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Funaki's artistic spirit shines through in digital age
Katie Funaki, originally of St. Marys and now living in Pittsburgh, has parlayed her love of the moving image into a career as a freelance digital media specialist. This line of work involves a meticulous knowledge of technical and aesthetic aspects concerning film and film production and requires versatility in a number of different facets of those processes.Funaki described this line of work as a calling of sorts, wherein her fascination from a young age with cinema and television led naturally to her working with the image. She does not describe the act of watching the small and silver screens as a passive pasttime as much as she depicts it as having been a study of the art form."Ever since I was about eight or nine, I've always had dreams about being involved in the media industry. I used to wake up two hours before school and watch music videos in the morning before I went to school," Funaki said. "I also watched as many movies as possible and analyzed them, from the technical aspects to the aesthetic elements. I knew from that age that I wanted a job that was fun and made me happy. I wanted to wake up every morning knowing I am doing what I absolutely love." Funaki, born and raised in St. Marys, is the youngest of her siblings, Raymond, Caroline, Meti, and Richard, born to Diane Stauffer Funaki of St. Marys and their father Metihola Funaki of Tonga, an archipelago island located in the south Pacific Ocean. After graduating from Elk County Catholic High School in 2006, Funaki enrolled at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where she went on to receive her B.A. in Digital Media Production in 2009. Funaki said her course of study encompassed a number of aspects of the production and post-production processes involved in filmmaking."Many people ask about my course of study and what I do and it's sometimes difficult to explain in one sentence. Digital media production is an umbrella of specialties which include videography, non-linear editing, motion graphics, audio recording, scriptwriting, lighting, etc.," Funaki said.In working as a freelance digital media artist, Funaki is constantly engaged in a variety of projects and working in varying capacities. She has filmed and edited events ranging from stage shows to sporting events and is able to render and reconstitute the footage for the purposes of promotional spots, highlight videos for company events, or even interviews, behind-the-scenes features and short films as required by a client."During my career, I have collaborated with an array of clients and been involved in a lot of job experiences. My objective when working on a new project or collaborating with a new client is to be involved with something completely different from my previous work experience. I do this to spice my job up while gaining valuable workflow knowledge in a different working environment," Funaki said. In her time spent as a freelancer, Funaki has worked with companies and organizations including The Elizabeth Grand Theatre, Rage of the Stage Players, Nakturnal, Baierl Car Company, Camp Jam, Interactive Video Productions, Afrika Yetu, Pittsburgh Dance and Theatre Arts, Quality Life Services, Women in Film and Media, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, and Pennsylvania Nascar Motordrome Speedway. Currently, Funaki's talents and expertise have been enlisted by "Rewind Memories" in her position as film specialist. The company specializes in digitizing old home movies and converting now-archaic film mediums like VHS to DVD, and as Funaki explains, this entails her "converting old film into a high-definition digital format and edit upon each client's request." Funaki finds she thrives on the fast-paced nature of freelance work and her level of commitment often involves sacrificing a good night's sleep in the interest of completing a project by deadline."To me, completing a project before the deadline winds down is one of the most thrilling experiences! There have been times when the project requires a fast turnaround time. In order to finish the project on time, sleep is cut out of the equation. I often apply this quote to my work situation from one of my heroes, Taylor Hicks: 'When you're doing something you love, sleep can wait.' This quote keeps me going when I've been up for 48 hours straight trying to complete an assignment. Even through sleep deprivation, I often find myself saying, 'This is the life' while finishing my assignments," Funaki said. Funaki said she has found that being a freelancer requires one to be well-versed and versatile. In her work she is constantly tested and her horizons continuously expanded as she is thrust into new scenarios with new objectives all the time. "The newfound discovery behind the subject of my project becomes a personal reward every time, especially when it requires me to step out of my comfort zone to learn something new. As a freelancer, I have been thrown into environments and situations that require me to adjust quickly," Funaki said. "For instance, I was recently employed by two racetracks to film their weekly shows. Prior to this, I had no clue about the auto racing industry. That quickly had to change. "I soon began to realize and appreciate all the time and effort that goes into this sport, from the time and effort the drivers put into their cars to the actual racing process itself. As a result, I learn something new about each assignment and project I take on. To me, that's one of the most rewarding parts of my job." Funaki's love of the craft has even extended to her off time, during which she works to establish programs for aspiring filmmakers. In 2010 Funaki partnered with the Bailer YMCA in Pittsburgh to develop a film workshop for adolescents with an interest in filmmaking. "I've had an interest to create a program for young aspiring filmmakers since 2007 when I was employed through the YMCA as a child mentor for their afterschool program while attending college. I love kids. I think they are inquisitive, thoughtful, creative, and they inspire me more than they'll ever know," Funaki said. "One of the assignments for my workshop includes creating a two-minute short film. I love watching my students go through the filmmaking process. It's so refreshing to see them create a project that they enjoy doing. I really learn a lot from the kids who attend my workshops. They reinforce the thought that if you're not having fun, it defeats the whole purpose of doing it." Funaki recalls her own childhood in St. Marys affectionately."I couldn't of asked for a better place to grow up with such supportive family and friends. There are times when I'm homesick and I try to come back to St. Marys as much as I can," Funaki said.


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I have a whole stack of STARS and STROKE mags saved carefully in a box. I figure that they'll be worth money someday. They are not my originals (those wore out long ago when I was a horny young man).
A few years ago, Outlandish, Rochester's best gay store, had acquired a private collection of gay porn, and these mags were in pristine condition. I bought them up. I also bought a bunch of various picture magazines from the 70's and 80's. Some are Nova, Higgins, and smaller companies that are now long gone.
Eventually, I might even scan some of them ,so long as nobody sues me for copyright infringement.

subset: commoncrawl


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Ever wondered where the paparazzi-plagued celebrities run to when they want to escape prying eyes and the constant scrutiny of shutterbugs. From Necker Island to Jaipur's Oberoi Rajvilas, here are 7 escapes the stars love
Necker Island, British Virgin Islands Who: Richard Branson, Mel Gibson, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg Why: Spend a starry night under the open skies on the idyllic private paradise called Necker Island.
The Wakaya Club, Fiji Who: Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Why: Tucked away amongst Fiji's 333 islands, this intensely private coral-encircled gem offers 10 super-luxurious residences.
The Royal Palm Resort, Ecuador Who: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Why: Surrounded by 500 acres of lush, tropical forests, the hotel provides privacy and is an excellent option for the discrete traveller.
Taj Exotica, India Who: Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan
The Gstaad Palace, Switzerland Who: Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan, Robbie Williams, Paris Hilton Why: Check into the 99-year old hotel nestled in the serene Swiss Alps; you never know who you may bump into.
Aman-i-Khás Resort, India Who: Katy Perry and Russell Brand Why: The Aman-i-Khás, with its secluded location around the wilderness of Ranthambore National Park is an exotic romantic getaway in Rajasthan.
The Oberoi Rajvilas, India Who: Naomi Campbell, Bianca Jagger, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Bill Clinton
You may also like:
The 10 Most Annoying Co-Passengers
Meet India's Highest Fliers- 16 Million Miles And Counting


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The next regular, second-Saturday-of-the-month meeting of the Utah Valley PAF (Personal Ancestral File) Users Group will be on Saturday, 12 Apr 2008, from 9 am until noon in the LDS "Red" Chapel at 4000 North Timpview Drive (650 East), in Provo. The main presentation will be by Prof. Larry EchoHawk on SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS FROM KNOWING MY NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTORS. He will describe his journey in searching for his Native-American ancestors, preparing their names for temple ordinances, and gaining a deeper appreciation of his Native American heritage. All of this involved many avenues of research including the Internet and the Family History Library. His wife Terry is also an avid genealogist and helped with this research.
There is a good article about Professor EchoHawk in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_EchoHawk . He was born in Cody, Wyoming, raised in Farmington, New Mexico, and attended Brigham Young University on a football scholarship, then received his Juris Doctor degree in 1973 from the University of Utah. He practiced law in Salt Lake City and in 1977 became the General Legal Counsel for the Fort Hall, Idaho-based, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. He is a member of the Pawnee Tribe and was the first Native American elected to a constitutional statewide office, serving as Attorney General of Idaho from 1991 to 1995. Currently he is a Professor of Criminal Law at BYU's J Reuben Clark Law School and presides over the BYU 7th Stake. He resides in Orem with his wife, Terry, and they are the parents of 6 children with 20 grandchildren. On 7 Aug 2007 he gave the BYU Devotional talk about his conversion and his heritage and a copy of that talk is posted online at the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies at http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=jbms&id=435 . You can also listen to that devotional at http://ldsfiles.com/newforums/ldsfiles-com-talk-repository/
4598-byu-devotional-unexpected-gift.html .
Following the main presentation there will be several classes taught concerning technology and family history. As usual, there will be something for everyone at all levels of expertise. The classes currently scheduled for this meeting are the following:
- PAF5: Using Preferences, by Lila Sowards
- Using Google in Genealogy, by Duane Dudley
- Managing Genealogy Information Using PHPGedView (class 3 of 3), by John Finlay
- Q&A on his talk by Larry EchoHawk
- Individual Mentoring by Pat Andrus & Claudia Benson (including a German Internet Research mini class)
- Video of last month's main presentation on The Future of Family History Centers, by Don Anderson
- Legacy, by Joel Graham
- Ancestral Quest, by Gaylon Findlay
- RootsMagic, by Bruce Buzbee.


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DIY Space Suit Testing 37
Spacesuits are a lot more complicated than they look, NASA's suits have a lot of sealed bearings and straps and bellows below the surface to allow easy movement and reduce the ballooning effect:
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/08/an-insane-look-at-the-inside-of-space-suits/?viewall=true [wired.com]
NASA makes things 1000 times more complicated than they need to be. Its why a space toilet seat costs $100k to manufacture and $1 billion to design, but looks like a $10 seat you can get a Home Depot. I had a friend who worked in aerospace that spent a year in R&D for a nut for the Canadarm that he would swear you could just buy at the hardware store.
Agreed that a spacesuit is slightly more complicated than a toilet seat, but private enterprise is showing they are capable to reaching space for far che
Your so-called toilet seat in space is hardly what you think. There are a number of problems with putting an ordinary toilet in an orbital spacecraft that is in a microgravity environment, not the least of which is that water isn't found in the toilet.
Watch this video and tell me that it can be solved with a $10 seat purchased at Home Depot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1DYJIIqyQA [youtube.com]
There are also reasons why you need to spend months trying to find the right nut for a device, even if it may be something you pick up for a nickle at a local hardware store.
No doubt there is some substantial management overhead on space projects done by NASA. Just look at how much money it cost to build the Falcon 9 as opposed to the SLS (Sometimes called the Senate Launch System... comparable payloads and overall missions, and the SLS still isn't flying in spite of new incarnations that keep popping up and more money spent on them). I agree that the current culture at NASA tends to gild the lily, but it is also important to note sometimes there is increased complexity simply because stuff is happening in space. Furthermore, low production rates for stuff going into space means that you don't have economies of scale for components like you would for toilet seats purchased by people all over the world.
Besides, would you actually use a $10 toilet seat purchased at Home Depot? Those things last barely longer than it takes to screw them onto a toilet in the first place. Certainly don't turn one of those over to a bunch of teenagers, as they will destroy the thing in no time flat. Even at Home Depot there are much higher quality toilet seats to purchase, where money counts even for a mass consumer item like that.
Yet, in Soviet Russia they didn't. They did use a ball point pen though. Graphite from pencils tends to flake off and short out contacts on switches in space and cause fires where you don't want them.
See also: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp [snopes.com]
Yet, in Soviet Russia they didn't.
From your own link:
"Both U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights"
Graphite from pencils
Which is why you use wax pencils.
Have space suit will travel
so I expect to [see] them succeed in the near future.
Or die brilliantly.
An excellent historical perspective (with plenty of photos) on the development of pressure suits for both aviation and space use.
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/dress_for_altitude_detail.html [nasa.gov]
Yes, this is hard to do.
An excellent historical perspective (with plenty of photos) on the development of pressure suits for both aviation and space use.
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/dress_for_altitude_detail.html [nasa.gov]
Yes, this is hard to do.
An awesome ebook that really details what the big problems are with spacesuits, or a pressure suit, really.
It's mobility - and it's not mobility while deflated (when you see those photos of early astronauts playing golf or baseball), but when inflated.
So much technology has been used in contro
This is a really awesome example of dedication to science and engineering by enthusiasts.
They don't mention it (much), but these guys are risking their lives. It's certainly possible for all the tech safeguards and personal attention to safety to go wrong and for someone to die.
I bet the professionals will call this "unnecessarily risk", but that's not really accurate. Sure, it's money-limited, but that doesn't mean that the people involved aren't just as strongly concerned with safety as the professional
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit [wikipedia.org]
Space suits in general and the SAS in particular are why I no longer give a rat's ass what happens to NASA. Cut their funding, Congress orders them to start launching their rockets upside-down, I couldn't care less. NASA had a working prototype of a replacement for those injurious, exhausting, and dangerous inflatable suits 40 goddamn years ago, and they flushed it down the toilet and haven't looked back since.
The future of the human race is in outer space,
Recent investments will yield a slight profit.


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champion racehorses
Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
Tag archives for champion racehorses
tags: researchblogging.org, champion racehorses, thoroughbred, genetic correlation, heritability, Equus caballus, nature versus nurture Seattle Slew (1974-2002), the only undefeated horse to win the Triple Crown (1977). I have been thinking about a paper that was published last week, that analyzed the effects of "nature versus nurture" on the development of a champion racehorse. In short,…


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FRANKFORT, KY -- Kentucky State Police are seeking two escapees from the minimum security Frankfort Career Development Center.
The FCDC is located on Coffee Tree Road next to the Frankfort Regional Detention Center, just off the east-west connector that runs through the south side of the city from U. S. 60 on the east to U. S. 127 on the west, a few miles from Interstate 64.
A KSP news release says the pair went missing around 10 p.m. Saturday night. The two have been identified as 23-year old John Casey and 21 year old Joey Dewayne Collins.
There was no information on their hometowns, nor any information on their offenses. A source said they were believed to be heading to Pikeville.
The KSP news release describes Casey as a white male, a little over 6 feet tall, weighs 185 pounds, has brown hair, blue eyes and has tatoos of the word "love" on his right fingers and "mom and dad" on his left arm. Police say Collins also is a white male, is about 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs bout 170 pounds, has brown hair and brown eyes, and has a tattoo of an eight ball on his left forearm.
An investigation is ongoing. The KSP has been broadcasting descriptions of the pair to their units statewide. Anyone with information should contact KSP Trooper Bernis Napier through the Frankfort KSP Post #12 - 1-502-227-2221.


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Decomposing a Problem for Parallelism
Determining when, where, and how to incorporate multiprocessing and multithreading into the software development effort is what is of the utmost importance in utilizing multiple cores. Which brings us to two of the primary questions:
- How will I know when my software application needs multicore programming?
- How will I know where to put the multicore programming in my piece of software?
Decomposition is the process of breaking down a problem or solution into its fundamental parts. Sometimes the parts are grouped into logical areas (i.e., searching sorting, calculating, input, output, etc.) In other situations the parts are grouped by logical resource (processor, database, communication, etc.) The decomposition of the software solution amounts to the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) or its Architectural Artifacts(AA). The WBS determines which piece of software does what. The AA determines what concepts or things a software solution is divided into. The WBS typically reflects a procedural decomposition where as the AA represents an object oriented decomposition. Unfortunately, there is no cookbook approach to identifying the WBS or the AA of a software solution. We can say that model driven decomposition is one of the most practical approaches. We shall have much to say about models throughout this book. We cannot talk about where to use threads or whether to use simultaneously executing processes in the software solution until we have decomposed both the problem and the solution. Problem and solution decompositions are typically performed during the analysis and design activities in the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). A successful decomposition is one of the primary ingredients of a successful software development effort. On the other hand a poor or inappropriate problem and solution breakdown will almost certainly lead to failed software. The need or opportunity for multithreading or multiprocessing is most often discovered during the decomposition activity.
To see what we mean by decomposition let's take as a simple example the problem of a painting the house before the guests arrive for the holidays. Of course we will take this opportunity to use the latest craze in software automated painters. Let's see how we might decompose the problem of painting the house as well as the solution. The problem could be broken down into two approaches for decomposing this problem and creating possible solutions:
We can quickly see part of the challenge of decomposition. The first observation to be made verifies the fact that there is typically more than one way to decompose the problem. As you look at the problem and solution breakdown, you may have had a very different set of steps in mind. In fact we could have chosen an entirely different approach to the problem of painting the house before the guests arrive for the holidays as demonstrated in Decomposition #2.
The second observation to be made is that a decomposition might be incomplete or inappropriate! Ideally the fundamental parts of a decomposition should collectively represent the initial problem or solution. It's like putting the pieces of a puzzle back together again. If the pieces don't collectively represent the whole then the decomposition is incomplete. This means we haven't captured the entire problem and we won't have the entire solution. In our painting the house problem, was identifying the amount or cost of the paint part of the original problem? We can't tell from the statement of the problem. So we don't know if Decomposition #1 or #2 were incomplete. On the other hand it is clear that we need to paint the house before the guests arrive. Problem and solution Decomposition #1 does not address the guests arrival at all. So it is not clear whether the solution in Decomposition #1 will be acceptable. While Decomposition #2 does attempt to address the arrival of the guests, the problem and solution is geared towards finding ways not to paint the house at all or to paint as few walls as possible. This decomposition may be inappropriate. It might reflect a poor understanding of the intent of the initial problem.
Let us also point out that in the solution for Decomposition #1 a single automated software painter is suggested, and in Decomposition #2 multiple automated software painters were chosen. So not only does Decomposition #2 seek to minimize the number of walls to be painted it attempts to do so as fast as possible. Appropriate decomposition is a primary challenge for applications based on the sequential model. It is even more on an issue where parallel processing is called for. There are software tools and libraries that can help the developer with implementing a decomposition, however the process itself remains part of the problem solving and design activity. Until we get the problem and solution breakdown right, the application of multithreading or multiprocessing will be murky.
Earlier, we defined decomposition as the process of breaking down a problem or solution into its fundamental parts. But what are the fundamental parts of a problem or solution? The answer depends on what model you will use to represent the problem and the solution. One of the challenges of software decomposition is that there are multiple ways to represent a problem and its solution. It could also be reasonably argued that there is no one right way to decompose a problem or a solution. So which decomposition should we choose? Another challenge is making sure the decomposition is complete, appropriate, and correct. But how will we know if the breakdown is right? In some cases its not a matter of choosing between multiple and possibly conflicting WBS, it is a matter of coming up with any decomposition at all. This might be due to the complexity of the original problem. The decomposition issue is front and center in any software development effort. It's especially important where parallel processing tools or techniques will be deployed. But the WBS or AA chosen rely on the idea of models. Wherever decomposition takes place there is always one or more models in the vicinity. Hiding beneath the surface of our choices in Decomposition #1 and #2 is an assumed and shared model.
This excerpt appeared in our book Professional Multicore Programming, Chapter 3, Wrox, 2008


text: Oh Dog! I'm here to tell you about a cool party. And you're ALL invited! On March 24th, the SCIFIpawty will be held on Twitter from 11am to 11pm eastern time. At this Twitter party you can meet new friends, win cool prizes, and most importantly, help raise funds for One By One Cat Rescue … Continue reading


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The principle is the same with most live distros that use either an rpm package manager or a deb package manager. As an example to illustrate the method any recent Ubuntu live will do. A live setup will require using memory to operate and any additional software installing will "eat into" this memory.
The method proposed here is to arrange access to the Internet and "install" Bitdefender to the live system. Any such alteration does not survive a reboot so the key is to do this as light and as simply as possible because it will need to be done all over again every time the live system is booted.
"Not very practical" one should think. Other methods exist. One could remaster a live system and simply ensure that it contains Bitdefender or any other malware scanner for Linux that is desirable. A live usb stick with persistence could also be used in which there would be space for both installation and updating. However, this howto will only cover how to add Bitdefender to a live system which does not contain it initially.
A stumbling block could be the memory (or rather the lack of it!) Practically, I found that over 1.5 GB of ram will do without "extra" preparations. For a system with less (say with only 512 MB of ram) it can still be done.
Choose a distro that the pc can boot from and from which the windows partition(s) can be mounted read/write. The latest Ubuntu will do nicely.
Trick 1 - Either fire up the live without the graphical environment or close it down from the console (press Ctrl+Alt+F1.) Ubuntu can be manipulated not to fire up the graphical environment at all. On some versions a quick jab at the F6-key jolts the initial booting to offer a choice of language where otherwise it would simply go ahead to the desktop. Other versions will offer the language without user intervention. Just choose one but then press the F6-key when the menu of live or install comes up. This produces a popup so close it with the Esc-key. Revealed before us is a command line. Don't press the Enter-key yet, but go to the end of this command and using the backspace-key erase the end bits up to and including "quiet splash" leaving the mention of the initrd. With a single space after what is left type either "single" or "text" and press Enter. In the case of "single" the next step is choose "netroot" from the Recovery Menu so that dhcp will push the router to provide an ip and route to the Internet. The user at the commandline is root. In the case of "text" the ip bit should be fine but the user at the commandline is ubuntu so type sudo -s and Enter to turn it into root. The two cases are now identical except that five other virtual consoles exist in the second case where they do not in the first.
Trick 2 -Commandeer the windows swap file for a live linux swap to make up for the relatively little ram. This is not harmful to the windows system because it simply recreates a new swap file on its next bootup. This proposed method uses the existing swap file and then and erases it. The file in question most likely lies in the first "large" ntfs partition (in the case of more than one being found.) So the next command to type is fdisk -l (that is a lowercase L) to show the partitions, their sizes and types. In the case where sda1 was smaller try the command mount /dev/sda2 /mnt (thus givng access to the C directory.) Check with (again a lowercase L)
ls /mnt/pagefile.sys (and if found) mv -v /mnt/pagefile.sys /mnt/pagefile.kwe (the kwe file extension is unique, hopefully.)
Now the commands mkswap -f /mnt/pagefile.kwe (then) swapon -fv /mnt/pagefile.kwe will hopefully create enough swap memory so the rest of this method can be done.
If ram is more that 1.5GB to start with both above tricks can be skipped but open up a terminal and become root with sudo -s then use fdisk -l and mount the C partition and rename the swap file with mv -v as above.
All of these steps are needed:
A - Edit the file in the live linux /etc/apt/sources.list to add a line
deb http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/deb bitdefender non-free
If the distro used works with rpm there is an rpm repository at
B - Update the package manager
apt-get update
C - Install Bitdefender's commandline scanner
apt-get install bitdefender-scanner
D - Update the signature files
bdscan --update
This will invoke displaying the terms of usage so press q to scroll to end and type accept (only then the updating will start.)
E - Scan each partition needing scanning with the command
(The partition is still mounted at /mnt) so all one line
bdscan --action=delete --log=/mnt/vir.kwe --exclude-ext=kwe /mnt
man bdscan to see all the options if desired
F - Check the log for what was discovered if desired
cat /mnt/vir.kwe | grep infected
this can redirected to a second file using >
G - Unmount and remount for other partitions and repeat E and F
H - Release the swap, delete swap and log files and unmount
swapoff /mnt/pagefile.kwe
rm -iv /mnt/pagefile.kwe
rm -iv /mnt/vir.kwe
umount /mnt
I - Not strictly needed but recommended if the distro has the tool
ntfsfix /dev/sdan (where n is each partition number of ntfs)
This only sets a flag for windows to check the file system.
P.S. note: use the 32bit version of the linux distro or search the web for a fix that enables the 64bit version to work.


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By Lanee' Blunt
|Details are important in setting--
Image by Kaeska.
Building setting in your novel must be done carefully. Details in a novel are either used to the extreme or some writer's don't give enough details. The details of setting should be weaved into the fiction without notice. When setting is done correctly it pulls your reader into your fiction world and helps them imagine your novel vividly.
The setting has to be incorporated into the fiction and not just stuck in. If you are writing about a character's feelings don't describe what the room looks like. For example, Maria was hurt by John. She noticed that her kitchen was a mess. There were pots and pans on the stove and the dishes were piled high almost to the ceiling.
That information may describe the room but what does it have to do with Maria's feelings toward John? The messy kitchen has nothing to do with Maria's hurt feelings. It is just there and it doesn't emphasize her feelings.
Maria felt like the empty dirty glass in the sink. What was she just something to be tossed aside when John was finished using her? She slammed the glass into the sink on top of the dirty dishes and broke it.
When you write your setting this way you never leave the focus of the character and you still got in the details of the messy kitchen. Professional writer's use these details so skillfully that the reader is immediately drawn into the fiction and never notices them.
Leonard Bishop; Dare to Be a Great Writer; Writer's Digest Books


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Attachment 53253"HOWDY" barely had time to say hello...now he's gone in an instant...Rainbow Bridge too early encountered.
How could this be? This cruelness of fate? A muddy 7 month old adorable long-haired Chihuahua only needed a bath. My son described he usually played "Statue" during this process; this time he moved one step and fell 4 feet to the hard tile floor. His neck broken, his eye sparkle gone immediately! My grown son at my door this evening in tears; heaving, chest crushing sobs of torment as he described the death of sweet little Howdy. Could it have been prevented; yes! But all the harder to take. The back lawn could have been mowed and the weeds cleared so the 2# puppy would not have gotten so muddy in the under brush. A midnight bath? Would a wash cloth have sufficed? Would the bathtub have been a better choice? How about NEVER taking your hands off of him at all-EVER while above the floor? My hurt is knowing all of these answers but not being able to spare my son or his baby boy Chihuahua the pain and senseless loss my additional years of experience has taught me. My son always did have to learn lessons the hard way...but now a man, why THIS hard? Why this tragic? Howdy was a perfect show dog Chihuahua little dude. Funny, playful, tolerant of my 9 year old grand daughter's ADHD type handling. He was only with my son and grand daughter since February 20th. Purchased as an after thought as company for the little female 3 months his elder we'd journeyed to get. Litter box trained; everything was perfect. Everyone's feelings and needs thought of. Responsible steps taken, neutering done, rabies given, all immunizations on board and now dead. In half a second! Cruel!!! Worse yet? Tomorrow my grand daughter comes home from her mother's house and has to be told that HER dog, he was her dog; is gone. My only input was don't describe how it happened exactly. Every time I think BROKEN NECK I shudder and cringe. I found myself crying then SCREAMING and SCREAMING in the shower tonight! I am 60...I live with no other humans and I needed to scream, so I did. Now I am only 2 weeks away from the 1st anniversary of my 10 year old Maltese's death due to Cushing's Syndrome and Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Unpreventable? No! Vets pumped the little guy with corticosteroids for allergies all his life...vets don't take oaths, you know? Now there are non-steroidal treatments and grain-free diets but my Roscoe died a painful death all the same. Too little too late. Of course my thoughts that pushed me over the edge came when I imagined my Roscoe receiving little Howdy at the foot of the Rainbow Bridge. Were there such a place I would go there too. Not to stay, not yet. I have my own furry and feathered "fids" that still depend on me. We are the sole caretakers of these wonderful creatures God loans to us and we can only do our best. But do we? So many, many do not; and for some, on purpose they do not. Why do those of us that try SO hard to do our best suffer so much? I suffer not being able to spare the pain my son must relive when he tells Madison, my grand daughter, of the tragedy tomorrow night. -A broken neck-broken neck-broken neck...no solace even that he suffered not.


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A retelling of Bertolt Brecht's early play, starring and directed by Ethan Hawke, is only shocking in how unnecessary it feels.
Bertolt Brecht's Baal, with its bleak portrait of a dissolute poet who shows a complete disregard for the rules of civilized society, shocked audiences at its premiere nearly 90 years ago. But if you need any proof of just how much times have changed, consider Clive, now being presented by The New Group at Theatre Row. This 105-minute intermission-less update of Brecht's play by Jonathan Marc Sherman is far more likely to elicit yawns than jolts.
From the moment we first meet him, rock-singer Clive (played by a silver-haired Ethan Hawke) is an alcoholic, self-absorbed, and highly destructive mess. Ultimately, he mistreats, manhandles – or even murders – anyone who tries to help him, befriend him, or love him. Some may be seduced by his unabashed sexuality, others by his free spirit, and a few lonely individuals simply by his access to alcohol and drugs – but all of this seems very passé in 2013. (The show, for some reason, is set in the 1990s, but that is not made completely clear, nor does it have much relevance.)
Moreover, Clive is such an unpleasant and often-abusive person that it's hard to see why he inspires any sort of lasting devotion or loyalty. Fortunately, Hawke brings total commitment to the role, baring Clive's inner and outer ugliness with the same ease (and frequency) as he bares his pretty, tattooed chest -- which helps to make the often-meandering show somewhat watchable.
Hawke, who also directs the production, proves to be a generous scene partner, allowing his castmates to showcase various aspects of their talent. (Every performer, with the exception of Hawke and Vincent D'Onofrio, has multiple roles in the production.) D'Onofrio gives the most interesting performance, as he brings a mesmerizing floridity (and an odd semi-Southern accent) to his role as the seemingly aimless Doc, who becomes Clive's loyal companion. Zoe Kazan fully inhabits the numerous women in Clive's life, notably the innocent Joanna, who willingly gives Clive her virginity, and the not-so-innocent Sophie, whom he eventually impregnates then abandons. Brooks Ashmanskas is vivid in a variety of parts, from a sleazy record producer to Clive's frustrated landlord to a kindly priest. Even Stephanie Jannsen, Aaron Krohn, Mahira Kakkar, and Dana Lyn make favorable impressions, though few of their roles have any depth or substance.
In his role as director, Hawke has given a lot of thought to the physical production, enlisting some of theater's top-notch talents (many of whom he's worked with previously) to carry out his vision. Among the most notable contributors is Tony Award-winning set designer Derek McLane, who creates a spectacular backdrop that makes unusual use of beer cans and labels, as well the seven doors that double as musical instruments for the original soundscape, by brothers Latham and Shelby Gaines.
Still, as Clive meets his ignominious end when the proceedings finally come to a close, one has to wonder what anyone involved really believes this unpleasant work has to say to 21st-century audiences – other than choose your friends (and lovers) wisely. And that has been said in far shorter and more interesting ways than Clive.


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2012 in tech: Apple up the Cook without a paddle, ARM, slab wars... and MORE
Navigate the year safely, without Google Maps
Rise of the machines
Rogue software crashes US stock markets
In Terminator, the humans are responsible for unleashing Armageddon after outsourcing responsibility for defense to a computer system called Skynet.
On August 1, the NYSE experienced a minor, computer-induced Armageddon of its own, called a "mini flash crash". It saw shares in major stocks from General Electric down to the minors got caught in wild swings thanks a rogue automated trading system that ram amuck for a period of 45 minutes.
When badly built software goes, er, bad
The problem was traced to a badly written trading algorithm from Knight Capital that cost its owner $440m in cash and 68 per cent in stock. The algorithm was buying shares at ask price and selling quickly at the bid price; only, the system should have been buying at bid price and selling at ask price – the latter often being a few cents more than the bid price. This meant the system was mostly making losses per trade while doing what such systems do well – trading very fast.
As one observer put it: "Do that 40 times a second, 2,400 times a minute, and you now have a system that's very efficient at burning money".
The system is typical of the kind now widely used in a financial markets where quantative analysts and computer scientists find value in the margins and where they trade very quickly. Spookily, this was the second financial trading system disaster of the year blamed on tech, the first being Facebook's IPO. Then, Nasdaq reckoned the software and the "computer systems" in its IPO offerings "were overwhelmed by order cancellations and updates during the "biggest IPO cross in the history of mankind."
Google, Facebook, Microsoft boil the web-privacy frog
Sun Microsystems co-founder and chief executive Scott McNealy is famous for telling us we have no privacy on the web and to get over it.
2012 proved people aren't "over it" and despite spaffing their photos up Facebook and volunteering their data to Google, they get angry when tech companies abuse what's perceived to be a position of trust by trying to make commercial capital from that information.
2012 also proved tech companies will keep inventing ever more creative ways to capitalise on that data.
Google's CEO likes his privacy policy
Privacy advocates, data protection officials and top lawyers were outraged in January and March as Google introduced new privacy policy that would let it combine users' data across different sites. The new policy combined 60 existing polices and let users' personal data be used across all Google's sites – Gmail, YouTube and so on. Google pressed on, despite the barrage claiming a change would "confuse" users.
Somewhat quietly, in August, Microsoft tweaked its terms and conditions giving it license to share data of sites such as Hotmail with third parties.
Facebook also introduced a new policy on how it uses its billion-users' data, allowing it to share details with Instagram, the hipster photo-sharing site it bought in October for $715m. As with Google, the idea is to build a better profile of users and enable better-targeted ads.
At the same time, Facebook changed a system that would let users vote up or down changes to the social network; this system registered 87 per cent opposition to the new data-sharing policy in a vote a Facebook PR rep called "unrepresentative percentage of our user community."
Instagram itself provoked an outcry in December when it granted itself the power to use photos uploaded by users in ads; facing a potential walk out by users being told how to remove their pics from the service, Instagram modified the terms, reverting back to its old terms. However, Instagram retained the right to make future changes and to use people's photos as part of advertising.
Open sourcers were compromised, too: Ubuntu's maker Canonical introduced a search feature with Ubuntu 12.10 that married user's searches of their hard drive with results from etailer and cloud giant Amazon.
Ubuntu daddy Mark Shuttleworth defended the feature, saying it didn't compromise privacy - but the outrage was instantaneous and furious, coming from users, open source activists and from privacy advocates with the Electronic Frontier Foundation branding the Amazon integration "a major privacy problem". Canonical, which had only been making a small amount of money from the service, rushed out a button that let users kill the feature, but Amazon search remains on by default.
Browser makers were also sucked in. Microsoft thought it had taken the moral high ground by making Do Not Track the default setting in Internet Explorer 10, the default browser for Windows 8.
Mozilla was the first browser maker to put DNT in place, in Firefox, but it decided Microsoft had erred by making DNT a default option and by not giving users the choice to pick it to let websites know where they've been online. It's a libertarian-brand of argument, and one which open-sourcers and web giants assimilated, helping wreck Microsoft's stance. Apache web server co-author Roy Fielding off his own back updated code for the world's most popular web server so that websites would not work with IE 10's DNT system, while Yahoo! - Microsoft's Bing ads and search partner - said it wouldn't recognise DNT in IE 10.
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What does MAPS mean in Unclassified?
This page is about the meanings of the acronym/abbreviation/shorthand MAPS in the Miscellaneous field in general and in the Unclassified terminology in particular.
Multiple Attack Point System
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- Maps
- "Maps" is a single by Yeah Yeah Yeahs from their debut full-length album, Fever to Tell. The song is about the relationship between Liars frontman Angus Andrew and Yeah Yeah Yeahs lead singer Karen O. It was released on February 10, 2004, and the band performed the song at that year's MTV Movie Awards. It reached #9 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart and was included in the popular video game Rock Band.
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NORWALK, Ohio -- The year was 1990. A then 27-year-old Daryl Griffin was just getting into the world of drag racing when he did the unthinkable, winning the IHRA Hot Rod World Championship in only his third year behind the wheel.
"This is unbelievable. I never thought I could get here again," Griffin said. "But with my friends, my family and God by my side, here I am all these years later. After winning the first one I got married, had a child, so you prioritize. But a few years ago Kent Roundtree called me up and asked if I wanted to drive the car and the rest is history. Let me tell you, several years have gone by, but the competition is just as tough."
To add to the excitement of Griffin's weekend, his win at the World Finals was his first victory of the 2013 season. Despite winning the Summit Pro-Am championship in Division 9, Griffin had yet to find the winner's circle after four runner-up finishes in four finals this season.
"I have been in the finals four times this year and I have been runner-up all four times," Griffin said. "I told Brett Nesbitt that I have to get this demon off my back and assured me that there was no way I was going to finish runner-up five times in one year."
Looking to avoid a season without a win, Griffin entered the final against South Carolina's Robert Robertson hoping to turn his luck around.
With his first Ironman of the year on the line, Griffin attacked the tree with his fourth consecutive reaction time of .016 or better with a solid .014 light in his 1969 Camaro. He finished off the run with a 10.926 second elapsed time at 144.40 miles per hour in the 10.90 index class, while Robertson broke out by -.004 to finish runner-up in the battle of the Camaros with his 1985 model.
Griffin, the Division 9 Hot Rod champion this season, had wins over Robertson, Mark Mullen, Mike Frederick Sr. and Keith Mayers to reach the final. Robertson, who finished third in Division 1 on the Summit Pro-Am Tour, defeated William Stepp, Steve Dweck and Jeff Bagwell.
Griffin was deadly on the tree all afternoon, producing reaction times of .016, .005, .007 and .014. Both his opponents in rounds one and two broke out, while Griffin put together tremendous packages including a .009 package in round two against Frederick.
"Let me tell you, after years of running in this class, Hot Rod racing is bad ass. It is a tough class and I am proud to be standing here today," Griffin said. "I want to thank the Roundtree family for all they have done, I also want to thank Brett Nesbitt and his family, Chris Dean, Ricky Apple, my son Cody and my wife Debbie at home who supports me. Also a big thank you to IHRA, Summit and all of my sponsors."
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Tribe holds on to even series behind sharp Ubaldo
Indians jump on Tigers' ace Verlander early, Perez holds off late rally
By Jordan Bastian /5/12/2013 12:23 AM ET
DETROIT -- The Indians were hoping to make a statement this weekend. It came in the second inning on Saturday night, when a dirt-stained, helmet-less Jason Kipnis got up from the ground, shifted to one knee and screamed at the moon.
Kipnis had narrowly beat a relay throw to home after sprinting around the bags from first base, sliding head-first and slapping the plate with his left hand. It was part of an early outburst against Tigers ace Justin Verlander, who looked quite human against Cleveland, which survived some late drama to pull off a 7-6 victory at Comerica Park.
"That was huge," Indians first baseman Nick Swisher said of Kipnis' play. "Any time you have a hustle play like that, it definitely fires you up, gets that blood boiling."
The win marked the 11th in the past 13 games for the Indians, who sit one game behind American League Central-leading Detroit. Ubaldo Jimenez -- looking more and more like the pitcher Cleveland wanted when it pulled the trigger on the 2011 trade with Colorado -- boasts three victories within this stretch after his taming of the Tigers.
The Indians (19-15) jumped on Verlander early when the hard-throwing right-hander struggled to command his fastball, scoring three runs in the first two innings and driving his pitch count up to force him out of the contest by the fifth. Facing one of the best pitchers in the game, Cleveland wanted to make things as difficult for him as possible.
"He's so good. He's so strong. He's so durable," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "He has a lot of weapons. But, to our credit, we made him work for everything. Sometimes the best way to beat a guy like Verlander is to get him out before the seventh or eighth."
Michael Bourn led the first inning off with a single and later crossed the plate on a double to right field from Swisher. Verlander loaded the bases with one out and then issued a free pass to veteran Jason Giambi to force home another run. It was the third time in Verlander's career that he issues a bases-loaded walk.
In fact, Verlander's outing was only the third of his storied career that included at least five walks in five or fewer innings. The 2011 AL Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner allowed four runs (three earned) on six hits, ending with seven strikeouts, five walks and 110 pitches. Not since 2010 had Verlander logged as many pitches without pitching into the sixth.
"They're just professional hitters," Verlander said. "It's like anybody. You make your pitches and most of the time you get guys out. But when you get professional hitters like that, you've got to make your pitches. Otherwise, they're not going to give in and make an easy out for you. They're going to battle you."
Jimenez (3-2) improved to 3-0 with a 1.45 ERA in his last three turns for the Tribe after holding the Tigers (20-14) to one run -- courtesy of a third-inning solo home run from Jhonny Peralta -- over six frames. The Cleveland right-hander finished with eight strikeouts (matching a season high) and issued just one walk in his 93-pitch effort.
Jimenez has won three starts in a row for the first time since July 9-19, 2011, when he was still with the Rockies.
"I've been able to go out there for the last three or four games and compete," Jimenez said, "and give the team a chance to be close on the scoreboard. I think it's all about my mechanics. The last three games I've been able to repeat my mechanics on every pitch."
Francona was tempted to send Jimenez back out for the seventh inning, but the pitcher admitted that he was fatiguing on this cold night in the Motor City.
With Jimenez out of the game, the Tigers made their push.
In the seventh inning, Indians left-hander Nick Hagadone loaded the bases, creating a tough situation for right-hander Cody Allen to inherit. Allen allowed a sacrifice fly to pinch-hitter Brayan Pena, a two-run triple to Omar Infante and a run-scoring groundout to Austin Jackson, cutting Cleveland's lead to 6-5. The Indians tacked on an important insurance run in the eighth.
"We needed every one of them," Francona said.
With one out in the ninth inning, and Indians closer Chris Perez on the mound, Swisher misplayed a routine catch on a would-be groundout off the bat of Pena, allowing the catcher to reach safely.
Infante followed with a base hit to left field, putting Detroit in good position to rally. Jackson then drilled a pitch from Perez up the middle, where Kipnis ranged to his right, said a prayer and stabbed at the ball with his glove. He came up with it, and made a flip to shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera at second base for a critical force out.
"That was awesome," Perez said. "That saved me."
"I wasn't even sure what I was going to do when I got to it -- if I got to it," Kipnis said. "It was one of those ones where you don't really think about it."
Tigers right fielder Torii Hunter delivered an RBI single off Perez, but that was where the comeback ended.
For the Tribe, Mark Reynolds contributed an RBI single in the fifth inning and Mike Aviles chipped in a pinch-hit RBI single in the seventh, but Kipnis' mad dash around the bases was the offensive highlight.
With one out in the second, Kipnis singled to right field off Verlander, bringing Cabrera to the plate. The shortstop capitalized by yanking a pitch down the right-field line for a double, sending Kipnis bursting out of the starting blocks. Tribe third-base coach Brad Mills waved Kipnis home the whole way and the second baseman never slowed.
Hunter relayed the ball to Infante, who fired it to catcher Alex Avila. The catcher made a swipe attempt, but Kipnis was already there, his helmet flying away as he slid in safely. The second baseman jumped up, pumped his fist, showing Detroit that Cleveland plans on putting up a fight this year.
"He's such a scrappy player, man," Swisher said. "He's one of those dirtball guys. After every game it seems like he has some sort of stain on his uniform."
Jordan Bastian is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Major League Bastian, and follow him on Twitter @MLBastian. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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Friday, January 23, 2009
Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century
Back when I originally wrote Christianity in Crisis Kenneth Hagin was the prime mover behind the message, while his platform was certainly enormous, and his influence global. There is a new breed of prosperity teachers today that have taken his preaching and his practices to unimaginable heights, or maybe more appropriately unimaginable depths. Indeed men who followed in his train like Joel Osteen or women like Joyce Meyer are living proof that error begets `` error and heresy begets heresy. As such, they have taken the crisis spawned in Christianity by Hagin, and popularized by disciples like Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn, and took it to levels I could have scarcely imagined when I wrote the original book in the 20th century.
This is one of the reasons I have now released Christianity in Crisis 21st Century. I believe this book like its predecessor needed to be written. In the end, it's not as much about the faith teachers as it is about faith followers, who are inevitably distracted, disillusioned, discouraged, and some even die. My heart aches for the parent, who puts his dead baby on ice, and in the midst of tears, drove 350 miles because he trusted the testimony of faith preachers who were touting resurrections from the dead. I equally grieve for the millions who have left faith churches in the midst of failed faith formulas. Some conclude that God must not love them; others question the integrity of the Christian enterprise.
The tragedy is that all too often we look for God in all the wrong places. The real experience is found not in counterfeit formulas but in Christian fundamentals. Think for a moment about prayer, rather than seeking formulas through which we can get things from God, we must be ever mindful that prayer is an opportunity for developing intimacy with the lover of our souls. If we were honest, most of us have learned to pray backwards. We hurry and rush into God's presence with techniques and incessant babblings, and in the process we drown out the very one who's voice we so long to hear. All too often we want God to move the fence posts and enlarge our houses and lands, but God wants something far better for us. He wants us to be still, so He can enlarge the territory of our hearts. He sent us sixty-six love letters etched in heavenly handwriting, and the more we meditate upon those Words, the clearer His voice will become when we meditate in the sounds of our silence.
As the original Christianity in Crisis has impacted the lives of literally thousands of people from Nairobi, Kenya to Seoul, Korea, from Beijing, China to Los Angeles, California, it's my prayer that Christianity in Crisis 21st Century will likewise turn the hearts of millions towards home.
6 comments:
- Siarlys Jenkins said...
Benny Hinn doesn't like you? I thought there was something good about your teaching.
The Holy Spirit still offers Hinn mercy, but I don't know if he is listening.
- February 11, 2009 at 8:16 PM
In Faith--It Is Not The Critic Who Counts
"It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
- February 23, 2009 at 2:36 PM
- Siarlys Jenkins said...
Well, you certainly know your Theodore Roosevelt. Who exactly would you nominate as "daring greatly"? Hank perhaps? Or did you mean to post this as an answer to another set of comments, the ones carping about what they don't like in our new president, who is actually in the arena?
- February 23, 2009 at 10:44 PM
- jim tedder said...
Not a day goes by that i do not encounter haginites and the like with their voo doo christianity. The students of his nefarious school have shaken most evangelical churches right down to their foundations. Who would have thought that this movement would have surpassed Modernism and
Romanism as the greatest dangers to the Gospel and the Church in the 21st century?
- February 27, 2009 at 4:17 PM
- Siarlys Jenkins said...
Jim, I took the trouble to check out your blog before attempting to reply. Considering that you severely chastise the whole gospel of prosperity yourself, particularly in your little item on Jim Baker, I can't quite place what you are saying about Hank, particularly taking your post onto this particular article. On the other hand, neither Modernism nor Romanism strike me as posing great dangers to the 21st century. Of course I deny that any bishop inherited a mandate from Christ to rule the world or the church, but at present, only those who choose to do so recognize the Pope's authority. That is what is important. Hank isn't an authority, but he is worth listening to. (For someone who often disagrees, I seem to be spending a lot of time defending him this month.)
- February 28, 2009 at 11:10 PM
- Bryan said...
I saw that you mentioned Joyce Meyer. I have listened to her a lot and have not heard her teach a prosperity gospel. I have only heard her preach from the Bible. The others you mentioned a agree with you. I just haven't heard Joyce do that...
- March 3, 2009 at 6:30 PM


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Quote from: KinseyanneIn the bag was two cans of kitten formulaSo now ... just add water and you get kittens? What will they think of next??
In the bag was two cans of kitten formula
However, maybe I've been reading this forum too long, but I could easily imagine a future post about a BIL and SIL who have lots of anniversary parties but never acknowledge the LW and her husband's same-date anniversary. I guess I agree with Prudie that it doesn't have to be a big problem, but I'd be keeping a close eye on those two for a while after that.
I think it's unrealistic to think that one "owns" a date like a birthday or anniversary. You wouldn't expect no one to ever get married on your wedding anniversary, so why would you think you could prohibit a close relative from doing so?
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Mayo and Friends Christian Fellowship is celebrating 20 years of musical gatherings in 2013.
Mayo and Friends is a group of singers and musicians that started out with D.R. Mayo and his wife, Sandra, and several of their friends.
While the group was performing for a church, Rebecca Lambert came up to them. Lambert asked what the name of their group was so that she could put it in the newspaper.
"Just friends," Mayo said.
So, Lambert named them Mayo and Friends.
"The Lord is the one who led us all the way," Mayo said.
Mayo and Friends got its start by performing in nursing homes. Before long, the group began to receive invitations to sing at events such as parties and church gatherings. Eventually, they began holding a yearly event with singing, food and fellowship in the agricultural building. This lasted for about four years. The group then began to meet periodically at an old store on Bonita Road, although they did not have a specified time or date. In 1993, Mildred Kinnard suggested they meet every third Saturday at the old store and invite everyone to come.
Over the years, a considerable amount of hard work and time has been put into upgrading the building. Recent additions include two new bathrooms.
Sandra Mayo has since passed away, but D.R. Mayo has continued the event.
"We just have a good time. We've never missed a third Sunday in 20 years," Mayo said.
The fellowship is held every third Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at 15650 Old Bonita Rd. A potluck is held afterwards.


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Submission + - 4G iPhone Misplacer Invited to Germany for Beer (erictric.com)
eldavojohn writes: You may recall the hapless engineer who left a fairly sensitive iPhone at a bar recently. Well, in a PR stunt, Lufthansa has invited him to visit Germany on their dime after citing his latest Facebook status, "I underestimated how good German beer is" as well as his obvious passion for German beer and culture. It's not clear if Gray Powell has decided to "pick up where he last left off" (as the letter puts it). I know what my decision would be.


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Why Schools Should Exclusively Use Free Software
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The GNU Operating System
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Saving Europe from Software Patents
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GNU Software
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Farmers in New Zealand rejoiced in mid-April 2013 when rains started to break one of the worst droughts to hit the country in decades.
Much of the country reached drought status in late February and experienced unusually low levels of rain throughout the summer. The situation on North Island, in particular, worsened throughout March. By early April, climate and weather experts had started calling it the worst drought on North Island in 70 years. The area around Wellington, for instance, saw no rainfall at all between February 13 and March 17.
A significant portion of North Island is comprised of grassland that farmers used as pastureland. Most of the pasturelands are not irrigated and depend on rainfall. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured these glimpses of the drought's impact. The landscape in the top image, acquired on April 10, 2013, was considerably browner than in April 2009 (a more typical year). The light green areas, where changes are most noticeable, are mainly pastoral landscapes populated by sheep, cattle, and deer farmers. The darker areas without significant changes in greenness are forests.
The drought has been attributed to the presence of a high-pressure area that lingered over New Zealand throughout the summer, causing low pressure areas—and the associated rainfall they bring—to skirt either side of the country.
- Bloomberg (2013, April 23) New Zealand Set to Maintain Drought Advisory Even After Rainfall. Accessed April 25, 2013.
- Colorado State University (2013, March 22) Drought in the Land of the Long, White Cloud. Accessed April 25, 2013.
- MetService (2013, April 19) A Look Back at Summer. Accessed April 25, 2013.
- NIWA. (2013, March 4) Climate Summary for February. Accessed April 25, 2013.
- NZFarmer (2013, March 10) North Island drought worst in history. Accessed April 25, 2013.
- New Zealand Herald (2013, April 24) Farmers hope for good growth. Accessed April 25, 2013.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Adam Voiland.
- Instrument(s):
- Terra - MODIS


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— This guy is a trip. He has broken 144 Guiness world records and currently holds 59, including pushing an orange with his nose for a mile in 24 minutes and 36 seconds and doing 1330 forward rolls, or somersaults, in an hour. Here he's hula hooping underwater for 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Why stop there? He has an air supply, so holding his breath isn't the issue. Is it really that hard? Maybe it's one of those things you have to try to fully appreciate.
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By Tiernan Ray
Like a parent having to choose between two children, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, who rates both Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) Overweight, this morning relates the results of his "first head-to-head test between Google Now and Siri," the the voice-activated search functions found on Google's Android software and Apple's iOS software, respectively.
Munster finds that Siri "narrowly edges Google Now on query comprehension and accuracy of answers," while Google Now is better at "navigation and information," even though "Siri outscored Google in providing information on local businesses."
Munster concludes that Google Now is "a strong competitor to Siri," while Siri has "improved the service slightly in iOS6 vs iOS5."
Munster doesn't describe the structure of his testing, but it appears he threw several different types of voice commands at both pieces of software to gauge how well they understood a question and how accurate responses were.
He offers some percentages for both, including how he sees Siri having improved since the last version of the operating system, iOS 5:
In our test, Google Now correctly understood our queries 88% of the time in a quiet environment compared to Siri at 91%. In terms of accuracy, we determined that Google Now accurately answered understood queries 75% of the time compared to 77% for Siri […] Siri in iOS6 understood 91% of our queries in a quiet environment compared to 89% in our test of Siri on iOS5 in June. In terms of comprehension, iOS6 Siri correctly answered 77% of understood queries compared to 76% in our test of iOS5 Siri.
The upshot is that Google seems to need to dig deeper into the operating system to gain greater control of things such as music playback. But he also thinks Apple will continue to work to make Siri better:
We believe the biggest reason for Google Now's slight loss is its limited control of the Android OS via voice commands […] As we continue to test Google Now against Siri, we expect Google to improve its local results and voice control of the OS as well as implement a better commerce feature to enable consumers to more easily purchase things via a voice search […] Overall we believe that while Siri has made some improvements in comprehension and accuracy, continued improvements are likely in iOS7, including better commerce and maps integration.
Munster notes, too, that Apple has reduced its reliance on Google's information, from 60% of results to just 30%, through its partnerships with firms such as Yelp (YELP) and OpenTable (OPEN), and through development of its Maps application.
Munster has a $900 price target on Apple shares, and a $775 price target on Google shares.
Apple shares are down $2.70, or half a percent, at $523.61, while Google shares are up $2.88, or 0.4%, at $722.99.


text:
Atmail is a fully-featured email server and Webmail client, allowing users to send and receive email via a Web browser or mobile device. It has full support for IMAP mailboxes, and an optional email-server mode that uses EXIM as the MTA. Features include a scheduler, MySQL backend support, spell-check, address book, calendar user preferences, multiple accounts, SpamAssassin support, migration scripts from other mail servers, a customizable interface, an attractive AJAX interface, an optional group sharing Calendar/Addressbook, and an Outlook plugin to sync Contacts/Tasks/Calendar data between a Desktop, Mobile, and Webmail client or other email users.
openDCIM is a Web-based data center inventory application which allows you to manage capacity and track assets throughout multiple data centers. There are some graphical elements to the system, but overall, the system is designed for keyboard-friendly (rather than click-happy) use. It is written in PHP and utilizes a MySQL backend for ease of deployment on nearly any LAMP-based build.
Clement is an email server application. Its main function is to block unwanted mail (spam) as soon as possible in the email exchange process. It accepts or rejects email while the SMTP session, initiated by the email sender, is still pending, accepting legitimate email messages without the need to return an error status to non-existent or "borrowed" return address later. Clement can operate in two modes, either as a standard MTA (as sendmail, Postfix, Exim, Exchange, etc.) to store email in the recipient's own area, or to transmit the mail to an another SMTP server acting as smart spam filtering device. Each email domain name Clement knows about can be treated in one of these two modes depending on the group to which the domain name has been set. Each message is verified by a virus scanner (ClamAV) while the SMTP connection is still open, but the refusal of mail and the reason for refusal is notified to the actual sender. Mail management is done via a Web interface and can be delegated to three administrative levels (Root-Admin, Group-Admin, Domain-Admin). Standard users can access their own logs (sent email status, email rejected, quarantined email, etc.). With this interface, the user can handle the rejection and acceptance of mail. Users who are level "Admin" can access the session logs (via the Web interface). Clement uses a SQL database (PostgreSQL, MySQL) to store and manage logs, user profiles, and dynamic management of directives concerning the sender-receiver relationship.
RTSPdump is a tool for downloading a multimedia stream from a Windows Media server (WMServer). It accepts rtsp:// and mms:// URLs. It supports both UDP and TCP traffic. The stream can be saved into a WMV file for archiving or timeshifting purposes or passed through stdout to another program for processing or immediate viewing. It has also limited support for other brands of servers that also provide RTSP streaming.
SCMS is an MVC based secure content management system. It is designed from the ground up to withstand common Web application vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, XSS, CSRF, session fixation/hijacking, and many others. It is designed for PHP 5.0-5.2.x and MySQL 4.1+, and it can optionally support PostgreSQL as a database backend.
Tera-WURFL is a PHP class that can identify the capabilities of mobile devices using the standardized Wireless Universal Resource File (WURFL). This implementation uses the same methods as the stock PHP WURFL library, but significantly improves performance by storing the WURFL data in a database backend (currently only MySQL). You can use multiple patch files to override the capabilities in the WURFL file. Tera-WURFL is able to figure out if the client visiting your site is a wireless device or a desktop Web browser. Unlike other implementations of WURFL, Tera-WURFL includes an easy-to-use graphical user interface to allow you to update your WURFL file directly from the Internet, load the WURFL file, browse and clear the device cache, and more.


text:
A GranFondo Whistler cyclist was critically injured during the race and remained in Vancouver General Hospital on Sunday.
The cyclist was hurt about 10 a.m. Saturday in a crash on Highway 99, just north of Alice Lake. The cyclist, believed to be about 60, was flown to hospital with head injuries.
The name of the cyclist has not been released.
"We don't know his condition. He's under care of staff at VGH," GranFondo Canada spokesman Lindsay Carswell said Sunday.
The 122-kilometre race from Vancouver to Whistler attracts thousands of riders each year.
Details of the crash remain unclear but it appears there were no other cyclists or motor vehicles involved in the crash, said Carswell.
GranFondo will be looking for answers as to why the crash took place, he said.
In a statement following the crash, GranFondo Canada said it had worked with local, regional and provincial officials and emergency services agencies on the development of the course, a traffic management plan and an emergency services plan. There is a comprehensive medical team working with the event.
"We are saddened to hear the news of any participant going down. We are hopeful for a full recovery," the statement said.
A male rider was injured in a crash in the 2010 GranFondo Whistler.


text:
Allibert 21C54Model ES1C5404 / 21C54
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Best Pakistani Mujra Sites
Pakistani Mujra is a one type of Mujra mostly relating to stage dance and mujra videos in pakistan. Nargis, Deedar, Saima Khan , Megha, Hina shaheen and Khushboo are very famous mujra dancers in pakistan. Nida Chaoudhry, Ayesha Chaoudhry are growing mujra dancers on pakistani stage.
Following are the best Pakistani Mujra Sites
Few Other websites are also very famous but to me these are the best sites.


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This Friday marks the most romantic day of the year, Valentine's Day! No matter who you love, Valentine's Day allows us to celebrate them more than ever. Whether you're keeping it casual with a movie or going all out with a romantic dinner, we've got you covered in #AEOStyle. Check out our looks below to help make this Valentine's Day the best one yet.
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ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- Hundreds of homes sit empty around Rockford and next year, hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent to bulldoze them.
Council agreed Monday to spend an extra half a million dollars on demolitions in 2014; when each demo costs around $10,000, that'll bring down 50 homes more homes than planned.
Usually the city has enough money to take down about 20 abandoned homes a year. With a backlog of at least 2,000, many aldermen wanted to find a better solution. While going over the budget for 2014, they found one; they're taking extra money from the city's sanitation fund to cover more demolitions. In all, about 70 homes should come down next year.
"We're behind in the demolitions, we have a great inventory of properties throughout the city that need to come down and frankly, we're just haven't been able to keep pace with that. They're vacant properties, they cause blight. It's a safety issues, it's a blight issue, and it's a crime issue," says Alderman Kevin Frost.
This plan is part of the overall 2014 budget, which aldermen passed Monday; however, they have to vote a second time before its set in stone. A second vote is also needed on a plan to hire 5 new cops. The city has been offered a federal grant that would help pay for the addition of 5 new officers to the department. The plan needs final approval.


text:
Try a heavy piece of non-glare glass
I trialed the software using files from a Pentax istDS (6 megapixel) DSLR, and since it worked quite well I purchased a copy. However, when I attempted to use it with files from a D700 (12 megapixel), it failed completely. So, I would only recommend it for 6 mp resolution files or less.
Also, Snapter hasn't released a new version in over a year; so, it's almost abandonware---it's not possible that they haven't received a bug report or two that needed to be fixed, over the past 12 months.
Net conclusion: try
Have you tried qipit [qipit.com]???
It's supposed to work directly from your phone camera. And if your phone is not directly supported, it should still work if you email the picture to: copy AT kipit . com
after photographing your book you have these huge image files that are barely readable, and now you want to spend MORE time trying to make em legible, wouldn`t it just be faster to scan em?, after OCR they would be much smaller and you could edit em/annotate to your hearts delight too.
seems like you made a problem looking for a solution rather than just scanning em in the first place
Aye, this Ask Slashdot sounds more like "Doctor, it hurts whenever I do this." The traditional response to such nonsense is, "well, then don't do that!"
Next question?
Seriously, have you ever compared the time photographing a book vs. scanning it? The fastest scanners run like photocopiers. With a book, all you need is to set up a decent or ghetto rig for the camera and turn the pages. Until now, I've been shooting with a DSLR at the same lighting/camera settings for each shot, and applying a batch transform process followed by a universal levels setting, finishing up with a PDF assembly. But I'll report back on how Snapter works on the same files.
Exactly, the document scanners used in libraries and archives are pretty much high resolution cameras on an adjustable stand. They don't work like flatbed desktop scanners where you have to squash the book flat on a plate of glass. As a result they are much faster, easier on the books and you get better quality scans for OCR processing.
Orbital/Planetary scanners - much faster, essentially the same as your DSLR hanging above the page. Less than a second for a 'scan', rate limited by speed of turning the pages. A 5 secs to turn an scan that's 12 images a min or 720 an hour.
What the GP was talking about: Duplex feeder scanners. If you can cut the spine of the book and feed in into one of these then your laughing. Some of them will do 2-300 full colour pages a minute
sounds like its time to find a place where the legal department doesn't run IT?
when you leave tell them their tools are "defective by design" and you won't support them.
Flat bed scanners - well slow.
AFAIK "flat bed scanner" simply means a scanner where you place the item to be scanned on a flat plane of glass to be scanned. The technology that actually does the scanning is irrelevant.
In which case, the Xerox printer/scanner in my office does flat bed scanning in the blink of an eye. I ran it with the lid up once to prove to myself it wasn't just a camera - and sure enough a sensor bar whips across the page.
Of course, it's not as practical for scanning bound books as the Google solution.
I suspect that Xerox machine you talk of will actually be moving just a light/mirror which is reflecting into a camera. (or possibly a CCD arrangement, but usually they are in cheaper machines) But either way scanning a book on a 'flatbed' whereby the book has to be placed face down is a major chore. turning the page means lifting the book, turning the page, then turning the book back over and repositioning it etc etc. Even if the scan takes a blink all that manual work will make it tedious at
Flat bed scanners - well slow. So slow it's not even worth bothering with
Any decent mid-range multi-function copier will be able to feed its flatbed scanner from the input tray, meaning you can do 25+ pages at a time (depending on the model). And while it's not as fast as a drum scanner, it's not nearly as slow as you're implying here.
Of course you have to destroy the book to use that option. But the equipment isn't hard to find: you likely have one in your office right now.
dude, hopefully you shot both left and right page open into 1 file. If that's the case, drag one into photoshop, record actions while you tweak. Then auto/batch the whole series with that action and see what's up.
He can easily get his tiny 10 megapixels camera into the book store, but he would be stopped immediately if he tried to bring his scanner instead.
Some guy posted a great instructables [instructables.com] on building your own high speed book scanner [instructables.com], purposely designed to rapidly photograph book pages without curves. He even includes a software stream that OCRs the contents and sticks them into PDFs.
It's been quite popular -- so much so that he's created an online forum at http://www.diybookscanner.org/ [diybookscanner.org] dedicated to discussions from DIY book scanners all over the place, where they talk about builds, parts, and software.
I've been very tempted to build one myself just to avoid carrying heavy books around in my backpack.
Something the narrator in the bookscanner video said at the end of his video really resonates with me, which is that
powerful tools invariable have powerful effects. If everyone had a book scanner in their home, it might force the publishing industry to rethink an obviously broken business model.
Lately, I've been posting like crazy about digital print and related topics such as the conversion of paper print to digital audio [mistersquid.com]. Google started their project several years back and publishers are suing to stop the
I think the day when eBook readers can flick pages in 0.1 seconds is the day when the shit really hits the fan for publishers. Trying to find information in textbooks when it takes 2 second per page turn is not very practical at the moment.
People will want to buy the latest Stephen King novel, but they don't really care about the publisher at all. If they can get it directly from his web site, they will. At best there will be a load of out-of-work editors willing to work on a per-book contract.
The key is go
I have a book I'd like to photograph - it's a large, hand-typed bound family history, done in the 70s by a relative. You can't get it on a scanner without breaking the binding. I tried years ago to scan & ocr it with a handheld scanner, but the tools available then were just too painful I'm going to give it another shot now. So, some people may well find this discussion useful.
Get a thick, heavy piece of glass and lay it atop the pages to flatten them out before you photograph them. Use ambient light and avoid the flash.
Also use a zoom lens and take the shot from as far as possible, to reduce curvature. The longer the focal distance, the flatter the picture will appear.
The flash still doesn't typically work well when photographing something behind glass, though.
using the right flash allows you to use a flash.
I take closeups within 8=12 inches of a persons face. I get perfectly illuminated flash photography.
standing back and zooming works great for low end cameras, upgrade to a real flash with a bounce or diffuser and power setting and you can do far more. Upgrade to a pair of light boxes and adjustable stand flashes and you can do everything.
If you're doing fixed height/lighting camera photography, you might as well just buy a cheapo screw mount macro lens + screw mount adapter.
Barrel distortion can be easily fixed in photoshop, and once you get the right settings for your first pic, you can batch process the rest of them.
Also, avoid being seen by the bookstore clerks.
It doesn't have to be glass. Target stores have these nice plexiglass photo boxes. An advantage of them over glass is that the edge of the box helps hold the opposing page up.
I think such a device is called a "scanner"
If money isn't an issue and you can rip the book apart, the scansnap series of scanner is nice and fast. Just drop in 50 sheets at a time, and, depending on the settings, a 500 page book will be scanned in under 20 minutes. Pages stay flat, and you'll have an automatic PDF too - no conversion necessary except probably for small devices (iPhone).
I tend to think photographing pages is slow, require either an expensive set-up, or you just get half-assed results that will drive you nuts when you actually sit
At version 0.9.6, perhaps Scan Tailor is 96% of what you want and it's F/OSS. If you *politely* contact the author(s) and lay out your concerns perhaps you can get what you need AND help make a project better. Worth a try.
From the screens on the site it looks like the author does not value Windows very much (the screens are done on Linux).
If you want him to do development for the Windows platform, then you will have to ask nicely with some motivational argument (ask him how much he wants for making it work on the Windows platform, pay half in advance).
The home page says there is both a Windows and Linux version. Just because the screenshots are Linux doesn't mean the author doesn't value Windows; they have to have been made on one platform or the other, whoever made them happens to have done them in Linux.
If the Windows version was broken for some reason it still might be possible to build the Linux version under Cygwin.
Or just check the Pirate Bay^H^H^H^H Mininova for a
Seriously, if fair use allows format shifting, does that mean you are required to do the shift yourself?
There are perfectly good machines that will do this for you.
They have suction systems to turn the pages of the book, and hold the book partially open so that the pages are more or less flat. There's one camera for each page, and the software that comes with the system deals with the curving, and obviously gets the lighting right to avoid shadowing etc.
OK, so maybe these machines aren't exactly cheap
This is what the OP is asking about. Plenty of these systems ship with the combined hardware/software pack and cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.
It sounds like the OP has taken a few shots of a handy book maybe at a friends house or whatever and would like to just 'sort' them out before finally archiving them on to his system. Kind of like how some people like to tag all the MP3s before 'committing' them to their system. Free,
Yeah, I don't know why people keep suggesting such expensive and complex stuff for his "project". It isn't a project- he is just photographing a few pages.
You could just fix them in Gimp.
Anyway, as others have suggested, there is Scan Tailor, which is FOSS and multiplatform (and GUI)
http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=227253&ssid=90796 [sourceforge.net]
Not everyone has 5-10mm thick peices of book sized glass lying around and it can be hard to take that sort of thing about the place in case of requiring to photo a book.
There is software called Book restorer that does this removes curves 'geometrical correction' etc but it's pricy.
i've tried un paper and it's pretty decent for what it does but it does have some limitations and it's not the most convenient to use.
Deskewing, cropping, filling, etc etc are all easily done and I've even written imagemagick batch scripts in windows to do these things. The major trick is the curve removal.
There's various ways you can determine the curve from a scanned image. If you have the edge of the page, you can calculate the movement required to straighten that, and then apply it to the whole image. You can use text based curve removal, similar to well known deskew algorithms for text, but takes into account different parts of the text may be 'more' skewed. i.e. rather than a rotational deskew a 'sliced' deskew. This needs to be done from the top to the middle and the bottom to the middle.
If you have a good 'shape' of the page, and know the true size of the page, you can use a kind of morph operator to morph the corners back to th eright position and hope the image follows.
Using a Greyscale/colour source will work better than a black and white source image in general.
the other option is if the scanned / photoed page is actually of reasonaly good quality but if just a bit squint, then OCR it to a PDF and generate a new document using the OCR text, which will be pin sharp accurate, compress a lot better and be easier to use, although may not be ideal if there are too many errors.
A 6mm 12"x9.5" piece of regular (not anti-glare) glass costs less than $10 to get cut. However, I haven't figured out a good way yet to use the glass without damaging the book's spine (while also operating the entire contraption quickly). That's why I want to use "heavy" image manipulation myself.
That's a Nikon CoolPix 5200. p38 in the manual.
"Scene Mode" "Copy"
"Copy provides clear pictures of text or drawings on a white
board or in printed matter such as a business card."
"Colored text and drawings may not show up well in the final picture"
I remember reading about Google's technique of converting books to e-books
My suggestion is that you look at some of the Google books that are on-line. I have, and they show the problems that you mention and more, curved pages, dark areas, and even text that is distorted and harder to read than most captchas. Whatever you have read (and yea, I remember reading it too), it doesn't seem to actually be viable in practice. Sure, photographs are easier than scanning, particularly if you do it fast and cheap, but the result is poorer. If you can scan the book without damaging them I suggest you go back and do that.
I'm surprised that Google doesn't do this, it would be SO much faster than scanning each page one at a time.
Another option, see if Amazon sells the book in digital format. Sometimes a few bucks saves a world of headache.
Now if these are expensive textbooks or reference books, or don't belong to you, the above may not apply, just my first thought on the subject.
I'm surprised that Google doesn't do this, it would be SO much faster than scanning each page one at a time.
Except that they use high-quality book scanners that can go through a hundred pages in a few seconds flat, and it would cost a fortune for them to do it this way, and no libraries would let them touch any archival materials which is half the point.
Cut the spine off and run the pages through a scanner's page feeder... OCR if desired, then enjoy... I'm surprised that Google doesn't do this, it would be SO much faster than scanning each page one at a time.
You just described a major plot point in Vernor Vinge's book "Rainbows End" except that instead of cutting off the spine they actually used paper shredders to cut up the books and then used computers to put the books back together. It was incredibly fast (no need to cut spines and feed pages, just sh
Take a look at decapod-project.org for a complete system. Note that software dewarping is quite a hard problem, but it is part of decapod.
The link was very interesting, but gave no clue as to how you take the perfect image of a book with a crease down the middle (which is the original starting point of the question), and then get an image with no crease. They demonstrated a result with no crease, that was very convincing - but I didn't see just how they got rid of it. Simple cropping of each side?
I don't think there was a crease in that set of images. It appeared like it because the left edge of the right image was near the edge of the scanner, and didn't get a lot of data (maybe? I'm not really sure about that). I think this tutorial is more about how to combine two scanned images that are each part of the full image. Notice how control points were dropped that indicate that the images share an overlap. They aren't two separate pages, just a left and right portion of the same page/image.
As to t
See also this LWN article: http://lwn.net/Articles/351053/ [lwn.net]
He shows how he straightened a picture he took and also mentions the SIFT algorithm which is disabled by default because of software patents. He says:
Your editor, being a daring sort of person, decided that he wanted to find out just what sort of functionality is being denied to hugin users by the oppressive US software patent regime. As it happens, Fedora users can get around patent-based repression by installing the autopano-sift-C package from the rpmfusion repository and tweaking the program preferences to use the real autopano tool. The difference is striking: with autopano-sift-C installed, the program proceeds immediately from image selection to a preview window; the whole "control points" and "optimization" process just sort of goes away. This package does a great job of finding control points, at least on your editor's sample image set.
Does that include the time needed to now fix the artefacts that scanning doesn't get you?
If you have a scanner, then why don't you just use that? And if you do not have a scanner, why even bother with the speed comparison and not settle for "I don't have a scanner"?
There's a reason that scanning takes time compared to just pointing a camera at a book and snapping a picture. You've now found one of those reasons. Congratulations.
Now you just have to find out if the up front time savings are greater than the
It never hurts to ask; if there were an easy magic software solution to do X, wouldn't you rather find out about it now, instead of after doing X?
I know I'm probably getting modded Troll for this one; but there isn't always always an easy (magic!) software solution for every little thing. Sometimes you still have to put the work in if you want quality.
Good thing we haven't had any enlightened lazy people in the past who actually solved problems similar to this. If they had, we'd be able to keep things cool without having to constantly refill our iceboxes, calculate things without having to do them by hand or mentally, or even have a machine write t
Not as fun as figuring out some massive kluge to do the job, but if it's a book that you can easily find used copies of just cut the binding off or remove the pages with a razor blade, and photograph them flat.
Some of the ebook-torrent scans use that method. It destroys the book but makes for cleanly readable scans.
I'm sorry but this question is just ridiculous, or if not actually ridiculous then wasteful.
Let me see if I understand this correctly: The author has photographed a selection of pages from a book that he wants to have available to read at his leisure. He doesn't want to carry the book around because it's too heavy, so what he wants to do, because the photographs aren't as pretty as scanned copies but scanned copies have artifacts of the scanning process, is to develop a home rig to scan the pages he's in
Caveman Gaor hears fellow caveman Ourgah has piled buffalo meat on few branches tied together.
Ourgah asks if there be some invention he calls "weal" to fix under his brancard and carry meat around with no effort.
Gaor says problem solved long time ago: just pick a big piece of leather, wrap the meat in it, carry it around on your shoulder. Problem solved. Anything else, waste of time.
There be worse fates than carrying heavy bag on your shoulders.
Did I miss somethin
Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.