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Oversight Systems: Nonstop CopBy Brian P. Watson | Posted 2006-06-07 Print
Oversight Systems helps cut auditing expenses.
Like taking care of kids, keeping transactional systems in check requires full-time attention, and customers say Oversight Systems is the kind of babysitter everyone should have.
Mark Van Holsbeck, director of enterprise security at office supplies maker Avery Dennison, knows all about it. Executives at the company didn't think internal fraud was a problembut they knew it was something they needed to address.
"And we knew we could never catch it, unless somebody in the operation told us," Van Holsbeck says. "Otherwise, there was nothing we could do."
In late 2002, Avery Dennison was using security-monitoring software from BrainTree but needed a tool that could police activity in real time and automatically track it to create a trail for auditors.
With Oversight's software, Avery Dennison auditors are seeing the benefits. For one, since the monitoring is documented, the bean counters don't need to spend as much time with business-process heads, according to Van Holsbeck. Also, since auditors are scheduled to visit only 50 of the company's 200 sites worldwide, the audit trails help them determine which areas need to be put under their microscope.
Internal auditors at American Electric Power (AEP) also saw potential in Oversight Systems. In 2004, they pitched the tools to Mike Sullivan, the Columbus, Ohio, energy company's director of accounting services.
Oversight's specialty is fraud detectionthe company has roots in intrusion-detection softwarebut Sullivan wanted to go a step further: to knock out fraud while getting a tighter grip on his company's PeopleSoft transactional databases.
AEP deployed Oversight, which helped the company identify, correct and track problems in its system, such as duplicate payments or pricing errors on invoices. Sullivan is now implementing a segregation-of-duties capability in the software that he expects will limit access problems and show auditors that AEP has a continuous monitor in place.
So far, it's paying off. Before the company implemented the system, it was paying external auditors an undisclosed fee to recover about $1 million annually in lost revenue from vendors. Sullivan says Oversight helped AEP chop down incorrect payments and other errors, bringing the recovered revenue down to $300,000, which helped reduce the company's bill from the auditors.
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Wendy Roberts, manager of internal audit for Stratex Networks, a microwave radio technology company in San Jose, Calif., is implementing Oversight to monitor her company's Oracle systems for vendor changes, payment activity and access conflicts.
In November 2005 she evaluated its tools against those from two competitors. Roberts credits Oversight's user-friendly interface and the company's staff with getting her business.
Avery Dennison's Van Holsbeck considered a competitor's product (he wouldn't say which one), but it didn't have rules built into the software. The vendor billed the software as "flexible," he recalls: In other words, the company had to build its own rules set.
"I could sit around a table and come up with rules," Van Holsbeck says. "But I'd rather buy them."
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Topic: Dice Mechanics - does this work? (Read 3107 times)
Student 20
Posts: 3
Dice Mechanics - does this work?
July 16, 2011, 11:29:45 AM »
Hello all - I'm new to the Forge Forums, and I hope to have a great time here. It's been years (about a decade, really) since I actively participated in any forum communities, but hopefully it's more or less like riding a bicycle. It
more or less like riding a bicycle, right?
In any case, I've been working on a system to go along with a campaign setting I started working on when I was 14 or so (I'm 36 now). The system itself is what I have a question about. I'm working out the details as I go, but it's a skill-based system where the skills are assigned numerical values (5, 8, and so on) along with Tiers of expertise (Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Master, Grand Master). Skills are used for a lot of things, including determining Stats, but that's another topic entirely.
You add the Skill Value to a Stat to create the character's Competence value. This number can be compared to a difficulty, and if it equals or exceeds that difficulty, the character succeeds. When against another character, it works the same way, with the highest result winning. In the event of a tie, the character with the higher Tier of skill would win.
Alternately, the character can Reach. When you Reach, you take a penalty to your Competence, but you add a dice roll. The dice rolled, and the penalty, depends on the Tier of the Skill, as follows:
Novice Tier: -4/+1d6
Apprentice Tier: -5/+1d8
Journeyman Tier: -10/+2d10
Expert Tier: -15/+3d10
Master Tier: -5/+1d10, -10/+2d10, -15/+3d10, or -20/+4d10
Grand Master Tier: -5/+1d12, -10/+2d12, -15/+3d12, -20/+4d12, or -25/+5d12
There will really be no critical success/failure system; instead, there will be degrees of success and failure based on how close the results are to the target number.
My question is this: does this system seem workable? It seems feasible from a statistics standpoint, but I'm hardly an expert (I'm in the Journeyman tier with my Statistic skill :-P ). Is it simple enough, or should it be streamlined? Should I find a way to stick with a single dice type? Is this system at all original, or have I accidentally copied something someone else has already done? Any other suggestions or comments would certainly be welcome.
If it helps, the Skill score ranges for each Tier are:
Novice: +0
Apprentice: +1 to +5
Journeyman: +6 to +10
Expert: +11 to +15
Master: +16 to +25
Grand Master: +26 and higher
Stats may have any value from 0 on up, but a character's most used Stats will probably be about 10 to 20.
Any comments are welcome!
Posts: 131
Re: Dice Mechanics - does this work?
Reply #1 on:
July 17, 2011, 12:26:29 AM »
Hello and welcome to the forums.
At a glance your skill system seems perfectly workable. It seems that most of the rolls are weighed so that the player has roughly a 64% chance of doing equal or better than the initial minus taken, with higher skilled characters virtually always coming out ahead when reaching.
It pretty much shuts out anyone doing anything as a novice (which may or may not be what you want) and masters will benefit from reaching to the max all the time. You're model will reward specialization, and the better someone is at a skill, the less reason not to reach when ever possible.
Is that what you want?
If so, is they an easier way to get the same statistics?
Not knowing anything else about your game, I can't venture any other models which might do the same job more economically. Since most of the rolls in the Apprentice to Master tier are at 64% bonus on reaching, why not use a more traditional Skill +dx and side step the tiers all together?
What do the tiers give you that makes them worth having?
Callan S.
Posts: 4268
Re: Dice Mechanics - does this work?
Reply #2 on:
July 17, 2011, 01:56:40 AM »
I always find these questions (which get asked by alot of people) kind of like asking if rolling 2D6 in monopoly 'works'. Devoid of a greater context, how can anything 'work'? Does a hammer work? When the context is nails, yes. When the context is screws, no. When there is no context...wuh?
And possibly your going for 'endless campaign/goes until someone stops it' design, because that's what everybody does. Which cements that lack of greater context.
Anyway, that's my perspective. How does a campaign end with your game? The traditional 'until someone stops it' method?
Philosopher Gamer
My WIP browser game: Driftwurld
Student 20
Posts: 3
Re: Dice Mechanics - does this work?
Reply #3 on:
July 17, 2011, 06:44:19 AM »
Thanks for the replies!
Horormancer, To answer your question, the Tiers serve multiple purposes within the game. Where appropriate, they can be used as actual titles by characters in-game (for instance, a character with Jouneyman skill in blacksmithing might actually
a journeyman blacksmith), but that's a minor point.
The Tiers represent levels in a cost structure (character creation is CP based) - the higher the Tier, the higher the cost per level. The Tiers also break ties; I realize that ties between disparate tiers are going to be unlikely, but there it is. Tiers also fill other minor roles throughout the game.
Yes, I want an approximately 60 to 65% chance of Reaching giving you a better result. I wanted something different from the xdx+ bonus model. Honestly, I wanted something different for no better reason than wanting something different. I know how dumb that might sound, but there it is. There's more to it than that, of course. I was looking for a way to simulate the average, work-a-day kind of result. The kind of job people do when going to work. Even if you love your job, and are fantastic at it, you tend to perform at a given level. That's the Character's Competence. You only roll dice if you're "reaching" for more.
Callan S, Sorry about the lack of context. Yes, it's meant to be a "goes on until someone ends it" traditional style of game, because that's the style of game I normally play.
My thread title is even misleading; I know that it "works" in the sense that if people want to roll dice, they can use this system to do it, and that this system will generate results within a certain range. I was even pretty sure that the results were coming out within the range I wanted, or at least close to it.
I was actually wondering if the mechanic was simple enough for regular use in a game, and if there were any obvious holes in the basic design of the mechanic. I was also wondering if it was at all memorable and original. Most big-name games have a memorable dice mechanic, and it seems like a good and reasonable goal in the design of a game.
I would have posted a link to more info about the system, except the system currently resides almost solely in longhand on a legal pad.
Ar Kayon
Posts: 438
Re: Dice Mechanics - does this work?
Reply #4 on:
July 17, 2011, 09:21:11 AM »
I really like this method. I might introduce some sort of exertion penalty from reaching so much (maybe you get tired or critically fail more often), especially in order to deter higher-tier characters from "gaming" it all the time. Think about it this way: if you are being challenged by someone who's lesser in ability than you, you're going to be relaxed going into the task, right? If I know I have a good chance of losing, or if the opponent is getting a one-up on me, that's probably when I'll start reaching.
Callan S.
Posts: 4268
Re: Dice Mechanics - does this work?
Reply #5 on:
July 17, 2011, 04:02:04 PM »
When I play traditional games and I employ their dice mechanics, I'm generally actually kitbashing a game together as I play (one written in my head (and prone to losing the notes as a result)).
So for myself I've sort of taken to forgiving traditional designs enough that I try to kitbash something together - or I just don't play them at all.
So in terms of 'is it simple enough for regular use', I would answer that 'simple' doesn't cut it for regular use, in terms of myself atleast. I really have no interest in yet another game that I have to forgive and kitbash. Particularly when were at the design stage right now and can actually work out a complete game, as opposed to already published titles who's design stage is well behind them. Obviously this is a sample size of one I'm talking about, but it might be indicative of a bigger trend, who knows?
Do you have a blog you can note stuff about your game on? I think it's a forum requirement now to link to such stuff (Ron the forum owners basically trying to spread the designing, AFAICT).
Philosopher Gamer
My WIP browser game: Driftwurld
Student 20
Posts: 3
Re: Dice Mechanics - does this work?
Reply #6 on:
July 18, 2011, 07:16:57 AM »
I do have a blog where I talk about the game, setting, and so forth. Its not, you know, great...
Would be the place. Be gentle.
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Victory in court for open source software
My friend Jeff Gordon, an expert on software licensing, alerted me to an important decision that came down today, greatly strengthening the legal basis for open source software licenses. The case, which I've been following for some time, was filed by one Robert Jacobson, who manages an open source project for model railroad enthusiasts, claiming copyright infringement for use of his code in a competing product.
I first wrote about this case in 2008, when a lower court ruled that the license in question was "intentionally broad" and therefore could not be used as the basis for copyright infringement. The U.S. Court of Appeals, however, overruled the lower court and "determined that the terms of the Artistic License are enforceable copyright conditions."
Jeff's post is here, summarizing the latest ruling. He writes that "the end result is a huge win for open source developers as a result of three key findings by the District Court:"
Jeff helpfully points to a post on ConsortiumInfo.org that provides much more detail on the ruling. There's also a 2008 article from PC Magazine that gives more background on the facts of the case.
- Violation of an open source software license constitutes copyright infringement, not just breach of contract (this was first upheld by the Federal Appeals Court in 2008 in this case).
- Use of open source code without attribution is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
- These violations entitle the Plaintiff (Jacobson) to monetary damages – which, as they're based on violations of copyright law, are potentially much more substantial than those which may have been limited by contract law.
My take
For open source enterprise applications to compete successfully with proprietary software vendors they need investors to fund their efforts. But potential investors need the assurance that the work they fund will be protected from IP theft. This case gives real teeth for enforcement of open source license terms and conditions, which should encourage investors to be more willing to fund such efforts.
Related posts
Court ruling strengthens legal basis for open sourceby Frank Scavo, 2/23/2010 03:28:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Thursday, February 18, 2010
SAP pushes back on Gartner for its ranking of Business Objects
SAP is complaining about Gartner's latest Magic Quadrant, which shows its Business Objects product line ranked way down the line for "ability to execute," behind Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, SAS, and Microstrategy.
From Information Week:When vendors make it into the top-right "leaders" quadrant of a Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) report, they generally don't complain. But SAP isn't thrilled with the "ability to execute" positioning of SAP BusinessObjects in the 2010 Gartner MQ for Business Intelligence Platforms, which was released early this week.You can read the entire Magic Quadrant at no charge on Gartner's website.
"If you look at the results, it's nonintuitive and nonsensical that we would have less ability to execute, than, for example, Microstrategy," said Franz Aman, SAP's vice president, intelligence platform product marketing.
Magic Quadrants may have their deficiencies
Now, I'm no fan of Gartner's Magic Quadrants, as I've discussed previously. In a nutshell, I don't find MQs useful to buyers for the following reasons:
- Gartner's criteria for evaluation are almost certainly going to be different from the criteria of a specific buyer.
But this MQ calls out specific problems with SAP
- MQs measure things not of interest to buyers. For example, as a buyer, is "completeness of vision" really one of the two primary criteria in evaluation? How about fit to my functional requirements and industry?
- MQs often leave out vendor that a specific buyer ought to be considering, as Gartner typically only evaluates vendors above a certain size threshold. The MQs by definition favor established, even legacy, vendors.
- Vendors use MQs in their sales presentations, if their position is favorable, without noting all the caveats that Gartner includes. First-time buyers, especially in small or midsize companies, may not understand the misuse of MQs in this way.
Having said that, I think SAP is asking for trouble in bringing attention in particular to this MQ, because Gartner had specific reasons according to its criteria for ranking SAP as it did in terms of "ability to execute." The reasons? SAP's problems after its acquisition of Business Objects in transitioning support to its own support systems as well as apparent issues with how it is dealing with acquired customers.
As Gartner points out in cautionary notes regarding SAP (emphasis, mine):For the third year in a row, customer survey data shows that customer support ratings for SAP are lower than for any other vendor in our customer survey. Overall customer experience scores that include support, sales experience and software quality are also at the lowest levels. These results are not unusual in the aftermath of an acquisition. To address these challenges, SAP has put in place programs to address customer issues with support and to address, more broadly, the customer experience.Gartner points out, however, that SAP is not alone in problems stemming from an acquisition of a BI player. Oracle had some of the same problems with its acquisition of Hyperion, while IBM with its acquisition of Cognos is currently in the same boat as SAP:Customer turmoil from acquisitions typically follows a life cycle. Initially, there is significant customer concern because of uncertainty about product road maps and commitment. This is followed by the actual execution of the acquisition transition in which support, contracting, pricing, sales territory alignments and products are often changed. This transition process takes time and is not easy on customers. Successful acquisitions at some point complete the transition and reach a new "normal" for customers.While Oracle, which acquired Siebel and Hyperion in 2005 and 2007 respectively, seems to be successfully exiting the back of this curve, as shown by significantly improved Magic Quadrant customer survey results this year over last, weak customer survey results for IBM and SAP suggest that they are still in the throes of this transition. This heightened level of customer dissatisfaction revealed in the customer survey is reflected in these vendors' Ability to Execute positions.On a side note, it appears that SAP may be attempting to squeeze additional revenues from some of the Business Objects customers that it acquired, leading to client dissatisfaction. This also affected Gartner's ranking of SAP's ability to execute:Usage terms, not previously defined in older contracts for virtualized deployments, have led to confrontational experiences with SAP for some Business Objects customers. In the middle of 2009, SAP added virtualization definition and a migration path to new contracts. Installed base customers with old contracts could still be subject to additional fees from an audit.If the issue around SAP's support for Business Objects rings a bell, it's because I covered these problems back in July 2008, when I wrote about SAP's botching up support transition for Business Objects:The problems are confirmed by postings on the Business Objects Board (not affiliated with Business Objects or SAP). As of this writing, there are seven pages of posts, showing a complete lack of coordination for the migration of support. It sounds like a deadline-date-driven migration for which SAP was not prepared.Bottom line
This is not the first trouble SAP has had in its relationships with Business Objects customers. Things got so bad earlier this year that Business Objects emailed its customers to apologize for "issues related to poor service including delayed deliveries of the company's technology."
If SAP is going to make major strategic acquisitions in the future, it is going to have to learn how to make them painless for customers.
The fact that Business Objects customers are still having support problems--two years after they found themselves in SAP's customer base--suggests that SAP should spend less time trying to disprove Gartner's findings and more time getting its own support systems and processes in order.
Related posts
Gartner Mid-Market ERP Magic Quadrant: Should Have Stayed in Retirement
SAP botching up support transition for Business Objectsby Frank Scavo, 2/18/2010 07:17:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Monday, February 15, 2010
IT workers seeing meager 1.8% pay raise in 2010
Over at Computer Economics, we've just released our new 2010 IT Salary Report. Bottom line: salaries at the median are increasing but not by much:During two years of turmoil, the great recession of 2008-2009 brought budget cutting and layoffs across most IT organizations, large and small. But the picture is brightening for IT workers, and our 2010 IT Salary Report finds that IT organizations are budgeting to give the typical IT worker a 1.8% boost in pay.The first chapter goes on to describe pay raises by job classification. Interestingly, workers at the bottom rungs are actually getting higher pay raises than IT executives and managers this year.
By historical standards, the 1.8% median pay raise is meager....But in light of still-high unemployment rates, the finding indicates IT executives are responding to the need to retain their best workers and boost damaged morale.
The full study provides 2010 total compensation ranges for 70 specific IT job positions in 73 U.S. metropolitan areas. Salary ranges are further broken down by organizational size for each job position within each metropolitan area. To aid in analysis, all salary statistics are provided at the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile.
You can download the entire first chapter and a sample of the salary data presented for one of the positions at no charge.by Frank Scavo, 2/15/2010 12:48:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Oracle shuts down free support blog
Dennis Howlett called my attention to a recent action by Oracle to shut down a free support blog run by one of its senior support people. Chris Warticki's Oracle Support Blog (See Feb. 24 Update at bottom of this post), was hosted by Oracle but completely under the editorial control of its author.
Leaving no doubt that it was Oracle that took action to shut down his blog, Warticki subsequently wrote on Twitter, "Sorry...I'm not allowed to represent Oracle Support through social media."
An Oracle customer in the UK, RNM, provides the background on the usefulness Warticki's support blog was providing:Chris took an awful lot of flack last year when the new flash-based My Oracle Support was launched. He did his best to soothe tempers, and from what I saw – as a grunt on the ground just using the product – was the only real person from Oracle actually communicating with the Community. Everything else that Oracle put out was empty-worded platitudes and patronisations that did nothing to address people's real anger and frustration at what was clearly a Challenged implementation.The final straw however, apparently occurred last week, when Oracle's new support site, "My Oracle Support" went down. As RNM comments,
I remember at the time being impressed that someone from within the organisation was prepared to put their head above the parapet and actually try to work with people experiencing problems. The rest of the communications that I saw from Oracle appeared equivalent to a five-year old putting their fingers in their ears and shouting "na na na na i can't hear you there's no problem na na na na"How can an Oracle blogger post something that acknowledges that My Oracle Support is fallible? That a system that people pay a lot of money to use is not only dog-slow because of an awful flash-interface, but that it's actually UNAVAILABLE?My take
In addition, his blog's comments section gave a platform to a lot of people raising grievances about Oracle's support platform, and maybe that disturbed the corporate PR monster too. No adverse comments equals no problem, right?
Oracle needs to realize this is not 1999, or even 2005. Customers have ways of communicating about problems, whether Oracle likes it or not. Better to participate in the conversation and have an opportunity to shape it than try to stymie it. In fact, attempts to stifle the dialog only gives such problems more visibility.
For example, I wouldn't have even known about problems with My Oracle Support had Oracle not shut down Warticki's blog. But now, here I am writing about it, and this post will soon go out to my 1,300+ email list, many of which are Oracle customers and partners.
The larger issue, however, is what this says about Oracle's ability to support all the customers that are coming on board due to its acquisition program. Thousands are about to be added from its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Only last week, Oracle was boasting that, in a few weeks, Sun customers were about to experience the highest level of customer service in the industry, when Oracle migrates them to its own support systems. The problems with My Oracle Support couldn't have come at a worse time.
Oracle isn't the only major enterprise software vendor that's had problems with support. For example, in 2008 I wrote about the huge problems SAP had in transitioning support for Business Objects. Read the many comments triggered by that post: it appears those problems continued for many months. The issue is not that there are problems, it's how the vendor deals with them.
In Oracle's case, it's not helpful to shut down the one voice that is attempting to provide some positive response. It's also not helpful to be charging customers 22% of software license fees for support and also filing lawsuits against those that provide third-party support.
Read Dennis's take on the situation. Chris Kanaracus also reports on problems with Oracle's support site.
Update, Feb. 16: Josh Greenbaum weighs in on the matter, in his post, Oracle Plays with Fire that Burned SAP.
Update, Feb. 19: A source tells me that the Oracle support site, My Oracle Support is/was down again and that Oracle users are none-too-happy. My source says that he's heard quite a few comments regarding "that frickin' Flash interface."
Update, Feb. 24: A comment on this post from RNM alerted me to Oracle's reinstating Warticki's support blog, with its historical posts. In addition, Warticki is now back online with Twitter. However, it appears as if any new postings from Warticki will just point to his writing behind the password-wall on Oracle Communities. Read RNM's post and understand that Oracle has still not figured out how to engage online with customers.
In this respect, with its SAP Developer Network (SDN), SAP appears miles ahead of Oracle.
Update, Mar. 25: Well, just checked and Chris has not updated his support blog for over a month, so he must be spending all his time behind the firewall on My Oracle Support Community. The historical posts are still up on Chris's original blog, however.
Related posts
Oracle slams Rimini Street with lawsuit over third-party maintenance
SAP botching up support transition for Business Objectsby Frank Scavo, 2/15/2010 06:32:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Thursday, February 11, 2010
Not a good week for SAP
There are more management changes in Waldorf, with SAP announcing more changes to its executive board. But the big disappointment is the resignation of John Schwarz, former CEO of Business Objects, which SAP acquired in 2007.
Why is he leaving? Most likely because he didn't get the CEO job, which went to Bill McDermott, head of the field operations, and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, who will now share the top job.
The loss of Schwarz is a body blow to SAP for at least three reasons:
Dennis Moore has a good write-up on these latest management changes at SAP.
- First, Schwarz was slated to run product management for SAP which is in desperate need of strengthening. Confusion over the role of SAP's new Business ByDesign is just one example.
- Second, as the former head of Business Objects, his resignation has to be a discouragement for the top Business Objects people, who SAP needs to keep, as business intelligence is one of the few bright spots for new sales in SAP's portfolio right now.
- Finally, Schwarz was a test case for whether an outsider could survive in the top ranks of SAP management. His departure has to be seen as a failure for SAP to accommodate someone without a long tenure within SAP at that level.
Update: Forrester's Paul Hamerman thinks SAP needs to follow through on its intent to "changing its meandering direction." He writes, "Failure to do so will result in a loss in market value and eventual acquisition."
Related posts
SAP top management changes: impact on maintenance fees?by Frank Scavo, 2/11/2010 11:12:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Monday, February 08, 2010
SAP top management changes: impact on maintenance fees?
SAP pulled a surprise change in its leadership team over the weekend, with Léo Apotheker out as CEO and replaced by Bill McDermott, head of the field operations, and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, who will now share the top job. At the same time, SAP elevated Vishal Sika, chief technology officer (CTO) to the SAP Executive Board.
Analyts and bloggers have been buzzing about the news for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that SAP announced the switch in a press release over the weekend, following up with a somewhat terse conference call this morning by co-founder and chairman Hasso Plattner.
Joab Jackson and Chris Kanaracus have an excellent write up at Computerworld, including some contents from an internal email from Apotheker to SAP employees. In it he refers to the results of a recent SAP employee survey, which found a dramatic loss of confidence in senior management, according to a Financial Times report.
In the conference call this morning, Plattner sounded a humble note on SAP's unilateral decision to increase its software maintenance fees, in the midst of a recession. As reported by Computerworld:
He addressed head-on one of the most heated issues in SAP's recent history: Its 2008 decision to move customers to a richer-featured but more expensive Enterprise Support service. The plan rankled users worldwide, particularly those with older, stable systems and little need or desire for additional support.Implications for SAP maintenance fees
"I was part of the decision that we had to raise maintenance fees," he said. "That is not something we can put in Léo's shoes. This was done by SAP. We made a mistake and we have to change course here, and regain trust from the customers who were more than upset. Unfortunately, the head of the company takes the blame, whether it was just or not."
I normally do not pay a lot of attention to management changes at software companies, as I find them to be more of interest to insiders and financial analysts. But I've been convinced by a couple of my fellow Enterprise Advocates that this switch matters because of what it means to customers.
If the issue of the maintenance price-hike is one of the main issues behind Apotheker's departure, what does it mean for maintenance fees? Last month, SAP appeared to be backing off its decision to unilaterally migrate all customers from Standard Support (typically at 18% of license fees per year) to the more expensive Enterprise Support (at 22%). But a more careful analysis by David Dobrin revealed that SAP's apparent reversal was no reversal at all: in fact, by invoking cost-of-living clauses in many of its customer contracts, SAP might actually be raising fees for Standard Support above 22%!
So, if Plattner is now expressing humility on the maintenance fee issue, does that mean SAP might be backing off its enforcement of cost-of-living increases? One can only hope so. After this morning's conference call, it's hard to imagine SAP's sales force turning around and playing tough guy with cost-of-living increases.
Other voices
Fellow Enterprise Advocate Dennis Howlett, who reads SAP tea leaves more closely than I, has been all over the story. He reports on SAP's need to rebuild trust with customers. At the same time, he feels now is the time for SAP to beef up its technology with some targeted acquisitions of firms such as Software AG and TIBCO.
Vinnie Mirchandani views the leadership change at SAP as not addressing the real issue of the total cost of ownership for SAP and its ecosystem partners. He writes:, "Bill McDermott and Jim Snabe, the new co-CEOs are good solid, likable executives – but they represent more of the same."
Finally, for those interested in SAP "inside baseball," former SAP executive Helmut Gumbel has a good post.
Update, Feb 9: Bob Evans has a very good piece in InformationWeek on SAP's failure to put its customers front and center, including this zinger (emphasis, mine):
I think it helps to paint a picture of a company that is dangerously out of touch with what its customers do and want and need, and with how those customers rate and reward IT vendors in these days where it's essential to do a great deal more with a whole lot less.Read the whole thing.
Speaking in broad strokes about trust and the need to rebuild it, Plattner said this: "What SAP has to re-establish is that we have trust between all involved parties: the [SAP] Supervisory Board, [SAP] Executive Board, the co-CEOs, the management team, the employees, the works council, the partners, the customers, and the employees working for our customers." Setting aside that bizarre customer/customer-employee split, look at where customers rank in the great chain of being constructed by Plattner: dead last. Almost an afterthought. What good does it do SAP to have gushers of harmonic convergence among its own employees if the company's customers feel alienated, unfairly treated, and unwilling to trust anything SAP says? I just don't get that—again it's a degree of tone-deafness that is hard to fathom.
Update, Feb. 10: Bob Evans has another excellent piece in InformationWeek: An Open Letter To SAP Chairman Hasso Plattner.
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SAP and third-party maintenance: good for me but not for thee
SAP maintenance fees: where is the value?
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hikeby Frank Scavo, 2/08/2010 04:18:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Ferrus wrote:The latest slang word that has been gaining currency among secondary schoolers in the last year of or so is 'safe', as in 'that's safe', or great. Is that an American invention?
Never heard that sense here. "A safe bet" to denote something reasonably certain, is the closest that comes to mind.


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website hosting for artists by artists
We are artists who ♥ technology. We offer web hosting for artists and we know what you want as an artist. We know the ins and outs of building awesome websites. We'll help you create a beautiful portfolio website you'll be proud of. We understand that technology can be daunting. We are here to help you with all the technical details so you can focus on creating your online art portfolio.
Indexhibit installation for dummies? Our Indexhibit installer is stupid simple.
Honestly we love helping artists build beautiful portfolio websites. If you are happy with your website, that makes us happy! We will go out of our way to help you create the professional portfolio website you want.
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If you are setting up an SSL certificate for your Indexhibit site let us know we will help you get your Indexhibit site secure!
We've upgraded the Control Panel to the lastest version with a new look, responsive web design, and exciting new features like free auto installation of SSL certificates by Let's Encrypt!
We are upgrading our control panel software. Currently the old link to webmail is down but you should be able to access webmail at webmail.YOURDOMAIN.COM
(Just add webmail and a dot in front of your domain name.)
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George Lowe was born on Sept. 8, 1952 and passed away on Dec. 2, 2012.
George Lowe was born on Sept. 8, 1952 and passed away on Dec. 2, 2012. He was a beloved husband, father and "Pops." He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Shirley Lowe; his sons Jason Lowe (Cara) and Justen Lowe (Tami); and his three granddaughters McKenna, Delainey and Tenley Lowe.
He was the owner of George's Drywall and Son. He enjoyed fishing with his wife and duck hunting with his sons and his lifelong friend Chuck Jacobson.
A celebration of life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please send contributions (checks payable to Shirley Lowe, notated with George Lowe Memorial Fund) to: Tri Counties Bank, c/o Sandra Duchi, 303 Main St., Weed, CA 96094 or via Paypal: firstname.lastname@example.com. Proceeds from this fund will help Shirley cover a multitude of medical expenses.


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U.S. Army War College >> Strategic Studies Institute >> Publications >> Details
Seizing the Day: Resolution in and around the Black Sea
Authored by Dr. Stephen J. Blank.
- Added March 01, 2005
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Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the March 2005 newsletter.
Also by the Author/Editor:
Politics and Economics in Putin's Russia
Central Asia After 2014
Russia's Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus
Russia and the Current State of Arms Control
Perspectives on Russian Foreign Policy
Arms Control and European Security
Can Russia Reform? Economic, Political, and Military Perspectives
Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future
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MasterChef Christine Ha's Recap: Dessert (and Defeat) Is Bittersweet
Sep 5, 2013 1:02 AM EDT
We are down to the final 4 on MasterChef. Since Luca won the previous challenge, he will select a teammate, leaving the other two cooks to form their own team by default. During this time last season, I, too, was in Luca's position, and… Read more


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a piece that starts with marimbas and continues with a classical piano and a string section plus accordion, timpani, small percussion and glockenspiel; a piece with a French air. A piece moves to an imaginary dream and magic but at the same time romantic. Ideal in pictures with kids playing in the snow of winter cold but happy with that comes a great day that is Christmas.The organic, friendly and playful vibe of this track makes it most suitable for all kinds of corporate videos, business presentations, nature, travel, educational and children related contents, laid-back, ambient, chill and contemporary visuals, commercials, infomercials, podcasts, tv spots and web adverts.
- Full quality WAVE (44.1kHz/16bit)
- High quality Mp3 (320 kbps)
Please don't forget to rate after purchasing! If you have used this music in your project please let me know and I'll be happy to showcase it at my Audiojungle profile!
Similar Tracks:
- My Dream
- A Romantic Day
- Put A Smile In Your Life
- The Water Clock


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- M Fitzgerald 2017
Listing information is provided in part by the IDX program of the Bloomington-Normal Association of REALTORS® MLS. The information on this website is provided exclusively for consumers' personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed accurate by the MLS and should be independently verified. © 2019 Bloomington-Normal Association
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This event has passed.
Food 4 Less
December 15, 2017
If you just need vaccines for your cat or dog no appointment is necessary. We do vaccines from 10 am to 4 pm at our clinics on a first come first serve basis. Click Here For Prices
Spay/Neuter is by Appointment: Call 1-855-499-5829 or email us at email@example.com


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MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - England striker Wayne Rooney has signed a four-year contract extension that will keep him at Manchester United until June 2019, the Premier League champions said on their website (www.manutd.com) on Friday.
The 28-year-old Rooney, who left Everton for Old Trafford in 2004, had one year to run on his old contract.
"I am made up to be staying at United," said Rooney, whose new deal will earn him up to 300,000 pounds ($499,800) a week, according to media reports.
"I am convinced that this is the start of another successful chapter in Manchester United's history."
United have struggled since David Moyes took over as manager in the close season and tying Rooney to a new contract will come as a relief after predecessor Alex Ferguson said at the end of last term that the player had asked for a transfer.
Moyes, who worked with Rooney at Everton, said: "With his ability, his experience and his desire to succeed, he is a vital part of my plans for the future and I'm absolutely thrilled he has accepted the challenge".
"I said last July that Wayne has an outstanding chance to be a true legend of this club's long and rich history.
"He is just 42 goals away from overtaking Sir Bobby (Charlton) our record goalscorer and becoming the first United player to hit 250 goals for the club.
"These opportunities only come to special players and I'm confident Wayne will set a new record that will take decades to reach. These are really exciting times for everyone connected with the club."
Rooney has made 430 appearances for United, scoring 208 times, and is fourth on the club's all-time goalscorer list behind Jack Rowley (211), Denis Law (237) and Charlton (249).
At the end of last season, Rooney denied that he had requested a move but media speculation about his future intensified when Chelsea made a bid for him in the summer.
Moyes fought to keep the striker at United and Rooney has repaid his manager with 11 goals in 28 appearances this term.
"I am really excited to be a part of the club's future and want to thank David Moyes and (executive vice-chairman) Ed Woodward for their belief and support in me," said Rooney.
"The fans have always been a huge part of this club and the support they have given me since my debut against Fenerbahce has been amazing," added Rooney.
United, who are languishing in seventh place in the Premier League, visit Crystal Palace on Saturday. They are 11 points away from the Champions League qualifying positions, although they are in the last 16 of this season's competition.
United face Olympiakos for a place in the quarter-finals.
($1 = 0.6003 British pounds)
Reporting by Michael Hann in London; editing by Tony Jimenez and Ken Ferris


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Resetting Your WHMCS Password
You can reset your Reseller Hosting WHMCS password on your WHMCS administrative login page. Once you complete this process, you will receive an email that includes a new WHMCS password.
To Reset Your WHMCS Password
- Using an Internet browser, go to the admin area of WHMCS located at:
http://coolexample.com/whmcs/admin (where coolexample.com is your domain name, and whmcs is your custom whmcs directory).
- Click Forgot your password?
- Enter the WHMCS administrative email address.


text:
British and Bulbous
Photo: Cycling Weekly
This is Wiggo's Olympic bike and the ground effects were likely described as
separating the dirty air from the front end of the bike and it's wrapping around Wiggo's sideburns.
and with an Austin Powers voice, we ask does that make you HORNY?
Cycling Weekly has more photos and details on the bike we think looks like it was spotted on the set of Space Balls II or Twitter's Aero Fail Whale.


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I´m an Argentinian artist working with stained glass for 18 years. Here is a small selection of my works made in Argentina, Spain and Estonia.
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Many buyers looking for a lifestyle change wonder what it would be like to live in a condo.
But how do you decide if condo ownership is right for you? If you're in doubt, I suggest a classic categorizing of pros and cons. Here are some.
Pro: First of all, new condos are just as advertised - new; offering great design and the promise of a carefree lifestyle. Perhaps more importantly, they're a clean environment in which to practise your new lifestyle. The biggest pro is that it's a freeing change for homeowners.
Con: You first need to edit your stuff before you move and that can be both physically and psychologically difficult. Clean, fresh palette vs. dirty hands and angst.
Pro: A new condo holds forth the promise of having more time to do the things you want and spending less time on the things you have to do. No more lawn mowing, begging the plumber to fit you in or complaining when someone forgets to plow your driveway. All big pros.
Con: This "free" time comes at a cost, mainly the condo fees that cover many of the items you have to arrange yourself if your home is not a condo. It's a bit like leasing a car - you may be paying a bit more but at least it's a predictable expense.
And don't forget the special assessment. Of course, special assessments occur in single-family-dwelling ownership - roofs, furnaces and air conditioners need replacing, window seals fail - but in the condo experience the individual owner has only modest input into the special assessment process. There's no "let's just make do without air conditioning until next year" in a condo.
But the carefree lifestyle - that's what it's all about. This is a major pro. The associated con will generally not be a deal breaker.
A new condo is a great opportunity to consult with a feng shui specialist and balance out your unbalanced lifestyle. Though some pooh-pooh feng shui, the concept involves space, its utilization and the effect on one's well-being.
If you think this is a good idea, it might be well to have the feng shui expert evaluate the condo before purchase as it may have serious "flaws" that can be difficult (read expensive) or even impossible to correct.
Perhaps the biggest pro of condo living is the opportunity to correct the flaws in your previous residences - little things that annoyed you like low ceilings, a single sink in the bathroom or kitchen counters that were too high or low.
Perhaps you have overlooked neighbours' backyards for too long. Find a condo with spectacular city or water views. The con may be that too late you realize regular contact with your neighbours across a fence is more important to you than a spectacular view.
If your old home was not as bright as you liked, many condos offer lots of light. If you crave fresh design, find a developer who recognizes the importance of hiring top experts in architecture and design and has translated their work into a spectacular space. Such expertise might not be affordable for many homeowners, but condo owners can benefit from it.
Your new condo will probably be located smack in the middle of an urban centre or highly populated area. This means there will likely be ample opportunities for dining and entertainment within a short walk. Additionally, there will probably be easy access to public transportation. You may find yourself driving less and saving more.
Easy entertaining may sound like an oxymoron but condo living makes this a reality. Party kitchens and dining rooms along with formal gardens and games rooms are made to extend your living space beyond the confines of your own condo unit. Additionally, social opportunities are made easy as you'll often run into neighbours in the elevators and hallways.
There are as many pros as there are cons for living the condo lifestyle. When deciding if condo living is right for you, check your pros and cons list to make the right choice.
Marilyn Wilson has been selling real estate for more than 23 years and owns Marilyn Wilson Dream Properties Inc. Brokerage in Ottawa, an Exclusive Affiliate of Christie's International Real Estate. She can be reached through dreamproperties.com or follow her on Twitter @marilyn_wilson.


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Computes the path to an image asset in the public images directory. Full paths from the document root will be passed through. Used internally by image_tag to build the image path:
image_path("edit") # => "/images/edit" image_path("edit.png") # => "/images/edit.png" image_path("icons/edit.png") # => "/images/icons/edit.png" image_path("/icons/edit.png") # => "/icons/edit.png" image_path("http://www.example.com/img/edit.png") # => "http://www.example.com/img/edit.png"
If you have images as application resources this method may conflict with their named routes. The alias path_to_image is provided to avoid that. Rails uses the alias internally, and plugin authors are encouraged to do so.
# File actionpack/lib/action_view/helpers/asset_tag_helper.rb, line 274 def image_path(source) source.present? ? asset_paths.compute_public_path(source, 'images') : "" end
I would just use the path_to_image. I find that this is what works best. As it says above it can create problems.
Here is my code
Code example
def background_path(background) if background path_to_image background.file_name.normal else path_to_image "background_preview.jpg" end end def flavor_path(flavor) if flavor path_to_image flavor.file_name.normal else path_to_image("flavor_preview.jpg") end end
basic but gets the job done and it does not have problem with my pre built paths which are called image_path


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Representation of model inputs and parameters using stochastic, time-dependent parameters
Representation of model inputs and parameters using stochastic, time-dependent parameters can improve the accuracy of model predictions and representations of uncertainty. This is because, in deterministic models of environmental systems, systematic discrepancies between model simulations and measured data typically occur. These systematic deviations may be indicative of true indeterminism, or they might be the consequence of model aggregation and simplification. In either case, the implausibility of typical statistical assumptions implies that parameter uncertainty estimates or model extrapolations based on common techniques are likely to be unreliable. To address these discrepancies, we propose making selected parameters in the model time-variable by treating them as continuous-time stochastic processes. We have developed a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for Bayesian estimation of such parameters jointly with the other, constant parameters of the model. The algorithm consists of Gibbs sampling between constant and time-varying parameters using a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm for each parameter type. We have tested our algorithm using a simple global climate model in which an additional stochastic forcing component is introduced. The results show that the algorithm behaves well, is computationally tractable, improves the fit of the model to the data, and provides reasonable estimates of the additional forcing component over most of the simulation period.
Faculty contact:


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Today we're continuing the armor sets preview with the Mists of Pandaria dungeon sets! Those armor models will be used on the rare gear you get in 5-man and heroic instances and they will most likely be the armor your characters will wear for a while before you actually clear raids and gear up! It's also a very nice opportunity to try something new on the website!
New website feature - Image Gallery I'm giving another try at the whole image gallery thing! Clicking an image in this post will bring you to a very nice gallery that will let you browse through pictures easily.
- You can click the top right icon for a very fancy full screen mode.
- The original picture in full resolution is still available through the "Original" link at the bottom right.
- Using your left/right arrows keys to navigate between pictures should work, if you don't like clicking.
- It should work fairly well, but don't hesitate to post bugs in comments.
And because I know you're going to ask. No mail dungeon set for the moment in the game files.
Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Set - Plate
Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Set - Leather
Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Set - Cloth
Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Set - Leather
Mists of Pandaria Dungeon Set - Cloth
Next Beta Build will add Mogu'shan Palace and Shado-pan Monastery to the game
According to Zarhym's recent tweet, the next beta build will be released very soon and will raise the level cap and add two more dungeons to the beta: Mogu'shan Palace and Shado-pan Monastery.
Diablo 3 Beta End
The Diablo 3 Beta ended/ends today at 03:00AM PDT. If you can read this, you're probably already too late to play one last time and you will have to wait for the May 15th release before you can try the game again! I'm sure you're already aware of it by now, but we'll be covering all your Diablo needs at Diablofans!
Curse Weekly Roundup


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Celebrating illustration, design, cartoon and comic art of the mid-20th century.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Lorraine Fox: "People think an artist can sit down and do anything. I can't."
In the Winter 1967 issue of Famous Artists magazine, Lorraine Fox, who had recently joined the Guiding Faculty of the Famous Artists School, was interviewed about her career as a professional illustrator. Here in Part 3 of the interview Fox talks about the evolution of her style and her relationship with husband and fellow illustrator, Bernie D'Andrea...
Famous Artists magazine: You have been working on this synthesis [painting and commercial art] for a number of years. Is it a success?
(Below, an example of Lorraine Fox's style at the time of the 1967 interview)
Lorraine Fox: The adjustment has been tremendous. I don't know about success yet. A lot of people look at my work and say, "I can see it's your work." Then someone else will say, "Gee, it's beautiful, but it doesn't look like a Lorraine Fox!" I don't know how he means that but it makes me very happy.
Now I'm painting on my own - landscape painting, figurative painting. I'm getting a direction. People think an artist can sit down and do anything. I can't. I wish I had the ability to cope with three or four things at once but I have to finish one thing before I can start on something else.
(Below, Lorraine Fox children's book illustration from 1966)
FA: That must make it difficult to free-lance because you are necessarily starting one thing and finishing another as well as lining up work. How long does it take you to do a major illustration?
Fox: Well, the Ladies Home Journal just gave me a month to do a Christmas story illustration.
(Below, a Lorraine Fox Christmas illustration for McCall's from 3 years before this 1967 interview)
Actually, they ended up by giving me less than a month. it took me a week to do the sketch which showed my concept of the illustration. This involved getting the idea, getting the model. I could have done the finish in a week but it took longer. The concept is right up to today's kind of thinking. The design and technique come out of my paintings.
The difference between painting and illustration is this: An illustration must be specifically related to the story - you have to make the boy, the dog, the Santa Claus and the angel in the copy.
In painting, the ideas are related to your personal imagination. The ideal thing would be to have them use my paintings as illustrations.
FA: The need to stay contemporary, "with it," is so important for the artist who wants to reflect his time. Do you find that teaching helps you keep in touch with what's happening? Do you get something from your young students?
Fox: Once you begin to find out what you are all about, the young don't influence you that much.
If you're in touch, if you are curious and inquisitive, you're bound to be in tune. I happen to have that kind of instinct and so does my husband.
FA: You have advised students to understand their own character. For example, you ask them, "Are you fastidious or sloppy? Do you have a tendency to line things up neatly or let them fall to chaos around you?" What about your character? Do you like to line things up?
Fox: I think I do but I'm kind of sloppy, which I like. After the painting classes I decided that I just couldn't cope with the neatness. I guess I'm still neat, though, maybe semi-neat. I think there is a basic rigidity in me and it does come out. The reason I'm able to say this is that my husband is not. I'm able to get a clearer picture of me looking at him.
Everything is relative.
* Concluded tomorrow.
* Many thanks to Matt Dicke for providing the scans of the Lorraine Fox interview pages from the Winter 1967 issue of Famous Artists magazine being presented this week. Thanks to Heritage Auctions for allowing me to use scans from their archives.
3 comments:
- Remo3:47 PM
So, the problem is this.The fine artists I know address the idea they want to express and their 'style' emerges from that. i have the feeling that Fox still had an illustrator mindset and was looking for a style to pursue and then deal with her subject matter/commision in that style.ReplyDelete
Because for all the soul-searching she has gone thru, her work still has that distinctive late 60s feel and look and the 'personal response' ethos was also part of the style.A kind of watered down Ben Shahn with a stick on social conscience seemed to become the commodity on sale.
What you get with her husband is a value for money, top of the bill picture maker with no pretensions.I find that a lot more honest.
It may even be that LF pursued this avenue knowing that she would never be in the class of D'Andrea and on some level was trying to find a way to avoid unfavorable comparisons.
But, as I said yesterday, it's only my opinion.
I don't get from Fox what you get, Remo, but as you say, it's just your opinion and your opinion is welcome. Thanks for taking the time to express it.ReplyDelete
For me, Fox or any other artist engaged in the endless search for personal artistic growth has something of value to share. Throughout the interview she references her own struggle: "Why can't I be more of an artist?" "I wanted to learn to draw better," "It was never quite right - quite where it should have been. I wasn't really ready." "I'm not this big a deal," "I have a hell of a lot to learn."
Her frank admissions - her awareness of her own shortcomings - that's what I feel Lorraine Fox has that's of real value to all of us. Whether you or I happen to like the results of her efforts to develop a mature, distinct personal style is, in my opinion, inconsequential. She is offering us something far more important and meaningful than that. I think her closing remarks in today's final post reinforce that valuable message.
- Remo2:34 PM
I 100% agree with that Leif. I applaud her honesty and her desire to try to grow as an artist, and I think in this respect her example is one to be followed.ReplyDelete
On the general point of this merging of fine art with illustration, I haven't seen too many examples where I've liked the end product,whereas instincively I always feel a frisson of excitement when faced with something by Peak in his technicolor prime or Fawcett's dazzling powers of observation or Briggs' sinewy line-work etc etc.
But thanks for a stimulating look at an artist's quest for self-knowledge.


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Latest in Leak Farce: the 'Special Counsel' Folly
Looking out at the dreadful but lovable 1962 Mets, Casey Stengel used to wail, "Can't anybody here play this game?" Were he here to watch today's not so lovable Republican leadership in action, "the Ol' Perfessor" would be making the same observation.
As reported by PJM's Bridget Johnson, with Beltway fixtures John McCain and Lindsey Graham pointing the way, the GOP has loudly demanded that Attorney General Eric Holder name a "special counsel" to investigate Obama administration leaks of national defense information to the New York Times. Seeing his opportunity to bury this embarrassing episode until after the November election, Holder is naturally accommodating them -- or at least doing enough to appear to accommodate them that the media will applaud as the story goes dark.
The whole thing is a farce. You don't need a special prosecutor to know who talked to the Times. All you need to do is read the two stories -- the first on Obama's assassination list and the follow-up on cyber-warfare. The Times tells you who its sources are. At the very beginning of the 6300-word kill-list epic, it says: "In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of [Obama's] current and former advisers described Mr. Obama's evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda." The account goes on to quote, for example, former White House chief-of-staff Bill Daley, who not only confirms the existence of a kill-list but describes the considerations behind adding names to it. Current and former national security officials are quoted, in many instances by name (e.g., national security adviser Thomas Donilon and former national intelligence director Dennis Blair). And when names are not given, the Times quotes, for example, "one participant" in the approximately weekly meetings -- videoconferences run by the Pentagon but involving national security officials across the administration -- who describes some of the criteria for adding or removing terrorists from the kill-list.
Furthermore, at the very beginning of the cyber-war article, the Times describes "a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room" in which the president, vice-president and CIA director deliberated over whether the "Stuxnet" worm that had so vexed Iran's nuclear efforts had been compromised. The report elaborates: "'Should we shut this thing down?' Mr. Obama asked, according to members of the president's national security team who were in the room." There is no mystery here. The report goes on to say that current and former American officials involved in the program provided information to the Times -- and that "none would allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified." In other words, they knew full well that they were disclosing information that should not be disclosed and they demanded the cover of anonymity before doing so (and the Times, for its part, is protecting them because the paper, too, knows that what is being published should never have been shared with its reporters).
President Obama's mock outrage at yesterday's press conference -- "The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive!" -- was laughable, albeit with an Alinskyesque flair. Notice he referred to "my White House" not "my administration." This allows him to feign indignation while later saying he was referring only to current (not former) members of his White House staff. But if you know how these things work, the information the Times got is almost certainly not coming directly from the current White House staff; it comes (just as the stories themselves expressly indicate) from intelligence agencies, other administration officials, and former White House staffers who no doubt got the green-light to speak. And note that the Times reporters -- who would ordinarily refuse to discuss their sources at all, but make an exception when it comes to covering for The One -- are careful to deny, as the Daily Beast put it, that "the information was spoon fed to them from the White House." Well, no -- it was fork-lift fed to them by executive branch agencies and former administration officials.
So we know where the leaks came from. Now we're down to putting a particular name on particular leaked information. Relatively speaking, that is a matter of close to zero importance. The lesson here -- of far more political than legal significance -- is that President Obama is a reckless custodian of the nation's secrets. That is yet another good reason why it is so important to defeat him come November. The rest -- who said what -- is details. It's the guy in the Oval Office who sets the tone. And that guy, by the way, is fully empowered to declassify whatever information he chooses to declassify, no matter how sensitive, no matter how damaging its disclosure. So if it turns out that Obama effectively approved the leaks, they are probably not actionable disclosures of classified information anyway.


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By Karen Posada
News Headlines
08.2.2012 | By Karen Posada | No Comments">No Comments
'Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days' is not very different from the last two films of the series; it is simply yet another chapter full of mishaps and quirky moments. One thing that is nice about these films for pre-adolescent kids is being able to follow the same set of characters throughout different stages of their lives. These are the kind of movies you can let your kids watch from home, as going to the theater might bore adults with the story, since there is not much intellect that drives it.
This movie combines two books from the wimpy kid series The Last Straw and Dog Days; here Greg (Zachary Gordon) is ready for summer but not being the outdoorsy type he plans on spending it playing videogames with the curtains drawn. His plans change as his dad Frank (Steve Zahn) tries to get him to enjoy the summer by playing sports and joining a camp. Thanks to his friend Rowley (Robert Capron) he's able to escape from his dad by joining him in a country club, where he bumps into his crush Holly (Peyton List) and his summer plans quickly begin to change.
The thing I disliked most about the film is how much Greg prefers videogames to being outdoors, and while this is an attitude most kids unfortunately undertake nowadays, it almost seems like the movie is promoting it. I don't have much of a problem with Greg's dependency but more so with his actions, and although this might be realistic I think it might teach bad habits. The simple plot will easily bore adults; it is mainly aimed at its younger audience who will probably enjoy it from either following the books or the movie series.
One important thing it teaches is how much interaction and bonding between the parents and children are needed no matter how it's done, since it helps to create a more understanding relationship. Another important thing is how it shows that even when things don't go as expected the world isn't over and there's always a way to see things positively and to have fun.
I think director David Bowers has made it so that anyone can easily watch the film whether or not you've followed the books or movies, as you can easily get the characters and the familiarity that surrounds the film. These movies can easily work as a TV series and hence the reason why I think it best to watch it from home, since it doesn't offer anything out of the ordinary to force you to spend the extra money at the movie theater.
Rated: Rated PG for some rude humor
Release Date: 2012-08-03
Screenplay: Gabe Sachs, Maya Forbes
Official Website: http://www.diaryofawimpykidmovie.com/


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With school out, many children and young adults are looking for summer activities. I have uploaded a flyer for classes at our Hikari Dojo. We meet at the Halawa District Park gym on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Please feel free to give or send the flyer to anyone you think might be interested in learning the Shorin-Ryu form of Karate. The flyer is in pdf format.
Our minium age is usually 11.
Thank you very much.
Charles C. Goodin


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The National Journal's Jim Tankersley has an interesting article about Mitt Romney and his economic advisors. The gist of the article is that Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard are well-respected economists, but Romney's statements on the campaign trail suggest he's not listening to them much. Tankersley writes:
This, then, is the Romney Conundrum—for conservatives, liberals, and everyone else. Even on the economy, Romney's signature issue, it's hard to know where his heart lies—and how he would govern in the White House. Would the former Massachusetts governor listen to his best and brightest? Or to his party base?Of course this isn't entirely unique to Romney - politicians often fail to follow through on politically inconvenient suggestions from economists (though the universe of what is inconvenient for a Republican primary candidate to say is pretty scary these days).
"Romney's got Glenn and Greg advising him, and they're both top-notch economists," said Keith Hennessey, who ran the National Economic Council for President George W. Bush. "But there's more to economic policy than just economics."
The article comes to my attention from Greg Mankiw, who linked to it on his blog, without comment. Hmmmmm...
As if to illustrate... Mankiw has a column in today's Times about tax reform. Among his suggestions:
Consider the tax on gasoline. Driving your car is associated with various adverse side effects, which economists call externalities. These include traffic congestion, accidents, local pollution and global climate change. If the tax on gasoline were higher, people would alter their behavior to drive less. They would be more likely to take public transportation, use car pools or live closer to work. The incentives they face when deciding how much to drive would more closely match the true social costs and benefits.Well, if Romney proposed that, it would probably take the attention off his tax returns!
Economists who have added up all the externalities associated with driving conclude that a tax exceeding $2 a gallon makes sense. That would provide substantial revenue that could be used to reduce other taxes. By taxing bad things more, we could tax good things less.


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To the victors go the spoils, the old saying goes – and it appears likely that the case of Libya will uphold the rule.
Libya's new transitional leaders (formerly known as rebels) used a Paris conference Thursday to outline to the international community their plans for a political transition, as well as to lay out their need for international assistance in stabilizing the country after six months of conflict.
Several attendees, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the United States, used the gathering of some 60 countries and international organizations to announce the release of billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets to the new leadership.
But the meeting was also an opportunity for countries to jostle for a spot on Libya's interim rulers' list of best friends – a list that is likely to be referenced in the months ahead as Libya gets back on its feet and puts out for bidding everything from ministry rebuilding and infrastructure repair to oil contracts and arms purchases.
Both Britain and France, who led the NATO military mission that helped topple Col. Muammar Qaddafi and who hosted Thursday's conference, can expect high rankings on the friends list. So, too, can the US, despite its backseat role in the NATO campaign and an initial reluctance to recognize the Transitional National Council (TNC) as Libya's new legitimate power.
A desire to be on the winning side – and to reap the benefits of doing so – goes a long way in explaining Russia's decision to recognize the TNC on the eve of the Paris conference.
Until this week Russia had been reluctant to take any action that might suggest it condoned NATO's involvement in the conflict, and it had also hoped to create a role for itself in Libya by maintaining its contacts with Mr. Qaddafi's regime, some regional analysts say. But with a deposed and hunted Qaddafi now clearly the loser, the analysts add, the only option for a country like Russia that is looking to burnish its standing in the Middle East is to jump to the winners.
"Gee, what a surprise that was," says Wayne White, an adjunct scholar with the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington. "The Russians were particularly loath to see the end of a regime they were so close with, so salvaging some kind of foothold in Libya was not part of their motivation for recognizing the council, it was their only motivation."
That does not mean that Russia is the only country out there looking to preserve or augment its cut of the Libyan pie.
Mr. White, a former State Department Middle East expert, says the Qaddafi regime has been "utterly inept" at maintaining infrastructure, particularly in the oil sector – a fact he says is well known in the region and beyond.
"Libya is probably more dependent on foreign expertise than anyone in the region to keep its infrastructure in working condition. That is going to be even more true as Libya moves to bring its infrastructure back up," he adds, "and people know it."
The US will have several advantages going for it as Libya looks for reconstruction partners, White says. The US role in the NATO campaign will be just one factor.
"Even though the US might have looked better had it taken a lead role, it proved significant support that kept NATO in the air and it provided crucial reconnaissance, and [the Libyans] are aware of that," he says.
Other factors that White says will favor the US:
• The role US media played in taking the rebels' struggle to the world.
• The fact that the US – unlike Britain, Italy, and to some degree France – does not have "colonial baggage' in Libya.
• An Arab impression that "only the Americans know how to find oil" will "make them desirable for technical assistance."
The jostling for position on the friends list does not mean that foreign powers' interests in Libya are wholly opportunistic, experts say.
A politically stable Libya is particularly important to Europe. A failed Libya could send a wave of refugees northward with significant repercussions across Europe, says Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.
Some European officials have predicted that chaos in Libya would send hundreds of thousands of refugees to European shores, Ms. Conley notes in a CSIS website posting. That in turn could bolster the fortunes of far-right, anti-immigrant political forces, she adds.
It's also important to Western powers that the rebel forces they backed end up promoting the values they espouse.
"We will be watching and supporting Libya's leaders as they keep their stated commitments to conduct an inclusive transition, act under the rule of law, and protect vulnerable populations – and that should include enshrining the rights of women as well as men in their constitution," Secretary Clinton said in addressing the "friends of Libya" conference Thursday. "Honoring these principles offers Libya its best chance at a stable, successful future."
Clinton also called on Libya's new leaders to "stand against violent extremism and work with us to ensure that weapons from Qaddafi's stockpiles do not threaten Libya's neighbors and the world." One reason the US trailed some other countries, including France and Britain, in recognizing the TNC was its concerns about the presence of radical Islamists in the council's ranks.
Even more than the Obama administration, the governments of France and Britain are keen to show their constituents that the Libyan intervention was worthwhile and successful, says the MEI's White.
That's one reason humanitarian assistance in the immediate aftermath of conflict will be so important. If the Libyan population is left to languish, he says, it could lead to sustained instability and even an open door to Islamist extremism.
And that in turn could turn off an already reluctant European population to any future overseas interventions, White says.
"They [European governments in particular] are very concerned to make this good," he says. "They want to be able to present this as a model of liberation and reform."


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It's election season here in the United States, and as we all know, the combination of democracy and mapping yields one main thing: cartograms! Those entertaining maps in which states, counties, or whatever have been resized based on their electoral significance.
The folks at Decision Desk HQ (decisiondeskhq.com) have been making cartograms for the party primaries, breaking each state out by county (or town, in some cases). I've only rarely seen county cartograms, and I don't think I've seen one for election results before, so it's great that they're taking this on. But their approach is troubling.
Their approach is to resize each county by population (# of total votes would be good, but no good could come of remaking these on the fly as votes come in), and try to keep the overall shape of the state. Unfortunately, in so doing, they shuffle the counties around any old which way. The Lower Peninsula of Michigan has 68 counties in reality, the Upper Peninsula has 15. But Decision Desk HQ has shoved most of the counties into the Upper Peninsula, which now has 58, vs. 25 that remain in the Lower Peninsula.
This means that we can't really see spatial patterns, which is sort of the point of having a map. Notice how, on the NYT map, the gold-colored counties that went for Cruz are mostly clustered in the west. The Decision Desk HQ map keeps some of them there (in yellow), but scatters the rest of that cluster around the Upper Peninsula. The two purple counties both went for Kasich, and Decision Desk HQ would have us think they are neighbors (which would be an interesting thing to note as far as spatial patterns go), but in fact they're the two teal-colored counties on the NYT map that are on opposite sides of the state. The list goes on.
A table would be better than the Decision Desk HQ map. Right now it misleads readers. If you don't know Michigan Geography, you will come away with incorrect understandings of which regions of the state went for which candidates.
Making cartograms is hard. It is absolutely possible to level a charge of "spatial patterns are distorted" against almost any of them in some way. But most good cartograms at least try to preserve the topology. Example:
Does this mess up some of the spatial distribution? Most certainly. But the effort is there to try and keep some of it. Most states continue to border their real-life neighbors, and lie in approximately the correct direction to each other. The South is still in the south. Keeping those relationships, as best as one can, is critical. It's what makes these things more valuable than an alphabetical table of states/counties/etc.
I must admit that I originally praised the Decision Desk HQ maps when I saw them:
That's because they do look pretty cool. And because I had no idea that all the towns of New Hampshire were probably in the wrong place. But when Michigan's turn came around, I could not ignore the mangling of my beloved home state. I'm sorry, NH: I didn't know what they did to you.
One Nice Thing: For those of you unfamiliar (since I post here only about every 2–3 years), I try to say one nice thing about any map I criticize. Decision Desk HQ deserves praise for applying cartograms to state election data; I've not seen that before (though perhaps others have done so). Constructing all these county/town population cartograms is no easy task. And they didn't use the awful-looking Gastner-Newman algorithm. Instead, they've got a nice clean style of their own, which would be great if it were just much more accurate. I think that's entirely possible to do while keeping to their aesthetic.


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Tupac Look-A-Like Spotted At The Lil Wayne I Am Music Tour! (Some People In Crowd Lookin Shocked)
Michael Jordan reports "Tupac look-alike at the I am Music Tour Lil Wayne Concert"
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text:
We got new monitors in the ER. They are nifty, gee-whiz gadgets that have more functionality and better monitoring capacity. They are multi-colored, five-lead, omni-capable devices that can monitor heart rate, rhythm, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, temperature, exhaled carbon dioxide, mixed venous oxygen and the stock price of Google, all in real time. And they go "Bing!"
The nurses got trained exhaustively by the company representatives, with special required meetings and classes to learn all the knobology and features and functions. They had to pass a little test at the end, and it was all very well done and now we have spiffy new monitors, Hooray!
Of coure, the docs did not get trained. We never do on any of the new toys. Most of us didn't even know that new montors were coming; we just noticed one day that the tone of the "Bing!" was different than before. At the department meeting, after the monitors had been in place a few weeks, there was a very brief introduction for the docs which basically consisted of how to turn the machines off and how to silence the alarm. (Bing!)
This seems typical of how physicians are introduced to new technology in the hospital. While the nurses, techs, and other (hospital employee) personnel are carefully and seriously trained how to use the new gadgets, the doctors are just somehow assumed to have this awesome brainpower that we can pick it up and go to town with it. And frankly, that's how we ususally do it. New intubating scopes? Fiberoptics cameras? Minimally invasive tube thoracostomies? Just figure it out at the bedside. Hopefully, a nurse will be there to show you how to turn it on, and which end to hold.
It's like in residency, the teaching mantra was "See one, Do one, Teach one." Only we omit the "see one" and proceed straight to "Do one."
Do I exaggerate? Yes. A bit. Do I have a solution? Not really. Our docs, I think, are not unlike other physicians in that there are many many demands on our attention and limited time and limited capacity to receive incoming information. We have one marathon 6 hour meeting a month, where usually 40-60% of our docs can attend: should we spend the on the new CMS core measures, or the new CHF pathway we have developed, or the process changes for lab results, (etc etc etc), or the new monitors? That's in addition to the risk management and QA we do, the finance management, HR and scheduling, and maybe a little time for CME if you can swing it.
Try to tack all that on top of a full-time job with rotating shifts. Something's gotta give, and training seems to be the one we can get away with most easily.
The funny thing is that we do seem to get away with it. My group has seen over a million patients in the time I've been here, and we haven't had an adverse event due to misuse of a medical device by a physician. I think that's due to the low numbers bias. The aviation industry (and the cult of six sigma) view the error rate in terms of errors per million, and of that million patients we have seen, only a small fraction have been subject to use of a medical device, whether it's a suture kit, or laryngoscope or a defibrillator. So the "n" for the patients at risk is low enough that statistically we shouldn't expect to see an error yet, and when we do the error rate will be several logs worse than six sigma.
As a counterbalance to that depressing post, I offer you this guilty pleasure:
12 September 2008
We got new monitors in the ER. They are nifty, gee-whiz gadgets that have more functionality and better monitoring capacity. They are multi-colored, five-lead, omni-capable devices that can monitor heart rate, rhythm, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, temperature, exhaled carbon dioxide, mixed venous oxygen and the stock price of Google, all in real time. And they go "Bing!"
Posted by shadowfax at 10:49 AM
5 comments:
I am sure it is different in the Northwest than it is in south Florida. However, down here only about 1% of the physicians would even be interested in any training. There are probably about 10% of the physicians that won't even go into a patients room when they round and if they do enter the room they never get close enough to touch the patient.ReplyDelete
I commend you for taking a deep interest and wanting to learn. I wish we had more physicians like you in south Florida.
Did you get the most expensive monitor, in case the administrator comes?ReplyDelete
Wonderful what we can do nowdays...
- Anonymous9/14/2008 9:12 AM
about half the time we get new technology, it just shows up. Nobody ever seems to know where it came from, how to calibrate it, or where the on-switch is.ReplyDelete
Great video, very funny (I think the humor is enhanced by the British accents).ReplyDelete
Apparently it must be very important that all new equipment be able to go "bing!" or it is totally worthless.
I especially like the "cutting" of the umbilical cord.ReplyDelete


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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
DIY Decorative Cross
This first cross is for me. I had a spot I recently pulled a picture down from and it fits perfectly. I found different sized wooden crosses at a local antique store. One of the vendors sells unfinished wood. They also sell different size crosses at different craft stores, my suggestion would be to take along a coupon. I have about 2,345 different ways I plan on creating decorative crosses, but.....this is the one 'for me.' I grabbed two pieces of scrapbook paper that go together pretty well.
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 5 comments
Monday, July 30, 2012
Sewing Pattern Flowers
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 2 comments
Labels: Decorating, Living Room, Pattern, Sewing, Vintage
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Recycled Record Book Ends
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 1 comments
Labels: Decorating, Living Room, Recycle
Friday, July 27, 2012
Frames Quote Board Center
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: Frames, Home Goods, School
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Mini Coaster Albums
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 1 comments
Labels: Homemade Gift, Recycle, Scrapbooking
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Brigadeiros (Brazillian Chocolate Truffles)
So....if you want to try a little piece of Brazil here is the recipe for Brigadeiros. And for a hot country, they sure know a thing or ten about chocolate.....I just want to know how to store hershey bars on the boat without them becoming s'mores by the time I attempt to open them, but.....that's another story....
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 2 comments
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Crockpot BBQ Chicken
Crockpot BBQ Chicken
4-6 pieces boneless chicken (you can throw it in frozen), 1 bottle of BBQ sauce, 1/4 c. vinegar, 1 t. red pepper flakes, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 1 t. garlic powder.
Instructions: Pour over the chicken and cook on low for 4-6 hours.
*I put this together the night before and put the bowl in the fridge overnight. I do this a lot, and then toss it on to start heating when I leave for whatever I'm doing that day.
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 2 comments
Labels: Chicken, Crockpot, Main Dishes
Monday, July 23, 2012
Micah's First Birthday Cupcake Shirt
blogged about a week ago with a watermelon onsie to hold down the cupcake 'liner', candle (a strip of ribbon) and flame (all scrap fabrics).
Posted by Christy Robbins at 12:00 AM 1 comments
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Whoopie Pies
I googled recipes and found several recipes from allrecipes I put together. For the cake....
Mix up a Devil's Food cake mix with all the ingredients it calls for EXCEPT, cut the water down to 3/4 c. (so, mine called for 1 1/2 c. water and I only used 3/4, plus I added the 3 eggs and 1/2 c. oil the recipe called for....this makes it thick enough it won't spread as it bakes and will be more like a cookie). I also added 3 T. of flour, and a box of chocolate instant pudding (the small box). I mixed these up and then I dropped them onto cookie sheets. I made mine about the size of golf balls and it made 16 cookie sandwiches (32 cookies).
Friday, July 20, 2012
Make Your Own Super Hero Cape
Posted by Christy Robbins at 2:34 AM 1 comments
Labels: Birthday, Gifts for Boys, Parties
Thursday, July 19, 2012
33 years of....
Posted by Christy Robbins at 2:00 AM 3 comments
Labels: Dallas Area Activities, Personal 'Stuff'