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Brandy Eve Allen
KEEP ON SINGING: The Young@Heart Chorus refuses to quit making music.
Senior Classics
'Young@Heart' documentary travels with a chorus that goes noisily into that good night
By Richard von Busack
WHEN I GROW old, I shall not wear purple. I shall instead live someplace dark and dreadful, surrounded by forbidden books, masking the smell of my decay with clouds of some as yet uninvented incense that doesn't make my nose run. I shall look exactly like Ian McKellen, full of decades' worth of vices no clean person wants to think about.
I will be the master of the macabre, the epitome of evil, the most sinister man to crawl the face of the earth. I'll be devoting myself utterly to music, trying to master the well-known Bach Toccata on the organ at 3am—my way of letting the neighbors know I'm thinking about them, even while they sleep. I'm going to open doors no man should enter. I'll prop them open with eldritch rubber doorstops from some Lovecraftian hardware store. If I should break wind, as old men must, I'll tell visitors that it's just a gust of brimstone left over by a recent visit from my friend for eternity Beelzebub. I'm going to make Aleister Crowley look like the asthmatic punk he was.
Just as one of my horrors is dying in a hospital without enough strength in my hand to click off the yammering of a game show, another is becoming one of those tubby, polychrome-clad oldsters with shorts and knee braces. You know, the kind one sees anywhere people are supposed to be having fun, burdened with cameras and bulk, pitied by some, scorned by most.
So it is with mixed emotions that I watched the documentary Young@Heart, "starring the Young@Heart chorus." The ordinary person would see this documentary as what it seems to be: a ringing endorsement of elders who cannot be defeated by the rigors of age.
In Northampton, Mass., Bob Cilman has kept a choral group of senior citizens going for some 25 years; some come, and, naturally, some go. The lineup as of 2006 is observed on its way to a big public show at the local art center, along with stops to entertain prisoners at a local jail with Dylan's "Forever Young." My favorite part: the total mawkishness of the song is overcome by the serious surroundings. Here, the chorus offers a musical benediction to a group that probably never thought very much about what their own old ages would be like.
The peppy British director Stephen Walker is one of those overtalkers with the upbeat, impossible to tune out persistence of a tour guide. Repeatedly he exclaims over the efforts this hardworking group, and he is repeatedly flabbergasted by the urge of these old people to perform. Over the months of observation, the group is driven through some more modern compositions, such as the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," "Stayin' Alive" and "Schizophrenia" by Northampton's own Sonic Youth.
On the whole, these are all relatively simple songs, if often beyond the ken or outside of the taste of some of the singers here. (One interviewee, Eileen Hall, misses the old days when they used to sing "Yes, We Have No Bananas.") There's something touching about hearing a singer testing his limits. The rhythms of James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)," for instance, are a real stumbling block.
On a more obvious level of pathos, these are men and women singing with some of their last breaths. Especially sad is one Fred Knittle, a hearty joker with a big voice, who is losing control of that voice due to the ravages of a bad heart. The notes comment that Knittle had to be wheeled to the camera because of his health.
Even as one mentally plans one's own retirement during the slow parts of the show—can vultures be domesticated; do you suppose they would gnaw on the electrical wiring?—one admires the bravery here. In particular, Hall, an aged former stripper from England, keeps her flirtatious streak; in her own way, she insists she's the same person she always was.
I'm a longtime fan of Clyde Forsman, the octogenarian musician who was at the core of Those Darn Accordions; Forsman's version of the Rod Stewart sleazefest "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" wasn't without sex appeal. I wanted to encourage this film when I first heard about it, even unto overcoming my lifelong prejudice against the life-affirming.
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Others might have less reservation and just wonder at the spryness, bravery and humor of the cast. Young@Heart demonstrates the toughness of old people close to the end, even when they're weakened with hospital stays and surgery and loss. It's a great subject, but not a great film, because of the glancing (might one say, youthful?) impatience of the camera and the director, urging us to move along.
YOUNG@HEART (PG; 107 min.), a documentary by Stephen Walker, opens May 2 at selected theaters.
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In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
The updated count of the Quranic initials, ALM and ALR
The Updated Count of the Quranic initial ALM and ALR in Quran
Submission.org editorial note
Disclaimer: A thorough recount of the Quranic initials, conducted in 2002, by Submission.org, using both manual as well as two different computer counting programs, has confirmed Dr. Rashad Khalifa's counts of all the Quranic initials except for a few counts in the initials "A" (Alef) and "L" (Laam). However, the recent recount of Quranic initials remains divisible by 19 and is a part of the Mathematical Miracle of the Quran. The latest details of the recounts can be reviewed and verified using Quran Inspector. Research on the "A"(alef) and "L" (Lam) counts is ongoing.
This article represents the research that these new recounts are based on. This is by no means the end of the research but rather the continuation of it, as more sophisticated tools become available to us. So far, there has been no proof of any count that is different from what we presented here in this article in May 2002. God willing, this recount will be updated if different and correct findings are confirmed.
Summary: This is a study of the total count of the Quranic initials, ALM and the ALR in the Quran using both manual count as well as a computer assisted count of the Quran written in a text format and corrected to the original Uthmani method of writing. Our study showed that the total count of both the ALM and the ALR initials of all the suras that start with these initials is a multiple of 19. All the suras that start with the same initials have to be added together to produce the multiple of 19 phenomena as the one seen in the HM initialed group and which is a character of the mathematical miracle of the Quran. Our study finds that the Hafs method of writing the Quran is the method kept in shape with the transmitted written and oral verses of the Quran except for few human errors and therefore preserved the mathematical miracle of the Quran as God promised in 15:9.
Materials and Method:
The Quran is characterized by a unique phenomenon never found in any other book; 29 suras are prefixed with 14 different sets of "Quranic Initials," consisting of one to five letters per set. Fourteen letters, half the Arabic alphabet, participate in these initials. The significance of the Quranic initials remained a divinely guarded secret for 14 centuries.
The Quran states in 10:20 and 25:4-6 that its miracle, i.e., proof of divine authorship, was destined to remain secret for a specific predetermined interim:
[10:20] They say, "How come no miracle came down to him from his Lord?" Say, "The future belongs to God; so wait, and I am waiting along with you."
[25:4] Those who disbelieved said, "This is a fabrication that he produced, with the help of some other people." They have uttered a blasphemy and a falsehood.
[25:5] They also said, "Tales from the past that he wrote down; they were dictated to him day and night."
[25:6] Say, "This was revealed by the One who knows the Secret in the heavens and the earth. He is Forgiving, Most Merciful."
The Quranic Initials constitute a major portion of the Quran's 19-based. mathematical miracle. These initials include, ALM, ALR, ALMR, ALMS,Q, KHY'AS, S, YS, TH, TSM ,TS, HM, HM, 'ASQ and NUN. For easy references, we used the English alphabet in place of the Arabic ones, e.g. for the Alif (Alef) , we used "A", for the Lam, we used "L", for the Meem, we used "M", for the Reh, we used "R" , for the Sad, we used the bold "S"....etc.
Our study of the Quranic initials, that has the letter Alif in it, started when it was brought to our attention that the count of the Arabic letter Alif, in the suras initialed with Alif, has been disputed and reported differently by different researchers. These different counts reflect the difficulty in counting the Arabic alphabet Alif, and the disagreement over its writing , orthography (Rasm), its inclusion or exclusion. The Arabic alphabet Alif is also the most distorted alphabet when examined in different editions of the Quran as some scholars gave to themselves the liberty to add, delete or modify the writing of the alif. We, however, know that God promised to preserve the Quran (not the Mus-haf, the ink and paper). God therefore deliberately gave us the possession of many editions of the Quran including some of the oldest written Qurans and also gave us a tool to test and check these editions, the Mathematical Miracle of the Quran. It was definitely God's plan that the review of the letter Alif happens after the mathematical miracle has already been established and proved without the need for any single alphabet. This was a mean for God to give us the correction tool to the many human errors seen in the different editions of the Quran circulating today and to achieve what He promised of preserving the Quran as the one in the Master Tablets, (85:21-22). This tool, the mathematical miracle, will always be available to test and check any edition of the Quran, new or old. It is therefore clear that our work today represents what is seen in what we can call the everyday editions of the Quran. Further research and study supported by proofs, is expected , encouraged and welcome.
[85:21] Indeed, it is a glorious Quran.
[85:22] In a preserved master tablet.
We also need to emphasize that neither the Quran nor its miracle are accessible to the disbelievers or idol-worshipers. It is God's system that they are blocked from seeing the truth as they chose not to believe or to associate others with God already.
[17:82] We send down in the Quran healing and mercy for the believers. At the same time, it only increases the wickedness of the transgressors.
[17:45] When you read the Quran, we place between you and those who do not believe in the Hereafter an invisible barrier.
[17:46] We place shields around their minds, to prevent them from understanding it, and deafness in their ears. And when you preach your Lord, using the Quran alone,* they run away in aversion.
Our findings will continue to disturb those who cannot see the miracle of the Quran, or those who abuse the miracle or miss the meaning or the message of the Quran, just as the previous verses promise.
We, recently, have obtained the Quran written in text format for our computer study, however, the text format did not follow the Uthmani orthography (Rasm) and therefore cannot be used to count the Quranic initials as such. We decided to correct the computer Arabic text format of the Quran that we obtained into the Uthmani Rasm (Orthography). We used the standard Hafs edition taken after the 1918 edition of the Quran in Cairo Egypt and later by King Fahd edition in Saudi Arabia. For the manual count we used a copy of King Fahd edition and also used for cross-reference seven other editions of the Quran printed in Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, all of them according to Hafs. We also had to check on some words in question by using the images of the Gold Koran, one of the oldest available copies of the Quran, at The Sheridan Libraries , The Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, Maryland , at their site; http://goldkoran.mse.jhu.edu/
After the correction of the computer text file, we counted the letter Alif using the computer and also using manual count to compare the counts. We have realized that some of the Uthmani Rasm of certain letters was not available yet for the computer program we were using but we were able to substitute it with the same letters although in a different font. For this reason all the hamzas written on an extension (madda), e.g. , we replaced them with a free standing hamza. We also changed the different forms of Alifs into one alif to facilitate the count and avoid mistakes. If a program is using the Unicode for the Arabic alphabets, no change in the forms of ALif or hamza will be needed except probably for the hamzas on madda (extension).. Until we get the correct font and activated Unicode for these letters, we will continue to use the regular font that is still available to all of those who use the computer and Arabic fonts. We have posted the Arabic text we used for the count on our site as part of Quran Inspector. To achieve the best visual comparison of the verses and to facilitate the manual count, we pasted the image of each verse taken from the Hafs edition of King Fahd Mus-haf below its respective computer text when we corrected the computer text and when we did our manual count. We used color codes of the alphabets to make the visual presentation easier for the eye for manual count.
Counting the Alifs also include counting the letter Hamza that is used many times as alif as will be shown later. The letter Alif in Arabic can be seen in many shapes:
Hamza is unique in Arabic in many respects. It takes one of four forms: distinctly pronounced, lightened, changed, or deleted altogether. These different ways are observed in readings of the Quran and the various Arab dialects. In the writing of the hamza itself, Quranic and normal orthography are similar in many ways. In some aspects, however, Quranic rasm differs, as Quran has its unique way that is meant to preserve the mathematical structure built in its Rasm (Orthography). Hamza can be used as a yaa or a waw as well as an alif. All the hamzas that are standing free in a word and the Hamzas written on an extension of a letter (Madda) are counted as alifs.
standing free Hamzas like: , , ,
Hamzas written on an extension of a letter: , , , ,
Hamzas written on a stem (Nabra), or under a stem is counted as a yaa. For example:
, , , ,
Hamzas written on a Lam Alif , in words where the alif is actually a hamza and an alif, is the most deceiving as it looks like two alifs but actually it is three alifs (two alifs and a hamza) for example , . If you look carefully at these words you will notice the insistence of the scribes to write the Hamza in these words between the Lam and the alif . Compare these words with other words that only has lam alif as in , where there is only one lam and one alif , the hamza is specially positioned on top of the alif.
Hamza written on a yaa is counted as a yaa, as in , . Hamza written on a waw is counted as a waw as in:
We used the same system and consistency in counting the Alifs (and Hamzas) in all the suras that start with the initials ALM and the ALR. We felt that all the suras that have the same initials are related and form one group related to one another. We used the computer also to count the letters Lam , Meem and Reh.
Some of the readers of this article may find it helpful to read our short article about "How to count the Quranic initials". Other related articles that may help understand this topic include, "Are all the Arabic versions of the Quran the same ?" and also, "Preserving and protecting the Quran"
We counted first the ALM initialed suras, Sura 2, 3, 29,30,31 and 32. One major difficulty encountered was the easily missed alifs during manual count that were then compared with the computer count and with each other's counts then corrected. The Hamzas written on madda can also be easily missed in the manual count. Having more than one person counting is very important in the review process. We encountered only one orthographic difference among the recent editions of the Quran. This can be seen in verse 3:136. In verse 3:136, the word "Jaza'uhum" is written without an alif in the Egyptian and Syrian editions (reference 5 , 6 and 7) but with an alif in the King Fahd edition. The orthography of 3:136 as written in the Egyptian and Syrian edition, maintains the mathematical structure in the ALM suras. The total of all the ALMs in the ALM initialed suras is a multiple of 19. See table 1;
Sura No. | A (Alif and Hamza) | L (Lam) | M (Meem) | Total ALM |
2 | 4504 | 3202 | 2195 | 9901 |
3 | 2510 | 1892 | 1249 | 5651 |
29 | 771 | 554 | 344 | 1669 |
30 | 542 | 394 | 317 | 1253 |
31 | 353 | 297 | 173 | 823 |
32 | 264 | 155 | 158 | 577 |
Total | 8944 | 6494 | 4436 | 19874 |
The initial ALR total has also been found to be a multiple of 19 when we add all the initials in all the suras that start with the ALR. We, however, run into what we realized was a human (scribe error) in the orthography of two words in sura 10 in the Egyptian edition and King Fahd edition of the Arabic Quran. We will explain the proof for this conclusion in the discussion section to follow. See table 2.
Sura No. | A (Alif and Hamza) | L (Lam) | R (Reh) | Total ALR |
10 | 1321 | 913 | 257 | 2491 |
11 | 1373 | 795 | 325 | 2493 |
12 | 1315 | 812 | 257 | 2384 |
14 | 589 | 452 | 160 | 1201 |
15 | 493 | 323 | 96 | 912 |
Total | 5091 | 3295 | 1095 | 9481 |
As for those interested in the number of Hamzas in every of these suras, we include table 3 and 4 to help those searching this issue;
Sura No. | A (Alif and Hamza) | Alif | Hamza |
2 | 4504 | 4217 | 287 |
3 | 2510 | 2353 | 157 |
29 | 771 | 715 | 56 |
30 | 542 | 496 | 46 |
31 | 353 | 340 | 13 |
32 | 264 | 245 | 19 |
Total | 8944 | 8366 | 578 |
Sura No. | A (Alif and Hamza) | Alif | Hamza |
10 | 1321 | 1225 | 96 |
11 | 1373 | 1280 | 93 |
12 | 1315 | 1237 | 78 |
14 | 589 | 553 | 36 |
15 | 493 | 461 | 32 |
Total | 5091 | 4756 | 335 |
It has been a great promise by God Almighty to preserve the Quran, see 15:9. The the majority of the Muslims, however, misled by many scholars, were made to believe that verse 15:9 means God will preserve and protect the Mus-haf, the human written books, ink and papers. This is not what God promised to preserve in 15:9. He promised to preserve the Quran that He revealed to prophet Muhammed. The Mus-haf is no more than the human writing or collection of the Quran in books, papers, papyri, bones, palm leaves....etc and is not the handwriting of God. We are all aware that Uthman, the third Khalifa in the Islamic history, gathered his scribes and ordered them to collect the Quran that was already written during the prophet's life into one book. They did just that. They wrote several copies. The writers were no more than human beings and made numerous human errors in their writing that can be witnessed until this day. They can be seen in what is left and believed to be either Uthman Mus-haf or copies of it. {Please review our article about Human errors in the early writings of the Quran. } These human errors became obvious and clear for those who memorized the Quran when the re-writing of the Quran was needed to improve its Rasm (Orthography). This improved orthography was needed to facilitate its reading specially for the new generations of the Arabic speaking Muslims. Memorizing the Quran was an essential mean that God used to preserve the Quran in addition to its writing from the first day of revelation. It was God's plan that the Quran will be transmitted from Muhammed to all the generations to come through the oral transmission as well as the written word until the day comes when the book industry advances enough to allow for a fixed and standardized editions and also when the computer technology dominates the world in spreading God's message. It was not until the year 1918 in Cairo, Egypt when the Muslim scholars finally used what they considered their best judgment in writing the Quran in the best orthography format fit for the time. They used the orally transmitted Quran in comparison with the oldest available copies of the Quran to produce what is now the standard text of the modern Arabic Quran. In that edition they depended on the oral transmission and the written script to correct any apparent scribes error or contradiction. It is from this edition that the great miracle of the Quran, the Mathematical Miracle, can be seen and appreciated. The miracle itself was a sign that the Quran as it was transmitted and written at that time is what God gave to prophet Muhammed and it was under guidance from God that the Quran was produced in its standard edition we have now. The promise of God in 15:9 has to have a method to verify it. This method was revealed in 1974 when the mathematical miracle of the Quran that is based on number 19 which is mentioned in sura74 was discovered. This happened 1406 years after the revelation of the Quran (1406 = 19X74.) This protection can now, and to the end of the world, be confirmed by the mathematical structure of the Quran. That structure is what God described in 74:30-31 and called it; "One of the great miracles" in 74:35. This mathematical structure that was proven through hundreds of interlocking mathematical relations throughout the Quran has already proved the preservation of the Quran and exposed clearly the human errors in the writing of the early scribes. This was best shown by exposing the two false verses in the Quran that were human addition and have been suspected as false from the time of the writing of the Quran, verses, 9:128, 129.
The Arabic letter "Alif" had specially been subjected to many changes in different editions of the Quran as we can see if we review some of the old or new editions. The scribes of the Quran, being like all other humans, subject to errors, chose many times to change an alif by writing it or deleting it while unaware of its mathematical significance. This resulted in different number of counts in different editions of the Quran by different researchers. We however used the current King Fahd editions and made special cross reference with the Egyptian editions and the oldest available Quran.We also have the advantage of knowing of the existence of the mathematical structure in the Quran that can be seen in hundreds of other proofs un-related to the initial "Alif:" and which is strongly proven without the need for the count of the "Alif" itself.
We applied three significant rules to the counted initial when there is a disagreement among the different editions of the Mus-haf. For a word to be considered a human error in any of the new editions and then corrected, it has to pass these three strict criteria, all of them and in this order;
- The orthography of the written word in the new edition of the Quran should differ from the orthography of the same word as written in the oldest copy of the Quran in its exact specific location.
- The orthography of the written word in its suspected form, in the new edition of the Quran, should differ from the orthography of the same word written in other verses and suras of the same new edition of the Quran, unless the word is not repeated anywhere else in the rest of the Quran..
- The correction of the written word in the new edition after meeting the first two criteria will then correct any disturbance of the mathematical structure of the Quran based on number 19 as it has been proved by other initials, words, numbers and orders in the Quran.
Any one or two of these three criteria was not considered enough reason to consider a written word a human error that need to be corrected.
During our count of the ALM initials in the suras 2,3,29,30,31,and 32, we had no problem , as all the words and letters of these suras did not raise any alarms except for the word "Jaza'uhum" of 3:136 that were mentioned above. The total of the ALM in all these 6 suras is 19874 and it is a multiple of 19.
During our count of the ALR initials in the suras, 10,11,12,14 and 15, that start with ALR, we ran into two words in sura 10 that look different than the accepted orthography of both the old and recent editions of the Quran. The words are; of verse 15 of sura 10 and of verse 21. These words were expected to be written as , and if they are to follow the system used in the old and recent Qurans. As you will see from the images produced below, they were written different than all the words of similar spelling in the Quran. They also contradict the well known and agreed upon way of writing of that specific word. The word and all its related words are repeated in the Quran 295 times and not one of them, except the ones in 10:15 and 21, has the extra alif seen in these two words in 10:15 and 21. This by itself is not a good reason to claim the writing of these two words as an error, therefore we reviewed the oldest copy of the Quran available to us, the Gold Koran. As seen in the images below, the word, and were written without an alif in both verse 10:15 and 10:21. As far as the mathematical miracle is concerned, these two errors obviously added two extra letters to the total of the ALR initial and once corrected the total of all the ALR initials in all the suras with ALR initial was found to be 9481 = 19 X 499. These three evidences strongly support our belief that the writing of these two words in the King Fahd edition is no more than a missed human error by the group of scholars who supervised the edition. It also shows once again that the mathematical miracle of the Quran at work proving what was left in one of the Mus-hafs as human errors. We now know that we have all the reasons not to count these two words in their wrong Rasm (Orthography) and to correct them as they should have been and as the rest of the same word as used everywhere in the Quran. and After correcting these two human errors, the total of the ALR initial in all the suras that start with ALR is 19 letters above that of Dr. Khalifa's total.
Below is a production of the verses 10:15 and 10 21 as seen in King Fahd edition and as seen in the Old Kufi Koran, the Gold Koran. It can be seen cleary that the Gold Quran did not have an alif in the same words as marked.
Here is Verse 21 of sura 10;
As for the rest of the Quran, here is two examples of how the two words are always written in the Quran.
The count of the initial ALM , and the initial ALR in the suras that start with these initials is presented. The total of the initial ALM in all the six suras that start with this initial is 19874 = 19 X 1046. The total of the initial ALR in all the five suras that start with this initial is 9481 = 19 X 499. This means that the 11 suras initialed by ALM and ALR are following the pattern of the rest of the Mathematical Miracle of the Quran in being multiple of 19. Our study also supports the understanding that the Hafs writing of the Quran is the best representation of the original Mus-haf as it represents the intact mathematical miracle of the Quran. We also found that the mathematical miracle of the Quran can be used as an excellent tool to verify human errors in future or past writing of the Mus-haf.
"Over it is 19". 74:30
See also: The Updated Count of the Quranic initial ALMR and ALMS in Quran.
- The Authorized English translation of Quran by Rashad Khalifa, Ph.D.
- The Mathematical Miracle of Quran
- Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle, by Rashad Khalifa, Ph.D.
- Computer Speaks: God's Message to the World, by Rashad Khalifa, Ph.D.
- The Arabic Quran, Mus-haf Al-Haramen. Printed with a permission from Al-Azhar, 16/12/1984 number 441. El-Shamreley Company, Cairo.
- The Arabic Quran, according to the Uthmani Rasm, Printed by Al-Shorbagy Book store and print shop, Damascus, Khalid Ibn Al Waleed street. Approved by the Syrian Administration of Religious Education, number 306, dated 14/8/1406 Hijria.
- The Arabic Quran, according to the Uthmani Rasm. Printed and distributed by Tahama for publishing and book stores.
- The Arabic Quran, Mus-haf Al-Medina Al-Nabaweeh, King Fahd edition, Issued according to the Royal decree number 1540/8 on 19/8/1403, and printed in 1409 AH
- The Gold Koran at The Sheridan Libraries , The Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, Maryland , at their site; http://goldkoran.mse.jhu.edu/
- Ahmad von Denffer, Ulum al-Quran, 1994, The Islamic Foundation.
- Nabia Abbott, The Rise of The North Arabic Script & Its Kuranic Development, 1939, Nabia Abbott, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
- John Burton, The Collection Of The Quran, 1979, Cambridge University Press.
- Adrian Brockett, The Value of Hafs And Warsh Transmissions For The Textual History Of The Qur'ân in Andrew Rippin's (Ed.), Approaches Of The History Of Interpretation Of The Qur'ân, 1988, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
- The Fihrist of al-Nadim, 1970, Bayard Dodge (Editor and Translator), Columbia University Press.
- Quranic Orthography: The Written Representation Of The Recited Text Of The Quran, by Professor M A S Abdel Haleem
- Fred M Donner, Narratives Of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings Of Islamic Historical Writing, 1998, Darwin Press, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey
- Index of the Quran, Mohamed Fouad Abdel Baqy, Dar El Da'oa, 1986, Istanbul Turkey
- Jalal al-Din Suyuti, 'Al-Itqan fi-ulum al-Quran, Halabi, Cairo, 1935/1354.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Kmart Corp. has agreed to pay $32.3 million to settle allegations its pharmacies caused federal health programs to overpay for prescription drugs by not telling the government about discounted prices.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the settlement agreement Friday.
Kmart is part of Sears Holdings Corp., based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was sued in 2008 by former Kmart pharmacist James Garbe, who worked in Defiance, Ohio.
The whistleblower lawsuit alleged Kmart offered discounted prices to customers who paid in cash through club programs but didn't report those discounts to federal health programs such as Medicare Part D and Medicaid.
The Department of Justice says the agreement is a part of a $59 million settlement that includes a resolution of state Medicaid and insurance claims against Kmart. Garbe litigated the case and will receive $9.3 million.


text:
No job is more stressful, dangerous or exhilarating than those of the Firefighters, Rescue Squad and Paramedics of Chicago Firehouse 51. These are the courageous men and women who forge headfirst into danger when everyone else is running the other way. But the enormous responsibilities of the job also take a personal toll.
With big reputations and hefty egos, the pressure to perform and make split-second decisions is bound to put squad members at odds. When a tragedy claims one of their own, there's plenty of guilt and blame to go around. In the middle of a divorce, Lt. Matthew Casey tries to go about business as usual, but can't help butting heads with the brash Lt. Kelly Severide of the Rescue Squad - and each blames the other for their fallen team member. When it's "go-time", though, they put their differences aside and put everything on the line for each other. This is a look inside one of America's noblest professions.
Chicago Fire is currently airing Season 12
This season was ordered by NBC on Monday 10th April 2023


text:
Advanced Trans II to Russian
This course is the counterpart to Advanced Translation I. Students are expected to translate texts of considerable difficulty and complexity and to cope with the types of operational challenges that are likely to be encountered in professional translation settings, such as working in teams or coping with multiple technologies. Emphasis is on particular text categories and subject-matter knowledge that are pertinent to current market demand for the specific language combination and direction in which the course is being taught. The frequency, nature, and structure of course assignments are at the discretion of the instructor(s) of record, but will include projects that simulate, as closely as possible, the professional translation environment, as well as at least one midterm and one final exam.
Prerequisite: Advanced Translation I or similar background.
- Schedule
- 10:00am-11:50am on Tuesday, Thursday (Feb 1, 2016 to May 20, 2016)
- Location
- Morse A202
- Instructors
Kavenoki, Rosa


text:
Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PAJARO, Calif. (AP) - As Hispanics surpass white Californians in population next year, the state becomes a potential model for the rest of the country, which is going through a slower but similar demographic shift.
But when it comes to how California is educating students of color, many say the state serves as a model of what not to do.
In California, 52 percent of the state's 6 million school children are Hispanic, just 26 percent are white. And Hispanic students in general are getting worse educations than their white peers. Their class sizes are larger, course offerings are fewer and funding is lower.
The consequence is obvious: lower achievement.
Just 33 percent of Hispanic students are proficient in reading in third grade, compared with 64 percent of white students. By high school, one in four Hispanic 10th graders in California cannot pass the high school math exit exam, compared with 1 out of 10 white students.
And while overall test scores across the state have gone up in the past decade, the achievement gap hasn't changed.
"The expectations at my school were just so low, and that's so shortsighted," said Alvaro Zamora, 17, who excelled despite the educational challenges in the Pajaro Valley, a farming region near the Central Coast where his classmates were almost entirely Mexican immigrants or children of immigrants.
"Most economies are driven by innovation. If you don't have a math and science literate population you won't have the majority of the population innovating," he said.
Nationally, an achievement gap is also showing up as Latino enrollment has soared from one out of 20 U.S. students in 1970 to nearly one out of four, and white students account for just 52 percent of U.S. first graders.
"We're falling behind," said Antioch University Los Angeles provost Luis Pedraja. "Ultimately we will face a crisis where a majority of the U.S. population will be economically disadvantaged, which will reduce their spending power and contribution to taxes and Social Security, impacting all segments of society and our country's economic health."
There are many factors contributing to California's educational divide; many Hispanic students are children of Mexican immigrants who did not complete high school and who cannot provide the academic and social support and advocacy of their white counterparts. The state also has a tax system that allows communities to increase local taxes for their schools _ thus wealthier communities have wealthier schools.
Jackie Medina, a 4th and 5th grade teacher who has been teaching for nine years in Watsonville, said test scores may also not reflect actual achievement if they're requiring native Spanish speakers to test in English. A local leader in the California Association of Bilingual Educators, she teaches about topics like immigration in her classroom so her students get relevant curriculum that relates to them, in both English and Spanish.
"All educators want high achievement of all of our students," she said. "We need to have a paradigm shift and look at how we're educating this large population, incorporating their native language."
Dulce Sixtos, 16, said her father, a fieldworker, and her mother, who works in the cut flower industry, come to their Watsonville home exhausted from low-paying jobs and tell her: "I don't want you looking like me."
She wants to get an education and return to improve her community, but she worries that her high marks in school won't spell college success.
"Right now I feel people have given up on us, they say, `Oh, they don't need an education to work in the fields,'" she said. "So I go to school thinking I'm going to get a great education, but I'm worried I'm going to go to college and see that I'm at a great disadvantage to the white students."
Gov. Jerry Brown hopes to flip what he calls "a funding system that is overly complex, bureaucratically driven and deeply inequitable" with a budget change phased in over several years that will funnel more money to low income and non-English students.
California also has a law that allows parents to vote to take over a failing school; on July 29, Desert Trails Preparatory Academy in Adelanto reopened as the first public school in the nation to be taken over by parents under one of these laws.
Zamora, the son of Mexican immigrants, said he took the hardest courses offered in Pajaro, but succeeded by learning on his own and "with a group of nerd friends."
"I'd get home and do my homework in about a minute," he said. "In a whole year of high school we were assigned one book and two essays. It's not the type of education that prepares you for college or jobs."
All too often, black and Latino students are disproportionally taught easier material than white or Asian kids, said Alan A. Aja, who teaches Latino studies at Brooklyn College.
"No one wants to see themselves as racist," Aja said, "but educators have this ingrained belief that black and Latino kids are cognitively inferior and they lower expectations. It's racialized tracking. So if they assume these kids are going to underachieve, if they assume they don't have capacity to tackle hard topics, well, no wonder there's an achievement gap."
At Zamora's high school, just 6 percent of students scored proficient or advanced on standardized math tests, compared with 51 percent statewide. He remembers one math teacher offering extra credit for bringing in calculator batteries.
Zamora, who scored top marks on college entrance exams, was the first in his family to go to college. He just finished his first semester at Brown University where he's studying astrophysics.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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Julia Louis-Dreyfus Got Naked & Inked On Cover Of Rolling Stone
Julia Louis-Dreyfus decided that the best way to promote the new season of her hit HBO show 'Veep' was to get naked and have someone take pictures. She's absolutely right.
The cover image of the latest issue of Rolling Stone features Julia wearing nothing but ink—the ink of the Constitution, including the highly visible signature of founding father John Hancock. However, as one Twitter user noted, John Hancock didn't sign the Constitution. He signed the Declaration of Independence, which is, like, a whole different document. (We looked it up.)
Julia herself even replied, in full Vice President Selina Meyer mode:
(Mike, in case you didn't know, is the name of her hapless P.R. man on 'Veep.')
One last thing: We totally missed this, but somehow Julia is 53 years old. Look at her. That is one stunning 53-year-old, wouldn't you say?


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Gigabyte recently announced two mini-ITX form factor motherboards. In an interesting twist, instead of an AMD platform like many of the mini-ITX boards released this year, the Gigabyte GA-C807N and GA-C847N motherboards are based on the Intel NM70 chipset and come with integrated Intel Celeron 800-series processors.
Both motherboards come with Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 4 Classic design and feature set. Two DDR3 (1333 MHz) DIMM slots, a single legacy PCI expansion slot, 5.1 channel audio controller, and a UEFI DualBIOS are all included features on the motherboards.
The GA-C807N has three SATA II 3Gbps ports and one SATA III 6Gbps port. It further includes an Intel Celeron 807 processor that features a single physical core clocked at 1.5GHz.
External IO on the GA-C807N includes:
- 2 x PS/2 ports
- 1 x Parallel printer port
- 1 x COM port
- 1 x VGA port
- 4 x USB 2.0 ports
- 1 x Gigabit Ethernet jack
- 3 x analog audio outputs
On the other hand, the Gigabyte GA-847N motherboard has two SATA II 3Gbps ports and one SATA III 6Gbps port. It also bumps up the processor to a dual core Celeron 847 clocked at 1.1Ghz.
External IO on the GA-847N includes:
- 2 x PS/2 ports
- 1 x Serial port
- 1 x VGA
- 1 x eSATA
- 1 x HDMI
- 4 x USB 2.0 ports
- 2 x Gigabit Ethernet ports
- 3 x Analog audio jacks
Unfortunately, there is no word yet on pricing or availability of the two Mini-ITX motherboards. With that said, the GA-C847N in particular looks like a neat motherboard. The dual GbE ports would make it a good DIY router+firewall or server box. As far as the Gigabyte GA-C807N, the parallel printer port is an odd included feature, but otherwise it looks like a decent entry level Mini-ITX board+cpu combination.


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I'm a day late for #MusicMonday, I know. But this one is too good to wait for another six days. The track comes from DJ Ben G, a mashup-remix-master that has just signed on to Rukus Avenue. The remix profiled in this video is a tribute to the one and only Shammi Kapoor in a song called, "Junglee." The video art is the work of our talented friend MadGuru.
MadGuru found 8-bit inspiration for the video from the original film.
I wanted to do something quick, which seems next to impossible in animation, and fun too. I really enjoyed the story of the film and that along with the creative sounds in Ben G's mix made me think of old 8 bit video games like Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers. It sounded like a mashup of the two and so I thought, why not approach the visuals in the same way. Watch the original film and you'll recognize many references in the piece. [madguru]
Watch the original film Junglee here and see if you can spot the references. The 8-bit video game inspired animation reminds me a lot of Das Racist's Who's That? Brooown! video. And of late nights playing Mario Kart in college. Bollywood 8-bit video games, now there's an idea. How about it, MadGuru?


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This is part of my Garden 2017 series of posts. You can see the earlier posts at:
Garden 2017 Update February Through May
June 2017
After tons of rain, the garden (plants and weeds) is growing like CRAZY! The plants put on tons of growth and blossoms. Some flowers are missing their petals and are leaning over due to too much rain.
However, many of the garden plants are finally producing fruits and vegetables!
We have two garden beds, plus a few planters growing produce and flowers. Garden Bed A is 12 x 16. We planted it with the square foot method of intense planting. It grew like crazy with all the rain. We need to tweak how we plant this garden bed next year. Though I am thankful for the abundance, we are not able to de-weed it at this stage and it looks like a mess.
Dalia starting to bloom.
We often remove old blooms from petunias and they continue to produce beautiful flowers with bright colors.
Carrot tops are growing nicely.
We have had an abundance of leaf lettuce. We had a lot of rain and the lettuce seemed to really appreciate it.
Marigolds are in bloom.
Removing dead blooms from the geraniums will encourage new blooms.
This basked of lettuce has produced several harvests already.
I started several more heirloom tomato plants in milk jugs. Milk jugs are like mini greenhouses and it is a great way to start seedlings.
The spinach has produced an abundance and I have harvested it daily for several months.
Sweet potato vines and romaine lettuce growing in the aquaponics barrel. The romaine lettuce is about to go to seed. It has produced a lot of lettuce since we transplanted them months ago from lettuce we had already used during the winter and regrew. Lettuce is amazing!
Potato Bins are just about finished growing. Two have stopped sending out new plants, but this one still has new growth emerging. We can't wait to open up these bins and see how they produced under all that straw and dirt. Hopefully we will have a nice potato harvest.
Garden Bed B
Garden bed B gets more shade than garden bed A. We built this one because we ran out of room in the first one for plants that like to spread out. In this one we planted different kinds of squash and watermelon, sweet potatoes, and a second planting of radish, and a few flowers and sunflowers to attract pollinators and to enjoy the flowers. So far there is nothing to harvest in this bed yet, but it is producing a lot of vines and leaves and blooms.
The cucumbers from Garden bed A are growing past the garden now. They are traveling out into the yard and growing the nicest cucumbers. They might think the garden bed is too crowded!
Though our garden project this year is small, the garden beds are producing some wonderful foods for our family.
I am thankful for these harvests. Summer harvests taste delicious and have so much more flavor than food from the store. I enjoy the beautiful flowers too and all of the variety of insects they attract that help pollinate the plants. This process of a summer garden is even more special when family spends time together planting the food, then watching it grow, and then brings in the harvest together. Enjoying time together is the best part!
Be blessed!


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Moving from Process to Practice in Performance Management
Agencies are showing they get how to leverage performance data.
After more than 20 years trying to measure and improve performance, federal agencies are beginning to adopt cultures of continuous improvement and have shown progress in using data to help make decisions, according to a newly released report.
The report found that most of the progress is taking place at top agency levels, but has not filtered down to the program level, where greater support from leadership is needed. In addition, collaboration with Congress remains a sticking point.
These and other findings are based on interviews by the Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton with more than 50 Performance Improvement Officers (PIO), the agency officials charged with helping organizations measure and improve results, focus groups, and a survey to gauge the success of performance management efforts.
The report, Taking Measure: Moving from Process to Practice in Performance Management, showed PIOs think recent changes have produced meaningful advancement. They said that focusing on a few top goals, as required by the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010 has renewed enthusiasm for measuring performance, and that quarterly reviews required by the new law have been a huge step forward, bringing top leaders into the conversation about performance goals, progress and obstacles.
The 2010 law also required the establishment of agency chief operating officers and the PIOs, and gave them important performance responsibilities. This requirement has given greater visibility to senior agency leaders, who are actively contributing to the necessary cultural transformation at agencies, according to those interviewed. The leadership commitment is making a big difference, even though more needs to be done.
Of course, not all is going perfectly. We found that despite agencies collecting a great deal of data about performance, the data are not being used at all levels to help make decisions. This finding is consistent with a recent Government Accountability Office report, which said performance information being produced could be more accessible, available, understandable and relevant. The amount of data can sometimes be overwhelming. Agencies aren't communicating as well as they could be about what the data shows.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle facing agencies is getting the skills needed to define measures and collect and analyze data in a meaningful way. The current climate of flat pay, no bonuses and budget cuts makes solving this problematic.
It would not be responsible just to identify problems and celebrate progress, without also making practical recommendations for solving them. The following are some of the recommendations from the report:
- Agency leaders must make adoption of a performance culture a priority and redouble efforts to motivate agency units to use available data to improve performance and hold themselves accountable.
- Chief operating officers should broaden the adoption of regular, data-driven meetings and encourage performance leaders in subcomponents to learn from performance measures and management practices used by others.
- Agencies should establish priority goals that involve more than one agency unit as a way to increase collaboration, provide opportunities to learn and achieve better results.
- The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should continue investing in program evaluation activities that enhance understanding of performance and program outcomes, and improve how those efforts are connected to performance management. Better coordination among those who set goals and measure performance, and those who lead evaluation initiatives, would accelerate the adoption of best practices.
- OMB should, in collaboration with the Performance Improvement Council and the Office of Personnel Management, develop and advance a set of core competencies for staff that couples business knowledge with analytical ability and stresses the importance of performance measurement and data analytics to managing program performance and driving improvement.
Engagement with Congress is one of the most glaring gaps in current performance management efforts, and one that's persisted for many years.
In the survey responses, PIOs acknowledged that federal agencies' outreach to Congress on performance is virtually nonexistent. Both Congress and agencies are missing an opportunity to accelerate improvements in program performance. PIOs can play an important role in crafting reports that meet the needs of legislators and facilitate a discussion about what's needed to drive greater results. Congress is showing an increasing appetite for this kind of conversation. The executive branch should feed it.
The 2010 law has given new life to performance management efforts at the federal level, according to PIOs. Some practical steps, including driving efforts to the bureau and program level, enhancing data analytics skill and renewing engagement with Congress, can hasten the adoption of best practices and enhance the results government achieves for its citizens.
Government management expert Robert Shea is a principal at Grant Thornton and former U.S. Office of Management and Budget leader. He also served as Counsel to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. For a copy of the Taking Measure: Moving from Process to Practice in Performance Management report, go to www.ourpublicservice.org. Join the conversation on twitter at #takingmeasure.
Image via Dr. Cloud/Shutterstock.com
NEXT STORY: Want to Innovate? 4 Ways to Stimulate Creativity


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Lock your Mac via iPhone and take an iSight picture with login attempts
RedHand is a pretty powerful Mac security app with a creepy icon that locks your computer using a myriad of protection options and scripting support, but I think the two best features by far are these: Bluetooth detection locking & unlocking, and the ability to take iSight pictures on failed login attempts.
Take an iSight picture with logins and failed login attempts
Once your computer is locked with RedHand, it will document all intrusion and login attempts with time and date, the attempted password that was entered, and best of all… an iSight picture! You can actually use any external camera attached to the Mac, but the iSight makes the most sense since it's directly in front of the face of most Macs. This ability is configurable through the preference pane and even scriptable.
Lock & unlock your Mac based on the presence of a Bluetooth device
Yes, this means you can use an iPhone as a keycard of sorts to lock and unlock your Mac. No password required. If RedHand detects the specified Bluetooth device, the Mac unlocks itself. If the Bluetooth device is no longer detected, the Mac locks. How awesome is this?? Why isn't this feature built into Mac OS X and iOS?
Failed login penalties, disable the keyboard, scripting support, and more
Further options let you adjust a penalty time for failed login attempts, disable input for time periods, or just turn off the screen completely. There's even AppleScript, Bash, Perl, and other scripting language support so that you can write custom scripts to respond to intrusion attempts. Failed login? Use a script that saves the date and time with a picture and emails it to you remotely. With scripting support, the possibilities are endless. Check out the screenshot below of the preference pane options.
Download for free, $5 if you like it
RedHand is awesome, perhaps even more awesome is the developers attitude toward customers; they give you full access to the app to try it out and there are no serial numbers, they trust that if you like the app you'll pay the $5 to buy it.
You can download the app for free and try it out, but if you like the app you should pay the $5, it's a small price for some great Mac security software.
For a lot less security and reporting, you can always just lock your Mac with a screen saver, but where's the fun in that?


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Mandolin Orange is songwriter Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz. The Chapel Hill, NC duo ornaments lyric and harmony focused tunes with acoustic and electric guitars, fiddle and mandolin. Their instrumentation draws on bluegrass and rock-and-roll alike, keeping Marlin's dark lyrical themes at the forefront of their country sound.
Recorded at the 2012 Rhythm N' Blooms Fest.
Checkout Mandolin Orange's Website.


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In the market for a product that is "bound" to help your promotional efforts? The Westport perfect bound journal will do the trick! This handy notebook features a semi-flexible Classic recycled board (white, natural, black) with an elastic closure. It has side scoring for easy opening, as well as 100 lined, graph, blank, Euro dot sheets or our unique non-dated weekly sheets. Customize with an imprint of your brand logo and write your next success story in no time! Complies with FSC, Prop 65. 8.5″ W x 11″ L
Setup charge: $65.00
Packaging: Bulk


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Maybe, but it'll take more than this to convince me.
The Lone Star State is headed blue — the only question is WHEN Texas becomes a Democratic state. If Hillary Clinton runs for president, she will have a fighting chance of carrying Texas, which shares revolutionary demographic trends rewriting the rules of politics, and of creating opportunities for Democrats to regain control of the House and achieve a national realignment of Rooseveltian magnitude.
No less an authority than Karl Rove is known to have been worrying about the political future of Texas for years, with good reason. If Clinton were to run in 2016, she would attract a giant surge of the demographically powerful Hispanic vote, an equally giant surge of the equally powerful women's vote, a strong surge of support from younger voters who are developing lifetime habits of voting Democratic, and strong support from seniors and boomers.
These trends are as powerful in Texas as they are nationally. Some enterprising pollster will run the numbers for Hillary versus various Republicans that will show the potential strength of a Clinton candidacy in the Lone Star State.
There's pretty much nothing in the piece that could be construed as evidence or data, just a bunch of rah-rah stuff. Believe it or don't, it doesn't really advance the case for or against. For what it's worth, PPP says Hillary would be competitive in Texas in 2016, but 1) to say the least, it's early days, and 2) at some point partisan identity generally outweighs whatever warm feelings one may currently have about someone on the other team. I'm down with Hillary 2016, I do think she'd get people fired up, and I think she'd be at least somewhat likely to put resources into the state, but that and a buck twenty-five will get you a ride on the Main Street Line. Mostly I find it amusing to be having this conversation at all, because five years ago at this time we were talking about how much a Hillary Clinton candidacy would inspire Texas Republicans to never before seen heights of sound and fury. Those were the days, am I right?


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B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver says he plans to introduce legislation to give socially sustainable companies another option when incorporating.
Following a discussion with business owners in Vancouver on Wednesday, Weaver said he'll table a bill that will allow businesses that meet certain social and environmental guidelines to incorporate and be known as as a "benefit company."
Weaver said the government needs to do more to support businesses that carry a triple bottom line: people, profit and planet.
"Companies that pursue a triple bottom line are on the cutting edge of rethinking the role of business in the 21st century," he said. "They know that acting in the best interests of people and the planet is the best way to build a thriving economy for the long-term."
If passed, B.C. would become the first province in the country to offer this option. In the U.S., 33 states offer it already.
In B.C., companies can currently incorporate as a limited, unlimited liability or community contribution company.
Weaver is proposing that the province amend the Business Corporations Act to include the option for businesses, as long as they meet guidelines around transparency and public messaging that shares a focus on environmental and social sustainability.
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Each student has the opportunity to use a hammer and hardie, Leponitt wheeled mosaic cutters, scorer tool, and side nippers to shape the smalti glass tile.
Find which tool suits you and your style of mosaics.
OzMosaics sells Italian made Hammer and Hardies.
Browse and select from our wonderful range of Dynasty smalti.
The modern portable Hardie is a great idea to move your Hardie workspace around your studio, workbenches, outside or traveling to the worksite or mosaic workshops.
You can select your mosaic hammer from medium to heavy weight.
You can shape your smalti with side nippers and Leponitt Wheeled mosaic cutters but the hammer and Hardie is an added luxury and very useful for breaking down large pieces of glass, smalti, stone, and marble, etc.
If your hands ache or you can't achieve all the shapes and edging you wish with the wheeled nippers or side nippers, a hammer and Hardie suite of tools is a great investment. It's in your hands to bring traditional and contemporary tools and materials, techniques and inspiration to your mosaic art and craft.


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Palatino Sans® font family
Designed by Akira Kobayashi in ;2006
Hermann Zapf in ;2006
Palatino Sans is a 21st Century sans serif typeface from the master German designer Hermann Zapf. Palatino Sans and Palatino Sans Informal was designed as part of a group of three font families: Palatino nova, Palatino Sans, and Palatino Sans Informal. Together these three families act as the fulfilment of Herman Zapf's original Palatino idea. Palatino, which was born as a metal typeface in 1950, proved to be one of the 20th Century's most popular designs. Not only is Palatino Sans Informal a completely new typeface, it is also a completely new interpretation of the entire sans serif genre. Its letterforms are curved, rounded, and soft, not hard and industrial. In comparison with Palatino Sans, Palatino Sans Informal offers eccentricities that are somewhat artistic and more individual looking. The fonts in the Palatino Sans Informal family include several OpenType features, such as an extended character set covering all Latin-based European languages, old style figures, small caps, fractions, ordinals, ligatures, alternates, and ornaments. Palatino Sans Informal can be mixed well with Palatino and Palatino Sans.
Palatino Sans Bold
Desktop fonts are designed to
be installed on a computer for
use with applications.
Licensed per user.
Annual web fonts are licensed for a set number of page views.
Annual web fonts are licensed
for a set number of page views.
Application licensing allows fonts to be embedded in your software applications. The license may be based on the number of titles or the number of installations.
Electronic Document Fonts can be
embedded in an eBook, eMagazine or
eNewspaper. Fonts are licensed
annually per issue.
Server fonts can be installed on
a server and e.g. used by automated
processes to create items.
A license is per server core CPU per year.
A Digital Ads license allows you to embed web fonts in digital ads, such as ads created in HTML5. These license is based on the number of ad impressions.
Palatino Sans
Select technical format and
language support of the font.
language support of the font.
Technical details
Digital data from:
OpenType outline flavour:
CFF - PostScript-Outlines
Technical font names:
File name: PalatinoSansLTPro-Bold.otf
Windows menu name: Palatino Sans LT Pro
PostScript name: , PalatinoSansLTPro-Bold
PostScript full name: , Palatino Sans LT Pro Bold
Windows menu name: Palatino Sans LT Pro
PostScript name: , PalatinoSansLTPro-Bold
PostScript full name: , Palatino Sans LT Pro Bold
Catalog number:


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AC3 (Audio Coding 3)
AC3 (Audio Coding 3) is a synonym for Dolby Digital, was created by Dolby Labs for use in a Dolby Digital audio on DVD, Blu-ray and other digital video formats, increases fidelity over its previous surround sound standard, Pro-logic, with independent tracks for each of the 6 speakers, a 16bit sampling at 48khz rate compressed by 10- 12 times, making for a total bit rate of 384kbps.Dolby Digital AC-3 is based on feeling to the development of multi-channel surround sound coding system, an advanced audio compression technology. Currently, it has been adopted as the U.S. high-definition television (HDTV) audio system, the latest DVD drive also includes Dolby Digital AC-3. So Dolby AC-3 surround sound system may be very promising technology.
AC3 Player
AC3 Player is a free ac3 audio player for Windows platform from ac3directshowfilter.com, small and compact, no need install any audio codecs, it can play AC3 audio files directly, This program is very easy to use.Download AC3 Player (mirror)
Directshow Filter
AC3Filter is a free DirectShow filter for real time audio decoding and processing. It can decode the audio formats AC3, DTS, and MPEG. After you install it, most media players, including Microsoft's Windows Media Player, that use DirectShow, should be able to play AC3 audio correctly. Filter also supports ProLogicII audio as well.Download AC3Filter (mirror)


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Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages - and one is due in just THREE years
The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire.
Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies.
Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.
Trouble ahead: How the sun storm might look in London
And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky - they will dazzle until dawn - but the lights on the ground.
Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power.
By midnight, every mobile network is down and the internet is dying. Television - terrestrial and satellite - blinks off the air.
Radio is reduced to a burst of static.
By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilised world has plunged into chaos.
A year later, Britain, most of Europe plus North America is in the grip of the deepest economic catastrophe in history.
By the end of 2013, 100,000 Europeans have died of starvation.
The dead go unburied, the sick untreated.
It will take two decades or more for the first green shoots of recovery to appear - recovery from the first solar superstorm in modern history.
This catastrophe is not some academic one-in-a-million chance scenario.
It is a very real threat which, according to a report in the latest issue of New Scientist, remains one of the most potent, yet least recognised, threats to the future of human civilisation.
Solar activity: The sun, seen through a NASA telescope
Moreover, it is something that has happened before - not that long ago - and indeed has the potential to arrive every 11 years.
So what actually is it?
Solar storms do not normally cause much concern. Swarms of electrically charged subatomic particles from the Sun periodically buffet the Earth and its surroundings, causing health worries for astronauts and the owners of satellites, whose delicate electronics can be fried.
But down on the surface, cocooned under an ocean of air, we rarely notice more than the pretty lights in the sky, created as the electrically charged particles from the Sun sweep into the Earth's own magnetic field to generate the Northern and Southern Lights.
But every now and then, the Sun is convulsed by a gigantic tempest: 50,000-mile-wide eddies of boiling hydrogen plasma on its surface ejecting a billion-tonne, malevolent blob of crackling-charged gas into space at a million miles an hour.
And, very occasionally, one of these mighty coronal mass ejections, as they are called, smacks into the Earth head-on.
This last happened on the morning of September 1, 1859.
That day, one of Britain's top astronomers, Richard Carrington, was observing the Sun.
Using a filter, he was able to study the solar surface through his telescope, and he saw something unusual.
A bright flash of light erupted from the Sun's surface and detached itself from it.
Unbeknown to Carrington, that bright spot was a cloud of charged plasma on its way to Earth.
Just 48 hours later it struck, and the effects were extraordinary.
Brilliant aurorae lit the Earth's night skies right down to the Tropics - their light being so brilliant it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight.
In California, a group of gold miners were roused from their bed hours early, thinking the dawn and a new day's prospecting had come. It was 2am.
Telegraph operators received severe electric shocks as solar-induced currents surged through the networks. It was as though the Earth had been immersed in a bath of electricity.
Such damage as there was, was easy to repair. In 1859, the world ran mostly on steam and muscle.
Solar flare: Large-scale activity on the sun in 2003
Human civilisation did not depend on a gargantuan super-network of electric power and communications.
But it does now. Electric power is modern society's 'cornerstone technology', the technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend.
Daniel Baker, a space weather expert at the University of Colorado, prepared a report for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences last month, and the conclusions make grim reading.
'Every year, our human technology becomes more vulnerable,' he says.
A repeat of the 1859 Carrington event today would have far graver consequences than the frying of some telegraph wires.
The problem comes with our dependence on electricity and the way this electricity is generated and transmitted.
A huge solar storm would cause massive power surges, amounting to billions of unwanted watts surging through the grids.
Most critically, the transformers which convert the multi-thousand-volt current carried by the pylons into 240v domestic current would melt - thousands of them, in every country.
This would bring the world to its knees. With no electricity, we would not just be in the dark.
We are dependent, to a degree few of us perhaps appreciate, on a functioning grid for our survival. All our water and sewage plants run on electricity.
A couple of days after a solar superstorm, the taps would run dry.
Within a week, we would lose all heat and light as reserves ran out, the supermarket shelves would run empty and the complex supply and distribution networks upon which our society depends would have started to break down.
No telephones, no medicines, no manufacturing, no farming - and no food.
Global communications and travel would also collapse - a solar superstorm would probably destroy the network of GPS satellites upon which every airline depends.
Of course, the power grid can be rebuilt, new transformers and cables made, new satellites launched - but organising this in a world teetering on the brink of collapse would not be easy.
Humanity would recover, but it would take decades. A seemingly innocuous event, one which apparently poses no direct threat to human health at all, would have an effect on our world comparable to that of a small nuclear war.
So could this really happen? And why is 2012 a year to worry about? Well, we know that solar superstorm did happen, back in 1859.
And we know that 20 years ago a much smaller storm knocked out the power grid across much of eastern Canada, leaving nine million people without electricity.
We also know that the Sun's activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles.
Currently, the Sun is very quiet. But a solar maximum - a peak of activity - is predicted for 2012, and this is when a superstorm could strike, probably around either the spring or autumn equinox, when the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field to the Sun makes us very vulnerable.
The main point is that every solar maximum puts us more in danger as our growing population becomes ever more dependent on electricity.
Ironically, the least-affected parts of the world would probably be the poorest areas.
Those Third World nations that usually suffer most from natural disasters, on account of their poor infrastructure, would adjust most quickly to life without electricity, while richer nations would be paralysed.
So can anything be done to prevent an epic disaster?
A more robust electricity grid would be a start. And we need new satellites to give warning of what is happening on the Sun.
Of course, it may not happen in 2012 - it may not happen in 2023, the year of the next solar maximum.
But sooner or later, a re-run of the Carrington event is inevitable.
Perhaps it would be wise to start stocking up on some candles.
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