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The House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday took critical steps toward repealing the policy that bans gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military.
In a 16-12 vote, the Committee approved the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill. Later in the day, the House approved the amendment in a 234-194 vote. The full authorization bill now has to be cleared by both chambers. In the Senate, Republicans have threatened a filibuster.
Michael B. Keegan, President of People For the American Way, issued the following statement:
"We applaud the House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee for taking this important step toward the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. This discriminatory policy has for 17 years prevented patriotic citizens from serving our country in the armed forces. Because of this policy, thousands of qualified men and women have been forced out of the military simply because they are gay, and countless others have been deterred from serving in the first place. The policy does a disservice to men and women who have served this country with honor and stands in contradiction to our values as Americans.
"The Senate Armed Services Committee and the House have done the right thing in voting to eliminate Don't Ask, Don't Tell. We urge both chambers to act quickly to finally put us on a path to end institutionalized discrimination in the military."


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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Three University of Alabama football players have been charged with knocking students unconscious and stealing their wallets, while a fourth player has been charged with using a stolen debit card, officials reported on Tuesday.
Linebacker Tyler Hayes, 18, and safety Eddie Williams, 20, confessed to robbing a student who was punched in the head and face and kicked in the ribs and back early Monday morning, according to court documents.
Williams said D.J. Pettway, 20, a defensive lineman, and Hayes waited in a nearby vehicle about an hour later while he knocked out and robbed another student.
Williams and Hayes both admitted to their involvement, according to the documents.
Williams and running back Brent Calloway, 20, both admitted to using a stolen credit card to buy snacks from vending machines inside a dormitory, the documents said.
All four students were indefinitely suspended by coach Nick Saban.
Pettway and Hayes were charged with second-degree robbery. Williams was charged with fraudulent use of a credit card and second-degree robbery. Calloway was charged with fraudulent use of a credit card. Williams was released on $65,000 bond, while Hayes and Pettway were released on $60,000 bond each. Calloway was released on $5,000 bond.
"This behavior is unacceptable for any student-athlete at the University of Alabama and not representative of our football program," Saban said in a news release.
All four players were backups last season for Alabama, which has won two straight national titles and three of the past four. Williams didn't play in 2012. But he was one of the nation's top prospects the previous year and moved from receiver to safety.
The first student reported having his Apple Macbook Pro stolen from his backpack. Both sustained mild concussions, cuts on the face and heavy swelling, and had their wallets taken, according to documents.
University police posted an advisory Monday saying two students reported being approached by two men who asked for a light for a cigarette.
Police also said Williams had been arrested on a charge of carrying a pistol without a permit a day before his arrest on the robbery charges. Tuscaloosa police Sgt. Brent Blankley said in a news release that a clerk at a gas station called police early Sunday, telling officers that Williams threatened that he had something in his trunk after a fight about paying for gas.
Officers who pulled over Williams found a pistol in his pants pocket, the release said. In that case, he was released on $500 bond.
Jail records did not show whether any of the players had an attorney.
Pettway, who was a redshirt freshman, played in 13 games and had 2 1/2 sacks and eight tackles.
Hayes had 14 tackles as a freshman.
Calloway played mostly on special teams but gained 63 yards on 10 carries. He has moved around on the field, working as a linebacker, tight end and H-back since Alabama signed the onetime Auburn commitment.
Calloway was arrested on a charge of marijuana possession in October 2011 during a redshirt season.
4 'Bama players arrested

subset: commoncrawl


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Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 01 Apr 2010 04:37 and updated at 01 Apr 2010 05:05
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Section 107
CIX Dhritarashtra said, Tell me, O Sanjaya, how Yuyudhana rushed against the son of Bharadwaja in battle. I feel a great curiosity to hear it'
Sanjaya said, Listen, O thou of great wisdom, to the account of that battle, that makes the hair stand on end, between Drona and the Pandayas headed by Yuyudhana. Beholding the Kuru army slaughtered, O sire, by Yuyudhana, Drona himself rushed towards that warrior of unbaffled prowess, called also by the name of Satyaki. Satyaki pierced that mighty car-warrior, viz, the son of Bharadwaja, thus advancing against him, with five and twenty small arrows. Drona also, possessed of great prowess in battle, with deliberate aim, quickly pierced Yuyudhana, with five whetted arrows, equipped with wings of gold. Those arrows, piercing the hard mount of the foe and drinking his life-blood, entered the earth, O king, like hissing snakes. The long-armed Satyaki then, inflamed with rage like an elephant struck with the hook, pierced Drona with fifty long arrows that resembled flames of fire. Then Bharadwaja's son, thus quickly pierced in battle by Yuyudhana, pierced carefully exerting Satyaki in return with many arrows. Then that great bowman, endued with great might, and filled with rage, once more afflicted that hero of the Satwata race with many straight shafts. Thus struck in that battle by the son of Bharadwaja, Satyaki, O monarch, knew not what to do. Then, O king, Yuyudhana's face became cheerless, seeing the son of Bharadwaja shoot countless keen arrows.
Beholding Satyaki thus situated, thy sons and troops, O king, becoming exceedingly cheerful, repeatedly uttered leonine roars. Hearing that terrible uproar and beholding that hero of Madhu's race thus afflicted, king Yudhishthira, O monarch, addressing all his soldiers, said, That foremost one among the Vrishnis, viz, the brave Satyaki, of prowess incapable of being baffled, is about to be devoured by the heroic Drona, like the sun by Rahu. Go and rush ye to the spot where Satyaki is battling' The king, addressing Dhrishtadyumna. of the Panchala race, said, Rush thou with speed at Drona. Why dost thou tarry, O son of Prishata! Seest thou not the great danger to ourselves that has already arisen from Drona? Drona is a great bowman. He is sporting with Yuyudhana, in battle, like a boy with a bird bound in a string. Let all of you, headed by Bhimasena, and accompanied by others proceed thither where Satyaki's car is.
Behind you I will follow with my troops. Rescue Satyaki today who is already within the jaws of the Destroyer' Having said these words, O Bharata, king Yudhishthira with all his troops rushed towards Drona for the sake of Yuyudhana. Blessed be thou, great was the uproar made there by the Pandavas and the Srinjayas all fighting with Drona only. Together approaching, O tiger among men, that mighty car-warrior, viz, the son of Bharadwaja, they covered with showers of keen arrows equipped with the feathers of Kankas and peacocks. Drona, however, received all those heroes smilingly, like a householder receiving guests arrived of their own will, with seats and water. With the shafts of Bharadwaja's bow-wielding son, those heroes were well-gratified like guest, O king, with the hospitality they receive in the houses of good hosts. And none of them, O lord, could even gaze at the son of Bharadwaja who then resembled the thousand-rayed sun at midday. Indeed, Drona, that foremost of all wielders of weapons, scorched all those great bowmen with showers of arrows like the sun scorching everything below with his burning rays. Thus struck, O king, by Drona, the Pandavas and the Srinjayas beheld no protector, like elephants sunk in a morass.
The mighty arrows of Drona, as they coursed through the welkin, looked like the rays of the sun blasting everything around. In that encounter, five and twenty warriors among the Panchalas were slain by Drona, who were all regarded as Maharathas and all approved as such by Dhrishtadyumna. And amongst all the troops of the Pandavas and the Panchalas, men quietly beheld brave Drona slaying the foremost of warriors in succession. Having slain a hundred warriors amongst the Kekayas and routing them on all sides, Drona stood, O monarch, like the Destroyer himself with wide-open mouth. The mighty-armed Drona vanquished the Panchalas, the Srinjayas, the Matsyas and the Kekayas, O monarch, by hundreds and thousands. Pierced by the arrows of Drona, the clamour made by them resembled that made in the woods by the denizens of the forest when encompassed by a conflagration. The gods, Gandharvas, and the Pitris, said, Behold, the Panchalas, and the Pandavas, with all their troops, are flying away' Indeed, when Drona was thus engaged in slaughtering the Somakas in battle, none ventured to advance against him and none succeeded in piercing him. And while that dreadful encounter, so destructive of great heroes, continued, Pritha's son Yudhishthira suddenly heard the blare of Panchajanya. Blown by Vasudeva, that best of conchs gave loud blasts.
Indeed, while the heroic protectors of the ruler of the Sindhus were fighting, and while the Dhartarashtras were roaring in front of Arjuna's car, the twang of Gandiva could not be heard. The royal son of Pandu repeatedly swooned, and thought, Without doubt, all is not well with Partha, since that prince of conchs Panchajanya is yielding such blasts and since the Kauravas also, filled with joy, are incessantly uttering such shouts' Thinking in this way, with an anxious heart, Ajatasatru, the son of Kunti, said unto him of the Satwata race viz, Satyaki these words in a voice choked with tears. Though repeatedly stupefied, king Yudhishthira, however, did not lose sight of what was to be done next. Addressing Sini's grandson, that bull of his clan, Yudhishthira said, O grandson of Sini, the time for that eternal duty which the righteous ones of old have indicated for friends towards friends in seasons of distress, hath now come. O bull amongst the Sinis, reflecting within myself, I do not, O Satyaki, see amongst all my warriors one who is a greater well wisher to us than thou art. He who is always well-affected, he who is always obedient, I think, he should be appointed to a grave commission in times of distress. As Kesava is ever the refuge of the Pandavas even, so art thou, O thou of Vrishni's race, who art like Kesava in prowess. I will, therefore, lay a burthen on thee. It behoveth thee not to frustrate my purpose.
Arjuna is thy brother, friend, and preceptor, O bull among men, in this battle render him aid in time of distress. Thou art devoted to truth. Thou art a hero. Thou art the dispeller of the fears of friends. Thou art celebrated in the world, in consequence of thy acts, O hero, as one that is truthful in speech. He, O grandson of Sini, who casteth away his body while fighting in battle for friends, is equal to him who giveth away to Brahmanas the whole earth. We have heard of various kings gone to heaven, having given away the whole of this earth unto Brahmanas with due rites. O thou of virtuous soul, I beg of thee, with joined hands, even this viz, that, O lord, attain thou the fruit of giving away unto Brahmanas the whole earth, or something higher than that by incurring danger to thy life itself for helping Arjuna. There is one, viz, Krishna, that dispeller of the fears of friends, who is ever willing to cast away his life in battle for the sake of friends. Thou, O Satyaki, art the second.
None but a hero can render aid unto a hero, exerting valorously in battle, from desire of fame. An ordinary person cannot do so. In this matter, here is none else but thee who can protect Arjuna. On one occasion, while applauding thy numerous feats, Arjuna, giving me great pleasure repeatedly recited them. He said of thee that thou art endued with extreme lightness of hand, that thou art conversant with all modes of warfare, that thou art possessed of great activity and great prowess. He said, Satyaki is endued with great wisdom, is acquainted with every weapon, is a hero, and is never stupefied in battle. Of broad neck and broad chest, of mighty arms and broad cheeks, or great strength and great prowess, Satyaki is a high-souled Maharatha. He is my disciple and friend; I am dear to him and he is dear to me. Becoming my ally, Yuyudhana will crush the Kauravas. Even if Kesava and Rama, and Aniruddha, and the mighty car-warrior Pradyumna, and Gada, and Sarana, and Samva, with all the Vrishnis, case themselves in mail for assisting us, O king, in the field of battle, I shall yet appoint that tiger among men viz, Satyaki of unbaffled prowess, for our aid, since there is none equal to him'
Even this is what Dhananjaya told me in the Dwaita woods, in thy absence, while truly describing thy merits in an assembly of righteous persons. It behoveth thee not, O thou of the Vrishni race, to falsify that expectation of Dhananjaya, and also of myself and Bhima! When, returning from various tirthas, I proceeded to Dwaraka; there I witnessed thy reverence for Arjuna. While we were at Upaplavya I did not mark anybody else, O grandson of Sini, who showed us such affection as thou didst. Thou art of noble lineage and feelest reverence for us. For showing kindness, therefore, to one who is thy friend and preceptor, it behoveth thee, O thou of mighty arms, to act in a way deserving, O great bowman, of thy friendship and prowess and noble parentage and truthfulness. O thou of Madhu's race! Suyodhana, cased in armour by Drona himself, hath suddenly gone, following Arjuna! The other great car-warriors of Kauravas have, before that followed Arjuna. Loud uproars are being heard against Arjuna's car.
O grandson of Sini, it behoveth thee, O giver of honours, to go thither quickly. Bhimasena and ourselves, well-equipped and with all our forces, will resist Drona if he advances against thee. Behold, O Grandson of Sini, the Bharata troops are flying away in battle, and as they are flying away, they are tittering loud wails. Like the very ocean at full tide agitated by a mighty tempest, the Dhartarashtra host, O sire, is agitated by Savyasachin. Behold, in consequence of countless cars and men and steeds moving quickly, the earthly dust raised is gradually spreading over the field. See, that slayer of hostile hosts, Phalguna, is encompassed by the Sindhu-Sauviras, armed with spikes and lances and adorned with many horses in their ranks. Without vanquishing this force it will not be possible to vanquish Jayadratha. These warriors are prepared to lay down their lives for the sake of the ruler of the Sindhus. Behold the invincible Dhartarashtra force, stationed there, that bristles with arrows and darts and tall standards, and that teems with steeds and elephants. Hear the beat of their drums and the loud blare of their conchs, the tremendous leonine shouts uttered by them, and the rattle of their car-wheels.
Hear the grunt of their elephants, the heavy tread of their foot-soldiers, and the stamping of their rushing cavalry which all seem to shake the very earth itself. Before him is the division of Jayadratha, and behind is that of Drona. So great is the number of the foes that he is capable of afflicting the chief of the celestials himself. Sunk in the midst of the fathomless host, Arjuna may lose his life. If he be slain in battle, how can one like me live? Is this calamity to befall me when thou art alive? Dark-blue in colour, young in years, of curled locks and exceedingly handsome is that son of Pandu. Active in the use of weapons, and conversant with every mode of warfare, the mighty-armed Arjuna hath, O sire, penetrated into the Bharata host at sunrise. The day is about to end. O thou of Vrishni's race, I do not know whether he liveth or not.
The vast Kuru host is like ocean. O sire, Vibhatsu hath penetrated into it all alone. That army is incapable of being resisted by the very gods in battle. In today's battle, I fail to keep my judgment clear. Drona also is, with great might, afflicting my forces! Thou seest, O mighty-armed one, how that regenerate one is careering in battle. When several tasks present themselves together, thou art well-skilled in selecting that which would be first attended to. It behoveth thee, O giver of honours, to accomplish with activity that task which is the gravest of all. Amongst all these tasks, I myself think, that this aiding Arjuna is the first that demands our attention. The rescue of Arjuna in battle should be first undertaken.
I do not grieve for him of Dasarha's race. He is the Protector and the Lord of the Universe. I tell thee truly that tiger among men, O sire, is able to vanquish in battle the three worlds assembled together. What need I say, therefore, of this weak Dhritarashtra host? Arjuna, however, O thou of Vrishni's race, is being afflicted by countless odds in battle. He may yield up his life. It is for this that I am so cheerless. O thou then go in his track, since persons like thee should follow a person like him, at such a season, urged on by one like me. Amongst the foremost ones of the Vrishni race, two are regarded as Atirathas. They are mighty-armed Pradyumna and thyself, O Satwata, that are so famous.
In weapons, thou art equal to Narayana himself, and in strength to Sankarshana. In bravery, thou art equal to Dhananjaya, O tiger among men, and surpassest Bhishma and Drona and every one accomplished in battle. O tiger among men, the wise speak of thee, saying. O Madhava, There is nothing unachievable by Satyaki' O thou of great strength, do thou, therefore, that which I say unto thee, viz, obey the wishes of all here, of myself and of Arjuna. It behoveth thee not, O mighty-armed one, to frustrate that wish. Reckless of thy very life, career thou in battle like a hero. O grandson of Sini, the scions of Dasarha's race never care to protect their lives in battle. Avoiding battle, or fighting from behind breast-works, or flying away from battle, those practices of cowards and wretches are never practised by the Dasarhas. The virtuous-souled Arjuna is thy superior, O bull among the Sinis!
Vasudeva is the superior of both thyself and intelligent Arjuna, Casting my eyes on these two reasons, I say unto thee these words. Do not discard my words, I am the superior of thy superiors. That which I am saying unto thee is approved as also by Arjuna. I tell thee this truly. Go then to the spot where Dhananjaya is. Attending to these words of mine, O thou of prowess incapable of being baffled, penetrate in this host of the wicked son of Dhritarashtra. Having penetrated into it duly, encounter the great car-warriors, and display, O Satwata, such feats as are worthy of thyself
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From the MAKE Flickr pool
Solipsistnation posted detailed info for the excellent MeggySeq project (we recently covered) –
MeggySeq has 8 patterns of 16 steps each. You can set each of those steps to play one of 8 WAV files on the waveshield. You can play the pattern back, stop it playing, and change the tempo. You can copy patterns from one slot to another. You can even save all 8 patterns from RAM to EEPROM so they won't be lost when you turn off the Meggy Jr.
You can loop patterns into longer compositions (up to 8 patterns long) and edit the patterns and pattern parameters (like tempo, loop length, and pattern length) without stopping playback.
You can edit one pattern while another is playing, and if you change patterns during playback, the first pattern will finish playing before jumping to the newly-selected pattern (or the next pattern in the loop if you've turned on looping).
As he goes on to mention, Meggy Jr. isn't used for sound output in the project, but instead acts as a step sequencer triggering sample playback on a seperate Arduino + WaveShield unit. Over a serial cable, Meggy sends the numbers 1-8 corresponding to .wav filenames on the shield's SD card. This could easily be used for a live gig – nicely bright and blinky for low-light venues. Get down with all relevant source code & instructions on Solipsism.net
In the Maker Shed:
Arduino WaveShield Kit
2 thoughts on "How-To: Sample sequencer w/ Meggy Jr. + Arduino WaveShield"
Wow thats incredible. Where did you get the parts to make that? You should provide the URL in the tutorial =).
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Hunting Elk - November 16, 2008Click here to go back to the Frontier Home Page. Click on thumbprint photos to see them enlarged. |
If you have any questions about this website or want to contact Christine or Joe for any reason, please email us at firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com. |


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Tag: U.S. Attorney
The Senate has confirmed the confirmation of John Walsh for U.S. Attorney in Colorado.
As I wrote here, it will be interesting to see what changes he makes in leadership positions within the office.
(1 comment) Permalink :: Comments
The White House has announced that President Obama has nominated John Walsh for Colorado U.S. Attorney, ending a long and bumpy process. Walsh, was born in New York but grew up in Denver. He is in private practice. He served as an AUSA in Los Angeles from 1987 to 1995, and has emphasized gun crimes and economic crimes as a priority. Republicans like Walsh, I expect he'll be confirmed easily. As one put it, ""We're not going to get a Republican appointed, so why not take the best of the Democrats?"
The Denver Post endorsed Walsh for Denver D.A. in 2004 when he lost to our current D.A., Mitch Morrissey. It liked his promise to strengthen juvenile diversion, prevention programs and drug courts.
The Pueblo Chieftain reports Walsh has made significant contributions to the campaigns of Obama, Mark Udall and Ken Salazar. The other contender for the position, Pueblo D.A. Joe Thiebaut, did not.
Walsh was also under consideration for a federal judgeship. From a practical standpoint, it will be interesting to see what changes Walsh makes in leadership positions inside the office.
(1 comment) Permalink :: Comments
As expected by many lawyers, including me, President Obama has nominated Stephanie Villafuerte, a former AUSA, former Denver Chief Deputy D.A. and current Deputy Chief of Staff to Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, to be the U.S. Attorney for Colorado.
I expect her to be confirmed easily and a popular choice. (Her focus as a state prosecutor was on domestic violence and child abuse.) Some background details are here. The other two lawyers up for consideration were:
John Walsh, a white-collar criminal and civil attorney from Hill & Robbins in Denver who previously worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California; and William "Bill" Thiebaut Jr., a district attorney for Pueblo, Colo. who previously served as the Colorado Senate majority leader.
Once again it shows how the U.S. Attorneys' job is a political plum. Villafuerte took a leave of absence from the DA's office to work on Ritter's gubernatorial campaign. She permanently left the DA's office to become his Deputy Chief of Staff. Ritter has been one of Obama's strongest supporters. And so it goes. At least she's up to the task. [More...]
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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
The rules and regulations associated with the CARES Act govern the timeline for which funding assistance can be distributed. All applications must be received by January 29, 2021, in order for the department to meet the stringent deadlines of the program. Any application received after the deadline cannot be included in the program.
Show All Answers
The City sent letters to all customers whose accounts meet the requirements to receive relief funds. Only customers who have received one of these letters are eligible for this program. If you have not received one of these letters, your account does not meet the program's requirements, and your intake form will not be considered.
No. Funds are only available for utility services provided by the City of Charlottesville (Water, Wastewater, and Natural Gas).
If your account meets the past due requirement, you will be notified by the City to apply for the program.
We are only managing the funds available for the City of Charlottesville utilities customers, please contact ACSA to check your eligibility for any relief programs it offers.
Online applications are available at www.charlottesville.gov/utilityrelief. If you would like a paper copy mailed to you, please contact Utility Billing at 434-970-3211 or email email@example.com
Funding is designed to be a one-time opportunity, with only one direct assistance payment per household (for residential) or account holder and their successors (for non-residential). Applicants who meet eligibility criteria will receive a direct assistance credited on their account.
Direct assistance payments will be calculated based upon the number of eligible applicants and balances owed. It is anticipated that there will not be enough CARES Utility Relief Funds to cover all customers whose accounts are in arrears.
The deadline to apply is Friday, January 29, 2021.
No. You do not have to repay the funds.
We will have a determination of the amount of funds allocated per account by January 29, 2021. A credit will be applied to your account a portion of your past due amount. If you are awarded a credit, you will see that credit applied as an adjustment on your next bill from Utility Billing.
No. While the payment amount granted to your account may not cover any, or all of the past due balance, the City of Charlottesville Utility Billing Office will continue to offer repayment plans. To discuss repayment plan options, please contact Customer Service at 434-970-3211. All customers who continue to meet the terms set in their repayment plan will not be subject to service disconnection.


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- Home
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Planning to operate a business within Glenwood Springs? You may need to contact multiple departments within the City, depending on the type of business you are opening. Those departments include the Finance Department, City Clerk's Office and/or the Community Development Department (Planning and Building).
Sales Tax and Business Licenses
If you are a business that will have sales, you will need to apply for a Glenwood Springs sales tax license through the Finance Department and also have a State sales tax license. Please visit Colorado.gov for more information about state requirements. If you are service business that does not have sales, you will need to apply for a Business License.
Glenwood Springs Sales Tax License Application
The City of Glenwood Springs has partnered with MUNIRevs to provide an online business licensing and tax collection system. This system allows businesses to access their accounts and submit tax returns and payments online. Access the MUNIRevs System.
Effective with January 2014 sales tax return, the penalty interest rate has changed to 0.5%. Also, note that all amounts on the return should be rounded to the nearest dollar.
Business License Application
Complete your business license application online by using the MuniRevs system. Apply Now.
License Renewal Form
Our 2-year license expires at the end of odd-numbered years. Renew Now.
Temporary Vendors
If you are a temporary vendor doing business in Glenwood Springs for the first time, please submit an application online. Temporary vendors or event vendors, must pay $25 and also provide a $100 deposit. This permit should be obtained for produce stands, peddlers, solicitors, short-term displaying of goods for retail sale and vending carts. Returning vendors should call 970-384-6455 before submitting the application to see if the deposit is still required.
Business License Assistance
If you need assistance, please call Muni Revs at 1-888-751-1911


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The goaltending depth chart for those trying to keep up.
New York:
Rick DiPietro
Dwayne Roloson
Martin Biron-Never knew he was the brother of former Islander Mathieu
Mikko Koskinen-Will play in the Isles minor league system this year.
Scott Munroe
Nate Lawson
Parker Van Buskirk-Signed Monday 8/24 by Utah
Dov Grumet Morris-Signed 8/31 by Utah
Joel Martin signed with Odessa on 7/14/2009
Anders Nilsson
Jase Weslosky-See link posted here on his recent status change which makes his signing unlikely according to asst gm Ryan Jankowski's comments.
Stefan Ridderwall
Kevin Poulin-Was in Bridgeport last last season and prospect camp in July.
Joel Martin signed with Odessa on 7/14/2009
Anders Nilsson
Jase Weslosky-See link posted here on his recent status change which makes his signing unlikely according to asst gm Ryan Jankowski's comments.
Stefan Ridderwall
Kevin Poulin-Was in Bridgeport last last season and prospect camp in July.
It should also be noted Peter Mannino's first year out of college was his last with the Islanders organization after taking Dubielewicz path to the pro ranks and is now a Thrasher.
What do I think of DiPietro's recovery and the recent announcements?
I think it was un-necessary (with good intentions) and exactly the distraction DiPietro wanted to avoid considering in a week or two the team will report and we will get our answers anyway about what he can or cannot do by how/if he practices.
This comes down to the doctors timetable with his recovery, not the player so DiPietro and the Islanders are caught in the middle also because they are not doctors and it's beyond their control.
His time table could be day by day so releasing any schedule as to when he could play may be getting way ahead of ourselves.
The doctor spoke last January and said another surgery was remote after six weeks of doing nothing was first announced but it appears remote did happen which means he's back where he was a year ago give or take a month as frustrating as that is for everyone.
Did he rush back? Who knows what he told the doctors or what they told him he could do on a daily basis. I cannot fault him for trying if he was told he could play, many other players in this league perform with injury and have to play through pain as part of recovery.
How many players with knee injuries who miss a year (usually ACL-MCL surgery) have we been told hit a wall and need two years? We saw this with Martinek, Peca, Nokelainen and who knows if it was a factor for Jon Sim in 2008-09?
Obviously with two veteran goaltenders here there is no rush but the idea now has to be make sure he has the best chance to return healthy because it's fair to write by the Isles actions they have made plans if this surgery is not successful to move on without him.
And now for the usual rehashing I did several times last season on the injury policy.
The New York Islanders last year were the only team that tried to follow a league mandated policy decided during the finals (by all the clubs) that were bullied out of it daily with relentless assaults from our limited media like they were not allowed to follow the league adapted policy I saw followed in Pittsburgh, Detroit and several other NHL markets.
I guess when you lead the league in injuries it goes with the territory.
Mr Logan/Newsday staff, Mr Botta did not let up on the team for following league policy and much of it centered around DiPietro. Mike Sillinger did not get this kind of scrutiny and in a lot of ways has had a similar kind of last two seasons with a different kind of injury as we saw with Bates.
I'm not a big fan of the public must know everything mantra about someone's health, our players stories are rarely told when they are healthy in this very limited hockey media market, if more coverage is needed that's where it should start from the professional print media.
When someone is ready to play and we see them skating that's when we'll know they are ready and all the updates in the world does not change that.
Bottom line when you lose 582 man games to injury which I believe was a league record and have 402 man games lost the previous year which also led the league it's not going to be an easy process with injury information.
New York Islander Fan Central Twitter Page
New York Islander Fan Central Audio-Podcast Homepage


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Disabling and Enabling Inspections
On this page:
If you think that some inspections report about the problems that you are not interested in, you can disable such inspections. Note that when you disable an inspection, it is disabled in the current inspection profile; in all other profiles, it remains enabled.
There are several ways to disable/enable inspections:
- Using the Inspections page in the Settings/Preferences dialog - this is the main interface for managing inspections; here you can see at once, which inspections are enabled or disabled in all inspection profiles.
- Using the intention actions - this is the way to disable a highlighted code issues right in the editor.
- In the Inspection Results tool window - this is a quick way to disable uninteresting issues when analyzing inspection results. Note that here you can only disable inspections.
Disabling or enabling inspections
To disable or enable an inspection in the Settings/Preferences dialog
- Find the desired inspection, by expanding the grouping nodes or using the search field.
- Use the check box next to the inspection to disable or enable it.
- Apply the changes and close the dialog box.
To disable an inspection for highlighted issue in the editor
- When you disable inspections this way, they are disabled for the current inspection profile.
- To re-enable inspections disabled this way, use the main procedure described above.
To disable inspections from the Inspection results report
- When you disable inspections this way, they are disabled for the inspection profile that was used for running inspections. You can see it in the header of the Inspection Results window's tab.
- To re-enable inspections disabled this way, use the main procedure described above.
- In the Inspection Results Tool Window, right-click the inspection you want to disable.
- On the context menu, choose Disable inspection.
- Press the filter button to hide the disabled inspection alerts.
See Also
Last modified: 18 July 2017


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The San Francisco midsummer fog was late in coming this year, which means Janet and I got a fantastic view of the July 4th fireworks (legal and not-strictly-legal) from the top of Bernal Hill. Hot days are rare in San Francisco, so random strangers have been smiling at each other on Mission Street and the lines are extra-long on the sidewalks in front of the ice creameries.
You may not be aware of the close relationships among these summer phenomena. Ice cream was invented by modifying a technology originally discovered for fireworks. And the way ice creams flavors are named turns out to have a surprising relationship with the evolutionary origin of the human smile.
Ice cream has always been popular in San Francisco; Swensons, Double Rainbow, and It's It were all founded here, and Rocky Road ice cream was invented across the bay in Oakland during the Great Depression. Prices are not Depression-era at the latest upscale creameries, though, where you'd be lucky to walk away with a pint of ice cream for less than seven dollars. At Smitten, in Hayes Valley, for example, they'll make your ice cream fresh when you order it, freezing it with liquid nitrogen. At other places the selling point is the the unusual flavors (or their interesting names). At Humphry Slocombe you can get foie gras, pink grapfefruit tarragon, or strawberry black olive. Bi-Rite Creamery will happily sell you honey lavender, balsamic strawberry, and salted caramel. Mitchell's specializes in Filipino and other tropical flavors, including halo halo, lucuma, ube (purple yam), and avocado. And Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous seems to keep running out of their latest hip flavor, orange blossom.
Well, actually, it turns out that orange blossom is not a newfangled flavor. Orange blossom is, in fact, the original ice cream flavor, appearing in the earliest recipes by the mid 1600's, the period when ice cream was invented. Ice cream was served in the Restoration court of Charles II as early as 1671, and food scholar Elizabeth David gives us what may be the English royal recipe, handwritten in Grace Countess Granville's Receipt Book by the 1680's:
The Ice Creame
Take a fine pan Like a pudding pan ½ a ¼ of a yard deep,
and the bredth of a Trencher;
take your Creame & sweeton it wth Sugar and 3 spoonfulls of Orrange flower water,
& fill yor pan ¾ full...
By about 1696, a later edition of La Varenne's cookbook suggests using fresh orange flowers:
You must take sweet cream, and put thererto handfuls of powdered sugar, and take petals of Orange Flowers and mince them small, and put them in your Cream, and if you have no fresh Orange Flowers you must take candied, with a drop of good Orange Flower water...
And by 1700 other ice cream flavors were developed as well, including pumpkin, chocolate, and lemon, as well as a plethora of early sorbets: sour cherry, cardamom, coriander-lemon, and strawberry.
Where did these flavors come from? The use of orange flower should give you a clue: the historical roots of ice cream and sorbet, like many of our modern foods, lie in the Muslim world.
Fruit syrups, and the refereshing drinks made from mixing them with water, are called sherbet in Turkish and sharbat in Persian, from Arabic sharbah, from shariba `to drink'. These chilled (but not frozen) drinks have been popular throughoutt the Ottoman, Arab, and Persian worlds continuously since the Middle Ages. On the left is a Gül Şerbeti (rose sherbet) from a modern Turkish cookbook; and Claudia Roden talks nostalgically of the sharbat of Egypt, flavored with lemon, rose, violet, tamarind, mulberry, raisin, or liquorice.
By the 16th century Italian and French travelers had brought back words of these Turkish sherbets. In one of the earliest mentions of the word in Europe, the French naturalist Pierre Belon in 1553 described sherbets in Istanbul made of figs, plums, apricots, and raisins. Thirsty passers-by would buy a glass of syrup from wandering sellers or stands, mixed with water and chilled with ice. But by 1615 sherbets were still unavailable in Europe; here's an excerpt from a letter an Italian traveler sent home in 1615 from Constantinople, from Elizabeth David's lovely book "Harvest of the Cold Months":
scerbet, a certain composition which they make... of sugar, lemon juice, seasonings of fruit and flowers and other ingredients, something like the conserves and marmalades of Naples; when they want to drink, they put some of this composition in a jug of water...
These sherbets were the source of the fruit ices that we now call sorbets. But the Ottoman drinks (and the modern Middle Eastern ones as well) were not frozen; they were cooled with ice or snow just like modern lemonade. People had been putting ice and snow into drinks to cool them for over 4000 years, but freezing sweetened fruit juice or cream requires a much lower temperature than just ice can achieve.
So where did the idea and the technology for freezing arise? Obviously liquid nitrogen, the darling freezing technology of modernist cuisine, was not available in the 16th century.
The insight came from fireworks. In the 9th century, during the Tang dynasty, the Chinese first realized that saltpeter (potassium nitrate) could be mixed with sulpher and coal to create the explosive mixture we now call gunpowder. Gunpowder was quickly adopted by the Muslim world, where potassium nitrate was called Chinese snow in Arabic and Chinese salt in Persian.
But it was in the Arab world rather than China that the processing of purifying and refining potassium nitrate was perfected, and it was here in Damascus that it was discovered, probably by the Damascus physician Ibn Abī Uṣaybi'a, in his 1242 History of Medicine ("Uyūn al-ānbā")) (although he credits a lost work from an earlier Muslim physician, Ibn Bakhtawayh, from 1029), that saltpeter had refrigerating properties: when potassium nitrate (saltpeter) is added to water, it chills the water. Dissolving salts like potassium nitrate (KNO3) in water breaks the bonds between the ions, drawing heat from the surrounding water. This endothermic reaction, the basis of the modern cold pack shown to the right, can drop the temperature of the water enough to freeze pure water, although not low enough to freeze fruit ices or ice cream.
By the early 16th century this discovery was widely used in Muslim India to chill water for drinking. At this time most of what is today northern and central India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well as parts of Afghanistan, was ruled by the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great. The Mughals were originally Turkic speakers from central Asia, and the royal line that conquered Delhi traced their descent from Genghis Khan (Mughal was the Persian word for Mongol), but had adopted the Persian language and culture. By the time of Akbar, the Persian-speaking court at Agra was a center for the arts, architecture and literature. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata were translated from Sanskrit to Persian during this period, and Akbar's keen interest in painting and architecture led to the development of styles of art that mixed Persian, Hindu, and European forms. Like many places where scientific and culinary innovation and mixing flourished (Moorish Spain, early Norman Sicily), Akbar's reign was a beacon of relative religious tolerance, in which the tax on non-Muslims was eliminated and other religions were allowed self-government. Agra (and his later court in Lahore) were steamy hot, and drinks were cooled by spinning a long-necked flask in saltpeter-water. Here's a 1596 description from the Ain I Akbari:
One sér of water is then put into a goglet of pewter, or silver, or any other such metal, and the mouth closed. Then two and a half sérs of saltpetre are thrown into a vessel, together with five sérs of water, and in this mixture the goglet is stirred about for a quarter of an hour, when the water in the goglet will become cold.
Very quickly this idea of using saltpeter to cool water was adopted in Italy. Blas Villafranca, a Spanish physician working in Rome published the idea in 1550, saying that this saltpeter bath had become the common method of cooling wine in Rome. On the left is his picture of the method, showing a bulbous flask clearly adapted from the Indian flasks above; the shape makes it easy to speed up the cooling by turning the bottle in the cold bath.
In 1589 the next step in ice cream technology was taken by the Neapolitan Giambattista Della Porta. In the 2nd edition of his "Magia Naturalis" he experimented with adding saltpeter to snow rather than to water. The result successfully froze watered wine. Della Porta's combination was a happy accident; it was not saltpeter's endothermic reaction with water that caused cooling when mixed with ice, but a completely different chemical property. Adding a solute (anything will do) lowers the freezing point of water, by interfering with the crystal structure of the ice. Adding salt or potassium chloride slowly draws water out from its chrysal mixture, and since the freezing point is lowered, turns into a salty slush. The phase shift from solid to liquid takes energy (another endothermic reaction), resulting in an even colder freezing brine that reaches -20 degrees C, easily cold enough to freeze ice cream or fruit ices.
Sometime between 1615 and 1650, the Neapolitans combined the liquid Ottoman sherbets with the newly invented saltpeter-and-ice freezing method, resulting in a new food: frozen sherbets or frozen sorbets. The idea of freezing other liquids like milks and custards soon followed. We don't have any of these early Italian recipes, the way we have early English and French recipes, but evidence for the Italian innovation comes from contemporary French ice cream makers who discussed learning their recipes from Italy. Soon afterwards the Italians also figured out that common salt worked better than saltpeter for freezing (salt is a smaller molecule than saltpeter; the smaller the molecule, the more ions from each gram of solute interferes with freezing); by 1665 the English chemist Robert Boyle said that ice and common salt was the method "much employ'd" in Italy to chill drinks and fruit.
By the 1700s European languages had settled on names for the new invention, with the Ottoman sherbet now redefined as a frozen fruit ice rather than just a fruit syrup, and the words for ice cream mostly based on words meaning "ice" or "frozen" (Eis, glace, gelato, etc.).
As for the names of the flavors, mostly they are just the names of the ingredients ("chocolate", "strawberry", "orange blossom", and so on). We commonly assume that such flavor names are purely descriptive, and that factors like the sounds of the names should have no bearing on how the ice cream tastes. To paraphrase Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:
What's in a name? that which we call a rose sherbet
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Juliet was roughly correct; the sounds (or "phones") that make up a word don't generally tell you what the word means. By 500 BC Plato (in the Cratylus) and the Chinese linguist Xunzi of the Chinese Warring States period had figured out that the relationship between sound and meaning is usually arbitrary. A moment's thought makes it clear why this must be true: different languages have totally different sounds for the same concept, and languages only have around fifty or so phones, and obviously have a lot more ideas to express than fifty.
But it turns out that research over the last century has shown that Shakespeare was wrong; sometimes the sounds of a name do influence how people perceive ice cream. The phenomenon of sounds carrying meaning is called "sound symbolism". Sound symbolism has been most deeply studied with vowels, and in particular the difference between two classes of vowels, front vowels and back vowels, which are named depending on the position of the tongue. The vowels i (the vowel in the words cheese or bean) and ɪ (the phonetics symbol is a small capital I, pronounced as in mint or slim) are front vowels. because they are made by holding the tongue high up in the front part of the mouth. The picture to the left shows a very schematic cutaway of the head, showing the lips and teeth on the left, and the tongue high up toward the front of the mouth.
By contrast, the vowel ɑ (as in large, pod, or on) is a low back vowel; this sound is made by holding the tongue lower in the back part of the mouth; other back vowels are o (as in cold) and ɔ (as in the word pour or my mother's New York pronunciation of ought). The picture to the right shows a very schematic tongue position for these vowels; lower in general, and more toward the back of the throat.
A number of studies over the last 100 years or so have shown that front vowels in many languages tend to be used in words that refer to small, thin, light things, and back vowels in words that refer to big, fat, heavy things. It's not always true, but it's a tendency that you can see in any of the stressed vowels in words like little, teeny or itsy-bitsy (all front vowels) versus humongous or gargantuan (back vowels). Or the i vowel in Spanish chico (front vowel meaning small) versus gordo (back vowel meaning fat). Or French petit (front vowel) versus grand (back vowel).
In one marketing study, for example, Richard Klink created pairs of made-up product brand names that were identical except for having front vowels or back vowels: nidax (front vowel) verus nodax (back vowel), or detal (front vowel) versus dutal (back vowel). For a number of hypothetical products, he asked people which seemed bigger or smaller, or heavier or lighter, with questions like:
Which brand of laptop seems bigger; Detal or Dutal?
Which brand of vacuum cleaner seems heavier, Keffi or Kuffi?
Which brand of ketchup seems thicker, Nellen or Nullen?
Which brand of beer seems darker, Esab or Usab?
In each case, the participants in the study tended to choose the product named by back vowels (dutal, nodax) as the larger, heavier, thicker, darker product. Similar studies have been conducted in various other languages.
The fact that consumers think of brand names with back vowels as heavy, thick, richer products suggests that they might prefer to name ice cream with back vowels, since ice cream is a product whose whole purpose is to be heavy and rich.
Indeed, it turns out that people seem to (at least mildly) prefer ice creams that are named with back vowels. In a study in the Journal of Consumer Research Eric Yorkston and Geeta Menon had participants read a press release describing a new ice cream about to be released. Half the participants read a version where the ice cream was called "Frish" (front vowel) and the other half read a version where it was called "Frosh" (back vowel), but the press release was otherwise identical. Asked their opinions of this (still hypothetical) ice cream, the "Frosh" people rated it as smoother, creamier, and richer than the "Frish" people, and were more likely to say they would buy it. The participants were even more influenced by the vowels if they were simultanously distracted by performing some other task, suggesting that their response to the vowels was automatic, at a non-conscious level.
If people subconsciously think of ice cream names with back vowels as richer and creamier, it suggests that actual ice cream brands or flavors might also use back vowels. So I ran what Mark Liberman calls a Breakfast Experiment; a quick experiment using some easy-to-access language data. My hypothesis was that we would see more back vowels in names of actual ice cream brands or flavors. Furthermore, if front vowels indeed indicate thin, small, light , we should expect more front vowels in foods that supposed to be thin and light, like crackers.
To test the hypothesis I downloaded two lists of food names from the web. One was a list of 81 ice cream flavors that I constructed by including every flavor sold by either Haagen Dazs or Ben & Jerry's. The second was a list of 592 cracker brands from a dieting website. For each list, I counted the total number of front vowels (i, ɪ, ɛ,e,æ) and the total number of back vowels (details of the study are here). The result, shown in the table to the right, is that ice creams names indeed have more back vowels and cracker names have more front vowels.
Here are some examples of stressed back vowels in ice cream names:
Rocky Road, Jamoca Almond Fudge, Chocolate, Caramel, Cookie Dough, Coconut
And here are samples of the many cracker names with front vowels; note the extraordinary number of ɪ vowels:
Cheese Nips, Cheez It, Wheat Thins, Pretzel thins, Ritz, Krispy, Triscuit, Thin Crisps, Cheese Crisps, Chicken in a Biskit, Snack sticks, Toasted chips, Ritz bits
Of course there are exceptions: vanilla, the orange blossom of our day, has an ɪ. But most of the front vowels in ice cream flavors tend to be the names of small thin ingredients in the ice cream: (thin mint, chip, peanut brittle).
So what's going on? Why are front vowels associated with small, thin, light things, and back vowels with big, solid, heavy things?
The most widely accepted theory, called the Frequency Code, suggests that low frequencies (low pitch) and high frequencies (high pitch) are associated with particular meanings. The frequency code was developed by linguist John Ohala (my old phonetics professor!), extending work by Eugene Morton of the Smithsonian.
Morton noticed that mammals and birds tend to use low-frequency (deeper) sounds when they are aggressive or hostile, but use higher-freqeuncy (higher-pitched) sounds when frightened, appeasing, or friendly. Since larger animals naturally make deeper sounds (the roar of lions) and smaller animals naturally make high-pitched sounds (the tweet of birds), Morton's idea is that animals try to appear larger when they are competing or aggressive, but try to appear smaller and less threatening when they are trying to be friendly or appeasing.
Morton and Ohala thus suggest that humans instinctively associate the pitch of sounds with size. It turns out that front vowels like ɪ and i are higher-pitched in a particular way than back vowels ɑ and o. All vowels are composed of different frequency resonances. When the tongue is high and in the front of the mouth, it creates a small cavity in front of the tongue. Small cavities cause higher-pitched resonances (the smaller the space for vibration, the shorter the wavelength, hence the higher the frequency). One particular resonance (called the second formant) is much higher for front vowels and lower for back vowels.
Thus the frequency code suggests that front vowels are associated with small, thin, things, and back vowels with big heavy things because front vowels have higher pitched resonances, and we instinctively associate higher pitch with smaller things.
This link of high pitch with deference or friendliness may also explain the origin of the smile, which is similarly associated with appeasing or friendly behavior. The way we make a smile is by retracting the corners of the mouth. Animals like monkeys also retract the corners of their mouths to express submission (Ohala's figure (a) on the right), and use the opposite facial expression, which Ohala calls the "o-face" in which the corners of the mouth are drawn forward with the lips possibly protruding (figure (b) on the right), to indicate aggression. Retracting the corners of the mouth shrinks the size of the front cavity in the mouth, just like the vowels ɪ or i. In fact, the similarity in mouth position between smiling and the vowel i explains why we say "cheese" when we take pictures; i is the smiling vowel.
Ohala's theory is thus that smiling evolved when mammals were in competitive situations, as a way to make the voice sound more high-pitched, so as it make the smiler appear smaller and less aggressive, and hence friendlier.
Of course even if Ohala is right about the ancient evolutionary origin of the smile, smiling in humans has evolved into a means of expressing many shades of enjoyment and other emotional meanings, just as back vowels have become part of a rich and beautiful system for expressing complex meanings by combining sounds into words.
Something similarly beautiful was created as saltpeter and snow, sherbet and salt, were passed along and extended from the Chinese to the Arabs to the Mughals to the Neapolitans, to create the sweet lusciousness of ice cream. And it's a nice thought that saltpeter, applied originally to war, became the key hundreds of years later to inventing something that makes us all smile on a hot summer day.
Ice cream, anyone?


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[Adrian Onsen] keeps making improvements on his auto-focus assist hack for DSLR cameras. The module seen above is version 3.0, which makes a few changes to the previous hardware and also presents a much more finished look.
With version 2 [Adrian] was using a defocused laser to illuminate dark subjects so the DSLR auto-focus could be used. It worked, but wasn't really ideal. This time around he's swapped out the laser diode for an autofocus assist lamp salvaged from a Canon 550EX he picked up 'as is' on eBay. It is mounted on the front of his project enclosure, using two alkaline batteries for power. It sounds like [Adrian] is struggling a bit with his circuit design. He want's to make it work with either alkaline or rechargeable AA batteries (just two, down the from four AAAs used in version 2) but so far the rechargeable are a no-go. They power the circuit, but must not put out enough light for the sensor to work.
Future plans include getting rid of the external cords by adding a hot shoe connector.


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If you're familiar with the Nick Hornby book or the 2002 film of About A Boy, you will find that what has been kept in the new TV adaptation, coming Saturday night in a preview to NBC, is the clichéd skeleton of the story: a lazy, glib bachelor befriending the child of a single mom and learning how not to be such a selfish baby. Child-averse jerk and wisecracking moppet: a well-worn dynamic that animated, among other things, the early stages of Two And A Half Men.
Here, Will (played by Hugh Grant in the movie) is played by David Walton, a guy NBC has tried before to launch in various short-lived comedies (Bent, Perfect Couples) and who had a nice run as Jess' goofy boyfriend Sam on Fox's New Girl. Marcus, so beautifully played in the movie by baby-faced Nicholas Hoult (you may now know him as Beast from X-Men or, if you follow celebrity stuff, as Jennifer Lawrence's sometimes-boyfriend), is played by Benjamin Stockham, who's 13 years old, but plays 11 and seems even younger. And Marcus's mom, Fiona, handled in the movie in one of the best performances of Toni Collette's imposing career, is played by Minnie Driver.
The least helpful thing you can do with an adaptation of a book (or film) made by intelligent, capable people is to sniff, "Not as good as the original." After all, when a property is as adored as About A Boy, it can take a while for anything else to feel quite as good, and presumptive skepticism is a regrettably simple opening gambit. But what's problematic in this adaptation is not that the TV show has not brought along the quality of the book and film, but that it has not brought along the qualities of the book and film.
In short, in this version, rather startlingly run by Jason Katims, who did much better work (to say the least) adapting Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, both Will and Marcus have been drained of the profound sadness that made anything about the original About A Boy feel like it mattered. (We should note: The ending of the book and the ending of the film are different, and the TV show is fairly emphatically an adaptation of the film, so that's the fairest comparison.)
Gone is Fiona's suicide attempt, gone is her bone-deep depression, gone is Marcus's crushing burden of trying to help her, and gone is the pain she feels about not wanting to place the weight of her pain on him. Gone is Will's contemplative and considered belief that he is better off alone, and gone is the sense you have in the film that Will is calmly determined in his selfishness, and that he has reached his decision to be so for reasons of his own.
The frustrating thing about watching the first couple of episodes of the TV show is the sense that Walton and Driver, in particular, could probably do a braver and more thoughtful version of this story in which the melancholy that stalks the film so relentlessly – the melancholy that drives Marcus's statement that "you need backup" – is present. And Katims could certainly run one. But that's not this show, at least in the early going, and it's very hard to imagine them turning the ship around. Not impossible, but hard to imagine.
The writing of the first two episodes simply isn't giving these actors the material they need to make these characters seem significant. There's nothing wrong with what Walton is doing, but he's playing such a limited and limiting slacker that there's nothing he can really do. Driver, too, with the exception of one tearful outburst, is mostly the woman keeping it together, snarling at those who would do wrong by her kid. The hardest player in this ensemble to evaluate is Stockham, because no character here has been as egregiously flattened as Marcus, who, as written in the first two episodes, could be played by just about any cute kid, so who knows?
The pilot episode essentially traces an emotionally neutered version of the plot of the movie, culminating in a scene that makes so many wrong choices that anyone who adores the film is likely to be specifically enraged by what seems to be an almost complete failure to comprehend what was important about that story and the way it progressed and ended.
It's always possible for comedies to get better, and it's dangerous to judge them too early. But the problem with About A Boy is that the most likely audience for it is people who treasure this story – which is one of those deceptively quiet favorites that people hold very close to their hearts – and those people are going to blanch, hard, at some of these early decisions. For example, in the film, Will is living off the proceeds of a novelty song his father wrote, while in the TV show, Will is living off the proceeds of a song he wrote. It's a small thing, but in the film, having done actually nothing was fundamental to Will's character. In changing it, he becomes less an empty shell of a person and more someone who simply has the luxury of not needing to work anymore.
There are good people at work here; there are people in place who can make a good show. But the first two episodes demonstrate a pressing need to expand what's going on emotionally if they want to get past just being a trifling sitcom about a guy and a kid having silly adventures. The material will support it. They've just got to lean on it more.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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CHEN, JINRAN - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC) | |
LAZARENKO, OXANA - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC) | |
SHANKAR, KARTIK - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC) | |
BLACKBURN, MICHAEL - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC) | |
LUMPKIN, CHARLES - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC) | |
Badger, Thomas | |
RONIS, MARTIN - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC) |
Submitted to: Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 11/18/2010 Publication Date: 3/11/2011 Citation: Chen, J., Lazarenko, O.P., Shankar, K., Blackburn, M.L., Lumpkin, C.K., Badger, T.M., Ronis, M.J. 2011. Inhibition of NADPH oxidases prevents chronic ethanol-induced bone loss in female rats. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 336(3):734-742. Interpretive Summary: Chronic alcohol consumption causes bad quality of bone and easier bone fracture, the mechanisms of how chronic alcohol effect on bone are largely unknown and potential treatments to prevent alcohol-induced bone fracture remain unclear. We have previously demonstrated that, chronic ethanol (EtOH) treatment leads to accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in bone cells dependent on one enzyme called NADPH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) oxidase (Nox). EtOH-induced ROS production might effect on both inhibition of bone formation and enhancing of bone resorption. Using a cycling female Sprague-Dawley rat model, we gave alcohol directly into gastrointestinal track. We found that EtOH infusion for 4 weeks reduced bone quality. Co-administration of diphenylene iodonium chloride (DPI), a Nox inhibitor, by daily injection of 1 mg/kg/d, abolished EtOH-induced inhibition of bone formation. EtOH-induced inhibition of bone formation was associated with up-regulation of mRNA levels of all three Nox subtypes 1, 2, 4 in bone. These data suggest that inhibition of Nox expression or activity may be new target for prevention or treatment of chronic EtOH-induced bone loss, and perhaps other conditions resulting in oxidative stress associated bone resorption such as aging. Technical Abstract: Previous in vitro data suggest that ethanol (EtOH) activates NADPH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) oxidase (Nox) in osteoblasts leading to accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This might be a mechanism underlying inhibition of bone formation and increased bone resorption observed in vivo after EtOH exposure. In a rat model in which cycling females were infused intragastrically with EtOH-containing liquid diets, EtOH significantly decreased bone formation and stimulated osteoblast-dependent osteoclast differentiation. These effects were reversed by exogenous 17-beta estradiol co-administration. Moreover, co-administration of N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), an antioxidant, or diphenylene iodonium (DPI), a specific Nox inhibitor, also abolished chronic EtOH-associated bone loss. EtOH treatment up-regulated mRNA levels of Nox 1, 2, 4 and the receptor activator of NF-kB ligand (RANKL), an essential factor for differentiation of osteoclasts in bone. Protein levels of Nox4, a major Nox isoform expressed in nonphagocytic cells, was also up-regulated by EtOH in bone. 17-beta estradiol, NAC and DPI were able to normalize EtOH-induced up-regulation of Nox and RANKL. In vitro experiments demonstrated EtOH directly up-regulated Nox expression in osteoblasts. Pre-treatment of osteoblasts with DPI eliminated EtOH-induced RANKL promoter activity. Furthermore, EtOH induced RANKL gene expression and RANKL promoter activation in osteoblasts was ROS-dependent. These data suggest that inhibition of Nox expression and activity may be critical for prevention of chronic EtOH-induced osteoblast-dependent bone loss. |


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As Washington approaches a "fiscal cliff" of its own making, our elected officials appear to be forgetting some important things. President Obama seems to have forgotten the mandate he won in November, not a mandate just to increase taxes on the wealthy (something nearly 50% of Republicans now even support), but a mandate not to compromise for the sake of compromise — and not to compromise on cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. John Boehner has forgotten that he doesn't have a mandate, nor do House Republicans have a mandate from the majority of voters. And both seem not to notice that President Obama is winning the "fiscal cliff" showdown.
It's time to remind Washington just what Americans voted for — and against — in November. That's why a coalition of progressive organizations are mobilizing to whip Democratic Senators against voting for any "fiscal cliff" deal that includes cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
A coalition of liberal advocacy groups is mobilizing its members to whip Democratic senators against voting for any deficit-reduction deal that cuts safety-net benefits.
The groups divide the caucus up into three categories — the "weak-kneed," who they fear may agree to benefit cuts; the "wavering," who have signaled discomfort with the idea but haven't committed; and the "champions" whose support they're confident of. Via petition, they are urging their supporters to call their senators and ask for and record their positions on benefit cuts, with the dual goals of pressuring Democrats to oppose reducing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits and of providing their supporters continually updated information on where key members stand on the issue.
"Senators owe their constituents clarity about whether they'll stand up against any benefit cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security," said Victoria Kaplan at MoveOn.org Political Action, in a statement to TPM. "Our whip count seeks to shine a spotlight on whether Democratic Senators will fight for poor, middle class and working families, or if they will cave to Republican demands to favor millionaires and billionaires instead."
The petition splits Democratic senators into three groups: "Champions," "Part-Way There or Wavering," and "Weak-Kneed." Right now, the "champions" include:
- Sen. Daniel Akaka (HI)
- Sen. Sherrod Brown (OH)
- Sen. Ben Cardin (MD)
- Sen. Al Franken (MN)
- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)
- Sen. Tom Harkin (IA)
- Sen. Frank Lautenberg (NJ)
- Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT)
- Sen. Carl Levin (MI)
- Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR)
- Sen. Barbara Mikulski (MD)
- Sen. Jack Reed (RI)
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (WV)
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT)
- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)
If your senators aren't on that list, visit the petition and click on their names to call and ask them: "Do you commit to oppose any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?" (Or call them and thank them for their commitment if they are listed among the "champions," as my Maryland senators are.)
Call your senators and remind them what Americans really care about. Remind your senators that most of us are following the "fiscal cliff" debate closely, and we want to see them stand up for our concerns. Remind them that the deficit is not our top priority; not even close.
Call your senators, and remind them what Americans voted for in November, and the priorities we elected them to fight for.
Their first priority is to create jobs and get the economy going. Many mistakenly believe that large deficits cost jobs. But when we asked them to chose between work to "grow the economy" and a plan to "reduce the deficit," they chose growing the economy by more than two to one, 62-30, a margin of 31 percentage points. Fifty-five percent said they felt strongly on the first.
Second, voters disagree strongly with the priorities of the elite consensus congealing around the president's deficit commission co-chairs, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, and his own discussions of a grand bargain with House Speaker John Boehner. Those discussions suggest a deal that trades cuts in Medicare and Social Security for tax reform that lowers rates for individuals and corporations while gaining revenue by closing loopholes – a sort of Romney-lite tax reform.
When it comes to a deficit reduction plan, Americans have clear ideas.
They want tax rates to be raised on the wealthy. 68 percent find a plan that did not raises taxes on the rich "unacceptable." 70 percent support a plan that raises taxes on the top 2 percent while keeping the taxes of others at the same level. 63 percent would find a plan that continued to tax investors' income at lower rates than worker's wages unacceptable. 75 percent would support a plan to create a higher tax bracket for millionaires. 67 percent finds a plan that lowers tax rates on corporations or the rich unacceptable.
They do not want Social Security benefits cut over time. By 62 to 31, they would find a plan that did that unacceptable.
They do not want Medicare payments cut or capped: 79 percent, nearly four out of five, find capping Medicare payments forcing seniors to pay more unacceptable.
By 50 percent to 41 percent, they favor a deficit reduction plan that starts with closing loopholes and raising tax rates at the top, and excludes cuts to Medicare and Social Security over one that closes loopholes but "gets entitlement spending under control, including reducing the growth of Medicare and Social Security."
In November, voters handed President Obama a bigger win than Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, or Bush; and gave Democrats gains in both the House and Senate. Voters gave President Obama and the Democrats a mandate to use government to improve people's lives.
President Obama's reelection represents a victory for the Democratic ideal of activist government and a mandate for more of it. From the stimulus through the auto rescue through Obamacare and, finally, Hurricane Sandy, Americans saw the Democratic president making a difference in their lives, and after a campaign that was stunning in its ugliness, they gave Obama a second term and sent Mitt Romney home, wherever that is.
…The only reason the election was a squeaker was voter suppression in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. The long lines to vote, especially in minority neighborhoods, represent a 21st century poll tax, and should horrify all Americans. If Democrats were as unethical as Republicans, they'd look for ways to suppress the older white vote. Instead, all of us should look for ways to make it easier for everyone to vote. Democrats don't have to cheat to win.
The reelection of our first black president may be more remarkable than his first win, given the implacable opposition he faced from Republicans and racists (they aren't the same thing, even if it seems like it sometimes). In the end, Romney's contempt for half the country, as revealed in his 47 percent remarks, brought many Americans together behind a man who wants to be the president of all of us. When I saw his tears Monday night, I worried that it meant he'd learned bad news, but maybe he knew he was going to win, after four years of demonization. He tweeted his campaign slogan, "We're all in this together," to his followers after his win. Let's hope some Republicans listen this time.
We expect Republicans to ignore that mandate. We should remind Democrats that they ignore it at their peril.


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Oprah speech has Democrats buzzing about possible 2020 run
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Oprah Winfrey's impassioned call for "a brighter morning even in our darkest nights" at the Golden Globes has Democratic Party activists buzzing about the media superstar and the 2020 presidential race - even if it's only a fantasy.
Even so, for Democrats in early voting states, and perhaps for a public that largely disapproves of President Donald Trump's job performance, the notion of a popular media figure as a presidential candidate is not as strange as it once seemed, given the New York real estate mogul and reality TV star now in the White House.
"Look, it's ridiculous - and I get that," said Brad Anderson, Barack Obama's 2012 Iowa campaign director. While he supports the idea of Winfrey running, it would also punctuate how Trump's candidacy has altered political norms. "At the same time, politics is ridiculous right now."
Winfrey's speech as she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award on Sunday touched on her humble upbringing and childhood wonder in civil rights heroes.
But it was her exhortation of the legions of women who have called out sexual harassers - and her dream of a day "when nobody has to say 'me too' again" - that got some political operatives, in early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, thinking Winfrey might be just what the Democrats need.
"I think we need more role models like her that are speaking to young women and trying to restore some hope. The election of Donald Trump was a devastating setback for little girls," said Liz Purdy, who led Democrat Hillary Clinton's 2008 New Hampshire presidential primary campaign.
Trump's job approval rating sat at just 32 percent in December, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll. And though polls show his approval up slightly since, Trump is the least popular first-year president on record. He has also been accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct, though he has vehemently denied the allegations.
Winfrey, in September and October, publicly dismissed the notion of seeking the nation's highest office, though she noted that Trump's victory made her rethink the requirements of the office.
A representative for Winfrey did not reply to a request Monday for comment from The Associated Press. Winfrey's longtime partner, Stedman Graham, told the Los Angeles Times that "it's up to the people" whether she will be president, adding, "She would absolutely do it."
Winfrey, 64, has become a cultural phenomenon over the past 30-plus years, born into a poor home in Mississippi but breaking through as a television news and talk show personality in the 1980s. Over 30 years, she became the face of television talk shows, starred and produced feature films, and began her own network.
Trump himself has lavished praise on Winfrey over the years, including in 2015, when he said that he would consider her as a running mate on his Republican ticket. "I like Oprah," Trump told ABC News in June 2015. "I think Oprah would be great. I'd love to have Oprah. I think we'd win easily, actually."
It echoed comments Trump made in 1999, when he was weighing a presidential candidacy in the Reform Party. "If she'd do it, she'd be fantastic. I mean, she's popular, she's brilliant, she's a wonderful woman," Trump told CNN's Larry King.
Some operatives think she has what it takes to be a viable presidential candidate.
"She would be a serious candidate," said Jennifer Palmieri, former White House communications director under President Barack Obama and the communications director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
Beyond her rise from poverty, Winfrey's success as a multidimensional media figure has come from promoting ways for women to assert themselves, typically outside the political arena. That could soften what Palmieri describes as an enduring resistance among some voters to women with political ambition.
"I think lessons we all learned from watching Hillary's run, and how her ambition was unfavorably and unfairly viewed, coupled with Oprah's existing popularity, could give Oprah a strong start," Palmieri said.
That's not to say Winfrey can't claim any significant political influence. She notably headlined an Iowa rally for then-Sen. Barack Obama in the weeks leading up to his surprise victory in the state's 2008 leadoff nominating caucuses, which helped propel him to the presidential nomination.
Still, while some Democrats would embrace Winfrey's outsider-celebrity status as the party's answer to Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., noted that Winfrey, like Trump, lacks any kind of experience in government.
"I think one of the arguments for Oprah is 45," Pelosi said, referring to Trump in shorthand for the 45th president. "I think one of the arguments against Oprah is 45."
Steve Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report from Washington.


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Advanced Search
Green | News
The Sustainable Endowments Institute, along with 15 partner organizations, has launched the Billion Dollar Green Challenge to encourage higher education and nonprofit institutions to invest a total of $1 billion in green revolving funds to finance energy efficiency improvements.
Green revolving funds are internal loans made to specific projects that later repay the money through utilities savings. As the loans are repaid, the money is then reinvested in other efficiency projects.
A founding circle of 32 institutions has already joined the challenge, launched publicly October 11 at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) conference In Pittsburgh, PA, by committing more than $65 million in self-managed funds.
According to information released by the institute, "The Challenge is inspired by the exceptional performance of existing green revolving funds, which have a median annual return on investment of 32 percent, as documented by 'Greening the Bottom Line,' a report published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute."
"We're transforming energy efficiency upgrades from perceived expenses to high-return investment opportunities," said Mark Orlowski, executive director of the institute.
Overseen by a 34-member advisory council, the challenge offers several resources for participating institutions, such as the green revolving investment tracking system (GRITS). GRITS is an account-based Web tool designed to help institutions manage their green revolving funds through "aggregate and project-specific financial and efficiency performance" tracking according to information on the challenge's website. It allows administrators to grant access to individuals involved in fund management and identify and benchmark successful programs at other member institutions.
Other resources include:
"The Billion Dollar Green Challenge asks our higher education systems to invest in green revolving funds to support the campus sustainability movement," said AASHE Executive Director Paul Rowland. "AASHE supports the challenge in that these funds will help institutions become more sustainable and will help the higher education community understand the commitment they are making to a just and sustainable future."
Visit greenbillion.org for more information.
About the Author
Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].
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To Catch A Predator -- Lights, Camera, Entrapment?
A high-powered celebrity lawyer representing a doctor accused of being a sexual predator went after "Dateline NBC" yesterday in a California courtroom.
Blair Berk, whose clients include Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson and Halle Berry, is currently representing Dr. Maurice Wolin, a prominent oncologist. The doctor was taken down by cops last year as "Dateline" cameras rolled. Prosecutors say Dr. Wolin made plans to have a sexual encounter with someone on the Internet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl. In fact, the person who was IMing Dr. Wolin was self-proclaimed "evil vigilante" Xavier Von Erck, founder of Perverted Justice.
In yesterday's preliminary hearing in Santa Rosa California, Berk grilled a cop whose department worked with Perverted Justice and "Dateline." Berk maintained that Perverted Justice got money for snagging alleged predators and therefore entrapped her client to make a buck. She claimed Perverted Justice illegally recorded conversations with her client and also said the chat logs could not be authenticated. The logs have not been admitted into evidence.
The cop who testified yesterday called the chat logs "extensive" and "extremely incriminating." In one exchange, the doctor allegedly asked to come over to her house, but added, "But you're under 18 and I'm over. We would have to be soo careful."
NBC rented the house that was used for the doctor's alleged sexual liaison.
Xavier Von Erck will testify when the prelim resumes next month. The judge will then decide whether to admit the critical logs into evidence and then determine if Dr. Wolin will stand trial.


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Measurement tools help establish reliable feature-based parameters and thresholds. Measurement tools output quantitative information, either in pixels or real-world units.
This information may be used as:- Pass/fail criteria
- Data to be used by another tool
- Data to send to an external device
- Distance: Measures the distance between features, not just edges. References two edge tools.
- Angle: Determines the angle between two edges. References two edge tools.
- Circle radius: Measures the distance from the center of a circle to its edge. Creates an arc finder and returns the radius measurement.
- Calibration: Calibrates camera pixels to real-world units.


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Hurd translators allow presenting underlying data in a different format. This is a very powerful ability: it allows using standard tools on all kinds of data, and combining existing components in new ways, once you have the necessary translators.
A typical example for such a translator would be xmlfs: a translator that presents the contents of an underlying XML file in the form of a directory tree, so it can be studied and edited with standard filesystem tools, or using a graphical file manager, or to easily extract data from an XML file in a script etc.
The exported directory tree should represent the DOM structure of the document, or implement XPath/XQuery, or both, or some combination thereof (perhaps XPath/XQuery could be implemented as a second translator working on top of the DOM one) -- whatever works well, while sticking to XML standards as much as possible.
Ideally, the translation should be reversible, so that another, complementary translator applied on the expanded directory tree would yield the original XML file again; and also the other way round, applying the complementary translator on top of some directory tree and xmlfs on top of that would yield the original directory again. However, with the different semantics of directory trees and XML files, it might not be possible to create such a universal mapping. Thus it is a desirable goal, but not a strict requirement.
The goal of this project is to create a fully usable XML translator, that allows both reading and writing any XML file. Implementing the complementary translator also would be nice if time permits, but is not mandatory part of the task.
The existing partial (read-only) xmlfs implementation can serve as a starting point.
This task requires pretty good designing skills. Very good knowledge of XML is also necessary. Learning translator programming will obviously be necessary to complete the task.
Possible mentors: Olaf Buddenhagen (antrik)
Exercise: Make some improvement to the existing xmlfs, or some other existing Hurd translator. (Especially those in hurdextras are often quite rudimental -- it shouldn't be hard to find something to improve...)


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Business & Society
Acton Institute believes that commerce is an essential component of any society, enabling individuals to freely serve the needs of one another through mutually beneficial exchange.
Educational Choice
Acton Institute promotes increased competition and parental involvement in educational decision making as a means for furthering the intellectual and moral formation of America's children.
Effective Compassion
Acton Institute envisions a revitalized civil society that is energetically involved in transforming the lives of the poor with a minimum of government intervention.
Environmental Stewardship
Acton Institute recognizes that a strong, vibrant economy, and a vigorous commitment to property rights are essential to creating the necessary incentives for sound ecological stewardship practices.
International Trade
Acton Institute is committed to the free exchange of goods and services between persons, and acknowledges the essential relationship between a free, open economy and a free and prosperous people.
Technology & Regulation
Acton Institute advocates a free economy and the notion that high technology plays a vital role in improving the lives of consumers through innovation; hence, creativity should not be hampered by governmental intrusion.


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Title VI: Different Treatment
Memphis City School District(TN) (04-10-5002)
The Memphis City School District submitted an agreement to resolve a compliance review that OCR initiated that focused on whether the District was discriminating on the basis of disability by not appropriately evaluating students with food allergies, diabetes, asthma and other health impairments with Individual Health Care Plans (IHCPs), and on whether the District was discriminating against students on the basis of race by denying them the opportunity to receive related aids and services.
Prior to the conclusion of the investigation, the district entered into a voluntary resolution agreement with the district. Under the terms of the agreement the district will contact the parents or guardians of all students to inform them of the district's obligation to evaluate students who, because of disability, need or are believed to need special education or related services. If a student currently has an IHCP, the district will provide parents or guardians with information regarding the student's possible rights to evaluation, placement, and procedural safeguards. An IHCP for a student who has a qualifying disability is insufficient if it does not incorporate these rights. Additionally, written communication will be provided to all parents during fall 2012 registration explaining the district's obligation to evaluate students with health related concerns, including students with IHCPs. In both notifications, parents or guardians are encouraged to address inquiries to their school counselor. Further, the district will revise and implement policies and procedures to ensure appropriate and prompt identification, evaluation, and placement of students with disabilities, including students with health related concerns such as food allergies, asthma and diabetes and other physical or mental conditions which may impact major life activities. Finally, the district will provide mandatory training to all district personnel involved in the referral, identification, evaluation, and placement of students with disabilities under Section 504 and Title II.
Read the Press Release | Read the Resolution Letter PDF (191K) | Read the Compliance Agreement


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About G.Y. Fortune Growing Up Nigger Rich Family Lines Bibliography Links Contact |
Wake-up We know the Chinese maxim, "May you live in interesting times," meaning living amidst the ups and downs of life that are not safe and easy--danger and haven. I have tried to escape that description, to no avail. The cycles and tumblings of yin and yang, yea and nay envelope life, yours, mine, all. It is thus. This site has been created by my dear son, Phillip, for promotion of my novels, poems, essays and musings. I hope to take full advantage of it and invite all who enter to do the same. Read, write, interact. Post, e-mail and return as often as you will. I am a politically observant person, accepting that where two are gathered we have a political situation.. We are social, economic, personal, artistic potential. and more. This medium is a means to communicate--to share thoughts, ideas and feelings. My preferred mode of operation is open, progressive and interdisciplinary. My signature is Body-Emotion-Mind-Spirit-X,, "X" being the still unknown. Gwendoline (Gwen) Alpha Young Fortune, Ed. D. http://gyfortune.com |


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Boost Mobile Combines the Speed of 4G LTE and Android Monthly Unlimited for as Low as $40 to Help Co
Boost Mobile Combines the Speed of 4G LTE and Android Monthly Unlimited for as Low as $40 to Help Consumers Spend Less Faster
HTC One SV and Boost Force join Boost Mobile handset lineup as first 4G LTE Devices
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Boost Mobile, a leader in the no-contract wireless industry and ranked "Highest in Purchase Experience among Non-Contract Wireless Providers" by J.D. Power and Associates1, strengthens its diverse handset lineup with the addition of the March 7 release of the HTC One SV and Boost Force. Both Android™-powered smartphones will operate on the Sprint 3G and 4G LTE networks, bringing 4G LTE to Boost Mobile customers in more than 50 markets, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas and Houston, and will be available in nearly 170 additional cities in the coming months.
With a bold color and sleek, ergonomic design, HTC One SV is equipped with a large 4.3-inch touchscreen and features the exclusive Beats by Dr. Dre Audio integration (Photo: Boost Mobile)
Both Android-powered smartphones pair the speed of 4G LTE with the value of Boost Mobile's no-annual contract $55 Android Monthly Unlimited with Shrinking Payments plan. For every six on-time payments, the cost of Boost Mobile's Android Monthly Unlimited plan shrinks by $5, eventually getting down to as low as $40 a month for unlimited nationwide talk, text messaging, Web2, email and calls to 411. Payments do not need to be consecutive to qualify for the next savings milestone.
"At Boost we know our customers need a comprehensive wireless solution without breaking the bank," said Andre Smith, vice president-Boost Mobile. "With 4G LTE available on Boost Mobile, our customers can enjoy faster data speed on a reliable network at an affordable price with no contracts. Adding the HTC One SV and Boost Force further enhances Boost's robust device portfolio and give customers more options to make a move to Boost. All our Monthly Unlimited plans come with shrinking payments, which is our way to reward customers for their loyalty. We bring value and speed together like no other carrier."
Priced at $299.99 (excluding taxes), HTC One SV is ideal for customers who desire an affordable superphone for a no-contract offer. With a bold color and sleek, ergonomic design, HTC One SV is equipped with a large 4.3-inch touchscreen and a speedy dual-core processor. Running HTC Sense® 4 on Android™ 4.0, HTC One SV features HTC's Amazing Camera and Authentic Sound experiences. The rear camera is capable of 1080p HD video and one-press continuous shooting. HTC VideoPic™ gives it the ability to take photos and video at the same time. The front-facing camera takes gorgeous self-portraits. Available exclusively on HTC smartphones, HTC One SV also features Beats by Dr. Dre™ Audio integration for studio-quality sound across music, movies, games and media. Additional features include:
Android™ 4.0 and access to Android Apps on Google Play™
Dual-mode 3G/4G LTE
4.3-inch WVGA Super LCD-2 touchscreen
Qualcomm™ Snapdragon S4 dual-core 1.2GHz processor
Enhanced 5MP camera with 1080p HD video and HTC VideoPic™
1.6MP front camera with 720p video
Wi-Fi and GPS enabled
Bluetooth 4.0
Near Field Communications (NFC)
Additionally, HTC One SV is HTC's first and Boost Mobile's second device to include ULE Platinum Certification, the highest level of environmental performance recognized by sustainable requirements established by UL Environment and Sprint, and is packaged in 100 percent recyclable materials.
Boost Force boasts a speedy 1.5GHz dual-core processor - Boost Mobile's fastest to date, a 4-inch touchscreen and dual cameras. Priced at $199.99 (excluding taxes), Boost Force combines the best of 4G LTE and Android features consumers crave at an affordable price. Additional features include:
Android™ 4.0 and access to Android Apps on Google Play™
Dual-mode 3G/4G LTE
5MP camera (1MP front-facing)
Wi-Fi and GPS enabled
HTC One SV and Boost Force will both be available starting March 7 at Boost Mobile's exclusive retail stores, select independent wireless dealer locations nationwide and at www.boostmobile.comwith free shipping. Both devices will be available later in March in select national retail locations.
About Boost Mobile
Boost Mobile, recently recognized by J.D. Power and Associates as "Highest Satisfaction with the Purchase Experience among Non-Contract Wireless Providers," offers wireless phones and services with no long-term contracts and. Boost Mobile redefines value for wireless consumers with its Monthly Unlimited with Shrinking Payments no-contract service, where the longer you stay the less you pay with on-time payments for unlimited voice, text messaging, Web, email and calls to 411. Boost Mobile offers nationwide service on the Nationwide Sprint Network, reaching more than 282 million people, with no activation or long-distance fees. Boost Mobile offers a selection of quality handsets from HTC, LG, Motorola, BlackBerry, Samsung, Kyocera and ZTE, ranging from entry-level to Android™ smartphone devices available nationwide at nearly 20,000 major retail stores, including Best Buy, RadioShack, Target, Family Dollar, Walgreens and Walmart, Sprint retail stores, independent wireless dealer locations, and on HSN, a leading TV home shopping network. Re-Boost® Cards are available at approximately 100,000 locations throughout the United States. Experience Boost Mobile on the Web at Facebook and Twitter; and purchase products at www.boostmobile.com.
Sprint 4G LTE markets as of Feb. 25, 2013
Anderson, Ind.; Atlanta; Athens, Ga.; Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Barnstable/Hyannis/Mid-Cape, Mass.; Boston; Bryan/College Station, Texas; Calhoun, Ga.; Carrollton, Ga.; Chicago/Naperville/Joliet, Ill.; Clark County, Va./Jefferson County, W.Va.; Columbia, Tenn.; Dallas; Emporia, Kan.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Fort Worth, Texas; Framingham, Mass.; Franklin County, Pa.; Gainesville, Ga.; Gary, Ind.; Gettysburg, Pa.; Granbury/Hood County, Texas; Hagerstown, Md./Martinsburg, W.Va.; Harrisburg/Carlisle/Hershey, Pa.; Harrisonburg, Va.; Houston; Huntsville, Texas; Hutchinson, Kan.; Indianapolis/Carmel, Ind.; Kankakee/Bradley/Bourbonnais, Ill.; Kansas City, Kan./Mo.; Lawrence, Kan.; Manhattan/Junction City, Kan.; McPherson, Kan.; Muncie, Ind.; New Bedford/Fall River, Mass.; Newnan, Ga.; Peabody, Mass.; Rockford, Ill.; Rome, Ga.; Salina, Kan.; San Antonio; Santa Rosa/Petaluma, Calif.; Sedalia, Mo.; Shenandoah/Page Counties, Va.; South Bend/Mishawaka, Ind.; Southern PR: Ponce/Coamo/Guayama, Puerto Rico; St. Joseph, Mo.; Topeka, Kan.; Vallejo/Fairfield, Calif.; Waco, Texas; Waukegan/Lake County, Ill.; Western PR: Aguadilla/Isabela/Cabo Rojo/Mayagüez, Puerto Rico; Wichita Falls, Texas; Wichita, Kan.; Winchester, Va.; York/Hanover, Pa.
1 Boost Mobile received the highest numerical score among non-contract wireless providers in the proprietary J.D. Power and Associates 2013 Non-Contract Wireless Purchase Experience StudySM - Vol. 1. Study based on responses from 3,533 consumers measuring 7 non-contract wireless providers and measures opinions of consumers who purchased a wireless product or service within last 6 months. Proprietary study results are based on experiences and perceptions of consumers surveyed July-December 2012. Your experiences may vary. Visit jdpower.com
2 Includes 2.5GB per month of high-speed data. Adaptive Protocol Video limited to 3G speeds of 600Kbps.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available:http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20130225005170/en/
Boost Mobile
Danielle Babbington, 949-748-3418
KEYWORDS: United States North America California
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