text:
A Counter-Movement to Political Islam
In recent years Indonesia has seen the development of a network of various Muslim NGOs that convey a contemporary understanding of Islam, working to counter the advance of Islamization.
The island state of Indonesia has always been regarded as a prime example of tolerance in action, where ethnic groups and different religious communities coexist peacefully.
"Unity in diversity" is the self-image of the secular state based on the so-called "Pancasila" philosophy which attempts to integrate different religions such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as different languages and cultures.
Indonesia's Islam purists are gaining ground
However, amidst social problems that have been on the rise since the 1990s and are often stylized into religious conflicts, violent attacks on minorities have increased, and radical Islamic splinter groups threaten the country's social peace.
The end of the Suharto dictatorship and the beginning of the so-called "Reformasi" era in the late 1990s did bring tangible democratization to Indonesia's state and society. However, those who profited from the new freedoms included not only liberal parties and civil society actors committed to tolerance and democracy, but also proponents of radical Islam.
Today political Islam is gaining ground in Indonesia. Groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) preach a conservative, one-sided image of Islam. They demand the country-wide introduction of the Islamic penal code and crusade against everything in society they consider decadent and immoral.
The battle for public opinion
To offer a counterbalance to radical Islam in the world's most populous Muslim country, numerous liberal Muslim groups have been founded, such as the "Liberal Islam Network" (Jaringan Islam Liberal), which was established in 2001 in the capital of Jakarta.
The organization's stated goal is to encourage dialogue among Islamic groups with a liberal understanding of Islam and to create a journalistic platform for analysis, background reports and interviews. "We also conduct workshops, public discussions and radio talk shows to discuss the current challenges for Muslim society following the end of the Suharto era," explains Luthfi Assyaukanie, coordinator of Jaringan Islam Liberal.
The Islamic scholar and lecturer at the Paramadina University in Jakarta knows exactly what he is talking about when he emphasizes the significance of his organization's educational and publicity work: "We are now living in a democratic society. However, if we do not enrich it with our views, the radicals will try to fill this gap. We see ourselves as a reply to the rising Islamism in Indonesia."
Maintaining the existing order
Luthfi Assyaukanie's "Liberal Islam Network" is a small movement dominated by young journalists and Islamic scholars. They are committed to inter-religious dialogue and to maintaining the secularism and pluralism of Indonesian society.
The group emphatically rejects the literal interpretation of the Koran and advocates a contemporary Islam that respects freedom of opinion, women's rights and tolerance toward minorities and other religious communities.
According to Assyaukanie, the network's activists see themselves as standing in the tradition of the 19th century Islamic reform movement. Their role models are Mohammad 'Abduh, Ali Abdel Razeq and Rashid Rida.
Similarly, for eight years the Indonesian women's rights organization "Rahima" has been taking an Islamic perspective on women's emancipation and fighting for a political voice for women in Indonesian society, among other things.
The organization sees educational work as its primary task, especially in the rural districts of Central Java. "Rahima" cooperates especially closely with teaching staff at Islamic boarding schools, the so-called "pesantren", and at other Islamic Institutions, where they advocate for a modern understanding of Islam.
Educational work on the local level
"When Rahima was founded, the primary goal of our work was to reach the Islamic boarding schools in the country and their directors (Qiay), the second step being to sensitize the teachers at these schools to our issues," explains "Rahima" director Aditiana Dewi Erdani.
At special seminars and training sessions, private lecturers are trained to act as mediators, communicating their liberal conceptions of Islam to students and teachers in the local communities.
This strategy is also shared by other liberal Islamic organizations: for instance, for years "Rahima" has cooperated successfully with the "Wahid Institute", named after the country's former president and probably its best-known Islamic scholar, Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur).
Education and dialogue as the key to success
Founded in 2004, the "Wahid Institute" is another NGO committed to a tolerant, pluralistic Islam and to democratic reforms in Indonesia.
Just like "Rahima", the organization targets Islamic boarding schools (pesantren); forming an independent school system, they are largely free from state control and hence harbor the greatest danger that the advance of Wahhabism will subject students and teachers to Islamist indoctrination, says Ahmad Suaedy, deputy director of the "Wahid Institute":
"We make it easier for the 'silent majority of Muslims', the teachers at the Islamic boarding schools as well as the local leaders, to discuss Islam and peace, Islam and pluralism, and in some regions we enable them to talk together about their difficulties on the radio and in the local media", says Suaedy.
All the groups in the liberal Islamic network share one main approach toward curbing the influence of Islamist hardliners: education and dialogue as the key to mutual understanding in the multiethnic state of Indonesia.
Arian Fariborz
© Qantara.de 2008
Translated from the German by Isabel Cole
Muslim Feminists in Indonesia
The Queens of Islam
Rahima is a Muslim organization that advocates women's equality based on modern and democratic ideas. Instead of traveling from conference to conference, Rahima members prefer to work at the grassroots level. A portrait by Christina Schott
Syncretism in Indonesia
Where Islam Mixes with Old Rituals
Many Indonesian Muslims still practice a rather syncretistic mix of beliefs, combining Islam with other cultural and religious traditions. They are often criticized by Muslim purists for their eclecticism. Christina Schott reports
Symbol of Defiance or Symbol of Loyalty?
In Indonesia, the headscarf has gained popularity since the 1980s, but although Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim nation, it is the political sphere that largely defines the meaning of the "jilbab" ("hijab"). Lies Marcoes-Natsir reports


text:
Only true Lakers believers (or the truly blind) couldn't see the Lakers' season was nearing an end long before the horn sounded on last night's 106-90 series-seizing Thunder victory. Yet it seems the moment of truth for Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak came at a time that TNT producers jumped upon for maximum effect (and, in a critical media sense, affect). Cheer up, Mitch. Kobe's about to clear out your sandbox and you can start playing again without all those cat turds. [TNT]
This is a Deadspin Video, in which strange sports moments are slowed down to ridiculous speeds and matched with indie music. This video features "Happy" by Sita. See previous episodes here.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text:
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text:
I am venturing into a new field: stem cell and would like your help, please.
I isolated mouse mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) from compact bone, performed ficoll gradient centrifugation and cultured them in hypoxic conditions (5% oxygen). They have been in culture for about a week. Recently, I checked their morphology under the microscope and they seem weird to what is documented in literature. I have attached few photos. Which of these cells look like MSC?
Since cells are extracted from the compact, I am aware that there is more than one cell population isolated simultaneously. How do you proceed to obtain a homogenous MSC culture?
Please advise. Thank you!


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text:
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Soho at Christchurch
21 comments:
I would have never thought of sweet potatoes on pizza, but now I want to try. I'm happy you're getting a good dose of good food lately. I thought you might go crazy at one point. :)ReplyDelete
You and me both. I get tired of cooking sometimes. I love detoxing and taking care of myself but it is really nice when you can take a step out of it and just let it all hang loose for a minute.ReplyDelete
Mmmh, it looks great! So colourful!! *yummy*ReplyDelete
- MONEASYWARDROBE.COMJanuary 15, 2012 at 11:39 PM
The pizza looks yummy. I'm allergic to pesto, but I've heard it taste really good.ReplyDelete
That sounds outrageously good. I'd join you in a heartbeat if I were still over there!ReplyDelete
- LovewendysworldJanuary 16, 2012 at 7:03 AM
Looks wonderful always great to go out for lunch or dinner. So nice to meet you just found your beautiful blog and so happy I did. I have enjoyed looking around and I'm now following you, wonderful to meet new friends. Hope you find a spare minute to visit me sometime follow back if you like. Sending you special wishes for a wonderful New Year I'm looking forward to keeping in touch in 2012.ReplyDelete
Always Wendy
- Frida dello RussoJanuary 16, 2012 at 12:53 PM
that pizza looks soooo delicious!! looks like a great place!ReplyDelete
is it bad that it's 7:30 in the morning here and i want this pizza right now? what a great mix of flavors.ReplyDelete
sweet potatoes in a pizza? oh yum. that looks divine! I wish I could visit so I could get some nummy cocktails too!ReplyDelete
- chillairandperfumeJanuary 16, 2012 at 5:55 PM
Looks like you've been enjoying some great food recently. That pizza looks INCREDIBLE. Wonder how easy it would be to make at home?ReplyDelete
ooh looks SO tasty! XReplyDelete
Oh my goodness that pizza looks SO yummy!ReplyDelete
- Missy RinfretJanuary 18, 2012 at 5:11 PM
oh my gosh that picture makes me CRAVE pizza. i know what i'll be having for lunch...ReplyDelete
- Sara SaraJanuary 25, 2012 at 6:32 AM
Wow these looks seriously amazing, I'm drooling all over the screen here, I wish I could go to this place, sounds like they have great food, but unfortunately it doesn't exists in my country! You have a lovely blog and I am a new follower! Hope you will like my blog and follow back!ReplyDelete
Pop Culture&Fashion Magic
Whoa, that looks DIVINE!!!ReplyDelete
I was just in Greece, and didn't see anything like that LOLReplyDelete
- RachelsSLJanuary 25, 2012 at 10:59 PM
Awww, shucks. I bet you had some really special foods while you were in Greece didn't you? What were some of your favorites?ReplyDelete
Gee wiz where do you live?! I just saw the post of that coffee shop place, looks so super cool! Wish I could meet you there! AH!ReplyDelete
Actually the food in Greece just wasn't that great. I had a lot of greek salads, which were tasty, but I 'm not a meat eater, so that didn't help. And I don't eat fish, so there ya go!
we had an amazing wonderful time in Greece though, I am mourning our time there!!!
- RachelsSLJanuary 25, 2012 at 11:39 PM
I am a massive greek foodie. (I think hehehe) I can't speak for authenticity since I've never been but I really love things like stuffed grape leaves, humus, olives, pita bread, goats cheese, roasted bell peppers. Spanakopita is one of the first ways I ever had spinach and liked it. I adore a good spanakopita. I don't know how "Greek" those are in truth but I adore them!ReplyDelete
- Gloria VincentJanuary 28, 2012 at 11:25 PM
Greetings! This looks delicious. I LOVE sweet potatoes and never would have thought to add it to Pizza. I'm sure it was YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!! And the wine doesn't look too bad either! ;)ReplyDelete


text:
As I said in Part I, I observed some strange error behavior in the 5.4.2 Rotation Analysis post. Now that we've had a thorough (and lengthy) review of the statistics of error analysis, It's time we looked more carefully at the problem that started this whole mess.
Mo' Iterations, Mo' Problems
Once again, here was my comment about error from the Rotation Analysis blog post:
The "DPS Error" that Simulationcraft reports is really the half-width of the 95% confidence interval (CI). In other words, it is 1.96 times the standard error of the mean. To put that another way, we feel that there's a 95% chance that the actual mean DPS of a particular simulation is within +/- DPS_Error of the mean reported by that simulation. There are some caveats to this statement, insofar as it makes some reasonably good but not air-tight assumptions about the data, but it's pretty good.
I'm actually doing a little statistical analysis on SimC results right now to investigate some deviations from this prediction, but that's enough material for another blog post, so I won't go into more detail yet. What it means for us, though, is that in practice I've found that when you run the sim for a large number of iterations (i.e. 50k or more) the reported confidence interval tends to be a little narrower than the observed confidence interval you get by calculating it from the data.
So for example, at 250k iterations we regularly get a DPS Error of approximately 40. In theory that means we feel pretty confident that the DPS we found is within +/-40 of the true value. In practice, it might be closer to +/- 100 or so.
So let's talk about these "deviations." What caught my attention at first was that, even though the DPS Error reported by SimC was $\pm$ 40 DPS, I could sim the same rotation several times and get values that differed by much more than that, often in the hundreds of DPS. After looking into it more carefully, I'd say that the "$\pm$ 100 or so" I quoted in the last blog post was probably a bit of an under-estimate; $\pm$ 200 to 300 DPS might be a closer estimate to the actual variations I was seeing.
And while this is less than a 0.1% relative error given that we're talking about DPS means near 400k, it's still a little disconcerting. First, on a theoretical level, I believe in statistics, so it's unsettling when they appear not to be behaving properly. Second, it struck me as very odd that going from 50k iterations to 250k iterations didn't seem to have a meaningful impact on the error fluctuations. As an experimentalist, I'm familiar with the process of determining how much error I can accept and how much integration time (in this case, iterations) it will take to achieve that level of confidence. So when these sims failed to meet the spec that I set, I took notice.
But a handful of assorted simulations that violate spec isn't enough information to base a hypothesis on. I knew it wasn't demonstrating the desired behavior. But to figure out what was wrong, I needed to first figure out exactly what behavior the system was exhibiting. And to do that, I needed more data.
Confidence Boost
In the quoted passage above, I said that what Simulationcraft reports as "DPS Error" is really $1.96 {\rm SE}_{\mu}$, which is the half-width of the 95% confidence interval (CI). The full 95% CI is $\mu_{\rm sample} \pm 1.96 {\rm SE}_{\mu}$, so it's appropriate to say that when you look at a SimC report, the "DPS" value it reports is accurate to about $\pm$ "DPS Error." This is a pretty natural way of reporting error, as we've seen in Part I.
Thinking back to our dice experiment in Part I, we said that if we repeated the experiment 100 times, we'd expect that about 95 of them would fall within the range $\mu_{\rm sample}\pm 2{\rm SE}_{\mu}$ (I'm rounding 1.96 to 2 here for simplicity). That was the meaning we ascribed to the 95% confidence interval. So one way to test the system is to do exactly that: run the simulation 100 times and take a look at the distribution of sample means.
And just to be abundantly clear about what that means, let's assume we're interested in the simulation error when we run it for 100k iterations. We can do that once to get a sample mean and 95% CI. We can then do it 99 more times, running the sim for 100k iterations each time, which gives us 100 sample means from the 100 independent simulations.
Our best guess at the population mean $\mu$ is the mean of those 100 sample means $\mu_{\rm sample}$ (I feel like I need an Xzibit image here…). And we could then empirically determine a value $\delta$ such that 95 of those means fit in the range $(\mu-\delta,\mu+\delta)$. If we did that, then $2\delta$ is our empirical estimate of the 95% CI. We could compare that to twice the value SimC reports as "DPS Error" to check for consistency.
There's a number of ways to make that empirical estimate, but two of them are relatively easy in MATLAB. The first is to use the prctile() function, which we can use to find the DPS values that are the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles of the data set. The difference of those two values is the empirical estimate of the 95% CI.
The second method is more involved, and uses Principle Component Analysis, or PCA. It also goes by a number of other names: eigenvalue decomposition, empirical component analysis, singular value decomposition, and several more. It's related to finding principal axes in mechanics, if you're familiar with mechanical engineering concepts. It attempts to find the confidence region (or "confidence ellipsoid") of the data set, which is the generalization of a confidence interval into higher dimensions. When you apply it to a one-dimensional data set, though, you get the usual confidence interval.
In any event, it's a powerful linear algebra technique that would require another whole blog post to explain, so if you're really interested in the guts of it I suggest you read the Wikipedia article. For those that care, I'm using a function from this thread of MATLAB Central, which uses the finv() and princomp() methods from the statistics toolbox. (fun coincidence: I worked in the same building as the author of this code as a postdoc, though in a different department). The only change I've made is a minor correction; I'm fairly certain that the line
ab = diag(sqrt(k*lat));
should be
ab = diag(k*sqrt(lat));
so I've made that correction. Without the correction, the 95% CI's the code produces are approximately half the size they should be (because $k\approx 4$) as tested with a normally-distributed data set that I generated for the purpose of testing the code. With that correction, this prediction agrees very well with the percentile-based estimate (as it should!).
So, armed with two techniques to empirically estimate the 95% confidence interval, I set to the task of doing that for various simulation lengths. In other words, run 100 simulations with 50 iterations each, then do it again for 100 iterations, and again for 250 iterations, and then for 500, 1000, 2500, 5000, 10000, 25000, 50000, 100000. I did all of this with the T16H protection paladin profile and "default" settings in SimC.
That takes a while – the whole set of runs takes 5-8 hours depending on how many threads I use. But at the end, we get a graph that looks something like this:
It's a little harder to tell what's going on in the top plot because it's a semilog, but the bottom loglog plot shows the problem very clearly. At 1000 iterations (103) the three error estimates agree very well. However around 5000 iterations we see the observed error exceeding the reported error, and as we increase the number of iterations further the gap just gets larger. By 100000 iterations (105), we're reporting a confidence interval of almost 100 DPS, but observing a confidence interval of nearly 500 DPS.
This is a problem – it means that we've effectively hit an "error floor" in SimC, because no matter how many iterations we throw at the problem, the error doesn't seem to improve. And that's pretty weird. But why?
Results Hazy, Ask Again Later
The "why" took a little more thinking. I've had several discussions over the past month with other SimC devs and a few academics about what might cause this sort of thing. As it turns out, everyone I spoke to had the same first guess that I did. If you remember back to Part I, we said that our error estimates were based on the Central Limit Theorem. Maybe we were violating the CLT somehow, and as a result our actual errors were larger than we expected?
If you recall, the constraints on the CLT were that each iteration needed to be independent and identically distributed. In other words, none of the iterations should depend on any of the previous iterations, and the probability distribution we're sampling shouldn't change from iteration to iteration. Of the two, dependence seemed like the more likely culprit.
I should note that while this was the first thought I had, the second thought I had was "but how?" Most people I talked with were similarly stumped at first. The thing that stuck out to us as the most likely culprit also seemed… somewhat unlikely. And that was the "vary_combat_length" option in SimC.
See, the default setting in SimC is to vary the combat length from iteration to iteration to smooth out the impact of cooldowns and other fixed-time-interval effects. To illustrate that concept, let's say you had a spell with a 1-minute cooldown that gave you a 30-second buff that significantly increased your DPS (say, Avenging Wrath on steroids). If you ran the sim for exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds, you'd get two casts of that spell (once at the pull, once at the 1-minute mark) and you'd have 66.67% uptime on that buff. But if you ran the sim for exactly 2 minutes, you'd have the same two casts but only 50% uptime. Your DPS would look really good in the first sim, and significantly lower in the second sim.
So to try and reduce that problem and give a more holistic view of your DPS that accounts for fluctuations in fight length, SimC varies the fight length by up to 20% from the default of 450 seconds. That way you get a spread of cooldown uptimes that more accurately represents and average encounter.
The reason that we thought this was an unlikely candidate was that it wasn't clear how this violated either of the CLT constraints. See, SimC doesn't just run arbitrarily for 450 seconds by default. It does that for the first iteration, during which it tallies up the amount of damage you do, and then for subsequent iterations it gives the boss that much health and lets you go to town on it, varying the health accordingly to get longer or shorter runs.
So varying the combat time doesn't change the relative amount of time you spend in execute range, for example. That's important, because if you spent e.g. half of the fight in execute range, and you do more DPS in execute range, then you've changed the probability distribution being sampled, so we'd be violating the "identically distributed" constraint.
However, the variation in combat length isn't random either – it follows a predetermined sequence, where it alternates between extremes. As a rough example, it might start with a run that's 20% shorter than the average, which we'll call "-20%." It' would follow that with a run that's 20% longer than average, or "+20%." And then one that's -19%, followed by another at +19%, followed by -18%, and so on. Note that these aren't relative to the previous iteration – they're all relative to the target length of 450 seconds. So in theory, these shouldn't be violating the independence clause on that account. But they are somewhat deterministic because of the patterning.
So, it felt unlikely that this was the problem. But we really weren't sure. So we tested it by repeating the experiment with the command-line argument "vary_combat_length=0" to disable the combat length variation code. And five to eight hours later, the result was this:
Well, that didn't help. So at the very least, the combat length variation code isn't the only problem. We can't rule it out completely based on this data, because it's possible (if unlikely) that it is one of two or more contributing factors. But it certainly looks like the culprit lies elsewhere.
Death and Decay
The next candidate we came up with was a quirk of how the boss health calculation works. I glossed over this above by saying that we determine the boss's health based on the damage done in the first iteration. But that's not really the whole story.
There's no guarantee that the first iteration is a representative sample of your DPS. Maybe in that first iteration you had an unusually low number of crits or Grand Crusader procs, so your DPS was below average. In that case, the health we assign the boss for iteration #2 will be a little low, and you might blow through it in 425 seconds rather than 450 seconds. If we kept using that boss health value, we may find that after a large number of iterations the mean combat length is only 430 seconds rather than our target of 450 seconds.
So Simulationcraft incorporates that information by performing a moving average on boss health as we go. If iteration #2 was significantly shorter, it will add a little health to the boss for the next one. It basically makes an educated guess at how much more health it would take to bring the average back up to 450 seconds. It does that for each iteration, though with some amount of decay built-in to keep things from oscillating out of control. The technique is very good at homing in on an average of 450 seconds of combat after many iterations. This is called the "enemy health estimation model," and it's what SimC uses by default.
Unfortunately, it also means that each iteration is slightly dependent on the previous ones. If iterations one through 50 were a little short, then iteration 51 gets a little longer. Again, it's not clear that this is a strong enough effect to matter, but we just weren't sure, and it's a pretty obvious place to check if you're worried that dependence between iterations is a problem.
There are two ways we can reduce the impact of health recalculation in SimC. The first is to use a time-based model with the command-line option "fixed_time=1″, which tells the sim to run for exactly 450 seconds, period. It will still perform the boss health recalculation from iteration to iteration, but since we're stopping the sim based on time, that won't cause excessively long or short runs. This option also respects the user's choice of the vary_combat_length option, and adjusts the time accordingly unless it's disabled.
The second way is to use the Fixed Enemy Health model by setting "override.target_health=X". This forces the boss to have exactly X health every iteration, and the sim ends when the boss runs out of health. So it automatically disables combat length variation and the health recalculation effect. This is the pinnacle of having independent trials, because it removes any possible dependence on previous runs.
So I ran three more configurations: One with fixed_time=1 and vary_combat_length left at the default of 0.2, one with fixed_time=1 and vary_combat_length=0, and one with target_health=171000000 (roughly appropriate for a 450-second run at ~400k sustained DPS).
Did I mention that each of these takes 5-8 hours?
Days later, here's what I got out of the experiments:
Now we're getting somewhere. It seems from this data that the fixed_time setting didn't change anything, but fixing the target health did. The fixed health simulation gives us results in excellent agreement with the theoretical results. So we really are looking for a violation of the Central Limit Theorem, at least somewhere.
But where? Was it in the health recalculation? Or the combat length variation? Or something else entirely that I overlooked?
Class Warfare
Around this time, one of the other SimC devs asked me if I had tested this with other specs or classes. The thought being that maybe it was an issue specific to paladins. And of course, I hadn't yet, because each experiment takes five to eight hours to run, and I was in the middle of the last of the three runs above. But it was definitely on my to-do list to run a few other specs as a control group.
So I queued up a few more of these experiments for other specs. For example, using the T16H retribution paladin profile:
Note that this is with default settings – the same settings that cause the error anomaly with protection. I ran a few more experiments to test enhancement shamans and protection warriors, with similar results. All of the other classes seemed to be obeying the CLT, even with combat length variation and health recalculation active. And even retribution seemed to be working properly under those conditions. It's as if the problem was specific to protection paladins!
Which really meant that I thought the problem was something I did in the paladin module – i.e. it was my fault. So of course, I immediately went to digging through the paladin module looking for anything that would link one iteration to the next. Maybe I wasn't re-initializing everything properly, so the state at the end of one iteration somehow was influencing the next? But after a few hours of combing through the code, I came up empty-handed. Nothing seemed to be persisting between iterations.
So I started debugging, literally running a few simulations and checking the state of the paladin at different break points in the process of the simulation. Combing through all of the relevant properties of the paladin object in Visual Studio, searching in vain for something – anything – that wasn't being reset properly. And while I didn't find anything, it did cause me to stumble over the answer in the dark almost by accident.
Fix Me Up, Before You Go Go
What I stumbled across was the fixed_time flag. I was running the T16H protection paladin profile through the simulation with completely default settings, and at one of my breakpoints I happened to notice that the fixed_time flag was active. Needless to say, this was… odd. It shouldn't be on in a default simulation. Unable to figure out why it was on, I consulted the other devs, and was pointed to an old piece of code that had been hiding in the shadows:
if ( p -> primary_role() != ROLE_HEAL && p -> primary_role() != ROLE_TANK && ! p -> is_pet() ) zero_dds = false
If you're not fluent in C++, that's checking to see that the actor's role is not "healer" or "tank", and also that the actor is not a pet. And if the actor is none of those things, it sets a flag to false. Later on, that flag is used to forcibly enable "fixed_time=1″ if the flag is true. So in other words, the sim automatically shifts into fixed-time mode if you're simming a healer or a tank!
Now, at the time it was written, this code makes sense. Keep in mind that Simulationcraft started out primarily as a DPS spec simulator. While it has the guts to support healers and tanks, it wasn't until fairly recently that either of those roles were really supported well. Arguably, healers still aren't, for a variety of reasons, and a lot of the reason that it's been improving for tanks is because I got involved and started implementing stuff that we wanted to see.
That's not meant as a shot at the existing SimC devs either, by the way. These folks work incredibly hard to improve and maintain the project, but it's a hobby for all of us, and there's more than enough work to be done keeping it running properly for DPS specs. Getting solid support for, say, tanking pretty much requires a dev who has the interest and time to spend implementing tanking stuff, not to mention other devs who are willing to maintain the tanking part of each class module. And that didn't really happen until I got involved and gave tanks a reason to care about the results (being able to calculate TMI, and correcting a bunch of minor errors in combat, mitigation, and Vengeance calculations).
It's also why I suspect healers won't be well-supported until a serious healing theorycrafter decides to say, "here's what we need the sim to do in order to be useful to us," and then wade in and make those changes.
But back to the point, if you're simming a healer, you're not putting out any DPS. It makes very little sense to base the simulation time on boss health in that scenario, so you'd clearly want to default to a fixed-time model for a healer. That line of code was basically just a catch-all to say, "only use the boss health estimation model for DPS classes/specs." The fact that it enabled it for tanks was mostly an afterthought, because nobody was using Simulationcraft to simulate tanking at that point.
In any event, this was a giant clue that the problem had to do with the fixed_time option, so we dug into that in more detail. What I learned, mostly from discussion with the other devs, is that fixed-time mode did a bunch of things it really shouldn't. The root of the problem was that it was still basing the boss's health percentage on the health recalculation algorithm in this mode. That poses two major problems:
- The boss still "died" when it reached 0% health, which meant that you could end the simulation earlier than your target time if you happened to be lucky on that iteration (i.e. had above-average DPS).
- If you had an iteration of below-average DPS, the simulation would hard-stop at the target time. So if you were supposed to run for 450 seconds, and the boss wasn't dead yet, tough – the simulation just ends.
That seems perfectly logical, but it causes some major CLT violations. Hard-stopping the simulation at 450 seconds is essentially throwing a Heaviside function (or "step function") into the mix. It's saying, "we don't care what happens after this point, and we're going to ignore it." But natural variations in DPS output should cause some iterations to be shorter than 450 seconds and other iterations to be longer. The hard-stop only applies to the longer runs, which means we're artificially affecting some of our iterations but not others.
To see why this is a problem, consider the following two scenarios:
- An iteration where you had exactly average DPS, and the boss dies exactly at 450 seconds. You enter execute range ~370 seconds into the fight, so you spend about 80 seconds in execute range. Note that this is a little less than 20% of the time, because I'm assuming your DPS goes up in execute range.
- An iteration where you had bad luck and produced below-average DPS. You don't enter execute range until ~400 seconds into the fight as a result, so you only get 50 seconds of execute range. The simulation forcibly ends combat at 450 seconds with the boss still having 5%-10% health remaining.
The second scenario should produce even lower DPS than expected, because not only did you have bad luck during the initial part of the iteration, but you were robbed of 30 seconds (or more) of higher-DPS execute time. Statistically, that means is that we're changing the underlying probability distribution, because the relative time spent in execute range is changing significantly from iteration to iteration.
And that violates one of our CLT conditions – each iteration needs to be identically distributed if we want to be able to use the CLT. If we spend 10% of our time in execute range on one iteration, but 20% on another iteration, and 15% on a third iteration, that condition isn't being adhered to anymore, and we can't expect our error to conform to the predictions of the CLT.
Ti-i-i-ime Is On My Side
The correction, which was made in this commit, was to fix the way we calculate health percentage. Instead of using boss health in fixed_time mode, we now ignore boss health entirely and use time to estimate boss health. For example, if you're running a 450-second simulation and you're 270 seconds into it, the health_percentage() function just returns the percentage of time left in the simulation: $100\%\times(1-270/450)=40\%$. This fixes both of the problems above: we're no longer chopping off low-DPS runs and skewing our distribution, and the boss can't die early on high-DPS runs because the sim calls health_percentage() to determine if the boss is dead yet. And if we rebuild the simulation after that commit and run the T16H protection paladin profile through it, we get this:
Excellent. We're now getting proper agreement with the CLT estimate even out as far as 105 iterations. And we can expect that trend to continue as iteration numbers increase because we're not violating any of the CLT conditions anymore.
In a later commit, the line of code quoted above was changed to remove the tank role check as well. In other words, we're no longer running in fixed-time mode all the time, which is fine because we produce stable enough DPS that the health recalculation algorithm should work properly. While that doesn't have a significant impact on the results, it's nice to know that we use the same defaults as most other specs (excepting healers, of course).
If you were attentive, you may have noticed that I tested protection warriors and found that they weren't exhibiting the same error behavior. Now that you know what the problem was, you may ask, "why not?" After all, they're tanks, so they were also being forced into a fixed-time mode when being simmed. So what gives?
If you guessed "they don't have an execute range," pat yourself on the back. Oh sure, warriors have Execute – the entire "execute range" term is named for it, after all. But if you take a quick look at the T16H protection warrior profile, you'll notice that it isn't being used. Which makes sense, because a tank that's actually in danger would rather use that rage on Shield Barrier for more survivability. Since the T16H protection warrior profile doesn't change the player's behavior during execute range, it's irrelevant how much time they spend there, because their DPS doesn't change when the boss drops below 20%. So the types of variations that caused error bloat for the protection paladin profile simply don't exist in the protection warrior profile.
If you're thinking to yourself, "Man I really don't want to read 4600 words, could you get to the point already," this section is for you. In short, here's what happened:
- The simulation was forcing tanks into a "fixed-time" mode, where the sim runs for X seconds and stops if it reaches that time regardless of boss health.
- As a result, the relative amount of time spent in execute range could change significantly from iteration to iteration based on your DPS, changing the underlying probability distribution.
- Changing the underlying probability distribution violates the Central Limit Theorem, and makes Simulationcraft's reported error estimate inaccurate, far lower than the actual error.
- We fixed it by (a) changing the way we calculate the boss' health percentage in fixed-time mode, and (b) not forcing tanks into fixed-time mode in the first place.
For anyone who didn't skip to the end, I hope this was an enjoyable read, and less technically grueling than Part I was. It was fun (if time-consuming) to write, if only because I get to mix in concepts that I use frequently in a professional (experimental physics) context, like error analysis and experimental design, with theorycrafting and simulation.
I think many people don't realize how intertwined the two are in practice. I'm sure a lot of theorycrafters, especially newer ones or ones without a strong science background, ignore error entirely. It's a lot easier to just look at things like mean DPS or HPS, damage per resource spent, or similar metrics. But especially when it comes to simulation, it's important to know how good your estimates are and whether you can trust them.
Part of my goal in this pair of posts was to provide a good example of how one goes about doing that, and why. Together, they're a good introduction to how to properly perform error analysis on results and what to look for when you find results that don't meet your expectations. Hopefully, at least a few theorycrafters come out of reading these posts feeling like they've added a new tool to their skill set.
And more generally, that non-theorycrafters leave with a sense of what it means to talk about statistical (i.e. random) error. I'll consider it a success if a few people walk away from this set of posts saying, "You know, I never understood how this works before, but now I get it."


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Biggs, Brian is the author of 'Everything Goes: Henry Goes Skating', published 2012 under ISBN 9780061958205 and ISBN 0061958204.[read more]
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Metra23 wrote:Is there a minimum number of posts before new members get access to see all pictures? For example, in the new "Rory Photo" thread, I wasn't able to see the photo. I only saw the photo when m.Felix had posted the link to the Rockplast photos; that's when I saw the photo referenced in the thread.
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Friday, October 3, 2008
A Precious Find....
Instead of trying to pet it, for fear of it going crazy and attacking me or lunging into the busy street on the other side of me I saw a little crumpled up bag so I poked it to make sure it was still alive. It moved ever so slightly. At this point I think it was trying to play dead. So I reached out my hand and let it sniff it. Then I petted it's little head. I realized that I would have to walk home with it in my arms. I was scared that the little beast would come out of it's nap time and claw my face to death, but luckily the walk home, even crossing the busy street wasn't a big deal at all, and the kitten did fine. I can only imagine what people were thinking that were driving by. What is that girl doing with that baby cat walking on the side of the road.
When I got home, I immediately called my two cousins who have been in the market to find a cute kitten. My cousins just moved into a new place and are my best friends, so I knew they wouldn't be able to resist and then I also knew the kitty would be going to a good home. I put the kitten in a laundry basket with a towel and gave it some milk, hoping that it would just stay there while I got ready for work and was able to take it over to the vets office by my cousins office. I ran upstairs to start the shower, and ran back to check on her, and she was out of the basket! I found her creeping around under the stairs and decided to lock her in the basket in the downstairs bathroom while I got ready. I had noticed she had some scraped under her chin and had a feeling she had gotten hit by a car, so when she was limping around I also knew she had a problem with her front paw. I would find a cat who had medical problems!
Then once I was ready for work I loaded up the basket and took her over to the vets office where I met up with my cousin. She immediately was in love, and we got her checked out. They told us it was a girl, and she weighed in at a measly 2.3 pounds and was about eight weeks old, just a baby! They also said that her leg was broken and she would have to have a cast put on, and that she had some really bad fleas. So a cast and a flea dip later she will be going home with my cousin tonight! We decided to name her Presh Ollie Streets. She was named Streets for about 10 minutes before we found out she was a girl, but Presh is short for precious. I know, my cousins and I are pretty weird. :) So my morning run was cut short, but I am proud to announce this new little girl into the KooOlie Family!
There was her scrape on her mouth from the road rash. She looks a little fierce, but believe me, she is super laid back.
On our way to the vets office. This is her broken leg :(
So so cute!
So this week, if you are in the mood for a new addition to your family, I would advise you to look at a local shelter or by visiting http://www.spca.com/!
10 comments:
- Aron said...
oh my gosh she is SOOOO precious :) i would have done the same thing. YAY for you for saving a kittens life and giving her a GREAT home!! so awesome :)
- October 3, 2008 at 11:24 AM
- joyRuN said...
Congrats on your new family member! She's precious, & was very lucky that you found her :)
- October 3, 2008 at 12:17 PM
- J said...
She is so cute! I love kittens! I can't believe you found a kitten on your run!
- October 3, 2008 at 12:56 PM
- Marcy said...
Awwwhhh how cute!! She's a very lucky kitty to have been picked up by you ;-)
- October 3, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Im SO IM THE MOOD.
are you offering to talk to my husband for me?
thank you.
- October 3, 2008 at 4:40 PM
- Felice Devine said...
Awww! Such a good story. She's SO cute!
I rescued my little kitty (Chili) from the mean streets when he was just a baby and he's just the best. He was afraid in the beginning but now he is a total lover.
- October 3, 2008 at 4:45 PM
- N.D. said...
What a cutie! nice save!
- October 3, 2008 at 5:10 PM
- Julianne said...
You are such a sweetheart to rescue this kitten!!! (I'm allergic to cats unfortunately...)
- October 5, 2008 at 8:24 PM
- Melissa @ I Pick Pretty said...
Hey, thanks for checking out my blog!
Good for you on rescuing this highly adorable kitten & drawing attention to SPCA, a very worthy organization.
- October 8, 2008 at 7:24 PM
- Denise said...
Oh!! Adorable!! Thank you so much for giving her a good home.
- December 8, 2008 at 12:50 PM


text:
For AcqKnowledge version 4.0 and above to mimic earlier behavior (copying only a piece of a waveform), use the I-beam tool to select the area to be duplicated, type control-c (command-c on a Mac) or choose "Edit > Copy". Then choose "Edit > Insert Waveform".
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text:
Two Worlds II: Sordahon's Journey - Episode 7
Sordahon's adventures continue at the South Peak offices.
Sordahon's adventures continue at the South Peak offices.
TopWare Interactive's Scott Cromie discusses more gameplay enhancements and improvements in this developer diary video.
Highlights this week include Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, Dark Void, and a Fight Night Champion Demo.
Kevin VanOrd dons his wizard cap and unleashes the magic of Two Worlds II in this video review.
An old nemesis gives a monologue for the last time.
A player trains to kill from behind.
A rider gets pelted with rocks.
A hunter poaches for meat and horns.
A warrior sharpens his blade skills on savanna critters.
A warrior destroys the wolf citizens of a village.
Warriors and a necromancer hunt in a cemetery.
A warrior axes his way through a tomb.
A warrior takes on a lethal outbreak of killer bugs.
A warrior takes on hellish creatures.
A magician wakes up his rock garden.
A player takes on a dwarf in an arena.
A warrior raids a camp and picks a giant lock.
A warrior shows his displeasure for wildlife.
TopWare Interactive's Scott Cromie talks about maximizing gameplay in this developer diary video.
This week we take a look at Dead Space 2, Two Worlds II, Lord of Arcana, and Monday Night Combat.
Check out some gameplay footage of the labyrinths.
TopWare Interactive's creative director, Scott Cromie, talks about how Two Worlds II has improved since Two Worlds was released.
The staff at South Peak welcome Sordahon to their office.
See how it all begins in Two Worlds II's latest story trailer.
Marco Martinez brings you the latest PC downloads and indie games with This Week on PC.
Sordahon continues to get dissed in the latest Episode for Two Worlds II.
Sordahon's journey through life [live action].
From lush jungle islands to dark catacombs and shifting desert sands, the world has been reborn.
The latest in Sordahon's Journey [live action].
The continuing saga of Sordahon [live action].
Jake DiGennaro from Topware Interactive stops by and shows Andrew Two Worlds II.
On Today on the Spot, we take a look at what's new on Xbox Live, see demos for Shank and Two Worlds II, and welcome back Chris Watters to the ...
Check out the new video for Two Worlds II!
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text: Christian from Defense Tech is at the Modern Day Marine Expo, where instead of having girls in mini-bikinis caressing speedboats and yachts, they have girls in mini-bikinis caressing torpedoes and gatling guns. Like this one on board the Osprey, which uses a controller with the same shape and functionality of an Xbox 360 gamepad. The GAU-17, as this gatling gun is called, drops from the belly of the Osprey when needed. The crew chief—not the pilot—uses the gamepad and a targeting monitor to fire it. The targeting monitor—which also corrects targeting automatically for angle and speed—is connected to a sensor which houses a CCD camera, IR camera and laser range finder. The GAU-17 is not limited in one axis, but covers the entire field of battle, moving all across 360 degrees. However, since the Osprey engines move from horizontal to vertical orientation depending on the maneuver, the targeting software limits the fire range so the rotors can't get damaged. The pilot can also activate a mode that fixes the gun in a forward configuration, allowing for traditional targeting without having to use the gamepad. [Defense Tech]


text:
Well, at Least Skype App Will Be Ready for Windows 8 Launch
There will be tons of big-name apps missing when Windows 8 goes on sale at the end of the week, but Skype won't be one of them.
The Internet calling service said it will have a new-style Windows app ready to go when the operating system hits store shelves on Friday.
One should hope so, since Microsoft paid $8.5 billion to acquire Skype last year.
Skype won't be alone in the Windows Store, for sure. Already Netflix and eBay have apps, for example, and I am sure Microsoft will have some new names to announce this week. But from the current look of things, there will be more big names missing than present.
The availability of apps will be important to the success of the new operating system given that older apps are relegated to an old-style and less touch friendly Desktop app in Windows 8. With the Windows RT variant that powers Surface and a handful of other machines, old-style Windows apps won't run at all.
As for the Windows 8 version of Skype, the new app can run in the background and show incoming messages on its home screen "live tile." With Windows 8, users can merge their Skype ID with their Microsoft account, so users can sign on once to both their machine and to the calling service.
The new Skype app also integrates with Windows 8's built-in People app, making Skype just one more way to connect with one's contacts.
One feature that won't be ready at launch is group video chat, though Skype said that ability is in the works and should be available soon. Skype was also late to Windows Phone, launching in beta form only this past April.


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And so it has come to pass that W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) elections are afoot. Nominations have ended and the candidates have been announced. There are four seats open and nine candidates running, so it's worth understanding why anyone should vote for the reformers (myself, Yehuda Katz, Anne van Kesteren, Peter Linss, and Marcos Caceres). For general background, see my previous post. Here I'll include more specifics, so if that sounds boring, here's a kitten!
After doing much reading of TAG meeting minutes, f2f notes, issues, delivered products, and findings I've come to a sobering conclusion: the TAG isn't focused on eliminating the biggest sources of developer pain today. Now, you can argue that this might not be their job, but I won't agree. It's the TAGs job to help ensure the health of the platform, both for publishers and search engines, but also for authors. And the web as a platform is in some real trouble today.
There doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency in the TAG about the corrosive effects of poor design and integration on the overall usability and health of the system. The Web to the TAG, as I can understand it through the meeting minutes and notes, is a collection of documents that represent internally-referential collections of data which are are linked to other documents, not a series of applications that are attempting ever more impressive feats of richness on a platform that stymies them every time you hit one of the seams. In reality it is (aspirationally) both things but the very real tensions between them don't appear in the TAG's work, leading me to believe that it doesn't comprehend the latter aspect of web development today and what that means for the future health and viability of the platform.
If elected, I will work to fix that. The TAG is the right group to formulate and articulate a theory of good layering in the web platform's architecture and it's the only group at the W3C whose mission is to help spec authors wrestle with large-scale design and integration problems like this. My background is in apps, and JS, and browsers, and I work at one of the few places deeply invested in ensuring that we maintain a healthy, declarative web for the future. I care tremendously about the viability of the largely-declarative web. Through my work with Dimitry Glazkov and many others on Web Components I've done as much as anyone in the last decade to help build a bridge between the JS and declarative worlds. Dimitry and I created and led the team here at Google that have put Shadow DOM, CSS Variables, Custom Elements, Mutation Observers (and Object.observe) into specs and on the platform agenda, all with the explicit goal of creating better layering; explaining the magic in today's platform and drawing connections between the bits that had none before. And I think we need to keep building more of those bridges, but it's hard when W3C culture views that agenda with suspicion. Why would any WG concern itself with integration with specs outside its charter? It's the TAGs job to inject that global perspective. I believe the TAG should pursue the following work as a way of filling its charter:
- Getting reconnected to web developers: today's TAG isn't composed of web developers (Sir Tim excepted) and the general level of familiarity on the committee with the pressing issues in web development seems low. As a member I'll press to ensure that at least one of the face-to-face meetings each year overlaps with an industry web development conference (not an academic symposium). Having the TAG simply go and listen, and perhaps answer questions in such a forum, would do much to illuminate the gulf in understanding. I also support Marco's agenda of direct developer outreach (G+, AMA, IRC, etc.)
- Forming and expressing an opinion about idiomatic JS APIs: the W3C is the body that specifies JavaScript's largest, most important standard library yet it doesn't seem to treat that task with any care. Poor integration with JS types, idioms, library conventions, and calling conventions are the calling card of W3C APIs. The detrimental effects are pervasive and corrosive. The TAG should produce a guide on designing idiomatic JS APIs for WGs to use. Additionally, the TAG should use its spec review perch to call out poorly designed JS APIs as such and propose changes that improve full-stack integration. Lastly, the TAG should be open to facilitating (or teaching!) classes on how to design good APIs for the web. It's a skill that can be learned like any other, and the TAG has a unique responsibility towards ensuring that the next generation of APIs is better than the last.
- Advocate for layering: it's the TAGs natural role to advocate for coherence in the platform, not only at the markup level, but also inside the app runtime bits that take up so very much of the time in W3C's most active WGs. If the TAG doesn't do this, asking the important questions at the right time and working to show the benefits of collaboration and cross-API thinking, who will? To combat this, I propose that the TAG take as an open issue the lack of coherence in the client side platform and work to identify the largest developer pain-points in findings that work to set an agenda for WGs in the future. There is no hope for a well-integrated, layered platform without every WG accepting some responsibility for the usability and layering commons, and if elected I will work to ensure the TAG is a tireless advocate for that commons.
If that sounds like meaningful progress to you, I'd appreciate your organization's vote; along with your consideration to vote for my fellow reformers: Yehuda Katz, Anne van Kesteren, Peter Linss, and Marcos Cáceres. AC reps for each organization can vote here and have 4 votes to allocate in this election. Voting closes near the end of the month, and it's also holiday season, so if you work at a member organization and aren't the AC rep, please, find out who that person in your organization is and make sure they vote. The TAG can't fix the web or the W3C, but I believe that with the right people involved it can do a lot more to help the well-intentioned people who are hard at work in the WGs to build in smarter ways that pay all of us back in the long run.


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8 Responses so far.
Karl Dillinger says:
Good stuff man. Welcome to the CelticsLife team.
Yes welcome to CelticsLife Mike. You may also use the nickname the "Lazy Chucker" for Rasheed. I do think that between continued disappointing performances, Rasheed will throw in one gem during the playoffs and all his fans will be ecstatic. You know because even a blind squirrel catches a nut from time to time.
If he doesn't have at least one gem of a playoff game I'm totally going to feel ripped off that that squirrel saying was a flat out LIE.
tb727 says:
He was a +7 and played good interior defense. I expect a solid Game 2 from him.
TB, he was a +7 b/c his time on the court coincided with Tony "MJ" Allen's. lol.
Can the Celtics or are they looking to get rid of him after this season or are we stuck with him?
Unknown says:
We're stuck with him for two more years I believe...
Danny had a chance to move him for DJ Augustin and likely a first round pick at the trade deadline. For some odd reason Larry Brown wanted him. Danny passed and like Mike said we're stuck with him now.
I have to admit I love it when Sheed goes after the officials. Definitely not the smartest move but with his rep he's not gettin the benefit of doubt and it's the most passion we've seen from him... ultimately we all hope he wants to win games


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They offer very economic rates, specially when compared with other so-called Wholesale CBD Isolate In Sheridan who are actually middlemen (referred to as Brokers) that drive the expense up. It is an ideal way of saving money by going to the farm directly as soon as possible, or even better to get all of the raw CBD Materials, Wholesale CBD Oil Drop Shipping, Wholesale CBD Oil Order Fulfillment and Private Label CBD Manufacturing that you need all from one place. You won't have to give up your regular prices to buy it. The advantages offered by hemp oil hasn't been analyzed extensively in humans, so although it likely does have advantages, they have not been established medically and are not ensured.
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What Is Full-Spectrum Hemp Oil?
As everyone is waking up to the wide world of marijuana and its products, everyone is finding out just how complicated cannabis is. As it turns out, there are at least 80 different types of cannabinoids alone, and 100 in cannabis and CBD hemp put together. CBD to THC ratios is from 20 to 1 up to 30 to 1; meaning the plant can contain CBD 20 percent and 0.6 percent THC.
Now, what the percentages and ratios mean will differ based upon individual states. In Colorado, those types of ratios are what make up industrial hemp, while other states define 1 percent as industrial hemp. Industrial hemp is not to be confused with the plant material that makes up rope and other manufactured products. High-CBD hemp, as it is known, is different than the fiber hemp used in production. Here's where the confusion is set in motion. Fiber hemp has 1 percent to 2 percent CBD.
Full-spectrum CBD is a powerhouse because it contains terpenes and cannabinoids together. CBD itself is only one small part of the cannabinoid family. Each is able to interact well with the endocannabinoid system. As research is performed, it is coming to light that the CBD has this interaction with the body. It's important that the natural structure and power of the cannabinoids are extracted without breaking down their ability to interact in the endocannabinoid system.
Full spectrum CBD is not inexpensive. If you are searching for it, and come across a great deal, its quality is probably not great. It may mean that there is a problem with the methods used to grow it or how the full-spectrum CBD oil was pulled out of the plant.
The full spectrum CBD, which includes terpenes and cannabinoids, is best extracted using organic alcohol, specifically grape solvents because it is oil soluble. It's never good to use chemical-grade solvents, butane, or propane to extract the oil, such as denatured alcohol.
The issue is when molecular extraction is performed as well. This is too far away from the natural process, which can pull out the extremely beneficial synergies of the plant. If you see a pure crystal CBD, avoid it.
It is also possible to extract high-CBD hemp using carbon dioxide. This is part of the plant's oil soluble part that is taken out of the leaves to leave behind terpenes. This is how a pure extract is derived in order to achieve the full synergy the plant can provide.
Wholesale CBD 99.9% Isolate In Sheridan Colorado
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Wholesale CBD isolate is a powdered cannabidiol extract that is incredibly pure, and that contains the 'medicinal' parts of cannabis. This anhydrous substance is 99% CBD, and it can be used as a food additive, added to liquids, or ingested in other ways to enjoy the medicinal benefits of CBD.
CBD oil use is a relatively new thing, and there are still a lot of questions about exactly how it works and what it can do, but it is known that it is safe, and if you can get CBD That does not contain THC (as CBD isolates are known to), then you can get the healing and pain relief benefits without the psychoactive effects.
CBD can be used to help calm people down, help them focus, and also help people who suffer from chronic pain conditions as well. CBD will not get you 'high' but it can help with arthritis, ADHD, nagging injuries, and even with skin conditions.
Some people mix Wholesale CBD isolates in with e-liquids, to inhale the substance. Others put them into edibles, which can help with the bio-availability (as long as you don't over-cook them, breaking the CBD down).
There is a lot of misinformation out there about CBD. The oils are actually legal in most parts of the world (Canada is one of the only places where it is formally considered a controlled substance, even though it does not contain THC). Wholesale CBD isolates are expensive, because of the purification process, but they are very potent, and you should find that they do their job very well.
What's In CBD
Cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol are the two cannabidoids that occur naturally in Hemp. Thy are very similar when they are examined at the molecular level, and initially many law enforcement departments treated them as being the same. However, it has since been found that CBD has the focus and mind-enhancing aspects of cannabis, and that it can act as a nootropic - but it is not a psychotropic.
THC's mind-altering behaviour is what makes it illgal - some people experience paranoia, and some people experience highs that make them lose control of their faculties. This makes THC dangerous in certain environments (such as if you are driving, or operating heavy machinery), and that's why it is considered illegal in many states.
Cannabis has pain relief effects, and it can improve the quality of life for people who have serious medical conditions. Medical marijuana is one option. CBD is an option for people who want the pain relief, without the mind altering effects. Wholesale CBD isolate makes it possible to take in CBD without the strong taste, and without the 'side effects'.
CBD and THC are not addictive. Some people enjoy the 'highs', but that doesn't mean that they are going to get biologically addicted to it. CBD offers relief of pain at the neuro-synapse level. The pain relief can be lasting, but it does not cure whatever was causing the pain. Rather, it reduces the production of cytokines by the Glial cells in the injured area, stopping you from feeling pain while there is an injury.
The way that CBD and THC interact with each other when you smoke marijuana are complicated, and it's hard to know exactly what taking CBD isolates by themselves will do. Initial reports from 'early adopters' however, suggest that Wholesale CBD will work to ease Parkinson's tremors, help autistic people focus, soothe the pain from arthritis, and generally improve their quality of life. It's well worth trying if you have already tried painkillers, and found them to be ineffective for your needs.


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Moderator: Cartographers
Metsfanmax wrote:I noticed that the drop-down lists spell the missile launch territories incorrectly - they have them written as "MISSLE."
Dako wrote:Also, there is a region called "Chitba" while the real place in Russia is called Chita. Should be an easy fix as well.
sm8900 wrote:hm, my game on this map ended sort of quickly. just letting you know. thanks.
ManBungalow wrote:sm8900 wrote:hm, my game on this map ended sort of quickly. just letting you know. thanks.
Game 14875984 ?
Probably doesn't help that your team-mate unfortunately deadbeated out in round 3.
Plus, I think this map is best suited for games with 2-4 players, due to the small number of regions allocated at the start. It's playable with more players, but overall more coherent with fewer!
Users browsing this forum: No registered users


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(CNN) -- Elliot Rodger's journal is filled with lengthy diatribes against women.
While his crimes have reignited a debate over gun control and mental health care, his misogynistic language has sparked discussion about the continuing sexism women face each day.
Thousands of women have used Twitter to express their solidarity in response to Rodger's hate-filled rants that led to him killing four men and two women Friday night.
The hashtag #YesAllWomen was used more than 1 million times since Saturday when people got a closer look into the killer's thoughts in the journal and a YouTube video he posted the day before his attacks.
Since it started, there are tweets about rape, feminism, harassment and women's rights with the same hashtag.
"There was a familiarity in that language that really hit home for a lot of women who live with this implicit threat of danger all the time," the founder of THEli.st, Rachel Sklar, told CNN. "There is just an extra layer of danger implicit in being a woman that this really taps into."
More people are concerned about why women stay in abusive relationships than why men are ABUSING women. #YesAllWomen— Yes All Women (@yesaIIwomen) May 26, 2014
because despite a clearly articulated intent to kill all women, I just had to explain how the shooter was a misogynist. Again. #YesAllWomen— Amanda Sledz (@transporbation) May 27, 2014
Because I routinely get sexually harassed online (including rape threats) after my investigations air.
Male reporters do not. #YesAllWomen— Lisa Guerrero (@4lisaguerrero) May 26, 2014
#YesAllWomen because all girls have to learn that "boys will be boys"— Sarah Thibert (@sarah_tbear) May 26, 2014
#YesAllWomen because people still think rape jokes are funny— meg (@meganburns67) May 26, 2014
Because women are taught to hate themselves if men reject them, and men are taught to hate women if women reject them. #YesAllWomen— Kendall (@KendallMcK) May 25, 2014
#YesAllWomen because in high school I wasn't allowed to wear tank tops for fear it would instigate sexual feelings from men.— Kendell Burgess (@kendellll) May 26, 2014
I can't stop reading all of the #YesAllWomen tweets. I'm so moved by so many of them.— Gabourey Sidibe (@GabbySidibe) May 26, 2014
Because men don't text eachother that they got home safe. #YesAllWomen— Addie Wagenknecht (@wheresaddie) May 26, 2014
#YesAllWomen because this hashtag even exists.— bad (@httpdie) May 27, 2014
Not everyone was supportive, however, and some people wrote that you can't blame all men for misogyny.
The Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi told CNN: "I think a lot men are failing to understand how we can look at this senseless violence and take from it a broader social issue. I think a lot of men feel like it is wrong to paint with a broad brush, and they don't want to be associated with this lunatic who did this mass killing.
"But this is a big issue. This boy was a product of this culture. And I think to talk about the culture is not misandry (the hatred of males), it's not wrong and we do need to talk about it. If we want to know how to end this kind of violence we need to address the culture that created this kind of violence.
The 'twisted world' of a 'kissless virgin'
Father of shooting victim chastises politicians, demands new gun laws


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New Mens Superdry Refined Lumberjack Shirt Hot Rod Check rrp AU $99.95 now AU $60.95 DESCRIPTION Superdry men's Refined Lumberjack shirt. An essential piece in any wardrobe featuring two buttoned pockets on the front and buttons on the sleeves. The shirt is finished with a Superdry Sportswear patch on one sleeve and a Superdry logo patch on the hem dart. Model wears: Medium Model ...
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All of you remember how excited I was about the Chilean Miner, Edison Peña appearing on David Letterman, right? Remember the hilarious video I shared with you and the charming female translator we fell in love with? Well, I managed to find her and had the distinct pleasure of interviewing her for Latinaish.com!
Cassandra was hired to translate for Edison Peña by the David Letterman Show through Geneva Worldwide, a company in New York that provides interpreters, translators and other language services. They kindly put me in touch, and Cassandra generously agreed to answer a few questions. I was surprised to find out that interpreting is just one of many things Cassandra does. I think you'll find her as interesting, amazing, clever, and fun as I did. Here is the interview below.
Latinaish.com: Hello, Cassandra! Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. After seeing your appearance on David Letterman as the translator for Chilean miner Edison Peña, the internet has been buzzing with the question, "Who is that translator?" … Everyone loved you and I'm so pleased to speak with you. Please, tell us a little about yourself.
Cassandra: Hola, everybody! ¿Qué tal? Mucho gusto y muchas gracias, Sra. López. First of all, Congratulations for creating este espacio de reflexión on having one foot on each side of the cosmic cultural canyon! I think we all do in one way or another, even if we don't know it.
Pues, la pura verdad es que estoy un poco chiveada pero, bueno, here goes. Soy Cassandra, a sculptor by trade who freelances as an interpreter for Indigenous Peoples in United Nations negotiations on the environment and human rights. I have also been known to sell roses at the farmers' market and teach English to Otomi mariachis at dawn.
I am currently building my dentist a yacht. So forgive the unabashed self-promotion but if you have work for me, definitely holler. No job too small. Según el sapo, la pedrada. I can travel at the drop of a hat and have my own translating equipment. http://cassandra-the-translator.blogspot.com/
Además if you wanna see me out of UN drag, verify that women do, in fact, weld, commission a major monument or personal altar or just check out my sculptures, pica la salsa aquí: http://www.cassandraproductions.net/ OJO: Bronze statues ain't chilaquiles. So piensa en what a small used car costs.
Latinaish.com: Now, we know that you speak Spanish since we saw you translate for Edison Peña. How did you come to learn Spanish? Are there any other languages you speak? Have you always loved language?
Cassandra: Aprendí a medio-masticar español cotorreando en las calles de Tenochtitlan. When I was 19, I went to México with three words: hola, amigo, and adios which, when you think about it, sort of covers the span of el convivir. I wanted to read Neruda without translation and hunt down l@s niet@s de Siquieros. For twelve years, I basked in México's phenomenal legacy of la plástica concientizadora.
Por otro lado, I am the sheepish runt of a long line of linguists. I can chew the fat in French and Portuguese, too. I adore the crazy salad of speaking several languages all at once because it makes the colors in your paintbox shimmer infinitely.
Creo que slang is the cutting edge of language, the wiry green potato shoots of parlance. Homemade slang allows you to playfully skate the idiom and plasmar tu realidad mágica in your own terms. I especially love el huapango del albur.
Asímismo considero que la alegría es el secreto de la resistencia – joy is the secret of resistance -y contar un buen chiste que ilumina una sonrisa o un knee-slapping carcajada es unos de los mejores regalos que se puede brindar. I also have a special fondness for translating prayers.
Perhaps this sounds nerdy but etymology actually excites me. Digging for the twists and turns of meaning is like foraging for sassafras in the swamp. It gets you muddy, makes you bow in reverence to the Earth and, ultimately, heals you.
Para mi, consciousness of origins goes hand and hand with la vida's invitation to Signify. There is nothing more deadening than the flight from significance and the copout of being innocuous As Le Chic says, "Don't be a drag, participate." Daring to give a damn is where it is at.
Latinaish.com: What is the best thing about being a translator/interpreter?
Cassandra: The best thing about being an interpreter is bringing people together and helping the voiceless have a voice. Ya sabes, ¡la traducción de la liberación!
Latinaish.com: What is the most challenging thing about being a translator/interpreter?
Cassandra: Whether at the UN or at the grassroots, getting caught in the crossfire can be dangerous and draining. Sometimes I really wanna hold up a sign that says "Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player!"
Latinaish.com: Are there any Spanish accents/dialects you like best?
Cassandra: I enjoy working with Indigenous Peoples because the poetry of their cosmovisión moves me.
Latinaish.com: How did you feel appearing on David Letterman? Is this your most exciting moment as a translator/interpreter so far or have there been others?
Cassandra: Truth is bright lights don't float my boat. What turns me on as an interpreter is when people feel each other. Memorable moments include sitting on a dock on a bay watching dolphins play in the turquoise waves while helping an Inuit and a Kuna compare notes on kayaks and canoes. Another special chat was between a German geneticist and a Zapotec curandero on the effects of consuming GMO corn. (They both agreed it hinders digestion and depresses you aka te empacha y te debilita el espíritu.) I also treasure the time I translated for Berito KuwarU'wa in front of the International Court of Justice.
Latinaish.com: So many readers and friends of Latinaish.com have said to me both publicly and privately that they adore you. Did you realize how many people were charmed by your performance on David Letterman, or were you shocked at the response?
Cassandra: I am thrilled that Edison rocked the house. The man has been there and come back. (Goya and Dante ain't got nothing on this dude.) One can only be dazzled by his wonderfulness and luminous afán to live life to the hilt. So, frankly, I didn't give a thought to myself. But the other day at the Laundromat, I heard Carol King sing "Show the world all the love in your heart!" and realized that is certainly my aspiration.
Latinaish.com: The way you and Edison Peña interacted, you seemed like old friends! After working closely with a client, do you often have the opportunity to stay in touch? If not, do you ever feel a little sad to have made friends and then have to say goodbye?
Cassandra: Pues, I am very blessed to interpret for people that I care about and believe in so I almost never conceive of them as a "client" and almost always stay friends for life.
Latinaish.com: Cassandra, thank you again for taking the time to speak with me. It is a real pleasure and I know my readers would also like to extend their thanks and good wishes to you. Buena suerte in everything you do!
Cassandra: Thank you! ¡Pórtense mal y cuídense bien!


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God is doing something Big in the Middle East! He is birthing something new. You can be part of it. As a finance officer you will play a critical role in helping to see vibrant communities of Jesus followers among the least reached.
Are you excited to be part of an international team, using your gifts in the OM base as well as visiting local churches to mobilize them for world missions?
Are you a people-oriented person, organized and you like to recruit workers for the least reach countries, this is your opportunity!
As an accountant on the mission field with OM, you will use your financial management skills toward the purpose of seeing vibrant communities of Jesus followers established among the least reached. This important role is vital to ministry on the field. As an accountant in OM, you would provide accountability for the cash transactions conducted on the field and perform duties to assist with accounting functions pertaining to bank accounts, budgets, journal entries, financial reporting and administrative changes, guided by precedent and guidelines of established polices.


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Become a fan
Bane Tickets
Bane, a hardcore punk band, began as a side project between Aaron Dalbec (then of Converge) and Damon Bellardo.
Aaron approached Matt Firestone to sing and they played under the moniker of Gateway for a few shows, before Firestone departed ways to focus on other projects.
Dalbec then approached Aaron Bedard (who had previously sung for the Worcester, Massachusetts hardcore band Backbone) about singing for Bane.
They went into the studio in December 1995 with a few friends and released a 5 song demo.
The next year saw the release of their first EP, and many shows throughout central Massachusetts.
The home crowd reactions at local venues The Space, The Espresso Bar and The Palladium were positive.
Spring of 1997 saw the release of the Free To Think, Free To Be EP, where 1998 saw the release of the Holding This Moment 7" and CD collection, plus their first US Tour.
Like many other hardcore bands Bane are known for their promotion of tolerance and unity within the scene.
Bane Dates & Tickets
Sorry, we don't have any Bane tickets on sale at the moment.


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Rehearsal - Nov 16, 2020
Northwest Harmony Chorus
The love of music and performing brought us together with a shared commitment to improvement, and the friendships, fun, and food keep us together!
Northwest Harmony is a women's chorus of dynamic ladies singing a capella 4-part harmony in the barbershop style - which is one of the truly American musical art forms! The chorus and its quartets perform throughout the year for private and public events; they also compete annually in a regional chorus competition which keeps them focused on refining their singing and performing skills.
Membership in Northwest Harmony provides friendships with other singers as well as a myriad of opportunities to learn and grow both personally and musically.
In light of the current situation, all rehearsals and NWH activities have been cancelled until the end of April.
We will review the situation in mid-April to determine if we need to extend that hiatus.
Thank you for your interest and please come visit us when we resume.
Join us on Monday Nights from 7 - 9:30 pm
Northcrest Community Church
5602 E. Mill Plain Boulevard
Vancouver WA 98661
Call 360-773-5638
Email Us


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☆ 15 cm Length
☆ 5 cm Height
☆ 1 cm Bridge Width
☆ 14 cm Arm Length
☆ UV400 Protection
Available online. Visit our London Store for other Sunglasses styles and colours.
UK Standard Delivery
We aim to dispatch all mainland UK orders within 5 working days. However, sometimes during sale periods or other busy periods, deliveries may take longer. If you have not received your delivery within 10 working days, please contact our Customer Services department.
If you're not in when our couriers first try to deliver and they cannot find a safe place to leave your parcel, they will leave a card. Please follow the instructions on the card left by the courier to arrange redelivery of your order.
We provide NEXT DAY DELIVERY if your order is made before 2pm, Monday - Friday will be sent out with Royal Mail's Next Day delivery service. Orders made after 2pm, or on Saturdays and Sundays will be processed the next working day.
PLEASE NOTE; we are unable to provide next day delivery outside of the United Kingdom.


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OK, OK ... so I know I've been absent from this space for much of the summer. What can I say? Crazy awful full-time job, three little kids all out of school ... I am sure many of you can relate. With summer upon us in full swing, their bedtime seems to be getting later and later, at which point I am WAY too pooped to even think about working on a project. Hence, no sewing = no cool projects to share = no interesting blog posts.
Well, I do have a few things to work on. First is answering all of those awesome questions you guys asked me as part of my giveaway entry. I'm slowly but surely working on those. And oh yeah, I am sure you guys want to hear all about my fabric design class with Heather Ross in Portland a few weeks back. Working on that, too.
But in the meantime, PLEASE enjoy this:
How friggin' cool is that?! It was designed by my super awesome uber-talented swoon-worthy designer extraordinaire pal Melissa Averinos, she of yummygoods fame. And the best part? Yes, you too can have this emblazoned on the front of your very own t-shirt and be the envy of your cul-de-sac.
Read more about it and Melissa's other brilliant t-shirt designs here. I've also put it on my sidebar in case you want some flair for your blog ------>
More soon ... I promise!


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Robi Reed "11th Annual Sunshine Beyond Summer Celebration"
Ok so I want to kick this article off starting out talking my recent charity function I attended at Grammy & Academy Award Winning actor/singer Jamie Foxx
house.Where "Turned Up" wasnt even the word. This Event was a blast! With a Dj like the sensatiinable & beautiful MC Lyte, to lengendary Producers like John Singleton. This event was
truely star studded.& loved by many people in her community.She is responsible for many well known actors careers in Hollywood. She is has created movies that have cause a positive impact on how African Americans are seen in Hollywood. On the 11th Anniversary for "Reed For Hope" "Sunshine Beyond Summer". She raised funds for numerous health issues. Cancer, Sickle Cell, HIV/AIDS and Diabetes just to name a few.
This year she teamed up with sponsors like Red Bull, Nike, Walgreens, Ora-Quick, Bling H20 and The Kess Agengy to create a memorable experience. The event hosted by Wendy Raquel & Eva Marcille was very entertaining.With lots of great food, good music & all yor favorite celebrities in one building
why wouldnt it be a "Goodtime For A Good Cause". This year in the bilding supporting the foundation Tatyana Ali,Vanessa Williams, Shawn Robinson, John Singleton, Rolanda Watts,
Kevin McCall, Glynn Turner, Naturi Naughton and Leslie Burger. Amongst so many others.
When I say "Best Time Ever"! I mean "Best Time Ever".
Looks like next year Ill be sure to put the date in my calender to attend the next one which im sure will only get better. I must add gift bags to die for. I love free good things.
So Big Huge Jewel Shout Out to Robi Reed for being a positive influence on the African American Community and to fighting for a good cause. Love it! To learn more on the Robi Reed foundation or to learn more on future events visit the Reed For Hope website.
50 Cent "Dream School"
50 Cent is back in the scene with yet another business venture. Now I dont know if you guys have noticed but lately he has been doing alot of movies not just acting & starring roles. But 50 has been writing & producing his own movies. Quite a few. If I may add. But this time 50 has upgraded to TV. Partnering up with Jamie Oliver as an executive producer for an unscripted tv serious called "Dream School" airing on the Sundance Channel."The series is away for celebs to utilize their celebrity to influence in a positive way." says 50. He says Jamie Olivers people reached out to him.And knowing the show was a previous success. He knew it would be with him too.
Also adding its easier to recieve messages that are not traditional. Expecially for an icon or someone familiar with pop culture.He wants the to give kids the experience to get mentored & inspired by celebrities that are relatable.
"Dream school" is a series about 15 troubled student that have dropped or been expelled from school in the los angeles area."Dream School airs on the Sundance Channel Mondays 10/9c.
Sounds to me like a great show!
Expecially for parents that might have a troubled teen at home going through the same thing or similar situations.Good for 50. Reppin for the
youth. Love it! Gotta love 50 Cent. Always the smart business man.
Cant be mad at that. To learn more on Dream School go to Sundance Channel or 50 Cents website.
Eminem daughter Homecoming Queen
On to even better news 50's long time friend Eminem just got some great news or should I say his daughter Hailie Mathers just got some great news the
daddy can be proud of.
So Eminem is probably feeling like a proud dad right now. His daughter Hailie. The one he has dedicated most of his hits too. Was nominated Homecoming Queen at her High School. Yes. This beautiful young queen through im sure whatever stress she night have to go through already having a well know celeb like her father who hasnt been always the media's favorite guy. Even having a recent "Bizaare situation in the ESPN broadcasting booth for the Notre-Dame game against Michigan. Where he was caught on camera with the most puzzled look on his face. For a long period of time. Where Marshall Mathers appeared dazed & out of it. Which he later explained after snapping out of it.That he was thrown of & the camera's make him nervous, also uncomfortable,
Now this might have something to do with his new Single "Berzerk" which wold expalin the a little bit of why he was acting so strange.Beside all that. He has just recieved some good news recently.Eminems very gorgous daughter & popular daughter has surpassed all the drama. And focused on keeping her school obviously pretty impressed.
Hailie Mathers was just crowned at her Chippewa Valley High School in Michigan Homecoming Queen 2013.
Putting her in my infamous "Jewel Spotlight" this week. Get'em Hailie.
Cant wait to see what an amazing women.The daughter of such a talented and amazing mind like Eminem will be.So far her future is looking pretty bright.
Published on Oct 12, 2013


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Eve Tushnet — gay, Catholic and chaste — seeks to discern her vocation within the church
There must be easier places to talk — into a microphone — about being lesbian, chaste and Catholic than in a crowded, noisy pub on Denver's 16th Street Mall.
Even as the Colorado civil union bill was dying in committee at the state Capitol a couple of blocks away, Eve Tushnet was at Katie Mullen's Irish Restaurant and Pub Monday night giving a talk, but not a political talk, about being gay in a church that forbids acting on same-sex attraction.
Her appearance at a speakers series called Theology on Tap, sponsored by the Denver Archdiocese, drew the largest crowd in some time, an organizer said. It was a supportive, respectful crowd.
Tushnet spoke of sublimating her sexual desires for women into expressions of love that do meet with the approval of the Catholic Church.


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Starting Electronics Needs Your Help!
It is that time of the year when we need to pay for web hosting and buy new components and equipment for new tutorials. You can help by making a donation. Contribute to this website by clicking the Donate button. The total will be updated once daily. (You may need to clear your browser cache to see the updates.)
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Information and short tutorials on embedded hardware tools such as JTAG tools and microcontroller programmers.
The JTAGkey is a multi-purpose JTAG tool for in-system programming and on-chip debugging of JTAG devices such as microcontrollers, CPLDs and FPGAs.