text:
By Chris Tomlinson
Associated Press
AUSTIN — When the recorded phone message asked Gene Malish if he supported Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis last week, he pushed the button indicating yes, and he kept pushing buttons until he'd given $500.
Then the 83-year-old saw his credit card statement and realized the money hadn't gone to the Fort Worth senator's campaign, but to a group called the Foundation for Justice for All. That led him to do a little searching until he learned on the Internet that the group specializes in robocalls to political progressives about social issues.
"I was looking forward to giving to Davis," Malish told The Associated Press on Thursday. "After I found out it was what I consider a scam, I called … for the city detective."
A tagline on the group's website says it is focused on "forward thinking social advocacy." But Bo Delp, Davis' communication director, urged supporters to stay away from the group, saying the group was not connected to Davis' campaign.
"We are aware of robocalls falsely posing as our campaign and asking for money," Delp said. "It is disgusting that anyone would take advantage of hard-working Texas families looking to participate in their democracy and make Texas even better."
Federal Election Commission documents list Marquita DeJesus of McKinney as the group's director and Marcia Fern, also of McKinney, as the treasurer, while listing a mailbox in Washington, D.C., as the group's office.
"We do advocacy for social justice issues like affordable health care, gun control and human trafficking," DeJesus told The Associated Press. "We've been reaching out for some issues across America doing advocacy calls, but recently in Texas, we've trying to generate support for Wendy Davis."
Democratic strategist Matt Angle showed The Associated Press online records from the Colorado Secretary of State that show the same attorney that is listed for Justice for All also represents several conservative groups based in that state.
"This group hasn't made any effort to be in contact with the Davis campaign or, as far as we can tell, communicate with others, so we worry about what their real intentions are," Angle said.
DeJesus denied she has any ties to Republican or right-wing groups, but said neither does she have any ties to Democrats or Davis.
Foundation for Justice for All raised money for gun control legislation after the Newtown shooting and during the Trayvon Martin murder trial, DeJesus said.
Malish said he felt duped after making the donation and said the group hung up on him when they called a second time to ask for more money and he asked for a refund.
A detective in Wincrest, a suburb of San Antonio, suggested Malish contact the Texas attorney general's office and file a complaint because that office investigates deceptive trade practices. But Malish said he didn't do that because Attorney General Greg Abbott is Davis' likely opponent in the general election.
"If I called the attorney general's office, I was afraid I'd divulge information they'd use against Wendy," he said.
"Any Texan who believes they've been deceived by a telemarketer is encouraged to file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General's Office," said Lauren Bean, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office.


text:
I am trying to make the case for why social media should be used within an organizational setting.In my last post I considered aspects of defining benefits as as way to tell an effective story. Now I want to take a stab at a different approach. This time I am going to be a little more graphical a là Kathy Sierra.
I want to find some set of indices that show the value social media brings when compared to traditional communication channels. With this chart I am trying to show that social media has the ability to create engagement similar to one on one conversation but with the potential to reach a much larger audience. Does this make any sense? Or is there a better set of indices to show the value better. (Note: The size of the circles is supposed to have some relationship to cost, but I am not sure it works very well.)
Update: the graphics did not show up as well as I hoped. I guess I am not providing a great user experience. Translation: Upper Left - Face to Face, moving down and to the right, email, speakers, and finally Traditional DTC in the lower right corner. Social media in Orange.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Texas Dad Accused of Murdering Drunk Driver Who Killed Kids
David Barajas
A Texas father, who watched a drunk driver strike and kill his two young sons, has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting the driver in the head moments after the accident.
David Barajas, 31, was charged with murder on Monday, more than two months after his sons David Jr., 12, and Caleb, 11, were killed steps from their home on a rural road outside Houston on Dec. 7.
Bond was set at $450,000, police said.
Barajas and his sons were pushing the family's disabled pickup truck toward their home late that night, as the boys' mother and two younger siblings sat inside, according to a police report released by the Brazoria County Sheriff's Department.
They were struck by Jose Banda, 20, the driver of a Chevy Malibu, instantly killing David Jr. and critically injuring Caleb, who later died at a hospital.
"Banda was determined to be intoxicated at the time of the crash," police said in their report.
When cops arrived on the scene, they noticed something else about Banda. He had been shot in the head. But they could not immediately find the murder weapon.
"Investigators recovered a projectile from inside of the vehicle that Jose Banda's was shot in. Investigators were unable to match that projectile to a weapon because no weapons were recovered at the scene," according the sheriff's department.
Witnesses at the scene watched Barajas walk to his home and allegedly retrieve the gun with which he shot Banda, according to a police report. When police searched the home, they found a pistol holster and ammunition, but no firearm.
"Investigators are currently awaiting results of gunshot residue tests which were collected at the scene," police said. On Friday, a grand jury found there was enough evidence that Barajas could be charged.
According to authorities, he does not yet have an attorney.
"It really hurt a lot of us," Jose Roman, a family friend of Barajas, told ABC affiliate KTRK-TV about the death of the boys and the indictment of their father.
The boys, both fans of the Houston Texans, were buried last month. Many of the mourners at their funeral wore Texans jerseys.
But the family of the slain driver believes justice must be done.
"It was an accident. He didn't purposely do that,' Janie Tellez told KTRK. "Whoever did it is getting away with murdering my nephew. He deserves justice."


text:
First up is Broken Herringbone cushion. It would be sad if I didn't finish that one. Thank you for all the lovely comments regarding my quilting. It is huge encouragement for my future FMQ adventures.
I started this cushion last year as Christmas decoration. I used jelly roll strips from Cherry Christmas line to go with our advent calendar. You can find free Lone star pattern here. That is my project for Ho Ho Ho And on We Sew. Linky party for May is here.
As May is almost over I felt the need to complete my goal for ALYoF. Especially when I had my minute in spotlight as May Participant Feature.
Tada! Very simple messenger type of bag. I haven't used any particular pattern as this it very easy. The main feature is beautiful fabric - Echino. My only requirement was to have that elephant right on front.
See it's only two rectangles with added pockets. Recessed zipper might scare some away but it is easy to do as well.
I found this pretty open end zipper in my stash and wanted to use it as it matches nicely. I never used open end zipper for bags but I found it is quite convenient. You can open it up and leave it on a side for easy access kind of tote.
I choose this goal based on my Q2 FAL list. Smart idea I copied from my bloggy friends. My current score is 3/6.
The back is really simple but matches perfectly. I leave you with detail of quilted bottom and our freshly cut grass :-)
Linking up with TGIFF and Crazy Mom quilts, Show Off Saturday.


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Notice: this Wiki will be going read only early in 2024 and edits will no longer be possible. Please see: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk/-/wikis/Wiki-shutdown-plan for the plan.
Scout |
Wiki Home |
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Community |
Forums • Blog • Twitter • G+ |
Bugzilla |
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Scout Overview
The goal of the Eclipse Scout project is making it easy to build distributed enterprise applications based on the Eclipse platform. It consists of a runtime framework providing transparent service communication between the client and backend part and is shipped with a rich set of common user interface components. The user interface is not built for a particular rendering technology but it encapsulates the core functionality into a headless model. GUI factories are available for rendering the client model into a particular target UI platform. SWT and Swing are supported out of the box and an AJAX GUI factory could be easily added.
Developing Scout applications is supported by the Scout SDK, a plug-in set built on top of Eclipse PDE and Eclipse JDT. The Scout SDK works directly on the bare Java resources and assists the development task by providing an augmented view on the underlying Java code. Additionally, it comes with a rich set of wizards and operations for modifying the Scout application project just by editing the underlying Java code. There is no meta-data required. Hence a developer can switch between editing resources using Eclipse's standard editors and leveraging the features of Scout SDK at any point in time.
Eclipse Scout can be used to create multi-tier client/server applications, standalone client applications or OSGi-based server applications. Basically, there are three main advantages when choosing Scout as your framework for building such applications. First, the Scout runtime is service oriented by design. Almost every functionality is provided as an OSGi service. Every OSGi bundle may make use of them. Second, Scout provides a rich set of UI elements being uncoupled from a particular GUI technology. And third, building distributed client/server applications is as easy as if both parts would run within the same local JVM.
Functionality in Scout application is provided as a service. A service is either a plain OSGi service registered by an arbitrary bundle or it is contributed using Scout's service extension point. In fact, the extension point just enables declarative service contribution and provides flexible means to configure services contributed this way. For instance, it provides a ranking attribute mapping to the OSGi service ranking and it allows specifying a factory class that actually instantiates the service.
Scout simplifies access to services. It provides a convenience accessor class SERVICES that wraps the service lookup operation in the OSGi bundle context. Scout services are typically lazy initialized when loaded the first time.
Scout comes with a set of base services. Examples are access control, SMTP, JMS and SQL. Services contributed in a Scout application typically make use of these base services. Enterprise patterns can be implemented easily using service orchestration. Other patterns required to separate parts of an application to make them exchangeable are just not required because everything is a service. Together with appropriate plug-in structures and different Eclipse product configurations it is easy to meet different requirements for different environments and it just feels natural.
Scout Applications
An application built with Scout is a complete application. Typically it has a UI with perspectives, views, forms and pages. It may also have a back-end part that is running inside an application server with server-side Equinox.
Examples of such applications are:
- Standalone rich client platforms (Equinox, SWT/Swing)
- SOA/ESB node consisting of J2EE with service registry and web services (Equinox)
- Rich client platforms with a J2EE Backend (Equinox, SWT/Swing)
Scout SDK guides the developer in building Scout based SOA compliant applications.
Client Development
A Scout client application is made up by a main form, called desktop. It consists of base components like menus, outline tree, outline table, search forms, CTI control, view buttons, and so on. The outline tree and the outline table along with the search form are related to each other. Selecting an entry in the outline shows its details in the outline table part.
Navigating through data is done by drilling-down the outline tree. Different aspects of an object are organized into different tree nodes, called pages. There are two base implementations for a page, one with a table and another with nodes. The former is used to list data of a particular type and the latter groups different types of data belonging to a common root object.
Finally, forms are used to show and edit details of a particular object. Forms may be rendered as dialogs, views or editors (depending on the GUI factory and configuration parameters).
All these elements are created and modified with the Scout SDK and are stored as plain Java resources. Hence they can be modified manually at any point in time. Usually it is much more comfortable to make use of the Scout SDK.
Distributed Scout Applications
Page and form content is typically provided by services. These services could be implemented by the client directly. Most likely, however, they are implemented in the backend part of the application. Scout makes it easy to communicate with remote services.
Client and Server components use a common shared plug-in set. They contain service interfaces and data transfer objects. The server part is implementing these service interfaces and the client part is consuming them. Scout SDK creates all required declarative service entries in the plugin.xml filed of the client and backend plug-in, respectively. In the client plug-in, the service interface is registered using a client proxy service factory. It creates a proxy object that forwards every method call to the particular service implementation in the backend system, completely transparent. The backend on the other side registers an interface implementation using the interface class name as service name.
All the communication is managed by a service tunnel. It packs every service request in a HTTP message and sends it to the backend. The backend is server-side equinox web application running in an ordinary J2EE compliant web container. The Equinox HTTP Servlet Bridge launches the server-side OSGi framework and bridges all requests. The receiving part is the other end of the service tunnel that unpacks all incoming requests and dispatches them to the requested service implementation. The service's answer goes along the same path back. The server-side service tunnel endpoint packs the response in a HTTP response and sends it back to the client. There the response is unpacked and forwarded to the caller.
One kind of data transfer objects is directly deduced from the target objects, the forms. Hence they are called form data. From data classes are automatically generated by the Scout SDK whenever the hosting form is changed (in fact, this behavior can be controlled using Java annotations). Forms provide an import and export method, respectively. Therefore loading data into and storing them from a form into a form data is just a single method call.


text:
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text:
Corruption, India and Social Activist
First off, sorry for being completely off beat this time but I could not help but write on this.
Everyone in the world by now would have definitely heard about the Indian's Fight against corruption. Very good thing to do, there should be no corruption in any country in the world and if there is corruption then it should be fought. Now, lets look at how India is fighting this:
Some people thought to get Lokpal bill and started a "Fast".
Some else felt the need to get the black money back, and started another fast. The fast was popularized more by the govt actions taken to stop this :). Amazing fast this is, BTW, if you did not know:
a) There is a FB page for this
b) Cameras are recording this, for what I don't know
c) Most media coverage
d) Government is probably watching TV to monitor this than doing anything else today.
e) Thousands of Crore of Indians are not working as they are on "Satyagrah".
Hope things will go as planned.
On a side note, isnt this the same person who is questioned again and again on the source of money and also where did the money come for all this arrangement in "some" maidan. Also, will the PM come to discuss with me the other Bills of Parliament if I went on Hunger Strike.
Related articles
- Who's afraid of the Lokpal Bill? (savedaughters19.wordpress.com)
- Fast Unto Death – Blackmailing the government…right? or wrong? (indialimits.wordpress.com)
- Anna Hazare announces indefinite fast for passing of Lokpal Bill (panasianbiz.com)
- What Is The Purpose Of Creating Such A Lokpal? (savedaughters19.wordpress.com)


text:
On many systems pkgsrc supports, gcc is the standard compiler. In general, different versions of each OS have different gcc versions, and some packages require newer gcc versions, in order to support newer language standards (e.g. c++11, written in the style of USE_LANGUAGES), or because older versions don't work (infrequently).
This page discusses issues related to version selection, and intends to be a design document for how pkgsrc should address this problem, to be converted into historical design rationale once implemented. It freely takes content from extensive mailinglist discussions, and attempts to follow the rough consensus that has emerged.
Base system gcc vs pkgsrc gcc
Systems using gcc (e.g. NetBSD) have a compiler as /usr/bin/gcc, and this is usable by pkgsrc without any bootstrapping activity. One can build gcc versions (typically newer versions) from pkgsrc, resulting in a compiler within ${PREFIX}, e.g. /usr/pkg/gcc6/bin/gcc. This compiler can then be used to compile other packages.
The issue with using base system gcc is typically that it is too old, such as gcc 4.5 with NetBSD 6, which cannot compile c++11. Another example is gcc 4.8 with NetBSD 7. While this can compile most c++11 programs, it cannot be used for firefox or glibmm (and therefore any package that links against glibmm).
Issues when using pkgsrc gcc are that
- on some platforms, pkgsrc gcc does not build and work
- it must be bootstrapped, requiring compiling a number of packages with the system compiler
- C++ packages that are linked together should be built with the same compiler, because the standard library ABI is not necessarily the same for each compiler version
- While C packages can be built with mixed versions, the binary should be linked with the higher version because the support library is backwards compatible but not forward compatible.
Specific constraints and requirements
This section attempts to gather all the requirements.
By default, pkgsrc should be able to build working packages, even for packages that need a newer compiler than that provided in the base system.
The set of packages that are needed when building a bootstrap compiler should be minimized.
All packages that use C should have final linking with the highest version used in any included library.
All packages that use C++ should be built with the same compiler version. Because these in the general case may include C, the version used for C++ must be at least as new as the version used for any used C package.
pkgsrc should avoid building gcc unless it is more or less necessary to build packges. (As an example, if the base system gcc can build c99 but not c++11, building a c99-only program should not trigger building a gcc version adequate for c++11.)
The compiler selection logic should work on NetBSD 6 and newer, and other systems currently supported by pkgsrc, including in-use LTS GNU/Linux systems. It should work on systems that default to clang, when set to use GCC, at least as well as the current scheme. It is desirable for this logic to work on NetBSD 5.
All systems should work at least as well as they do before implementation of new compiler selection logic.
The compiler selection logic should be understandable and not brittle.
The above requirements could in theory be satisfied in many ways, but most of them are too complicated. We present a design that aims to be sound while mimimizing complexity.
Packages declare what languages they need, with c++, c++11, and c++14 being expressed differently. (This is exactly current practice and just noted for completeness.)
The package-settable variable GCC_REQD will be used only when a compiler that generally can compile the declared language version is insufficient. These cases are expected to be relatively rare; an example is firefox that is in c++ (but not c+11) and needs gcc 4.9.
A user-settable variable PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION will declare the version of gcc to be used for C programs, with an OS-, version- and architeture- specific default.
A user-settable variable PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION will declare the version of gcc to be used for all C++ programs, again with an OS-, version- and architeture-specific default. It must be at least PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION.
If PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION and PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION are not set, the system will behave much as before. As a possible exception, builds may still fail if the required version is greater than the base system version. So far the only known reason to avoid setting these variable is if pkgsrc gcc cannot be built.
Each of c99, c++, c++11, and c++14 will be associated with a minimum gcc version, such that almost all programs declaring that language can be built with that version. (This avoids issues of strict compliance with c++11, which requires a far higher version of gcc than the version required to compile almost all actual programs in c++11.)
The minimum version inferred from the language tag will be combined with any GCC_REQD declarations to find a minimum version for a specific package. If that is greater than PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION (programs using only C) or PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION, package building will fail. We call the resulting PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION or PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION the chosen version.
When building a program using C or C++, if the chosen version is not provided by the base system, and the chosen version is not installed via pkgsrc, then it (and its dependencies) will be built from pkgsrc in a special bootstrap mode. When building in bootstrap mode, the version selection logic is ignored and the base system compiler is used. Consistency and reproducible builds require that a package built with the normal prefix must be the same whether built because of compiler bootstrapping or normal use.
There are thus two choices for dealing with bootstrapping. One is to use a distinct prefix, which will ensure that all packages that are part of the compiler bootstrap will not be linked into normal pkgsrc programs. This implies that any dependencies of gcc may exist twice, once in bootstrap mode and once if built normally. A gcc version itself will be built twice, if it is desired for regular use. This double building and the complexity of a second prefix are the negatives of this approach.
The other choice is to mark gcc and all depending packages as used for compiler bootstrapping, and to always build those with the base compiler. We use the package-settable variable PKGSRC_GCC_BOOTSTRAP=yes to denote this. The negative with this approach is possible inconsistency with gcc's dependencies being built with the base compiler and used later.
As an alternative, we store lists of bootstrap packages in a variable, because it will vary with OS and version, and with PREFER_PKGSRC settings.
As a third alternative, we pass a GCC_BOOTSTRAPPING variable recursively. This is easier but less consistent.
We hope that the chosen version can be built using the base system version, and hope to avoid multi-stage bootstrapping.
We expect that any program containing C++ will undergo final linking with a C++ compiler. This is not a change from the current situation.
Remaining issues
gcc dependencies introduction
Because gcc can have dependencies, there could be packages built with the system compiler that are then later used with the chosen version. For now, we defer worrying about these problems (judging that they will be less serious than the current situation where all c++11 programs fail to build on NetBSD 6).
\todo: Perhaps change gcc 4.8 and 4.9 to enable gcc-inplace-math by default. Perhaps decide that if we want to build gcc, we want to build 5 or 6, and 4.9 is no longer of interest as a bootstrap target.
\todo: Analyze what build-time and install-time dependencies actually exist. Include old GNU/Linux in this analysis.
\todo: Consider if dropping nls would help. (On NetBSD, it seems that base system libraries are used, so it would not help.)
\todo: Consider failing if optins that we want one way are another, when bootstrapping.
managing gcc dependencies
There are multiple paths forward.
\todo Choose one. Straw proposal is "Don't worry" and recursive variable for the initial implementation.
Separate prefix
Build compilers in a separate prefix, or a subprefix, so that the compiler and the packages needed to build it will not be used by any normal packages. This completely avoids the issue of building a package one way in bootstrap and another not in bootstrap, at the cost of two builds and writing the separate-prefix code.
Don't worry
Don't worry that packages used to bootstrap the needed compiler are compiled with an older compiler. Don't worry that they might be different depending on build order. If we have an actual problem, deal with it. This requires choosing an approach to omit compiler selection logic when building the compiler:
Mark bootstrap packages
Mark packages used to build gcc as PKGSRC_GCC_BOOTSTRAP=yes. Conditionalize this on OPSYS if necessary. Don't force the compiler if this is set.
Alternatively, manage a per-OS list of packages in a central mk file.
Pass a recursive variable
As above, but set PKGSRC_GCC_BOOTSTRAP=yes in the evniroment of the call to build the compiler, so that all dependencies inherit permission to skip compiler selection logic. (Alternatively, use some other mechanism such as passing a make variable explicitly.)
Differing GCC and GXX versions
Perhaps it is a mistake to allow the chosen GCC and GXX versions to differ. If we require them to be the same, then essentially all systems with a base system compiler older than gcc 5 will have to bootstrap the compiler. For now, we allow them to differ and will permit the defaults to differ.
gcc versions and number of buildable packages
A gcc version that is too old will not build a number of packages. Anything older than 4.8 fails for c++11. 4.8 fails on some c++11 packages, such as firefox and glibmm.
A version that is too new also fails to build packages. Jason Bacon posted counts to tech-pkg indicate that 5 is close to 4.8 in the number of packages built, and that moving to 6 causes hundreds of additional failures. (Keep in mind that currently, building with 4.8 will build 4.9 for firefox, but in the future will not.)
www/pkgsrc/packages/sharedapps/pkg-2017Q3/RHEL6-gcc48/All 16461
www/pkgsrc/packages/sharedapps/pkg-2017Q3/RHEL6-gcc6/All 15849
www/pkgsrc/packages/sharedapps/pkg-2017Q3/RHEL7-gcc48/All 16414
www/pkgsrc/packages/sharedapps/pkg-2017Q3/RHEL7-gcc5/All 16338
Therefore, the current answer to "What is the best version to use" is 5.
Default versions for various systems
Note that if for any particular system's set of installed packages (or bulk build), a newer gcc has to be built, it does not hurt to have built it earlier.
When the base system is old (e.g., gcc 4.5 in NetBSD 6, or 4.1, in NetBSD 5), then it is clear that a newer version must be built. For these, PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION should default to a newish gcc, avoiding being so new as to cause building issues. PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION should probably default to the system version if it can build all C99 programs, or match PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION, if the system version is too old. Perhaps gcc 4.5 would be used, but 4.1 not used. \todo Discuss.
When the base system is almost new enough, the decision about the default is more complicated. A key example is gcc 4.8, found in NetBSD 7. Firefox requires gcc 4.9, and all programs using c++14 also need a newer version. One options is to choose 4.8, resulting in firefox failing, as well as all c++14 programs. Another is to choose 4.9, but this makes little sense because c++14 programs will still fail, and the general rule of moving to the most recent generally-acceptable version applies, which currently leads to gcc5. This is in effect a declaration that "almost new enough" does not count as new enough. Thus the plan for NetBSD 7 is to set PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION to 4.8 and PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION to 5.
When the base system is new enough, e.g. gcc 5, 6 or 7 it should simply be used. By "new enough", we mean that almost no programs in pkgsrc fail to build with it (because it is too old), which implies that it supports (almost all) C++14 programs. Our current definiton of new enough is gcc 5.
Limited mixed versions
One approach would be to allow limited mixed versions, where individual programs could force a specific version to be bootstrapped and used, so that e.g. firefox could use 4.9 even though most programs use 4.8, which is what happens now on NetBSD 7. This would rely on being able to link c++ with 4.9 including some things built with 4.8 (which is done presently). However, this approach would become unsound with a library rather than an end program. We reject this as too much complexity for avoiding building a newer compiler in limited situations.
Fortran support is currently somewhat troubled.. It seems obvious to extend to PGKSRC_GFORTRAN_VERSION, and have that match PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION or PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION, but the Fortran situation is not worsened by the above design.
When building a gcc version, we get gfortran. Perhaps, because of fortran, we should require a single version, vs a C and a C++ version.
\todo Discuss.
C++ libraries used by C programs
The choice of one version for C++ and one for C (e.g. 5, 4.8 on netbsd-7) breaks down if a C program links against a library that is written in C++ but provides a C API, because we still need the C++ version's stdlib.
\todo Define a variable for such packages to have in their buildlink3, which will not add c++ to USE_LANGUAGES but will force PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION to be used. Or decide that this is a good reason to really just have one compiler version.
Path forward
(This assumes per-package marking of bootstrap packages, but is reasonably obviously extended to the other schemes.)
Modify all gcc packages to have minimal dependencies, and to add PKGSRC_GCC_BOOTSTRAP.
Modify the compiler selection logic to do nothing if PKGSRC_GCC_BOOTSTRAP is set.
Modify the compiler selection logic for LANGUAGES= to fail if PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION/PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION is not new enough.
Modify the compiler selection logic for GCC_REQD to fail if PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION/PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION is not new enough.
Decide on defaults. The straw proposal is that PKGSRC_GCC_VERSION is the base system version if >= 4.5 (or 4.4?), and otherwise 5, and that PKGSRC_GXX_VERSION is the base system version if >= 5, and otherwise 5. Implement these in platform.mk as they are tested.
Later steps
- Address fortran. Probably add PKGSRC_GFORTRAN_VERSION, after determining how Fortran, C and C++ interact with library ABI compatibility.
This section has data points that are relevant to the discussion.
It is believed that pkgsrc gcc generally builds on these systems. gcc6 builds on netbsd-5/i386.
On macppc, lang/gcc5 fails on netsbd-6 and netbsd-7, but succeeds on netbsd-8.


text:
School Shooting at Lone Star College in North Houston [UPDATE]
Update 10:00 p.m. (CT)
- Four people were injured today - three of them were from gunfire, one woman from medical issues (supposedly suffered a heart attack).
- Both suspects are being detained and questioned about the altercation, no arrests have been made yet. Names have not been released.
- The campus is scheduled to re-open Wednesday.
Update 5:00 p.m. (CT)
- All students have now been evacuated from campus.
- The search for a suspected shooter is taking place in the woods around the campus.
Update 2:11 p.m. (CT)
- Two injured people have been taken to Ben Taub Hospital for surgery. They were conscious hen they arrived, though they are in "relatively serious condition"
- Second gunman on the loose, officers believe he is not on campus.
- Authorities believe the incident is under control
Update 2:02 p.m. (CT)
- KHOU.com reports three people were shot
- Witnesses say two men were arguing, one pulled out a gun and opened fire
- Campus on lockdown, but students and teachers are being evacuated
- One alleged shooter in custody
Sadly, another school shooting has occurred in the United States.
This time, it's been reported that multiple people have been shot at Lone Star College in north Harris County. The number of civilians as well as the extent of their injuries is unclear at this time. Reports have surfaced that there were two gunmen.
The school published this emergency alert on their website:
ALERT: LSC-North Harris - Campus Evacuation
LSC-North Harris campus evacuation is in progress. A couple of armed suspects reported.; injuries reported. Incident limited to LSC-North Harris.
Posted 1/22/2013 at 12:52 pm
Updated 1/22/2013 at 1:08 pm
More details to follow.


text:
It's always satisfying to have a pet theory supported by new data. A large and authoritative study, just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, confirms a favorite hypothesis of mine, that there is more mental illness and insanity, far more, in America than you find in other advanced societies.
The study, led by a Harvard Medical School researcher, found evidence of mental problems in 26.4% of people in the United States, versus, for example, 8.2% of people in Italy. The researchers were concerned with matters such as lack of access to treatment and under-treatment, but for those concerned about a safe and decent world, I think the salient finding is simply America's high percentage. The world is being led by a nation where more than one-quarter of the people have genuine mental problems.
The finding is strangely both comforting and disturbing.
It is comforting because it helps explain why Americans continue supporting a man proven wrong every time he opens his mouth, a man who has de-stabilized parts of the world in the name of creating stability, a man claiming sound business principles who has pitched the United States into deficit free-fall, and a man who arouses suspicion and fear throughout the world.
The study is comforting, too, because it helps explain an opposition candidate like John Kerry. How can liberals generate excitement over this stale, fly-buzzed doughnut of a candidate? I suppose the same way they get excited every time Bush's polls dip by something little more than statistical noise. Perhaps the same way a man like Michael Moore – who makes gobs of money playing to the suspicions and prejudices of the paranoid segment of America's great political market – could so eagerly embrace a crypto-Nazi like General Wesley Clark as "his candidate"?
The finding is comforting in explaining all those Americans shocked and appalled over The New York Times' recent apology for its drum-beating, pre-invasion coverage of Iraq's non-existent weapons. Here is a newspaper that, more often than not, comes down on the wrong side of human rights, always protects Establishment interests, always ignores abuses until they can no longer be ignored, and yet it somehow retains a reputation in America as guardian of treasured values and as the nation's newspaper of record.
Well, the "record" part is easily explained, since The Times often takes one position before an event and another after, adjusting its emphasis according to shifts in public opinion or facts discovered by someone else. With that kind of coverage, you surely do qualify as some kind of paper of record.
But nothing could be a bigger nonsense than The Times' reputation as guardian of values in a free society. Just ask Wen Ho Lee, or Richard Jewell, or the woman who accused a Kennedy of rape, or all the people who died unnecessarily at the Bay of Pigs. Go back and examine The Times at key points in the communist witch hunts or at the outbreak of the Korean War. Go back and examine its views and emphasis when President Johnson offered his Hitler-like lies about the Gulf of Tonkin. Go back and see how often The Times has done any real investigative journalism – when it mattered, not in retrospect – about subjects as vital as the FBI's huge abuse of power during the 1960s or the shameful backgrounds of many of the country's leading politicians. Just examine the statements of the paper's signature columnist, Thomas Friedman, who sounds like Henry Ford condemned to bizarre re-incarnation as one the Jews he so hated.
But the finding also is quite disturbing. America, for many years to come, will dominate world affairs. The world will continue to be treated as though it were the backyard sandbox of the Bushes, Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Liebermans, Kerrys, Albrights and other privileged, selfish, and not particularly well-informed American Establishment figures.
I explain American insanity by a gene pool fouled with the heavy early migration of Puritans, mentally disturbed fanatics if we accept the rather detailed historical record in Europe, plus the immense stresses of a society run along strict principles of Social Darwinism. An almost unqualified admiration for greed now dominates American culture. Yes, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" involved self-interest, but go back and read that thoughtful and compassionate philosopher and compare what he says to the chimpanzee screams we hear from America.
As to the stresses in American society, I refer not only to the struggle of individuals to survive there, but to the fact that the whole story of America has been one of unremitting aggression. It is the story of "a pounding fist," as Tennessee Williams' Big Daddy described himself.
Had America somehow come to be in Europe, its story would most closely parallel that of Germany and its long, belligerent effort to dominate the continent. It is only because so much of America's aggression has been against what seemed lightly settled places – the Ohio Valley, the Great Plains, Canada, Mexico, and Hawaii – that people think any differently about it. Other places were not so lightly settled, and opposition in places like the Philippines was crushed with great bloodshed.
My criticism of the United States is not concerned with how it wishes to order its own society, but about how its activities spill over into the rest of the world. Its actions in the world too often resemble those of an ugly drunk pushing his way into your living room and puking all over the carpet.
Iraq provides a textbook example. The net effect of the invasion of Iraq is a badly de-stabilized country, now full of people who resent Americans for their brutality and arrogance, where once there were undoubtedly many who dreamily admired America at a distance. Saudi Arabia also has been de-stabilized, as many warned Bush that it would be before he set his crusaders marching. Many old friends and allies, like France or Canada, have been stupidly abused for offering sound advice and declining to join the march to hell. Tony Blair's pathetic rag of a government hangs by threads after working against the clear wishes of the British people, and Blair has found the voice he thought he had earned in the councils of war arrogantly dismissed by Bush and his fanatics. Israel's state-terror in the West Bank and Gaza, cheerily accepted by Bush (and Kerry), has risen to nightmarish levels, and if you think that has no connection with all the hatred for America in the world, you are either foolish or qualify as part of the more than one-quarter of Americans who need professional help.
Oil prices are high and unstable, as are American deficits. International security arrangements, those things so loved by police-mentalities but which have never been known to stop real bad guys, are becoming stupidly cumbersome and heavy-handed. Yet America still supports Bush, no matter what its small tribe of liberals chooses to believe. Knowing America's record on small tribes, I suppose it's healthy self-interest to pretend enthusiasm for tiny dips in Bush's polls and for an alternative as insipid and meaningless as John Kerry.
While I am glad for the confirmation of my hypothesis, I can't help feeling, as with so many studies, this one does little more than confirm the painfully obvious.


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Colorful Granatelli Became True Icon Of Indy 500
Andy Granatelli and Mario Andretti at the Speedway a couple of years ago |
He was, without doubt, one of the most dominant and iconic personalities in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
An innovator, tireless promoter and public relations genius, the flamboyant, larger-than-life Andy Granatelli succumbed to congestive heart failure Sunday, Dec. 29 in a Santa Barbara, Calif., hospital. He was 90.
Granatelli's lifelong passion for motor racing was unquestioned. A car entrant in the "500" over a span of almost 30 years from 1946 until 1974—typically with multiple entries—there is no question that the combination of his very choice of equipment and his flair for publicity introduced the sport to thousands upon thousands of individuals who might not otherwise have paid any attention.
Andy Granatelli and his Turbine car driven by Parnelli Jones in 1967 |
While twice the winning "500" entrant during his tenure as president of the STP Corporation (with Mario Andretti in 1969, and in collaboration with the Patrick Racing Team and Gordon Johncock in 1973), Granatelli is most likely best remembered for fielding the only gas turbine-powered cars ever to qualify for the "500," and to an only slightly lesser degree for extending by several years the tenure of the ear-splitting and exceedingly crowd-pleasing V8 Novi racing cars.
And those STP decals! They were everywhere, distributed by the millions, even to the point of having been included in a hardly inexpensive advertisement in Hot Rod Magazine in which there was a small pocket containing a decal. The philosophy? One would instinctively peel off the back and stick it on something, the result being that they might show up on a kid's bicycle in Des Moines, a motor scooter in Sweden or a smoke-belching truck in Afghanistan.
The images come flooding forth: Andy passionately kissing a mildly protesting Andretti on the cheek in Victory Lane in 1969; Andy strutting down the IMS pit lane in the mid-1960s in an outlandish white suit emblazoned with dozens of STP logos; Andy walking toward the TV camera, pitching STP while dressed in a light-colored rain coat; and Andy looking north to Turn 4 and rubbing his hands in anguish as Parnelli Jones glides silently into view after a transmission failure with the turbine while leading within three laps of the finish in 1967.
That "kiss on the cheek" for Andretti was not all that unique, it having been a standard Andy procedure for years, Jim Rathmann, Freddie Agabashian and others all being subjected to a similar exuberant gesture following successful qualification runs in the 1950s.
Andy Granatelli |
Born March 18, 1923 in Dallas but raised in Chicago, Granatelli already was a force by the mid-1940s with the opening of a thriving speed shop on Chicago's north side in collaboration with his older brother Joe and younger brother Vince. Grancor (for Granatelli Corporation) equipment became legendary in the hot rod world, leading the brothers to seek further notoriety by entering a Grancor-sponsored car in the 1946 "500."
Having obtained one of the 10 aesthetically pleasing but less-than-successful Ford V8 Miller entries built for the 1935 "500" by Harry Miller for Edsel Ford and team manager Preston Tucker, the Granatellis installed a Mercury V8 outfitted with a Grancor head, hung headlights and license plates on the car and then proceeded to drive it down from Chicago.
Driven by Danny Kladis, the car qualified for the 33rd position and was rolling along steadily when Kladis lost power in Turn 2 immediately following a pit stop on Lap 46. After the car was towed through the infield and back to the garage area, Andy realized that the fuel switch – turned off during the stop for safety reasons – had not been turned back on. When the car came out to the pit gate, engine running once again, officials would not allow it though, ruling that the car had "left the race course" and was therefore out.
The following year, Croatian-born immigrant Pete Romcevich ended up 12th in one of two Grancor entries, his run extended to 167 laps thanks to some quick thinking on the part of Andy Granatelli. The car had earlier run low on oil, the rule for many years being that none could be added once the race had started. But there was no rule against adding something else, and Andy's claim was that he positioned himself in such a way that officials would be unable to see him to pour water into the lubricating system in order to successfully squeeze out a few more laps.
The Granatellis entered a mixed bag of four cars for the 1948 race, Andy attempting to qualify one himself. He was well on his way to accomplishing that goal when a tire blew, causing him to hit the wall on the final lap of a last-ditch attempt when his average speed for the first three laps had been good enough to "get in." At the time of his passing, Granatelli remained the oldest living driver to have made a qualifying attempt, with his 1948 run being the earliest by any living driver.
In the meantime, the Granatellis had formed a sanctioning body for "hot rod track roadsters," West Coast imports Pat Flaherty, brothers Dick and Jim Rathmann and others racing in the late 1940s and early 1950s with the Hurricane Hot Rod Association at Soldier Field, Rockford, Ill., and other locations against numerous Chicago-area drivers who would later compete in AAA and USAC Stock Car events. Future "500" winners Flaherty and Jim Rathmann both took "rookie" tests in Granatelli-owned or sponsored cars, as did a forever grateful 1950 winner Johnnie Parsons in 1948.
Flaherty was "bumped" in 1949 with a Grancor-Ford (chief mechanic: A. J. Watson). But when Flaherty qualified a Granatelli-entered Kurtis/Offy in 1950, Andy, in typical fashion, managed to talk Hollywood legend Clark Gable into posing with the crew in the post-qualification photos. The team ended up 10th in the rain-shortened affair.
By far the best finishes during this period were second in 1952 with Jim Rathmann and fourth with Agabashian (Paul Russo in relief) in 1953.
After failing to qualify due to a misunderstanding in 1954, Granatelli took a hiatus for several years and did not return as an entrant until 1961. During his early days at the track, he had been mesmerized by the front-drive Novis of Ralph Hepburn, Duke Nalon, Cliff Bergere, Chet Miller and Rex Mays, secretly wishing he could have driven one. In 1956, Novi owner Lew Welch switched to rear-drive cars but after not qualifying in 1959 and 1960 and then running into a personal reversal of fortune, he put the Novi team up for sale. Granatelli, then in California and associated with Paxton Products, purchased the entire package "for a song" and hurriedly entered one of the cars in the 1961 "500."
For a couple of days, Granatelli's Novi even loomed as a legitimate contender for the pole position with Dick Rathmann "test hopping" at faster than 148 mph. But Rathmann's car owner would not release him from his contract. After a variety of others "took rides," poor Ralph Liguori had the misfortune of having a spectacularly broken crankshaft end the campaign.
After failing to get either Chuck Stevenson or Bill Cheesbourg "in the show" in 1962, Granatelli achieved something in 1963 Lew Welch never had: qualify three Novis, the drivers on this occasion being Jim Hurtubise (who started second and led the first lap) and rookies Bobby Unser and Art Malone. Although three cars qualified again in 1964, and two in 1965, the only driver to see a checkered flag during these years was Malone, who completed 194 laps for 11th in 1964.
In 1966, there was a most unlikely teaming-up of the flamboyant Granatelli, now president of STP Corporation, and the defending "500" winners, Scotland's gentleman farmer Jim Clark and principal of Lotus Cars, Ltd, the David Niven-like Colin Chapman. They finished second to Graham Hill with their florescent orange Lotus (a huge shock to the system of purists) and an "almost" third with teammate Al Unser, who was involved in an accident late in the race.
Andy Granatelli and his Turbine car driven by Parnelli Jones in 1967 |
Hill joining Clark in similar livery for 1967 would seem to have been worthy of the main headlines, but that story was completely overshadowed by another STP entry, Parnelli Jones in a revolutionary four-wheel-drive vehicle powered by a Pratt & Whitney ST6 gas turbine engine intended for helicopters. It started sixth, led the first lap by a considerable margin and then proceeded to lead 171 of the first 196 laps, forced out with transmission failure while leading within sight of the finish.
Ah, the publicity!
Johnny Carson drives the Turbine at Indy in 1967 |
During those days, STP was a regular sponsor of "The Tonight Show," starring Johnny Carson. In addition to Granatelli being an occasional studio guest, this is where those "raincoat" commercials would appear, including those which demonstrated the claimed lubrication qualities of STP by Andy dipping the shaft of a screwdriver in a can and then challenging retired undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano to successfully grip the upturned screwdriver between his finger and thumb. It would invariably hit the table within a second or two.
In fall 1967, Carson came to IMS. Under the tutelage of Jones, Andretti and Rodger Ward, Carson took several laps in the Parnelli turbine. The run was featured in a segment on the show a few nights later.
While Janet Guthrie was the first female ever to be entered for the "500" (1976) and to earn a starting position (1977), she was not the first ever to drive a race car around the track. That had already taken place in fall 1963 when, under the guidance of Eddie Sachs, drag racing star Paula Murphy took three medium-paced laps in a Granatelli Novi. Murphy, with her outgoing personality and ready laugh was always a great favorite of Granatelli's, comprising part of the driving team he formed for the setting of hundreds of class records for Studebaker passenger cars in 1963 at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
For 1968, Andy entered 11 cars in the "500," not with the intent of running anywhere near that many, but reasoning that a variety of different STP products could be inexpensively advertised by appearing in the numerous versions of the printed entry lists as the sponsor on entered cars. Some of those cars didn't even exist, but the entry fee was a bargain at only $1,000 per car.
The main thrust for 1968 was a quartet of rear-engined "wedge-shaped" turbine-powered cars, built by Lotus. Three qualified, with entries driven by Joe Leonard and Graham Hill starting one-two with new one and four-lap track records faster than 170 mph. But none finished. Leonard almost duplicated Jones' heartbreak of a year earlier by suffering a fuel pump failure only nine laps from the checkered flag while leading.
It seemed like everyone was talking about the turbines, and wouldn't you know, STP would tend to get the occasional mention, as well.
Another lesser-known fact is that during these years, Granatelli also controlled the purse strings for another sponsor, Wagner Lockheed Brake Fluid. So the Indianapolis 500 runs between 1967 and 1969 by Dan Gurney, Billy Vukovich, George Snider, Jochen Rindt and Bobby Johns were also courtesy of Granatelli.
The day-after victory photo at Indy in 1969 |
The 1969 STP effort, on paper at least, appeared to represent a guaranteed domination of the front row, a trio of four-wheel-drive turbocharged V8 Ford powered Lotus type 64s to be driven by Andretti, Hill and Rindt. Amazingly, none qualified. Andretti crashed heavily in practice, and the other two were withdrawn without making a qualifying attempt. But the team finally won the race with Andretti in a much more standard (if that would be the term) turbocharged Ford V8 rear-drive Brabham-based Brawner Hawk.
Granatelli took endless ribbing for the win. He was a strong advocate of innovation, relying on new developments for many years. But it was a much more "status quo" package that finally carried him to victory.
After leaving the STP Corporation at the end of 1974, Granatelli left racing as an entrant but continued to maintain a major presence each May. His "Unsung Hero Award" has long since been presented at the 500 drivers' meeting, and arrangements were made just this past May for its permanent perpetuation.
Granatelli was never much for quietly slipping in and out of town. His race weekend entourage in recent years would typically consist of an armada of white vans, with the name "GRANATELLI" appearing in massive letters at the top of each windshield.
Everything was planned out with military-like precision, a plan "B" and plan "C" often in place in anticipation of a potential weather issue. And one never knew who might be riding inside those vans, his guests having included Michael Douglas, Ernest Borgnine, Carol Burnett, Priscilla Presley, Stuart Whitman, Rich Little and Tab Hunter, among many others.
Andy's entertaining skills were legendary, sometimes an entire restaurant being taken over in order to accommodate his party of friends and dignitaries. Once, when a guest gave credit to the restaurant proprietor for the quality of the steaks, Granatelli fired back with a typically rapier-like: "Those weren't his steaks. Those were Andy Granatelli steaks. I supplied them, and he simply cooked them. You don't think I would serve ordinary food to my friends, do you?"
And he was as quick with a comeback line as anyone. At the USAC Stock Car banquet January 1966 in Chicago (actor Dale Robertson was one of his guests), Granatelli presented an award to the popular Chicago-area veteran Sal Tovella. While posing for the photographers, Sal attempted cozying up to Andy and reminiscing over the occasional "hippodroming" antics employed during the old Hurricane Hot Rod days with, "Hey, Andy, remember back when I was a kid running for you at Soldier Field, and you used to pay me a $100 a night to get upside down?"
"Yeah," fired back Andy, "and now you are running with USAC and doing it for nothing!"
Granatelli was as sharp as a tack right to the very end. Mobility had been a challenge for some time, but his basso voice was strong and booming and authoritative, his thoughts tumbling out in a rapid-fire barrage just as they had throughout his life.
Letters he wrote, such those advocating a rules change, were always incredibly well thought out and organized, the reader feeling as if Andy was talking. He was passionate and funny and generous.
It was amazing that even into his late 70s, Granatelli could still hit the dance floor and in spite of his considerable bulk, astonish friends by performing the most elaborate and colorful interpretations of a jitterbug.
He was a truly amazing person.
Granatelli is survived by his wife, Dolly, brother Vince, sons, Vince and Anthony, and three grandchildren.
And in complete contrast to the way he conducted his entire life, he quietly requested that there be no services.


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Sanjay Jha: He is one of the best CEOs I've met. A great addition to Google if he stays.
Patents: I believe Google when they say that patents are the reason they got into this. They see themselves in a legal war. But why buy patents when they could buy the whole company:
Goog Strategy: This deal is not an endorsement of the Steve Jobs doctrine that the best way to make software is to control the hardware that runs it.
I think Google believes that, but only really for the hardware that runs its data centers. Google is to its core a cloud computing company. It sees hardware as little more than devices to run browsers of various sorts, which is a way to describe Android.
Cellphones: This doesn't really change the dynamic in the market. It's hard to see how much different Motorola's Android lineup will be because of the deal. Moto already offers phones with the Google name and deep cooperation with Goog engineers. It's not like Google's Nexus lineup has been much of a hit.
Television: There is much more potential for impact in the living room. Moto is a very large cable box maker. Google TV has not caught on yet, and this could be the wedge to get it (a browser for the TV with a big search button) in millions of living rooms.
Future: I'll bet that Goog spins off the manufacturing business within the decade. It's just not what they do, and it's not what they need in the long run.


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Autism is an extremely complex diagnosis. Parental insight, physician observations and hours of data can factor into determining whether a child actually has the condition or is just a little on the quirky side.
Now a Harvard researcher, Dennis P. Wall, has published research about a Web-based tool he developed that promises to diagnose autism in minutes, not hours — a proposition that Wall has floated for some time now and has some autism experts so skeptical they're not even willing to speak on the record about it.
Wall, director of the computational biology initiative at the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School and associate professor of pathology at the school, combines computer algorithms along with a seven-point parent questionnaire and a home video clip to make a speedy online assessment of whether a child has autism.
(MORE: Autism: Why Some Children 'Bloom' and Overcome Their Disabilities)
Wall's reliance on a quick questionnaire and video of the child playing could supplement or replace more comprehensive exams such as the commonly used behavior-based Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), which evaluates social interaction, language impairments and autism-specific behaviors, and the more intensive, 93-question Autism Diagnostic Interview, Revised (ADI-R). Together, these evaluations can take four hours or even longer, which Wall says is simply too long. Instead, Wall's method would not even require the child to be seen by a clinician; it relies on seven questions that parents answer via an online portal and on an examination by a trained analyst of a two- to five-minute home video of the child in a play environment. The diagnosis is completed by the end of the video using the parent's answers to the seven questions and the video analyst's answers to eight additional questions.
When Wall compared diagnostic results from his artificial-intelligence method with more conventional exams, he found his method's accuracy — asking seven questions versus 93 — stacked up favorably, according to research published Tuesday in Nature Translational Psychiatry. He compared diagnostic results from his method with results from more than 2,700 people who took the ADI-R. "I want to enable every family to get access to diagnosis, whether that's in a waiting room or via an iPad," says Wall.
Of course every family should have access, says Catherine Lord, who developed the ADOS and serves as director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at N.Y. Presbyterian Hospital. But she and other experts are skeptical that administering a quickie version of the more standard exams is a sound way to reach a diagnosis.
(MORE: Autism Rises: More Children than Ever Have Autism, but Is the Increase Real?)
"Arguing you should do this via a five-minute video and a seven-minute questionnaire is ridiculous," she says. "Even if you do identify a child with autism, it's not an adequate diagnosis. You still are going to have to talk to parents and interact with the child."
While Wall acknowledges that the more traditional exams are "incredibly powerful for their diagnostic validity," he thinks they're impractical. Clinicians who are trained to administer the exams may not be widely available, especially in rural areas, and the wait from the first warning sign until formal assessment can stretch to 18 months, at least in Massachusetts, where Wall works. As a result, he says, kids are being diagnosed, on average, at age 5.7, which is long past the point at which early intervention could have begun. Relying on his online assessment can enable rapid detection and earlier diagnosis, which is important in light of reports that more children than ever are being diagnosed with autism — 1 in 88 U.S. kids in comparison to the previous estimate of 1 in 110. "Our goal is to bridge the gap and take it from 18 months to days," says Wall. "The gold standard tests take too much time. We need tests that are as good but can be administered at a rate that scales with the increasing size of the population that's at risk."
(VIDEO: Ballet's Emphasis on Repetition Helps Autistic Kids)
Focusing on the actual diagnostic exams overlooks the fact that most initial autism diagnoses are made in the course of office visits, via observation and not via formal exams. Children are then referred for confirmation to specialists — developmental pediatricians, for example, or psychologists or psychiatrists. Although there are indeed waitlists at the most prestigious clinics, many states and school systems have mandated periods of time between referral, assessment and the onset of treatment.
It's challenging to develop a reliable substitute for face-to-face evaluation, says Lord. "There is something about sitting down with a family and hearing what the child is like in various circles," she says.
For his part, Wall is more than aware of the dubious reaction his test has evoked in leaders in the autism field. Yet he's hopeful they'll be open-minded for the good of children who have autism but don't yet know it. Says Wall: "I think there's a way for us to all play together."


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Two-Year-Old Rides Toy Bike Three Miles In Bid To See Sick Grandmother
Two-year old Noah Joel really wanted to see his sick grandmother in the hospital. So he pulled a stunt that darn near gave his mom a heart attack.
The toddler from Hameln, Germany snuck out his room when his mother thought he was playing. Then he grabbed his trusty toy bike and paddled toward where he believed the hospital and his granny to be. For provisions, Joel filled a backpack with candy.
The sweets must have given him a lot of energy, because police found him weaving in and out of a road three miles away from his home. Did we mention, the youngster was only wearing socks during his adventure?
"He didn't really know the way to the hospital," said a police spokesman. "But he blamed that on his bike for not being fitted with sat navigation."
Joel was returned to his mother, who had frantically called police when she realized he had given her the slip.
Somebody get this kid a GPS system. Or maybe a leash.


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Clinical risk assessment in febrile travellers-tentative diagnosis and agent detection rates
Klinische Risiko-Analyse bei febrilen Reiserückkehrern-Korrelation von Verdachtsdiagnosen und Erregernachweisen
Suche in Medline nach
Veröffentlicht: | 2. Juni 2010 |
Objectives: Imported infections pose a threat to Europe as changing environmental conditions may facilitate their spread to previously non-infested areas. Thus, clinical risk assessment remains the backbone of case management when facing febrile travellers but is rarely applied in daily routine. Aim of this work was to correlate clinical risk assessment strategies and agent detection rates in febrile travellers seeking care at Frankfurt University Hospital, Germany.
Methods: Major inclusion criteria were fever within 4 days prior to consultation and a recent history of international travel (<4 weeks). Upon admission patients were categorised as "fever of bacterial origin" (FBO), "fever of viral origin" (FVO) or "fever of unknown origin" (FUO) depending on clinical and standard laboratory parameters (e.g. blood-count and C-reactive protein). Patients were classified "FUO" when conditions of "FBO" or "FVO" did not match. Consecutive blood samples were drawn and submitted to culture, serology and molecular detection methods.
Results: In total, 122 patients were included into this 19-months survey. WHO regions most often travelled were South East Asia (33.1%), Africa (30.3%) and Western Pacific (22.8%). Most patients sought medical care on day 5 of fever. Upon admission, the majority of cases was classified "FUO" (50.8%), 27.1% met criteria of "FBO" and 22.1% of "FVO". Beside fever, myalgia (54.9%), arthralgia (53.3%) and cephalgia (53.6%) were most common reasons for consultation. Swelling of lymph nodes and cough was observed in 25% of cases each and about 20% presented with a rash. A causative agent could be identified in 62% of all cases, only, and the tentative clinical met the final laboratory diagnosis in less than one third. P. falciparum (19.5%) and Dengue virus (13.4%) were detected most frequently.
Conclusions: Clinical risk assessment strategies were of little use in identifying underlying causes of fever. As expected, Dengue and Malaria were the most common causes of fever in all patients included. Despite a broad range of methods applied causative agents remained undetectable in more than one third of all cases.


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amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research
Workplace giving programs allow individuals to direct a percentage of their paychecks or a fixed dollar amount to amfAR. Most people opt for payroll deduction, which allows them to spread their gift over the entire year.
Federal employees and members of the U.S. military can direct donations to amfAR through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), which amfAR participates in through a federation called Community Health Charities. amfAR's national CFC designation is #11996. If you are eligible to make donations through the CFC, please note that amfAR may be listed in your CFC directory under "AIDS Research Foundation."
In addition to taking part in the Combined Federal Campaign, Community Health Charities also operates a growing number of corporate campaigns, working with companies and institutions such as AARP, Aetna, Amazon, American Airlines, American Express, Becton-Dickinson, Exxon, GAP, GE Healthcare, GenCorp, H&R Block, Hewlett Packard, Hilton Hotels, J.P. Morgan Chase, Kaiser Permanente, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, TIAA-CREF, Toyota, United Airlines, and UnitedHealth Group.
Employees at companies and other organizations that participate in United Way workplace campaigns can also support amfAR with a "write-in" designation. And many organizations also operate their own workplace giving programs, including the American Bar Association, IBM, and Novell.
Make a Special Pledge to Support amfAR's HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 Research Efforts
For more information about workplace giving or help setting up a workplace campaign, please contact:
Workplace Giving Coordinator amfAR 120 Wall Street, 13th Floor New York, NY 10005 E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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It should not be taken for granted that anyone can just hop into any vehicle and haul a scrap car to anywhere. Not only are there many regulations that must be followed that apply to this activity, but there are also many regulating agencies who are consistently updating the rules.
Regulating Agencies
States have own regulations
Federal regulations that apply to hauling of scrap cars are made by the Department of Transportation through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. In addition, the Department of Environmental Quality has its own waste hauling requirements that are applicable to the hauling of scrap cars. Many states and counties also have their own regulations to follow.
Factors Being Regulated
Trucks and drivers are regulated
Federal and local regulations applicable to hauling of scrap cars include those that apply to the drivers, the vehicles used in hauling, the scrap that is being transported, the hazardous materials that may be part of the scrap car, and the companies that haul the scrap. Below are some examples.
Regulations on Drivers
No part of cargo can fall off
A driver is not only limited in the number of hours he or she may drive each day, but must also be sure all the hours driven are logged. The driver cannot drive more hours than allowed because this can cause accidents. A driver must have a logbook, insurance information, a camera and other equipment in the vehicle at all times. There are also regulations on drug and alcohol testing and special training requirements.
Regulations on Vehicles
All roads have weight limitations
Regulations on vehicles used to haul scrap cars include length, width and weight limitations, compliance with interstate noise emission standards, and parts and accessories necessary for safe operation. Almost every road in the country has axle weight regulations that must be followed. It is important to know exactly which roads are going to be taken, and that a truck is not too heavy for any of these roads.
Recent Change in Vehicle Regulations
Debris Falling Off Trucks
The FMCSA recently changed rules that require motor carriers to change the way they secure cargo to prevent parts from shifting or falling while in transport. While these carriers were not required to buy new equipment for securing cargo, the intention was to reduce accidents. This caused many vehicle owners and manufacturers to make changes in the design of their vehicles.
Regulations On Hazardous Materials
Gas and oil have to be drained
In trying to improve safety on the highways, the FMCSA aims to reduce the number of incidents involving hazardous materials. The organization has drawn up lists of hazardous materials, how to comply with these regulations, driving and parking rules, fueling rules, and rules on tires. Thus, before a car is crushed and shipped for melting, fluids are drained, tires and batteries removed and catalytic converters cut off.
Regulations on Hauling Companies
Hauling companies are also regulated
While companies hauling scrap make profits, many regulations by so many agencies make it a difficult business to learn and compete in. There are rules that define levels of financial responsibility, forms required for all kinds of operations, and many possible violations and penalties defined for such companies. These are in addition to having to know and follow rules on drivers, vehicles and hazardous materials, and to cope with rule changes.


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What a sweet thing it is to see the first outdoor flight of a quadcopter. [Botched] has done a wonderful job of documenting the entire build process. Take a look at all that he has done, then jump after the break to see the extremely stable test flight footage.
Earlier iterations used feedback electronics that he designed, etched, and soldered himself. We think they looked pretty good, but he was not happy with the performance. He spent a bunch of time redesigning the IMU board, but after he printed out the PCB artwork he decided his soldering was not up to the QFN challenge and he went with a pre-assembled breakout board.
His post about PID tuning is quite interesting. He removed two of the motors and mounted those opposite ends of the chassis to a hinged stand. This let him tweak the feedback loop until the two remaining propellers were able to maintain balance even when he nudged the unit.
His test flight footage is accompanied by an on-board camera shot. He simply taped a smart phone to the battery and let it roll. Make sure you turn off your speakers before watching this one or the motor noise will let the boss know you're reading Hackaday again instead of working.
[Thanks Joel]


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Steve Austria on Budget & Economy |
Proponent's Argument for voting Yes:
[Rep. Biggert, R-IL]: The HAMP Termination Act would put an end to the poster child for failed Federal foreclosure programs. The program has languished for 2 years, hurt hundreds of thousands of homeowners, and must come to an end. This bill would save $1.4 billion over 10 years. To date, the HAMP program has already consumed $840 million of the more than $30 billion of TARP funds that were set aside for the program. For this extraordinary investment, the administration predicted that 3 to 4 million homeowners would receive help.
HAMP has hurt more homeowners than it has helped. The program has completed about 540,000 mortgage modifications. Another 740,000 unlucky homeowners had their modifications cancelled.
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
[Rep. Capuano, D-MA]: This is a program that I'm the first to admit has not lived up to what our hopes were. This program we had hoped would help several million people. Thus far we've only helped about 550,000 people. But to simply repeal all of these programs is to walk away from individual homeowners, walk away from neighborhoods. I'm not going to defend every single aspect of this program, and I am happy to work with anyone to make it better, to help more people to keep their homes, & keep their families together. To simply walk away without offering an alternative means we don't care; this Congress doesn't care if you lose your home, period. Now, I understand if that makes me a bleeding-heart liberal according to some people, so be it.
Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Rep. LEWIS (D, GA-5): This bipartisan bill will provide the necessary funds to keep important transportation projects operating in States around the country. The Highway Trust Fund will run out of funding by September. We must act, and we must act now.
Opponent's argument to vote No:Rep. CAMP (R, MI-4): [This interim spending is] needed because the Democrats' economic policy has resulted in record job loss, record deficits, and none of the job creation they promised. Democrats predicted unemployment would top out at 8% if the stimulus passed; instead, it's 9.5% and rising. In Michigan, it's above 15%. The Nation's public debt and unemployment, combined, has risen by a shocking 40% [because of] literally trillions of dollars in additional spending under the Democrats' stimulus, energy, and health plans.
We had a choice when it came to the stimulus last February. We could have chosen a better policy of stimulating private-sector growth creating twice the jobs at half the price. That was the Republican plan. Instead, Democrats insisted on their government focus plan, which has produced no jobs and a mountain of debt.
Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Rep. PETER WELCH (D, VT-0): Citigroup supports this bill. Why? They're a huge lender. They understand that we have to stabilize home values in order to begin the recovery, and they need a tool to accomplish it. Mortgages that have been sliced and diced into 50 different sections make it impossible even for a mortgage company and a borrower to come together to resolve the problem that they share together.
Sen. DICK DURBIN (D, IL): 8.1 million homes face foreclosure in America today. Last year, I offered this amendment to change the bankruptcy law, and the banking community said: Totally unnecessary. In fact, the estimates were of only 2 million homes in foreclosure last year. America is facing a crisis.
Opponent's argument to vote No:
Sen. JON KYL (R, AZ): This amendment would allow bankruptcy judges to modify home mortgages by lowering the principal and interest rate on the loan or extending the term of the loan. The concept in the trade is known as cram-down. It would apply to all borrowers who are 60 days or more delinquent. Many experts believe the cram-down provision would result in higher interest rates for all home mortgages. We could end up exacerbating this situation for all the people who would want to refinance or to take out loans in the future.
Rep. MICHELE BACHMANN (R, MN-6): Of the foundational policies of American exceptionalism, the concepts that have inspired our great Nation are the sanctity of private contracts and upholding the rule of law. This cramdown bill crassly undercuts both of these pillars of American exceptionalism. Why would a lender make a 30-year loan if they fear the powers of the Federal Government will violate the very terms of that loan?
Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Rep. DAVID OBEY (D, WI-7): This country is facing what most economists consider to be the most serious and the most dangerous economic situation in our lifetimes. This package today is an $825 billion package that does a variety of things to try to reinflate the economy:
Opponent's argument to vote No:
Rep. JERRY LEWIS (R, CA-51): Most of us would agree that the recent $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is an illustration of how good intentions don't always deliver desired results. When Congress spends too much too quickly, it doesn't think through the details and oversight becomes more difficult. The lesson learned from TARP was this: we cannot manage what we do not measure. We cannot afford to make the same mistake again.
Sen. THAD COCHRAN (R, MS): We are giving the executive branch immense latitude in the disbursement of the spending this bill contains. We are doing so without any documentation of how this spending will stimulate the economy. Normally, this kind of information would be contained in an administration budget. For items that have a short-term stimulative effect, most of us will feel comfortable debating their merits as an emergency measure. But there is a great deal of spending that is not immediately stimulative.
Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Rep. BARNEY FRANK (D, MA-4): Last year, after we responded to the urgent pleas of the Bush administration to authorize the $700 billion deployment of Federal funds to unstick the credit markets, many of us became very unhappy, [because Bush] repudiated commitments to use a significant part of the fund to diminish foreclosures. If we do not pass this bill today, we will make no progress in what is the single biggest economic problem we've been facing, namely, the foreclosure crisis.
Opponent's argument to vote No:Rep. RON PAUL (R, TX-14): There has been a lot of money spent to try to bail out the financial industry, and nothing seems to be working. I think it's mainly because we haven't admitted that excessive spending can cause financial problems, & excessive debt and inflation can cause problems.
Actually, the recession is therapy for all of the mistakes, but the mistakes come, basically, from a Federal Reserve system that's causing too many people to make mistakes. Interest rates are lower than they should be, so they don't save. That contributes to what we call "moral hazard" as well as the system of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac system. With the assumption that we're all going to be bailed out, people say, "Well, no sweat because, if there is a mistake, the government will come to our rescue." A private FDIC would never permit this massive malinvestment. There would be regulations done in the marketplace, and there would not be this distortion that we've ended up with.
Constitutional Amendment to prohibit outlays for a fiscal year (except those for repayment of debt principal) from exceeding total receipts for that fiscal year (except those derived from borrowing) unless Congress, by a three-fifths rollcall vote of each chamber, authorizes a specific excess of outlays over receipts.
The House Committee on Appropriations is in charge of setting the specific expenditures of money by the government of the United States. As such, it is one of the most powerful of the committees, and its members are seen as influential.
In 1865, the House of Representatives separated the appropriating and banking and currency duties from the Committee on Ways and Means, which was first established in 1789, and assigned them to two new committees - the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Banking and Currency. Until 1865, all "general" appropriations bills had been controlled in the House by the Committee on Ways and Means--which is now in charge of revenue measures (taxation).
Until recent years, large sustained spending increases of the Federal Government usually occurred only in connection with wars. By 1940, spending in appropriations bills had climbed to $14.6 billion as a result mainly of various New Deal legislation - when we began meeting local problems with national programs. Since 1934, our national wealth has increased 41 times.
By the early 1970's, deficits were mounting; so-called "uncontrollable" spending was climbing; and "back door" spending, i.e. spending provided other than through the Appropriations Committee, was increasing. It was also becoming clear that there was little, if any coordination between raising and spending revenues.
A 1975 reorganization resulted in the current committee structure: the Budget Committee for fiscal planning; the Budget Committee for fiscal planning; the Ways and Means Committee for taxation and other revenue; and the Appropriations Committee for spending.
This article shall take effect beginning with the later of the second fiscal year beginning after its ratification or the first fiscal year beginning after December 31, 2016.
Congressional Summary:JOINT RESOLUTION: Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives: That Congress disapproves of the President's exercise of authority to increase the debt limit, as submitted on Jan. 12, 2012.
Congressional Vote:Vote #4 in the House: 239 Yeas; 176 Nays; Senate declined to vote on the Resolution.
OnTheIssues Explanation: On Jan. 12, 2012, Pres. Obama notified Congress of his intent to raise the nation's debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion, two weeks after he had postponed the request to give lawmakers more time to consider the action. Congress then had 15 days to say no before the debt ceiling is automatically raised from $15.2 trillion to $16.4 trillion. Hence the debt ceiling was increased.
In Aug. 2011, the US government was nearly shut down by an impasse over raising the debt ceiling; under an agreement reached then, the President could raise the debt limit in three increments while also implementing $2.4 trillion in budget cuts. The agreement also gave Congress the option of voting to block each of the debt-ceiling increases by passing a "resolution of disapproval." The House disapproved; the Senate, by declining to vote in the 15-day window, killed the Resolution. Even if the resolution were passed, Pres. Obama could veto it; which could be overridden by a 2/3 majority in the House and Senate. The House vote only had 57% approval, not enough for the 67% override requirement, so the Senate vote became moot. The same set of actions occurred in Sept. 2011 for the first debt ceiling increase.


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by Daniel Greenfield
Dear Former Friends,
Ever since you decided to trade in the Secularism of Ataturk for the Islamism of Erdogan, you also seem to have dispensed with the ability to coexist with non-Muslims on a peaceful basis. These days all we ever seem to get from you, is video clips of your leader, Prime Minister Erdogan, barking at us like a dog that its owner carelessly let off the leash. And if you don't know that Erdogan's owner lives in
But your affairs are your own affairs. And our affairs are our affairs. If you want to let a fanatic in a cheap suit destroy Turkish nationalism in the name of Islam, that's your business. But when he gets into business with terrorist organizations who attack and murder our soldiers, then it's our business. And when a country that persecutes its Kurdish, Assyrian and Armenian citizens, and sends their elected representatives to jail-- presumes to self-righteously lecture us on how to manage our affairs, it had better remember that holding a stone throwing contest in a glass house will just lead to piles of broken glass.
You say you want an international investigation into the flotilla raid? Sure. Right after we have an international investigation into that minor matter of Armenian genocide that you've been ducking for quite a while. As the new "standard bearer" in fighting for human rights, I'm sure you will agree that it's only fair that
And then we can move on to the more than 10,000 political prisoners in your jails. A number that at times has topped 100,000. An independent investigation could also begin by looking into the torture and murder of political activists such as Engin Ceber. They could meet with representatives of TAYAD, the organization representing the families of prisoners. And they would no doubt be fascinated by the more than 1500 children in your prisoners who are there on "terrorism" charges. Like that 12 year old you arrested in 2008 for singing a Kurdish folk song. So by all means wrap yourselves in the banner of "Human Rights" and we'll turn it into a noose and strangle you with it.
And perhaps next time your dog Erdogan gets up to bark up at us about human rights, we can stuff this in his mouth. Jenin, the Second Lebanon War and every armed encounter between
You talk about stolen land, when your entire country is stolen land, from
But let us get back to your precious Islamist flotilla, decorated with Turkish flags that used to be more than just red versions of the Saudi flag. That ship you filled up with Muslim Brotherhood members and Islamist radicals bound for our shores. Over in your wonderful nation of boundless freedom, reporters have been put on trial for even interviewing leaders of terrorist groups. You sentenced the head of a Kurdish party to six months in prison for calling the head of the PKK, Mr. Ocalan, instead of just Ocalan. He joins the more than 800 Kurdish politicians you imprisoned in the last year alone. And after all that you actually have the nerve to pretend to be "outraged" when
But of course we know how strongly you feel about blockades. Like the time you blockaded Armenia for Sixteen Years. Very well then. If you insist on sending vessels flying the Turkish flag to aid Hamas, perhaps we'll begin sending vessels flying the Israeli flag to aid the PKK. We're not big fans of the PKK, but since you've decided to friend Hamas, then what's good for the turkey, just might be good for the gander. We can also fill a flotilla full of senile troublemakers, phony survivors and leftist radicals-- along with a few hundred well armed "activists" who know how to use a knife. Or perhaps we won't bother with any of that. Instead for every boat flying the Turkish flag that invades our territory, we'll donate a million to the PKK. I wonder how many rocket launchers that would buy. Perhaps the next time, your air force sweeps in to bomb Kurds out of their homes, they might get a surprise or two.
And then there's the
Oh I know, what you're going to say. This means war. But you might want to consider that we've fought and beaten enemies many times our size. And what exactly was the last war you won single-handedly? And no, bombing starving Kurdish rebels from the air, or occupying
Oh I know you've made many great news friends, such as Ahmadinejad and that nice burnoosed king in the Arabian Desert, who tells your Erdogan when to jump and how high, but if you think Iran is about to pass up Russian nukes in order to bail you out, you've got another thing coming. Meanwhile old Abdullah in the desert can't even protect himself without the US Marines. And if you think Obama would send them in to save your asses, you've got another thing coming. I'm sure if there were Russian tanks headed to
There is of course the European Union. Last time
No, when Russian commandos are ripping off your wife's Burqa-- there will be no one left to save you. Not your newfound allies, or Erdogan who will take the first plane to
So when that day of reckoning comes, you will find that you have made enemies of former allies such as
A people have the right to choose their destiny, for good or ill. And if you find that this letter is filled with contempt, it is a contempt fully merited by a regime that seeks to cloak its shameful betrayal of a former ally in the guise of human rights, when it brutally suppresses the rights of its own minorities. You may wish to go on dancing to the tune being played by Erdogan, to sheet music composed in
Sincerely Yours
A Descendant of a Subject of the
Daniel Greenfield
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.


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Michael Bisping worked up a good sweat and treated the press to an impressive display of his new found speed and power during the UFC open workouts last week. If the spearhead of English MMA is anything to go by, the local fans are in for a treat in the 02 Arena at UFC 120 today.
You're looking fast and powerful on the pads, how are you feeling?
I'm feeling really good. I'm very confident. I'm definitely the fastest and most powerful I've ever been. I've been saying that a lot in interviews but I definitely am. I was hitting boxing pads the day before I came down to London and without a shadow of a doubt, I was by far the fastest I've ever been. My boxing coach is the British Olympic boxing trainer and he's trained Amir Khan and others. He said my hands are as good as any Olympian. And he doesn't give compliments easily. He's old school.
That must give you a lot of confidence so close to the fight.
Yeah it does, definitely. Predominantly this is going to be a stand up fight. If not, Mario 'Sukata' (Neto) has addressed the things in other domains. My wrestling's good. I don't think I need to worry about being taken down these days, I can get back up or I can handle myself on the ground. All in all I'm very confident that it's going to be a good fight.
A lot of people are talking about Akiyama's judo, but he tends to like to stand up.
He does prefer to stand up, and I'm sure he's going to do that in this fight. But he does mix it up; most fights he's had there's always a bit of judo thrown in there. If that's what he's been doing since he was a kid, then if he grabs hold of someone, he's going to instinctively go for a throw. That's what you do, you follow your instincts. I'm not overly bothered by it. I haven't really thought about it at all. I mean if he grabs me and throws me on my head then I'll feel like a fool. (laughs) But it's just like a takedown. I've got to worry about his judo, he's got to worry about my takedowns. I'm not too concerned about it. Of course we're going to clinch at some point, but I've got good foot work and I think I'll be alright.
You threw a lot of flying knees and spinning back kicks, but that's not something we see a lot of in your fights.
I always do these moves in sparring, and I always land them; spinning back fists, back kicks, flying knees and everything. But I've just been playing it safe; I haven't been doing them in fights. And I think it's time to start unleashing the beast. It's just a question of using everything I do. I've been training these moves for years, now it's time to start doing them.
You've changed your training, you've added a lot of strength and conditioning, and you've got a new Thai coach. What prompted the change?
Well obviously, the sport now has got to such a high level, that you have to train as an athlete. You have to train accordingly. All of the best guys are doing it now, and it's not something that I was doing. So, after the Wanderlei fight I started training with a gym called Strength and Performance in Stockport. They're fantastic, they've been crucial to my explosive power. So I'm very grateful to them.
Has Cheick Kongo been with you to prepare this fight?
Yeah, Kongo's been with us for about six weeks now. He's looking really good in his sparring. He's definitely very switched on; he's been much more aggressive in his sparring and all that. I think we're going to see a very, very good Cheick Kongo. Cheick Kongo mentally focused, in shape and all the rest of it is a very dangerous man to face, and I'm glad it's not me facing him on the night.
He's fighting a tall powerful boxer. That's a change for him as he always seems to be fighting wrestlers.
I feel for Cheick because by trade he's a kickboxer and he seems to have had wrestlers or ground fighters back to back all the time. And that does mess with you. Frank Mir caught him with an overhand left, probably because he was so worried about the takedown and things like that. And it does, it throws you off, I've experienced it myself. His opponent is good, like everyone in the UFC. But I'm sure he's going to be just fine.
Do you want to give us a prediction on that one?
Oh Kongo for sure, definitely. KO or TKO, it's going to be a good fight.
You know Cyrille Diabaté, you've faced him in cage kickboxing. What do you think of his fight?
Cyrille's terrific, he is a fantastic stand up fighter and his MMA skills have grown over the years and he's trained with Team Quest. So he's obviously learning what to do. He had a good debut in his first UFC fight so I'm sure he's going to go into this fight and build some momentum. I've fought him, so I know he's a great fighter. I'm sure he's going to have a very good UFC career.
There are eight UK guys on the card, and a few more Europeans. Do you think this is a sign of things to come in the UFC?
Absolutely. England has always had a steep history in boxing for hundreds of years, and we like our fights over here. The same in Europe. Once the UFC spreads and people start to accept it more... Ten years from now the sport is going to be everywhere. There's going to be a lot of European talent. You only have to look at Holland and places like that, French kickboxing. There are a lot of fantastic boxers and kick-boxers across Europe and now everyone is making the transition to MMA.
So how long until we have a European champion?
Fingers crossed next year, and he's standing right here. It's only a matter of time. We've got some of the best fighters in the world in Europe, look at Fedor, there are countless guys in Holland and now there are a lot of great guys in England. So it's only a matter of time.
Jamahal Hill Talks UFC 300 Main Event
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