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(Reuters Life!) - If you think London is the kind of luxury destination that will empty your wallet in seconds, then you'll be delighted to know that you don't have to be a billionaire to enjoy the best of the British capital. This city is also a jewel for the world class bargain-hunter looking for top food, culture and art on a staycation budget. Reuters correspondents with local knowledge show you how to get the most out of London on the cheap.
10 a.m. Contender for the best coffee in London, a brew from Monmouth Coffee Company is an ideal way to kick start the long day of exploration ahead. (www.monmouthcoffee.co.uk) Next nip across the road to London's larder, Borough Market, stocked full of organic fruit and veg, artisan cheeses, bread, meat and fish. Browse amongst the gourmet goodies and graze your way round the numerous free samples. (www.boroughmarket.org.uk)
12 p.m. Work off brunch with a stroll to Southwark's newly created Urban Physics Garden, an inner city oasis bursting with medicinal plants and herbs that heal. Be sure to try out the unconventional Serbian seesaws. (www.physicgarden.org.uk/)
Opposite is the Jerwood Space, the gallery boasts an exciting program of visual art exhibitions, showcasing emerging new talent. (www.jerwoodspace.co.uk).
1:45 p.m. Wander down to the Thames to explore London's riverside cultural quarter, the South Bank. Theater enthusiasts should head to the thatch-roofed, oak-beamed Shakespeare's Globe, a faithful reconstruction of the open-air playhouse originally built in 1599. Between April and October visitors can experience a near authentic, original 'Shakespeare in performance'. Tickets for the pit, the open air free standing yard are a snip at 5 pounds ($8.15).Tours of the building and the Shakespeare exhibition are on all year-round.
Strolling along the riverside path, it's hard to ignore the imposing Tate Modern, housed in a former Power Station, the center has succeeded in bringing challenging modern art to the masses. Inside, the vast turbine hall displays awe-inspiring site specific installations and the permanent collections feature work by the likes of Francis Bacon, Picasso and Mark Rothko. Check www.tate.org.uk for the schedule of free guided tours.
4:30 p.m. Stride across the pedestrian Millennium Bridge admiring views of the Thames. Next destination is St Paul's Cathedral, Christopher Wren's 17th century domed masterpiece. Visiting is free for worship purposes and you can catch the cathedral choir giving an Evensong performance at 5 p.m.
7 p.m. Da Polpo in Covent Garden is a great dinner destination. With a no-reservations policy just head down to the New York Italian inspired restaurant for a spread of Italian delicacies (dapolpo.co.uk).
Treat yourself to a glass of the house wine and soak up the atmosphere at Gordon's wine bar. Every nook and cranny of the vaulted candlelit cellar is filled with chatter and in summer the crowd spills out into the Embankment Gardens. (www.gordonswinebar.com)
10 a.m. Let the aroma of freshly baked goods lure you into Brick Lane Beigel, an East London institution and thriving relic of London's Jewish East end. Smoked salmon and cream cheese or salt beef and mustard fillings make a hearty budget breakfast. (159 Brick Lane, E1 6SB)
10:30 a.m. Fancy a spot of shopping? Shoreditch is a hotbed of cutting edge style and there are plenty of bargains to be had in its independent stores and vintage shops. Tucked away on Cheshire St is cavernous Beyond Retro, a one-stop shop for the fabulous clothes of yesteryear. (www.beyondretro.com).
12 p.m. For a quick post shop pep try Kiwi coffee connoisseurs Allpress Espresso who pride themselves on in-house roasting. (www.allpress.co.nz)
12:30 p.m. Head east to Columbia Road, a Victorian terraced street that springs to life on Sunday with the weekly flower market. Prepare to have your senses overwhelmed as you are met with vibrant foliage, exquisite blooms and the barrow boys bellowing out the deals of the day. (www.columbiaroad.info)
2 p.m. Peckish? Aim for Goldsmiths Row, home to a few economical eateries along with some more upmarket establishments. For a taste of traditional London fare visit F. Cooke's Pie and Mash Shop. Established in 1900, the menu remains the same, steaming by the window is a vat of eels, choose from hot or jellied for a mere 2.50 pounds washed down with a mug of piping hot builder's tea.
3 p.m. Choose to spend the remainder of the afternoon lounging on expansive, green London Fields or if the weather permits take a dip in the 50 meter-long heated lido.
Home to many of the capitals creative industries there is also an array of neighboring galleries to explore. Famous for championing the Young British Artists is the White Cube in Hoxton (www.whitecube.com), or try the Victoria Miro Gallery, stretched over nearly 3,000 meters (yards) complete with a charming landscaped garden, it is a breeding ground for exciting young artists (www.victoria-miro.com).
6 p.m. Thought vinyl was dead? Bustling Kristina records on Stoke Newington High St begs to differ. Peruse their collection of quality underground new and second hand records or stumble upon an in store gig. (www.kristinarecords.com)
For your evening meal follow the mouth-watering scent round the corner to Mangal Ocakbasi, the frontrunner in Turkish charcoal grilled lamb, chicken and vegetables. A popular spot, you may have a short wait to be seated but there is plenty of activity to hold your attention. A single chef adeptly manipulates row upon rows of kebabs as the ocakbasi grill plumes smoke into the huge extractor looming above. Grab a beer from the corner shop as the restaurant operates a BYOB policy (www.magal1.com).
8:30 p.m. The area has a handful of great traditional pubs to wind down with after dinner drinks. Prop yourself up at the Shakespeare's horse shoe bar to sample their range of ales or head to the Prince George (40 Parkholme Rd, E8 3AG) popular with the hip kids and long term Dalston residents alike.
During the Summer months, it's worth checking Dalston roof park's events calendar, on top of the spectacular views, the green astro turf plays host to small productions by the nearby Arcola Theater, and there are outdoor film screenings and gigs (www.bootstrapcompany.co.uk). ($1 = 0.613 British Pounds)
Edited by Paul Casciato


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1926 -- "A Real Goddamn Crazy Place!"
St. Valentine's Day
The man who challenged
Earl "Hymie" Weiss
It is one of
the amazing ironies of the 20th century
The $100 million a year Prohibition-fed criminal empire created by Johnny Torrio and Al Capone in Chicago between 1920 to 1931 was not without its serious challengers. The biggest threat to this massive organization was not from arrest or prosecution by police, the district attorney, or the city's elected officials (each of whom had numerous members on the Torrio-Capone payroll). Capone and Torrio faced their greatest challenge from a single rival: the Northsiders gang.
First led by Dean O'Banion, the Irish-Polish-Italian-Jewish rainbow coalition known as the Northsiders peeled off from an initial wary co-existence with the Torrio combine to wage all out war for survival and domination. After O'Banion was killed in 1924, his partner and successor, Earl "Hymie" Weiss, had two life goals: the destruction of Capone and Torrio to avenge O'Banion, and total domination of Chicago bootlegging and rackets.
The most oft-quoted word-bite about Weiss is that he was the only man Al Capone ever truly feared. Considering Capone cut a bloody swath through Chicago for eleven years, this is a seriously significant statement. Weiss was seemingly without fear, and, if the word can be used to describe what was otherwise criminal behavior, he was also courageous. During his short life, Weiss was both hunter and hunted, engaging in open gun battles on the streets of Chicago in a two front gang war with the Torrio/Capone outfit and with Torrio's erstwhile allies, the deadly Sicilian Genna brothers. Both O'Banion and Weiss were complex, thoughtful, and brutally violent men. They were also devoutly religious and loyal to each other and to the men who comprised their Northside gang-- a loyalty so strong it took the St. Valentine's Day massacre to finally snuff it out.
The subject of Chicago gangland in the 1920s, and the unique social experiment known as Prohibition, have inspired a rich history of publication, the majority of which focuses on Al Capone. These also include newspaper accounts from the 1920s, excellent work by a number of current and past researchers and historians, and contemporary television documentaries.
In 1920, the United States enacted a law to ban the manufacture and sale of liquor in America-- the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. In one of the amazing ironies of the 20th century, this unique social experiment, the intent of which was to create domestic morality, actually established the roots of organized crime in America.
This website is a research work in progress. The author welcomes comments, questions, and dialogue about this amazing period in American history. For more information and further contacts on this subject, visit the Notes & Comments, Bibliography, and Links sections of this website.
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bottle lights, Custom Chalkboard, Home and Garden, monogrammed pillows, Pollen, Porch, Porch Decorating, Shopping, wine bottle lights
OK ~ So this picture is taken in mid winter & cooler weather. Now in the South the weather has definitely taken a turn! Everywhere you look there are yellow-bells, blooming azaleas & green green grass! The trees are beautiful. This also means pollen! Our cars have been covered with the fine yellow powder. The porches are covered too! Sooooooooooooo… power washer! I love the physical fun of man-handling the contraption all around the yard & house with the final result being perfectly clean including the smell of clorox! Muscles I didn't know I had now ache. The gratification of a job well done is satisfying & a little exhausting!!!!
My porches are ready for…
I am now making the decisions about color & pattern. I am thinking to jump out of my normal comfort zone & go for more jazzy green & maybe purple? The glory of this is I can tie in a burst of bold or subtle inspiration. A bench with a cushion ~ a light with accent ribbon ~ a colorful framed chalkboard ~ a monogrammed fleur de lis ~ the oh-so-perfect pattern!
I have a little time though as the pollen is still settling all around me! At least now just a quick sweep or gentle water is doing the trick. Also, the rockers on the front are having a major overhaul with sandpaper & paint! Hopefully soon…. the colors of Spring, fabric, monogram & fresh paint will make an awesome picture to share!


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Terra Selisa Dolphin Beach
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cable attachments
Cable Attachments For Exercise Machines - Cable attachments connect to selectorized strength training machines and are used for pushing or pulling exercises to tone, build and strengthen muscles throughout the upper and lower body. Cable attachments help isolate the arms, chest, shoulders, back, abs and with the use of an ankle cuff can help tone the inner/outer thighs and hips. Materials used to manufacture these cable machine attachments can vary depending upon the muscle being targeted but can include leather, nylon webbing, powder coated steel tubing and solid steel bars that can be knurled for added grip. Cable attachments clip on to strength machines such as cable crossovers and functional trainers via a large carabiner. The carabiner allows the attachments to be changed out quickly when the user changes exercises.
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Expert Advice
Test Yourself on These 8 Beauty Bits of Information!
"47 percent of all SPA-GOERS are MALE. Along with spas catering more to men, they are becoming more comfortable with the idea of going to a spa." —The International SPA Association Spa Consumer Initiative Volume Three
"The new term SILIOILMIN is a mixture of the silicones and oils in hair care products plus the minerals that are present in water—calcium, copper, chlorine, even lead. Together this combination of SILICONES, OILS and MINERALS has created a compound that gums up the hair and interferes with color services." —Malibu C
"48 percent of women believe NATURAL or CURLY HAIR STYLES exude CONFIDENCE and the same percentage consider them daring. Meanwhile, 45 percent of Black women think NATURAL COIFS are TRENDY." —Tonya Roberts multicultural analyst at Mintel
"Women may be obsessed with a great skin care routine, constantly hunting for the best products, but men don't feel the same way. 75 percent of men ages 18 and up are not currently using FACIAL SKIN CARE products." —NPD Group Study for Consumer Market Research
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emrosenf necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 54 diseños de 13 diseñadores freelance.
Advanced Vein & Laser Centre
We are a medical practice that specializes in varicose vein treatment. Our current website is: http://www.avlc.com/
Our website is several years old and we have decided that it is time for a redesign to the latest web 2.0 techniques.
Most medical websites are busy, full of text, impersonal and difficult to read. Choosing a doctor can be difficult and intimidating – we want our redesign to immediately build trust and convey authority and professionalism while at the same time being gentle and personal.
Our audience is mostly middle-class women between the ages of 25-55. These people are shopping around for doctors and have found our site because they are genuinely interested in treatment. They are busy and don't have time to read fine print. They want to find the information they want cleanly and clearly. They want to be reassured that the medical practice is the most experienced and the best.
What would you want to see in a medical website? We imagine that if patients were able to get to know the practice by seeing the doctor, understanding the reputation of the practice, and perhaps by watching a video introduction with the doctor or reading articles the doctor had written, they would feel much more comfortable coming in.
This is the layout that I want from top to bottom:
- header, perhaps with the following elements: logo/name, slogan ("The art of feeling better . . .The art of Doctor Rosenfeld"), phone number
- navigation bar
- features section: some element like the big blue box at whitehouse.gov (the one with the buttons 1,2,3,4). The feature shown will be varicose veins, with a picture of beautiful legs. I've posted a picture that you can use.
- footer
Somewhere in there, it would be great if you could integrate social media features like:
- become a fan on facebook / share on facebook
- join my email list
I would like to see
• Phone number in top right
• Much less text, what is left is larger and more defined
• Elements in "bubbles" with rounded corners
• no need for "welcome to avlc" paragraph
However, I'll note that we like the following websites:
• Hosthut.com
• Whitehouse.gov
We are imagining something in between a web 2.0 startup and a wordpress blog.
What you cannot change is our logo and our colors. The website should use the AVLC logo and the overall design should be complement the color palette of the logo.
You may use any of the resources in our current web page: http://www.avlc.com.


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|Version 13 (modified by 9 years ago) (diff),
Flexible Wiki Plugin
This project is not maintained anymore. Feel free to make a fork.
Plugin is experimental and may have database query perfomance issues. At least, database structure should be improved.
Yet, it is in working state at the moment! Tested with version 0.11.7.
Plugin allows one to make flexible structure of wiki pages. Parent pages can be set up for any wiki page, so we get flexible structure instead of 'plain' wiki structure.
Download the zipped source from [download:flexiblewikiplugin here].
You can check out FlexibleWikiPlugin from here using Subversion, or browse the source with Trac.
For example, if you want to structure pages on your wiki and use 'native' Trac approach, you should name you pages in a specific manner:
- DevGuide
- DevGuide/Resources
- DevGuide/Plugins
- etc.
So, page name is 'coupled' with structure - if you want to change structure, you should change page name or even name of many pages.
This plugin allows to structure pages independent on their names. So, the structure could be:
- DevGuide
- AddingResources
- AddingPlugins
- etc.
In this example pages AddingResources and AddingPlugins has parent DevGuide. So, if you want restructure pages, you should change 'parent' for page or some pages, and their address remain unchanged.
When this plugin is installed a horozontal navigation bar is displayed on the top of each wiki page. So, when you look at the page AddingPlugins, the navigation bar will be:
WikiStart / DevGuide / AddingPlugins . WikiStart is always at start of navigation bar.
For displaying navigation in 'tree' manner, special macro is provided, see details below.
- install plugin as any other Trac plugin (how to?)
- upgrade your environment (how to?)
- note changes:
- you should see New page button in main menu, if you see it, then plugin is active and working
- you will also see extra fields in page edit dialog, see below
- incorporate wiki macros [[TracFlexWikiTree]] and [[TracFlexWikiChildren]] somewhere in your template or just use them in your pages, there's no sidebar in default Trac templates, so you need manually customize template, see example.
Extra page properties:
- title: string, just page title, automatically displayed on top of page and in navigation
- parent: name of parent wiki page or empty if none
- weight: number, defines page ordering in menu
- hide: flag, if set, page won't appear in menu generated by [[TracFlexWikiTree]]
Template example
Here's quick demonstration example with [[TracFlexWikiTree]] macro in left sidebar: see in attachment site.html.
Additional macros
Plugin provides extra wiki macros.
Shows wiki pages tree menu. Menu is generated as simple unordered list. Macro receives one optional parameter class, wich defines CSS class of menu.
For now, plugin does not generate initial structure data. So, for existring pages structure data is not provided. That means, they are not displayed in
TracFlexWikiTree until you edit and save them.
Here's plugin in work - page editing: flexiblewikiplugin-scr1.jpg.
Note extra navigation item New page and extra fields Parent page, Hide from menu, Page weight.
Navigation line above page title is inserted by this plugin automatically.
Menu in left sidebar is provided by macro
[[TracFlexWikiTree]]. It's added globally in site templates, this plugin doesn't do this automatically.
Bugs/Feature Requests
Existing bugs and feature requests for FlexibleWikiPlugin are here.
If you have any issues, create a new ticket.
Further development
Some features are not implemented yet, like site map etc.
Plugin is a bit tricky. It adds extra key
'node' to
request.args, that is instance of class
TracFlexWikiNode, which provides something like API for this plugin.
Feedback is welcome!
Recent Changes
- 7816 by rudyryk on 2010-04-05 22:16:20
flexiblewikiplugin: example for site.html - site_example.html
- 7815 by rudyryk on 2010-04-05 21:04:56
flexiblewikiplugin: bigfix #6905 - getting current node for request
- 5589 by rudyryk on 2009-04-24 17:31:12
- TracFlexWikiPlugin source commited
- 5588 by rudyryk on 2009-04-24 17:27:54
New hack FlexibleWikiPlugin, created by rudyryk
Author: rudyryk
Attachments (2)
flexiblewikiplugin-scr1.jpg (211.1 KB) - added by 10 years ago.
Edit page screenshot
site.html (833 bytes) - added by 9 years ago.
Example template with TracFlexWikiTree in sidebar
Download all attachments as: .zip


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Thursday, September 27, 2012
The Offense Needs to Show Up This Week
The Bears aren't world beaters but they do have a very good defense. That means that the offense has their work cut out for them this week. Last week the offense struggled against one of the worst pass defenses in football primarily because they just couldn't get Tony Romo any time to throw the ball. And the running game was so bad it was embarrassing.
The defense will have their hands full dealing with Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall. It is sounding more and more like Matt Forte will play Monday night as well. But you can be sure that Cutler will throw at least a few balls that the defense will have a chance to pick off. The real test is going to be stopping the running game again. Even without Matt Forte the Bears will still have Michael Bush who is no slouch. The good news is that the Bears are very similar to the Cowboys in that their offensive line is not good at all.
The real test for the Cowboys this week will be what they do on offense. It is pretty obvious at this point that the Cowboys could be a very good team if the offense could become even mediocre. Who would have thought that the offense would be the big problem after the terrible finish to the season by the defense last year. That just goes to show how poorly the offensive line has played up to this point. They aren't opening any running lanes at all and Tony Romo will be lucky to play 16 games this season they way things are going.
Bill Callahan admitted that his offensive line has been terrible. Doug Free admitted his play has been terrible. The question is whether there is enough talent and skill on the offensive line to fix the problems that have been apparent over the last two games. We have all seen Doug Free play good football before. He just needs his confidence back.
I believe the rest of the issues stem from the fact that the offensive line basically had no preseason together. The new center and a lack of focus has been causing a ridiculous number of false starts. And the communication between the lineman has been terrible. But these are issues that can be fixed. There is still hope but we need to start seeing improvement. I don't think all of the issues can be fixed in a week but I do think we'll see a better performance all around from the offensive line this week.
I am a little worried about Jason Witten now. Not that he is never going to be the player he has been for the last 10 years, but that it is going to take him some time to get his mojo back. He looked healthy last week. He just seems very unsure of himself. If he can get off to a better start I'm sure things will fall into place. Maybe he can start the game without having to catch a tipped pass this week.
The Cowboys need to get off to a good start this week to help out the defense since they are down a man with Barry Church out for the season. Danny McCray is a decent player but is a clear step down from the play of Church. It makes the job of a safety much easier if they know when the pass is coming. Getting a decent lead could force the Bears into a passing game which could lead to interceptions and sacks. A close game will allow the Bears to continue to pound away with Forte and Bush.
I don't expect a quick turnaround from the offense this week. But I do think they will be better. I expect a close game Monday night. It is a very even matchup with two good defenses matching up with two bad offensive lines. It really comes down to whether you have more faith in Romo or Cutler to make the play or, more importantly, not make the bad play. I have more trust in Romo to get the job done based on what I've seen from Cutler and his line this season. I'm picking the Cowboys to win a close one 20-17.
7 comments:
We wrote what the offense needs to turn things around! http://dallascowboyblog.com/whos-running/ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 1, 2012 at 11:14 PM
Wow. This wasn't even close. An absolute thrashing at home no less. Five interceptions?!? This just isn't the team that I thought they were. Maybe they can't get it done with Romo. The years keep passing by and it's just more of the same. I know it's only week 4 but after the Giants win, I really thought this team had a good chance to be 4-0 at this point.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 1, 2012 at 11:55 PM
idk anymore maybe romo really is the problem? sigh here comes another shitty two weeks of cowboys trash talking fuckk living in NJ.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 2, 2012 at 12:31 AM
Kyle Orton ain't looking so bad. That was sad. Not saying its all timidly fault. But seriously enough talk about him being a good quarterback. He is statistically great. But he is not a winner or a leader.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 2, 2012 at 8:31 AM
Cowboys are not good on many levels, it is not just Romo. At this rate, will be lucky to go 8-8. If ya can't run, throw, catch, block, cover, ya can't win....ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 2, 2012 at 11:25 AM
I think what's extremely telling is how many season-ticket holders have given up on this team. At times, it sounded like a home game for Chicago last night. By some estimates, 20,000 Chicago fans were at the game wearing their jerseys and supporting their squad. Romo is lucky that Orton is the back-up and he's not really an option at this point. Romo has been running the same show for eight years now and it's not getting better or going anywhere. Going to be a long season...ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 4, 2012 at 6:02 AM
Hey Everybody, Usually, there is another article by now. Do you think this guy jumped off a cliff or drove off a bridge???? The Cowboys play could do that to a fan ya know....jk, hope to see a new article soon..GO COWBOYS!ReplyDelete


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Is my hymen blocking my orgasm?
Heather Corinna replies:My boyfriend and I started having sex a couple months ago. Before that, I was a virgin. Since then, we have done it about 4 or 5 times. Well, tonight, he was fingering me and while he was I felt slight pain but it went away pretty quickly. Afterwards, I realized I bled some. It wasn't like period blood though, it just looked like regular blood. Is there any way possible that he could have just now "popped my cherry" even though we have done it a few times before? I thought that happened the very first time. Also, is it possible for a female to have an orgasm if her cherry isnt popped? We talked about the reason I haven't had an orgasm and we have been trying to find the right spot, but after this incident...I was thinking maybe that was the reason I haven't orgasmed.
So you understand, the hymen isn't something that gets popped, broken, or torn in one fell swoop, or by one given thing.
Rather, it's thin, flexible folds of tissue, just around the vaginal opening, that erode over time, from childhood onward. Most young people with vaginas, around the time they'll start becoming sexually active, will have hymens that have worn away some. By that time, estrogens, menses and other vaginal fluids, general physical activity, mastubration and tampon use will have done a part of their own. So, plenty of young people with vaginas, when they start to have sexual partners and if they engage in vaginal entry, won't have major bleeding at all, and some will have exactly none.
Might your bleeding be due to the hymen getting a small tear? Yep, it might. But know that your hymen also has no influence on whether or not you orgasm. Not only does orgasm mostly occur in the brain, but the hymen isn't blocking any of your anatomy most likely to bring you to orgasm via sexual activities: for a majority of people with vaginas, vaginal intercourse alone doesn't usually result in orgasm. And while manual sex -- "fingering" -- is a bit more likely to bring more thme there, that's only if a) it's usually (not always, but more times than not) combined with whole body and clitoral play as well, and b) if it's done in a way that feels really truly good to you.
(And if it's painful, that's a strong vote against it feeling good.)
That bleeding also might have been from some abrasion or small injury: during the fingering, was your partner using a lubricant for you? Had he at least washed his hands, and clipped and smoothed his fingernails? Were you really, really sexually excited during this, or not so much? When he was doing this, were you telling him what DID feel really good, and was he responsive to those cues or not? Any of these things can result in an abrasion -- if that's the case, it's nothing to lose sleep over, you'll likely heal up just fine, but that IS stuff to pay attention to when you're going to engage in manual sex.
Per your concerns about reaching orgasm, if you're not going to learn about what gets you there yourself first, you should at least be exploring your own body as much as your partner is through masturbation. It's just minus some factors with partners (worries about hurting their feelings, having to find out what you both have interest in doing, nerves, the works) that can make it easier to find out what you like, if not first, then at least at the same time. And bonus: when you start figuring that out more yourself, you can tell your partner, too.
For both of you, do just make sure you're not focusing overmuch or entirely on sex INSIDE your vagina.
The vaginal canal doesn't actually have many sensory nerve endings once you get past the first inch or two, and even then, but your clitoris (which really is, when it all boils down to it, the real sexual center of your genitals, not the vagina -- that's very secondary) has thousands of them -- more than your boyfriend's whole penis does, to give you an idea. And don't forget that orgasm really is WHOLE body: most of it happens in your brain, not your genitals, so intead of seeking out one magical spot, realize you've likely got a handful of "spots" you enjoy having touched and engaging, and more than one sexual activity you really like (making out counts, by the way: anything you enjoyed doing before intercourse that really turned you on aren't things to dump or only do now and then now that you've started), and that those spots aren't just physical: how you're doing emotionally, what you're thinking about, if you're relaxed and seriously excited -- this stuff carries a very big weight, too.
So, explore on your own, and be sure your partner knows the stuff I've just told you here, too. Lastly, just make sure neither of you are putting pressure on you about reaching orgasm: nothing buzzkills orgasm more than those feelings of pressure. You not having reached orgasm yet shouldn't be about anyone needing to be validated or to feel normal, and also shouldn't be seen as some awful problem: it just means that clearly, you both still have some more exploring to do, and you know, that's a lot of the fun part. :)
Here are a few links for you I also think might help you out:
• 10 of the Best Things You Can Do for Your Sexual Self (at Any Age)
• Innies and Outies: The Vagina, Clitoris, Uterus, and More
• Yield for Pleasure


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Portland Trailblazers blogger Matt Martz weighs in with his Love'Em & Hate'Em column for the Orlando Magic vs. Blazers game on Wednesday night. J.J. Redick scored 17 points and Ryan Anderson, Jameer Nelson and Hedo Turkoglu added 16 apiece for Orlando. Jamal Crawford scored 24 points and LaMarcus Aldridge added 23 for Portland.
Orlando Magic vs. Trail Blazers Blog: Love' Em & Hate' Em
January 12, 2012 By


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The Government considered the circumstances of women and girls who were admitted to the Laundries at its meeting on 14 June, 2011 and decided that it was essential as a first step to fully establish the true facts and circumstances relating to the Magdalen Laundries. A number of actions were agreed. This included the setting up of an Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries, to clarify any State interaction, and to produce a narrative detailing such interaction. The Committee, under the independent chairmanship of Senator Martin McAleese, submitted an interim progress report on 25 October, 2011 and their final report was published on 5 February, 2013.
Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries
Introduction by the Chair, Senator Martin McAleese
Part I - Mandate, historical context and archives
Chapter 2: Establishment, membership and mandate of the Committee
Chapter 3: History of the Magdalen Laundries and institutions within the scope of the Report
Chapter 4: Working methods, procedures and data protection
Chapter 5: Relevant legislation
Chapter 6: Archive of the Committee's work
Part II – Statistical analysis
Chapter 7: Sources and methodology for statistical analysis
Chapter 8: Findings of statistical analysis
Part III –State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries
Chapter 9: Routes of entry to the Magdalen Laundries (A): Criminal Justice System
Chapter 10: Routes of entry to the Magdalen Laundries (B): Industrial and Reformatory Schools
Chapter 11: Routes of entry to the Magdalen Laundries (C): Health authorities and Social Services
Chapter 12: The Factories Acts and Regulation of the Workplace
Chapter 13: Financial (A): State Funding and Financial Assistance
Chapter 14: Financial (B): State contracts for laundry services
Chapter 15: Financial (C): Taxation, Commercial Rates, Social Insurance and other
Chapter 16: Death registration, burial and exhumation
Chapter 17: Other areas of State involvement
Part IV – Other frequently asked questions relating to the operation of the Magdalen Laundries
Chapter 18: Non-state routes of entry to the Magdalen Laundries
Chapter 19: Living and working conditions
Chapter 20: Financial viability of the Magdalen Laundries
Appendix 3: List compiled by Maria Luddy
Appendix 4: Statistical analysis
Appendix 5: 1941 Memo by Probation Office
Appendix 6: Industrial Schools circular 1924
Appendix 7: 1942 Education Memo on charges involving immorality
Appendix 8: 1933 Industrial School Rules
Appendix 9: 1906 list of institutions accepting inspection
Appendix 10: Sample Factories Act forms
Appendix 11: 1965 Industry and Commerce letter
Appendix 12: Green Book extracts
Appendix 13: 1969 letter on social insurance
Appendix 14: Rationing Circular
Appendix 15: 1942 letter on rationing


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Judging from media accounts, U.S. nonprofits are facing unprecedented, if not catastrophic, financial distress because of endowment losses. Hiring is being frozen, facility maintenance is being deferred, programs are being dropped, performance seasons are being shortened, and construction projects are being cut back or even halted. As the president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, put it when defending her decision to sharply reduce expenditures following a 30 percent drop in the value of the school's endowment, "Tinkering around the edges will not be enough."
Harvard isn't the only institution making dramatic cuts in response to a falling endowment. The J. Paul Getty Trust, which runs the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, slashed 14 percent of its workforce and delayed exhibitions and acquisitions after its endowment fell from $6.4 billion to $4.2 billion. Yale University cut capital expenditures by $2 billion and staff salaries and benefits by 7.5 percent after its endowment fell from about $23 billion to about $16 billion. And the Shriners Hospitals for Children considered closing 6 of its 22 children's hospitals after its endowment fell from $8.3 billion to $5.0 billion. The Shriners tabled that motion, but are considering billing insurance and Medicaid for treating children, a profound change from the free patient care that they have traditionally provided.
Of course, no organization likes losing a quarter or more of its wealth. And any organization that does must make financial adjustments. But the actual story behind falling endowments and the resulting financial crisis is much more complex. It turns out that only a small percentage of nonprofits—albeit prominent ones with large endowments—suffered losses of 25 percent or more. Most nonprofits have no endowment at all. And those nonprofits that do have endowments generally have small ones, which, ironically, declined less in value than did the large endowments.
Even more important is how those nonprofits that have endowments responded to the declines in the value of their holdings and other revenue (such as donations and user fees). Most of these nonprofits took the same path as Harvard, Getty, and Yale, choosing to cut expenditures to compensate for reduced income. Though many of these organizations have substantial endowments to fall back on—enough to off set many years of lower income streams—most choose not to draw down the endowment to make up for reduced income.
We believe that most nonprofits are taking the wrong approach when it comes to managing their endowment. Instead of husbanding money for the future, nonprofits should treat at least some portion of their endowment as a rainy day fund, a source of money that is available to make up for those unexpected, yet predictable, times when income drops or demand for services increases.
The first thing to understand about endowments is that their plummeting value is from all-time record highs. A 30 percent drop actually returns most nonprofit endowments to the level they were at just four years ago, even after controlling for inflation. Consider Brown University—school officials estimate that Brown's endowment will end the 2009 fiscal year at $2 billion, a shade more than the $1.8 billion the school had at the end of the 2005 fiscal year. In 2004 and 2005 nonprofit universities, hospitals, and museums were not crying poverty and were not cutting construction, programs, faculty, or financial aid to students. To the contrary, they were expanding programs and services.
Wealthier nonprofits grew their endowments faster than poorer ones. Rich organizations were able to achieve a higher rate of return because they took on greater risk by investing in products like hedge funds, commodities, and private equity. One of the risks of investing in these types of products is that they are volatile and relatively illiquid, making it difficult to sell the asset when markets are weak, as in the recent financial decline. Of course, it is exactly during poor financial times when a nonprofit might need to sell assets and access its cash to off set declines in donations, fees, and other types of income.
It was not chance that the endowments of the wealthiest nonprofits were growing so fast. The rich can afford to invest in high-risk, high-return products. The poor cannot. And their comparative returns on endowments show the net effect. According to the National Association of College and University Business Officers' "NACUBO Endowment Study 2007," between 1998 and 2007 colleges and universities with endowments of less than $25 million posted a 6.7 percent average annual rate of return, while colleges and universities with endowments of more than $1 billion posted an 11.1 percent average annual rate of return. A typical nonprofit college had an $80 million endowment in 2007 and received about a 7.9 percent annual return. The impact of these different rates of return, when compounded over several years, can be dramatic. Over 20 years the difference between a 7.9 percent and an 11.1 percent annual rate of return is a whopping 81 percent higher return for a wealthy college when compared to a typical college.
The vast majority of colleges and universities, however, have little or no endowment to fall back on in a recession. One third of all two-year colleges and 11 percent of all public and nonprofit four-year schools report they have no endowment. (These figures do not include for-profit schools, which have no endowments.) And 85 percent of the two- and four-year schools reporting data have endowments of less than $100 million. These smaller endowments contribute at best only a few million dollars to a school's annual budget—a small portion for most schools. Schools with small or no endowments spend essentially all of their income—from tuition, fees, donations, and other sources—every year. These schools have no savings to sustain activities and expenditures when revenues drop.
In the 1890s, Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, famously responded to the question, "What does labor want?" by saying, "More." That seems to be the answer to today's question, "What size of endowment does each nonprofit want?" But this answer is unsatisfactory. A nonprofit may want a larger endowment, and it can have it—but at the cost of cutting current spending. It can have a bigger endowment or it can spend more now, but it achieves one by forgoing some of the other.
If the purpose of an endowment—that is, of holding down current expenditures in order to save for the future—is to limit tuition, hospital patient charges, or museum admission fees later, then the issue is one of intergenerational transfers. The holding, let alone the expansion, of endowment is a matter of weighing the relative importance of today's and tomorrow's users. With long-term economic growth of per capita income a virtual certainty, however, it is not clear why the present generations of college students, patients, and museum goers should pay higher charges and fees in order to preserve or expand endowment so that future generations of wealthier people will benefit via lower prices.
The primary goal of a college endowment should be to protect a school's educational and research programs. Similarly, a hospital's goal should be to treat patients and advance medical research. A museum's goal should be to advance cultural education and preserve cultural heritage. Building an endowment is a means to sustain these programs. It should not be the goal of the programs to protect the endowment, cutting them back to sustain or rebuild the endowment. "In conversation with our donors, their motive was to support the university, not to grow the endowment," observed Sandy Wilcox, president of the University of Wisconsin Foundation.
The basic rationale for adding resources to endowment rather than using them to achieve these immediate goals is simple: to save for a rainy day when revenue falls sharply. The principal motive for saving for the future rather than spending now is the same, whether for individuals or organizations, nonprofit or for-profit—uncertainty about the flow of future revenues.
Every nonprofit will, at some time, encounter a situation that is beyond its control and that has an immediate and substantial impact on its operations. It might be a natural disaster, like an earthquake or fire, or it could be a financial collapse, such as the one that the world is currently undergoing. Nonprofits that have held money in reserve for just these sorts of situations—a rainy day fund—will be better able to weather these storms than those nonprofits that did not prepare.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. Extensive damage forced colleges and universities such as Tulane University, Loyola University New Orleans, and Dillard University to close down temporarily. Tulane, for example, suffered a 10 percent drop in its total revenues between fiscal years 2005 and 2006, including a stunning 45 percent drop in hospital revenues. Xavier University lost more than 12 percent of its revenue, and Loyola University New Orleans was hit with a staggering 26 percent decline in revenue.
The current economic crisis certainly constitutes a rainy day. Most nonprofits, however, have not adequately planned for this event. Many have not created any endowment, and so have no reserves to ride out the storm. Some have substantial endowments that would allow them to ride out the current economic crisis with no cuts, if they choose. But instead of drawing down their endowments to cover the rainy days, they have focused on cutting budgets.
The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, for example, cut $1.5 million from its $21-million budget, letting go three high-level managers, suspending non-main-stage productions, and shortening performance runs.10 The Rhode Island School of Design closed its Museum of Art for the month of August, laid off school staff, froze wages, and reduced its contribution to employees' retirement accounts. Princeton University, even after the loss of 24 percent in endowment in the last year, still has a massive endowment of $12.6 billion—ten times its total annual budget. But the university reduced its spending for 2009-2010 by $50 million, choosing to cut programs and staff rather than dip further into the endowment.
Some nonprofits are trying to compensate for financial shortfalls by increasing revenues. In a depressed economy, however, increasing donations, government funding, or user fees is difficult and may undercut the organization's mission. Colleges can increase the number of students, as Columbia University has, to increase revenue. Or they can admit fewer low-income students and more students whose families can afford to pay full tuition. Reed College, for example, was unable to sustain its "need-blind" admissions policy this year and admitted more than 100 students who could pay their way instead of students, already on the admissions list, who needed financial aid. Other nonprofits are increasing fees. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, for example, raised its admission prices in July 2009 for the second time in two years.
A few nonprofits are considering merging to reduce operating costs. Andover Newton Theological School and Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, for example, are discussing merging, despite being in different states (Massachusetts and New York, respectively).
Other nonprofits are choosing to borrow money. In April 2009, Stanford University, reeling from endowment losses and in need of short-term liquidity, sold more than $1 billion of bonds and is now holding $800 million in low-yield money market funds. Stanford CFO Randy Livingston describes these actions by saying, "We've created a rainy day fund."
Endowment is not simply a sum of assets that is determined by outside forces. It is, instead, a fund that nonprofits have a great deal of control over. It is a mistake to assume that a school's endowment is determined by donors' decisions to require that most of their contributions be retained and only a small percentage of their yield be spent. Rather, hospitals, symphonies, colleges, and other nonprofits decide how much of their income from all sources to spend and how much to save. They decide how much revenue to generate via tuition, patient fees, or ticket sales, and how much to cut into that revenue by granting student financial aid, providing charity care, or giving free performances. They decide how much to spend on developing alumni giving or corporate gifts, on lobbying legislators for government grants, and on building luxury skyboxes at their football stadiums.
We do not claim that nonprofits can have whatever endowment they want—only that they have significant control over how much they save for the future and how much they spend now. Contrary to common belief, there is no legal minimum or maximum amount that nonprofits must withdraw (payout rate) from their endowment each year. (Foundations are required to take a 5 percent payout rate.) The commonly used payout rate of 4.5 percent is chosen by the trustees, not by external authorities. Endowment can grow more rapidly if a school gives less financial aid, if it drops unprofitable initiatives such as specialized science programs requiring costly laboratory facilities that bring in little grant revenue from government or private sources, or if it replaces expensive tenure-track faculty with cheaper adjunct and lecturer faculty. Or, endowment can grow more slowly, or even decline, if the school chooses to spend more money on current educational and research programs.
It is also wrong to assume that donations commonly specify that the gift must be added to endowment or that it be spent promptly— in either case dictating whether the contribution must or must not be added to endowment, putting the decision beyond the school's or museum's control. In fact, nonprofits are only rarely confronted by a "take it or leave it" donation offer in which the donor insists that a gift be used for something that the nonprofit does not want to do. Much more commonly, the relationship between donor and donee is collaborative, with the donor wanting to help advance the nonprofit's agenda rather than trying to force the nonprofit t into another direction.
Another erroneous assumption is that gifts to endowment are typically restricted. According to the "NACUBO Endowment Study 2008," of the 77 colleges and universities reporting more than $1 billion in endowments in 2008, 51 percent of their endowments on average are "true" or, as the IRS calls it, "permanently restricted" endowment, 9 percent of the endowments are "temporarily restricted," and 35 percent on average are "quasi-endowment" or "unrestricted" endowments. (An additional 5 percent of endowment funds are "held in trust by others.") But there is a gigantic diff erence, of enormous importance, between a fund balance being labeled "restricted" and the fund being truly restrictive. Insofar as the terms of an endowment truly constrain how it may be used, the nonprofit does not have control. But money is fungible, and so a gift that is apparently restricted may, and typically does, leave the nonprofit with wide discretion over expenditures and over saving by building up endowment.
Consider the example of a $1 million donation specifying that it be added to the "true" or "permanent" endowment and that 5 percent of it, $50,000, be devoted each year to student fi nancial aid. It would seem that the college has no control over the deployment of the donation once it is accepted. Not so. It would be so if the school would have given no financial aid but for this gift. But if the school were providing $300,000 of such aid, there would be, in general, nothing preventing it from devoting the new $50,000 to financial aid, thereby releasing that same amount for spending on other programs.
This fungibility of money makes it very difficult to take control away from the school by mandating that total financial aid increase by $50,000 beyond what it otherwise would be, for that requires knowing what would have been spent in future years on a specific program had it not been for the new donation. Only when the gift— in this example the $50,000 per year—exceeds the total of what would otherwise have been spent on the particular activity, would the school lose control over its use of the gift funds. As this is extraordinarily uncommon, the conclusion is clear: Even though the vast majority of endowments are shown on nonprofit organizations' IRS Form 990 returns as "restricted," the fungibility of money permits wide latitude in how endowment funds are spent.
There is no simple definition of what constitutes a rainy day, but an overall drop of 10 percent of annual revenues (what Tulane suffered in 2005 as a result of Hurricane Katrina) certainly qualifies as a highly unusual event—in this instance, literally a rainy day. Using a 10 percent drop in annual revenues as the standard metric for a rainy day, we see that if a nonprofit had an annual budget of $100 million and an endowment of $80 million, it would have a rainy day fund that would last for roughly 8 years of $10 million transfers from the endowment.
We found, in random samples of 100 IRS Form 990 returns for 2003 (the latest available complete data), that the average rainy day fund for museums was about 37 years, for undergraduate colleges about 21 years, and for general hospitals five years. Although the average museum is wealthy in terms of its rainy day fund, nearly 40 percent of museums have no endowment and so no rainy day fund. By comparison, only 10 percent of the general hospitals and 2 percent of the colleges and universities we measured had no endowment.
These three industries are more alike, however, when we compare their median rainy day funds. Half of all museums have rainy day funds that could last more than 20 years, and half of all colleges have endowments that could withstand 13 years of rainy days, but half of all hospitals could survive only five years of rainy days. The causes of, and justifications for, these differences need more study, but it is likely that they reflect differing volatility and dependability of revenues from various private and public sources.
Wealthier nonprofits generally have larger rainy day funds, but not always. In 2006, Princeton had a 141-year rainy day fund, but tiny Grinnell College, with a far smaller endowment, had the largest rainy day fund of all colleges and universities—an astonishing 191 years. Harvard, Yale, and Stanford have far larger endowments, but they also spend much more, and so their rainy day funds of 96, 92, and 53 years respectively do not make even the top ten. Even endowment reductions of 25 percent together with no reductions in program spending would leave their rainy day funds at dozens if not scores of years.
Universities are not the only nonprofit institutions with substantial rainy day funds. In 2008, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had a 90-year rainy day fund. In 2007, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center had a 21-year rainy day fund, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra had a 53-year rainy day fund.
There are also prominent nonprofits that have essentially no endowments. The American Red Cross has only a 2-year rainy day fund, relying instead on donations to fund its expenditures during emergencies. In effect, increased donations during disasters are its rainy day fund. But apparently not every nonprofit sees the dependability of increased donations to respond to a fiscal rainy day, whether in the form of diminished revenue or need for increased program expenditures. The greater the positive expected response of donors, private or governmental, to a rainy day, the smaller is the need for a rainy day endowment fund.
Protection against a rainy day need not be the only reason for creating an endowment, but it should surely be a major reason. Real incomes will rise over the years, so nonprofits can, in general, look forward to increased revenue from donations and user fees. Squeezing today's students, patients, and museumgoers to save money for future generations of users is misguided. But building endowment is not misguided if it is used as rainy day insurance, to preserve the stability and long term development of programs central to a nonprofit's mission.
The hard questions are these: "How large an endowment is enough?" and "What is the appropriate balance between spending now and saving for the future?" We do not have the answers to these questions. Indeed, we think there is no single answer, but we do see a number of issues that deserve careful attention by researchers, nonprofit managers, and public policy leaders.
Because nonprofit organizations benefit handsomely from tax breaks on endowments—paying no tax on either the dividend and interest yields or the capital gains—society is justified in asking how much is enough. Should "enough" be measured by size of endowment or, as we prefer, by size of rainy day fund? The substantive question is how much saving by nonprofits should be encouraged.
In any case, regulators should recognize that depending on whether "endowment" is taxed or not, a nonprofit will have a different incentive not only to accumulate or spend down its endowment but also to rename its assets. A college president once said that if the government decided to tax the school's endowment, he could dramatically cut "endowment" in just 10 minutes! Whatever the purpose of endowment, it would be poor public policy to encourage nonprofit to spend money on accountants and tax attorneys simply to rename assets.
Now is not the time for hasty decisions and changes in tax laws spurred by today's "rain." It is the time for rethinking conventional policies on financing nonprofit and bringing greater stability to organizations that are providing higher education to our youth, medical care to our sick, and advancement to the cultural fabric of our society.
In today's depressed economy, nonprofits are hurting. Falling college endowments have garnered the lion's share of publicity, but hospitals, museums, foundations, and other nonprofits are suffering in similar ways. What can one learn from these experiences? Nonprofits with sizable endowments must understand that if they succumb to the attraction of riskier and less liquid investments in pursuit of higher returns, they should be prepared to deal with the inevitable fiscal rainy days. Nonprofits with endowments should be willing to spend down their endowment to sustain program expenditures. And those nonprofits that have little or no endowment need to find ways of diverting some of their even limited revenues to creating a rainy day endowment fund, because this is not the last rainy day.
Burton A. Weisbrod is the John Evans Professor of Economics and a faculty
fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University. He has
authored or edited 15 books, including The Nonprofit Economy, To Profit or Not to
Profit: The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector, and most recently,
with coauthors Jeffrey P. Ballou and Evelyn D. Asch, Mission and Money: Understanding
the University. Weisbrod served as senior staff economist on the Council
of Economic Advisors to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Evelyn D. Asch is the research coordinator for the Commercialism in Higher Education project at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research. She is the coauthor, along with Burton A. Weisbrod and Jeffrey P. Ballou, of Mission and Money: Understanding the University (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Asch has taught at Loyola University Chicago, DePaul University, and Shimer College.


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Once again, I've been neglecting the Q&A feature of the site, with the last interview posted way back in April. I do have a couple new ones lined up. Next up will be Dr. Daniel E. Sutherland of the University of Arkansas. I reviewed his latest book A Savage Conflict back in August. He always has something interesting to say.
Following that will be a Q&A with Dr. William L. Shea, University of Arkansas at Monticello professor and author of the new Prairie Grove campaign study Fields of Blood. A preview-type interview has already been done elsewhere, so I am looking to put something together after I've finished the book and digested it. I am getting antsy because my copy hasn't arrived yet.
I would also like to do an interview with someone at a university press, but I haven't decided on whom to ask.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Upcoming author Q & As
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Family life in the digital age has added a dimension of complexity to battles over how much television and other distractions parents allow their children. In our household, we do without regular TV in favor of using online alternatives to give us a measure of control over what the kids watch and to avoid the intrusive commercials.
This is a far cry from my own childhood, when we first got a TV set in the 1970s. It was a black-and-white unit, a Sony if I remember correctly, and could only get one or two channels reliably. These came from Connecticut and Rhode Island, places where the accents of the people who appeared in local advertising seemed odd and unfamiliar to us.
My cousin Cleo was fascinated by a pitchman for a car dealership or furniture place far across Long Island Sound, Brewster's, though the on-air talent with a considerable lisp mangled the name. Cleo thought the way he said the business's name was so amusing that she began calling her mother, my Aunt Mary Rattray on my father's side, Brewster. It stuck, and these decades later, when someone in the extended family refers to Bru, it is still understood who is being talked about.
These days, the subtle regional differences seem less obvious. Unless they went looking for it or we took them on a trip, it seems unlikely to me that my kids would encounter a Rhode Island accent. What streams in over Netflix or Hulu, two online sources of videos, is scrubbed clean of much in the way of interesting verbal qualities in favor of broad, obvious categories, Southern, New Yawker, generic American.
I haven't seen Rhode Island TV in years, but I doubt it sounds the way it once did. If the workers in call centers in Delhi can put on convincing United States heartland accents, so too, I'd bet, can the talking heads in Pawtucket.
Of course, if you visited Rhode Island, you would still be able to pick out the distinctive sound in people's speech, much as you would if you visited Baltimore or got into a conversation with an honest-to-goodness Bonacker. These speech patterns, long vowels, hard Rs, remain. They just aren't on TV that much anymore. Certainly not on Netflix, and I wonder if my kids are missing something. Perhaps it's time we took a trip across the waters.


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Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It is intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. More information is available on the Arduino HomePage.
- 1 Installation
- 2 Configuration
- 3 stty
- 4 Alternatives for IDE
- 5 Troubleshooting
- 6 See also
- Install arduinoAUR from the AUR.
- Add yourself to the
uucpgroup. (More information in the next section: "Accessing serial")
Intel Galileo
The version of the Arduino IDE that support the Intel Galileo board can be downloaded here.
Accessing serial
The arduino board communicates with the computer via a serial connection or a serial over USB connection. So the user needs read/write access to the serial device file. Udev creates files in /dev/tts/ owned by group uucp so adding the user to the uucp group gives the required read/write access.
gpasswd -a $USER uucp
Before uploading to the Arduino, be sure to set the correct serial port, board, and processor from the Tools menu.
# stty -F /dev/ttyACM0 cs8 9600 ignbrk -brkint -imaxbel -opost -onlcr -isig -icanon -iexten -echo -echoe -echok -echoctl -echoke noflsh -ixon -crtscts
Sending commands through Terminal without new line after command
# echo -n "Hello World" > /dev/ttyACM0
Reading what your Arduino has to tell you
$ cat /dev/ttyACM0
Alternatives for IDE
ArduIDE is a Qt-based IDE for Arduino. arduide-gitAUR is available in the AUR.
If you prefer working from terminal, below there are some other options to choose from.
Using arduino-cmake and CMake you can build Arduino firmware from the command line using multiple build systems. CMake lets you generate the build system that fits your needs, using the tools you like. It can generate any type of build system, from simple Makefiles, to complete projects for Eclipse, Visual Studio, XCode, etc.
gnoduinoAUR is an implementation of original Arduino IDE for GNOME available in the AUR. The original Arduino IDE software is written in Java. This is a Python implementation and it is targeted at GNOME but will work on xfce4 and other WM. Its purpose is to be light, while maintaining compatibility with the original Arduino IDE. The source editor is based on gtksourceview.
Ino is a command line toolkit for working with arduino hardware. inoAUR is available in the AUR.
Instead of using the Arduino IDE it is possible to use another editor and a Makefile.
Set up a directory to program your Arduino and copy the Makefile into this directory. A copy of the Makefile can be obtained from /usr/share/arduino/hardware/cores/arduino/Makefile
You will have to modify this a little bit to reflect your settings. The makefile should be pretty self explainatory. Here are some lines you may have to edit.
PORT = usually /dev/ttyUSBx, where x is the usb serial port your arduino is plugged into TARGET = your sketch's name ARDUINO = /usr/share/arduino/lib/targets/arduino
Depending on which library functions you call in your sketch, you may need to compile parts of the library. To do that you need to edit your SRC and CXXSRC to include the required libraries.
Now you should be able to make && make upload to your board to execute your sketch.
Using scons together with arscons it is very easy to use to compile and upload Arduino projects from the command line. Scons is based on python and you will need python-pyserial to use the serial interface. Install python-pyserial and scons.
That will get the dependencies you need too. You will also need Arduino itself so install it as described above. Create project directory (eg. test), then create a arduino project file in your new directory. Use the same name as the directory and add .ino (eg. test.ino). Get the SConstruct script from arscons and put it in your directory. Have a peek in it and, if necessary, edit it. It is a python script. Edit your project as you please, then run
$ scons # This will build the project $ scons upload # This will upload the project to your Arduino
Consistent naming of Arduino devices
If you have more than one arduino you may have noticed that they names /dev/ttyUSB[0-9] are assigned in the order of connection. In the IDE this is not so much of a problem, but when you have programmed your own software to communicate with an arduino project in the background this can be annoying. Use the following udev rules to assign static symlinks to your arduino's:
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="ttyUSB[0-9]*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6001", SYMLINK+="sensors/ftdi_%s{serial}"
Your arduino's will be available under names like "/dev/sensors/ftdi_A700dzaF". If you want you can also assign more meaningfull names to several devices like this:
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", KERNEL=="ttyUSB[0-9]*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6001", ATTRS{serial}=="A700dzaF", SYMLINK+="arduino/nano"
which will create a symlink in /dev/arduino/nano to the device with the specified serialnumber. You do need to unplug and replug your arduino for this to take effect or run
udevadm trigger
Error opening serial port
You may see the serial port initially when the IDE starts, but the TX/RX leds do nothing when uploading. You may have previously changed the baudrate in the serial monitor to something it does not like. Edit ~/.arduino/preferences.txt so that serial.debug_rate is a different speed, like 115200.
Missing twi.o
If the file /usr/share/arduino/lib/targets/libraries/Wire/utility/twi.o does not exist arduino may try to create it. Normal users do not have permission to write there so this will fail. Run arduino as root so it can create the file, after the file has been created arduino can be run under a normal user.
Working with Uno/Mega2560
The Arduino Uno and Mega2560 have an onboard USB interface (an Atmel 8U2) that accepts serial data, so they are accessed through /dev/ttyACM0 created by the cdc-acm kernel module when it is plugged in.
The 8U2 firmware may need an update to ease serial communications. See [1] for more details and reply #11 for a fix. The original arduino bbs, where you can find an image explaining how to get your Uno into DFU, is now in a read-only state. If you do not have an account to view the image, see [2].
You can perform a general function test of the Uno by putting it in loopback mode and typing characters into the arduino serial monitor at 115200 baud. It should echo the characters back to you. To put it in loopback, short pins 0 -> 1 on the digital side and either hold the reset button or short the GND -> RESET pins while you type.


text:
NEW YORK (AP) — Yes, it is bombastic and overwrought. It's true that there's enough smoke to make three Whitesnake videos. OK, it sometimes makes "The Phantom of the Opera" seem small and staid.
But there's something to cheer about in the revival of "Jekyll & Hyde" that has rolled into Broadway after a 25-week national tour. It is what it is, and it does that very well. It's a big, loud rock opera and makes no apologies for itself. Nor should it. If you wanted a subtle musical without stabbings and bondage, what exactly are you doing at "Jekyll & Hyde"?
The new version that opened Thursday at the Marquis Theatre — arriving 16 years after its debut — takes itself so seriously that it almost veers into camp, but it's a stunningly beautiful steampunk vision with great costumes, projections and sets.
Plus, the three main vocalists who came along to sing these Frank Wildhorn songs will make your ears bleed: Constantine Maroulis, Deborah Cox and Teal Wicks. Who cares if there's way too much lightening and overacting? These three can deliver, some even while wearing naughty Victorian outfits.
Director and choreographer Jeff Calhoun — so apple-cheeked with "Newsies" and trying-to-be-understanding in Wildhorn's recent "Bonnie & Clyde" — has tapped into his Hyde side with this overripe tale of a scientist whose attempt to isolate the bad element in man leads to a split personality. There's a little bondage, a pretty graphic suicide, some slapping around, filthy hookers, rough sex and five cold-blooded murders. Leave the kids at home.
Maroulis, the former "American Idol" contestant who earned a Tony Award nomination for "Rock of Ages," proves a gifted singer if not the most nuanced of actors in the title role. His hair — ponytailed as the gentleman Jekyll and free-flowing when he becomes the hedonistic Hyde — gets a workout. (He also, Clark Kent-ish, wears glasses when he's mild-mannered.) This guy, reared in "Rock of Ages," can toss his mane around better than any 1980s hair-band singers.
Allow Maroulis this: He gives it his all, whether it's nailing the anthem "This is the Moment" or being exceedingly menacing with a cane. He might have to say dopey things like "I started this alone and I must finish it alone," but he does it with purpose and careful diction. An exhausted man gets the big applause at the end. He deserves it. He should get two paychecks.
Cox, an award-winning R&B singer who plays a put-upon brothel worker, is both sexy and touching as a love interest for both Jekyll and Hyde. She delivers a jaded, bum-slapping "Bring on the Men" and then a touching "Someone Like You," her voice soaring so stunningly that it seems to open a new dimension. Wicks is luminous in the underwritten part of Jekyll's fiancee but still manages to lend some glamor and skill to the part. Both women deliver a knockout duet "In His Eyes."
But perhaps the star of the show is Tobin Ost, the scenic and costume designer who has a history of working with Calhoun. His buildings here are appropriately off-kilter, his walls are futuristic and he deploys five massive picture frames that become mirrors, paintings and brick walls, or whatever a clever Daniel Brodie decides to project on them.
Ost's use of long strings during one scene — inside a brothel called, aha, The Spider's Web — is a playful stroke. He then turns the rump of that set into Jekyll's laboratory, complete with bubbling, glowing vials and tubes. Appropriate for a story about a man who wears two hats, Ost also has created the smashing costumes, dark Victorian exaggerations with Goth references that showcase garters, suspenders, white crisp shirts, foppery and hats.
The sets and costumes all come together thrilling in the Act 1 song "Facade," in which five odd people appear in their underwear and are then dressed by their servants to slowly emerge in their societal roles — a priest, a soldier, a lord, a lady and a lawyer. Pity they all must die.
Sometimes when watching "Jekyll & Hyde" there are moments when it seems like what you're watching is outtakes from "This Is Spinal Tap." But that's this show's charm. You'll always be of two minds about it, so just give in to the silly side.


text:
Aliens, Rihanna, False Flag, True Flag: Who Really Struck Flight MH17?
Dropping from 33,000 feet above Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed yesterday, detonating into a dark plume of smoke upon impact with a field of bloomed wheat. The second tragedy to befall Malaysia Airlines this year, following the unresolved vanishing of flight 370, dude, it was aliens.
OK, maybe it wasn't aliens. It's still too early to answer definitively.
Any rational observer will tell you, though, that it is an eerie coincidence that yet another Malaysia Airlines flight has met its catastrophic end on the world stage.
As the New York Times reports, Ukrainian and American officials are currently attributing the disaster to "a Russian-made antiaircraft missile" emanating specifically from an SA-17 missile system, also known as a Buk surface-to-air launcher, or its NATO reporting name, Grizzly. Both the Ukrainian military and Pro-Russian forces have access to Buks, according to analysts quoted in the Boston Globe. So, that's one version.
This morning an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, requested by Britain's UN Mission, will convene with the hope of initiating plans for "a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident." In the interest of helping to further a comprehensive inquiry (it was aliens), an assessment of several unofficial, alternative explanations for the MH17 crash (aliens) will be presented below.
Scenario 01: Aliens Crashed Flight MH17.
When Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 unexpectedly disappeared after leaving Kuala Lumpur last March, observers writing for the websites Forbidden Knowledge TV and Illuminati Watcher, as well as YouTube vlogger Charles Walton, all concluded that the wreckage could not be found because a massive mile-long UFO had abducted the entire plane with all of its 239 passengers. Their confidence in this theory is high, Illuminati Watcher in particular:
I followed the previous Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 (exhaustively) and concluded that it must've been aliens; one of the first conspiracy theories to surface, and until we hear otherwise I'm sticking with it.
Did a UFO abduct MH370? Could a botched mass-abduction have caused the downing of flight MH17? Is it reasonable to ask this simply because both planes were owned and operated by Malaysian Airlines? Let's examine this one question at a time.
The case that MH370 was abducted centers around three tenuous pieces of evidence. First, that radar data from Flightradar24 allegedly shows an anomalous craft in the vicinity of flight MH370, that suddenly begins to move much faster than any of the other planes, and then hovers over the open ocean. Second, that massive unidentified flying objects have been reported before, most famously in the 1997 Phoenix Lights incident, but also just south of Kuala Lumpur in 1995. And, finally, that Malaysia had seen a rash of UFO sightings in the period before the disappearance of flight 370, according to UFO Hunters.
Do these facts, or factoids, credibly imply that MH370 was swallowed whole by an alien spacecraft? Opinions will vary.
What evidence could possibly exist linking these two Malaysian airline disasters together as a pair of UFO abduction cases? As Illuminati Watcher points out:
Theorists claim that there are vortex points around the globe that harness energy and the Illuminati and/or ancient aliens know how to utilize it. The Ancient Astronaut Theory claims that aliens of the past used energy vortex points to travel around the globe, or potentially make mapping points (e.g. the Pyramids of Giza).
Black Bag is proud to reveal, in an exclusive first, that a map of this energy grid and its vortex nodal points are indeed consistent with the theory that aliens were involved in both incidents:
Did a UFO emerge from a vortex nodal point in this alleged free energy grid, somehow damaging flight MH17? And, if so, was this damage premeditated or accidental?
It would be inappropriate to weigh in decisively on this issue, at least until the UN's independent investigation has gathered all of the available facts. However, the UFO scenario benefits from being the only option which could lead to a peaceful, net positive resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, if widely adopted as true.
Rational humanitarian actors should swallow their pride and immediately begin championing this theory, advocating as a consequence for greater cooperation between sovereign regional powers and renewed funding for advanced research in energy and space travel. It is a difficult version of events to endorse, admittedly, because it sounds so truly idiotic on its face.
Embarrassment can be mitigated, however, by pushing rapidly toward consensus: Aliens did this. Our old differences no longer matter. Aliens did this.
Scenario 02: A Boeing 777, Flight MH17 Was Downed in an Illuminati Ritual Linked to Rihanna's "777" Tour.
Forums run by David Icke, the man most famous for believing the planet is ruled by shape-shifting inter-dimensional lizard beings, are saying that there may be some Occult symbolism to the downing of both flights MH17 and MH370, because both planes were Boeing 777s and because 777 is a number of huge significance in the writings of Aleister Crowley.
Like-minded individuals have proposed a related symbolic relationship with Rihanna's "777" Tour, which was ostensibly so-named because it took place across seven countries, over seven days, and was comprised of seven shows.
If you need evidence more substantial than numerology to find this convincing, or to connect it to the Illuminati, then this is not the scenario for you.
Scenario 03: A "False Flag" Operation Produced the MH17 Crash, to Justify Further Military Action in Ukraine.
There is at present no concrete evidence to support this version of events, however, it can't yet be completely ruled out. As one forum member at the conspiracy theory site Above Top Secret explained it, "We are dealing with two nations perfectly capable of false flags and disinformation." Fair enough, you know?
This is a bit of a tangent, but: Don't you think that practically every other day during President Ronald Reagan's first term, Jimmy Carter would just viciously sweep everything off of his desk, and bark out something like, "God dammit! Let's tell the public about Argo. They think the Democrats were weak on Iran? Let's tell them about Argo! Fuck this shit." to the piteous wincing of friends, family and staff?
Scenario 04A: Pro-Russian Forces in Ukraine Downed MH17 in a "True Flag" Operation.
Almost immediately after Malaysia Airlines flight 17 had exploded in that wheat field, the Ukrainian government's intelligence service (the State Security Service or S.B.U.) released audio allegedly intercepted from three communications between Pro-Russian separatists and Russian military figures. The Washington Post could not confirm the authenticity of the material, nor could the New York Times, but if valid the S.B.U. audio would confirm — beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty — that flight MH17 was shot down by mistake, in a tragic fuck-up.
Not a single (presumed) Pro-Russian rebel or Russian official expresses anything but shock and distress over the downing of the civilian airliner (well, maybe excluding this guy), in the entirety of the intercepted audio:
Despite this, Ukrainian President Petro O. Poroshenk is calling the MH17 incident, "not an incident, not a catastrophe, but a terrorist act," according to the Times. Appearing on Charlie Rose last night, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed this perspective saying that "there does seem to be some growing awareness that it probably had to be Russian insurgents," and that the West needed to "put Putin on notice that he has gone too far and we are not going to stand idly by."
"Everything we have, and it is not much, says separatists," an unnamed senior Pentagon official — always a reliable source of convenient factoids — told the Times.
And yet, amidst all this consensus, as reported by the BBC, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema told local media today that, "The military told the president after the passenger plane had been shot down that the terrorists did not possess our Buk missile systems" — a statement that might have the most credibility here, simply because it delivers information of zero propaganda utility to NATO, the Ukrainian government, or the United States.
By weight of this contradictory evidence, the likelihood that Pro-Russian forces shot down MH17 seems only slightly more credible than the theory that aliens did it, mostly because it is already an accepted fact that the rebels exist.
Scenario 04B: The CIA and Ukrainian Intelligence Downed MH17 in a "True Flag" Operation, by Mistake, While Trying to Assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Oh, God.
Russian news agency Interfax reported that an anonymous source "who has knowledge of the events" implied that the Malaysian plane was struck by Ukrainian (or other forces) accidentally, in a botched attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin was on route back to Moscow after a six-day BRIC nations summit in Brazil, on board his one jet, Board One. The source reportedly told Interfax:
I can say that Putin's plane and the Malaysian Boeing intersected at the same point and the same echelon. That was close to Warsaw on 330-m echelon at the height of 10,100 meters. The presidential jet was there at 16:21 Moscow time and the Malaysian aircraft - 15:44 Moscow time [...] The contours of the aircrafts are similar, linear dimensions are also very similar, as for the coloring, at a quite remote distance they are almost identical.
The use of a cool word like echelon makes this sound very convincing.
However, Russia Today and Gazeta.ru (a Russian online news portal) are also reporting the contradictory claim that Putin's jet does not and would not fly over the war-torn country. Their source was an also unnamed employee, this time at Vnukovo-3, the Moscow-based airport terminal self-described as "the largest center of business aviation in Russia and Eastern Europe."
If it turned out to be true, or even just plausible, this botched assassination attempt would truly be the worst case scenario. Evidence tying the disaster to such a maneuver would very likely entangle the world's last remaining Superpower — macho man Vladimir Putin — in an all out war with the loose federation of radicalized and increasingly violent states in North America, as well as their allies abroad.
These nominally united American states, hungry for Ukraine's reserves of natural gas, consumed by paranoid fringe beliefs, and anxious to maintain their prestige on the world stage, would not hesitate to fight a costly and protracted war of attrition, if its policies or goals were directly challenged.
As the UN goes forward in its comprehensive investigation, it should be attentive to the dangerous political ramifications of certain as-yet-undiscovered facts — as well as the hilarious and benign elegance of simply believing that MH17 was knocked out of the sky by space aliens.
It was aliens.
[top photos from left to right via Unknown; Kevin Mazur, WireImage; Brooks Kraft, Sygma, Corbis; Mikhail Metzel, AP]
To contact the author, email firstname.lastname@example.com, pgp public key.


text:
I'd like to commend the leading Republican presidential candidates for sending their "regrets" to the organizers of last night's debate at Morgan State University, which focused on African-American voters and their concerns. Not that any of the candidates want credit for skipping the event. Indeed, I believe they all deny that they skipped it, claiming prior commitments and scheduling conflicts. I have no reason to doubt the good faith of these claims. Still, they sound suspiciously like "I had better things to do."
They did. The African-American vote is not available to Republicans this year in more than de minimis numbers. That will probably change one day, but showing up at this event would not have hastened that day.
A better reason for showing up would simply be to show respect for the African-American community. Considering the size and importance of that community, not to mention its historical mistreatment in this country, the respect factor would normally represent a sufficient reason to appear. But respect can't be a street with only one way traffic. And unfortunately, the moderator of this event, Tavis Smiley, has failed to show Republicans and conservatives the minimum respect needed to justify a wasted night in Baltimore (too bad Guy Smiley wasn't available).
As Matthew Sheffield at Newsbusters shows, Smiley has a long history of making offensive remarks about Republicans. For example, Smiley once said he considered then-Texas-governor George W. Bush to be a "serial killer" for his enforcement of state capital punishment laws. Tim Graham has more on Smiley's anti-Republican bias, which he contrasts with Smiley's fondness for lobbing softball at Democrats.
The debate organizers were free, of course, to select the Bush-hating leftist of their choice to moderate the debate. But Republican candidates should have felt similarly free not to show up.
To comment on this post, go here.
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text:
- Wind and water Repellent
- Otter Green and Brown include 2 buttons on back of collar for optional Cover Cloth Hood (#10028).
- Heavy duty brass front zipper; storm flap with snaps
- 2 large cargo pockets with snap flaps; 2 hand warmer pockets behind cargo pockets; upper left zippered slash security pocket; interior upper left zippered security pocket
- Adjustable snap cuffs
Product description
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Filson Cover Cloth Weekender Coat 10023 B00AL1U5PI
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text:
Hi Samurai,
Ben Galt here again.
I want to share with you another Market Samurai feature from inside the "Find Content" module.
This one involves RSS feeds.
What Is RSS and Why Is It So Powerful?
If you haven't heard of RSS before, it's a simple yet very powerful tool for collecting specific content automatically from all over the web, and either having it delivered to you to read – or republishing it.
This means you can use RSS to stay up to date with the latest news "from the inside" of your niche. OR keep your web-site updated with fresh content from all over the web (something that Google loves to see) – without lifting a finger!
And using Market Samurai, finding relevant content feeds inside your niche has never been easier.
There is now one button for all your RSS needs.
One button gives you all the feeds for your chosen content sources
When previously selecting your RSS feeds, each content source required it's own RSS button.
We've simplified this process by merging all of those buttons into one.
The "RSS for selected" button now does everything with one click. No matter what content sources you have selected above, the RSS feed will be displayed inside the popup window.
What To Do Now…
If you're wondering how to use these RSS feeds to research your niche, or republish content onto a web-site, the Thirty Day Challenge has created some great videos on Using Google Reader as an RSS Reader and Re-Publishing RSS Feeds from Market Samurai onto the web these topics.
Just a Quick Reminder…
Just a quick reminder – the "Find Content" module is a part of the full version of Market Samurai – so if you're inside a current trial, or if you own the full version of Market Samurai, then you WILL be able to access these new features.
But if your trial has expired, then you will no longer be able to access the RSS features inside Market Samurai.
To access these features, you can upgrade to the full version of Market Samurai here.