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awareness, Crime, defense strategy, Education, Los Angeles, Martial arts, Rape, Saturday, self defense, United States, Violence, Violence and Abuse
As a teenager, I once had an opportunity to fly in a police helicopter over a major American city. Naively, I thought the experience might be uneventful. Perhaps there would be no crime between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. However, from the moment we were airborne, there was a fresh emergency every fifteen seconds: Shots fired… rape in progress… victim stabbed…It was a deluge. Of course, the impression this left on me was, in part, the result of a sampling bias: I was hearing nothing but incident reports from a city of 4 million people, most of whom would never encounter violence directly. (No one calls the police to say "Everything is still okay!") Yet it was uncanny to discover the chaos that lurked at the margins of my daily routine. A few minutes from where I might otherwise have been eating dinner, rapes, robberies, and murders were in progress.
Just as it is prudent to wear your seat belt while driving, it makes sense to know how best to respond to violence. In fact, it is overwhelmingly likely that some of you will become the targets of violence in the future. The purpose of this essay is to help you prepare for it. While I do not consider myself an expert on personal security, I know enough to have strong opinions. In my youth, I practiced martial arts for many years and eventually taught self-defense classes in college.[1] My education included work with firearms and a variety of other weapons. I eventually stopped training and moved on to other things, but my interest in self-defense has resurfaced. It's hard to say why. No doubt receiving occasional death threats and other strange communications has been a factor. But I think that having a family has played a much larger role. I now feel acutely responsible for the safety of those closest to me.
In my experience, most people do not want to think about the reality of human violence. I have friends who sleep with their front doors unlocked and who would never consider receiving instruction in self-defense. For them, gun ownership seems like an ugly and uncivilized flirtation with paranoia. Happily, most of these people will never encounter violence in any form. And good luck will make their unconcern seem perfectly justified.
But here are the numbers: In 2010, there were 403.6 violent crimes per 100,000 persons in the United States. (The good news: This is an overall decrease of 13.4 percent from the level in 2001.) Thus, the average American has a 1 in 250 chance of being robbed, assaulted, raped, or murdered each year. Actually, the chance is probably greater than this, because we know that certain crimes, such as assault and rape, are underreported.
Of course, your risks vary depending on who you are and where you live. In Compton, one of the more dangerous parts of Los Angeles, your chances of experiencing violent crime in 2010 were 1 in 71; if you lived in Beverly Hills they were 1 in 458. Still, even in good neighborhoods, the likelihood of being attacked is hardly remote. In the comparative safety of Beverly Hills, assuming the crime rate stays constant, the probability that you will be robbed, assaulted, raped or murdered at some point over the next 30 years is 1 in 16. (The average risk in the U.S. is 1 in 9; in Compton it's better than 1 in 3.) Again, these statistics surely paint too rosy a picture, because many crimes go unreported.
It may seem onerous to prepare yourself and your family to respond to violence, but not doing so is also a form of preparation. Failing to prepare is, generally speaking, preparing very well to do the wrong thing. Although most of us are good at recognizing danger, our instincts often lead us to behave in ways that increase our chances of being injured or killed once a threat emerges.
Why can't civilized people like ourselves simply rely on the police? Well, look around you: Do you see a cop? Unless you happen to be a police officer yourself, or are married to one, you are very unlikely to be attacked in the presence of law enforcement. The role of the police is to respond in the aftermath of a crime and, with a little luck, to catch the person who committed it. If you are ever targeted by a violent predator, whether you and your family are injured or killed will depend on what you do in the first moments of the encounter. When it comes to survival, therefore, you are entirely on your own. Once you escape and are in a safe place, by all means call the police. But dialing 911 when an intruder has broken into your home is not a strategy for self-defense.[2]
However, instruction in self-defense need not consume your life. The most important preparations are mental. While I certainly recommend that you receive some physical training, merely understanding the dynamics of violence can make you much safer than you might otherwise be.
Principle #1: Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places.
The primary goal of self-defense is to avoid becoming the victim of violence. The best way to do this is to not be where violence is likely to occur. Of course, that's not always possible—but without question, it is your first and best line of defense. If you visit dangerous neighborhoods at night, or hike alone and unarmed on trails near a big city, or frequent places where drunken young men gather, you are running some obvious risks.
I once knew an experienced martial artist who decided to walk across Central Park late at night. He was aware of the danger, but he thought "I have a black belt in karate. Why shouldn't I be able to walk wherever I want?" As it happened, this rhetorical question was answered almost immediately: My friend hadn't ventured more than a hundred yards into the darkness of the park before he was confronted by three men, one of whom plunged a hypodermic needle into his thigh without a word. Our hero bolted and escaped, otherwise unharmed, but he spent the next three months wondering whether he had been infected with HIV, hepatitis, or some other blood-borne disease. (He was fine.) The lesson: Whatever your training, you needn't be foolish.
Similarly, all men should learn to recognize and shun status-seeking displays of aggression. This is one problem that women generally don't have to worry about. It is, for instance, very rare for a woman to find herself party to an exchange like this:
"What are you looking at, asshole?"
"Who are you calling an asshole?"
"You, bitch. What are you going to do about it?"
Nevertheless, young men are easily lured into social dominance games from which neither party can find a face-saving exit. The violence that erupts at such moments is as unnecessary as it is predictable. If you want to preserve your health and stay out of prison, you must learn to avoid or defuse conflict of this kind.
When a conflict turns physical, there is always a risk that someone will be severely injured or killed. Imagine spending a year or more in prison because you couldn't resist punching some bully who dearly deserved it, but who then hit his head on a fire hydrant and died from a brain injury. As a matter of law, the moment you engage in avoidable violence of this kind—rising to a challenge and escalating the conflict—you lose any legal claim to self-defense. Rather, you were fighting—which is illegal—and in this case you accidentally killed your opponent. You are now likely to get more practice fighting in prison. (Meanwhile, the costs of your criminal defense, and perhaps a subsequent civil lawsuit, could easily bankrupt you.) Take this maxim to heart: Self-defense is not about winning fights with aggressive men who probably have less to lose than you do.[3]
Another principle is lurking here that should be made explicit: Never threaten your opponent. The purpose of his verbal challenge was to get you to respond in such a way as to make him feel justified in attacking you. You shouldn't collaborate in this process or advertise your readiness to defend yourself. Even if violence seems unavoidable, and you decide to strike preemptively, you should do so from a seemingly unaggressive posture, retaining the element of surprise. (This requires training.) Putting up your dukes and agreeing to fight has no place in a self-defense repertoire.[4]
Thus, whatever ego problems or impulse-control issues you have should be worked out ahead of time. You should forget about saving face while recognizing that if you ever find yourself in a social-dominance contest you will probably feel a deep urge to say or do the wrong thing.[5] Deciding on an appropriate course of action in advance is your best protection against being dangerously stupid in the heat of the moment. The challenge for every man is to decline to play an ancient game whose rules and imperatives have been inscribed in his very cells. If you want to avoid unnecessary violence, you must keep your inner ape on a very short leash.
"What are you looking at, asshole?"
"Sorry, man. I was just spacing out. It's been a long day."
De-escalate and move on.
You should also learn to trust your feelings of apprehension about other people—revising them only slowly and with good reason. This may seem like a very depressing piece of advice. It is. Most of us don't want to see the world this way, and we take great pains to avoid being rude or appearing racist, suspicious, etc. But violent predators invariably play upon this commitment to civility. The truth is that most of us are very good at detecting ulterior motives and malevolence in others. We must learn to trust these intuitions. To read the reports of rapes, murders, kidnappings and other violent crimes is to continually discover how easily good people can be manipulated by bad ones.
You are under no obligation, for instance, to give a stranger who has rung your doorbell, or decided to stand unusually close to you on the street, the benefit of the doubt. If a man who makes you uncomfortable steps onto an elevator with you, step off. If a man approaches you while you are sitting in your car and something about him doesn't seem right, you don't need to roll down your window and have a conversation. Victims of crime often sense that something is wrong in the first moments of encountering their attackers but feel too socially inhibited to create the necessary distance and escape.
Principle #2: Do not defend your property.
Whatever your training, you should view any invitation to violence as an opportunity to die—or to be sent to prison for killing another human being. Violence must truly be the last resort. Thus, if someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you should hand it over without hesitation—and run.
If you look out your kitchen window and see a group of youths destroying your car, you should remain inside and call the police. It doesn't matter if you happen to be a Navy Seal who keeps a loaded shotgun by the front door. You don't want to kill a teenager for vandalism, and you don't want to get shot by one for hesitating to pull the trigger. Unless you or another person is being physically harmed, or an attack seems imminent, avoiding violence should be your only concern.
Principle #3: Respond immediately and escape.
If you have principles 1 and 2 firmly installed in your brain, any violence that finds you is, by definition, unavoidable. There is a tremendous power in knowing this: When you find yourself without other options, you are free to respond with full commitment.
This is the core principle of self-defense: Do whatever you can to avoid a physical confrontation, but the moment avoidance fails, attack explosively for the purposes of escape—not to mete out justice, or to teach a bully a lesson, or to apprehend a criminal. Your goal is to get away with minimum trauma (to you), while harming your attacker in any way that seems necessary to ensure your escape.[6]
If you find yourself in such a situation, you should assume that your opponent is a career criminal who has victimized many others before you.[7] Do not waste an instant imagining that you can reason with him. Most victims of violence are so terrified of being injured or killed that they will believe any promise a predator makes. It is not difficult to see why.
Imagine: You are loading groceries into your car and man appears at your side with a gun.
"Get in the car, and you won't get hurt."
Your instincts are probably bad here: Getting in the car is the last thing you should do.
"Get in the car, or I'll blow your head off."
However bad your options may appear in the moment, complying with the demands of a person who is seeking to control your movements is a terrible idea. Yes, there are criminals whose only goal is to steal your property. But anyone who attempts to control you—by moving you to another room, putting you in a car, tying you up—probably intends to kill you (or worse). And you must understand in advance that your natural reaction to this situation—to freeze, to comply with instructions—will be the wrong one.
If someone puts a gun to your head and demands your purse or wallet, hand it over immediately and run. Don't worry about being shot in the back: If your attacker is going to shoot you for running, he was going to shoot you if you stayed in place, and at point-blank range. By running, you make yourself harder to kill. Any attempt to move you, even by a few feet—backing you off a sidewalk and into an alley, forcing you behind a row of bushes—is unacceptable and should mobilize all your physical and emotional resources.[8]
If you find yourself in a situation where a predator is trying to control you, the time for listening to instructions and attempting to remain calm has passed. It will get no easier to resist and escape after these first moments. The presence of weapons, the size or number of your attackers—these details are irrelevant. However bad the situation looks, it will only get worse. To hesitate is to put yourself at the mercy of a sociopath. You have no alternative but to explode into action, whatever the risk. Recognizing when this line has been crossed, and committing to escape at any cost, is more important than mastering physical techniques.
Herein lies a crucial distinction between traditional martial arts and realistic self-defense: Most martial artists train for a "fight." Opponents assume ready stances, just out of each other's range, and then practice various techniques or spar (engage in controlled fighting). This does not simulate real violence. It doesn't prepare you to respond effectively to a sudden attack, in which you have been hit before you even knew you were threatened, and it doesn't teach you to strike preemptively, without telegraphing your moves, once you have determined that an attack is imminent.
Whatever your physical skills, when you commit to using force against another person, your overriding goal is still to escape. Even if you are at home, in possession of a firearm, and well trained to use it, when confronted by an intruder your best defense is to get out of the house as quickly as possible. In such a circumstance, a gun is a means of ensuring that no one can block your exit.[9]
Nothing good ever comes to people who allow themselves to be moved to a remote location at the mercy of a violent predator. The police call such places "secondary crime scenes." They are always better for the attacker and worse for his victim because they are more isolated than the first point of contact. And although your home may be the most familiar place on earth to you, the moment an intruder enters, it becomes the equivalent of a secondary crime scene. You should also expect that any criminal who breaks into your home when you're inside it has come prepared to murder you and your family. To naive readers, this may sound like an extraordinarily paranoid assumption. It isn't. Mere burglars generally make sure a house is empty before breaking in.
If a window shatters in the middle of the night and someone comes through it, your life is on the line. There is nothing to talk about, no offer of cash or jewelry to muster, no demands worth listening to. You must do whatever it takes to escape.
One of the most common and disturbing features of home invasions is how the victims' concern for one another and desire to stay together is inevitably used against them. By exploiting these bonds, even a single attacker can immobilize an entire family. By merely holding a knife to the wife's throat, he can get the husband to submit to being tied up. Again, it is perfectly natural for victims in these circumstances to hope that if they just cooperate, their attacker will show them mercy. If you get nothing else from this article, engrave this iron law on your mind: The moment it is clear that an assailant wants more than your property (which must be assumed in any home invasion), you must escape.
What if your attacker has a knife to your child's throat and tells you that everything is going to be okay as long as you cooperate by lying face down on the floor? Don't do it. It would be better to flee the house—because as soon as you leave, he will know that the clock is ticking: Within moments, you will be at a neighbor's home summoning help. If this intruder is going to murder your child before fleeing himself, he was going to murder your child anyway—either before or after he killed you. And he was going to take his time doing it. Granted, it is almost impossible to imagine leaving one's child in such a circumstance—but if you can't leave, you must grab a weapon and press your own attack. Complying in the hope that a sociopath will keep his promise to you is always the wrong move.
Here is how the police look at it:
From a cop's point of view, citizens seem to keep making the same mistakes over and over, until all cases begin to sound alike…. The objective of a violent criminal is to control you, emotionally and physically. Everything he does—his threats and promises—is intended to terrify and control you. The more control you give to the violent criminal, even if you see it as temporary, the less likely you are to escape. For most crime victims, their temporary cooperation backfired into full control over them. Time works against the victim and for the criminal. The longer you stall, the more you talk, the deeper you sink.
(S. Strong. Strong on Defense. pp. 49-50).
True self-defense is based not on techniques but on principles. Yes, it is good to know how to deliver a palm strike or elbow to a person's head with real power (technique), but it is far more important to know when to unleash with whatever tools you have for the purpose of immediate escape (principle). You must install a trigger in your mind—to act explosively once a certain line has been crossed—and you must understand that your inclination will most likely be to freeze and acquiesce, in the hope of avoiding injury or death. Mental preparation is a matter of resolving, in advance, to burst past these inhibitions and escape immediately, or fight with everything you've got until escape is possible.
Certain scenarios are intrinsically confusing and should be discussed with your family in advance: What if a person dressed as a police officer comes to your door and asks to be let in? Unless you are absolutely certain that he is a cop—e.g. you can see that he arrived in a marked police car—you should explain that you have no way of knowing who he is and then call the police yourself. Thousands of crimes are committed each year by people impersonating cops. (Anyone can buy a uniform and a badge over the Internet.) Similarly, many home invasions begin with a criminal's acting like a person in distress: A woman or a teenager might come to your door reporting an accident or some other emergency. Again, the safe move is to keep your door locked and call the police.
Finally, you do not need to learn hundreds of techniques to become proficient in the physical aspects of self-defense. Rather, you should train a small number of skills nearly to the point of reflex. Although you cannot do this by simply reading books or watching videos, I have recommended a few resources below that will help you start thinking along practical lines.
It is unpleasant to study the details of crime and violence—and for this reason many of us never do. I am convinced, however, that some planning and preparation can greatly reduce a person's risk. And though there are exceptions to every rule, I don't believe that there are important exceptions to the advice I have given here. May you never have occasion to find it useful.
Recommended Reading
G. de Becker, The Gift of Fear.
R. Miller, Meditations on Violence.
R. Miller, Facing Violence.
S. Strong, Strong on Defense.
G. Thompson, The Fence.
G. Thompson, Dead or Alive.
People who appear to know what they are talking about:
Tony Blauer: http://www.tonyblauer.com/
Marc MacYoung: http://nononsenseselfdefense.com/
Rory Miller: http://chirontraining.com/Site/Home.html
Lee Morrison: http://www.urbancombatives.com/
Geoff Thompson: http://www.geoffthompson.com
- There are important differences between effective self-defense training and most martial arts. Training to fight for sport or to master a traditional fighting system, no matter how impressive its techniques, is not the same as training to survive real-world violence. For instance, most students and fans of mixed martial arts (MMA) know that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the gold standard for fighting on the ground. However, a preference for fighting on the ground is a major liability in the real world. An approach that often works brilliantly in MMA makes no sense when one's goal is to end an encounter quickly and escape, when there are no rules to prevent an attacker from gouging your eyes or using a weapon, or when a second assailant arrives and begins kicking you in the head. Of course, it is essential to know what to do on the ground if you ever find yourself there—and for this, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a perfect tool. But from the perspective of self-defense, you want to remain standing and mobile if given the chance. [NOTE to the note: I have received a fair amount of grief for this note from BJJ practitioners who misunderstood it. I think BJJ is awesome—which is why I am now training in it. And if you find yourself on the ground, it is exactly what you want to know. I did not mean to suggest that BJJ practitioners were unaware of the liability of being on the ground in a self-defense situation, nor was I denying that many fights (even most) go the ground eventually. However, I am claiming that the first tool you want in your self-defense arsenal (beyond awareness and avoidance) is to be able to strike hard with good targeting from a seemingly unaggressive posture (e.g. "the fence"). Hit first, fast, and hard—and run. If this plan fails, and your opponent grabs you, BJJ is brilliant.—SH]
There are also important distinctions between how men and women need to think about the threat of violence. Women are almost never the targets of social-dominance games of the sort I describe here. Rather, they must worry about rapists and other true predators. (For the purposes of this article, I ignore the subject of domestic violence.) And women's attackers often outweigh them by fifty or a hundred pounds. These facts make their security concerns both more pressing and less ambiguous. ↩
2. The only exception to this rule is if you happen to have a "safe room"—a fortified room in your house equipped with a phone line that cannot be cut. Of course, very few people have one. ↩
3. It is also worth remembering that you can't assess another person's fighting skills just by looking at him. I've trained with some very scary looking guys who didn't know much of anything and hit with very little power. And I have known men who were small and seemingly out of shape but were absolute killers. A word to the macho: You do not know who you are talking to—and you don't know if he is armed.↩
4. Other principles follow from this. If you carry a weapon, you should never draw it to threaten your assailant in the hope that he will back down. As Rory Miller points out, if such a threat display fails, it almost guarantees that you will have to use the weapon, or it will be used against you. (And if you threaten with a weapon, the other person can claim to be acting in self-defense.) Therefore, reach for a weapon only if you are prepared to use it and believe you would be justified in doing so.↩
5. Strangely, carrying a weapon can make it much easier to ignore provocations of this kind. If you are armed, you cannot afford to be lured into casual altercations, no matter how obnoxious your opponent. The impulse to save face easily yields to a deeper form of self-interest: With a weapon, you simply must avoid conflict unless you are given no choice.↩
6. Admittedly, there are some gray areas here. If you are very experienced and attacked by a much smaller man who appears to be unarmed, you might decide to modulate your initial response and give him a chance to realize that he has picked the wrong target. But even here, if you have followed principles 1 and 2, the onus is on your attacker, and it is only prudent to assume that he is armed, or that he may have friends in the vicinity.↩
7. As of 2009, violent offenders in the U.S. served an average of 52 months in prison before being returned to the streets. For murderers the average was 118 months; for rapists it was 94 months (BJS.gov). Why genuine murderers and rapists are ever released is a mystery to me—and if we didn't have to make room in our prisons for graduate students caught selling MDMA, perhaps we could keep true predators off our streets. To make matters worse, a Canadian study found that psychopaths are 2.5 times as likely as ordinary criminals to be released from prison—because they successfully con parole boards. And the re-arrest rate for violent offenders is over 60 percent within three years. This paints a rather terrifying picture of our collective masochism: We do not keep dangerous criminals off our streets; rather, we have turned our prisons into graduate schools for predatory violence, and we release their graduates back into society, knowing that most will continue harming innocent people. ↩
8. If you are present while a place of business is being robbed and you cannot immediately escape, it makes sense to obey orders—to freeze, to get down on the floor—because the focus is not on you. Most robbers just want to get the money from the register and run. However, if they begin taking hostages or shooting people, you should immediately do whatever it takes to escape. Better to dive through a plate-glass window than to allow yourself to be herded to the back of the store. Many scenarios of this kind are discussed in the books I recommend here. ↩
9. Again, this is provided you don't have a "safe room." Gun tactics are beyond the scope of this essay, but here are a few points to know: You should never attempt to clear your house of intruders yourself. That is a job for the police, and they will probably use five officers with body armor and other specialized equipment to do it. You should also be aware that the interior walls of a home do not stop bullets (and criminals know this). Unless you can get to a fortified position that allows for continuous phone communication with the police, defending in place can entail more risk than attempting to exit the building.↩


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POLICE have reported that the bodies of two men have been found in Purton near the River Severn today.
Officers were called to the canal in Purton at around 9.45am.
The deaths of both men are currently being treated as non suspicious.
Gloucestershire Police are in the process of identifying next of kin and the coroner has been informed.
A spokesman from the police said they could not comment further at this time.
More to follow.

subset: commoncrawl


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Experience this brand new, meticulously designed custom estate, located in the safety & privacy of an exclusive guard-gated community. Enjoy a large acreage estate feel, with energy-efficient, low maintenance upkeep. This 8 bed, 16 bath home offers large living on a smaller footprint with refined elegance & unparalleled construction quality by utilizing concrete and steel. This is a unique opportunity to select your own finishes. A magnificent piece of design & classical architecture with an abundance of amenities: 20-car collector's garage, 2 separate guest houses, dining room surrounded by water, indoor & outdoor pools, swim up bar, multipurpose shooting range, bank vault, salon, wine tasting room & cellar, theater, indoor/outdoor living areas & more! Priced as-is, pre-completion.
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People need to give Fisker a break. We told you last December about the financing debacle, and now, with a new car being announced, most auto writers are bringing it up again, along with the battery problems the Karma has faced.
The Fisker Atlantic (formerly the Nina) will be finally revealed (so far, it's been mostly photos) in a press conference tonight and then at the New York Auto Show, opening Wednesday. This is to be Fisker's smaller, half-price Karma (around $50K, we hear, before tax breaks), and will likely be made at the company's Delaware plant.
The car is slated to use a BMW 2-liter turbo four rather than the GM turbo that the Karma uses for charging. A crossover and a coupe may come later. Look for the car to appear in late 2013. It looks beautiful.
Slamming Fisker is easy; producing an entirely new plug-in hybrid from scratch is not. The company has never failed to come clean about its problems, and while there are no shortage of critics laughing at Fisker's Green Luxury concept, if it gets the Atlantic right, there will be buyers.
Fisker is chided for producing luxury cars (the Karma starts at around $107K), but whether they are bought by celebrities, poseurs, or those anxious to make a Green statement doesn't matter if they sell.
Sales of EVs and plug-ins have been slow, and who could have expected otherwise with a new technology? These cars are going to be a small fraction of the overall car market for many years, which doesn't mean one should discount their impact.
Henrik Fisker believes he is pursuing a new direction in carmaking—producing cars that are "environmentally responsible" in all aspects of their production and operation—and keeping his company lean.
That cannot be, at this stage of the art, a cheap proposition. I think you've got to admire the guy for his ambition and, given the setbacks, his guts to continue.
We wish the company success with the Atlantic. Look for an update as the reveal progresses.
At a time when the auto industry becomes ever more complex, is Henrik Fisker crazy?


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Video may have killed the radio star, but the Internet has killed the rock star.
At least that's what Matt MacDonald thinks. MacDonald, the lead singer of The Classic Crime, which plays Denver's Marquis Theater on Thursday, April 1, swears that the Internet has been a blessing for his Seattle-based band.
"The rock star is dead because you have to humble yourself and mingle with fans," MacDonald said. "As artists we use the Internet to interact with people, through Facebook, Twitter," MacDonald said. "We use it as a tool to keep connected with our fans. The music industry is so highly over-saturated right now and everyone has ADD, so you have to keep their attention.
"We are one of those bands that hangs out and mingles. We are able to maintain our fan base and grow our fan base because of the Internet."
One way the band is staying connected is by staging a video contest for their new song, "Solar Powered Life." The contest offers the winner a $1,000 Apple store gift card.


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Another Rescue Ink Mission Successfully Accomplished for Long Beach, NY
In 2011, Rescue Ink agreed to help serve the citizens of Long Beach, N.Y. by opening and creating an infrastructure for a municipal animal shelter. We are proud to announce—despite the innumerable challenges brought upon the shelter by Hurricane Sandy 2012—that the municipal shelter is once again open and functioning to serve the Long Beach community.
Rescue Ink will continue to help the city of Long Beach run the shelter, as we all embrace the task with the care and compassion that we have always demonstrated. Rescue Ink will continue to help the city of Long Beach to stop abuse and neglect, and educate the public when needed.
Please stay tuned as we gear up for local fundraisers and adoption events in the coming weeks. All information will be posted on our events page on this website. We look forward to working with the local community, the Animal Control Officers, and the entire City to raise public awareness on behalf of our animals in need.
We thank the city of Long Beach for the opportunity to create a safe haven for its forgotten animals. Rescue Ink's core mission remains strong: to rescue abused and neglected animals worldwide, as we have done successfully for over a decade.
Joe Panz
President, Rescue Ink
Rescue Ink's Gimme Shelter Fundraiser 2013!
On Monday, July 1st, 2013, Serata's will host an evening with Rescue Ink for their Gimme Shelter Fundraiser for 2013. Help support their cause for paws! Enjoy tapas, a great buffet and top-notch entertainment... Read More >>
Rescue Ink appearing at "On The Water Front" 2013!
Rescue Ink will be appearing as "Special Guests" at the "On The Water Front" 2013 Spring Event Art & Photo Sale on Sunday, May 19th. Live music by Nine Times Fallen. The event will feature new paintings by artist... Read More >>
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Time Schedule:
Jennifer W Atkinson
Bothell Campus
Focuses on developing a learning and professional portfolio, advancing skills of critical thinking and interdisciplinary synthesis, and honing writing and presentation capacities for appropriate audiences. Stresses collaboration with other graduating students. Prerequisite: BIS 300.
Class description
As you are completing your undergraduate coursework in IAS, you are likely to be thinking about how you got where you are now and about how what you have done will get you where you want to go next. Your portfolio capstone course will allow you to address these questions by providing you with time and a structure within which to reflect on your education and its relation to your future goals. You will step back from the learning you have done in individual courses, focusing on the connections among those courses and the links between your overall academic accomplishments and their diverse contexts, to us as individuals, to our careers, and to our communities. We will meet to discuss common readings, to share reflections, and communicate with one another orally and in writing. The course will conclude with an exhibit-poster session for all graduating IAS students.
Student learning goals
Create a final learning portfolio that draws from your work completed in the program, and use the portfolio-building process to integrate and reflect on your undergraduate education as a whole.
Develop skills in drawing on evidence in your portfolio to support reflections and claims for various audiences (friends, family, employers, graduate school admissions committee, etc.).
Become articulate about linkages between your learning portfolio and professional portfolios.
Develop your capacities to present your work orally and in writing to various audiences.
Work collaboratively with other students to enrich your understanding of interdisciplinarity.
General method of instruction
BIS 499 is an opportunity for you to share your "best work" with others, to learn from what others have accomplished in the IAS program, and to create a learning and professional portfolio of which you will be proud. That portfolio will include a polished piece of writing that reflects on your learning in IAS as it relates to your future ambitions.
Recommended preparation
BIS 499 is designed to culminate the program's learning and professional portfolio process. Students will take the course during their final quarter in the program.
Class assignments and grading
- Participation & Peer Review (in-class discussion, activities & peer-review sessions) - Weekly assignments (annotated bibliography, learning objective mini-portfolios, graduate school or job application letter) - Draft portfolio - Poster/Exhibit - Final portfolio


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"I bought plates in August 2018 - they are no longer transparent images. The glass is clear, but the photo has a white backing now. It is only applied where the photo appears. No white lines or problems. Although these designs would have looked ok if they were transparent, I was relieved that they have made that change. The plates look great!"
"My grandma loved this!"
"We've made 2 separate glass plates from our children's art to give as gifts. Looks wonderful, is small and interesting, and it useful."
"love these plates"
"This was a surprise gift for Bride and Groom table to place their slice of cake on. Brought tears to the bride's eyes! Wonderful gift and great quality!"


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18 November 2007
The Sound of Silence
A few weeks ago, I turned 39 years old, a mediocre age ultimately yet also one pregnant with possibility, as 40 looms beyond. I'm not sure whether it is accurate to label recent events in my professional and personal life a "mid-life crisis," since 40 is apparently the new 30, from what I've read. But suffice it to say this autumn seems to have nurtured several turning points, forks in the road that deserve serious thought and consideration. Happening against the backdrop of the typical white noise of teaching, crescendos have been reached and receded from, decisions considered, made, dropped, or changed.
Unlike 33, the vaunted l'age du Christ, or even the late twenties, with its New Age Return of Saturn, 39 seems like a somewhat outdated marker, the punchline of an old joke, the final threshold of true adulthood. After 39, it is hard to deny that one is finally all grown up, for better or worse, even when one's personal and professional lives remain interstitial, intermediate, traced out but not set.
I have no wife, no children, no mortgage, no Labrador. Yet I do have the ubiquitous student loans, a brand new car plus loan, several projects that simmer, monthly bills and daily obligations and distractions, but the outlines of the grand récit remain fuzzy. I have been imbued lately within my iTunes program, permanently set to shuffle, so one has no idea whether one will be hearing recent popular music of little value or be blindsided by a song that takes one back to key moments, other places and other times both joyful and sad. All I know is that memory remains vivid, charged with meaning, but also seemingly does not lead anywhere productive, at least in the short term.
The leaves have mostly fallen off the trees, darkness grows more elongated with each glowering dusk, yet we still have not had, in Cold City, our first real snow. Today it threatened, flaked a bit, large and chunky, for about 30 minutes, falling outside the window as I shuffled through papers and overdue bills and TIAA-CREF statements and extra syllabi and cards and reminders from the dentist that have slowly but surely been collecting in a large red IKEA plastic bin, where I have recently taken to throwing anything that comes my way via post or campus mail without a glance.
I sorted the catalogues and envelopes and announcements for student shows in September into recycling, filed bank and retirement account statements into their appropriate folders, shredded credit card offers and disposable personal correspondence, and put aside the truly urgent, the threatening cable bill and rollover notice and the call for papers and the letter of recommendation forms into a neat, red folder, and went to the supermarket. When I do choose to eat something recently, it is invariably comfort food: cheese quesadillas, corn dogs, bologna sandwiches with American cheese, homemade macaroni and cheese, or scrounging a meal at La Vicks, enchiladas or chile colorado.
As I walked down my quiet street from the supermarket, deep dark even though it was only 6:30, I sensed the world beyond my garret: the smell of wood smoke, one last resistant tree on the street with yellow ochre leaves, the wetness of the precipitation and the rising smell of soil. Fall used to be one of my favourite times, full of warm light and friends, the crispness of the days feeling vivacious, alive. Now, autumn seems the darkest time of the year, a black hole with the summer retreating into a distant glow, months of relentless cold and ice and chapped hands and lips ahead.
I thought such a change in seasonal perception funny, although like all things it is a function of embodiment, a certain time and place lending its peculiar flavour to the overlay of other memories: early dusk at Prestigious Eastern University, walking to meet friends for dinner, passing the various dining and residential halls, the streetlights and headlights bright on a wet street. Tonight, in contrast, and aside from my funny realisation, the only feeling I had was that my hands, gloveless, were remarkably cold.
I am attempting here to trace out an emotional mood without detail, a moment pregnant with possibility: I am a 39 year old light-skinned overeducated Latino gay academic man living alone in a familiar city yet also one not my own, at the cusp of change, at the fork in several paths, with a brand new car plus loan. And I am unsure and scared. That is all.
9 comments:
- Vila H. said...
It's going around, apparently. (Shrugs.) Happy birthday anyway...
- Mon Nov 19, 01:26:00 AM
Quisiera abrazarte ahora y calentar tu alma, sé cómo te sientes, es un vacío que de pronto se apodera de uno, un pasillo largo con eco en el que nos preguntamos y ahora qué...
Besos en esas manos frías
- Mon Nov 19, 09:12:00 AM
- Carol Guess said...
This lyrical post felt like a poem to me. It reminded me a bit of Timothy Liu's "His Body Like Christ Passed In And Out Of My Life" -- longing, memory, return but not rewind.
It gets gray here around 4pm. When I walk the dogs we all make our way tentatively until we get to the park. Then they take off in great loping circles and I stand among the trees and watch. One of the dogs is blind, and he very sweetly reminds me that it makes no difference what time it is when he runs. He has the same velocity no matter what light.
One of the scariest things about academia is how easily a temporary space (office, campus, town) becomes permanent. Or feels that way. Surrounded by students who are often optimistic about escape, about a future not yet set at midpoint, it isn't always easy to continue inventing optimism for oneself.
- Mon Nov 19, 05:25:00 PM
- cero said...
When I was in school I never cared about graduation but now that I am a professor I long to graduate.
When I was younger than I am now I thought that by the time I was in my forties my greatest danger would be that I was on my way to becoming Yeats' "sixty year old smiling public man" (from Among School Schildren). That is, I though I would be so established.
However, it was actually somewhere in my mid thirties that I fell adrift and I have been ever since. It occurred to me today that it may be that Yeats' 'public man' is the exception and that perhaps this sense of dislodgment is what happens at a certain point, irrevocably.
Un poema que por lo famoso no llega a ser cursi:
A René Pérez
Dichoso el árbol que es apenas sensitivo,
y más la piedra dura, porque ésa ya no siente,
pues no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de ser vivo,
ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente.
Ser, y no saber nada, y ser sin rumbo cierto,
y el temor de haber sido y un futuro terror…
Y el espanto seguro de estar mañana muerto,
y sufrir por la vida y por la sombra y por
lo que no conocemos y apenas sospechamos,
y la carne que tienta con sus frescos racimos,
y la tumba que aguarda con sus fúnebres ramos,
¡y no saber adónde vamos,
ni de dónde venimos!...
- Tue Nov 20, 09:35:00 PM
- cero said...
I am back with more lyrics. This is CUESTA ABAJO:
[Translation of first stanza:] If I have dragged with me through this world / The shame of having existed / And the pain of no longer being / Beneath the brim of my hat / So many times hidden / There leaned out a tear / I could no longer contain.
Si arrastré por este mundo
la vergüenza de haber sido
y el dolor de ya no ser,
bajo el ala del sombrero
cuántas veces embozada
una lágrima asomada
yo no pude contener.
Si crucé por los caminos
como un paria que el destino
se empeñó en deshacer;
si fui flojo, si fui ciego,
sólo quiero que comprendan
el valor que representa
el coraje de querer.
Era para mí la vida entera,
como un sol de primavera,
mi esperanza y mi pasión.
Sabía que en el mundo no cabía
toda la humilde alegría
de mi pobre corazón.
Ahora, cuesta abajo en mi rodada,
las ilusiones pasadas
ya no las puedo arrancar.
Sueño con el pasado que añoro,
el tiempo viejo que lloro
y que nunca volverá…
Por seguir tras de sus huellas
yo bebí incansablemente
en mi copa de dolor;
pero nadie comprendía
que si todo yo lo daba,
en cada vuelta dejaba
pedazos de corazón…
Ahora, triste en la pendiente,
solitario y ya vencido,
yo me quiero confesar;
si aquella boca mentía
el amor que me ofrecía
por aquellos ojos brujos
yo habría dado siempre más…
You can watch Gardel himself sing it on Youtube. It is not pasting for me but it is googleable easily and really worth it, *such* milonga.
- Tue Nov 20, 11:44:00 PM
Autumn IS a black hole. The days are getting seriously shorter especially since daylight savings time is over, and especially since you live in a cold, dark, northern place. A little angst ain't a bad thing; this won't be your last identityh crisis, but go somewhere sunny and south when this semester's over, Oso.
And we're everyone of us older than we've ever been before. It sure beats the alternative.
--Going on 60
- Sun Nov 25, 11:53:00 PM
- Ms.PhD said...
The one that will really bake your noodle is, would you have been melancholy without academia? I think I was this way before academia, but perhaps because I don't wax lyrical on my blog, I get labeled 'negative' for thinking these kinds of thoughts.
Yours are prettier.
Anyway just dropped by to say, you're not alone.
- Fri Nov 30, 01:47:00 PM
- Maggie said...
It *is* going around. These past few weeks have been about the saddest I've had in awhile.
I've missed your blog-voice, oso, so I hope despite, or because of, your time of transitions you'll keep posting.
- Mon Dec 03, 12:43:00 PM
Thanks for this. I'm 38, recently veered from tenure-track track, and think it may have been a mistake. But academia, melancholy, all too familiar, and this intransigent adulthood is -- well, it's unbelievable.
- Fri Jan 04, 10:34:00 PM


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Baer's criterion can be generalized as follows: Let $A$ be an abelian category satisfying (AB3-5) with a generator $R$ and let $T : A^{o} \to Set$ be a continuous functor such that $T(R) \to T(I)$ is surjective for all subobjects $I \subseteq R$. Then for every monomorphism $M \to N$ the map $T(N) \to T(M)$ is surjective. If $T$ is representable and $A=R-Mod$, this becomes the usual Baer's criterion. The proof is simple.
- Does anyone has come across this theorem?
- Are there applications to non-representable functors?
- Can we somehow put the proof into a general pattern of the form: A statement about monomorphisms can be proven on a "generating system"?
- There are striking similarities with the proof that the cohomology of flabby sheaves vanishes. Is there a common generalization?


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Mobile CSSJuly 13, 2004
My old cell phone plan expired some time last week, and after the indentured servitude of a rather lengthy contract (for the sake of free hardware some time in 2001), it was time to refresh the handset. New toy: a tiny little Audiovox 8900.
Being a diligent web guy, one of my first official acts with the new phone was to load up a few sites to see what it could do. The mobile web has so far passed me by; sure, my old Nokia was capable of loading up a text-only version of most any site in its cramped three-line display, but it was never fun. The odd time I'd load up the Zen Garden for the simple thrill of seeing a couple of characters of familiar text on my phone, but that's where the mobile web ended for me.
A quick digression first: this new phone is stylish. No matter what I discover about its quirks and glitches over the next few weeks, my first impression has been nothing but admiration and I expect that will stick. Everything about this model is polished and functional; the manual seems to be a waste of paper so far, it's that intuitive. Compared to Nokia's current ugly and quasi-skeletal lineup, it's no contest. Compared to my old Nokia (which I grew fond of over time) everything feels next generation, and then some. 3 years of progress resulted in a smaller profile with way more packed in.
Except for one little thing. The web capabilities stink. Okay, now I get blue underlined links instead of black ones; is that all 3 years buys me? The browser is a lot more integrated in this model since other (mostly useless) things like ringtone and game downloading rely on it. But even those pages are a stark black-on-white contrast to the animated colour imagery that forms the menu system of the phone itself. Something doesn't fit here, and it's the second-class citizen they're calling a browser.
Patrick Griffiths put together a nice little suite of mobile CSS tests to throw at various devices; I took a quick wander over ('quick' being a relative value, given the trouble typing backslashes by hitting the '1' key nine times) and checked to see what was happening. The result? Failure on all 8 tests. A bright red 'NOT' greeted each test result.
That the 'NOT' was red seemed interesting though; turns out Patrick sets all
spans within the test to a default red via an embedded style sheet, and overrides them with the mobile test styles. Which means that the import methods were failing, but the embedded style (which also has no specific media type defined) was somewhat… not.
Extending Patrick's tests just a little, I've dropped an extra paragraph with some basic text formatting and a couple of box model rules into the bottom of this revised copy. It looks like I get color and background color, the odd box model property (I think I saw a margin), and that's about it. No borders, no floats, no alternate fonts. In short, CSS is a pipe dream on this phone.
I realize there are better browsers out there; Opera's mobile version seems to be gaining momentum, Nokia appears to be throwing money at Mozilla, and full-fledged PDA phones with built-in PocketPC or PalmOS capabilities obviously have some choice in browser. But it seems I'm locked into the lightweight that comes with this phone for now, and at least in Canada, this is one of the more capable phones available at the moment without getting into a ridiculous price range. Not a hugely positive sign.
Is the mobile web a reality? Maybe elsewhere. Though given the slow input of URLs, dozens of seconds between each incremental page load, and almost non-existent support of anything other than text, it seems there's a long way to go in Canada.
Oh well. At least it has a camera.
Reader Comments
I don't think the web on mobile phones will ever take off. I only see mobile phones being used as something to connect to the net on the move rather than being the main device.
What they connect is the question, whether it's a laptop, a larger flexible screen you can take anywhere, or some other display system (glasses or projectors), I think that's as far it will go.
I'm quite proud of my phone, I got it about two months ago on contract with O2 in the UK, and its a motorola v600.
It failed all the screen tests, and passed all the handheld ones and showing all the correct formatting as in Firefox, rather pleased I be :) I already knew it could process CSS though, as it has handled websites which I've visited on it's CSS.
Mobile internet will take off I believe, when phones can handle more data and are quicker to download each page. At the moment though it is annoying as you wait about 10seconds/page and only get minimal text when viewing specially made mobile sites, eg http://www.google.com/ (will be mobile friendly when visited with a mobile).
Sadly though, I can only get 0.5mb download a month on my contract, and acording to O2 that is 1000 web pages viewing.
I think not..
I just went on the web on my mobile, and used 80,000 bytes on about 10pages (they weren't mobile sites, so got a 413 error - Requested entity too large).
A few days ago, I've managed to buy Nokia 6600 which comes with free Opera browser. In Poland, Nokia 6600 costs about $130 but comes with monthly plan of 200 "free" minutes for $50 *and* you still have to pay for GPRS connectivity, for each 500 KB sent or received. No unlimited Internet plan is available :(
I could have bought SonyEricsson P900 for $300, but I'm waiting for Nokia 9500 or Nokia PDA.
I have to admit that mobile browsing works quite well. Especially www.bloglines.com/mobile :) CSS is also extensively supported.
As Nokia 6600 runs on Series 60 / Symbian 7.0, there is a lot of additional software available, including Jabber/ICQ/MSN communicators, IRC clients, RSS readers and more…
I think about using Opera as mobile application platform. It supports JavaScript quite well, so it would be a good idea to create some offline JavaScript apps and send it to Nokia using Bluetooth connectivity.
Hi Dave,
That looks like a pretty cool new phone, and I agree that nokia phones are mostly quite ugly, with just a few exceptions. But it's a pity it doesn't seem to have much CSS support.
In case your interested, after the HTML dog test was done, I tested my Sony Ericsson P800 with every single other media type (arual, braille, etc) style sheet, doctype and MIME type there is for (X)HTML. Basically, I went a bit crazy and created what some might call an excessive amount of tests; but, anyway, I published them all on my website.
(you probably only need to view the tests for all media types, the others are just split into individual media types, but have the same tests)
I got some interesting results. It turns out the P800 will apply any style within the style element, unless the media is embossed, which seems very strange. It'd be interesting to know if there were any other anomolies like that with other phones.
You might be right in that by the time the mobile web takes off, devices will look a lot different, but there is no doubt that in certain areas, especially outside the U.S., connected cell phones are the single most important piece of technology in most people's lives. Walk onto a Subway train in Tokyo and you'll see that some kids can actually type in T9 quicker than with a keyboard! Yes… totally ridiculous, but true.
In the U.S., the "connected" part of our cell phones is, at most, a crutch until we can reach our laptops, but other countries are not so laptop/802.11 ready.
The other part of me, the designer, thinks that the whole phone/handheld device thing is just a really clunky intermediate step before goggles.
Once our personal communication devices are part of our eyeglass frames, that's when the design/UI fun can really begin. Think laser eye surgery is killing the eyeglass frame market? It'll be back…
Nice, I've noticed recently that most mobile phone reviews do not give info on the capabilities of the browser or how it even performs on the phone. I guess most people don't use the integrated browser and only care about how good the camera phone shots would be (and of course call/signal reception). :P
Thanks for the Mobile CSS test, I'm off to get the Sony Ericsson k700 this month (as long as they get some stock for me to buy the darn thing), I'll check out the capabilities of its browser or any unit that catches my eye. ;)
On my Treo600, all of the screen tests passed, but only one of the handheld tests passed. For those who are interested, the "@import" test was the only handheld test that passed.
I have a SE t610 which supposedly has "web browsing" capabilities. It is much the same situation with your phone… ugly text, super limited capabilities (WAP 1.0 only). Web Access ends up a novelty with this equipment, to the point where I completely disabled it on my account for cost savings. And to think, I signed up with a company (T-Mobile) that has worse coverage in my city than competitors just because it had more attractive "techy" things, like web browsing and picture messaging.
All of this pronouncement of "the mobile web" and stuff is clearly by tech oriented rich people who can afford to shell out $800 for a SE p900, or other expensive higher capability phone/PDA device. I think it will be 5 years or more before this "mobile web" is usable to a majority of cellphone owners.
I have a SE t610 which supposedly has "web browsing" capabilities. It is much the same situation with your phone… ugly text, super limited capabilities (WAP 1.0 only). Web Access ends up a novelty with this equipment, to the point where I completely disabled it on my account for cost savings. And to think, I signed up with a company (T-Mobile) that has worse coverage in my city than competitors just because it had more attractive "techy" things, like web browsing and picture messaging.
All of this pronouncement of "the mobile web" and stuff is clearly by tech oriented rich people who can afford to shell out $800 for a SE p900, or other expensive higher capability phone/PDA device. I think it will be 5 years or more before this "mobile web" is usable to a majority of cellphone owners.
I've got a Motorola v500 all the test passed except the CSS seemed to get confused about positioning.
The browser on the v500 is lovely except for the following problems:
A) It has a tendency to try and render stuff off the side of the screen but it doesn't seem to handle left to right scrolling. This is not helped by people not using media rules for their pages.
B) It chokes on large pages… so much of the web is out of bounds. But I've managed to get some pages to work. Slowly but surely.
I am able to surf well with my Nokia 3300. It has a qwerty-ish keyboard built into the front _and_ it stores and plays MP3 files. The display seems to render most pages and images quite well. The only drawback is the actual speed of the browser downloading over AT&T's network. However, the CSS doesn't import for this browser either. I don't know if you've got access to a 3300, but I've been well impressed with everything, including batter life and the speakerphone.
I may be no expert, but the internet to me is about getting content. I want lots of it and there is no reason to be on the internet if I cannot have it.
The small screen size of mobile phones just shoots this idea in the foot. It doesn't really matter how a page is styled, there is no way that I will be able to comfortably read an article, or participate in a discussion through a 180x1180 window. On top of that, the struggles with input comes into play as you already mentioned with the back slashes.
On the same note, I do not want a phone so big as to browse the internet. I want something small, tight, throw in my pocket and never have to worry about it. I don't even want to know its there until it rings.
Sure, checking email and stock quotes is handy, and that is really about as far as I see the cell phone internet craze going, but a phone is just not suitable hardware for internet browsing in my humble opinion.
So what should they be working on? Speed, speed, speed. People want to browse the internet, people buy computers. Computers are getting smaller and smaller every day to where soon we will have a laptop not much thicker than your average legal pad and light as a feather. So, if you get a bluetooth (obviously a new version) enabled phone connecting to the internet over a broadband connection, you are in heaven. The whole cell network is already there, so if we can get high-speed out of it wirelessly, I'm set.
I have to agree with you about Nokia's current lineup. All the phones are bulky and just plain ugly. I have a Nokia 3650 right now, but I'll be dumping it for the Sony Ericsson S700i ( http://tinyurl.com/6j7jd )as soon as I can. Stylish Japanese phones, here I come!
Also, Blake S: If you have access to a internet-equipped laptop, what would be the point of using your phone to browse the (crippled) internet on a tiny screen? Why not just use the laptop?
I have the t610 too, and it passes roughly the second half of the tests but not the first.
It has been useful in the past though, looking up sports results, getting dictionary definitions, weather/tide times, etc.
I think I may use it more when I have a laptop, and can connect to the internet via the phone, via bluetooth. Until then it is laborious, and even with a laptop it would still be very expensive (I pay £3/~$5 per MB).
It's very interesting timing that you just came across this. I, only yesterday, tried loading up your site on my Sprint Treo 600's builin browser. In the past, I was very impressed with it's abillity to selectivly support CSS. Most positioning was lost, but that allows accessable sites to flow quite naturally.
Unfortunalty, this site was a *huge* mess. Most items were on top of each other, there were large missing chunks of imagry and other difficulties. You don't have a "handheld" stylesheet, but I don't think the device supports them anyways.
So, I'm waiting patiently for a PalmOS port of the gecko engine where I can finnaly enjoy the standards based wen on my Treo.
I totally agree with the previous commentor. I just can't imagine people really surfing the web to read large amounts of content on their cell phone, unless its something like a Treo 600. From what I've seen, the SE T616 looks like a pretty solid phone and is hopefully better than the T610 others have been talking about. I plan on getting it sometime later this year. I don't think the cell phone is really an appropriate device for digital convergence.
Does anyone know if any of these devices or any devices support the media type= handheld?
Also, if you are interested in surfing the web and don't want to pay for the extra bandwidth on your phone, you can get a bluetooth enabled phone and surf the web through your computer's connection through bluetooth.
I have a Treo 600 and with the exception of the import line all the handheld tests failed. When the browser is in "optimized" mode the positioning fails too, but when it is in "wide" mode the positioning is correct. I have noticed on my own site that the phone's browser does not respect padding and of course there are only two font sizes.
Josh Bryant: Content is important and most of the time with the exception of a few sites the Treo 600 does a great job of rendering content. I use it with Bloglines to read my favorite blogs. The "optimized" mode is best for reading content as you have to scroll side to side in "wide" mode to read the content. On this site (http://www.mezzoblue.com) the top navigation gets totally messed up and of course the background padding that moves text off images is ignored which I've mentioned earlier but doesn't interfere with reading the information. The content is easy to read. Eric Meyer's site, http://www.meyerweb.com requires horizontal scrolling and more horizontal scrolling for comments or any blockquote items. Jeffery Zeldman's site, http://www.zeldman.com is pretty easy to read and navigate as well as http://www.alistapart.com.
Blake: I don't want to use phone if I have a computer handy, only when I don't have a computer available.
The support of CSS for handheld devices is lousy at the moment, hopefully it will get better in the future.
One word for you: Treo
It is all about the Treo. Anyone expecting anything resembling a "web experience" from a T9 flip phone will be disappointed. While small and stylish, the industrial design of T9 phones makes them great for making calls and not much else. Which is fine, if that's all you want to do.
I shunned the wireless web until I laid thumbs on the Treo. It is simply the best electronic device I've ever purchased, including Powerbooks. Here is a short list of reasons:
1. $4.99 a month buys me unlimited data transfer for web, email, etc (T-Mobile). Total phone bill: $45 a month.
2. I program my Tivo from it. If I'm away from home and I find out something is coming on TV that I want to record, a couple of taps in the Treo's web browser (Blazer) and I'm done.
3. I have full access to all blogs via the free Bloglines Mobile Edition. This is invaluable if you're in some remote corner of Hawaii and don't want to hit up an internet cafe to stay updated. All blogs read through Bloglines Mobile are perfectly formatted for most wireless screens.
4. No need for an iPod. 1 GB of music via the SD card and PocketTunes. I listened to 4 hours of music on a flight the other day and it ate only 20% of the battery juice.
5. Built in VGA still/video camera.
6. Full HTML rendering capabilities. No, it's not IE, but most well-designed sites I've tested with it look great.
7. Syncs with Outlook on my PC and everything on my Mac.
8. Most importantly, feels like a phone when you're using it as a phone, and feels like a computer when you're using it as a computer.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Dump the flipper!
This is something that really interests me (even though I've only got a knackered old Nokia at the moment - I need to upgrade too!).
My original tests were to see the extent to which mobile devices pick up CSS at all, and how they apply it (rather than what they apply - the next step that your tests are getting to). I was actually pleasantly surprised - more than a few phones and devices were picking up media="handheld".
Is mobile CSS a reality? Well it's obviously not universally supported, but its support is gathering pace. And that's why I think it's now a reality - a real, practical consideration and something that can be taken advantage of easily with this separation of structure and presentation malarkey - not many people want to go to the effort of recoding HTML or dealing with WML.
Like a print style sheet, it now makes sense to me to think about applying handheld style sheets, even if it's to deliver a stripped down version (which would be easier to read on those devices that also apply the screen media type). There's no harm done to those that don't support media="handheld", but there are massive benefits for the increasing number that do.
Also, I think it's really worth keeping in mind that unlike the table/lap-top web, devices, platforms and browsers are hugely different from country to country. What might be the latest supergadget in your local store might be stone age in someone elses or vice versa (I hear they have holographic teleportation phones in Japan now…).
Think there's a lot to take in to account to make things work in IE/Mozilla or PC/Mac? There are 100 times more things to think about when it comes to the mobile web.
Not to play sycophant to Josh and Rajeev, but I have to agree that the typical cell phone is not a tool that lends itself to surfing the web. Given the limitations of the cell phone (screen size, cost, poor page rendering) one really has to wonder why web capable phones have become such a hot ticket, and why designing pages for such a poor web tool used by such a small number of people has become such a concern for designers.
This got me thinking of an article that appeared in Shift magazine a number of years ago (it was written by Michael Turner, but I couldn't find it on their website). It spoke about the importance placed on "cool" products in terms of technological research—cell phones that could send colour faxes while the user was rock climbing, or the video cell phone, at the expense of other, somewhat more important technologies, such as clean burning cars.
Not to get to far off topic, but I think the concern over web capable cell phones, and therefore designing for web capable cell phones, is indicative of favoring the cool over the useful. That is to say, why do we spend so much time, and therefore money, designing for such a poor web tool which is used by such a small number of users? Is the web development community following in step behind the newest "fad" at the expense of developing other, more important or useful technologies?
Until trying your test I thought that my Motorola MPX200 was cool (carrier AT&T in the U.S.). The MPX200 runs Pocket IE as it's browser. I should have known not to set my expectations too high. I get NO CSS support at all.
Mike D: I agree with just about everything you said. I happen to use Sprint because in my area, just my area, the coverage is great. That is not always the case. My unlimited internet coverage costs $15 USD a month. I'm getting a little over 110kbit/sec http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed using the 100k link.
Todd: Using the Treo 600 allows me to read blogs, do online banking, or even get a traffic map to see the best way to drive to work. It allows me to make use of time that I would not usually be able to make use of. For instance waiting in a doctor's office (which lately has been a lot). Having the PDA functions allow me to be more productive. http://www.davidco.com. The device is small enough to still be a phone, yet large enough to read most blogs.
First, let me apologize for posting again. I should have said all I wanted to say in one shot. While I don't get any CSS support on my phone that doesn't mean that I still don't find it useful. Case in point - one of the things that I set up for my own web site is the ability to blog from my mobile phone. Because I created my own ASP CMS I was able to easily create a VERY basic form on my website which I access through my mobile phone. I add my title and my text and choose submit. On the server-side form submission I append "While I was out:" to my title indicating that the post was from my mobile phone. Blogging is no longer limited to an internet access. Now THAT is cool.
I also "scrape" the Chicago Suntimes into my site which means I can access the top 30-ish Suntimes stories as well. Ad-free and properly marked up XHTML.
I guess what I'm saying is that *maybe* CSS and style of a site shouldn't be as important on a mobile. Maybe it should be all about the mobility of clean content. Have fun with your new phone. :)
When I surf using the phone or PDA, all I really want is a text. I don't care about logos, banners and other stuff - I only need to get the job done.
And that usually means to fetch some info. So, text is quite fine.
If you look at the PDA market, PocketPC's rule (or are very strong) and the 2k3 version uses IE4.01, while 2k2 uses IE 3.02 (no CSS at all). So you _can_ use margins and paddings and borders… But is it really necessary? You can't create columns when your screen is 120-160px wide, paddings and margins have meaning only up to few pixels, and the best use for borders I found is to visually delimit skip-to nav links from rest of the document.
I'm involved in the process of creating one, rather large, online banking solution where support for mobiles is on the goal list.
Good markup, minimum tables, floats all the way and you have the basis. Then add good handheld style that _must_ override each fixed size and float in the screen style, and you are pretty sure it will look alright.
I didn't see anyone mention it, so I figure I will. I'm using a sidekick from Danger (via T-Mobile), and I have to say, I'm very happy with it. Almost all the sites I visit are completely usable, and with a full QWERTY keyboard, it's very easy to blog/comment from.
It's CSS support isn't very comprehensive, but it comes close enough to be very usable.
With the color sidekicks out now, and the sidekick 2 rumors starting, perhpas you should look at that for your next phone/PDA.
FYI, sometimes you can get out of a phone contract by simply upgrading your service. Many basic plans will not let you get out of your contract; however, they cant stop you from moving to an upgraded plan that doesnt have a contract.


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Full-size utility
Chevrolet Tahoe is an attractive full-size SUV that offers spaciousness and comfort. And for 2013, Chevrolet Tahoe is available in LS, LT, LTZ and Hybrid models, all offered in 2WD and 4WD.
LS, LT and LTZ models are powered by a 5.3L V-8 that uses variable valve timing and Active Fuel Management to optimize performance and efficiency. A fuel-saving Hydra-Matic 6L80 six-speed is standard on all models and contributes to a 21-mpg highway fuel economy rating. The average city fuel economy rating is 15 mpg.
For even greater fuel economy in a full-size SUV, the Tahoe Hybrid uses GM's patented two-mode hybrid system to deliver a 33 percent improvement in fuel economy in city driving. The Tahoe Hybrid averages 20 mpg in the city and 23 mpg on the highway.
Tahoe design and exterior features
Tahoe features the global face of Chevrolet, with a large gold Chevy bowtie centered on a twin-port horizontal grille. The grille surround is inset with an argent texture or available chrome finish. The lower fascia, incorporating the front license plate holder, is aggressively styled with a skid-plate look that enhances Tahoe's rugged appearance.
Additional features include heated power-operated outside mirrors, which are standard on LTZ and available on LT; a power-operated liftgate, which is available on LT and standard on LTZ; and a range of 17-inch and 20-inch wheels.
Tahoe interior features
Attention to detail is a hallmark of the Tahoe's spacious, comfortable cabin.
The accommodating Tahoe has the segment's largest center console storage bin, a large glove box and numerous storage compartments. Three rows of seating are standard on all models. The second row is available as a three-passenger bench with a 60/40 split or two bucket seats. The third row features a 50/50-split design and is removable.
Additionally, a power-assisted second-row seat release feature is available on LT and standard on LTZ. Other features include leather-appointed seating (standard on LT and LTZ); dual-zone automatic climate control on LT and LTZ; dual-zone manual-control air conditioning on LS; and a rear-seat entertainment system, which is available on LT and LTZ.
Standard on LS and LT is an audio system with AM/FM/CD and USB port, while a Bose Centerpoint Surround Sound system is standard on LTZ.
The starting MSRP for the 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe is $39,830 (LS 2WD). To learn more about this four-door sport utility vehicle that is manufactured in Arlington, Texas, visit www.chevrolet.com or your local Southeast Texas Chevrolet dealer.


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"Each poster in the Earthquake Summary Poster series contains multiple panels showing the epicentral area, plate tectonic environment, earthquake history, and generalized seismic hazard of the region. These posters are approximately 36 inches wide by 24 inches high.
The posters should be considered preliminary. They are neither completely definitive (the earthquake data are those available in the first few days after the event) nor totally accurate (the map base may contain obsolete information, for example)."


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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
Teaching Social Studies
Now that you have seen examples of how social studies content relates to active methodology, apply what you know in these activities.
Analyzing Methodology
This activity takes a closer look at examples of powerful teaching and learning in the classroom video segments. Read the description of each segment, then identify up to three elements of powerful teaching and learning best represented in the segment. Once you've identified the elements, explain your answers.
Powerful Teaching and LearningGo to Interactive Activity >>
A non-interactive version of this activity is available as a PDF document.
Developing and Analyzing a Lesson
In this activity, you will begin to develop a new unit, incorporating the NCSS content themes and elements of powerful teaching and learning. Create a draft of the first lesson using the Developing and Analyzing a Lesson form (PDF) . Once you've completed the draft, write your answers to the following questions.
If you are taking all eight sessions for credit, you may continue to work on lessons and materials for this unit in subsequent sessions. Save a copy of your work.
Save your written work to submit as an assignment.
Next > Evaluate
Session 1: Engage | Explore | Explain | Apply | Evaluate | ResourcesSocial Studies Workshop Home | © | About This Workshop | Site Map | Glossary
© Annenberg Foundation 2017. All rights reserved. Legal Policy


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Airport Enhancement Services (AES) - Buy 10 credits for AES. Airport Enhancement Services is a set of modules that runs INSIDE FSX and FS2004 and that will change the way how you will experience your airports.
Bonus system !
Since version 1.20 AES uses a bonus system that automatically adds additional free credits when you bought a certain number of serial codes. From version 1.99 this system is changed:
AES - What it is and how it works:
Right after you landed and departed on the runway, a follow me van will be waiting for you that brings you to the gate or parking of YOUR CHOICE. It adapts its speed to your taxi speed and even blinks its turn signals to alert you to a turn! As you get close to the gate you will see a 3d marshaller with detailed animation (far better than any being part of scenery products!) that guides you to your location and even signs you to cut your enigine(s). Then he plugs in his headphone and tells you the blocks are in location. At the same moment the jetway starts moving towards your aircraft and will PERFECTLY align to the door on your aircraft (any aircraft!). If the gate has dual jetways BOTH will work. Even the rubber seal that keeps out the rain is animated.
When you depart the jetway is moved back (you even hear the warning siren) and the ground crew will hook up the push back truck. Of course they will inform you of progress and tell you what to do. The push back is fully automated and AES even knows EXACTLY where to put the aircraft. The push back truck looks great and even has engine sound. During the push back you are told that you can start engines (but only when the area is clear). At the end of the push back the ground crew will signal you all is clear. Fully realistic!
The AES Base Pack is totally free of charge and includes numerous credit free airports (see list below). Please note that AES requires 3rd party airports to be installed previously, these are available as separate purchases, with the exception of the default Nuremberg airport. To unlock full AES service on an airport you need to buy credits. Large complex airports will need 5 credits, medium airports 3 or less.
All airports marked with 0 credits will be supported for free and without any limitations, all others can be used for 5 minutes before AES switches off (leaving the airport as it was). The others can be activated with the credits you buy.
Click to see the full list of all airports currently supported by AES
Installation and Usage:
1. Download and install the "AES Base Pack" (free demo program) which incl. the AES system and all currently available airports.
2. Buy AES credits to unlock additional airports. Read the full explanation in the AES pdf-manual!
If you have a pre-version installed, you can just install this version on top of that, it will leave all your credits and activation intact.
Microsoft Flight Simulator X with SP2 or Acceleration Pack (the DirectX preview is not supported) or Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 (Version 9.1)
Windows 98, 98 SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista
Pentium 1.5 GHz
512 Mb RAM
Sound card
Adobe Acrobat® Reader 5 minimal to read and print the manual (1)
Installation Size: 122 MB


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Caramel Cake - Daring Baker's November Challenge
I was scared to make this cake.
When I saw what this month's Daring Baker's Challenge was, I was excited because it was something sweet and the last couple have been savory. This cake comes from Shuna Fish Lydon, who is a professional pastry chef and writes the great food blog, Eggbeater. I started reading all the comments by people who have previously attempted this cake and had real problems with it. I was sure I would, too. But Shuna had lots of detailed notes posted about how to deal with some of the challenges of this cake and I followed them thoroughly and did not have any problem at all. The cake was moist and light and absolutely delicious. The caramel frosting is outstanding. So if you have the urge to make this cake, don't be afraid. It was pretty straightforward. It just takes a little time to make it properly.


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Tough and durable, built on the industry-standard G3400 platform bring maximum uptime and low operating cost to your operation. G3412C Low Emissions (LE) engines meet the most demanding continuous duty gas compression applications with virtually no unscheduled downtime.Ideal applications for G3412C (LE) engines include gas lift, gas gathering, and wellhead gas compression. Cat G3412C (LE) gas engine. Ratings: 475 bkW (637 bhp) @ 1800 rpm are NSPS site compliant capable with customer-provided aftertreatment.
|Minimum Rating
|637.0 BHP 475.0 bkW
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|Maximum Rating
|637.0 BHP 475.0 bkW
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|NSPS Site Compliant Capable NSPS Site Compliant Capable
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|1649.0 in³ 27.0 l
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|Compression Ratio
|8.5:1 8.5:1
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|Turbocharged-Aftercooled Turbocharged-Aftercooled
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|Rotation from Flywheel End
|Counterclockwise Counterclockwise
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|Flywheel and Flywheel Housing
|SAE No. 0 SAE No. 0
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|Flywheel Teeth
|136 136
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|Weight - Dry
|4720.0 lb 2141.0 kg
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|Oil Change Interval
|750 hours 750 hours
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|Ignition, Protection
|Cat EIS Cat EIS
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|6.0 in 152.0 mm
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|5.4 in 137.0 mm
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- Proven reliability and durability- Ability to burn a wide spectrum of gaseous fuels- Robust diesel strength design prolongs life and lowersowning and operating costs- Broad operating speed range
- Meets U.S. EPA Spark Ignited Stationary NSPSEmissions for 2007/8- 2.0 g/bhp-hr NOx emission versions available- Larger turbocharger and aftercooler provide leanair/fuel mixture, low emissions, and excellent fuelconsumption
Lean-burn engines operate with large amounts of excessair. The excess air absorbs heat during combustionreducing the combustion temperature and pressure,greatly reducing levels of NOx. Lean-burn design alsoprovides longer component life and excellent fuelconsumption.
Detonation sensitive timing protects the engine againstdetonation damage. Higher voltage and longer sparkduration mean easier starts, fewer misfires, andsmoother operation. Diagnostic codes help pinpointcylinder and component of interest. Spark plugmaintenance codes identify spark plug condition
- Deep sump oil pan has a larger capacity for normal750-hour oil change intervals- High-strength pan and rails for excellent mounting andstability- Side covers on block allow for inspection of internalcomponents
Large variety of factory-installed engine attachmentsreduces packaging time
Every engine is full-load tested to ensure proper engineperformance.
GERP is a PC-based program designed to provide siteperformance capabilities for Cat®natural gas enginesfor the gas compression industry. GERP providesengine data for your site's altitude, ambient temperature,fuel, engine coolant heat rejection, performance data,installation drawings, spec sheets, and pump curves.
More than 2,200 dealer outletsCat factory-trained dealer technicians service everyaspect of your petroleum engineCat parts and labor warrantyPreventive maintenance agreements available for repairbefore-failure optionsS•O•SSM program matches your oil and coolant samplesagainst Caterpillar set standards to determine:- Internal engine component condition- Presence of unwanted fluids- Presence of combustion by-products- Site-specific oil change interval
Over 60 years of natural gas engine productionOwnership of these manufacturing processes enablesCaterpillar to produce high quality, dependable products.- Cast engine blocks, heads, cylinder liners, and flywheelhousings- Machine critical components- Assemble complete engine
For all your petroleum power requirements, visit www.catoilandgasinfo.com


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Resolved: The Academic Senate of Sonoma State University (ASSSU) endorses and supports the commitments articulated in the resolutions regarding Early Start Programs passed by the Academic Senate of the CSU (cf. AS-2895-09/APEP/AA: "Opposition to Impending Implementation Mandatory Early Start Programs" and AS-2926-09/AA/APEP "Recommendations Regarding the Implementation of Mandatory Early Start Programs"); and be it further
Resolved: That the ASSSU endorses the resolutions passed both by CSU Los Angeles (2 March 2010) and by Cal Poly SLO (4 May 2010); and be it further
Resolved: That the ASSSU supports the efforts of its Math and English faculty to plan an intentional and pedagogically sound program that meets the Chancellor's mandate and that is reconciled with the aforementioned Resolutions; and be it further
Resolved: That the ASSSU opposes any judgment by any non-faculty implementation board as to the sufficiency of the SSU plan relative to other Early Start models; and be it further
Resolved: That the ASSSU distribute this resolution to the CSU Board of Trustees; the Office of the Chancellor; the Chair of the Academic Senate of the CSU; campus Presidents, Provosts, and Senate Chairs; the Chair of the English Council of the CSU; and the Chair of the Mathematics Council of the CSU.
Approved by the Senate