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Motörhead's overwhelmingly loud and fast style of heavy metal was one of the most groundbreaking styles the genre had to offer in the late '70s. Though the group's leader, Lemmy Kilmister, had his roots in the hard-rocking space rock band Hawkwind, Motörhead didn't bother with his old group's progressive tendencies, choosing to amplify the heavy biker rock elements of Hawkwind with the speed of punk rock. Motörhead wasn't punk rock -- they formed before the Sex Pistols and they loved the hell-for-leather imagery of bikers too much to conform with the safety-pinned, ripped T-shirts of punk -- but they were the first metal band to harness that energy and, in the process, they created speed metal and thrash metal. Unlike many of their contemporaries, Motörhead continued performing into the next century. Although they changed their lineup many, many times -- Lemmy was their only consistent member -- they never changed their raging sound.
The son of a vicar, Lemmy Kilmister (born Ian Fraiser Kilmister, December 24, 1945) first began playing rock & roll in 1964, when he joined two local Blackpool, England R&B bands, the Rainmakers and the Motown Sect. Over the course of the '60s, he played with a number of bands -- including the Rockin' Vickers, Gopal's Dream, and Opal Butterfly -- as well as briefly working as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix. In 1971, he joined the heavy prog rock band Hawkwind as bassist. Lemmy was originally slated to stay with the band only six months, but he stayed with the group for four years. During that time, he wrote and sang several songs with the band, including their signature track, the number three U.K. hit "Silver Machine" (1972).
Lemmy was kicked out of Hawkwind in the spring of 1975 after he spent five days in a Canadian prison for drug possession. Once he returned to England, Kilmister set about forming a new band. Originally, it was to have been called Bastard, but he soon decided to call the band Motörhead, named after the last song he wrote for Hawkwind. Lemmy drafted in Pink Fairies guitarist Larry Wallis and drummer Lucas Fox to round out the lineup. Motörhead made their debut supporting Greenslade in July. Two months later, the group headed into the studio to make their debut album for United Artists with producer Dave Edmunds. Motörhead and Edmunds clashed over the direction of the recording, resulting in the group firing the producer and replacing him with Fritz Fryer. At the end of the year, Fox left the band and Lemmy replaced him with his friend Philthy Animal (born Philip Taylor), an amateur musician.
Motörhead delivered its debut album to UA early in 1976, but the label rejected it. Shortly afterward, former Blue Goose and Continuous Performance guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke joined the band. Following one rehearsal as a four-piece, Wallis left the band, leaving Motörhead a trio; this is the lineup that would later be recalled as the group's classic period. The band spent most of 1976 struggling, however, performing without a contract or manager and generating little money. At the end of the year, they cut a single, "White Line Fever"/"Leavin' Here," for Stiff Records that wasn't released until two years later. By the summer of 1977, they had signed a one-record contract with Chiswick Records, releasing their eponymous debut in June; it peaked at number 43 on the U.K. charts. A year later, the band signed with Bronze Records.
Overkill, Motörhead's first album for Bronze, was released in the spring of 1979. The album peaked at number 24, while its title track became the band's first Top 40 hit. Motörhead continued to gain momentum, as their concerts were selling well and Bomber, the follow-up to Overkill, reached number 12 upon its fall release. The band was doing so well that UA released the rejected album at the end of the year as On Parole. Ace of Spades, released in the fall of 1980, became a number four hit, while the single of the same name reached number 15.
Ace of Spades became Motörhead's first American album, but they were making little headway in the U.S., where they only registered as a cult act. Back in England, the situation could hardly have been more different. Motörhead were at the peak of their popularity in 1981, releasing a hit collaboration with the all-female group Girlschool entitled Headgirl and entering the charts at number one with their live album No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith. Though the group was rising commercially, there was tension within the band, particularly between Clarke and Lemmy. Clarke left the band during the supporting tour for 1982's Iron Fist, reportedly angered by Kilmister's planned collaboration with Wendy O. Williams. Former Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson replaced Clarke.
The new lineup released Another Perfect Day in the summer of 1983, which was a disappointment, only reaching number 20 in the U.K. Robertson left two months later, replaced by two guitarists: former Persian Risk member Phillip Campbell and Wurzel (born Michael Burston). Shortly afterward, Taylor left to join Robertson's band Operator, and was replaced by former Saxon drummer Pete Gill. This lineup released a single, "Killed by Death," in September of 1984, but shortly afterward the group left Bronze and the label filed an injunction against the band. As a result, Motörhead were prevented from releasing any recordings -- including a bizarre collaboration between Lemmy and page-three girl Samantha Fox -- for two years.
Motörhead finally returned to action in 1986, first with a track on the charity compilation Hear 'n Aid and later with the Bill Laswell-produced Orgasmatron, which was released on their new label, GWR. Orgasmatron was successful with the band's still-dedicated cult audience in England and America, and received some of the group's best reviews to date. The following year, they released Rock 'N' Roll, which was equally successful. In 1988, the live No Sleep at All appeared, and Lemmy made his acting debut in the comedy Eat the Rich. Two years later, the band signed to WTG and released The Birthday Party. Taylor briefly rejoined the band in 1991, appearing on that year's 1916, before Mikkey Dee, formerly of King Diamond, took over on drums. Dee's first album with the band was 1992's March or Die, which didn't chart in the U.S. but played to their U.K. cult following. WTG dropped the band after the album's release and they started their own label, appropriately called Motörhead, which was distributed through ZYX. Their first album for the label was 1994's Bastards.
For the remainder of the '90s, Motörhead concentrated on touring more than recording. Outside of the band, Lemmy appeared in insurance commercials in Britain. He also acted in Hellraiser 3 and had a cameo in the porn movie John Wayne Bobbit Uncut. In 1997, the group moved to the metal-oriented indie label Receiver and released Stone Dead Forever; the live Everything Louder Than Everyone Else followed in 1999, and a year later they returned with We Are Motörhead. Hammered appeared in 2002 and was followed by 2004's Inferno. In 2005, the Sanctuary label reissued some of the band's classic albums (Overkill, Ace of Spades, and Iron Fist) in two-CD deluxe editions. A collection of all-new material, Kiss of Death, arrived in 2006, followed by Motorizer in 2008. In 2010, Motörhead embarked on a 35th anniversary tour in support of their 20th studio album, The Wörld Is Yours, which was released under a new deal with German label UDR. After taking an enforced break in 2012 to allow Lemmy to recover from laryngitis, the band started writing for its next album. Decamping to NRG Studios in North Hollywood to work with producer Cameron Webb, they recorded Aftershock, one of their most aggressive albums in years, which was released in October 2013.
However, while Motörhead's fan base was as strong as ever, Lemmy was not -- years of drinking and smoking began to catch up with the group's leader (by this time well into his mid-sixties). He struggled with heart problems and diabetes, and in 2013, the rocker was fitted with an internal defibrillator to regulate his heartbeat. A pair of European festival dates had to be canceled when Lemmy was diagnosed with a hematoma, and Motörhead were forced to cut their set short at the 2013 Wacken Open Air Festival when Lemmy lacked the strength to continue. The seemingly indestructible Lemmy finally made concessions to his health, giving up cigarettes and replacing bourbon and cola with wine and the occasional vodka; by the end of 2014, Motörhead were back in business. They resumed their busy touring schedule, and in early 2015 entered the studio to begin work on a new album. The finished product, titled XXX: Bad Magic, was released in late August 2015. Sadly, Lemmy's health continued to decline, and the day after Christmas, he was diagnosed with cancer. He died two days later on December 28, 2015. The band's last record turned out to be a recording of two typically blistering sold-out shows at Munich's Zenith concert hall only a month prior to his death. The resulting live album, Clean Your Clock, was released in spring 2016 and was the 40 year-old band's final offering, following their understandable descision not to continue without their much-loved frontman.
Stephen Thomas ErlewineAllMusic.com
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Gluten-Free Whole Grain Rustic Olive Bread
Grainy, whole grain bliss. One of our absolute favorite gluten-free bread recipes. This rustic round loaf is tender and flavorful, and lovely dipped in extra virgin olive oil, Italian style.
Crusty, fragrant gluten-free olive bread, warm from the oven.
Giving up bread is hard. Bread is basic. Almost a need. Like air. Like breathing. It is both routine and celebratory. Prosaic and divine. A simple, torn-off hunk of good bread embodies a deep sense of nourishment, for body and soul. The bewitching mix of a handful of flour, some yeast, some salt, some water.
Stir. Knead. Rest. Bake.
And as if by magic, this warm and fragrant alchemical creation called bread appears.
And all is right with the world.
When I think of our honeymoon in Italy (seventeen years ago, darling) I think of the color of the evening sky above the cypress. A shot of burnished gold that shimmered with the faintest veil of pink and lemon yellow. I think about the shopkeepers sweeping their doorsteps each morning, nodding their Buon giorno! as we walked to fetch a New York Times and a cappuccino not served in a paper cup. There was love, yes. And wine. And olives.
And there was bread.
The best bread I had ever devoured.
My go-to breakfast was a plate sized flat-bread studded with olives, paper thin tomato slices, or chopped fresh garlic. Chewy, salty, sweet, and earthy. A bread worth the walk into town. I must have eaten dozens in our too-short two week stay.
Here in southern California, I have been living almost breadless. By choice. The hundreds of gluten-free breads I have baked in the past nine years have not tempted me into the kitchen. Not even the best gluten-free bread recipes. Starch, you see, is not agreeing with me lately. I think we may be breaking up. For good. My body hums happily without it. My waistline is trimmer without it (though not quite up to honeymoon standards, I am seeing the promise of a waistline appear). But this week I started remembering.
The bread.
In Italy.
And the craving began.
So I began bargaining with myself. The dialogue went something like this.
Okay. You want a piece of bread, darling? You're going to have to bake it without starch. Without sugar. You know that, right? And you are prepared to plunge into abject failure if this gluten-free whole grain concoction doesn't turn out? It is a risk, you know. Baking without gluten. Making bread without starches. It's tricky. It's fickle. So if this turns out badly, promise you won't despair.
I pulled out every non-starchy flour and ingredient from my snug little pantry and imagined my pre-celiac Italian memory. I stood and stared at the tumble of half-used bags and battered boxes on the counter for a good ten minutes. Steve walked by and glanced at his wife of seventeen years standing deer-in-the-headlights still.
He knew not to ask.
I grabbed brown rice flour. Almond meal. Millet flour. Quinoa flakes. Rice bran. Garlic. Sea salt. Olive oil. An impossible, motley crew of ingredients that would prompt any Italian baker to raise her eyebrows in a justified Che cosa succede?
And guess what, my Bella Bambina?
You know what.
Smooches. xox
Gluten-Free Whole Grain Olive Bread
Recipe posted June 2011 by Karina Allrich.This rustic gluten-free bread is not unlike focaccia, I am happy to say. The golden crust and tender, shallow profile remind me of the classic Italian flat bread we once devoured in Italy- celebrating our honeymoon. Kalamata olives add a salty punch.
Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line a 9x12-inch baking pan with a piece of parchment paper, and set aside.
1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup GF millet flour
1/2 cup almond flour/meal
1/2 cup quinoa flakes
1/4 cup rice bran
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 packet (2 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
3 organic free-range eggs, beaten
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon honey or organic agave nectar
1/2 to 3/4 cup warm water (start with less)
For topping:
1/3 cup pitted, sliced kalamata olives
Dried or fresh thyme
Coarse sea salt
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sorghum flour, millet flour, almond flour, quinoa flakes, rice bran, garlic powder, sea salt, xanthan gum, and active dry yeast.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the beaten eggs, olive oil, and honey. Start beating the eggs, oil and honey into the dry mixture.
Slowly begin adding the warm water and beat as you go, incorporating the wet ingredients. Watch the consistency of the batter, and add only the amount of warm water that you need to achieve a smooth, sticky batter akin to muffin batter. I used up to 3/4 cup liquid, but you may need more, or less, depending upon your situation (humidity and storage affects flours).
Continue to beat for one minute to lighten the batter and create a smooth, creamy dough.
Using a silicone spatula, scoop the bread dough onto the center of the parchment lined baking pan. Using wet or oiled hands, form a low, oval loaf shape, smoothing out the dough as best you can.
Stud the surface with the kalamata olive pieces. Sprinkle with a dusting of thyme and coarse sea salt.
Bake in the center of a pre-heated oven for 25 minutes. Brush the top with a little olive oil and continue baking for another 5 to 10 minutes until the loaf is golden and firm, and a bit crusty. My olive bread baked for a full 35 minutes (at sea level).
Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle a little more sea salt on top of the loaf, if desired. Allow the bread to cool for a few minutes in the pan; then gently remove it, and set it on a wire rack to continue cooling for a few minutes.
It is tantalizingly delicious warm. Use a good, sharp bread knife to cut it into wedges or thin slices. Dip pieces in olive oil and a rich balsamic vinegar, such as blackberry or fig balsamic vinegar. Heaven.
Cook time: 35 min
Yield: One loaf
Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com
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I confess. We ate this olive bread all day long. First, we ate a few warm slices straight from the oven- just to be sure it was as fabulous as it looked. It did not disappoint. I kept nibbling small pieces as I photographed.
Later, we ate torn off pieces dipped in a blackberry balsamic vinegar that I picked up at the Redondo Beach Farmers' Market, and a dab of extra virgin olive oil. The bread held together beautifully. Like "real" Italian bread. It did not crumble. It did not dissolve into dust. The crumbs you see are from me breaking off tiny pieces to taste as I set up the photography shoot. It's one of the perks of photographing food.
You get to sample the object of your affection.
Recipe Notes:
I am always experimenting with different flours, forever in pursuit of gluten-free breads and goodies that satisfy my taste buds and offer me more than empty, starchy calories. I choose each flour with a purpose in mind- flavor, texture, protein. So to offer substitution suggestions is very often tricky. If you sub one of my higher protein flours with a starch, for instance, your results will not be the same. And if you use an all-purpose g-free flour mix, your results will be inferior- that I say with confidence, after testing many gluten-free flour blends on the market.
Yes, I know that it is easier to reach for a single box of mix.
I agree, in fact.
It is easier.
But is it as marvelous? Is it as tender and fragrant and satisfying?
That is the real question.
For substitution help, please see my guide to baking with substitutions here.

subset: commoncrawl


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9 Nights | 8-DAY WEST MED FROM BCN BUNDLE (AIR, HOTEL, TRANSFERS, CRUISE)
About Civitavecchia, Italy
You will visit the following 6 places:
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Communes of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department. The city is also famous for its various luxury shops, restaurants, and hotels. By the 2nd century BC the Ligurian Oxybii established a settlement here known as Aegitna. Historians are unsure what the name means. The area was a fishing village used as a port of call between the Lérins Islands. In 69 AD it became the scene of violent conflict between the troops of Othos and Vitellius.
Naples is a city in Italy; it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. Known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music, and gastronomy, Naples has played an important role in the Italian peninsula and beyond for much of its existence, which began more than 2,800 years ago. Situated on the west coast of Italy by the Gulf of Naples, the city is located halfway between two volcanic areas, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields. Naples has the fourth-largest urban economy in Italy, after Milan, Rome and Turin. It is the world's 103rd-richest city by purchasing power, with an estimated 2011 GDP of US$83.6 billion. The port of Naples is one of the most important in Europe, and has the world's second-highest level of passenger flow, after the port of Hong Kong. The city has long been a major cultural centre with a global sphere of influence, particularly during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. In the immediate vicinity of Naples are numerous culturally and historically significant sites, including the Palace of Caserta and the Roman ruins ofPompeii and Herculaneum. Culinarily, it is synonymous with pizza, which originated in the city.
Marseille, known in antiquity as Massalia, is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of 240.62 km2. The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of 1,204 km2. 1,530,000 or 1,601,095 people live in the Marseille metropolitan area. Located on the southeast coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, Marseille is France's largest commercial port and largest French city on the Mediterranean coast. Marseille is the capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, as well as the capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department. Its inhabitants are called Marseillais.
Barcelona – Spain's enchanting capital, second largest and most populous city. It is a huge city that vibrates with life, and there's certainly not another city in the country to touch it for its sheer style, looks or energy. It is one of the world's leading tourist, economic, trade fair and cultural centers, and its influence in commerce, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. Barcelona is home to masterpieces of many great architects – the most famous of which is Antoni Gaudí.
Livorno is an Italian port city on the Ligurian Sea, on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. Traditionally been known in English as Leghorn, it's known for its seafood, Renaissance-era fortifications and modern harbor with a cruise ship port.
Civitavecchia is a town and comune of the Metropolitan City of Rome in the central Italian region of Lazio. A sea port on the Tyrrhenian Sea, the name ''Civitavecchia'' means "ancient town". The modern city was built over a pre-existing Etruscan settlement. The massive Forte Michelangelo was first commissioned from Donato Bramante by Pope Julius II, to defend the port of Rome. The upper part of the "maschio" tower, however, was designed by Michelangelo, whose name is generally applied to the fortress. North of the city at Ficoncella are the Terme Taurine baths frequented by Romans and still popular with the Civitavecchiesi. The modern name stems from the common fig plants among the various pools. And also next to the town is the location of the cruise ship docks. All major cruise lines start and end their cruises at this location, and others stop for shore excursion days that allow guests to see Rome and Vatican sights, which are ninety minutes away.


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I finished the previous post with the sad story of my patient, illustrating diagnostic difficulties at the fringes of biliary disease. And I began the series by stating that the vast majority of gallbladder problems are straightforward, with surgery leaving patients happy and symptom-free. In the time it's taken me to write these things, I haven't changed my mind: surgery on the gallbladder is typically gratifying all the way around. But a few patients defy understanding and can end up miserable.
Doctors have a few diagnostic categories that, in my opinion, are over-called, and under-stood. Fibromyalgia. Chronic fatigue syndrome. And, in the current context, biliary dyskinesia and sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. I'm not a primary care doc, so I include the first two on the list in this sense: I know it's nice to have a fancy name to toss out when you have no idea what's going on. Having a disease or two up your sleeve the diagnosis of which is fuzzy, the description of which is plastic, the treatment of which isn't fully worked-out, isn't always a bad thing. Gets you off the hook for a certain grace period. (In the case of "biliary dyskinesia," for example, there seems to be confusion even over the meaning of the term: to some ((me, included)) it means a problem with how the gallbladder works. To others, it encompasses the whole pantheon of pre- and post-op bile-related difficulties.)
These diseases all fit that category, to some extent. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people out there who have them; yet I have no doubt each handle is too frequently grasped. But here we'll stick to the gallbladder (the colon often does, after all, and we know of what it's full.) The treatment for these conditions is surgical, so the stakes are high.
"Biliary dyskinesia" is the term for uncoordinated muscular contraction of the gallbladder (it also sort of slops over, as I said, into the concept of sphincter of Oddi dysfunction ((SOD)), but let's keep them separate for the purposes of this series); it's sort of like irritable bowel syndrome (should have included that on the above list. Too late now.) For the gallbladder properly to empty when it squeezes, the muscles at its opening need to relax while those in the body of the bag contract. If not, it's like having a stone in the way: the muscles squeeze against a blockage (in this case, an un-relaxed muscle) and cause pain.
If a person has pain very suggestive of gallbladder origin but has no stones, biliary dyskinesia is properly suspected. To what extent there's a reliable test for it is a matter of opinion. It always has been, and remains, first and foremost a "diagnosis of exclusion," meaning once you step into that arena, you need to go through the long list of other possibilities and rule them out. Then you do a HIDA scan with CCK (Hepatic IminoDiacetic Acid; CholeCystoKinin); ie, injecting a material that's taken up in bile, illuminating the gallbladder, then giving a hormone that makes the gallbladder contract.)
Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction is iffier, in my experience/opinion. That's what my patient in the previous post was presumed to have. The concept is that the valve at the southern end of the bile duct doesn't open properly, allowing bile pressure to build up in the system, causing biliary-type pain, maybe some nausea, cramps. It makes sense. But the problem is the test: pass a scope down the throat into the gut (which usually requires sedation which can affect the muscles of gut function), then pass a pressure-measuring tube into the bile duct, across the very structure whose function you're trying to measure. "Uncertainty principle" anyone?
Some people get better when SOD is diagnosed and treated. My patient didn't. She's not alone. The sad truth is that absent proven gallstones, or clear signs of inflammation of the gallbladder, our ability to be certain what's going on is imperfect at best.
In the olden days, you heard a lot (if you were a surgeon) about "cystic duct syndrome." It referred to people who continued to have their pre-op symptoms after gallbladder removal, and in whom the tube (cystic duct) between the gallbladder and the main bile duct (common duct) was left intact. We were taught to remove that whole duct along with the gallbladder, right down to the common duct. I never stopped doing it that way. With the advent of laparoscopic gallbladder removal, however, and the attendant increase in surgical injury to the common duct, lots of surgeons decided it's ok to leave the cystic duct long -- which reduces risk of other ductal damage. What you don't hear about is an increase in the syndrome (ever have a professor pronounce it "SIN droh me"? I have. Like "SAHN tih meeter for centimeter.")
I admit to having operated on a couple of patients whose evaluation showed a long cystic duct after operation by another surgeon and who persisted with pain. One got better. Objectively, I'd say there's no real science behind it; just a few papers with small numbers of patients and somewhat mixed results.
It's clear that some people have gallbladder trouble without having stones ("acalculous cholecystitis", which means inflammation without stones): it's not at all rare to see a patient with an inflamed, tender -- even infected -- gallbladder that's completely free of stones. That's not a diagnostic or therapeutic problem: at some point in the course of the illness -- acutely if not improving, or after resolution -- the gallbladder gets removed. It's not so clear what the mechanism of the problem is: presumably in at least some cases it follows from a "dyskinetic" episode.
There's another category of therapeutic vagary: the person who has symptoms and stones but who doesn't get better with surgery. The group has its own name: "post-cholecystectomy syndrome." Included are a wide variety of unfortunate folks: those whose preoperative symptoms evidently weren't in fact due to their stones (stones are often asymptomatic. Not every belly-ache in a person with gallstones is due to the rocks); those who develop side-effects from losing their gallbladder (most don't. Those that do generally get cramps or diarrhea, especially after eating fatty foods); those who have that mysterious SOD. All I can say is I hate it when it happens; I know from experience that a significant number of those people will never get complete satisfaction.
The good news: when I've been absolutely certain that symptoms are due to stones, I've had only a very tiny number fail to improve with surgery. I've had a few with diarrhea problems, almost all easily controlled with diet. And I've had some failures of therapy -- like the patient in the last post -- who fell through the cracks of understanding. If you read those medical fora to which I referred above, you'd think everyone who ever had his/her gallbladder out is miserable. The happy ones, obviously, don't complain. And -- take my word if you can -- they outnumber the problems by a huge margin.
Next I'll write about operative considerations, just for the heck of it. Taking out a gallbladder can be a lark, a walk in the park, pure fun. Or it can be the hardest thing you've ever done, scary as hell, suborning self-soilage...


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NSO Handlebars for the Homeless is a casual guided bicycle tour that highlights Detroit's hidden treasures. The tour begins and ends at the NSO Bell Building located at 882 Oakman Blvd. in Detroit (former historic Michigan Bell Building). The approximately 15-mile tour guides cyclists through some of Detroit's most beautiful areas including the campuses of the University of Detroit Mercy and Marygrove College; Sherwood Forest and Boston Edison and Palmer Park neighborhoods as well as the Live6 Alliance area. All participants receive a NSO Handlebars for the Homeless high-performance T-shirt, spoke card, raffle entry and refreshments. The ride is fully supported with seasoned bicyclists, professional mechanics and the Detroit Police Officers cycling with the group.
ALL BICYCLIST MUST WEAR A HELMET. All Participants must be 14 years of age or older. All youth must be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times.
EARLY REGISTRATION FEES through JULY 22ND: (All Registration Fees after July 22nd and On-Site Registration: $40/person) To receive your group Discount Promo Code contact: firstname.lastname@example.com
Individuals: $35/person through July 22nd
Teams of 10 or more members: $25/person through July 22nd
Teams of 4-9 members: $30/person through July 22nd
Participant Check In and Onsite Registration*: 7:00 am
Pre-Tour Announcements: 8:30 am
Tour Start Time: 9:00 am
Tour End Time: 12 noon
*All pre-registered Participants must check in to receive their T-shirt and Drawing Ticket. Participants should allow time to park at off-site secure parking located at Focus Hope.


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At least 22 dead in Caribbean as Sandy lashes Bahamas
NASSAU, the Bahamas -- Hurricane Sandy raged through the Bahamas early Friday after leaving 22 people dead across the Caribbean, following a path that could see it blend with a winter storm to hit the U.S. East Coast with a super-storm next week.
Track the Storm: OrlandoHurricane.com
Sandy knocked out power, flooded roads and cut off islands in the storm-hardened Bahamas as it swirled past Cat Island and Eleuthera, but authorities reported no deaths in the scattered archipelago.
"Generally people are realizing it is serious," said Caroline Turnquest, head of the Red Cross in the Bahamas, who said 20 shelters were opened on the main island of New Providence.
Sandy, which weakened to a category 1 hurricane Thursday night, caused havoc in Cuba Thursday, killing 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as its howling winds and rain toppled houses and ripped off roofs. Authorities said it was Cuba's deadliest storm since July 2005, when category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.
Sandy also killed one person while battering Jamaica on Wednesday and nine in Haiti, where heavy rains from the storm's outer bands caused flooding in the impoverished and deforested country. Police in the Bahamas said a 66-year-old man died after falling from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter.
On Friday morning, the hurricane's center was about 15 miles east of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 480 miles south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. Sandy was moving northwest at 10 mph with maximum sustained winds near 80 mph.
Government officials in the Bahamas said the storm seems to have inflicted the greatest damage on Exuma, where there were reports of downed trees, power lines and damage to homes.
With the storm projected to hit the Atlantic coast early Tuesday, there was a 90 percent chance that most of the U.S. East Coast would get steady gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and maybe snow starting Sunday and stretching past Wednesday, U.S. forecaster Jim Cisco said.
A new tropical storm watch was issued early Friday for a section of the U.S. East Coast extending from Savannah, Ga., northward to North Carolina's Outer Banks.
Sandy was expected to remain a hurricane almost until reaching the U.S. shoreline, probably early Tuesday.
In the Bahamas, power was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, government administrator Berkeley Williams said.
On Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas, the lone school was flooded.
"We have holes in roofs, lost shingles and power lines are down," said Charlene Bain, local Red Cross president. "But nobody lost a life, that's the important thing."
Steven Russell, an emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and the roof of a government building was partially ripped off.
Sooner Halvorson, a 36-year-old hotel owner from Colorado who recently moved to the Bahamas, said she and her husband, Matt, expected to ride out the storm with their two young children, three cats, two dogs and a goat at their Cat Island resort.
"We brought all of our animals inside," she said, though she added that a horse stayed outside. "She's a 40-year-old horse from the island. She's been through tons of hurricanes."
In an announcement at the end of Cuba's Thursday night newscast, Cuban authorities said the island's 11 dead included a 4-month-old boy who was crushed when his home collapsed and an 84-year-old man in Santiago province.
There were no reports of injuries at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but there were downed trees and power lines, said Kelly Wirfel, a base spokeswoman. Officials canceled a military tribunal session scheduled for Thursday for the prisoner charged in the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole.
In Haiti, Joseph Edgard Celestin, a spokesman for the civil protection office, said the country's death toll stood at nine, including three people who died while trying to cross storm-swollen rivers in southwestern Haiti. He did not provide specifics of how other people died.
Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where many of the 370,000 people still displaced by the devastating 2010 earthquake scrambled for shelter. More than 1,000 people were evacuated from 11 quake settlements, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Sandy was blamed for the death of an elderly man in Jamaica.


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BEIJING, China ‒ International efforts to develop a cooperative and collaborative multi-agency strategy to tackle environmental crime received a boost after China hosted its first National Environmental Security Seminar with the support of INTERPOL.
At the meeting China announced it would seek out and develop opportunities to enhance its international environmental enforcement efforts in cooperation with INTERPOL. To take this initiative further, it was agreed that an expanded meeting will be organized involving all Chinese Divisions and Ministries responsible for environmental law enforcement.
Following the official launch by INTERPOL's Environmental Crime Programme of its National Environmental Security Task Force (NEST) initiative in September, Chinese authorities decided to organize a National Environmental Security Seminar with INTERPOL and invited the head of INTERPOL's Environmental Crime Programme, David Higgins, who welcomed their initiative.
"China has set a good example for the entire international environmental compliance and enforcement community and we look forward to forging closer ties and working alongside China in our common endeavour to prevent environmental crime and enhance environmental security," said Mr Higgins.
Critical issues such as the survival of wild tigers and the protection of forest were on the agenda, together with INTERPOL initiatives such as Project PREDATOR and Project LEAF, which are actively supported by the US Agency for International Development, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The meeting, hosted by the Ministry of Public Security at the INTERPOL National Central Bureau in Beijing, was attended by representatives from the following Chinese government agencies and departments:
- INTERPOL Division, International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Public Security
- Firearms Administration Division, Public Order Administration Department, Ministry of Public Security
- Criminal Investigation Division, Forestry Public Security Bureau of State Forestry Administration
- Wild Animal and Plant Administration Division, Wildlife Protection Department, SFA
- Intelligence Division, Anti-smuggling Department, The General Administration of Customs
- Law Enforcement Division, CITES Management Authority of China
- Wild Animal and Aquatic Plant Protection Division, Fishery Command Centre, Ministry of Agriculture


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Blockchain Basics
Learn the essential concepts of blockchain technology, including Bitcoin and Ethereum protocols. Develop applications and programming skills, create nodes, mine, transact, and check balances. Understand decentralized networks, distributed ledgers, and trust models. Gain knowledge in hashing, cryptography, and blockchain programming. Hands-on activities provide practical experience in blockchain operations. Accessible through videos, demos, and exercises.
This first course of the Blockchain specialization provides a broad overview of the essential concepts of blockchain technology – by initially exploring the Bitcoin protocol followed by the Ethereum protocol – to lay the foundation necessary for developing applications and programming. You will be equipped with the knowledge needed to create nodes on your personal Ethereum blockchain, create accounts, unlock accounts, mine, transact, transfer Ethers, and check balances.
You will learn about the decentralized peer-to-peer network, an immutable distributed ledger and the trust model that defines a blockchain. This course enables you to explain basic components of a blockchain (transaction, block, block header, and the chain) its operations (verification, validation, and consensus model) underlying algorithms, and essentials of trust (hard fork and soft fork). Content includes the hashing and cryptography foundations indispensable to blockchain programming, which is the focus of two subsequent specialization courses, Smart Contracts and Decentralized Applications (Dapps). You will work on a virtual machine image, specifically created for this course, to build an Ethereum test chain and operate on the chain. This hands-on activity will help you understand the workings of a blockchain, its transactions, blocks and mining.
Main concepts are delivered through videos, demos and hands-on exercises.
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If you missed the previous entries: Two weeks ago I proposed a thought experiment where we talked about what we would put in a suitcase for the people of 40 years ago. Then last week I outlined who I'd send it to, how I'd motivate them to share their discovery, and how I'd package the data. This is a very loose summary and you really should read those earlier entries before reading this one.
A note: In the previous entries I said I wasn't going to talk "politics". Some people found this ambiguous. I thought it was clear from context that I was talking specifically about American partisan politics, but some people went with the more formal definition. And yes, using the rigid definition the entire suitcase is political because the whole thing contains information that will be used to make political decisions. However, my immediate concern was to rip the red / blue labels off of everything to make the information more palatable to people all over the political spectrum. The issues will get politicized later by the people of 1977, but I'm not going to endorse one group or the other even if I personally favor one over the other. In the end, I don't care which party acts on this stuff, as long as they act.
I know I made a big deal about how hard it would be to stuff the suitcase full of scientific data, but that was just to illustrate the tradeoff between size and accessibility. In truth the limiting factor here isn't cubic volume or storage formats, but time. My time. If I'm working alone then there's only so much time I can put into this. I still need to earn a living and I can't spend years of my life on this thing.
How long does it take to track down a study, convert it from barbaric PDF to (say) HTML, and then track down all the studies it cites and do the same for them? How long will it take me to figure out what studies are most important? Remember I also need to check and see if a given study is in dispute, or has been disproven. Doing this kind of research across multiple domains for 40 years worth of progress would be an immense task.
I'm just a guy. Maybe a friend can help out, but one of the parameters of the exercise is that I don't have access to any special resources. I've gotta do this myself, by hand, one study at a time. At this rate, it could take me months to fill even a single DVD with "studies".
And like I said last week, I don't think the scientific stuff is the most important stuff. Science is cool, but you can save a lot more lives with (say) warnings about natural disasters, diseases, and famines. For me the science stuff is just the icing.
Before we talk about the contents, we need to talk about…
Chaos Theory
Regardless of what you put in that suitcase, you're going to be making massive changes to the timeline. Even if the suitcase only contains a single VHS tape with a nothing but a Rickroll on it, it's still going to wipe a lot of people you know out of the timeline. This change is so severe that you'll probably decide you don't want to send the suitcase at all. (Which is why I always imagine it as an alternate timeline that doesn't alter my present. I don't want to erase my own kids from existence!)
If Red Forman takes this particular Monday morning off of his job so he can dig through my 70's suitcase, then it represents a very small change to his personal timeline. He didn't go out and drive his car today. Big deal, right? But his absence will knock his colleagues – and other commuters – off of their original path for the day.
These very small changes will be compounded when you take into account the messy business of human procreation. Let's say that Bob Citizen was originally stuck behind Red Forman at a traffic light today. Thanks to my meddling, Red Forman isn't there, so Bob manages to slip through just before the light turned red. He gets home to his wife a minute and a half sooner. His entire evening will be similar, but slightly off. He'll probably eat the same dinner, watch the same TV show, and go to bed at the same time, but his evening will be as different as any two of your Monday evenings. Similar, but not identical.
So then Bob and his wife go to bed and do like married couples do. Only, in this slightly altered timeline the exact timing of this encounter will be different. Maybe they conceive a kid when they originally didn't. Maybe they fail to conceive a kid when they originally did. Or maybe they conceived a kid in both timelines. However – and here is where things get messy – the typical guy puts out somewhere around 350 million sperm. What are the odds that the exact same sperm will reach the egg in both timelines? It's probably about the same as the odds of winning the lottery twice in a row.
Therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Citizen will have different children. These children will have different interests and make different friends, thus altering the paths of still more people. Other people will be knocked off of their original timeline, which changes the outcome of more conceptions, and so on. And remember, this is just one guy. Red Forman's day off probably knocked a lot of his friends and coworkers off of their path. They're all going to be creating subtle new ripples that will change more babies.
Basically, if you interfere with the past in any way then you're going to erase every single person born less than 39 years ago and replace them with a different set of randomly chosen human beings. I can think of a lot of under-39 people I really like that I don't want to erase, so make peace with this idea before moving on.
Also, those of you who were planning on sending sports almanacs, stock market data, or lottery numbers should probably look for something else. Those will be accurate for a time, but sooner or later those slight changes to the life of Bob Citizen will hit someone else, which will hit someone else, and so on. Eventually everyone is ten seconds early or two minutes late. Everyone makes slightly different chitchat, spills their coffee at different times, and generally makes changes to even more timelines. Those changes will propagate outwards until they bump into the lottery officials and athletes, and the chaotic outcomes of their actions will begin to change. This will happen sooner if your suitcase makes the news and people start talking about it.
Enough digressions Shamus! Just pack the suitcase already!
Fine, here's what I'm sending…
Stage 1
This is the stuff that should be immediately accessible and comprehensible to the people of 1977. The raw data is on paper. If you'll let me steal an ideal from the comments, I'll include a microfiche backup and a suggestion the two be kept at different locations. (I really want them to see this stuff!) I'm not going to waste space on cassette tapes. Stage 1 is designed so that even if something goes horribly wrong and nobody can decipher the latter stages, the most crucial information will still be readily available. Sure, paper is bulky but it's easy to read, relatively easy to copy, and this is really the only stage that matters.
Most of this is life-or-death type stuff, which I'll share in as much detail as I can manage. I'll print out as much stuff from Wikipedia as I can, including main articles and also supporting articles where needed. For the really big complex topics I might even resort to throwing one or two books into the suitcase. I realize this is horribly inefficient in terms of space, but some of these things have large body counts and global consequences, and that's a lot more important than giving them another Game Boy to play with.
The precise location of the wreck of the Titanic. Before its re-discovery on September of 1985, the world really did think that the Titanic was lost forever, an unsolved mystery for the ages. Providing 1977 with the location (and details about what the condition of the wreck is) offers yet more proof that this package is from the future, more data to excite the public, and provides information of genuine scientific value.
The details of the Hyatt Regency Collapse in 1981, which killed 114 people and injured 216. This one is just to save some lives. It's also a good illustration of how dangerous it is to go mucking about with history. As a result of the disaster, many reforms were made in the area of engineering to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. If the disaster is averted, maybe those reforms won't be enacted and maybe there will be some larger disaster down the road. Still, it doesn't feel right to let 114 die so that engineering can be reformed. Send the data, show the problem, and leave it to the engineers of 1977 to work it out. There's always hope that they will be able to enact the same reforms without suffering the losses we did. I mean, isn't that the whole point of this exercise? To let them learn from our mistakes?
Stop putting asbestos into things! I'd include a warning about how dangerous it is to use, but ALSO a warning on how dangerous it is to remove. Fun fact: My wife's high school removed their asbestos insulation back in the mid 1980s. It was supposed to be done over summer vacation, but the project ran long and they were still working on it when school started. Over the next decade, three different teachers died of cancer. (It was not a big school.) A similar thing happened at the even smaller rural school where my father-in-law taught, although I think they only had two deaths over the next decade. You can't prove that the asbestos removal caused the deaths, and even if you could it doesn't matter. These are some broke-ass school districts, so even if someone wanted to sue, there isn't anything to be gained by doing so. It would be really great if our new timeline could avoid stupid tragedies like this.
Details of the nuclear disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Again, this might save some lives. It also might change the course of USA energy policy, since we got really shy of nuke power after Three Mile Island. Again, I don't know what the consequences will be, but the best I can do is give them the knowledge and trust them to do the best they can.
Major space exploration mishaps: Challenger, Mars Climate Orbiter, Columbia, etc. This will save both lives and space-money. Maybe it will also get NASA to fully transition away from imperial units.
Information on the AIDS epidemic. A lot of lives could be saved if we could get the word out sooner. We didn't figure out that this autoimmune problem was a retrovirus until 1983. Beyond that, it took us a bit longer to work out what worked and what didn't in terms of prevention. Even then, there was a lot of confusion and misinformation over who was at risk and who wasn't. Since the first victims were overwhelmingly gay men and IV drug users, it was thought that those were the only people susceptible to it. (If a straight man got it, people would just assume he was a closeted gay or former "junkie" who'd picked up the disease in secret and didn't want to own up to it.) With the right information, we might be able to straighten all that out much sooner and convince people to start wearing condoms and give up the heroin. Given how ferociously the disease spread in those early years, getting the word out sooner might shave a million or so people off the global infection statistics in the western world.
I have no idea what anyone can do about the epidemic in Africa, but I'd warn them about that too.
The 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident. I'm a bit nervous of telling them, about this one.
On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early warning system of the Soviet Union reported the launch of multiple USAF Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were correctly identified as a false alarm by Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack based on erroneous data on the United States and its NATO allies, which would have probably resulted in immediate escalation of the cold-war stalemate to a full-scale nuclear war. Investigation of the satellite warning system later confirmed that the system had malfunctioned.
Really, this single event should sink our entire project. There's no way I'd want to roll those dice again. If Stanislav isn't at work that day, maybe we get nuclear war. I really don't want to send this suitcase. Yes, I can save a million or so lives with this information and medicine, but that's not really worth risking the lives of potentially billions.
However, if we have to send this suitcase for the purposes of fulfilling our involuntary hypothetical mandate, then I guess it's best to include this information. Unless the Soviets see it as a ruse or a smokescreen for the purposes of launching a REAL attack, in which case they'll be MORE likely to…
Ah, screw it. Moving on…
Information on the Mt. Saint Helens eruption on 8:32:17 a.m. on Sunday, May 18, 1980. Having the earthquake predicted to the day ought to build confidence in the value and authenticity of of the suitcase, and it might save 57 livesIt probably won't save everyone. Several of the people killed by the eruption knew the danger and elected to stay anyway..
Information on the major serial killers from the 1970s until now. This one is tricky. On one hand, you don't want some Minority Report style thing where you're condemning people for crimes they haven't committed yet. I'd urge my Red Forman to get these profiles into the hands of the FBI rather than making them public. If they begin their killing spree, the authorities ought to be able to zero in on them sooner.
Smoking Kills. The people of 1977 knew this already, so there's not a lot to be gained from over-doing this one. The trick in kicking America's cigarette habit was less about medical science and more about cultural change. That takes time. Still, a little more data might help.
Warnings against antibiotic overuse.
It's the carbs and calories that make you fat, not the fat! Go back to eating butter. It's actually better for you than margarine! Don't go through the low-fat food craze. It was stupid and we got super-fat anyway.
Information on major hurricane and earthquake disasters around the world. This would include their timing, their damages, their death toll, and their aftermath. However, this one gets a bit tricky. Once again we run into chaos theory.
Back in 1992-ish someone explained chaos theory to me like this: "A butterfly beats its wings in China, and later you get rain in San Francisco instead of LA." This is a terrible analogy, because it requires you to already understand the concept before you can follow the analogy. In 1992 I was offended at how stupid this sounded, because I knew full well that it would take a phenominal amount of energy to PUSH a storm to a different city, and I knew that a butterfly doesn't have that kind of power output.
A far better and easier to follow analogy is this video from Minute Earth on the formation of rivers and how the position of a single muskrat burrow can eventually lead to dramatic changes in the position of a river downstream. The key ingredient missing from the butterfly analogy is time. It's not the the butterfly beats its wings and diverts the course of a storm tomorrow. It's that this minor perturbation plays out over the scale of years, until it creates some change on a scale visible to humans.
The thing is, I don't know how long it takes for things like this to impact massive systems like weather. Like I said above, our re-write of history is going to result in different people who live different lives. How long does it take for that human activity to begin visibly impacting global weather patterns? Months? Decades? Folks have been slugging it out over this in the comments, but I don't know what current chaos theory states. I don't even know if there's a consensus on this. But even if there is, I think it's best to err on the side of assuming maximum chaos. State up front that their weather will eventually differ from ours. They might learn a bit about weather and chaos theory!
Maybe they won't have a hurricane "Katrina". Maybe their weather patterns will match ours perfectly. Still, it's better to include the data than not. Also, even if "Katrina" doesn't hit at the same time, there's a lot New Orleans could do to make itself less vulnerable to hurricanes. Maybe a description of the devastation will entice them to invest in some better infrastructure.
The last 40 years of detailed weather data. Uh, I get the impression this might be a hot-button topic so soon after Hurricane Harvey. I don't want people to take offense if I'm being too alarmist, or not alarmist enough, or they don't like the particular way I'm framing the data, or whatever. So let's just acknowledge that I'm going to put a bunch of information in here and move on.
The last 40 years of War on Drugs and War on Terror: These topics are incredibly complex and I don't pretend to understand either of them in enough detail that I'd want to be in charge of solving them. So I'll keep the data nice and clinical. What we did, what it cost, what the result was. It's entirely possible they'll make mostly the same general policy choices again, but more info is better. This might actually be too big to fit into Stage 1. Since it's not time-sensitive, I might shove it on denser media for Stage 2. I dunno. I'm not going to count the pages and calculate cubic volume to figure it out right now.
The Y2K Problem: Your code will live longer than you think. Plan ahead. Also, try not to have an absurd panic about it. Here's what we did, what it cost, and what the result was.
HTML Specifications & Standards I probably won't bother with CSS. HTML was the "killer app" of the internet. Moreover, they're going to need the HTML to read all the science stuff I'm leaving for them in Stage 2.
Compact disc specifications. This is a good format. It will be even better for them, since it will be unencumbered by patentsEh. Maybe. The technology was already in development at this time, and it's hard to say what patents had been filed.. They'll need to master this format in order to read the stuff I've got for them in…
Stage 2
As we move on from paper and microfiche to a denser format, we run into the problem of bridging the data format gap between ourselves and the recipients. In the last entry, Abnaxis posted a comment that shows it's not nearly as hard as I expected, provided you know what you're doing. His ideas would certainly be better than what I've outlined here, but it seemed like cheating to change my answer to "I would have Abnaxis solve the problem for me." So we're going with my original plan, which is a stack of paper for the critical stuff and optical media for everything else.
It's true, it won't be easy for them to move the data off of these CDs to one of their own computers. But all of this stuff is optional. None of this is life-threatening. Honestly, the stuff in Stage 1 was the real payload. I actually WANT them to have to work for Stage 2. I want them to stay focused on that Stage 1 stuff for a few years, and if I put Stage 2 in a more accommodating format then it might overshadow the most important stuff. Even before the internet, news was capricious and driven by novelty, and the stuff in Stage 2 is going to be pretty dang novel.
When possible I'll rip e-books to HTML. When a good book isn't available, I'll use Wikipedia.
All of the important published papers in mathematics, geology, biology, physics, astronomy, botany, etc. This will take a LONG time. I think some people in the comments have been underestimating what a massive undertaking something like this would be. Being a layman, I'm sure I'm going to miss a lot of important stuff. I mean, just figuring out what is the "most important stuff" in a field outside my domain is a huge project. I'm willing to bet that among experts this would be a hot topic for debate. But I'll do what I can.
Ergonomics and user interface design. Input mice exist in 1977. Sort of. There ought to be some books on the evolution of UI design over the years. Just rip that to HTML and burn it to a CD.
The design of "IBM Compatible" machines over the years. They don't have to follow the spec, but this might be useful and help them to plan ahead.
Best practices for security. Various encryption methods, hashing algorithms, security techniques, the social engineering aspect of hacking, and a history of our hilarious security blunders. There are lots of really good books on this topic so hopefully I can get an e-book version and just rip them to HTML. Fingers crossed.
Advice to cable companies In the USA, cable companies spent the entire 80s laying expensive one-way cables all over the country to deliver cable television. Just as they were finally finishing up the job, the internet appeared and all of those cables became obsolete. I'm not super-thrilled with helping out cable companies since they are assholes and I'd love to orchestrate their downfall as punishment for their decades-long jackassery. But this is the right thing to do and might make the internet available to home users a little sooner.
And so on: Domain names. Patent trolls. VR. Automotive safety features like airbags and anti-lock brakes. New battery technology. Flatscreen technologies. USB specification. Medical procedures. Wi-Fi specs. Anti-glare surfaces. Noise-cancellation headphones. Electric cars. Drones. Machine learning. Self-driving cars. I'll just kitchen-sink everything. The stuff I'm sending won't necessarily let them jump ahead 40 years, but it will be useful and help them avoid wasting resources on technologies that aren't ready yet. (Like trying to make electric cars before batteries are good enough, or trying to make VR happen while still using CRT displays.)
And of course there will be a few movies mixed in with the science just to keep them digging. I'd include broad crowd-pleasers like the Marvel movies, but I'd also include some more high art cerebral titles, such as Scott Pilgrim Versus the World.
Stage 3
I'm putting this stuff on DVDs. Yes, memory sticks are WAY more compact. But DVDs are more similar to compact disks and so this technological leap will be easier for them to make. Moreover, they will then have a great patent-free storage format for HD movies. Again, I want them to have to work to access this stuff. This is the most frivolous stage of all but also the one with the biggest pop-culture payload. I really don't want this stuff dominating the headlines until the earlier stuff has been digested.
All the NASA data I can download. Mars. Pluto. Jupiter. Venus. Images. Video. Surface scans. Everything I can get from Hubble and our other important telescopes.
All of the movies from the previous stages, except now in 16:9 HD. This will present some interesting things for them to fight over. At this level of quality, the movies would be good enough to show in a theater. Even if a movie enters the public domain, I'm sure someone will try to screen them in theaters or sell them on whatever home video format is popular at the time. And that's fine. You're allowed to do that with public domain stuff. But once money starts changing hands, I'm willing to bet studio lawyers and people mentioned in the credits of these movies will try to demand they should get a cut of these films. Marvel may try to claim control over movies featuring their characters. That's fine. It's a stupid fight, but it's not any worse than the ridiculous legal shenanigans of our timeline. There will always be people willing to fight over money and there will always be lawyers willing to help them do it. I can't solve that with a suitcase.
A collection of educational and cultural videos from YouTube. I'd start with this one.
This is actually how this project "bothered" me for the last month or so. I'd be enjoying a YouTube video when the thought would pop into my mind, "This would be a really good addition to the 70s Suitcase!" I couldn't stop trying to see the video through the eyes of some pre-internet viewer and trying to imagine how they might interpret the memes, lingo, references to videogames, accents, and controversies of our time. I'd make a mental note to include the video I was watching, then realize I'd just made a mental note to do something in a hypothetical situation that will never happen, then realize I'd just zoned out and missed the last 15 seconds of the video and I needed to rewind.
Bonus Items
There's no point in leaving any empty space. Once I'm exhausted burning CDs and DVDs and I'm ready to get on with my life, I'll pack everything into the suitcase and see how much room is left. The rest of the space gets filled with future toys: Nintendo DS and a few carts. A handful of used smartphones. My kindle. Our old laptop. I'll throw the full text of Wikipedia on the hard drive (58GB) and leave it to them to figure out how to get it. The allies broke Enigma, so I'm sure some enterprising group of MIT students will solve this before 1995.
If there's still space left over, I'll hit the flea market and see what gadgets I can find. To them, the difference between a 2008 and 2017 device is very small. To me, it's a difference between $5 and $500. So there's no reason to spend all my money on the latest gear.
So that's my plan. I think we can agree this is a weird scenario, there are too many unknowns, the risks far outweigh the benefits, it would be a huge pain in the ass to pull off, and you'd never know how it turned out. All in all, a rotten scenario. I don't know why I daydream about this sort of thing and not, I dunno, being Captain America or just flying around like Superman.
Anyway. I hope you enjoyed thinking about it, because I'm finally enjoying NOT thinking about it.
[1] It probably won't save everyone. Several of the people killed by the eruption knew the danger and elected to stay anyway.
[2] Eh. Maybe. The technology was already in development at this time, and it's hard to say what patents had been filed.
Juvenile and Proud
Yes, this game is loud, crude, childish, and stupid. But it it knows what it wants to be and nails it. And that's admirable.
Civilization VI
I'm a very casual fan of the series, but I gave Civilization VI a look to see what was up with this nuclear war simulator.
The Gradient of Plot Holes
Most stories have plot holes. The failure isn't that they exist, it's when you notice them while immersed in the story.
Playstation 3
What was the problem with the Playstation 3 hardware and why did Sony build it that way?
This Game is Too Videogame-y
What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?


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Previous Project
Modern Living Room With Printed Pillows And Beige Rug
Next Project
Minimalist Living Room With Sleek Furniture
Yvonne Yeo
"With Livspace I did not have to worry about how my home would turn out to be. I really appreciated the timely updates. I'm glad I found Livspace!"
Tracy & Prem
"Our experience with Livspace has been amazing. We were shown 3D designs of the space and layout for better undertsanding. We loved the Livspace journey and the result equally."
Wei Zhe and Dionne
"The designer understood our requirement clearly. The follow-ups and coordinations were done seamlessly. It was a great experience for us and we love our new home!"
Randy Phu
"The 3D designs shown by the designer really helped us visualise our home, unlike other designers who only show us 2D designs."
"I would thank Livspace and the entire team, for being such amazing partners throughout the design journey."
Ankur & Shipra
"The service quality provided by Livspace has been really good which is rare to find in this industry."


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Methods of Surgery
What are the different methods of surgery?
With technical advances today, surgery does not necessarily mean large incisions and longer healing times, as in the past. Depending on the type of surgery, there are several surgery methods that may be done:
Open surgery
An "open" surgery means the cutting of skin and tissues so that the surgeon has a full view of the structures or organs involved.
Minimally invasive surgery
Minimally invasive surgery is any technique involved in surgery that does not need a large incision. This relatively new approach allows the patient to recuperate faster with less pain. Not all conditions are suitable for minimally invasive surgery. Many surgery techniques now fall under minimally invasive surgery. This can be used to evaluate illnesses and injuries, as well as to obtain tissue samples and make repairs:
Laparoscopy. A minimally invasive procedure in the belly cavity that uses a tube with a light and a camera lens at the end (laparoscope) to examine organs and check for abnormalities. Laparoscopy is often used during surgery to look inside the body and avoid making large incisions. Tissue samples may also be taken for exam and testing.
Endoscopy. A test that uses a small, flexible tube with a light and a camera lens at the end (endoscope) to examine the inside of the hollow organs of the digestive tract. Tissue samples from inside the digestive tract may also be taken for exam and testing. Endoscopy may include gastroscopy, esophagoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy.
Arthroscopy. Surgeons can look at the interior of a joint with the use of an arthroscope. This technique is most often used to inspect and possibly repair the inside of the knee, shoulder, or hip joint.
Bronchoscopy. The exam of the bronchi (the main airways of the lungs) using a flexible tube (bronchoscope). Bronchoscopy helps to evaluate and diagnose lung problems, assess blockages, obtain samples of tissue and/or fluid, and/or to help remove a foreign body.
Thoracoscopy. Minimally invasive surgery in the chest cavity.
Cystoscopy. Inserting a viewing tube up the urethra to examine the urethra and bladder cavity.
Gastroscopy. Evaluation of the stomach with an endoscope, a long viewing tube.
Hysteroscopy. A visual inspection of the cervical canal and uterine cavity with an endoscope.
Laryngoscopy. Inspecting the larynx (voice box) with a mirror or viewing tube.
Sigmoidoscopy. Exam of the rectum and sigmoid colon with a viewing tube.
Colonoscopy. Evaluation of the entire colon using an endoscope.


text:
Ewing sarcoma is a cancer that occurs primarily in the bone or soft tissue. Ewing sarcoma can occur in any bone, but it most often is is found in the hip bones, ribs, or in the long bones, such as the femur (thigh), tibia (shin), or humerus (upper arm). It can involve the muscle and the soft tissues around the tumor site as well. Ewing sarcoma cells can also spread (metastasize) to other areas of the body including the bone marrow, lungs, kidneys, heart, adrenal gland, and other soft tissues.
Ewing sarcoma accounts for about 1 percent of childhood cancers. About 225 children and adolescents are diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in the U.S. each year. It is the second most common malignant bone tumor in children and adolescents. Ewing sarcoma most often occurs in children between the ages of ten and 20. More males are affected than females.
The exact cause of Ewing sarcoma is not fully understood. There seem to be no known risk factors or prevention measures available. However, researchers have discovered chromosomal changes in a cell's DNA that can lead to Ewing sarcoma formation. These changes are not inherited. They develop in children after they are born for no apparent reason.
In most cases, the change involved the fusing of genetic material between chromosomes #11 and #22. When a certain piece of chromosome #11 is placed next to the EWS gene on chromosome #22, the EWS gene gets "switched on." This activation leads to an overgrowth of the cells and eventually the development of cancer. Less often, there is an exchange of DNA between chromosome #22 and another chromosome that leads to the EWS gene being turned on. The exact mechanism remains unclear, but this important discovery has led to improvements in diagnosing Ewing sarcoma.
The following are the most common symptoms of Ewing sarcoma. However, each child may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include, but are not limited, to the following:
Pain around the site of the tumor
Swelling and/or redness around the site of the tumor
Weight loss, decreased appetite
Paralysis and/or incontinence (if the tumor is in the spinal region)
Symptoms related to nerve compression from tumor (for example, numbness, tingling, or paralysis)
The symptoms of Ewing sarcoma may resemble other conditions or medical problems. Always consult your child's doctor for a diagnosis.
In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination of your child, diagnostic procedures for Ewing sarcoma may include:
Multiple imaging studies, such as:
X-rays. A diagnostic test that uses invisible electromagnetic energy beams to produce images of internal tissues, bones, and organs onto film.
Bone scans. A nuclear imaging method to evaluate any degenerative and/or arthritic changes in the joints; to detect bone diseases and tumors; to determine the cause of bone pain or inflammation. This test is to used to detect tumors and bone abnormalities.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A diagnostic procedure that uses a combination of large magnets, radiofrequencies, and a computer to produce detailed images of organs and structures within the body. This test is done to see if the tumor has spread to the nearby soft tissues.
Computed tomography scan (also called a CT or CAT scan). A diagnostic imaging procedure that uses a combination of X-rays and computer technology to produce horizontal, or axial, images (often called slices) of the body. A CT scan shows detailed images of any part of the body, including the bones, muscles, fat, and organs. CT scans are more detailed than general X-rays (but often not quite as detailed as MRI scans).
Positron emission tomography (PET) scan. Radioactive-tagged glucose (sugar) is injected into the bloodstream. Tissues that use the glucose more than normal tissues (such as tumors) can be detected by a scanning machine. PET scans can be used to find small tumors or to check if treatment for a known tumor is working.
Blood tests (including blood chemistries)
Biopsy of the tumor. A procedure in which tissue samples are removed (with a needle or during surgery) from the body for examination under a microscope; to determine if cancer or other abnormal cells are present; to remove tissue from the affected bone.
Bone marrow aspiration and/or biopsy. A procedure that involves taking a small amount of bone marrow fluid (aspiration) and/or solid bone marrow tissue (called a core biopsy), usually from the hip bones, to see if the cancer has spread to the bone marrow.
Ewing sarcoma is difficult to distinguish from other similar tumors. Diagnosis is often made by excluding all other common solid tumors, and by the use of genetic studies.
Specific treatment for Ewing sarcoma will be determined by your child's doctor based on:
Your child's age, overall health, and medical history
Location and extent of the disease
Your child's tolerance of specific medications, procedures, or therapies
Expectations for the course of the disease
Your opinion or preference
Treatment may include one, or more, of the following:
Surgery to remove the tumor
Radiation therapy
Amputation of the affected arm or leg
Resections for metastases (for example, pulmonary resections of cancer cells in the lung)
Rehabilitation including physical and occupational therapy, and psychosocial adaptation
Prosthesis fitting and training
Supportive care (for the side effects of treatment)
Antibiotics (to prevent and treat infections)
Continual follow-up care (to determine response to treatment, detect recurrent disease, and manage late effects of treatment)
Prognosis for Ewing sarcoma greatly depends on:
The extent of the disease
The size and location of the tumor
Presence or absence of metastasis
The tumor's response to therapy
The age and overall health of your child
Your child's tolerance of specific medications, procedures, or therapies
New developments in treatment
In general, the long-term outlook is much better if the cancer is still localized in the area where it started than if it has spread (metastasized) to other parts of the body. But as with any cancer, prognosis and long-term survival can vary greatly from child to child. Every child is unique and treatment and prognosis is structured around the child's needs. Prompt medical attention and aggressive therapy are important for the best prognosis. Continuous follow-up care is essential for a child diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma. Late effects of radiation and chemotherapy, such as second malignancies, can occur in survivors of Ewing sarcoma. New methods are continually being discovered to improve treatment and to decrease side effects.
Click here to view the
Online Resources of Oncology


text:
Recently I couriered Millard Sheets' Angel's Flight (1931) across town to the Autry National Center, where it is included in the groundbreaking new exhibition Siqueiros in Los Angeles: Censorship Defied, the first examination of the seven pivotal months the great Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros spent in Los Angeles in 1932. I was on hand to make sure LACMA's painting was safely unpacked, installed and prominently featured. Angel's Flight is one of our most important paintings, so we rarely lend it. But this loan request was especially compelling: visitors would be able to see Sheets' masterpiece in the context of Siqueiros' landmark contemporaneous work in Los Angeles, where both painters knew each other and achieved artistic and professional breakthroughs in the space of a few short months.
In 1931, Sheets, just 24 years old, completed Angel's Flight, a dramatically composed and inventive view of downtown L.A. that refers to, but does not picture, the electric cable railway that used to carry pedestrians in downtown Los Angeles to the top of Bunker Hill between 1901 and 1969. Entered by invitation (his first) into the 30th Annual International Exhibition of Paintings held at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Sheets submitted Angel's Flight, which was praised by critics nationwide, including at the New York Times, which reproduced the work. In early 1932, the painting was back in Los Angeles for the Thirteenth Annual Painters and Sculptors Exhibition at LACMA's forerunner, the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, where it won the $100 painting prize. All of this caught the attention of Mrs. L. M. Maitland of Beverly Hills, who bought the painting for the museum. The Los Angeles Times reported in May: "Famed Work of Art Wins Home Here," and Mrs. Maitland stated "I gave the museum the picture first of all because I like it, and secondly because I believe Los Angeles art patrons should buy the work of our own artists here." It is entirely possible that once Siqueiros was in L.A. by June of 1932 he saw and was impressed by Sheets' unique and masterful vision of the downtown L.A. urban scene pictured in Angel's Flight and now part of the museum's permanent collection. Then he actually met Sheets while a guest professor at Chouinard Art School, where Siqueiros taught a course on fresco painting, a class that Sheets went on to teach that fall. Siqueiros' soon formed his "Bloc of Painters," a group of American artists then active in L.A. that included Sheets, Reuben Kadish, Harold Lehman, Fletcher Martin, Phil Paradise, Barse Miller, Paul Sample, Philip Guston, and many others. The Bloc of Painters helped Siqueiros complete three murals in L.A.: one for a private residence in Pacific Palisades, Street Meeting, right on Chouinard's wall, Tropical America on Olvera Street. But the public murals proved highly controversial: the little known histories of the intertwined careers of the Bloc of Painters and the art of Siqueiros as well as the legacy of Siqueiros' near deportation and his 1932 Los Angeles murals are uncovered in this fascinating and must-see exhibition. Austen Bailly


text:
Microsoft announces Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2, due Oct 22nd
Microsoft today announced the next generation of Surface hardware at its New York event this morning. Unveiling both the Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2, the company has worked to improve on the already available Windows 8 tablets. So what's new in the second wave of Windows tablets from Microsoft? Jump on past the break to find out more details.
While on stage, Microsoft Vice President of Surface Panos Panay explained how the teams have worked hard in making the next generation of Surface tablets cooler, lighter, quieter, more efficient and have longer lasting power reactors. The Surface Pro 2 was up first and is all about power, with new covers and better components to further improve the user experience. If you're after the premium Surface experience, this will be the correct choice.
In fact, it's worth noting that the Surface Pro 2 actually has a battery life double of what's presently available in the current Surface Pro tablet. That's huge, but we are talking about Intel's fourth generation Haswell chips here. The interesting part about the new battery life? The actual physical size of the batteries remains unchanged. You're really looking at the handy power station the world has been calling for.
The little, improved brother
We've recently looked at what may be coming in these two new tablets through previous leaks. It would seem as though the details revealed at earlier dates were indeed accurate. The Surface 2 is lighter, has a faster CPU and now sports a 1080 display with ClearType. Powering Windows RT 8.1, the Surface 2 brings new exciting features to the table, without bumping the price above the competition.
With Surface 2, you're also looking at USB 3.0, a 3.5MP front-facing camera and more. What's more is (as one can see in the above photo) there's a brand new colour to reflect the true colour of magnesium. So now that you're excited about the new features and improvements made to the two new Surface tablets, how about seeing a cool promo video showing them off?
So when will you be able to get your hands on one? The Surface tablets will go on sale starting October 22nd, with the Surface Pro 2 setting you back by $899, while the more affordable Surface 2 (running Windows RT 8.1) will go for just $449 for the 32GB version.
Stay tuned as we dive into more detail.
Get the Windows Central Newsletter
All the latest news, reviews, and guides for Windows and Xbox diehards.
Images courtesy of CNET
For further discussion, head into our Windows 8 forums where we have dedicated areas for the new tablets! forums.wpcentral.com/#windows-8-tablets
Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.


text:
Qtopia / Qt Extended on FreeRunner
From Openmoko
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This page provides instructions on how to install Qtopia/Qt Extended (proper, not the ASU or QtopiaOnX11 efforts) on the GTA02 (FreeRunner) phone. It is similar to the Qtopia on Neo1973 page.
Current status
NOTE: The most recent version is Qt Extended Improved. See Qt Extended Improved (named also QtEI or QTEi) page to get more information on this updated and improved version Distro based on Qtopia. |
- On 3 March 2009 Qt software has discontinued Qt Extended. See http://www.qtsoftware.com/about/news/qt-software-discontinues-qt-extended for more details.
- Qt software announced that has discontinued QT Extended as a standalone product, integrating it into QT.
Check QtExtended 4.4.3 for more info on the latest (and final) release.
On 31 October 2008, Trolltech released the Qtopia ROM flash image containing the rootfs for the Openmoko Neo FreeRunner (gta02) containing the Qtopia 4.4.2 release (GPL version). This runs on the mwebster ROM flash image containing the kernel. At release time, 4.4.2 & current mwester's kernel mismatched, please clarify the previous sentence. Hypnotize has released Qt Extended 4.4.2 images for the Neo FreeRunner that work better.
This image can successfully make and receive calls and text messages. It can read all contacts from the SIM card (which the updated 2007.2 does not appear to be able to do). It contains apps that appear to be more stable than the ones found in the 2007.2 image. It has multiple input methods that appear to be more mature. It does have a webkit based web browser and an GPS "Mapping Demo" application.
There are other third-party GPS applications available:
- xgps (/!\ non-compatible with 4.4.x --Xc8 22:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC))
- RoadMap (experimental) (! Not working on 4.4.2 --AlecTBM 20:00 GMT +01:00 10 February 2009)
(TangoGPS does not work on QtExtended, because it depends upon an Xserver)
You can find all the Qtopia images here (including Qtextended/Qtopia 4.4 for FreeRunner and Neo1973!)
What is in the latest release (QtExtended 4.4.2)?
Qtopia 4.4 has been released with the name of QtExtended 4.4.
- a browser based on WebKit
- screen rotation in the settings application (so no automatic rotation)
- noise reduction
- USB net/storage switching
- GTalk support
- better support for non-English languages in the keyboard
Qt Extended will be discontinued as a stand-alone product March 2009 after the release of version 4.4.3
and selected features will be migrated into the Qt framework.
Installation option 1: Flash Qtopia to FreeRunner
Download the image mentioned above, then follow the instructions in the
- Main article: Flashing the Neo FreeRunner
Installation option 2: Install Qtopia on a microSD card
Installation Requirements:
- SSH shell access to the FreeRunner through USB interface or WLAN.
- A Desktop Linux distro (to unpack the .jffs2 image, I ran Ubuntu under VMWare)
Prepare the SD card
See the Preparing the SD Card section of the Booting from SD page for partitioning and formatting instructions. After you complete the "Formatting the SD Card" steps, return here and execute the following:
mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /media/card mkdir /media/card/boot mkdir /media/mmcblk0p2 mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /media/mmcblk0p2
This will set you up properly for the installation of the root filesystem and the kernel in the steps below.
Unpack the Qtopia Root Filesystem Image
Download the Qtopia Flash image to your Linux box and extract its contents:
tar xzf qtopia-4.3.2-gta02-flash-*.tgz
You should now have two files:
- uImage-2.6.24+git18+9c058ff0d2641df3c36fc3300acb72078d2c41d4-r0-om-gta02.bin
- qtopia-4.3.2-gta02-rootfs-07172049.jffs2
Now, mount the root file system from the jffs2 using the commands found here. However, in the mount command, substitute the image filename for "/dev/mtdblock0".
Create a compressed tarball
Next, tar up the root filesystem:
- tar czf qtopia-4.3.2-gta02-rootfs-07172049.tar.gz -C <mountpoint> .
Where <mountpoint> is the location where the jff2 filesystem was mounted. Note the space and the period after the mountpoint.
Install the root filesystem
Transfer this compressed tarball to the second partition of the MicroSD that is mounted on the FreeRunner:
scp qtopia-4.3.2-gta02-rootfs-07172049.tar.gz firstname.lastname@example.com:/media/mmcblk0p2/
Log in to your FreeRunner and unpack the root filesystem:
cd /media/mmcblk0p2 tar xzf qtopia-4.3.2-gta02-rootfs-07172049.tar.gz rm qtopia-4.3.2-gta02-rootfs-07172049.tar.gz rm -f /media/mmcblk0p2/boot/*
Note: the last step removes the kernel image from the second partition. For some reason, U-Boot cannot find the uImage.bin file in the first partition if a kernel image exists in the second partition boot/ directory.
Install the kernel
From your Linux box, rename uImage-2.6.24+git18+9c058ff0d2641df3c36fc3300acb72078d2c41d4-r0-om-gta02.bin to uImage.bin and copy it to the boot directory on the first partition of the MicroSD card. Depending on the version of U-Boot you have installed, this may not work. To prevent any possible issues, copy it to the /media/card directory as well. There is plenty of room on the first partition to have uImage.bin in both locations.
Some versions of u-boot look for uImage and not uImage.bin you may have to remove the .bin extension to get it to boot.
mv uImage-2.6.24+git18+9c058ff0d2641df3c36fc3300acb72078d2c41d4-r0-om-gta02.bin uImage.bin scp uImage.bin email@example.com:/media/card/boot/ scp uImage.bin email@example.com:/media/card/
Tell Qtopia it is running from the SD Card
Lorn Potter on the mailing lists pointed this out:
Qtopia was designed to be run from the root partition on a flash chip, not from a removable sd card.
You would have to edit the etc/default/Trolltech/Storage.conf file to make it forget about the sd /dev node, to be able to run it this way
Another user's solution to this is the following:
Edit this file: /opt/Qtopia/etc/default/Trolltech/Storage.conf (the file path seems to have changed to /opt/Trolltech in newer versions) And change the [MountPoint0] section so it resembles this:
[MountPoint0] Name[] = SD Card Path=/dev/mmcblk0p1 Removable = 0 Applications = 0 Documents = 0 ContentDatabase = 0
Installation option 3: alternative procedure to install Qtopia on a microSD card
As in option 2, the goal is to install Qtopia on a microSD card. We describe the complete procedure using:
- Ubuntu 8.10
- SanDisk microSD to USB adapter
- Qt Extended 4.4.2 2008/10/31
Format the microSD card
The first step is to create an 8 MB partition for the kernel and use the remaining space for the root file system. Proceed as follows:
Insert microSD card into adapter, and plug adapter into Ubuntu computer. If any partitions on the microSD card mount automatically, unmount them.
CAUTION: Make sure you know which device your microSD card is. You don't want to perform these steps on your main hard disk!
sudo umount /dev/sdb1 sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
I assume you know how to use fdisk. Delete any existing partitions, then create two new partitions, the first of size +8M, the second using all remaining space. Set the file system type of the first partition to FAT16 (type '6'). Your partition table should look like this:
/dev/sdb1 1 9 9040+ 6 FAT16 /dev/sdb2 10 984 982800 83 Linux
Save your partition table and quit fdisk. Format the partitions appropriately:
sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1 sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb2
Download the latest Qt Extended
Visit [1] and get the appropriate file. The Qtopia ROM flash images contain both the file system and the kernel image:
wget http://qtextended.org/modules/mydownloads/visit.php?lid=98 tar -zxvf qtextended-4.4.2-gta02-flash.tgz
Copy the kernel image to the microSD card
First mount the first partition, which is the boot partition, of the microSD card, and make a /boot subdirectory:
sudo mkdir /media/card sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/card sudo mkdir /media/card/boot
Depending on your version of U-Boot, the kernel image might be expected at the root of the boot partition, or in the /boot directory. Also, the image file name might be expected to have a .bin extension, or not. We create all four variations:
sudo cp testing-om-gta02-20081029.uImage.bin /media/card/uImage.bin sudo cp testing-om-gta02-20081029.uImage.bin /media/card/uImage sudo cp testing-om-gta02-20081029.uImage.bin /media/card/boot/uImage.bin sudo cp testing-om-gta02-20081029.uImage.bin /media/card/boot/uImage
Wait for data to be written to the microSD card and unmount the first partition:
sync sudo umount /dev/sdb1
Copy the jffs2 root file system to the microSD card
That step is a bit complicated. First we need to make a fake MTD device in RAM so that we can mount the jffs2 root file system:
sudo modprobe mtd sudo modprobe jffs2 sudo modprobe mtdram total_size=59024 # default is 4 MByte - set to max. sudo modprobe mtdchar sudo modprobe mtdblock
Next we're going to copy onto this fake device. Make sure there are no other MTD devices on your computer and change the device numbers below as necessary:
cat /proc/mtd dev: size erasesize name mtd0: 039a4000 00020000 "mtdram test device"
Now copy the jffs2 file system to the fake MTD device:
sudo dd if=qtextended-4.4.2-gta02-rootfs-10302135.jffs2 of=/dev/mtd0
Create a mount point, mount the fake MTD device, and check that the content seems right:
sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp sudo mount -t jffs2 /dev/mtdblock0 /mnt/tmp ls /mnt/tmp bin/ dev/ home/ media/ opt/ sbin/ tmp@ var/ boot/ etc/ lib/ mnt/ proc/ sys/ usr/
Mount the second partition of the microSD card and copy the root file system to it: copy root file system to sd card using tar
sudo mkdir /media/rootfs sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /media/rootfs cd /mnt/tmp sudo tar -cf - . | (cd /media/rootfs && sudo tar -xpvf -)
Warnings about "implausibly old time stamp" don't seem to cause any trouble.
Use "sync" to make sure that all data is written to the microSD card:
Inspect contents of second partition:
ls /media/rootfs bin/ dev/ home/ media/ opt/ sbin/ tmp@ var/ boot/ etc/ lib/ mnt/ proc/ sys/ usr/
Note: There was a report that some versions of U-Boot cannot find the kernel image file in the first partition if a kernel image exists in the second partition boot/ directory. I have not confirmed this but there is no need for it so it seems safest to delete it now:
sudo rm -f /media/rootfs/boot/*
Wait for data to be written to the microSD card and unmount the second partition:
sync sudo umount /dev/sdb2
Test Qtopia
Remove the microSD card from the USB adapter, install it in the Neo FreeRunner, boot into U-Boot, and select the option to boot from microSD card.
Installation option 4: updating from source
NOTE: This will upgrade only opt/Qtopia directory, you should use opkg update/upgrade for the rest |
Original Qtopia images (the distribution released by Trolltech, not ASU) are rarely released as a rootfs image, but the source code is often updated. If you want to reflash your OM with the latest version of Qtopia you might build it from sources. This has been explained in this thread of the community mailing list. Summing up:
Download files
- get the latest toolchain released by trolltech: http://www.qtopia.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=38 and unzip it on your PC (as root)
cd / wget http://qtopia.net/downloads/neo/arm920t-eabi-ficgta01-toolchain.tgz tar xvzf arm920t-eabi-ficgta01-toolchain.tgz
- get the latest snapshot from trolltech: ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qtopia/snapshots/
Since qtopia was renamed in qtextended you could find the snapshots on http://qtextended.org/downloads/snapshots/
- once dowloaded untar it
tar xvzf qtopia-opensource-src-4.3.2-snapshot-20080806.tar.gz
Download Updated Version of QtEI
You can find sources and binary based on Qtopia, daily updated and improved, also in this semi-official Trac repo of Qt Extended Improved :
Or in the GITHUB of Qt Extended Improved :
Build Qtopia
- make a "build" dir
mkdir build cd build
- configure and make:
../qtopia-opensource-src-4.3.2-snapshot-20080806/configure -device ficgta01 make
This will take some time (couple hours). Note that the option "-device ficgta01" should work for both neo and freerunner. Then:
make install
will make a root directory into the build directory. There you can find an image that directory should be copied to /opt/Qtopia of your phone with scp. once done restart qpe or whole phone.
For compiling qt-extended 4.4.2, you may need to use the following commands:
* cd build * $QTOPIA_DEPOT_PATH/configure -device neo -verbose -build-qt -force-build-qt * bin/qbuild image
This forces building qt as well which resolved problems with the qbuild test using all the system ram.
Booting into Qtopia
Now shutdown the FreeRunner
shutdown -h now
Log into U-Boot in the NAND Flash to boot from the MicroSD card: (instructions from Booting the Neo FreeRunner)
- Press and hold Power button
- Then while still pressing the Power button, press and hold AUX button for 5 to 8 seconds.
- A boot menu will appear.
- Press the AUX button to select "Boot from MicroSD" and then press the Power button to execute.
Qtopia should now boot.
Note: you may get a kernel panic which says that "optional features not supported". If this is the case, boot back into 2007.2 and run
umount /dev/mmcblk0p2 fsck.ext3.e2fsprogs /dev/mmcblk0p2
This will clean up the file system and clear recovery flags in ext3 that ext2 does not support, then try booting from the MicroSD again.
Qtopia comes with support for German and American English, and users from other countries will find that Qtopia's predictive keyboard makes writing in another language near impossible. One way to disable the predictive keyboard is to simply replace /opt/Qtopia/etc/dict/en_US/common.dawg and words.dawg with empty files (after backing them up). Qtopia normally looks in these files for words to suggest, and if it doesn't find any words that fit, it simply shows what you actually wrote.
Adding characters to the keyboard requires modifications to the source code, as described here.
Software packages feeds
Installation of more software packages with the package manager tool found the Settings folder needs servers, which offer these packages, like
- http://qtextended.org/packages/feed/4.4.1/neo (default)
- ...
Install packages into Qt extended through the package manager, which only allows packages via web servers, seems to be the only way at the moment. (No way to download a package seperately and install the file.)
See Trolltech's tracker (Qtopia Tracker).
Bug reports should be sent to email@example.com or by web form at http://trolltech.com/bugreport-form.
Suspend /Resume [Now Solved]
It seems that suspend/resume only works when the FreeRunner has been connected to a powersource (only a few seconds if sufficient). If you boot from battery, it will never suspend until you have plugged it in at least for a couple of seconds.
Bugs in 4.4.1
- Boot and Shutdown Splash will not work because splash-write was not compiled into Busybox
- Timezone & time on latest Qt 4.4.1
- The first item in a list is missing the top half
Bugs in 4.4.2
- Cannot connect to a WPA protected WLAN, because wpa_supplicant of the previous connection is left running. Try a fixed /opt/Trolltech/Qtopia/bin/lan-network script.
- Qtextended.org
- Qt Extended Developer Resources
- [2] Semi-Official QTEi Trac and Roadmap information on todo
- [3] QTEi Progress Edge on Mailing List by Franky Van Liedekerke. Update or install the QTEi with a nice sh script.