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"Tiring out your opponent"
Truly, hitting a lot of overheads can wear a player down. So, if you figure that you're in for a long, closely-fought match, you can tire your opponent by sending up lob after lob. That will force him to chase down the ball and hit overheads. Even if he recognizes your ploy and returns your lobs with ground strokes, he will still get weary. That's because a ball that drops as steeply as a lob has no pace or forward momentum on it and has to be hit hard for an effective return. So you can use your lob to tire your opponent even when he or she's playing most of the points from the baseline.
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I mentioned in my last post that J Allard looks like a pirate, which is incontrovertible. You only need to look at a picture [microsoft.com] of the man to see that he spends a lot of time swinging on rigging and generally being dashing.
CPU power; Both platforms are going to deliver a huge leap in power, but the cell is going to deliver more, and it's looking like a lot more.
GPU;Tough call. The PS3's Nvidia claims "twice the performance of two 6800 Ultras", and doesn't talk pipelines, the 360 says 48 pipelines + USA, whatever that means for performance. Both will look amazing, and I think the killer games this generation will be more about pushing physics and simulation than graphics.
I/O; The PS
Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs. -- Kernighan

subset: commoncrawl


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A New London man will spend 100 months in prison for drug related charges. According to United States Attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt, 55-year-old Ferlin Patrick Edgington was sentenced for distribution of methamphetamine and for possession with intent to distribute meth and marijuana. He will also be subject to four years supervised release and has forfeited over $9,000 in drug proceeds.
The charges stem from a June 2012 incident, where law enforcement agents seized cash, 130 grams of methamphetamine, and seven pounds of marijuana.
The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and was prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Iowa.


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The Pittsburg State University Jazz Ensembles will present their first concert of the 2012-2013 season at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 1, in the Crimson and Gold Ballroom of the Overman Student Center. The concert is free and open to the public.
"There's a little something for just about everyone in the program," said Bob Kehle, director of Jazz Ensemble I.
Jazz Ensemble II is under the direction of Todd Hastings.
The program includes works from the libraries of Count Basie, Les Hooper, and the U.S. Army Jazz Ambassadors as well as standards like "St. Thomas." There will be some Latin works, blues, straight-ahead swing, and even a work by a local four-state composer, Scott Harris.


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When people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on their music players and music collection, many of them neglect to spend even a fraction of that money on a good pair of headphones to listen to their investments. Taking a $200-300 iPod or iPhone with a few thousand songs and listening to them with the provided headphones is nearly a crime. This is why we always advocate the purchasing of a good pair of headphones after buying a new music player or phone with music capability. As such, we have come upon the Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10vi headphones that can be used in both music players and phones such as the iPhone because it has a microphone built into the wire.
First, we?d like to say a few quick things about Ultimate Ears as we?re sure that quite a few of you are unfamiliar with the company. Ultimate Ears is a company that only makes in-ear monitors and headphones. They don?t do anything else, period. This dedication to sound had landed them a reputation among sound engineers and artists as the premier solution for performance monitoring. The simple fact is that Ultimate Ears is used by the majority of the sound engineers and artists that you all listen to, and as such Ultimate Ears are how the engineers and artists hear their own music and determine its finished quality. When someone uses a specific technology to check their work and then approves it, then you know that?s the way to really hear what you were supposed to hear. Taking this a step further, Ultimate Ears offers headphones ranging from their $50 Metro-Fi all the way up to their $1,350 Ultimate Ears 18 Pro Custom In-Ear Monitors. Also, for those that may not be aware, Ultimate Ears was purchased by Logitech back in 2008 and is not an independent business unit of Logitech. This enables them to have a global reach while still delivering impeccable products, innovation and customer service.
Enough about the company, let?s get to the actual product at hand.
Before we dive into the product usage, we want to talk a bit about the specifications and technologies inside of these monitors to give you an idea of the sheer complexity of the product and how they fit it all in. First of all, there are three drivers [or speakers] per ear bud. This means that it helps product a full bodied sound that is closest to their custom monitors making them ideal for personal listening as well as stage monitoring. In addition to that, the noise isolating design provides up to 26dB of noise reduction which can be ideal in almost any setting. This is achieved through the wide array of ear pieces that come with the monitors that we will detail later in the review. In addition to that, the Triple Fi 10vi headphones offer a quality frequency response range from 10Hz up to 17,000 Hz as opposed to headphones like the Beats by Dre (which are over the ear headphones, not even ear buds) that have a slightly different range of 20Hz to 20,000 Hz. In addition to that, these headphones have both a 3.5mm and a 7mm jack for listening to music.
The packaging on the TripleFi 10vi?s is indeed eye catching and unique. The shininess of the packaging is both attractive and troublesome to photograph for us reviewers. In addition to that, Ultimate Ears has opted for a windowed approach giving you a slight peak into the various things included with the product. In addition to that, it is very sturdy and kept the product safe from any kicks or drops we may have submitted it to.
The front of the box shows you the product as well as gives you a quick bi-lingual explanation of what the product has to offer, not going into too many specific details. The front of the box also gives you a nice peek at the monitors themselves and makes them look very attractive.
The back of the box simply talks about the compatibilities and product features as well as gives you four little windows to view the 4 different sized ear buds that can be used to make the perfect fit. They also note that these monitors/headphones are not compatible with the 3rd generation of the iPod shuffle.
The sides of the box simply list the contents of the box in various languages.
The bottom of the box gives you a barrage of technical information varying from the licenses and patents down to the cable lengths and weight. Overall, we haven?t quite seen such an informative back of the box in quite some time. And if you think about it, it makes sense because most people will grab the box of a product and flip it over for more information if need be. But then again, we don?t think that most stores will have these monitors readily available for handling at their MSRP of $420.
Once the box is opened, there is simple a single multi-layered clamshell that holds everything together.
Front side of the clamshell
Back side of the clamshell showing the case and ear cushions.
This, with the exception of the monitors themselves, is really where Ultimate Ears really shines. To put it lightly, they?ve included a ridiculous amount of accessories with these in-ear monitors that really add a lot of value to the product.
Pictured above are the extension cable, 3.5 to 7mm jack, cleaning tool, and extra memory foam ear cushions.
First, we have the monitors themselves that come with a pre-installed pair of ear cushions. In addition to those, an additional 5 pairs of ear cushions are included. These pairs include 1 pair of small, 1 pair of medium, 1 pair of large and 2 pairs of memory foam comply cushions. If that?s not enough to get the right fit or have spares, then I don?t know what is. Not to mention, if you somehow lose them all you can still order a replacem
ent pair from UE [we will now on refer to Ultimate Ears as UE for the sake of brevity]. You also get an extension cable to extend the already long [46?/1.16m] headphone cable. There is also the inclusion of a 3.5mm to 7mm jack for plugging into amplifiers.
The airline attentuator.
On top of that, there is an airline attenuator for hearing protection when using an unstable sound source which goes in between the headphones and your airline headphone jack. They have also opted to add a very small cleaning tool for cleaning out wax from the channel of the monitors to maintain cleanliness and sound accuracy. And as a bonus, they have included the same small protective metal case that they provide for the custom fit monitors. This isn?t the carrying case, but the little case that the monitors are usually stored in.
The included case where the monitors will sit when not being used to keep them protected. Also, note that the inside is lined with felt for extra luxury.
User and Reviewer Experience
With these headphones we had decided that we would take as broad of an approach as possible listening to these headphones on a broad array of devices ranging from a cell-phone, which this model would most likely be bought for, all the way to a home theater amplifier.
When it came to putting the monitors on, the process was very unique and was nothing like any other headphones we had used before. Not to mention, I personally have despised in-ear headphones because they never fit in my ears? so naturally I was skeptical that they would fit me properly and stay on. The mechanism that UE employs effectively is by having a semi-rigid part of the wire towards the end where the actual monitors are that enables you to wrap the cable around your ear to hold the actual speaker in place.
Below is a great video UE did in regards to fitting the monitors correctly.
After getting them to fit right, we proceeded to test the headphones in our Nokia N900 phone. Upon plugging them in, we noticed a painfully loud interference at which point we remembered that Nokia?s headphone jack is not compliant with the Apple iPhone/iPod standard. Because of this, in order to use this pair of headphones in our phone we had to give up the microphone functionality and use the extension cable which immediately fixed the issue as there are only 2 contact points on it as opposed to 3. We then proceeded to test this in multiple branded phones ranging from HTC to Motorola without any of these sorts of issues. So we can simply say that the issue appears to be isolated to the N900 and likely other Nokia devices.
Furthermore, we also asked the opinion of others who are musicians, audio producers, and the like. The majority of them instantaneously noticed the difference between the UE TripleFi 10vi?s versus standard audiophile headphones like the HD 555 and Beats by Dre among others. Most people upon listening to a full song with these monitors immediately had a change expression. Many people tended to get extremely excited about how good their favorite songs sounded and at times refused to return them back. Simply put, these monitors stand out significantly to the point where they make poorly recorded music sound bad. For example, many Beatles records that were recorded in mono are noticeably degraded in quality when compared to their studio mastered and re-mastered counterparts. This phenomenon is especially noticeable in genres such as techno and trance where there is very little to no distortion due to recording. As such, we found that these monitors allowed us to experience music in a much different way than we had in the past. We began to be able to break down Rap and R&B beats of various artists very easily to the point where every minuscule instrument and sound was easily recognizable. Most notably, we and everyone we spoke with simply began to hear things in songs that we hadn?t heard before. This always seems to happen whenever we go up a grade in quality of audio equipment. Having upgraded from Sony and Razer headphones, these monitors sound great for personal listening or critiquing certain songs.
When it came to isolation, the UE TripleFi 10vi?s did a great job of blocking out most ambient noises and as the volume went up there was a point where the entire ambient environment disappeared completely. As for leakage, there is almost none. These monitors are designed for the listener and only the listener to hear them and one would literally have to take them off completely and point them in the direction of the nearest person for them to have even a remote chance of hearing whatever may be playing.
The UE TripleFi 10vi in-ear monitors are by far not the cheapest in-ear headphones we?ve ever tested or seen. And we likely won?t have many chances to test a pair of $420 ear buds. Also, as a disclaimer? $420 is the MSRP but they?ve been out for long enough that the retail price has dropped to around $300. But having all of that said, the thing is that UE does everything within their power to make you feel that you got your money?s worth even though the warranty is only a year. We would have liked to see them tack on an extra year at least for these monitors especially considering that when you throw down $300+ you?d want a little more peace of mind?
The TripleFi 10vi are indeed some of the best in-ear headphones/monitors that we?ve ever laid our eyes upon. And for the price, it may be hard for some to justify such a price? but that?s what the rest of their product line is for. You get what you pay for with UE and they definitely make sure you don?t feel neglected.


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If you are gonna travel, you need accomodations.
Man and Carol, and those 3 yorkies travel in Tana.
So, you know I was curious about where I might stay over the next several months, so, I asked Carol.
She first showed me this possibility, I investigated:
More Special Pages From Reflections
- Home
- Heritage Flag & The Family Names
- Friend of Friends
- THE Trip, The Maps
- Disclaim THAT! Beholden to - -
- THE Trip, THE Encore' :: The Maps
- THE Trip, THE Encore' :: The Maps, Part Two
- THE Trip, THE Encore' :: The Maps, Part Three
- 2013 Thankful November
- Families Past :: Pedigree Charts
- Edna May Fenton Stevens Time Line Experiments
- Winter Sojourn 2014/15 :: The Maps
- Reflection's Contibutions to the Worldwide Genealo...
- Reflections Visits Nova Scotia
Friday, November 13, 2009
Lets talk accomodations, by Keakyfht
2 comments:
- lindalee said...
I just want to know....where's the computer's home?
- November 13, 2009 at 9:26 PM
- Carol said...
Baby HP, the tablet laptop computer lives at the end of my arms! HAHA. In Big Butt it rides on my lap as I work and surf, in Tana the Baby has it's own little desk where we work.
There is a photo of the inside of Tana here:
- November 13, 2009 at 9:45 PM
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Beyondness exhausts me:
the false promise
of the sea, steady exhaltation
of waves, the summoning—
sky exuberantly blue
as if you could swim in it.
I strode wide of myself once:
that wedding is dead.
I served as witness
to my soul's long yearned-for
worthless and lonely enthronement.
I force no ghost to show itself.
I turn from the waves,
turn from the hills
humiliating themselves
with a cheerful late sheen of snow,
I turn from those pale-gold
flickerings—abandoned chapel
deep in a wood lit
by a single candle—
that are her eyes.
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Garrett Gomez missed Jerry Bailey's single-season earnings mark of $23,354,960 set in 2003 by $10,982 when Baroness Thatcher ran third in Wednesday's Kalookan Queen Handicap, but all in all, 2008 was a very good year.
Gomez, who turned 37 on New Year's Day, still outdistanced runner-up Robby Albarado in purse earnings by more than $5 million and is an overwhelming favorite to win his second straight Eclipse Award as the nation's outstanding rider.
Gomez was scheduled to ride three horses that won last Sunday, a day after he was injured in a one-horse spill that cost him his Sunday mounts. A win on one could have given him the record.
"I don't see how they can give the Eclipse Award to anybody else," said Anderson, who was stunned that Gomez was able to recover so quickly from losing three upper front teeth and suffering a swollen left hand and a gash on his left knee in the mishap, yet able to ride two days later.
"You could have knocked me over," Anderson said, "because when we left the hospital (Arcadia Methodist), he said to me, 'I'm only going to miss a couple days,' but I thought, he's going to get up in the morning and feel like a truck ran over him. I went to his house the next morning, he looked at me and said, 'Look, I told you I'm going to be OK.' He missed one day and spent most of that day getting his teeth fixed."
After an uncharacteristic and unsuccessful trip to New York, Marzelline is back in California to run in Sunday's Grade II, $150,000 San Gorgonio Handicap for older fillies and mares scheduled for
1 1/8 miles on turf.
"Her last race was kind of disappointing," trainer Ben Cecil said of the Grade III Long Island Handicap at Aqueduct on Nov. 1, in which Marzelline finished seventh of nine after being wide throughout in the 1 ½-mile turf event. "I still don't know quite why. It might have been a combination of the shipping, the turf course (firm) and the mile and a half.
"There was nothing around here except a mile, a mile and a sixteenth (races), and I thought they were a little bit short for her," Cecil added in explaining the decision to run at the Big A. "I thought we'd take a shot at it, but obviously, it didn't work out too well. She's doing very well for this race, so hopefully, things will improve Sunday."
Marzelline, an Irish-bred daughter of the Sadler's Wells sire Barathea, has a 4-1-2 record from 16 starts, with earnings of $163,407 for owner Peter Harris of the United Kingdom.
The San Gorgonio field: Meribel, Joel Rosario, 115; Tizfiz, Agapito Delgadillo, 114; Solar Miss, Garrett Gomez, 113; Marzelline, Victor Espinoza, 115; Green Lyons, Rafael Bejarano, 114; Belmont Cat, Smith, 114; High Heel Sneakers, Joe Talamo, 115; and Valbenny, Alex Solis, 116.
Christiana's Heat drew the extreme outside 12 post position for Saturday's Monrovia Handicap at about 6 ½ furlongs down the hill, but Steve Knapp sees the draw as an advantage in the Grade III race for older fillies and mares.
"I think it's the best position," the trainer said. "She's got a lot of speed, so tactically, she should be in a great spot. She's very consistent, but you can't move too early with her or she'll pull herself up, so you have to time it perfectly."
Christiana's Heat, a 5-year-old gray daughter of Unusual Heat, was second at 30-1 in the California Cup Distaff Handicap at Oak Tree on Oct. 8, and has a 4-7-2 record from 20 starts for owners Albert and Kathleen Mattivi of Oxnard.
The field for the 42nd running of the Monrovia, for older fillies and mares: Lethal Heat, Alex Solis, 118, 7-2; Jibboom, Garrett Gomez, 115, 9-2; La Tee, Joel Rosario, 115, 6-1; Trouble Maker, Victor Espinoza, 116, 12-1; Royal Taat, Rafael Bejarano, 114, 8-1; Porto Marmay, David Flores, 114, 15-1; Society Hostess, Jose Valdivia Jr., 118, 5-1; That's Hot, Joe Talamo, 115, 20-1; Contentious, Brice Blanc, 113, 12-1; Eletro Nuclear, Martin Garcia, 114, 20-1; Ransom Captive, Mike Smith, 115, 12-1; and Christiana's Heat, Michael Baze, 113, 12-1.
Jesus Rios, a leading rider at Camarero Race Track in his native Puerto Rico the past five years, will make his Santa Anita debut on Jan. 14, agent Tony Matos said.
"His record speaks for itself and I wouldn't be taking him if I didn't have every confidence in his ability," said Matos, who also represents Victor Espinoza. From Jan. 1, 2008 through Dec. 15, Rios won 223 races from 839 mounts at Camarero, placing him second to Juan Diaz, who had 296 wins.
Through Dec. 15, the 26-year-old Rios had won at a 27 percent rate and finished in the money 68 percent of the time at Camarero. Rios, 5-2 and 114 pounds, got his start galloping horses for his father, Wilberto, at the age of 12 and credits his brother, Wilberto Jr., for his tutoring.
"I watched tapes of his rides sent to me from Puerto Rico by Joe Bruno, head of public relations for the newspaper 'Primera Hora,'" Matos said. "I decided to contact Jesus after I saw them."
Rios is married to Joan Rios Reveron. They have a 4-month-old son, Ian Manuel.
(Excerpted from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune)
Members of the close-knit racing community are still trying to come to grips with the loss of a family who loved their sport.
The Christmas Eve massacre in Covina that resulted in nine deaths had a devastating effect on those at Santa Anita who worked closely with Joseph, James and Charles Ortega.
"This was like a family tradition," jockey agent Richie Silverstein said. "When they had a horse running, it became a family outing."
Joseph, 80, and James, 52, were primary owners of JJO stables and worked closely with trainer David Bernstein, jockey Martin Pedroza and Silverstein.
Charles, 52, maintained an owner's license as well and by all accounts loved the game.
Two days before the massacre, friends recalled James standing at the rail near Clockers' Corner for the workout of his horse, Return of the King.
The three were among nine family members killed by Bruce Pardo, 45, of Montrose, a disgruntled former in-law.
On Christmas Eve, Pardo, dressed as Santa Claus, entered the Ortegas' Knollcrest Drive home and shot in the face an eight-year-old girl who was greeting him at the front door.
He then shot and killed several other family members execution-style before taking out a homemade flamethrower and torching the home. Pardo himself was injured when the flamethrower exploded. Rather than follow through on an elaborate escape plan, the killer shot himself to death at his brother's home in Sylmar.
Bernstein recalled the Ortega men as passionate about their horses and generous to those who helped them. "They were very friendly, tight-knit and supportive," Bernstein said. "We were good friends They bred horses and were fans of the game."
Silverstein recalled how Pedroza missed an opportunity to ride for the Ortegas because he was sick. His replacement won the race, but the family put Pedroza back in the family's turquoise silks for the horse's next race. "They were fair and nice people," Silverstein said. "And, they were great owners considering they had such a small stable."
Jerry Espinoza, who once lived next door to Charles, said his former neighbor always had good tips and loved to hang out at the track with friends and family. "If there was something good going on," Espinoza said. "He would let me know."
Like Bernstein and Silverstein, Espinoza noted that horse racing was in the Ortega family blood.
"They did everything together," he said. "It was a family affair." Bernstein agreed. "There'd be 15 or 20 of the family members out here cheering them on--the kids and everybody came out," the trainer said. "Everything they did was like that. They were the friendliest people I'd ever known in my life. Such positive thinkers."
FINISH LINES: Dense fog throughout the morning limited recorded workouts on Pro-Ride Friday to 27, seven on the training track . . . Bobby Frankel clarified that he will train Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies champion Stardom Bound during her campaign at Santa Anita, while Rick Dutrow will take over when the filly moves to the East Coast . . . The Sir Beaufort Stakes retained its Grade III status despite being moved from turf to Pro-Ride due to weather conditions on Dec. 26. "Two Grade II winners and two Grade III winners remained in the race," explained Mike Harlow, Santa Anita's director of racing and a member of the graded stakes committee, which consists of breeders and racing officials. "We felt the quality of the race remained in tact." Gio Ponti won the race for trainer Christophe Clement under Garrett Gomez . . . Jay Robbins said Johnny Eves came out of the El Conejo Handicap in relatively good shape despite being eased in the four-horse race won for the second straight time by In Summation yesterday. "He was sound when we went over him this morning, but he bled slightly," Robbins said of the 2007 Malibu Stakes winner. "He hit the inside sesamoid on his right ankle and sliced it, but I've seen him do that kind of stuff before when he gets in a pressure situation. He won't miss any (training) time."
. . . Bob Black Jack, winner of the 2008 Malibu, is doing well since his front-running victory on opening day and could pass the $2 million Golden Shaheen in Dubai on March 28 after his immediate goal, the $300,000 Sunshine Millions Sprint at Santa Anita on Jan. 24. "He's back to the track and everything's good," trainer Jim Kasparoff said. "He'll probably have a work in four or five days. We're looking at running in the Sunshine Millions Sprint. That's the plan for right now. I don't know if we're going to go in the Dubai race. We'll keep it simple and take it one at a time." . . . She's Cheeky, unbeaten in three starts, is set to tackle Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint winner Ventura in the Grade I Santa Monica Handicap at seven furlongs on Jan. 31. "I'm trying to find a spot where I can get some (black) type on her, but that might not be the right spot," said trainer Peter Eurton. "Maybe we'll get it for finishing second, because we're figuring on a short field."


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How much influence does MP Fr. Tikhon Shevkunov have over the Russian president?
Category: A few more insider glimpses of what goes on inside of Putin's head & regime, etc.
More and more we receive such evidences of what exactly, this MP-'church', especially at it's
dizzy top power levels, is truly all about,
that Kremlin enslaved, 'MP', organization that Met. Lavr Shkurla so foolishly
submitted a large part of our old free ROCOR to, in June of 2007 (!)
How much influence does Father Tikhon Shevkunov have over the Russian president?
©Igor Starkov/Salt Images
Father Tikhon Shevkunov
Father Tikhon Shevkunov looks a little too polished to fit the image of the Orthodox Christian monk branded into the western imagination by Dostoevsky. The beard is just unkempt enough, but his chin is a bit too sculpted, his mane of shoulder-length hair too full and flowing, and his TV delivery too flawless to belong to any crazed, self-flagellating anchorite from The Brothers Karamazov. Father Tikhon is a picture of movie-star self-assurance – with a passing resemblance to Russell Crowe.
While Dostoevsky's monks stuck to their unheated monastic cells, Tikhon is no recluse. When I interviewed him in December, he was back from a visit to China and off soon to Latin America. The whitewashed walls and onion domes of Sretensky monastery, which he presides over in downtown Moscow, is not exactly an ecclesiastical island of contemplation, isolated from the modern world.
Call the monastery, for example, and you will get a switchboard operator. Need to use WiFi? No problem. Walk into an outbuilding and you will see the largest publishing house of the Russian Orthodox church and, since 2000, the best-known and most-used Orthodox website: Pravoslavie.ru.
"At Mount Athos they only just got electricity, and at Sretensky [monastery] the monks all have iPads," laughs Yevgeny Nikiforov, a friend of Tikhon's and head of Orthodox radio station Radio Radonezh, referring to the Greek monastery which is the Orthodox religion's gold standard in terms of cloistered asceticism. "Of course, they need these [iPads] for their proselytsing work," he says, turning serious when he sees that I am writing this down.
Father Tikhon wields influence in the church far above his modest rank of Archimandrite, or abbot, due primarily to his contacts in the Kremlin. The story that travels with him, which he will neither confirm nor deny, is that he is the confessor to Vladimir Putin. The only details he gives is that Putin, sometime before he became president at the end of 1999 (most likely while he was head of Russia's FSB security service from 1998 to 1999) appeared at the doors of the monastery one day. Since then, the two men have maintained a very public association, with Tikhon accompanying Putin on foreign and domestic trips, dealing with ecclesiastical problems. But according to persistent rumour, Tikhon ushered the former KGB colonel into the Orthodox faith and became his dukhovnik, or godfather.
Father Tikhon does appear to have a very intimate knowledge of Putin's religious life: in 2001 he gave an intriguing interview to a Greek newspaper, saying Putin "really is an Orthodox Christian, and not just nominally, but a person who makes confession, takes communion and understands his responsibility before God for the high service entrusted to him and for his immortal soul".
He also would appear to have influence – he has campaigned almost single-handedly for anti-alcohol legislation in Russia, and achieved surprising results: just before the New Year, Russia's parliament banned alcohol sales after 11pm.
When I press on the real extent of his influence, he is blunt, saying only that he and Putin are well-acquainted, but he refuses to be drawn on the dukhovnik question. "You can believe those rumours if you want, but they certainly aren't spread by me," he says. The word "Putin" is nowhere to be found in his autobiography Everyday Saints and Other Stories, which became a publishing sensation in Russia last year – the top-selling book of 2012, beating even the Russian translation of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Whatever the truth of the dukhovnik question, it is something that the Kremlin finds it useful not to deny. "It's a very private matter," says Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, "I simply don't know," though he confirmed that Tikhon is "very popular" and the two men do know each other well. "No one for sure would know whether or not he is the dukhovnik. If someone knows you are the dukhovnik, then you are not the dukhovnik any more".
A former film-school student who was baptised in 1982 at the age of 24, Father Tikhon has thus found himself in the uniquely influential role of other historical churchmen in close proximity to the ear of state power, though he insists, rather credibly, that "I am no Cardinal Richelieu!"
Strictly speaking, he is right, says Yevgeny Nikiforov. "In our confessions there is not very much specific information. You just say 'I stole' or 'I fornicated'. Maybe you add a few specific details like how much and how often. But you don't need to be very specific. If Father Tikhon is captured by some foreign intelligence service and tortured, there would not be much he could tell them."
Georgy Mitrofanov of the St Petersburg Theological Academy
Georgy Mitrofanov, a St Petersburg priest, says that the fashion for having a dukhovnik is something that has only recently hit Russia's elite business and political circles. "It's an interesting phenomenon, which has happened as rich Russians have started to join the church.
"Most people do not have a personal confessor, it's something that most people do in crowded churches, like on a conveyor belt. The wealthy want something personal, some see it as a form of psychotherapy," he says. "However that puts the dukhovnik in a vulnerable position – they become very dependent on their patron."
Father Mitrofanov doubts that Putin has a real dukhovnik "other than himself", and says that several years ago he asked Father Tikhon if he was Putin's confessor, and Tikhon replied that he wasn't. "However, that was a long time ago and things may have changed," he says.
. . .
The association between Putin and Father Tikhon is odd for any number of reasons, but the first and foremost is historical. Visitors to the Sretensky monastery may miss the innocuous stone cross unless they are looking for it specifically. It sits in the garden, abutting one of the whitewashed walls, tended by cassocked monks and genuflected over by kerchiefed ladies with the look of salvation on their faces. "In memory of faithful Orthodox Christians, tortured and killed here in the years of turmoil", reads a bronze plaque set to one side.
Placed in its present spot in 1995, the cross seems to exist in oddly tragic symmetry with the building just a block away at the other end of Bolshaya Lubyanka street – the eponymous headquarters of the former KGB, an organisation which in various incarnations has killed or imprisoned more than 300,000 church workers in the name of official atheism since 1917. During Soviet times the 600-year-old monastery was closed and housed an NKVD (precursor to the KGB) barracks. It is said the premises was even used for executions.
©Igor Starkov/Salt Images
Father Tikhon in a tea room for guests at Sretensky monastery. The painting on the wall is of the Russian tsar Alexander the Third
Today, much has changed. The Lubyanka, which houses the KGB's successor, the Federal Security Service, now has its own dedicated Orthodox chapel. Sretensky monastery, reopened and renovated, has come to symbolise an awkward alliance of the church and its former persecutors. It has become the centre of a spiritual revival among Russia's ruling circles, who are disproportionately drawn from among the former KGB, and who flooded into the Kremlin 12 years ago on Putin's coat-tails.
For Father Tikhon, the ravages directed at the church by the institution which to all intents and purposes governs Russia today are not something to dwell on – not a matter for public confrontation – but neither are they something to be specifically hidden away. They are, like the stone cross in his cloister garden, there to be seen only if one is looking for it.
He says he will never be reconciled with the Soviet period of Russian history, but he nonetheless does not consider the crimes of the NKVD or the KGB to be the responsibility of contemporary individuals: "They didn't have anything to do with that. It would be like blaming some American soldier today for what happened in Vietnam," he says.
Rather than assigning blame, Father Tikhon seems eager to hammer the 70-year Soviet period into a single arc of historical Russian statehood. All the while they worked for the Soviet state, many of those KGB officers, he says, were in fact serving Russia. "The intelligence officers that I know did what they did on behalf of the Russian state," he says, "and so to say they were guilty of repressions would be totally false."
This is, needless to say, something of a minority attitude within the church, especially among the formerly dissident rank-and-file clergy. But it is a view that is nonetheless welcomed and cultivated by the Kremlin leadership, who seem keen to overcompensate for their atheist past, and take advantage of the church's image. According to a 2010 poll, it is the second most trusted public institution in Russia, despite the fact that only a small minority of Russians attend church regularly. Falling approval ratings and the rise of a street protest movement appear to have accelerated Putin's efforts to co-opt the church, according to Geraldine Fagan, who monitors religious freedom in Russia and is author of a new book, Believing in Russia.
"Russians identify with the Orthodox church as the only major social institution to have survived their nation's turbulent history, so Putin wants to capitalise on Orthodoxy's image of permanence, even as his own legitimacy crumbles," says Fagan. Sretensky is at the centre of this effort: the head of one Moscow public relations firm jokingly calls the monastery "the Kremlin's department of ideology". But it is not really a joke.
Once suffused with ideology at every level, Russian political life has for centuries been vulnerable to all-encompassing doctrines and programmes, and many see the kind of muscular, politically tinged orthodox Christianity espoused by Father Tikhon as starting to fill this awkward vacuum left by the disappearance of communism. Father Tikhon denies that he is anyone's "ideologist", but the label has begun to stick, especially after 2008, when Tikhon directed and starred in a documentary film and controversial political parable on the collapse of the Byzantine empire, shown three times during prime time on national TV: The Fall of an Empire – the Lesson of Byzantium.
Russian hardliners are fond of the idea that Russia is "The Third Rome" – the inheritor of Byzantium's fallen Orthodox greatness – and the message of the film does much to reinforce this historical connection, along with justifying in historical terms a profoundly anti-western world view. The Fall of an Empire glosses over the role of the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Constantinople in 1453, and instead argues that Byzantium rotted from within and succumbed to ideological predation by an envious west.
The film charges that rather than sticking to its traditions, Byzantium reformed at the behest of western (Venetian) bankers, portrayed in the film wearing carnival masks with particularly long noses, lest anyone miss the point. The west's individualistic culture sapped Byzantine resolve and destroyed its hierarchical values. The public lost faith in their rulers.
At the time it was shown, the film raised a scandal among liberals who saw it as eccentric and obscurantist. Today it would barely register on state airwaves dominated by paeans to state authority, historic revisionism, and charges of foreign-financed subversion directed at Kremlin opponents. Tikhon, in other words, was a bit ahead of his time – but now has trouble getting noticed in the midst of a wholesale swerve of the political elite towards conservative nationalism and xenophobia following Putin's return to a third term as Russia's president last May.
©Denis Sinyakov/Reuters
Pussy Riot, later found guilty of 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred', in 2011
A secular state according to its 1993 constitution, Russia recently flirted precariously with religious law in last year's strange prosecution of punk band Pussy Riot, which transformed them into global martyrs after they were given two-year prison sentences (one has since been set free), guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred".
Prosecution documents state that the laws broken by the three defendants – who performed "Blessed Virgin, throw Putin Out!" wearing Day-Glo balaclavas in Moscow's Christ the Saviour cathedral – were articles 62 and 75 of the Quinisext Council, held under the emperor Justinian in the seventh century. According to these articles, access to the solea and pulpit of Orthodox churches is reserved for clergy. While the final sentence by the judge in the case dropped references to the Quinisext Council, it did cite as expert opinion the fourth-century Council of Laodicea, according to which: "The solea and ambon have special religious significance for believers."
Many in the church think the state may have overstepped the mark in its zeal to cover itself in the mantle of church legitimacy, and the scandal opened a row between high-ranking church dignitaries, such as Patriarch Kirill, and the formerly dissident clergy, many of whom seek reforms. "These medieval canons have nothing to do with state law," says Father Mitrofanov. "They simply used the church as 'ideological cover' in the same way a Soviet court would use communist ideology to justify a decision."
Father Innokenty Pavlov, who retired from the church in 1993 and is a noted liberal opponent of the Orthodox establishment, says he doubts there is anything aside from political expediency behind the newly religious attitude of Russia's rulers.
"It seems our leaders learnt one useful thing from their scientific atheism classes," he laughs: "Voltaire said 'if there were no God it would be necessary to invent him'. They thought, what a good idea, let's implement this."
Even Father Tikhon signed a petition calling for reducing the sentences. He is harshly critical of Pussy Riot's behaviour, saying: "The state must react to this, or else it is not a state", and "If they did this in Westminster Abbey, they would have got a prison sentence for sure." Yet he adds, "but two years is too much".
Perhaps as a result of overdoing his hardliner image, Father Tikhon has of late been anxious to emphasise his softer side. He raises funds for the monastery's children's centre that cares for about 100 handicapped children, which is financed jointly by the monastery and the state.
"If you are looking for a 'symphony' of church-state power – this is it," he says, using the fifth-century Byzantine term for theocratic rule. "This is an example of the church and the state working together for good."
Sretensky monastery, Moscow, one block away from the former headquarters of the KGB
If Father Tikhon has indeed gone soft, there is no better evidence than his recent autobiography Everyday Saints and Other Stories. It is devoted mainly to reminiscences of an older generation of churchmen, Tikhon's teachers, who he presents through a rather gauzy, nostalgia-laden portrait of a time when life was simpler. Unlike his earlier film project, there is no overt chest-thumping nationalism or pro-regime political propaganda, only a rather well-written and compelling narrative about the lives of monks in the Soviet Union.
It was actually a particularly harrowing experience with a Ouija board in 1982 that started Father Tikhon – still in film school at the time and named Georgy Shevkunov – on his long road to the heights of secular and spiritual power in Russia. The decision to be baptised was not taken lightly back in the days of the pre-perestroika Soviet Union. But Shevkunov had a pretty compelling reason.
An amateur spiritualist, he and a group of friends had taken an interest in the occult, finding that, with the help of a few candles, a planchette and the right attitude, they could "establish contact with certain completely incomprehensible but nonetheless absolutely real entities" from the spirit world, according to his autobiography. The new acquaintances introduced themselves variously as Napoleon, Socrates and even Stalin. It was fun for a while. And then, it almost went horribly wrong.
One evening, the group managed to contact who they believed was 19th-century author Nikolai Gogol. But he was in a terrible mood, and the group recoiled in terror when, in a fit of extreme crankiness, Gogol told them all to commit suicide by ingesting poison. They raced from the room, and the next day, headed straight to the nearest church, where a priest chastised them. The foolish youngsters had not really been in contact with Gogol, said the priest. Instead, they had simply been the victims of a clever prank. By a minor demon, most likely. His recommendation: baptism.
Tikhon's generation were spiritual explorers, which drew many like him to Christianity. The Soviet prohibition on religion only made it more attractive – the forbidden fruit. Yevgeny Nikiforov, who is in his fifties, laughs today when he remembers the antics of his 1980s generation.
"First we all learnt yoga, then we studied Sanskrit, then we read the New Testament. It was all the same to us at the time. Only later did we become spiritually mature," he says. "No one had the first clue. The KGB even thought karate was a religion," he laughs. "We watched Bruce Lee movies thinking they were some sort of mystical experience. Can you imagine?"
Father Tikhon says what drew him to Christianity (aside from an attempt to avoid demonic possession) was that it became obvious to his generation that "all the great figures of the world and Russian history" – he mentions Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Kant, Goethe and Newton, among others – "all those whom we trusted and loved and respected, all of them had thought about God in a completely different way from us." On the other hand, "those who evoked no sympathy whatsoever" – Marx, Lenin, Trotsky – "all these destructive revolutionaries who led our state to what it had become, all were atheists." The choice, he says, was clear.
Soon after baptism, Shevkunov took up residence in Pskov Caves monastery, an onion-domed former hermitage in Russia's northeast, one of only two functioning male monasteries that remained by the 1980s of the nearly 1,000 which had existed before the 1917 revolution. In 1991, he took his monastic vows, taking the name Tikhon, and became the Archimandrite of the Sretensky monastery in 1995.
Father Gleb Yakunin at a political meeting in 1990
Tikhon's autobiography is mainly devoted to those "everyday saints" whom he calls his teachers, who endured far more than he did at the hands of the Soviet regime. Father Tikhon's own dukhovnik Father John Krestiankin, the late Archimandrite of the Pskov Caves monastery, had his fingers broken during interrogation by the NKVD shortly before being sent off to Gulag for five years in 1950.
"Thank God, I did not have the same serious conflicts which my predecessors had," Tikhon says today. "In the 1980s, we did not have such repressions, they could ruin your professional life, ban you from studying, or from having prestigious work, but no more than that."
But while occasionally something akin to anger shows through in the prose, Everyday Saints is written in a mellow and forgiving spirit, mainly devoted to personal reminiscences of the quirks and loveable foibles of an older generation of churchmen. Critics say the book is notable for what it leaves out: that in addition to clashes with authorities, the clergy often compromised. Many level the accusation that church dignitaries worked for the KGB, which essentially controlled the levers of promotion within the church through the end of the 1980s.
No one knows more about this painful episode of the church's history – the co-operation between top-level clergy and the KGB – than Father Gleb Yakunin, a former priest and liberal reformer who was excommunicated in 1997 partly for his criticism of the church. On the subject of the uncanny success of Tikhon's new book, Yakunin admits he and his wife both liked Everyday Saints. But he says it represents "half the story" – the positive half – and dismisses it as "Socialist realism" (a reference to the Soviet school of official art devoted exclusively to painting happy factory workers and peasants).
Yakunin himself spent five years in a prison in the 1980s. Then, in 1992, under pressure from then President Boris Yeltsin, Yakunin was granted access to the archives of the KGB's fifth directorate, fourth department, which dealt with religious groups, and spent a month going through the agent reports. While he was never given the card file with the identities of the agents, he was able to glean from the patterns of their reports who they were by comparing their codenames with information on the activities of top-level clergy.
©Dmitry Astakhov/AP
Putin and Father Tikhon in Jerusalem, February 2007
For instance, he found an intriguing travel itinerary of agent Mikhailov, who, according to his reports, travelled to New Zealand and Australia in February 1972 and then to Thailand in January 1973 for meetings of the World Council of Churches.
Cross-checking these with news entries in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, Yakunin found that a certain Archimandrite Kirill, who worked in the church's department of external relations, took such a trip on those dates. In 2009, after four decades of rising though the ranks, the white-bearded, portly Kirill was named patriarch of the Russian church. The church maintains that Kirill was never an employee or agent of the KGB. Representatives of the patriarch declined to comment further.
According to Father Yakunin, the church was so thoroughly infiltrated by the KGB that "virtually the entire episcopate were recruited as informers". There is no evidence that Father Tikhon was himself compromised by association with the KGB – he would have been too young to make an attractive target for recruitment. However, people he writes about were – for example, in the mid 1980s he spent two years as assistant to Father Pitirim, the head of the publications department of the church, who Father Yakunin refers to by his alleged KGB codename "Abbot".
"I respect Father Pitirim and wouldn't want to throw any stones at him" says Father Tikhon, a bit obliquely, on this subject.
Twenty years later, compromises made under the Soviet regime are still the subject of a painful debate within the church. Instead of purging the former collaborators, it is those who have raised the issue, like Father Yakunin, who have been purged.
"The Russian church created Russia," says Father Tikhon. "Russia can sometimes be an obedient child, and sometimes a child that revolts against its parents. But the church always has felt responsibility for Russia."
Charles Clover is the FT's Moscow bureau chief.
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2014 Track and Field
Head Coach Karen Brandt
Contact Information for Coach Brandt
Office phone: 419-358-3898
Email: email@example.com
Karen Brandt, who coached the Bloomsburg (Pa.) University women's cross country team to the NCAA Division II national championship meet in 2007, is in her third season as Bluffton University's head coach of men's and women's cross country and track and field. In just her first season at the helm, the Bluffton cross country women placed 5th out of the 10 conference teams, which marked the best conference finish the Beavers have had since they took 5th in 2005. The women were just five points shy of fourth place.
Coach Brandt has been an integral component in Bluffton's recent upswing for both cross country and track and field. In her second year as head coach, she saw both the men's and women's records fall for cross country. The men's squad put together their best Heartland Conference finish in eight years thanks to a group that now occupies three of Bluffton's top six spots all-time. Continuing the improvements in the spring, 11 school records went down, including Jeff Parker's throw of 190-6 that propelled him to his second straight Heartland Conference title in the javelin.
Brandt, who earned a master's degree in American studies from the Pennsylvania State University Capital College, Harrisburg, in 1997, coached at Bloomsburg from 1999-2009. Her 2007 women's cross country team finished 15th in the national meet, capping a season in which the squad was champion of both the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) and the NCAA Division II East Region, and Brandt was conference and regional coach of the year. That team included the first female cross country all-American in school history.
During her decade at Bloomsburg, the Everett, Pa., resident coached three other all-Americans, two in the women's 10,000-meter run and one, two-time honoree in men's cross country; four national cross country championship qualifiers; eight female qualifiers for the national track and field championship; eight PSAC track champions; and numerous all-PSAC and all-region cross country runners, all-conference track athletes, and all-academic individuals and teams honored by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
After leaving Bloomsburg, Brandt coached at Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne from 2009-10 and, more recently, was an English and mathematics teacher in a residential program for girls in Warfordsburg, Pa. Her year-plus at Indiana Tech produced 35 NAIA national qualifying performances and seven all-American finishes in two indoor track seasons; 17 national qualifiers and seven all-Americans in one outdoor track season; and one male national qualifier in one cross country season.
A five-time qualifier for the Boston Marathon, Brandt has also coached track and cross country at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., from 1998-99, and at Lower Dauphin High School in Hummelstown, Pa., from 1991-97. From 1989-98, she taught English and public speaking at Elizabethtown (Pa.) Area High School.
Assistant Coach Jim Brandt
Contact info for Coach Jim Brandt
Office phone: 419-358-3031
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
James Brandt will be coaching alongside his wife, Karen Brandt, the head cross country and track and field coach at Bluffton University. During their coaching tenure at Division II Bloomsburg University (Bloomsburg, PA), the Brandts saw much success with the distance-based program of the Huskies.
Their achievements included four All-American athletes; the first women's team to win the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference cross country championship, the NCAA East Region championship, and to earn a team berth at the NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championship. Prior to their time at Bloomsburg University, the Brandts coached at Lower Dauphin High School (Hummelstown, PA) where they rebuilt their teams to cross country division champions and saw individuals advance to state podium positions in both track and cross country.
The Brandts are also currently coaching two post-collegiate athletes who started running for them as 9th graders at Lower Dauphin. Both are competing at the marathon distance with one qualified for the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials. She accomplished this goal by running 2:45 in only her second marathon. As part of her training plan, she ran 57:54 in the Army Ten Miler and was named the 2011 Air Force Athlete of the Year.
Both Karen and Jim have set their sights on developing the Bluffton University cross country and track and field teams into a perennial power in the HCAC. Additionally, they will work to motivate their student-athletes toward top academic success as well.
Assistant Coach Bryson Hartzler
Contact info for Coach Hartzler
Office phone: 419-358-3031
E-mail: email@example.com
Bryson Hartzler is entering his second season at Bluffton as the assistant with the Track and Field and Cross Country programs.
Hartzler was a two-year letterwinner at Penn State-Behrend where he qualified for the NCAA DIII nationals as a sophomore in the high jump. After transferring to Penn State University-Park he also qualified provisionally for DI nationals as a senior, with a jump of 7-1.5. While at Penn State he earned a B.S. in kinesiology and served as an intern strength and conditioning coach with Penn State's Olympic sports. Hartzler also spent a season with the track program at Mifflin County High School (PA) where he had immediate success, including multiple state qualifiers.
Hartzler resides in Bluffton where he is pursuing his master's in business administration.
Assistant Coach Jason Fisher
Jason Fisher enters his first season at Bluffton University as an assistant coach with the Track and Field program. Fisher brings an impressive array of honors to his position working with the University's throwers.
Fisher, a 2006 graduate of Parkway High School, was a three-sport athlete, participating in football, basketball and track and field. He is the school record holder in the shot put and discus at Parkway and earned OHSAA All-Ohio honors in the shot put. A Bluffton University graduate (2011 - Sports Management), Fisher holds five of the program's school records: Indoor shot put 50' 6.25" and weight 56' 2.5"; outdoor shot put 53' 0.75"; discus 151' 2"; and hammer 179' 9". He was named Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) All-Conference all four years as a Bluffton track and field athlete and was named 2nd Team All-HCAC in football during his sophomore year. In 2007, Fisher was named the HCAC Track & Field Freshman of the Year; he was the 2008 HCAC Discus conference champion; the 2009 Hammer champion; and 2010 HCAC Hammer and Shot Put champion, earning him that year's HCAC Field Athlete of the Year award. On the national level, Fisher was a multiple national championship provisional qualifier: 2009 indoor shot put and outdoor hammer; 2010 indoor weight as well as outdoor hammer and shot put.
Prior to this season, Fisher coached three years (2011 to 2013) as an assistant for the throwing events at Parkway. From 2012 to 2013 he was also the high school junior varsity boys basketball coach.
Fisher resides in Rockford and is employed at the Fremont Company.
Assistant Coach Keri McCoy
Keri (Hilty) McCoy is entering her third season at Bluffton as an assistant coach with the Track and Field program. Coach McCoy works with a variety of track disciplines, including the hurdles, jumps and sprints.
McCoy, a 2003 Bluffton High School graduate, was a seven-time OHSAA All-Ohio honoree in both individual and relay events (800 meters, high jump, 4 x 400 and 4 x 800) and was runner-up in the 800 meters in her senior year with a time of 2:15.54. As a Cedarville University (2008 - Exercise Science) athlete, McCoy continued to excel. In 2004 she was the American Mideast Conference champion at 800 meters and she also qualified for both the indoor and outdoor NAIA national championships in the high jump. In 2007, McCoy produced her career best time at 800 meters (2:10.96) placing second in the NAIA Outdoor National Track and Field Championships. Throughout her collegiate career, McCoy was a seven-time All-American athlete in a combination of individual and relay events, placing among the top eight finishers at the NAIA national championship meets: three times indoors at 600 meters; one time outdoors at 800 meters; one time indoors in the 4 x 800 meter relay; one time indoors in the 4 x 400; and one time outdoors in the 4 x 400.
McCoy started her coaching career at Bluffton High school in 2008, working with the cross country program and saw immediate success with a boy's regional qualifier in both 2008 and 2009. In 2009 McCoy worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Findlay where she coached jumpers and produced an NCAA Division II national qualifier in the high jump. She joined the staff at Bluffton University in 2012.
McCoy resides in Bluffton with her husband, Aric, and is employed as a personal trainer at Bluffton Family Recreation.
Assistant Coach Clint Dillon
Clint Dillon enters his first season at Bluffton University as an assistant coach with the Track and Field program, specializing in pole vault.
A 2005 graduate of Bluffton University (Middle Childhood Education), Dillon is in the record books for both indoor and outdoor pole vault with best clearances of 14' 3" set indoors in 2003 and 15' 11" outdoors set in 2004. He is the 2002 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) pole vault champion as well as a three-time NCAA Division III National Track and Field championship qualifier. Dillon placed 4th in the event in the 2004 national championship meet, earning him All-American status.
As a coach at Arlington High School, Dillon has coached two state qualifiers in the event, producing the 2013 Division III OHSAA girls' pole vault champion.
Dillon completed his master's degree from the University of Toledo/Bluffton University in 2010 in technology and education and currently teaches at Arlington High School as a business and technology teacher. He resides in Forest with his wife, Brittany, and their son.


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It is Sunday again. Where is this year going? How are the MoCool plans prospering? Any other plans for the summer? Come to chat to discuss these and other momentous issues of the day. Here are the times when the fun gets started: at 4 p.m. Eastern Time; 3 p.m. Central Time; 2 p.m. Mountain Time; 1 p.m. Pacific Time; 9 p.m. in the UK; 10 p.m. in Italy, France, Germany, and Sweden; 11 p.m. in Finland and Israel; 6 a.m. Monday in Sydney and environs; and 8 a.m. Monday in New Zealand. I believe these are all corrected for standard time changes. If I am off, let me know. Please let me know when the time changes in your neck of the woods so I remember to make the appropriate changes.
The fun starts HERE!!!!!!


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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The trial of a man accused of attempting to detonate a 1,800-pound bomb at a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony begining this week.
Mohamed Mohamud is accused of attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction in November 2010. The bomb was a fake provided by law enforcement.
His defense says they will argue Mohamud was entrapped by the FBI. The 21-year-old Mohamud is one of the youngest defendants ensnared by the Justice Department's terror stings. The operations and the FBI's informant network were ramped up after Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Mohamud's attorneys say his youth made him a vulnerable target.
Prosecutors argue that Mohamud was predisposed to committing terrorism before the operation began. They say Mohamud was offered the option of peaceful resistance, but chose a path of violence.


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Litigation Plan Approval
In some cases, the Lender will or must seek assistance from outside legal counsel. In such a case, the Lender will develop a written plan that encompasses the work to be performed and the fees to be charged.
Depending on the nature and scope of this work, SBA may need to be consulted prior to implementation.
No Prior Approval. SBA's prior approval is not required for Routine Litigation. Routine Litigation means uncontested litigation, such as non-adversarial matters in bankruptcy and undisputed foreclosure actions, having estimated legal fees not exceeding $10,000.
Prior Approval Required. Lender must obtain SBA's prior approval of a litigation plan before proceeding with any Non-Routine Litigation, as defined below: Non-Routine Litigation includes:
- All litigation where factual or legal issues are in dispute.
- Any litigation where legal fees are estimated to exceed $10,000.
- Any litigation involving a loan where a Lender has an actual or potential conflict of interest with SBA
- Any litigation where the Lender has made a separate loan to the same borrower which is not a 7(a)
For all loans, either Center or District Counsel will review all attorney's fees (even those under $10,000) incurred by lender to ensure that they were necessary, reasonable and customary (this includes post purchase reviews). This also includes cases where a litigation loan has been approved for legal fees in excess of actual final expenses.
If expenses are determined to be unnecessary, unreasonable or not customary they will be deducted from any purchase request. If the lender has already deducted them from recoveries, lender will be requested to reimburse the SBA for those fees and expenses deemed to be either unnecessary or unreasonable. In the case where legal fees are being reviewed as part of a post purchase review, copies of all attorneys' invoices, as noted above, will be reviewed for necessity, reasonableness and whether or not they are customary for the area. If SBA Counsel determines that they were not reasonable, necessary and customary the lender will be responsible for reimbursing the SBA for the fees that are disapproved.
To submit a request for litigation plan approval, submit a completed litigation plan to email@example.com or 202-481-4674 (fax) for assignment to a loan officer using the litigation plan template.
If you have any questions about litigation plans and fees, please contact your lender relations specialist.


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With effort by Academic Director Dave Nickel, Portland State University's Master of Science in Financial Analysis (MSFA) program has been accepted into the CFA Institute University Recognition Program, making it the only program to achieve this recognition in the Pacific Northwest. This status is granted to institutions whose degree program incorporates at least 70% of the CFA Program Candidate Body of Knowledge (CBOK), which provide students with a solid grounding in the CBOK and positions them well to sit for the CFA exams.
Being officially recognized by the CFA Institute asserts that PSU's MSFA coursework upholds the CFA Program Candidate Body of Knowledge (CBOK) and emphasizes the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice. This program prepares students to obtain the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation, which has become the most respected and recognized investment credential in the world.
"Students in these programs study the Candidate Body of Knowledge, which include knowledge, skills, and abilities that investment experts worldwide have identified as essential best practice," said Stephen Horan, Ph.D., CFA, CIPM, Head, University Relations & Private Wealth. "By mastering the fundamentals of the CFA Program as well as the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, these future investment professionals join us in our mission to promote the highest standards of ethics, education, and professional excellence for the ultimate benefit of society."
This endorsement clearly positions PSU's MSFA program and signals to potential students, employers, and the marketplace that PSU's MSFA curriculum is aligned with professional practices. Also with this recognition, the program is entitled to award five CFA Program Awareness Scholarships to students each fiscal year.
"I am very pleased that the CFA Institute has welcomed PSU's MSFA program into the University Recognition Program," said Nickel. "It is another confirmation that the MSFA program helps prepare students for successful careers in accounting and finance. This specific designation acknowledges that students in the MSFA Investment Management Specialization Track will be well positioned to obtain the Chartered Financial Analyst designation."
Established in 2000, the MSFA program at PSU's School of Business offers a unique dual-focused program that prepares students with a background in finance or accounting for advanced careers in the financial field. The MSFA program offers specialization tracks in Corporate Financial Management, Public Accounting and Investment Management. The degree may be completed in one year for full-time students and in two years for part-time students.
For more information about PSU's MSFA program, visit www.pdx.edu/gradbusiness/master-of-science-in-financial-analysis


text:
The highest quality Dubai International Racing Carnival to date commences on Thursday with an exceptionally strong equine cast gathering in Dubai for the $31million extravaganza.
De Kock, the most successful Carnival trainer of all with 53 winners, with eight World Cup night winners, has about 40 horses based at Nad Al Sheba this season, including last year's UAE Derby winner Honour Devil and Asiatic Boy (de Kock has won four UAE Derbies), winner of that race in 2007 and World Cup runner-up last year.
Both could clash in the 2009 World Cup according to their trainer: "Asiatic Boy did not settle in the UK last year so we brought him back to Dubai early and he is a lot further ahead in his preparation than 12 months ago as a result.
"He will probably contest the last two rounds of the Maktoum Challenge before the Dubai World Cup," explained De Kock.
Both Archipenko and Eagle Mountain who, like Asiatic Boy and Honour Devil, carry the ever more familiar predominantly yellow silks of Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum, were Group 1 winners in Hong Kong last year and will be aimed at the Dubai Duty Free and Sheema Classic respectively.
De Kock continued: "Archipenko was unlucky in the Dubai Duty Free last year, while Eagle Mountain missed out through injury.
"I am certain he stays the 12-furlongs (2400m) for the Dubai Sheema Classic and both horses have shown how good they are in Europe, America and Hong Kong."
Proven Carnival performers like Royal Vintage, Bennie Blue, Engrupido, Drift Ice and Frosty Secret are joined by a plethora of new recruits including South African Champion Sprinter JJ The Jet Plane.
Others joining the Dubai ranks from the trainer's homeland include Imbongi, Hunting Tower, Rocks Off and Front House.
Throw in the likes of Bankable, Stubbs Art, Macarthur and King of Naples from Europe, as well as the usual youngsters from South America, such as Blues And Rock and India Tiberina and it is easy to see why de Kock feels his team his strongest yet.
The same applies of compatriot Herman Brown whose 13 Carnival winners to date are undoubtedly highlighted by Jay Peg's win in last year's Dubai Duty Free (a race de Kock has won twice).
With stable stalwart Linngari retired, Jay Peg is the obvious star name this year but Brown too has his largest ever team.
Brown explained: "We have more horses this year and hopefully it is our best team ever.
"That said, the horses have arrived later this time which is not ideal and we may need a week or two to reach our peak.
"We have left a few here all summer to acclimatise, including Oracle West who has been a great Carnival performer for Mike (de Kock).
Narc is another and he ran in the Sprint on World Cup night last year.
"We have some nice new horses as well with Guineas and Derby winner King's Gambit perhaps the most interesting from home.
"Traffic Guard has been here before and did well in Europe, while Mourilyan won two here for John Oxx last season."
Racecar Rhapsody from America, Lipocco from the UK and Basaltico from Italy are three others given a favourable mention but do not be surprised if further names are added to the Brown team in the coming weeks with his owners looking to strengthen their hand.


text:
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — University of Maryland Police have arrested three men in burglaries at the college's Varsity Team Building.
Officers say Igor Cooper Rosensteel, Richard Nathan Landa and Ian Robert Hammer have been charged with burglary and theft.
Authorities say the building was broken into several times in November and December and items worth more than $20,000 were stolen. Many of the items were equipment used by the lacrosse and baseball teams.
Police say many of the items were sold during online auctions.
(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


text:
Submission + - Intel's compilers must not favor Intel products (coding-guidelines.com)
derek_farn writes: "The FTC have filed an antitrust complaint against Intel that requires them to release an updated version of their compilers that do not check whether the compiled code is executing on a "GenuineIntel" processor before deciding whether to go down a go-faster path that makes maximal use of the available processor resources, or a path containing a generic sequence of instructions (which are potentially much slower). The Intel settlement with AMD seems to cover the issue, but perhaps the Intel lawyers have another view. Intel could probably remove the GenuineIntel check without overly effecting their sales"


text:
|2009-03-26, 13:02
|Link #102
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: In a house
About Taiga being part-Caucasian, her mother looked distinctly non-Japanese in episode 24. Her father's apperance also seems to fit that of the stereotypical western businessman in anime. Otherwise, there are no references in the anime to Taiga's "foreignness", but the novel seems to be more suggestive of that?
I don't think going to a Catholic school carries any connotations of "foreignness". Buddhist, Taoist and atheist parents in Hong Kong send their children to Catholic schools simply because many of them are good schools. I went to one too and mouthed "Thank you for our daily bread, thank you for the fish we eat, blah blah blah, Amen..." whilst thinking "all of this is a load of b**crap".
Besides, a lot of the Japanese exchange students at my university come from Catholic schools (and attend Sophia/Jouchi University back at home), but the way they look, act, eat and think is 100% Japanese.
Last edited by Yukinokesshou; 2009-03-26 at 14:30.
|2009-03-30, 14:52
|Link #104
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 60
Compressing 10 volumes into twenty-five 25-minute anime episodes required massive slicing and deletion of hundreds of story points. Given that, it is quite remarkable that the anime hangs together as well as it does - and some of the credit has to go to the strength of the underlying storyline.
The spin-off novel is more of a side-story: "stuff that goes on offscreen from the main novel" focusing on two characters barely noticed in the main series One of them is Sumire's younger sister Sakura. Main characters do make cameo appearances or are referred to.
Here's a synopsis and review (many spoilers, eh?): http://that.animeblogger.net/2008/10...-of-happiness/
Many other questions can be answered by consulting the Wiki on Toradora!
|2009-06-03, 16:25
|Link #109
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 28
She acts a lot cuter earlier on though.
|2009-06-03, 16:54
|Link #110
Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
|2009-06-03, 17:41
|Link #111
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 28
She still tries to kill him with the wooden katana though.
|2009-06-03, 19:15
|Link #113
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 28
|2009-06-04, 14:46
|Link #114
Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
What did she do in that?
Oh and also, Minori seems awfully attached to Taiga in the anime..is she just as attached or even moreso attached to her in the novels?
Last edited by Taiga Aisaka; 2009-06-05 at 18:57.
|2009-07-02, 05:35
|Link #115
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2003
a couple questions..
is there going to be a season 2?
did kawashimi also like/love ryujii because he recognized her as a kid, instead of an adult?
it would've been fun to see the teacher finally get a guy, haha..or to see a solution to haruto's sidekick and the girl he liked/fought with.
was ryujiis dad dead, or did he just run away?
|2009-07-02, 12:42
|Link #116
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Colorful Colorado
Age: 40
* Ami loved all her friends in her own way, I'm sure, and she definitely had some feelings for Ryuuji from the various hints. She definitely is very lonely at various points in the series, because people never get to see her real self, although Ryuuji saw through her from the beginning, as he said at the end. So, yes, I'm sure that meant a lot to her, to actually have someone who genuinely liked her real self.
* Is there a single female anime teacher anywhere that actually has a stable relationship? Azumanga, Toradora, K-On, Lucky Star, ... all the female teachers that get real roles are in "Christmas Cake" territory and realize it.
* Noto and Kihara are shown pretty much getting together after their big fight. Or at least heading in that general direction.
* I think they implied (in the anime at least) that he just ditched them and returned to his life of a yakuza, although he could very well have died already, considering the relative "safety" of such a profession.
|2009-07-02, 14:21
|Link #117
Join Date: Jan 2009
Age: 26
|2009-07-04, 11:22
|Link #118
New Macross soon
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Macross 30 Emigration Fleet
In the anime, at the beginning Yasuko has been telling Ryuuji that his dad is dead, but at the end she admits to him that his dad actually just ditched them. I think in the light novel, the dad has been dead all throughout.
|2009-07-13, 02:21
|Link #120
Just call me Ojisan
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: U.K. Hampshire
These are the Japanese releses of course, if you mean where can you find Toradora with English subs or dubs then you can't, it hasn't yet been licensed.
|Thread Tools


text:
UH Manoas Hamilton Library starts 24-hour serviceUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Events & Communications
UH Manoa's Hamilton Library launches 24-hour, Monday-Friday service starting this week, in response to student requests.
The extended hours service is for UH students, faculty and staff. Patrons entering the building after 11 p.m. will be asked to show a valid UH ID card to security guards. Patrons without a valid UH ID will be asked to leave the building from 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. These measures are to maintain a secure study space for UH students, faculty and staff, and are in conjunction with the UH Mānoa campus commitment to maintain a safe and thriving place of learning.
The long-awaited service was approved by the Legislature for the 2006-07 school year in response to requests from the Library, the Associated Students of the University of Hawaii, and the Mānoa Chancellor's office.
The UH Mānoa Library began its extended hours service last year at Sinclair Library, and will complete its planned extension at Hamilton Library this week.
Hamilton Library hours are: Sunday 12 p.m. — Friday 7 p.m., and Saturdays 9 a.m. — 5 p.m. Complete library hours are available at http://library.manoa.hawaii.edu
For more information, visit: http://library.manoa.hawaii.edu


text:
The 'subversive adult Disneyland' where iPods track your every move
El Reg visits the Museum of Old and New Art, where IT budgets are boundless
Secrets of the O
The O is a normal iPod touch, but is backed by an enclosure containing an active RFID tag.
That chip communicates with RFID sensors scattered throughout the museum. As each O passes a sensor, its location is reported to back-end applications that upload content about nearby artworks over a WiFi network.
That content goes to a custom app on each O. Visitors can then choose from audio commentary, text (some of it Walsh's own somewhat gonzo observations) or the occasional video. Headphones issued with each O keep things nice and private.
Tony Holzner, Nic Whyte and Scott Brewer devised and built The O and its supporting systems, and have since spun out a company, Art Processors, to recreate the work elsewhere.
Holzner says inventing MONA's guide was just about the best environment he can imagine for a technology team.
"This was a dream project in terms of open ended brief and someone to back it and see it to fruition," he says. "It also helped that David didn't' get scared when costs escalated."
Technologists were also made a central part of the whole concept of MONA, from very early in its design phase.
"It worked well because we have a small team and we were on board with the curators, designers, architects, and David, because by and large MONA is his baby and his dream. Everything was treated as one grand project, not islands. The attitude was that nothing gets in the way of each other."
Holzner and the team even had time: work on the O started four years before MONA opened.
At that time, Holzner says "We scratched our head and said 'maybe this is possible with radio based positioning systems to find your location and cross-reference it with the known position of artworks'."
After much experimentation, Holzner and his colleagues found the RFID solution and worked with MONA's architects to embed sensors in its interior design. A proprietary real-time-location-system tracks the RFID tags – MONA has 1340 O's in its fleet – runs under Windows server on two tricked-out Dell R710s and performs 500 million calculations a second to track O's around the museum
One of MONA's ipod charging racks
The team also wrote a custom content management system, on the LAMP stack.
iOS development is another element of The O, as the custom app had to be interfaced with the RFID-tracking system and the CMS to retrieve content. The CMS, in turn, needed a spatial element so artworks can be located within galleries. Network design was another massive task and involved using 50 to 60 access points to ensure the O could always find signal within MONA's cavernous subterranean galleries.
Each O also stores information about artworks the first time any visitor chooses to view it, to minimise the amount of data traversing the network. That process had to be made super-fast as some audio played on the O is accompanied by video in exhibits, rather than on the screen of the O. That makes accurate synching between audio and movement of on-screen lips essential. Audio compression on the fly reduces the amount of data despatched over the WiFi network and, along with other tricks, means just 80 milliseconds of latency are imposed on transactions over the network. Even when pairs or groups of people stand at the same artwork, the audio arrives in time to prevent the need to share headphones.
A custom network audio streaming system utilising experimental low-latency audio codecs was developed by Ross Bencina of AudioMulch fame
The biggest USB charger in the world
Holzner says the team chose the iPod touch because nothing could rival it for maturity as a development environment, or come close to the form factor and hardware features. "Radios on Apple's gear are markedly more stable than a lot of the other gear out there," he says. "And there was nothing at that price point in Android world."
But managing the 1,340 iPods in MONA's fleet does present some complications, especially figuring out how to charge them.
"We built the world's largest USB charger," Holzner says. "It can charge 240 iPods at a time and we have six of the chargers. They draw a lot of power. Rowan Dinning from INNI came on board to help with the custom industrial design."
Holzner says the various apps and networks at MONA proved themselves on 2011's opening night, when 1300 visitors attended the Museum, and have been working more or less ever since. Ongoing operations include analysing visitors' votes, to help understand which works are most-liked but also to learn which artworks get most attention so the technology team can deliver the right infrastructure in the right places.
MONA has now been open for nearly two years and Holzner, Whyte and Brewer have since created Art Processes to build similar interactive guides for other museums around the world. Walsh is a Director of the company.
MONA, meanwhile, goes from strength to strength and is credited with sparking a mini-boom in Tasmanian tourism.
January 2013 sees an arts festival, MOFO, at which David Byrne and Neil Gaiman will be on the roster of performers. You could do a lot worse than going. ®
The author paid his own way to MONA.
Sponsored: Minds Mastering Machines - Call for papers now open


text:
Great, even more people will be camping their parent's basements.
Great, even more people will be camping their parent's basements.
What's the big deal? They'll be camping in their own parent's basements - not with you in yours!
You'll still have your parent's basement all to yourself.
I have some. I can mod someone for you as long as I don't post.
What about his brothers? You didn't think about his brothers did you?
Oh please... some of us are well adjusted adults with jobs and all, and can afford our own basement to camp in
But we still live there out of habit. I mean, who else is gonna fix us hot pockets than good old Mom?
I mean, who else is gonna fix us hot pockets
The rest of us graduated to Rice-a-Roni long ago.
Oh please... some of us are well adjusted adults with jobs and all, and can afford our own basement to camp in
I've always said, the difference between a geek and nerd is that a geek lives in his own basement.
This is code for "damn, November 2011 is looking pretty crowded with AAA title games - we might reevaluate the situation and climate - not to mention our customer's wallets - and release at a later date."
Not that I blame them. I can think of at least five AAA games coming out this fall, and I don't even follow gaming news all that closely. Christmas titles are getting as much pre-marketing as presidential candidates these years. After Valve has proven with three titles now (L4D, L4D2, Portal 2), a spring release can still be extremely profitable. Sounds like other studios might start caching in on the developing year-round release cycle.
I never have understood why game publishers historically shoot for a Christmas release date. When I was growing up my parents, friends, nor extended family ever bought me a single video game. It's too complicated to shop for games for someone else, especially when it's a PC game
As a kid I usually took a handful of my Christmas money out the day after Christmas and bought myself a game or two. It is hard to buy games for someone else, but game purchases still increase around the holidays.
Your family sucks. My family, I'd give my Mom a list of games I wanted in the order I wanted them and my family would work their way down the list.
No, Mom. I don't have a WII. I have an XBox 360. This is the WII version of the game. See? The list says, quite explicitly, "XBOX 360 VERSIONS ONLY." Now I'll have to exchange this.
And this is a PC game. The only PC here is your laptop, and you don't want me using that any more than I want to try to play this game on that non-gaming piece of crap.
You know what, Mom? Just give me cash next year.
After Valve has proven with three titles now (L4D, L4D2, Portal 2), a spring release can still be extremely profitable.
FYI: L4D and L4D2 were both Q4 releases (November 2008/2009, respectively). They often have major sales via Steam in the springtime to boost their numbers, as well as various holidays and seasons as well. Perhaps this is where you got mixed up.
Whoops! You are correct, sir. My apologies. I think they had a 50% off sale on L4D in early spring and then did a press release about how dropping the price of a game inside of a year can significantly boost overall sales numbers. That's probably what I am thinking of.
Who is going to play that? Shit, I always balk a bit at $60 for a game, but, that's at least somewhat reasonable. I don't have 100 million burning a hole in my pocket though, good luck to anyone who picks up that title. Not going to be massively multiplayer with a cost like that!
Who is going to play that? Shit, I always balk a bit at $60 for a game, but, that's at least somewhat reasonable. I don't have 100 million burning a hole in my pocket though, good luck to anyone who picks up that title. Not going to be massively multiplayer with a cost like that!
They have inside news that the US dollar is going to go like this [wikimedia.org]. You will see 100 million dollars as good value.
who's saying this one would be $60 game?
With 500000 subs needed to break even the costs of $100M this somehow indicates $200 revenue per customer. Sure, this leaves doubt how this would split between box/download and subscription.
I'm not sure I'd that much every month just to play a game.
Considering the rumors that are and were floating around and the many delays this project suffered already it's hard to believe that it will cost "only" 100 mio. incl. marketing. I heard numbers reaching as high as 250 mio. and it would surprise me if they would manage to stay below 100 mio. for development only.
80 million in development cost and 20 million in distribution and marketing = 100 million total budget
When WoW launched it had plenty of competition, remember Everquest II? Launched at the same time as WoW. Guild Wars launched in April 2005 when WoW was really struggling with hardware issues and over subscription. Matrix Online, same spring '05 time frame.
What content in Eve is created by players?
What content in Eve is created by players?
Form 35A-2. The Frigate Spreadsheet
This is closely followed up by Form 38B, How to Fly more ore to Station B for Corporation X sheet
Battleclinic, EVE wiki and alot of secure containers with ads.
TOR i am not sure about, they are spending huge amounts of money on Voice overs, getting actors in, what i believe they are trying to create is an amazing storyline in an MMO.
Sounds to me like they are trying to make a massive multiplayer single player game.
Its a pity this game looks fucking terrible. That $100M could have been used to make several new Dark Forces games.
Dark Forces boils down to walking around pressing "a" over and over and over. That and some bullshit Mario 3D style jumping is the entire game.
KotOR on the other hand is a fucking classic.
You petty much nailed it on the head. An MMO has to make a great first impression. STO is struggling after a mediocre release and poor reception. (On the other hand, the devs there are really into the community interaction; other companies could do worse than do that, even if most of it is putting out fires and damage control.)
A couple of fine candidates:
MMO based on some stage of the Battletech universe. There's a lot of scope there for some interesting stuff. Almost everyone would probably roll mech pilot, but still, it'd be way too cool.
MMO based on Starcraft. The usual joke I make is that if the public announcement system in your current town starts screaming "Nuclear Launch Detected", it would be a much more personal experience.
How much of this 'cost' is Lucas getting in licensing fees?
I watched a couple videos of this game. Honestly it's going to fail for one reason:
Lightsabers don't actually cut through stuff.
Who wants to play a game where you have to beat someone about the head a dozen times with your lightsaber before they die of a concussion?
The problem I see is that I am sure they will have a bunch of races and classes to be, but seriously its going to be like 99% Jedi ratio.
I mean who the fuck wants to be a Bothen Spy or a Clone Trooper when you can be a Jedi with double lightsabers...
Just sayin', is gonna be one big mass of Jedi slashing about...
Maybe it'll fail because of lightsabers merely existing. Ie, being a jedi in a single player game is great. But it's an awful idea to make this common in vast multiplayer persistent world game. Jedi should be rare. Sure, being uber powerful is great to attract the kiddies, but they'll only stick around a month or two before they see something else that's shiny. If you want long term players you need to have a decent game world and environment. (sort of reminds me about all the people who show up in Lo
Err, no. It will not fail for that reason - just like Star Wars Galaxies did not fail because Jedi/Sith could not cut through people at one blow. (SWG failed due to the CU and NGE bullshit.)
Who the fuck would want to play a MMORPG where one class could kill the others in one hit? Or when two Jedi or Sith meet, the one who lands the first blow wins? This is a massively multi-player game and all of the people who play it will understand WHY lightsabers do _not_ cut through people (and things) in one hit.
is the use of Light Sabres. Otherwise, it's just some random sci-fi genre game with pretty hairstyles and face paint.
While Star Trek and Dr Who retained/reclaimed their original appeal over many iterations, I find it very strange how Star Wars - at least as ubiquitous and seemingly immutable - so quickly and carelessly mutated into something completely unrecognisable and utterly unappealing to those who loved the original.
One of the great tragedies of modern film culture in my mind.
The game could have been 25% better.
Breakeven possibly as low as 350,000 subscribers? Spending $100M, that means they expect each user to spend an average of $285.71 on the game. Wha? Even at 500,000, it's $200 per player.
"I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow, or I'll have your guts for spaghetti." -- a comic panel by Cotham


text:
Pittsburgh Pirates newly acquired pitcher A.J. Burnett will miss two to three months after undergoing surgery for an orbital fracture near his right eye.
Burnett sustained the facial fracture during a bunting drill Wednesday when a foul ball ricocheted off his bat and hit below his eye. The Pirates staff said the injury will not affect his vision and there seems to be no damage to the muscles or nerves around his eye. It was certainly a scary scene for the players standing around as well as for the Pittsburgh fans watching on television.
The Pirates acquired Burnett from the New York Yankees on February 19 in a trade in which they sent two minor leaguers and cash. Pittsburgh was hoping this deal would get them over the hump in the competitive NL Central division in which two teams advanced to the postseason last year, including the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals.
Burnett was also excited to be joining the Pirates as he felt it would be good for him to start fresh with a new team.
"It's going to be fun. I'm going back to the National League, where I can hit and bunt and get the joy back into the game," Burnett said a day after being traded.
Obviously, Burnett did not realize how hard bunting is and the damage a foul ball can do to one's face.
"The initial step will be to heal from the surgery," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said. "Secondly, we will recondition his arm and body to where he was prior to the injury. Lastly, we will put A.J. through the same progression as he would have gone through here in spring training. The very rough timetable to complete this process and have A.J. prepared to compete without restrictions at the major league level is eight to 12 weeks."
Burnett signed a ridiculous contract with the Yankees in 2009 and simply did not live up to it. New York sent $20 million to Pittsburgh along with Burnett to help pay for the $33 million he is owed over the next two seasons.
In 33 games last year, Burnett was 11-11 with a 5.15 ERA and 173 strikeouts in 190.1 innings. In one game against the Detroit Tigers in the postseason he went 1-0 while surrendering one earned run and recording three strikeouts.