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MTV has finally released the first official trailer for their TV series reboot of the Teen Wolf franchise. So what's different from the original Michael J. Fox version? It's not just the switch from basketball to lacrosse.
The new series stars Tyler Posey, better known as the cute kid from Maid in Manhattan. But now he's all grown up, and learning how to seduce fellow high school classmates with his new werewolf superpowers. Posey spends high school as a miserable dork, until he gains the mojo of a werewolf — including the power to make women attracted to him. Naturally, his first girlfriend turns out to be the daughter to the leader of the local werewolf-hunting gang, star-crossed! As you can see, this series is a whole lot more dramatic than its source material. We're getting a strong Vampire Diaries vibe from this production.
The series will air the premiere episode on June 5th on MTV.


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AMT, the Tax We Love to Hate
Millions of taxpayers will be snared by the alternative minimum tax in 2011. Find out if you're one of them -- and what to do about it.
About four million unlucky taxpayers will discover that they must pay the alternative minimum tax when they file their 2011 tax returns next year. For most, it can be a nasty surprise, wiping out crucial deductions and exemptions they normally claim, resulting in a bigger tax bill.
SEE ALSO: Brace Yourself for Tax Changes in 2012
But if you knew in advance that you might be subject to the AMT, you could make some smart year-end tax-planning decisions to mitigate the damage. We've created a simple calculator to help you figure out if you might be an AMT victim.
The AMT is a parallel tax system created more than 40 years ago to prevent excessive use of tax breaks by the very wealthy, ensuring they paid at least some tax. But because it was never indexed for inflation, the AMT has morphed from a "class tax" into a "mass tax", affecting millions of middle-class Americans each year. The number of taxpayers owing the AMT grew from about 20,000 in 1970 to about four million in 2011, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
The AMT does not allow deductions for state and local taxes, home-equity loan interest (unless the borrowed money was used for home improvements), or tax and investment expenses -- write-offs that save money in the regular tax world. Nor does it allow personal exemptions -- worth $3,700 this year -- for yourself, your spouse and each of your dependent children. Consequently, taxpayers with large families or those who live in high-tax states, such as California and New York, are more likely to find themselves subject to the stealth tax.
Normally, if you pay quarterly estimated state income taxes or have a real estate tax bill due in January, you can prepay it in December and boost your deductions on your 2011 federal tax return due next spring. But if you're subject to the AMT, this sooner-rather-than-later strategy won't work for you.
Beyond denying such write-offs for taxes, the AMT also puts the squeeze on deductions for medical expenses. In the regular tax world, medical costs in excess of 7.5% of adjusted gross income can be deducted. In AMT-land, the threshold is 10% of AGI. (The AMT does, however, permit tax deductions for charitable contributions, so you can go ahead and make your usual year-end donations.)
The top AMT rate is 28%, well below the 35% at which the regular tax maxes out. But because more income can be taxed by the AMT, you could wind up with a bigger tax bill. In fact, you only owe the AMT when it costs you more than the regular tax.
Although the AMT exemption is not indexed for inflation, in recent years Congress has protected millions of taxpayers by passing temporary patches to raise the level, usually one year at a time. Taxpayers whose income exceeds the AMT exemption must calculate both regular tax and AMT liability and pay the larger amount. For 2011, the AMT exemption is $48,450 for individuals and $74,450 for married couples filing jointly.
But unless Congress acts, exemption levels will drop to $22,500 for individuals and $45,000 for married couples filing jointly in 2012, exposing 31 million taxpayers to the AMT next year, according to Tax Policy Center estimates.
That means virtually 100% of married couples with incomes between $50,000 and $475,000 -- even those who claim the standard deduction -- would be subject to the AMT next year unless exemption levels are raised, says Michael Kitces. Kitces is the director of research for the Pinnacle Advisory Group, in Columbia, Md., and developed the data that serves as the basis of our AMT calculator. Single taxpayers are threatened, too. Without another patch, almost all single taxpayers with income between $150,000 to $300,000 will be subject to the AMT in 2012.
So check out our calculator before you decide to pay state income or real estate taxes in December that you could put off until January. If it looks like you'll be an AMT victim, don't bother.
Sneak preview: new tax benefits -- as well as burdens -- for 2012

subset: commoncrawl


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She follows some Indian writers, has taken up a Bollywood dance class, and is even on a quest to learn Hindi. It was this quest to learn the language, especially through film songs, that led her to this blog. She enjoys the Bollywood blogosphere particularly because she can discuss films with fellow lovers of Hindi cinema. Her favorite actor is Aamir Khan, and favorite actress, Kajol.
Please join me in thanking Hannah for sharing the story of her foray into Hindi cinema. Let's continue to welcome her to the extended Bollywood blogosphere family, and for summing up what the core message of Lagaan is all about with a splendid analysis. Thank you, Hannah!
Lagaan has so many aspects that appeal to different types of audiences. I never tire of watching it. My only regret is that I have not been able to watch Lagaan in a theater, because at the time of its release, I was not into Bollywood at all. A little over two years now, my love story with Bollywood began with another Ashutosh Gowariker film, Jodha Akbar (2008). A. R. Rahman's music swept me off my feet and from then on, I avidly explored this new world with an eagerness to learn that I thought I did not possess any more!
Last year, I started reading Indian authors in an attempt to learn more about India and Indian culture. My dream now is to visit India, but as I cannot travel at this time, I dived into 'A Suitable Boy' as a way to discover India without leaving home. (I'd be grateful to any of you who could recommend good books that would fulfill this purpose.)
My first Aamir Khan film was Fanaa (2006), followed by Rang de Basanti (2006). By then, I was hooked on AK and was constantly on the lookout for his films. I read reviews of Lagaan and knew I had to get the film. Which I finally did, last year! I have lost count of how many times I have watched it since, and would like to share with you on one particular aspect that touched me most – spirituality. (It's a dimension I find lacking in today's Hollywood films.)
In the town in which I live, there is a temple on a hill side. Every time I see it, especially at night, I visualize myself in Champaner!
The presence of the temple in the film is a constant reminder of its religious/spiritual aspect. As Bhuvan starts building his team with the help of Tipu, he gets his first follower, Bagha, when the ball hits the bell of the temple.
Later in the film, as Elizabeth starts to fall in love with Bhuvan, we see her interest and fascination with the Hindu religious rites. The temple is dedicated to Radha and Krishna, and Elizabeth asks Bhuvan about them, thinking they are a couple. Bhuvan's explanation is a subtle hint then that eventually Elizabeth would make Radha's story hers.
The temple's steps are also the testing ground for Lakha when he asks Bhuvan to take him in the team. On those same steps, Lakha will also run for his life when his treachery is discovered. He will then seek refuge in the temple as the villagers pounding at the door are claiming his life.
Beyond the mere presence of the temple throughout the film, there is also the main character's personification of not just a hero, but a savior! Bhuvan is the one who is going to free them from the oppressor. Yet he is not some messiah come from elsewhere. He is just a farmer in Champaner. Maybe because he is one of them, the villagers will find it hard to believe in him. They dismiss him as being young and brash. In the face of adversity – at the beginning, no one in the village supports him – he keeps on believing that he made the right decision in taking up the challenge from Capt. Russell. He convincingly manages to rally a team around him, and with the help of Elizabeth, they learn the game well enough to be able to give the English "a tough fight".
But Bhuvan's efforts are undermined by the presence of a traitor among them. When Lakha's deception is uncovered, Bhuvan will be the one who "saves" him from a mob ready to lynch him. This scene takes place in the temple. Bhuvan shows extraordinary magnanimity in giving Lakha a second chance. It is even more significant because the object of Lakha's hatred is Bhuvan himself yet he pushes all personal considerations aside for the greater good of the villagers and of the whole province. Bhuvan shows divine attributes of mercy and forgiveness.
Bhuvan is also the one who will fight the injustice of the caste system by insisting on the inclusion of Kachra in the team. The team was already composed of Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs all come together against their common enemy. But it seems that the caste system was what would ultimately divide them. This time, Bhuvan will even go against the headman, who usually has the last word on matters affecting the village. Again, Bhuvan uses arguments that will convince them of the absurdity of this belief. I find this scene particularly touching when Kachra will look at Bhuvan with tears of gratitude as he stands before them with his dignity restored for the first time.
What is also striking in Bhuvan's character is his humility. He is humble enough to receive help from a Britisher, and a woman on top of that. He displays true humility but refuses to humiliate himself by asking for forgiveness from the English as the other villagers suggest when they go to seek the Raja's help. "I'll gladly receive 100 lashes but I will not ask for forgiveness," he says. Loss of humility is often the downfall of leaders. Bhuvan's humility is in sharp contrast with Capt. Russell's attitude, who, so full of himself, fails to convince Elizabeth not to "go against her own brother." But Bhuvan's humility is ultimately expressed when he joins in the song 'O Paalan haare' (view at this YouTube link) with the women praying in the temple:
Beyond description and beyond all
Without you, we have no one
Ease our difficulties, oh God
Without you, we have no one
You are our only supporter
You are our only protector
Without you, we have no one
Bhuvan then adds:
Give patience to sorrowful people
So that they will never give in to the sorrow
Provide the powerless with protection
So that the powerless can remain happy
Provide your disciples with strength
Significantly, the team and the whole village joins in the song/prayer, regardless of their religion and perhaps this is the most striking spiritual message of the film: a total surrender to God. Isn't that the basic meaning of faith in any religion? Wars and violence waged in the name of religion are indeed senseless when seen in this light. True believers can indeed continuously strive to live together in peace.
At the end of the film, those who are pure of heart win, and justice prevails. Even though this does not reflect what usually happens in real life, Lagaan invites us to hope, albeit for a fleeting moment, for a better world. That is one of the very reasons why good movies, in general, are so popular – because they allow us to dream and to aspire for something better…


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The opinions on this blog are my own and are not representative of my employers, past or present.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
My openSUSE 11 Journal - 5 (ASUS EeePC 701)
As an aside, the ASUS Eee PC 701 is a nice little laptop that has single-handedly opened a whole new sub-segment in the mobile computing space. Now, almost every major manufacturer is entering this market. This new sub-segment goes by many names like subnotebook, netbook, ultra-mobile PC (UMPC), low-cost PC (LCPC) etc.
I got my Eee PC 701 earlier this year and I just loved it. For me, its the (almost) perfect combination of form factor, price and the fact that its a x86 PC. I know I'm gonna have some fun customizing it for my needs.
Anyway, I've been using the default Linux (Xandros variant) since I mainly use it to surf the web, check my emails, read PDF and MS Office documents. Due to its small keyboard and screen, I will never use it as a 9-to-5 office PC. Lately though, I have been a little frustrated at the patches that ASUS rolls out... big downloads, seeing little improvements and some patches breaks the GUI. Sigh... I guess I shouldn't expect a hardware equipment manufacturer to be good at software... even software giants don't get it right from time to time.
Being more familiar with the SUSE flavour of Linux, I decided to try out openSUSE 11 (KDE 4). I've had some success in the past with openSUSE 10.3 but I found it too much work to get it to a level where I am productive.
This time around, with openSUSE 11 (KDE 4), I am very pleased. First, the installer worked very well with the small screen estate (800x480) and the installation was very smooth. The only extra bit of work is the LAN & Wifi drivers. None of the drivers in the default openSUSE package works with the hardware. Thankfully, these drivers have been packaged by a very kind soul and I just have to download them onto a USB memory stick prior to the installation. [ appleonkel, whoever you are, Thank you! ]
The default openSUSE 11 (KDE 4) UI looks great with its nice Big icons. Turned on 3D desktop effects with a click of a checkbox. Sweeet!
Here are some details of my installation and configurations:
1) Prior to installation, I downloaded a bunch of LAN/Wifi RPMs (atl2*.rpm and madwifi*.rpm) from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/appleonkel:/EEE/openSUSE_10.3_Update/i586/
2) I used an external USB DVD drive and the standard openSUSE 11 DVD. At boot time, hit the Esc key to choose the boot device (ie DVD drive). If you do not have an external USB DVD drive, you can use USB memory sticks too. Please refer to this openSUSE article at http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_on_the_EeePC#Installation .
I removed the 2GB SD card. There were reports that the installation did not go well with some SD cards plugged in.
4) After initial installation, noted the kernel (2.6.25...-pae) and applied the relevant atl2 and madwifi (pae) rpms from (1). Reboot and the system can now access the WWW.
Other bits of additional work I did are to enable some of the Hotkeys, the embedded camera for use with Skype and the CPUFreq support. All very well documented at http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_on_the_EeePC
Nice to have an all SUSE setup at home and at work.
5 comments:
Hi :) Have you try to install opensuse 11.1 on your eeePC?ReplyDelete
I did. Wifi works out of the box now.ReplyDelete
Hi Makc,ReplyDelete
Yes, I've just installed openSUSE 11.1 on my eee PC 701 over the weekend. As commented by mattie, the wifi worked out of the box.
This time around, I opted to do as minimal an install as practical. Hence, I chose to install with only xfce, YaST modules, firefox with Java and Flash plugins. I find that I usually use my EeePC for web browsing only.
All up, it took only 1.5GB of hdd space. :)
- AnonymousSaturday, July 11, 2009 2:15:00 AM
Download is slightly more than 4G - I have the Eeepc 701 4G model. Any tips on how to perhaps customize OpenSuse to fit with some hard drive space left over to load a video or two??ReplyDelete
Anyone with anwers or suggestion, my email is email@example.com
Hi Dov,ReplyDelete
openSUSE 11.1 DVD is more than 4Gb but it will not install all of it. I believe the default install left around 500+Mb of free space on the EeePC 701.
If you want to shrink it further, you could remove unwanted packages. Since I hardly do any document editing on my EeePC, I uninstalled openoffice, lots of graphics tools (ie GIMP, Dia, Inkscape etc) and audio tools (Banshee etc) got about 1Gb left over.


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About 2,500 customers were without power Tuesday in Garden City and parts of Greeley.
Michelle Aguayo, a spokeswoman for Xcel Energy in Denver, said the outage started about 8 a.m.
Power was restored before noon. However, the power went out again a short time later, and the second outage lasted through the day and late into Tuesday night.
Problems with an underground feeder cable caused the outage, which made it more difficult for crews to find and fix.
Xcel Energy spokesman Gabriel Romero said crews are working to identify the problem and fix it. He said crews hoped to have power restored about midnight, but they were still working late Tuesday.
"We haven't been able to identify the issue exactly," he said. "We're calling all of our customers in that area to let them know."
The area without power late Tuesday in Greeley was bordered by 16th Street in the north, 20th Street in the south, 23rd Avenue in west and 4th Avenue in the east, as well as Garden City.
Lt. Teresa Hinz of the Greeley Fire Department said firefighters went on several calls due to the outage. She said a few elderly people who use electric recliners called because they were stuck in the leaned-back position when the power went out. A few fire alarms also went off as a result of the outage, she said.


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Sign Up for the Newsletter (login required)
Check out the list of upcoming Velocity events around the world.
Velocity is the new O'Reilly conference for people building at Internet scale, happening on June 23-24, 2008 at the San Francisco Airport Marriott in Burlingame, California.
Once you build the cloud, it's all about network operations.
--Andy Kessler in the Wall Street Journal
Web companies, big and small, face many of the same challenges: sites must be faster, infrastructure needs to scale, and everything must be available to customers at all times, no matter what. Velocity is the place to obtain the crucial skills and knowledge to build successful web sites that are fast, scalable, resilient, and highly available.
Velocity is one of the few opportunities to learn from peers, exchange ideas with experts, and share best practices and lessons learned.
Velocity is designed to deliver the best information on building and operating web sites that are fast, reliable, and always up. We're bringing together people from around the world who are doing the best performance work, to improve the experience of web users worldwide. Pages will be faster. Sites will have higher up-time. Companies will achieve more with less. The next cool startup will be able to more quickly scale to serve a larger audience, globally. Velocity is the key for crossing over from cool Web 2.0 features to sustainable web sites.
If you have ideas for speakers and topics that will make the conference a must attend event, send them to: firstname.lastname@example.com
Program co-chair Steve Souders was recently featured in an O'Reilly Media webcast:
For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at the conference, contact Sharon Cordesse at firstname.lastname@example.com.
For media-related inquiries, contact Maureen Jennings at email@example.com.
View a complete list of Velocity contacts.


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Kristen Stewart Ditches Orange Hair for Natural Brown
Kristen Stewart has gone back to her roots (literally) and ditched her orange hair for a more natural look.
The 24-year-old dyed her hair a red-orange color back in April for her role in the action comedy film 'American Ultra,' and she seemed pretty committed to the bright shade even after shooting wrapped. When she chopped her hair off into a long pixie cut back in July, she left the slightly washed out color with her peekaboo brown roots.
The 'Twilight' actress is still rocking her short 'do, but the orange is no more! She made an appearance in Tokyo on Saturday, Aug. 2 to promote her newest movie 'Equals,' sporting a maroon tank top and a slicked back hairstyle showing off her new brunette locks.
This seems to be the summer of dying hair fun, bright colors, so we're a little surprised Kristen is back to brown! What do you think, PopCrushers? Do you prefer the brown or did the burnt orange suit her?
See Kristen Stewart + More Celebs' Yearbook Photos


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90210 Pics: Naomi's Latest Scheme Goes Up In Flames On Series Finale
Ambulances! Firemen! Fights! Find out (some of) what you can expect when '90210' takes its final bow May 13.
90210 looks to be going out with a bang — literally. The cast was spotted filming the final episode of The CW drama March 1 in Los Angeles, and everyone was on high alert. Not only was Michael Steger (aka Navid) seen being carried off in a stretcher, covered in soot, but Jessica Lowndes (aka No-Drama Adrianna) was also seen looking a little on the charred side.
EW.com recently reported that the Goo Goo Dolls would be guest starring on the May 6 episode as "Naomi calls upon them to perform at a relief concert," but from the looks of these photos, I'd say the band's performance goes up in smoke. And since the cast was filming the series finale, which airs a week after the Dolls' appearance, I also think it's safe to say we'll end the penultimate episode with a fiery cliffhanger.
Drama On The '90210' Series Finale
In non-fire-related news, AnnaLynne McCord was also spotted sharing a tense moment with an angry-looking Robbie Jones, who joins the show March 11 as Naomi's new love interest. (Sorry, Max!) Elsewhere on set, a teary-eyed Shenae Grimes was seen storming away from Tristan Wilds. A little Wilson sibling drama, perhaps?
Either way, it had been a long day of shooting for everybody. Just after 6 a.m. on March 1, AnnaLynne tweeted, "Happy Tweeting. My call time for my last 3 days of 90210 is happening very soon. Gonna sleep for a few more minutes! Xxx A"
Can you believe it's really coming to an end?
HollywoodLifers, what do you think of these pictures? Drop a comment with your best predictions below!
— Andy Swift
More 90210 on HollywoodLife.com:


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Taking Office Feuds From the Cubicle to the Boxing Ring
Forget mediation, the silent treatment or even an awkward office shouting match. One group of feuding coworkers is putting up their dukes.
At least, that's the premise of "White Collar Brawlers," airing Tuesday on the Esquire Network. (Watch a clip here.)
"We've all dreamed about it. Taking down an obnoxious colleague, pummeling a workplace rival, knocking out an overbearing boss," a narrator intones during a promotional video for the show. "But until offices install boxing rings in the break rooms, there is 'White Collar Brawlers.'"
Enter Ryan Sainsott and Andrew Devine: one-time friends and roommates who work together as financial planners at a consumer-goods company in New York.


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"Ali Smith has got style, ideas, and punch. Read her."–Jeanette Winterson
"Hotel World is everything a novel should be: disturbing, comforting, funny, challenging, sad, rude, beautiful.—The Independent (London)
"In this voice from beyond the grave Ali Smith has created the perfect literary ghost…imbued with a powerful sense of wonder at the minutiae of everyday sensuality…and her beautiful, vivid descriptions are reinforced by a sharp, unsentimental tongue."–The Times (London)
"Ali Smith's remarkable novel HOTEL WORLD….is a greatly appealing read. Smith is a gifted and meticulous architect of character and voice."—The Washington Post
"The heart of Scottish writer Ali Smith may belong to good old-fashioned metaphysics — to truth and beauty and love beyond the grave — but her stylistic sensibility owes its punch to the Modernists. She's street-savy and poignant at once, with a brutal sense of irony and a wonderful feel for literary economy. There's a kind of stainless-steel clarity at the center of her fiction. . ."—The Boston Globe
"HOTEL WORLD is that rare experiment, a novel with style to spare . . . despite all the tricks, all the tweaks of language and literature, what you remember about HOTEL WORLD is Smith's evocation of the anguish that results when a life ends, her rendering of the sadness at separating from the living world and the loneliness of staying behind. What a death. What a life. What a book."–San Antonio Express-News
". . . in Smith's hands, this slender plot serves as an excuse for a delightfully inventive, exuberant, fierce novel of which the real star is not the dead Sara, or any of the living characters, but the author's vivid, fluent, highly readable prose. HOTEL WORLD was a well-deserved finalist last year for two prestigious British prizes: the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize. . . . I can't begin to paraphrase all that this dazzling book conveys about humanity and mortality . . ."
– Margot Livesey, Newsday
"Ali who? Hotel what? Even for people who follow contemporary British literature, neither the name nor the title meant a lot. They do now. HOTEL WORLD makes a striking impression. It's a challenging, often bleak but affecting journey through the lives of four young women united by the death of another . . . What an introduction to Ali Smith.
– Minneapolis Star Tribune
"HOTEL WORLD is that rare experiment, a novel with style to spare . . . despite all the tricks, all the tweaks of language and literature, what you remember about HOTEL WORLD is Smith's evocation of the anguish that results when a life ends, her rendering of the sadness at separating from the living world and the loneliness of staying behind. What a death. What a life. What a book."
–Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
"HOTEL WORLD is compelling . . . precisely because it suggests shifting yet coherent perspectives rather than simplifying lives into rigid, inert realities. Most impressively, Smith has mastered sophisticated literary techniques, which never intrude or bog down a delectable narrative of human perception and rumination. Apart from establishing Ali Smith as a novelist with the skills of a Martin Amis and Samuel Beckett combined, HOTEL WORLD is a damn good read." –The San Francisco Chronicle
"Wonderfully inventive and boldly lyrical, HOTEL WORLD is an exhilarating read. A chambermaid careens to her death in a broken dumbwaiter, and her dissipating spirit sings a paean to earthly existence. . . . Newly published in the U.S., Ali Smith's thrilling meditation on life, transience, class, and the material world was an Orange Prize finalist and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize." –INSIDE BORDERS
"Courageous and startling. I doubt that I shall read a tougher or more affecting novel this year." –Jim Crace


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Accidental tourists. That's what people used to think leatherback sea turtles were. But they were wrong.
Accidental tourists. That's what people used to think leatherback sea turtles were. But they were wrong.
"They wanted to be here," declared Kara Dodge, of the Large Pelagics Research Center of the University of New Hampshire.
What exactly they're doing here and how they spend their time is the subject of Dodge's Ph.D. research and she discussed it last week as part of the Wednesday lecture series at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.
Leatherbacks are not only the largest turtle in the world; they are warm-blooded, at least in part, due to a unique heat exchange system. The warmer arterial blood is blended together with colder blood returning from the animal's surface before it reaches the heart, so the working core of the animal stays warmer.
"It can keep the body temperature up to 30 degrees higher than the surrounding environment," Dodge noted. "Leatherbacks can grow to over 6 feet long and weigh 2,000 pounds. They have a high volume to surface ratio and lose heat to the environment slowly."They're fat, which is a good thing.
"They have a blubber layer which is the reason they don't get cold stunned. That is a heat-conserving adaptation. It is several inches thick, similar to a whale or a dolphin and helps the leatherback insulate itself," Dodge said.
They don't mind cold water nearly as much as other turtles and will swim far north of Nova Scotia and dive to frigid depths.
"They can dive to a depth of 4,200 feet, and it's pretty cold at 4,200 feet," Dodge noted. "Those are depths that are reached only by sperm whales and elephant seals."
The other problem with deep dives is the water pressure, but leatherbacks don't have a hard shell that can be crushed.
"Leatherbacks have a vascularized boney lipid matrix; rows of interlocking bone embedded in a lipid matrix covered with a black skin that gives leatherbacks their name," Dodge said.
They also have a series of "soft spots" around the body that allow for further flexibility.
"Physiologically they are equipped for depth as well," explained Dodge. "They are air breathers but are able to store oxygen in the blood and muscle to get around collapsing lungs at great depths."
Most of their dives are within 650 feet of the sea surface, which is still pretty deep.
What they are doing on these dives is completely known but much of the time they are probably eating. And what does the largest turtle like to eat? Jellyfish.
"Giant leatherbacks subsist entirely on jellyfish. Two of their favorites are moon jellies and lion's mane jellyfish, which are seasonally abundant here," Dodge said. "Jellyfish are over 95 percent water and relatively nutrient poor so leatherbacks have to consume large quantities. They have to eat their own body weight each day."
That's a lot of jellyfish but then there are often a lot around, Especially in Nantucket Sound. The turtles have a beak with scissor-like fangs for gripping jellyfish and keratinized spines in their mouth and throat pointing downward to doom for jellyfish.
Dodge is tracking the turtles via battery-operated satellite-linked transmitters. She is also collecting oceanographic data (water temperatures, salinity and such) along with jellyfish densities to determine what the turtle is doing and why. Her three initially tagged turtles, all from Cape Cod Bay last summer, were picked up from entanglements. The turtles get wound up in fishing and lobster gear. She also caught two turtles in Nantucket Sound.
Dodge uses a spotter plane and a specially equipped boat, with a pulpit built by her husband and a giant hoop that's dropped just in front of the turtle after the boat sneaks up from behind.
Bob, the first turtle, was tracked from Aug. 29 to Sept. 15. It was found dead Sept. 17, just off Dennis entangled in two sets of lobster gear, one trap and a 10-pot trawl. It never left the bay.
Scusset, the second turtle, was tracked for 184 days. It remained in the bay for a month until Oct. 19 when it rounded Race Point, went west to the Mid-Atlantic, swam off the continental shelf, swung by Bermuda following an underwater mountain chain and headed for the Bahamas and U.S. coast when the battery burned out.
"Scusset dove to over 500 meters (1,600 feet), swam 7,612 kilometers or 4,730 miles in 184 days," Dodge said.
Unfortunately, the third turtle was also ill-fated. It had been entangled twice and after a month stopped moving. Dodge tracked it down by kayak in the Chase Garden Creek marsh system on the Dennis/Yarmouth town line. She hauled it in and dissected it.
"We found a 3-foot by 1 1/2-foot piece of plastic sheeting in its stomach," she said. "It was a very unlucky turtle all around."
Leatherbacks can mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and once they ingest it it's stuck in their system.
One of the transmitters, which are fist sized and cost $5,000, quickly stopped working on the first of the Sound-caught leatherbacks. The second turtle, "Holly," made a beeline for the continental shelf and the transmission stopped after 16 days.Dodge is looking forward to this summer's tagging season.
"There are over 40 sightings now of leatherbacks in Rhode Island and Massachusetts waters," she said. "They're mostly in Buzzards Bay, Nantucket Sound and some around Martha's Vineyard. There is a high density of jellyfish off the Vineyard."
Two weeks ago, on July 17, she captured her first free-swimming non-entangled leatherback, "Henry."
"He's an awesome looking turtle. You can see how fat he is," she said showing off a slide. "When they're gorging on jellyfish they can blow up. We estimate he is 700 to 800 pounds. In fact the blood work was showing high cholesterol. He has already gone off the continental shelf. In six days since he was tagged he has gone over 450 kilometers. That's twice as fast as any other tagging data."
Henry is a mover but is expected back since this is where the jellyfish are.
Worldwide in the 1980s there were an estimated 115,000 nesting females but that number fell to 20,000 to 30,000 by 1996. Turtles in the Pacific were especially hard hit due to the harvesting of eggs from the nests.
Cape Cod is an important part of their itinerary; 128 leatherbacks stranded here between 1996 and 2006. Dodge's work will be especially useful in learning about their open water habits and needs.
"This migratory, warm-blooded, largest living reptile is simply too wonderful to abandon to extinction," herpetologist Skip Lazell wrote in "This Broken Archipelago."
"And I think I share those sentiments," Dodge agreed.
Cape Codder


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Silence in the City
16th Oct 2018, 1:00 pm - 1:30 pmat Peace Hub, Birmingham
Take time out from your busy week to stop and reflect.
1pm every Tuesday, at Peace Hub
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'What Price Glory?'
Lake Views: This World and the Universe
Steven Weinberg is famous as a scientist, but he thinks deeply and writes elegantly about many other things besides science. This collection of his writings is concerned with history, politics, and science in roughly equal measure. The picture on the jacket shows dark waves on deep water with a distant suburban shoreline. The water is Lake Austin in Texas, and the picture is a view taken from the window of the study where Weinberg thinks and writes. He is a native of New York who has taken root and flourished in Texas. His chief contribution to our civilization is his leadership in the understanding of nature. After twenty years of experiments in particle physics had displayed a tangled landscape of particles interacting with one another in incomprehensible ways, Weinberg's mathematical wizardry dispelled the confusion and revealed an underlying unity.
But he is not only preeminent as a mathematical physicist. He has also made important contributions to the discussion of history and politics. He is one of the founders of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group of citizens who have worked steadily for forty years to bring scientific wisdom into public debates about political and military problems. He has been called to Washington to testify at congressional committee hearings on strategic questions. He has become almost as expert in military history as he is in mathematical physics.
A reader who has time for only one piece should read Chapter 12, "What Price Glory?" It goes deeply into the history of military technology, from the twenty-first century all the way back to the eleventh. Weinberg finds in many diverse times and places a common theme. Military leaders and military institutions have a constant tendency to glorify technology that is colorful and spectacular, even when it leads them repeatedly to defeat and disaster.
The most durable of the glorified technologies was the medieval horse carrying a knight in armor. The knight was armed with a heavy lance pointing forward. The tactic by which the knight was supposed to win battles was a cavalry charge, the horses and lances overwhelming foot soldiers with irresistible force. Weinberg examines the evidence and finds that successful cavalry charges were rare. More often, foot soldiers defeated the charge by moving out of the way of the horses or by occupying strong defensive positions. After the charge was…
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Some of the things I have recently heard about the ACLU and the homeless are so uninformed and bizarre that they deserve a response.
1. "Why does the ACLU keep suing the city of Sarasota?"
Because the Sarasota Police Department keeps violating people's constitutional rights. Yes, many of the people we defend are homeless, but being homeless doesn't mean you give up your rights.
When government abuses anyone's constitutional rights, the local ACLU steps in to protect them. That's what we do.
If government follows the law, they won't hear from us.
2. "The ACLU is simply after money and headlines."
First, the money: We have successfully defended the rights of well over 100 homeless people, some of them homeless families with children, for which we have made precisely $0.00. That's zero dollars. And zero cents.
For those 100 homeless cases, nobody on our board has been paid anything. Period.
And for your information: Every time we have defended the homeless in Sarasota, we have either won our case outright, or helped get an unfair law repealed or changed.
Second, the headlines: The ACLU does not create headlines like "Police Officer Slams Homeless Man Against Bus Station Wall." Or "Homeless Man Jailed For Plugging Cellphone Into Park Outlet." Or "Homeless Man Arrested For Breaking Law That Had Been Repealed."
We react to headlines. People call us to report abuses of their civil liberties. I know -- I answer our phone.
3. "Some of the homeless people you see holding signs on Tamiami Trail are really an ACLU 'sting operation.'"
Good grief. See "paranoia" in your dictionary.
4. "Who are you, anyway?"
The ACLU is an all-volunteer organization. Our membership has just hit an all-time high in Sarasota. We currently have almost 1,500 members, and are the fastest-growing ACLU chapter in the state by far.
A lot of your friends and neighbors in Sarasota are card-carrying ACLU members.
Our local board includes two educators, a doctor, a foreign language translator, a newspaper humor columnist, a couple of retired patent and labor attorneys, four active local attorneys and three college students (New College and University of South Florida). Our meetings are open to the public. You're invited.
Now let me ask you a question:
The next time someone abuses your civil liberties -- say a store owner threatens to call the police if you don't stop collecting signatures on a petition outside his store, or someone says you can't hand out your church literature in a public park -- who do you call?
Our phone number is (941) 306-1937.
Pete Tannen is president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Sarasota/Manatee/DeSoto.
Answers from the ACLU
Some of the things I have recently heard about the ACLU and the homeless are so uninformed and bizarre that they deserve a response.


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The Sorcerers' Guild, a place of training located in Anglesey within the Medieval Fantasy world of Ruler of Kings II. Discussion here is Out of Character where Players can feel free to converse about the offerings at this Guild especially the pros and cons of this Class over another.
, if you know something about "Sorcerer's Guild" under Text RPG, MMORPG & Play By Post then you can be the first to Reply to Sorcerer's Guild! You will then have 1 Posts! now or scroll down for [Fast Reply] box.


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yes, you been predicting victory many years now.dipshit.
your fantasy world would be deeply disturbing if you had ounce of power in world.here litle hint: goats not care!
correct. julie's knowledge of goats limited, especially their naughty parts.shame on you.
if you in thread, it have plenty do with goatfucking.


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Strawberry & polenta cupcakes
These cupcakes are little portions of perfection and are great to share with friends
Nutrition and extra info
- un-iced
Nutrition: per cake
- kcal271
- fat12g
- saturates7g
- carbs40g
- sugars26g
- fibre1g
- protein4g
- salt0.19g
- 140g unsalted butter, softened
- 140g golden caster sugar
- grated zest ½ lemon
Oval in shape with a pronouced bulge on one end, lemons are one of the most versatile…
- 85g polenta
An Italian storecupboard staple, polenta has its roots in the peasant cuisine of northern Italy…
- 3 eggs, beaten
The ultimate convenience food, eggs are powerhouses of nutrition packed with protein and a…
- 140g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
Baking powderbay-king pow-dah
Baking powder is a raising agent that is commonly used in cake-making. It is made from an alkali…
- 1 tbsp milk
One of the most widely used ingredients, milk is often referred to as a 'complete' food…
- 140g strawberries, hulled and chopped into chunks
Once available in Britain for just a brief period during the summer, strawberries are now a year…
To decorate
- 140g icing sugar
- 3 strawberries, hulled and roughly chopped, plus 6 halved, for decoration
Once available in Britain for just a brief period during the summer, strawberries are now a year…
- lemon juice
Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases and heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until pale and fluffy. Add the polenta and continue to whisk until combined. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time.
Sift in flour and baking powder, then fold in quickly with a large spoon or spatula until you have a thick batter (the mixture may look lumpy because of the polenta). Stir in the milk to loosen, then gently fold in the chopped strawberries. Divide the mixture between the paper cases, then bake for 20 mins or until golden, risen and springy to touch. Cool for a few mins, then place the cakes on a wire rack to cool completely. The cakes can now be stored in an airtight container for up to two days.
Carefully peel the cases off the cakes. Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl. Place the chopped strawberries in a bowl with 1 tsp lemon juice and mash with a fork until pulpy. Push through a sieve over the icing sugar (you only need a few drops of juice to colour the icing a rosy pink). Stir in more lemon juice, a dribble at a time, until you have a thick yet fluid paste. Dip the top of each cake into the icing, then top immediately with a strawberry half. Leave to set, then serve.


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MP3 LisTaGo 2.0
MP3 LisTaGo is Windows software that helps you create structured MP3 discs to take with you and play in any MP3 player or stereo, with the songs in the order that YOU want to hear them, regardless of whether your MP3 player supports reading MP3 playlist files.
There are a variety of MP3 players and software that allow you to create 'playlists', where you select the songs that you want to group together, put them in the order you like to hear them, and save the list. The resulting playlist files are called 'M3U files', and you can load them in your MP3 player or software...
But what if your MP3 player/stereo can't read or load these files? Well, there are many types of players that support MP3s, such as hand-held players, smart-phones, home stereos, home DVD players, car stereos, etc. Some of these players can read the MP3 playlist files that you create, and some players can only read folders that you can select. The problem with the latter is that they allow you to pick and play folders of music, but they play the songs in alphabetical order within each folder, so you don't have control over the order in which you hear your songs. MP3 LisTaGo takes care of this. You'll be creating MP3 discs with 'playlist folders' that will play the songs in the order you choose, regardless of the type of player you're using...as long as it supports MP3s.
MP3 LisTaGo's features include: a Playlist/ID3 tag editor, multi-user support, manage multiple projects with multiple playlists, drag and drop functionality, prevention of duplicate songs in each playlist, importing songs from other playlists, and more.
What's new in version 2.0?
- completely redesigned the user interface and rewrote the code using WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and .Net Framework 4.0
- you can now rename projects and playlists when you choose to edit the currently selected project or playlist
- you can now import an existing playlist from another MP3 LisTaGo project into the project that you're working on
- added song details and playlist durations to the playlist views in the main screen and playlist editor
- added more right-click menus to the source selections box and playlist view box, to view a song's details from it's ID3 tags
- added more visual and descriptive messages indicating warnings, errors, and tasks in progress
- fixed some minor bugs
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 or higher.


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The recent, well-publicized cyberattack on Google was just the latest skirmish in a long war. And like most long wars, this one features an arms race, as hackers seek out new security holes, and web site administrators try to close them.
Systems for detecting attacks against networked computers are commercially available, and academic and industrial researchers are constantly improving them. But when a web site is under attack, its only viable defense may be to take its servers offline, which, in the short term, can cost it money in lost revenue and productivity and, in the long term, could hurt its credibility. Indeed, knocking a site offline may be an attackers' sole intention.
MIT researchers have developed a system to keep web servers — or, for that matter, any Internet-connected computers — running even when they're under attack. The work was funded largely by the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and in a pair of tests whose thoroughness is unusual in academia, DARPA hired a group of computer security professionals outside MIT to try to bring down a test network protected by the new system. In both tests, says Martin Rinard, the professor of electrical engineering and computer science who led the research, the system exceeded all the performance criteria that DARPA set for it.
The MIT system was developed by a host of researchers, including not only Rinard but Jeff Perkins, a research scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Postdoctoral Fellow Stelios Sidiroglou-Douskos and Professor Michael Ernst, who has since moved to the University of Washington. During normal operation, it monitors the programs running on an Internet-connected computer to determine their normal range of behavior, and during an attack, it simply refuses to let them wander outside that range.
To take a simple example, suppose that a program running on a web server routinely stores data in one of two memory locations — call them A and B. During an attack, malicious code tries to trick the program into storing data at location C instead. The MIT system won't let it: instead, it sends the data to either location A or location B.
Of course, the data may not be of a type that belongs at either of those locations. And the system will modify behaviors that could be even more disruptive than data storage. But in sites with large banks of servers, the MIT system gets several chances to find the best response to an attack. If storing at location A causes one server in the bank to crash, the MIT system will tell the other servers to store it at location B, instead.
"The idea is that you've got hundreds of machines out there," Rinard says. "We're saying, 'Okay, fine, you can take out six or 10 of my 200 machines.'" But, he adds, "by observing what happens with the executions of those six or 10 machines, we'll be able to deploy patches out to protect the rest of the machines." The entire process of recognizing an attack, testing a number of countermeasures and deploying the most effective ones can take a matter of seconds.
Baptism by fire
In the first of DARPA's two field tests, engineers at a computer security firm — the so-called red team — were given the code for the MIT defense system. (In the real world, a company that marketed such a system would make every effort to keep its code secret, but Rinard says that it's standard practice in the security field to consider the worst-case scenario.) The red team had several months in which to devise attacks against a hypothetical network protected by the system. During the test itself, no malicious code was allowed to execute on the protected computers, and in 70 percent of cases, the MIT system kept the applications running on those computers from going down. DARPA also set performance goals for the system, such as the amount of extra processing power it required, and the extent to which it altered the applications' normal operation. In all cases, the system was well within DARPA's prescribed limits.
The first red-team exercise considered cases in which hackers tried to infect computers with malicious code, and the MIT researchers presented the results of the test at the Association for Computing Machinery's Symposium on Operating Systems Principles last fall. A second red-team exercise, testing an updated version of the defense system that the MIT researchers developed together with defense contractor BAE Systems, concluded at the end of January. That test evaluated the system's ability to handle a different kind of attack, which seeks to circumvent security checks that web applications typically perform to ensure that users have permission to access protected information. Although the researchers are still sorting through the data from that test, Sidiroglou-Douskos says that the system's success rate in keeping applications up and running rose from 70 percent to 90 percent.
Angelos Keromytis, an associate professor of computer science at Columbia University, who works on related techniques for combating cyberattacks, says that the MIT approach is "very original," but cautions that Web developers may be reluctant to adopt it anytime soon. "They're wary of a system that changes another system automatically," Keromytis says. "When they manually make changes to their systems, they break them, so they think that automatically doing it is going to be worse." Keromytis points out, however, that while DARPA has run a number of red-team exercises evaluating new technologies in a range of areas, "This is probably one of the most successful exercises that I have seen." The mere fact that DARPA was willing to spend so much money testing the system, Keromytis says, indicates that "they think it's close enough to a rough prototype that works, which is more than one can say for most academic research."


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Movie review: The Incredibles 2
Image via flicks.com.au
The Incredibles – known in their ordinary lives as the Parr family – get VIP treatment in this sequel, moving out of a shabby hotel and into an ultra-modern home. Mr Incredible, or Bob, discovers that staying home and looking after the kids – Violet, Dash and baby Jack-Jack – is more difficult than saving the city. This feeds into a sentimental message left implied rather than directly stated: that being a good parent is the greatest superhero act of them all.
The result is the freshest and sassiest superhero blockbuster of the year, made with genuine belief that an audience's allegiance to a brand should not be taken for granted.
Be sure to watch Incredibles 2 at Village Cinemas.
Read the full review on flicks.com.au.


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Book Description
Each book in this spellbinding collection will capture young readers imaginations with tales of enchanted creatures, curious folk and imaginary lands. Stories by renowned authors such as Rudyard Kipling, the Brothers Grimm, Joseph Jacobs and Andrew Lang are imaginatively brought to life with fantastic illustrations. Ideal for younger children to read along with parents and for older children to read independently."


text:
Please note: While Web 2.0 Expo continues to be a vibrant brand, the evolving market conditions surrounding the web ecosystem have led to a decision by the co-producers of Web 2.0 Expo events, UBM TechWeb and O'Reilly, to discontinue the production of the bi-annual Web 2.0 Expo SF & NY indefinitely. For more information, please read our blog post A Long Goodbye to Web 2.0 Expo.
Ally Parker
Kaitlin Pike
(415) 947-6306
View a complete list of Web 2.0 Expo contacts.


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The Situation of Panic
Posted by The Situationist Staff on April 19, 2008
From Radiolab: War of the World
Abstract: An examination of the power of mass media to create panic. In Radio Lab's very first live hour, we take a deep dive into one of the most controversial moments in broadcasting history – Orson Welles' 1938 radio play about Martians invading New Jersey. And we ask: Why did it fool people then? And why has it continued to fool people since? From Santiago, Chile to Buffalo, New York to a particularly disastrous evening in Quito, Ecuador.
Listen to show by clicking here.


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|Canada.com Photo
An extensive collection of letters, maps and other original artifacts left to posterity by Sherbrooke,the Nova Scotia governor who conquered Maine during the War of 1812 and later served as Canada's governor general, is to be sold on June 19, 2013 in a major Bonhams auction of rare books and manuscripts.
There is no question of the importance of these documents. The question is what will Library and Archives Canada (LAC) do now? LAC has been plagued by unrest, budget cuts and yes, even scandal. Chief Archivist Daniel Caron resigned suddenly after his exhorbitant personal expenditures on LAC money (including Spanish lessons) were discovered.
According to Canada.com "The estimated value of the Sherbrooke papers is between $160,000 and $230,000 — coincidentally close to the $170,000 spent by LAC's recently resigned national archivist, Daniel Caron, in travel and other expenses over the past two years."
Caron is gone, LAC is in turmoil with staff cuts, budget cuts and pressure to find a new Archives head. Will they be able to step up to the plate and purchase this rare and important part of Canadian history?
Read the story at Canada.com


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Small earthquake hits central Virginia
A small earthquake surprised residents of Virginia's capital Wednesday night, the United States Geological Survey reported.
The 3.2-magnitude quake was centered about 32 miles west of Richmond, Va. and occurred at 9:47 ET, according to the USGS.
No injuries or damage have been reported.
Many people took to Twitter to share their shock at what is a relatively uncommon event in the region. The USGS says that small earthquakes occur in the region every year or two.
The largest earthquake in the Central Virginia Seismic Zone to cause any major damage was the 5.8-magnitude earthquake that shook Washington, D.C. in 2011, the USGS says. The Washington Monument only recently reopened following repairs begun after the monument was damaged in that 2011 quake.


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Berrien County in the Civil War
29th Georgia Regiment on Sapelo Island
Part 3: Berrien Minute Men at Camp Spalding
During the Civil War, two companies of men that went forth from Berrien County, GA were known as the Berrien Minute Men. From October, 1861 to January, 1862, the campfires of the Berrien Minute Men were made at Sapelo and Blackbeard islands protecting the approaches to Darien, GA on Doboy Sound and the Altamaha River. The Berrien Minute Men arrived on Sapelo Island in early October.
Berrien Minute Men on Sapelo Island
- Arrival On Sapelo
- Place of Encampment
- Camp Spalding
- Election of Officers
- Tidewater Time
- In Regular Service
Despite conditions of camp life that drove some men away, the sea islands held a strange beauty for the Wiregrass farmers turned soldiers. While stationed at Camp Spaulding, Pvt. William W. Knight wrote, "we are camp on as pretty a place as I have seen. it is a high live oak grove one side open to the Atlantic its never ceasing roar about three quarters of a mile from camp." William W. Knight was a son of Levi J. Knight, Captain of the Berrien Minute Men and original settler of Ray's Mill (now Ray City), GA.
Private Robert Hamilton Harris of the Thomasville Guards, Company A, 29th Georgia Regiment, also found the island enchanting. These were the idyllic first days of Confederacy, when the Georgia volunteers still anticipated glorious battle and before they experienced "unholy war." Private Harris wrote to Martha (Mattie) Love, his girl back home,
Inside you will find a sort of map of our position and neighboring places. I think it is near enough correct to give you some idea of things about us. On the Atlantic side is a fine beach of firm white sand, with a good many shells scattered over it, not many of which are very fine however. When the winter gales begin to blow many nice ones will wash up, and then I will make a collection. Mattie, I wish you could stroll along our beach, or wander among the delightful groves of the Island, you would enjoy it so.
If you would like to have some shells and other curiosities I can bring them to you when I go home, or send them to you if I do not go.
Mattie Love was a daughter of Peter Early Love and granddaughter of Amos Love. Her father, Peter Early Love, was a judge on the Southern Circuit; Judge Love was a former Solicitor General serving old Lowndes County, GA, and presided at the first session of the Superior Court held in Berrien County in 1856. He was elected as a U. S. Congressman and was among the southern representatives who walked out of Congress when Secession was declared. Her grandfather, Amos Love, was a shopkeeper in Dublin, GA, who, during the First Seminole War employed a clerk named Lott Warren, a future Judge on the Southern Circuit.
Harris' correspondence is part of a collection of Civil War letters of Robert Hamilton Harris, housed in the Digital Library of Georgia.
Harris' map shows the location of the camp of the 29th Georgia Regiment situated on the south end of Sapelo Island, on a bluff north of Lighthouse Creek. The position of the Sapelo Island Lighthouse and the lighthouse causeway are shown, as well as the position of Spalding [Sapelo] Battery and masked batteries near Dean Creek. Today, Sapelo Lighthouse is one of five remaining lighthouses in Georgia, and one of three open to the general public, advises Sherpa Guides.
Apparently represented but unlabeled on Harris' map are Little Sapelo Island, Queens Island, and Wolf Island. Little Sapelo Island lies to the west of Sapelo, separated by the marshes around Duplin Creek. Doboy Island/Commodore Island, Queens Island, and Wolf Island lie to the south of Sapelo Island, across Doboy Sound.
The relative locations of the neighboring creeks and islands are somewhat distorted. Harris' map identifies Dubois [Doboy] Island and Wolf Beacon. Wolf Beacon was a lighthouse at the northern end of Wolf Island. The Georgia Legislature had ceded jurisdiction of Wolf Island to the United States in 1819 for the purpose of building the 55-foot high beacon light to complement the lighthouse across Doboy Sound on Sapelo Island. The beacon was constructed by the U.S. Coast Guard along with a keeper's house and was in operation by summer 1822. Confederate forces eventually blew up the Wolf Beacon light to eliminate its navigational aid to the Union Navy.
Harris' map shows Captain Knight's Company, the Berrien Minute Men, stationed at a battery defending the south end of Blackbeard. True enough, but it appears Harris mistakenly labeled St. Catherines Island to the north as Blackbeard Island. His depiction of Sapelo Island is actually the combined Sapelo and Blackbeard islands. Harris' combined Sapelo/Blackbeard clearly shows the prominent Northeast Point on Blackbeard Island, but failed to indicate the belt of marsh and the narrow Blackbeard Creek which diagonally separates Blackbeard from Sapelo. Captain Knight's camp would have been at the inlet to Blackbeard Creek on the southernmost point of Blackbeard Island, on a dune and tree covered finger of land some 1400 yards wide lying between the seashore on the east and the creek on the west.
With their encampment established, the companies on Sapelo turned their attention to the organization of the regimental command. By the first of November the Regiment held elections for its officers.
About Robert Harris:
Robert Hamilton Harris (April 19, 1842-April 29, 1929) of Thomasville, Georgia, was the stepson of Rev. Robert Fleming. During the United States Civil War Harris served in Company A, 29th Regiment of the Georgia Infantry, reaching the rank of captain. For nearly twelve years after the Civil War, he studied and practiced law. During this period he served as Solicitor of the County Court in Thomas county, railroad attorney, and Mayor of Thomasville. Harris became an ordained minister in 1878. He served as a circuit preacher in rural southern Georgia and as a pastor of Baptist churches in Columbus and Cairo, Georgia, as well as Troy, Alabama. In 1900, he accepted a professorship at Cox Seminary in College Park, Georgia, where he remained until his retirement in the 1920s. On October 13, 1863, Robert Harris married Martha (Mattie) Love (March 5, 1845-December 28, 1900). Martha Love was the daughter of Peter Early Love (1818-1866) of Thomasville (Love served in the U.S. Congress, 1859-1861).


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Test before you run... (Part 1)
"Jarvis, sometimes you've to run before you can walk", said my favorite action super-hero last year. Unfortunately, the same is not true for most of us poor non-armored coders developing whatever software we've at hand. For us "whatever you don't test... will fail" holds true. Admittedly, the sentence lacks any glamour and it's more the murphy type of sentence than the super-heroe type.
Stress testing Plastic
No, I won't be talking about putting any kind of hardware about some kind of high physical pressure (as the folk after the first sentence in the article would be doing in his lab), but describing what we do to check how our version control system behaves under heavy load, and how we work to improve it's performance.
For the last month and a half I've been involved in stress testing Plastic SCM. We didn't only check how it behaves under heavy load, but also managed to increase its performance, making it up to 5 times faster under certain circumstances. We also used the test environment to benchmark against some well-known competitors.
The machines
How we did that? Well, first of all we needed a big number of machines. Ok, the meaning of big can probably vary depending on how wealthy your company is, but for us counting on about 100 test machines was enough.
We didn't have this amount of available machines at the office, so we contacted our local university, and we set up a collaboration to be able to use 100 boxes, all perfectly configured to start up remotely, with a very nicely set up network file system, and running Linux. The boxes belong to different labs, so they don't share the same specs (although each lab has the same configuration, they've different hardware on different labs), but they sum more than 750K bogomips together (I just hope Sarah Connor is not around :-P).
Then we set up a server, an Intel 64 bits QuadCore processor (not Itanium!) with 4GB RAM.
A test scenario
The goal of our load test is to simulate what would happen to a Plastic server when used concurrently by a high number of developers. So what each of the clients is going to do is to mimic the expected behavior of a developer:
- Create a branch
- Modify files
- Commit the changes to the branch
- Repeat
So the basic test follows the previous steps as depicted on the next figure:
Each of the client machines will run one of the tests described below, so we can emulate 100 concurrent users against the same server. In fact, we can run more than one of the tests on each machine, considerably increasing the number.
There's something important to note and it is the following: since there're will be no delays between each of the actions described, the bot client will be much faster than a real user. I mean, a real developer won't be able to create a branch, and make 50 changes in a few seconds, so with 100 machines we'll be actually simulating a much bigger load than what 100 human developers could ever achieve. In fact the load would better match what 10 times this number could accomplish.
PNUnit as distributed testing framework
Because we simulate Plastic users, we make extensive use of the cm command line tool included with the system. Each of the test steps above can be run with a cm command.
So one way to run the tests would be just gluing the previous commands with some scripting language and execute them remotely via ssh or something similar.
But then introducing things such as assertions and the like would be a little bit more complicated (well, you can always make use of the unit test facilities of some script-like language like ruby, but I'm not familiar enough with it so I stick to .NET).
Starting with NUnit 2.5 PNUnit, which stands for parallel nunit, is included with the framework, so writing these kind of tests is easier than ever. We wrote PNUnit back in January 2006 as the core of our internal testing system, in order to synchronize the launch of Plastic servers and clients on different machines and also being able to write test scenarios in C# as we were doing for regular unit tests. I wrote an article about it on DDJ long ago.
So, how would the previous sample look like when written in PNUnit?
Look at the following fully commented code listing for details:
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Threading;
using NUnit.Framework;
using PNUnit.Framework;
using Codice.Test;
namespace cmtest.BotTesting
public class DeveloperBot
public void Run()
CmdRunner.NoGetProcessTime = true;
new ExecuteTestDelegate(DoDeveloperBotSimplified));
private void DoDeveloperBotSimplified(
string testName,
string repservername,
string wkservername,
string wkbasepath)
string wkpath = null;
wkbasepath = Path.GetFullPath(wkbasepath);
string repname = PNUnitServices.Get().GetTestParams()[2];
long iterations = long.Parse(
// We tune whether we want to run
// parallel updates or not with the test name
// A param would be better :-(
bool bNoParallel = false;
if (testName.ToLower().StartsWith("nop"))
bNoParallel = true;
// cm mkwk already handled by our internal test
// library
wkpath = TestHelper.CreateWorkspace(
testName + "wk", wkservername, wkbasepath);
// and set slelector is also a
// common action to do
new SelectorTest(
new string[] {repname}),
wkpath, wkservername);
string paramparallel =
bNoParallel ? "--noparallel" : string.Empty;
// CmdRunner is our class to
// run commands
// initial wk update
"cm update . {0} --silent -wks={1}",
paramparallel, wkservername),
// Run the bot
long cycle = 0;
while( cycle++ < iterations )
// Use PNUnitServices WriteLine to
// access the output since it will be
// handled by the framework and no
// direct access to the Console is
// normally allowed
string.Format("{0} running cycle {1}",
testName, cycle));
// create a branch
string brName = string.Format(
"task-{0}-{1}", testName, cycle);
string brFullName = string.Format(
"br:/main/{0}", brName);
string.Format("cm mkbr {0} -wks={1}",
brFullName, wkservername),
int ini = Environment.TickCount;
// and switch to it
new SelectorTest(
new string[] {repname, brName}),
wkpath, wkservername);
"cm update . {0} --silent -wks={1}",
paramparallel, wkservername),
string.Format("Wk updated {0} ms",
Environment.TickCount - ini));
ArrayList files = new ArrayList();
ArrayList dirs = new ArrayList();
FillContent(wkpath, ref files, ref dirs);
files.Count > 0,
"Should find a non empty wk");
// number of files to modify
// at the beginning we used a
// random number to better emulate
// users, but now we stick to a
// fixed number to create repeatable
// tests when looking for performance
// boosts
int numFilesToModify = 10;
string.Format("Going to modify {0} files",
Hashtable filesgenerated = new Hashtable();
for( int i = 0; i < numFilesToModify; ++i )
int number = rnd.Next(0, files.Count -1);
while( filesgenerated.Contains(number) )
number = rnd.Next(0, files.Count -1);
filesgenerated.Add(number, number);
string file = files[number] as string;
long numChanges = 3;
for( int j = 1; j <= numChanges; ++j )
"cm co \"{0}\" -wks={1}",
file, wkservername),
"added by " + testName);
if( j < numChanges )
"cm ci \"{0}\" -wks={1}",
file, wkservername),
// find all the check outs and check them in
// in a "bigger" checkout
CheckInAllCOs(wkservername, wkpath);
// clean up the workspace
if( wkpath != null )
private void CheckInAllCOs(string wkservername, string wkpath)
string cmdres = CmdRunner.ExecuteCommandWithStringResult(
"cm findco --format={{4}} -wks={0}",
wkservername), wkpath);
ArrayList cos = TestHelper.GetListResults(cmdres);
string toci = string.Empty;
foreach( string co in cos )
toci = toci + " \"" + co + "\"";
string.Format("cm ci {0} -wks={1}",
toci, wkservername),
private void FillContent(
string basepath,
ref ArrayList files,
ref ArrayList dirs)
string[] localdirs = Directory.GetDirectories(basepath);
foreach( string dir in localdirs )
FillContent(dir, ref files, ref dirs);
What's next?
Well, there's still lots of work to do, we need to create a PNUnit XML file to tell the framework what to run and where, and I'll also be talking a little bit about our experience gathering results and debugging excessive memory use. So, stay tuned.


text:
At Long Last, I have an iPhone
The first thing I did was get instagram. You can follow me if you like, my username is Izznit.
1. The one and only Lily Buns
2. Nutella cookies
3. Portuguese egg tarts
4. I started knitting a case but my sister surprised me with Mr. Penguin yesterday. Definitely cuter.
If you have any app suggestions send them my way. I have Words with Friends already but just a heads up, my username isn't Izznit (someone took it).
For the curious knitters out there.
I got 3/4 finished before I frogged it all. I used the sandpiper cowl chart.
1. Teal yarn was underneath throughout. The grey receded too much in the top half. Frogged. 2. Teal yarn was underneath for first half, switched the grey to underneath second half. 3. Mr. Penguin was introduced to me at this point so I stopped and frogged. It was getting uglier by the round anyway.
March 14, 2012 11:35 am
Yayyaya! Welcome to the iphone universe! I'm already following you on Instagram, of course, but a few other apps I like are: Evernote, Hipstamatic, Diptic, Target (for coupons), Joann's (for coupons), Stitcher, Pandora, & Urbanspoon. Games I like are: Plants vs Zombies, Doodle Jump, Grimm, the Sims, Oregon Trail, Boggle & Bejeweled. Whew. Also if you find yourself being like "gee, I wish I could check my bank balance/groupons/imdb/workout", there's probably an app for it!
Also, if you do any selling at craft fairs, I use Square to accept credit cards and I love it. So convenient and reasonable fees.
March 14, 2012 2:10 pm
I swore up and down I'd NEVER get an iPhone, because I swore I didn't need all that fancy technology stuff. …now I swear the damn thing never leaves my hand! I've been sucked in! Welcome to the club 😉
March 16, 2012 7:42 pm
I follow your blog for some yime now and love all ur posts!!! 🙂
Cute penguin there 😛
The egg tarts are named "pastel de nata" in portuguese , and if u translate its some cream tart or so… Really hard to translate lol
Anyway if one day you fly to Lisbon dont forget to pass in the coffe "Pasteis de Belem" were there is the best ones of all country! Unfortunately I cant ibnvite you over as I live in Sweden atm 🙂


text:
Too many organizations are relying on IT departments to protect company information, particularly sensitive data that is shared electronically and must meet compliance regulations.
Issues surrounding document integrity have come to the fore in recent months with one high-profile case involving the Victorian Police.
The database breach led to Victoria Premier Steve Bracks declaring he was "sick and tired" of security breaches involving classified files.
IFocus consultant James Kaminski said organizations need to make their employees "information literate" by creating a culture of best practice for the entire life cycle of company information.
"Most employees are expected to create, use and manage information and make informed decisions," he said. "But a common mistake is for business units to rely on IT departments instead of building information literacy throughout the whole organization."
Kaminski said that successfully managing information requires a focus on two very different areas: technical tools and human behavior. He said there is too much reliance on the technical side when it comes to storing and managing structured data.
"Business rules and procedures provide governance for managing information, but it is the people's ability to understand and interpret those rules that often fails," he said.
However, software provider Workshare believes technology is the solution, because most document integrity policies are flawed as the onus is on people to make manual checks rather than using software to do it for them.
Workshare's Asia-Pacific general manager, Andrew Pearson, said information integrity is too important to be at the mercy of human error.
Last week, Workshare launched part one of a global campaign, entitled Five Steps to Document Integrity, to combat a phenomenon known as the "Inside-Out" threat.
This is the opposite of malicious external threats such as hacking or computer virus attacks, which most companies' security strategies are set up to combat.
Pearson said the inside-out threat is still not taken seriously in Australia.
"The inside-out threat is still not understood or taken seriously; many companies believe they have effective data governance policies and document integrity solutions. Frankly, many don't."


text:
Thermo-Tex Solar blankets will extend your Swimming season and save on water and chemical consumption by retaining heat in your pool. Cuts chemical use by as much as 50% and stops water lost to evaporation when not in use. Heavy Gauge Dome Technology rides high and flat in the water. Maintains and heats water by as much as 15° extending your pool season by as many as 6 weeks. 3-year manufacturer's warranty. Pays for itself in as little as one season.
- Model 2852424
- Reduces water lost to evaporation by as much as 60%
- Naturally heats and prolongs the effectiveness of chemicals
- Treated to be UV resistant
- Manufactured with patented Thermo-Tex technology which maximizes thermal absorption and heat retention


text:
'Southpaw' filming transforms Brentwood
Hollywood production plans to give back after wrapping shooting
Hollywood is settling into Brentwood and not only is it bringing excitement to the community, it's also helping with charitable contributions.
"I think it's awesome. It's bringing more publicity to the city of Pittsburgh. It's just killing the traffic on Brownsville Road," said resident Pat Dalvrny.
VIDEO: Watch Ashley Dougherty's report
But traffic may be the only downfall to having "Southpaw," starring Jake Gyllenhaal, filming in Brentwood.
Gyllenhaal's co-stars, Forest Whitaker and 50 Cent, are also in town. Professional boxer Victor Ortiz was even spotted outside his trailer looking over his lines.
The production has transformed street names and businesses, too. Carrick's Gym is now Wills Gym for the movie.
Not only is the production settling into the city and bringing a lot of attention, it's also giving back. After filming, the crews move out, but the equipment will stay.
"So the exchange is he is going to give me some of the equipment, and he donated a boxing ring and we are going to put up on the Centre Avenue at the old (YMCA) on the hill. There hasn't been a gym there in about 10 years, so I'm reopening the gym," said Jimmy Cvetic, executive director of the Western Pennsylvania Police Athletic League.
Mike Tyson will be making an appearance, as well as some delegates from "Southpaw," who will be there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony when the gym opens.
If you feel like you've missed your shot to take part in the movie, you're in luck. On Thursday and Friday, you can head to the Priory on the Northside. You have to be 18 or older to be an extra. Dress casual as it will be for a boxing match. All you have to do is email firstname.lastname@example.com and they will contact you back with all the information.


text:
Image from Mary Flanagan's [boarders]. Courtesy of the artist.
Rhizome New Silent Series event: The Kill Screen Dialogues
When are games more than games? When they are communicating with others?
Although videogames are bigger than ever, they are often perceived as cultural silos and not in conversation with other art forms or cultures. In conjunction with videogame arts and culture company Kill Screen, Rhizome invites you to an evening of conversations between game designers and new media artists. Divided into three mini-conversations, the talks will explore three areas: artificial intelligence, with Dave Mark and Mary Flanagan; the feeling of digital objects, with Tabor Robak and Katherine Isbister; and games as space, with Casey Reas and Andy Nealen.
Dec 16, 2011 7:00pm at the New Museum
$6 Rhizome Members, $8 General Public // Purchase tickets
Katherine Isbister is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment between the NYU Game Center and NYU-Poly's Computer Science Department. She is Research Director of the Game Innovation Lab at NYU-Poly, where she focuses on designing games that heighten social and emotional connections for players, toward innovating design theory and practice. Isbister's work has been featured in Wired, Scientific American, on NPR's Science Friday, as well as in many game development and scholarly venues.
Mary Flanagan is interested in subjectivity in digital media artifacts and in the ways in which play affects everyday life; she has made game-related artwork for over a decade. Her work has exhibited internationally at venues including the Laboral, The Whitney, SIGGRAPH, Beall Center, Postmasters, Steirischer Herbst, Ars Electronica, Artist's Space, The Guggenheim, Incheon Digital Arts Festival, and others. Flanagan's research with her game lab Tiltfactor.org has been deeply concerned with novel game design and her theories of "critical play" and "collaborative strategy" games. Her books in English include reload (2002), re:SKIN (2007), CriticalPlay (2009), and the forthcoming co-authored Values at Play in DigitalGames (2012) all with MIT Press.
Dave Mark is the President and Lead Designer of Intrinsic Algorithm, an independent game development studio and AI consulting company in Omaha, Nebraska. He is the author of the book "Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI" and is a contributor to the "AI Game Programming Wisdom"and "Game Programming Gems" book series from Charles River Media. Daveis also a founding member of the AI Game Programmers Guild and has spoken at numerous conferences including being a co-advisor for the previous AI Summits at GDC. He continues to further his education by attending the University of Life. He has no plans to graduate any time soon.
Andy Nealen is a faculty member in the department of computer science at Rutgers University, where he teaches computer graphics and game design. Some time ago, he studied architecture and structural engineering, and worked in those fields before turning his attention to the study and design of computer games and graphics. He has since obtained a phd in computer science, helped out with the award-winning game Osmos, published work at SIGGRAPH, and spoken at various game and graphics conferences.
Casey Reas lives and works in Los Angeles where he is a Professor at the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts. His software, prints, and installations have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, and Asia. With Ben Fry, he co-founded Processing, an open source programming language and environment for visual artists, in 2001.
Tabor Robak is an internet based artist whose work has been seen widely and internationally, recently at the New Museum and MoMA PS1 in New York. His work looks for meaningful relationships between humans and high technology through expressive use of commercial techniques. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York providing commercial services to global brands.


text:
Kurupt & 40 Glocc On Shade 45 "Im Not Feelin That Skinny Jean Sh*t, All The Female Jeans Are As Tight As Lil Wayne & T-Pain". Plus Freestyle [JenThePen.Com Exclusive]
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White or Red? Join LMC Foundation for "Wine on the River" This Weekend
This weekend, the Women of Hope, a women's giving circle that's part of the Lexington Medical Center Foundation, will host "Wine on the River," a wine tasting that benefits the hospital's Cancer Care Fund. Learn more in this segment from WLTX. For tickets, visit www.lmcfoundation.com.
WLTX Wine on the River 8 2013 from Lexington Medical Center on Vimeo.


text:
The last time we saw Tim Heidecker on a movie screen, he was cutting up with his comedy partner Eric Wareheim in the outrageous, intentionally offensive "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie."
What a difference context makes. Heidecker returns in "The Comedy," and while this movie also contains much that is outrageous, the tone and effect are entirely different. A noodling indie effort that cuts with a scalpel, "The Comedy" looks at a moral vacancy that lurks within the constant ironical joking that courses through both movies.
Wareheim is around in this movie, too, as part of a circle of guys who hang around, drink and one-up each other in deadpan absurdity. Some of which is funny, and some of which is revolting — but the eeriest thing is, as the movie underlines at a couple of points, how the guys apparently don't have anything to say to each other when they're not placing ironic tongue in cheek.
Heidecker plays the son of a wealthy Brooklyn man, and thus has enough money to pass his days wandering through the city or sitting on his sailboat in New York harbor. The father spends the movie in a coma, a situation that is just another excuse for the son to crack wise (or crack gross) at the man's bedside.
In a series of dazed scenes, Heidecker's pot-bellied put-on artist either casually insults his friends and strangers or inserts himself into real-life situations that he has no business in, like working as a gardener or dishwasher, or bullying a cab driver into letting him take the wheel for a while.
He never says as much, but some desperation courses through every scene in this movie, as though the character's practiced hipster pose has left him so stranded from human contact that he must bulldoze his way into a semblance of feeling. To outrage is to connect, except there's no actual connection made. Just the outrage.
Director Rick Alverson never pauses to explain his purpose, or even to locate us in a strictly chronological order for this saga. In a normal movie, there'd be a moment of self-awareness or change, but that's not going to happen here.
So "The Comedy" is a weird experience. I get the serious purpose; Alverson and Heidecker are exposing a certain super-cool attitude that has frozen the feelings of this group of hipsters. The movie's rampant unpleasantness makes this a difficult premise to sit through, even as it is a mark of the film's integrity.
"The Comedy" (2½ stars)
An aggressively unpleasant indie study of a rich thirtysomething hipster (Tim Heidecker) who wanders from one offensive situation to the next, perhaps in search of something that will trigger a semblance of feeling. The movie has a point, but it's so gross that it's a tough slog to sit through.
Rated: Not rated; probably R, for nudity, language, subject matter.
Showing: SIFF Film Center.
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text:
Life Thru a Lens
Lens 2-1 Troyes (13:08:11)
The second installment of a three-part French and Belgian European Football Weekend sees Danny Last taking over the baton from Andy Hudson....
There she blows - A headline that I've had jotted down in the EFW notebook for three years alongside a further scribble that reads: Get yourself to Racing Club de Lens quick sharp old chap; their fans are supposedly the best in France, worldly renown for showing a bit of la passion du foot.
That note was inked in during January of this year when I was sat on a coach travelling back from a Real Valladolid match watching the Dany Boon classic, Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome To The Sticks). The film reduced my wife, and a bus full of Spaniards, to tears of joy. It peaked my interest when the hero of the film, Philippe Abrams is taken to a match at Lens. That was all the excuse I needed. I dialed up Stuart Fuller and Andy Hudson; two lads whose chosen mission statement in life is 'We'll never say no to football again', and before you could say 'Up for The Cup' - we were booked up.
Actually, this game nearly didn't happen for us due to a late re-scheduling of the match for television - always a flatulent pain in the arse - but we rejigged a few hotel bookings, added a K.A.A. Gent here and sacked off a trip to Alemannia Aachen there - and Bob was pretty much our uncle after that.
Following a ye olde traditional 4am finish to the previous night in Amiens, Team EFW were a little fragile as we made our way to Lens. And it was hammering down with rain. But it takes more than that to get us in a mood when there's two games of football to be had, in one day, in two different countries. Hoot. Hell, not even France's most depressing service station, situated between Amiens and Lens on the A29, in which, one had to queue 25 minutes for a dry roll, and 30 more for the ladies toilets - which didn't best please Mr Fuller - could drag us down.
The Eiffel Tower, the vineyards of Bordeaux, the beach of Nice .... pffff .... pre-match in Lens is all about slags and a day on the piste. The most popular tourist attraction in town is a slag heap that's been turned into a dry ski slope. There were slag heaps as far as the naked eye could see, so bare that in mind if you're after a romantic place to take the wife away for the weekend. You can have that tip on me.
Of more immediate concern to me, as I was now standing in the clubs sizeable megastore, was remembering my French O-Level skills. I was on the lookout for a snazzy pair of RC Lens slippers, and my heart was obviously thumping through my chest with excitement. Thinking quickly, I piped up with "Où sont les Lens pantoufles, s'il vous plaît?" (where are the Lens slippers, if you please?). A beaming shop assistant pointed me in the right direction, next to the RC Lens alarm clocks, obviously, and I skipped out €10 lighter in the wallet department, and three inches wider in the cheesy grins dept. Best day of my life and all that ....
I'm going to look a right Bobby Dazzler slipping into these beauties. The best €10 I've spent for quite some time.
Outside the turnstiles we met up with our brothers from Royal Antwerp; Maarten, SuperHans and Pat. They'd already taken the trouble to procure our match tickets which, for €9 apiece, were pretty magnificent value don't you think? (Yes, I make you right on that - Ed.).
"Do you sell beer inside," we asked. "Yes, we do," came the reply. "Six beers please," we asked, inside. "We don't sell beer" came the reply. "Oh bother" we said. Anyway, moving on ...
Inside, the quite brilliant Stade Félix Bollaert was rocking. A chap with Lens trousers - damn, I'd missed those in all the slippers excitement - was swirling a large flag around on the pitch, and we paused only briefly to applaud the away fans, something I'd never seen before, and quite a nice touch - especially as I'd heard a mini bus full of them had been surrounded by the local casuals just prior to kick off. There wasn't any actual trouble though. We then stood for the national anthem, no really. And then it was time for the real fans to kick in ....
Note to self: Must purchase pair of Racing Club de Lens trousers
A round of applause for the travelling fans from Troyes, tick.
The ultras in the Tony Marek stand, which runs the length of the pitch on one side, where in full voice and colour - Sang and Or, obviously. They were relentless, and I immediately awarded a place in my coveted Top 5 of European football fans. Regular readers of EFW will know that when there are vociferous fans present, I struggle to watch any of the actual game preferring instead to cock an eye towards my new best friends bellowing out their anthems.
And what was all this? Works of art adding to the riot of colour? Yes sir. Giant canvases, the size of the proverbial bus, had been positioned inside the stadium. They looked like reproductions of famous masterpieces from The Louvre with an additional twist/theme in those famous clubs colours of blood and gold. Evidently, this was all part of the Louvre-Lens project which will see an extension of famous museum, in Paris built just behind the stadium - in Lens. Fairly do's. They looked great, actually.
Did you see any art galleries on your EFW? Yes sir. Only one of the best in town....
With a provisional playing budget of around €20m - compared to that of €8m for the opposition, ES Troyes - you'd have expected Lens to dominate. And that they (sort of) did. They edged a fairly nervy first half before springing into life following the introduction of substitute, David Pollet. He smacked the home side in front, and celebrated by running towards Team EFW in the Delacourt Stand. Pierre Ducasse added a second in very similar fashion, before Troyes pulled one back, almost immediately, through Benjamin Psaume. After two opening defeats, Lens were finally able to climb up the Ligue 2 ladder. Hmmm ... Ligue 2 ladders, like in Shoot! Do they exist? Must investigate.
In France, there is a €15,000 fine, up to a year in prison and a five year stadium ban for entering the field of play. That's harsher than inciting a 'Facebook riot' .... that didn't happen so, with that in mind, we skipped the traditional post-match on the pitch photo and jumped back in the car instead. During a lengthy discussion, we decided that Racing Club de Lens were the Leeds United of France; a slightly fallen giant with tremendous fans and splendid old school ground. With that debate concluded we went, ahem, marching on together towards Gent for our second game of the day. Good old life.
A few photos that I hope will capture some the magic of the Lens support.....
....if you haven't been to the Stade Félix Bollaert, then sign up for a visit now. These chaps make it well worth the effort.
There's lots more photos from this game both HERE and THERE.
You want more photos of the Lens Ultras? Here you go.
You want more photos of the Lens Ultras? Here you go.
Like this? The other best fans in France are at St Etienne. Here's the EFW report from our trip there.
Follow Andy Hudson and European Football Weekends and The Ball is Round on Twitter.
Next up .... tomorrow on EFW - K.A.A. Gent v Standard Liege