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Difference between revisions of "Moganshan"
Revision as of 03:13, 3 June 2013
Moganshan [2] is a mountain top tourist region near Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is a good weekend retreat from Shanghai, as it is only a 2.5 hour drive west. It is busiest in July and August, when the weather in the cities and valleys below is much hotter. It is also very nice in the shoulder periods when the cooler weather makes for more pleasant hiking. This contributor has also visited after heavy snowfall in February. The mountain sells half price tickets in the winter, since it is less popular to visit. You can either drive or hike to the summit along the foot paths through the bamboo. In winter it can be lonely and beautiful, well worth the effort.
Get in
The most convenient way is by private car, about a 2.5 hour drive from Shanghai. Or, there is a direct 4 hour bus from Shanghai which leaves 3 times in the morning from the Old North Bus Station. Or, you can take the high speed train to Hangzhou, and take taxi or bus from there.
Get around
The tourist area on top of the mountain is relatively small; there are numerous meandering footpaths that pass by bamboo forests, tea fields, and old stone houses.
There are actually numerous trails on Moganshan. Be prepared to be challenged, though, because they go up for a long time, and then back down. The trails are well kept with stairs where necessary, but are not for the faint of heart. The Temple Hike, for example is about three miles and takes about five hours because one goes from the top of the mountain, down to the valley and back up again.
The trails and sites are abundant and beautiful.
There is a nice park with walking trails at the very top of the mountain. Half way up is the center of the quaint village, made mainly of stone houses, many of which were built in the early 1900s. Below the village is a series of pools and waterfalls that go down a steep canyon. You will need your Moganshan entry ticket to go all the way in.
Enjoy the fresh air and beautiful views. Read a book, go for a hike, sit in a hammock, or try some delicious local beer and cuisine. Be at one with the forest.
Visitors must pay ¥80 to enter the scenic area. Do not lose this ticket, or you may have to buy it again!
Moganshan beer is quite good, and comes in an attractive bottle.
The villages boast many small and inexpensive guest houses that offer nice rooms with en suite and full board if required. The non-Chinese speaker will find communication difficult, but be brave, use the "phone a friend" system and it will be OK. The multi-story homes with large signs are usually guest houses.
Le Passage Mohkan Shan [4], Luxury French Country House Hotel, nostalgic historical property offering luxurious large and comfortable bedrooms (70~120sqm) with an amazing view of private organic tea plantation, heated outdoor pool, delicious French country food and wines for the sophisticated travelers. Deluxe Room 2,100rmb, Garden Room 2,800rmb, Mezzanine Room 3,800rmb. Tel. +86-186-5728-5900
Miss Xu's hotel located in a beautiful old stone mansion is right near town, but with plenty of privacy. 13645725033
A similar hotel nearby with the large Japanese (small leaf) maple tree can be reached at 13567229790 (cell), 0572-8033495, or 0572-8033493
Naked Retreats [5] are beautiful old farmhouses renovated in a truly quaint style. A mix of rustic and luxury. The price is around ¥1500pp (weekdays) and ¥1900pp (weekends) for a couple. Book in advance is advised. Nothing on the mountain truly compares. Tel. +86 21 6431 8901
Moganshan House 23 [6] is run by the same family that operates the Lodge and is a lovely choice. The restored house is charming and the staff is eager to please. Its location is very convenient whether your looking for a place that's close to the trails or close to the town and the Lodge.


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Hey Catamount softball fans,
I hope you are as ready for the Catamount softball season as we are.
With a record of 7-0-1 in the fall, we are eagerly awaiting the start of the season this spring. We have all been working very hard throughout the fall, whether it was in the weight room getting stronger and faster, or on the field practicing and learning more about the game.
This team is going to look much different than last year with seven players leaving and seven new players coming in, including six talented freshmen and one transfer. All of these players contributed to the team very well in the fall and it seems as if they are all going to have great careers here at Western Carolina.
The whole team is getting along very well and you would think that we have been playing together our whole lives. We are just one big happy family and we all have the same attitude in that we are determined to have a great season.
Our first tournament of the season is at College of Charleston on February 14. I know many of you will not make it to Charleston, but we would love to see you all at our first home game against Elon on March 15th!
I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and I pray that you all have a great year!
God Bless and GO CATS!
Taylor Sigmon #15

subset: commoncrawl


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Southampton are set to open contract talks with teen starlet Luke Shaw in a bid to ward off interest from Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea, reports the Daily Star.
The 17-year-old - dubbed the 'next Gareth Bale' - is the latest talent of the club's production line, and has started Saints' last three games after making his Premier League debut as a substitute against West Brom earlier this month.
Club captain Adam Lallana, another of the side's homegrown players, hailed Shaw saying: "There's big similarities between him and Bale. He has got to keep up his fitness and he is going to go far."
Nigel Adkins is keen to reward the exciting left-back for making his first-team breakthrough this season, and keep the Premier League's big guns at bay.
Gunners boss Arsene Wenger has been credited with an interest in signing Shaw, who could follow in the footsteps of former St Mary's scholars Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain by moving to the Emirates Stadium.
However, Arsenal will face stiff competition, with Manchester United also keen on recruiting the talented teenager, with Sir Alex Ferguson known to be in the market for a long-term replacement for Patrice Evra at Old Trafford.
Big-spending champions Manchester City are also believed to be in the mix, with Roberto Mancini eager to bring Europe's brightest up-and-coming talent to the Etihad Stadium, while Chelsea have had offers for Shaw turned down in the past, under the former Stamford Bridge stewardship of Roberto Di Matteo.
Southampton recently handed a fresh five-year contract to promising midfielder James Ward-Prowse, and Shaw - who only turned 17 in July, and is currently the youngest player in the Premier League - is in line to receive similar terms.
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Utility plan methodology gets nod
June 7, 2013
It isn't often that a plan to spend more money on anything in the city gets cheere....
How many years has it taken the city to find out that a. most utility projects in the United States are calculate assessments by linear feet, b. the cost is less, and c. who cares about the residents as long as the city is pulling in their percentage to administer the project and fill the treasury at the expense of the rate payers.
It is no wonder they can not provide to the churches and institutions what other communities have no problem providing.
Face it these utility Projects have been mismanaged for decades. What community takes 19 years or more to return over charged money that was earning interest by someone?
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The six said to heck with the Florida Constitution we don't need to follow that.
Article 1 of the Florida Constitution Section 3 reads: (read the whole section please below please)
SECTION 3. Religious freedom.—There shall be no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting or penalizing the free exercise thereof. Religious freedom shall not justify practices inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety. No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.
I am no lawyer, anyone know what laws Cape Coral is following.
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"It's a benefit that has stood the test of time, and I believe it's the fairest way to move forward," Councilmember Kevin McGrail said. "We don't ever want to tax the churches out of existence."
Really? I actually think it would be a mighty fine idea to "tax the churches out of existence." I have a serious problem with any religious institution being given tax/fee breaks. Just gives me another reason to vote against you, McGrail.
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The relationship to Mother Earth and the natural conditions has been the cornerstone of man's evolution since the beginning of time. This becomes very obvious if we reflect on what has motivated man's actions since the beginning of history. Humans' developmental journey started through an interest in understanding nature's ways and rhythms in order to protect ourselves from its eventual harshness, and gradually shifted towards devising ways of using it for our own benefit and comfort. That shift has resulted in the sense of separation and disunion from Mother Earth that is so common in our Western society.
But at the most basic level, we are nature. We, humans, are part of life on this planet. Eco-psychologists postulate that contact with nature is not just beneficial but necessary for our health and well-being. A number of studies demonstrate that the awareness that arises from getting in touch with nature is highly beneficial to humans as it enhances a positive attitude, a sense of peace, wholeness, joy, and the ability to deal with the challenges we encounter in life. Biophilia is a concept that refers to humans' innate need to affiliate with other forms of life such as plants and animals, meaning that humans have an instinctive desire to be near nature. In fact, we are much more closely connected to it than perhaps we would like to admit. There is an interesting myth related to the strength that Mother Earth can confer. Antaeus was the son of Poseidon and Gaia. He was a giant of tremendous and unbeatable strength as long as he remained in contact with his mother Gaia – Mother Earth. Heracles discovered his secret and, having to fight with him on his way to one of his famous twelve labours, defeated him by lifting him in the air, thus disconnecting him from his natural source of power.
How does all that link with astrology? As you probably know, astrological charts are cast using one particular system of coordinates, and there are three different systems. The charts we use for natal work, forecasting, horary, mundane or electional astrology are based on the Ecliptic coordinates system. We use that system because it plots the planets within the ecliptic – i.e. the zodiac – which has symbolical value to us astrologers, as is represents the mythic journey of the hero towards gaining his or her divine condition. We place the planets on it as we see it from a particular place and time on earth. So, in the ecliptic system, we see the planets 'out there' in the sky, from a particular location and moment 'down here' on earth. Some planets are above our heads in the upper half of the chart, and some can be under our feet in the lower half. The second system is the equatorial system, whose basic parameter is the celestial equator, and which, like the ecliptic system, sees the planets from a moment and place here on earth, using the celestial equator as a frame of reference instead. The celestial equator is still a celestial parameter. In these two systems, the only features directly related to the chart owner's geographical location are the angles.
But there is yet a third system: the Horizon System. Like the first two, this system uses a geographical location and a moment in time, but instead of using a celestial parameter to plot the planets it uses the horizon, a purely terrestrial thing. The local space technique consists of casting astrological charts with the Horizon System. The whole chart is on the person's horizon, all the planets are on it, and the information it provides is used for geodetic purposes. Since the circle where the planets are plotted is the local horizon there are no planets hidden under our feet. We have all the planets around us.
For different reasons, mathematical and cultural, this system has for years been almost totally abandoned by astrologers. The data to calculate these charts were not as easily available as the data for ecliptic charts, and also, as mentioned before, the interest in our connection to Mother Earth gradually decreased as the power of the intellect increased. As a consequence all forms of geodetic knowledge have been abandoned to a certain degree in Western countries, and only in the latest years have these somehow been reborn through the increasing interest in Feng Shui, the Chinese form of geomancy.
The Horizon System is a geomantic practice – Geo = 'earth', mancy = 'usage'. Therefore, geomancy is a discipline that 'uses the earth'. The Horizon System sees the planets on the person's horizon and the cardinal directions. It is the astrological form of geomancy.
The mathematical problem of drawing horizon charts was solved by the Erlewines, founders of Matrix Software, when they included horizontal calculations in their computer programs. Nowadays the professional astrological programs offer this option and can calculate planetary positions in azimuth,1 the measure of the planets' positions on the horizon. The Horizon System gives a flat perspective of our planetary positions, and the horizon chart (the local space chart) can be considered as a magical circle that we have around us all the time and everywhere we go. It is our personal astrological compass. In fact, any azimuth position draws a line that can be plotted on a map across the earth starting from the observer's location and also terminating there. This means that we can draw a map of planetary lines out of the local space chart. These lines are radial and we are placed at the centre of the map, where all the lines converge.
Why use the local space techniques? The natal chart as we know it represents our journey through life, but we often forget that we do this journey here, on earth. This journey implies moving around the area where we live, using the space we live in, or travelling across the planet. Through the local space technique the intangible symbols of the natal chart become tangible because we translate them into horizontal parameters – we bring them to our local space.
The local space chart effectively tells us where in our surroundings we find our planetary energies. The person is placed in the centre of the chart and both the planets and the individual are directly on the plane of the person's horizon. In order to imagine what a local space chart would look like, you can picture yourself in the middle of a large circle in a field with one line that goes from you to each planet's position on that circle. The circle accompanies you wherever you go or move on the planet. It is your local space, your personal astrological compass.
The local space chart is an amazing tool to attune ourselves to our piece of earth, with our surroundings, and it can be a valuable tool when we want to change location or find a good place to spend our holidays.
In order to work with the local space technique we just need a local space chart with the planets calculated in azimuth for our birthplace or our current location – we can use both and I would encourage you to experiment with how these two options work for you. The professional astrological computer programs can do these charts. They look like a circle with the 360 degrees and the planets plotted on it. There are no signs and no houses, just the circle and the planets and each planet has its own direction and a line that connects it to the centre.
Apart from the local space chart, computer programs also generate local space maps that draw your planetary lines across the globe. You just need to be careful not to mix them up with the ACG lines. The ACG lines show you where in the world the planets would be around the Ascendant/Descendant axis (curved lines) or around the MC/IC axis (vertical lines), whilst the local space map tells you the geographical places where you can have an actual experience of each planet.
But the big question is: are the planetary lines there for us to use them consciously, or can we follow them inadvertently even if we have no idea of their existence? Both things are true. Anyone who studies or works with astrology knows well that people express their natal chart independently of whether they know about it or believe it works. So we tend to follow our planetary lines unconsciously, but we can also use them to attune ourselves to our planets and refine their expression. We move around our surroundings when doing our daily routines such as going to work, to university, to the gym, when we bring our children to school, or visit that friend with whom we have a special relationship. There are also some places in the world that fascinate us, or places we have visited where we have had a very particular kind of experience that could be described as 'Martian', or 'Neptunian', or 'Saturnian', etc. It can also happen that some of the important things, opportunities or people in our life come directly from a particular place in the world or have their origins there. And finally, we can even observe how we use the different areas of our house and how we experience them – perhaps we spend more time in a particular room than in others, feel specially well in there, cannot keep a particular area in order, or have taken the trouble to arrange a working space somewhere in the house but then feel we cannot really work there. An exploration of the planetary lines in our surroundings, in the world, and in our house can be surprisingly revealing and can give us the reason behind these situations.
We will see an example of planetary line activity in the chart of Ernesto Guevara, internationally known as Che Guevara. He was a major and controversial figure of the Cuban Revolution whose stylized visage is widely known and has become a countercultural symbol – Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. I am going to show you just a few examples of how his movements in his surroundings and later on in the world followed the personal compass of his planetary lines. Note: when we use local space maps in the world, a planet line can be considered active up to a distance of 200 miles (320 km) each side.
He was born in Rosario, Argentina, on the 14th June (2) 1928 at 21:30. During his early years his family spent half of the time in Buenos Aires and half of the time in Caraguatay, where his father owned mate plantations. This speaks a lot of his Sun in Gemini (being in two places), and its rulership over the Descendant suggests that he might have experienced that duality through others, not by his self-will. Also, the Sun is conjunct Venus, ruler of the IC and therefore associated with the family and their properties. We can see on the local space map that the Sun's line runs very near Caraguatay. But we could also figure out that with the Uranus line running exactly through Buenos Aires, his experience in that city could have been marked by instability and changes. This was certainly the case, as his family moved house three times in Buenos Aires during his first two years of life. Uranus is his Ascendant co-ruler and it is unaspected in the 2nd house.
On the other side the Uranus line goes to Córdoba. This is where the family moved when Ernesto started to suffer bouts of acute asthma. We can also see that there are a few important lines (Mars, Jupiter, Moon and Chiron) going towards the northwest of Argentina, and indeed, that area exerted a particular pull on him. His famous motorcycle journey went precisely in that direction and his notes during that journey, The Motorcycle Diaries, became a best-seller, adapted into a film with the same title.
But there are more interesting issues around his Mars and Jupiter lines. The Mars line continues travelling to the northwest and goes across Guatemala, where he met his first wife. She was born in Lima, also within active distance from his Mars line (158 miles). Mars trines his Descendant and Neptune in the 7th house. They went to Chiapas for their honeymoon, and his Mars line crosses México exactly in that area. He met Fidel Castro in México and had his first daughter there – Mars sextiles his Sun in the 5th house.
His second wife was from Cuba, as was Fidel Castro, and he is known internationally for his involvement with the Cuban Revolution. He felt at home in Cuba; his personal identification with Castro and the Cuban people and their cause was automatic, and he adopted Castro's social and political ideologies to build his own philosophy.
He was ideologist and major of the Cuban Revolution and was involved in the organisation of the Cuban State, where he held a few different important positions, mainly in the financial area. He was in charge of several international missions in the diplomatic department, and was president of the National Bank and industry minister. His Jupiter line goes through Cuba; it is in Taurus and co-rules the 2nd house.
He also had some interest in exporting Cuban Revolution ideology to other countries, and he offered his knowledge and experience in guerrilla tactics to the ongoing conflict in the Congo during the '60s. This was not a particularly positive experience – full of problems and misunderstandings, resulting in a complete failure. This was his Neptune line, which seems to be more appropriate for artistic, inspirational or spiritual activities rather than for getting involved in a guerrilla war as a way of solving conflicts. Most possibly the failure of that mission was due to trying to use that line for something that was alien to its energy.
Finally, it is interesting to see the lines related to his execution in a camp in Bolivia. The place is on the Moon-Chiron lines, and his Moon is conjunct the IC and 4th house (using quadrant houses), traditionally associated with endings.
Moreover, it seems that the CIA was involved in these events and if we follow the Moon-Chiron lines up to the United States we find them going very near Langley (Virginia) where the CIA has its headquarters.
From a more self-conscious point of view what is most interesting about the local space technique is its invocational element. The word invoke comes from the Latin invocare, which means 'call upon'. Every time we follow a planet line across the world we are invoking that planet's energy, we are calling that archetype to be manifested in our life. But it is very important to take into account that we are not invoking that planet in its neutral, archetypal form, but with the characteristics it has in our natal chart by its cosmic condition (sign, house, aspects, etc.). We are invoking not Venus but our Venus, we are invoking not Saturn but our Saturn, and so on. In other words, moving to our Jupiter line will probably not sort all our problems unless we have developed a balanced and constructive relationship with our Jupiter.
Having made that point, there is another fascinating use of the local space technique: our home and workplace. In fact, these are our nearest bits of local space and we spend the majority of our time there. They are our own small universe and we can also find all our planetary energies around us in there. Since it is relatively easy to make changes at home we can use the invocational effect to work for a better integration and greater balance of our chart through adjusting our home or workplace and its different areas according to the conditions depicted by our natal chart. We can soften the tension of a square, we can make a trine more dynamic, bring focus to or lighten the expression of a particular planet, etc., and we can also make relevant changes and arrangements in our house when we have transits or progressions that shift the emphasis towards a particular area of our chart in order to make the most of that astrological event.
Finding out where our local space lines are at home or at our workplace is very easy. We just need to draw an accurate floor plan of the place, find due north with a compass and draw the cardinal points on the map – it is advisable to take several measurements at different areas in order to ensure that they are not distorted by the presence of strong electronic equipment, either in our place or in our neighbours'. Then we need to find the centre of the plan by drawing the diagonals. We can mark their intersection with a little cross. If the space is not a regular polygon, we need to make it regular by adding the missing bits and find the centre of the regular polygon that is created by doing this. Now we can superpose our local space map onto it and see where our lines go. In relation to the workplace, if your job requires that you move around the whole workplace you can take it all, but if you have your own place, office, practice, etc. within a building or a shared venue then take just the space where you work. If you print your local space chart on a transparency you will be able to put it over any map or plan, and if the size of the compass circle is too small you can always enlarge the planetary lines manually.
The planetary lines are radial and therefore go in both directions from the centre. It seems that both sides have approximately the same power, although it is said that the side where the planet actually is can be stronger. If two planets are within an orb of five degrees in the natal chart the energies of these planets cannot be used separately.
How does this work in practice? The most important principle when doing local space work at home is the principle of the conjunction. We understand the conjunction as the meeting of a line and an object. Your planetary lines as they are at the moment in your house meet different objects which have particular shapes, colours and usages, so they make conjunctions with these objects. They also end up on a wall painted in a particular colour and maybe meet a particular image or painting hanged there.
Astrology is an analogical language and therefore we can associate any object with a planet by its colour, shape or role. For instance, we all know that the colour red is Mars, concave shapes are Lunar, a bouquet of flowers is Venusian and a bookcase is Jupiterian. A proper blend of the planet lines with objects, shapes, colours or usages can help the planets to express their best face. Likewise, an inadequate blend of planet lines and objects can prevent either the planet or the object from functioning properly. When a planet line hits objects that are antagonistic to its nature or we have an object that is on a line that is not favourable to its usage, we have a potential problem.
I can give you some examples of clients with whom I have done local space work. One client had her computer on her Moon-Venus-Neptune line and she had been having problems since she bought it. It crashed often for no apparent reason and was exceptionally slow. It is obvious that computers may not 'feel' particularly comfortable on these lines – the Uranus or Mercury lines seem more appropriate. Since this client did not have any other place in her flat where she could put her computer she put a photo of a gorgeous mountain goat at the top of a rocky mountain on a shelf just over the computer. The intention was to bring a bit of Saturn to put some order into the functioning of her computer. All the problems were solved within one week and her computer is still functioning properly.
Exactly the same happened to another client, who solved the problem by fixing a beautiful photo of the planet Saturn onto his PC. Another example is a client who had a spare room in her flat and used it as a sort of storage room. She used to accumulate all sorts of old and useless things there. The problem was that her Chiron line went through that room and she has Chiron angular in the 10th house. She has indeed a very Chironian profession, as she is a teacher of special education for disabled children, and her career was not really progressing as she would have wished it to. She cleared the room, threw away what was no longer useful and put a big bookcase with books and materials she used when she was at university and related to her profession. Thus she was blending the energy of Jupiter with the planet representative of her career, and things started to flow and progress for her.
Finally, the planetary lines also work in our neighbourhood, town or city, and the line we travel most frequently is important since it represents a planet which we are in contact with regularly. The 'conjunction effect' is applicable here as well. For example, if you follow your Saturn line when you go to work and you do not have a particularly harmonious relationship with your Saturn, you may have a tough experience at work, but you can also take that as an opportunity to learn about your relationship with that archetype and maybe improve it. And if you go to work following the line of a planet which you experience as a positive energy in your life, your experience at work can be positive. If you use the local space map in your town you should take the place you live as the centre, and if you use it on another town or city, take the official city centre to be the centre of the map independently of whether that point is the geographic centre of that city.
The local space technique is a huge and multilayered subject and there is much more in it than what could be said in this article, but I hope I have managed to give you a general idea of what it is and how it can be used. We can really do magic if we get ourselves attuned to our charts through using this incredible form of geomancy in the different facets and areas of our life.
1 Azimuth measures the distance of an object along the horizon, in degrees, minutes and seconds of arc from the north point of the horizon.
2 Some astrologers prefer to use a different date for Che Guevara. This article uses the accepted birth date of 14th June as given in the official biographies.
Reference books:
Steve Cozzi, Planets in Locality: Exploring Local Space Astrology, Llewellyn Publications 1988.
Martin Davis, Astrolocality Astrology, a guide to what it is and how to use it, The Wessex Astrologer 1999.
Glòria Roca, DFAstrolS, started to study astrology formally in 1991 with the Faculty of Astrological Studies. She also studied esoteric astrology with Alan Oken, and Hermetic Symbology at the Centre d'Estudis de Simbologia in Barcelona. Since she obtained her Faculty Diploma in 2002 she has worked as a teacher, consultant astrologer and Faculty tutor. Glòria is the Faculty's Head of Examinations and combines this with her astrological consultation practice, astro-feng shui and research into her main fields of interest: psychological astrology and local space techniques. She founded an astrological school, Aula Astrològica de Catalunya, in Barcelona in 2012. Glòria can be reached via her websites www.astro.cat and www.aula-astrologica.cat or via email at email@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com
First published in: The Astrological Journal, May/June 2014
© The Astrological Association of Great Britain 2014
The Astrological Association is a registered charity dedicated to the support and promotion of astrology in all its branches. For over fifty years, it has been serving the astrological community through informing and bringing together astrologers from all over the world, via its stable of publications, its annual Conference, Kepler Research Day and other occasional events, and its support of local astrological groups. It also represents the interests of astrologers generally, responding when appropriate to issues raised within the media.
The first book available in English by the great French master astrologer Andre Barbault. The Value of Astrology offers incisive, captivating insights into the origins, classical tradition and modern uses of astrology.
For more information and ordering, please visit the website of the Astrological Association.
Current Planets
26-May-2018, 18:35 UT/GMT
|25' 2"
|47' 3"
|0' 6"r
|Explanations of the symbols
|Chart of the moment


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Some of the treasures from Man's mother's affects are small in size but large in emotional value. Man's father, Art, drove bus for a number of years before World War II. I found this photo of him in his bus driver's uniform deep in one of those boxes retrieved from Millie's house.
Now a bus driver just HAS to be on time, eh?? Art carried his watch on a pocket watch chain. It now hangs in this small dome.
The bus driver's watch, an essential tool,
and a treasure in our treasure chest.


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I KNOW this is no fun for you..... Take some solice in the fact that
1) as SOON as we recieve payment, you will be set up in minutes.
2) you time will NOT start untill you are set up... so it's not like days are ticking away now.
I wish there was something else we could do for you.
I'm sure this is frustrating for you, thanks for your patience and understanding.
All I ever had linked to my Paypal was my bank account, for YEARS...
every hack payment I ever made went through instantly and I was able to access my hacks and forum instantly.
The only time anyone had to wait was with an e-check from their bank.
looks like you are up and Running Mate - -
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Until it isn't.
It's very safe though - just so safe no one can get access to it!
Oh their data is safe. They just can't get to it or use it in any way.
Yes, they can. It's service management that's down, not data.
Users can still access data.
Nonsense, Microsoft is the name you can trust for security.
Except those dumb terminals were, well, dumb, while nowadays the "terminals" are essentially the same as the "mainframe" but slower. So you can have hybrid configurations were a dedicated machines handles the base load and spins up remote resources on demand to handle peaks. If those resources are unavailable, the dedicated machine can still do the job, just with some performance degradation.
A good example would be a script on your laptop that started an EC2 instance running distcc to reduce your compilation time from hours to minutes. If the instance can't be loaded, you could still compile, it just takes more time.
If only even a single cloud service were actually built this way, it'd be great!
There are. Search for "hybrid hosting", "hybrid cloud" and similar.
Except this time you can add as many mainframes you wanted, dynamically. And access them over the internet. And serve content to millions of people over said internet. That wasn't possible with this clichéd "mainframes!!!!!1" nonsense. Yes, you are using a remote computer. That's the only similarity. The current terminals are far from dumb, and the server being connected to is vastly different to the mainframes of old.
I wonder how old you are? The current "Web 2.0" paradigm reminds me very much of the old 3270 style mainframe environment.
Yes, both the endpoints and servers have become more capable, but there are still many similarities to the old style model.
Everything old is new again. The only real advance ove rthe mainframe model here is AJAX - and until HTML 5 really matures it's still a half-assed solution, but better than a dumb terminal.
Of course mainframes could add compute power to particular customers dynamically. Of course they could serve content to millions of customers (Visa used mainframes for transaction processing until quite recently). "Normal" HTML pages and forms are *very* similar to terminal-mainframe interaction. The older web server
The same problems with scaling now existed back in the main frame days, and the same solutions were present. No matter how many CPUs you throw to a developer, the applications must be developed to scale with them.
Do some digging on DMP (Dynamic Multi-Processor) and SMP (Symetric Multi-Processor) architectures and you will probably be amazed at how long ago these methods were being used.
This to me is the hilarity of the people that push "Cloud". They say things like Microsoft did in their "Yeah Cloud" comm
Hey! After rain comes sunshine. Now they'll just have to wait for cloud formations again...
When you rely on a 3rd party for cloud storage and that 3rd party has a basically nonexistent SLA for an under 30 day outage, it becomes your own fault for making a horrible business decision.
when you take a 3rd party cloud storage solution and implement it yourself for your enterprise, guess what? it works. And if there's issues, you know who's to blame.
https://spideroak.com/diy/ [spideroak.com] - this is one example of but many.
Or, as I like to phrase it.
If all your data is in the Cloud, what happens when it rains?
Or how about "Never outsource your core functionality?
Never outsource your core functionality
Or more specifically, don't cloud your reasons for using it. Know what you are getting before you go there.
Ah, so there's the question. How much would it cost for you to run a system with 'no' downtime? I'm at a university, some of our labs (not so much in comp sci but generally) have fairly specific requirements about say not losing power, because it would damage/destroy equipment or running experiments.
But IT is more than just power. In almost 4 years here every year we've had several days of downtime for our main undergraduate server (the one undergrads are supposed to use for various things, and that handles their logins and file storage), and several on the separate but arguably more important staff server, which is supposed does the same thing, but that includes all of our grant applications.
Causes of our server outages (I'm not an IT guy, this is just what they've told us that I can remember): Power failures. Yes we have battery backups, but they're only good for so long, and since none of our equipment suffers permanent damage without power this isn't high priority. Networking. We only have two redundant pipes. That, for home use for example, or most businesses is pretty good. For our pipes one goes to a host to the west, one to the east. I'm not specifically familiar with what failed that took our networking offline for 7 or 8 hours but it affected both pipes. Storage: bad raid controller on the main fileserver. This has a few cascading effects. If you don't realizing it's garbling data it ends up distributing that garble off to the backups or clones. When it crashes (which doesn't take that long after the controller starts getting messy) you may have several backups that need to be repaired. We can't do much to the file system while it's being repaired or rebuilt (which, afaik you should be able to do on most professional grade setups, but for whatever reason our linux guys can't get it to behave). Added fun: When the system comes back up, if you tried to access your e-mail while the file system was garbled you probably still can't. And you get no error message about it. It just spits back nothing, as though you have no new mail. The system is 'up' but doesn't work and you have to go into your directory and delete some files that most people have never heard of. It's not hard to do, but because you have no idea that there's a problem the less technically inclined (or just ESL) people in building full of computer scientists don't always fix it immediately. The net effect is that if the storage controller gets messed up, we're down for 3 or 4 days if not longer.
And that's just one university department. We have a relatively decent amount of money, and several full time staff for these things. But we probably can't match any cloud services uptime, even with 7 or 8 hours of downtime regularly, not even close. It's not a trivial calculation, even a 50 or 60 employee outfit will probably have trouble matching Amazon or Azure uptime with a full time IT guy. There's probably a cross over point where you have enough employees to support big enterprise IT infrastructure and manpower, but only support it badly (there's not enough money for proper replication or whatever), and then eventually you get big enough that you just run everything in house anyway because there's definitely no cost advantage to hiring someone. For us, I think we have 5 or 6 IT staff, if we could toss 3 of them, + all of their equipment, you're looking at somewhere around 350, 400k/year to spend on a support contract. I'm guessing, but don't know, if you can get a cloud service for ~20 TB of reasonably reliable file and e-mail storage for less than 350k/year from these guys.
The big place I see people right now (as a sort of flavour of the month) using cloud service as an augment to burst capacity needs. That's a whole other analysis.
What ghetto assed university do you go to where they cannot get their server straight?
Good points. Near 100% uptime is intrinsically hard. And if you think your admins can do it better those at a dedicated cloud hosting provider
Or how about "Never outsource your core functionality?
That would be a good engineering practice. A good business practice is to show your initiative by outsourcing to the cloud and then hope to be promoted away before anything bad happens. It really is time for managers to be liable for the mistakes they make in long-term decisions.
Cluster at the application level and have nodes at different providers. If your volume is too high for that, you are big enough to host your own stuff.
After an outage this long, it takes a LOOONG time to earn your way back to five nines (which works out to 5.5 minutes of downtime per year).
Only 84 years per the article, and growing at a rate of a year every 5 minutes.
Thats probably about how long it would take me to trust MS in an enterprise environment.
it's a leap year, they can be down a full day and still claim they were up for 365 days this year!
I've always had to laugh at the name "Office 365" -- the fact this happened on Leap Day amuses me to no end.
In light of Excel's horribly buggy code of handling Leap Day, I have to wonder if Microsoft's problems here might not be because it's Leap Day? Whaddaya bet Azure comes back up all fine and dandy once the date rolls over to 1 March instead of 29 February? I'm actually serious about this conjecture, this is not just an attempt at humor.
On a different angle, does anyone else find it amusingly ironic that this service is named Azure, and now it's blue-screened? They've only gone up one letter -- now it's the ASOD.
After an outage this long, it takes a LOOONG time to earn your way back to five nines (which works out to 5.5 minutes of downtime per year).
I'd be surprised if Microsoft (or anybody) is actually offering five nines for uptime.
The fine print often says "well, we don't actually promise anything, and any outage and loss is your problem".
One of the selling points of using cloud services was that it would be more reliable than managing your own hardware/software. But to date, every single big player has suffered major downtime. If I would be hesitant to believe the sales pitch.
But still, for most companies that are good candidates for cloud offerings, even 8 hours of downtime once a year is probably better than they can guarantee using their own infrastructure. Companies in this range tend to not have redundant servers, offsite backups, disaster recovery sites, etc. Larger companies that can build redundant infrastructure (and staff it properly) are probably better off staying away from the cloud since they can guarantee any level of uptime and redunancy they want to pay for.
Of course, when a small company Admin spills a cup of coffee in the Exchange server and they are down for 5 days while building a replacement server, it doesn't make the news so you never hear about it...while when a large cloud provider has a 2 hour outage, it's all over the news.
...the British Governments Cloud service suffers the inevitable Microsoft kiss of death [v3.co.uk].
The hilarious part of this link is that the article detailing how screwed people are for depending on Microsoft's cloud services is stuffed with rollover ads for...Microsoft's cloud services!
Government's G-Cloud service knocked offline by Microsoft Azure cloud computing outage
And all around the page, an ad that says
Get in the cloud - Microsoft Office 365
Just like hearing a Subway commercial while in the restrooms of a McDonalds... Priceless!
...And all around the page, an ad that says
Get in the cloud - Microsoft Office 365
Well, clearly they need to release Microsoft Office 366 that works on leap years.
clearly judging by the name they only intended it to work 365 days a year
Leap year strikes again?
That was my first thought.
Yay, cloud!
This is not helping, guys!
We have a vendor that provides software distribution through Azure. It is completely down; no software and not even the web-based administration panel.
So it isn't just the ability to fire up new VMs, but (from my experience) seems to be a complete platform failure for some customers.
To be specific Microsoft said about 2.8% of customers lost storage/hosting.
I concur with what others have said. There are numerous services, being provided by Azure, that are completely unreachable, and have been so for longer than seven hours.
like google does when something goes wrong. just explain how you're going to change things and why it happened and it will all be OK
At this point, the best way to keep their credibility from further deteriorating is to provide good reports on what is going on. E.g., not like PSN, more like Amazon [amazon.com]. Currently that Azure dashboard doesn't even load for me... has it been slashdotted or something?
As an aside: whenever a cloud system goes down, people come out to rag on the reliability of the cloud. While I'm also annoyed by the marketing guys throwing around "just put it in the cloud!!" as much as anyone else, and agree some applications
It seems like even the biggest guys can't make it work reliably, and presumably given the high profile of these services, they're not afraid to throw money and smart people at these problems.
It's the Azure CLoud of Death!
It's funny how those of us who bring up issues of data security and service resiliency are dismissed as just trying to protect our jobs.
Like so many other things, the actual technical underpinnings of "the cloud" are great, and have been standard fare for years. Virtual machines + flexible networking are a godsend for systems guys tasked with getting capacity for a new project up and going yesterday. I love being able to build and rip down entire test environments just to try something out...that used to mean a rack of physical servers, switchgear, etc. tied up while it was being used. That's why everyone's slowly coming around to the "private/hybrid cloud" model, which is really just code for "VMs + network capacity + something to tie it all together + maybe some external hosting".
The problem is that "the cloud" is very badly misunderstood. As sson as a CIO sees "virtual, on-demand capacity without those pesky physical on-site machines and IT staff, for a fixed cost per compute-hour" everything else takes a back seat. Then, it's "why do we need IT staff on-site, everything's being taken care of in the cloud." Public clouds like Amazon or Azure are great for startups who can't really afford their own data centers, or even bigger businesses to offload some of the nonessential stuff. When you start looking at hosting everything though, the marketing hype of the cloud sometimes distracts people from realities that they have to contend with.
Also, I'm not saying that businesses who go the private cloud or traditional hosting/outsourcing route won't have downtime -- they will. However, having onsite staff and infrastructure means you can work those staff until they fix the problem, and you have control over them. Most sane outsourcing contracts have SLAs in them stating that the vendor will expend X amount of effort to fix your problems. Cloud provider agreements, unless specifically mentioned otherwise, are "as is, where is, best effort restoration with no warranty." OK, maybe some providers will give you an SLA, but all that does is buy you free service at a later date if they violate it...it doesn't bring your application back online. You still have no choice but to sit and wait around for the provider to fix whatever's wrong...just ask Amazon EC2 customers about what happened during their last outage...
Companies need to draw sane boundaries around hosted systems, and decide what is critical and what can be offloaded. Do I care about a set of development/test machines that get used once a month? Probably a lot less than the critical database/application servers that run my core business. Comfort level, cost per minute of downtime vs. cost of dedicated resources and other factors need to be carefully considered before jumping into the cloud with both feet.
Just so you know, the data is still accessible in Azure, it's the management console that's
down. That's still bad, but lets deal with the actual facts.
A) the cloud doesn't need to mean offsite. It often is, but the philosophy can be brought in house.
B) redundancy.
Companies should completely adopt the cloud philosophy, but keep onsite system redundancy; which is still cheaper and easier then current non cloud solutions.
The desktops should just be cloud machines. Note, I don't say dumb terminals bacau
if so, that's the breaks. If not, then there should be contractual SLAs and penalties involved.
...there should be contractual SLAs and penalties involved
Do you really think Microsoft would put a gun on their own head like that, assuming they learned from their past?
I think they provide the service "As-is and with best-effort service recovery". Read the fine prints, I'm sure you'll find something like that.
I had an outage on Salesforce for 1 week and they did absolutely nothing regarding giving me any free account time or anything except "Sorry".
Their explanation was a massive multiterabyte log file had to processed since what corruption they had extended to their backup.
Shouldn't ever happen.
This was last Autumn.
All boy scouts should take away this: Cloud promises are made to be broken.
Given how boastful and grand these claims are, this really is not a surprise to anybody competent. Complex systems fail. They fail in complex ways. Redundancy helps in some ways, but makes things worse in others, by increasing complexity.
Also keep in mind that when outsourcing IT, the IT people suddenly have different business goals than you do. As long as they stay afloat, they do not really care whether you go under. In-house IT is different. They are sitting in the same boat. And any sane management wil
I wrote a comment on slashdot a while back which questioned the sensibleness of running services in the cloud. I used to be a sceptic.
Since then I've used Rackspace Cloud and found that it's actually a very good idea, for certain things.
The benefits of using a cloud system are scalability and no commitment- it's not about reliability or higher availability - but you do get a little win in those areas.
To give some examples, I was recently able to play around with mysql clustering. I followed a mysql clustering howto [reliablepenguin.com] and played around with it, setup a mysql cluster with load balancers. Once I was finished geeking about, I saved the VMs to the file storage and deleted the cloud instances. Total cost a £/$2-3 maximum. I hadn't previously been able to do this, I would have had to rent a dedicated server which would serve websites, email etc. I couldn't really use the dedicated server to play with new technology in case it had a negative impact on the live systems. I did have development box for a while, but it essentially doubled my costs without making any more money, just offering some protecting.
Now I have staging/development instances in the cloud - and no commitments to them - I don't have to worry about a £250 monthly bill or sign a 12 month contract to get my own box. I can fire up some resources, use them, and throw it away when I'm done.
The upshot is that I can play around with other peoples cool open source software without risk or buggering something up on my live box, and the costs are insignificant since I'm only renting it per hour. I can try something new, if it works great - it might go/stay in production. If not, delete it and move onto the next cool thing.
If I need high availability, I would use Rackspace, Amazon, Azure, and I'd ensure that I have a plan to deal with a major outage with any of the providers. Each have APIs, so in theory I could create new instances automagically and failover between different cloud providers with a quick DNS change, while keep costs low.
To recap, the cloud isn't all about high availability - no matter what the marketing says. It's about scaling systems and running resources for small amounts of time, and is perfectly suited to services which have peak demand (ticket sales for example).
Correct about the availability. Cloud services are a cheap way to rent processing/storage resources really cheap.
If I need high availability, I would use Rackspace, Amazon, Azure, and I'd ensure that I have a plan to deal with a major outage with any of the providers. Each have APIs,
Unless the API is proprietary (or just non standard) and the cloud operator introduces some systemic fault* into their services. What then?
Building apps targeted to LAMP services (for example) don't necessarily suffer from these problems. Because not every provider is installing the same patches at the same time (or even running the same configurations). So you gain reliability from a sort of ge
It's called Fog.
People that believe the cloud is not as risk for downtimes are just stupid and deserve exactly what they get. The cloud not only has the normal risks any comparable infrastructure has, but also suffers from additional risks because of complex network connectivity, complex usage patterns and untried system administration patterns.
People that still think this now are not only stupid but unwilling to learn, as the Amazon outage last year clearly showed the risks. In addition, Amazon is very likely more competent than Microsoft at this by any sane metric.
I could fix this with a $35 payment to someone?
Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling


text:
Television's annual advertising auction is underway.
Fox, NBC, CBS and CW have begun selling their commercial slots for the upcoming television season as part of the annual auction known as the upfront market, people familiar with the process said Wednesday.
The ad market appeared to be moving a bit slowly -- with both sides giving ground on key points to secure deals.
Networks have asked advertisers to pay for viewers who record and watch a show within seven days after its initial broadcast.
In return, advertisers have demanded that some networks slash their ad rates to compensate for the extended viewing window. At least one major advertising agency is negotiating deals that include payments for viewers who watch a show within a week after its network debut.
To get this year's market moving, Fox agreed to lower prices for its prime-time spots.
The broadcast network, owned by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox media company, had less leverage with advertisers this year because it just wrapped up a disappointing season with plummeting ratings for its regularly scheduled programs, including "American Idol."
Last week, Fox's entertainment chairman, Kevin Reilly, announced he would leave the network after seven years.
Movie studios were the first to strike deals, which is typical because the studios want to lock in premium TV time to promote their big-budget film releases.
NBC has been able to raise its prices. NBC saw its prime-time ratings jump 17% in the just-ended season in the key audience demographic, boosted by such shows as "Sunday Night Football," "The Blacklist" and "The Voice."
The peacock has been securing rate increases of about 8%, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
In contrast, Fox's rate increases appear to be closer to 3% to 4%.
NBC's parent company also negotiates its deals different from the other networks.
NBCUniversal, owned by cable giant Comcast Corp., bundles commercial time on the NBC network with advertising inventory for its cable channels, including USA Network, Bravo, E! and Syfy. The company for the last two years has tried to capitalize on an economic theory of a "rising-tide-lifts-all-boats."
Also on Wednesday, CBS and CW executives were negotiating with leading ad buyers, people close to the negotiations said.
CBS owns 50% of the small CW broadcast network, which last month impressed some ad buyers with its new shows, including "The Flash" and "Jane the Virgin."
The CBS network, the marquee property of CBS Corp., benefits from the most stable prime-time schedule in television with such returning shows as "The Big Bang Theory," "NCIS," "Elementary" and "Survivor."
CBS rolled out promising new shows, including "Madam Secretary," a political drama with Tea Leoni.
CBS also is expected to score ratings touchdowns this fall with its NFL Thursday night football package. Advertisers have been snapping up time in NFL football, although CBS was not selling commercials in Thursday football as part of its upfront negotiations.
It was unclear late Wednesday whether ABC had started its sales.
The auction is known as the upfront market because the networks sell two-thirds of their advertising time in advance of the upcoming season. Advertisers make commitments to buy ad spots for a certain price in exchange for the network guaranteeing audience levels.
If a show does not deliver the audience promised, then the network is obligated to compensate or "make good" on the ratings deficiency by providing additional time.


text:
It's never going to end.
#predicablecompetition, #wewonthewar.
It's never going to end.
#predicablecompetition, #wewonthewar.
Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
Too many bones, not enough CASH!!
RIP Craig
LOL @ you blokes saying this in the most open AFL season in modern history.
The only spread I'm interested in is the nutella I'm going to spread all over my bread right now. Snack time.
St Kilda.
Parmi | #1 draft pick | Jake King is **** | Big Bash League tipping champion of the universeCome and Paint Turtle
St Kilda here too, danke.
Nudges to Burge and Somers.
Cricket Web's current Premier League Tipping Champion
- As featured in The Independent.
"Like queuing at the post office, or a cardboard cup of weak milky tea there is a quality of slightly clichéd but still beautifully reassuring Englishness about watching Cook bat"
- Barney Ronay
Carlton to beat the Brisbane Lions.
WWCC - Loyaulte Mi Lie
"Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself" - Tony Benn
#408. Sixty three not out forever.
morgieb: Hawthorn
benchmark00: St Kilda
BoyBrumby: St Kilda
Somerset: Carlton
Burgey: Adelaide
Teams Used:
morgieb: Geelong, Fremantle, Essendon, Sydney, West Coast, North Melbourne, Hawthorn
benchmark00*: Geelong, Sydney, Hawthorn, Fremantle, North Melbourne, Collingwood, St Kilda
BoyBrumby: Brisbane Lions, Sydney, Fremantle, Adelaide, North Melbourne, Collingwood, St Kilda
Somerset*: Geelong, Sydney, Hawthorn, Fremantle, St Kilda, North Melbourne, Carlton
Burgey*: Geelong, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Brisbane Lions, St Kilda, North Melbourne, Adelaide
Round Twenty-One Fixtures
Geelong vs. St Kilda (Docklands)
Essendon vs. Carlton (MCG)
Greater Western Sydney* vs. Melbourne (Manuka Oval)
Fremantle vs. Richmond (Subiaco)
Brisbane Lions vs. Adelaide (The Gabba)
Collingwood vs. North Melbourne (Docklands)
Port Adelaide vs. West Coast (Football Park)
Western Bulldogs vs. Sydney (Docklands)
Hawthorn vs. Gold Coast* (MCG)
Getting harder, tbh.
Want to be the online Don Bradman or Ian Salisbury?
Then join CW Cricket today. It's what all the cool kids desire.
RIP Craig Walsh (Craig) 1985-2012
RIP Hughesy 1988-2014
Think I'll have to use my power crystal this round: Hawks, please.
Collingwood to beat North Melbourne.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)


text:
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Introduction to Camp Dutch Oven Cooking Videos
Enjoy the videos and if you haven't tried doing this yet, get started. I recommend Lodge Camp Dutch Ovens over any other.
Here are a few of the Camp Oven posts I've done here:
Pork Chops with Cornbread Stuffing
Chicken and Andouille Gumbo + Cornbread
Apple Pie
6 comments:
This makes me wish it wasn't 12 below zero here in Wyoming.
Love the site!
- January 9, 2010 at 6:59 PM
- Greg said...
Bart - Thanks for reading the blog!
I may have to break out the black pots IF I can clear some ice off the patio.
- January 15, 2010 at 7:10 PM
- Jeannette said...
I never seen this cookware before, except mentioned in the Laura Ingalls books... Now I want one or two of them :)
- January 17, 2010 at 11:43 AM
- Greg said...
Jeanette - They are a lot of fun & really useful.
I'm cooking in mine today and posting about it in a few days.
- January 17, 2010 at 12:12 PM
- Dutch Oven Mark said...
I've been cooking in dutch ovens for a few years, now, and do it even in the Utah winters.
I've got a few ovens, of several different brands, and, while they all work fairly well, I agree with you. I like my Lodge the best.
- January 22, 2010 at 10:51 AM
- Greg said...
Hi Mark,
I'm usually a fan of the old stuff but with Camp Ovens I like the newer Lodges the best.
I wish MACAs were still made in Utah instead of India.
- January 23, 2010 at 1:10 PM


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Asynchronous Java Calls, Part 1
When called, the Java VM provides the actual proxy object that invoked the call, the method object, and an array of the arguments to the call. We use this to locate the interface of the object for which the method call is made, and the method name itself. This information, along with the arguments and the callback we received earlier, is used in a call to the
AsyncHelper.call() static method, which does the following:
protected static void call(String intName, String method, Object[] params, AsyncCallback requestor) { try { Object[] paramsWithMethod = new Object[params.length + 1]; paramsWithMethod[0] = method; System.arraycopy(params, 0, paramsWithMethod, 1, params.length); jms.sendMessage(intName, paramsWithMethod, requestor); } catch ( Exception e ) { } }
Here, the code repackages the arguments to include the method name as the first parameter, and then sends a message over JMS with this data using a helper class named
JMSHelper (more on that later). The interface name is used as the queue name over which the message is sent. On the other side, there's an asynchronous listener on the same queue that will invoke the real object's method with the parameters provided. The return value is routed back to the caller's callback using a JMS
replyTo destination, provided within the actual message. Let's look at how all this works now.
The Object Side: AsyncObject.java
To support asynchronous method calls with this framework, you extend the
AsyncObject base class; no other changes are required. This class does all of the work to do the following:
- Create a queue per interface that your object implements
- Listen on those interfaces for messages
- Call the appropriate method on your object when a message arrives
This is done through two methods: the
onMessage() method, as defined by JMS' MessageListener interface; and
handleCall(), which uses reflection to take the method name and parameters from the JMS message and invoke the actual method on your object. Because Java Reflection is so thorough, this code can be used to call any method on any object whether the parameters are primitives or other Java objects.
MessageListener.onMessage() method is called by the JMS provider when a message arrives. Our implementation of this method looks like this:
public abstract class AsyncObject implements MessageListener, IAsyncObject { public void onMessage(Message msg) { try { Request req = new Request( (Object[])msg.getObjectProperty("params") ); Destination reply = msg.getJMSReplyTo(); Object ret = this.handleCall(req); if ( ret != null ) { // send return back to caller jms.sendMessage(ret, (String)req.params[0], reply); } } catch ( Exception e ) { … } } … }
First, the parameters and method name are pulled from the array and placed within an object called
Request. Next, the JMS
replyTo destination, to route the return value through, is retrieved. Then, the object's method is invoked, and finally the return value is sent back to the caller over JMS. The
handleCall method uses Reflection to make the call:
public Object handleCall(Request req) { Object paramsWithMethod[] = req.getParams(); // Use reflection to create a proxy object to call real object String methodName = (String)paramsWithMethod[0]; Object[] params = new Object[paramsWithMethod.length - 1]; Class[] paramTypes = new Class[paramsWithMethod.length - 1]; System.arraycopy(paramsWithMethod, 1, params, 0, params.length); int counter = 0; for ( Object param: params ) { paramTypes[counter++] = param.getClass(); } try { Method method = this.getClass().getMethod(methodName, paramTypes); Object ret = method.invoke(this, params); return ret; } catch ( Exception e ) { } return null; }
Here's how the code works:
- The method parameters and method name are pulled from the
- An array whose entries represent the actual type of each parameter is created. A loop calls the
getClass()method for each parameter object to get this information.
- Using Reflection, the code retrieves the
Classobject for the object to be called, and gets a reference to the method to be called using that method's name and the array of parameter types.
- The actual method is called by calling invoke on Reflection's
Methodobject retrieved in the previous step.
Using the Asynchronous Java Framework
All of this code is packaged up in a JAR file to be included and used in your own project. As discussed early on, the only change required on the caller side is to use the
AsyncHelper class to get a reference to the object you want to call asynchronously, which is actually a proxy object that uses JMS to invoke the real object's methods. You do this instead of creating an instance of the object using the
new keyword; a reasonable change in my opinion. On the object's side, all you need to do is extend the abstract base class,
AsyncObject, which uses introspection to route JMS messages to method calls. Another reasonable, and very transparent, requirement.
You can download the Asynchronous Java Framework here, along with a sample application here. In the next blog, we'll take a look at how JMS is used and implemented in the
JMSHelper class to make all of this work, and how you can use it to spread the asynchronous calls over multiple JVMs and the network.
Happy Coding!


text:
Fans of big-block Ford power are likely familiar with Jon Kaase and his engine-building outfit, which forged its reputation on winning Pro Stock engines. Pro drag racing programs are still a big part of the business at Kaase's, but over the past several years, the company has been devoting some of its efforts toward hardware for those of us who don't make a living on the quarter mile.
One of the biggest programs coming out of Kaase that isn't devoted to pro racing is the Boss Nine, a recreation of the legendary Ford Boss 429 engine that was intended for use in NASCAR and homologated with a small batch of '69 and '70 Mustangs. Those cars are now worth well into six-figure territory, and the very rare parts and pieces for the Boss 429 engine are difficult to locate at any price. Even those hot rodders fortunate enough to piece together a set of Boss heads and associated valvetrain parts will be stymied by the need for a specific block – the standard 429/460 castings are not compatible with the Boss 429 heads.
But Kaase's Boss Nine changes the game for enthusiasts, as brand-new aluminum Boss-style heads are available along with the signature rocker covers and all the other components required to finish an engine, particularly since the Boss Nine heads are designed to work with standard 385-series 429/460 blocks and head gaskets.
The latest addition to Kaase's Boss Nine menu is a stack injection system, which gives the appearance of the classic mechanical injection unit from the golden era of drag racing, but with modern electronic controls to facilitate street driving, which traditional mechanical injection systems have never accommodated well. Though EFI has been merged with stack-type manifolds and throttle bodies before, the Kaase unit adds an interesting twist by concealing a common plenum beneath the intake, which helps to equalize pressures between the individual intake tracts and also provides a common vacuum source, yielding the correct signal for a MAP sensor and other vacuum-powered accessories.
In Kaase's own testing, it was found that a 520-cu.in. Boss Nine engine running 9.8:1 compression and a hydraulic camshaft made an additional 30-lbs.ft. of torque with the stack injection arrangement as compared to a conventional carbureted induction system.
Kaase is currently offering all of the Boss Nine components as well as complete engines, built to suit the buyer's desires. For more information, go to www.JonKaaseRacingEngines.com.
Kaase is the guy that wins often at the Engine Masters contests, often doing up engines he's never done, and that few would bother with, such as the Ford 400 line from the mid-70's.
He's seriously good.
Some day I'm going to use a Kaase Boss 9 to power a Mercury intermediate.
Really nice if ya want a V8. My ideal engine is the 300 I6 with an AL head that is crossflow.
TKS Mel
Forgive my lack of knowledge here but what the heck is an AL head?? Is this a performance part for the old 300 I-6. Have been kicking the idea around for a long time about hot rodding a 300, but can't find a source of performance parts anywhere.
I beleive when Mel mentioned, an "AL head", he was referring to an aluminum cylinder head designed with crossflow runners; a modern-designed hot rod cylinder head for the 300 straight six cylinder (I6) engine.
That head doesn't exist. It would have to be fabricated with 3 GM LSx heads.
John -you are a genius -combining the classic injected look with modern electronic control AND a common plennum for map sensor and vacume accessories…..you've put good engineering thought into this setup.
I am trying to bulid a 460 with a 522 hp. I am thinking of carb or EFI. I am looking for more HP. 460 is 10 to 1


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2008 Women's Soccer
Bluffton 1, Defiance 0
Bluffton takes sting out of Yellow Jackets, 1-0
October 15, 2008
Click here for box score
DEFIANCE, Ohio - The Bluffton University women's soccer team took a page out of the men's playbook and handed Coach Smucker his first victory over the Defiance College women with a 1-0 shutout on Wednesday, October 15, 2008. The Beavers improved to 4-7-1 overall and 2-2 in the HCAC, while Defiance slipped to 5-7-1 and 2-2 in the conference.
For the second night in a row, Coach Smucker notched his first ever win over a Defiance College soccer team. The Bluffton women had been on the wrong end of nine straight decisions to the Jackets, including five shutouts during that time frame which dated back to a 2-1 Beavers' victory in 2000. The two HCAC wins by Bluffton also matches the most ever by a Bluffton women's soccer team since the Beavers entered the Heartland Conference.
Much like the men's contest a day ago, the two teams entered halftime in a scoreless tie. Defiance took nine shots, compared to four by the Beavers in the opening period. However, Bluffton forced five corner kicks in the half, one more than the home team.
Bluffton scored the only goal of the contest at the 52:16 mark when Alex Jess (Piqua/Piqua) found Meghan Forquer (North Canton/Green) for her third score of the year which turned out to be the game-winner.
Although Defiance took seven more shots than the Beavers (17-10), Bluffton placed eight on frame, compared to just five for the Yellow Jackets. The fouls were nearly even, 13 for Bluffton and 11 for Defiance. Both squads forced seven corner kicks in the match.
Allison White (Lima/Shawnee), Lyndsay Nelson (St. Mary's) and Megan Denoi (Bryan) all fired two shots in the victory with both of White's on frame. Freshman keeper Katy Wisby (Lancaster/Bloom-Carroll) picked up the victory while stopping five Jacket shots and not allowing a goal for her third career shutout.
The Bluffton women can move past the .500 mark in HCAC play when the Beavers host Franklin College on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008. The match is slated to start at 1 p.m.


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Rufus Wainwright
series: Live From The Artists Den
air date: 5/22/13 11:00 PM
"Candles" is the closing song on Rufus Wainwright's acclaimed new album, Out of the Game, but it was the perfect opener at his performance at the magnificent Church of the Ascension, on Manhattan's lower Fifth Avenue. The historic church was a breathtaking backdrop for the gorgeous tale of searching for a place to light a memorial for his late mother, singer Kate McGarrigle. Resplendent in tails and gold sequined pants, Wainwright paid additional tribute to McGarrigle during the 22-song set with an emotional, solo rendition of her "On My Way to Town" before bringing out super-producer Mark Ronson, who helmed the new album, and closing the evening with the rousing, disco-flavored "Bitter Tears."
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|Drama . Comedy
A blizzard prevents a group from attending the historical dinner that Sookie has painstakingly prepared at their request, so she and Lorelai decide to invite all their friends in Stars Hollow to enjoy the feast at the Inn. At Rory's urging, Lorelai also invites Richard and Emily, in an attempt to boost Richard's spirits. During dinner, Emily is hurt and angered when Richard reveals that he has quit his job without consulting her. Jess tries to get between Rory and Dean when Dean is distracted by his little sister.
|Episode Title:
|The Bracebridge Dinner
|2001-12-11 at 20:00
A wonderful hour that's fresh and funny. [4 Oct 2000, p.C08]Deseret News Full Review
Nothing short of a TV miracle: a family show that's sweet, but not too syrupy, bitingly funny, but not mean-spirited and fun for viewers of all ages, without appealing to the blandest common denominator. [5 Oct 2000, p.37]Newark Star-Ledger Full Review
Insightful, intelligent and very, very funny, the WB's Gilmore Girls is the best not-quite-drama, not-quite-comedy of the new television season. [5 Oct 2000, p.F6]St. Louis Post-Dispatch Full Review
Hip, clever and hilarious...A sparkling little character study, quirky comedy, relationship drama and all-around delight. [5 Oct 2000, p.B43]Newsday Full Review
Gilmore Girls is by far the most entertaining comedy-drama on the fall schedule and it should appeal to both The WB's core teenage audience and their parents; it doesn't talk down to either side of the age divide. [5 Oct 2000, p.1E]Miami Herald Full Review
Gilmore Girls is a genuine gem in the making, a family-friendly hour burdened by neither trite cliche nor precocious pablum. It is as fresh and real as "Dawson's Creek" is stale and contrived. In the process, it re-energizes the 8 o'clock hour with a bracing burst of heart. [5 Oct 2000]The Hollywood Reporter Full Review
The season's nicest surprise.People Weekly Full Review
Such a nice surprise: A sharply written show about a mother-daughter relationship filled with vibrant emotions instead of cheap sarcasm.Entertainment Weekly Full Review
Gilmore Girls has got something - maybe just what it takes to grow on you. [5 Oct 2000, p.4]Houston Chronicle Full Review
It's a touching, funny, lively show that really does appeal to all ages.Philadelphia Inquirer Full Review
I liked this show immediately...A delightful, well-designed show from start to finish. [5 Oct 2000, p.E1]Kansas City Star Full Review
One of the most pleasant surprises of the new season. [5 Oct 2000, p.1E]Baltimore Sun Full Review
Where most of the new shows I've been forced to sit through lately do just about everything wrong, Gilmore Girls gets most of the fundamentals right, especially the acting and writing. [5 Oct 2000, p.95]New York Post Full Review
Gilmore Girls is brimming with fine performances all around, but the keys, of course, are its two leads. The appealing Graham has endured her share of TV flops ("Townies," "MYOB" and "Conrad Bloom"), but now she appears to have the kind of material that will allow her comic talents to shine. Meanwhile, Bledel is a promising newcomer with an intriguing round face, expressive eyes and a gift for deadpan retorts. [5 Oct 2000, p.D01]San Jose Mercury News/Contra Costa Times Full Review
At times tonight, The WB's new Gilmore Girls will be well worth watching, easily the most arresting show of the young season. At other moments, it will make you wince at its unrelenting cuteness, an overeager poseur trying hard to impress. Please be patient. Next week's episode tempers the sweet with a little more savory, achieving a charming balance that promises to fill our Thursday nights this fall with an achingly on-point homage to mother-daughter relationships. [5 Oct 2000, p.E1]Seattle Post-Intelligencer Full Review
An amusing, highly promising light drama from the WB about mother-daughter bonding that is tender, warm and loving in a natural way without heaping on the schmaltz. [4 Oct 2000, p.F1]Los Angeles Times Full Review
It's edgier than "7th Heaven," but not so edgy that parents will be turned off. It also expands the definition of a family and realistically shows the complexity of intergenerational relationships. [5 Oct 2000, p.D-6]Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Full Review
The comedy is diverting enough, but the poignant drama makes Gilmore Girls special. This series may not fit conventional expectations for family drama, but the show succeeds on that turf anyway. Isn't that what television desperately needs: more family programming? [5 Oct 2000, p.E1]Orlando Sentinel Full Review
That's a lot of eccentricity for one hour, but Gilmore Girls never loses its even, humorous keel or its unforced warmth. There are clever lines, to be sure (Michel, ignoring Lorelai: "To me, you are the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons"), but they seldom turn nasty and never seem out of character. [5 Oct 2000, p.1D]USA Today Full Review
Gilmore Girls occasionally feels a bit too glib for its own good, with pacing sometimes a tad frantic for a one-hour family drama. Those quibbles aside, it's a welcome addition to prime time, and one of the best of this fall's crop of new series. [4 Oct 2000, p.100]New York Daily News Full Review
A likable if lightweight not-too-dramatic series.The New York Times Full Review
Works a little too hard to be everything to everyone. However, beyond the carefully calculated diversity of the pilot lies a pleasant and heartwarming series that may bridge the generation gap at the WB. It's still a chick show, but at least Gilmore Girls could attract women well past the N' Sync phase. [4 Oct 2000, p.7]Variety Full Review
Gilmore Girls tries to be edgy, but at its core it's -- there's just noother word -- sweet. It's nothing groundbreaking. [5 Oct 2000, p.1E]Arizona Republic Full Review
One of those "almost" shows--almost funny, almost interesting and almost family-friendly. There is potential here, particularly in the mother-daughter relationship between 32-year-old Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and 16-year-old Rory (Alexis Bledel), who could develop a real bond if they'd stop zinging one-liners for a few minutes. And if they can't stop the quips, maybe they could just speak more slowly so the audience can understand what they're saying. [5 Oct 2000, p.C07]Washington Post Full Review
The TV mom has changed - from out-of-touch authority figure to giggling girlfriend. This WB series attempts to depict a thoroughly modern single parent-child relationship. Yet, there's a sense this type of chumminess could only happen on TV. [5 Oct 2000, p.48]Boston Herald Full Review
There's a lot going on with Gilmore Girls, and once the writers can sort it all out, they might find an interesting series in there somewhere. [5 Oct 2000, p.E-9]San Diego Union-Tribune Full Review


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Close Bros operating profit rose 21% to £97.2 million over the second half of 2013, primarily driven by banking and brokerage and 'continued progress' in its asset management division.
Net inflows into the asset management service, where Nancy Curtin (pictured) is chief investment officer, stood at £190 million for the period with overall assets under management rising to £9.29 billion.
A 1% fall in advised assets was balanced by a 5% gain in managed assets, which include both the company's private client service and packaged funds.
'Importantly, none of our distribution channels has reached maturity and we expect continued growth across our proposition as we build scale,' the company said in a statement.
'We are benefiting from our investment in distribution and are seeing good growth originating from our own advisers and lead generators.'
At the group level, operating profit rose 21% to £97.2 million with earnings per share up 19% and the return on equity rose from 16% to 18%.
Higher trading activity lifted operating profit at broker division Winterfloods 81% to £13.4 million.


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HERSHEY — S is for selflessness.
S is for sacrifice.
S is for seniors.
S is for Spring-Ford.
S is also for states – as in state champions.
Those S's — and so many other attributes — added up to the ultimate culmination Friday night, the Spring-Ford girls basketball team being crowned PIAA Class AAAA champions with a prototypical 60-45 victory over Cumberland Valley at the Giant Center in Hershey.
Sarah Payonk could have concerned herself with personal achievements like scoring 1,000 points. She wasn't.
Courtney Hinnant could have checked out when a senior of her ability was asked to come off the bench. She didn't.
Brittany Moore and Sammi Haas could have chosen not to buy into their roles as defensive stalwarts (there's that S again) and sometime scorers. They didn't.
With defensive brilliance the baseline, the Rams' run has been about necessity. Foul trouble on the front line? Have your shooters – namely Moore and Haas – step up.
Remember that S for selflessness…
"For me, it's whatever it takes to win," Haas said. "Some games they might not need me, they need Courtney more than me, some games Britt instead of me. It's about the team. I want to be there for everyone whether I'm in or not. Even when I'm on the bench I just want to be there for all of them. Everyone needs that support."
She may have been the first Ram to be subbed out, but that didn't stop Haas from sharing high-scoring honors with Moore and junior guard Sammy Stipa, each scoring 11 points.
Hinnant was that player to check in and she more than did her part – pulling down a team-high eight rebounds along with six points.
And Payonk, though she spent a good bit of the game in foul trouble, still came through with eight points.
Along with the Rams' fifth senior Kirsten Landis, who joined the party in the fourth quarter, the Spring-Ford players in their final go-around made sure they went out on top.
"We've been playing together since fifth grade so we've been playing together for so long we've just had that give and take where we don't care who scored or had the most points, it's all about the team win," Payonk said.
The scars of last season, when the Rams were eliminated in the PIAA semifinals, drove this year's group to greater heights.
"I know all of us together we made it our goal to end our senior year with an amazing game and win it all," Moore said.
"We've been playing together since we were really young. I never in a million years thought we would get here. We were always just playing AAU, travel and the school team, but last year when we lost in the semifinals I think that fueled our fire for this year," Haas said.
The ability to stick to the script and not get stung by another team's play – like the 7-0 second-quarter run that saw the Eagles take the lead – came down to another attribute, but it doesn't start with an S.
"I think our trust level … we trust each other, we know that whatever they do with it they are going to go hard and even if they miss we're going to get back on defense."
And once that defensive domination took hold – as it so often did all season for the Rams – in the third quarter …
"It's an amazing feeling," Moore said. "We've worked so hard for this. All last summer was hard work. We didn't take anything lightly. We didn't want to be anywhere else, we knew we wanted to be state champions."
"We know how terrible it felt last year coming so close and coming up short" Payonk said. "This year, Tuesday was a battle getting here against tough team but we pulled through. Today, we knew that we would be proud of ourselves for how much we've accomplished.
"But it feels much better coming home with the gold."


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Israel carried out its second air strike in days on Syria yesterday in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky, a Western intelligence source said.
Israel declined to comment, but Syria accused the Jewish state of striking a military facility just north of the capital — one which its jets had first targeted three months ago.
Iran, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and an archenemy of Israel, urged states in the region to resist the Israeli attack.
People living near the Jamraya base spoke of explosions over several hours in various places near Damascus, including a town housing senior officials.
The Western intelligence source told reporters the operation hit Iranian-supplied missiles headed for Lebanon's Hezbollah, a similar target to the two previous strikes this year, which have been defended as justifiable by the US
"In last night's attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah," the intelligence source said.
An Israeli official had confirmed a similar raid on Friday. In Lebanon, Hezbollah declined to comment.
Video footage uploaded to the Internet by activists showed a series of explosions. One lit up the skyline of Damascus, while another sent up a tower of flames and secondary blasts.
Syrian state media accused Israel of attacking in response to al-Assad's forces' recent successes against rebels who, with Western approval, have been trying to topple him for two years.
For 40 years since a war with a Syria then ruled by al-Assad's father, Israel has been locked in a cold standoff with Damascus, fought Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 and is threatening to attack Iran, accusing Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons.
However, it is wary of instability in Syria, has long viewed Hezbollah as the more immediate threat and has shown little enthusiasm for US and European calls for al-Assad's overthrow.
The raid follows intense debate in the US over whether the use of chemical weapons by Syrian troops might push US President Barack Obama to intervene more forcefully on the rebel side, but Western powers remain concerned at the presence of anti-Western Islamist fighters among al-Assad's opponents.
It was unclear whether Israel sought US approval for the action; in the past, officials have indicated that Israel sees a need only to inform Washington once a mission was under way.
At a routine public appearance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no direct reference to the strikes, but spoke pointedly of his responsibility to ensure Israel's future.
He maintained a plan to fly to China later in the day, suggesting a confidence that, as with the raid in January, al-Assad — and Hezbollah — would limit any reprisal. However, an Israeli military source said the army had deployed more anti-missile defense systems near the northern borders in recent days.
"The sky was red all night. We didn't sleep a single second. The explosions started after midnight and continued through the night," said one man from Hameh, a short distance from the Jamraya military research facility.
"There were explosions on all sides of my house," he added, saying people hid in basements during the events.
Another witness spoke of fire near Qura al-Assad, a town around 5km west of Jamraya where many high-level government officials live. In the center of Damascus, people said their first thought was that there was an earthquake.


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What's That Song: Stone Sour
POP ETC Play "What's That Song"The band told us what they thought of a few songs you may have heard before.
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Youngblood Hawke Play "What's That Song"Gearing up for the GRAMMY Nominations Concert tonight on CBS, we tested Youngblood Hawke's memory on some of the biggest songs in rock GRAMMY history.


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In the Spring Pre-K/Kindergarten FULL Pack there are over 40 pages of Chinese worksheet with many hands-on activities, practices, and Chinese Math & Literacy skills:
- Matching Game
- Penmanship practice sheet
- Matching Activity
- Word Puzzles
- Sorting exercise
- Vocab Clip Cards
- Chinese Number Clip Cards
- Puzzles
- Color Matching
- Shapes Tracing
- Size Sorting
- Writing Numbers
- Size Sequencing
- Patterns
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Coloring pages
This pack is also designed to go along with the matching theme's Vocab Book & Mini-Book (Click HERE to download them for FREE).
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at email@example.com
*I would really appreciate your honest ratings and comments for this after product after you have used them!
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The English Setter is an elegant and substantial animal with a sweet disposition and a love of children.
The English Setter is much more suited to suburban and rural life than urban.
AKC allowed colors include orange belton, blue belton, liver belton, lemon belton, and tricolor. The colored
markings on an English Setter are in a flecking pattern named after a village in England, Belton. Blue belton
is a white haircoat with black flecking; liver belton has brown flecking; and so forth. The tricolor is a blue
belton with tan markings on the muzzle, eyes, and legs.


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Chelsea are considering a bid for Fiorentina midfielder Adem Ljajic, who was rejected by Manchester United in a last minute u-turn and involved in a punch up with his former manager.
A report by calciomercato.com claims Stamford Bridge scouts had been watching the 21-year-old's team-mate, Stevan Jovetic, but were soon impressed by Ljajic's talents, prompting Roman Abramovich to consider bankrolling a move.
Ljajic was supposed to sign for Manchester United in 2009 from Partizan Belgrade in a double transfer with Zoran Tosic – the deal was even announced by the club, with Tosic joining immediately and Ljajic moving a year later.
However, United eventually pulled out of the reported £10million deal for the then 18-year-old, with the Old Trafford club stating work permit issues as the reason and Partizan claiming a financial crisis at the Premier League club.
Ljajic then joined Fiorentina and became famous last season for being attacked by his manager Delio Rossi after reacting badly to being substituted.
Rossi was sacked shortly afterwards and Ljajic has been trying to get his career back on track since, with some success.
He has been finding more regular playing time under current coach Vincenzo Montella and with promising results, which could be behind Chelsea's reported interest.
Roberto di Matteo has an abundance of young, diminutive attacking midfielder's, so a move may not materialise anytime soon, though Ljajic is certainly one to be watching for the future.
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The newest Landsat satellite—the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM)—is especially adroit at providing meaningful information across a broad range of landscapes. A patchwork of national forests in the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest of North America provides a great test for the eyesight of the new satellite because the area has such a wide dynamic range of colors, topography, and brightness (or reflectance).
The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on LDCM acquired the top image above on March 30, 2013. It shows portions of the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests, in an area about 40 miles southwest of Bend, Oregon, and 50 miles north of Crater Lake. In this natural-color image, the deep, dark hues of Odell and Crescent Lakes and Willamette's Douglas-fir forests contrast with the bright mountaintop snows and the arid dirt and rock to the east.
The lower, side-by-side image comparison shows a subsection of the large OLI image (left) as well as data collected by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on Landsat 7 on the same day. In order to achieve greater sensitivity to brightness and color, the OLI instrument on LDCM (as well as the Thermal Infrared Sensor) was designed to produce 12-bit data. The previous generation of sensor, ETM+, gathers 8-bit data. This means that instead of trying to describe every pixel from the brightest to the darkest with 256 data values, OLI uses 4,096 values to digitize its signal, which is less noisy over a wider range.
The practical effect of this refinement is apparent when comparing the OLI and ETM+ images of Davis Mountain (bright) and Wickiup Reservoir (dark). In the OLI view (open the large image file), OLI shows more nuanced details in the rocks and shadows on the 6,825-foot-tall Davis Mountain. Similarly, the shoreline and marshlands of the shallow Wickiup Reservoir are more easily discerned.
During a four-day period from March 29 to April 1, 2013, LDCM flew on the same orbital path but a few miles under Landsat 7. This under-flight allowed the two satellites to collect data in tandem over the same landscapes at the same time. With nearly identical atmospheric and solar illumination conditions, LDCM researchers now have a strong data set for comparisons and calibrations of imagery between the two satellites, extending the 41-year record of land observations.
Further Reading
- Bureau of Land Management Wickiup Dam. Accessed April 29, 2013.
- NASA Earth Observatory (2013, April 16) Eye Exam for a Satellite.
- NASA Earth Observatory (2012, July 23) Landsat Looks and Sees.
- NASA Landsat Data Continuity Mission. Accessed April 22, 2013.
- NASA The Landsat Program. Accessed April 22, 2013.
Images by Robert Simmon and Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA. Caption by Laura Rocchio.
- Instrument(s):
- Landsat 8 - OLI