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- You are here:
- Home
- Programs & Groups
- Genealogy Society
- Genealogy Web Links
Genealogy Web Links
The following links can all be access for free.
$ by a name means it's a subscription service but is free at Family History Centers. Ancestry and Heritage Quest are free at all Allegheny County libraries.
Searchable databases
Ancestry $ www.ancestry.com One of the two largest repositories of genealogy records. Automatically finds results close to the entered name and displays other records that match the one you're looking at. Free access only allows viewing of U.S. and U.K. records
Familysearch familysearch.org/search The other large repository, free to use from any PC. Has a large collection from all over the world.
Fold3 $ www.fold3.com Focuses on military records for the U.S.
Heritage Quest $ www.heritagequestonline.com Most useful for U.S. census records which are separately indexed from Ancestry and Familysearch. Exact name spelling required.
World Connect http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ User submitted genealogies with millions of names and family connections. Beware – as with all submitted genealogies, quality varies and some are very incorrect.
Familysearch catalog familysearch.org/catalog-search A catalog of the millions of microfilm tapes collected from repositories all over the world. Organized by town, county and country, must be ordered from Salt Lake City and viewed at a Family History Center. Some have been electronically converted for online viewing. Popular local films are kept onsite.
Search assists
Google www.google.com The most popular and best search engine. Search by full name and/or location. Combine search terms and include names in quotes to find anything posted on the web related to your ancestor.
Steve Morse www.stevemorse.org Provides flexible search capability for many of the most popular genealogy web sites. Allows use of partial names and wild carding within names if you aren't sure of the spelling of the name.
Findagrave www.findagrave.com Over 100 million gravestones recorded by volunteers. Worldwide, but mostly has gravestones from the U.S.
Norm Meinert freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njm1/tombs.htm. Similar to Findagrave but limited to Western Pennsylvania, with gravestone information collected by local volunteers.
Google maps maps.google.com Find and view any location in the world, with both a map and satellite view. Sometimes knows old names of towns that have changed in recent times.
Mapquest www.mapquest.com/ Previously the most popular map site. Satellite view is less granular image than google maps.
David Rumsey Map Collection www.davidrumsey.com/ Large and searchable collection of old maps from all over the world. Zoom in and see all the detail of the original map and the area where your ancestor lived.
Ellis Island www.ellisisland.org/ Searchable collection of immigrants into New York City from it's opening in 1892. You can view the original ship record, which might have the place they came from when they arrived in America. Use Steve Morse for a more flexible name search.
National Archives Access to Archival Databases aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp?cat=GP44 Has immigration records for arrivals from several countries, mostly notably Germany from 1850 – 1897. Use Steve Morse for a more flexible name search.
Castle Garden www.castlegarden.org/ Has arrivals in the port of New York for years before Ellis Island opened. Steve Morse useful here too.
Message Boards
Rootsweb boards.rootsweb.com/ Has posts organized both by last name and location. Find what others have posted or post an entry for your own ancestor to connect with others searching for the same family.
Genforum genforum.genealogy.com/ Has posts organized both by last name and location. Find what others have posted or post an entry for your own ancestor to connect with others researching the same family.
Local Resources
Family History Center in Green Tree familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Pittsburgh_Pennsylvania_Family_History_Center Staffed three days a week by volunteers who can provide research assistance, there are PC's for free access to multiple paid sites and viewers for microfilms ordered from Salt Lake City.
Carnegie Library Pennsylvania Room www.carnegielibrary.org/research/genealogy/ The main repository for genealogy information on Western Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. Experienced librarians provide research assistance. Microfilms ordered from Salt Lake City can be delivered and viewed there.
Western Pennsylvania Genealogy Society www.wpgs.org/ Their office is co-located with the Pennsylvania Room, and offers a paid service to do individual searches. Has a quarterly journal and offers seminars regularly.
Mt. Lebanon Genealogy Society www.mtlebanonlibrary.org/306/Genealogy-Society Our local society with over 100 members, it has eight meetings a year on topics of interest to our members. There's no fee to participate and all are welcome to attend.
British Sites
Findmypast $ www.findmypast.co.uk/ U.K. based site has U.K. census, birth, marriage, death and other records.
Genuki www.genuki.org.uk/ Lots of information on towns and counties, also has many links to local and regional searchable databases.
Freebmd www.freebmd.org.uk/ Searchable site for birth, marriage and death records for the U.K. starting in 1837 Information is only recorded by quarter of the year. Once you have located a record, you can order the original from the General Register Office.
General Register Office http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ The holder of official records for the U.K. You can order originals of birth, marriage and death records from them for a fee.
Rootschat www.rootschat.com/ Message board for U.K. locations. Searchable for information posted about ancestors, and with volunteers who will look up information for free.
Archives.org archive.org/ Many local histories from the late 1800's and early 1900's contain biographies written by the person. Quite a number have been scanned and are viewable and searchable.
Google Books books.google.com/ Many local histories from the late 1800's and early 1900's contain biographies written by the person. Quite a number have been scanned and are viewable and searchable.
Worldcat www.worldcat.org A repository of catalogs from libraries all over the U.S. If you know a title, you can look it up and all libraries that hold it are displayed, organized by distance from your location.
Education and Tools
Ancestry Learning Center www.ancestry.com/cs/HelpAndAdviceUS Many tutorials and research aids for the beginning and experienced researcher.
Familysearch History Research Wiki familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Main_Page Many tutorials and research aids for the beginning and experienced researcher.
Youtube Ancestry channel www.youtube.com/user/AncestryCom Hundreds of short and informational videos on topics of interest to the beginning and experienced researcher. Very oriented to the Ancestry site, but worthwhile beyond that.
Cyndi's List www.cyndislist.com/ Last but certainly not least and in a category of its own, a site with links to every meaningful genealogy site. If you're interested in areas beyond the general U.S. and U.K. links listed on this page, this is the first place to go. There is a search capability to locate and display just the sites for whatever place you're interested in. The links are very well maintained.


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Now let me be quite clear: I am not one to advocate the bestowing of gongs on those for whom achievement seems to be synonymous with longevity. There is no especial merit in avoiding the inevitable shuffling off for longer than your neighbour. But Mr (oh dear) Vann has achieved so much in his century, far more in fact that all the obsequieous, toadying boobies in Whitehall for whom a Knighthood seems to be the equivilent of the long-service carriage clock. And he has achieved a great deal more than certain foul-mouthing, masticating, cheque-book wielding, referee-abusing managers of Association Football clubs whose enoblement has so debased the currency of our British Honours.
So why no public recognition? Is it that Mr (ooooh) Vann laboured for so long in the unfashionable habitations of the East Midlands? (I refuse to call it Cambridgeshire; Peterburger is not and never has been in Cambridgeshire; it is part of Northamptonshire. One simply cannot go around shoving cathedral cities into neighbouring counties on a whim. Mind you, one shouldn't go around re-naming cathedral cities either, but they renamed the rather splendid Gildenburgh... But that's another matter.)
So let us join forces and wish Mr (how much longer?) Stanley Vann if not many, then at least a few more happy returns of the day. (One has to be realistic in such matters.) And let us agitate as a matter of urgency for the great man's long overdue recognition.

subset: commoncrawl


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I have a project about a cash for metals company.
I created 3 classes to begin with: a super class Customer and 2 subclasses that inherit from the superclass. Each customer has a unique id.
Now i have to create a class named Account which will contain an account number. My question is how do i tie the unique account number with the unique id. What strategy should i follow. Customers will have one account but can have multiple transactions and are created each time a customer is created?
Thanks for the help.


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Suggested citation for this report:
U.S. Renal Data System, USRDS 2011 Annual Data Report: Atlas of Chronic Kidney Disease and End-Stage Renal Disease in the United States, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD, 2011.
Publications based upon USRDS data reported here or supplied upon request must include this citation and the following notice:
The data reported here have been supplied by the United States Renal Data System (USRDS). The interpretation and reporting of these data are the responsibility of the author(s) and in no way should be seen as an official policy or interpretation of the U.S. government.
In titles, the superscript number or letter refers to the chapter, the following number or letter identifies the figure or table, and the italicized roman numeral identifies the volume. Citations should separate chapter, number, and volume by periods — i.e., 3.1.ii refers to Chapter Three, Figure 1, Volume Two.


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'86 and '87 were hella busy years, and I'm going to need to backpedal a few times ere the full story be told. Let's return to the summer of '86, when Irmin Schmidt flew me out to Zurich to help mix his album Musk at Dusk.
Can. Was there ever a more perfect band? Supremely intelligent, endlessly grooving, infinitely spacious…for me they ticked all the boxes. All of their pre-Virgin albums are masterpieces, but my personal fave is Soon Over Babaluma, 40 minutes of effortless and timeless beauty, made by the core 4-piece of Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit and the late great Michael Karoli. On this album Karoli takes lead vocals, except for one revelatory track, Come Sta, La Luna, which is voiced by Irmin. Imagine Albert Einstein floating in an orbiting recording studio, doing bong hits and working the mic; that's what this amazing song sounds like.
Irmin was looking for a fresh pair of ears for the mix of his new album, and of course it was our ubiquitous mate Jah Wobble who put me onto Irmin's wife Hildegaard, who is basically the boss of Can. So it was with enormous excitement that I journeyed down to their home in the South of France to meet up with them. I felt like a complete idiot next to Irmin but he seemed to like me well enough, and not too long after I found myself in a gorgeous studio in Zurich, marking up Jaki Liebezeit's drum kit on the SSL with my chinagraph pencil, and slapping myself across the face periodically, lest it all turn out to be a dream.
If any Can fanatics out there have yet to check out Musk at Dusk I would urge you to do so, because all of the core members are represented on this album, and all of them together on the completely Can-like The Child in History. Meanwhile the track Love has the Dizzy Dizzy snare sound that puts my head in a different place every time I hear it.


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- Products & Supply
- Atmospheric Gases
- Fuel Gases
- Electronic Gases and Chemicals
- Food Chilling & Cooling
- Food Freezing
- Food Grade Gases
- Fumigants
- Gas Mixtures
- Helium
- Packaged Chemicals
- Pharmaceutical Solutions
- Refrigerants - landing page
- Welding and Safety Products
- Speciality Gases Overview
- Supply Modes
As an established gas company with Specialty Gases operations in various global countries, we are proud of our competence and production capability to match and surpass most demands. We also like to stress that it is the most appropriate purity or accuracy that is important. We are happy to produce specifications down to part per billion and sometimes also down to part per trillion.
It is our business to make sure that the gas or mixture you use is the one that best corresponds to the task you use it for. Sometimes it may not just be a question of the purity that matters, but the degree of impurity that makes the difference - two gases with nominally identical purity may not necessarily have the same effect.


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Three hundred and sixty six days
I made it through it all. All 366 days of it!
Normally I do a recap of the month, but as this month was a bit of a recap of the year, I'm going to skip that and just do a final post of the year.
Recap of the year
Where do I even begin? So much has happened over the past year. I've decided the best way is to share my favourite posts, divided by the months. Although I have lots of ones I am proud of, these in particular resonate with me for some reason or another. (If you want a short description of what I got up to each month, click on the monthly topic below and it will take you to my recap posts for that month.)
MARCH 2011 – Extreme Couponing
- Top Ten Reasons Extreme Couponing is an Extreme Sport – besides that I find this very funny (despite being ridiculed by my immature brother for it), I was pretty excited when it was mentioned on the TIME Magazine Money blog!
APRIL 2011 – 30 Days of Art
- Stop Motion Animation – I just love this little video I made. It makes me happy watching it.
MAY 2011 – 31 Days, 31 Dates (there's a tie with this one – I also really enjoyed my dating advice at the end of my final post for that month)
- The speed-dating date – I have always wanted to go speed dating and it was quite the experience. It was one of the worst 'dates' of the month, but also one of the most memorable.
- The social experiment date – A confusing date that forever changed my life, the way I feel about myself, and my future plans (we had a short, passionate affair that ended badly, then I drove across Canada with him during First Kiss Interviews month, we hated each other, then became sort of friends, he made me doubt all the great things about me, and now we don't really talk – advice to all the ladies out there: listen to your instincts and don't get blinded by a pretty face).
JUNE 2011 – Cooking 30 Countries (funnily my two favourite posts this month were meals I shared with the man who taught me stop motion animation and the one who confused me)
- Italian with the Italian – a wonderful evening with a wonderful man, and lots of practical information about Italian cooking.
- Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi – Kangaroo and Tim Tams. It reminds me of living in Melbourne, and some very interesting facts about kangaroo meat included.
JULY 2011 – Only Online Purchases
- Virtual economy – buying online content that doesn't exist in real life – I find this whole idea absolutely fascinating. Buying a virtual space station for $100,000 seems crazy to me!
AUGUST 2011 – Out of My Comfort Zone (there were so many great posts this month, but here are a few of my favourites)
- "Dress like a total hussy!!!!" (suggestion from Leah) while shopping and having lunch in Yorkville – 969 views on the first day I posted it. My highest viewed post!
- Metro Theatre – a trip to one of the few remaining old-time adult cinema's in Canada – My most talked about post. Everyone drives by there and wonders what's behind those doors.
- Wearing a diaper – One of my most embarrassing posts, but I'm fascinated by the response to it. I still have people searching "diaper", discovering it, and then commenting.
SEPTEMBER 2011 – 31 First Kiss Interviews
- Jughead and Cheeseburger's first kiss together – Great story told from the home of two of my wonderful friends in Gibsons, BC. I can picture their dynamic when I read it.
- Jenn's childhood friend's "kissing medicine" – Adorable video and adorable story.
OCTOBER 2011 – Vegan for the Month
- Freeganism – I find this world of living without money fascinating, and although extreme, I think we can learn from them.
- Raw Vegan Food Diet – Another extreme way of eating, taken from a lecture I went to at the University of Toronto. Lots of great information.
- Makeup and Skin Care – Interview with Kait Gray from Arbonne. This changed the way I look at the cosmetics industry.
NOVEMBER 2011 – 30 Holiday Celebrations
- Guy Fawkes Day – A fascinating discussion with some of the Occupy Toronto camp.
- Black Friday and Buy Nothing Day – I was a model for the Toronto Star and did an online video for them!
- Happy Movember – I love this holiday. Men with moustaches for a month – very sexy in a Tom Selleck sort of way.
DECEMBER 2011 – Good Deed a Day
- Extremely good and bad people in one day – A shocking negative event followed by an equally shocking positive one. It brought tears to my eyes.
- Hitting the bottom mid-month – including a very personal (yet very public because it was on the blog in the comments for all to read) debate between a friend of mine and I which almost cost us our friendship. The debate crossed several posts, with this being the finale. It really opened my eyes to my own views, but also how others perceive what I write.
- The science of good deeds – How good deeds affect us mentally and physically.
JANUARY 2012 – Life at the Poverty Line
- Sugar Daddies – People loved this post. The video is hilarious!
- Poverty and Obesity – It's scary the link between unhealthy food, obesity and poverty.
FEBRUARY 2012 – A Photograph A Day (month suggested by and voted on by the readers)
- "My hood" – photos of Parkdale.
- Music photography – I love my friends, I love music and I love these photos.
- "More fun Toronto signs" – I just like these photos.
What I learned
In each of the month recaps (click on monthly topic above to read them), I talked about what I learned as an initial reaction. As a year-long learning experience, I have no idea where to start. I have learned so much from skills to knowledge to personal growth.
I am a different person than when I started March 1st, 2011. Besides physical changes of losing weight through being vegan (and keeping it off through keeping up the no dairy and yoga), there have been many emotional and psychological changes. The knowledge I gained about the different topics has given me a wider perspective on the world. I feel like I have a purpose – like I'm fulfilling a need in myself and sharing it with others. I am now part of a community of bloggers who are as supportive as they are talented. I am happy and calmer, but also a bit more jaded with the world (damn porn cinema!).
I gained skills like extreme couponing (the auto correct on my computer kept wanting me to write extreme "coupling" – when you're tired like I have been on numerous occasions this year and am right now, you find this very amusing) and cooking. I feel blessed that I have the opportunity to do this and I have such amazing people in my life who support and encourage me.
I wrote this on Day 100 and it still rings true:
There have been days when I've hated that I'm doing this – that I'd love a 'normal' life where I don't have to blog and make Taboulleh at 1:30am. But most days I love it. I love that I'm learning something new and writing every day. I love talking about my project – still. I love sharing my experiences with other people, whether by the blog or by them being a part of whatever adventure I have planned for the day. I love that I've created this for myself (with the help of so many great people) and I feel so fortunate every day that I can do this. Whether this turns into a million-copy selling book becomes less and less the point (although that would be fantastic). It's about the experience, the knowledge and the growth. And the chance to share that with you.
Where do I go from here
The plan is to write the book about my experiences. I will also be blogging at least once a week. Every Wednesday I will post a recap of how things are going with me. Sometimes it will be a comment on a topic or research on a subject that I've discovered about one of the ideas from the year. And sometimes it will be just about how I'm feeling. A bit like the daily blog posts I've been doing, but on a bigger scale. I will also be posting occasionally during the week if there is something that inspires me to write or a very interesting or timely topic I want to discuss. So keep reading for all that. I will also be updating you all on how the book is coming along and my search for an agent and publisher. This could be interesting to those of you out there trying to get your own work published.
I'm also going to stick with some of the things I learned this year. I'm still trying to buy all natural cosmetics, and not eat dairy or pork. I am determined to pick up my guitar again, paint, make pottery, sew more and do all the other projects I started during art month and never finished. I still use my online and coupon shopping skills. I'm still pushing myself to do things out of my comfort zone on a weekly basis, and I'm a fountain of dating knowledge for my single friends out there. I'm working on arranging some more volunteer experiences for me to help out more in the community. I'm donating money regularly to help those less fortunate. All of these habits I learned through experiences in the past year and I am grateful that I can stick with them.
Thank you again everyone for following along through three hundred sixty six days of posts! Check back next Wednesday to hear how much I miss my blogging routine, how the book is coming along, and hopefully some other fun information.


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Hello fellow members of AO. I have a customers Gateway Desktop 500GR. My client accidently shutdown his system by accident. How? He turned off the battery backup power supply with his foot while the system was on at the desktop. Ever since then, the computer loads into the desktop then immediately reboots it's self and is stuck in a continous cycle. It will load into the desktop SOMETIMES then immedately reboots it's self.
I hit F8 tried (last known good configuration) didn't work. Tried starting windows normally no luck same issue.
I tried booting the system into safe mode, and I was able and to check the event viewer found a couple errors in there. Tried to resolve those errors didn't work. I tried system restore from safe mode didn't work. Prior to this the client did a norton scan nothing found. Samething with adware /spyware no issues. I checked the hard drive using computer management 79% free on the Hard drive and it states it's heathly.
As a last resort I backed up the data he wanted in (safe mode with networking)and as a last resort I used the restore DVD. I can get the system into the desktop but it still keeps rebooting it's self. Also, anytime trying to update the system using windows update or nortons AV update it starts the process then just reboots it's self automatically. Also, I tried not loading any updates and after 5 minutes or so at sitting at the desktop it just reboots it's self.
After another hour of trial and error, I tried again, a fresh clean install using the recovery DVDS and I am still having the exact same issue. Anyone have any ideas as what could be causing this issue?
After a clean install it still should not be doing this. Also, I checked the BIOS everything is set properly, made no changes in there. I am starting to think possibly a hardware issue espically after doing a clean install. Any ideas, tips, suggestions all help is greatly appreciated. PS; my client is going to be pissed and he needs his computer back to day. Help


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Twitter announced its new Terms of Service yesterday. One big issue deals with copyright ownership. This is one of the perennial questions in the law of social media: "who owns the user-created content?" Twitter nods to this issue when it states that "Twitter is allowed to 'use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute' your tweets because that's what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you."
That's all well and good. And by not being too grabby, Twitter avoids stirring up a brouhaha like Facebook did earlier this year for a little while when it claimed a very broad license in users' content. In that situation, some pointed out that Facebook could use your content forever, even after you deleted your account. No doubt Twitter was motivated by an aversion to controversy of this sort when it decided to not claim a perpetual license.
But is Twitter being too cautious? The license it claims in the new terms of service does not specify a duration. That's user-friendly, because such a license is probably terminable at will by the user. Under cases like Walthal v. Rusk, 172 F.3d 481 (7th Cir. 1999), Twitter would no longer have the authority to use, copy, reproduce, etc. the tweets of a user that no longer permitted such use be made. Deleting one's account would be a good indication that such a license was being revoked. And the user could follow up with an express statement to Twitter that the license no longer exists.
Still all well and good. But let's look at the "ecosystem" that has been nourished by the Twitter API, and which Twitter bolsters in its new terms of service. ("We encourage and permit broad re-use of Content. The Twitter API exists to enable this.")
Third party developers can build apps that, among other things, cache users' Tweets and make them available for mashup, organization, etc. and redisplay. These acts by the third party developer are an exercise of rights of the copyright holder, i.e., the individual Twitter user. The terms of service allow Twitter to sublicense these rights to the third party developer, so there is no problem so long as the individual Twitter user is under the terms of service.
What happens, though, in the situation we were just discussing where the individual user revokes the license to Twitter? These cached copies out there in the possession of third party developers all of a sudden become unauthorized, because Twitter no longer has the sublicensable right to allow the tweets' copying and redistribution by others.
In such a situation, are third party developers who continue to display the content left blowing in the wind, as infringers of erstwhile Twitter users' copyright rights?
Notice sign photo courtesy Flickr user szlea under this Creative Commons license.


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ORLANDO, Fla. – UCF quarterback Blake Bortles announced on Monday that he will forgo his last year of eligibility and declare for the NFL draft.
Bortles made the announcement at a news conference on Monday afternoon. A source told Local 6's Jamie Seh that he broke the news to his teammates at a team meeting on Sunday night.
Redshirt junior running back Storm Johnson also declared for the NFL draft on Monday.
"I'm sorry to see them go, but I'm happy for them," said UCF Head Coach George O'Leary.
Bortles, a redshirt junior, threw for 301 yards and accounted for four touchdowns in the Fiesta Bowl to help UCF beat Baylor 52-42 Wednesday.
He tweeted on Monday after the announcement "So thankful for everyone at UCF! This has been the greatest 4 years of my life and I'm so proud to forever be a Knight!"
Bortles was instrumental throughout the run, throwing for more than 3,500 yards and 25 touchdowns, while completing 68 percent of his passes.
Bortles sought a rating from the NFL Draft Advisory Board and reportedly received a first-round grade. Some projections list him as one of the top quarterbacks available in the draft.
Johnson is a 6-foot, 217-pound back who led the Knights with 1,139 yards rushing. Johnson rushed for 14 touchdowns in his first year as the starter.
Watch Local 6 News and stay with ClickOrlando.com for updates on this story.


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Here's what they have to say on Eduardo Escobar:
What he needs to improve: Considering he's never going to hit for power, it's all about batting eye and plate discipline. Escobar doesn't walk much and strikeouts a bit too much for a slap hitter. He also needs to improve his base stealing ability. He has the speed to be a base stealing threat.
Seems the Sox system is pretty thin here.


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Excerpt of WSJ piece on what PeerIndex calls the S&P rating of kids' online social presence:
When Katie Miller went to Las Vegas this Thanksgiving, she tweeted about the lavish buffets and posted pictures of her seats at the aquatic spectacle "Le Reve" at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel.
A week later, the 25-year-old account executive at a public-relations firm got an email inviting her to a swanky holiday party on Manhattan's West Side.
"At first I was confused," Ms. Miller said. She read on to learn that she had been singled out as a "high-level influencer" by the event's sponsors, including the Venetian and Palazzo hotels in Las Vegas, and a tech company called Klout, which ranks people based on their influence in social-media circles. "I was honored," she said, sipping a cocktail at the $30,000 fete.
So much for wealth, looks or talent. Today, a new generation of VIPs is cultivating coolness through the world of social media. Here, ordinary folks can become "influential" overnight depending on the number and kinds of people who follow them on Twitter or comment on their Facebook pages.
People have been burnishing their online reputations for years, padding their resumes on professional networking site LinkedIn and trying to affect the search results that appear when someone Googles their names. Now, they're targeting something once thought to be far more difficult to measure: influence over fellow consumers.
Some of the "influence" is real, but other youth are trying to game the system, befriending lots of others on Twitter in "one night stands" in the hopes of upping their own popularity and then dumping these "friends" a day later, or dramatically increasing their number of retweets in the hopes that they get greater attention or credit for Twitter traffic. Others realized that by raising the ratio of "those Twitter accounts following you" to "those Twitter accounts you follow", they could increase their score. Companies are trying to use these services like Klout, PeerIndex, TweetLevel or Twitalyzer (which processes Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn data) in an effort to determine which teens are popular and trusted by others.
Read "Wannabe Cool Kids Aim to Game the Web's New Social Scorekeepers — Sites Use Secret Formulas to Rank Users' Online 'Influence' From 1 to 100; 'It's an Ego Thing' " (Wall Street Journal, By Jessica E. Vascellaro, Feb. 8, 2011)
While they are in their early days, it's not clear that any of these companies yet score accurately the true influence of youth or adults, as evidenced by how this can be gamed.
See also, "Web of Popularity Achieved by Bullying" (New York Times, by Tara Parker-Pope, 2/15/11) that notes that "students near the top of the social hierarchy are often both perpetrators and victims of aggressive behavior involving their peers."


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Here is the third instalment in Joint Honours student Sophie Edwards' experience of working on the George Catlin exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition is now on in Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery until 13th October 2013!
After working on the planning of the exhibition and then making films about it for the website, the day had finally been set for the next part of our Catlin adventure: the gallery talks! These were scheduled for Thursday 30th May and, as any University student, and indeed lecturer, knows, the Summer Term is by far the busiest. Therefore, it was only after my exams had finished that I suddenly realised that, along with the rest of my group, I would be speaking at one of the major art galleries in London. I thought that I would have been riddled with nerves, but I managed to surprise myself by feeling pure excitement.
When the day came, I and my fellow group members met up with the project leaders Dr Sadiah Qureshi, from the University of Birmingham's History Department, and gallery staff Lesley Rivett and Esther Collins, in the National Portrait Gallery. They all said they were very excited to hear our talks and that in fact the talks would also be signed for the hard of hearing. This fascinated us all, as neither me, nor any of my group members had ever experienced this before!
Lesley very kindly gave us a tour of the George Catlin exhibition, although our group of five quickly expanded to include everyone else visiting the exhibition, she was that inspiring to listen to! This was so useful in helping us to identify how we were going to deliver our talks, especially with regards to effectively linking in information with works of art. After Lesley had finished the tour and given us some advice on the 'do's and don'ts' on giving gallery talks, (such as not to stand in front of the work of art when you are talking about it!) I looked at my watch and worked out that we had an hour and a half grab some lunch and put together a gallery talk. It was then that I started to feel a little nervous.
As a group we had to organise what we were going to say, how we were going to work this around the gallery layout, how the information would translate to the portraits in the exhibition, and ensure that we were pronouncing the Native American names correctly! As a student of both History and History of Art, this task was one that certainly utilised both aspects of my degree!
At 7pm the signer arrived, to clarify Native American names and go through how the signing process works. At 7.30, we looked around the gallery floor and gave each other a positive nod, as the turnout for the talk was very good. So good, in fact, that moving around the gallery to talk about different portraits became a great challenge! As a bit of a perfectionist, I was almost convinced that because I did not know the talk inside out that my mind would go blank and I would be left with nothing to say. I'm glad to say that I proved myself completely wrong as the talk itself went very well! We discussed different topics such as George Catlin himself, Native American culture and Catlin's exhibition when it first came to London in 1839, whilst also relating this to the portraits in the exhibition. We all thoroughly enjoyed delivering the talks, presenting them with enthusiasm and confidence as well as working effectively with the signer. The response we got was very positive, with many of the attendees approaching us in order to congratulate us and to remark positively on our enthusiasm for the topics discussed. Some of my group members even said that they felt like a celebrity!
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and this is certainly an experience that I will be able to carry with me throughout my life. For this, I just wanted to thank the University of Birmingham, in particular Sadiah, as well as the National Portrait Gallery for making this possible. This research project has given me and my group the confidence to speak to an audience outside of the seminar room: this is a tool that is of great importance, especially with graduation only being a year away! It has also inspired me to pursue gallery work as a possible career path. I know that the rest of my group and I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this research project and would absolutely recommend it to anyone if they get the chance!
Entrance to American Indian Portraits is free. There are lunchtime talks at BMAG starting at 1pm and cost £3 (available on the day).
Wednesday 4th September: Exhibition curator Dr Stephanie Pratt discusses curating George Catlin: American Indian Portraits. She will also explore how Catlin's images have been thought to construct an idealised view of Native American peoples. The talk will also look at the role of Catlin's paintings in the recovery of Native Americans' past histories and cultures.
Thursday 19th September: Dr Robert Lewis, Lecturer in American History from the University of Birmingham, discusses George Catlin and his time in Birmingham with the 'Indian Gallery' in the 1840s.
Wednesday 2nd October: Dr Sadiah Qureshi, Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Birmingham, explores Catlin's career as a painter, showman and political campaigner and why his paintings are still important for historians and Native Americans today.


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Energy costs are on people's minds at Penn State. The University spends about $2 million per month for electrical services at University Park alone. As classes start and winter approaches, energy use naturally goes up. Combine that fact with the expectation of increasing fuel prices and it doesn't take long to see why this issue is a priority. Mobile journalist Britany Gallagher looks at some of the ideas and plans Penn State's Office of Physical Plant has come up with to guide employees and students toward conserving resources.
Watch the video here.
Last Updated November 18, 2010


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Svelt blood-sucking "Twilight" starlet Ashley Greene dished on how she shaped up for her new role: by not eating.
The petite brunette stunner said she trained for her role in the latest episode in the vamp saga that drew record box office returns during its opening weekend by abstaining from food and exercising, according to Usmagazine.com.
"It was really easy," she told Us. "We were working 12 hours a day, so it didn't leave too much time to eat."
U.S. & World
The cheerleader-turned-actress said that when she did eat it was "really healthy stuff, which was nice."
"We had a personal trainer and then we also had fight training," she said. "It was a good four hours and a day of training."
The starlet, who has said her one weakness is Cheez-Its, said she tries to enjoy proper portions of food.
"I can't live life not enjoying food," she told People.com. "So my solution is to get baggies and zip locks and Tupperware and give myself only one portion to take with me during the day."
To stay in shape post-filming, Greene does Pilates about six days a week to stay in shape, she told Usmagazine.com.
"I do it early in the morning. It wakes you up, and it's kind of refreshing," she said. "And that is basically it. Sometimes cardio. I am not a big weight person because I when I do weights I build muscle mass."


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Maybe "tutorial" is too strong a word. There will be pictorial or drawing examples of each type of job required to finish a house that I am either involved in or privileged to photograph. It is by no means an exhaustive handbook of the type you get when you take the Habitat Crew Chief and SPM training course. The intention is to try to document real-life on the slab, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. Fortunately, it all turns out good.
This is the second part of a multi-part outline of what is involved in building a Habitat house. The first part is Habitat Tutorial – Prepration for Build. In addition, there are two sets of pictures with slide shows that have already been published that you may be interested in as they concentrate on people on the job site – volunteers. The first is Habitat for Humanity – 2008 Dinner on the Slab consisting of 25 pictures including our future homeowner Nicole Combs and her son Elijah. The second includes 115 pictures of the first day of the build – Habitat Build 2008 – First Day – Walls Go UP .
Note: If you came here looking for the homeless veterans site, this is it! If you came here looking for the homeless youth site, this is it!. I'm just taking a break to help out on a Habitat House and once a year I post what I saw, experienced and learned. Click on either of the two links in this paragraph or go to the side bar and select a category or search for what you want. Also look above the banner or to the right for popular articles on Homeless Veterans.
In the earlier tutorial I showed the plate markings. These two boards representing the top and bottom plates of a section of a wall are tacked together and left lying somewhere on the slab. All a volunteer has to do is separate the plates, remove the tack nails and insert studs, T's, window or door frames and nail them up.
You can see in this picture a stack of top/bottom plates on the floor on the right, a separated set being stocked in the left foreground and one well on the way on the other side of the slab. A set of blueprints are laid out on the slab on the right, but it is seldom needed as the slab is already carefully marked with all the walls, doors, etc. and the sets of plates are numbered to match. The rod with the orange ball on top is the future grounding rod for the electrician. We will notch a wall to fit around it and around the various plumbing pipes (such as the blue pipe with the white top in the far right. The shadow on the slab at the bottom left is all you are going to see of me!
Before the walls go up, the walls receive a "Sill Seal" (the blue polystyrene strip shown partially loose on the bottom of the wall). The bottom all the exterior walls receive this sill seal to help seal out any air leaks. The corrugated side of the seal goes to the slab. The Sill seal is attached with roofing nails placed every 24 inches.
This one is loose because it was discovered that the notch for the electrical grounding rod would land on one of the studs. The sill seal was loosened and the stud removed (the one laying at an angle) and will be relocated slightly. Notchs are cut before the walls are installed.
This notch is bigger than needed because the first cut was not quite in the right place. Notches are cut with the wall on the ground with a skill saw with two cuts from the edge, then knocked out with a hammer or a chisel if handy. It is easier to get it right if the wall is lifted into place first, then marked, but this was a long wall so the position was calculated and slightly off. In the end, the wall was lifted twice anyway. You can see the top of "cut nails" in between the studs.
These are notches cut out for the plumbing wall. Plumbing walls are double walls and fit against the plumbing T shown in the first tutorial. Notches don't have to be pretty but should leave some wood for nailing to the concrete to stabilize the studs. If necessary, the studs are relocated, and sometimes if a very short bottom plate is left after a big notch, a connecting board runs from one wall to the other to stabilize the hanging stud.
This is a plumbing wall installed. It may not be the same wall as shown above, or the notches may have been cut all the way through. See the cut nails in the blocks to keep the studs from moving on the two that are cut all the way through. The larger white pipes will be cut off by the plumber for the toilet drain. The mid size pipes are for sink drains and the blue wrapped pipes are cold water and the red marked ones for hot water. It appears that someone is already marking stud locations on the concrete.
Hurricane straps are buried in the concrete and the ends left sticking up for use to hold down the walls. I'm talking about the shiny strips hanging out of the wall at the bottom of the picture and also off the left side. There is one on each side of the board at every location spaced about 4 feet apart.
Every strap is bent tightly over the board and nailed, one to each side and 3 in each top. The top nails are angled so they don't hit the concrete. 8d nails are used here. The straps are used to keep the walls from being easily lifted or pushed off the slab during high winds. There are similar straps used at the tops of the walls to keep the roof trusses attached so that the entire house is locked down to the slab.
This is a "cut nail". It is very hard and can be easily driven into concrete. Safety goggles must be worn by anyone nearby when driving cut nails as they typically do not bend but break instead. The edges are sharp enough to produce cuts on the skin if handled roughly so be careful. The name comes from the way the nails are made. They are stamped out (cut out) of sheet metal then hardened, whereas our other nails are cut and formed from wire rolls. OK, a little more of me got into this picture.
This is not the optimum hammer for driving cut nails but it is heavy enough to do the job. There were a number of volunteers at work doing this job. A cut nail goes into each gap between studs. In this case this is a door opening so the nail goes into the space where the jack will sit on top of it. Some end up in the middle of doorways where they are knocked out later – unavoidable when volunteers get ahead of instructions. The nails are oriented to run with the grain to avoid splitting the wood.
Here is a standing wall section, typical for those on the site. Shown is a window unit in the middle with a wall brace running to a stake in the ground outside. To the right is a wall T for the connecting wall running to the back and an adjoining door. The wall T is oriented with the spacer to the back. To the left is a wall T waiting for an interior wall to butt against it, with the spacer oriented to the front. The walls are joined by nailing from the backside of the T into the end of the wall that runs up against it. Running sections of walls are joined by nailing through the studs that make up the ends of the walls. An example is the double stud to the left of the window. This is two wall sections joined together. A cap rail will be added to cap the wall which will span the wall end junctions so that they are firmly locked together.
If the walls are centered on the T's they will eventually be perfectly vertical once the outside walls are straightened. Never straighten an inside wall until all the outside walls are done as the walls will straighten naturally if they are attached properly to the T's. Notice the spacing on the cripples below the window. They are spaced on 16″ centers with the adjoining studs and not just based on the window opening. This provides uniform nailing points for the drywall and external sheathing. There is an extra cripple on the right to get the spacing right. Notice the hurricane straps about every 4 feet. Notice the one on the far left is nailed up the side of the T rather than attempting to nail through the small opening which already has a strap. This is OK.
Here are some interior walls stacked around waiting for installation. At some point the outside walls will be completed. It is nice to have all the inside walls on the slab so that no wall is required to be lifted over the top of an exterior wall. Even so, one wall ended up locked outside and had to be lifted over.
Walls leaning against walls is one of the reasons for carefully bracing the walls with angled braces. Also tired volunteers may decide to lean against a wall. We don't want it falling over with him/her on top of someone trapped outside. Notice the one wall with a strip tacked across near the bottom. This is temporary to stabilize the sections cut out for plumbing.
This photo illustrates stud marking. Volunteers mark the location of every stud on the slab and on the cap plate of every wall, including the outside edge of the slab. The intent is to make it easier to find the studs when the outside sheathing is going on and when the drywall is going on or up.
Here the cap plate is going on the top plate of the wall. The cap plate ties walls together and straightens every joint. They must bridge the ends of wall sections by at least 4 feet and they should aways end on a stud. Cap plates should extend into a wall it butts into. In the case above the 4 foot rule will be violated as the adjoining wall is closer then 4 feet. The portion under his hand will be cut away to allow the cap plate from the adjoining wall to come through (someone, out of the picture, got ahead of himself?). Is OK, can be fixed.
Here is the cap plate properly installed. It is the same spot. The cap plate at the right was carefully cut to make room for the piece coming from the other wall. Notice that the adjoining wall is tied to the running wall by overlapping the running wall top plate. This prevents any movement of the two walls even in the worst of conditions.
Here are two ladder headers for interior non-load bearing walls. One runs to the hallway from a bedroom and the other into the master bath. These differ from the drawing in my first tutorial as the wall serves as the header instead of the two by four illustrated in the drawing. Notice the inside of the T to the left to catch the hall wall. Nails are through the block to the end stud of the wall. Notice the wider plumbing T through the doorway to the right. Two walls will be placed on the plumbing T to make a 7″ wide space for piping. There are other walls still stacked around in the back ground.
The "41 LDR HDR" means build a ladder header 41 inches wide. 1.5″ wide Jack posts will go on each side of this frame reducing the space to 38 inches. Then the interior door frame is made of two 3/4 inch wide boards reducing it again to 36.5 inches. This leaves 1/2 inch clearance for aligning the door frame for a 36″ door. Exterior doors headers are 41.5 inches wide to allow for the thicker door frames and the exterior headers are 10 inch wide boards spaced with a 1/2 inch plywood spacer instead of the cripples shown.
Debbie is installing metal strips that catch the OSB 4×8 sheets to be installed shortly. The top of the metal strip is aligned with the top of the 2x4s. The OSB rests in the J section in the bottom of the strip. the strip fits closely against the 2×4 base plate and drops below it helping to seal the junction between teh plate and the concrete from windblown water. The outside siding to be added later falls below this strip so no water collects anywhere it is not supposed to. There is already a crew installing the OSB behind her, out of the picture.
OSB stands for "Oriented Strand Board". It is the pressed wood chip boards that are so commonly used today. The chips are placed more or less randomly but intentionally oriented to straighten the board in all directions then bonded together with an adhesive resin. This manufactured sheet has the chips oriented one way on the outside and crosswise on the inside though a sifting process on the assembly line. This is not left over pressed sawdust but instead is carefully engineered water resistant manufactured wood.
This is what OSB looks like (per copy from Wikipedia) before it is pressed. Notice the slight change in color near the middle third of the board where the chip orientation is different. The board is incredibly strong.
Steve and others are installing the OSB. The edges are nailed with 8d nails on 6 inch centers on all edges and 12 inch centers on the studs in the middle of the field. Studs are marked on the slab beforehand with magic markers and a level is used to draw vertical lines for nailing in the fields. Some OSB comes marked with the lines already drawn and a few experienced volunteers can find unmarked studs like radar.
It is necessary to remember that there are window or door openings and allow for nailing on 6 inch centers around those openings. Notice the insulation showing in the T's.
Earlier we had to build an extra window frame because somehow we were short one (in another wall). Later Nicole asked why there was no door leading outside the kitchen. Oops, there was the missing window frame where a door should have gone. The rouge window was removed. In this picture the nails are still in place. These were cut off with a metal cutting blade in a saws-all. The extra door was still sitting on the ground outside (which should have been a clue). We are all standing around guarding the opening so no one steps on the nails while the saw if found.
Here Jeff positions the new door while Terry takes early advantage of the new opening. The window at the left was originally built the same as the others, then shortened to a kitchen window so it would fit over the counter top and sink. Additional Jacks and cripples made it easy. Notice the plumbing in front of it.
Here the sill plate is being cut out. The skill saw base plate is 1.5 inches wide so it is easy to use the stud as a guide. The jack post that goes next to the stud is already ready to be put in. It rests on the 1.5 inch piece remaining. The saw blade is adjusted carefully so that it does not quite touch the concrete and the bottom board leveraged up to get it out. Any cut nails in the concrete are loosed by hammer blows to the board beside them and they usually come up with the board or are broken off flush with the concrete. Any remains are driven in. A saws-all can do the job as well, but is harder to get a perfect cut.
An old chisel is used to remove the remaining bits of wood after the sill is cut out with a skill saw.
Here the porch beam is being constructed (long boards in the foreground) while others finish up the OSB siding and stil others prepare the house for straightening the walls. Notice the block of wood at the top right corner. More about that later. Notice that all the walls are up and capped and many of the braces appear to be removed. Actually they have been moved inside and positioned so the walls can be braced in new positions that keep the walls perfectly straight all around.
This is a view of the short end of the porch beam already in its "pocket". The components of the porch beam includes the two sides and the one across the front. The beams are 2x10s with a 1/2 inch plywood sandwiched inside and well nailed together.
This is the other (longer side) of the porch beam side rails as it is being shoved into its pocket. There are 2×4 boards being readied for temporary outside support. Notice that the beam extends inside the house and into a built in pocket sized to keep it locked in place and stable.
Nailing the porch beam in place.
The beam must be absolutely level! Vertical braces are nailed on to the outside of the beam to stabilize it and supporting jacks nailed onto that. The beam must support the roof trusses as they are hoisted up later without moving.
This beam was cut a little short when it was first made, a mix up in communications between the guy measuring and the guy cutting. One was measuring between the inside of the outer boards on the side beams and the other cutting to the end of the outside beam. The result was a front beam that was 3.5 inches short. The front beam should lie across the side beams but was adjusted to fit to the inside of the side beams due to the measurement problem. 1/2 inch spacers were used to make up the difference. One result of all this is that the front overhang is a little wider than normal and the posts will sit a little closer to the house. No real harm done and a couple of expensive boards saved.
These fellows are installing "dead wood a.k.a. deadwood". On the ends of the house where the trusses run parallel to the house, the deadwood serves the purpose of giving a place to nail the edge of the roof truss to the frame of the house. Deadwood also serves the purpose of providing a nailing strip for the ceiling drywall on that those ends of the house. The dead wood is a 2×4 board positioned so that it overhangs the room below. It is spaced from the edge of the wall by holding a short 2×4 board edgewise on the top outside edge of the cap plate. See the picture above. This spaces the board over by 1.5 inches giving a 2 inch nailing space on the cap plate and a 1.5 inch overhang that can be used to nail the ceiling drywall to..
The 1.5 inch wide roof truss fits down the outside (this side) of the dead wood and onto the cap plate so that the roof truss is in the same plane as the frame before the OSB goes on. OSB also goes on the outside of the roof truss so that it all fits correctly. The roof trusses are nailed directly to the deadwood and also toenailed to the frame.
Well, after writing all that, I figured I was confusing any novice that came along so I created this drawing to illustrate what is going on. The Wall stud, top plate, cap plate and the wall sheathing are all existing. The edge of a 2×4 block is placed where the future roof truss will go and a 2×4 board is nailed onto the top plate as illustrated. Later when the truss goes up, the bottom edge will be nailed to this dead wood and even later when the drywall goes up, the drywall will be nailed to the bottom edge of the overhanging deadwood.
Travis shows the proper offset technique.
This is one end of the setup for straightening the walls. There is a block like this at each end and a very tightly strung line. The line goes over a nail on the far side and then is wrapped around a nail as shown so that the line does not need to be cut. It will be moved around and used on each outside wall. Generally the longest wall is done first.
This work is easiest done from the inside. A board is moved along the wall inside of the string. Any variation in the wall will show as a gap or a bowed out line. Volunteers inside move 2×4 boards attached to a stud near the top of the wall pull or push the board until the board barely touches the line and then nail the board near the bottom of an adjacent wall or along the side of a butting wall, always at an angle sloping down. When done with all the walls, the walls will be perfectly steady and vertical throughout the house. Interior walls will generally be straightened as the outside walls are brought into plumb.
The board angling down on the right is a temporary cross brace that holds the outside wall perfectly vertical. It stays up until the roof trusses and decking are on. Notice the dead wood overhanging the cap plate on this wall.
When there are large areas with no interior walls to brace along or against, blocks of wood are cut nailed into the floor and wall braces attached to them. The technique is to first attach near the top of the wall and then push/pull until the wall is straight using the pole and then nailing the pole to the side of the block on the floor. The man on the ladder is calling out instructions to push or pull.
In most cases the windows are covered in OSB and cut out later. Here a saws-all is used to cut around the inside of the frame. A hole is started somewhere with a drill or through a gap in the wood or with the tip of the saws-all. Cut a long arc to get to another edge then back track to cut the arc out.
This picture shows several things. Notice that a top plate and cap plate have been added to the porch beam. Also deadwood has been added to the cap plate at the front. The porch roof truss will be set in front of the deadwood (on the other side of the beam as shown). Also notice the supports attached to stabilize the porch beam includes an angled 2×4 to keep it from twisting.
The tall pole at the side of the house is a very sturdy safety brace that will temporarily support the roof trusses as they go up. The first roof truss will be hoisted up using long forked poles over the front of the house and slid back to be parallel with the side with the pole. Then it will be lifted up and leaned against the pole and dropped into the pocket behind the deadwood. Volunteers with ladders outside will nail the truss to the deadwood and to the top of the tall pole. The following trusses will be nailed at the ends of the walls and tied to the first truss with temporary boards running across the tops of the trusses. The tall pole is a safety device as the trusses can easily fall over until the roof decking is up and the trusses cross braced underneath. The trusses are heavy enough that even one can severely injure someone and when they all fall over it can be deadly to several.
Here is an inside view of the safety pole. The piece of OSB attached near the top serves the purpose of matching the plane of the OSB on the bottom wall so that when the truss goes up, it will be vertical when it rests against the OSB on the pole. The first truss will be firmly attached to the pole.
Here a temporary walk beam has been added over the living area. It fits into a pocket at each end made up of a double jack below the beam and a 2×4 on the other side of the beam, locking it in. The pocket is built at both ends and an extra support added in the middle and attached to the floor. The beam is made of two 2×10's with overlapping boards to get extra length. This beam serves the purpose of giving the roof trusses a place to rest as they are hoisted over the front wall.
The trusses are long enough to reach past each end of the house and as they go over the wall they can get overbalanced and fall in and fall on someone or scoot along the floor and possibly injure someone. The beam holds that end up temporarily to allow the truss to rest and slide easily to the back. The roof trusses are also shaped like an "A" and so even when they are completely across the house, the heavy top of the A can cause one to tip over and the top of the truss rotate and fall into the house. The walk beam prevents that from happening too. It is a sturdy safety device. It will be removed after the roof is fully stabilized.
A good day's work! The house is ready for a roof! Saturday May 17, 2008. See your there?
(corrections gratefully accepted)


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So it looks like your edgy independent short film will once again be snubbed by the Academy Awards.
Don't give up hope. There's still a chance to get good seats for the red carpet at this year's Oscars.
Beginning Monday, online registration will open for 700 red carpet bleacher seats.
The lottery opens 9 a.m. Monday and ends 9 p.m. Sept. 20. Star-gazers and snubbed filmmakers can register at oscars.org/bleachers.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the winners in October. The ceremony is scheduled for March 7.


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Programming note: For all the day's sports news, tune in to SportsNet Central tonight and every night at 6, 10:30 p.m. and midnight on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- The Denver Broncos kept their free agency focus on defense as they agreed to a three-year deal with pass rusher DeMarcus Ware, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the deal has yet to be announced and is pending a physical.
The deal with Ware is worth $30 million, with $20 million guaranteed.
Ware was let go Tuesday by Dallas in a salary-cap move. He had a franchise-record 117 sacks for the Cowboys since being drafted in the first round in 2005. He had a career-low six sacks last season and missed games for the first time in his career because of a thigh injury.
The 31-year-old Ware will play opposite of Von Miller.
Denver is on quite a spending spree so far in free agency, agreeing to deals with safety T.J. Ward, cornerback Aqib Talib and Ware for a combined $110 million. The Broncos are trying to upgrade the talent on the roster, not knowing how long Peyton Manning will be running the offense.
The team is coming off a 43-8 loss to Seattle in the Super Bowl last month.


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Hi everyone!
I wrote an ableton Live script, which I believe is for version 9 and upwards.
The script checks the names of looper devices dynamically in the current liveset and when a looper with a name (default) 'ssl1' - 'ssl10' is found, the respective pad's LED will monitor loooper states. Thus max. 10 loopers can be monitored max. For instance: If one drops a looper on a track and hits 'ctrl + r' to rename the device and enters 'ssl3' the third pad of the Softstep will monitor the states of this looper. If one wants to control the states then the usual midi mapping functionality of live should be used. I had some problems to control the looper with scripting to a satisfactory degree, so I decided to just monitor the states and everyone who wants to change the states can map the softstep pad to the looper multi purpose button herself.
Here is an overview& Instructions & Download https://bitbucket.org/drival/softstepper/overview
hope it works for you


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The budget is almost always passed late in California. But this year, there haven't been any real negotiations -- even though the constitutional deadline for putting a new budget in place, the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1), passed last week. Why the slow start?
Because legislators and governors only respond to outside pressure. And there's precious little pressure for an on-time budget this year, as Shane Goldmacher points out in Sunday's LA Times. One reason: the courts have required some vulnerable programs to be funded. Another reason: various programs that rely on state funds have become so accustomed to the budget delays that they've figured out how to plan around them.
In fact, it's a pretty good bet that the budget won't be passed until the fall. None of the key players -- legislative leaders of both parties and Gov. Schwarzenegger -- seem to have any kind of incentive to pass a budget quickly. Schwarzenegger has indicated that he is prepared to hold out on signing a budget until he gets change in the pension system that he wants. Depending on how hard the governor pushes, it's possible to imagine a budget stalemate that stretches to Thanksgiving.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
A more likely scenario is a budget in September when, according to state cash flow estimates, the state could begin to run out of cash. In this era, only the threat of running out of money -- and having to issue IOUs -- turns negotiations serious.


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So I've finally installed WordPress on my iPhone, over a year after having it. That means I'll be more likely to post pics, videos and stories. I just hope I don't post my "personal photos" accidentally! 😜
The purpose of this revised blog is to be more open with readers about what makes me tick, how things in the world work and to help everyone better understand what's going on in the world around them in a way they can appreciate.
I'll also be uploading to YouTube so check out my channel – guess what it's called.
Watch this space to find out more of what's happening in the life of the Superlative1.
13.100965 -59.604147


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Letter to George Sayer (28 November 1963)
On 28 November 1963, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a letter to George Sayer.[1][2][3]
- Subject: Obituaries for C.S. Lewis.
- Publication: A quotation from the letter appeared in Christie's 20th Century Books and Manuscripts 16 November 2001. A description of and quotation from the letter appears in The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: I. Chronology.
[edit] Excerpt
"A Catholic could not possibly say anything sincere about Jack's books without giving widespread offence"
"But then Jack [C. S. Lewis] never sent me anything. Not even of Screwtape Letters which he dedicated to me (without permission). I was wryly amused to learn from the Daily Telegraph that 'Lewis was never (sic) himself very fond of this work'. I after/often [this word is especially hard to discern] wondered why the dedication was made. Now I know—or should."
[edit] See also
- Letter to George and Moira Sayer (7 August 1952)
- Letter to George Sayer (24 June 1953)
- Letter to George Sayer (21 March 1966)
- Letter to George and Moira Sayer (11 December 1971)
- ↑ Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: I. Chronology, p. 612
- ↑ "20th-Century Books and Manuscripts. 2001", TolkienBooks.net (accessed 22 June 2013)
- ↑ "christies.com", (accessed 4 March 2020)


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Excalibur Sign Studio offer full-service signage solutions. From design to manufacturing, installation to maintenance, we produce high-quality signs that increase the experience of your visitors and clients while simultaneously increasing footfall. Using our knowledge and expertise, we start the process with a free consultation to discuss your requirements.
Our staff will then present a series of potential solutions you can choose from. Progressing to our design team, they will create examples and mock-ups using the information and branding guidelines provided. Using industry trends and their professional experience, designs will be created that help you make a positive statement to your clients.
The fabrication team will then identify the best materials for the design, using our state-of-the-art facilities to create a final product before our installation team bring the sign on site and put it exactly where you want it: front and center for staff and customers to see.
Call Excalibur Sign Studio at (585) 484-1665 for your Free Consultation with a Business Signage Specialist!
Commercial Building Signs
The signage you use will tell your clients, visitors, and potential audience about your business and needs to be seen as a positive part of your marketing process. Your building or storefront sign is one of the most important investments you can make as a business. Get it right from day one with Excalibur Sign Studio.
Exterior building signs for businesses help signpost locations for visitors and drive new clients to your company. By investing in your commercial signage you are investing in your business, creating a piece of branding that will help you connect with more people in your community.
Our team can consult, design, fabricate, install and maintain professional, attractive and effective signs that promote your brand and increase custom.
Moving from outdoor signage to indoor signage, our team create designs that flow outside in and bring a feeling of brand unity, cohesion, and consistency to your business.
Signs for Business Promotion
Use business signs to promote the effectiveness of your marketing by conveying deals and offers that attract more customers. We can help you grow brand awareness and familiarity through business banners, window signs, custom vinyl signs, vehicle lettering, and more. Whatever your needs, Excalibur Sign Studio is a creative signage partner that can create the perfect cohesive signage collection for your business needs.
Our commercial signage products include:
With solutions to every challenge, we are specialists in signage that solves problems. Whether it is inside, outside, flat, 3D, lit up or projected, our team has the knowledge and ability to deliver.
Free Business Signs Consultation
Excalibur Sign Studio designs, fabricates, installs and maintains, effective, eye-catching and professional business signs for organizations of any size or type.
We delight in exceptional customer satisfaction and work with you, every step of the way, to ensure that your signs goes from concept to reality precisely how you want it to. Excalibur Sign Studio looks forward to becoming your long-term commercial signage partner, creating the impactful, attractive signs you need to support your business goals and grow your business.
Call Excalibur Sign Studio at (585) 484-1665 for your Free Consultation with a Business Signage Specialist!


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Arts & Events
Don't Miss This!
As summer wanes, the autumn season brings with it the full beauty of October. The liquid amber trees in the bay area are now ablaze with red leaves. Ah, yes -- October has to be the most beautiful month of the year! But enough rhapsodizing -- with it comes a staggering line-up of musical and educational features that will make your head spin.
Let's start with Cal. Performances, a day of free performances on the U.C. campus, starting Sun. Sept. 30th (so you'll have to act fast.) Concerts start at 10:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and are held at Zellerbach Hall, Wheeler Hall and lower Sproul Plaza.
"Top Dog", by Susan-Lori Parks. winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, is playing at the Marin Theatre Company in MIll Valley. "An utterly mesmerizing evening of theatre", according to Variety. Brothers Lincoln and Booth are forever locked in a sibling sparring match by poverty, race and their names.
The Mill Valley 35th Film Festival, featuring more than 200 films with bay area connections will be shown at 14 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley and other Marin venues. Dustin Hoffman will be honored at the Festival as well as Billy Bob Thornton. Ben Affleck will be on hand on Oct. 5th for the premiere of "Argo" tense, real life thriller about Americans trapped in post-revoluionary Iran. (877) 874-6833.
"The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival", a free performance expected to draw more than 500,000 over the weekend. l0 a.m.- 7 p.m. Oct. 5 and 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Oct. 6 and 7. www.strictlybluegrass.com.
The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism, de young Museum, Golden Gate Park, S.F. through Dec. 30. (415) 750-3600.
"Rambling Reckless Hobo: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie," Oct. 7 & 8, Z Space, 450 Florida St., S.F.
"Two Guys from Chicago: Dave Eggers and Daniel Clowers, Oct. 9, Z Space, 450 Florida St. S.F.
"Berkeley Ramble", Brower Center, Magnes Museum, Berkeley. 1:00 - 5:00.
Berkeley Symphony Opening Concert, Thur. Oct. 4, 7 p.m. Gala Dinner. Tickets start at $15. (510) 841-2800.
"The Bride of Death", a one-act play starring Nancy French, set in a creepy mansion with unsuspecting visitors. The Hypnodrome, 575 10th St., S.F. through Nov. 17. www.thrillpeddler.com.
"Lola: Berlin and Beyond." Castro Theatre, through Oct. 4th. Two important films of German cinema. www.berlinandbehond.com.
Fourth Annual Underground Film Festival (full program of 50 films available on-line. www.oakuff.org
Treasure Island Music Festival, Oct. 13 - 14. Facebook.com.Treasureisland.)
"Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benhue River Valley", sculpture, photographs and video. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, through Oct. 14. (650-723-4177),
(Hope some of the above attractions strike your fancy!)


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The Daneway Portal of the Sapperton Canal Tunnel was restored by the Cotswold Canals Trust in 1996. Several retaining walls in the vicinity of the tunnel portal and in the canal itself were also rebuilt by Canal Trust volunteers in the 1980s.
More information on the tunnel itself can be found here.
The original cast iron plate for ths milestone has survived and is in the care of the Cotswold Canals Trust.

To see a photo of this plate, and for more information about the milestones of the Thames & Severn Canal visit the CCiP milestone page.
Before Restoration
Towpath retaining wall rebuilt by Cotswold Canals Trust in the 1980s
Note the lengthsman's cottage (right), now lost, and CCT wall rebuilding (left)
Historical Photos
Note the lengthsman's cottage in the middle distance and Sapperton Church on the hillside.
This view also shows the lengthman's cottage next to the tunnel entrance. This cottage fell into disrepair and was demolished in the 1980s.


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Three wobbegong sharks were introduced to Blacktip Reef yesterday!
Blacktip Reef is now be home to one tasseled wobbegong and two ornate wobbegongs – two very beautiful and interesting shark species! They join 20 blacktip reef sharks and our two zebra sharks, Zeke and Zoe.
Wobbegongs, also known as carpet sharks, get their name from an Australian Aboriginal word meaning "shaggy beard" – which refers to the growths around the shark's mouth. These sharks can be found in the shallow, warmer waters of the Indo-Pacific.
Their bold, brown patterns keep the wobbegong well-camouflaged within the reef. Their ability to camouflage makes these animals great ambush predators!
Stay tuned for more updates as Blacktip Reef continues to evolve!


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-cue Zelda Opening Chest music-
Finally, after seven months, fans have finally reached the center of Peter Molyneux's Curiosity. The lucky tap was done by Bryan Henderson of Edinburgh, and was revealed by Molyneux earlier today on Twitter. Bryan, being an awesome fellow, decided to share the contents of Curiosity with the rest of the community, and I don't think this was something that anyone expected.
The short video features a miniature Molyneux doing what he does best: talking about his current game. He describes the overwhelming response that the title garnered and thanked the fans for their support. Curiosity's big reveal relates to the god game 22 Cans has been working on for a while now, Godus. While the reveal in itself was a bit like watching patiently with enthusiasm as a firecracker fails to go off, the interesting part is how the winner of Curiosity will be linked to this new game.
In Godus, Bryan will not only be the big deity on campus but will also have a hand in creating the rules governing the game. As an added bonus, Molyneux also revealed that Bryan will get to share in the revenue generated by Godus. Fame, fortune, and godly power -- not a bad deal.
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The potential conflicts are arising across the executive branch, according to an analysis of recently released financial disclosures, lobbying records and interviews with current and former ethics officials by The New York Times in collaboration with ProPublica.
In at least two cases, the appointments may have already led to violations of the administration's own ethics rules. But evaluating if and when such violations have occurred has become almost impossible because the Trump administration is secretly issuing waivers to the rules.
One such case involves Michael Catanzaro, who serves as the top White House energy adviser. Until late last year, he was working as a lobbyist for major industry clients such as Devon Energy of Oklahoma, an oil and gas company, and Talen Energy of Pennsylvania, a coal-burning electric utility, as they fought Obama-era environmental regulations, including the landmark Clean Power Plan. Now, he is handling some of the same matters on behalf of the federal government.
Another case involves Chad Wolf, who spent the past several years lobbying to secure funding for the Transportation Security Administration to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new carry-on luggage screening device. He is now chief of staff at that agency — at the same time as the device is being tested and evaluated for possible purchase by agency staff.
There are other examples. At the Labor Department, two officials joined the agency from the K Street lobbying corridor, leaving behind jobs where they fought some of the Obama administration's signature labor rules, including a policy requiring financial advisers to act in a client's best interest when providing retirement advice.
This revolving door of lobbyists and government officials is not new in Washington. Both parties make a habit of it.
But the Trump administration is more vulnerable to conflicts than the prior administration, particularly after the president eliminated an ethics provision that prohibits lobbyists from joining agencies they lobbied in the prior two years. The White House also announced on Friday that it would keep its visitors' logs secret, discontinuing the release of information on corporate executives, lobbyists and others who enter the complex, often to try to influence federal policy. The changes have drawn intense criticism from government ethics advocates across the city.
Mr. Trump's appointees are also far wealthier and have more complex financial holdings and private-sector ties than officials hired at the start of the Obama administration, according to an Office of Government Ethics analysis that the White House has made public. This creates a greater chance that they might have conflicts related to investments or former clients, which could force them to sell off assets, recuse themselves or seek a waiver.
A White House spokeswoman, Sarah H. Sanders, declined repeated requests by The Times to speak with Stefan C. Passantino, the White House lawyer in charge of the ethics policy. Instead, the White House provided a written statement that did not address any of the specific questions about potential violations The Times had identified.
"The White House takes its ethics pledge and federal conflict of interest rules very seriously," the statement said. "The White House requires all of its employees to work closely with ethics counsel to ensure compliance and has aggressively required employees to recuse or divest where the law requires."
The Trump administration's overhaul of personnel lays the groundwork for sweeping policy changes. The president has vowed to unwind some of the Obama administration's signature regulatory initiatives, from Wall Street rules to environmental regulations, and he has installed a class of former corporate influencers to lead the push. Administration supporters argue that appointees with corporate ties can inject a new level of sophistication into the federal bureaucracy and help the economy grow. And efforts to trim regulations in some areas have attracted bipartisan support.
But in several cases, officials in the Trump administration now hold the exact jobs they targeted as lobbyists or lawyers in the past two years.
Trump White House officials had over 300 recent corporate clients and employers, including Apple, the giant hedge fund Citadel and the insurance titan Anthem, according to a Times analysis of financial disclosures. (The White House has released disclosures for only about half of its roughly 180 current senior political employees.) And there are more than 40 former lobbyists in the White House and the broader federal government.
Exceptions Made in Secret
Walter M. Shaub Jr. is director of the Office of Government Ethics, which advises federal agencies to help them and their employees — including the White House — comply with federal ethics laws, such as a prohibition on using a government post to personally profit.
He said that Mr. Trump's own ethics executive order in late January eliminated a requirement, first adopted by President Barack Obama, that executive branch appointees not accept jobs in agencies they recently lobbied. That weakened standards applying to approximately 4,000 executive branch hires.
Mr. Trump also made it easier for former lobbyists in the government to get waivers that would let them take up matters that could benefit former clients.
During the Obama administration, these waivers were given only under a narrow set of circumstances, and had to be filed and explained in an annual report for public inspection, Mr. Shaub said. The waivers were also previously posted on the Government Ethics website. None have been posted since Mr. Trump became president, as sharing them is no longer required.
"There's no transparency, and I have no idea how many waivers have been issued," Mr. Shaub said in an interview, adding that he could not comment on any individual matter until a complaint had been filed and investigated.
The granting of such waivers, he said, has become "a political decision, which means career government ethics officials should not get involved in waivers under the new executive order."
After recent negotiations, Mr. Shaub and the White House Counsel's Office did agree on how to define the requirements and scope of recusal obligations. A lobbyist, for example, who pushed the Obama administration to approve or block a particular provision in a proposed federal regulation affecting a specific industry — like coal or telecommunications — would be subject to a broad ban under this agreement. "She must recuse for two years from development and implementation of the entire regulation," the legal advisory said.
Rolling Back Clean Power
But some cases that The Times examined could be violating this requirement or working around it using waivers. Mr. Catanzaro was registered for Talen Energy on the Clean Power Plan in 2015, yet he has worked in recent months as a senior member of the White House's National Economic Council trying to roll back that rule, adopted by the Obama administration.
Mr. Catanzaro's former clients, such as Talen and Devon Energy, have an enormous amount at stake in the regulations the White House is preparing to reverse — with his help. Talen, for example, helps operate the Colstrip power plant in Montana, the second-largest coal-burning plant west of the Mississippi. Federal officials have estimated that the plant could face a $1.2 billion bill as it makes updates to meet the new environmental standards, assuming it is not just closed.
Three industry lobbyists interviewed by The Times said that they recently had confidential conversations with Mr. Catanzaro about some of the same regulatory matters on which he was lobbying the federal government. And Mr. Catanzaro gave a briefing to reporters in March at the White House in which he discussed energy topics at length, including the details related to the executive order Mr. Trump signed on March 28 to weaken the Clean Power Plan.
"It's certainly true that there a lot of different forces that conspire to affect the coal industry, the gas industry, a lot of industries," Mr. Catanzaro said at a White House briefing last month in which he spoke with the understanding that journalists would not identify him in their reports. (The Times independently confirmed that Mr. Catanzaro made these remarks.) "Certainly government policy has a role," he said. "So to the extent the president can have a beneficial effect on that policy, he's going to take it."
Mr. Catanzaro did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment. And White House officials would not say whether he had been granted a waiver allowing him to be involved in the same matter he handled as a lobbyist.
Same Desk, New Seat
Mr. Catanzaro is not the only senior adviser facing potential conflicts on the National Economic Council, the White House office, run by the former Goldman Sachs executive Gary D. Cohn, that helps steer the president's financial and economic policy. D. J. Gribbin, the council's infrastructure specialist, previously worked for Macquarie, a bank that specializes in infrastructure deals and that stands to gain from whatever infrastructure proposal the president gets Congress to fund.
Shahira Knight, on the council as well, is a special assistant to the president for tax and retirement policy. Her previous job also involved retirement policy — but as a lobbyist for Fidelity, one of the nation's largest fund managers and providers of retirement products.
At Fidelity, lobbying records show, she was registered to work on retirement issues, including the so-called fiduciary rule, which has broad support from consumer groups. It requires financial firms to act in a client's best interest when dispensing retirement advice. Fidelity has said it supports the "best interest" standard but, like other firms, has raised concerns that the rule will prevent investors from accessing products they currently rely on for retirement savings.
Ms. Knight directed some of her appeals to the National Economic Council, her current employer. White House visitor logs show she met with the person whose job she essentially holds now.
In February, Mr. Trump issued a memorandum directing the Labor Department to review whether the rule may "adversely affect" investors' ability to access financial advice — and if it does, it authorized the agency to rescind or revise the rule. The department recently delayed the compliance date of the rule by two months, less than the industry had hoped for.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Mr. Gribbin or Ms. Knight, so it is unclear whether they received waivers letting them work on these issues or recused themselves from issues affecting their former employers. But under Mr. Trump's executive order, Ms. Knight should probably be barred for two years from participating in decisions that would affect the fiduciary rule.
Where Lobbyists Go
The lobbyist loophole in Mr. Trump's executive order may have allowed the Labor Department to hire Geoffrey Burr as a special assistant. The department is familiar ground to Mr. Burr, who was a lobbyist for the Associated Builders and Contractors, which pressed the agency on its overtime pay rule, wage requirements for government contracts and an additional half-dozen or so other regulations. Under Mr. Obama's ethics order, Mr. Burr would probably not have been able to join the Labor Department.
Such potential conflicts are showing up across the federal government.
Executives at Analogic Corp. had tried to sell its carry-on baggage security equipment to the T.S.A. with Mr. Wolf's help when he was a lobbyist. They were pressing the agency to conduct formal tests of its computed tomography devices, known as CT scans, which are already used broadly in the medical field and on checked baggage. The company now wants the T.S.A. to use them in the nation's 2,400 airport checkpoint security lanes, a move that could be worth at least $500 million in equipment sales.
The tests are underway, and at one point during an interview with The Times, company executives said they had reached out to Mr. Wolf to discuss the matter after he joined the T.S.A., listing his name among a series of agency officials they had recently contacted. But when asked again about Mr. Wolf, they would not give details from the conversation, at one point contradicting themselves and saying they had not spoken with him. Then one of them, Mark Laustra, a vice president at Analogic who leads the company's efforts to sell the screening devices, said, "Our interaction with Chad since he joined T.S.A. has been next to nothing."
Mr. Wolf's Twitter account on Friday still identified him as a lobbyist and displayed posts from last year urging the T.S.A. to buy the devices. "Positive developments from TSA on upgrading checkpoint scanners," a post from July said. "CT tech is the future."
A T.S.A. spokesman agreed to arrange an interview with Mr. Wolf — who worked at the agency during the Bush administration before becoming a lobbyist — but canceled it when told about the topic in detail.
"I'm afraid Mr. Wolf isn't going to have any available time in his schedule today," said Mike England, the spokesman, who then declined several follow-up requests over a one-week period. He later added, in a statement, that Mr. Wolf's "duties have not required a waiver" of the ethics standards Mr. Trump adopted in January, although Mr. England would not discuss the matter further.
The Department of Health and Human Services has become another source of potential conflicts.
Lance Leggitt, who serves as chief of staff to Tom Price, the health and human services secretary, worked last year as a lobbyist for 10 different health care companies, including United States Medical Supply and Advanced Infusion Services. He focused largely on lobbying the agency related to Medicare billing rules, as well as rules for health care supplier accreditations, lobbying disclosure reports show. All these issues are routinely handled by the agency he helps oversee.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, received more than $350,000 in payments in 2014 and 2015 from nearly a dozen different pharmaceutical companies, including Vertex Pharmaceuticals, whose two approved drugs are seen as breakthrough treatments for cystic fibrosis. (They carry list prices of more than $250,000 a year.) Dr. Gottlieb, who has never been registered as a lobbyist but has served as the director of eight pharmaceutical companies and one laboratory company, wrote in a letter that he was prepared to recuse himself as necessary to avoid any conflicts.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for a comment.
Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, said the sheer number of potential conflicts — which will require recusals, necessitate waivers or result in violations of the ethics rule — is disturbing, particularly given the secretive approach the administration is taking on the issue.
"This is not a matter of just checking a box — this is about protecting the integrity of the operation of federal government," Ms. Brian said. "But our worst fears are coming true: We know people coming in who have conflicts, and we cannot see what restrictions they are under, if any."
The result, she predicted, might serve no one particularly well. Even if the rules are enforced, so many senior officials will be required to recuse themselves that "they will have a hard time getting their job done."


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