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Donating Blood
Why Should I Donate Blood?
You might think that donating blood is most important during a natural disaster or other major event where many people are injured. But hospitals everywhere always need donated blood. In fact, each year blood transfusions help save 4.5 million lives.
According to the American Red Cross, there's a 97% chance that someone you know will need a blood transfusion at some point. One donation could save up to three lives. And a single accident victim may need as many as 100 pints of blood.
Am I Able to Donate Blood?
Most people over the age of 17 can donate blood. In some states, you can donate blood at age 16 if you have a parent's permission. The American Red Cross requires donors to:
- weigh more than 110 pounds
- be in good health
- be screened for some medical conditions, such as anemia
- wait 56 days between each time donating blood
Things to Know on Your Donation Day
When donating blood, take these steps to make sure you stay safe and healthy:
- Drink an extra 16 ounces of water or other nonalcoholic beverage before your appointment.
- Eat a healthy meal, avoiding fatty foods like hamburgers, fries, or ice cream.
- Wear a shirt with sleeves that you can roll up above your elbows.
- Have somebody else drive you to and from the blood bank.
- Have something to eat and drink after donating. Most blood banks will have snacks for you when you've finished giving blood.
When you get to the blood bank, you'll answer a few questions about your medical history. You'll also be asked about any recent travel, infections you may have, and medicines you take. Your answers help the blood bank staff know if you are healthy enough to give blood. Then they'll check your temperature, pulse, blood pressure, and blood count.
What Happens During and After Donating Blood?
The actual donation part of giving blood usually takes about 10 minutes, and is a lot like getting a blood test.
- You will either be seated or lying down.
- A technician will find a vein in your arm by tying a rubber tube around your upper arm, and clean the skin over the vein with rubbing alcohol.
- The tech will insert a needle into your vein. You may feel a small prick, kind of like getting a shot.
- Your blood will flow into a tube connected to the needle and into a bag, where it's kept until it's needed.
You should tell the technician helping you if:
- The sight of needles bothers you.
- The sight of blood bothers you.
- You feel nauseated or lightheaded.
This will help prevent a fainting spell, and keep you safe while you give blood.
After you donate, you may feel a little lightheaded or dizzy. These side effects usually go away after a few minutes. Be sure to drink extra fluids during the 24 hours after you donate. If you still feel unwell after that, call your doctor or have someone else take you to the nearest emergency room.
All donated blood is checked for viruses (such as HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, syphilis, and West Nile virus) and bacteria. Any blood with viruses or bacteria is destroyed. If your donated blood has any of these germs, the blood bank will notify you.
Are There Any Risks to Donating Blood?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates blood banks in the United States. They make sure that all needles and other equipment used for donating blood are sterile and used only for one person, then thrown away. This ensures that nobody gets an infection or disease from giving blood. Blood centers must also pass regular inspections by the FDA to stay open.
Where Can I Donate Blood?
For more information on where to donate and what else is involved, contact your local blood bank, hospital, or the American Red Cross. Donating blood is a great way to help out your community — you could even save someone's life!
My Job: Phlebotomist
Have you ever wondered what it's like to put a needle in someone's vein and take blood? Yashira offers advice on what it takes to be a good phlebotomist.


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Rule #1 - Be Patient - Rule #2 - Don't ask when, if you don't contribute - Rule #3 - You have coding skills - LinuxMCE's small brother is available: http://www.agocontrol.com
HiAm complete newbie to Linux and Linux MCE. Managed to install LinuxMCE version1.0 on Kubuntu 6.10 as per install manual on website. Chose core option. All installed ok. PC boots into dcerouter ok. DHCP working to all XP machines - all ok.Installed Kubuntu 7.04 to new pc. PC Spec Asus M2n-VM-DH with Athlon X2 2800 CPU, Saphire X1650 GPU, 1Gb RAM, Hauppauge HVR-1300 & 250GB Samsung SATA HDD.Installed LinuxMCE 1.1 beta 2 as per web instructions. This detects LinuxMCE core, select current DHCP allocated IP address then freezes on next window with message use existing orbiter to continue. Truble is I don't have an orbiter (that I know of).Is there any issue with running 1.0 core with 1.1b2 media director. Or any help on what causes install to freeze?Can post logs if needed.

subset: commoncrawl


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Welcome to the CRG Discussion Forum!Classified ads are not allowed on the forum.
Lawrence, I have lived all of my short (59) life in Tennessee - I can tell you for certain that very few roads were salted in TN until not too awfully long ago - even then, it was interstate highways for the most part, rural towns usually don't have salt equipment. Large cities like Nashville do have their own, but still on a smaller scale than most northern states. I lived just east of Nashville (but still in the Metro Nashville area) in the 60's until the mid 70's, and non-state-route roads were never salted at all - you just had to wait for the weather to warm up enough to melt the ice/snow (and yes, we used to get decent snows here in the 60's and 70's). My 69 Z was sold new in Nashville, I bought it in '73, and it is still in pretty decent shape for a street car (I drove it back and forth to school in Knoxville, interstate 187 miles one way from my parent's house, for several years, and it's still pretty much rust free in spite of my abuse to it).Regards,Steve
Lawrence,No problem. How long was it registered in TN ? Two of my cars ('68 and '69 Z'z) were sold new here in TN and have remained here ever since - both are fairly well preserved, considering that they both were used as daily drivers from new. My '69 has been garaged since 1980, when I retired it from the street, but the '68 was not retired until about 1996 from active duty. Both subframes are in really good condition, with light surface rust only. Up until a couple of years ago, the DOT in Tennessee would copy all of the on-file documents for a "native" TN vehicle for a $15.00 flat fee, and give them to you (how I came by my dealer invoices and MSO's on both vehicles), but they have ceased doing that as "they don't have the manpower to go through the microfiche files". Hopefully you have the POP or documentation for the 'Vette - at least you have the dealer info.Regards,The car was registered in TN from 1967 to 1974, then to Lawton Ok, then to MI for less than a year thank goodness then back to TN from 1976 to 1988.I have the POP and NCRS docs confirming delivery to TN. I will write the DMV and see if I can get anywhere...it's worth a stamp LawrenceSteve
Just a note: 'surface rust' is NOT the same as 'scaley rust'... Scaley rust is much more severe, and much more metal has been lost.


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• suffer •
Pronunciation: sêf-êr • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: 1. To undergo pain, injury, or anything unpleasant, as to suffer from a cold. 2. To endure, put up with, stand, as to suffer his in-laws with only the occasional grimace. 3. To permit, allow, as to suffer no hopes for promotion among her underlings.
Notes: I encounter the second and third meanings of today's Good Word only in my readings—and seldom there. They are slightly archaic, but this only lends a kind of poeticity to the word. Suffer comes with three derivatives: a noun, sufferance, which reflects all three meanings, and two adjectives which reflect only the second: sufferable "bearable" and its negative partner, unsufferable "unbearable". The personal noun, sufferer, and abstract action noun, suffering, cover the first meaning.
In Play: Suffer in the second sense above is heard most often with the object fools: "Do you suffer fools gladly, or tell them what you really think?" The King James version of the Bible cites Jesus in using the third sense of today's Good Word thus: " Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for to such belongeth the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16). The more modern translations render this passage with the much more prosaic word let: "Let the little children. . . ."
Word History: In Middle English today's word was suffren, borrowed from Old French sufrir. French inherited this word from Latin sufferre "to bear, endure, undergo", made up of sub "(from) under" + ferre "to carry". Latin inherited its verb directly from Proto-Indo-European bher- "carry, bear", which came to English as the verb bear. Other English words derived from this root include burden (that which is borne), bairn (child, that which was born), and bring, with the common suffix -ing, which caused the vowel in the stem to disappear. The [bh] consistently converts to [f] in Latin and Greek, hence Latin ferre. We see Greek pherne "dowry" (what a bride carries with her) in Medieval Latin paraphernalia "possessions of a married woman besides her dowry", based on the Greek parapherne from para "beyond" + pherne "dowry".
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!


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Next: Dlopened modules, Previous: Library tips, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
By definition, every shared library system provides a way for executables to depend on libraries, so that symbol resolution is deferred until runtime.
An inter-library dependency is where a library depends on
other libraries. For example, if the libtool library libhello
uses the cos
function, then it has an inter-library dependency
on libm, the math library that implements cos
Some shared library systems provide this feature in an internally-consistent way: these systems allow chains of dependencies of potentially infinite length.
However, most shared library systems are restricted in that they only allow a single level of dependencies. In these systems, programs may depend on shared libraries, but shared libraries may not depend on other shared libraries.
In any event, libtool provides a simple mechanism for you to declare
inter-library dependencies: for every library libname that
your own library depends on, simply add a corresponding
option to the link line when you create your
library. To make an example of our libhello that depends on
burger$ libtool --mode=link gcc -g -O -o libhello.la foo.lo hello.lo \ -rpath /usr/local/lib -lm burger$
When you link a program against libhello, you don't need to specify the same '-l' options again: libtool will do that for you, to guarantee that all the required libraries are found. This restriction is only necessary to preserve compatibility with static library systems and simple dynamic library systems.
Some platforms, such as Windows, do not even allow you this flexibility. In order to build a shared library, it must be entirely self-contained or it must have dependencies known at link time (that is, have references only to symbols that are found in the .lo files or the specified '-l' libraries), and you need to specify the -no-undefined flag. By default, libtool builds only static libraries on these kinds of platforms.
The simple-minded inter-library dependency tracking code of libtool releases prior to 1.2 was disabled because it was not clear when it was possible to link one library with another, and complex failures would occur. A more complex implementation of this concept was re-introduced before release 1.3, but it has not been ported to all platforms that libtool supports. The default, conservative behavior is to avoid linking one library with another, introducing their inter-dependencies only when a program is linked with them.
Next: Dlopened modules, Previous: Library tips, Up: Top [Contents][Index]


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Looking for some time-saving shortcuts for your everyday work? CAD Notes has a post today from Paul Munford of the CAD Setter Out with 11 macros for working with viewports.
Paul suggests putting the macros on a tool palette, as seen on the right, but of course you can put a macro on all kinds of interface elements, including ribbon panels, toolbars, and pull-down menus.
Got your own click-saving macros you'd like to share? Send 'em on in, and I'll feature them here too.


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These are the kind of crazy architectural projects that you only come across every once in a while. Amsterdam based architecture studio Merkx+Girod Architecten has converted a 13th century Dominican church in Maastricht into a new contemporary bookstore and the outcome is simply stunning.
Rather than taking away too much from the original setting, the firm ended up building a modern structure into the existing one, with the result being perfect fusion. Walking down the ailes of the bookstore with the church columns in the background and the extremely high ceilings, is something one does not see very often.


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The Associated Press
Updated: 4:10 p.m. ET April 28, 2005
BERLIN - What's making toads puff up and explode in northern Europe? More than 1,000 toad corpses have been found at a pond in an upscale neighborhood in Hamburg and over the border in Denmark after bloating and bursting
It's left onlookers baffled. The pond water in Hamburg has been tested, but its quality is no better or worse than elsewhere in the city. The toad remains have been checked for a virus or bacterium, but none has been found.
One German scientist studying the splattered amphibian remains has a theory: Hungry crows are pecking out their livers.
"The crows are clever," said Frank Mutschmann, a Berlin veterinarian who collected and tested specimens at the Hamburg pond. "They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers."
Based on the wounds, Mutschmann said, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad with its beak between the amphibian's chest and abdominal cavity, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism.
But, because the liver is missing and there's a hole in the toad's body, the blood vessels and lungs burst and the other organs ooze out, he said.
As gruesome as it sounds, it isn't actually that unusual, he said.
"It's not unique — it's in a city area, and that makes it spectacular," Mutschmann said. "Of course, it's something very dramatic."
There have also been reports of exploded toads in a pond near Laasby in central Jutland in Denmark.
Horror scene
Local environmental workers in Hamburg have described it as a scene out of a horror or science fiction movie, with the bloated frogs agonizing and twitching for several minutes, inflating like balloons before they suddenly burst.
"It's horrible," biologist Heidi Mayerhoefer was quoted as telling the daily Hamburger Morgenpost.
"The toads burst, the entrails slide out. But the animal isn't immediately dead — they keep struggling for several minutes."
Hamburg's Institute for Hygiene and the Environment regularly tests water quality in the city and has found no evidence the toads were diseased. The institute also ruled out a fungus brought in from South America was infecting the toads.
Other theories have been that horses on a nearby track might have infected the amphibians with a virus, or even that the toads are committing suicide to save others from overpopulation.
Could hungry crows be a reasonable answer?
"We haven't seen that. It might be, it might not be," said institute spokeswoman Janne Kloepper. "It's speculation," until it's observed, she added.
In the meantime, officials in Hamburg have advised residents to stay away from the pond, which German tabloids have dubbed "the death pool."


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Joe Smith is an active figure in the Oregon community and a powerful advocate for proper paper towel use.
Why you should listen
R.P. Joe Smith served as District Attorney for Umatilla County and is the former chair of the Oregon Democratic Party. He was the Executive Assistant to the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives and held a short interim position in the Oregon House of Representatives. An active lawyer in a private practice, he once famously ran for the position of Oregon Attorney General without soliciting a single contribution over $99.99.


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Buffett Opens New Restaurant With Private Show
February 27th, 2009
The Honolulu Advertiser has an article on the private show that Jimmy Buffett played last night at his new Waikiki restaurant: Jimmy Buffett's At The Beachcomber:
Jimmy Buffett christened his new Jimmy Buffett's at the Beachcomber restaurant in Waikiki in style last night, putting on a nonstop two-hour concert for invited guests and VIPs.
"I refuse to participate in this recession," Buffett told a cheering crowd, many of whom wore balloon animals in the shape of shark fins and parrotheads.
Dressed in his trademark yellow T-shirt, red board shorts and standing in bare feet, Buffett brought out old standards like "Come Monday," "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and "Margaritaville," played "Dukes on Sunday" with local favorite Henry Kapono and jammed all night alongside ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro and most of his Coral Reefer band.
He also premiered some new songs, basically putting on a full concert preview for fans who also came to town for Buffett's concert tomorrow night at the Waikiki Shell.
Read the entire article here.
Also, check out the set list from the show here.
Tagged in Business Empire, Concerts, Margaritaville Casinos, Special Appearances | Tweet |


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The latest NatWest Entrepreneurship Monitor – which polled 2,044 respondents in the first quarter – has revealed that interest in business start-ups has been increasing in 2017, following the recent uncertainty leading up to and following the Brexit vote.
Following the Brexit vote, the economic uncertainty impacted the confidence of would-be entrepreneurs and the proportion of people wanting to start a new business dropped from 39% in Q2 2015 to a low 10% in Q3 2016.
Since then we have seen a small, yet steady increase in those wanting to start a new business, increasing to 14% in Q1 of 2017.
Despite aspiring entrepreneurs beginning to regain confidence, less than one in five feel that now is a good time to start a business.
Of those that consider or would like to start their own business, two-in-five feel that they are held back by not having a business plan or the fact that their financial security would be put at risk by borrowing money.
Natwest has said that those 'doubts' are holding back entrepreneurs across the UK. The findings show that in London and the West Midlands, those wanting to start their own business are around double the number of people who have actually made the leap into being self-employed, whilst, in Scotland, this discrepancy is more than three times the amount.
Interest In Business Start Up On The Rise
Other reasons cited for not taking the leap into entrepreneurship were fear of failure and a lack of knowledge of where to go to get the right information and advice.
Alison Rose, chief executive of commercial and private banking at NatWest, said: "The drop in confidence given the changing economic climate caused by the referendum was no great shock, but as the economy has started to bounce back, we have also seen a gradual rise in the number of people interested in starting a new business.
"Undoubtedly there will be bumps in the road as negotiations on Brexit continue, and confidence levels may fluctuate, but it's very encouraging to see us moving in the right direction again and we expect this to continue post-Q1"
"However, in order for more people to take the plunge banks must do their utmost to provide support in these early stages. It is clear that women, in particular, want local support, local networks, and local advice and at NatWest, we are doing more to support UK businesses by going beyond just finance to help businesses reach their ambitions."


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South African Journal of Education
versão On-line ISSN 2076-3433
versão impressa ISSN 0256-0100
S. Afr. j. educ. vol.30 no.3 Pretoria Jan. 2010
Reflection as learning about the self in context: mentoring as catalyst for reflective development in pre-service teachers
Liezel FrickI; Arend CarlII; Peter BeetsIII
Establishing a close alignment between teacher education programmes and the realities of the actual classroom remains a challenge in preparing pre-service teachers at higher education institutions. The literature indicates that reflection is a core quality of effective teachers. We investigate how the development of reflective practice through mentoring programmes can facilitate the inevitable transitions that students have to make to the professional sector. Through a narrative analysis, we report on the insights of a selected group of Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students participating in the initial development phase of a mentoring system during their practice teaching in schools guiding them to reflect critically on their learning and practice. The data suggest that mentoring can act as a catalyst to enhance reflection. The development of reflection as praxis can assist in bridging the gap between theory and practice.
Keywords: mentoring; pre-service teacher development; reflection; teacher identity
Teacher learning is the process of reflection and action through which
teachers develop skills, and acquire knowledge and expertise.
(Billet, 2001 in Wilson & Demetriou, 2007:214)
Pre-service teachers often find the transition from higher education to practice a daunting experience. Students often feel ill-prepared to deal with the uncertainties, realities and challenges that await them in their new profession (Bezzina, 2006). How can higher education institutions support this transition and equip students to deal with the ever-changing scenario of teaching practice? Beck and Kosnik (2002), Boz and Boz (2006), Quick and Siebörger (2005), Seferoğlu (2006), and Wilson and Demetriou (2007) argue that a close alignment of the academic programme with its practical application in an actual classroom through practical experience is essential. Such an integrated approach enables pre-service teachers to place themselves in the learners' position and this is seen to produce more effective teachers who are more likely to enter and remain in education. Although achieving this kind of alignment is quite complicated, it is one of the most important contributions a university can make to the development of pre-service teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2000).
The quality of teaching is attracting increasing attention at national and international levels. Edwards and Nicoll (2006) describe the key issues that drive this trend: a student-centred ethos; increased and widened student participation, which in turn necessitates a reconceptualisation of teaching and learning; curriculum changes; the changing nature of work in the global context; and the emphasis on efficiency and effectiveness, which demands institutional flexibility. These issues not only confront teacher educators, but also form the basis of their future reality. Students need to be trained and educated to deal as effectively as possible with this complex reality.
Korthagen (2004) ponders the essential qualities of a good teacher and asks how students can become good teachers. Various studies have approached this question from an organisational perspective, including the university (Schulze, 2003) as well as the school (Quick & Siebörger, 2005; Schulman & Schulman, 2004), and taking into account the teacher as mentor (Burgess & Mayes, 2007; Edwards & Collinson, 1996). Another approach to this issue has been to question the current teachers-in-training themselves (Bertram, Appleton, Muthukrishna & Wedekind, 2006; Donche, Vanhoof & Van Petegem, 2003; Lambe & Bones, 2006; Quick & Siebörger, 2005).
We will argue - as do Bezzina (2006), Seferoğlu (2006) and Wilson and Demetriou (2007) - that reflection on professional practice is one of the qualities that characterise a good teacher. It follows that one of the ways in which the prospective teacher can become a proficient teacher is through the development of values, knowledge and skills that support reflection on practice. This means that teacher educators need to create opportunities and facilitate experiences that will develop the pre-service teacher's capacity to reflect on his or her practice. In this article we report on a research initiative to investigate this. It provides a holistic overview of eight Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students' ability to reflect in and on their practice (Schön, 1983) during the initial developmental phases of an in-school mentoring system.
Korthagen (2004) refers to the development of two distinct schools of thought on teacher education: first, that of a competency-based approach focused on the teaching of, and training in, specific teaching skills and strategies; second, a humanistic approach, focused on the person of the teacher. The latter approach emanates from an understanding that students' preconceptions about teaching and learning are often not understood, recognised or acknowledged by the students themselves, their lecturers, or in-service teachers as mentors - even though these preconceptions may have a decisive impact on the process of learning how to teach (Kukari, 2004). Kukari (2004) furthermore argues that the development of reflection skills may be one way in which to bridge this dichotomy that has evolved in teacher education.
Crucial in establishing the integration between competency and person-focused development is the issue of who controls the field of judgement. Two questions arise which capture the essence of this dilemma:
To what extent are the student teachers allowed to regulate their own development based on their reflection on their practice and other lived experiences?
Are students made aware of these issues and how to remain focused on their growth, primarily embedded in reflection?
Mentoring may be one way to facilitate student reflection in and on practice. Burgess and Mayes (2007); Hurd, Jones, McNamara and Craig (2007) and Remington Smith (2007) recommend a process of joint inquiry between expert and novice teachers to explore and develop ideas on teaching practice. Mentoring in this context means to stimulate reflection in this suggested process of continuing mutual inquiry. Reflection can thus also be used to facilitate students' development of a professional identity (Korthagen, 2004; Pavlovich, 2007).
Teacher identity relates to the core beliefs the teacher has about teaching and being a teacher. These beliefs are interpreted against the backdrop of previously acquired knowledge (Loyens, Rikers & Schmidt, 2007), and developed and reshaped continuously through experience (Walkington, 2005) in different contexts (Wilson & Demetriou, 2007).
Korthagen (2004) also refers to another level of development beyond individual identity - that of mission. Whereas the identity level is concerned with the self, the mission level places the student in relation to others, as being part of something larger than the self. The catalyst for the mission level of reflection is usually a critical incident (Korthagen 2004) - which, in the case of this research project, could take the form of the practice teaching session in schools, when students have their initial exposure to their future professional environment. The development of their teacher mission is not only confined to their relationships with the staff (including mentors) and students, but is inextricably intertwined with the educational ethos of the school as well as national education imperatives. Students need to find their own mission as teachers within this wider environment.
Loyens et al. (2007) add a third level - the meta-cognitive level - in which students become self-regulated learners capable of knowing how and when to use their knowledge constructed in the previous two levels. Teacher educators may need to focus on creating learning opportunities for students to develop at all three levels, avoiding a singular focus on only academic/technical teaching input (Jones, 2005). However, as Pavlovich (2007) points out, the learning that takes place in developing an identity, a mission and meta-cognitive abilities is both an inward and an outward process. Much of how student teachers develop is informed by input from more knowledgeable agents (Giddens, 1984), but even more of this growth depends on how student teachers bring together their own insights, perspectives and dreams, on the one hand, and the guidance and expectations of all involved in the teacher education process, on the other.
Figure 1 provides an overview of the developmental processes envisioned in the PGCE programme in which this research was located.
Various factors may hamper successful integration of students into the school environment. Pre-service teachers may experience a dissonance that can be attributed to the different logic by which the teaching curriculum is organised in higher education institutions in comparison to the applied logic used in school curricula (Philpott, 2006). McNay (2003) alludes to issues of power and authority as experienced by pre-service teachers in their practical training. Students' ability to instigate change and/or explore new pedagogies may be inhibited as a result of power imbalances in the professional relationships between pre-service and in-service teachers. Consequently, a balanced power relationship requires in-service teachers who are open to discussion or to being challenged by pre-service teachers.
Teacher education that takes place within schools is especially relevant if we are to consider the development of students' professional identities and missions (Bezzina, 2006; Boz & Boz, 2006; Burgess & Mayes, 2007; Korthagen, 2004; Moon, 2007). Walkington (2005:56) sees this practice experience as a basis for challenging and changing ideas, while Remington Smith (2007) refers to a broader conception of novice-expert relationships in student teaching. The role of in-service teachers as so-called "boundary brokers" in pre-service teachers' experience of the school environment and the learning that these students experience is noteworthy, but joint enquiry and reflection may enable better co-operation that moves beyond mere mastery of content knowledge towards the development of theories and philosophies of teaching.
The transition from university training to classroom practice may be a daunting experience for which students are often inadequately prepared. Consequently it is not strange that Philpott (2006) emphasises the roles of both in-service teachers as mentors and of university lecturers who liaise with schools in clarifying the expected experience for pre-service teachers during the practice teaching period.
Hurd et al. (2007) stress that such a process needs to form part of day-to-day routines and be owned by all stakeholders concerned. In this way this research project encapsulates what Kraak (2000:iii) calls a "shift away from [universities'] traditional liberal formulation as a 'house of knowledge' - detached from the larger society ... towards a conception of a university in service of the market", which in this case is the schools where our students do their practical teaching. The question now arises as to the extent to which a mentoring system with reflection as a key strategy can assist in making this experience less daunting and help students to bridge the gap between lecture hall and classroom.
In order to develop a more nuanced understanding of the intrinsic and pedagogical aspects of such a system, a mentoring partnership with a limited group of in-service teachers in three selected schools was established. This initial partnership forms part of a greater project to develop university-school partnerships that are mutually beneficial to all stakeholders. These partnerships include researchers as well as teacher educators, students as pre-service teachers, the in-service teachers as mentors, as well as the school as a teaching and learning community. An open-ended process-oriented approach was followed, because several authors (Bezzina, 2006; McLaughlin & Black-Hawkins, 2007; Moon, 2007; Stronach & McNamara, 2002; Wilson & Demetriou, 2007) warn that institutional partnerships are best seen as work in progress without pre-established outcomes for varying contexts.
Our purpose in this article is to analyse and describe the perspectives of a selected group of South African PGCE students who took part in the initial development phase of a mentoring system during their practice teaching in schools. A qualitative approach was adopted through a narrative analysis of students' reflections (explained later in this section) and focus group interviews with these students to provide insights into the development of students' abilities to reflect critically on their learning and practice. The aim is to understand how the development of reflective practice through mentoring by in-service teachers can facilitate the inevitable transitions students have to make to the professional sector.
The sample consisted of eight students (out of a total of 95) purposively selected to take part in establishing a mentoring system. The rationale behind the identification of the schools involved in the project was the inclusion of schools typically found in the post-1994 South African education system.1 Eventually only three schools were selected (there were no schools from the former House of Delegates in the sample and no students indicated their choice to do their teaching practice at a school from the former Department of Education and Training). We conducted a narrative analysis of the students' feedback obtained through focus group interviews and the open-ended questionnaires that they were required to complete.
Two focus group interviews with all the participating students were conducted - the first one a week before and a second one a week after the school visit. Guided reflection, as described by Schön (1983), was used to facilitate students' reflection during these focus group interviews, especially since they were still only embarking on their teaching careers as novices. The questions used during these focus group interviews were intended to help the students to reflect on their expectations prior to the school visit, to facilitated constructive reflection while in practice and to reflect on practice afterwards.
In the focus group interview prior to the school visit, the following set of questions guided the deliberations:
What are your fears and expectations regarding the school visit?
What do you think would make the school visit the best experience?
How do you see the role and functions of the teacher as a mentor?
How do you see your own role within this context of mentorship?
What would the benefits and disadvantages of a mentoring system be?
The questions that guided the reflective process after the school visit were:
How did you experience the programme without having pre-determined specific outcomes and a fixed structure for the mentoring relationship?
How did you experience the process in the light of the minimum visits by the project team members (authors)?
Of what value was your involvement in this project for you specifically?
What in the process worked and did not work?
What are the future possibilities of such a project?
Any general comments?
Each of the researchers asked a specific question or questions. Having more than one person leading the interview proved effective as the 'conversation' enhanced the interaction within the group and bolstered the attempt to elicit nuanced and 'thick' information about the students' perceptions, feelings and ideas about the mentoring process. A scribe was used in both focus group interviews to record all verbal responses in writing as accurately as possible. There were two reasons for using a scribe rather than a tape recorder. Firstly, it became clear that students were hesitant about the idea of being recorded. Secondly and more importantly, the scribe not only recorded the students' responses, but also their non-verbal communication, which revealed feelings such as fear, uncertainty, trust and excitement.
In analysing the students' narratives, the researchers worked actively to situate the voice of the participant in a particular time, place or setting (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) in an attempt to understand the nature of this meaning-giving process and how the students had developed as professionals during the practice teaching session in collaboration with, and under the guidance of their mentors. The choice of voice (Miles & Huberman, 1994: 301) and the presence of the researchers in creating the narrative is justified by what Pillay (2005:540) refers to as the researchers' "story of others' stories" and Tierney's (2002: 392) notion of narrative reflexivity. The narrative process therefore enabled the students to begin to restory and reconstruct their lives in this particular teacher education setting based upon their recollections and statements about their own feelings and perspectives. This also allowed students to critically reflect on their earlier or current perspectives in order to construct or reconstruct the meaning of their professional development.
Each student's story was analysed using a framework that allowed the researchers to examine what Lauritzen and Jaegar (1997:35) call the "requirements of story: setting, characters, action directed toward goals ...". In the context of this research project - the latter dimension embodied emerging threads (or narrative threads, as explained by Nieuwenhuis, 2007) - an understanding of student perceptions (reflection and development of identity with a focus on the self, their mission and on progress to a meta-cognitive level) was sought from the students' own point of view. Using these lenses helped to filter the generalisable essence from the narratives.
The choice of the specific sample played an important role in ensuring trustworthiness, as the sample is an important mechanism to ensure the trustworthiness of the research (De Vos, Strydom, Fouche & Delport, 2005: 203-208; Denscombe, 2003:12-13). This project used purposive sampling as a nonprobability sampling strategy. The sample was typical of of the population (see Terre Blanche, Durrheim & Painter, 2006). These authors (2006: 139) state that nonprobability samples are more than adequate for research purposes as small non-random samples can be studied in-depth and provide rich information for research purposes. In this study it was possible to do such in-depth analysis of the small nonrandom sample in order to reach trustworthy conclusions. Although the data cannot be generalised to the whole population, it is trustworthy within the specific context in which it was investigated. As the conclusions are tested in other contexts in future, the external validity might increase and the confidence in the theory might grow (Terre Blanche, Durrheim & Painter, 2006:140). Triangulation further enhanced the trustworthiness of the study. The data, generated during the initial and the follow-up deliberations with the sample groups (both teachers and students) at the start and the end of the study, were verified by not only comparing them with the detailed notes made by the scribe during the deliberations, but also with the data generated by means of questionnaires. The triangulated data thus contributed to validity and trustworthiness of the deductions and conclusions, but the small sample size in the study limits the generalization of the results.
A number of steps were taken throughout the research project to ensure an acceptable level of consideration of the ethical issues. Prior to the launch of the project, consent was obtained from the principals and teachers of the participating schools, as well as from the participating students. This was done by means of personal meetings with these stakeholders during which the goal, procedures and methodology were discussed and approved. The researchers also undertook to maintain the anonymity of the individuals involved through using lables such as "School A" and "Student A1". The intention was also to mask the name and location of the school communities; however, the area in which our participating schools are situated is relatively small and the identities of these communities may be obvious to knowledgeable readers.
Results and discussion
The practice teaching session consists of a full school term (about 11 weeks) in the second semester of the academic year of the one-year PGCE programme. The aim of this extended teaching practice period is not only to deepen students' practical base, but also to create space where they can reflect on the integration of their theoretical understanding, their lived experience and what they experience in practice - thus the development of a mission (Korthagen, 2004). This integration can be enhanced if the participating teachers fulfil their roles as mentors. But does this happen? Do the students really develop their own identity; do they move beyond their own identity (mission) and do they eventually progress to a meta-cognitive level (Loyens et al., 2007)?
Phillpot et al. (2006) emphasise that teachers need to take ownership of the mentorship process. The collaboration of the teachers in the project was seen as a high priority. As the mentorship programme would be steered by reflective practice, the intention was not to specify any rules, regulations and expectations for the teachers; this enabled aspects such as the perceptions of teachers, the nature and scope of the mentorship process, the way that teachers could be prepared and whether true integration between theory and practice did indeed take place to be addressed. The teachers were consulted throughout the process in order to create trust and synergy, even though only the students' input is used for the purposes of this article.
Background of schools and students in the project
In order to understand the context in which the study was conducted, a brief overview of the various school contexts and students involved is provided.
School A was established in 1979, inter alia to provide education to learners classified as 'coloured' according to the Population Registration Act (South Africa, 1950). The Afrikaans-medium public school serves "a clientele of socio-economically disadvantaged learners of the lowest income group". A survey done by the Stellenbosch Municipality (2005:29-30) indicated that 23.9% of the residents where the school is situated have no income, while 11.1% of those who have an income earn between R401.00 and R800.00 per month. This socio-economic situation limits the ability of the school to provide an environment in which learners can reach their full potential. The following biographies provide an insight into the student teachers who did their practice teaching at this school:
Student A1 was a white Afrikaans-speaking male. In his undergraduate studies he specialised in language and culture. His practice teaching both within the university micro-teaching context and at the school itself exposed definite shortcomings. He seemed to cling to the type of teaching style that he had grown accustomed to during his own schooling - one lecturer commented that his presentation was an example of a typical lesson from a previous (pre-1994) paradigm.
Student A2 was a coloured Afrikaans-speaking female who specialised in languages and social sciences. Her lesson evaluations from both teachers (mentors) as well as lecturers reported a number of pedagogical issues that needed attention. However, they all indicated that she showed the potential to become a competent teacher.
Student A3 was a white Afrikaans-speaking female who also specialised in languages and social sciences. Although she initially struggled during her micro-teaching sessions on campus, she showed improvement during the practice teaching session at the school.
School B is a public school situated in a previously advantaged community. This dual-medium school is well resourced - not only in terms of human capital, but also in terms of monetary capital. This situation is evident from the principal's report for 2008, which states that the parent community approved a loan of R10.25 million for extensions to the school - despite the fact that under the new South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 (Department of Education, 1996) the state has reduced its financial support to schools like School B. The consistent annual increase of the number of 'A' aggregates and percentage of candidates passing with matriculation exemption may indicate a high standard of teaching and a positive learning atmosphere. The following students did their practice teaching at School B:
Student B1 was a white Afrikaans-speaking male who majored in Sports Science and Psychology. His command of, and fluency in, English helped him to develop a good rapport with learners and teachers at the school. Reports from the school and curriculum speciality lecturers indicated that he already showed high levels of competence as a teacher.
Student B2 was an English-speaking female who specialised in her undergraduate studies in English and Theatre Studies. She initially struggled during micro-teaching and the initial phases of the school visit, but improved steadily. One assessor commented that the student initially lacked an understanding of teaching circumstances and requirements, but was quick to learn.
School C is an independent day/boarding school for 650 girls and boys from Grade R to Grade 12. Given their 100% pass rate to date in the Independent Examination Board examinations, an effective level of teaching is provided. The school has strong Art, Drama and Music departments, which are supported by a local theatre. With the donation of land and the financial means of the parent community, it is possible to continuously improve the comprehensive range of facilities at the school to enable it to become one of the best-resourced education facilities in the province. The following three PGCE students did their practice teaching at this school:
Student C1 was a white English-speaking female who showed great potential as a prospective teacher. Her lecturers and teacher mentors identified minor areas in her practice that needed attention. She received a glowing report from teachers at the school: "Her dedication, intelligence and manner make her a fine teacher".
Student C2 was a white Afrikaans-speaking female specialising in Arts and Drama. With the School C being an English-medium school, she was placed in a very difficult situation as an Afrikaans mother-tongue speaker. However, her enthusiasm, creativity, ability to relate to the learners and willingness to learn helped her to overcome this challenge.
Student C3 was an English-speaking white male who specialised in Commerce subjects. According to the evaluation reports, during both micro-teaching sessions at the university and during the practice session, he may be regarded as a 'natural teacher'. Although his outstanding ability to interact with learners helped to establish a good rapport with them, he experienced that being 'too nice' may lead to learners taking advantage of his good nature.
The diversity in both school contexts and student backgrounds is evident from these descriptions, which provide the backdrop to the following discussion on the narrative analysis.
Narrative analysis
Reflection and the development of identity: the self
As mentioned, the teaching practice period offers a space in which student teachers can develop their own as well as a professional identity. These components form part of the self, which includes their beliefs about teaching against the backdrop of their acquired and required knowledge and skills (Loyens et al., 2007; Walkington, 2005). Based on the students' reflections, it emerged that in-depth development of teacher identity seemed to be lacking in a few cases. Evidence shows that the development of the students' teacher identity was not established soundly enough up to the level where it guided their actions. They still depended primarily on their mentors' support to the extent that they were impressed with the guidance they received on how lessons should be taught and what the duties and responsibilities of a teacher were. This emerged from comments such as:
... my mentor gave me enough support where I needed help ... ; she gave me help and guidance ...; explained what was good and what he would have changed ...; assisted me in preparing for the lessons ... (Student A3)
... I mainly had to return tests or comprehensions or instruct learners to do comprehensions ... (Student B2)
The analysis of the narrative comments also showed that students reflected on their experiences on the basis of their perception of what they regarded as important for them to do as prospective teachers. One student made the comment that I marked many tests and was barely given any opportunity to teach anything which would benefit me as a teacher (Student B2), while Student C3 stated that the mentoring relationship creates somewhat of a dependency on the teacher and the individuality of the student teacher can't be fully exercised. This last comment may indicate that the development of her identity (and consequent ability to reflect) was thwarted by the mentoring that took place. However, in this comment itself lies a specific belief and conception of herself-as-a-teacher - a clear indication that she has already developed her own teacher identity. This awareness stems from the meaning students make of their new profession, which supports them in making related decisions (Bullough, 1997).
Students' reference to aspects that would benefit them as teachers and aspects such as that the individuality of the student teacher can't be fully exercised (Student C3) may indicate that the practice teaching session confirmed what they believed their teaching role should be. So their perspectives on their teacher identities were further endorsed, despite references to concerns or fears that they would not be able to develop an individual teaching persona, as the data from the focus group discussions before the practice teaching session indicate. These insights may have moulded their teacher identity and should not be seen in a negative light.
Student B2 commented on an experience where she was forced to teach a subject which was not her first choice and which consequently - according to her - created tension. Even though this did not seem to impact negatively on her learning experience, she thought this tension could have been avoided. In another school Student A3 had two completely different kinds of experiences with the two teachers who acted as mentors for her two school subjects. One mentor expected her to just take over all his classes. The experience of the student was that this situation really robbed [her] in terms of learning within the greater sense. The other mentor played a much more supportive role and created opportunities to do my own thing. In other words, the student could move on to the meta-cognitive level and regulate her own learning and development.
Student C1, on the other hand, commented that she did not feel like a following puppy, as the mentor teacher was flexible and created enough opportunities for her to regulate her own learning. The student reported that this type of mentoring relationship helped them to gel together and worked as it felt comfortable for [them]. Embedded in these statements are issues of power(lessness) and authority. When mentors unilaterally dictated how the mentoring relationship should unfold, students felt that learning through practice becomes something that is done to them and not with them. To students it was as if they were excluded from the process(es) from which they should learn - whether they made mistakes or performed excellently. Other students reported mentor relationships where they were given the opportunity to be part of the process of planning the term's work. In these situations students felt that they had the power to raise their expectations and they had the authority to negotiate the nature of the mentoring relationship. In circumstances like this students felt that they were given the space to give their best, to make mistakes and in so doing take ownership of the process to regulate their development as teachers.
Perhaps even these negative experiences contributed to, and moulded, the students' identity. One could deduce that the students themselves believed that they should not be over-dependent on others, but that they should have the freedom to regulate their own learning. These experiences forced students to reflect on their experiences while their identity was shaped as well. They had particular views on the role of a mentor and this contributed to their identity development.
Reflection and the development of identity: mission
With regard to the mission level, there is evidence that this element was present in the development of students' identity. Most of the students' responses bear evidence that they felt part of something larger than the self in that they came to understand that their teaching in a specific subject formed part of a greater educational context. Responses that were indicative of this understanding included:
Everyone at the school was more than prepared to sit with you to answer all your questions (Student C1).
It [the mentoring relationship] helped me to feel at home in the school ...; what the systems of the school were (Student B1).
I learnt a lot about the school system in the greater context (Student B2).
I really learned a lot from the school and I was handled as one of the staff (Student C2).
The school visit as a critical incident contributed to the development of the mission level of identity development. Evidence shows that the students indeed felt part of the greater school context and it influenced the development of their identity. This project thus sensitised students to the fact that, as teachers, they could not function alone and that their identities were shaped and moulded through the context.
Reflection and the development of identity: meta-cognitive level
There is evidence that in some cases students did indeed move towards the meta-cognitive level of identity formation, but the data did not provide overwhelming evidence that this level of identity formation was fully achieved in all cases. Student C1 claimed that because the project was not specifically structured and that they had a lot of freedom, I did not feel like a following puppy and that I could come and go as I please. The student seemed to have the freedom to plan her curriculum for her classes without being constantly monitored. In this way she had the space to develop and regulate her own learning. An earlier comment by the same student that being at home in the school made me more prepared for the lessons I had to present also bears evidence of this self-regulatory process. It can be suggested that if students feel secure and are allowed to make certain decisions, this may enhance the establishment of a context or space in which they will start to regulate their actions and decisions themselves.
The ideal would be that students also reach the meta-cognitive level of identity development despite the critical incident spanning only a relatively short period of about 11 weeks. As such, they should show evidence of this in their becoming self-regulating learners, capable of knowing how and when to use their knowledge constructed in the previous two levels. The project team acted as the external force to facilitate the opportunity for identity development, but the outcome also depended on the role of the mentor teachers and the ability of the students to react to, and engage with, learning opportunities.
The data provided evidence that some students experienced dissonance during their school visit. This particular aspect was not investigated further, so the actual impact of the dissonance was not determined. Interestingly, though, the reported dissonance was not so much between what is expected by the higher education institution, on the one hand, and what is required by the school, on the other hand, but rather seemed related to power issues within a specific school.
Some students clearly experienced dissonance. Despite close liaison and collaboration with the schools on the project, a "mentor" in one school required a student to mark his assignments, tests and compositions during at least 10 of the 11 weeks. Another mentor expected Student B2 to take over all his classes, which really robbed [her] in terms of learning within the greater sense. Dissonance manifested itself differently in different contexts - with reference to the earlier discussion, where a student was forced to teach a subject that was not her first choice and another student had two distinctly different experiences with the two appointed mentor teachers.
Dissonance in both situations may be attributed to the different logic by which the mentors organised the practice teaching session for the students involved. The mentors' logic may have differed from what the students expected and were told at the university that they could expect. The project team did not visit the schools regularly (because of the open process followed), which may have created the opportunity for practices such as those reported above. Professional induction, as described by Quick and Siebörger (2005), was left to the discretion of the schools for the purposes of the initial phase of the project. However, in our view, dissonance is not necessarily a negative aspect of the practice teaching session, as such experiences could also contribute to the development of teacher identity and of mission. Dissonance may have forced the students to reflect on the situation and the learning to be gained from it. Dissonance may also have facilitated students' critical reflection on the expected learning outcomes to be gained from the practice teaching experience, as suggested by Philpott (2006).
From the data generated one can deduce that reflection is indeed a process where students learn about the self in context and that mentoring can act as a catalyst to enhance this learning process. It is clear that the transition from theory to practice is enhanced and optimised by using a mentoring system, as there are appropriate support mechanisms in place. The value of a mentor system is that it focuses not only on developing appropriate competences, but also has a strong humanist element in that it concentrates on the person of the student teacher. However, participating school-based mentors might not have been aware of the meaningfulness or purpose of mentoring as a process and their possible lack of understanding, might have negatively influenced their roles as mentors. This is a possible limitation to the study.
The three levels of reflection cannot be seen in isolation from one another, because the development of one level does impact on the other. The development of a professional identity (curriculum knowledge, an understanding of learning/ professional attitudes) does impact on the extent to which students integrate this pedagogical content knowledge into their view of the broader learning environment (how they see learners, how they manage classrooms, how they see the broader context of the school, and how they interact with the broader school community of teachers, parents and learners). This again can contribute to self-regulated learning in that they enable themselves to know how and when to use knowledge constructed on the previous two levels. These levels of reflection should not be seen as cyclical, but rather as a continuum.
Although there was no evidence of an overly striking development of teacher identity, there were indications that student teachers reflected on what they thought the role and function of a professional teacher should be. They could relate to their roles within a larger context (mission) and they started to regulate their own learning (although not to the extent that one would have expected). Even where there were instances of dissonance, this also actually created opportunities for learning and the development of their identity as well as placing themselves within a particular learning environment. Overall one could state that developing reflection as a practice can assist in bridging the gap between lecture hall (theory) and classroom (practice).
What does the future hold for further entrenching reflective practice in this particular PGCE programme? This is indeed a crucial question in the constant quest for quality and coherence within the whole PGCE programme, with its emphasis on a student-centred ethos that guides teacher educators' actions. Based on these initial findings, a logical and responsible way forward may be to extend the mentoring programme by coupling more pre-service teachers with teachers-in-practice, in the hope that more productive spaces will be created that will further facilitate reflective practice for all parties involved.
1. Prior to 1994 the SA education system was racially divided into the House of Representatives (coloureds), The House of Delegates (Indians), House of Assembly (whites) and Department of Education and Training (blacks).
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Liezel Frick is a Lecturer in the Department of Curriculum Studies at Stellenbosch University. Her research interests are in continuing professional development, integrated scholarship, and student learning in higher education.
Arend Carl is the Vice-Dean (Teaching) of the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University. His research focuses on curriculum theory and the role of the teacher as a key stakeholder in successful curriculum development.
Peter Beets is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Curriculum Studies at Stellenbosch University. His research focuses on geographical education, educational assessment and curriculum.


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Peterson Crisanto, winner of the Reef Pro El Salvador.
Crisanto, who was a standout throughout the entirety of the Reef Pro El Salvador, returned to form on the final day of competition, dismantling the flawless walls of Punta Roca with incredible poise and variety on his forehand. Crisanto would maintain his rhythm on the Final day, besting ASP WCT veteran Fred Patacchia (HAW), 31, in the Semifinals and would go on to command the wave-starved Final against Kerr, earning an 8.60 and 7.83 for the win.
"This is my first ASP 6-Star event win," Crisanto said. "I've been training really hard and before this event I went to Mexico and trained on the right points there. I'm so stoked to get my first win. I'm shaking right now, I can't believe I won!"
The Reef Pro El Salvador represents a breakthrough result for the ASP World Junior Tour Standout and Crisanto hopes to carry the confidence earned in El Salvador towards his future ASP World Championship Tour (WCT) qualification campaign.
"I'm so proud to have won the way that I did because I had to beat guys that were on the WCT," Crisanto said. "I just focused on my surfing and my confidence now is 100 percent. I'm going to keep training and hope to get a good result in the U.S. Open."
Josh Kerr, top seed at the Reef Pro El Salvador and current ASP World No. 9, was one to watch in each round, commanding several heats on his way to the Final. Kerr would top ASP World Junior Champion Caio Ibelli (BRA), 20, and Wade Carmichael (AUS), 20 on his way to the Final, but was unable to surpass Crisanto's rampage finishing runner-up.
"It's a long way to the final and it's tough to lose, but it was definitely a good event," Kerr said. "It's such a sick wave and it's too bad the waves didn't show up for the final. It slowed down so much and it was kind of pumping just before the final. It was a sick event. It's my first time to El Salvador and the place is amazing."
Wade Carmichael (AUS), 20, winner of last week's ASP 4-Star Surf Open Acapulco, continued his tear through Latin America with another big result at the Reef Pro El Salvador. The Australian nearly earned a second consecutive final appearance, but would fall short in a close heat against Josh Kerr to finish equal 3rd overall.
"My Central American trip went so well and I'm happy with it," Carmichael said. "This wave is incredible, it's just perfect and I had a great time."
Fred Patacchia (HAW), 31, was lethal on his backhand throughout the Reef Pro El Salvador, consistently earning top scores throughout the event with impeccable wave selection and incredible execution. The ASP WCT veteran was stellar once again on the Final day, but was unable to surpass Peterson Crisanto in their Semifinals clash, finishing equal 3rd.
"I gave Peterson (Crisanto) priority at the start and I probably shouldn't have," Patacchia said. "I didn't think he was going to be that picky with his waves and he was pretty smart about his wave selection and it caught me off guard. I think I gave him a little too much breathing room and he took it and ran with him. Good on him. He surfed a great heat."
Patacchia, who was absent throughout the opening ASP WCT season due to an ankle injury, is building momentum throughout the back half of the year and hopes his result at the Reef Pro El Salvador is a sign of things to come.
"It feels great to know you can still do it and it's reassurance that the ankle is getting better," Patacchia said. "I'm stoked. I haven't surfed these kinds of waves in awhile, where you're doing five, six or even more turns on one wave with only two guys out and it was fun. That's really what I came down for and I had a blast."
Highlights for the Reef Pro El Salvador can be found via http://www.beachbyte.com/aspna/elsalvador13/
For complimentary high res images log on to http://www.aspworldtour.com/press-room/
REEF PRO EL SALVADOR FINAL RESULT: 1 – Peterson Crisanto (BRA) 16.43 2 – Josh Kerr (AUS) 12.83 REEF PRO EL SALVADOR SEMIFINALS RESULTS: SF 1: Josh Kerr (AUS) 14.86 def. Wade Carmichael (AUS) 14.77 SF 2: Peterson Crisanto (BRA) 16.76 def. Fred Patacchia (HAW) 9.93
REEF PRO EL SALVADOR QUARTERFINALS RESULTS: QF 1: Josh Kerr (AUS) 11.83 def. Caio Ibelli (BRA) 5.90 QF 2: Wade Carmichael (AUS) 12.67 def. Tim Reyes (USA) 9.33 QF 3: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) 15.57 def. Tanner Gudauskas (USA) 15.17 QF 4: Peterson Crisanto (BRA) 17.40 def. Mitch Crews (AUS) 14.06


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Order of the Universe #39
[…] we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing
all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations. I do not doubt that
natural selection acted in building our oversized brain—and I am equally
confident that our brains became large as an adaptation for definite roles
(probably a complex set of interacting functions). But these assumptions do
not lead to the notion, often uncritically embraced by strict Darwinians,
that all major capacities of the brain must arise as direct products of
natural selection. Our brains are enormously complex computers. If I install
a much simpler computer to keep accounts in a factory, it can also perform
many other, more complex tasks unrelated to its appointed role. The
additional capacities are ineluctable consequences of structural design, not
direct adaptations. Our vastly more complex organic computers were also
built for reasons, but possess an almost terrifying array of additional
capacities—including, I suspect, most of what makes us human. Our ancestors
did not read, write, or wonder why most stars do not change their relative
positions while five wandering points of light and two larger disks move
through a path now called the zodiac. We need not view Bach as a happy
spinoff from the value of music in cementing tribal cohesion, or Shakespeare
as a fortunate consequence of the role of myth and epic narrative in
maintaining hunting bands.
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981)


text:
Get to know the most potent and most effective day trading products below and learn how to take advantage of it!
There are several good books out there on day trading the commodities and futures markets. There are also many bad and misleading books that cause traders more trouble than they are worth. Below are some of the best books that I have read on day trading futures. Some of the books include a complete day trading plan, while others mainly discuss specific trading strategies.


text:
This article is more than 1 year old
Assault on battery
What do you mean, it's run out?
Something for the Weekend, Sir? When working on-site, I like go into the office early on Thursdays because I have to leave by 5pm. It's simply essential that I get away in good time on Thursdays. And on Wednesdays. Oh, and Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
Weekends are completely off-limits, by the way.
Naturally, this is an excuse. Call it Asperger's or perhaps I'm just not a 'people person', but frankly the less time I spend sitting next to co-workers, the better for everyone. This is why it suits me to arrive at the office as early as reasonably acceptable so the great unwashed and I can limit the length of time we have to put up with each other.
Upon arriving early one morning this week, expecting a quiet, lonely three hours before the babbling masses arrive, I spy another human defiling my preferred personal space of approximately 50ft radius from my chair.
The good news is that it's one of the sharp-witted and similarly misanthropic guys from customer services, so I'm put at ease. The bad news is that he's been charged with the task of replacing everyone's Bluetooth mice and keyboards with conventional cabled ones. Apparently, the constant demand for fresh batteries was causing a major headache for customer support.
It's true that user delight with the wireless input devices quickly changed to annoyance when people discovered that they didn't run on Willy Wonka Everlasting Batteries. I'm not surprised: no matter where I work, not a day goes by without someone asking to borrow a charge cable of one sort or another because their phone, tablet, notebook, Google specs, pacemaker, Iron Man suit, Toyota Prius, etc is "down to five per cent".
One of Signore Volta's piles
When I suggest they recharge their devices overnight while they are sleeping, the response is usually a silent combination of raised eyebrows, Facebook pout, rolling of eyes and waving of hands that I think is supposed to mean "Oh well, you know…" but actually implies "I couldn't be arsed, can't you do it for me?"
Modern man's lack of appreciation of the advantages of battery power in the office environment would be a great disappointment to Alessandro Volta. More annoying is the lack of fundamental understanding that battery power runs down when in use. Not only is it not rocket science, it's barely even a Children's Christmas Lecture at the Royal Institution.
As the shock set in among the staff that battery-powered mice eventually need new batteries, I tried advising colleagues to switch off their mice and keyboards using the convenient and clearly labelled on/off switches before going home. Cue more facial dancing and hand flapping.
The other week, I came in one morning to find that my own mouse was dead. Had the batteries run down already? Surely not. Opening the battery compartment provided the answer: I deduced that a colleague on the nightshift had failed to recognise the on/off switch - and its deceptively confusing LED that illuminates when you slide the switch to 'on' mode - and had instead tried to coax the mouse into life by removing the pair of AAs and re-inserting them upside down.
'Will this get it working again?'
Hey, you never know, this kind of lateral thinking might just do the trick. If your car won't start, try driving it in reverse. If your gas cooker won't light up, try putting it in your living room. Or next time your wireless mouse doesn't work, try swallowing one battery and pushing the other up your arse.
Anyway, after some polite pleading, the customer services gentleman agreed to let me keep the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard as well as the cabled kit, on the promise that I swap them back, keeping the former in a locked drawer, each time I leave the office. Later that morning, as the other staff arrived and expressed their joy at seeing USB cables newly strewn across their desks, they effectively confirmed my status as a loner with weird ideas and a handy bag of spare batteries and recharging cables to plunder.
Update Thanks to SFTWS readers for all their suggestions with respect to my domestic keyboard-tea-spill woes from a couple of weeks back. I duly put the keyboard in the dishwasher and allowed it to dry for five days. And yes, believe it or not… the 'A' key still doesn't work. And now neither do the 'S', 'E', 'X' and 'C' keys. Brilliant stuff, guys, keep it up.
Alistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing. He has 3G and Wi-Fi turned off on his smartphone, only enabling them when absolutely necessary. He is the only iPhone owner he knows who only needs to recharge every three-to-four days.


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I worked these stockings up with US size 1 needles, and it took a little over 2 skeins of Panda Silk to complete the pair. I was surprised by how far just one skein went! One skein made almost one entire sock, I just had to finish up the end of the toe with another skein.
Evening Stockings
10 comments:
- Cathi said...
Those look awesome in that yarn! Nice work Alana.
- October 14, 2008 at 10:27 AM
Hopefully this comment works!
I love these socks. they are so pretty & cute & make me want to wear nothing but knee socks & skirts :)
I'm sure they are fab in the panda silk too! - October 14, 2008 at 10:35 AM
- Mimosa said...
These socks are lovely ! It creates a very romantic look with your gorgeous shoes (I love both of your pairs )
Helene . - October 14, 2008 at 11:49 AM
- Natalie Rush said...
They look great!! Awesome job!!!
- October 15, 2008 at 6:17 AM
- Arianwen said...
just an excuse to show all your gorgeous shoes:) They are really lovely I am quite tempted.
- October 15, 2008 at 8:16 AM
- Dawn said...
Awesome job...love them a lot! They're too cute/pretty to hide under pants! Show them off girlie!:) hugs
- October 15, 2008 at 3:38 PM
- Angel Knits said...
Wow, they're Beau-ti-ful! It's so elegant and you can wear it up with a skirt or down with pants!
Absoluately love it, what a great job you have done!!! - October 18, 2008 at 10:04 PM
I just got the book Knitting Vintage Socks and can't wait to knit these stockings. Yours are great, love the shoes too!
- October 30, 2008 at 7:24 AM
- gkgirl said...
those socks
are too die for.
seriously yummy.
and i am seriously envious.
great blog, by the way...
i found you via soulemama - November 7, 2008 at 7:50 PM
- Pam Sykes (aka Pretty Knitty) said...
Have I commented on these yet? No? They are FANTASTIC!
- November 23, 2008 at 2:59 PM


text:
In this clip from my interview with David, he relates his background as a long-time Notes user and advocate. He finds combining the power of Lotus Notes and eProductivity to be a natural fit and he's very pleased with the results.
I have a few more clips that I hope to post soon.


text:
When Animals Dream
The young woman, Marie, is an outsider in the small coastal community where she has grown up. The townspeople live in fear of her and not least her mother, who is wheelchair bound, suffering from a mysterious illness. When Marie discovers her body changing – long hair growing on her chest and back – she begins searching for answers concerning her family's hidden past. Something that will have great consequences for herself and her family – and the choices she has to make.


text:
Inside the Linux kernel 3.0
Linux has gone from 10,000 lines of code to 15 million
The new Linux 3.0 kernel in all its shiny awesomeness will be finding its way into your favourite distro any day now. So what does this major milestone release contain to justify the jump in version number?
The short answer is nothing really - this is just 2.6.40 renamed. Linus Torvalds felt the numbers were getting too high, that the 2.6.* notation was getting out of hand, and that Linux had now entered its third decade, so a new number was called for.
Torvalds said: "We are very much not doing a KDE 4 or a Gnome 3 here, no breakage, no special scary new features, nothing at all like that. We've been doing time-based releases for many years now, this is in no way about features. If you want an excuse for the renumbering, you really should look at the time-based one (20 years) instead."
The old numbering system used the first digit for the major release - which has been 2 for what seems like forever - and the second for the minor release, using odd numbers to show development versions and even numbers for stable releases. While 2.4 was the main kernel in use, 2.5 was the development version of 2.6. The third digit was the minor version. Then they added a fourth digit for backported patches to the stable releases and it all got messy, especially as the first two numbers stopped changing.
Now 3 is the major version, the second number is the minor release and patches for stable releases get the third digit when needed. Currently we are on 3.0 - in Torvalds's own words "gone are the 2.6. days".
The main reason for the escalating numbers, apart from the fact that the 2.6 line is almost eight years old, is a change in release philosophy. Releases used to be based on features; when the new features were stable and tested, a new kernel would be released - the "when it's ready" approach.
For example, 1.0 saw the introduction of networking (it's hard to imagine Linux without networking at its core nowadays), 1.2 saw support for multiple platforms - adding Alpha and m68k to the original i386, while 2.0 added support for SMP - multiple processors.
The last one is an example of how the landscape has changed yet Linux has remained relevant; SMP was added for the 'big iron' multiple processor servers yet now we have dual core CPUs in phones. Waiting for features to be complete could lead to long gaps between releases.
Nowadays the kernel undergoes steady evolution and has a new release every eight to ten weeks - more of a "whatever is ready" approach. If a new feature or driver isn't ready in time for the deadline, it's left until the next release.
If nothing major has changed since 2.6.39, what have the kernel developers been doing? With a new release every few months, the changes between adjacent releases are rarely outstanding on their own, but the cumulative effect is significant, so what has changed over the past year or two?
A list of the new hardware supported by the kernel would fill the magazine. With plenty of encouragement and guidance from the likes of Greg Kroah-Hartman, more hardware manufacturers than ever are working with kernel developers to ensure good support.
Drivers and support for hardware are being added almost as fast as the manufacturers can get it on the shelves. From wireless cards to webcams, and even the Microsoft Kinect in Linux 3.0, there is a huge range of hardware supported out of the box nowadays.
It's not just USB or PCI-connected hardware either; the ability to compile a slimmed-down kernel with only the features and drivers you need is what makes Linux ideal for embedded devices. From mobile phones and network routers to car entertainment systems, they all have their own hardware and the kernel supports it.
Fine lines
In November 2010, the internet lit up with discussion and counter-argument when news broke of "the 200 Line Linux Kernel Patch That Does Wonders". Designed to improve desktop responsiveness, this patch separates tasks launched from different terminals or environments into groups and ensures that no single group gets to monopolise the CPU.
In real terms, this means that an intensive task running in the background, such as software compilation (naturally, Linus tested it with a kernel compile) or video transcoding, will not bring your browser to its knees. It means the days of heavy system load manifesting in jerky windows or text scrolling are largely behind us.
What makes this so interesting (apart from the fact that a marked change to the desktop was made in a couple of hundred lines of code) is that it requires nothing from the user as long as you have a kernel with this code enabled, which means that any distro-supplied kernel from 2.6.38 onwards. It also makes a difference on any type of hardware, from an Atom-powered netbook to a six-cored monster.
The kernel has certainly grown over the years. One of the methods of measuring the size of a program's code base is the SLOC, or source lines of code, the amount of code that has been written. It is hardly surprising that this has grown with each release, although you may be staggered by the overall increase:
Version 0.01 had 10,239 lines of code
1.0.0 had 176,250 lines of code
2.2.0 had 1,800,847 lines of code
2.4.0 had 3,377,902 lines of code
2.6.0 had 5,929,913 lines of code
3.0 has 14,647,033 lines of code
Yes, you read that right, Linux has grown from 10,000 to 15 million lines of code. The code base has more than doubled since the introduction of the first 2.6 kernel back in December 2003.
These line counts are the sum total of all files in the source tarball, including the documentation. Considering that most programmers find writing documentation far more of a chore than writing code, this seems a reasonable measurement.
Before anyone starts crying "bloat!", remember that Linux is not a true monolithic kernel - drivers for most hardware are provided as loadable modules, which don't even need to be compiled for most systems, let alone installed or loaded.
Much of the growth in the size of the kernel source has come from the increasingly comprehensive hardware support. One of the misconceptions about open source software, fostered by its detractors, is that because it is free to use, it is somehow amateur and of lower quality. An analysis of the code contributed during 2009, which involved some 2.8 million lines and 55,000 major changes, showed that three quarters of the contributions came from developers employed to work on Linux.
It was no surprise that the top contributor was Red Hat (12%), followed by Intel (8%), IBM and Novell (6% each). Despite competing with one another, these companies also recognise the importance of co-operation. Naturally, each company develops areas that are beneficial to its own needs, but we all gain from that.
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Show All Answers
This is a Planning & Zoning question, in most cases vacant land must remain vacant until a principal permitted use is established. See below for details.
1. Use this link to open a new tab with instruction on how to find your Zoning of the parcel in question2. Find the Zoning Regulations that match your Zoning Hint: MR-1 and R-1 are Residential, M-1 is Mining. You can build ONE Single Family Residence on parcels with these zoning designations3. Read through the applicable Zoning Regulations to understand what we allow to be built, setbacks, and use information for Clear Creek County.
The Planning Department can be reached at 303-679-2436 if you have questions after you've read through your Zoning Regulations on your own.There is a process to 're-zone' your parcel if the current zoning designation does not meet your needs. Please call us to discuss if this is an option for your parcel.
The snow load varies depending on the elevation of the property and this can be researched on ClearMap, the County online mapping service.
Once on ClearMap, follow these 5-steps to find your Snow Load:
Clear Creek County has 2 wind zones and this can be researched on ClearMap, the County online mapping service.
Once on ClearMap, follow these 5-steps to find your Wind Load:
Clear Creek County has multiple zones and this can be researched on ClearMap, the County online mapping service.
Once on ClearMap, follow these 5-steps to find your Zoning:
For your Zoning Regulations, click the Zoning Regulations link below your zoning and select your section for a list of uses.
Clear Creek County does not require a county license for general contractors. Property owners are encouraged to get references and check with agencies such as the Better Business Bureau for background on any contractor they are considering hiring. The State requires all Plumbing and Electrical Contractors be licensed through the State.
Find out what your land is zoned for first, to determine what kind of house you are allowed to build, if any. You can call 303-679-2436 to find this out, or use our GIS ClearMap and use the Zoning Layer. Once you've established you are able to build a residence in your zoning, hire an engineer to construct Grading, Excavation, and Erosion Control plans for your parcel (we do not make recommendations for engineers). Then, submit your plans, and application documents to the Site Development Department. Contact Excel Energy for electric if needed, and the State of Colorado to obtain a Well Permit if needed. You will also need a Leach Field if you are not in an area with sanitation (which very few areas are). Contact Environmental Health for information on septic permits if needed.
Please visit this website (opens in new tab) for inspection instructions and information.
Yes, you can be your own contractor. You still must meet all the same requirements outlined in the checklist. All decks must meet the 2015 or later IRC code. All structural construction plans MUST be wet stamped, regardless of who is performing the work.
Yes, as long as the ILC has all requirement components of a site plan, outlined in the checklist, we will accept an ILC.
Yes, we will need a complete application to process a permit
Yes, if the roof is not currently recognized as a deck by the building permit obtained to build the residence, then you will need a permit to turn it into a rooftop deck/entertaining area.
You can look up any previous or active permits for your property here.
First, you need to determine if you would like to keep the deck or demolish it. If you want to keep the deck, simply submit an application with any documentation you can find on the deck plans and an engineer's letter for the deck and we will work with you on next steps to legalize it. You will need a current Site Plan with the existing deck to be submitted if you plan to legalize. This process will require you pay the permit fee and proceed through the permit process for new decks.
Yes, you will need a county official to inspect the deck to finalize the permit. Your deck is not legal until you've passed your inspection. You will receive specific instructions when you are issued your permit with how to schedule these inspections, what inspections are needed, and our inspection process.
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