text:
Filthy console peasants never seem to learn.
It's not just about frame rate either. A keyboard-mouse player will always be able to defeat a joystick player easily.
A keyboard-mouse player will always be able to defeat a joystick player easily.
Not if they're both sitting on the couch.
Why would a keyboard player sit on a couch?
To make it impossible for him to play in full capacity so the joystick player gets an advantage.
Why would a keyboard player sit on a couch?
Because it's comfy. A TV dinner tray makes for a good place to put the keyboard (and mouse too, if you need one).
Why do you say that? I play with KB+M from my couch perfectly fine, on a PC hooked up to a projector and 5.1 sound.
Takes a USB hub on my coffee table, and one of these things [ikea.com] on a pillow beside me for a proper (ie, elbow supporting) mouse surface.
Only Filthy PC Gamer Bourgeoisie think the only games that exist are first-person-shooters. But of course they are Filthy Cheap PC Gamers who buy Counter Strike a decade ago and play on de_dust over and over for 10 years and think that makes them the experts in what gaming is, or should be.
Filthy PC Gamer Philistines!
You know, what I find funny about this, is that the only console games I ever see commercials for these days are FPS, with the occasional Third Person affair.
This was modded "insightful"? Not funny or flamebait? Haha oh wow.
Will someone more aware of the rationale behind this tell me that this is not as retarded as it sounds?
It was so that lower spec PCs can run it.
That doesn't make any sense. Why not offer an install option to decompress the audio if that is the case?
I could see them wanting lossless audio, but FLAC isn't very computationally expensive, and fuck we have so many cores these days you could just dedicate one of them to this and only this and you wouldn't lose anything. It is also quite literally impossible to improve audio quality beyond 48/16 FLAC if you have normal human ears, and it costs all of nothing to implement.
When you have 128 FLACs playing back at the same time, the dynamics change.
You can't stream 128 uncompressed audio streams from the HDD simultaneously, which means they have to be preloaded, which means you could just as well store them in compressed form on HDD and uncompress during loading.
>>(35GB of uncompressed audio)
> It was so that lower spec PCs can run it.
OMG have you thought your answer through? that would be effective only for a PC which is powerful enough to manage the graphics and engine and does not spare the cycles for audio.
Given that a 166mhz pc from twenty years ago effortlessly decoded mp3s in realtime, that in the meantime people have improved decoders, encoders, formats that audio playing is parallelizable, that uncompressed audio requires uncompressed IO, I think "aliens wanted that" is a better explanation. The best of course being that a 45gb game is less piratable than a 10gb one.
It was claimed that uncompressing the audio would tie up an entire core. The large amount is also because they stupidly install all languages at once, even if you select a specific language at installation time.
That's the claim, but the probable truth is that it's intentional bloat to reduce piracy.
Watch for the rip that replaces all the audio files with 0 byte empty sound files...
C'mon, that'd be the lamest idea in anti-piracy since always-online.
That's the claim, but the probable truth is that it's intentional bloat to reduce piracy.
Considering that both the pirated and legitimate versions of the game has to be downloaded, how would forcing it to be a large download prevent piracy? It would make things harder to distribute the pirated version on optical media, but who does that these days?
It is as retarded as it sounds. There is absolutely no justification for it in this is this day and age. Using look ahead decompression and caching would be a net equal, or perhaps a smidgeon higher CPU usage. It means they are in effect wasting DMA bandwidth and CPU cache by streaming uncompressed files.
I'm a DSP guy by trade, and it's one thing that's obvious - game programmers don't know how to do sound properly.
They continue to insist on driving audio by the "main" game engine thread (see Valve's games with looping audio and stutters when things get busy). Or even when they dedicate a thread, they continue to use a push model for sound - when almost all modern audio APIs have agreed that a callback based model is the "correct" way. (The notable exception being OSS which is broken for this reason).
The pro-audio guys have pretty much nailed how you do low latency high priority audio, and the game programmers continue to get it wrong.
That's sadly a byproduct of how game engines are developed, I'm afraid. For the most part, game engines originate from graphics engine (so just graphics and then stuff tacked onto it), which means the vast majority of programmers working on the engine will be either generalist programmers or graphics programmers. In both cases, it's unlikely that they'll know how to deal with audio in any real capacity (I know I don't), so they'll use the same model that graphics uses: pushing commands.
Now, I'm sure that the larger devs have dedicated sound engineers, but I'm not sure just how much leeway they have with designing (and most likely, scrapping and completely redoing) the sound engine. It's also likely that their bosses will come from either a managerial background or a generalist programming or graphics programming background. Game development could use more specialists and needs to give them the flexibility they need.
Audio programming specialists like me are rare, but not unheard of. For most games, though, using a commercially available 3rd party engine is not only sufficient but probably preferred. So, the "audio programming" one is likely to do is mostly a case of resource management and integration with game development tools. It's the same reasoning as to how most games don't really require a custom-built game engine anymore - it's probably best left to the most specialized of games.
In my case, I was able to build a custom audio engine from scratch (yes, throwing away our old one) on top of the low-level audio API FMOD provides, but I think that's probably fairly rare nowadays, and for fairly good reasons. Our game was massive in scope, and had some pretty specific audio requirements and constraints, so it made sense to do this. I'd be pretty surprised if Titanfall had the sort of extreme requirements that we had, though, so they could probably get away with doing this. The fact that they could even fit all the uncompressed audio in a reasonable space demonstrates that there actually wasn't a lot of audio to begin with, at least not compared to the monster I was working on.
BTW, pushing commands works just fine for audio engines. In fact, it's the only sane way to do things at the high-level API, because that lets you efficiently and safely queue commands across a thread boundary. You're probably talking about push-vs-pull model audio processing, which is a complete non-issue, because game programmers almost never get down to that level of detail in the audio code. That's entirely handled by the low-level audio engine.
It is as retarded as it sounds. There is absolutely no justification for it in this is this day and age. Using look ahead decompression and caching would be a net equal, or perhaps a smidgeon higher CPU usage. It means they are in effect wasting DMA bandwidth and CPU cache by streaming uncompressed files.
I'm a DSP guy by trade, and it's one thing that's obvious - game programmers don't know how to do sound properly.
They continue to insist on driving audio by the "main" game engine thread (see Valve's games with looping audio and stutters when things get busy). Or even when they dedicate a thread, they continue to use a push model for sound - when almost all modern audio APIs have agreed that a callback based model is the "correct" way. (The notable exception being OSS which is broken for this reason).
The pro-audio guys have pretty much nailed how you do low latency high priority audio, and the game programmers continue to get it wrong.
As a professional game audio programmer, let me say that you're painting with a pretty large brush when you say that "game programmers don't know how to do sound." No offense intended, but you really shouldn't try to sound like an expert on game audio about unless you've worked on a AAA game engine. There are demands that games place on hardware systems that you really wouldn't understand. It's not like a DAW system where you can devote nearly 100% of the system resources to processing the audio. Yes, of course there are similarities, but the constraints and requirements are very different.
First of all, unless they're absolutely retarded, no audio programmer would push any sort of audio processing on the main thread. Sorry, but it just wouldn't, and isn't, happening. I don't even have to look at the source code to know that, because I know these guys aren't utter morons or incompetents.
Secondly, if you're a DSP guy, you're largely working at a level that game audio programmers do NOT typically work at - that is, the DSP and mixing level. Most game engines use professional third-party mixing/decoding engines with excellent, highly tuned code developed by specialists over many years of work, and are every bit as optimized as pro audio engines. Having used FMOD in our own game, I know it can decode and mix real-time compressed data in dozens of streams simultaneously, applying lowpass, highpass, reverb, echo, etc to them, and still only take up a small percentage of a single core. I believe Valve licenses the Miles Sound System, but I don't know for certain that this is the engine used in question.
That being said, I agree that leaving audio uncompressed seems unnecessary, at least for technical reasons. Having said that, I don't like to question the programmers judgment because I'm not there working on the project, and don't have all the fact. I have some recent experience with this, having recently shipped a game with a new, custom game engine I wrote that sits on top of the low-level FMOD mixing engine. We decided to keep all our samples compressed in memory, and were pretty impressed with the overall performance.
MP3 was used for most samples, as it has the most efficient decoder, and Vorbis was used when required for either seamless looping or multichannel audio. Additionally, each voice also had lowpass and highpass filtering performed on it. Dynamically calculated reverb settings and a custom echo filter I wrote was applied to the mix as well, plus the overhead of basic mixing operations, of which I used the highest quality 5-point spline-based mixing variation. We found that, on average, audio processing tended to take between 10 and 40 percent of a single core on a typical mid-grade PC (of about two years ago), depending on the level of activity going on at the time, with the vast majority of the CPU time used for audio decoding. Overall, it was pretty impressive to see all that being done in real-time without substantially impacting the rest of the game.
The real constraint in o
My guess would be that they could not use the same compression codec used on XBox due to licensing issues, found that out only briefly before release date and didn't have time to redo it for the PC version and all they could get done in time was to pump the uncompressed audio files out.
Whatever the rationale for the uncompressed audio, I've got a 3.20GHz hexacore, and it has trouble sometimes. A couple rounds I've had the audio completely cock up from what I can only describe as it trying to play too many sounds at once...then just playing broken bits...then completely breaking down, requiring me to tough it out until the audio is reinitialized with the start of the next round.
I'd also like to note that it took me about 45 minutes to download the whole game, and a whole hour and a half for the installation...most of which was spent extracting the audio.
That said, the game is abso-fucking-lutely amazing and I love it. I need to fix the cooler on my other 6870 so I can put it back in, SLI the suckers, and turn the graphics up to 11.
I wonder how much your audio problems are the result of having to load the audio files and juggle them around in RAM? Where's it get the samples from? I hope not load them on the fly, and at the same time I hope not pre-load them.
There are many cases where compression can actually speed up things as reading and writing huge data is more expensive than doing a bit of maths on the much smaller result.
A couple rounds I've had the audio completely cock up from what I can only describe as it trying to play too many sounds at once...then just playing broken bits...then completely breaking down, requiring me to tough it out until the audio is reinitialized with the start of the next round.
Sounds like the audio is running on a separate thread.
Most likely, the main audio parts are loaded at launch. The thread will then destroy and load current audio while the game is running, basically hot swapping.
The reason for the corruption is probably due to failed create/destroy requests, and didnt complete in the required time for the thread.
Either that, or they haven't made it truly thread safe. Could even be a simple case of the audio play request has been made and completed before the audio was destr
So, using onboard sound or a PCIe/PCI soundcard? If it's the first case, it'll most likely be a driver issue. And since most onboard solutions are realtek, you get what you pay for. Complete shit. If it's the latter, you can probably narrow it down to one of three things: Something wrong with the engine/driver. Incorrect PCI/e latency, an extra "feature" of the driver like various DSP modes causing an issue.
So, using onboard sound or a PCIe/PCI soundcard?
sound card? 1995 paged you - they want their sound blaster back.
He's right, you can still get sound cards, though given the prevalence of the aforementioned embedded Realtek audio (that is, shit) its uncommon to use them. I'm not really sure what the exact use case for them is, since windows threw the hardware acellerated audio baby out with the Vista bathwater, the hardware is just a shitty DAC, a puny amp and some 3.5mm jacks. The rest is at the mercy of whatever crap drivers the vendor bothers to release.
Killing hardware accelerated audio was just fucking stupid.
And since most onboard solutions are realtek, you get what you pay for. Complete shit.
Complete shit?! May you elaborate? Realtek produces quite damn advanced stuff [realtek.com.tw].
Impressive. It would take me just under 24 hours of constant, full-speed downloading before I'd manage to get 35GB.
Fuck you and your post internet connections! I say this in the nicest way possible of course, but it surprises me how much people under-appreciate what they have in terms of bandwidth.
The download was probably quite a bit smaller as the audio was compressed for download, it then had to be uncompressed for the installation.
The cynic in me wonders if the retarded idea of using uncompressed audio and not giving you the option to install just a subset such as the language of interest is some way of attempting to prevent piracy.
Maybe someone had the bright idea that people wouldn't bother trying to pirate that much data.
Maybe I'm just jaded.
I don't know a lot about content copying, but have compression tools gone out of fashion while I was not looking? I'd guess that even if the game itself was uncompressed, crackers would deliver it RAR'ed.
Why the odd 1408x792 resolution?
Presumably that's as far as they could dial it up without having the Xbone choke.
Per the article the Xbone is already choking and they are critical of the fact that they have the odd resolution with no real visible benefit while the game is unable to sustain 60fps.
The video is full of image tearing and stuttering.
Man a game like titanfall is for the hardcore gamer, a hardcore gamer worth its salt has a SSD these days. Asking for 35GB of SSD space just for audio is ridiculous.
The PS4 usually manages 1080p/60. It's the XBone that is seemingly lacking.
Please next time return the disk as it didn't work without requiring to download and install other things that didn't come on the disk. Probably no where on the box did it say you'd have to download more patches before the game would work. If the store doesn't take software returns, do a charge back on your credit card claiming the produce was defective (didn't contain everything needed to run) or didn't work as advertised.
Destroying the disk can be fun, but it doesn't send a message.
For starters, you already did the work of installing Origin and setting up an account. So even if you deleted Origin, you still already have an account so that work is a sunk cost. Second of all, you would have had to install that multi-gigabyte patch regardless of if Origin existed or not because you wouldn't have been able to connect to the game servers and play without it, so that has nothing to do with Origin. Third, the browser plugin is specific the the Battlefield Battle log feature. The game was designed to use a web browser as its server browser. It's something specific to BF and you would have had to do that to play it regardless of if Origin existed or not, and it's not a feature of Titanfall so you wouldn't have had to do that again to play Titanfall.
So right now, if you wanted to play Titanfall, your steps would be:
1. Install Origin.
2. Install Titanfall.
3. Log into Origin.
4. Possibly download a Titanfall patch (I don't know if there's a patch because I didn't buy it because I'm not a fan of CoD style shooters), which you would have had to do regardless of Origin's existence or non-existence.
5. Play.
That's it.
Seriously, 90% of your problems with "Origin" were problems with Battlefield.
I agree with most of what you said. With that said, I am really sick and tired of having to create an account on some service I don't care or need every time I buy a game. I already paid good money for the stupid game, but the greed of game distributors is endless. They probably milk the personal data they ask for for everything it's worth, and then they want to nickel and dime their customers to get every little trivial addition to the game, such as new players skins and weapons. Honestly, if buying a movi
I tried it with Battlefield the last Battlefield game and it was such a trainwreck I uninstalled it and tossed the game in the trash before ever getting to play it. It went something like this:
Buy the physical media ( dvd ) install game. Try to play, find out you have to install Steam, cuss, install Steam, register and do all the BS required. Try to play, find out there is a multi GB PATCH to install before I can play, cuss some more, start download ( which takes HOURS coming from their servers ) finally get it all downloaded, try to play, discover my browser opens up instead of the game...
About the only thing Steam doesn't require here, is a plugin for your browser.
Sorry, I just feel like pointing out the slag that other distribution systems seem to get when Steam does the exact same thing, or is worse. It reminds me of the kind of love Apple used to and still does get.
If you've ever written software that is ported to multiple platforms, you know that the performance of the ported version can only match the original, if serious performance tuning is done. Performance of ported software is not a measure of the hardware, but of the effort put into making it work better.
Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.


text:
It has the power to handle 250,000 gallons of wastewater every day, but leaders in Poplar Grove say this new treatment plant will also fuel growth in the community.
"We've built expansion facilities into it so it can be expanded if the community grows, and we know it's going to happen because we've got them banging on the door," says village president Roger Day.
Poplar Grove is flush with housing development proposals that will now become a reality because of the new sewer plant.
"It seems like a major part of our time the last few years has been talking about sewer systems or infrastructure. It's not the most glamorous thing to talk about," says Day.
Not just sewers, but water wells, roads, schools. The village's population has more than tripled since 1990 and there are certainly growing pains.
"One of the reasons we moved here is for the quiet." says Stanley Bates, who's lived in the community for 10 years.
Longtime residents say they enjoy the quiet small town feel of Poplar Grove, but admit it's hard to stop change.
"Progress is going to come no matter what, but it is a concern," says Bates.
"We're kind of getting squashed on both sides. We think we've got a handle on the growth. We hope at least anyhow," adds village president Day.
The new $3.3 million sewer plant was funded through a developer fee and a fee increase for all residents. The state of the art plant brings the village in compliance with EPA standards.
Recently Poplar Grove also build two new water wells and just Monday secured a permit to replace the village's other aging sewer plant south of town.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Revolution, Rights and Rules:
A Student's Guide to the Vermont Constitution
This 40-page booklet helps middle school
students understand the 220 year-old document
on which Vermont laws are based and how it
continues to shape our lives today. This
booklet includes questions, writing
assignments, and activities that encourage
students to use analytical and critical
thinking skills to express their own ideas
about concepts like justice. It
concludes with an exercise where the class
creates its own constitution. Click
here to download a pdf version.
Under the Golden Dome - A State House Tour Booklet
This booklet has activities to make your tour of the
Vermont State House fun as well as educational. Play
"legislative chutes and ladders", hunt for fossils, and learn
how to turn your ideas into laws! Click on the cover to
preview the booklet. These are distributed to classes that
book a State House tour. For more information about
booking a tour, contact Alice Merrill at the State House at
802-828-1411 or email at
email@example.com. Check out their website at
coolest thing here is our video, "Your Vote is
Your Voice."
Music, animations and special effects combine to tell you
everything you need to know about voting in just a few fun
minutes. Meet "The Head," an animated character
with an attitude in your favor, and let him answer all your
In Vermont, watch for a special showing at a school near
you this fall. Out-of-state? A few details may be different,
but the important stuff is the same where you live, so you
can request a copy by clicking here:
- or, you can watch it online here: PLAY
(Caution, this is a large file so
if your computer is still on dial up, you'd better
skip it.)
On the Road
to Congress, a board game from the Secretary of State's
game lets you seize the wheel of the electoral process! Drive
your campaign car through the path that a campaign for congressional
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stages to the final suspenseful moments
when the vote is
counted! It's a race to the finish and
the winner goes to the U.S. Congress! Do you have what it
takes to make it to Washington D.C.?!
This game was designed to complement a classroom civics
unit. Prior to its use as an educational tool students should
have a basic understanding of the role of the electoral process
in our democracy. The game comes with a short student packet
and vocabulary list to supplement learning by providing more
detailed information about what it takes to plan and implement
a political campaign for congress. A teacher's guide
highlights the educational content and the Vermont Department
of Education Grade Expectations that the game encompasses.
Click HERE
to order a copy for your school!


text: Connected Texas Broadband plans takes shape in East Texas towns By Chuck Smith • May 6, 2014 A series of meetings this month in East Texas will mark formal steps to draft a county-by-county broadband plan for the region. The East Texas Regional Broadband Initiative is a 14-county project led by the East Texas Council of Governments or ETCOG alongside the consultancy of Connected Texas, which aims to advance technology in rural Texas. Ron Turner, Connected Texas' community technology adviser, says he plans to hold meetings in all 14 counties to develop tailored plans for broadband connectivity.


text:
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A powerful storm system is marching across the Western U.S., leaving parts of Arizona, Nevada and California soaked as it bears down on New Mexico with predictions of widespread snow and freezing temperatures.
The fierce weather has led to at least five deaths, with flooding and water rescues reported in California, stranded drivers in Nevada and hundreds of crashes among desert dwellers in Arizona and New Mexico.
In eastern New Mexico, where freezing rain left highways slick, state police say a 4-year-old girl was killed Friday when her family's car slid across U.S. 70 and overturned.
Snowplows were busy clearing roads on Saturday as forecasters with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque braced for what they called a "big kahuna" of a storm.
The system was expected to head east and reach the Atlantic Coast by the middle of next week.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


text:
By ErinRua
The grey trees slept and the little streams tinkled and the thickets were silent with memory. Winter still held sway and weeks would pass before the earth quickened and birds sang in the greenwood. Thus it was that two hobbits crept on the quietest of quiet feet, so not a twig or dry leaf stirred in their passing. Here on the verge of the Old Forest it was unwise to draw attention, especially given the rumors of late. Strangers had been seen abroad; Big Folk with unsavory aspect, and strange things were whispered on the road towards Bree. Thus silence and secrecy ruled the hobbits' movements as they followed the thin tang of wood smoke.
"We should not have come so far!" hissed the first hobbit. Sigismond Brockhouse was the little fellow's name, but everyone called him Bert.
His bolder comrade was Falco Boffin, who simply frowned over his shoulder. "We can't very well stop now, can we? What if someone is setting the woods afire?"
"Who ever heard of a fire in winter?"
"Who ever heard of a fire in the Old Forest at all? As bounders we must attend to any and all strangeness on our borders." With a reassuring smile, Falco added, "Come on, we're within earshot of the road, we can't get lost."
Bert sighed and nodded his assent, but firmed his grip on his small hobbit bow. Forward once more they went, and no more words were spoken.
Grey trees watched and a cold breeze sighed. The tang of smoke grew subtly stronger. Silently they crept through the sleeping wood, and then they saw it. A wee little fire, scarcely enough to warm a pot of tea, and certainly not enough to truly warm the Man crouched before it. Both hobbits froze in place then sank silently behind a blackberry thicket.
Dark-haired and grim of face the man was, his mouth drawn and his brows lowered. He was, they realized, wounded and attempting to bandage himself. A sword lay sheathed beside him and against a log tilted a bow that was nearly as long as two hobbits placed end to end. The hobbits' hearts beat quicker. What sort of outlaw or brigand might this fellow be? Would he enter the Shire? Should they warn him away?
Gripping their own bows warily, the hobbits scarcely breathed as they watched. Long fingers worked quickly to tie a folded length of cloth over an ugly gash in the man's forearm. The fire had been risked, they realized, to heat a tin cup of water to clean the wound. It needed stitching, flashed the thought through Falco's mind.
Soon the knot was tied and the man gingerly plucked at the bandage to assure that it would stay in place. With a soft sigh he pulled down his sleeve and drew his cloak about him. Only then did the hobbits note the glint of a silver star pinning the cloak at the man's left shoulder.
"He's a -."
The voiceless whisper stilled. Bert's eyes were round as tea cups when Falco glanced at him. The expression softened to one of worry, to which Falco shook his head. Then at a nod both hobbits drew well back into the sheltering wood.
"He's hurt!" whispered Bert, as they huddled against the knee of a drowsy oak.
"Yes, I saw that."
"But what if he has other hurts?"
Dear, kind-hearted Bert. Falco smiled. "You might ask yourself if he has a wound and lives, what became of the enemy who hurt him?"
Bert's mouth formed a silent O, and then he frowned. That entire line of thought was more than a little discomfiting. Perhaps it was time to retreat within their own borders.
"Come on," said Falco. "Let's have us another look. If he's really hurt, we'll try to help him."
The man still sat before his tiny fire when they returned to their hiding place, his arms draped over his knees and his face turned upwards. The grey of the winter sky seemed mirrored in his eyes and Falco thought he looked tired and possibly hungry. Frowning, he bethought himself of his own little knapsack, wherein a nice fat sandwich, a meat pie, a sweet bun, a flask of buttermilk and two apples nestled comfortably. Should he step forward and offer it to this stranger?
Yet before he could puzzle an answer, the man rose to his knees. He scooped up his tin cup and poured what remained of its contents hissing and sputtering over the fire. Then he made a quick business of spreading the wet embers with a stick, stirring them into the damp earth, and last sifting several handfuls of leaves meticulously over the site.
The man was leaving. Falco exhaled a silent sigh.
The stranger arose and with deft motions belted on his sword and slung his bow over his shoulder. In seconds there would be little sign he had ever been there, and the first rain would erase all traces.
Tall he was, as he stood and took a deep breath. Perhaps his rest had renewed him, for he no longer seemed so weary or grim. In fact, a faint smile touched the corners of his mouth.
To the bony trees and slumbering earth, the man suddenly spoke in kindly tones. "If you are there, as I think you are, your borders are still safe. But remain watchful, friends."
Then with long, easy strides he left, steps barely stirring the fallen leaves as the forest swallowed him up. Behind him, the two hobbits watched in wonder.
"Well, fancy that," said Bert.
"Yes," replied Falco. "But at least that's one strange thing that went in our favor and not against it. Come on, let's go find a proper place to eat."
It was, he thought, an odd comfort to suppose that their borders were being watched from without, as well as within. But next time he would offer to share his lunch.
["At the time this story begins the Bounders, as they were called, had been greatly increased. There were many reports and complaints of strange persons and creatures prowling about the borders, or over them; the first sign that all was not quite as it should be, and always had been except in tales and legends of long ago."~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring: Prologue: Of the Ordering of the Shire.]
Thank you to Henneth Annun group members Nessime, MK, Dagmar Jung and fliewatuet for info on Bounders, and to the Henneth Annun hobbit-lovers for encouragement!


text:
Off to lunch last Sunday week in a blaze of warm spring sunshine to the Lord Nelson dining pub in Brightwell Baldwin, an Oxfordshire village between Watlington and Shillingford. Sounds like a place from a PJ Wodehouse novel or a Noel Coward musical. In fact the village was used as a backdrop in a couple of Midsomer Murder episodes.
This place has been around for some time and was highly recommended in a Sunday Times review some months ago. I booked a table in advance but when we got there the weather was so good we asked for and got a spare table in the garden. The reception was attentive.
From the menu I ordered Thai fishcakes to start, my wife something else off the menu, think it was a mushroom salad, followed by sea bass for the wife and a pan-fried lemon sole for me, with lyonnaise potatoes and an assortment of vegetables. This was all very nice, particularly the golden brown lyonnaise potatoes with onions. I had a peach melba for dessert which was relatively disappointing, followed by a lemon tea.
The pan-fried lemon sole was not on the main menu. I only got to know about it by overhearing the waitress mentioning the specials to another table. After we had finished the meal I also overheard that grilled sardines were available as a starter. I would have preferred that as a starter had I known. I do find overhearing these things in passing quite irritating. I wish we had been advised directly by the waiting staff.
The food was fine on a perfect spring day. The service was let down by irritating lapses, such as not being told of the off menu specials and also being slightly overcharged on the bill, £ 6.95 for the dessert when the menu price was £ 5.95. I pointed this out to them in passing but when I paid by debit card this had not been corrected although the debit card amount was 40p less than the bill for some reason. So I was 60p out but was not going to make myself look silly by complaining about that.
The interior of the pub is all inglenook and quaint charm. Must be quite pleasant to eat inside as well on a cold and wet day.
Afterwards we drove along the back lanes to Dorchester-on-Thames and had a ramble in the sun across the meadows to the Thames .
http://www.lordnelson-inn.co.uk/index.html Click on the video tour.


text:
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The University of Maryland announced Monday that a national search for a women's golf head coach will begin immediately. Jason Rodenhaver, who has served as the director of intercollegiate golf and has overseen both the men's and women's programs for the past three years, will continue his duties directing the men's program.
Prior to his role as the director of intercollegiate golf for both teams, Rodenhaver became the first head coach of the women's golf program in 1999. Overall, he served as the women's golf head coach for 12 years and has been associated with Maryland golf as a head coach, assistant, and student-athlete for over two decades.
"We would like to sincerely thank Jason for his commitment and long-standing service to the University of Maryland men's and women's golf programs. We're excited that he will continue to lead our men's program," Anderson said. "As an alum of the men's golf program, he truly appreciates what it means to be a part of Maryland athletics. We applaud the outstanding job he's done over the last three years as the director of intercollegiate golf. With our transition to the Big Ten, we felt this was an important step for both our men's and women's golf programs."
Rodenhaver led the women's program to six NCAA Regionals appearances, 18 team wins, 10 All-ACC honorees, 13 Academic All-Americans and seven individual tournament wins. In his three years with the men's team, he helped Sean Bosdosh earn All-ACC honors and earn individual bids to the NCAA Regionals in 2013 and 2014. His teams have won the President's Cup three times.
"I sincerely enjoyed the opportunity to be the director of intercollegiate golf over the past three years in addition to my responsibilities as the head coach of the women's program since its inception," Rodenhaver said. "Over the past 15 years, I've had the opportunity to work with many outstanding student-athletes and I look forward to continuing to do so in my role as the head coach of the men's golf team."
Rodenhaver played three seasons for the Terrapins and led the team to a fifth-place finish at the ACC Championship in 1994. That finish was the best for Maryland since 1978. He was a two-year captain of the men's golf team and participated in the NCAA East Regional in his senior season.


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American University Part of National Public Health Trend
Article ID: 597971
Released: 10-Jan-2013 3:55 PM EST
Source Newsroom: American University
Available for logged-in reporters only
Newswise — What do New York City's ban on large sugar-sweetened drinks, a recommendation that all pregnant women get the whooping cough vaccine, and fungal-tainted steroids for back pain have in common?
All three are public health issues that were at the center of major news media coverage in recent months. As globalization brings the world's population closer together, public health's importance is only going to increase. The Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) estimated that by 2020, 250,000 new health workers will be needed.
With a promising future and seemingly endless applications, it is no wonder that public health has rapidly become one of the hottest disciplines in undergraduate education. Colleges and universities without public health graduate programs or accredited schools of public health have launched the lion's share of undergraduate public health programs during the last decade, according to the ASPH.
American University is one of the latest four-year academic institutions to join their ranks, offering a minor, a bachelor of arts degree program, a bachelor of science degree program, and a program in which students earn their bachelor's degrees in three years. Already, the programs have proven to be popular. The university received 70 applications for the 15 slots in the first cohort for the three-year Public Health Scholars program.
"People are realizing the importance of how health impacts other sectors, which is driving the interest in public health," said Blake Bennett, assistant director of the Public Health Scholars program.
A Broad Discipline
But public health is more than fighting the obesity epidemic, disease prevention, and making sure medicines are safe for use. It is a broad category that reaches into our daily lives in a myriad of ways. Pollution, for example, is a public health issue. So are neighborhood walkability and food and water security. Just about anything that has the potential to impact the health of any human being falls under the public health umbrella.
"Public health is interdisciplinary by nature. The causes, cures, and preventive actions necessary to eliminate diseases extend beyond biological complexity," Bennett said. "AU's public health programs were designed with this in mind. Our students are more likely to take courses from faculty across multiple departments."
Quinn Hirsch, a freshman from Deerfield, IL, in AU's Public Health Scholars program, is a living example.
"I hope to be a doctor with Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans frontieres). I am currently taking upper level French courses and hope to work in developing francophone countries in communities that desperately need doctors," Hirsch said of her career aspirations.
While some of Hirsch's classmates are also interested in medical school, many of them are considering other avenues.
"Students have indicated desires to work as field researchers interacting with the public, to become epidemiologists, or to work on issues related to food access and security," Bennett said.
Living, Learning Together
The Public Health Scholars program is AU's most-recently launched three-year bachelor's degree program. Like the Global Scholars program that preceded it and the soon-to-be launched Politics, Policy, and Law Scholars program, the Public Health Scholars program provides students with an academically rigorous education that includes numerous opportunities for experiential learning, including service-learning as well as study abroad.
"I am really looking forward to studying abroad in India next fall, as well as the capstone project that will take place our third year," Hirsch said. "Studying abroad will be an experience unlike any other and I'm excited to learn about public health firsthand. Our capstone project is especially cool, since we will work with companies and agencies in the area to solve issues and potentially make connections for future careers in public health."
Also like AU's other three-year bachelor's degree programs, the Public Health Scholars students live together in the same residence hall, on the same floor.
"This type of environment creates a supportive network for the students," Bennett said.
"The living-learning community really drew me in, as well as the speakers who come just to talk to our program and the close relationships we have with our professors," Hirsch said.
Looking Ahead
Bennett agrees with the ASPH's predictions for a greater need for public health workers, citing aging medicine-resistant strains of viruses and bacteria, environmental issues, and health disparities as some of the most pressing public health issues.
Fortunately, Hirsch and her classmates are eager to rise to the challenge.
"I have always wanted to be a doctor and I adore community service. I felt like studying public health was a great combination of the two," Hirsch said. "This program is amazing, and I am having such a fantastic time living and learning with others who share my passion and have similar goals."


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By Mahua Venkatesh and Anupama Airy
"You may soon have options to invest in new financial instruments that are linked to gold, such as a possible gold bond.
"With savings rates dropping from 35% about five years ago, the government, trying to boost savings and discourage hoarding of gold in physical form as a speculative activity, is planning to soon come out with attractive paper products including gold bonds, riding on India's craze for gold.
"Though the details are yet to emerge, experts say that in such instruments investors may be allowed to invest cash or offer gold against an assured minimum return.
"At the time of maturity investors are given the option of receiving gold or cash. The funds raised are likely to be used to build infrastructure projects. The government is expected to offer soverign guarantee to notified companies that can sell such bonds and back it up with hedging in global gold markets to assure minimum returns linked to the metal. ...."


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Talk:Liberty City State
| This talk page is for discussing the Liberty City State article.
This includes commenting on the article, questioning whether it is correct, or adding suggestions for improvements
Questions about GTA games, not about the wiki page itself, should be asked at Community:Questions.Remember to always add your signature to the end of your comments/replies using four tildes:
Carcer City
Can you prove that Carcer City is in Liberty City State? Carcer being "nearby" LC doesn't necessarily mean that they are in the same state. LC could be near the edge of it's state and Carcer near the edge of it's. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 08:56, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- Anyone have any thoughts? Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 06:17, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
- There's a stat in GTA4 that says how far you traveled, one of them include "Liberty City to Carcer City". I don't know the distance for that.--spaceeinstein 09:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
- Distance doesn't mean much anyway, like I said, The two cities can be very close together but in separate states (the boarder goes straight through the two cities perhaps?). We need direct evidence, and I just don't think the evidence exists. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 10:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think there's any specific evidence to suggest Carcer City is in LC State. If there is (other than assumption) put it in. Otherwise, don't assume.
Liberty State
Can someone provide more sources on the actual name of the state? I have been taking plenty of screenshots when browsing around the city and found this.--Spaceeinstein 02:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
- To be honest, I don't know if Rockstar even really knows. I was about to say something along the lines of, "Well perhaps it's known by multiple names by civilians, but the Licence plates in GTA IV say Liberty City State, and that they would be correct to the official name as they are issued by the government", but after reading the entire notice in your screenshot, I realise that that is also from a government organisation. If the speculation (which I personally believe) of LC being a city-state is correct, then perhaps it's generally just referred to as Liberty City, which could explain why people have varying names for the state (never really naming it, or seeing it named). Perhaps because of this, mail services, etc, accept both? Or, accept using Liberty City as the state? Just trying to find possible solutions for an in-game mystery. EDIT: I know that the mail thing is unrealistic, but we're talking about something that Rockstar possibly didn't even think about when they gave the state several names (possibly for the reasons I mentioned). Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 10:02, December 27, 2009 (UTC)
- I am sure that I recently heard the name Liberty State while playing GTA: EFLC. I'll see if I can find it again. -- Master Sima Yi 05:39, April 26, 2010 (UTC)
Carcer City
How it can be in Liberty City State. About Carcer City it is referenced in both Liberty City Liberty City in GTA IV Era as well as in Liberty City in GTA III Era so how it can be in Liberty City State which is in GTA IV Era which does not share a canon of GTA III Era.
Liberty State in GTA III
If you take a close look at Claude's prison jumpsuit, you can see that is has Liberty State written on it.--Mackomontana 21:12, December 27, 2009 (UTC)
I think this page needs a move to "State of Liberty" to fit more in line with State of San Andreas. -- Master Sima Yi 15:59, July 3, 2010 (UTC)
- State of San Andreas is used to differentiate between that and the City of San Andreas, as both have the same name (simply San Andreas). In this case however, there is no reason to name the article anything besides the state's real name (it's not State of Liberty, it's either Liberty State or Liberty City State. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 10:22, July 5, 2010 (UTC)
- I think it should be renamed Liberty State, if I remember right, it was referred to as such by a ped having a conversation. Jackass2009 05:10, September 5, 2010 (UTC)
The capital should be Unknown, as New York City in real life (Liberty City's real-life counterpart) is not the capital of New York State (Liberty's Real-life Counterpart).
- Is it necessarily the truth in the GTA universe? Although we have yet to see the White House in Liberty City, one shouldn't make assumptions like these without proof. Oh and, sign your name with four tildes next time, thanks. Tempest 16:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


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DHCP Server Operations Guide
Applies To: Windows Server 2008
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is an IP standard designed to reduce the complexity of administering address configurations by using a server computer to centrally manage Internet Protocol version 4 (IP4) and IPv6 addresses and other related configuration details on your network. The DHCP service enables the server computer to perform as a DHCP server and configure DHCP-enabled client computers on your network.
DHCP includes Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP), which is used to perform multicast address assignment. When registered clients are dynamically assigned IP addresses through MADCAP, they can participate efficiently in the data stream process, such as for real-time video or audio network transmissions.
This operations guide provides administering and monitoring information for the DHCP server in the Windows Server® 2008 operating system.
In this guide
Produced by: Windows Server Division User Assistance
Writer: Corey Plett
Editor: Allyson Adley


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Cafe 31 Ducati build will be featured on Cafe Racer TV Tonight, Thursday April 19th, 8pm EST, Velocity Channel
Don't miss the first all Ducati build ever done for Café Racer TV. Season three kicks off tonight with two shows back to back featuring one of the most unusual Ducati's you will ever see. (and answers the question, that until now, now one was asking – what happens when you mix an 860GT with a Desmosedici RR?) Trust us, the result is awesome! In the process CRTV visits, Bologna, the Ducati factory and the most historic Ducati tuning workshop in the world, the home of Rino Caracchi, founder of NCR
About the Café 31:
Builder – DesmoPro, Rich Lambrechts
Best described as a true renaissance man whose talent spans the full gamut from machine work, to pinstripes and paint. Rich Lambrechts love of standout machines spans back to his childhood, in Detroit, Michigan where he grew up watching both his grandfathers at work at the Packard automobile factory. Café 31 was born in the history of the Italian brand, and then mated with the most state of the art components available to produce a machine as capable on the track as on the street. It's a tribute to Cook Neilson, Phil Schilling, Reno Carrachi and Giorgio Nepoti, four men all Ducati racing legend's and personal friends. Desmopro builds absolutely accurate restorations of Italian machines, destined for museums, as well as specialized builds like Café 31 and "Deja Blue" which can be seen in the entrance of the Barber museum in Leeds, AL.
Bike Specifications: Café 31 : http://www.ducati.net/2012/04/cafe-31-on-cafe-racer-tv-tonight/
Desmo Pro featured in Episodes – 1, 2 & 3
- Original Airs: 4/19, 4/19 & 4/26 @ 8:00PM


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Got half an hour to spare for one of the best players in the world?
This latest Cristiano Ronaldo tribute video is so simple it's brilliant. It's not his best skills, spliced together with his most camera-friendly pouts.
It's not even a Ronaldo versus Messi versus Neymar three-way face-off – we're not sure how that works either. It's just his best goals. All 363 of them.
From Sporting Lisbon to Real Madrid via Manchester United, sit back and enjoy 30 minutes of the best goals ever scored since 2003.
There's free-kicks, back-heels, 45-yard rockets and two-yard tap-ins. Every single goal scored by Cristiano Ronaldo is there. What a treat. Unless you're a Messi fan of course.
Anyway, check out the video. And if you're not completely drooling at the mouth come the end, how about you name your favourite goal in the comment box below. Easy!
Check out the video below – and credit to 101greatgoals.com for getting it up first...
Do YOU want to write for GiveMeSport? Get started today by signing-up and submitting an article HERE: https://www.givemesport.com/writeforgms


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Jonathan Frank is a kid at heart and an engineer by trade. His young son was the inspiration for his G-Car invention. In this case, G stands for gradient or the edge of printed lines, that Jonathan's battery-powered race cars will follow, allowing kids of all ages to design and print their own tracks instead of having to use typical plastic tracks. Children can print their own track designs and have their G-Cars follow whatever routes they can image. Jonathan wants his route to be straight to the top of the toy market, but will his car be able to travel the distance? Get your map out... it's going to be a wild ride!
Visit the Website: http://www.EverydayEdisons.com
Episode #306 / Length: 26 minutes


text:
Manchester United made a £38million deadline day bid for Brazil star Neymar, according to The Sun.
However, the striker snubbed Sir Alex Ferguson's advances, because he wants to stay at Santos until after the World Cup in 2014.
Liverpool are planning a shock move for former Juventus forward Alessandro Del Piero.
The Italian appeared set to sign for Australian A-League side Sydney FC, but could now make a u-turn and head for Anfield. (talkSPORT)
Arsenal have made Andrey Arshavin available on a free transfer, in the hope the forward will find a new club before the Russian transfer window closes on Thursday.
Dynamo Moscow remain the favourites to secure his signature. (Daily Telegraph)
Tottenham and Porto agreed a fee for the sale of Joao Moutinho on deadline day - but a third party stake in the Portuguese midfielder is the reason the deal was scuppered. (The Guardian)
And finally, Lyon have asked Chelsea to name their price for out-of-favour winger Florent Malouda - after the France international was left out of Roberto Di Matteo's Premier League and Champions League squads. (London Metro)
Do YOU want to write for GiveMeSport? Get started today by signing-up and submitting an article HERE: https://www.givemesport.com/writeforgms


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Western Digital has had self-destructing drives for years.
I think you are forgetting the infamous Hitachi DeskStar...
Good morning, Mr. Phelps...
In anticipation of this article my Adata SSD died last week. It is the second SSD I have had fail, the first being an Intel model which ran out of spare blocks and started corrupting data. I was able to save my data. The Adata one just stopped responding completely, all data lost, had to go to a week old backup.
SSDs are supposed to be more robust, but two out of three I have owned have failed. Touch wood but I have owned a lot of HDDs over the years and the failure rate has been much lower. Small sample siz
Western Digital has had self-destructing drives for years.
No, they just fail. The data is usually still they if you have the resources. The hard part is running dban on a failed hard drive.
Western Digital has had self-destructing drives for years.
No, they just fail. The data is usually still they if you have the resources. The hard part is running dban on a failed hard drive.
You're that guy at the party who ruins a good joke with 'facts', aren't you?
In any event, assuming you've got the resources, rather than running DBAN on a failed disk, you put a few holes in it with a drill press and fill it with epoxy.
OR, use a bulk tape eraser/degaussing wand on it for a little bit.
Drill several holes through the body of the HDD.
That reminds me of a double WD hard drives failure within a week, the main HD and its backup (this happened in a cloudless life). Amazing, they're even synchronized...
This is totally f@#$ standard. There are two drives bought at the same shop at the same time. Do you think the manufacturers specially made sure to mix them all in with drives from different places? They aren't even just the same batch. They have probably been produced within seconds of each other.
What do you think happens when a drive fails? Some capacitor has been made with the wrong chemicals; some piece of metal has impurities. Some bit was screwed too tight and is weakening the rest of the str
I think it was Steven Wright who asked "If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do they all have to drown?"
Western Digital has had self-destructing drives for years.
Interestingly enough, Western Digital is the only brand of drives I've had a repeatedly good experience with. Maxtor sucked. Seagates sucked for a while. Hitachi sucked. Not sure about Samsung, having never used them. I've only had one WD drive (out of about two dozen) fail inside the warranty period (and that was due to my fault causing a hardware problem; WD still replaced it with no questions asked). The others just keep trucking along.
I guess the old adage "your mileage may vary" still applies.
I guess the old adage "your mileage may vary" still applies.
I think it's more of a selective reinforcement thing.
Everybody seems to have a brand they're sure fails more than any other so they reinforce their beliefs based on subconscious selection of anecdote.
Me? I prefer WD, too - Velociraptors for performance and 'green' for mass-storage. I don't know if they're any better than other brands but I've got quite a few and never had a problem. The only disks I've owned that actually died on me before they became obsolete were Hitachi and Toshiba.
Same here. That's why I've always had a hard time swallowing the whole "Western Digital drives are crap" meme. If I had to choose a brand as a "crap", it would be Maxtor...I literally had a 0% survival rate beyond 3 years with one of their drives.
Western Digital drives, on the other hand, I've had nothing but good results with. My dad is still using both a 7.9 GB and a 13.1 GB Western Digital drive he bought pre-2000 in his Windows 98SE legacy machine (which I think only recognized up to 32 GB drives or
the only place I've ever heard Western Digital being considered shitty is here on
Me too. I think drives like the Velociraptor show they're tech leaders who know a thing or two about making hard disks. I don't see any other brands making disks that come close.
Shame you never used 'em because Samsung drives ROCK! I have put Samsung drives in construction trailers and shop floors, places where a Seagate or WD wouldn't survive the month and the Samsungs would just keep on purring. Their EcoDrives would often score damned close to the Seagate 7200RPM in my real world tests while being almost 40 degrees cooler. Hell I liked 'em so much when Tiger had the big sale right before the flood I changed out all my drives for Samsung 1Tb and 2Tb models, truly rock solid drive
...lets the smoke out of the circuitry by driving overcurrent to the NAND chips.
Quality Engineer: "Sir! This entire batch, tens of thousands of units! If we put them into normal conditions they'll blow with overcurrent!"
Senior VP: "Oh hell, what are we going to do? The board'll have our asses!"
Marketing: "I have an idea! We'll market these as self-destructable chips!"
Senior VP: "BRILLIANT!"
Perfect for Children's Toys
Make sure you connect the second "let the magic smoke out" method to a big red button with label that say, "DO NOT PUSH!"
Make sure you connect the second "let the magic smoke out" method to a big red button with label that say, "DO NOT PUSH!"
I've been wanting this on computers for years. I'd also like for the last thing the computer does before it completely dies to be playing a recording of someone saying, "Told you not to push it!"
playing a recording
10... 9... 8... 6...
Six? What happened to seven??
Just kidding!
Hmmm...I guess you never used SPARCstations from Sun. The power button for the system was the upper-right key on the keyboard (Type 5).
I've seen them replaced with red keycaps as well as entire rooms of systems with them physically removed.
In a weird way, they kinda actually are. More specifically, using them. Far as I know, using such a device when suspected of either crime would fall under destruction of property / interfering with investigation laws.
yes, yes I did
Also for Corporations, lawyers and other paper shredders
(who do far more harm than the terrorists and pedophiles).
After all, they are excellent tools for padeophiles and terrorists. Amirite?
I suspect that it depends how much other evidence they have. Nuking the only copy of something vital might well save you from conviction on more serious charges, at the cost of some sort of obstruction of justice/destruction of evidence charge. If they already have corroborating evidence from other sources, though, the DA will probably just smirk and add another charge, complete with trivially available evidence that makes you look guilty as hell.
"Yes, your honor. We detected child pornography downloads
Brilliant, disposable (very expensive) hardware! Your mission Dan, is to
Considering the (mostly) invincible state of good encryption, this seems unnecessary. Sure, it is a fun idea, but not a practical one.
No encryption is invincible. Especially 5 years from now... Computing power has advanced to the point where you can just brute force "invincible encryption" from a few years back...
Considering the (mostly) invincible state of good encryption, this seems unnecessary. Sure, it is a fun idea, but not a practical one.
No encryption is invincible. Especially 5 years from now... Computing power has advanced to the point where you can just brute force "invincible encryption" from a few years back...
Short of massive developments into quantum computing, encryption is invincible for a good deal more than five years; and increasing the key size by any arbitrary factor is trivial. Anyone who is choosing key sizes for sensitive applications without taking into consideration Moore's law is probably making a dozen other mistakes in their security anyway.
Except that AES 256 bit is weaker than AES 128 bit.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/another_new_aes.html [schneier.com]
No encryption is invincible. Especially 5 years from now... Computing power has advanced to the point where you can just brute force "invincible encryption" from a few years back...
Um, no. Nobody sensible ever thought systems with 40 or 56 bit keys were "invincible".
128 bits? That's a different story. Moore's law isn't going to help with that, it's simply too big.
though 256, just to be sure, is probably a good idea for anything really important long term.
cryptographers do, after all, find ways to reduce the cost of attacking particular encrption methods occasionally.
256, just to be sure...
256-bit AES turned out weaker than 128-bit AES precisely because some bright spark at NIST followed that line of thinking. (cite) [schneier.com]
cryptographers do, after all, find ways to reduce the cost of attacking particular encrption methods occasionally.
If a system is truly broken then adding more bits probably won't save you.
Considering the (mostly) invincible state of good encryption, this seems unnecessary. Sure, it is a fun idea, but not a practical one.
No encryption is invincible. Especially 5 years from now... Computing power has advanced to the point where you can just brute force "invincible encryption" from a few years back...
A few have pointed out that the keys are too large to brute force. I figure you out to know why that is: http://everything2.com/title/Thermodynamics+limits+on+cryptanalysis [everything2.com]
That is a good little write up on the subject. Short, sweet, and easy to follow. It demonstrates that non quantum 256 bit keys are safe from brute force attacks for... ever.
Two wrenches (one esoteric, one practical): Reversable Computation and Quantum Computers.
First the "practical" one, Quantum Computers. The algorithm for searching an unsorted database for a key is Grover's Algorithm. This gives a speed up of O(N1/2) and a space complexity of O(log N). For a 256 bit key this gives a time complexity of 2**128 and a space complexity of 78. Now, that time complexity will kill you. Move to a 512 bit key and we are back to 2**256 time complexity (jsut like in the linked article). The space complexity goes to 155. It might not seem like a big deal, but adding another qbit to a quantum machine isn't trivial. In fact it is properly hard, and gets harder for every extra qbit. also that space complexity is a multiplier, not a count. you need log N * or something along that scale (Big O notation demonstrates the rate of growth as things go to infinity so small problems can be dominated by other factors till they "scale up"). Obviously even quantum computation isn't going to help crack a 256 bit key and a 512 bit key will restore the same level of security even IF they could be built large enough and numerous enough and fast enough for the 256 bit version (LOTS OF IFS and with an easy out. As pointed out increasing an encryption key's size is relatively trivial)
Now for the one that caused me some trouble, Reversable Computing. Fancy way of saying that the computation is reversable with no energy expended after being performed and reversed (actually arbitrarily little energy appraoching zero as closely as you care to come... kinda. Physical devices pose practical problems, but let us se that asside for a moment). This is a theory, and a good one. The problem is that you need to drive through all of the states. Let us assume that a computation takes one plank time on our perfect reversable computer (this is impossible, of course. It would be far higher even with a "perfect" device, but this is a lower bound given to us by nature). You need 1.4 * 10**16 time the current age of the universe (1.979 * 10**26 years) worth of computer time to go through all the states. Average is half that to find the correct key. Now you'll want to parallelize this computer to get to that (wholly impractical) time faster. How many can you build? How large are they? I'll leave it as an exerccise to the reader to determine how many you might be able to construct before they collapsed into a black hole. Also: 1 plank time is a few dozens of orders of magnitude smaller than any computation done with matter can achieve. It takes 4.48*10**20 plank times for a photon to pass an electron (if wolfram alpha is being nice to me, that is). Scale your time to be, say, the same as the time it takes a photon to cross your theoretical perfect reversable computer and then work out how many you need to complete the cracking of the key within a reasonable time. You'll get a black hole or incredible distances beyond the mortal ken.
Conclusion: Brute forcing any appreciably sized cryptographic key (512 bit or greater) will never, ever be possible no matter what happens with technology so long as computers are made of matter and compute in space. Period.
256 bit keys will remain equally unchallenged until we can create and power quantum computers the size of grains of sand trilions at a time.
Take that Moore's law
Have you seen this? AES 256 is weaker than AES 128 bit.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/another_new_aes.html [schneier.com]
Which was sort of the point he was making: the math is more important than the key size now.
There is one other wrench you forgot about. Someone might come up with a cryptanalytic attack that reduces the number of computations required to generate and test keys. That has happened in the past.
Using masses of GPUs instead of the slow cpu to do decryption work?
GPUs and FPGAs have, in a number of cases, moved attacks on known-vulnerable systems from 'theoretical; but of great concern' to 'desktop, you don't even need 3-phase 220' faster than other technologies would have; but the cryptographic systems that are actually trusted tend to be of the 'barring fundamental breakthroughs in either mathematics or physics, converting all the mass in the solar system into crypto-chips it would merely shave a few zeros off the expected time...' variety.
128 bit (or bigger) encryption keys aren't going to be brute forced.
It simply isn't - do the math sometime.
Encryption done right is invincible. Encryption is rarely done right. Specifically, the keys are often exposed in ways they shouldn't be.
In the case of truecrypt with an AES-Twofish-AES cypher chain for example:
You have little to no chance to analyze the image for clues.
What you can do is brute force the password used to generate the key.
Sadly, most users select a password only (no password + keyfile/dongle) and select only alphanumeric characters with a total length < 10 characters.
That keyspace is very very small.
you could even throw in the oxford dictionary and try all 2,3,4 word combos + common misspellings and still manage the time t
Considering the (mostly) invincible state of good encryption, this seems unnecessary. Sure, it is a fun idea, but not a practical one.
I suspect that(aside from simply being relatively cheap to implement, and having some expected sales based on the 'cool' factor alone) the real purpose of any system purporting to substitute for, or complement, disk encryption is to deal with weaknesses unrelated to the cryptographic system itself.
As best we know, contemporary crypto systems with keys of reasonable length are not breakable in any useful sense. However, since humans who can store keys of reasonable length are vanishingly rare, most such s
Considering the (mostly) invincible state of good encryption, this seems unnecessary. Sure, it is a fun idea, but not a practical one.
Even for encrypted data this can be added as an extra measure to the user's security toolkit. Maybe there was some problem in the encryption process, or the cipher is found weak, or someone will be able to crack the data in the future with brute force. This gives you the last bit of extra protection, the kind of "nuking it from the orbit is the only way to be sure".
Yes, we all know the dangerous explosive forces involved in letting the magic smoke out of an IC.
(I'm pretty sure you're joking, but the person who modded you insightful apparently wasn't so...)
I can't bring too much shampoo on the plane at one time. Something that has magic smoke is probably out of the question.
The inevitable progression of the TSA will be that pre-flight pat-downs and strip searches won't be necessary: people will simply be required to travel in the buff. Oh, the poor stewardesses!
Meh, laptop batteries have offered an easy way to start a fire for years and no-one seems to care.
After a few month of usage, SSD suffer from multiple writes (to same locations) and die. (See this [codinghorror.com].) Depending on algorithms, the lifespan of a SSD varies. So it's already here, the difference is that a regular SSD fails randomly... (and you may be able to recover some data)
That was one of the best links I have ever followed on slashdot. If only for the quote, "I use my SSD fully expecting it to fail. Just like I date crazy girls fully expecting them to stab me: Always have that backup plan!"
That's interesting. So, are we to assume byte-level granularity on writes and not blocks? Blocks that could be read? Blocks that might contain information like passwords or names of undercover agents?
Not all SSDs encrypt anything.
Why the hell do they need to rewrite it anyway? In a flash memory rewriting starts with erasing the whole sector, why not just stop after that?
secure erase on an SSD doesn't write anything. It just erases everything, which has the benefit of being virtually instant.
Don't you mean Ethan Hunt?
[This message will self destruct in 5 seconds]
That imposter? Hell no! Jim Phelps or nothing.
Sounds like their marketing team has been taking naming cues from supervillains lately.
"Sure, it's InVincible... as long as you don't push this shiny red self-destruct button."
The one right next to the shiny red make-coffee button?
A nice 1/8th inch layer of thermite with an igniter over the chips will do just nicely.
Does anyone offer a product (hardware or software) that rewrites a disk with "fake" encryption?
I mean, how about encrypting worthless or random data, or even better if you know your adversary, misleading data?
(The capabilities of our latest super secret bomber are contained in this document, what the enemy should never find out is that it is incapable of flying above 50,000 ft. So let's hope they never figure out the 4-digit PIN, I mean encryption key "0000".)
If used on something that the enemy thinks is v
"First method goes through the disk, overwriting all data with garbage"
That's the WORSE possible way to "self destruct"
Do you know why in flash memory they have to work differently then on a spinning disk?
Erasing blocks takes a lot of time. Exactly because it's erasing a whole block!
Erasing and then overriding seems pointless (even though theoretically you could dissolve the chip in acid and then measure the charges there to see if you can recover traces of data)
The second way seems much more promising.
Use glass substrate hard drive platters. Install a pin with a compressed spring. If you need to self-destruct the drive, release the pin and shatter the platters (at 7200 or 10k RPM). Instant maracas!
Dr. Doofenschmirtz is head of their R&D Department. Marketing wouldn't let him call it the "Driveinator"
"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde


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|7 years ago :: Dec 20, 2010 - 5:59PM #31
Quick Reply
|7 years ago :: Nov 13, 2011 - 8:24PM #32
is anyone posting on this anymore?
I have a question. I'll keep it short.
I'm a Virgo. As Virgos, we move slow in relationships. We're overly critical and hard to impress, which comes across as playing hard to get. I have a problem with this! I wan't to be open to a romatic relationship again but I can't seem to let anyone get close enough. I've been told this is the "inability to let your guard down" aspect of the Virgo psychie. This taken into consideration, is there any way I can ease this guard down long enough for me to give a guy a chance!?
Quick Reply
|6 years ago :: Sep 07, 2012 - 2:21AM #33
Virgo (♍) is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac, which spans the zodiac between the 150th and 179th degree of celestial longitude. Virgo Sign personality and characteristics. Easy to use and understand Virgo zodiac sign information.
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text: I am using 4.0.12, no matter where i place authorizer file and no matter is it bash wrapper or php or perl fcgi I am getting still in error logs Can not find handler with type: 7, name: $VH_NAME_authorizer. Can not find External Application: $VH_NAME_authorizer, type: fcgiauth and authentication is not working What am I doing wrong??


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Did you read today's front page stories & breaking news?
From the Wires
Taptera Hires Chief Revenue Officer
By: Business Wire
Nov. 19, 2012 09:35 AM
Today, Taptera, a leading developer of fast and scalable, custom-tailored mobile business applications for the enterprise, announced that Kevin Dew has joined the company as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Dew will be responsible for leading all monetization efforts and scaling revenues as CRO during a time of continued expansion within Taptera's suite of mobile business applications. With over a decade of enterprise sales experience, Dew will bring both operational and monetization expertise to Taptera's leadership team.
"Kevin's hire is great for Taptera for many reasons but his deep enterprise background at Sage and Salesforce along with his interest in mobile startups and companies with an entrepreneurial spirit are why I'm so excited to work alongside him moving forward," said Chris O'Connor, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Taptera. "At Taptera we are constantly ideating on new solutions and getting them into the market quickly. With Kevin's sales leadership and monetization vision we're thrilled to be able to have our suite of applications spread farther, wider and faster."
Dew joins Taptera from Bunchball where he served as Vice President of Corporate Sales building their corporate sales team, determining overall goals and strategies and scaling the company's revenues with effective messaging and positioning. Prior to Bunchball, Dew spent nearly a decade at Salesforce closing out his tenure there as Regional Vice President responsible for hiring, goal setting, sales execution, business analysis, forecasting, contributor development and more. He started his sales career at Sage where he served as Sales Director, North America and exceeded sales targets of $14M annually, which equated to 20% of the company's revenue at the time. While there he also expanded the Partner Channel resulting in an 80% increase in revenues.
"After years of working in enterprise sales and hearing stories from countless customers as they navigated the challenging opportunity associated with enterprise mobility I'm eager to join this talented team that is building both off-the-shelf and custom solutions to meet the unique demands of individual businesses," said Dew. "I look forward to developing a superior monetization strategy at Taptera for their solutions and to continue to strategize around the company's expansion."
About Taptera
Founded in 2011, Taptera makes fast, beautiful and scalable social sales applications for the growing mobile workforce. With over five years of iOS and Android experience, Taptera offers a suite of innovative mobile business products that marry public social data with enterprise systems, including CRM, ERP, SAP, LDAP, Exchange, Gmail and other enterprise, cloud-based solutions and platforms.
Learn more at http://taptera.com
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text:
I couldn't before with 20/38 so I added 3 ounces of lead weights to the front and that solved the problem. With 20/36 no need for the weights, I had to punch it hard to get the front up, but it would. With my modded custom CB/SG combo wheelies are rare, it kinda skims the ground at take off/second gear, but no need for the wheelie bar anymore.Originally Posted by n3.3d_for_sp33d
REVO LRP .30x
That does work. Before I re-geared, I added 3 ounces of lead fishing sinkers to the front shock tower, that kept it on all fours.Originally Posted by NitroStench
REVO LRP .30x
Hows that tranny holding up with that .21? I'm thinkin' bout going with different brand engine. The 3.3 has failed too mant times in less than 3 months.
All over the half gallon mark and Tranny is still holding strong. I have actually tried, wanted to buy the Jatomadness gears but the tranny wouldn't cooperate and believe me, I run hard with 30% and a tighter slipper. The engine is getting stronger, so it may eventually go, but I am more than happy. Some said it would only hold a tank or not even through breakin. They were wrong.Originally Posted by NitroBlur
REVO LRP .30x
Whats the os equivalent (power wise) of the trx 3.3?
Last edited by NitroBlur; 03-10-2008 at 08:26 PM.
Tried to get the x-dyno specs for both stock and modded, were not available and you can't always go by manfact. stock comparisons. It would probably be closer comparing a modded 3.3w/carb upgrade.Originally Posted by Jato2theMax
REVO LRP .30x
Nice same basic idea as the pellets, nice to see im not the only one with these idea's floating around heheOriginally Posted by revonitro
What carb mods are available for the 3.3?Originally Posted by revonitro
have u contacted ab mods... he has an x dyno at his shop///Originally Posted by revonitro
for corb upgrade in the 3.3.....
where do you wanna start?
been there bought that
I think Jato2theMax wanted the comparison between the two engines. The x-dyno comparison is available for the 3.3, but not for the O.S.21TM yet.Originally Posted by forbes
REVO LRP .30x
Don't run that engine, check the title fo the thread, but I think they run the Ofna Force 6mm carb direct drop in or the 7mm modded on the 3.3. To be sure, check with forbes, he knows everything you can imagine about the 3.3, AB Mods and the carb upgrade and will be happy to help you.Originally Posted by Lecher LaPoon
REVO LRP .30x
Hey guys, I recently swapped out my 3.3 for a picco max .26 I'm having serious tranny issues. I keep stripping all the gears. I see you mentioned Revo gears, give me some details please. Oh and by the way, I found anodized aluminum transmission parts for the jato from HOTRACING, I just ordered them, hope they last longer or else im putting in my new O.S. 18TM, I'll have to cut my losses and drop the .26 in my T-MAXX. CHECK OUT MY JATO IF YOU HAVE A CHANCE.
You will regret geting the alum. ones from HR....they lasted me about 2 tanks.....get your money back if you can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[QUOTE=NitroBlur]Naw....that was mt next move this evening except my tranny(the alum. gears, 1st speed part of them) gave out on less than 2 tanks....I even installed them in a new tranny case!!!! Pics to follow shortly.
Man this thread is full of info on running a stronger engine than 3.3, w/gearing and all. Hope you didn't buy those cheap aluminum gears yet. This info was posted a couple pages back.
REVO LRP .30x
Update: For anyone that thought an O.S.21TM Jato was sick. Guess what???????????????????????I just got AB MODIFIED!!
Got my engine back from Adam at AB mods and ran five tanks today. This is my first modified engine and ...................speechless!! I have no idea what was done, but it is no longer an O.S.21, maybe an O.S.23 on steroids.LOL. I could here it from the time I fired it up it was going to be a beast. I lossened the slipper and took it easy on tank one and two, but on tank three, geared down from 1.4 to 1.8 adjusted the shift point, tightened the slipper to 3/4 turns and tried to rip the drive train right out.
The result...yep, that's right...just a couple of shredded dirthawgs, but no damaged CVD's and NO SHREDDED TRANNY GEARS!! Replaced the dirthawgs with the condas, leaned the LSN and HSN 1 hour each, ran two more tanks and dude, talk about crazy fast RPM much, much higher from bottom to mid, and crazy torque, and I never hit top speed. LOL. This is true . Over the 1/2 gallon mark still getting faster and faster each tank.
Next stop carby upgrade, just tore out the carb on a old 3.3 to use the neck on my Siro .27 carb, looks like 9mm, just got to get the guts to do it. From there maybe a better pipe or tryout my JP-4. LOL Will keep you guys posted.
BTW off road grass/dirt and gravel was even more fun until the dirthawgs blew out.
REVO LRP .30x
congratulates !!
if possible a video would be great.
Yikes thats nutty! I wondered what you were up to. I was just working on my own .21 Jato a few minutes ago. The video of yours has inspired me
Awesome, I need to see a video. I think after spring break I am getting a 18tm and then sending it out to ab mods.
No more money for rc trucks I got 1:1 truck
Thanks, got a few more tricks up my sleeve. Learning a lot about the Jato, it is a great platform with endless possibilities if you think outside the box. Good luck on your install. Just post up, or PM me if you have any ?'s.Originally Posted by Tony S.
REVO LRP .30x
send the carb to me ill mod it for you , i have done a siro before.... u picked the hardest one to do....lol
as for u guys gettin the ab mods, when u talk to him tell u know me...
he tends to put a lil extra in there for my referalls...
i have known adam for a lil while now and he has done several engine for me and my friends, and my LHS stocks his modded engines in stock. i mean for 250 bucks round about u can have a new modded 3.3..... if ya'll want one i'll hook you up with right people
been there bought that
forbes, thanks for the offer man. I will try one more time on another carb. If I get stuck I will PM you and send it to TEXAS. LOL. Mean time how about checking the O.S. 21 VZB-V SPEC carb for me while in the shop, can' t find the sleeve/neck measurements on any site. Be nice if it drop right in my 21TM.Originally Posted by forbes
REVO LRP .30x
looking at ordering the O.S21 TM engine for my jato , which engine do i order , is it the one for T maxx or the one for Revo . or do they both bolt straight into the jato ?
Grear choice for the Jato. You can order either, whichever you can get the best deal on, $200 all day long on Ebay. The carb arm on the T-maxx version has the ball, Revo version is flat with no ball, but for about $6 bucks you can get an arm or just pull one from another engine. Just post up if you have ?'s.Originally Posted by hotbodz88
REVO LRP .30x
as always man... good job....
what area u live in man? would like to run against u just for fun....
those lil engines run and even more so with the ab mod.... aint he awesome?
been there bought that
Thanks, way out on the East Coast. Yes, AB Mods exceeded my expectations. Also, if the VZB-VSPEC carby thing don't pan out, may need a tutorial on modding another carb. Need at least 8mm to be worth it.
REVO LRP .30x
for the os 21 right? i'll have my wife post these pics in a sec... i got one in my hand right now i think....
been there bought that
i been lokking on tower hobbies , what i am meaning is they list the engine with Tmaxx header or the Revo header , does it matter which one i order or do they both fir the JAto the same .Just want to make sure i am ordering the right engine.
the 8mm RB concepts 523 carb wont do?Tried the carb upgrade today. 2hrs. of failure and a waisted 3.3 carb. The Sirio carb neck is just to big to grind down and fit even after boring out the 3.3 carby. For me, the Ofna 7mm carb is little improvement over th 6.4mm O.S. carb. Any suggestions?
2- 2.5Tmaxx Jato2.5R Vintage: Bullet, Hawk, N-Hawk
You can't use the header for either of them for the swap so it doesn't matter which you get. If you get the T-Maxx one it will have the ball type lever on the throttle linkage you need for the Jato.what i am meaning is they list the engine with Tmaxx header or the Revo header , does it matter which one i order or do they both fir the JAto the same .Just want to make sure i am ordering the right engine.
The Revo needs a ball type throttle lever to be swapped on.
If you have a choice go with the T-Maxx.
hotbodz, if you do end up with the Revo version, this is all you need. If you go back to the first coupleof pages, I show the header install, and here is that link as well.
REVO LRP .30x
Yea, the 8mm will be worth the investment if I can get a good deal on one, but seems like they are just as difficult to come by as the Force .26. and maybe a little finicky to tune so I here. Not giving up yet though.Originally Posted by TRX-Traxxas-Man
REVO LRP .30x
forbes, thanks for checking man. I think it may have a 15mm sleeve. I will never get a 13mm over that.Originally Posted by forbes
REVO LRP .30x
heres a tm323 carb it says 8mm tho
gonna cost ya like $104.00 around :O if i caculated the pounds to dollars right
got it from this list
2- 2.5Tmaxx Jato2.5R Vintage: Bullet, Hawk, N-Hawk
i sent u a pm... call me i have some options for u
been there bought that
No PM. Tell me man...tell me!! Been researching carbs for 2 weeks now with no luck.Originally Posted by forbes
REVO LRP .30x
Thanks for the info, but man that's a big sticker.Originally Posted by TRX-Traxxas-Man
REVO LRP .30x
lol ya it is
2- 2.5Tmaxx Jato2.5R Vintage: Bullet, Hawk, N-Hawk
You guys are going to make me blush lol Thanks for the compliments guys. Greatly appreciated!!
Adam Blevins,
AB Mods
Adam Blevins
World Record holding Engine Modifier
and there is the man....
been there bought that


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|« Creative Money Management
|Comment Log.... »
The Proof is in the Pudding....
Every once in awhile, something jumps up and grabs my attention. For example, after so and so ate a meal which was a 95% avoid and a 5% neutral, he says to me "Ugh. I had so much energy and now I am so tired." Further evidence emerged about an hour later (we just won't go into details here.) The proof, the data, the personal experience was shouting, "You shouldn't have eaten this! Are you listening……?"
The more I am able to read D'adamo's books, the more I begin to see scientific evidence all around me. Now, I am NOT a person who believes everything she reads and I am NOT a person who thinks that D'Adamo's ideas are perfect, – but – and this is a very big but, I have to objectively say -- He is on the right track!
Further evidence appeared this morning after my oldest son ate breakfast. For two and a half years, his body has had trouble – well --- to be blunt --- eliminating. The poor child would become more and more bloated, more and more cranky, and more and more destructive!!! He did not recognize his body's signals, waited too long, and then when it finally HAD to happen – KKKKKAAAAbOOOMMMM! It was an unpleasant, messy and painful experience. So of course, what did he do? He avoided the bathroom, which guaranteed that the nasty cycle would start over again.
We saw a specialist, who prescribed medication, prescribed "training", and prescribed an avoidance of cow's milk. That's right – the calcium in cow's milk can add to the problem. (Hey, I think a very conservative doctor just sided with D'Adamo! My son is an O.)
The training and the medication helped, BUT the medication was covered with warnings. It went something like this - "Not intended for long term use. Has not been tested – not intended for pediatric use." Sure enough, my son eventually experienced nasty side effects. I ran to the health food store and tried a couple of different products. I bought the Psyllium powder, which did appear to help. I had also switched him to chocolate soymilk a while ago, and most importantly --- he gets meat every morning for breakfast!
What's the point of this little sidebar? Breakfast used to be grains. It used to be crunchy and bought off the grocery store shelf. Now, after cooking beef patties with a little beneficial seasoning, my child ate his breakfast this morning – and headed off to the bathroom. (It's a natural reflex for that to happen right after a meal.) Things are finally, finally functioning, as they should.
Why take my word for it? Experiment for yourself. Eat those avoids, one at a time, and then LISTEN. You might be surprised.
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Icy Research Drills Down on Summer Algae Blooms
- 04-09-2014
- By Joshua E. Brown
We've walked a mile out on the frozen skin of Missisquoi Bay. Clouds, snow and ice blend into an abstract collage of white shapes. To the west, a thin grey line, the New York shore, cuts the world in two. To the south, a pea-size pick-up truck creeps over the lake toward a pinhead-size ice-fishing shack. Trevor Gearhart checks our location on a handheld GPS. "Yep, this is it," he says. Peter Isles fires up a reassuringly large, safety-yellow drill.
Isles and Gearhart are doctoral students on a large project called RACC—for Research on Adaptation to Climate Change. Involving nearly thirty faculty members from UVM and other Vermont colleges, the project has funding from the National Science Foundation's EPSCoR program to explore two difficult questions: how will Lake Champlain react to the double whammy of climate change and land use change? And how might different land management and policy choices affect these impacts on the lake?
Booming blooms
As one step toward answering these questions, Isles grips both handles of the drill as the auger disappears into the ice down its full length, almost three feet. Lake water comes surging to the surface. "You could drive a tank out here," he says, looking down into the black hole.
Unlike most people who schlep a sled full of gear onto this bay in March, Isles is not looking for fish. He's come with Gearhart and two other researchers to collect water, mud from the bottom — and plankton. He's especially interested in three types of cyanobacteria — sometimes called blue-green algae — Aphanizomenon, Microcystis, and the benign-sounding Anabaena.
These are microscopic plankton that float around in Lake Champlain. They're native, but not always benign. Given a diet of phosphorous pollution, they become major culprits in algae blooms that can foul beaches, produce dangerous toxins and suck the oxygen that fish need out of the water.
Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms that photosynthesize, making their own food from sunlight and carbon dioxide. They're like plants, but on a different, more ancient, branch of the tree of life. When excess nutrients wash off the land — sometimes from farm fields, roadways, eroding streambanks or wastewater treatment plants — cyanobacteria chow down like a teenager. They can reproduce rapidly, forming a suffocating green scum that drives out other species of plankton and harms critters up the food chain.
In Missisquoi Bay, phosphorus concentrations have been increasing steadily for two decades, blowing past targets established by the EPA. Like some other shallow parts of Lake Champlain, the ecosystem in Missisquoi Bay is now dominated by cyanobacteria. "And we would expect that climate change is going to worsen the problem," Isles says.
In the water column
Gearhart sits on a blue cooler, filling bottles with lake water from a hose attached to a small, chugging pump. "We collect right below the ice, a meter below the ice, a meter from bottom, half a meter from bottom, and as close to the bottom as we can get without pulling up sediment," he says. He'll take these back to the lab to "see how nutrient and phytoplankton composition changes through the water column," he says.
A few yards away, Peter Isles lowers a long metal tube into another hole he's cut in the ice. This is a sophisticated optical sensor that records pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, several pigments specific to cyanobacteria and other measures of the water.
This spot on the ice is the same place where a buoy floats in the summer, sending the same kind of sensor up and down through the water. Other sensors in the lake and nearby rivers and streams do the same. "We're looking over the course of the year to see where the nutrients — mostly phosphorous and nitrogen — come from, how they're stored and cycled within the lake," Isles explains, "and how does that contribute to algae blooms and other effects on the lake's ecosystems?"
In the summer, cyanobacteria get busy. "Their population can double or cut in half overnight," Isles says, which is why the sensors on the buoy can take measurements remotely every hour. It's like taking the pulse of the lake, says UVM geologist Andrew Schroth. He and biologist Jason Stockwell, director of UVM's Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory, are supervising these students as they all look for the geochemical triggers for sudden blooms.
On this freezing morning, no cyanobacteria populations are ready to bloom. "But what is the summer going to start with? How many nutrients? What are the plankton doing? Where are they hanging out below the ice?" Gearhart wonders. "We're looking now, in winter, to get a better answer to these questions."
With this kind of information, the RACC project is building computer models that refine global-scale climate forecasts down to the scale of Lake Champlain. These will let scientists and policymakers make educated guesses about what will happen to the health of the lake in a warmer future — and consider the effects of hypothetical choices about, say, the size of agricultural field buffers or the amount of pavement in a watershed. "We hope it will help people balance what they want the lake to look like with what they want to use the land for," say Gearhart.
State change
"There is no 'environment' in some independent and abstract sense," writes the great geneticist Richard Lewontin, "Organisms do not experience environments. They create them." Cyanobacteria, it appears, are now creating Missisquoi Bay in their own image.
The bay may well now be in what biologists call an "alternate stable state." The zooplankton that eat phytoplankton have a hard time dealing with too many cyanobacteria. Fish may not get the nutrients — especially certain fatty acids — they need when they live in cyanobacteria-dominated waters. Decaying algae create low-oxygen conditions that release more phosphorous from sediment into the water. A cyanobacteria monoculture often reigns. "These are self-reinforcing systems," Isles says. "Once you flip it over, it's hard to flip back."
There is at least one other stable state: one "with relatively clear water and lots of aquatic plants, fish, and not too many cyanobacteria," Isles says. The RACC project, among its many goals, aims to help people figure out what they'd need to do to flip Missisquoi Bay back to that state — or how easy it might be for other parts of a climate-changed Lake Champlain, even deeper colder parts, to flip to algae blooms.


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Meanwhile, Jonathan Shank — who police said got out of his car after stopping in the parking lot of the Best Buy on Ken Pratt Boulevard and began shooting an AR-15 rifle at Officer Brent Cairns — is still recovering from gunshot wounds from the officer's return fire.
Cairns was uninjured, although police reported that Shank was able to fire the rifle at least 12 times. Shank suffered at least three gunshot wounds.
Longmont Police Cmdr. Jeff Satur said Wednesday that Shank remains under guard at Denver Health Medical Center.
"I know he has communicated via hand notes," Satur said. "He is not in a position to talk."
Police were told that Shank suffered a stroke while at Denver Health and was briefly moved to University Hospital in Aurora for treatment, Satur said. He has since been returned to Denver Health.
Police are still working on the warrant to officially arrest Shank, Satur said.
"Right now he is not in a position to be a flight risk," he said.
Per department policy following an officer-involved shooting, Cairns is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the "shoot team" investigation.
The report, expected to be complete by Tuesday or Wednesday, will help Longmont Public Safety Chief Mike Butler determine whether all department policies were followed and Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett's office determine whether the officer followed all laws.
According to police, Cairns stopped Shank's Subaru Impreza at 2:12 a.m. because the car was traveling east on Ken Pratt Boulevard without its headlights on.
Satur reported that Shank got out of the car and fired a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle at the officer while advancing on the patrol car.
Cairns got out of his car, with the car between himself and Shank, and returned fire with a 9 mm Glock 17, striking Shank at least three times. Information about how many times the officer and suspect fired and how many bullets were recovered during the investigation will be reported later, Satur said.
Satur could not yet release any information from the investigation that would offer any motive for Shank to shoot at a police officer, he said.
Shank has a limited criminal history marked by a DUI and several traffic offenses and no previous felonies.
Pierrette J. Shields can be reached at 303-684-5273 or at email@example.com.