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Published inLevel Up Coding·PinnedDon't Just LeetCode; Follow the Coding Patterns InsteadWhat if you don't like to practice 100s of coding questions before the interview? — Coding Interviews are getting harder. To prepare for coding interviews, you will need weeks, if not months of preparation. No one really likes spending that much time preparing for the coding interviews. So is there a smarter solution? First, let's look at the problem. Anyone preparing for coding interviews definitely…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Published inLevel Up Coding·PinnedSystem Design Interview Survival Guide (2024): Preparation Strategies and Practical TipsSystem Design Interview Preparation: Mastering the Art of System Design. — The fact is, designing a scalable system is a challenging task, especially when your are asked to do it in an interview. In this comprehensive guide, we will dive into the art of acing system design interviews. I will be sharing insights and strategies that have helped me clear FAANG…System Design Interview14 min readSystem Design Interview14 min read
Published inInterviewNoodle·PinnedTop Coding Patterns for FAANG Coding InterviewsCoding patterns enhance our "ability to map a new problem to an already known problem." — Preparing for coding interviews can be made easier by focusing on coding patterns. Every software engineer should learn coding patterns such as Sliding Window, Two Pointers, Two Heaps, etc. By doing so, software engineers will be able to develop the skill of "mapping a new problem to an existing one."…Coding4 min readCoding4 min read
Published inInterviewNoodle·PinnedThe Ultimate Strategy for Preparing for a Coding InterviewHow to prepare more quickly for coding interviews — Coding interviews are getting harder every day. A few years back, brushing up on key data structures and going through 50–75 practice coding interview questions was more than enough prep for an interview. Today, everyone has access to massive sets of coding problems, and they've gotten more difficult as well…Programming9 min readProgramming9 min read
Published inLevel Up Coding·Dec 5, 2023Why Is It Hard to Horizontally Scale SQL DatabasesNavigating the Complexities of Horizontal Scaling in SQL Databases. — Scaling a database means making it capable of handling more data, more users, or more transactions. Traditionally, SQL databases are scaled vertically, meaning you boost the database server's power by adding more CPUs, memory, or storage. However, there's a limit to how much you can scale up a single server. …Sql16 min readSql16 min read
Published inLevel Up Coding·Oct 15, 2023A Brief Introduction to ChecksumDive into the World of Checksum: Ensuring Error-Free Data Transmission and Storage. — Imagine this: You send a postcard to your friend on the other side of the country. But oh no! A rainstorm hits, and some of the words in the address get smudged. Your friend might not get that lovely picture of a sunset you picked out just for them. This…System Design Interview5 min readSystem Design Interview5 min read
Published inLevel Up Coding·Sep 19, 2023Mastering Database Replication: An Essential Guide for 2024Dive Deep into Replication Techniques, Their Challenges, and What the Future Holds. — In our interconnected world, data is the heart of many systems. Whether you're browsing your favorite online store, transferring money via a mobile app, or liking a friend's post on social media, you're interacting with systems that rely heavily on data. But what happens if that data becomes unavailable? Enter…Technology11 min readTechnology11 min read
Published inLevel Up Coding·Sep 3, 2023The Dark Side of Sharding: Mistakes You Can't Afford to MakeDive into the complexities of database sharding and equip yourself with expert tips to avoid common pitfalls. — Sharding. It's a word that's been echoing throughout meeting rooms, tech forums, and developer communities for some time now. With 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day, the pressure to manage and retrieve data efficiently is real. Sharding, for many, has become the shining knight in this data-heavy world…Sharding13 min readSharding13 min read
Published inLevel Up Coding·Aug 20, 20234 Advanced Sharding Techniques Every Software Engineer Must KnowBeyond Basic Partitioning: A Deep Dive into Modern Sharding Methods — Sharding isn't a new concept for most system design. At its core, it's about dividing and managing data, ensuring systems run smoothly even as they scale. Imagine a library. Without any categorization, finding a specific book would be akin to finding a needle in a haystack. But when books are…Technology11 min readTechnology11 min read
Published inGeek Culture·Aug 18, 2023System Design Basics: 5 Common Caching Misunderstandings ExplainedFrom Myths to Mastery: A Deep Dive into Caching Realities for System Design. — If you've ever marveled at the lightning speed of your favorite app or website, there's a silent powerhouse working behind the scenes: caching. It's like the turbocharger for your software engine. By storing frequent data requests, caching ensures that users don't need to wait for the same data over and…Technology12 min readTechnology12 min read


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Our latest gowns, dresses, skirts and other spookies ~ Made to Order in Cornwall ~ FREE UK Postage, Worldwide Shipping!
Based in the UK, MoonMaiden Gothic Clothing make, design and sell a stunning range of exclusive goth clothes - beautifully epic witchy, renaissance, steampunk and fae styles. We make petite and plus sizes, with made to measure at no extra charge! We're one of the UK's most original gothic clothing shops, as everything that we sell is made by US! We also accept custom commissions too! Our range includes medieval gowns, celtic and pagan clothing, wiccan dresses and robes, fairy costumes, renaissance gowns; and much more - from Halloween Icons like Morticia Addams, Lily Munster to Elvira and Maleficent; with fabrics including crushed and steamed velvets, lace, cotton etc... so whether you're here simply for halloween and samhain clothing, a solstice gown, or everyday gothic wear, you'll find something to meet your needs! And if you want to pay by installments, just ask us! :) With free postage in the UK, and worldwide shipping.
We're in the far west of Cornwall, near Truro, but we ship worldwide! Enjoy your visit to our site!

subset: commoncrawl


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There are a number of factors that impact your ability to get a small business loan, but your age isn't one of them. That said, your business' age and the age of your business credit profile do matter.
Most lenders are trying to answer a couple of really important questions:
- Can you repay a loan? This is why lenders look at your revenues and your cash flow. They are trying to determine whether or not your business is capable of servicing debt. In other words, do you have the means to make the periodic payments?
- Will you repay a loan? This is where the age of your business along with the age of your business credit profile become part of the equation. They are looking for a track record that demonstrates you not only can, but that you will make the periodic payments.
How many years your business has under its belt is important, but the age and depth of your business credit history are possibly even more important.
For example, if you've been in business for five or six years, but have never borrowed, your business will have what is sometimes referred to as a thin profile—meaning there is little there to demonstrate that your business will repay a loan. And, making it much more difficult to get approved for a small business loan.
Strategically Building a Business Credit Profile
Here are three strategies that will help you build a strong credit profile for when you need to borrow—regardless of whether your business has been around for two years or 10:
1. Start with a level set
In other words, understand what your business credit profile looks like today. A business credit profile is a little different than your personal credit score in that it's public; once you register your business with your state, information about your business and your business credit profile become part of the public record.
Fortunately, all the major business credit bureaus make that information available to you. Some may charge a fee, but it's worth investigating so you can look at what the bureaus report about your business. In addition to the major credit bureaus like Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax, there are also companies like Nav that can help your business' profile.
2. Make sure your profile is accurate
Don't assume the information in your profile is correct. Your profile will include information from the public record like the type of business you operate, your business revenues, and your industry. All these things are taken into consideration when evaluating your business' creditworthiness.
Fortunately, the credit bureaus are motivated to make sure their information about your business is as accurate as possible, so they all offer processes to correct verifiable errors. Regardless of whether or not your business has been around for several years or is fairly new, make sure the information they have and share about your business is accurate.
3. Build a solid track record
This is not as difficult as you might think. You don't necessarily need a small business loan to build credit, but you do need to demonstrate that you can successfully use credit. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it? Fortunately, there are a number of ways to strategically build credit, demonstrate a track record, and make a small business loan down the road easier to qualify for.
Start by considering the vendors you purchase supplies from or goods you purchase to resell. Many of your suppliers likely offer 30- or 60-day terms to their best customers. While this may not be a small business loan, if they report your good credit history to the appropriate business credit bureaus, it helps you build a track record.
If you don't have suppliers that offer credit terms, there are other places like Staples or Home Depot that sell many of the supplies small business use that do. You might also consider business credit cards. They will likely approve a small balance at first, but as you make timely payments and demonstrate your ability to successfully service debt, you'll be well on your way to building a track record that will help you qualify for a business loan down the road.
Moving Forward
I'm an advocate of regularly reviewing your business credit profile. In fact, I'm convinced it's an important part of strategically building a track record that will help you qualify for small business financing in the future. What is regularly? That's up to you, but I don't think monthly is too frequently.
If you're familiar with the story of the tortoise and the hare, you know that slow and steady wins the race. This is true when building a strong business credit track record—even if you already have a few blemishes on your business credit profile. Creditors are generally looking for more positive than negative notations on your business credit report, so over time, as you add positive notations to your credit file, your profile will improve. There are no shortcuts, but because we tend to impact that which we pay the most attention to, regularly reviewing your profile is the best first step you can make.
It's your business' track record, not your age, that matters when you apply for a small business loan.
Learn how OnDeck can help your small business.
Copyright © 2024 SCORE Association, SCORE.org
Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.


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OCEAN CITY – A reported incident involving an alleged gunman threatening himself and others at an Ocean City hotel this week turned out to be a false alarm, but not before resort police mobilized for the potentially dangerous situation.
Around lunchtime on Wednesday, resort police got a call from a distraught woman from Baltimore reporting her estranged husband was in a resort hotel room with a gun threatening to kill himself and anyone who tried to stop him including police. Taking nothing for granted, Ocean City police officials called in a negotiator and began to mobilize the Quick Response Team (QRT) for any eventuality.
The hotel was briefly locked down and guests at the hotel restaurant were not allowed to leave until the situation could be assessed. However, when several police arrived at the alleged gunman's room at the Holiday Inn on 17th Street, the unidentified man denied the story and invited the officers inside to search for weapons, which turned up nothing.
"It was a crazy scene for a little while there," said OCPD Public Affairs Specialist Jessica King. "We had the place on lockdown and were ready to get the SWAT team out. It could have been a bad situation. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing."


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This guest post is by Adarsh Thampy of Conversionchamp.
I wish I started my blog a long time back when there was a lot less competition.
I wish I was able to write great content from the start.
I wish I had the money to purchase hosting and set up a self-hosted WordPress blog.
I wish, I wish, I wish…
How many of us have wished for something like this in the past? Or, worse yet, is still wishing for things to happen just like that?
I know I have. And I bet a lot of you have wished for something similar as well.
The problem with the "I wish" mentality
Do you know what's stopping you from becoming the most sought after blogger in your niche?
Yeah, you heard me right. The biggest obstacle to your blogging success is none other than you.
I know this for a fact, because I have been in the same position. I started many blogs, built many successful ones … and then let them die. Yeah, just like that.
There wasn't enough motivation for me to keep going. So in effect, I was my own bottleneck.
Right now I am determined to change all that. Today, I want to share what I have learned from the past five years of blogging with you so that you realize:
- there's no reason why you can't be a success today, even if you feel you should have started a blog long time back
- consuming more information may be counterproductive for you
- there is no reason why you should have a self-hosted WordPress blog either (I do believe that having one is best for business, though).
3 Rules for overcoming the "I wish" mentality
Rule #1: Stop wishing
First of all, you need to realize that wishing is not going to make things any better.
Sure, you could wish you started blogging five years back. But five years down the line, you'd be surprised to find that you'd still be thinking the same. You'll think then, "I wish five years back I wasn't dumb enough to not start a blog because I thought I was too late."
If you keep on wishing, the only thing that's going to happen is that you'll never realize your dreams, and others will get ahead of you.
So rule #1 for overcoming the "I wish" mentality is to stop wishing. If you want to wish, wish for world peace. If at all your wish comes true, you'd be satisfied that you contributed to a greater good.
Rule #2: Stop consuming too much information
When I started out, I believed that reading all the information I could get my hands on was the best way to learn and grow. How wrong I was!
Information is always good. But once it becomes too much, it's going to negatively affect your growth.
At one point I was on a buying spree, and spent more than $2000 on information products and courses. Guess what I did with all that information? Nothing! Really, those courses and ebooks are sitting in my computer collecting digital dust. I haven't even consumed 5% of everything I bought. Talk about a waste of money.
"I wish" I could go back in time and stop myself from buying so many info products and save some cash. But there's no use wishing. The damage is already done.
I want you to stop investing your time and money into learning as much as you can. You'll end up wishing for more information. So stop buying things you don't actually need. Instead, act on what you already know.
Rule #3: Stop thinking about being a pro all the time
We all want to be pros, right? You can either be a "somebody" in blogging or be a "nobody" in blogging. Which would you chose? I'd rather choose the "somebody" over "nobody" any day.
And what's the first pro tip we all read about blogging? That you need to have a self-hosted blog. If you run a business, there is no doubt that it's true. But if you are starting out, there is no reason for having a self-hosted blog.
People think that they need to appear professional in order to get acceptance, and they wait for the perfect time to start so they have enough money for hosting and a domain name, getting a unique theme coded for their blog, and even learning coding to customize the blog themselves.
Do you see a problem here? You are just adding complexity to what is, at heart, a rather simple thing.
Most people never get around to getting everything done, so they don't start a blog at all. So just start a free blog on WordPress or Blogger if you don't have the money right now to go the self-hosted route. Having a blog is better than not having a blog.
Over to you
Are you still stuck with the "I wish" mentality, or have you experienced it? How did you overcome it? Let us know in the comments.
Adarsh Thampy is a blogger and advices small and medium business on effective content marketing strategies. You can read more on the topic of content marketing by following Adarsh @conversionchamp.


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Update at 3:35 p.m. ET: MLB.com has posted the news that Game 6 of the World Series, which was scheduled for tonight in St. Louis, has been postponed to Thursday at 8:05 p.m. ET because of rainy weather.
That means Game 7, if one is needed, would be played on Friday (weather permitting).
The American League's Texas Rangers lead the National League's St. Louis Cardinals, 3 games to 2.
Our original post follows. As you'll see, there are some potential Series-changing effects because of the delay:
The weather forecast isn't very good for this evening in St. Louis, where Game 6 of the World Series between the Cardinals and Texas Rangers is supposed to start at 8:05 p.m. ET (Fox is the TV broadcaster).
Weather.com says that at game time, there's a 50 percent chance of rain and that the temperature will be 55 degrees. It's raining there right now, the website says.
According to CBS St. Louis, representatives from the teams and Major League Baseball are meeting at 2 p.m. ET to decide what to do — postpone the game now; put off the decision a little longer; or take the chance that it will be OK this evening and prepare to play. If the game does start and then has to stop because of rain, "it would resume at the point of suspension on Thursday," MLB.com says.
The Rangers lead the Series, 3 games to 2. If Game 6 isn't played tonight, and the Cardinals go on to win tomorrow, that would even the Series at 3 games each. It would also give St. Louis the chance to put the team's best pitcher — Chris Carpenter — on the mound for a decisive Game 7 on Friday.
But as St. Louis' KSDK reports, USA Today baseball writer Bob Nightengale doesn't think that would necessarily be a great advantage for the Cards. Carpenter would be pitching after only 3 days rest, not his normal 4. Rangers' ace Derek Holland would have had his full 4 days off.
In the Cardinals' playoff series against the Philadelphia Phillies, Carpenter pitched with just 3 days' rest and gave up 4 runs on just 64 pitches. His team rallied, though, to win 5-4.
As MLB.com reminds us, interruptions are "part of Series history." The longest delay was the 10-day suspension in 1989 because of the Loma Prieta earthquake that hit northern California. Both teams that year — the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's — were from the Bay Area.
In 1911, steady rain forced a six-day delay in the Series between the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Giants.
And in 1975, MLB.com says, three days of rainouts "ended when [the Red Sox' Carlton] Fisk's 12th-inning homer over the Green Monster ... beat the [Cincinnati] Reds and sent the Series to a Game 7."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Temple Standard
The high standards of temple building employed by this Church are a type and even a symbol of how we should be living our own lives.
While recently touring the beautiful Brigham City Utah Temple, I was reminded of an experience that I had while serving as the coordinator of the open house, rededication, and cultural celebration of the historic Laie Hawaii Temple.
A few months prior to the completion of the extensive renovation work, I was invited to tour the temple with the Executive Director of the Temple Department, Elder William R. Walker, and his Temple Department associates. In addition, various members of the general contracting firm were in attendance. The purpose of the tour, in part, was to review the progress and quality of the work performed. At the time of this tour, the work was about 85 percent completed.
As we moved through the temple, I watched and listened to Elder Walker and his associates as they inspected the work and conversed with the general contractor. On occasion I observed one man running his hand along the walls as we moved from room to room. A few times after doing this, he would rub his fingers together and then approach the general contractor and say, "I feel grit on this wall. Grit is not temple standard. You will need to re-sand and buff this wall." The contractor dutifully took notes of each observation.
As we approached an area in the temple that few eyes would ever see, the same man stopped us and directed our attention to a newly installed, beautiful leaded-glass window. This window measured about two feet (0.6 m) wide by six feet (1.8 m) tall and contained an embedded, small stained-glass geometric pattern. He pointed to a small two-inch (5 cm) colored-glass square that was part of the simple pattern and said, "That square is crooked." I looked at the square, and to my eyes it looked evenly placed. However, upon closer inspection with a measuring device in hand, I could see there was a flaw and that this little square was indeed one-eighth of an inch (3 mm) crooked. Direction was then given to the contractor that this window would need to be replaced because it was not temple standard.
I admit that I was surprised that an entire window would need to be replaced because of such a small, barely noticeable defect. Surely, it was unlikely that anyone would ever know or even notice this window given its remote location in the temple.
As I drove home from the temple that day, I reflected on what I learned from this experience—or, rather, what I thought I learned. It wasn't until several weeks later when I was invited to tour the now completed temple that my understanding of the prior tour experience became clearer.
As I entered the completely renovated Laie Hawaii Temple, I was overwhelmed by its beauty and quality of finish. You can appreciate my anticipation as I approached the "gritty" walls and the "flawed" window. Did the contractor re-sand and buff the walls? Was the window really replaced? As I approached the gritty walls, I was surprised to see that beautiful wallpaper now hung on all the walls. My first thought was, "So this is how the contractor addressed the grit—he covered it." But, no, I learned that it had always been the plan to hang wallpaper on these walls. I wondered why a little hardly detectable grit mattered if wallpaper was to cover it. I then eagerly approached the area where the flawed window was located and was surprised to see a beautiful floor-to-ceiling potted plant sitting directly in front of the window. Again I thought, "So this is how the contractor addressed the crooked little square—he hid it." As I moved closer, I pushed the plant's leaves aside and smiled as I saw that the window had indeed been replaced. The formerly crooked little square now stood neatly and evenly in the pattern. I learned that it had always been part of the interior design to have a plant in front of this window.
Why would walls with a little grit and a window with a little asymmetry require additional work and even replacement when few human hands or eyes would ever know? Why was a contractor held to such high standards?
As I exited the temple deep in thought, I found my answer as I looked up at the refinished exterior and saw these words: "Holiness to the Lord, the House of the Lord."
The temples of this Church are precisely as proclaimed. These sacred buildings are built for our use, and within their walls sacred and saving ordinances are performed. But there should be no doubt as to whose house it really is. By requiring exacting standards of construction down to the smallest of details, we not only show our love and respect for the Lord Jesus Christ, but we also hold out to all observers that we honor and worship Him whose house it is.
In the revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith to build a temple in Nauvoo, the Lord instructed:
"Come ye, with all your gold, and your silver, and your precious stones, and with all your antiquities; and with all who have knowledge of antiquities, … and bring … the precious trees of the earth;
"… And build a house to my name, for the Most High to dwell therein."1
This follows a pattern established by King Solomon in the Old Testament when he built a temple unto the Lord using only the finest materials and workmanship.2 Today we continue to follow this pattern, with appropriate moderation, as we build the temples of the Church.
I learned that even though mortal eyes and hands may never see or feel a defect, the Lord knows the level of our efforts and whether we have done our very best. The same is true of our own personal efforts to live a life worthy of the blessings of the temple. The Lord has counseled:
"And inasmuch as my people build a house unto me in the name of the Lord, and do not suffer any unclean thing to come into it, that it be not defiled, my glory shall rest upon it;
"Yea, and my presence shall be there, for I will come into it, and all the pure in heart that shall come into it shall see God.
"But if it be defiled I will not come into it, and my glory shall not be there; for I will not come into unholy temples."3
Like the contractor, when we become aware of elements in our own lives that are inconsistent with the teachings of the Lord, when our efforts have been less than our very best, we should move quickly to correct anything that is amiss, recognizing that we cannot hide our sins from the Lord. We need to remember that "when we undertake to cover our sins, … behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; [and] the Spirit of the Lord is grieved."4
I also learned that the high standards of temple building employed by this Church are a type and even a symbol of how we should be living our own lives. We can apply, individually, the teachings of the Apostle Paul given to the early Church when he said:
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."5
We are each made of the finest materials, and we are the miraculous result of divine craftsmanship. However, as we move past the age of accountability and step onto the battlefield of sin and temptation, our own temple can become in need of renovation and repair work. Perhaps there are walls within us that are gritty and need buffing or windows of our souls that need replacement in order that we can stand in holy places. Gratefully, the temple standard that we are asked to meet is not that of perfection, although we are striving for it, but rather that we are keeping the commandments and doing our best to live as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is my prayer that we will all endeavor to live a life worthy of the blessings of the temple by doing our best, by making the necessary improvements and eliminating flaws and imperfections so that the Spirit of God may always dwell in us. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


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In order to apply, you must first register via Studielink (step 1) and then gain access to our application system where you will be asked to submit your documents including a portfolio (step 2).
The final deadlines for submitting your portfolio are:
1 March (for non-EU/EEA candidates)
1 May (for EU/EEA candidates)
Due to the limited number of places, we advise candidates to submit their applications as soon as possible.
Pick a programme
- Bachelor Graphic Design
- Master ArtScience
- Preparatory Year
- Bachelor Photography (ft & pt)
- Bachelor Fine Arts (ft & pt)
- Exchange: Incoming students
- Exchange: Outgoing students - Study abroad
- Bachelor Interior Architecture & Furniture Design
- Master Type and Media
- Bachelor ArtScience
- Master Interior Architecture (INSIDE)
- Bachelor Interactive Media Design
- Bachelor Textile and Fashion
- Master Industrial Design
- Master Non Linear Narrative
- Master Artistic Research
- Kidsclub
- Orientation Course
- School for Young Talent
- Partnerships with ArtPlan schools
Studielink is the common registration and enrolment application system for all non-private institutions of higher education in the Netherlands.
- Official residents of the Netherlands have to use their DigiD to login to Studielink.
- International students create an account with their own username and password.
Create a Studielink account: provide personal details (as stated in your passport or ID card) and previous educational information (studies, diplomas and exam results). - Once your account is created, you can 'add a new enrolment application'. Indicate the study programme of your choice from the list generated when you choose 'Royal Academy of Art / Royal Conservatoire' in the drop down menu 'Educational Institution'. Follow carefully the steps and at the end confirm your application.
Detailed instructions are provided on the website of Studielink to assist you with the procedure.
Start your application via Studielink
Please note: you must also follow the application procedure in step 2 to be considered for admission. Once you've submitted your application in Studielink, you will receive an automatic reply in your mailbox with the subject "Upload the required documents". Check your spam box if you have not received it within a day.
Registration in Studielink only is not sufficient. Both processes must be completed by the deadlines stated above.
After your enrolment in Studielink is confirmed, you will receive an e-mail by the Student Administration of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. In this e-mail, you'll find your personal login info, which will grant you access to the Academy's own online application system Osiris, where you can upload your portfolio and other required documents.
Find detailed information about the requested material under the Specific requirements section on the Admission requirements page.
The selection committee will assess your portfolio & motivation and you will be notified by e-mail about the result.
If the selection committee decides positively on your application, you will receive an invitation by e-mail to attend an online admission day. In this e-mail there will be further explanation about the next steps and how to prepare for the admission.
After the admission interview you will be informed whether or not you are admitted to our programme. All students who are offered a spot into our programme will need to upload some supporting documents to complete their enrolment. These documents include:
- Copy of your passport* (a scanned version of pages with photo and personal information)
- Copy of your high school and/or bachelor diploma (if applicable)
- A profile picture (to print on your student card)
- Proof of English proficiency (for non-EEA students only)
*if you have a double nationality, please add a copy of your second passport as well
Your official enrolment at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK) is completed upon payment of the tuition fees. Related information will be sent to you by our student administration office via e-mail.
International students can find practical information on what to arrange before and during their stay in The Netherlands.


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Wednesday, February 26th, 2014
NBC to Present the "Run for the Roses" Through 2025
NBCSN to Televise Kentucky Oaks and Additional Programming throughout Partnership
STAMFORD, Conn. – February 26, 2014 – NBC Sports Group and Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI) have reached a 10-year agreement extending NBCSG's exclusive rights to the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks through 2025, it was announced today.
The 10-year renewal extends the partnership which began in 2001 and includes multiplatform rights to the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Oaks, and Derby and Oaks day programming which will be televised on NBC and NBCSN and featured on NBC's digital platforms.
"We are excited to extend our partnership with Churchill Downs for both the iconic Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby and are proud to have them as signature elements of our Championship Season," said NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus. "This decade-long deal is a testament to the strength of the relationship between Churchill Downs Incorporated and NBC Sports, and underscores NBC's commitment to the sport of horse racing. We will continue to utilize the wide-ranging media platforms of NBCUniversal to surround the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby with wall-to-wall coverage and extensive promotion."
"This agreement extends our relationship with NBC to 25 years and includes what will be a very special historical moment, the 150th Kentucky Derby in 2024," said Churchill Downs Chairman and CEO Bob Evans. "We will not only achieve our financial objectives with this deal, but we will also continue to benefit from NBC's unique media assets and innovative perspective to help us continue to grow the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby brands."
Utilizing NBC Sports Group's "Big Event Strategy," three of the last five Kentucky Derby races have recorded at least 16 million viewers. NBC Sports Group's coverage of the Kentucky Derby over the last 13 races averaged over 2 million more viewers than the previous 12 Kentucky Derby broadcasts (14.3 million vs.12.0 million, up 19 percent).
The Kentucky Derby stands as America's oldest continuously held major sporting event; this year's 140th Run for the Roses is Saturday, May 3, 2014.
When the Comcast-NBCUniversal transaction was completed in January 2011, the sports assets of the two companies combined to form NBC Sports Group, which serves sports fans 24/7 with premier live events, insightful studio shows, and compelling original programming. The sports media company consists of a unique array of broadcast television, cable television, radio and digital sports assets, including NBC Sports, NBC Olympics, NBCSN (NBC Sports Network), Golf Channel, 12 NBC Sports Regional Networks, NBC Sports Radio and all of their respective digital properties. NBC Sports Group possesses an unparalleled collection of television rights agreements, partnering with some of the most prestigious sports properties in the world: the International Olympic Committee and United States Olympic Committee, the NFL, NHL, NASCAR, PGA TOUR, PGA of America, USGA, Churchill Downs, Premier League, MLS, Tour de France, French Open, Formula One, IndyCar and many more.


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Welcome toErie County, PennsylvaniaGENEALOGYA Participant in the USGenWeb Project |
*** Erie County Data
Special Features and Research Resources
Rootsweb "Message Board"
USGenWeb/PAGenWeb Archives
Related Sites - [All Off-site Links] |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Welcome to the Erie County (PA) Genealogy Home Page! Bill Klauk has been your volunteer County Coordinator and web site maintainer since the start of year 2001. However, after 13 years and thousands of contributions posted and maintained, he is no longer in a position to continue. My name is Mary Ann Lubinsky and I will be your new county coordinator. On behalf of myself and PAGenWeb, I want to express our sincere thanks to Bill for the great job he has done. I will not even try to fill his shoes! Bill has left the following message: "My goal was always to make this web site a premier location for Internet research in Erie County, Pennsylvania. I would publicly like to thank each and every individual whose name appears within these approximately 700 web pages as a contributor and/or township coordinator. I urge all of you to support the new coordinator and continue to make contributions. I am hoping to still be able to be active and contribute myself, just not as website coordinator. Thank you to all for your support over the years." Bill had a motto for this site: "Please remember, this is not MY web site - it is YOUR web site." That is exactly how we all feel at PAGenWeb. This site has stayed successful and useful in the past through user contributions. Your generous contributions of information, data, photos, cemetery readings, out of copyright book and article transcriptions, original research and much more has always been welcome and will continue to be welcome. I do not live in Erie County and I cannot help with research. I also do not have information about where to locate resources, such as vital records. If information has been provided, it has been posted. Please direct your research questions (queries) to the query system (currently using Rootsweb Message Board), and/or to the PAERIE-L mail list described below. Also see the links to the Erie Society for Genealogical Research (ESGR) and to the Erie Co (Blasco) Library - both of these organizations provide research services at reasonable rates.
"Let us not forget" |


text: Dear Haskellers, The recent discussion indicates there is consensus for forming a haskell.org committee. We are therefore calling for nominations for members of the initial committee. To nominate yourself, please send an e-mail to committee at haskell.org by 29 September 2010. Please feel free to include any information about yourself that you think will help us to make a decision. We do not expect that being a member of the committee will require a significant amount of time, but committee members should aim to be responsive during discussions when the committee is called upon to make a decision. More details about the committee's roles and responsibilities are on http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell.org_committee If you have any questions about the process, please feel free to e-mail us at committee at haskell.org or to contact one of us individually. Thanks Ian


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This article is more than 1 year old
Wordpress backup vuln published
BackWPup has remote execution hole
A remote execution vulnerability has been discovered in Wordpress backup utility BackWPup.
According to Sydney (Australia) company Sense of Security, which published the advisory along with a proof-of-concept, the vulnerability allows local or remote PHP files to be passed to a component of the utility.
"The input passed to the component wp_xml_export.php via the 'wpabs' variable allows the inclusion and execution of local or remote PHP files as long as a '_nonce' value is known. The '_nonce' value relies on a static constant which is not defined in the script meaning that it defaults to the value '822728c8d9'", the advisory states.
Sense of Security says the vulnerability affects at least BackWPup Version 1.6.1 (the platform on which it has been tested), and users should upgrade to Version 1.7.1.


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UGA School of Law wins its third national advocacy competition of the season
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Writer: Cindy Herndon , 706/542-5172, email@example.com Contact: Kellie Casey Monk, 706/542-2739, email@example.com
UGA School of Law wins its third national advocacy competition of the season
Athens, Ga. - The University of Georgia School of Law recently took first place in the 18th Annual National First Amendment Moot Court Competition, marking its third national advocacy title so far this academic year.
Third-year law students Leslie B. Horne and Emily E. Shingler defeated teams from schools such as New York University, the University of Washington and the University of Connecticut to win the competition. The pair also placed as runner-up for the Best Brief Award.
"It is a great honor to take first place in this competition, especially considering the high caliber of the other teams our school competed against," School of Law Director of Advocacy Kellie Casey Monk said. "Not only was it a great win, but it was also a wonderful opportunity for our students to gain more experience with the law, and in the courtroom, as it relates to the First Amendment."
The School of Law also won national championship trophies earlier this year in the Emory National Civil Rights and Liberties Moot Court Competition and the William W. Daniel National Invitational Mock Trial Competition.
"We have an extremely talented and dedicated group of students this year," Casey Monk said. "I am so proud of what they have achieved."
Additionally, Georgia Law recently finished as a semifinalist in the regional Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.
The team, composed of second-year law students Amanda L. Brooks, Amer H. Ahmad, Andrew J. Lavoie and Joshua B. Portnoy, also won the Best Brief Award, and Ahmad and Lavoie both won oralist awards. Third-year students George A. Campbell and Emily E. Shingler served as brief editor and team coach, respectively.
Repository Citation
Office of Communications and Public Relations, "UGA School of Law wins its third national advocacy competition of the season" (2008). Press Releases. 17.


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We Still Can't Get Enough Pi ... But Why? (Op-Ed)
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
The number pi (π = 3.14159265358979323846…), unique among the pantheon of mathematical constants, captures the fascination of the public and professional mathematicians. Three years ago one of the authors wrote about pi on The Conversation and the number's popularity hasn't diminished in the meantime – in fact, quite the opposite.
Algebraic constants, such as √2, are easier to explain and calculate to high accuracy. Euler's number (e = 2.71828…) is pervasive in physics and chemistry, and even appears in financial mathematics. Logarithms are ubiquitous in the social sciences.
But none of these other constants has ever gained much traction in the popular culture – and it is arguably the only mathematical topic from very early history that is still being researched today:
- the Babylonians used the approximation pi ≈ 3
- the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus, dated roughly 1650BCE, suggests pi = 32/18 = 3.16049…
- early Indian mathematicians believed pi = √10 = 3.162277…
- Greek mathematician and philosopher Archimedes, in the first mathematically rigorous calculation of pi, employed a clever iterative construction of inscribed and circumscribed polygons to able to establish that 3 < 10/71 = 3.14084… < pi < 3 1/7 = 3.14285…
Pi in popular culture
In an early scene of Ang Lee's 2012 movie adaptation of Yann Martel's award-winning book The Life of Pi, the title character Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel writes hundreds of digits of the decimal expansion of pi on a blackboard to impress his teachers and schoolmates, who chant along with every digit. (Good scholarship requires us to say that in the book Pi contents himself with drawing a circle of unit diameter.)
This has even led to humorous take-offs such as a 2013 Scott Hilburn cartoon entitled "Wife of Pi", which depicts a "4" figure seated next to a pi figure, telling their marriage counsellor: "He's irrational and he goes on and on."
This attention comes to a head each year with the celebration of "Pi Day" on March 14, when, in the US with its taste for placing the day after the month, 3/14 corresponds to the best-known decimal approximation of pi (with 3/14/15 promising a gala event next year).
Pi Day was originally founded in 1988, the brainchild of Larry Shaw of San Francisco's Exploratorium (a science museum), which in turn was founded by Frank Oppenheimer, the younger physicist brother of Robert Oppenheimer, after he was blacklisted by the US government during the McCarthy era.
Originally a light-hearted gag where folks walked around the Exploratorium in funny hats with pies and the like, by the turn of the century Pi Day was a major educational event in North American schools, garnering plenty of press.
In 2009, the US House of Representatives made Pi Day celebrations official by passing a resolution designating March 14 as "National Pi Day," and encouraging
This seems to be the first legislation on pi to have been adopted by a government, though in the late 19th century Indiana came embarrassingly close to legislating its value (see the video below).
How pi was nearly 3.2.
As a striking example, the March 14, 2007 New York Times crossword puzzle featured clues, where, in numerous locations, a pi character (standing for "PI") must be entered at the intersection of two words.
For example, 33 across "Vice president after Hubert" (answer: SPIRO) intersects with 34 down "Stove feature" (answer: PILOT). Indeed 28 down, with clue "March 14, to mathematicians," was, appropriately enough, PIDAY, while PIPPIN is now a four-letter word (πPπN).
Pi mania
There are many more instances of pi in popular culture. Here are just a few:
- on September 12, 2012, five aircraft armed with dot-matrix-style skywriting technology wrote 1,000 digits of pi in the sky above the San Francisco Bay Area as a spectacular and costly piece of "piformance" art
- on March 14, 2012, US District Court Judge Michael H Simon dismissed a copyright infringement suit relating to the lyrics of a song by ruling that "Pi is a non-copyrightable fact"
- on August 18, 2005, Google offered 14,159,265 "new slices of rich technology" in their initial public stock offering. On January 29, 2013 they offered a pi-million dollar prize for successful hacking of the Chrome operating system on a specific Android phone
- in the first Matrix movie, lead character Neo has only 314 seconds to enter the Source
- the 1998 thriller Pi received an award for screenplay at the Sundance film festival. When we were sent advance access to its website, we misdiagnosed it a fine hoax – a bogus website is much cheaper than an improbable Hollywood movie!
- the May 6, 1993 edition of The Simpsons had Apu declaring "I can recite pi to 40,000 places. The last digit is 1" (This digit was supplied to the screen writers by one of the present authors.)
- in Carl Sagan's 1986 book Contact, the lead character (played by Jodie Foster in the movie) searched for patterns in the digits of pi, and after her mysterious experience sought confirmation in the base-11 digits of pi
- on the September 20, 2005 edition of the North American TV quiz show Jeopardy!, in the category "By the numbers," the clue was "'How I want a drink, alcoholic of course' is often used to memorise this". (Answer: "What is pi?" because the number of letters of these words spells the digits of pi.)
With regards to the final item above, there are many such "pi-mnemonics" or "piems" (phrases or verse whose letter count, ignoring punctuation, gives the digits of pi) in the popular press.
Another is
Sometimes the attention given to pi is annoying. On 14 August 2012, the US Census Office announced the population of the country had passed exactly 314,159,265. Such precision was, of course, completely unwarranted. But sometimes the attention is breathtakingly pleasurable.
Poems versus piems
Here are some examples of excellent pi poetry and song. Below we present the first stanza of the much anthologised poem "Pi" by Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012), who won the 1996 Nobel prize for literature, from her published collection.
Below we present the beginning of the lyrics of "Pi" by the influential British singer songwriter Kate Bush – and an appropriate closing example for this article. The Observer review of her 2005 collection Aerial, on which the song appears, wrote that it is
(She sings more than 150 digits but errs after 50 places. The correct digits are given in the published lyrics.)
Our slice of pi
A fruitful new approach is to display the digits of pi or other constants graphically, cast as a random walk.
The first plot below shows a walk based on one million base-4 pseudorandom digits generated by a computer, where at each step the graph moves one unit east, north, west or south, depending on the whether the pseudorandom base-4 digit at that position is 0, 1, 2 or 3.
The colour indicates the path followed by the walk, coloured by a standard hue-saturation-value scheme that produces a rainbow of colours.
The next figure shows a walk on the first 100 billion base-4 digits of pi. This may be viewed dynamically in more detail online at the Gigapan site, where the full-sized image has a resolution of 372,224 x 290,218 pixels (108.03 billion pixels in total).
This is one of the largest mathematical images ever produced and, needless to say, its production was by no means easy (see this paper for technical details).
The best is yet to come
Such techniques are used to study what is arguably one of the oldest unanswered questions of mathematics: are the digits of pi "random"? (say in the specific sense that each decimal digit occurs, in the limit, 1/10 of the time, each pair of digits occurs 1/100 of the time, and so on).
Sadly, we still don't know the answer to this age-old question (and many others). But with the advent of modern computer technology, maybe the balance is finally tipping in favor of mathematicians (see this technical paper by the authors, from which the above article is condensed and adapted (with permission of the American Mathematical Monthly) for details).
In any case next year is 2015 and so Pi Day will be the most accurate ever: 3/14/15.
A version of this article first appeared on Math Drudge.
Jonathan Borwein (Jon) receives funding from ARC.
David H. Bailey does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.
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By Paul Sutter
By Andrew Jones


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Developer Longyuan Power said the Naqu wind farm, consisting of five wind turbines with total capacity of 7.5MW, were connected to the grid this month.
According to Longyuan's plan, another twenty eight Guodian 1.5MW turbines will be installed in this 49.5MW.
The project sits in Naqu county in northern Tibet, at 4,700 metres above sea level. As a result, the turbines need to cope with low temperature, low air density, and high wind speeds.
China's National Energy Administration granted approval for the project in March 2012.
Tibet's annual wind energy reserves amount to 93 billion/kWh, the seventh largest in China. The project is also the first wind farm in Tibet. It leaves Macau the last Chinese region without wind farms.


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Kulfi is an eggless Indian ice cream. This is a simple and delicious dessert made with milk and sugar. Kulfi is very popular with street vendors, especially in summer. This is an easy recipe to make and Kulfi is an absolute treat for both young and old.
This recipe will make 6-8
- 4 cup milk
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
- 1/2 teaspoon agar-agar (sea weed works as a vegetarian gelatin)
- 1/4 teaspoon cardamoms crushed
- In a heavy bottom pan over medium high heat boil the milk, heavy cream, and sugar together.
- After milk comes to boil lower the heat to medium and let it boil for about 35 minutes, stir the milk occasionally and clean the sides preventing milk not to make a ring on sides. Because of cream, milk does not burn in bottom of the pan.
- In a small bowl mix corn starch, agar-agar, and cardamom with 2 spoons of water really well making sure there are no lumps,
- Add to the boiling milk mix it well, boil for about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat and mix the milk for about a minute.
- Let it cool and pour into the molds, use Kulfi molds, Popsicle molds or small cups. I am using 3 oz plastic cups.
- Freeze for about 5 hours, before Kulfi is ready to serve.
You can flavor Kulfi with saffron or vanilla and add the nuts of your choice.


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misterstomach wrote:
dude!!! i didn't know you were playing with shroud of the heretic. this is awesome. i was coming in to post this show, but you saved me the trouble. i'm excited for this. this will be our first show in 11 months by the time it happens. we have some new shit to play and some between song ambient stuff that i made that we haven't done before, courtesy of the jam man that i bought from conky a long time ago. it's going to be awesome. and i'm stoked to meet another ilf friend in real life. i've gotten to meet a lot of these people in real life and it's always been awesome and is a road to actual friendship. let's hang and have a drink and talk about gear. and make fun of poseurs. i have long hair and a beard and am strikingly handsome. find me.
Yeah, it'll be a great time, we can definitely hang have a drank and talk about gear. I also have longish hair and a beard, and am not strikingly handsome, but I do have a Monson, that's a redeeming factor.


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Message Board
Ken Morris Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Morris has written!
Author Morris's Book Reviews
The Deadly Trade
Bancroft, March 2004, 25.00, 366 pp. ISBN 1890862355 A year ago Tim Mack lost his wife and child because of a drunk driver and went on a bender that lasted for a long time. After regaining his sobriety, he left New York where the memories were too strong and moved to San Diego where he joined the investment banking company of Atterberry-Stanton as a research analyst. All Tim wants is peace but he becomes involved in a situation where his life a...


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during one of those interminable end-of-year round-the-clock sessions when junior Members were often dragooned into presiding in the wee hours. During a tedious speech by Republican Rep. Marjorie Holt on school prayer, Holt referred to America as "a Christian nation." Frank interrupted her to observe: "If this is a Christian nation, why does some poor Jew have to get up in the middle of the night to preside over the House of Representatives?"
In his chapter on Derrida in The Premodern Condition, Bruce Holsinger describes at length the "interventionist medievalism" (120) of the Radical Orthodoxy group, in particular, Catherine Pickstock's After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy. As Holsinger explains, Pickstock "aims at a wholesale dismantling of Derrida's critique of Western logocentrism through a 'recasting of the premodern' against what she sees as its pernicious recruitment by deconstruction" (121). After Writing presents a pretty easy target for a medievalist, at least so far as Holsinger summarizes it. This is despite Pickstock's erudition in Western philosophical traditions, in fact despite her insistence that the deconstructive critique of language inadequately accounts for the bodily presence necessary to produce language (a point I know I find attractive, even as I find the implied prediscursive body-as-presence argument suspicious). For Holsinger, Pickstock's work presents an easy target because she mourns the loss of the "liturgical civilization [that] existed in its purest form in the Western Middle Ages and achieved its most coherent expression as the liturgy of the Roman Rite" (125) and because she longs for something she calls "genuine liturgy" (qtd 127) to restore "real language" (qtd 127). Far from being a medieval artifact, the ideal(ized) liturgy from which Pickstock quotes dates from the Counter-Reformation, a period of intense religious longing, nostalgia, and reaction against Protestantism, and now, I suppose, recuperated for much the same purposes to inveigh against a secular "nihilistic" philosophy that suspects all promises of presence.
What leapt out at me, I suspect wholly uncharitably, was the Jewishness of two of Pickstock's bêtes noires, Lévinas and Derrida. Keeping this in mind renders Pickstock's "commitment to credal Christianity...to deploy this recovered vision systematically to criticise modern society" (qtd 119) a bit pernicious, at least to my eyes, right now. Heavy charges, but I suspect the deployment of "medieval Christianity" to critique a modern society that, in contradistinction to most late medieval dominant societies, is not systematically trying to extirpate or convert Jews. This is not to say that a secular state is necessarily better at preventing systematic extirpation. Lord knows it isn't. But neither anti-Judaism nor anti-Semitism are necessary features of post-religious states, which cannot be said for medieval Christianity.
The problem here is in part one of imagining the Middle Ages by default as a Christian Middle Ages, of forgetting, for example, that Hebrew numbered among the languages of textual production in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England, and of forgetting peculiar moments like the one I'm about to describe. Medieval Christians (clumsy placeholder) preferred Jews to be abject, as Jewish misery was a sign of Christianity's triumph. Keep that in mind when you read this:
In this year [1273], eight days before the Feast of Saint John the Baptist [24 June], because the Mayor was then absent on his journey to the King in the parts beyond the sea, the Sheriffs, together with certain discreet men of the City, appeared before the Council of his lordship the King at Westminster; whereupon, the members of the Council, before certain Jews there present, questioned them, thus saying--'It is notorious that the Jews kill with their own hands all beasts and fowls, whose flesh they eat. But some beasts they consider of their law, and some not; the flesh of those which are of their law they eat, and not the flesh of others. What then do the Jews do with the flesh of those which are not of their law? Is it lawful for the Christians to buy and eat it?' To which answer was made by the citizens, that if any Christian should buy any such flesh of a Jew, he would be immediately expelled; and that if he should be convicted thereof by the Sheriffs of the City or by any other person, he would lose such flesh, and it would be given to the lepers, or to the dogs, to eat; in addition to which, he would be heavily amerced by the Sheriffs.--'But if it seems to you that this punishment is too light a one, let your discreetness make provision that such Christians shall be visited with a more severe punishment.' Whereupon, the members of the King's Council said--'We will not have such persons visited with any more severe punishment, without his lordship the King; seeing that this matter concerns the Jews, who belong to his lordship the King. But we do strictly command you, in virtue of the fealty in which you are bound unto his lordship the King, that you cause this custom throughout the City rigidly to be observed.' (Henry Thomas Riley, trans. Chronicles of the Mayor and Sheriffs of London, A.D. 1188-1274 and The French Chronicle of London, A.D. 1259-1343. London: Tübner and Co., 1863, 176-7)Since I can't imagine that they killed pigs, certainly the Jews did not kill "all beasts and fowls." If we may judge by similar laws on the Continent, what the law references are the clean beasts judged by the Jews to be unsuitable because of some taint discovered during slaughter. The Jews would sell these carcasses (cows and sheep presumably) or portions of carcasses to Christians, whose religious alimentary qualms tended to be focused more around pleasure than around pollution. Everyone was happy: the Jews didn't have to throw away useless meat, and savvy Christians bypassed their "own" butchers to get meat at a discount. "Discreet men of the City" (no doubt Christian butchers who wanted to secure a monopoly) aimed to put a stop to this practice. Whatever the mercenary reasons were, the public logic likely ran as follows: because Jews must be thought abject, Christians cannot be seen to eat something that the Jews had rejected as repulsive. It'd be like eating something a leper had spurned! Yet in their rejection, Christians are also rejecting what the Jews reject. This is what fascinates me, and what trips up Pickstock's Middle Ages and the "Christian" Middle Ages more generally. Christians end up, after a fashion, keeping kosher, and doing so amidst some of the worst persecutions of Jews in England's history. I need hardly say it, but what marvelous irony!
(image above: "The Mikveh, or ritual bath dug up on Milk Street close to St Paul's Cathedral. Courtesy of the Museum of London Archeology Service," from here. Also see JJC's post on Jewish Architecture in England and, below, on the second-oldest synagogue in the Western World.)


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Program Your Garage Door Opener Codes For Genie
This video shows you step by step how to program your garage door opener codes for Genie brand Garage Door Openers.
Does the height at which the Safety Eyes and Wall Control unit are set matter? Why? What about the wires? Is there a way to hide the wires to make the installation a little neater? Watching a professional install a garage door opener the right way can really help you learn what you should expect.


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Windows cannot start in any mode (neither normal no safe mode).
Corrupted or missing system file prevents Windows from booting normally.
- Click to start Windows 8 Virtual Machine
- Press F8 immediately after starting the Windows 8 Virtual Machine (and for best results, continue pressing F8 until you see the Troubleshoot)
- Click Refresh your PC and Windows 8 will try to fix your startup issue
Warning: The apps that came with your PC or you installed from Windows Store will be reinstalled, but any apps you installed from other websites and DVDs will be removed. Windows puts a list of the removed apps on your desktop after refreshing your PC.
To know more about Refreshing, Resetting and Restoring Windows 8 please visit How to restore, refresh, or reset your PC and Refresh and reset your PC.
If the issue still persists: Advanced Troubleshooting
Run System File Checker (sfc.exe) offline using two additional parameters, via the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE). Note: you will need Windows installation disk or .iso image.
Configure the virtual machine boot order such that the first boot device is your CD/DVD drive.
- Without starting your virtual machine go to Actions menu -> choose Configure... -> select Hardware tab.
- Highlight CD/DVD 1, make sure that Connected option is enabled and set Connect to to your physical CD/DVD drive (if you have an installation disk) or specify the path to corresponding .iso image.
- Highlight Boot Order -> on the right side of the window, choose CD/DVD, and using the up arrow move it to the first place.
If you use a Windows installation disk please insert it into the CD-ROM, start your virtual machine.
When prompted, press a key to boot from the DVD. In the 'Install Windows' screen, click Repair your computer.
Select Troubleshoot -> Advanced Options.
Click Command Prompt.
First use the command line to identify all drives attached to the system and their current mount point in Windows PE. This is done with the diskpart utility and the list volumes subcommand. C:\ is the boot volume (labeled "System Reserved") and D:\ is the system volume (where the operating system and user data are stored).
Run a chkdsk, this will verify/repair the filesystem and mark any bad sectors on the disk so that they are not used again.
Perform a sfc /scannow using the offline settings for the boot directory and windows directory. If you use the incorrect options, two errors are common:
"Windows Resource Protection could not start the Repair service." "There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again."
The first error indicates an invalid boot or system partition path. The second indicates that incorrect arguments were given, or there is a file that needs to be removed or renamed in the
path. For this installation, this isD:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml
.For this particular system, this is the correct command to run based on the output of diskpart above
sfc /SCANNOW /OFFBOOTDIR=c:\ /OFFWINDIR=d:\Windows
- This process takes some time to complete. Windows Resource Protection should find corrupt files and repair them. Details are included in the CBS.log.
- When it completes type "exit" and restart your system.
- Go to Actions menu -> choose Configure... -> Hardware tab -> highlight Boot Order and change the order back (make Hard disk to be in the first place).
- If the system is still unbootable, it may be necessary to perform an in place upgrade or rescue the files and create a new virtual machine.


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By Angela Greiling Keane
Washington: Vice President Joe Biden was wearing a leather jacket and sitting behind the wheel of a screaming yellow Corvette at the locked White House gates when he divulged a secret of the powerful.
"Hey, the Secret Service doesn't let me drive off the property."
It was Biden's closing scene in a spoof video produced by HBO for the White House Correspondents Association annual dinner over the weekend. It also offered a real-life glimpse inside the bubble that envelops top US officer-holders, even after they leave the job.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed earlier this year that she hasn't driven a car in 18 years. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has said one of the biggest drawbacks of his position is losing driving privileges.
"For the most part, the Secret Service's preference would be to drive the former presidents at all times," said Mickey Nelson, who retired in 2012 as the Secret Service assistant director of protective operations after 29 years in the service.
In a country as car-oriented as the United States, the draw of the driver's seat is strong. The security imperative is stronger. The threat to top US officials is ever-present, and the agents who squire current and former presidents are trained in evasive and defensive driving manoeuvres.
Presidents still find ways to get their hands on the wheel - even if it's just a golf cart on the links or an off-road excursion on private property - often to the consternation of the agents assigned to protect them.
The late President Ronald Reagan, restricted from driving on public roads, enjoyed a pair of older four-wheel drive Jeeps on his 688-acre Rancho del Cielo near Santa Barbara, California, his home away from the White House.
"He'd be in the driver's seat and I'd be in the passenger seat and I'd have a death grip," former Secret Service agent Stephen Colo said.
"Everything was completely open. No seat belts," Colo recalled. "He's driving and I'm thinking: If we go over the edge, how I'm going to drag him out of that car?"
President George W. Bush has a spread in Crawford, Texas, twice as big as Reagan's and, until this year, had a pick-up truck to match.
He "drove his truck pretty regularly at the ranch," Nelson said. "He even on occasion drove other world leaders on the ranch in his truck."
Bush, 67, whose main residence now is in Dallas, auctioned the 2009 Ford F-150 King Ranch 4x4 SuperCrew for charity for $300,000 in January, saying in a statement that he hadn't driven on a public road for "many, many years."
On official business both in Washington and away, US presidents ride in an armored Cadillac limousine known as "the Beast." Over the past five decades the size of the presidential vehicle and the blocks-long motorcade in which it rides has grown.
"The critical moment was when JFK was assassinated," said H.W. Brands, a University of Texas professor and presidential historian.
President John F. Kennedy's death by a sniper's bullet while riding in an open-topped Lincoln on November 22, 1963, in Dallas was a watershed for presidential isolation. Handing over the car keys is now part of the bubble that includes personal chefs, constant security, and aides to handle every mundane chore.
Each succeeding president is further removed from the lives of ordinary citizens. Obama had to fight even to keep his Blackberry.
"Once you become president, you don't even have to stop for red lights," Brands said. "And if it looks like traffic's too bad, you just take a helicopter."
He said Lyndon Johnson may have been the last president to drive on public roads after leaving office, saying he may have cruised around Texas Hill Country in addition to driving on his private ranch.
Not owning a ranch or other vacation property, President Barack Obama, 52, gets his driving fix in other ways.
He caused a stir in March when he was photographed driving a golf cart solo at the Andrews Air Force Base course. Usually if a president is behind the wheel of anything, there's a Secret Service agent alongside. The press pool report for the day called it a "unique presidential sighting".
Obama drove something more powerful than a golf cart as recently as 2012 when he tooled around the White House grounds in a plug-in-hybrid Chevrolet Volt, a vehicle he had driven once before - for about 3 metres - in a GM plant two years earlier.
"That was my big joy ride. Three times around the South Lawn driveway," Obama said on NBC's "The Tonight Show."
Biden, 71, hasn't given up completely on the idea that he'll one day drive again. He owns a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette, a green convertible with a 327-cubic-inch engine and side exhaust pipes. He told "Car and Driver" magazine in 2011 that being banned from driving is "the one thing I hate about this job."
Bill and Hillary Clinton have lived much of their adult lives in the bubble. Bill Clinton, 67, was governor of Arkansas from 1979-1981 and again from 1983 until he won the presidency in 1992, and he then served in the Oval Office until January 2001.
Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton's former press secretary, recalls one time the president took the wheel, and it didn't make the Secret Service happy. Clinton was visiting the late King Hussein at his compound in Jordan when the monarch wanted to show off his new high-end Mercedes.
First, the king invited Clinton to ride along in the passenger seat, McCurry said. The Secret Service grew concerned when Hussein said "Bill, you drive."
To the relief of the agents, the $150,000 car had a manual transmission, and Clinton didn't know how to use it, McCurry said.
Hillary Clinton, 66, later acquired a security detail in her own right when she was a 2008 presidential candidate and then as secretary of state, extending the time she's spent in the back seat rather than behind the wheel.
"One of the regrets I have about public life is that I can't drive anymore," Hillary Clinton told the National Automobile Dealers Association in January.
Bill Clinton has shared the same sentiment.
"That's why whenever I'm on the golf course, I always make them let me drive the golf cart," he said in a 2012 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."


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Army sergeant pleads guilty to killing 5 U.S. service members in Iraq
By Kim Murphy
Los Angeles Times
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — Army Sgt. John Russell pleaded guilty Monday to the second-degree murder of five fellow service members at a mental health clinic in Iraq in 2009 after the government agreed to not seek the death penalty.
Russell, 48, was dispassionate and matter-of-fact as he gave his first personal account of his methodical march with an M-16 rifle through the Camp Liberty combat stress center -- the only mass killing of Americans by a U.S. serviceman during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I just did it out of rage, sir," he told the judge, Col. David Conn, as he described walking from room to room, firing at mental health workers and patients.
"I was upset. I do not remember being angry, but I know that everyone who witnessed me outside the combat stress clinic said I looked angry," he said. "What I remember most was I just wanted to kill myself. One hundred percent, I had decided to kill myself."
Family members of two of the victims listened in the courtroom. The mother of Spc. Michael Yates Jr., broke down and had to leave as Russell calmly described chasing her son to the front door of the clinic and fatally shooting him in the chin after Yates grabbed a gun to try to stop him and found it unloaded.
The guilty plea allowed Russell to tell his story for the first time without the risks to his defense that such testimony would have presented at trial.
Army prosecutors have reserved the right to hold a separate evidentiary hearing to try to prove that Russell, in fact, is guilty of premeditated murder, a step above the offense to which he pleaded guilty.
The outcome of that hearing could determine what sentence he finally receives. Under the law, he could receive a maximum of life in prison without possibility of parole but defense lawyers hope he receives a lesser sentence if they can prove that the crime was not premeditated.
Defense lawyers waived their ability to mount an insanity defense, but as part of the plea agreement
will be able to present evidence that Russell's mental illness and physical damage to his brain rendered him not fully mentally responsible for his crimes, which they claim occurred during a blind rage.
That portion of the case will commence on May 6.


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Movement towards Sustainable Winegrowing in California
Sustainable Winegrowing may be a new buzz word in California's wine country, but for many producers, it is a long-term commitment. Wineries like Fetzer Vineyards, Benziger Family, Buena Vista, and Tablas Creek are not only economically successful, they are also responsible custodians of their land.
The California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG) is an organization that promotes the economic interests of the state's wine industry and advocates a sustainable winegrape growing program.
Wine is a rare product in that it is both an agricultural and finished good. It is made by nature, the people who work the land, and vintners in the winery. While the CAWG's primary goal is to, "Produce the best quality wine and/or grapes possible," their code of sustainable winegrowing also encompasses environmental and social goals.
Some of these other values include their desire to, "Maintain the long-term viability of agricultural lands, and to support the economic and social well-being of farm and winery employees through training and competitive compensation." The CAWG understands the importance of preserving the natural environment as well as maintaining favorable relations with the workers who are the foundation of the industry.
This is not to say that the California Association of Winegrape Growers is not concerned with economics. Another bullet point in their code states that they want to, "Honor the California wine community's entrepreneurial spirit." They certainly have a refreshing and holistic approach to the wine business, and should be supported in their efforts.
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A blazing hot December morning. High blue skies. Wide open spaces. This is Fort Worth, Texas, famous for its frontier atmosphere, its stockyards, rodeos, Art Deco downtown – and the vast Lockheed Martin factory.
Boasting a mile-long aircraft assembly plant, opened on April 18 1942 – the day Lt Col Jimmy Doolittle led the first Army Air Corps raid on Japan – this is where, for the next quarter of a century, the world's most sophisticated, controversial and expensive jet fighter will roll off a surgically clean production line.
One of the first of these £100 million supersonic aircraft, a Lockheed Martin F-35B, hot from trials and shimmering in the 80-degree heat, is perched over a 'hover-pit', a deep concrete well absorbing the fierce downward blast of the STOVL (short take-off and vertical landing) jet. The F-35B is tethered like some momentarily quietened bucking bronco.
This is not only an American beast. There is a strong likelihood that from 2030 the F-35 will be the only high-speed fighter in service with the RAF and the Royal Navy.
The much-loved Harrier was retired two years ago; the Tornado follows between now and March 2019. This will leave us with the Typhoon Eurofighter (introduced in 2003, and made in Britain and Europe), yet when that is scheduled to fly into the sunset a decade or so later, and with no Typhoon Mk2 in the wings to replace it, the Lockheed Martin F-35 may well be the one front-line jet able to defend British airspace and coalition interests.
By then, the nation that created the Spitfire and the Harrier will have long stopped making fighter aircraft of its own. Airfix, yes; Supermarine, Hawker and their successor BAE Systems, no.
Even if we had the will, we are unlikely to have the money. We will depend on our special relationship with the United States more than ever before. These are weighty matters that have drawn critics and supporters into a frenzied debate over the virtues of the F-35.
Just as I near the restrained grey jet at Fort Worth to talk to its test pilot, a bright orange butterfly catches my eye. A Gulf fritillary, it flutters innocently within feet of the supersonic warbird. It makes me think of the need we feel to protect the simplest freedoms with the most complex and terrifying weaponry, machines that, like the proverbial wheel, can break a butterfly.
We need the assurance of jet-powered, digitally guided, mechanical windhovers – fabricated from the most advanced materials and loaded with the latest digital sorcery and Star Wars weaponry – to assure a future in which we, or a young girl on her way to school in Afghanistan, can stop and stare at a fleeting fritillary.
'Darth Vader never had a helmet like this,' says Billy Flynn, a senior Lockheed Martin test pilot with combat experience flying Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18s in Serbia and Bosnia, showing me his Vision Systems International 'bone-dome'. Made of carbon-fibre, the Israeli-US-designed augmented-reality helmet is packed with hi-tech gadgetry, and displays all the data the pilot needs inside its visor.
The F-35 pilot's augmented-reality helmet (Reuters)
'This is an essential part of the F-35. It's what makes such a difference,' Flynn says. 'It's been laser-scanned to fit my head, bumps and all. Through it, I can see 360 degrees all around the airplane. It's wild seeing the undulations of the Red River along the Texas border beneath your feet. It's virtual reality! Strange? Different, sure, but there's not a pilot who would trade it for anything else. It needs refining, but it'll make pilot and airplane an integral, all-seeing weapon.'
Everyone I meet involved in the F-35 project talks lyrically about the computer wizardry of this digital-era aircraft. I ask the same analogue question, over and again, of the test pilots: so what's it like to fly?
'A no-brainer,' they chorus.
They talk so fervently about the Star Wars aspects of the F-35 partly because it is the easiest aircraft any of them has ever flown: pilots are free to manage the weaponry while the F-35, more or less, flies itself.
Tucked away inside the Lockheed Martin complex, Dr Mike Skaff, the chief engineer of pilot/vehicle interface for the F-35 programme, and a former USAF F-16 pilot, guides me through the simulator.
The seat is comfortable, the view commanding, the controls minimal. Turn on the battery. Press the starter. In 90 seconds, the virtual F-35B is ready to fly just as the real aircraft would be: unlike most aircraft, the F-35 performs all necessary safety checks automatically and extremely quickly. The instrument panel is a glass screen measuring 20x8in. As with an iPad, you touch it to bring up the information you need. Pilots can also talk to the aircraft; it talks back.
Pushing the left-hand throttle forward and pulling ever so gently on the stubby right-hand control stick, take-off is smooth, almost imperceptible, and the climb rapid. Up we go, above what I take to be a 3D map of Afghanistan.
The aircraft rolls, loops and darts about with minimal input from the pilot. You might expect this of any existing 'fourth generation' fighter jet, such as a USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon or RAF Typhoon, but it is a revelation to someone like me, a qualified pilot with experience of piston engines and no more than a 'second generation' Hawker Hunter jet.
The F-35B, however, is 'fifth generation'. Not only is it stealthy in the military sense – all but undetectable by radar because of its origami form, its special coating, its hidden engine and low heat emission – but it can also perform truly extraordinary tricks through its continuously upgradeable computer software and complex engineering. What sort of tricks? Well, here I am turning towards the airfield. Not only will the F-35B land itself, but it will also hover at the touch of a button. Where hovering a Harrier is not unlike spinning plates on a pole on the tip of your nose while riding a trick bicycle on a circus high-wire – and no mistakes are affordable – the F-35 stops in the air, just like that, the pilot's hands off the controls.
With a second push of the button and a touch of throttle and stick, the F-35 soars back into the sky. Skaff suggests I might like to take out a 'bad guy'.
I don't play computer games, but surely none could be as easy as this? With its complex radar, stealth capability, sensors and lasers, the F-35 finds enemy aircraft invisible to the eye. I trace my finger across a matrix on the glass screen and lock on to the enemy. I am not even pointing the aircraft in their direction. I don't need to. The F-35 can see and sense across huge distances in all directions. I select a missile from the store of weapons concealed in the fuselage, squeeze the trigger and, pulling away, watch a digital countdown. Zero: enemy destroyed.
Picture: Michael D Jackson/Lockheed Martin
My simulated flight may have been a little all-over-the-sky, yet given a couple of hours I'm sure I could be a Top Gun, ready to climb into the cockpit of the real thing and, armed with that Darth-Vader-eat-your-heart-out helmet and a stiff dose of the Right Stuff, ready to take on the enemy wherever they may be threatening freedom on land, sea or air.
It seems all so simple, so certain and seductive. Who wouldn't want this all-but-invisible, all-but-invincible sky warrior on their side? There is no other military aircraft like it in the pipeline, much less in production; Russian and Chinese 'rivals' are still essentially fourth generation. So why is the F-35 controversial? Why is Canada threatening to cancel its order? Why have there been so many spats between the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin?
Because the F-35 programme is at least five years behind schedule. Because costs have risen by more than 90 per cent. Because design, development and testing have thrown up many problems that insiders view as teething problems – the helmet needs further work; early tailhooks failed to catch the wire when planes landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Wasp; computer software is not all it should be, or not yet – and outsiders are determined to see as fundamental flaws.
Earlier this year, Winslow T Wheeler of the US Center of Defense Information called the F-35 a 'gigantic performance disappointment', adding, 'It's the problem of paying a huge amount of money thinking you're getting a Ferrari; you're not, you're getting a Yugo.' While this is hardly true, it shows how high passions have run as the F-35 has been delayed.
The F-35 emerged from the US Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter Project, a strictly American venture, announced in 1993, that metamorphosed in 1996 into the US Joint Strike Fighter Program (JSF), in collaboration with Britain and other international partners. The purpose of the project was to develop a stealth fighter to replace several frontline aircraft including the F-16 Fighting Falcon (a design from the mid-1970s still in production at Fort Worth, with more than 4,500 built), the F/A-18 Hornet and the AV-8B Harrier II.
'It's what we call a South West policy,' says Steve O'Bryan, Lockheed Martin's fast-talking vice-president for F-35 business development, referring to America's most popular budget airline, the inspiration behind EasyJet and Ryanair. A former F/A-18 US Navy pilot – O'Bryan flew the first 'shock and awe' missions to Baghdad in 2003 – he cites the efficiency and profitability of the Texas-based airline, which operates a single type of aircraft, the Boeing 737. 'Like South West, everything's the same,' says O'Bryan, predicting sales of 3,100 F-35s between now and 2037 when production is scheduled to end, 'so everything's easier and cheaper, too.'
The top of the F35, showing its lift fan (Lockheed Martin)
The US government plans to buy 2,443 F-35s in three variants: the F-35A is a 'conventional' Air Force fighter; the F-35B is the STOVL version for the Marines, and the variant Britain has pledged to buy (it can operate from more or less anywhere); the F-35C is the Navy version with folding wings, designed for carriers, launched by steam-catapults and fitted with arrester hooks to catch the wires that stop the aircraft on deck. The remaining 500-600 F-35s are to be bought, incrementally, by JSF partner nations.
Along with the US, Britain is the only 'level one partner'. We've stumped up $2 billion to date, or four per cent of the costs, yet, as O'Bryan says, we 'get 25 per cent of the say in the project and 100 per cent of the benefits. Also, the first operational F-35s will be in 2015 with US Marines, while the RAF airplanes won't be in service till 2018, so you'll get the results of three years of testing and training.'
The enthusiasm of partner countries – the 'junior' partners are Italy, Holland, Australia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Israel and Japan – has ebbed and flowed since 1996, and has notably waned since 2007, when the global economy stalled. Governments have come and gone, with long-term defence projects unsettled by political turbulence and indecision.
In December 2006 the Labour government announced it was keen to buy 138 F-35s, but the current coalition government figure is only 48 F-35Bs, with future orders dependent on the findings of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review.
At the moment, no one is fully certain that Britain will hang on to its new F-35-equipped aircraft carriers – HMS Queen Elizabeth II and HMS Prince of Wales – currently under construction, nor whether future orders for F-35s may be cancelled in favour of pilotless drones. And who knows how big the British Armed Forces will be by the time the Queen Elizabeth II is ready for action in 2020?
'The RAF is down to 33,000,' Group Capt Harv Smyth tells me. A Harrier veteran, in combat from 1996 to 2010, Smyth is Britain's JSF National Deputy, and my guide on this trip. 'The Navy is 30,000; you could seat the two forces comfortably inside Old Trafford. But because we're asked to do a lot, around the world, and because over the past 20 years every major mission we've undertaken has been a surprise, we really do need to be prepared. We need the tactical and strategic advantage F-35 offers. Even with the Harrier, we cut down the number of ground troops needed in Afghanistan by huge numbers. Stealth fighters are expensive to buy, but they'll save governments and taxpayers a lot of money in the long run, and save the lives of troops, airmen and innocent civilians, too.'
The F-35A first flew in December 2006. The F-35B followed in June 2008, with the British test pilot Graham Tomlinson making the first full-stop in mid-air in March 2010 and the first vertical landing the following day. The Navy's F-35C took to the air that June. A symbolic handover of the first F-35B to the British government, represented by the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, was made at a ceremony at Forth Worth in July last year, and in November US Marines took delivery of three F-35Bs at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona. To date there have been just over 2,500 F-35 test flights, as programme and production – running concurrently – have come up to speed. No one doubts that there are development problems to overcome, yet even the most vociferous naysayers have tended to go to ground as F-35s have taken, increasingly confidently, to the air.
An F-35 lands on the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (US Navy/DoD/Crown Copyright)
Money, though, remains the aircraft's Achilles' heel. Delays have caused serious friction between the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin. The total cost to the USA for development and procurement has been estimated at $323 billion, with a total lifecycle cost of $618 million per aircraft. The life expectancy of an F-35 is 30 years. Meanwhile, according to a 2012 US government accountability report, F-35 costs have increased 93 per cent, in real terms, over the 2001 estimate.
But unlike other military aircraft the F-35 can be reprogrammed and updated throughout its life. As the aircraft will be flying into the late 2060s, perhaps this is just as well. The Lockheed Martin F-16 has been in service since 1978. By chance, four of these nimble fighters barrel low over the company's Fort Worth offices as I leave the lobby after my four-mile walk through the complex. As Steve O'Bryan says of the very able F-16, 'It has the computing power of a Commodore 64 in comparison to an F-35.'
Turkey vultures wing low over the magnificent wooded estate of the US Naval Air Station Patuxent River – Pax River – on the fringes of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, as I drive in with Harv Smyth. It's winter here, breezy and close to freezing. In warmer times of the year, ospreys and bald eagles circle the 14,500-acre base and the 22,000 personnel who live and work here, including 22 British pilots, engineers and commanders lodged with the F-35 team who are carrying out extensive tests on the aircraft. They include the RAF's quietly spoken Sqd Ldr Jim Schofield, who flew 70 hours in Harriers in combat in Iraq in 2003. He learnt to fly, on a Piper Super Cub, before he could drive.
'I've flown 10 frontline fighters,' Schofield says. 'The F-35 is by far and away the easiest. I've flown the aircraft up to Mach 1.6 and pulled up to 7g. The helmet gives me a God's-eye view. And when you press that hover button it's as if engineering and electronics have overcome the laws of physics.'
Peter 'Wizzer' Wilson flew Sea Harriers with the Royal Navy from 1990 to 2000. 'The new technology takes workload and risk away from the pilot. It's amazing how one press of a button will set in motion so much magic around you. The one time you get to hear something mechanical working hard is when the big [vertical lift-off] fan behind you spools up; it sounds like an angry mosquito. The [Rolls-Royce] fan is also very smooth in motion, which has really helped as we've practised precision deck landings at sea on USS Wasp; it's a quantum step in every way from the Harrier.'
Flying the F-35 is neither as 'visceral' nor as 'thrilling', to use Schofield's word, as the old British Harrier, yet it is clearly more comfortable and far less demanding on the pilot than its Anglo-American successor, the AV-8B Harrier II. The F-35 has an Anglo-American pedigree, too. As everyone I talk to at Forth Worth and Pax is keen to stress, 15 per cent of each F-35 put into service over the next 25 years will be made in Britain. From Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems to Martin-Baker, the family-run manufacturer of the world's finest ejector seats, and a further 130 companies spread, serendipitously – not by political design – the length and breadth of the country, British industry will continue to take part in the design and manufacture of military aircraft, their weapons, equipment and software.
'It's impossible for Britain to go it alone,' says Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge, the head of RAF Strike Command, 2003-6, Commander in Chief of British forces in Iraq in 2003 and, today, very much involved with Italian-built I F-35s – the only aircraft to be built outside Texas – as the vice-president of strategic marketing for Finmeccanica UK. A highly experienced pilot with a first-class Cambridge degree in physics, Burridge is also a member of the council of the Defence Manufacturers Association.
'The MoD has to think very hard in its 2015 review whether it wishes to develop the Typhoon, or to buy further F-35s and nothing else,' he says. 'This would have quite profound consequences for European industry. Not to develop the Typhoon, which still has potential sales in Oman, UAE, Saudi and Malaysia, would mean that British expertise would wither on the vine.'
Burridge, like others concerned for British and European industry, would like to see F-35s operating alongside upgraded Typhoons. But economic conditions, the ways of warfare and the public's diminishing appetite for deaths of soldiers and civilians are having an effect on the very nature of fighter aircraft. 'We could go 100 per cent unmanned after F-35,' Burridge says. 'It's a plausible position; but there's a limit, politically and morally, to robotic warfare, and a lot of questions concerning the ethics of extra-territorial attacks and extra-judicial killings.'
Shortly before Christmas Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton, Chief of the Air Staff, announced the formation of a new grouping known as Remotely Piloted Air System (RPAS) pilots. Because they will have to gain basic flying qualifications, this new generation of pilots will wear the same 'wings' RAF pilots have cherished for generations. The 'lethal precision of their weapons', Sir Stephen told the Royal United Services Institute, means that RPAS pilots will be seen increasingly as 'a cost-effective way to conduct warfare'. They will not be chasing the shouting wind alone in the cockpits of Typhoons, nor flying F-35s through footless halls of air; instead, they will be flying computer screens in remote underground bunkers.
'We're making these [F-35s] for our kids to fly,' Steve O'Bryan says, meaning future generations. Military pilots such as Jim Schofield, Harv Smyth, 'Wizzer' Wilson, Billy Flynn and Brian Burridge will always want to fly in real airspace, and yet it is chastening to learn that the X-35B, the prototype F-35B, is already perched silently in the Boeing Aviation Hangar of the Smithsonian Institution in Virginia – a museum piece. Today's fifth-generation fighter, hugely impressive, deeply seductive, upgradable and so very important and perhaps necessary to so many people's security, jobs and freedom, is, oddly, already beginning to seem a part of military aviation history.


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Establishing a Collaborative Agreement in Data Sciences
Shiga University, a national university in Japan, has entered into an agreement with HORIBA, Ltd., HORIBA STEC Co., Ltd. and HORIBA Advanced Techno, Co., Ltd. for a collaborative effort in the fields of data science research and human resource development. The aim of this collaboration is to contribute to the creation of new value by utilizing measurement data results obtained from HORIBA products.
From left: Executive Director and Vice-President Masahiko Sue (Shiga University) and Senior Managing Director Masayuki Adachi (HORIBA, Ltd.)
The HORIBA group offers various measuring instruments across five fields throughout the world. This includes, but is not limited to, automobile measuring systems, environmental measuring instruments compliant with various environmental regulations for air, water and soil measurement, blood test equipment for the medical field, gas/liquid flow rate controllers used in the semiconductor manufacturing process and spectroscopic analyzers employed on the cutting edge of science and technology.
An immense amount of data is collected by these instruments, and as IoT (Internet of Things), 5G (5th generation mobile communications systems) and other infrastructure continues to develop, harvesting that data should only become simpler. We then intend to utilize AI to analyze this accumulated big data in order to expand and create new value.
However, there is a shortage of human resources in Japan that includes an insufficient number of data scientists who specialize in analyzing this kind of data. This has spurred a collaboration between the HORIBA group and Shiga University, home to Japan's very first Faculty of Data Science.This joint research will develop high-level talent in the data science field while contributing to society through production and data science technology.
Collaborative Scope of this Agreement
- Data science application and new research and development procedures in the field of business
- Practice material development utilizing practical data
- Human resource development in the field of data science
Example Themes for Collaborative Research
- HORIBA, Ltd.
Services that manage and use vehicle operation data in a cloud - HORIBA STEC
Improved productivity of gas/liquid flow control equipment (mass flow controllers) - HORIBA Advanced Techno
Reduced operational burden at wastewater treatment facilities