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Home / Latest News /
U.S. weighs keeping no troops in Afghanistan beyond '14
By The Associated Press
This article was published January 9, 2013 at 8:31 a.m.
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WASHINGTON The Obama administration says it might leave no troops in Afghanistan after December 2014, an option that defies the Pentagon's view that thousands of troops may be needed to contain al-Qaida and to strengthen Afghan forces.
"We wouldn't rule out any option," including zero troops, Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday.
"The U.S. does not have an inherent objective of 'X' number of troops in Afghanistan," Rhodes said. "We have an objective of making sure there is no safe haven for al-Qaida in Afghanistan and making sure that the Afghan government has a security force that is sufficient to ensure the stability of the Afghan government."
The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of about 100,000 as recently as 2010.
The U.S. and its NATO allies agreed in November 2010 that they would withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014, but they have yet to decide what future missions will be necessary and how many troops they would require.
Those issues are central to talks this week as Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets with President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
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Jackabbott says... January 9, 2013 at 8:44 a.m.
Get out this dump as soon as possible and use the money here at home. This was a worthless war that cost the USA dearly and we have gained zilch. Thanks a lot to Bush/Chaney and Obama we wasted our resources on nothing.
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The study concludes that a major reason more bears have been counted in recent years is that more time is now spent counting bears. The authors argue that the region's bruin population could in fact be in decline, even as officials consider revoking the grizzly's threatened species status.
The peer-reviewed findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Conservation Letters. The work was partially funded by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Population trends within Yellowstone's bear population have taken on added importance as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers lifting federal protections for the animals, possibly as early as next year.
Government biologists countered that there is no evidence of a decline. They said newly-revised population data shows more than 700 grizzlies living in and around Yellowstone National Park, an area that includes Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
Meanwhile, rising numbers of bear-human conflicts -- such as a mauling last week south of Cody, Wyo., that sent a man to the hospital with severe facial lacerations -- have lent new urgency to calls to allow limited hunting to resume.
But the new study's lead author, University of Colorado environmental studies professor Daniel Doak, said shortcomings in the government's method of tracking grizzly numbers mean their recovery from widespread extermination last century may have been overstated.
The bears lost protections once, in 2007, before a federal judge ordered grizzlies back onto the threatened species list two years later. The reversal came in part over concerns that one food source for bears, the nuts from white bark pine trees, has grown increasingly scarce as insects kill large stands of the trees.
Doak said the loss of whitebark pine and a decline in another food source, cutthroat trout, may have pushed bears into areas where they are more likely to be seen during aerial surveys done by government agencies. That doesn't necessarily mean there are more bears.
"It's a pretty standard thing in all of wildlife biology and conservation biology that if you triple the amount of time you're looking for some rare species, it's likely you're going to seem more of them, just because you spend a lot more time doing so," he said.
Doak and co-author Kerry Cutler also say wildlife officials have mistakenly assumed female grizzly bears reproduce throughout a 30-year lifespan, compounding the government's overly-optimistic population estimates.
They did not offer an alternative population size, nor say outright that the current estimate was wrong.
The government's latest estimate of 718 bears in the Yellowstone area is up from prior published estimates of roughly 600 bears.
That does not mean the bear population suddenly grew by about 100 bears. U.S. Geological Survey bear researcher Frank van Manen said the new figure results from revisions to the prior estimate based on increased survival rates for adult male bears in recent decades.
One reason more effort has gone into counting bears is that they are now spread across a much bigger landscape, said van Manen, who leads an interagency grizzly bear study team for the Yellowstone region. The results of those aerial surveys are corroborated by other factors, including the expansion of the animals' range and a trapping program that consistently identifies new bears, he said.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear coordinator Chris Servheen said the government's methods are reviewed by outside scientists and other government agencies.
"We're certainly interested in what they did," Servheen said of Doak's work. "But we've done a lot of work on this. We've given very careful consideration and critiques to everything we've done multiple times."
Another U.S. Geological Survey bear researcher, David Mattson, said Doak's findings were in line with his own conclusions that current estimation methods are "essentially worthless."
"There is this belief that somehow, through some sort of statistical magic, you can compensate for bias in your field methods," Mattson said. "My conclusion is that's just not simply possible."
Yellowstone's grizzly population is the second largest in the Lower 48, behind an estimated 1,000 bears in the Northern Continental Divide region that includes Glacier National Park. Smaller populations live in the Cabinet-Yaak, North Cascades and Selkirk areas of Idaho, Montana and Washington state.
Proposed changes to how Yellowstone's bears are counted are meant to result in more accurate future population estimates, Servheen said.
Wildlife advocacy groups cautioned that the proposals could lessen opportunities for public input. An attorney for the groups, Tim Preso with Earthjustice, said Doak's study underscored the need to avoid a "politically-motivated" drive to lift protections because of pressure from state wildlife officials.
But Alan Osterland, regional wildlife supervisor for Wyoming Game and Fish in Cody, said letting states manage grizzlies would give them needed flexibility to address bear-human conflicts.
"We're seeing bears where we certainly haven't had them," Osterland said. "In areas where we think the population could sustain a harvest, that is something we would definitely look at."

subset: commoncrawl


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University of Vermont
2012-2013 Catalogue
Physical Therapy (Doctor of Physical Therapy)
The doctor of physical therapy (DPT) is a professional entry-level degree. The DPT program requires full time study over a period of 3 years, including summers. The curriculum includes course work related to the basic sciences of anatomy and neuroscience, the clinical sciences of pathophysiology and pharmacology, and the clinical sciences related to management of patients across the lifespan. The curriculum also includes courses related to evidence-based practice, practice management, healthcare ethics, policy and quality improvement, and health promotion. In addition, students engage in 36 weeks of full-time clinical internships in a variety of settings under the supervision of clinical instructors who are licensed physical therapists.
The Clinical Education Program is an integral part of the curriculum, offering students opportunities to apply knowledge and practice skills and behaviors in the clinical setting. Clinical internships are provided across the US and offer a wide variety of experiences. Internships are assigned based on students' educational needs and availability of clinical sites in each timeframe. Students are responsible for their own transportation to and from clinical sites. Most of the clinical internships occur outside of the Burlington, Vermont area. Students must be prepared to travel and secure living arrangements during those clinical internships. Internships are scheduled as indicated in the curriculum plan unless insufficient clinical sites are available; in that case, students may be required to complete internship in an alternate time period.
All students in the program are required to carry professional liability insurance and have all required health clearances prior to engaging in any clinical education experience. Students should plan their finances to include these expenses. Clinical sites may require students to have a criminal background check before starting an internship. Evidence of a Criminal Record may prevent students from being eligible for clinical placement, and/or professional licensure.
The DPT program at UVM is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Physical Therapy Education. Individuals who graduate from an accredited program are eligible to take the examination required for licensure as a physical therapist.
Specific Requirements
Admission Requirements
Applicants must complete the prerequisite course requirements and a baccalaureate degree in any major at UVM or a regionally accredited institution. Applicants with a baccalaureate degree from institutions outside the U.S. will also be considered.
Students applying to the physical therapy program must have a GPA of 3.00 or greater in their undergraduate studies. All applicants must complete the following prerequisite courses with a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or greater prior to entry into the D.P.T. program.
- Two semesters of anatomy/physiology
- Two semesters of college chemistry with labs
- Two semesters of physics with labs
- One semester of biology
- One semester of exercise physiology
- One semester of psychology
- One semester of statistics
Application Process
- Complete the Physical Therapy Common Application through the Physical Therapist Centralized Application Service (PTCAS), a division of the American Physical Therapy Association. Follow all instructions on the site. All application materials should be submitted directly to PTCAS. This includes:
- Three letters of recommendation
- Official Transcript(s) from all U.S. and Canadian schools attended. PTCAS and the UVM D.P.T. program accept prerequisite credits from regionally accredited institutions only. For international applicants, transcripts must be translated and evaluated by an official service and sent to the CNHS Office of Student Services.
- Official Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores. For UVM DPT applicants only, the GRE Code is 7708.
- The GRE requirement is waived for UVM graduates.
- The college will accept both the old and new version of the GRE, but scores must be received by the application deadline. Historically, the program has preferred a minimum GRE score of 500 in both verbal and quantitative portions and 4.0 in the written analytical portion of the exam. Because of recent changes in the GRE scoring system, the department has not set a specific minimum score for admission in the summer of 2013. Criteria for future admissions cycles will be set based on review of data from the new scoring system.
- Complete pages one and two of the UVM Graduate Online Application form. Include the following information with the UVM application:
- In the box calling for an essay, please write: "See essay on the PTCAS application."
- Application Fee
- No transcripts or letters of recommendation should be sent to the University of Vermont.
- Complete the D.P.T. Prerequisite Course Completion form which can be found on the Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Science website.
Application Deadline: December 15
- Colleges and Schools: College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Graduate College.
- Departments and Programs: Rehabilitation and Movement Science Department.


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Originally Posted by BlitzburghRockCity
LOL yeah this happens every single year, the media jumps on the Ratbird bandwagon like it's the heavenly express. Flacco this, Ray Lewis that, Harbaugh is awesome, Ray Rice is a god, you name it they'll praise it.
I admit it irritates me to a degree just because I hate Baltimore so much, with a burning passion of a thousand suns. I hate the city, the fans, the stadium, purple, the team, everything. In the end though where are they at the end of the year...home on the couch.
I agree, Baltimore is a shithole.
I've always said, if you want to die, or commit suicide without doing it yourself just walk into Baltimore and someone will knife you in an alley. p.s. it would probably be St. Ray Ray.
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Exhibits: Bill Traylor at the High Museum
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Becky |
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This week I had the pleasure of heading to one of my favorite museums, The High Museum of Art here in Atlanta.* While the biggest current draw is the exhibition Picasso to Warhol: Fourteen Modern Masters, I was headed over to see Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of The High Museum of Art and The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.
Traylor was a self-taught African-American folk artist. Born a slave in 1854, he finally left the plantation to move to Montgomery Alabama around 1928, sleeping in the store room of a funeral home at night while drawing on the sidewalks by day. He would sit outside and draw the world walking by, usually on the back of old cardboard ads he found on the street and in the trash. His media of choice (and availablilty) were pencil, watercolor, poster paint, charcoal and crayons. He was able to capture so much movement, emotion and personality with such simple drawings. While they are distinctly folk art, there are a lot of qualities that are at once primitive and modern, from the way he abstracts silhouettes of people to his use of color.
The cardboard is the back of an old sign advertisement for Sensation cigarettes, thus its odd size.
If you have chance to catch this show, you really should not miss it. It combines collections of the two museums. What's so wonderful about standing 12 inches from one of these works, separated only by a pane of glass, is that you can see the dirt, wrinkles and tears on the cardboard. You can see the rhythm of the pencil strokes up close. You can see where the artist's finger smeared the charcoal. I hadn't been this moved by a show since I went to see the quilts made by the women from Gee's Bend.
Learn more about Traylor and about Charles Shannon, a fellow artist who collected and preserved Traylor's drawings ever since meeting him in 1939 at highmuseum.org.
All images via highmuseum.org.
Hi, I'm Becky. I live in Atlanta. Besides acting as the Editorial Director here on Hatch, you can find me talking design over at Houzz. Make me happy — leave a comment!


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Stripped of the NCAA license, EA Sports promised sports fans that a new college football game would be coming next year, simply titled "College Football 15." However, those plans have been cut short, as legal troubles have the company reconsidering "the future of the franchise."
"We have been stuck in the middle of a dispute between the NCAA and student-athletes who seek compensation for playing college football," EA Sports' Cam Weber writes on EA's official website. "The ongoing legal issues combined with increased questions surrounding schools and conferences have left us in a difficult position--one that challenges our ability to deliver an authentic sports experience."
As a result, EA Sports will not be publishing a new college football game next year, and "we are evaluating our plan for the future of the franchise." That's obviously bad news for EA's bottom line--given the franchise's consistent sales.


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LOMBARD — In February, someone new joined Facebook. He walked the streets of Babcock's Grove, Lombard's original name, years before computers, Internet or even electricity.
Since Col. William Rattle Plum made his triumphant return to modern-day Lombard, he's peppered his page with historic facts and photos, along with commentary about the modern things he's discovered in recent weeks.
"I'd say the historical society is really applauding and enjoying the Facebook page," said Leslie Sulla, president of the Lombard Historical Society's Board of Management.
Sulla said she's enjoyed Plum's take on modern things, such as coffee pots and indoor plumbing, along with the historical elements he's incorporated onto his page.
It's a mystery who is actually managing the account, though. Sulla said it's not an effort of the historical society, and no one she's talked to knows who's behind it. Despite the anonymity, the facts on the page are accurate, and when they're not, Plum's followers are quick to speak up and correct him, she said.
"I don't want to know (who it is)," Sulla said. "I'm really enjoying it. It's making us laugh."
Last week, "Plum" took a moment to answer some of the Lombard Spectator's questions:
When did you make your return to Lombard and why did you choose to use Facebook as the means to do it?
In February of this year, I decided the time was right for history to come alive and to bring Babcock's Grove back to the true collective community that it had always been back in my day. And when I heard rumblings about this Facebook being able to reach friends far and wide I thought, 'Why not partake in this so-called digital age?'
What are some of the biggest changes you've seen since you've been back? What things have stayed the same?
It just amazes me to see how much things have changed and yet so many things have indeed stayed the same. It is so nice to walk around town and see so many of the old family homes and of course the church from my day still looking so nice. ... What really touched my heart was when I discovered that descendants of many of the families that I knew as friends are still choosing to live here. I often heard since I have been back that the people of Lombard are like a family, but in the literal sense, the town is a family. I've met many second- and third-generation Lombardians whose parents, siblings and children are currently living here. I think that in itself is a testament to what we have all built here in the village.
What is your favorite place in town?
Lilacia Park and the library named after my beloved Helen, of course, but in general I enjoy being in the very heart of the community, which to me is from the cemetery to Windsor Avenue and the Peck home to Sacred Heart Church.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I have much more to share and much to learn on my short return to our home. What really has me excited is that I will be with all of you for Lilac Time, which is my first. I will be walking the neighborhoods and attending most of the activities that precede the big day and I am tickled purple at the idea of walking among the thousands the day of the parade.
About Col. William Rattle Plum
Plum was born in 1845 and moved to Lombard, formerly called Babcock's Grove, in 1867. He and his wife, Helen, are credited for bringing Lombard's first two lilac bushes to the village after a visit to France, and spent their later years traveling the world collecting lilacs for their home. When Plum died in 1927, he donated his estate to the village, with the stipulation that his home become the village's first public library and his grounds be the village's first public park. Today, the Helen M. Plum Memorial Library and Lilacia Park stand on his former estate. The Plums never had children and William's title as colonel was a formal one. He never served in the military.


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Mastering the Science of Wine
UT Tyler Grad Heads Winning Team at Texas Winery
Success in the wine industry starts with scientific knowledge, and McClendon credits UT Tyler for giving that to him.
Michael McClendon prefers to taste wine in the afternoon sunrays on the veranda overlooking the vineyards.
He has left his goggles and white coat in the laboratory but remains in scientific mode, with his notebook, checklist and pen in hand. He tilts his wine glass, gently swirls the deep red liquid, takes a sip, and swishes it in his mouth to absorb all the flavors.
"You want to taste in a fairly comfortable setting, because that's where most people are going to be drinking or enjoying wine," McClendon said.
McClendon finds his daily tasting exercise doubly satisfying, because the wine is the fruit of his scientific labor. As enologist and winemaker at Kiepersol Enterprises, the largest estate-grown winery in the state of Texas, he has played an integral role in the company's award-winning wines.
"A lot of times, I have to really sit back in appreciation and awe," said McClendon, who graduated from The University of Texas at Tyler in 2009 with a bachelor of science degree in biology and minors in chemistry and Spanish. "I'm fortunate to be where I am."
From Intern to Winemaker
Kiepersol Enterprises, about a 15-mile drive south of Tyler, produces red and white wines exclusively from European varieties of grapes grown onsite in the estate's 61 acres of vineyards.
The winery's doors opened to McClendon in 2008 when he received a phone call from the biology department's then chair. The winery was hiring its first laboratory intern to help during the summer harvest season, and wanted a student versed in scientific language to set up and run its lab.
"I'm thinking, 'There's a winery in Tyler?' I had very little experience with wine before coming into it," McClendon recalled. "My parents didn't drink, and it wasn't really something I was exposed to."
But he was open to learning about a new field and eager to get real-world experience.
"I helped them get through the summertime and really enjoyed it," he said.
During his senior year, he continued working there part-time as a lab technician, using every chance available to learn about the industry and science of wine. Upon graduating, he was promoted to enologist, and two years later, the company bestowed upon him the additional title of winemaker.
As the enologist, he oversees the science portion of the wine-production process and, as one of two winemakers, he is involved in the blending and tasting of wines to achieve desired style. The labels for which McClendon formulates wines are Kiepersol Estates, Barrel 33, Bridge Mengsel, Bridge Sweet Mengsel and KE Bushman's Vitzin.
McClendon leads the company's wine production team and thus oversees the work of the cellar master, the barrel room master, the production engineer and three lab techs.
He appreciates the scientific nature and variety of his work.
"We all wear multiple hats and, actually, it's what makes it enjoyable for me," he said. "I love science and that's what drew me here, but I get to experience other sides of the industry."
Tasting wine is part of McClendon's daily routine.
"We're farm-based, and there's an old adage that the best fertilizer is the farmer's footprint," he said. "So understanding my product and being out in the winery tasting the wine – knowing what the wine is like, knowing how it's progressing – that's one of the best tools that I could have."
Wine tasting is a responsibility shared by others, too, at the winery because of the importance of understanding how wines are perceived by different people, he said. He approaches tasting with pure professionalism, pointing out that it does not mean drinking, but rather swishing the wine around in the mouth and spitting it back out to prevent alcohol absorption.
"You basically just want to get a feel for the wine," he said.
He also oversees quality control, which means making sure the wine is in the middle of the spectrum, at one end of which the fluid is grape juice and at the other end is balsamic vinegar. Additionally, he researches fermentation processes, develops new wine blends, fine-tunes production techniques, and promotes the company's wines by speaking at public and private events.
"We really want people to understand wine more, so they can feel more comfortable about drinking wine, enjoying wine and making selections," he said.
Putting Texas on the Map
McClendon's public speaking also is aimed at changing people's views about Texas wines.
"It's kind of an uphill battle in the state of Texas. Everybody thinks about fine wine and they think California, Australia, Bordeaux, Burgundy," he said.
"We want to change people's ideas and views and bring the wine to them, and let them taste it and see for themselves that this is the real deal."
To help bolster the state's wine industry, he networks within groups such as the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association and even provides consultation to other Texas wineries.
"It's not a competition. If the Texas wine industry as a whole does well, then we all do well," he said. "... There are still silver bullets in the old belt, but for the most part we're very open and forthcoming with our information and knowledge."
Inspired by the challenge, he is seeing some success, he said: "Texas is becoming a new wine-centric area."
The proof is in the press, where Kiepersol's wines are ranking among California wines.
Last year, their Kiepersol Estates 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon made the "21 Wines to Watch" international list by the American Wine Society in the spring issue of its Wine Journal. The wine was the only cabernet and the only Texas wine on the list, dominated by Californian and European wines.
"That was a big deal for us," said McClendon, who helped develop that wine from his first harvest season at the winery.
Last spring, Kiepersol Enterprises also won its first gold medals at the international Dallas Morning News and TexSom Wine Competition. Their winning wines were that 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon and another that McClendon helped formulate, Kiepersol's 2010 Stainless Syrah.
Kiepersol proprietor and winemaker Marnelle Durrett said of McClendon, "He has definitely had a positive impact on our wine."
The First Ingredient: Knowledge
Success in the wine industry starts with scientific knowledge, and McClendon credits UT Tyler for giving that to him.
His biology and chemistry coursework, including courses in biochemistry, microbiology and cell biology, have been directly relevant to his work at the winery, as have some courses he thought he would never again use, such as plant morphology.
"I just took them because it was part of the degree program, but I've utilized some of that in going out to the vineyard and inspecting fruits and plants and just having a good understanding of what's going on from the vineyard perspective," he said.
His college studies also taught him to interpret data in scholarly journals, run a laboratory and conduct trials – skills he uses everyday.
"It is no question, his scientific background is why we sought him out," Durrett said.
Even so, when he came on board as their first-ever intern, she figured he would need more instruction than he did.
"When we talked about sulfur dioxide numbers and doing titrations for titratable acidity in wine, he just got it the first time," she said.
And Durrett has learned from him, she said: "We were three days into working together, and he was explaining all the carbon bonds in wine to me."
Dr. Blake Bextine, UT Tyler associate professor of biology who taught McClendon's cell biology class, has become familiar with enology through researching a grapevine insect over the past 15 years.
McClendon's field is "very competitive," Bextine said.
"Doing well in a rigorous science program really contributed to his success," Bextine said, along with McClendon's sociable personality, communication skills and technical abilities.
Durrett agreed: "Wine making is truly where science and art come together. Without his biology and chemistry studies, he simply wouldn't be where he is."
Devoted to the Science of Wine
Thinking back on the past five years, McClendon speaks gratefully about the opportunities the winery has given to him.
One of the most valuable was working with a world-renowned microbiologist in the wine industry, whom the owners of Kiepersol hired to spend a week giving McClendon advanced technical training, enabling him to become the winery's own onsite resource.
"Because she was very scientifically oriented ... they always said that she and I spoke the same language," he said.
Another memorable experience was two winters ago, when the winery sent him and three other employees to Santiago, Chile, to tour wine regions during the southern hemisphere's summertime. They visited large wineries, shared experiences with the local wine professionals and made lifelong friends.
"We basically went to work, but it felt like a vacation because it was so awesome," he said.
McClendon plans to become a certified specialist of wine through the Society of Wine Educators, and do more traveling, starting with trips to Napa Valley in California and to wineries in Spain.
Further down the road, he might also return to school for a master's degree in enology to pursue more research-oriented work.
For now, however, he's perfectly content continuing his scientific inquiry into the art and mastery of winemaking, with days dotted by afternoon tastings on the veranda.
"I would never have imagined it to be like this or to be a part of anything like this," he said. "It's so much fun. Like I say, it's always something different, and I learn something new just about every single day."


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Toney Kincaid spends much of his time keeping his grandchildren, whom he once thought he would never see.
Toney Kincaid spends much of his time keeping his grandchildren, whom he once thought he would never see.
He was a ticking time bomb.
Ironically, a watch-like device gave him back his life. And little did he know he would become part of medical history, only the second person in the world to have a vagus nerve stimulation implant and the first person in the world to become seizure free because of it.
The nadir of his existence materialized in 1983 in the cafeteria of the Duracell Battery plant on U.S. Highway 64 where he worked. In front of some 200 coworkers, he began staggering, then convulsing. It wasn't just any seizure he was having. It was a grand mal seizure, the one that is characterized by a loss of consciousness and violent muscle contractions.
From that point, the Lexington native's life spiraled downhill. He lost his job, health insurance, driver's license and self-esteem. He still had his seizures, though — up to 3,000 a month. By 1988, his epilepsy was so out of control that doctors feared he didn't have much time to live.
"When my seizures began in 1983, I did not know how a seizure could take control of my body, and I had no control," remembers Kincaid, who is now 61 and lives in the Holly Grove community. "I would become confused and began to feel my body drawing, then I would lose consciousness. During these years, my family could not understand what was going on with me."
Kincaid's medical problem stemmed from abnormal and poorly formed blood vessels in the brain. Its medical term is arteriovenous malformation.
He had pioneering brain surgery for that in 1970 when he was 20 years old. "That was uncharted grounds back then. They didn't know a lot about it back then," Kincaid explains.
Scar tissue from the surgery resulted in his epidemic of seizures.
In 1984, he connected with fellow Davidson County native Dr. J. Kiffin Penry of Denton, a renowned neurologist and researcher who was in the forefront of efforts to improve medical treatment of epileptics. Penry, a former professor at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University, who died in 1996, told Kincaid he had two hard choices. He could become essentially a guinea pig for the fledging clinical research or die.
He choose the former but found no instant results. None of the four types of research drugs quelled his seizures.
"I was at my breaking point after being in research trials for five years, and nothing would control my seizures," says Kincaid, who explains he became virtually homebound. It was difficult to function in public. Many of his friends and acquaintances did not understand his malady and kept their distance. Parents of his children's friends would not allow them to visit.
A crude version of the stimulator was first implanted in animals.
Penry was the first to conduct such clinical tests on humans. "I remember Dr. Penry telling me, 'an old dog can't talk, so we're going to put it in you,'" Kincaid says.
According to Invention and Technology Magazine, the treatment involved implanting a cookie-sized device below the left collarbone, with positive and negative leads threaded up to the vagus nerve, around which were wrapped two platinum-foil coils. The two leads essentially created a closed circuit among battery, wires and nerve, thereby concentrating the current on the nerve better than a single lead and decreasing side effects. Penry used a computer to specify the frequency, strength and duration of the stimulations based on experience and the characteristics of the individual case.
Over nine months, beginning in March 1989, Penry slowly increased the strength of the stimulation he gave Kincaid. July 31,1989, was the first seizure-free day Kincaid could remember, and in January 1990 he had his last seizure.
"It's like a pacemaker for the brain," Kincaid describes.
Cyberonics of Houston, Texas, developed the VNS Therapy System. The treatment option recently hit a milestone of 15 years since FDA approval.
"Without this device I would not be living today," Kincaid says. Over the years he has had a half dozen different implants and two of the three different models of the Cyberonics product. The latest stimulator on the market is about the size of a small pocket watch with an indefinite battery life. Kincaid plans to upgrade to the newest model in the near future.
"I would not have the ability to be a functional part of society without the device," Kincaid says. "With all my seizures, I had no short-term memory. I was unable to remember my children's names or to read. Everything became entangled. My wife could not leave me unattended."
The life-changing device, Kincaid says, "has given me back my self-respect. I felt useless and not worthy of being a husband or parent. When I was homebound for so long, it seemed there would never be any hope for my seizure disorder."
In addition to Penry, Kincaid says he is also indebted to his wife, Betty. They will celebrate their 40th anniversary this October.
The two often speak at medical conferences about the device.
"When we first started, Cyberonics wanted to hear my wife's side of the story. My seizures devastated our family. Our kids were afraid they would come home and find their daddy dead."
Kincaid says he is in relatively good health, though he has some weakness on his left side, which he attributes to his brain surgery.
He wants those who suffer from epileptic seizures to know about the device and how it can change their lives.
Dwight Davis can be reached at 249-3981, ext, 226 or at email@example.com.


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YORK, PA – The York College volleyball squad heads into the 2013 season looking to improve on a campaign that saw the Spartans struggle with a very young team. The Spartans had five freshmen earn significant minutes while York also had two sophomores that were on the floor frequently for head coach Sue DuMars.
The schedule will be different this year, as the Capital Athletic Conference has added Christopher Newport, PSU Harrisburg and Southern Virginia to form a ten-team league. That also cuts down on tournament play during the weekend, as York will play in just three tournaments during the year. Conference play will move from just mid-week games to mid-week and weekend games in October and November this year.
DuMars' squad opens the season on August 30-31 at the Moravian College Tournament in Bethlehem, PA.
The Spartans make a quick trip to McDaniel on September 4 before heading to the Lebanon Valley College Tournament on September 6 and 7. The Spartans conclude their season opening road trip with a September 11 venture to Gettysburg.
York opens their home slate on Wednesday, September 18 when they host former CAC foe Hood College. The Spartans head back to the road for a weekend trip to Elizabethtown for the Blue Jay Classic on September 20 and 21.
York then begins a stretch where they will play seven of their next ten at Wolf Gymnasium. York opens the run by hosting the eight-team York College Spartan Invite on September 27 and 28. After a trip to Mary Washington on October 2, the Spartans return home to host Southern Virginia and Dickinson on Saturday, October 5.
An October 8 trip to Wesley is followed by an October 10 date with McDaniel and an October 17 match against St. Mary's. The Spartans head to Marymount on Saturday, October 19 to face the Saints before coming home to face Frostburg State.
The Spartans head to Christopher Newport on October 26 to face the Captains and Washington & Lee. The final road game of the year comes on October 31 when the Spartans head up route 83 to face the Lions from PSU Harrisburg.
York closes out the home campaign on November 2 when they host Salisbury and Franklin & Marshall.
DuMars is excited for her squad to get on the floor.
"We have a different schedule from past years as we have all of our conference play in October and November with weeknight matches and Saturday matches, so we won't be playing any tournaments after September," says DuMars "We start pretty hard on the road, with tournaments at Moravian, LVC and E-town and don't have a home match until September 18. Our home tournament is looking strong again with Stevenson, Carnegie Mellon and Moravian all coming along with FDU, Rowan and PS-Abington. Obviously CNU is a tough addition and we are on the rode with them in late October."
The Capital Athletic Conference tournament kicks off with first round action on November 5 followed by the semifinals on November 7. The conference championship game will be held on November 9.


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Malaga coach Manuel Pellegrini concedes his side were well below their best in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie against Porto but remains confident they can turn around the 1-0 deficit at home.
A second-half Joao Moutinho goal earned Porto a narrow win at the Estadio do Dragao on Tuesday night in a match which the Portuguese giants bossed for large parts but without being able to create too many clearcut chances.
However, whereas Porto struggled to turn possession into opportunities, Malaga barely registered as an attacking force at all as the Champions League debutants suffered their first defeat in the competition. Pellegrini said: "We're not particularly pleased with our performance, as we didn't play well at all, particularly on the attack."
He added: "Porto kept the pressure on us and prevented us keeping hold of the ball throughout the 90 minutes, although we weren't clear about our game either. Porto played well, but it wasn't our night at all."
Nevertheless, the former Real Madrid boss is optimistic about next month's second leg - if Malaga can get more of the ball. He also felt Moutinho's goal should have been ruled out.
"Despite Porto's dominance of the match, they didn't really cause a lot of trouble for Willy Caballero, and I think that their goal was actually offside," Pellegrini added.
"If we return to our usual style of play, I think we can turn things around at home. By improving our control and possession of the ball, it's perfectly feasible that we can return to winning ways at home."
Porto coach Vitor Pereira felt his side deserved a bigger lead to take to La Rosaleda.
He said: "We fulfilled our objective of winning this match, and even though we could have scored more goals, I think a 2-0 win would have been a more accurate result.
"They defended well however, although their attacking display wasn't as strong as in other matches. They didn't create many chances to score, but we're expecting a difficult return leg in Malaga. We believe we're capable of qualifying, though."
Source: PA


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If Monday was all about the rain, Tuesday was all about the wind.
For the second day in a row, a series of extreme weather systems battered Southern California, prompting a rare tornado warning from the National Weather Service. On Monday, a rainstorm flooded streets, a school and a church. Tuesday brought with it a tornado touching down in Costa Mesa.
Newport Beach Fire Department officials Tuesday reported measuring a wind gust of up to 93 mph at lifeguard headquarters at the Newport Pier. Sustained winds were measured at more than 50 mph there, officials said.


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Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM already has been awarded one of the 10 contracts, worth $1 billion. According to Andy Maner, managing partner of U.S. Federal for IBM Global Services, IBM is in position to offer all seven of the IT task categories outlined by the contracts: storage, secure file transfer, virtual machine, database hosting, Web hosting, development and test environments, and SAP application hosting services.
"For us, we believe that cloud is more than just a word, it's a way of computing. Technology allows people to do things more efficiently but in order to take advantage you have to bring the whole life cycle to the table where you bring software, services, actual infrastructure, new capabilities, security," said Maner. "It's a real advantage for us because we bring a full stack of infrastructure, software, consulting, the facilities, and clearances and this contract provides a long-run vehicle [the department] can evolve over time, and the good news is that other agencies see this as an efficiently run vehicle and others will join."


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Eileen "Momi" Naughton is NHERC Heritage Center coordinatorUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
Dir, Media Rel, University Relations
The College of Continuing Education and Community Service (CCECS) announces the selection of Dr. Eileen "Momi" Naughton as the Heritage Center coordinator for the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo North Hawaiʻi Education & Research Center (NHERC) in Honoka'a.
As the Heritage Center coordinator, Naughton will be responsible for developing and operating the Heritage Center, acquiring and overseeing management and care of collections and curatorial and pedagogical activities, developing and delivering programming to support preservation and dissemination of North Hawai'i history and heritage; overseeing fundraising and marketing efforts, coordinating student research and instructing an occasional credit or non-credit class.
"The addition of a Heritage Center to NHERC will add to the quality of offerings that NHERC currently provides," noted NHERC Director Farrah-Marie Gomes. "In addition to offering post-secondary credit and non-credit courses, NHERC serves as a community center and meeting place for groups in the region.
"Preservation of the area's heritage is important to the North Hawai'i region because of the economic changes the community has experienced in the last few decades," she added. "We are thrilled that Dr. Naughton is excited about helping the community be able to protect and preserve its rich history, culture, and heritage so that it can be passed on to future generations."
Naughton holds a Ph.D. in communication with emphasis in visual communications in museum and heritage interpretation from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.


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BOONVILLE - Perry Central placed four runners in the top 11 to win the Boonville invitational boys cross country meet Saturday.
Tell City, led by fourth-place finisher Alex Fenn, placed fourth in the 14-team meet.
Tell City freshman Sarah Goffinet won the girls race to lead the Marksmen to third place in it. Perry Central finished fourth.
Jake Schwartz placed third in 16:43, one second ahead of Tell City's Fenn, to lead Perry Central in the boys race.
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This is getting tedious, but a blog's gotta do what a blogs's gotta do. Republicans, you're wrong again. Wrongier than wrong. Wrong wrong wrong:
The incredible shrinking budget deficit in the Obama era - a well-kept secret for most of U.S. http://t.co/A2Pz0AvjAV pic.twitter.com/a6TfsytDM2
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen) August 27, 2014
The federal deficit continues to decline thanks to budget cuts and slower growth in Medicare costs, but lower than expected corporate tax revenues dimmed some of the improved outlook, according to a report Wednesday from the Congressional Budget Office.
And Benen piles on. More at the link:
This remains a basic budgetary truism that Republicans continue to resist. Indeed, last year, when top marginal rates increased on households making more than $400,000 a year, a variety of GOP lawmakers argued that this would likely cause the deficit to go up – as they saw it, higher taxes on the wealthy would slow growth, which would mean fewer jobs, which would mean fewer people paying income taxes, which would mean a larger deficit.
And we now know they were wrong – again – though this will probably do nothing to shake the Beltway perception of the GOP as the "fiscally responsible" party.
Let's also note that the shrinking deficit – we're seeing the fastest reduction since the end of World War II – is also one of the nation's best-kept secrets. [...] [T]he reality is, we're witnessing deficit reduction at a truly remarkable clip. Every conservative complaint about fiscal recklessness and irresponsibility in the Obama era is completely divorced from reality.
Per the most reliable news source in the whole wide world, Fox Biz, comes this upbeat news via a couple of email alerts:
The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits fell last week to 298,000 from an upwardly revised 299,000 the week prior. Economists expected claims to rise to 300,000 from an initially reported 298,000.
The Commerce Department reports the economy expanded at an annualized pace of 4.2% in the second quarter, higher than an original estimate of 4%, also beating expectations of 3.9%.


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The last thing any driver needs is a vehicle that breaks down in cold, harsh winter weather. It's not too late to have your vehicle checked, saving you from the cost and hassle of unexpected emergency repairs when severe weather strikes.
Battery – Keep the battery connections clean, tight and corrosion-free. Batteries don't always give warning signs before they fail completely so it's wise to replace batteries that are more than three years old.
Antifreeze – Antifreeze (coolant) should be flushed and refilled at least every two years in most vehicles. As a reminder, do not add 100 percent antifreeze as full-strength antifreeze actually has a lower freeze point than when mixed with water.
Brakes – Have the brakes checked. The braking system is the vehicle's most important safety item and is key while driving on icy or snow-covered roads.
Tires – Check the tire tread depth and tire pressure. If snow and ice are a problem in your area, consider special tires designed to grip slick roads. During winter, tire pressure should be checked weekly as tires will lose pressure when temperatures drop.
Oil – Be diligent about changing the oil and filter at recommended intervals. Dirty oil can spell trouble in winter. Consider changing to low-viscosity oil in winter, as it will flow more easily between moving parts when cold.
Wiper Blades – Cold weather can affect the life of windshield wipers. Wiper blades that are cracked or torn, or that chatter, streak and don't properly clean your windshield, should be changed. Check the windshield washer reservoir in case it needs fluid.
Be sure to keep your vehicle's gas tank at least half full as that decreases the chances of moisture forming in the gas lines and possibly freezing. If you're due for a tune-up, consider having it done as winter weather magnifies existing problems such as pings, hard starts, sluggish performance or rough idling. To help you drive smart and save money, visit www.carcare.org and check out the free digital Car Care Guide.


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DETROIT, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers union called for protests at about 75 U.S. Hyundai Motor Co <005380.KS> dealerships on Wednesday in support of a South Korean woman who filed a sexual harassment claim against one of the automaker's suppliers. Targeting Hyundai's U.S. dealers on Wednesday with "informational leafleting" does not mean the South Korean automaker will be singled out by the UAW in its planned organizing campaign, said UAW spokeswoman Michele Martin. UAW ...
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Sid wakes up and discovers that his ice pops melted! This sticky situation leads him to ask," Why do things have to melt?" After investigating at school, Sid learns that if liquids don't stay in a really cold place, they slowly melt over time. He also discovers that liquids can freeze into solid ice and then melt right back into liquid.
Visit the Website: http://pbskids.org/sid/
Episode #108 / Length: 28 minutes


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The hardtracking staff at Sneak Adtack noted yesterday that Facebook has alerted its Faceherd to several changes in its Data Use Policy, including:
New tools for managing your Facebook Messages
Changes to how we refer to certain products
Tips on managing your Timeline
Reminders about what's visible to other people on Facebook
Sorry to say, we also buried the lede. Which is this (via the Associated Press) . . .
Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.


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George Kottaras hit a solo homer in the 10th inning, lifting the Oakland Athletics over the Texas Rangers, 3-2, in the second test of a four-game series.
Chris Carter also hit a solo homer for the A's, who are now a half-game behind the Orioles for the top wild card spot in the AL. Baltimore lost to Toronto on Tuesday.
"The farther you go into a season, each and every win has a little bit more magnitude to it," said A's manager Bob Melvin. "This team has responded like this many, many times this year so it doesn't surprise me."
Oakland starter Tommy Milone gave up two unearned runs on six hits over six innings. Evan Scribner (1-0) tossed a scoreless ninth to pick up his first win in the big leagues.
Scott Feldman got the start for Texas after Yu Darvish was scratched due to neck stiffness. He allowed two runs on four hits over four-plus innings. Mark Lowe (0-2) gave up the homer to Kottaras to take the loss.
The Rangers hold a four-game lead over Oakland for first place in the AL West.
Texas scored a pair of runs in the first. Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus hit consecutive singles to start the inning. Josh Hamilton followed with a single to right that rolled past Brandon Moss. The ball went all the way to the wall and both runners scored on the error.
Oakland managed to get one run back in the second. Moss walked, moved to second on Carter's walk and raced home on Daric Barton's double to right.
Carter's solo homer to left in the fourth made it a 2-2 game.
Moss made up for his earlier mistake with a nice catch in the seventh. With the bases loaded and two outs, Andrus hit a fly ball to deep right field. Moss got a great jump on the ball and made a good catch at the warning track.
The A's stranded a runner on third in the eighth.
In the 10th, Kottaras smacked a 3-2 pitch from Lowe into the second deck in right.
"I fell behind him and I definitely didn't want to put him on," said Lowe. "It was a fastball and I kind of just pulled it over the middle of the plate."
Grant Balfour was perfect in the bottom half to pick up his 21st save of the season.
Game Notes
The season series is tied, 7-7 ... Each team had seven hits ... The A's struck out 15 times ... Oakland went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and stranded seven ... Texas went 1-for-6 with RISP and left six men on.


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Enter vim, you rarely need to remove your fingers from the home row.
But I don't think it matters much, maybe if all you're doing is copying someone elses code without thinking about it. In most cases thinking about the problem at hand takes a lot more time than actually typing the code..
Enter vim, you rarely need to remove your fingers from the home row.
Except, you know, every three seconds, unless you have remapped your keyboard so that the most important command in vim is not assigned to the far top left corner of the keyboard.
I prefer Apple's aluminum keyboard. You can slice your rivals' heads off with one fell swoop.
- Jasen.
I'm a programmer, and I think I type very well; much better in fact than people who can touch type - but not because I type faster. The way I type does not requires me to bend my wrists; i've gotten pretty fast without stressing my wrists, while people I know have been forced into an early retirement because they can no longer type.
The first rule of typing should be: DO NO HARM,.
after that, suit yourself.
'I can't take slow typists seriously as programmers,' wrote Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood last fall. 'When was the last time you saw a hunt-and-peck pianist?'
When was the last time you ran a program where the WPM of the developer affected the quality of the code? Because the frequency of and careful regularity and emotion seriously affects piano performances whereas the symbols per minute inputted by a developer is independent of the speed, quality or maintainability of software. Sure, you might put forth that they can produce much more code or much more comments but let's face it: I'll take quality over quantity in regards to code any day of the week.
A short simple anecdote was my Greek professor in college. Taught me pattern recognition and I went to his office hours where he was pecking away at the keyboard having just been forced onto English QWERTY. The old man still wrote some pretty badass pattern recognition algorithms in Matlab for the course. Might have taken him all week to peck them out while looking at some recently published papers but the stuff was pretty efficient and easy to read for Matlab. I took him pretty seriously.
At my high school, in order to take advanced placement computer science courses, you had to pass some WPM typing course. Rarely have I felt a course to be such a complete waste of time and genuinely a turnoff to people looking to study programming.
Actually, the more you type and the less you pause to think the more likely what you type will have to be scrapped later.
I can do something as 15 loops one under another. Or I can find a pattern in what these loops are similar to each other and write the code as two nested loops. Surely fast typing would make writing the 15 loops easier...
But once you've thought about what you want, it helps to be able to touch type instead of hunt&peck. It lets you follow the path that much more smoothly.
I'd say though, that it's not so much typing speed as much as the ability to touch type, no matter how fast, that matters.
There could be a business opportunity there. In order for your program to work I need to be in my office typing in all those dialogue messages as they are displayed. My rates are...
Another argument: Pair programming increases code quality. Surely two people sharing one keyboard doesn't increase the typing speed.
Best comment in the whole thread. Unfortunately, I'm posting instead of modding.
Anyway, all the naysaying repsonses probably (for the most part) be judged to be slow typists sour grapes.
After all, why would someone who knows how type disparage the ability to do so?
It's like a knowledge worker who claims he mainly just "thinks" and doesn't need to know how to write. Typing is the ability to computerize your thoughts after you're done thinking.
I call bullshit.
Most programmers can touch type (hitting at least 50 wpm, which is only 1/3 the speed of the fastest typist in the world), yet most code is lacking in detailed comments and meaningful symbol names.
Someone who types quickly thinks very little of writing a few lines of documentation at the start of each function and of providing comments with full sentences explaining why various approaches were chosen.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Quick typists apparently don't think about what they type, and just splatter shit all over the place. Making code hell to understand
A slow typist, however, cares a lot more about each and every word they type, so the code is far more likely to be concise (no
When was the last time you ran a program where the WPM of the developer affected the quality of the code?
I don't believe that it was insinuated that there was a linear relation between WPM and code quality. Yet, there is a clear connection between coding experience and the time spent hacking away on a keyboard. Therefore, if someone happens to be unable to type at a reasonable speed then that person certainly hasn't spent enough time in front of a computer, and at best only a fraction of that time deve
You are completely correct, it's completely absurd, especially in specialised disciplines. You know how you can tell when I'm programming? I'm sat in the office with my feet up throwing a ball in the air. Thinking.
It does help a little to have some typing speed, but haste makes waste.
The most important factor in programming is not speed, but solid code. If you write lots of code, but the code is buggy, the time to track the bugs will easily eat any time savings gained by speed.
When it comes to debugging, thinking through the problem before trying to trace solve it will save more time then faster typing in the debugger. If by careful analysis, you can rule out 90% of the area of the problem, you have just reduced the time to track the problem by 90%.
A moderate typing speed suffices. Say, oh, 30wpm, or thereabouts?
If you're not typing at a reasonable speed, you're going to have an incentive to shorten variable and function/method names from something reasonable to something cryptic. You're going to avoid typing documentation, or worse, propose that your cryptic POS code is 'self documenting'. You're going to be an unpleasant partner if you end up pair-programming. All this means you're not only affecting
If you're spending most of your time as a programmer typing, or even dealing directly with source code, then there's a lot more wrong with this picture than typing speed. Keying in code should be one of the most trivial parts of the job.
I'd say being able to type well will probably improve ones enjoyment. It may save a few minutes here and there. It is certainly annoying to watch someone else type slowly when you're waiting on something. Still, it has little or nothing to do with one's ability to program or ability to complete coding tasks quickly and well.
Good programmers spend the vast majority of their time thinking, not typing. A better music analogy than Atwood's hunt-and-peck pianist is composers. Composers reiterate over their ideas for a period of time then write to paper only when they feel the ideas may be worth committing to.
Yes, but that thinking doesn't necessarily happen while constantly staring at the monitor, nor it occurs uninterrupted until you discover the meaning of life. Beyond required phases of analysis and design, or as a response to inevitable interruptions to one's thinking muse, we do a lot of prototyping and experimentation. There is this thinking process that occurs by tinkering and exploring. Barring areas of high criticality, software development is a highly iterative process that involves bout of (sometimes
Programming is the same. I would much rather a programmer actually put more thought into algorithms and design than churning out code.
the thing is, often you do need to write boilerplate-ish code (think unit tests), or code where you know EXACTLY what you want to do already, so maximal coding throughput is still very important: very few people spend their working time writing code where every line requires a lot of thought, most people will write code where maybe 20% of it is non-trivial and requires a lot of investigation, and 80% is "trivial" code to support the 20%. The more experience you have the more likely the ratio skews towards "
I sort of agree but the analogy used by Jeff Atwood isn't perfectly suited for the situation.
Imagine that the pianist is trying perform a piece of music. That's the "creating a program" part expressed as "creating a musical performance". Now imagine that this pianist can never remember where the different keys are, do you think the performance he is able to put together is anything like the performance put together by a second pianist who "just knows" what key to press while reading the sheet music?
A pianist is the equivalent of a data entry clerk. They have a sheet in front of them and faithfully reproduce what's on it.
Not quite. Once you move beyond entry-level competitions, it's simply a given that anyone and everyone can play anything given to them flawlessly. Your performance is judged on how you interpreted the piece, not merely on the fact you can read sheet music.
For example, listen to Rachmaninoff [youtube.com] playing his Prelude in C# Minor versus a newer interpretation [youtube.com]. Especially compare 1:58 in Rachmaninoff's piano roll with ~1:20 in Peter Roper-Curzon's version; there's a lot going on beyond technical accuracy.
I find that I don't type very fast at all when I'm writing code; after all, the limiting factor there is how quickly I can think through what I want to do, not how quickly I can twiddle my fingers. I suppose if you're working from a very detailed design document you would need to be able to type quickly, but if it's that detailed why isn't it already a program?
On the other hand, I do find that I only rarely have to go back and re-write large sections of code; usually the worst that happens is that I need to run a regular expression over it.
I'm the same way.
The other day while coding I realized that I was typing waaaay faster than I normally do while typing.
Then I realized that it was because I was writing an IM.
After that I went back to coding and my typing slowed down tremendously.
Thinking about this, it's probably because over time I've learned that it saves a lot of time to slow down and consider the structure that you are creating when coding, and making sure that you have very few typos/switched variable names. Sometimes the tools can he
There is a reasonable basis to assume that a slow typist is not a decent coding. After all, typing speed is something which is naturally developed as the person keeps hammering away at the keyboard. So, although typing speed does not guarantee coding proficiency, if someone does not pass enough time in front of a keyboard to develop any decent speed then it is expected that that person hasn't spent much time writing software. And if someone hasn't invested all that time writing code then quite certainly that person sucks at coding.
This actually makes sense, and explains why typing speed doesn't cause good programming, but there might still be a correlation.
There is a reasonable basis to assume that a slow typist is not a decent coding. After all, typing speed is something which is naturally developed as the person keeps hammering away at the keyboard. So, although typing speed does not guarantee coding proficiency, if someone does not pass enough time in front of a keyboard to develop any decent speed then it is expected that that person hasn't spent much time writing software. And if someone hasn't invested all that time writing code then quite certainly that person sucks at coding.
For my own personal case, I was a typist for about 8 years before I went down the coding path so my views might be a bit skewed and subjective.
With that out of the way...
I would tend to agree that there is a correlation of typing speed and software development experience (or there should be for a proficient programmer with a shitload of coding man-hours.) A person that doesn't spend enough time coding will simply code at sucking. And if that person does not have typing skills a-priori then that person will not have good typing skills. So, it is fair to assume that a person that works as a programmer should have decent typing skills, not because he/she needs them for coding, but as a side-effect of programming exposure, in a manner proportional to the amount of work hours doing coding.
That is, I would see it as suspect to see a programmer that cannot type proficiently, be it with all 10 fingers or simply with their index fingers. And I would not reserve that suspicion only to senior programmers but even to fresh-out-of-school ones. Not just good, but passionate CS/MIS students (either BS or AS degree seekers) will have sufficient coding hours under their belt to inevitably develop some typing dexterity. Passionate art students paint and sculpt a shitload. Passionate electrical engineers spend a shitload of hours building circuits. Passionate CS/MIS students spend a shitload of hours coding. In all cases, it is a shitload of hours beyond the minimum requirement to get a degree.
Will lack of typing dexterity mean with utmost infallibility that someone sucks at coding (or that was a slacker in school)? Obviously not. But it would be hard not to see it as suspect.
Another thing is that yes, typing dexterity helps with coding, with prototyping, with hacking. Yes, we need to plan and design before we code, but when you know exactly what needs to be done, or when you have a sufficiently good idea to start prototyping (or when you are in the middle of a hack that *must happen*), bro, you better be able to get those streams of thought fluently down to your keyboard via your fingers. If you have done coding work for real, getting down to some really nice (or ugly but necessary) code, you know what I mean - that you are in your mojo coding that thing down.
I cannot imagine getting myself into that *zone* of coding while struggling with the keyboard. No way, no how. I cannot see how someone could get into that *zone* without good typing skills. Period.
You don't need typing skills for design. But you certainly need it to crank some code when the muse inspire you. And if the muse doesn't inspire you often, you are either in the wrong career choice, or you suck.
Still, at my 4-finger-combo, I can type moderately fast while creating correct code. I've seen kids who could touch-type faster than me, but didn't even know what programming is all about.
You are wrong.
An analogy is to compare a gourmet and a bulimic.
Typing fast is similar to eating large quantities of food in the fastest way, instead of appreciating the food you eat.
At my work, we have a super slow typist, and since we code with pair programming, when I worked with him, I wanted to take the keyboard, since he was so slow.
However, there are several points that were more important than speed:
1) the IDE (we use Visual Studio and Resharper) slows down the typing, because of the "Intelli
Its not the speed of the typing that matters, its the cognitive load. If you're spending all of your time trying to remember where the '}' key is, then you'll find it hard to keep your loop invariants invariant in your head. This leads to bugs.
If you type with two fingers, but can do it without looking or thinking about anything other than your code, then it doesn't much matter how fast you go. On the other hand, if you achieve incredibly coding speed by concentrating on your fingers, your code is sure to suffer.
I was going to post exactly this, but you beat me to the punch. There is another factor too, though. If you struggle to type, you're more likely to use brief, cryptic, incomprehensible identifiers in your code, and to omit even the most minimal of comments, creating major long-term headaches just to save yourself some short-term pain. In my experience, there is a minimal threshold below which I wouldn't want a programmer, because I simply wouldn't trust 'em to produce maintainable code, but I think it's
... "editor" typing speed is even more so, I can't believe how many times I have seen coworkers blindly typing everything out where a macro could have made them type 1/10th of the characters, not to mention how much faster they could be with an editor that supports rectangular copy+paste, automatic indenting, justification, alignment, auto-complete etc. etc. etc.
A medium-speed typist that's fully proficient in their editor of choice can output a LOT more lines of code than a super-fast typist that treats th
Modern IDEs tend to auto-complete so much that it really isn't a problem, even in verbose languages like Java. Then there are of course those languages that are so abstract and dense that it will never matter, like say Haskell.
Of course it matters. Sometimes. Your 'rate of creation' is simply the min(rate_of_typing, rate_of_thought). If you can type faster than you are currently thinking/creating/"solutionizing" then no, it doesn't matter, and there are a lot of times during code creation where this is the case; you need time to noodle, try things out, think about a solution, need some time. But, there are times where you know EXACTLY what you want the code to do/be/look like, and those times your typing speed can be the bottleneck, and there are a lot of times during code creation where THIS is the case too.
Speed typing isn't necessary, but when you're trying to debug something thorny and you're waiting for that one guy to stumble through commands.... hunting... pecking... typoing again and again while you have nothing better to do than resist the urge to rip the damn keyboard from his hands...
I've seen bad typing waste as much as 50% of the time of four rather well paid people.
Okay, so that's still better productivity than most meetings manage.
If a novelist writing 1000 words per day were able to type infinitely fast, he or she could save maybe an hour per day.
That is assuming that a novelist already knows on what to type and does not change his story while he is typing.
Perhaps they think of "journalists" or a better name would be "news paper fillers". A novelist will be payed by quality more then by quantity. A newspaper filler will be payed more by quantity.
Just typing this short piece I went back 6 times to change (small) and I already knew wh
Any reasonably intelligent person should be able to find the flaws in Atwood's analogies and synthesize several decent counter-arguments by themselves. The notion is ridiculous on its face and if the quality of this guy's analogies is any indication of his mental acuity then I'm surprised anyone reads his blog at all. I'm not sure why such a laughably flawed statement should prompt anything but derision, but Slashdot being what it is today, I suppose it is the right place for such a discussion to take place.
Good point. We might even take more points from him for his flawed argument than for another's slow typing.
Because poor typing skills will lead to you writing less readable code with a lot more shorthand. Shorter variable names, shorter function names, if you don't got good typing skills you'll end up coding using lots of do( x ); where parse( record ); would be far better. You can pretend it doesn't happen, or you can pretend it doesn't matter, but you inevitably drop the "fluff" because it's "slowing you down". I've tried it, it actually requires more typing to write code you'd want to come back to later, all that context that's spinning up in your head telling you what all the variables are and the abbriviations mean will be lost. Being able to type it out quickly and effortlessly without losing the flow of the code you are working on is a big advantage. It's not the typing speed itself though, it's getting to the point where your typing doesn't interfere or slow down your thinking. But when you're typing naturally without thinking that is a highly skilled typer..
Frankly, I can deal with programmers who are "slow" typists. Within reason of course, but in general, unless they're coding in Pascal (and even then, they will probably have learned by now how to quickly type those 'begin's and 'end's) or another language more suited to writing novels than code, what big difference will it make provided they know how to code?
What matters to me is their ability to use an English keyboard layout and do not have to insist in their own language. This becomes especially obvious in a multi language team (i.e. where English is the language of choice even if nobody has it as his native language because, well, it's the ONLY language they share), where you might be forced to use someone else's machine for something only to find out that you can't find ANY important characters because they're conveniently tucked away somewhere safe.
But more important, have you ever noticed how all those important brackets and punctuation that you NEED in 99% of the languages are near impossible to type without breaking your fingers on non-English keyboard, especially if that language has to deal with a lot of diacritical characters? On most non-English keyboard the { and } brackets are only reachable with the combination of Alt-GR and 7-0. And let's not even talk about the "Polish writing keyboard layout", which is a nightmare to program with. I still think they did it on purpose, I cannot imagine that anyone could actually code using such a layout.
If you are programming, and you happen to "suffer" from one of those layouts, try switching to an English layout. When I started to code, I was wondering who the FU.. could come up with the idea that { and } would be sensible to use for something you need, like, every other character. Once I switched to English, it started to make sense.
But more important, have you ever noticed how all those important brackets and punctuation that you NEED in 99% of the languages are near impossible to type without breaking your fingers on non-English keyboard, especially if that language has to deal with a lot of diacritical characters? On most non-English keyboard the { and } brackets are only reachable with the combination of Alt-GR and 7-0. And let's not even talk about the "Polish writing keyboard layout", which is a nightmare to program with. I still think they did it on purpose, I cannot imagine that anyone could actually code using such a layout.
If you are programming, and you happen to "suffer" from one of those layouts, try switching to an English layout. When I started to code, I was wondering who the FU.. could come up with the idea that { and } would be sensible to use for something you need, like, every other character. Once I switched to English, it started to make sense.
Agreed. I switched to a UK layout about 10 years ago, as I was living in the UK and started programming more seriously. In retrospect I wonder how I managed to use Linux, including shell scripting, HTML, latex etc. with a Finnish keyboard prior to that. For typing in Finnish, there is fortunately a way for fast switching in Xorg.
As for typing speed and programming, there are also things like comments and documentation. For these it is great if you can write extended natural-language text without frustrat
Man, what an ethno-centric, you're the kind that gives Americans a bad reputation.
1) My native language would be very annoying to write on a US keyboard. Try finding the alt codes for æøåÆØÅ if you don't believe me.
2) I know where all the symbols are in my layout, trying to use two layouts is like if I'd randomly switch your keyboard between dvorak and qwerty.
If you're going to use multiple keyboard inputs, you can easily configure a computer to work that way. There's a little
1) I'm not from the US. My native keyboard contains no æøåÆØÅ but instead öäüÖÄÜ and I raise by an ß. May I still play? Btw, we use QWERTZ instead of QEWRTY, just to make things more interesting. And I'm kinda sure that your standardization bureaucracy found a neat way to substitute those æøåÆØÅ characters like we did with oe for ö and ue for ü, etc. It's hardly impossible to emulate those characters without having an ASCII-table crib sheet.
2) Of course I do know where all the symbols are on my native keyboard layout. I learned typing and also programming using one. And yes, with the more recent Windows and Linux versions it became easier to actually switch between layouts, which is why I do now definitely recommend switching to a US layout for programming, since it is trivially easy to switch to and fro between "programming" and "writing" mode.
If you read my post again without the implicit imagination that I'm trying to press for some US-centric keyboard layout imperialism, you might notice that I wanted to show that it becomes heaps easier to program using a US keyboard layout, and you don't break your fingers every time you're supposed to type { or }, or pretty much anything else you need for "normal computer operation". Oh, btw, on my native keyboard, the backslash is AltGr-ß. What's more irritating even is that @ is AltGr-q. Do you know how irritating it can be to accidentally hit AltGr-Tab instead on a Windows machine? Compare that to the fairly uncomplicated handling on a US keyboard.
Makes sense now?
...any branch of CS/IT, study of which includes time-limited exams during which you have to churn out large quantities of functional but utterly boring code.
Oh, and also if you happen to be applying for a job of John Travolta's personal coder. [youtube.com]
I'd argue that for programming, in which typing is a necessary step while not being the desired product unto itself, typing slower or typing faster is not the point. Effort spent typing is the point. As a distraction, typing becomes problematic for programmers. Being one myself, expressing a complex relationship in code would be hindered by any increase to the distraction of typing that code.
Expending ten times the effort on typing, would quickly reduce the quality and cohesiveness of my code -- which is
I work with someone like that. He hits a lot of keys in a very short period of time... but almost half of them are the backspace key, because he almost never hits the key he wants to hit.
It sounds like he's getting a lot of work done. If you look over his shoulder, you might find out he's spent the past five minutes trying to scp his editor's configuration file from one machine to another.
Touch typists generally use more verbose variable names and more comments, because it's much more natural for them to type a lot of words. This makes their code a lot more readable, which saves money in the end since a *lot* of the cost of software is in maintenance and the only performance factor that really counts is not cpu cycles, memory usage or bandwith utilization, but euros, dollars, rupees, yens or whatever your legal tender is. The programmer's time is (one of) the most costly aspect(s) of software development. A crufty codebase is much easier to read and maintian with comments *really* explaining fixes and variable names explaining what they're used for. I see so much code with comments like '// Issue #24654' or variable names like 'i' or 'j' in functions that span more than 50 lines (or whatever fits in one screen).
Of course there's more than typing speed involved in making maintainable code and I'm sure there are non touch typists who force themselves to make their code readable, but being able to type fast without thinking helps a lot.
I graduated from HS over 30 years ago, and I still remember touch typing as one of the two most valuable classes I ever took. Touch typing skill are valuable because it does get one away from hunt and peck. But typing speed has absolutely nothing to do with coding, since when I code, 90% of my time is spent looking at the screen and thinking about the code. Half of the rest is spent copying/moving code segments around. The 10% spent entering text are done a line or two at a time. The speed increase mad
I assume that anyone, barring physical handicap, can learn to type and will progressively get faster until they can express their thoughts somewhat directly. It's not a matter of the "think vs type" time ratio, it's not a matter of the logic acumen, it's not a matter of the raw speed. (Obviously the logic acumen is most important of all, but that's another skill that is usually developed over time.) I must say that without other information, I must assume a slow typist is an inexperienced computer user.
I've always been a very fast typist; many people I've worked with have noticed and commented on my typing speed. An Indian contractor I was working with wanted to know how I got that fast -- had I taken a class or used some typing training software that he could use so he could become as fast. I told him it was just something that came naturally to me and that I didn't really think typing speed was very important for software developers, because actually typing in code is a very small part of the process. B
I know of many cases in the last 20 years when my fingers have been blazing as I'm coding. Not writing code from scratch - but doing lots of find/replace (before IDEs had all these refactoring helpers). I can't remember the specific scenarios, but I know there have been times when my coworkers have heard the keys blazing non stop at high speed for several hours and wondered what the heck I was doing.
I seem to recall it around lots of manual typing of database field names in multiple places, maybe adding o
A true hunt-and-peck typist is concentrating on finding the letters when typing. A touch typist devotes almost no conscious effort to typing. If I try some unfamiliar keyboard layout, so that I can no longer touch type, I find that my coding has two mutually exclusive phases--thinking and typing. When using a layout for which I can touch type, there is only one phase--thinking. Thus, I think it is important that a coder be able to touch type.
As far as touch typing speed goes, it probably doesn't matter too
Thus spake the master programmer: "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"


text:
YORK, PA - The 2009-2010 York College men's swimming squad brims with talent and depth as they enter the new campaign. The Spartans will look to build on last season's tremendous momentum, evidenced by the Green and White breaking a total of ten school records, including eight individual marks, at last year's Capital Athletic Conference Championships. With the return of six swimmers who were at least part of those ten record-breaking events, the Spartans will look to continue their stay in the upper echelon of the league standings.
"We have an opportunity to have a strong season," Spartan head coach Gina McHenry said. "We have talented swimmers throughout our lineup and great senior leadership. These two things will be key for us throughout the year."
York sports seven seniors on this season's squad as Clark Arnold, Colin Brown, Andrew Demarest, Dan Kresser, Justin Murphy, Mike Murphy, and Adam Willier return for their final campaign. Amassing a 28-3 mark over the previous three seasons, including a 15-3 record in league meets, this group of Spartans have seen a second-place finish in each of their three CAC Championships. Led by Arnold and Mike Murphy, who captured the title in the 100 freestyle last year, this exceptional senior class could see the Green and White reach new heights.
"The seniors we have this year are simply a great group," McHenry raved. "They know that we are close to reaching that next level and are willing to do what it takes to get there."
York's seven juniors bolster the Spartans' upperclassmen-heavy roster. AJ Bean, Tom DeCoursey, Ben Hilt, Matt Kempel, Chris Schleicher, Steve Tobin, and Steve Yeager provide the Green and White with outstanding talent and the experience of two collegiate seasons already under their belts. Tobin could have a breakout year, after snapping a pair of individual breaststroke records at last season's championships. Bean finished second in the 200 backstroke just one year ago and will look for the top spot this season.
"There is a tremendous level of talent in our juniors this year," McHenry said. "They could all have great seasons and really push us over the edge. I am excited to see how each of them perform."
The Spartans' five sophomores continue the trend of strong classes as Alex Diehl, Jack Gottschalk, Jamie Hicks, Richard Janosky, and Brian Shaffer each return for their second season in the Green and White. Highlighted by Gottschalk, who made a huge splash in just his freshman campaign as he continually shattered previous Spartan records in distance freestyle events, this class could prove exceptional. With a year of experience and a full off-season of conditioning to their credit, the sophomore class has the potential to be scary good.
"There is significant talent here, no doubt about it," McHenry said referring to York's sophomores. "Sure they are young but their collective ability is outstanding."
York also sports a diverse group of freshmen who bring new energy to the Spartan pool. Kip Likes, Will McLennan, Steven Mercer, Andy Woods, and Tyler Ziegler bring quality talent and a fresh mindset that could propel York throughout the year.
"We really like the guys we brought in this season," McHenry said. "They are each sound swimmers who will provide quality to our roster. It will be exciting to see how they grow."
After finishing in second place in each of the past three seasons, McHenry knows that it will take a little extra for the Spartans to compete with CAC front-runner Mary Washington.
"They have a great program and they do some great things in the pool," McHenry commented on Mary Washington's men's swimming team. "But at the same time, we are not afraid of them anymore. We believe that we can compete come CAC Championships and that is what we are aiming toward."
With the league championships still months away, McHenry wants the Spartans to consistently build and improve throughout the year.
"We have altered the way we do things for this season," McHenry said. "Our practices are different, our meet schedule is different. That is by design so that we can improve each and every day and be primed for the end of the season. If that happens I think we will be in a great position come mid-February's championships."
The Green and White officially open their 2009-2010 season this Friday, November 6, as they host a pair of CAC foes. Hood and rival Mary Washington invade York's Grumbacher Sport & Fitness Center for a 6:00 p.m. tri-meet.
2009-2010 York College Men's Swimming Schedule
2009-2010 York College Men's Swimming Roster


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Piston Slap
Posted 26 January 2004 - 02:05 PM
Alright, I have the cold piston slap which is gradually becoming louder with miles accumulated, no surprize there.
But what I've noticed is that the slap doesn't occur when the engine is started, but rather it develops as heat is built into the cold engine by driving gently, and reaches peak intensity about the time the temp gauge reaches it's "normal" reading. From that point, it slowly diminishes as the engine warms further, and is gone after another 2-5 miles of driving (depending on ambient temp).
Geek type question:
Why the buildup of the slap noise during warmup? I'd think the piston, being the primary recipient of combustion heat during the warmup cycle, would expand faster than the bore during that period and therefore be subject to a snug, bore-fit.
This puzzle rattles in my head at least twice a day during the winter.
Posted 26 January 2004 - 02:52 PM
I am talking straight from the butt.
Posted 26 January 2004 - 08:25 PM
Originally posted by snotrocket
Maybe the oil takes a shorter time to thin out, aggrevating the slap, before the piston expands, reducing it.
Mmm... but it's the heat in the piston itself which is transferred through to the oil via under-crown splash (I do realize heat is also transferred to the oil via the heads).
I have pondered the oil viscosity thing before, but haven't experimented. So do you 'spose an oil that exhibited somewhat greater viscosity during the warmup would help?
I am talking straight from the butt.
I'm listening, but definitely not looking!!!
Posted 26 January 2004 - 08:28 PM
Posted 26 January 2004 - 08:34 PM
Posted 26 January 2004 - 08:56 PM
Posted 26 January 2004 - 09:01 PM
I am wondering if this is completely piston slap or if it's pin slap-- ya know, the thing banging against the piston pin.
Posted 26 January 2004 - 09:13 PM
Old ford 289's did it constantly, and it never hurt them. Sounded cool, too.
Posted 26 January 2004 - 10:36 PM
Posted 26 January 2004 - 11:35 PM
Posted 27 January 2004 - 12:36 AM
It's only really noticeable for me when the temp is in the teens or lower (F). And I don't like the noise when it's cold and you step on the gas, takes mine a few minutes after "normal" temp for it to go away and hot heat to actually get going..
Posted 27 January 2004 - 06:54 PM
On a 93 Wagon, it was the lifters causing prob. Replaced & ok, but the problem returned 2 wks. later. Found a tiny piece of rubber in an oil galley. Hmm?
Second thought...On my 98 OBW, slapping was loud. Asked a guy who works on subies only & he said to put some of this engine cleaner in my oil for a couple of changes. Although the noise is not gone, it did reduce it. SO check with your mechanic. I don't recall the name of mine, but it was a metal can & the color seems to have been blue. Sorry, memory from 9 mos. ago.
Good luck. Subes & the slapstick...what a trademark!
Posted 27 January 2004 - 08:24 PM
The first two winters I ran mobil 1 5W-30. This winter I tried to thicken it up just a bit by mixing (2)qts. 5W-30 with (2)qts. 0W-40, but it didn't seem to make any difference in the noise.
To anyone with a slapper: does the noise continue to get worse every winter (as the mileage accumulates), or does it level off at some point? This is my third winter with this vehicle, and the slap has gotten proggressively louder and longer each winter.
This car is a blast in the snow, it's like a friggin' go-cart. I love dusting Mustangs, Camaros, and 2WD pickups from light to light.
Posted 27 January 2004 - 08:56 PM
The piston slapping seems to have leveled off, but the general rattles seem to be getting worse every day. I do notice the same behavior with the engine not becoming completely quiet most days until the coolant temp gauge has been at normal for several miles.
Posted 27 January 2004 - 09:35 PM
Posted 28 January 2004 - 11:29 AM
When it gets below -30°c I use the block heater and it makes a BIG difference. I've tried every possible viscosity of oil and none of them make much difference.
Posted 28 January 2004 - 02:24 PM
SF is a fairly mild climate but on the colder ice on the windows days we had a few days ago it got pretty loud.
I am just running dealer dino.
Posted 28 January 2004 - 07:14 PM
Posted 28 January 2004 - 07:58 PM
Posted 28 January 2004 - 10:29 PM
Originally posted by North Ursalia
The other thing on the newer 2.5's that people mistake for piston slap is the timing belt tensioner. The new style tensioner Subaru started using around 1999/2000/2001 (depends on the model) is notorious for going bad, allowing the timing belt to actually slap against the timing belt cover. This also often goes away after warmup, which is why it is often overlooked as piston slap. Mine was particularly bad, and sounded like a bad exhaust manifold gasket.
Ahh... this was a concern of mine. I'm aware of the tensioner noise thing but wasn't sure if there was any way to positively differentiate it from the piston noise.
I would've thought for sure that the tensioner would begin making noise from the get-go rather than needing a short drive for the noise to develop (as on my car), but maybe I'm wrong?
Posted 28 January 2004 - 10:34 PM
Originally posted by Dr.Outback
the other thing that could be causing some tapping noises are the valves. solid lifter Subaru engines are scheduled for shims at 100K. Now if you use synthetic oil the clearance (wear) might never get to the point that the valves will need shimmed.
My '02 uses the old fashioned screw and locknut type adjustment (no shims). I had the covers off at 20k miles to check the clearance and found it had opened by only .001 over spec. I adjusted 'em back down anyway since I was already in there.
Posted 29 January 2004 - 01:45 AM
I have new belts, tensioner, water pump, and the usual seals.
Pistons will slap for a heck of a long time with little effect other than on your nerves.
Any of you folks who have done low money engine jobs like honeing out your cylinders with new rings and bearings when you should have bored it and fitted new pistons know what I am talking about.
When I was in school this was the only way I could afford to run a car.
Now here I am at 53 and I get piston slap again.
Posted 29 January 2004 - 10:27 AM
Originally posted by cookie
and having heard a heck of a lot of piston slap mine is nothing but that.
I have new belts, tensioner, water pump, and the usual seals.
Pistons will slap for a heck of a long time with little effect other than on your nerves.
Any of you folks who have done low money engine jobs like honeing out your cylinders with new rings and bearings when you should have bored it and fitted new pistons know what I am talking about.
When I was in school this was the only way I could afford to run a car.
The "cheap" way around that was the knurl tool for the piston skirts to expand little indentations and bumps. It could buy another 30-40k miles of driving on the old pistons.
Now here I am at 53 and I get piston slap again.
It's interesting to see all these problems that automakers had pretty much worked-out long ago popping up again in the quest for emissions and efficiency. e.g. sludging, piston slap, lean stumble, etc.
Posted 29 January 2004 - 11:09 AM
Most of those engines made about 30,000 miles before they were so shot that oil consumption was about the same as fuel.
But by then in Maine the body was a pile of rust anyway.
Posted 29 January 2004 - 03:04 PM
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Some "disturbing news" is heard by the "ladies" in the South Tama High School Drama Department's presentation of Greater Tuna this weekend in the Little Theatre. Shown are Jayden Hess, Emily Jantzen, Anna Dvorak, Maddie Nelson and Jensen Vodochodsky. The play is uder the direction of Dixie Forcht
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