text:
Not even a month ago you chided them because there were too many copies (some of them even offsite, they just didn't know who had them now), now you chew them out for having too few. Make up your effing mind!
My Day 1:
I actually found the administrator password on a post-it note on the back of the server's CRT monitor while cleaning the server room.
"Fucking amazing" I said out loud, and as I pulled it off, on the back was the AmEx credit card number, expiration date, and 3digit pin for our organization to order IT stuff.
Then I noticed on the left underside of the CRT there was another post-it that said Ctrl Shift Alt Num+....so I pressed that and up came a hidden menu of hidden apps running (SysTrayX + a sketchy prog to hide services in TaskManager), 90% of them illegal. Also uTorrent was running, seeding about 50 anime series buried deep within the network and using about half of the T3 connection's throughput.
And to top it all off, I deduced that the server had never had a fresh install of Windows. It used to have NT Server, then they used software to upgrade it to 2000 Server, and software again to upgrade it to Server 2003.
Day 7:
I get a call from the old IT guy asking me whats wrong with the connection, and I told him I reinstalled Server 2003, deleted his anime cache, changed the WPA-PSK keys from 1111111111 to something way more secure, reported the AmEx card as stolen to get a new one, changed the admin password and set password age limits on all accounts, and replaced the rootkit infected SCSI drives with new ones that would last longer. Also, I told the managers that his 5000$ quote for network-wide unlimited antivirus was utter bullshit and that he only got a cracked key for Norton 2003 and installed it only on the server, and prolly pocketed the money.
Damn dude was like "BUT I DIDNT BACK UP THE ANIME TO DVD YET!!!". Now I love anime as much as the next person, but I think he has other stuff to worry about at this point.
But you know what got me the most mad and prompted all of this? The server was named Odie, and the computers were all garfield characters.
Oh, and his DAT72 backups had been failing for the last 2 years and he had never checked the logs.
Good thing he left to start his own business!
Day 8:
You got fired, and the system got "restored" because your "fixes" halted the whole "business".
It was a sad day.
Heh...I'm actually just doing a paid internship at a non-profit after their full-time guy left. It was supposed to end on May 1st, but hey I guess they love what I've done.
Got them a cheap dedicated backup system, updated all the systems and reinstalled an NLite-ed XP on every computer, and moved them from Exchange to Google. Oh, and the lab computers run Ubuntu.
They also loved it when I found the IT guy's secret paypal business account with 3000$ sitting in it that was supposed to be used for something else (battery backup replacement batteries). Putting passwords in a file on the administrator's desktop called "passwords for everything.txt" is sooooo helpful for when you're trying to be sneaky.
Seriously, this shit is a soap opera of IT-isms.
Are you making this up? If not, your company should take criminal action against the prior employee.
Done months ago. And no, I don't make shit up. They settled (out of pity) for the money they found that he took after going through their books, but he's pretty much blacklisted in the city we're located in so he moved.
The whole branch nonprofit is over to free software (minus xp/2003 on the dell computers they have and office 2003/outlook 2007 VLKs bought from techsoup).
The last thing they need to do is switch to voip and get rid of the horrible lease they're on for their ancient PBX that this idiot convin
Since you don't have your e-mail listed, I'm posting here.
I'm a highly underpaid IT admin working at a 501(c)(3) trying to admin a woefully underequipped, underpowered, and understaffed network. I'm having a hard time figuring everything out. If I could toss a few questions your way and you'd have the time to answer them, would you please e-mail me?
If everything fails, keep browsing through various pages trading in that stuff, you'll eventually find it...
Its usually backed up on a post-it note somewhere.
For a root CA private key, better be a big post-it note
(or written in really small letters)
Common keysize is 2048 bits which makes 256 8-bit words or characters.
that's 512 0-9A-F (or 65536 0-1 I suppose) to write down. And I thought trying to enter a WEP key in windows was bad...
Once again, misleading title to a different summary.
For fuck's sake, the Germans didn't lose the key.
The SSL Root CA lost that.
Get the facts right.
For a second i was wondering how Germans could that stupid. That is unlike the Germany i know. And exactly as i suspected, the German insurer had been insisting the root CA for backup while the CA thought it was unnecessary.
Is it the German company's fault?
After all, we all know Germans are exact and punctual, Poles are thieves, Russians are drunk and Fins are even more so. Oh, and Mexicans are lazy and US people are simple minded. Any stereotype missing?
Any stereotype missing?
we British are all of the above.
Not only that, they have really weird tastes, too. In food and bed. Sometimes at the same time.
And how exactly do you pull off being exact and punctual while being sloppy and unable to figure out what time it is from being drunk?
And how exactly do you pull off being exact and punctual while being sloppy and unable to figure out what time it is from being drunk?
Practice... lots and lots of practices. Speaking of which it's time for me to do some practicing.
Speaking of which it's time for me to do some practicing.
That should be "practising" - oh, and we're good at pedantry too.
how exactly do you pull off being exact and punctual...
They tattoo the pub opening time and location on their arms.
Well "exact" could mean "accurate" or it could mean "precise".
I take it to mean it to mean that Brits in their inebriated state have a gift for putting their fingers and other assorted appendages in precisely the wrong place.
So, you're punctual, thieving, drunk, lazy, simple minded, and British.
So, just like the Irish then, you mean?
So, you're punctual, thieving, drunk, lazy, simple minded, and British.
So, just like the Irish then, you mean?
The Irish don't like being called "punctual", you insensitive clod!
(And they really hate being called "British")
Any stereotype missing?
we British are all of the above.
What about the Irish?
I must take issue with your sweeping nationalistic statement. Poles aren't theives - that's Romanians. Poles are honest. Crap at plumbing, but honest.
The "crap at plumbing" is due to a little known fact. Namely that Poland invested zero into the infrastructure in the western areas they got after WW2, fearing they'll eventually return it to Germany. Until not too long you could find pipes dating back to pre-1940.
.... and US people are simple minded. Any stereotype missing?
Simple minded? I thought we were just fat and lazy.
You're fat and lazy because you're simple minded. And if you weren't so simple minded, you'd be able to figure that out.
Me, I'm Canadian with British parents. So apparently I'm exact and punctual while stealing booze, but I apologize politely to the shopkeeper for swiping it.....
After all, we all know Germans are exact and punctual
Well, we DO know that they are awfully good at writing numbers down. Sometimes even up the arm.
That all Oriental people are great drivers, and the men are well endowed?
The summary even states that Gematik insisted on a back-up less operation, and then provides a quote explicitly stating that they did no such thing! Slashdot: doing for editorial accuracy what Fox does for editorial neutrality.
The summary even states that Gematik insisted on a back-up less operation, and then provides a quote explicitly stating that they did no such thing!
Gematik commissioned D-Trust to provide the root CA as a service. D-Trust managing director Matthias Merx stated "Gematik decided to 'do without a back-up'. As a service provider, we have to accept that."
From the article and summary:
"Gematik spokesman Daniel Poeschkens poured scorn on the statement that Gematik had insisted on the service provider carrying out
I'm guessing that our self-evidently poor (well, my self-evidently poor) reading ability is to blame somewhere.
"We did not decide against a back-up service
That double negative sounds awful like "At the time, we didn't know what they were asking":P I guess its just with personal experence. Evey time I hear a manager use double negatives to defend a decision, its because they didn't really know what they were deciding in the first place. Atleast in IT.
The title/summary are not necessarilly incorrect, just ambiguous. English can do that, and if you aren't paying attention your meaning can be taken in a way other than you intended.
In this case, there are a few ways to read "German Health Insurance Card CA":
1.) The Health Insurance Card CA of German origin
2.) The CA for the German Health Insurance Card
3.) The Card CA for German Health Insurance
4.) The Insurance Card CA for German Health
Obviously they aren't saying 3 or 4, those work gramatically but don't
Hah. Why do you think the consultants were thick as flies in government during New Labour's reign?
Yup, the Shaggie defence (it wasn't me)..
Maybe they should check with the NSA or CIA? They've got a backdoor into EVERY system, and may still have the key saved on a laptop lying around somewhere.
What's worst about it is that this is probably presumed to be worse. Had the key be stolen, they'd probably not even report it because business could continue as usual, maybe nobody finds out...
Mod parent up. In the serious crypto world, this is a good thing, provided it doesn't happen too often. Sometimes you're going to lose a key, because, for security reasons, you don't keep extra copies. You have a procedure for issuing new keys when this happens, which you're routinely doing anyway.
It could be worse, but this incident exposes a design flaw: The loss of a private key should not stop them from issuing new cards which are compatible with the existing cards.
If a CA key is lost, then there should be a layer above it which can create a new CA key. Cards are checked against the top CA public key, so the old and the new cards can both be verified. Because the top CA is only used to create intermediate CAs, its private key can be kept safer than the key of a CA which is regularly used for sign
It would easily be found be searching the nearest pub car park for USB keys, or checking the train that the relevant civil servant travelled home on.
That's just silly. They obviously take security seriously enough that they found re-issuing all of their certs preferable to adding a second storage place for the private key, thus doubling the possibility of the system being compromised.
If the key had been compromised, that would be a breach of trust. This is more an example of the fact that as security increases, usability decreases.
Why do they have to issue new keys? I'd think that as long as their public key is still known, that all the issued signed keys would still be valid. They'd just have to use a new key pair for any new signed documents.
Damn good question. Losing a signing key doesn't mean the signatures can't still be checked.
Actually, I can think of a reason, after all. Since this CA no longer has the ability to revoke prior signatures made with that key, then that key can no longer be trusted as a signer. You can check to see if a CA has certified something, but there's no way to check to see if the CA changed their mind, because the CA no longer has a way to say that.
All the issued signed keys are still valid. That's the problem.
There's no way to now invalidate a signed key that was issued with this CA.
Normally you can revoke a certificate, so it's no longer accepted. OpenVPN, for example, allows this, because you can set it to check a Certificate Revocation List. Any employee gets fired, certificate gets compromised, or whatever, and you add it to the CRL, and that client can no longer connect.
Right now, if they find that a health card was issued fraudulently, or fo
Actually, people only give you half the story. Not only can existing keys not be revoked (serves you right for not setting a timeout), you can also not create new keys.
The second part is where it gets entertaining. In order to cure that problem (which is something you want to sort if you're about to waste a lot of money on issuing certs) you will have to generate a NEW root certificate. However, there can only ever be one root, putting a new root key in the system means you have just broken the chain of
PGP Desktop has this option. You can share a key and split it among people, where x amount of y pieces are needed to recover the original key, where both x and y are user selectable values.
However, if a key is a top root CA key, you would not be using it on a general purpose computer. You would have the key generated in a HSM and stored there, where someone can perhaps use the key to sign and decrypt stuff, but would have to go to a lot of trouble to get past all the hardware tamper evident stuff in the H
certificate infrastructures can be enormously complex.
This is the problem: simplicity is the key to security. A complex system is just one with more places to hide exploits.
So, it's kind of like the optimist/pessimist thing, right?
As an optimist, I'd say that least they didn't fail in the worst possible way.
The pessimist in me thinks I should get a bit more than "not failing in the worst possible way" when I pay somebody a barrel of cash to hash a couple numbers for me.
As an optimist, I'd say that least they didn't fail in the worst possible way.
The pessimist in me thinks I should get a bit more than "not failing in the worst possible way" when I pay somebody a barrel of cash to hash a couple numbers for me.
No, that's also the optimist in you.
Chain the cards to truck wheels, like the bathroom key at the service station.
I wouldn't have thought keeping the root online at all times was particularly sensible. At least I seem to remember that this was some of the point of the hierarchical certificate system. You generate the root cert, then some tier 1 certs and turn off the root, put it in a cupboard* use the tier 1 certs to generate more, this way you don't compromise the absolute top of the hierarchy. Which should make the fail moments slightly easier to manage.
*preferably one with a good lock and lined with steel.
Q: How do you learn every German swear word in about 20 seconds?
A: Tell the German admin that you lost the root key.
card lost its secret private key during a test enrollment
I'm confused, isn't this sort of problem exactly why you carry out system tests?
Sending out new cards to card testers during a systems test is hardly extraordinary.
Matthias Merx, the firm's managing director, told heise online that following a voltage drop, something happened in D-Trust's "Trustcenter" that does occasionally occur. "The HSM independently deleted the data because it suspected an attack."
Translation? "Someone unplugged the backup power supply before setting the proper mode in the card because we didn't fully understand how sensitive the card is for root CA certs"
Merx explained that "Gematik decided to 'do without a back-up'. As a service provider, we have to accept that,"
Translation? "We asked Gematik that it might be a good idea to back it up and they said its fine its just for testing." or "We recommended to Gematik to back up the card before shipping it to us. They shipped it to us and we just shrugged our shoulders." Bonus points if you guessed they asked a low level manager at Gematik who thinks CA is the first two letters of a cat.
Gematik spokesman Daniel Poeschkens poured scorn on the statement that Gematik had insisted on the service provider carrying out a test without backing up the root CA private keys. "We did not decide against a back-up service. The fact of the matter is that the service provider took over the running of the test system, so it also has to warrant its continuous operation. How it fulfils this obligation is its own responsibility."
Traslation? "Gematik is taking NO RESPONSABLITY WHATSOEVER for doing any safty checks before giving our root ca to an outside vendor."
All in all its not a big deal though. It looks like they just lost the issuing CA and not the revoke keys. It looks like they can still authenticate too. Now if this was the MAIN system germany with 80+ million plus medical cards? I think people are going to be shot:P
I will simplify, but basically a CA (Certificate Authority, that much of the parent wasnt a joke) is a server that creates encryption certificates. In this case, SSL certificates. For example, when you goto https://mail.google.com/ [google.com] that SSL certificate was created by the Thawte SGC CA. Thawte is one of many companies that you can pay to create you an SSL cert, so your users can communicate with your server via https.
The CA itself also has an encryption key, which is stored on hardware. In some cases its a PCIe board, others its a removable PCMCIA card, etc. This particular CA used an add-on board which lost power during operation, wiping out its only key. The board seems to have been working as intended, preventing attack (removal of board, which would cause power loss) by wiping itself.
Without that key, the CA can no longer create revocation lists (CRLs, lists of certs a CA has created that have since been revoked or expired) or any new certs. They are dead in the water, also causing every cert they have ever made to become invalid as they can no longer be checked against a recent CRL. They have to start from scratch, recreating every_single_cert.
This was only a test system, but if this happened in reality 80 million Germans would have invalid health cards. At least they discovered the value of a backup during testing.
BTW: The private key doesn't have to be stored on a card, it can be just as easily set up as a file on a disk.
I looked into becoming a CA once in order to support a state contract - we were just going to use OpenSSL and a strongly physically secured computer with no network access.
I looked into becoming a CA once in order to support a state contract - we were just going to use OpenSSL and a strongly physically secured computer with no network access.
You might use a two-layer system. Have a master CA and a production CA. The master CA is kept offline (and probably normally unpowered and in a locked fire-proof safe) and is only used to sign the production CA. The production CA issues all the certs that you're actually using to secure normal servers and users. (Actually, you can go with more than one layer of production CAs, but that's less important.) The idea is that the master only needs to be used extremely rarely, so it can be secured using extra str
Best practices about CA management says you should have your secret key in a (physical) safe. Better yet, divide it in two pieces and put it along the passphrase in three different safes (part1+pass,part2+pass,part1+part2), so you can't lose key access even if you lose one safe, and nobody can take the key by opening a single safe.
And where do you keep the keys for those safes? Or their access code?
Just curious
In a sufficiently large organization you should have enough areas.
For example, in my organization we keep the combos for other safes in safes with the same sensativity level because, well, drilling is slow and expensive. In different buildings, by preference.
Said combo comes with a list of who's allowed to pick it up, and is in a tamper evident container. Beyond that chain of command comes into play.
Keeping parts of the code in different safes would be even more secure.
I literally read that as scoured porn...
Notice how the Gematik spokesman never actually denies that they didn't want to pay for a backup. A better translation:
"The service provider offered a backup service but we didn't want to pay for it. But they lost the key, so even though they warned us of this and we still said no, it's their responsibility."
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.


text:
I was just watching a show about Yellowstone. They did a apart about the wolves and that a lot of the wolves are getting Mites (Mange). The scientists are say that there could be substantial die off of wolves due to loss of hair and freezing to death in the winter. The Mites are Easaly transferred to each other because they are so social.
Maybe Mother Nature will do the job on her own. It will be interesting to see if the Gov intervienes to treat the mites.
I go to the Mountains to loose my mind and find my soul.
Or they'll really up their calorie intake to boost their body temps. Hope the scientist are right.
The wolves on the Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage have had the same infestation for decades. I doubt that you'll see a die-off as a result, we didn't. Their fur sure gets mangy looking though and they tend to have better fur early in the winter as opposed to later.
I saw that program. I just thought that they were pumping people into thinking the wolves were in danger of severe decline to try to get the wolf hunts stopped.
Some goof ball group will probably try to get a government grant to figure out a way to give them a Front line treatment. Hey, the government wastes a lot of money. Better watch what i type...
If only...........
Everyone that dies helps a little!!!!!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The International Conference is a not-for-profit voluntary association providing examination services, information, and regulatory support to funeral service licensing boards and educators, governmental bodies and other regulatory agencies.
Our Goals are:
- Define and enhance the identity and the role of The Conference to increase stakeholder understanding.
- Increase the effectiveness of The Conference through the development of the Board and staff.
- Enhance and expand communication to member boards, associate members, and exam candidates for understanding the purpose of The Conference.
- Expand and enhance The Conference member services to support the regulatory community.


text:
The newest employee at Hank Belden's Hospitality Training & Bartending Institute in Ormond Beach doesn't earn a big salary or have a fancy title, but is perfectly happy to receive as his compensation an occasional dog treat.
The newest employee at Hank Belden's Hospitality Training & Bartending Institute in Ormond Beach doesn't earn a big salary or have a fancy title, but is perfectly happy to receive as his compensation an occasional dog treat.
Nevertheless, owner Hank Belden says Doodle, a 12-week-old labradoodle puppy, has quickly become a big hit with his students as the school's official greeter/mascot.
Doodle is a labrador retriever and standard poodle mix.
Belden said Doodle's responsibilities include helping his students understand the importance of making customers feel welcome.
"Everyone who comes to the school, he kills 'em with kindness," Belden said, adding that his puppy also goes by "The Dood."
Doodle is following in the steps of Belden's previous dog, a poodle named Stealer who died eight months ago at age 12.
While some might find it cute that Belden considers his dog a member of the school's staff, he said it's no joke.
"I found having a real friendly dog is helpful. That's what I train my bartenders to do: to make people feel welcome immediately. You can get a beer anywhere, but you don't get good service anywhere.
"The secret to being a successful bartender is to make people feel welcome," he said.
"It's all about hospitality, not a business transaction, but a friendship transaction. People want to feel recognized and to go where they have friends," he said.
In addition to Doodle, the school employs three humans.
Belden created the school in 1984 when he was managing partner of a restaurant called Marker 32, where the SW Grill at Sunset Harbor stands today.
"I started my bartending school on the second floor of Marker 32 to train my bartenders on being successful and create a bottom line profit," he recalled.
Belden got his start in the business working as a bartender while in college. After college, he worked as a manager for a luxury resort chain in Hawaii. He then managed two resorts in Australia, before moving to the Daytona Beach area in the early 1970s to work for the late hotelier Tom Staed. Belden managed two hotels that were part of Staed's then-company, Ocean Eleven Resorts: the Beachcomber and Treasure Island Inn.
Belden credits Staed with helping him launch his first restaurant after leaving Ocean Eleven Resorts in 1976 and said he and his former boss remained close friends. Staed passed away Feb. 26 at age 81.
Belden said the name Ocean Eleven Resorts was inspired by the original "Ocean's Eleven" movie that starred Frank Sinatra.
Belden is a firm believer that bartending "can be about the best job out there. It's fun and the better you are, the more money you can make because you have the ability to build a following."
In case anyone is wondering, Belden is not related to Glenn Belden, who with wife Becky runs a custom golf shop called Belden's Golf in South Daytona. Hank Belden did, however, once employ Glenn Belden's mother, Nellie Belden. "People would get confused," he said.


text:
Issue solved. Everyone should just listen to me.
In that case, use DVI for binaries and LaTeX2e for raw ASCII.
One of the problems with epub format is there is no standard drm layer - in a sense thats one of the problems with PDF. PDF is an iso standard, perfectly fine for publication, but allows 3rd party security handlers - you can use Adobe's, or you can use one of a dozen other ones - and that in itself is the big problem with ebooks today.
Plus PDF is only really for fixed layouts, so it's not much use if you want the same file to target both a phone and a tablet.
ePub is a really good choice. Aside from the fact that it's an open standard, it has the option to plug in any DRM the publisher wants to use/write for it. Hopefully they eventually learn better, but since for now they won't settle for anything that doesn't include a DRM option, that's an advantage for it. It's specifically designed for reading books on an eBook reader, including keeping track of where the pages actually change (when reading at different zoom levels). I'm honestly a bit surprised the industry isn't already switching to it.
That said, I'm not fond of the Adobe Digital Editions DRM that it tends to come packed with at the moment on DRM'd books. The required software is not very good quality. The eReader style DRM is at least a lot easier to work with. (Of course, DRM-free remains the ultimate goal; at this point I pretty much only buy DRM-free eBooks anyway.)
If it has the option to plug-in any DRM then the problem isn't solved at all.
What good does it do me to buy a book that uses this wonderful universal format, only to find that it is wrapped in DRM that only works on one platform?
Issue solved. Everyone should just listen to me.
Issue not solved.
It seems to me that the main complaint about ePub is that it is text-centric, and doesn't do well with any book that requires a particular formatting, or includes anything other than text. That means no comic books, obviously, but it also eliminates many Kurt Vonnegut novels, among others.
It seems to me that the main complaint about ePub is that it is text-centric, and doesn't do well with any book that requires a particular formatting
That's what PDF is for. An ebook format should explicitly *not* allow for fixed layouts, as it interferes with reflow on mixed display sizes.
That means no comic books, obviously
Comics belong in a completely different format. They should be stored as pages of panels plus page-level layout with graphics, with the user having the option to view the original, ful
But wouldn't it make sense to have one format that has the flexibility to handle different types of books? From a publisher's perspective, why would they want a different file format for their graphic novels than their text-only books? Why would they want to sell certain authors who happen to enjoy playing around with the layout of their pages separately from all the rest?
I'm not saying ePub isn't a good starting point, but to have the "issue solved", as the original poster stated, it needs a bit more flexi
From a publisher's perspective, why would they want a different file format for their graphic novels than their text-only books?
"But why invent HTML when I could just use PDF for everything?"
Creating a singular format that tries to encompass every kind of media is a perfect route to format hell. The needs of traditional, reflowing text files are *far* different from that of fixed layout, image-based media. Hell, you probably wouldn't even use the same reader software for the two, as the experiences would
ePub can handle just about any formatting: it's HTML and CSS. Both Sitepoint and Pragmatic Programmers put out excellent epub technical books with many non-standard bits like code blocks and inline images: no formatting issues.
A link would be good. Here's one for starters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB [wikipedia.org]
Tim O'Reilly agrees with you [forbes.com].
I actually consult for Penguin (but also other publishers so hopefully I am not as biased), I am also on the ePub committee and I must tell that at least in it's current form epub is not the solution to all forms of content.
Also Apple tends to do unspecified things to epub deliveries and standard compliant epubs fail Apple check, but it's hard to blame them yet, they're just trying
Moreover it is the publisher who chooses to wrap their epubs in DRM or not so Penguin, not Apple is causing the incompatibilities to some extent.
Amazon is obviously the biggest offender with their proprietary outdated format which is almost the same but not quite an epub.
I also agree that epub is the most sensible solution right now, but like I said it's not there yet and simply doesn't work for non-reflowable content (think anything rich media, graphic or design heavy) which is a lot of content...
Not only that, but it's already a de facto standard. All more or less popular readers can read ePub books, either out of the box (e.g. Nook, new PRS), or with a firmware update (old PRS) - with the notable exception of Kindle, because Amazon wants to lock you into their own book store. Practically all reader apps for mobile devices (iPhone, Android) support ePub. iPad supports ePub (only?), which might well be the final nail into that coffin. The upcoming Google book store will use ePub.
The DRM aspect is more interesting. While the format itself defines some generic metadata for DRM and such, it doesn't standardize any particular DRM scheme. In practice, though, it seems that everyone who needs it is converging on Adobe's ePub DRM as the de facto standard.
So, the industry has already standardized. Amazon is the only remaining player that actively resists this, but between Apple, Google, and various smaller fish, I don't see how this is going to last for much longer.
Any of the eighty eight thousand variations that modern web browsers and handle.
Any of the eighty eight thousand variations that modern web browsers and handle.
I wonder how the typographical types like Knuth and the graphics arts types like Tufte would react to the idea of not knowing how their pages will render.
Yeah for pot boiler romances no problemo, but some folks will have a cow at the idea that their page might be formatted into something they literally can't imagine by a device they know nothing about.
For Boones and Mill-type books, it not only doesn't matter what it renders like, it doesn't matter if the pages are in order either. Nobody reads them for the plot. I'd argue LaTeX/DVI or Postscript, as then all devices (from speech synthesizers to graphical displays) will work.
I wonder how the typographical types like Knuth and the graphics arts types like Tufte would react to the idea of not knowing how their pages will render.
They generally haven't tackled the problem that HTML was designed for: displaying in a usable form in windows on displays of different sizes, shapes, resolutions, and color capabilities. Most "typographical" standards start with the assumption of a print medium, with known pages sizes and the ability to use any kind of ink. This is fine if the goal is a
http://www.org/ [www.org]
Course it should probably be zipped as well.
Congratulations. You just created ePub [wikipedia.org], the existing open ebook standard consisting of XHTML+CSS in a zip container. Welcome to 2007.
Meh. For ebooks, I'd say modern HTML is overly-complicated. If you were going to use HTML, you'd want a customized version that took away anything not relevant to ebooks (e.g. forms) and then add back in special ebook features (e.g. better pagination support). So really what you'd be talking about is some kind of XML that has been optimized for ebooks and, for familiarity's sake, resembles HTML. AFAIK that's kind of pretty much what EPUB is. May as well use that? Some people are already using it, whic
I see your HTML and raise you an X.
(or *.pdf, if you're a stickler for pretty graphics).
Coming up with a "new standard" at this point is just wasted effort.
No kidding. ASCII is the universal format type, and unicode ain't far behind these days. If you want renderings, fonts and so forth preserved, then there's PDF. Why would you want to build some other format when just about every computer released in the last 10 to 15 years can read these formats?
.txt is not supported by the Nook.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/features/techspecs/index.asp [barnesandnoble.com]
Dumb I know...
You're kidding, right? PDF is a document format designed to preserve the layout of a paper book. It doesn't reflow for different screen sizes. At all. This makes it less than useless for the current eBook market, where you have a hojillion different devices, each with its own display resolution, dimensions, and layout format.
And encoding text characters (the job of ASCII and Unicode) is just one of a million different things that need to happen to communicate information through text. If we'd listened to yo
In my home country we don't use ASCII any more. We just like our äöü and you need at least ISO_8859-1 for that. And wife would need ISO_8859-5 for her eBooks. You guys from the US are so inconsiderate.
And as for PDF: PDF preserves to much and is therefore unusable for different screen sizes.
(or *.pdf, if you're a stickler for pretty graphics).
PDF is an epic fail if you're rescaling to a new "paper" size. And each reader is, of course, a different size.
Personally I'd buy an ebook reader if it was 8.5x11 inches at readable DPI and did PDFs, because that seems a nearly world standard electronic data sheet format.
Personally I'd buy an ebook reader if it was 8.5x11 inches at readable DPI and did PDFs,
Turn your laptop sideways and rotate the on-screen display. Today's wide-screen laptops have to be better at something!
I find PDF to be epic fail on everything. Maybe it isn't irritating to read if you send it to a publishers and have them print and bind it for you? Give me
Personally I'd buy an ebook reader if it was 8.5x11 inches at readable DPI and did PDFs, because that seems a nearly world standard electronic data sheet format.
Um...except for the fact that the rest of the world uses A4 as a standard. The rest of the world doesn't even use inches (that's over 6 billion humans, by the way).
Between A4 and Letter, it is actually feasible to simply rescale the page to fit, without reflowing. The difference is minor enough that it won't affect the presentation in any noticeable way.
Ebooks in plain text are a bit of a pain in the ass - how do you break up paragraphs (one paragraph per line? Separated by a blank line? First line indented? Tab or space indent?)? How about chapters, and larger divisions (parts, books)? How does your plain text ebook include the author and title of the book in a way your ebook reader can extract? A format with a little bit of structure and metadata is a real improvement over plain text.
It's called ASCII. And it's great!
Combine it with an expanded ansi screen driver (more color range) for nice color "text graphics", and the ability to switch the color palette to something that gets rid of that ugly cyan and magenta, and you're good to go.
But of course once you do that, it's "too" universal - there's no reason that people would prefer your version over anyone else's.
It's called ASCII. And it's great!
What about the majority of the world's population, who use writing systems that don't reduce to ASCII (or even Latin-1)? Even English speakers might want quotations of foreign words in their texts to appear as they ought to instead of gibberish.
UTF-8 unicode. ASCII compatible, more or less, with the full unicode set when necessary.
Speaking as someone who implemented the text file handling part of an ebook reader that never shipped, I can tell you that "simple" ASCII is anything but. First, you have to guess the encoding. Good luck with that. Then, you get to guess whether a newline is a paragraph break or a line break. If you decide it's a line break, then you get to decide if a paragraph is indicated by a blank line or a leading tab or spaces. Then, you get to decide whether multiple indented lines in a row are paragraphs or a
TXT is fine if that's what you're after. Many customers want a bit more and I can't blame them.
PDF is not even close to being a usable generic ebook format: Try reflowing a PDF based on your screen width.
Still, you are right that there's no need for a new format -- or at least Mr Shanks should explain what he needs that's not available in ePub.
More like
I'm kidding, calm down.
Susan Petersen Kennedy, explained that book publishers did not want to "make the same mistakes as the music industry, which had an epic struggle over electronic distribution and piracy and lost huge market share."
Well shit, even the book industry is laughing at the music industry now.
After the fashion industry laughed at the music industry, it seemed impossible the music industry could fall any lower in the eyes of the world.
If they mean DRM, then they should take a second look at the music industry, which dropped DRM more than a year ago.
Right. The fact is, you can make a reader that reads multiple formats, so that's not *really* the problem. I mean, creating hardware or software to read the books is a hell of a lot more convenient when you've standardized things, but the real problem that makes vendor lock-in an issue is DRM.
If they really wanted to avoid the mistakes of the music industry, they would drop DRM immediately and move towards making extremely convenient distribution, storage, and backup. That's how you maintain some measur
Why would they mean DRM when the fashion industry has only just ridiculed the notion as protecting anything? The timing suggests they're trying to leverage the fashion world's very public statement, which can only mean that they're wanting to look at solving the problem some other way. Not necessarily a better way or a workable way, but different.
Not necessarily a better way or a workable way, but different.
Watermark all the images in the books and kick back and have a brew.
The only downside is the server-side processing requirements are greater, and there'd be a way to know who owned a used book originally.
I can live with that. Traditional DRM, not so much.
This really is the right way to combat the massive piracy while not harassing people who want to backup their media, put it on more than one device, or possibly lend/give it to a friend or two. The fear of massive distribution would scare people off putting it online. Of course you want to make it known to the buyer that it contains watermarks, but not what kind.
Sure people
They mean Digital Restrictions Management. It is a mistake to let them say what they want is a universal format. What they want is some form of control that isn't vendor-locked to a distributor who isn't them. And it ain't gonna happen.
Precisely. It's all about the DRM. If we are lucky this will play out exactly like it did for the music industry. Those fatcats didn't voluntarily stop using DRM - they just got so sick of Steve Jobs and his monopoly control of itunes that they figured dropping DRM was the lesser of two evils. It was either keep DRM and lose pricing control to Jobs or drop DRM and regain pricing control via multiple reseller like Walmart, Amazon. The tv & movie guys have avoided dropping DRM because Apple does not
Nope. It doesn't account for differently-sized screens with different aspect ratios, nor the desire for differently-sized text. PDF is really designed for a set display size.
"Our fondest wish is that all the devices become agnostic so that there isn't proprietary formats and you can read wherever you want to read. First we have to get a standard that everybody embraces."
"Oh, and don't get me wrong, we already have good standards, but they don't suck enough. By that I mean they don't arbitrarily restrict our readers in stupid ways. I long for the day we have a universal sucky e-book format."
"Oh, and don't get me wrong, we already have good standards, but they don't suck enough. By that I mean they don't arbitrarily restrict our readers in stupid ways. I long for the day we have a universal sucky e-book format."
How about ".docx"? That would be freaking lovely. Seriously. I'm surprised he didn't suggest it.
Either that or F all those unicode guys and their multicultural junk, I'm using EBCDIC. And when it doesn't sell, it'll be proof "no one wants ebooks" so we'll just can that market.
Wow, way to completely miss why ebook formats exist in the first place.
Let me guess... you don't actually read ebooks, do you?
"...First we have to get a standard that everybody embraces..."
Good luck with that...if the battle with HTML 5 is any indication. Heck, what about document formats? Good luck with that too!
..ink on paper. Advantages as follows:
1. Someone will steal an iPad or eBook reader from your bag at the airport, not a dog-eared paperback.
2. For all the tree-huggers out there, you can only use paper from sustainable sources.
3. If it takes you 12 hours to read a book from start to finish, it will take you the same time to read the eBook. On most devices that means carrying around a spare set of batteries or finding somewhere to recharge.
4. Electronic media is all about "me me me" whereas physical media can be loaned to family and friends, thus encouraging more social interaction.
5. A used book can be given away to a charity or be sold to go towards the price of the next book.
3. If it takes you 12 hours to read a book from start to finish, it will take you the same time to read the eBook. On most devices that means carrying around a spare set of batteries or finding somewhere to recharge.
Doesn't E-Ink displays only require power when you change the picture, aka turn the page?
6. Printing books has a long pollution consequence chain, from the paper mill onward.
7. Electronic media are great for giving to friends. I email
8. I can carry many electronic pubs on my USB key. No one steals my electronics at airports because I hand-carry them too.
Printing books has a long pollution consequence chain, from the paper mill onward.
What about the pollution from the factories making all the integrated circuit boards for the readers? And what about disposal of eBook readers? Paper rots...
7. Electronic media are great for giving to friends. I email
You can buy a paper book and legally loan it to a friend or give it to someone else. Is a PDF going to be licensed in the same way? What about digit
1. Someone will steal an iPad or eBook reader from your bag at the airport, not a dog-eared paperback.
On the other side, you have to carry the dead weight of some paperbacks in your luggage, instead of just one light eBook reader.
2. For all the tree-huggers out there, you can only use paper from sustainable sources.
How exactly do you do that? I mean, if you don't happen to be the publisher of the book.
3. If it takes you 12 hours to read a book from start to finish, it will take you the same time to read the
2. For all the tree-huggers out there, you can only use paper from sustainable sources.
And the ink? And the diesel trucks shipping it all over? I find that all unlikely.
3. If it takes you 12 hours to read a book from start to finish, it will take you the same time to read the eBook. On most devices that means carrying around a spare set of batteries or finding somewhere to recharge.
Slashdotters are just weird. Every day, they drive their car 600 miles without stopping, ten hours continuous, so electric cars are totally useless for them. They only read books in continuous 12 hour stretches, always at the beach in full sunlight, always far away from an electrical outlet.
4. Electronic media is all about "me me me" whereas physical media can be loaned to family and friends, thus encouraging more social interaction.
My oh my, you're hanging out with the wrong crowd, if you think you can't share electronic media.
5. A used book can be given away to a charity or be sold to go towards the price of the next book.
I give away electronic media, and app
They don't want to make the same mistakes, and yet they're following the same path anyhow.
If someone tried to sell me a security measure that encouraged thieves to attempt to steal my products while preventing my legit customers from using them and made everyone angry, I'd tell them where to shove it.
The goal isn't to permanently lock down the media forever. It's to make it hard to copy during the initial high sales period. Sometimes it succeeds, sometimes it doesn't.
But flatly saying it "doesn't work" is misinformed, not insightful.
Our fondest wish is that all the devices become agnostic so that there isn't proprietary formats and you can read wherever you want to read.
I'm continually amazed at the extreme terminological imprecision of some people in the tech industry.
The word agnostic means someone who believes it's impossible to know whether God exists or not. It does not mean a device which can display book files from multiple publishers. That new usage is not even vaguely analogous to the old one, because it does not connote
Let's get together and call it text. Oh gosh! Somebody did that a couple of hundred years ago.
The 'rtf' standard is different in every single Microsoft (its creator) application that supports it.
Its not actually a standard more like a collection of formats that closely resemble each other but aren't actually the same in subtle ways that you'll never figure out.
I don't think publishing will see nearly the same scope of piracy due to the nature of their customers (well read, well heeled. educated, and generally able to afford books). Also, any idiot can put together a few microchips a battery and a headphone jack with a digital watch display. The internals of an ebook reader are about the same as an MP3 player, but you need a decently high quality screen and great battery life to really use pirated ebooks. The vast, vast minority of people read entire novels in the
You missed the fact that many people already have an ebook reader and don't even know it. Do you have an iPhone or iPod Touch? Then you have access to multiple e-readers, from commercial one-store-only readers like Amazon's Kindle, B&N's eReader (reskinned and restricted version of Fictionwise's eReader), or Kobo to open readers like Stanza [lexcycle.com] (the best reader on iDevices by far, though for best iPad support you need to jailbreak and install FullForce). Don't have an iDevice? That's okay. There are e-
They're making the EXACT same mistakes as the music industry. They don't want a universal format. We have one. It's called ePub. They want universal DRM. Which isn't gonna happen.
The music industry tried the same thing. We wound up with multiple different DRMed formats that only worked on specific devices. All were incompatible with each other. Most were overpriced compared to CDs (the elimination of the physical distribution and associated costs should have been factored into digital sales from day one). And if someone did try to make a tool to unlock your music from a device so you could use it on another device you owned, they were sued... and it was made illegal even for fair use with bought-and-paid-for legislation in the US. So, everyone got used to stealing music, since it was the only way to actually get what you want on the device you wanted it and be able to listen to it anywhere.
Now, the Big Publishing is making the exact same mistakes. Insisting on DRM. All of it is on different platforms in different formats. None of it works with anything else. And the pricing is absolutely absurd compared to paperback sales. So, what happens? Everyone is starting to steal books using file sharing, etc. Big Publishing is already losing, they just don't realize it yet. And for all their whining about wanting a universal format and not wanting to make the same mistakes as Big Music, history is already repeating itself.
I cannot believe they are so worried about format as their big mistake. They have already made the mistake and that was equating ebooks to hardcover books in order to justify jacking prices to the Moon. Publishers think that since the ebook costs less than a hardcover that it's a deal - sorry it's not. I cannot trade, share, sell, or easily annotate an ebook. Likewise expecting ebook sales to support pulp sales is a huge mistake and they are making that too - they said as much by justifying high prices by talking about how much it costs to PRINT books.
Folks, a single ebook is about 500K to download. If you do not price that thing appropriately it's going to get pirated to hell and back. At the prices Amazon WAS charging I was buying more books than I had in years and loving life. Now books are being held back and prices are near double for many books. People don't upload just one book they upload entire author catalogs and it takes minutes to download a life's work.
After all that the industry is worried about FORMAT being a big issue? Holy shit! What a bunch of clueless fucks. They are doomed to repeat EXACTLY what the music industry has suffered if not worse. http://blog.macmillanspeaks.com/ [macmillanspeaks.com] Read that blog, what a pile of self serving steaming manure. Macmillan lead the charge for higher prices, they can now reap what they have sown as folks find alternative means with little trouble.
There's one bright spot. Authors are waking up to the fact that they can sell on their own. they can sell to Amazon, they can sell to Apple, and they can make MORE money and sell for LESS. Anything $1.99 to $9.99 and the author gets 70% - that's huge. Books rejected by NYC big publishing are finding a welcome home on these services. The ebook market is a mess and the fact that the big publishing houses think they have much pull is a joke. This is getting sorted out without them, they can whine and cry all they want but they are farting in the wind. Get the price issues solved and give more to the author or get run over... http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] Read the author blogs like that one, especially read the comments from other author's. They see the light, big publishing has their heads up their asses.
My hat's off to Calibre for making format the least of my issues to worry about....
Logic is a pretty flower that smells bad.


text:
JBU announces $3 million gift to renovate dormitory
By The Associated Press
This article was published February 13, 2013 at 8:50 a.m.
SILOAM SPRINGS John Brown University has received a $3 million gift for the renovation of a campus residence hall.
The Christian university in Siloam Springs says the gift is from an anonymous donor and will help pay for the renovation of the 93-year-old J. Alvin Brown residence hall.
The school plans to remodel the men's dormitory, updating the rooms into modern suites with features similar to newer residence halls. J. Alvin is the oldest structure on campus.
The total cost of the renovation will be $5.5 million.
JBU estimates that more than 4,000 students have lived in the J. Alvin residence hall since 1921. Renovations are expected to be complete by summer 2014.
The building was named after Joseph Alvin Brown, who was the younger brother of the university's namesake founder.
Comments on: JBU announces $3 million gift to renovate dormitory
To report abuse or misuse of this area please hit the "Suggest Removal" link in the comment to alert our online managers. Read our Terms of Use policy.


text:
It was a pretty simple calculus that propelled Bill Carroll into a relationship with Missi Wright in the summer of 2003.
"In all honesty, it was her looks and that she was five years older than me," Bill said. "Those things get your attention, especially when you're 20 years old."
By year's end, Missi and Bill were living together and the relationship was taking off.
"Things were pretty serious from the jump," Bill said Thursday afternoon. "I have always felt absolutely fortunate to be with her. Missi puts everybody else ahead of herself and is one of the most caring and selfless people I know, which is saying something considering her condition."
Through a friend, Bill knew Missi had some type of medical issue before they started dating.
"At the time, I didn't question what that sickness was, but I remember after about a week together she had to go into the hospital. It was nothing serious, just the normal stuff you deal with when you have cystic fibrosis and need to bump up your immune system."
It was a brief stay and before long Missi was back in class at St. Joseph's University and enjoying life with her new boyfriend.
"There was a good stretch after we met where she didn't have to go to the hospital for a year or two," said Bill, a graduate of Springfield High School. "Separate of that, Missi has been in the hospital at least once every year of her life."
When Missi's health allowed, the couple enjoyed the beaches of Wildwood, N.J., and Ocean City, Md., jetted off to Jamaica, stuffed their faces at Nifty Fifty's in Ridley Township and Alfredo's Pizza in Morton, tossed back drinks with friends at the bars along MacDade Boulevard and enjoyed quiet nights in front of the television at their home in Morton. Talk of marriage would surface from time to time, but the conversation always brought them back to the same place.
"We never went through with it because it would have affected her health care benefits," said Bill, who works as an IT consultant. "I don't make the best living, but it would have been enough to (jeopardize) her Medical Assistance.
"Being together so long, we kind of considered ourselves married anyway."
Like her younger sister, Colleen, Missi was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a baby. The genetic disease, which affects about 30,000 children and adults in the U.S., causes thick, sticky mucus to build up in the lungs, digestive tract and elsewhere in the body.
Respiratory symptoms include persistent coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath and frequent lung infections.
"When Colleen was born, they took half of her intestines out and her health was always getting progressively worse," said Rachel Gillis, the oldest of the three Wright sisters. "Missi's issues developed over time and she was much stronger than Colleen, who weighed just 89 pounds."
A freshman at Delaware County Community College, Colleen Wright died Jan. 24, 2000, at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where she had been admitted 26 days earlier.
"Losing Colleen at such a young age made Missi want to be one of the longest-living people with CF," said Rachel, who was not born with the disease.
Missi battled her symptoms well enough to earn a degree in health care administration from St. Joe's. Before her health deteriorated, she worked as a health care advocate for a company that served as a middleman between patients and their insurance companies.
"Eventually, she had to give it up," Bill said. "In addition to the (respiratory) issues, she had digestive problems and diabetes that was brought on by the cystic fibrosis. ... She would wake up and do her breathing treatments, take her meds for the day, take the same meds later in the day and then do the finger stick for the diabetes."
When she was unable to work, Missi, who attended Cardinal O'Hara and Archbishop Prendergast high schools before opting to drop out and earn a GED, kept herself busy with a coupon blog and baby cake business on Facebook.
She also volunteered for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and cared for Rachel's children — Mariah, her 4-year-old goddaughter, and 15-month-old Isaac.
"She loved them so much and considered them her own," said Rachel, whose oldest is named after singer Mariah Carey, whom Colleen met through the Make-A-Wish Foundation a week before she died. "She would always say, 'How are my two children? I know you gave birth to them, but they're mine.'"
Rachel said the disease dragged her sister down slowly.
"Missi has always been such a fighter," she said. "Over the past five years or so, things got much worse. Looking back at pictures, you can really see the difference, especially in her face, which got a lot puffier because of the steroids. She really hated that."
A lung transplant in January 2012 generated hope for better health, but only resulted in a longer list of medical problems.
"Post-transplant, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, which the medicine cleared up, and then a paralyzed diaphragm," Rachel said. "She also had a lot of anxiety because it was getting harder and harder for her to breathe. The doctors said she got the perfect lungs — a perfect set — but after the transplant, it was one issue after another."
When a chest X-ray at Springfield Hospital revealed patches of pneumonia in multiple areas of her lungs, Missi was admitted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on June 10.
"She went in on a Tuesday and on Thursday she sent me a bunch of text messages," Rachel said. "She didn't flat-out ask me to come see her, but it was obvious she was scared and wanted me there."
When she first arrived at the medical intensive care unit, Missi was breathing with the help of a bilevel positive airway pressure, or BiPAP, machine.
"It helped give her oxygen so she could relax more and help clear the pneumonia," Rachel said.
When Missi's condition failed to improved, a breathing tube was inserted and she was given sedatives to keep her comfortable.
"The thinking was that once she got better they would take her off the vent," Rachel said. "They tried a couple times, but it didn't work. She couldn't breathe on her own."
With his girlfriend's health in a free fall and doctors starting to discuss her medical directives, Bill, who had spent the previous 19 nights sleeping on a reclining chair in Missi's hospital room, decided to change the narrative.
On June 30, he asked Missi to marry him.
"This is something we should have done a long time ago," he said. "I wanted to give her the best day — the day she deserved."
When Bill suggested they get married on their 11th anniversary, July 16, Missi countered with the Fourth of July.
"And that's what we were planning to do before the doctors told us it might be better to do it sooner," he said. "Missi's condition had deteriorated a bit and they said the sooner we did it, the more she would be able to participate and enjoy it."
That advice came last Wednesday around noon. A fury of activity followed.
"That's when everything went into motion," Bill said. "We had to get a pastor and family to the hospital. We needed a veil. I asked my mom to get the rings. The nursing staff was unbelievable. I went to the cafeteria to get something to eat and when I came back there were streamers in there and decorations in the room and they were making flowers out of paper. They went completely out of their way for us."
Rachel did not know what to think when she heard about Bill's plan for a hospital wedding.
"Initially, I was kind of shocked, but it was nice to see all those people surrounding her," she said. "She was very happy."
At about 7:30 p.m. on July 2, with relatives and friends gathered in Missi's hospital room, Chuck Matheus, an ordained minister and friend of the Carroll family, performed the ceremony.
Missi, sitting upright in her bed and holding Bill's hand, gave an emotional nod when Matheus asked if she would love Bill "through good times and not so good times, through sickness and in health, till the end of time."
When Bill and Missi kissed, a chorus of cheers filled the MICU.
A day later, Dr. Denis Hadjiliadis, the director of the adult cystic fibrosis program at HUP, met with Missi Wright-Carroll to make sure the 36-year-old's end-of-life directives had not changed.
"He asked her if they should still follow her wishes about keeping her comfortable if things didn't get better," Bill said.
When Missi said yes, Hadjiliadis turned to the family.
"The doctor said, 'We need to respect her wishes. I don't see her coming out of this and you are going to have to make a decision,'" Rachel said.
Assured Missi's condition would only get worse, the family reluctantly agreed to take her off the ventilator at 9:45 p.m. Thursday.
"We all huddled around the bed and everyone was touching her, holding her hands and talking to her," Rachel said.
With her husband holding her hand, Missi died at 10:25 p.m.
"I wouldn't change it for anything," Bill said of the wedding. "Knowing the outcome, I would have done it sooner, absolutely, but I have no regrets."
In addition to her husband and sister, Wright-Carroll is survived by her parents, David and Diane Wright, and Catherine and Uwe Pohle; siblings, David, Zachary and Nicholas Wright and Ashley, Megan and Kyle Pohle; grandparents, Robert and Margaret Sutton; and several other relatives and friends.
A funeral Mass and visitation are scheduled for Friday at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Secane and Wright-Carroll will be buried alongside her younger sister at SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery in Marple.


text:
Barclays is to shut down controversial tax arm Structured Capital Markets and cut around 2,000 investment banking jobs as part of a restructuring of the business, according to reports.
The tax division was last year ordered by the Treasury to repay £500 million after structuring two 'aggressive' loopholes to avoid paying tax.
Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins (pictured) will describe its activities as 'legal' but 'incompatible with our purpose', pledging 'a new approach for a new era of banking'.
The cull of around 2,000 jobs will represent a nearly 10% reduction in staff for the bank's 23,000-strong investment banking division.


text:
User talk:Narmical
From Iron Chariots Wiki
Thanks for your edits to Hares chew their cud. I've moved your <ref>erences to the article's talk page so they can be added back to the article when we get the <ref> feature on this wiki (I've already lobbied for it). - dcljr 17:30, 21 June 2007 (CDT)
- You asked, "Should i just manualy format the referances? or just wait for a <ref> tag to be implimented?" — I'd just wait. When we get the <ref> feature, I plan to go through updating any existing references to the new scheme. Unfortunately, we don't have a working {{cite journal}} template yet, either. - dcljr 12:11, 27 June 2007 (CDT)


text:
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. -- Tennessee Tech senior Daniel Northern was
named second-team all-conference and freshman Kevin Murphy earned a
spot on the league's all-newcomer team when the Ohio Valley
Conference anounced the annual men's basketball awards Thursday
night. The honors were announced on the eve of the OVC Tournament
semifinals in Nashville.
Northern, a 6-9 center from Warner-Robins, Ga., was a preseason all-OVC selection and lived up to that billing with his selection to the post-season squad. He led Tech and ranked 14th in the league in scoring with 12.6 points per game, and was the conference leader in blocked shots. He also ranked second in the conference in rebounding and 10th in field goal percentage.
Murphy, a 6-6 forward from Fairburn, Ga., came on strong in the second half of the season, averaging 9.6 points per game overall and 10.2 against the conference. His scoring average was the ninth-best scoring aveage in history for a Tech freshman, and the highest in 21 years. The former Creekside High School standout ranked 30th in the conference in scoring, third among all freshmen, and was also listed fifth in the conference in 3-point percentage.
For the second straight year UT Martin senior guard Lester Hudson was tabbed Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year, in voting by the league's head coaches and sports information directors. Skyhawks coach Bret Campbell was named OVC Coach of the Year for the first time.
The two other top award winners included Morehead State sophomore center Kenneth Faried, who was named the inaugural OVC Defensive Player of the Year, and Murray State forward Ivan Aska who was tabbed OVC Freshman of the Year.
The 2008-09 All-OVC first-team includes Hudson, the Player of the Year, and Faried, the Defensive Player of the Year. Joining them is Austin Peay senior forward Drake Reed, Eastern Kentucky guard Mike Rose and Morehead State senior forward Leon Buchanan.
Five individuals were named to the All-OVC second team including Tennessee State sophomore guard Gerald Robinson, Jr. (an All-Newcomer pick last season), Austin Peay junior guard Wes Channels, Eastern Illinois junior guard Romain Martin (the 2007 OVC Freshman of the Year), Murray State junior forward Danero Thomas and Northern.
Six players were selected to the OVC All-Newcomer Team, which was comprised of first-year players in the league. That included two players from Murray State - Aska, who was named OVC Freshman of the Year, and sophomore guard Isacc Miles (a transfer from Creighton). The team also included UT Martin junior guard Delrico Lane, Tennessee State freshman guard Parker Smith, Eastern Illinois junior guard T.J. Marion and Murphy.
OVC Player of the Year: Lester Hudson, UT Martin
OVC Defensive Player of the Year: Kenneth Faried, Morehead State
OVC Freshmen of the Year: Ivan Aska, Murray State
OVC Coach of the Year: Bret Campbell, UT Martin
Lester Hudson, UT Martin
Mike Rose, Eastern Kentucky
Drake Reed, Austin Peay
Leon Buchanan, Morehead State
Kenneth Faried, Morehead State
Wes Channels, Austin Peay
Gerald Robinson, Jr., Tennessee State
Romain Martin, Eastern Illinois
Danero Thomas, Murray State
Daniel Northern, Tennessee Tech
Isacc Miles, Murray State
Delrico Lane, UT Martin
Parker Smith, Tennessee State
T.J. Marion, Eastern Illinois
Kevin Murphy, Tennessee Tech
Ivan Aska, Murray State


text:
|Register | Login
Technical Problem With This Chapter?
Author: Arnel
Story: For Love of Family
Part: 33: Night-watch
Rating: Teens
Setting: DH-interview
Status: Completed
Reviews: 4
Words: 5,695
Updated: November 24, 2011, 12:10am
33: Night-watch
0220 hours
Ginny stepped through the front doors into the main St Mungo's waiting area and immediately went to join the other witches and wizards waiting in line for the Welcome Witch so that she could find her husband easier. However, she hadn't been in line more than thirty seconds before one of the medi-witches approached her.
"Mrs Potter?" she inquired. Ginny nodded. "Please follow me. I've been instructed to take you back to the A and E where your husband is waiting for you."
Ginny smiled at her and followed her down the labyrinthine corridors that led to the Accident and Emergency department. Along the way, she noticed how calmly efficient the busy healers were, a big change from the night Harry had been brought in last October.
"Here we are," the medi-witch said as they reached a short side hallway with only one door in it. Harry was using it to "pace" his wheelchair, rolling the length of the passage one way, turning and going back the other way.
Ginny recognized the hallway as the one leading to the Aurors' arrival room and she immediately knew why her husband was pacing; he was worried more of his Aurors had been hurt on the mission and he was waiting to see who the victims might be. She thanked the medi-witch and waited patiently for Harry to notice her. When it became obvious that he was too distracted to look up, she spoke to him softly.
"Harry, dear. I'm here. I know you're worried. Shall we find somewhere quiet to wait?" she suggested.
Harry's head snapped up and he rolled to a stop next to her. He reached up, grabbing her about the waist and murmured, "Thanks for coming, but no. I want to stay here where I can see both Mary Beth's door and the Aurors' entrance."
Ginny sighed. "All right, Harry. We'll stay here," she acquiesced.
Her husband gave her a wan smile and resumed his pacing. It was going to be a long night.
It took an hour, but Ginny finally managed to convince Harry to sit on a waiting area sofa with her and now the two were huddled on the hard, lumpy cushions with their arms around each other. Across the room, Ginny watched Susan Bones-Finch-Fletchley as she gently teased fibres from a hole in Auror Pendergast's robes and slipped them into an evidence vial. When she was done, she deposited the vial in an evidence bag and Banished the bag to Forensics. She then folded the robes and put them in another bag.
"I found the most active damp fibres and sent them off for analysis," Susan said, looking at Harry. "The lab should be able to ascertain the components of the potion used on the metal fragments, just from the few I was able to find—thank goodness of that new detection spell we learned last week! The rest of the material around the holes is dry and any metal fragments or singeing will be dealt with by Forensics later."
Ginny felt Harry lift his head from her where his chin rested on the top of her head.
"And the robes?" he asked.
"Going to Evidence. I'm taking them there myself, and then I'm going home to Justin. I haven't seen him or the girls in nearly three days and I need to sleep in my own bed and reacquaint myself with my family," she said.
Ginny smiled at her friend. "I'm sure your family wants you back just as badly," she said, raising her head from Harry's shoulder to give him a significant look. "I know we always felt more complete after Harry came back from a mission that lasted far too long for our liking."
Susan yawned and looked at the clock mounted above the archway that led to the corridor. "Justin always takes at least part of the day off on the day I return from a mission," she said. "I've already told him this one's wrapping up, so he's expecting me." She addressed Harry with her next question, "Do you think Ron will require me to stay at Headquarters longer than it takes to write my report?"
Harry shook his head. "Absolutely not, but if he does, tell him I told you to go home."
"Thanks, Harry. I'll do that." Susan yawned again and stood up. "The sooner I leave here, the sooner I'll be home," she said. "Good night, er, morning, Ginny."
Ginny stood up. "I'll walk you over," she said. At the Aurors' arrival room where Susan would Disapparate, she said, "We'll send word once we know something."
The two witches hugged and Ginny returned to the waiting area. She found Harry slumped over with his elbows on his knees and his hands fisted in his hair, a sure sign that he was worrying, just as his pacing had been.
"Harry, what's wrong?" she asked, coming to sit next to him.
Harry looked over at her, his eyes red-rimmed. "The healer just brought word that Mary Beth has slipped into a coma," he choked out. "The poison went undetected too long and her body is having a hard time fighting it. I'm terrified that she's going to die needlessly."
Ginny began rubbing his back in small, soothing circles. "I know, Harry, I know," she said quietly. "All we can do is hope the healers can counteract the damage like they did for you a year ago."
They sat huddled together for a time before Harry spoke again. "Is this what it felt like waiting for me wake up last year?" he asked in barely a whisper.
Ginny closed her eyes, thinking of how scared she'd been after Harry's first duel with this gang of criminals. "Yes, Harry. This is what it feels like every time I wait for you to wake up in hospital," she answered truthfully.
Harry flung his arms around her and held her tightly to him. "I'm so sorry, Ginny," he nearly sobbed. "I had no idea waiting was so hard."
She wiggled a bit and draped her legs over his so they could sit more comfortably. "There's a good chance Mary Beth will wake and be whole just like you were," she said. "I mean, the healers didn't figure out that you'd been poisoned for nearly twenty hours and it was another two before they found the antidote to the poison since the bezoar they'd given you didn't work. Because you knew what to look for, Mary Beth's chances are so much higher than yours were."
Harry raised his head from her shoulder. "That's good to know," he said in a steadier voice. He sounded calmer as he added, "Ginny, I'm sorry I broke my promise to you last October."
She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Why are you apologizing now?" she asked, wondering why he was bringing the subject up.
"I just realized that part of the problems we've been having lately stem from the fact that I don't keep the promises I make to you very well," he explained. "For years I've been promising that the next mission will be my last and then another high profile case comes along and I become too involved in it and end up getting hurt in some way. I know I promised you a year ago that I'd stay at the office while others did the field work and—" He broke off, running a hand through his hair and sighing deeply. "Well, I didn't stay back like I said I would."
Ginny grabbed his hand and held it tightly in her own. "If I recall correctly, you promised me you would stay safely at the observation point where you could direct the team and call for backup if your Aurors needed it. I never made you promise to stay back at the office because you would never feel comfortable not being a part of the action. That's part of what I love about you, Harry; your 'saving people thing,' as Hermione is so fond of reminding me," she said.
Harry snorted. "Did you have to remind me of that?" he asked. An embarrassed smile flitted across his face, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Yes, I did, sweetheart," Ginny said, "because we're Gryffindors, the brave and true, who want to see justice done so badly that we need to be in the thick of things just to make sure things are done right. The promise you broke last October was one I knew would be hardest for you to keep. To be honest, it hurt so much when the hospital called me to tell me you'd been admitted again, but in a way, I was also proud that you went down fighting."
Harry held her close. "Does it bother you that I was finally hurt so badly that I'll never fully recover?" he asked.
Ginny shook her head. "No, Harry, it doesn't. What the Matron did to you could have turned out so much worse; I'm not a widow, and as hard as it's been the last few months, I thank my lucky stars every night that your mind is intact and that you aren't a permanent resident of this hospital."
Harry pulled her close again. "Then I'm glad, too," he whispered, "I really am."
Ginny closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. A moment later, Harry's cheek was resting comfortably on her head.
0332 hours
Ron stood in the doorway to the waiting area and ran a tired hand through his hair. He hated to wake his sister and best mate up, but the news he had for them was too good to wait. Walking slowly and quietly, he approached Harry and Ginny and gently laid a hand on each of their shoulders.
"Harry… Ginny… It's Ron. I have good news," he said.
The two woke with a start and his sister giggled with embarrassment.
"Is Mary Beth all right?" Harry asked, looking hopeful.
Ron smiled tiredly. "I've just come from talking to the healers," he explained, looking directly at Harry. "Thanks to your quick thinking, they were able to save her. She'll make a full recovery and will be going home in a few days."
Harry pushed Ginny's legs off his lap. When he looked up at Ron again, there were silent tears coursing down his cheeks, something that surprised Ron because his best friend was usually not one to be emotional. "That's such good news, Ron," Harry choked out. "Is there someone with her now?"
Ron nodded. "Her family arrived a half hour ago and witnessed her awakening. Thanks for staying, mate. You, too, sis," he said.
Ginny covered a yawn with her hand. "You going home now?" she asked.
"Can't," Ron said with a sigh. "One of the suspects is on his deathbed and I need to stick around because I promised I'd be with him at the end."
"Who? Why?" Harry asked.
"One of the Matron's assistants, the one who killed the forensics team, turned himself in Friday afternoon while we were on surveillance and turned Minister's Evidence. He made a full confession and gave us some valuable evidence against his colleagues, all because the Matron used him as a pin cushion and was slowly poisoning him."
Harry whistled softly. "You've recovered the Pensieve memories to go with his statement?" he asked, sounding like he was back as the Head of Department.
Ron scowled, feeling annoyed. "Yeah, we have, Harry," he said. "Whenever the Wizengamot gets around to trying the Matron and the others, everything he gave us will be admissible. Robards made sure of that because we don't want them to get off on a technicality."
"Neither do I," Harry said. He tilted his head to one side as if considering something. Then, the added, "I'm sorry, Ron. I had no right to ask about the memories. You've done a brilliant job closing this case, something I failed to do twice. Forgive me?"
Ron nodded and stood up. "I've got to get back," he said. "Oh, do you know how Scorpius is?"
Harry smiled and gazed into Ginny's eyes. "Last I saw, he was surrounded by his family," he said. "I think with time, he'll be just fine."
Ron said, "Glad to know that. Draco's raised one courageous kid." And on that thought, he left the waiting room for Tim Dawson's bedside.
1021 hours
It had been hours since he'd been given leave to go back to Auror headquarters to complete his report. He'd finished it a few minutes ago and turned it in to Robards, who had dismissed him to go home. However, he wasn't ready to face the empty walls of his flat, the pictures of Emily on his mantle or the empty space in the wardrobe in his room that used to hold her clothes. Brodie sighed. The logical place to unwind was his favourite pub, but the idea of drinking alone at ten o'clock in the morning—even if it was after work for him—didn't sit right. Still not sure where he was going to end up, he cleared his desk, secured his file cabinet and left the Auror Office.
He wandered the streets of Muggle London aimlessly for nearly an hour, not really paying attention to where he was going, still too keyed up from the mission to go home. Eventually, he bought a paper cup of tea and a sticky bun at a small café and continued on, finally meandering his way back to the front entrance of St Mungo's. He stared at the derelict building for a few seconds before he realized what he was looking at.
He stepped up to the manikin. When she asked his business, he stated he was an Auror checking up on a patient. He was admitted immediately and found himself staring at the lines of chairs occupied by the hexed and the sick who were all waiting to see the healers or be admitted to the hospital. Once inside, though, he had no idea where he wanted to go, although he knew it felt right to be here. He took a seat in a corner by the door and sat down to finish his tea.
"Brodie, mate, I thought I sent you home hours ago!" a familiar voice exclaimed a few minutes later.
Brodie looked up to see Ron Weasley and his wife—he'd forgotten her name—standing before him. Ron looked sad more than tired and Brodie fleetingly wondered why.
"You did," he answered, "but I can't go home just yet. My flat's felt empty since Emily died." There. He'd said it, admitted to himself why he wasn't at home, comatose from lack of sleep the last few days.
"You came back to check up on Dawson, then?" Ron asked.
Brodie shrugged. "I just started walking and ended up here after I finished my report," he said. He stood up. "Might as well go up and see the git and find out why he killed Emily and her team. I'll see you later."
He stepped towards the back of the waiting room, but Ron caught his arm, stopping him. "You can't, Brodie. It's too late," he said.
Brodie stared at him, unable to understand why it was too late. "I… I don't understand."
"Dawson's dead."
It felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his world. Dawson dead? Bloody HELL! How was he going to find out the reason behind Emily's death now? Turning towards the wall, Brodie slammed a fist into the nearest support column repeatedly as the pain of discovering her dead seared through his mind. He let out a string of swear words and would have said a few more, but a warm hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Brodie," a soft voice said soothingly, "come home with us."
He turned his pain-filled eyes on Ron's wife who gathered him into a hug and he held on, willing the pain away, until Ron cleared his throat. Brodie let go and stepped back, glancing at Ron sheepishly.
"Come on, Brodie. Hermione's better at fixing plaster dents than I am." Ron gave his wife a quick one-armed squeeze and then gestured for Brodie to follow him.
Brodie hesitated, looking at Hermione. "You're sure you want me at your house?" he asked.
Hermione turned from where she was contemplating the rather large hole made by Brodie's fist. "Go on, you two. I'll be along in a moment," she said reassuringly as Ron jerked his head towards the door. Brodie murmured his thanks and followed Ron out onto the street.
Five minutes later, he and Ron appeared in the foyer of the Weasley's home and Brodie could only stare. "You… you live here?" he asked, completely overwhelmed by the spacious room. "Why are you an Auror?"
Ron chuckled, "Welcome to Weasel's Keep. And yes, I live here." He hung his robes and cloak on a hook by the door and held out a hand for Brodie's cloak. "Harry, Hermione and I were Gryffindors at Hogwarts during the Second War. Hermione calls it my 'saving people thing', although the term applies more to Harry than it does me, I suspect. So yeah, that's why I'm an Auror."
He couldn't help but smile as Ron led him into the kitchen and lounge area. "You've made all this money as an Auror?" Brodie asked, still incredulous.
"Heck no, my brother George owns Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and before I went to the Auror Academy, I spent five years after the war helping him get back on his feet. We made a tidy profit and the rest, well, the rest is history," Ron said modestly. He stuck his head in the cold cabinet and pulled out two beers, tossing one to Brodie. His face lit up as he remembered something. "Brodie, come see this. Hermione gave it to me for Christmas."
He led the way through the lounge into a small sun room and stopped before an enormous model of a Quidditch pitch. Raising his wand, Ron muttered a couple of spells to animate the miniature figures. They began flying through the moves of the Cannons' last match, a spectacular upset over the Tutshill Tornadoes. "Isn't this a beauty?" Ron asked.
Brodie popped the top off his bottle with a charm. "Erm… It's amazing!"
"What's amazing?" Hermione's voice came from the direction of the kitchen.
"The Quidditch set," Ron called. He took a long pull on his bottle, then flicked his wand at the pitch again. This time the players froze mid-action. "Want to play two-a-side? I'm going to need to practice if I'm going to beat Hugo at Easter."
"Sure, what do I do?" Brodie asked as Hermione brought in a bowl of crisps and another of popcorn. She told them when lunch would be ready and then left them to their game.
The time flew by. Since neither Ron nor Brodie was any good at manipulating the players they scored against each other very quickly. They also fouled each other on a regular basis—resulting in frequent, high-scoring free shots—but it was Brodie who saw and caught the Snitch before Ron, just as Hermione called them to the table.
Over a meal of spaghetti marinara with meatballs, garlic bread and green salad, the three compared their years at Hogwarts and told stories of their travels. Brodie was on his second glass of wine and third helping of spaghetti when he realized he was having fun for the first time in months and immediately felt guilty. He pushed his plate away, suddenly no longer hungry.
"Brodie, are you all right?" Hermione asked, a concerned expression on her face.
"I'm fine," he said evasively.
Hermione crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, looking him over suspiciously. At length, she turned to Ron and said, "Methinks we have another Harry on our hands."
Ron grinned. "Brodie, Brodie, Brodie, you have no idea how many times we've heard those exact words from Harry," he said. "It won't do you any good to give us that answer because we're not going to believe you."
"You won't?"
"Nope, absolutely not. There's a certain tone of voice Harry used to use with those two words and right now, you sound exactly like he did, so we know something's bothering you or you're hurting in some way, or both. You might as well just tell us," Ron said matter-of-factly.
Brodie sighed. "You're going to think I'm a nutter," he mumbled.
"Try us," Hermione said encouragingly.
He looked from one to the other and when he saw they were serious, Brodie sighed heavily and gave in. "For the first time since Emily died I'm having fun, and I'm feeling guilty about it," he nearly whispered.
Ron put down his fork and took a sip of wine. "I know how that feels, mate, and so does my brother, George. It took us both a long time to get over Fred's death, and the first time the two of us realized we hadn't thought about him for an entire afternoon, we felt guilty for days."
"Good to know I'm normal," Brodie muttered into his wine glass. "But how do I stop feeling guilty?"
"Just let time take over," Hermione said. "That's what we finally ended up doing. And we talked about how we were feeling, about the conflicts we were dealing with internally. Just the act of talking about them helped, or at least it helped me."
She caught Ron's eye and he seemed to agree with her because he asked Brodie, "Has telling us helped?"
Brodie sighed. "Maybe a little," he hedged.
They returned to their meals, but every bite seemed to sit like a ball of lead in Brodie's stomach. Finally, he pushed his plate away and excused himself, enquiring about the location of the toilet.
When he found it, he locked the door and stood with his hands braced on the marble slab surrounding the sink. Then, he let the tears of frustration and anger course down his face. He was angry at Tim Dawson for dying before he could answer his questions. He was irritated with himself for not going directly to the hospital from the Ministry, and he was frustrated because he had wanted Dawson to pay for his crimes and now there was no way he would. Brodie let out a frustrated growl and banged his fist on the marble hard enough to make his hand hurt.
A knock on the door made him jump. "Brodie, are you all right in there?" Hermione's voice called through the door.
Damn! I forgot the Silencing Charm, Brodie thought. "Yes, everything's cool," he called aloud.
The quiet sound of a foot tapping on the floor reached him. "Erm, Brodie, you forgot to Silence the room. You're acting like Harry again," Hermione called to him. "Come out and talk to us, please. It's the only way we'll know how to help you."
Brodie closed his eyes, cursing silently, and unlocked the door after splashing his face with water. He found Hermione waiting for him in the passage and before he fully comprehended what was happening, he found himself in her embrace again. Two hugs in three hours… he hadn't felt this sort of human contact since Emily's funeral and it was his undoing. Great, body-shaking sobs wracked his frame as Hermione rubbed soothing circles on his shoulders. It took a while, but she finally persuaded him to go back to the lounge with her.
As they entered, Ron handed him a small glass of Ogden's Finest. "To Emily," he said, raising his glass and Brodie returned the salute, feeling the spirit burn on its way down to his stomach.
Hermione led him to the sofa after Ron refilled his glass, but Brodie didn't drink it. Instead, he set it on the table next to the sofa and sat down with his face buried in his hands. Hermione sat next to him and began rubbing his back again. He shrugged her hand away.
"Brodie, I know you're hurting," Hermione said. "Please talk to us."
He lifted his head, unashamed of the tears still rolling down his cheeks. "TIM DAWSON IS DEAD AND I NEVER HAD THE CHANCE TO CONFRONT HIM!" he yelled.
"Yes, he is," Ron acknowledged quietly from the wing chair he was sitting in. He waited a moment and then asked, "If you'd had the chance to speak with him, what would you have asked?"
"Why?" Brodie blurted. "Why kill Emily? Why kill the forensics team when they had done nothing but answer the summons to help with the investigation?"
"I did ask him that," Ron said calmly.
Brodie stared at him. "You did?"
Ron nodded. "I did, and Dawson said he did it on a whim, a spur of the moment idea. He had no clue that he'd killed all four people until it was announced in the Prophet the next day," he said.
"A whim?" Exasperated, Brodie stood up and began pacing. "A whim. Merlin, it's so senseless!" he exclaimed, pulling at his hair. "He ruined so many lives with just that one act! If he weren't already dead, I'd kill him! I wanted him to suffer! Suffer just as much as I and the other victims' families have and now we'll never get to see Dawson pay for his crimes!"
Ron stood and blocked his path. "I beg to differ there, Brodie," he said quietly. Brodie stared at him, one eyebrow raised questioningly. "Dawson might not be paying in the way you wanted him to, but he's paid with his life. Shirley Gorman poisoned him two weeks ago with one of her poison metal fragments because his actions displeased her. I watched him die this morning and it wasn't pretty. In the end, he was in great pain because his organs failed one by one and he had no motor control over his limbs. However, his mind was cognizant to the very last moment: he knew exactly how and why he was dying and that's punishment enough in my book."
Brodie shoved his hands in his pockets, thinking. At last he asked, "Did he… did he show any remorse at the end?"
Ron reached up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Tim Dawson apologized to each and every one of his victims before he died. He made a full confession yesterday, giving us valuable testimony that, when coupled with the other statements and evidence we've gathered, will help the Ministry convict Shirley Gorman, Beda Bardsley and Ogden Sperry several times over," he said. "I'd say he showed plenty of remorse and suffered just as much as you are, Brodie."
Brodie turned away and walked out of the lounge into the Quidditch room where he stood gazing out over the snow-covered garden. The floor creaked a little as Ron followed, coming to stand beside him.
"Will Dawson suffer even though he's dead?" Brodie asked.
Ron shrugged. "I'd like to think so, at least for a while. But then again, I'm not sure I want him to. I… I think he's suffered enough."
Brodie couldn't believe what he was hearing. "How?" he managed to sputter.
"You didn't see him at the end, Brodie," Ron said. "You didn't see his eyes; they were filled with physical and mental pain so great that even the most powerful spells and potions weren't alleviating it. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially not on someone who was trying to apologize for the things he'd done."
Turning away from Ron, Brodie sighed. "I suppose wherever he is, Dawson is getting his just desserts and I'll just have to accept that. And you're right, death by poison isn't something I'd wish on anyone either." He yawned, suddenly too tired to hold himself up. He turned to see Hermione standing in the doorway. "Thanks for lunch. It was delicious. I'm glad you invited me over."
Hermione smiled. "You're welcome, but Brodie, you're not going anywhere except upstairs to the guest room. You'll Splinch yourself if you try to Apparate home," she said practically.
Realizing she was serious about him staying, he acquiesced with a mumbled "thanks" and followed Ron upstairs to the guest room. As with the rest of the house, the room was spacious and comfortable-looking with an enormous four-poster bed in the middle of one wall. Suddenly, it was all Brodie could do not to throw himself on it fully clothed.
"There's an en-suite through that door," Ron said, pointing. "If you put your Auror robes and clothes in the laundry chute, they'll appear in the wardrobe when they're clean."
Still somewhat amazed by the house, Brodie thanked him and shut the door, leaning on it briefly to steady himself before he stumbled to the bath where he found a pair of pyjamas waiting for him. That was all the invitation he needed. Half an hour later, warm and relaxed, he fell onto the bed just awake enough to pull the covers over himself.
1558 hours
Scorpius was screaming. He knew he was still in the cave surrounded by dead corpses and his only thought was to escape, but when he reached for his wand in its special pocket, he couldn't find it and the idea of being wandless terrified him more than the bodies did. He screamed in frustration and began thrashing about, trying to knock himself out of the air, even though it meant falling on his head.
"Scorpius! Scorpius!" a voice called urgently. "Wake up, son!"
He felt gentle hands in his hair and on his shoulders, shaking him awake. Someone was patting his leg while his right hand was clasped tightly in someone else's. He finally opened his eyes, completely confused by the sight of his parents and grandparents standing over him with concern in their eyes and expressions of fright on their faces.
"What is it, son?" his father asked. "What did you see?"
Scorpius shuddered violently, not wanting to speak of the terrible dream. "I… I… can't," he whispered. His throat felt raw and his head was pounding, but worst of all, his body was trembling and he couldn't make it stop.
"Look at me," his father requested. When Scorpius did, he continued, "Don't bury your fears. Whatever you dreamed about was your body's way of coping with your kidnapping and telling us what you saw will help your mind heal. I need you to tell me what you saw, even if it's only a few words."
Scorpius looked away. He couldn't tell, he just couldn't. His grandmother handed him a goblet and he took it gratefully, gulping the warm liquid that soothed his throat and sent tendrils of heat into his stomach. He felt better now that the dream was fading. He asked for more water as his father repeated his request. Scorpius drank deeply, still deep in thought, then handed the goblet back to her.
Finally, he whispered, "I was in the cave."
"Were you alone or was someone there?" his mother asked.
Startled by the fact that she'd asked the question, Scorpius answered, "I was alone in my cell surrounded by dead bodies."
"Dead bodies?" Grandfather asked.
"Yeah, the torture victims who died in the chains attached to the wall," Scorpius said as he fought to suppress the image that rose in his imagination.
"That must have been terrifying," his father said.
"Yeah, it was."
"You're safe now, Scorpius. No more dead bodies, no more caves," Grandmother said. "We're not going anywhere. Do you think you can sleep again?"
Scorpius shook his head. He was afraid to close his eyes and go back to sleep so soon. "Not yet," he said.
Grandmother held up the book she'd been reading. "It's a soppy romance, but if you want, your mum and I will read to you," she said.
"I'd like that," Scorpius said, which made his family relax and sit back in their chairs.
Grandmother marked her page and opened the book to the first chapter. "'The wind blew steadily across the moor as Lady Abigail Woodley stood grasping her handkerchief and surveying the smoking ruins of the grand mansion,'" she read.
Scorpius closed his eyes and let his mind drift on the soothing cadence of her voice. Pretty soon, his mother took up the reading and her voice helped him relax even more. Scorpius sighed contentedly, remembering the many nights when she had read to him when he was little and how safe he felt snuggled against her side while she read. Finally, he succumbed to sleep once more.
A/N: To all of my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day is filled with the people and things you are thankful for. For me, I'm definitely thankful for the hundreds of reviews I've received for this story since I began posting it in April. I'm thankful to my loyal readers and critics alike because you force me to think about my story through your comments and questions; on more than one occasion I've decided to change it a little because of something someone wrote in a review. I'm also thankful to my pre-beta readers for their dedication and time to help me with the story, so Miz636, Mutt n Feathers, RebeccaRipple, Rosina Ferguson, and RSS, I'm sending you big Thanksgiving hugs. Another big thank you goes to my beta, Aggiebell, for all she does to make sure my chapters are posted each Thursday.
On a different note, I'm still working on the next chapter because my computer time has been cut short due to a problem with my computer. The machine itself is working just fine; it's the complication of my husband being home on holiday every day this week that's limiting my writing time as well as the fact that I've been cooking for days to get our family meal on the table today. I will try my best to post on Thursday, December 8th, but I'm not guaranteeing anything. No matter what, though, I'm dedicated to finishing this story and hope to have it completed and posted in full by the end of December.
Help keep Phoenixsong Running - Donate