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50 years ago Mars was still known only by what could be learned by using telescopes to peer through our turbulent atmosphere. There was a high ratio of interpretation to knowledge. The dark regions girdling the orange planet were originally designated 'Maria', or 'Seas' from precedent set with mapping the Moon. In the 1870s the director of the Milan Observatory, Giovanni Schiaparelli glimpsed a fine spider web like texture spanning the bright presumed deserts. Fleeting glimpses of detail appeared to him like networks of lines which he descriptively named 'channels' or 'grooves' which in Italian is 'canali'. Thanks to a lazy popular press the observations were written up as seeing literal 'canals'! At the end of the 1800s Percival Lowell became the most prominent popularizer of the 'canals', building a major observatory to gather observations. Lowell conjured up visions of the heroic survival of a mature united planetary civilization as their planet steadily dried into a parched desert, digging a planet wide canal system directing the precious water from the melting poles to the remaining 'oases'. Other astronomers did not see the 'canals', a few saw them but observed their 'breaking up' into roughly aligned fine details during moments of perfect seeing. All Earthly telescopic observations are compromised by the atmosphere they must look through, but moments of fortuitously steady air currents along the line of sight can allow astonishing detail to be briefly glimpsed. Such perfect seeing is something of a freak of nature, rare and unavailable on demand.
Left: A partial map of Mars with the network of 'canals' suggests what is view able during periods of 'good seeing' through a large telescope. At the right is an idealized impression of how Mars would appear in 'perfect seeing', when the telescope rather than our atmosphere is the limiting factor. Looking at this image from a distance may result in your own experience of seeing 'canals'. The tendency of the eye-brain interaction to emphasize perception of patterns from randomness contributes to the subjective 'structuring' of marginal fine detail.
For decades the 'canals' were prominent in Mars literature and images until the failure of space probes to see them gave a merciful death to the idea. Ironically, the initial notion that the dark regions might be bodies of water was first discredited by observations of 'canals' crossing them! The possibility of visible plant life on Mars was for many years taken seriously and rose above the 'canal' controversy in respectability around the mid 20th century. A yearly 'wave of darkening' and subsequent fading of the dark regions of Mars had long been perceived as spreading from the polar caps in the springtime of both hemispheres, as if vegetation was being 'watered' by the melting polar ice caps and carpeting large regions with thriving plant life. The vegetation scenario was also encouraged by the appearance of Mars through large refractor telescopes through which many early visual observations were made. The planet appeared in such telescopes as a 'ripe apricot' orange colored disk with the equatorial regions appearing a darker blue green. This is partially due to the behavior of the lenses of that time which were imperfect in bringing all colors to the same focus, the blue light often being spread a little beyond the redder part of the spectrum which would naturally be that focused for in the case of Mars. Darker details surrounded by brighter ones would therefore have a green-blue 'overlay' over their borders apart from any real color details. Another factor is the color contrast effects of the human eye, which briefly imprints across ones retinas an 'afterimage' of an opposite spectral color to that which you have been staring at when one looks away to a more neutral colored surface. For example, if a small bright red square of colored paper is placed atop a large gray sheet and stared at for half a minute, then the red square removed while continuing to stare at the same spot, a ghostly vivid green square will briefly appear in its place.
In the early 1960's the great Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper performed careful observations with an 82 inch reflecting telescope, observing in a brightly lit room to avoid the 'dazzling' visual effects of seeing a sunlit disk against a black background. He compared his impressions of Mars with arrays of color chips before him. With his eyes thus more 'day adapted' he determined the deserts were indeed a light orange ocher, but the dark regions were in the Martian Spring a neutral gray color, with a touch of moss green in the equatorial regions. Kuiper concluded the obvious greenish blue colors others reported there were caused by poor 'seeing' conditions.
As the space age dawned the dwindling speculation concerning the 'canals' of Mars tended towards geologic explanations which fit the emerging concepts of Mars as a very dry cold desert with ever lowering estimated air pressure. The dark areas were also being reconsidered as possibly caused by chemical reactions not involving plant life, or as the shifting of volcanic and bright dust over large regions by eruptions and seasonal winds. Mariner 4 found the atmospheric density of Mars to be a threadbare 6 millibars of pressure (to sea level Earth's 1000). Between this near vacuum, which would quickly evaporate distilled liquid water, and the extreme cold, (ranging from highs of 25-30 degrees C to polar lows of under -100 C), the likely size range of possible Martian life retreated to practically microscopic levels. It is cold enough there for atmospheric Carbon Dioxide to 'freeze out' and be deposited on the polar surfaces in winter as 'dry ice'!
The real Mars has emerged so far not as an abode of life, but as an unsuspected geologic wonderland. This small world, similar in surface area to the land regions of Earth, broadly resembles the Moon with its craters and lava plains, and Earth like in its volcanoes, sand dunes, traces of ancient liquid erosion of the landscape, and it's dust storms and clouds. Uniquely Martian surface processes are being discovered such as polar vents probably driven by release of gases from eroding ice, often leaving varied dark dust patterns around them. The primarily carbon dioxide atmosphere ranges in pressure from a rarefied 1 millibar at the top of the highest volcano to over 11 millibars at the bottom of the deepest impact basins. The yearly darkening of the equatorial dark regions turned out to be caused by seasonal winds carrying bright dust which covers and uncovers wide regions of darker rocky terrain. Perhaps only a sample return mission can hope to answer some of the intimate questions we would like to ask about our neighbors past, especially if life does or once existed there. Unfortunately an unmanned sample return mission is beyond what can now be managed, and so much more so a manned expedition. In the mean time, numerous robot probes including rovers are revealing more aspects of what kind of place Mars is as more regions are explored from the surface.
An excellent late 20th century summary of the traditional mystiques surrounding Mars were represented in the 'Mars And the Mind Of Man' conference of November 1971, timed to coincide with the true unveiling of the 'Red Planet' with the arrival of the Mariner 9 spacecraft to Mars orbit. The noted participants included Ray Bradbury, a great storyteller whose 'Martian Chronicles' brought to 1950's readers a vivid reinventing of the 'classical' inhabited Mars of our collective dreams and Arthur C. Clarke, whose writings ranged from popularising our growing knowledge to fiction building upon these discoveries. Among those representing the emerging scientific consensus of the real and possible Mars were Planetary scientists Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray. An excellent survey of the rise of and metamorphoses of interest and knowledge of Mars in recent decades can be had in Andrew Chaikin's great book 'A Passion For Mars'.
The romantic aura long surrounding the 'Red Planet' is now revealing itself in the digital realm, with web sites sharing and reacting to our collective discoveries. As new spacecraft reach Mars, the mission related web sites have become among the biggest focuses of interest in the young history of the World Wide Web. The numbers of people involved in Mars related discussion on the Web are probably in the many thousands, with a wide spectrum of areas of interest shown. Students searching the web for space related information probably represent the most important group to reach with real information, who are working on assignments or are actually interested in the subject. Perhaps some of them even dream of going to Mars. There is still hope for this, however uncertain. Some students are pursuing Planetary Science as their subject of choice, assuring a pool of future scientists to work with the information gathered by future robot explorers. It is especially such an audience I hope to reach, with hope that curious young readers will learn in time what approaches of inquiry can contribute to our body of scientific knowledge, and which ones are at best idle entertainment and at worst an unproductive waste of time.
I will mention a few trends of irresponsible rumor mongering I have seen on the web concerning Mars in recent years, broadcast from sites featuring certain conspiracy theories which in effect libel the history of space exploration. To get to the conclusion first, there is no attempt to censor an 'Earth like' Mars, nor is there an attempt to sweep evidence of life of any sort 'under the rug'. There is a good deal of caution and high standards applied to evidence that might shed light on the existence of life on other worlds. Caution must be applied to avoid announcing what could under further scrutiny turn out to be a 'false positive', with resulting likely devastation of credibility for the field as well as for individuals. It is the truth as revealed under high standards of reliability we must accept, however it does or does not finally meet our expectations. Whatever the level of information we have to work with, theories are then put forth to try to make sense of things, then held like a banner against the winds of fate. They will be torn to shreds if they cannot stand the rigors of examination or will fly proudly with the vindication of bringing to light some new aspect of nature.
A landmark in the propagation of conspiracy rumors regarding modern Mars exploration seems to be the 1997 book by Barry E. Digregorio with Gilbert Levin and Dr. Patricia Ann Straat, 'Mars, The Living Planet' so a 'mini review' follows. An emphasis of the book is the weight Levin gives to the results of the biology experiments on Viking. I would have liked to have separate chapters by the different authors to better sort out the editorial emphasis of the contributors. Gilbert Levin was a member of the Viking Science Team concerned with the biology experiments, and probably provided the detailed backgrounds and descriptions of the experiments. Carl Sagan would later say in his talks that the Viking life detection experiments obtained two out of the three positives sought in the methods used in the trio of biology experiments. A rather dry but hopefully reasonably summarized paragraph sketching out the results can be read here. Levin seems to feel the caution in explaining the behavior of the Martian soil in the Viking biology experiments was excessive. My impression vacillates between someone invoking an image of a persecuted heretic and that of a dogged crusader on the conceivable verge of vindication. In the end who knows? The cause is periodically kept alive with articles like this.* My primary interest in this book is not in the biology experiment results, but in a field I have experience in, the preparation of images for presentation. The more sensational aspects of the book deal with color related issues as they might relate to biological scenarios for what is being seen.
'Mars, The Living Planet' is cited by a few who still represent the dark regions of Mars as being green and alive in willful ignorance of what we have learned since the dawn of the Space Age. The color reproductions in that book are generally terrible and the images are not necessarily accurately described in the captions, confusing and undermining some of the points the authors were trying to make. For instance, color plate 4, which shows a photo mosaic map containing a large elongated dark gray region on Mars, is shown as gray (and upside down) above a caption describing it as blue green with a similar caption error on another such photo map on plate 23. Plate 5 is incorrectly described as part of the first Viking 1 color picture. Plate 6 has nothing to do with the caption below it, the intent seemingly to provide a comparison of the pre and post adjustment color balance of the first picture but instead showing the 'Sun over the shoulder' view of the flag and other painted parts. The first color surface picture is partially shown and correctly attributed on the facing page, on plates 7 and 8, but poorly and luridly reproduced. Images processed to make the brightest basaltic rock surfaces with less dust appear greenish are cited as evidence for lichen like growths perched on the rocks. The 'changes' cited seem to me more likely to be due to the deposition and removal of dust across the rock surfaces, as was seen on the lander surface during the mission. This is ironically exactly the explanation of the large scale seasonal changes of the large dark regions which were once cited as possible evidence of widespread plant life on Mars. The last color plate, of a reasonably reproduced Hubble Mars image release showing greenish looking dark regions, is used to imply the dark areas are actually green and by implication living. The book reads largely like an appeal for the revival of the vegetation hypothesis of the 'wave of darkening' noted above.
The book also tells the story of the high end CRT monitors at the JPL press area early in the Viking 1 mission displaying the initial attempt at a color picture being manually readjusted by technicians, using the RGB 'brightness knobs'. I suspect this monitor adjustment was an effort to easily correct the color error in the initial print run while a new batch of color photographic prints were being laboriously prepared. Gilbert Levin's 20 year old son Ron then began changing the color adjustments back to the 'Earth like' setting undoing the work of the technicians. Ron was shortly confronted by Viking project head Jim Martin and warned to stop or be thrown out. This is probably the origin of the conspiracy story regarding the supposed NASA efforts to hide an Earth like sky on Mars.
The first color image of Mars by the Viking 1 lander was assembled from red, green and blue 'scans' across the surroundings by a panoramic camera on the lander rotating like a periscope. As referenced in the NASA SP-425 'The Martian Landscape' page 27, the initial intention was of showing a noncommittal gray sky, as they were having trouble believing the overall reddish color bias and needed more time to commit themselves to a confident presentation of what the cameras were telling them. In the rush to release prints 8 hours after getting the data the color balance of the prints being processed in the photo lab (chemically processed photographic prints from a master negative) drifted towards the blue enough to give a startlingly familiar look to that initial release of the first color picture. (I have one of those prints). One could imagine hiking through that desert scene, which was quickly carried on and in publications all over the world (left). The second version of that color surface view resembled the right image. My page specifically devoted to surface views of the colors of Mars can be seen here.
The fallacy of the 'blue sky' Mars surface images paraded on some web sites like this can be seen with the extra blue color given to the very gray Viking spacecraft by such treatment. This phony 'hidden blue sky' issue is probably among the most often repeated canards of Mars conspiracy mongers. The basis for most representations of 'Martian blue skies' in recent images of the surface are preliminary jpeg releases of raw image data being used, without regard to the layers of qualifications one must take into account between mass produced jpegs and properly calibrated image data which becomes available later.
Left: Even from Earth based measurements the spectrum of Mars has been seen to reflect more light in the red end of the visible spectrum than the blue end, with the bright and dark areas appearing as similar traces across the spectrum of different intensities, the dark areas 'rising' less on the red end.
Right: Surface measurements made by the Pathfinder lander resulted in spectral data of superior quality, extending well into the infra red. The portion of the similar Martian spectrum measured from Earth decades ago in the left diagram is indicated in the green box.
For photos made on the surface with red, green and blue filters rotated before the camera optics, proper color balance generally makes the green image exposed as a decent representation of the relative gray tones in the scene, with the red channel overall lighter and the blue channel overall darker. Only the actual data released on the NASA PDS Imaging Node can be used with confidence to provide a view of what the cameras are showing us on Mars, not the preliminary inferior JPEG releases which are generously provided to give the public a quick look. The excellent Pancam true color images site provides the highest quality color images, prepared by the team most familiar with the camera characteristics. Among the best of the dedicated amateur sites using the real data is this one by Daniel Crofty which provides sets of both preliminary and calibrated Rover and Phoenix image data. The comparison of such data from that site of both versions of the same images, generated with the preliminary JPEGs and from the real data, is a worthy exercise. The examples at left, adapted from the Crofty site, provide an example from Spirit's sol 149.
On top is a color image I have slightly adjusted, with gray scale examples from each color channel making up the color image also shown. Note how the brightness changes across the spectrum correspond to trends measured from Earth and from Mars. The RGB gray scale comparison on the right follows the trends of the spectral measurements shown above, with the brightness and contrast of the surface materials increasing toward the red end of the spectrum.
Such intensity variations are not incorporated into the preliminary jpeg releases, as seen in the comparison jpeg derived version below. The actual brightness levels and contrast in the RGB color channels are discarded as automatic levels adjustments are made for fast releases of such data. Such 'auto contrast' treatment can optimize the range of brightness for individual frames but produce misleading color when simply combined with other similarly treated filtered images as an RGB image. Martian skies and dark surface materials looking a garish blue are a frequent result of such efforts.
An added source of error is introduced when the color balance of one image presentation medium is added to a displayed image when rephotographed. An author e-mailed me with an image attached of Pathfinder's then new color view of 'twin peaks' photographed from a monitor, with the cool 'color temperature' of a Cathode Ray Tube used then for TV monitors making the bright sky look quite blue. In apparent ignorance of what happens when you shoot an image of a monitor with a camera set to a white balance for more neutral color lit subjects, he claimed this could be the 'true' color and strongly suggested the later official color images were part of a conspiracy which began during Viking. This dubious line of 'evidence' has been propagated by others after the MER rover landings and continues with each new spacecraft landed on Mars.
A bit more more on the 'Blue Martian Sky' discussion which is informative yet a bit more involved can be seen here.
Numerous web sites preserve and propagate a host of tempests, often within implied conspiratorial contexts, generated on the web which have come and gone as spacecraft have given us new data to use and 'abuse'. We see therein controversy needlessly generated by incomplete understanding of the process of obtaining such pictures combined with a cynical attitude fanned by a few professional cranks which encourages upcoming web crusaders to take up the Cause. One often repeated 'anomoly' is shown in a crop of a Mars Global Surveyor photo of a Martian crater containing a strikingly round and regularly textured dune field, apparently being represented as possibly something artificial. A representative example of imaginative presentation can be found here. (In the original photo similar but less intriguingly shaped dune fields can be seen within neighboring craters.)
Rather than taking up bandwidth replicating what this site and many others have already done, I will sketch out a few of the issues referenced in dated entries below from the more comprehensive 'The hidden colors of Mars' site, due to its convenient format for reference*. Shortly after the MER rovers landed on Mars and began returning photographs from the surface a few interested parties began accusing NASA of lying about the true colors of Mars! Accusatory claims were made and repeated like digital echoes that somehow the true colors of Mars were more Earth like, especially in the color of the sky. Images of the color target/sundial differing from the examples photographed on Earth were cited as examples of deliberate 'altering' of the colors being seen on the surface. Some of the color mosaics made by the MER rovers show color chips on the spacecraft sundial differing widely from their actual colors because the pigments in the color chips, particularly the green and blue colors, vary widely from their visual appearance when the Infrared filter is substituted for the red. This is commonly done for maximum detection of subtle Martian color variations. Numerous other photos are also made in visual color wavelengths in which the color chart as photographed on Earth is recognizable, getting dustier with time.
Lower down on the page cited above, at the January 10-11 entry, can be seen a photo taken at a JPL news conference showing a projected video image of a color Martian landscape just returned by the Spirit rover. A photo of a video projection (of relatively blue color temperature), photographed by cameras apparently set to 'incandescent' light white balance, is implied on such sites to represent a quiet or even 'subversive' revealing of an 'Earth like' blue sky on Mars!
On the left are photographs I made during landing day of the 'Opportunity' rover at JPL. Left: a photo showing the blue cast of the video projector above the press site podium compared to the ambient fluorescent lighting at the time. Middle: the unveiling of the first color photo, color balanced for the seated people lit by incandescent lamps. Note the blue cast to the brighter portions of the video projection, especially the sky. Right: the same photo with the projection color manually balanced to more resemble what I saw. It was clear visually that the image projected was identical to that which was released on line immediately afterward (right image). This was also the case with the corresponding color picture made from the 'Spirit' rover cited above.
The good representation of Mars related conspiracy theories as well as the relatively reserved editorial stance of the 'Hidden Colors' site justify my referring to it as a place to guide those curious about recent 'fringe views' about Mars even if I regard most of the items presented therein as ludicrous. As I continue mentioning issues highlighted on that site, I come to a couple references for which I choose to refrain from giving the names of the persons involved. This is partly in the spirit of showing more professional courtesy to others who I disagree with then they have chosen to show me in the editorial or intellectual rights realms, and partly to not contribute attention to them any more than can be helped while feeling it necessary to allude to them at all. They have their own audiences and hosts of fans, and indeed they serve the purpose of providing a place for the romantic heritage surrounding Mars to live on for some who find the revealed physical facts insufficiently exciting.
Continuing down the page, at the January 13 and 29 entries, a site is mentioned as an authority on Mars color. The specific predominance of blue skies in its raw JPEG derived MER images claiming to be 'true color' is the first 'red flag' I would note, for reasons stated above. In his 'Mars Odyssey Color Correction' page most of his versions of THEMIS images are unaccountably heavily overlain with a dominant 'sepia tone' with the result that the subtle variations seen in the actual data are consistantly obscured. Here is my treatment of the widely reproduced Melas Chasma image release, The original and two stages of my work, ( showing removal of camera blemishes, and color balancing) and the image as presented in the site mentioned above. Comparison will be more rewarding than would be further description.**
Often the presentation of Mars surface images doctored to look 'Earth like' are presented alongside the 'natural color' versions with the question 'which looks more natural?'. Naturally an Earthlike scene is more familiar, but the collective everyday experience of the readers is so far only relevant for Earth. A new world has it's own story to tell, and as it's peculiarities are revealed something new gradually becomes 'familiar' on its own terms. Generally there is a wider agenda alluded to in sites claiming to be revealing hidden facts about Mars we 'aren't supposed to know'. As a general principal, web sites which trumpet 'anomolist' (a reserved word for 'crackpot') causes, such as an obsession with Cydonia, alleged officially 'ignored' traces of alien life on the Moon as well as Mars, hidden agendas of government and other secret entities, etc. are poor bets if what you are after is confidently accumulated knowledge which will be built upon in your life time.
The February 1 entry in the 'Hidden colors' site preserves a reference to a bizarre episode in which a piece of my work was involuntarily involved. The essence of the story was sensationalistic claims about plant life built upon a poorly color balanced initial release of a Mars Express image making the gray streaky markings around the Gusev landing site of the Spirit rover look green. Decades of progress in our understanding of Mars seemed to be ignored by these few loud voices in favor of wishful thinking who would rather believe the green was real than that the image was poorly color balanced. A web site with a wide audience which has championed many space related anomolist causes such as the 'face on Mars', has a bad habit of using other peoples work without permission. It happened to me, as part of a misleading article which I was glad to help publicly expose. One of my images of a preliminary colorized gray scale THEMIS mosaic of the Gusev landing site region was used to make an absurd point. The act of taking without permission was compounded by an initial incorrect attribution of the mosaic to NASA. I took some pains to correct this attribution with e-mails, posts on usenet and other places, and on my site by 'branding' a notice on my image, (linked to in the original story), to warn whoever uploaded it what was going on! The saga, which I participated in clarifying to the 'Bad Astronomer' Phil Plait, (whose site I heartily recommend), appears here.
A later spectacular apparent case of wishful thinking acting upon misperception of imagery from Mars took place in early June 2007, when Ron Levin, (who was chastised as a young man for interfering with the monitors at JPL), in support of his recent attempts to establish that liquid water can be found on Mars under the most favorable conditions, used as evidence a garishly colored photo from the Opportunity rover in an article run on the NewScientist web site as evidence for a water pond or smooth clear ice! The site soon added a retraction, now over the article, after some thoughtful people informed the editors the clear water or flat 'ice pond', which owed its blue appearance to the arbitrarily wild color palette used, was on a slope of about 30 degrees along the well documented 'Burns Cliff'! For days to come the proclamations on some web forums of triumph that water was seen on Mars had to be rhetorically pried from the anomolist's clenched fingers, as for a time many in their ranks expressed disbelief that such an obvious problem as the tilt could be overlooked. A lesson here is that even as intelligent a person as Levin, an MIT physicist, can be misled by incomplete understanding of a false color image taken out of context. An excellent summary of the story can be found on the Planetary Society web site. Whenever a spacecraft in Mars orbit makes images which are released showing green and blue dark regions yet another round of voices proclaiming fields of vegetation growing on Mars amid blue pools of liquid water can be anticipated. The detection of brine droplets on the Phoenix lander leg shifting from frozen to liquid states was based on careful examination of images and shows the process at work of the discovery of something remarkable.
The process of heaping the greatest burden of interpretation upon the most marginal information at the limits of perception has continued to this day. The collective 'Rorschach test' Mars has provided for Humanity began with the 'canals' and has to one degree or other been applied to images from every lander mission and some orbiters. Past examples, most notably the so called 'face' on Mars, show the trends of how such ideas respond to better data: something which vaguely suggests something remarkable when seen in poor resolution is later examined close up, revealing geologic processes dominating the new detail. A 'retreat' to smaller scales to look for weird things then commences. Most of the extraordinary claims one finds are of things at or below the resolution limits of the camera combined with image compression artifacts and varied electronic 'noise', all acted upon by the 'detail from randomness' trend of human vision. The game of seeing funny shapes in variously lit rocks at the limits of detail on Mars surface images goes on and on, but photos taken in earthly deserts show similar things, as can images of numerous random processes at all scales. A section of a USGS document with photos of rocks that could be mistaken for biological traces can be seen here.The human tendency to organize random visual textures into familiar shapes is known as 'Pareidolia'. Fossils, machine parts, and crawling animals are reported in great numbers on related web forums by people actively seeking such things in preliminary JPEG releases of Mars surface photography. A USGS report I have on the dry valleys of Antarctica shows many eroded rocks which under insufficient resolution could easily be mistaken for technological or biological traces.
Here I wander from specific symptoms of at least a modest popular disdain for the emphasis of space exploration on geology and astronomy, and stray into observations and speculation on what the symptoms may be indicating. I thus willingly step into the ethereal minefield of trying to suggest sociological trends applicable to the subject, aware that it is hazardous to attempt to coherently convey what may simply be incoherence. There is lot more to tell than show about this topic because this is about ways of thinking rather than about evidence. One can grope about at where currents of collective thought may have arisen, even if one cannot look into the mind of those behind the web pages dedicated to what can be uncharitably termed the 'lunatic fringes' of this story. I am not trying to divine how any specific persons thought processes run. No direct accusations toward individuals are even necessary, for the guilty parties speak well and loudly for themselves. Cottage industries have grown for decades around the idea of conspiracies lurking among secret organizations ancient and modern, involving anything one can imagine is judged vital to hide from the public. Thanks to numerous instances of violation of the public trust by government agencies there is a veneer of mistrust hovering about any government related enterprise like flies over spoiling food. Institutions once held sacred have, mostly deservedly, lost the respect of widening percentages of the populace.
In a decades long trend the 'world view' served by the methods of science is becoming but a subset of the attitudes large portions of the population appear to embrace as the very assumptions behind reality concepts diverge. It is not my intention to show disrespect for how others believe but to try to describe trends within this restricted context. Life on other worlds, for example, seems to be to be regarded by many people less in terms of physical possibilities as in the case of SETI related work and more in what I would call 'religious' or 'mystical' terms. Such a context easily ignores whatever reservations may dog the tails of the revelations, little matters such as physical limitations to widespread travel between stars is ignored or assumed to be transcended by infinitely able beings. There is an unavoidable overlap between the subject of Life on other worlds and the UFO subject in popular culture, especially in the accumulated effects of groups of dedicated vocal enthusiasts upon an accepting (and to the extreme, gullible) fraction of the public. Perhaps there is a cultural need to manifest something of the 'religious experience' from the 'noise in the observations'. In days of yore this manifested itself, among people who shared widespread sincere religious beliefs, with visions of saints and other religious entities manifesting as their visions of ultimate power. Now many people, deep in their hearts, have revised the Deity from a religious to a technological concept, with aliens in spaceships from afar the new bearers of infinite wisdom.
The continuing division of society along political, ideological and 'spiritual' lines has in the process acted to 'diffuse' the earlier 'standardized reality consensus' felt by past generations, a process which first reached a 'critical mass' in the late 1960s. This tends to make the potential 'audience' for anything one might regard as important or of general interest an increasingly smaller portion of the population. I understand the value of at least some of the many paths we now feel free to pursue in benevolently enriching ourselves. I don't, for instance, feel the need to crusade against Astrology despite my understanding of the physical planets and stars, for it is peoples own business what they choose to believe. In my view such multiplicity of 'world views' can be healthy as it improves the overall social adaptability, but such trends tend to diminish the exposure of quantified knowledge to the population, along with any other influence. I am concerned that the heritage of human existence, our accumulated body of knowledge, is increasingly being treated as just another religious galloping this way and that by people whose interests are less in illuminating truths and more on turning the spotlight on themselves for fame and financial gain. The old themes of persecuted seekers of truth fighting cover-ups are played out repeatedly. People arise to exploit the dissatisfied undercurrents in society, rarely inventing anything new but often stitching together from current popular causes new sock puppets pulled over the same old themes.
Science aware individuals will likely find, during discussions with many random people interested in the subjects addressed in this page, that the conceptual frameworks some now view the world through are not applicable to discussions in a scientific context. This or that spiritual concept is treasured for what individual 'meaning' it can provide, however for the interests of meaningful discussion it is unreasonable to subject such beliefs to the critical rigors expected of a scientific theory. The trick is, as I see it, to keep separate what it is you treasure about a belief from matters in the 'physical realm' which can be disproved. Polarization on a more fundamental level may be in play in the evident divergence in how Mars is regarded by science and by more loosely constrained systems of thought addressed by web sites and discussion forums. In a very general sense, I have noted a 'disconnect' between right ( visual, spatial modeling, artistic and intuitive, etc.) and left (linear logical reasoning, language and math etc) brained approaches to detailed discussions of certain topics. In my broad brushed summary, people who let the right brain run their thinking on such topics seem to fall in love with an idea and try to fit evidence to it because of how it 'feels', with little effort to try and see what might be wrong with such ideas.
When contributing to Science, one tries to fit what one thinks may be behind observed aspects of nature to what is known about the actual circumstances, with any predictions based on your theory helpful in determining its likelihood by focused observations for predicted aspects, to be either confirmed or not. The 'left brain' approach leads to the building of informational edifices, often built upon inspired 'right brain' influenced ideas. In time the merits of the 'construct' are revealed, and nature often fails to co-operate with ones inspired ideas. Either they collapse under the burden of new uncooperative facts, to be rebuilt another way, or they stand reinforced on the collective verdict of each new brick gathered by observations and cemented by its contribution to the structure of knowledge. Theories are proposed, and then must run the gauntlet of informed and skeptical minds as well as the verdict of better observations.
Echoing in the collective web expressed consciousness, thanks to a few people and their inspired minions, is a general scenario behind some of the recently circulated 'fringe beliefs' associated with past civilizations on Mars which is broadly outlined at the conclusion of the otherwise forgettable movie 'Mission To Mars'. Echoes of the 'Ancient Astronaut' fad of an earlier generation are sometimes incorporated in such lore, with ancient Egypt somehow being involved. Such scenarios are in my view generally more akin to religious revelation then scientific theory. At worst, the representation of unlikely interpretations of available information as 'suppressed truths' can amount to a form of 'disinformation', scattered like sterile bait designed to snag potentially constructive individuals. An unknown portion of young minds are thus turned to unproductive dead ends, which can generate camaraderie within small on-line communities but continues to dilute the quality of the sum total of information people can stumble upon.
As science dominates the arena of current progress in understanding Mars, perhaps the 'romantic' side of our interest in our neighbor world needs somewhere to go, beyond escape such as science fiction literature and towards something like religion or some kind of homage to mythic cultural themes. Whatever plans people who are 'grounded' in science have for traveling to Mars have failed to stimulate significant cultural interest and momentum. When real human exploration of space is absent, as has been the case since we have been confined to low Earth orbit, people turn to mythical tales woven around places denied to Mankind that address things people yearn for beyond the world they know.
The greatest pitfalls of all lie in wait for those who seek to grant the powers of infinitely wise beings to bring about what you are trying to explain. This promotes 'making excuses' for perceived faults in the theory by invoking such infinite power, such as can be detected in some of the extremes of religious, anomolist and 'flying saucer' oriented discussions. The man who enunciated a thinking process designed to home in on determining causes was the Logician and Franciscan Friar William of Ockham, known generally as Occam,(1285-1349) whose thought processes slashed like a rhetorical razor through the religious cobwebs clinging to accelerating inquiries into nature. An explanation offered about something should pick the simplest possible explanation for observations, and be stingy, or parsimonious, about anything not forced upon one by the data, as in 'it is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer'. More about Occam and 'Occam's razor' can be read of, among other places, in his Wikipedia article here. Critical thinking is vital to the pursuit of knowledge, and promotion of such is one of those responsibilities one cannot count on being emphasized in public education, and especially not by corporate media outlets or politicians.
Mars continues to reveal its secrets under our continuing scrutiny by spacecraft, which conveys us along the path between our initial impressions and the truth we seek. Many dedicated people work to share this knowledge with the public. Unfortunately a good deal of spurious information is also being circulated. The need to be careful when presenting something as a color photograph, such as to state any known qualifications to the use of the term 'true color', is evident as interests can run with an idea based on misleading information. Such is the democratic power of the web. One should keep in mind the power of wishful thinking combined with ignorance. A lot of the more extreme nonsense being spread about Mars appears to be by people who show rather little knowledge about the subject. When what amounts to 'divination' of content from the 'noise' at and past the limits of information is at work rather than the straightforward perception of information, the results will generally reveal more about the observer than the thing being observed, As Carl Sagan said about the 'canals' of Mars. The act of persistent trumpeting of 'fringe' ideas, like an artificial 'face on Mars' or creationism, can create an air of controversy where none existed, in effect providing a cheap way to 'carve out a piece of the subject pie' in the public arena. The truth is exciting enough without people resorting to exploiting the part of the public mind that indulges itself in tabloid entertainment. Inquiring minds deserve more than to be pandered to. People should know they have access to all the painstakingly gathered knowledge one could want to know about this and so many other subjects. Part of the divergence of web presence attitudes about space subjects are driven by belief, some by the trends of facts. In the end the judgement is for us all to make based on what makes sense.
©Don Davis
August 2008, revised February 2009
*Please note: some of the sites referenced above or linked to are intended within the scope of this article as examples of vastly differing approaches to the subject and whose editorial emphasis, traceable thinking processes and conclusions should not be regarded as endorsed here in any way.
** A page on my technique of getting the best out of the THEMIS data, including links to the images I worked on, can be seen here. In fact there is excellent and often subtle color information shown in the THEMIS data, particularly at the boundaries of distinctly colored regions. In groping for something relatable to 'true color' from such information the use of cameras with different color filter combinations must be taken into account, a subject which I have devoted a page to here. I freely admit that my motivation for doing such 'restoration work' on flawed visual material is primarily an esthetic one, in the sense of striving to see the intriguing views through a 'clearer window' by removing known camera effects. The THEMIS camera on Mars Odyssey unfortunately was plagued with light leaks depending on the orientation of sunlit surroundings, most visibly in the violet, which caused a repeating 'banding' generally more acute near the edges of the images. My manual suppression of the camera idiosyncrasies in a few chosen views strove to allow a clearer view of what the flawed camera was trying to show us, thus only the flaws received my focused artistic treatment to make them disappear.
A similar project followed my desire to see a better view of that famous 1966 Lunar Orbiter Earth/Moon 'panorama', which for years seemed too daunting to try. A young computer image processing guru then sent me an image processed from the high res scan I had on my site, with the horrible stripes characteristic of that spacecraft camera system nearly removed! The amount of hand painting to smooth out the remaining vertical 'stripes' was then brought to a practical amount, and the result can be seen here. (Since then excellent 'de-striped' Lunar Orbiter images have been produced by the U.S. Geological Survey, and efforts to read the original data tapes are beginning to bear fruit, starting with that same image!)


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
First Responders Finding Transit-less Ways to Work
With the entire New York City transit system set to shut down at noon on Saturday, first responders are planning alternate ways to get to work.
The MTA said subways and buses will make their last trips Saturday afternoon, after that, city residents who need to get to work — first responders and emergency personnel — will be planning to spend the night on the job or car pooling.
EMS and EMT workers typically work 8 hour shifts, but many are being asked to spend the night on site, according to Isreal Miranda, vice president of the Uniformed EMS Workers Union.
"Many of the employees have already been told that they may be held over at the work site,"he said. "The people that are coming to work are being told to carpool or find some other means of getting to work."
Firefighters typically work 24-hour tours so a day long shutdown of the subway system won't disrupt their commute too much, FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer said. "Our members get to work, they are very dedicated." He added, it won't me much different than past weather emergencies.
Hospitals are still planning how their workers will make the transit-less trip to their shifts. A spokeswoman for New York Presbyterian Hospital said they are "taking every step possible to ensure the safety of our patients and staff. We have an emergency preparedness plan in place, and we are working closely with government authorities." She would not elaborate on the details.
This is the first time in the history of the MTA that the entire subway system will be closed due to weather. The transit system has shutdown before though, after 9/11 and during the 2005 Transit Workers' Union strike. The MTA said trains could remain idle through Monday morning, depending on the level of damage to equipment and amount of debris on the track.


text:
ADVISORY: Notice to Gazette classified advertising customers
The Indiana Gazette received reports Monday that individuals who recently placed Classified ads in the Gazette are now receiving telephone calls from someone who states he represents the Gazette and needs correct credit card information.
The caller's phone number has appeared as "PRIVATE" on caller id.
Please do not give your credit card information to any caller. Please hang up and call the Indiana Gazette at 724-465-5555 and ask to speak to a classified sales representative or a circulation customer service representative.
We will then verify that your classified ad or subscription payment has been paid or if there is an actual issue with your credit card.


text:
Parsons To Showcase Skills At Final-Four
By SUU Strategic Communication
Related Links
CEDAR CITY, Utah, March 21 – Southern Utah University basketball signee Race Parsons, a senior at South Sevier High School, won the 2013 American Family Insurance High School Slam Dunk & 3-Point Championships Facebook voting competition, Intersport has announced.
As the winner of the Facebook competition, Parsons will travel to Atlanta, Ga., to compete against seven of high school basketball's top 3-point shooters in the American Family Insurance High School Slam Dunk & 3-Point Championships, airing at 2 p.m. ET, April 6 on CBS during Final Four weekend.
Parsons was a four-year starter in basketball at South Sevier, where he led the Rams to back-to-back state championships in 2011 and 2012. He signed a national letter of intent to play basketball at SUU in November.
Facebook voting competition was held this winter. Each contestant submitted a three-minute video clip and voting was conducted in a 16-player head-to-head bracket. Parsons advanced to the championship where he took 51 percent of the vote to claim the right to advance to Atlanta.
Now in its third year, the American Family Insurance High School Slam Dunk & 3-Point Championships has featured some of the nation's top high school basketball talent, including North Carolina's JP Tokoto, Oklahoma State's Phil Forte, Butler's Kellen Dunham, Texas' Sheldon McClellan and UCONN's DeAndre Daniels.


text:
Cucumbers in Cream RecipeRead Reviews Be the first to add a review
5 3 3
"WE HAD an enormous vegetable garden, so we enjoyed freshly picked cucumbers in summer. After the cucumber were sliced and soaked awhile in salt water. Mother added thick cream, which she carefully scooped from the top of some fresh milk."
Recommended: 25 Cucumber Recipes to Make This Summer
- 3 medium cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- Minced fresh parsley, optional
- In a bowl, combine cucumbers, onion, water and salt. Let stand for 1 hour; drain and rinse. In a serving bowl, beat cream, sugar and vinegar. Add cucumbers and onion; toss gently. Sprinkle with parsley if desired. Yield: 6-8 servings.
Originally published as Cucumbers in Cream in Reminisce Extra August 1994, p47
Reviews for Cucumbers in Cream
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Reviewed Jun. 17, 2015
"Very good and easy to make. I made as directed except that I added some pepper to the mixture and we all enjoyed it. Next time I think I would use light cream but again this is very good as written."
Reviewed Jun. 10, 2015
"I made this recipe for Book Club and there wasn't a drop left and everyone wanted the recipe. I was so proud because the cukes were from my garden."
Reviewed Oct. 14, 2013
"I am not a fan of plain cucumbers but really liked this recipe. I will definitely make it again. It was a tasty change and fun to serve guests at a summer barbeque."


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Smoked Sturgeon with Caviar and Everything Bagel Crumbs
This simplified version of Daniel Humm's whimsical appetizer at NYC's Eleven Madison Park has store-bought smoked sturgeon, hackleback caviar and rye crackers.
- Total Time:
- Servings: 4
- 1/2 everything bagel—bread scooped out and discarded, crust finely diced
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground pepper
- 4 quail eggs
- One 1-ounce jar hackleback or other black caviar
- 3 tablespoons cream cheese
- 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
- 1 head Bibb lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
- 1/2 pound smoked sturgeon, thickly sliced
- 1/4 cup sliced pickled cocktail onions
- Rye crisps and dill pickles, for serving
How to make this recipe
Preheat the oven to 350°. In a pie plate, toss the bagel dice with 1 tablespoon of the oil and season with salt and pepper. Toast for about 10 minutes, until golden; let cool.
In a small saucepan of salted boiling water, cook the quail eggs for 2 minutes. Transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water to cool. Peel the eggs and halve them lengthwise.
Using a ceramic or plastic spoon, scrape the caviar into a small bowl; wipe the jar clean. Spread the cream cheese into the empty caviar jar. Spread the caviar over the cream cheese in an even layer to cover it completely.
In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar with the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt. In a large bowl, toss the lettuce and dressing and season with salt. Arrange the smoked sturgeon on 4 plates. Mound the salad alongside the fish. Arrange the sliced onions and quail eggs on the salad and sprinkle the bagel crumbs on top. Serve with the caviar cream cheese, rye crisps and pickles.
Suggested Pairing
This dish is hard to pair with wine because it has some pretty dominating flavors (smoky fish, oniony bread crumbs) alongside more subtle components, like caviar. Sparkling wine is the go-to in such instances. Pour Champagne, like the NV Gosset Excellence Brut, or a more affordable Prosecco, like the NV Zardetto Brut.


text:
E34 electrical problems
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Location: North Tonawanda, NY
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 14
Mein Auto: '95 540i 6-speed
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Water in the driver side footwell may have to do with a clogged drain. I am not sure if it is from the sunroof, but there is a drain that when it gets clogged with debris it leaks into the drivers footwell. I have read about this issue in several forums.
The door locking and lights flashing may be associated. Check the battery. Mine was doing some wonky things as you descibed. I replaced the batteries in my remotes and the battery in the car. I haven't had any issue since. I did notice that my passenger front door lock would stay up when the other locks engaged. Immediately the rest of the locks would reset. When I was replacing my door handle gaskets (thanks Shogun) I shot a dose of teflon spray liberally around the lock mechanism. I couldn't guess to say which repair did the trick.
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text:
Sept. 22, 2012
Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery
| Player Participation
Postgame Press Conference | Highlights
Site: South Bend, Ind. (Notre Dame Stadium)
Score: #11 Notre Dame 13, #18 Michigan 6
Records: U-M (2-2), Notre Dame (4-0)
Attendance: 80,795
Next U-M Game: Saturday, Oct. 6 -- at Purdue (West Lafayette, Ind.), 4 p.m.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Unable to overcome five first-half turnovers, the University of Michigan football team (No. 18 AP/No. 17 USA Today Coaches) fell to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (No. 11 AP/No. 15 USA Today Coaches), 13-6, on Saturday night (Sept. 22) at Notre Dame Stadium. The Maize and Blue cut the Notre Dame lead to a touchdown late in the contest but could not halt the Fighting Irish offense on their final drive as time expired.
The Michigan defense held strong throughout the game, allowing just 239 total yards and only 13 points for the second consecutive week. Fifth-year senior safety Jordan Kovacs (Curtice, Ohio/Clay) and sophomore linebacker Desmond Morgan (Holland, Mich./West Ottawa) led the way with seven tackles. Senior/junior corner Thomas Gordon (Detroit, Mich./Cass Tech) also added six takedowns and an interception.
Senior quarterback Denard Robinson (Deerfield Beach, Fla./Deerfield Beach) led the U-M offense with 138 yards through the air and 90 on the ground, allowing him to surpass Chad Henne (9,400, 2004-07) as the career yardage leader at Michigan (9,438). Meanwhile, fifth-year senior Roy Roundtree (Trotwood, Ohio/Trotwood-Madison), senior/junior Jeremy Gallon (Apopka, Fla./Apopka) and junior Devin Gardner (Detroit, Mich./Inkster) each hauled in three passes.
The Wolverines surrendered five interceptions to the Fighting Irish in the opening 30 minutes -- the final five Michigan pass attempts of the half. Despite the giveaways, the Michigan defense held Notre Dame to just 111 yards of offense and 10 points in the first two quarters while forcing two turnovers of its own.
After a scoreless first quarter, the Maize and Blue claimed an 80-25 advantage in total yards of offense but failed to capitalize on two trips to the Notre Dame red zone -- one ending in a missed field goal and the other in an interception on a failed half-back pass attempt.
Early in the second period, after a Fighting Irish interception return by Manti Te'o to the Michigan 17-yard line, sophomore kicker Kyle Brindza connected on a 33-yard field goal to give Notre Dame a 3-0 lead.
Minutes later, Notre Dame threatened to score again, but Gordon picked off a Fighting Irish pass in the end zone to nullify the threat.
Late in the first half, Te'o garnered his second pick of the game, and with 1:21 left, replacement quarterback Tommy Rees ran the ball in from two yards out to give Notre Dame a 10-0 halftime advantage.
The Michigan defense stayed strong to start the second half, allowing 29 yards and zero points in the third quarter.
Just 1:50 into the fourth quarter, senior/junior kicker Brendan Gibbons (West Palm Beach, Fla./Cardinal Newman) split the uprights from 33 yards away to get the Wolverines on the board, cutting the Notre Dame lead to 10-3.
On the ensuing Notre Dame possession, the Fighting Irish took the ball down the field and Brindza added a 39-yard field goal to extend the lead to 13-3.
The Wolverines took the ball following the score and marched the field, capping a 56-yard drive with a 31-yard Gibbons field goal, bringing the Maize and Blue within seven points with just 3:27 left in the contest.
With Michigan needing a third-down stop in Notre Dame territory, the Fighting Irish completed a 32-yard pass to extend the final drive of the game. Notre Dame garnered one additional first down en route to running out the final seconds.
The Wolverines take next week off before heading to West Lafayette, Ind., to take on the Purdue Boilermakers on Saturday, Oct.6, at 4 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.
Contact: Justin Dickens (734) 763-4423
» Learn about ticket packs and individual game tickets for the 2017 Michigan football season.


text: TORONTO, October 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- AuRico Gold Inc. (TSX:AUQ) (NYSE:AUQ) ("AuRico") is pleased to announce that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of Northgate Minerals Corporation (TSX:NGX) (NYSE-Amex:NXG) ("Northgate"). With the completion of this strategic acquisition, AuRico is now positioned as a new leading intermediate gold producer with five operating mines and Young- Davidson targeting production at the end of Q1 2012. Ocampo and Young- Davidson alone have the potential to produce over 500,000 gold equivalent ounces at lowest quartile cash costs. With a strong balance sheet and a robust and growing cash flow profile, the new company is led by an experienced management team with a proven track record of creating value in the industry. "We are pleased to complete this transformational acquisition and begin to leverage the potential of our expanded asset base. The combination of our key assets significantly expands our production profile and establishes the company as a leading intermediate, low cost producer with a substantial growth platform and a compelling valuation opportunity," stated Rene Marion, President and Chief Executive Officer of AuRico. The acquisition was carried out by way of a plan of arrangement pursuant to the provisions of the Business Corporations Act ( British Columbia) and was approved by the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Shareholders of both AuRico and Northgate voted overwhelmingly in favour to approve AuRico's acquisition of Northgate at their respective special meetings of shareholders each held on October 24, 2011. Under the terms of the acquisition, AuRico, among other things, acquired all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Northgate on the basis of 0.365 AuRico common shares for each common share of Northgate. In connection with the acquisition, AuRico will amalgamate with Northgate and Northgate will be delisted from trading on the TSX and NYSE Amex effective Wednesday, October 26, 2011. AuRico's lead financial advisor for the transaction was UBS Securities Canada Inc. and AuRico's legal counsel was Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. UBS Securities Canada Inc. provided a fairness opinion to the Board of Directors of AuRico.


text:
The retrospective way of acquiring knowledge
Books have always been viewed as one of the most traditional and reliable sources of knowledge. Many people in this modern day and age may use the Internet as a source of knowledge and a learning point to learn and understand many new things, but in the past where the Internet was not such a prominent thing, books were the go-to source instead. However, not all books are a source of knowledge, they are also mediums in which we can derive entertainment from as well.
Forms of books were made ever since the first civilization could write in their own language (in characters or glyphs). Mediums such as scrolls or manuscripts were many of the world's first forms of books. Today books come in several printed forms, such as paperbacks or hardcovers – there are also digital e-books today.
Here are some of the different types of the books published in today's world:
Novels are a specific type of books whose primary objective is to tell a story to the reader, a narrative. Novels usually carry fictional stories that may come from a variety of genres. Novel-type books mainly serve as an entertainment of sorts for the reader. Popular genres of novels today: romance, science-fiction, horror, thriller.
Some authors may write novels about a single character with many different adventures such as Harry Potter, or the story may be part of a larger universe on a whole such as the stories written for the Star Wars franchise.
A biography is a written and detailed description of a person's life. It may be written to cover selected parts of a person's life, but it is mostly written to describe a person's entire life (or most of it). Unlike the general understanding that a biography contains only the data of the person such as their names and birthplace, a biography is a retelling of a persons life in book form for people to read. Because it is a description of a person's life, biographies are non-fiction.
An autobiography is a biography that is written by the person themselves who wishes to share the world; whereas an authorized biography is one that is written with the permission and cooperation of the participating person.
Photobooks are pretty self explanatory, they are basically books which contain high quality photographs that are printed into the pages. These photos feature idols and artists, both male and female, in amny different poses and costumes or outfits. Although photobooks contain mainly photos, there are also shorter bits of texts that act as descriptions. A short paragraph that serves as an introduction is also commonly present in the book.
E-books are not a type of book genre, but it is more of a physical form of a book that has been on the rise in recent years. E-books are basically digital books that are downloaded and read through the use of an e-book reader, a slim tablet-like device with e-ink paper displays which look like real paper.
E-books (and its readers) are good for the environment in the long term because it reduces the use of paper, and it is also convenient to use as it is able to carry a large number of books in its slim size. It also has lower costs than buying a printed book, but it loses on the feel of the paper which avid readers prefer.


text:
Mild Depression 2 Week Observational Study
Recruitment status was: Active, not recruiting
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Depressive Disorder
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Time Perspective: Prospective
|Official Title:
|Dysphoric-Like Disorder of Epilepsy, Is it Unique?
|Estimated Enrollment:
|Study Start Date:
|December 2005
This is a multicenter study consisting of a Screen and Retest phase conducted in two separate days separated by a two-week period. After providing written informed consent and meeting protocol-defined inclusion criteria at Screen, patients will be administered the Wide Range Achievement Test 3 (WRAT3) to ensure adequate word reading ability with which to complete the self-report forms. Patients who achieve a satisfactory score will be interviewed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). Afterwards, each patient will first complete the 46 item Mood and Anxiety Symptom List in Epilepsy (MAS-E) and then five additional questionnaires in random order. Patients will also be given the opportunity to be rated by a proxy (e.g., caregiver, family member, friend) who will also complete the MAS-E.
Patients will return the completed documents to the investigator and be given an additional MAS-E to take home. In the Retest phase, patients will be asked to complete the MAS-E again exactly 14 days from the date of the Screen visit. The proxy will also be given an additional MAS-E and be asked to complete the MAS-E exactly 14 days from completion of the first MAS-E. The documents shall be returned to the clinic via U.S. mail on the same day of completion. It is not necessary to have a proxy to participate in this study.
Total study participation takes 2 weeks and approximately one visit to the clinic for the screening visit.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years and older (Adult, Senior)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria::
" Male or female 18 years of age or older. " Presence of a Depressive disorder that presents as a dysthymic or minor depressive disorder and whose score on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) range between 11 and 20. Patients with major depression will be excluded.
" Is currently on stable doses of medications i.e., no change in treatment in the previous 30 days.
" Achieves a satisfactory score on the WRAT3 (standard score is > 69). " Is capable of completing the self-reporting questionnaires. " Is willing and able to provide written informed consent and comply with the study protocol
 Exclusion Criteria:" Presence of a clinically significant comorbidity of an unstable or progressive nature (e.g., psychosis, delirium) that could, in the opinion of the investigator, prevent completion of the questionnaires or warrant immediate medical intervention.
" Participation in an investigational trial within the past 30 days. " Inability to communicate well with site study personnel, e.g. inability to read or understand English, poor mental development or impaired brain function.
" Patients with a clinical picture that meets criterion of major depression.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00285831
|United States, California
|Stanford University School of Medicine
|Stanford, California, United States, 94305
|Principal Investigator:
|John J Barry
|Stanford University
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00285831 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|January 31, 2006
|Last Updated:
|October 23, 2008
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Depressive Disorder
Mood Disorders
Mental Disorders
Behavioral Symptoms
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on June 23, 2017


text:
Serenity. It cradles the vast New Jersey coastal marsh like a mother's caress.
"Sometimes when you're in this environment," says ecotour guide Angela Andersen, "you forget that this is the most densely populated state."
Angela's small flock of kayakers paddles lazily along narrow waterways that meander through the spartina grass. The lumpy gray sky accentuates the vivid green of the landscape. To the north lies the old port town of Tuckerton, now mostly a quiet collection of houses and memories. On the southern horizon, you can just make out the glitter of Atlantic City's high-rise casinos.
In the marsh, part of the 4,000-acre state-owned Great Bay Wildlife Management Area, an egret flies overhead, brilliant white against the dull clouds. Barn swallows zigzag tirelessly, tracking their abundant insect prey. ("Bugs are part of the marsh," Angela warns explorers.) Unseen birds chirp. Rud, a Chesapeake Bay retriever who spends his days at First Bridge Marina & Kayak, splashes ecstatically in the shallows, pausing occasionally to analyze the rich, earthy smell of the muck.
"This is just the way you want a salt marsh to look," says Angela, who's also the South Jersey director of the American Littoral Society. ("Littoral" refers to the boundary between land and sea.)
Then she subverts the pastoral illusion. Her kayakers learn that the marsh's placid appearance conceals a bustling and sometimes brutal metropolis of insects, fish, crabs, birds, and other creatures.
When the paddlers pause for a few moments, half-dollar-size fiddler crabs cautiously emerge from their holes, first in ones and twos and then in hordes. The crab gets its name because one of the male's two front claws is much larger than the other, giving it the appearance of toting a fiddle.
Nearby swims its much larger cousin, the tasty blue crab. Coffee-bean snails scour the grass stems, staying just above the rising or falling tide. Ribbed mussels suck in great quantities of water, filtering out bits of food and in the process cleansing the ecosystem. Billions of baby fish, some almost invisibly small, wriggle in the shallows.
Bigger fish, plus a variety of birds and animals, see the marsh as a serve-yourself banquet. Scooped-out shells of mussels and blue crabs testify to successful hunts.
Angela plucks a handful of pickleweed and encourages nibbling. This relative of beets and spinach appears in some vegetarian restaurants. It's really not bad-mildly flavored, crunchy, and salty.
Come autumn, pickleweed turns a vibrant red, which shows up vividly as the grass turns brown. In the warm light of the rising or setting sun, the entire marsh becomes a stunning golden tapestry with thousands of migratory waterfowl decorating the blue ribbons of water.
Marshes have not fared well at the hands of humans. We have drained them, plowed them, covered them with dirt, harvested their grasses, poisoned them with pollutants, disturbed their water flows with dikes and ditches.
Rud the dog has a better idea. Just enjoy them.
For ecotours (including sunset, night, and overnight tours) and kayak or boat rentals, contact First Bridge Marina & Kayaks, Tuckerton, New Jersey, 800/ 505-2925 or fbkayak.com. Bring some insect repellent.


text:
Cars > Events > Auburn Chevy Club Swap Meet
Contact Information
- Randy Huebner
- 530-346=8627
Comments on this Event
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About Auburn Chevy Club Swap Meet
Car Parts and Cars for sale.
100 venders expected
Date and Time
Sun Sep 16, 2012 from 6:00 am – 2:00 pm (PDT)
Location and MapAuburn Fairgrounds
High Street
Auburn, California 95603
United States


text:
Ceramic Tile Dilemma
First off, I am a new member, so Hello. I've read a lot on this site, but never posted.
I have been a handyman for a number of years, and I am seriously stuck for the first time. I am doing a flooring job and need advice/direction. The room in question is about 250 - 300 sq/ft and is in the basement of an old fraternity house. There was glued-down carpet on top, under that was VCT, under that was rotted, moldy 3/4" plywood screwed to the slab with Tapcons, under that is 12 x 12 peel and stick tiles, under that is 9 x 9 tiles (presumably containing asbestos), and under that is that black cutback adhesive, and under that is a red concrete slab, either dyed or possibly painted. I told the people in charge of the property that the right way to handle it is to call an asbestos-abatement place and have it stripped down bare, then I or someone else can install the tile. They said they'd rather just re-bury it and keep it cheap. Fair enough.
I already removed all the moldy plywood and all that is left are the two layers of composite tiles. My plan was to just screw cement board over the tiles, tape the seams, and off I go. I can't find anyone that thinks that is a good idea, so my plan B was to remove the top layer of peel and stick tiles and use a Ditra-type product over that. They say it can be used on clean, well-adhered tiles. But the top layer of tiles isn't coming up as easily as I expected and the bottom layer of tiles is pretty beat up and there will be a lot of gaps and voids. Also, all that scraping to get the top layer off will scrape the bottom layer, which would probably release the asbestos. Plan C is to remove everything down to the slab, but I don't even know if anything will stick to that slab. It seems shiny and almost greasy? The tiles that are there now are stuck really well, but who knows if I can get anything else to stick there. I have no idea what they colored the concrete red with, but it could be up to 100 years old. Even though no one recommends installing cement board over a slab, it really seems like the best option. It is a frat house basement, after all.
I'm open to any brilliant ideas at this point. Thanks in advance!
First--resize the picture if you can--
Next--skip the cement board idea.
Wet the area and remove all loose tiles.
water will keep any asbestos dust out of the air.
When dry---cover the black cutback and remaining tiles with
a self leveling compound.
I use Jifset mixed with Linewebers liquid latex for the first coat.
If additional coats are needed --water only is fine--
This will bond to cutback and tile and give you a good surface for ceramic tile.
Sorry about the photo size. I figured if I posted a smaller one, someone would complain about it being too small!
I appreciate the advice. So far, it's better than any of my ideas.
I've done this before.
What you cant remove--you encapsulate and level--
Standard practice.
Most self leveling compounds require a primer before application--Jifset mixed with latex does not.
Read the instructions--that stuff set up fast--tiling can start the minute the scl is hard.
I read up on that product, and it sounds like a dream come true! I love how it specifically states that it can be used to encapsulate asbestos tile. I really appreciate the recommendation. I haven't been able to find anyone that sells it around here though. All of the dealers listed are around Chicago which is 4 hours away. I probably don't want to know the shipping cost for 300 lbs of product. I will keep looking...
Menards has it--you have any of those stores around you?
I called, and ours does not. According to the list of dealers on the website, "Menard's, All Locations in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Will (Ill.), Lake (In.)"
See what self leveling compounds are available locally---
I believe most will do what you want,however the directions will be different--
Henry--Latacrete,Mapei are all good companies with very helpful technical lines.
Call them if their products are stocked locally--they will help
Call Jifset and ask if anyone stocks it in your area
I found a few similar products that are carried by Menards and Lowe's, but they specify NOT to go over anything with asbestos. I can't see any practical reason for that. Why would the leveling compound care if a tile contains asbestos or not? Must be a lawsuit thing.
There is no easy way. Your plan of getting back to original structure is the only path you should take.
If you plan on leaving it. Plan on incorporating a slip joint and a good deck mud layer. If you use a product like Mapei's Fast Setting Pre-Mix Screed Mortar your build up will be 1 3/8". Other mortar will require thicknesses of 1 1/2"-2". This will make you a new substrate to work off and over a large area you most likely will need expansion joints as well.
Can you know for sure the sub structure is sound? Can you measure for deflection in the structure?
I would defer to the TCNA specification guidelines for your own protection. This does not sound like an appealing project to undertake!
Good Luck.
I will not be doing it twice. They have been warned that they are sidestepping the preferred way in favor of saving money. I just want to do the best job I can do under the circumstances. I'm taking every job I can get my hands on these days.
Raising the floor more than 1/2" before tile is out of the question unless I want to raise a steel entry door. The products I was looking at earlier all said they could be used as thin as 1/8". That sounds great to me, but I am no tile pro. I've done a few jobs, but they were easy textbook stuff. As for the structure questions, I have no idea. It's a giant, stone 100-year-old building that looks like a castle. I doubt it's doing much moving, but I have no way of knowing. Luckily, any flaws will be covered in beer cans and fast food wrappers within a week. I think they would consider it lasting 5-years a success.
What is your fear with the leveler method? Cracking? Tiles popping up? I'm just trying to sort this all out. Thanks.
You will be fine---it's a proven method---
Reading through the manufacturer's instructions, it sounds like they designed that product just for me and this specific job. I'm feeling pretty confident that it should work after reading all the specs and instructions. They were closed when I called yesterday, so I sent an email about locating a dealer nearby. If I can get my hands on 10-12 bags of it, I'll be pouring on Monday. And I will definitely let you know how it goes. (And I might have to send you a fruit basket!)
I spotted it in the Home Depot this morning---you might get lucky and find it somewhere locally--
I used two bags this morning on a basement bath floor--
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|Patriots Look Poised For Another Super Bowl Run
|Bruins Trade For Drew Stafford
|Black and Gold Bruins Turn Yellow On Parade Day
|Inconsistency Will Continue For Bruins Unless A Change Is Made
The T.D. Banknorth Garden was not full of fair weather fans tonight, nor any sort of bandwagon fans that Hawks guard Mike Bibby thought there might be. No, these fans were true to their team and kept a roar going the whole game as the Celtics improved to 2-0 in the opening series against the Hawks. The C's crushed the Hawks 96-77 Wednesday night in Boston.
Boston never let up on Atlanta even through all the bad officiating that took place. The Hawks got away with a lot of calls and it seemed the Celtics had to take all the calls against them. However, that did not matter. The Hawks had 14 more foul shots than the Celtics in the fourth quarter alone and still could not gain on the varying 20-point lead throughout most of the game. Even Paul Pierce himself would not let the anything stop him tonight. Pierce left the game early in the first quarter after injury but returned later. Pierce ended his night with 14 points and 4 rebounds.
Five Boston players scored in double figures. Kevin Garnett had another strong night getting 19 points and 10 rebounds for another double-double. Ray Allen added 15 points, Rajon Rondo had a strong night with 12 points, 8 assists, 4 steals, and 6 rebounds. Sam Cassell also added 10 points off the Boston bench tonight.
On Atlanta's side, Marvin Williams and Josh Smith lead the way with 13 points each. Despite all the boos he received, Mike Bibby still finished 12 points. Joe Johnson added 11 points and Acie Law had 12 points off the bench.
The Celtics just do not look like they can be stopped right now. Even when they lead by over 20 points, their defense pressures the other team till they can do no more. The Hawks also look like they just cannot keep up with the Celtics. The series will continue Saturday, April 26 in Atlanta for Game 3. Hopefully Games 3 & 4 will follow the paces of Games 1 & 2, giving the Celtics a nice sweep into the second round.
Tags: Atlanta Hawks, Celtics, Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Kevin Garnett, Marvin Williams, Mike Bibby, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Sam Cassell
Celts will pound and pound everyone in the East.The only competition they will find is in the West . So , see ya in the finals Celts!
The celtics should be raising number 17 this year, and we know garnett will get finals MVP, but he should say it doesnt belong to him, but it belongs to his whole team:)


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An emergency appeal by Aurelius Capital Management to stay Tribune Co.'s exit from bankruptcy -- without posting a required $1.5 billion bond -- was dismissed Monday by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
That decision seemingly exhausts options for Aurelius to keep Tribune Co. from moving forward under the reorganization plan confirmed in July by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey to hand ownership to its senior creditors. Carey had agreed to stay the order during an appeal by Aurelius and other junior creditors, but only if they posted the bond by Aug. 29, a deadline which was not met.


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Join us for a Spring House Concert
March Gatherings at Casa Mariposa
On Monday, March 14th from 7:00pm until 8:30pm we will have our final Monday night Lenten gathering. Jim Marx will share ideas and rituals around the spring equinox in the Celtic tradition and how it connects with the Easter tradition. Light snacks provided.
Lenten Reflections at Casa Mariposa
Upcoming Events at Casa Mariposa
Friends –
Advent and Winter Solstice
3rd Sunday of Advent, December 13th, 7pm to 8:30pm, Casa Mariposa, 127 N. Palomas, Menlo Park
Come celebrate the ancient wisdom of Celtic pre-Christian and Christian mythology as we
advance to and through the darkest time of the year and re-emerge renewed into the Light
of the SUN/SON.
of eight seasonal festivals in the Celtic spiritual tradition, known as the "wheel of the year."
The "wheel" is an important symbol in Celtic mythology that symbolizes the constant change
of the universe and the infinite cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Guatemalan Fundraising Dinner
Local ingredients, international flavor fundraiser
Saturday, Dec 12, 6:30pm, Casa Mariposa, 127 N. Palomas Ave.
Support Guatemalan family of 8 in next steps from Casa Mariposa!
The Ortega family, a family of 8 who have been living in Casa Mariposa since October invite you for a Guatemalan dinner. They are raising money to start their lives upon moving on from Casa Mariposa. Sulma and her family appreciate your support and ensure you that you will love the food!
Pepian, hearty chicken stew with vegetables and seasoned with seeds and nuts
Salad with greens grown in Las Milpitas Garden
Vegetable stew with same sauce as Pepian
Suggested donation $15. More if you can, less if you can't.
A Musical 2nd Sunday of Advent
Upcoming Events at Casa Mariposa
Education in the Brazilian Landless Worker Movement
A Conversation with Alessandro, National Leader of the MST Education Sector
Saturday, December 5th
Location: Casa Mariposa – 127 N. Palomas Ave. Tucson, AZ
The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Latin America, is internationally famous for its success occupying large unproductive land estates and pressuring the government to redistribute this land to over 1 million landless farmers. Less well known are the movement's educational initiatives. Over the past three decades, MST leaders have drawn on diverse educational theories to develop a set of pedagogical practices for schools that encourage youth to stay in the countryside, foster collective forms of work, and participate in political struggle. Activists engage in contentious actions to support their educational ideas, while facilitating community discussions, organizing teacher trainings, and writing curricula with state actors. In the state of Paraná, the MST administers 11 public schools that are currently functioning within MST land occupations. MST leader Alessandro, one of the state coordinators of the education sector in Paraná, will talk about these educational experiences and how the MST has succeeded in both occupying land and occupying the Brazilian school system.
Upcoming Events at Casa Mariposa
Friends – We invite the community and its wider circles to join us at any or all of the upcoming gatherings at Casa Mariposa, 127 N. Palomas Avenue, Menlo Park.


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The conference took place on 7 September 2016 in Greenwich, London. It featured keynotes, panels, workshops and an expo to showcase the talent that exists making games, to educate and inspire, and help stimulate future generations of talent.
On a World Heritage Site on the banks of the River Thames, the European Women in Games conference was in its 6th year. It is the only international, games industry, conference in Europe aimed at women that brings together leading industry figures, employers, professional bodies and future stars of the industry. Men are welcome to attend too. Look out for 2017.
Packed into 1 invaluable, feature packed day.
We offered keynotes, panels, workshops, a free lunch, the European Women in Games Hall of Fame awards, an HR Managers Forum and post conference networking drinks.
Author of "Gender Equality and empowering women in the digital age" adopted by European ParliamentClick for more information on 'Key Note 2 Terry Reintkte, MEP'
Chris Dring will chair a panel starting with brief overview of the huge growth that we have seen in the eSports space. Establishing what it is, why it matters. And expect to hear how tough is for women in esports and what the panel think can be done to improve the situation.Click for more information on 'Panel. Expanding Horizons: eSports'
This event is free of charge for invited HR professionals. It is also open to those performing HR roles as part of their management duties. This years forum will include a group discussion on the implications of Brexit on recruitment and talent in the UK games industry, Ukie's Safe Spaces in games project and we are […]Click for more information on 'HR Managers Forum'
Guerrilla Cambridge has a long history of pushing the boundaries of what's possible across a range of different PlayStation hardware. Their latest venture is RIGS Mechanized Combat League, which will be released for PlayStation VR on October 13th 2016. Heralded by some as "the game that could never be made", this talk aims to cover […]Click for more information on 'Option 2: Game Development Session – Pushing boundaries in VR'
Starting out as a programmer can seem intimidating and overwhelming at first, but it doesn't have to be. Timea will share the journey of starting her career as a programmer and the lessons she learned along the way. What is your course not preparing you for? How can you make sure landing your first job […]Click for more information on 'Option 1: Game Development Session – Hello World: Lessons Learned as a Rookie Programmer'
We are repeating a very successful workshop from last year where seasoned, games industry recruiters will advise all delegates generally on CV's and portfolios and time will be made to speak to each delegate individually. Bring your CV and questions!Click for more information on 'Option 3: Workshop. Job Search Advice & CV Review'
We have assembled experts in Online Marketing (Mobile + Online Games), Game Licensing (Casual Games), Mobile Game Publishing, Game Design & Usability, In-Game Monetization, Tax Breaks and Law. Ask them any business related question! Their advice is free.Click for more information on 'Option 4: Workshop. Indiedev. Freelancing. Starting your own games business/ Expert advice.'
Open discussion on ethnic diversityClick for more information on 'Panel: What's it like being a minority in a minority?'
Lindsay Watson, Founder of AWUK will introduce herself and AWUK, then the participants with 1 power point slide each sampling their work. They will then discuss and take various questions.Click for more information on 'Panel. Expanding Horizons: Careers in Animation and Visual Effects / VFX'
This panel is aimed at those looking for their first job in the games industry or anyone currently looking for a job with unceratinty on the best methods to get job offers with local and international games companies. There will be load of good advice and helpful tips and you can ask any question on […]Click for more information on 'Panel: How to get a job in the games industry – hear directly from employers'
WIGJ CEO Marie-Claire interviews 2 successful and influential women in the European games industry. How did Jude and Vicky get to where they are today? What do they think of the issues of the day? Come and ask your own questions.Click for more information on 'Marie-Claire interviews Jude Ower MBE and Vicky Smalley'
A jam packed 30 minutes of awards and presentations to honour and recognise some special people and the winners of our Student Competition . Finally we reveal and introduce our very first Corporate Women in Games Ambassadors.Click for more information on 'Women in Games Special Award, Student Awards, Programme Update, Women in Games Corporate Ambassadors'
Tea, Coffee and Cookies.Click for more information on 'Afternoon Break & Expo Visit'
So have you ever wondered what black box testing is? Come along and find out! I'll be talking about the mysteries of what the best QA teams really do, and doing a deep dive on some of the more technical aspects. Whether you know nothing about QA, or already have some experience, this talk is […]Click for more information on 'Option 5: Game Development Session – Quality Assured: How To Achieve Rockstar Level Testing'
In this interactive 40-minute session you will be asked: How can we use visual story-telling techniques to help our career progression? Lead by Senior Lecturer in Games Design Bev Bush and other members of the Animated Women panel the focus will be on moving forward with your own development whatever stage of work you are […]Click for more information on 'Option 6: Workshop. Visualizing your career progression moving forward. Animated Women UK'
Women in Games is keen to recruit a number of Ambassadors to help the organisation increase the reach and scale of its programmes and help it achieve the strategic goal of doubling the number of women in games over 10 years. We are expecting some funding to expand the network regionally and wish to sign […]Click for more information on 'Option 8: Workshop: Become A Women in Games "Ambassador"'
A big thanks to Mike Gamble, European Territory Manager for Epic Games, based in Guildford. Mike will be at the drinks so find him and thank him!Click for more information on 'Networking Drinks sponsored by Epic/ Unreal'
This is NOT part of the Women in Games Conference, but anyone wishing to carrying on networking after the conference is welcome at the Trafalgar Tavern, next to the University on Park Row next to the banks of the Thames. The pub has reserved an area to your right when you enter from about 6.45. […]Click for more information on 'Later networking'
This conference is organised by Women in Games WIGJ, a "not for profit" organisation. Tickets are priced to encourage young, women students as well as existing games industry professionals to attend. This approach is dependent on the support of individual employers in the games industry.


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Jerilyn Rose Bajema and Brian Robert Romsek will be joined in marriage September 26, 2009.
The future bride and her mother, Rebecca Bajema, are of Rockford, and her father, Dale Bajema, is of Holland.
The future groom and his parents, Steve and Alice Romsek, are of Belmont.
The couple are both 2003 Rockford High School graduates, as well as honor graduates of Ferris State University. The groom-elect also has a masters degree from Purdue University.
Charles and Kathleen Anderson, formerly of Rockford, announce the engagement of their daughter Mary Catherine to David William Albright.
Mary, a 1993 graduate of Rockford High School, earned her bachelor of arts degree from Lake Forest College in Illinois. Before her recent move to Carmel, Calif., she worked for more than 10 years as an event planner in Chicago.
David, the son of Charles and Rosemary Albright of Amelia Island, Fla., earned both his bachelor of arts and master of business administration degrees from Indiana University. He was recently transferred from Chicago to Salinas, Calif. by his employer, HSBC Bank.
The couple has planned a November 2009 wedding in Carmel, Calif.


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Hi like yourself I have / had the same issues,
1) I replaced the mini pci wireless card that was shipped, very easy to do and now that works fine.
2) I'm really struggling with the graphics, I've read that I need to use xserver-xorg-video-intel driver however I'm buggered if I know what to do.
any ideas?
Well after some serious google-fu I manged to find a fix, however I done two things and I'm not sure what fixed it so here goes,
1) I downloaded and lzm2dir the eee pc 901_net_gfx.lzm file, placed the lzm file in my root and lzm2dir
Once I done this and restarted X I had a resolution of 1024x600 great, the only thing is on the S10 the resolution you need is 1024x576!!
2) Found this xorg config and pasted it in
# ************************************************** ********************
# Module section -- this section is used to specify
# which dynamically loadable modules to load.
# ************************************************** ********************
Section "Module"
Load "ddc" #ddc probing of monitor
Load "dbe"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "synaptics"
# ************************************************** ********************
# Files section. This allows default font and rgb paths to be set
# ************************************************** ********************
Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX" "false"
# Option "Xinerama" "true"
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
# Option "XkbVariant" "" #added by me
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "LeftEdge" "1400"
Option "RightEdge" "5900"
Option "TopEdge" "1400"
Option "BottomEdge" "4500"
Option "PalmDetect" "0"
Option "SHMConfig" "true"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "yes"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "155"
Option "RBCornerButton" "0"
Option "RTCornerButton" "0"
Option "TapButton2" "0"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.095"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.38"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "0"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
Option "DPMS" "true"
# Auto-generated by Archie mkxcfg
Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "intel"
VendorName "All"
BoardName "All"
#Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
Option "DRI" "True"
Option "NoDDC" "True"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "True"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "True"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultColorDepth 24
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
#Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
Now I need to get the sound working


text:
Teenager dies as flood hits Britain
A 17-year-old girl died when the vehicle she was in plunged into a swollen river as torrential rain flooded homes and caused transport chaos in Britain.
The girl was one of three passengers in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle which careered into the river in the flood-hit Powys region of Wales, a police spokesman said.
The two other passengers, a man and a woman, were airlifted to safety but were suffering from hypothermia, he said.
The Taff river in south Wales burst its banks and the government's Environment Agency published 40 other flood warnings on rivers in England and Wales.
Overflowing rivers and storm drains flooded houses and stranded motorists in Wales and southwest England.
Forecasters said there was more heavy rain to come and said there could be more flooding as the storms moved north.
The South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it had received more than 350 flooding calls in a six-hour period, including calls to help people trapped in their cars by rising water.
Roads were impassable in parts of Wales while police in Gloucestershire, southwest England, warned motorists to travel only if necessary because some roads were under water.
Rail company Arriva Trains Wales also advised passengers not to travel.
Phil Rothwell, head of flood risk at the Environment Agency, urged people in flood-prone areas to watch weather forecasts.
"Rivers are rising very rapidly and bursting their banks, also the drainage system that takes the water away from our urban areas is also failing," he told BBC television.
Over the next 24 hours he said the heavy rain was forecast to move northeast, through central England and into Yorkshire and northeastern England.
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