft early. The year before that, it was 46.
So in four years the number is up 58 percent. Since the arrival of the rookie wage scale, the numbers are up by 37 percent.
Thus, it's fair to wonder whether at least some of the players are choosing to leave not to get huge money now but to work toward getting huge money after logging three or four NFL seasons.


text:
General Community > Site Comments, Issues and Concerns
I can not add a theme
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Hi, I can not add a new theme because I still get the message how to add:
--- Quote ---There is a theme with the same package id. Please change the id and reupload again.
--- End quote ---
Someone already uses the same id. Just change ID of your theme and try to send it again
Co to znaczy identyfikator motywu? Właśnie nie rozumiem tej kwestii.
Pisze po polsku bo to nasz ojczysty język.
--- Code: ---What do you mean the ID theme? I just do not understand this issue.
He writes in Polish because it is our native language.
--- End code ---
Add a new theme where? To your own site or upload it to the customization/theme site here on Simplemachines.org?
Here I want to add szblon I made to be able to use it, and others. But I can not add to the SMF is still bald as described above.
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text:
See, you can get a lot higher up without a kid inside.
They got the press coverage without the kid. The "schrodingers kid" was only a "potential child" in the balloon.
Always interesting to see the twists applied to previous attempts at the same task.. I know what idea I'm putting in my 6 yr old's mind for his first science fair....
...and even more amazing is that at about 800 sites around the world, various national weather services do this same thing twice daily. Oh and they have been doing it at least since the 1950's.
100,000 feet is nothing special. They regularly go higher than that.
Anyhow, this is how most of the atmospheric layer and wind information is obtained --- not by satellite.
Anyhow, this is how most of the atmospheric layer and wind information is obtained --- not by satellite.
Seems like it would've been easier to put little propellers on the satellites to measure the wind than to have to fly a balloon every day.
And before anyone replies, yes, this is a joke. I know this wouldn't work, since the little propellers would fly the satellites off course...
I estimate 10 million of these balloons have been launched with sensing instruments and radio telemetry. (Twice a day, more than 50 years, 800 sites currently but hundreds since the 1960's= 2x50x365x400 = more than 10 M). There is nothing very interesting about these students doing it.
These camera stories are kind of "eye-candy" science: pleasing to look at but not much substance. There is no trick to launching a balloon with a camera attached... and apart from being outright fun, there isn't any research advancement either into atmospherics or into the engineering technology of launching an instrument package with a balloon. They even do it the easy (safe) way with helium instead of hydrogen. BTW, this is kind of wasteful. Helium is a scarce resource.
The current telemetry packages attached to the weather balloons contain a telemetry transmitter, a GPS receiver, and humidity/temperature sensors. This provides wind speed, direction, altitude, location, temperature, and humidity.
Now, if the students did something interesting such as:
1. Adding in a light weight low-cost stabilizer and remote control package to steady and aim the camera
2. Modify the camera with filters to observe a parameter that is not usually measured (ie: perhaps infrared, uv, etc)
3. Attach a laser and test out a methodology for measuring parameters within a range of the balloon
4. Create a 360 scanning system and analyze the images in real time to provide cloud formation information
5. Created a wireless grid that co-ordinated and measured information from multiple synchronous balloon launces in the same relative area
6. or something else creative, imaginative, and useful
THEN this would be an interesting story. Else just fluff.
Wow - what a complainer. Sure it's not that novel, but still cool and you just have to shit all over it. He built his own microcontroller system - that's not that trivial.
As for your suggestions:
1) a stabilizer would either drain the batteries or freeze up with the low temperatures. Adding complexity with little benefit does not make it better
2) might be interesting. IR might just show that the earth is warmer than space. Ooooo now there's science!
3) sure, put lasers on a balloon that can fly into airline flight paths. Now that's safe.
4) real time image analysis. You do realize what the computing capabilities of a microcontroller are, don't you?
5) why implement the complexity of a wireless grid? Just launch several balloons all time stamped and you can process the data later. Again, needless complexity doesn't make it better, it just makes the probability of failure much higher and drives up the cost exponentially.
6) something useful? How about a big floating sign saying ACs don't have a freaking clue what they are talking about?
Australian Student Balloon Rises 100,000 Feet, With a Digital Camera
they have been doing it at least since the 1950's
Umm, yeah, I'm gonna need a citation on that.
I say send a UAV up with it. Float it up, and then see how far you can fly/glide from 100k feet.
Ahh, the ways we could piss off the FAA. I know some of the regulations, and that's half of why I haven't built half the stuff I want to.
No, it can't miss Earth from up there. I just did the calculations. At 20 miles up, that adds only 32187 meters to the radius of the Earth. Working through the math, it means that the acceleration due to gravity is 9.7 m/s^2.
At sea level, the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2.
Thus, sea level escape velocity is 11201 meters per second
Escape velocity at 20 miles up is 11152 meters per second.
The difference is 49 meters per second, or 110 MPH.
Now, to pick a gun at random, let's choose the US Army's M198 Howitzer. It's an artillery piece that fires projectiles at approximately 760 meters per second. So you need to have a much bigger cannon, and a much bigger balloon.
Yes! A comment about escape velocity. Now I can shoehorn in a really cool fact about Deimos (moon of Mars): it's escape velocity is 20 km/h (13 MPH)!
You could run, jump, and orbit around the thing like Mario in Super Mario Galaxy. That is awesome.
Just a question from my idle mind... Is escape velocity usually about the same as the lateral velocity of an object in a perfect orbit?
I'm thinking this because the ISS is 350km up, and moves at just over 7,700m/sec.
It seems to make sense that to 'fall around' something, you would have to move 'to the side' just as much as you're 'pulled in' over any given time.
I may have seen the same thing, except it was a concept when I saw it. They had done the balloon trip a few times, and the airplane was their next plan. I didn't know that they had done it. Unfortunately, I don't have the link either.
Ahh, the ways we could piss off the FAA. I know some of the regulations, and that's half of why I haven't built half the stuff I want to.
Not too sure about Australia, but here in NL we have much the same regulations.
If I were to 'do the right thing' and write to the aviation authorities here saying I intend to let loose a big ol' helium balloon capable of reaching 30,000 feet and higher, with a digital camera attached, they would smack me down citing all sorts of safety regulations (camera into jet engine = potential loss of engine power and all that.. they tend to be less squishy than birds - which do enough damage as it is).
But if I were to 'just do it', I get to have a fun project, a great experience, and possibly awesome results to share with friends and indeed the world. Last, but not least, very little chance that the authorities would come after me after-the-fact (unless the thing -did- get sucked into some jet engine or otherwise disrupted air traffic).
The same applies to ventures into abandoned factories, for example. It's not your land, not your property, you're legally trespassing and if caught the owner will probably tell you to get the hell off of his property.. but you'll already have the experience of going there, maybe photos, etc. If you were to write first, you've got odds against you.. if the owner says 'sure, go ahead', and you get into an accident at the site, they'll be liable.. odds are, thus, that you'll get a big fat "no, you may not go onto my property".
Rules may not be meant to be broken, but life tends to be more interesting when you do break them.
In short: sometimes it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Duh. Are you serious? That was an expensive project with plenty of manpower. This was one guy and his girlfriend spending a few hundred dollars.
No offense to Armstrong, he has very large cajones, but I don't recall Neil jumping from orbit with the intention of landing on the earth with his own two legs.
Kittinger, FTW!
That little balloon in the states couldn't have lifted at all with a child inside. Somebody should have realized that.
I thought the same thing as well.
I'm in Australia, even the people here are calling it a publicity stunt, although, if thats true then I don't understand the actual benefit the family gets with the publicity... aren't they described as a "crackpot" family?
Of course you didn't see the "PRESS" questioning anything, US journalists are fucking idiots. All they are capable of is reading what some under paid intern drops in front of them. This applies to most of the stories from all of the "NEWS" networks. Why do you think the US is in such terrible shape? The total lack of honest, well thought out information for the masses (read Joe six pack) is the major reason.
I've got a nicely aged 20 oz. bottle of Jolt Cola from ~2000 for any one who mods this up, as I'm laz
To be fair, it was kind of tough to tell the scale from the pictures of it flying. Once it got close to the ground, it was obvious to anyone who'd seen that one episode of mythbusters like five years ago. But until then, there just wasn't anything to reference its size to, except maybe the skin crinkle, which would have required extensive knowledge of the material to make judgements based upon.
Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget/ [wired.com]
The only real difference is that this one went a bit higher (100,000 ft) where as the MIT guys made it 93,000. Still pretty close though.
I think that the reason that the newspapers printed this article was because it had a nice story to go with it. These high altitude balloon projects seem to be a bit of a hot topic at the moment. (I'm the Geoff from the Article)
Yes there have been many similar projects done by others for many years - I'm quite surprised that this story ended up going this far. Mine was a Uni project that I went about by myself, there aren't a lot of technical details in the article but the aim of the project from an engineering point of view was to build a data logging system that would function without fail at very low temperatures. Of course I wanted it to take nice pictures along the way, but this was really just because I thought it would be nice to have my own pictures from "Near Space". Other than the electronics/software design that went in to it, I put the system through low temperature environmental testing so that I could prove (mainly to myself) that the system would work before I launched it. I worked on it part time over a year, there was a lot that went in to it at the end.
I encourage others that are interested in this hobby to give it a try, it's a lot of fun and a lot more challenging than it seems. I gave it a go, learnt from it, and now plan another launch. I still haven't decided what to put in to the payload for next time round, so here's a question for the
What would you pack in a high altitude balloon project payload?
> What would you pack in a high altitude balloon project payload?
I would put a collection of a dozen small light-weight balsa gliders in it (ready-to-fly weight perhaps 5 gms each) with ID and "please return location" information on them. Then I'd release them at a fairly high altitude and see how far they went. Such gliders, thrown by hand, have caught risers and flown for miles. Could these cross continents?
braving negative 47-degrees temperatures
well jeff, I'd like to tell that you set-up is almost ready for a Canadian winter. In early 2008 we hit -49 for a couple days
If you'd like to do any environment testing for future projects, just head to Alberta in January/February.
But the real question is, how many of those kids rode the balloon?
[feeddistiller.com] @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
It was actually a group of Spanish students who initially did this earlier this year for the first time. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html and it also got slashdotted (and they didn't get the ISO wrong...).
Now that the methodology has been worked out, sending a camera up to 100kft is becoming a pretty common university and ham club team project. Provided care is taken during assembly, the biggest gotchas are while inflating the balloon, and hoping the winds keep the payload over an area with suitable roads.
It'd be neat to see more teams collect additional science, with live TM for extra points. A few years back, a few college students in Beautiful B.C. designed their own UAV [hackaday.com], which flew home after release a 6
Cool, so if we can get a baloon with payloads of say 1/2 a pound pure, which is what.... $20k of cocaine.
Wait for favourable winds/direction. Make sure its blue so it cant easily be seen.
Fire it up, with a tiny cpu (use old nokia without screen/plastic cover running MIDP2 java app).
Once it reachs a GPS region or into USA, deflate one of the baloons to desend not too fast, and sms the gps coordinate 5 seconds before hitting the ground.
Drive up and pick it up at leasure.
Im sure if you write up a nice prospec
Their plan is to use the buoyancy to take the urgency out of the rocket motors. If you don't need to have thrust to have a thrust to weight ratio of four, and can instead get away with much less than one, you can use more mass-efficient engines like hall thrusters and such.
Of course, that assumes that you can get up enough speed pushing a giant freakin' balloon to be able to detach and complete the trip....
That joke has been up for decades now.. and yet people keep falling for it.
The problem is that this doesn't remove 90% of the thrust problem. It only removes about 3%. Actually it is even less than that.
Yes, I've seen the JP Aerospace efforts, and that is certainly is an interesting concept. The #1 benefit that comes from launching at high altitude is that you don't have to worry about the troposphere and weather: You pretty much can launch whenever the equipment is ready and when the launch windows is open without having to worry about something like a lightning storm, tornad
Hey, man. Too bad you didn't get the opportunity. But I'm proud of you for not being bitter.
I can just see the Australian patent lawyers revving their engines again. Thank goodness those MIT students did this before and have prior art so we won't see another stop-stealing-our-toy-designs lawsuit.
Anybody who wants to attempt a similar project ought to read part 101 of the Civil Aviation Safety rules that specify what operators of unmanned aircraft and rockets must do to ensure safety in the air.
Can someone summarize what those are or explain the American equivalent? I mean, how do you avoid taking out an airliner's engine or some such thing?
Used a hacked Cannon camera.
http://www.francescobonomi.it/ICBNN [francescobonomi.it]
http://icbnn.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
Seems like 110,000 feet is quite common for university balloon flights. The University of Cambridge in the UK also has a project which has been reaching that height for a while (33km). What is interesting there is that they're planning to launch rockets from the balloon, and hoping to reach 150km. You can see their plans at http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cuspaceflight/martlet.php [ucam.org]. Don't know what their costs are.
Given the high cost of helium, why not use hydrogen? Helium is safer, of course, but it's not an issue in-flight when there's no human dangling from the balloon. There is a risk at the time of filling, but even then, I don't see how it's more dangerous than handling a bottle of propane for your kitchen. Especially outside. Leaking H2 will go straight up and will not build up to pose much of a threat.
Am I missing something?
This would be awesome for OpenAerialMap [openaerialmap.org]. It's a shame there's no freely available photography dataset of the world yet.
Actually, that isn't quite true. All of the Landsat [wikipedia.org] data is available in the public domain as it was produced with resources and funding from the U.S. government. This can be found here:
http://eros.usgs.gov/ [usgs.gov]
Unfortunately, the data isn't packaged and set up to be convenient to folks who want to use it. The copyright information about this satellite data can be found here [usgs.gov] that does confirm it is in the public domain. Some folks have obtained this data and then charged fees and "copyright" for their modifi
Interesting post, yes, it would be useful to get those old photos declassified.
Also, some of the higher resolution images found on places like Google Maps are made from commercial imaging satellites, which is protected by copyright.
That's what I meant, Landsat is quite low resolution (I don't find it particularly difficult to use, with JOSM and other OSM editors map data can be easily laid over landsat images). The Google Maps type images are nice, high resolution, and make mapping areas very easy, it would be good if there were a way to use cheap balloons to gather these type of images for large areas and then release them as part of a larger project with
The black gadget at the top of the picture appears to be one of my OpenTracker+ kits - I see that Geoff ordered a couple back in May. So I'm going to take this opportunity for a brief shameless plug:
http://www.argentdata.com/products/otplus.html [argentdata.com]
His main payload computer looks to be wholly custom-built, but the OpenTracker+ (that handles taking data from the GPS receiver and transmitting it over the radio) is an off-the-shelf kit that takes maybe an hour to build, if you don't want to pay an extra few bucks for a pre-assembled unit.
It's based on the Freescale MC908JL16 microcontroller, the full source code is available under the BSD license, and it'll compile with the free version of the Codewarrior IDE. It's got a serial bootloader, so there's no need for a device programmer. If you're comfortable with C programming, it's a very cheap way to build a simple, customizable tracking and telemetry system. Or just run the regular firmware and it'll do a whole bunch of stuff without modification.
Its larger cousin, the Tracker2, does a whole lot more and the code is released under GPLv3, but unfortunately you can't compile it with the free version of the IDE. It does include a simple scripting engine, though - written mostly so balloon builders would stop bugging me with minor ad hoc changes for their particular setup.
Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.


text:
Stockton, CA
David Leighton Reid
April 4, 1937 - April 20, 2013
David Leighton Reid, a lifetime resident of Stockton, died in a car accident on April 20 at the age of
76. Born in Stockton to the late Jack and Eloise Reid, David
attended Stockton High School and Whitman College. David was involved in a number of community activities including the Stockton Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Downtown Stockton Rotary, the Pacific Athletic Foundation, the Stockton Airport Commission and was a founding member of the
Asparagus Festival. Along with his brother, Allen Reid, he owned Reid Travel Associates for over
fifty years. His hobbies included traveling, reading and politics.
He is survived by his loving wife, Carole Murphy, his four children: Stephen Reid (Jennifer), Kris Talley (Mark), Becky Loiacono (Rick) and Kerry Rafert. He was "Grampy" to eleven grandchildren: Lauren, Matthew, and Jack Talley, Sydney, Christian, and Colin Reid, Robby, Megan, and Max Loiacono, and Jillian and Scott Rafert. He will be remembered for his hearty laugh and love of life.
A memorial service, with a
reception to follow, will be held on Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 11 am at Quail Lakes Baptist Church. Memorial contributions in his memory can be made to the Quail Lakes Baptist Church Benevolent Fund, 1904 Quail Lakes Drive, Stockton, CA 95207.


text:
So here we are, with Uranus in Aries, and the world hasn't blown up yet. But the fuse is lit, and big explosive change is coming... even if it's a prolonged, quiet explosion. Here's how it's most likely to affect you, by Sign. If you know your Rising Sign, read it from that angle too. Stay calm, make sure your helmet is on, and get ready for (potentially) the best blow-up ever!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Uranus In Aries, Part Three: Where The Rebellion Happens
4 comments:
- bestastrologyblogs said...
Well done, you ranked in the top 50 Best Astrology Blogs for the month.
- May 30, 2010 at 6:29 AM
- Matthew The Astrologer said...
Bless you, and thanks. I'm never entirely sure if astrology should be "competitive"... but if it is, I want to win! ;)
- August 1, 2010 at 5:53 PM
- Matthew The Astrologer said...
NOTE: I won't be previewing my Astrologydating.com blog entries here from now on. Better get over there and subscribe to the RSS feed before you miss anything!
- August 1, 2010 at 5:53 PM
- Matthew The Astrologer said...
Head over to astrologydating.com/blog and read the whole series... and ALL my new stuff... for free!
- August 1, 2010 at 5:56 PM
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Crabtree Farms, 1000 E. 30th St., is offering its fifth annual Community Garden Start-up Workshop from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16.
The interactive workshop will teach the basics of successful community gardening, from site planning and building to fundraising, growing vegetables and raising community support.
Participants will get advice from Crabtree's urban farmers, see spring vegetable seedlings up close and share tips with fellow gardeners.
"Beginning gardeners and seasoned growers alike will learn something new at the workshop," says Andrea Jaeger, programs coordinator.
Crabtree Farms used to have community garden plots on-site, but in 2008 the farm started using the land for its own production in response to the increased demand for its fresh produce. The compromise has been to offer community garden workshops, education materials such as the Community Garden Resource Guide and consultations.
"We've seen the power of community gardens to improve the quality of life for participating gardeners," says Joel Houser, executive director. "Families have greater access to fresh foods, they spend less money growing the food than they would at the grocery store, and they meet and engage with their neighbors in a healthy, positive way."
According to Crabtree statistics, Chattanooga now has more than 25 community garden sites and more are sprouting up each year.
Workshop fees are based on a sliding scale between $50 and $100. Space is limited. To register, visit www.crabtreefarms.org.


text:
2004 Softball
All-Heartland Conference
Beavers well represented on All-Heartland Conference squad; Holly Spann named co-coach of the year
By Ben Risinger, SID
April 5, 2004
BLUFFTON , OHIO - Sophomore Sarah Betts and juniors Allison Lange and Mandy Snider have been selected All-Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference for the 2004 season.
The Beavers had their best season ever as they accumulated a 26-8 overall record and a 12-2 record in the HCAC. The team's 26 overall wins were a new school record with their 12 conference wins tying the conference regular season wins record. First-year head coach Holly Spann was named HCAC co-coach of the year for leading the Beavers to the 2004 Heartland Conference championship.
Sophomore pitcher Sarah Betts (Bryan/Bryan) was named the Most Valuable Player of the Heartland Conference and All-HCAC first team for the incredible season she had on the mound. Betts broke every Bluffton softball single season pitching record in 2004 and she now owns the career strikeout record. Sarah finished the season with a 25-7 record, 0.74 ERA, 29 complete games, 11 shutout wins, 209 innings pitched, 273 strikeouts, and an opponent batting average of .146. In two years Betts has accumulated 399 total strikeouts. She ranked nationally (NCAA DIII) in ERA, strikeouts per seven innings and total victories. This year was her second season being chosen for all-conference honors.
Junior Allison Lange (Archbold/Archbold) was chosen as first-team HCAC for her powerful season. The centerfielder dominated the Beaver's bats in the season as she broke seven season hitting records (.522 batting average, 48 hits, 14 doubles, five home runs, 81 total bases, .880 slugging percentage and a .600 on-base percentage). Lange ranked nationally (NCAA DIII) in batting average, doubles per game and slugging percentage.
Junior shortstop Mandy Snider (Wapakoneta/Wapakoneta) was also chosen first-team HCAC. Snider posted the second highest batting average (.323) and slugging percentage (.385) on the team this past season. She was 10-for-13 in stolen bases and committed only eight errors in the field for a .900 fielding percentage.


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COMMENTARY: How Big Pharma makes you pay more for drugs
(CNN) — Whether you are young or old, man or woman, very healthy or quite sick, it is almost a certainty that you are going to use a prescription drug in the next year or two. These medicines are crucial for preventing diseases and treating all sorts of ailments and problems.
They are also expensive — really expensive. For example, the best-selling drug of all time, Pfizer's cholesterol lowering drug Lipitor, went for $3.50 per pill and up before going generic in late 2011. But these days some retail chains are giving away generic Lipitor while the rest are charging barely 50 cents a pill.
Prescription drugs cost Americans far more than they do people living in many other parts of the world. This is because drug companies spend a fortune on direct-to-consumer sales and marketing (which they don't do in other countries) and because other nations negotiate better deals for drugs than private insurers do in the United States.
Is there anything that can be done to lower costs and increase the availability of more affordable and equally effective drugs? Yes.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that drew little attention in the media: Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis. The stakes are high.
When the court decides this case, probably in June, it will either reinforce Big Pharma shenanigans that have helped keep prices high and skyrocketing, or finally bring some relief to our pocketbook and escalating national health care bill for drugs.
The issue is whether companies that own patents for prescription drugs can pay other companies that want to make cheaper generic versions not to do so, a practice known as pay-for-delay.
One way to get lower prices on drugs is to get generic versions out to replace name-brand drugs. Generic drugs include the exact same active ingredients as the brand names. The difference is the name of the medication and the color or shape of the pill.
Prescription drug manufacturers, fearing the arrival of cheaper generics and knowing or worrying that their patents alone won't keep out competitors, try to buy off the competition instead.
In the case before the court, Solvay Pharmaceuticals is accused of paying off would-be generic manufacturers of their blockbuster drug AndroGel, a synthetic testosterone used by hundreds of thousands of AIDS patients, cancer patients, elderly men and others who suffer from low levels of testosterone. The generic companies were happy; they made money for doing nothing. Solvay continued to reap huge profits by keeping its monopoly in the market. The only losers were patients who have had to keep paying much higher prices for their name-brand-only drug.
Usually, buying off your competitors is clearly illegal. Pay-for-delay deals run counter to basic antitrust principles. Nonetheless, some lower courts, declining to evaluate the strength of a patent, have let Big Pharma get away with these deals.
Big Pharma views the settlements as a bargain. Instead of losing up to 90% of their market share bcause of the introduction of a generic, companies can simply pay generic manufacturers and make the competition go away.
A 1984 law, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act, commonly known as the Hatch-Waxman Act, was intended to speed up lower-cost generic competition. Big Pharma has managed to completely undermine Hatch-Waxman's intent, which was to put in place mechanisms that encouraged generic drug makers to challenge the weak patents often used to protect brand-name drugs.
Unfortunately, the AndroGel case is not unique. In recent years, deals between Big Pharma and generic drug makers have delayed the introduction of a diverse range of cheaper generics including cancer drugs, AIDS treatments, blood pressure medications, antidepressants, allergy medications, sleep aids, ADD medications and more.
The Congressional Budget Office says pay-for-delay tactics cost consumers billions of dollars and the Federal Trade Commission estimates these pay-for-delay deals will cost Americans up to $35 billion over the next 10 years.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, who co-wrote the Hatch-Waxman Act, has been very vocal in arguing that a law Congress intended to help reduce the cost of prescription medicines has been hijacked by the drug industry to do the opposite.
What we have now are the generic manufacturers and Big Pharma making a fortune by agreeing to delay competition that would bring lower priced drugs to market.
A few weeks ago, the Indian Supreme Court took a hard look at the way big drug companies were using patent extensions to keep out low price competition. They said forget it—that sort of tomfoolery will not be allowed.
The U.S. Supreme Court would be wise to concur, heed the Federal Trade Commission's complaint and bring pay-for-delay to an abrupt end.
The right prescription for making medicines cheaper and better is to encourage competition, not stifle it with backroom deals where everyone gets a great deal except for the patients.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Arthur Caplan and Zachary Caplan.
|Special to CNNEditor's note: Arthur Caplan is the Drs. William F and Virginia Connolly Mitty professor and director of the Division of Bioethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center. Zachary Caplan is his son and an attorney at a law firm in Philadelphia that filed an amicus brief on behalf of drug wholesalers and pharmacies in the case FTC v. Actavis.
™ & © 2013 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.


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In the week that saw another piece removed from the puzzle Tiger Woods created, with EA Sports detaching itself from the American golfer, perhaps it is time to assess the World No.1's chances of ever catching Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major victories.
Woods' last major success came back in 2008, at a time when the 37-year-old was closing in on his fellow countryman's record year on year.
However, since his public humiliation in 2009, the American has never seemed the same, despite the odd glimmer of returning to his former self.
In the space of 11 years, the Nike sponsored athlete tallied 14 major titles, leaving him four wins away from matching Nicklaus as the sport's most successful figure.
But is the time ticking away too quickly on Tiger's chances? With other golfers such as Adam Scott and Justin Rose rising to the challenge, it looks like Mr. Woods has his work cut out if he's going to secure those four titles that will draw him level.
The performance of Tom Watson in the 2009 British Open will offer some comfort to Woods, when the American narrowly missed out on winning a major at the unbelievable age of 59.
With Woods approaching his 38th birthday in December, it's safe to say there is plenty of golf left in the four-time PGA Championship winner, although there is no time like the present, and Tiger will be desperate to secure the vital wins before age starts to take effect.
Nicklaus' wins stretched over a 24-year period and with Woods only 17 years into his own career, the American must be quietly confident of overtaking the man he admired when growing up.
But, with Woods rarely showing the spark that used to separate him from the chasing pack, the four-time Ryder Cup winner must resurrect his position within the sport, before the fans follow EA Sports in forgetting who the once outstanding Tiger Woods is.
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Thank You Nelson,Isentress resistance.
Mar 18, 2013
Thank you Nelson for all your help.We recieved the results from my husbands gnome.His viral load has crept up to 17000.cd4 is 700 still.Isentress was well tolerated as far as few side effects.We will meet with the Dr. next week to go over options.I am just sick at my stomach for my husband.This really took the wind out of his sails.Thank you so much for being our beacon of hope so many times Nelson.You are loved very much.
Response from Mr. Vergel
Thank you so much for your kind words. Please keep me updated about his health after you review options with his doctor.
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