text:
Java 1A Practical Class
Table of Contents
The implementation of PatternLife you wrote last week is brittle in the sense that the program does not cope well when input data is malformed or missing. This week you will improve PatternLife using Java exceptions to handle erroneous or missing input data. In addition, you will learn how to read files from disk and from a website and use the retrieved data to initialise a Game of Life.
The recommended text book for this course is Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel. You can download a copy of the 3rd Edition for free from Bruce's website:
Remember to check the course website regularly for announcements and errata:
You will find the Java standard library documentation useful:
Try invoking your copy of PatternLife from last week as follows:
java -jar crsid-tick3.jar
java -jar crsid-tick3.jar "Glider:Richard Guy:20:20:1:"
java -jar crsid-tick3.jar "Glider:Richard Guy:twenty:20:1:1:010 001 111"
What does your program print out in each of the above cases? It's likely that in each case your implementation will print out a stack trace which describes an error in the program. Here is a typical stack trace from a student submission:
crsid@machine~> java -jar crsid-tick3.jar "Glider:Richard Guy:20:20:1:" Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 5 at uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick3.Pattern.<init>(Pattern.java:48) at uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick3.PatternLife.main(PatternLife.java:96)
In this case the input string
"Glider:Richard Guy:20:20:1:" provided on the command line to the program did not conform correctly to the specification described in Workbook 3. The stack trace explains where the error in the program occurred. The first line of the stack trace explains that an exception of the type
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException occurred when the sixth element of the array was accessed. The remaining lines provide a little history of program execution which led the computer to make the array access which generated the exception. In this case, program execution was taking place at line 48 of
Pattern.java when the error occurred; this location was reached because the method on line 48 of
Pattern.java was invoked by the constructor on line 96 of
PatternLife.java. The detail in the stack trace helps the programmer determine why the error occurred and provides clues on how to fix it.
The exception
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException is actually a class inside the package
java.lang. The
java.lang package is special in Java because, unlike classes in all other packages, the contents of this package are always available in a Java program. Consequently, you can write
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException instead of
Take a second look at each of the errors generated by your code with the three test cases mentioned at the start of this section. Can you determine which assumptions were made by your program which led to the error occurring? In some cases you can avoid generating errors by checking inputs carefully before using them; in other cases you will need to write additional code to catch the error and handle it. For example, you can probably avoid an exception of the type
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException by checking the
length field of the array before accessing particular elements of the array. In contrast, exceptions of the type
NumberFormatException need to be caught and handled appropriately.
If you need to handle an error, then you can do this by using a try-catch block. Consider the following example:
int width; try { width = Integer.parseInt("twenty"); //error: not an integer value } catch (NumberFormatException error) { //handle the error, perhaps by using a default: width = 10; }
The above code attempts to convert the Java string
"twenty" into a number, which fails since the contents of the string doesn't contain digits describing an integer literal. The static method
parseInt then throws an exception of type
NumberFormatException which is caught by the try-catch block. In the case above, the programmer has decided to hard-code the value of
width to
10. In some cases, using a default value like this is satisfactory. In the case of PatternLife, providing a default value for
width is not ideal because the programmer cannot know the size of the world the user wishes to simulate—this is why the format string provides the information in the first place!
In cases where no default value is sensible, the only option is to
throw an exception, as opposed to a normal return value, back to the calling method in the hope that this method might know what to do to handle the error. Ultimately, the programmer might not know what to do at any point in the program, in which case all the programmer can do is display an error message to the user. You will explore how to throw exceptions between methods after the next exercise.
In more complex cases, you may need to handle multiple types of exception separately. You can attach multiple
catch blocks to a single
try block as shown in the following example:
try { //code which may generate multiple types of exception } catch (TypeAException a) { //handle TypeAException here } catch (TypeBException b) { //handle TypeBException here }
The error handling you provided in the
Repeat class above works well for the small example at hand, but passing around strings containing messages for the user is cumbersome and messy. As you have already seen for
Integer.parseInt, Java provides a mechanism for passing exceptions (as opposed to return values) between methods. In Java terminology, we say that a method throws an exception. For example, the
Integer.parseInt method throws an exception of type
To throw an exception you use the keyword
throw. If the exception is thrown inside the body of a try-catch block, execution passes to the first line of the
catch body which catches an exception of the appropriate type. If the call to
throw is not contained within the body of a try-catch block, then the exception is propagated back to the method which invoked the current method, and so on recursively, until an enclosing try-catch block is found. If no try-catch block exists, then the java runtime halts the program and prints a stack trace, just as we saw earlier. Here is an example:
package uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4; class ExceptionTest { public static void main(String[] args) { System.out.print("C"); try { a(); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.print(e.getMessage()); } System.out.println("A"); } public static void a() throws Exception { System.out.print("S"); b(); System.out.print("J"); } public static void b() throws Exception { System.out.print("T"); if (1+2+3==6) throw new Exception("1"); System.out.print("V"); } }
In the above example you should have noticed that methods
a and
b have an extra phrase
throws Exception appended on the end of the method prototype. This phrase is required, and informs the programmer and the Java compiler that this method may throw an exception of type
Exception. If you forget to type
throws Exception, then you will get a compile error; you may like to temporarily delete the phrase from your copy of
ExceptionTest to see the compile error.
A new exception can be defined by creating a new class and declaring that it is of type
Exception. For example the following code snippet creates a new exception called
package uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4; public class PatternFormatException extends Exception { }
This code should be placed in a file called
PatternFormatException.java inside a suitable directory structure to match the package declaration, just as you would do for any other class in Java. You can place methods and fields inside
PatternFormatException, just as you would in other Java classes. The syntax "
extends Exception" indicates that
PatternFormatException is of type
Exception. This is an example of inheritance in Java; you will learn more about inheritance in Workbook 5. In this workbook we will limit use of inheritance to the creation of new types of exception as shown above.
As you saw in the example above, if you throw a
PatternFormatException inside a method body and do not enclose the use of
throw inside a try-catch block, you should append "
throws PatternFormatException" on to the end of the method prototype. A method can throw more than one type of exception, in which case the method prototype should include a comma separated list of exceptions, such as "
throws PatternFormatException, NumberFormatException".
Java actually supports two types of exception: checked exceptions and unchecked exceptions, and some of the common exceptions in Java, such as
NumberFormatException, are unchecked exceptions. A piece of code which may potentially throw a checked exception must either catch it in a try-catch block or declare that the method body may throw the exception; an unchecked exception does not need to be caught or declared thrown. When defining your own exceptions it is generally good programming practise to use checked exceptions (by inheriting from
Exception as shown earlier), and you should do so in all cases in this course.
In the rest of this Workbook you will improve the facilities used to load patterns in your implementation of Conway's Game of Life so that, by the end of this workbook, your program will be able to load patterns from files in the filesystem, or download them from websites. To do this we are going to investigate the Input-Output (IO) facilities available in the Java standard library. Handling input and output is a common source of errors in most programming languages because lots of things can go wrong: files might not exist, the contents of the file may be corrupt, or the network connection may disappear whilst data is being retrieved. Good IO programming requires careful checking of error conditions.
The Java IO standard library has two main methods of accessing data: Streams and Readers. Both of these mechanisms use exceptions to communicate erroneous states to the programmer using the library. A Stream is used for reading and writing sequences of binary data—examples might be images or Java class files. A Reader is used for reading and writing sequences of characters—such as text files, or in case the case of this workbook, strings which specify the state of the world in the Game of Life. In principle, sequences of characters can be read using a Stream, however character data can be saved in a variety of different formats which the programmer would then have to interpret and decode. In contrast, a Reader presents the same interface to character data regardless of the underlying format.
Start a web browser and take a look at Sun's documentation for the
Reader class, paying particular attention to the methods defined for reading characters. For example, the method prototype
int read(char[] cbuf) describes a method which reads data into a
char array and may throw an
IOException if an error occurs during the reading process; the return value indicates the number of characters read or -1 if no more data is available. You may have noticed that the
Reader class is an abstract class; the details of what an abstract class is and how to use it will be described in Workbook 5. This week it is sufficient to appreciate that an abstract class provides a specification which describes how a specific implementation of a "
Reader" must behave. For example,
FileReader provides a concrete implementation of
Reader, and is able to read data from files in the filesystem.
Now is an appropriate point to explore how
System.out.println works. The
System class is part of the package
java.lang and is therefore available by default. If you look for the class
System in Sun's documentation, you see that it has a public static field called
out of type
PrintStream.[1] If you view the documentation for
PrintStream you will see that the field
out supports a variety of method calls including the now familiar
println method. For completeness, the interested reader might like to explore what
System.err and
System.in do too.
Your final task this week is to write a new class called
PatternLoader, which is capable of loading patterns from the disk or downloading them from a website. Create a new class with the following contents, making sure you give the class the correct filename and you place it in an appropriate directory structure:
package uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4; import java.io.Reader; import java.io.IOException; import java.util.List; public class PatternLoader { public static List<Pattern> load(Reader r) throws IOException { //TODO: Complete the implementation of this method. } }
This class introduces a number of new concepts which require further explanation. You should read the rest of this section of the workbook before completing your implementation of
In your implementation of
PatternLoader you will need to make use of some classes in the standard library such as
Reader which you looked up in the documentation earlier. To save you from typing
java.io.Reader at every point in the program when you want to refer to the
Reader class, the code above makes use of the
import statement. The statement "
import java.io.Reader;" tells the compiler that all occurrences of
Reader in the source file actually refer to
java.io.Reader. Using the
import statement will save you some typing, make your code more readable, and provide you with an explicit list of dependencies for the program at the top of the source file.
There is nothing special about classes defined in the standard library. For example, including
import uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick1.TestBit;
at the top of a Java source file would allow you to write
TestBit to refer to your implementation of
uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick1.TestBit you wrote for Tick 1.
You may recall from last week that a
static method is associated with a class rather than an instance of a class. Therefore you can make use of
PatternLoader just as you used
PackedLong in previous weeks—as a library of useful methods which you can call without first creating an instance of class
PatternLoader. For example, to call the
load method from another class, you simply write
PatternLoader.load followed by a reference to a
Reader object inside round brackets.
load method takes a single argument of type
Reader. When the load method is invoked, a specific kind of
Reader will be provided (for example, a
FileReader). By specifying the type of the argument to
load as
Reader the method is agnostic to the actual type of
Reader provided: the implementation of
load does not need to consider where the data is coming from—it can simply read characters using the support provided by the particular instance of
Reader provided by the calling method.
The return type of the
load method is
List<Pattern>. A
List is another class from the Java standard library. A
List records an ordered sequence of items and the main difference between a
List and a Java array is that a list can change its size dynamically: the programmer can add or delete items to it without stating how large it should be in advance. The phrase "
<Pattern>" is an example of something called Java generics, the details of which are beyond the scope of this course.
This year, all you need to know is how to use classes which use Java generics. As you've seen already, all you need to do is provide the class you want to use inside the angle brackets (
< and
>). For example,
List<Pattern> is a
List which stores elements of type
Pattern; you will learn more about Java generics next year.
The phrase "
throws IOException" states that the
load method may throw an exception of type
IOException. The
IOException class is defined as part of the Java standard library and is used to communicate that something unexpected happened whilst data was read or written. For example, if the network connection to the computer breaks whilst a Java program is downloading content from a website, then the
Reader object may throw an
To complete
PatternLoader you will need to implement the method
load, which should read all the data available from the
Reader object reference
r, and create a
List<Pattern> object. The type of the return value provides a strong hint that your implementation of the
load method may well find several pattern strings available in the input. Therefore some method of separating patterns in the input stream is required.
A common technique for separating text data in Unix-like systems such as Linux is to look for "new line" characters, which in Java are written using the character literal
'\n' and appear as new lines when printed. In contrast, Windows usually uses separate characters for "new line" (
'\n') and "carriage return" (
'\r') and therefore it's also common to see the two character string
"\r\n" as a line separator. You might like to try writing a simple test program which executes:
System.out.println("A sentence on one line.\nThis is on a second line.");
and examine the output. This course will use a Unix-style line separator to place multiple patterns into a single file.
The methods provided by
Reader do not provide a mechanism for dividing the input based on the presence of new line characters. This is because the
Reader class provides low-level access to character data. The functionality to split on new lines is provided by
BufferedReader; this functionality is possible with
BufferedReader because the class caches data read internally, allowing the class to search for new line characters in its cache. If you check the documentation for
BufferedReader you will see it provides a
readLine method which will read a line from the underlying reader and return a reference to a
String object containing the data, or alternatively return
null if there are no more lines to be read. The method
readLine will function correctly regardless of whether Unix- or Windows-style line separators are used. You can create a reference to a
BufferedReader object by passing an instance of the
Reader object in as an argument to the constructor:
BufferedReader buff = new BufferedReader(r);
To complete your implementation of
load you will also need to create an instance of
List to save Patterns as you load them:
List<Pattern> resultList = new LinkedList<Pattern>();
Just as we saw earlier with the
Reader class, the
List class may have multiple implementations; in the case above, we use the
LinkedList implementation. Given an instance of type
List you can then add objects of the correct type as follows:
Pattern p = .... resultList.add(p);
You can determine the current number of elements stored in a
List object by using the
size method, and retrieve elements using the
get method; Sun's documentation contains further detail which you will need to review. There is also a special for-loop syntax for Java Collection objects such as
List which allows you to iterate though all the elements in the list:
for(Pattern p: resultList) { //p references each element of "resultList" in order so that first time //round the loop, p references the first element, second time round the //second element, and so on. The loop terminates when "resultList" has //no more elements. }
Now add the following two methods to your implementation of
public static List<Pattern> loadFromURL(String url) throws IOException { URL destination = new URL(url); URLConnection conn = destination.openConnection(); return load(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream())); } public static List<Pattern> loadFromDisk(String filename) throws IOException { return load(new FileReader(filename)); }
These two methods use your
load method to load patterns from either a file on disk or a website. They do this by constructing a suitable
Reader object and passing a reference to it to your method. Since your method is agnostic to the type of
Reader provided, your implementation of
load will function with data from either disk or from the web. You will need to add
import statements to describe the location of the extra classes used inside the method bodies of
loadFromURL and
loadFromDisk; you can find the full names for the classes by looking them up in the Java documentation.
Copy your implementation of
PatternLife which you wrote earlier in this workbook, rename it
LoaderLife and put it inside the package
uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4. You should modify
LoaderLife so that an invocation of
LoaderLife with a single argument will print out the details of all the valid patterns found in a file or on a website. Each valid pattern should be prefixed by the index number of the pattern in the source file or webpage, starting at zero. For example, if the filename
MyPatterns.txt is provided as the single argument, and the file
MyPatterns.txt contains a single pattern describing a Glider, then your program should output:
crsid@machine:~> java uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4.LoaderLife MyPatterns.txt 0) Glider:Richard Guy (1970):20:20:1:1:010 001 111 crsid@machine:~>
Similarly, if your program receives a valid URL as a single argument on the command line then your program should load data from the URL and display any valid patterns found. For example,
crsid@machine:~> java uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4.LoaderLife \ http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/current/ProgJava/life.txt 0) Glider:Richard Guy (1970):8:8:1:1:010 001 111 1) [additional patterns should be listed here] 2) ... crsid@machine:~>
The URL used in the example above contains many interesting worlds which you might like to view. You may also like to load entries provided by students who have completed Tick 3*, which are available from:
To complete this part of the Tick successfully, you will need some method of determining whether the string provided on the command line is a filename or a URL. You might like to use the
startsWith method of the
String class to determine whether the string starts with "
http://" or not.
If your implementation of
LoaderLife is invoked with two arguments on the command line, your program should should treat the first argument as a pattern source as above, and the second as the pattern index to initialize a world with, and display successive generations of the world to the user as you have done in previous weeks. For example, the following invocation of
crsid@machine:~> java uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4.LoaderLife \ http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/current/ProgJava/life.txt 0 - ________ ___#____ _#_#____ __##____ ________ ________ ________ ________
displays successive generations of a Glider just as
PatternLife did last week.
Important: your program should handle all exceptions gracefully by printing an error message to the user describing what has gone wrong and exiting cleanly. You will find it useful to pipe (
|) the output of your Java program into the command line program
less to view long lists of patterns such as those downloadable from the course website; if you do so q can be used to quit the program
less once you have located the index of a pattern you would like to view. In other words, you can type:
crsid@machine:~> java uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4.LoaderLife \ http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/current/ProgJava/life.txt | less
Once you believe you have completed all the exercises in this workbook successfully, you should produce a jar file called
crsid-tick4.jar with the following contents:
META-INF META-INF/MANIFEST.MF uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/Repeat.java uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/Repeat.class uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/ExceptionTest.java uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/ExceptionTest.class uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/Pattern.java uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/Pattern.class uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/PatternLife.java uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/PatternLife.class uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/PatternLoader.java uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/PatternLoader.class uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/PatternFormatException.java uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/PatternFormatException.class uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/LoaderLife.java uk/ac/cam/your-crsid/tick4/LoaderLife.class
You should set the entry point of the jar file to
uk.ac.cam.your-crsid.tick4.LoaderLife so you can execute your implementation of
LoaderLife without explicitly specifying a class to execute. To submit your work, email your jar file to
[1] The astute reader will have noticed that we stated earlier that a
Reader should be used for character data and the type of
System.out is
PrintStream! This is because
Reader was not introduced into Java until version 1.1.


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PRAGUE, Czech Republic—The Czech National Women's Ice Hockey Team announced that Brown sophomore Alena Polenska has been named captain for its Olympic Development Team.
Polenska, is native of Kutna Hora, Czech Republic and will begin her sophomore year at Brown this fall. She was the Bears' second leading scorer a year ago with 10 points (5 goals, 5 assists).
"We are breaking with tradition in naming our captain so soon, but we feel that team building will be a big part of our success and we are dependent upon Alena's leadership from the onset," said National Team coach, Karel Manhart.
Polenska has been one of the most significant players in Czech women's hockey. At the 2008 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) U18 World Championships, she was team MVP of the bronze medal-winning Czech team.
"This are critical time in Czech women's hockey and what we do over the next year will have a long-term impact on the future of the game," said national team asst. coach, James Craig. "We are at a cross-road and there are few Czech players, male or female, who command the level of respect that Alena Polenska does. There is a lot of responsibility that will go with this appointment and we certain that Alena is the woman our country can depend on."
The Czech team missed qualifying for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games by a single goal in a game against China. The Czech Olympic Development Team was created to focus resources on qualification for the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
The Czech National Team coaching staff has indicated that the roster of primary and alternate players for the Olympic Development Team will be finalized and named in early November. Team staff further indicated that that in all likelihood alternate captains would not be named until just prior to competitions and the team may use a series of alternates to test the leadership abilities of various team members.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
FSF gcc for cross-target development. This port brings C, C++ and
Objective C compilers with all target libraries (libstdc++, libsupc++,
libobjc, libssp, libgcc). Gloss and libc layer are provided through
newlib embedded C library.
It can be used to cross-compile operating system kernels (e.g. Linux, L4, etc)
for this architecture.
Use TGTARCH switch to select target architecture, and TGTABI to select ABI.
E.g. the following command will build toolchain for rtems on sparc:
% make TGTARCH=sparc TGTABI=rtems
If you encounter any problems building/using/installing this port, please
make me know. It would help to improve this port in feature.
WWW: http://gcc.gnu.org/
No installation instructions: this port has been deleted.
The package name of this deleted port was: sparc-rtems-gcc
PKGNAME: sparc-rtems-gcc
distinfo: There is no distinfo for this port.
NOTE: FreshPorts displays only information on required and default dependencies. Optional dependencies are not covered.
===> The following configuration options are available for sparc-rtems-gcc-4.5.4:
CXX=on: C++ support
FORTRAN=off: Fortran support
OBJC=on: Objective C support
RTEMS_PATCHES=on: Apply RTEMS patches
===> Use 'make config' to modify these settings
Number of commits found: 11
Remove expired ports:
2013-03-05 mail/p5-vpopmail: Broken for more than 6 month
2013-06-01 mail/vodmr: depends on expired mail/p5-vpopmail
2013-06-03 audio/ventrilo-server: No more public distfiles
2013-06-03 devel/libzrtp: No more public distfiles
2013-05-30 mail/postfix26: No longer supported by upstream
2013-06-01 devel/i386-rtems-gcc: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/mips-rtems-gcc: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/arm-rtems-gcc: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/sh-rtems-gcc: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/powerpc-rtems-gcc: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/sparc-rtems-gcc: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/mips-rtems-binutils: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/i386-rtems-binutils: many issues; see
2013-06-01 devel/sh-rtems-binutils: many issues; see
Deprecate and mark BROKEN the rtems ports.
There are many issues with the ports and these will require a dedicated
maintainer to fix them.
Reviewed by: swills, email@example.com
- Return my ports back to the pool. I was unable to make any fixes to
my ports in the past 3 weeks while ports were broken on any 10.x
machines, which means I'm unable to maintain them. So let people know
that there's no available support for them until things are back to
normal (which also means that anyone with spare time will be able
to fix them without getting approval).
- Fix index breakage [1]
- Fix expiration date.
Noticed by: erwin [1]
- Update the rtems ports collection. Now these ports will be slaves of
more generic cross-* ports, that will simplify updating and bug fixes.
* Update binutils to 2.17
* Update gcc to 4.2.0
* Update gdb to 6.6
- Deprecate ports for i960 architecture abandoned by mainstream
- Deprecate *-g77 and *-objc ports, support for these languages can
be enabled via OPTIONS in relative *-gcc ports.
- Take maintainership.
Approved by: ade (maintainer)
Since there are a number of issues associated with the *-rtems-* ports
as a result of the new gettext, and given the jeh@ is currently on
sabbatical, with these ports (amongst others) being reset to ports@,
temporarily take over maintainership to cut through a little red tape
to get things back in order.
Reset firstname.lastname@example.com, who is away from FreeBSD work for a while.
Hat: portmgr
Fix the usage of MASTERDIR in both the slave and master port as mentioned
in PR: 59254
Add MACHINE_ARCH to MAKE_ENV to try and stop stupid breakage on 5.x
bento builds caused by it forcing it's maching arch onto the ports.
No PORTREVISION bump required, they don't build now.
Change MAINTAINERship to my committers address.
C/C++, CHILL, F77, JAVA, OBJC, binutils, and gdb from the RTEMS RTOS for the
i386, i960, m68k, mips64orion, powerpc, sh, and sparc processors.
Servers and bandwidth provided byNew York Internet, SuperNews, and RootBSD
15 vulnerabilities affecting 141 ports have been reported in the past 14 days
* - modified, not new
All vulnerabilities
Last updated:2018-11-20 19:28:17


text:
Minnesota's Voyageurs Park Trails Close for Season
IINTERNATIONAL FALLS (AP) — Here's a sign of hope for Minnesotans tired of winter. All trails in Voyageurs National Park in far northern Minnesota have closed for the season because of warm weather.
Park officials said Tuesday that trails have deteriorated into poor condition. All snowmobile trails, ski trails and snowshoe trails in the park are now closed.
The park staff is removing snowmobile trail markers and thin ice signs. No travel is recommended on lake surfaces because of worsening ice conditions and patches of open water.
This is Voyageurs' last trail report of the season.


text:
Fourth-tier English club Bradford defies odds with remarkable run to League Cup final
LONDON – At a time when financial disparity is soccer is widening and racism has blighted the game, England is reveling in a heart-warming story of one underdog's remarkable run.
Bradford has twice fought for its survival in the last decade and plummeted into the fourth division. It is known most by many people for a 1985 fire in its Valley Parade stadium that caused the deaths of 56 people.
Now it will play against Swansea in the League Cup final on Feb. 24 in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley and tens of millions more watching globally on television.
It's the first time in 51 years that a team from the lowest professional league has reached a major English final.


text:
With sales exceeding $18 million in 2011 Bonhams is the global market leader in South African Art. We hold the world records for all the major South African artists with the highlight being the $5 million sale of Irma Stern's "Arab Priest".
As proved by the successful auctions, this field is no longer of purely domestic interest. Modern South African Art has been propelled into the front lines of the global art market and is still producing exceptional prices.
Of particular interest are works by 20th century artists including Irma Stern, Jacob Hendrik Pierneef, Gerard Sekoto, Alexis Preller, Maud Sumner, William Kentridge and Maggie Laubser among many others.
To arrange a free and confidential auction valuation or for further advice on buying or selling at auction, please contact the department.


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Enjoy the original on your fancy machine of the future
Starting today, developer Zojoi and its publisher Reverb Triple XP will be updating the re-imagined point-and-click adventure title Shadowgate to include the 128K Mac and Apple IIGS versions of the game, free of charge. If that's not enough radical retro-awesomeness for you, they're also throwing in the hard-boiled detective adventure Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True for good measure.
While probably not a huge incentive for new players to pick up the latest version of the game, it's a great little freebie for existing owners. Unfortunately, I had to miss out on these classics when they were originally released, so I'll spend a good part of today tinkering with these and basking in all that glorious '80s techno-nostalgia.
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Virginia Tech's Erick Green has led the nation in scoring for about a month, and retaining that stature would be notable on several levels. But there's another Green statistic that worries Hokies coach James Johnson.
Green leads the ACC in minutes played at 36.4 per game. In conference games, he's at 38.4 after logging 43 of a possible 45 in Saturday's overtime loss at North Carolina.
"I sense a little bit of fatigue, some wear-down in him," Johnson said Monday when I asked about Green during the ACC's weekly media call. "He's seeing a lot of different defenses, and he's seeing a lot of big strong bodies now as we go through the course of this ACC season.
"You're looking at guys that are 6-5, 205 pounds that are guarding him now, and they're sending 6-9, 240 at him, trapping him in ball screens and bumping him. In the whole game played on Saturday, he played 43 minutes of that. That's a lot."
Green stands 6-3 and began the season at 185 pounds. Most stressful, he is the only reliable weapon on a team that appears destined for a losing season after a 7-0 start that included a victory over then-No. 15 Oklahoma State.
The overtime setback at North Carolina -- Green scored 14 points and missed 14 of his 21 shots -- was the Hokies' fourth straight and eighth in the last 10 games. They are 11-10, 2-6 in the ACC, entering Thursday's home date with Maryland.
About 38 hours later, they'll encounter Georgia Tech at 1 p.m., Saturday.
The Terps and Yellow Jackets are bigger and stronger than the Hokies and have plenty of bodies to throw at Green, who scored 28 points each against Maryland (loss) and Georgia Tech (overtime win) last month.
"Mentally, I think he's handling it and being positive about it," Johnson said, "but … sometimes your legs just don't have it, and I think that he wore down a little bit on Saturday."
Green has always struck me as an unlikely national scoring champion.
Not because I don't respect his shooting touch, creativity and baseline-to-baseline speed. Nothing could be further from the truth. He's a gem to watch and can score in myriad ways.
But historically, the rigors of major conference defenses exact their toll. The most recent player from a so-called BCS league to lead Division I in scoring was Purdue's Glenn Robinson in 1994. The only ACC player to do so was South Carolina's Grady Wallace in 1957.
This season, Green and Providence guard Bryce Cotton the only major conference players among the nation's top 10 – Cotton is sixth. The remainder of the top 10: Creighton's Doug McDermott, Iona's Lamont Jones, Oakland's Travis Bader, Central Connecticut State's Kyle Vinales, Florida Atlantic's Greg Gantt, Murray State's Isaiah Canaan, South Dakota State's Nate Wolters and Brigham Young's Tyler Haws.
Green averages 25.0 points. McDermott, a 6-7 forward and Green's nearest challenger, averages 24.0 for the 16th-ranked Bluejays. McDermott is shooting 56.5 percent, Green 48.9.
The ACC's 18-game conference season reaches the halfway mark for most teams this week, but already some are speculating whether Green can become only the league's second Player of the Year from a team that finishes in the bottom half of the standings. Len Bias of sixth-place Maryland won the honor in 1986.
Candidates from the conference's best teams include Duke's Mason Plumlee and North Carolina State's Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie. Miami is 8-0 in the league, but good luck distinguishing among Kenny Kadji, Durand Scott and Shane Larkin, the leaders of the Hurricanes' balanced lineup.
Veteran ACC reporter Al Featherston asked several coaches Monday about Green's Player of the Year viability.
"I know you've got to wait until the ACC season is complete and see how teams fare, his continued impact on it," Virginia's Tony Bennett said. "But his ability and his impact on the game (are) certainly worthy of that consideration."
Green scored 35 points in Tech's 74-58 loss to Virginia. Saturday at North Carolina he managed only 14 on 7-of-21 shooting, but Tar Heels coach Roy Williams still considers him a PoY candidate.
"When I was at Kansas (in 1991) we had Rex Walters that I thought was the best player in the (Big Eight) conference, and we won the regular season," Williams said, "but Shaun Vandiver was Player of the Year. He led the conference in scoring and rebounding for Colorado, and they were in the second half of the league. …
"Most of the time I think the player of the year in the league should come from one of those (teams) that's first or second in the league. But in saying that, Erick's statistics are up there so high, you have to -- to use your words -- he has to be in the mix. When you're a guard leading the nation in scoring and shooting right at 50 percent, I think he was one shot below 50 percent coming into our game, I mean, that's a phenomenal year that he's having. …
"I think winning is the most important. But boy, he's having such a phenomenal year you can't leave him out."
No you can't. What Green's coach wonders is whether he can sustain the pace, absorb the pounding and carry Virginia Tech for another seven weeks.
I can be reached at 247-4636 or by e-mail at email@example.com. Follow me at twitter.com/DavidTeelatDP
Here's a link to my Daily Press print columns.


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News & Events
University Band of Concordia-Chicago presents Fall Family Concert9/13/2016
Concordia University Chicago's University Band will perform its annual Fall Family Concert on Friday, Sept. 23. Admission is free, and the concert begins at 8 p.m. in the University's Werner Auditorium.
Concordia-Chicago receives National Science Foundation grant to increase diversity in STEM programs8/30/2016
The National Science Foundation has awarded $117,516 to Concordia University Chicago as part of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, which assists universities and colleges in increasing the numbers of students in high-quality degree programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in order to diversify the STEM workforce.
Artists partner with traditional weavers for traveling exhibit at Concordia-Chicago8/9/2016
The Ferguson Art Gallery at Concordia University Chicago presents "Chuee–Taxua," a cultural exchange project exhibiting the collaborative work of indigenous weavers from Mexico and visual artists from around the world. The show, which runs from Aug. 15 to Sept. 25, is free and open to the public.
Concordia University Chicago announces groundbreaking for new residence hall8/5/2016
Concordia University Chicago will host a groundbreaking ceremony and building rededication on Friday, August 26. The event will begin at 10:50 a.m. on campus and will feature a celebration including prayers, signage unveiling and a CUC student choir and brass band. The free event is open to the public.
Concordia-Chicago Patriotic Pops Concert to feature outstanding local middle school musicians6/10/2016
The University Band of Concordia-Chicago will perform its annual Patriotic Pops Concert on June 25 on the university campus, celebrating community and country with timeless music while honoring service men and women.
Concordia-Chicago Center for Literacy's Reading Club builds critical learning skills for children 7 to 176/8/2016
The Center for Literacy at Concordia University Chicago is again offering a summer session of Reading Club, beginning June 15. By bringing together curious children of various ages and gifted graduate students with a passion for teaching kids, Concordia-Chicago's Center for Language and Literacy is helping young learners succeed.
Summer Writing Institute to launch innovative writing program for middle- and secondary-school teachers, students6/7/2016
Concordia University Chicago's Center for Language and Literacy will host a summer writing institute from June 10 to 17. The program is open to students desiring to sharpen their writing skills, and to area educators who want to develop advanced-level classroom strategies for teaching writing.
International Alzheimer's expert June Andrews to speak at Concordia University Chicago6/6/2016
Concordia University Chicago's Center for Gerontology will host a lecture by June Andrews, Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom Stirling University, Scotland. The event will be held on Tuesday, June 28, at 2 p.m., in Christopher Center, Room 200 on the University's main campus in River Forest, IL. The event is presented in cooperation with the Illinois Saint Andrew Society/CHICAGO SCOTS and the Alzheimer's Association - Greater Illinois Chapter.
Cougars Beat the Heat, Knock Off the Norse in Second Game of Regionals5/20/2016
Once again this evening, the Concordia-Chicago Cougars showed everyone how they are capable of turning up the offensive pressure in a hurry. Trailing 3-2 halfway through tonight's game in the NCAA III Midwest Regionals in LaCrosse, WI, the Cougars erupted with 14 runs over the final four innings to defeat the Norse of Luther College by a 16-3 score.
Concordia-Chicago to offer free S.T.E.M. Robotics Camp5/10/2016
Concordia University Chicago's (CUC) computer science department is again offering a free S.T.E.M. Robotics Camp this summer. The camp will take place August 1 through 5, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Enrollment preference will be given to students attending the following high schools: Elmwood Park, Guerin Prep, Leyden District 212, Luther North, Oak Park and River Forest, Proviso Math and Science Academy, Ridgewood, and Walther Christian Academy.


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She earns more than he does?
Chances are you have heard these words, perhaps delivered in a whisper, with a hint of a derogatory tone. Yet perhaps in time the attitude that accompanies this question will change as more American households identify the woman as the main breadwinner.
Regina O'Neill, professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Sawyer Business School, and colleagues from Simmons College recently explored the impact female breadwinner/caretaking roles have had on women's lives and careers.
An online survey of 651 mid-to-senior-level businesswomen showed that 59 percent were the primary financial contributors to household income.
Women in committed relationships involving cohabitation or marriage responded to questions in the context of their role as financial provider. Their responses were eye-opening:
- Women are proud of their breadwinner status but often keep it hidden.
- Women who take on breadwinning still retain primary child care and homemaker roles.
- Women are not slowing down their careers, but there are still fewer women than men at the top.
When asked about their roles in child and home care, 29 percent said that they did all or significantly more than their partners. Fifty-one percent said they contributed more than or equal to their partner. Yet when asked how they felt about juggling both breadwinner and caretaker roles, most of the women were proud, satisfied and slightly overwhelmed.
There is no boasting about being the primary wage earner, the survey showed. Family and friends may know that "she brings home the bacon"; however, co-workers and employers in general are not aware of this. The women say "it is not anyone's business to know."
Seventeen percent of the respondents had risen to vice president or higher in their organizations.
"There is a large disparity between the number of female breadwinners and the number of female executives," said O'Neill. "We need to close this gap."
What's next?
O'Neill believes that as breadwinner roles become more common for women expectations about the roles women and men play at work and at home will continue to evolve.
"This research takes a step forward in understanding ways that employers can support this changing model and can provide organizational support for their employees," she said.
Those surveyed responded positively to various flexible work concepts, such as working from home, using technology to minimize travel time and longer maternity leaves.
About the study
The survey was the result of a collaboration among O'Neill and Mary Shapiro, professor of Practice and Center for Gender in Organizations affiliate at the Simmons School of Management; Stacy Blake-Beard, professor of Management and Center for Gender in Organizations affiliate at the Simmons School of Management, Suzanne Carter, CEO of SMC Advisors; Cynthia Ingols, senior lecturer and Center for Gender in Organizations affiliate at the Simmons School of Management; Alicia Margoles Bartolozzi, account executive at Merck & Company; and Mary E. Ogle, vice president of NTE Global Strategic Marketing at Teva Pharmaceuticals. The group developed the online survey in collaboration with Hewlett Packard


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I used asparagus in this version, but you can use any of your favorite in-season vegetables. This time of year peas, asparagus, and carrots all make great additions to the noodles and peanut sauce.
1 8 ounce package soba noodles
1 bunch asparagus spears, ends trimmed then cut into 1/2-inch segments
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup (brown) rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
drizzle of toasted sesame oil
big pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
1/4-1/2 cup hot water
1 small bunch of spring onions or scallions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup peanuts
12 ounces extra-firm (organic) tofu, cut into small cubes (feel free to heat the tofu in a skillet if you like, but cold is good too)
herb flowers, optional
Big a large pot of water to a boil. Boil the soba noodles per package instructions.In the last minute or so of cooking toss in the asparagus. Drain noodles and asparagus, run under cold water for about a minute to stop cooking, and set aside.
Make the peanut dressing by combining the peanut butter, rice vinegar, garlic, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and a big pinch of salt in a medium bowl. Thin with hot water - the amount you'll need depends on the original consistency of your peanut butter. I like it the consistency of a thin (non-Greek) yogurt. Taste and season with a bit more salt if needed.
Gently toss the noodles, asparagus, spring onions, peanuts, and tofu with a big splash of the dressing. I reserve a bit of each ingredient to sprinkle on top of the serving platter to make it look nice. Add more dressing a bit at a time, until the salad is dressed to your liking, reserving any extra for another use. Taste, sprinkle with more salt (if needed), and a few herb flowers if you have them on hand, and enjoy!
Serves 6 - 8.
101 Cookbooks


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An excited youngster stocked up on flags for his Wembley trip and the players spoke of fairytales as BradfordCity prepared for the last chapter in a giant-killing run that has lifted the gloom around the club.
FA Cup: Nani inspires MU to laboured win over Reading
A fourth-tier team featuring a former supermarket shelf-stacker, a cancer survivor and players released by top clubs are hoping to beat a Premier League outfit for the fourth time this season when Bradford take on Swansea City in Sunday's League Cup final.
"It's going to be the biggest game we've played in our lives," right back Stephen Darby said on Tuesday.
"Over the last few years the football club hasn't had a lot to shout about but it's going to be a massive day for everyone, it's great for BradfordCity and the people of Bradford."
The Bantams are the first fourth-tier side to reach a major English cup final for 51 years and will be making only their second Wembley appearance - the previous one being the 1996 third-tier playoff final.
After several miserable seasons since relegation from the Premier League in 2001, including two spells in administration, the feat of a fourth-tier team beating Arsenal, Wigan Athletic and Aston Villa en route to Wembley is the stuff of dreams.
The club, whose only major silverware is the 1911 FA Cup, is also probably best known for tragedy rather than glory after a 1985 fire at its Valley Parade ground killed 56 fans.
It is not just the football club that has lived under black clouds. The West Yorkshire city has been harder hit than many by the economic downturn, it has higher-than average crime rates and is also still remembered for race riots in 2001.
"Bradford is known for bad things like riots. There are no shops, there's a lot of negative," fan Julia North said after giving her 12-year-old son Liam money to get the club's claret and amber flags.
"It's great there's now something positive."
Thrilled Liam added: "It means the whole world to me. When we beat Villa (in the semi-final) I just went mental."
There is a buzz around the city with stalls selling anything from paper masks with the face of manager Phil Parkinson to T-shirts emblazoned 'Bradford City Giant Killers Marching on Wembley Way'.
One pub near the train station was advertising being open from 0430 on Sunday for anyone wanting ale or food before heading south while the local newspaper is printing cut-out-and-keep posters of the players.
The cup run will provide the club with a cash injection of more than two million pounds - an amount that would pay one of the Premier League's top earners around eight weeks' wages but for Bradford that should mean long-term financial security.
"It's the owners' job and my job to make sure this extra revenue is used to keep improving the structure of the club and make sure our supporters have got a football club in years to come that is going to flourish," said Parkinson.
"That is really important. Much as we are all going to enjoy this weekend, on the back of that it does give us revenue which we wouldn't have expected to make so we are going to have to use it very wisely."
Lying mid-table in the fourth tier, with 44 points from 31 games, Bradford are punching well above their weight with a group of players who have made up for their lack of big transfer fees with a huge show of determination and a slice of luck.
There are no household names, only the likes of striker James Hanson who used to work in a local supermarket and headed the goal that booked the place in the final or Reading reject Carl McHugh who almost never made it as a professional.
Their most experienced player is probably goalkeeper Matt Duke, who made Premier League appearances for HullCity and who has recovered after being diagnosed with testicular cancer five years ago.
Victory over Swansea would earn Bradford a place in the Europa League, their first continental appearance since the now defunct Intertoto Cup in 2000, and a concept that some players could not get their heads around.
"It would be crazy, it would be mental but it would be unbelievable for the club," said McHugh who is taking 111 friends and family with him to Wembley.
"We're going to be underdogs. It's going to take Swansea having an off day and us being right at the top of our game and having a little bit of luck to win it."
The lack of expectation is what forward Alan Connell reckons has been the key to Bradford's successful cup run and that could help them against Swansea.
"I honestly haven't even thought about winning it. It's all a bit of a fairytale," he said.
"Being the underdogs has helped us, we're just very relaxed and very disciplined as a team. We've got a game against 11 players, let's go and play."
Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Reuters


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How come G-Unit is the rest home for washed-up rappers?How come every girl I know loves either "Slow Wind" by KELS or "Without You" by Mary J. Blige?How come they wanna run the songs into the ground?
How come Eddie Murphy and Johnny Gill are doing it to each other?
TIME OUT!!!! STOP THE HOW COMES!!Is Eddie Murphy Gay???
I think Eddie's wife looks like a man, straight up. The only thing that is striking about her are the eyes. Other than that...check that adam's apple!


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Yeah... it's like when I was going off about how the characters are inconsistently drawn in the first few days. Until I develop my characters fully (which will probably take a few months), their clothes will change a lot. I think I like the main character with the longer sleeves, but from time to time he may wear short sleeves. It all depends on my mood.
Other times, it has nothing to do with my mood, and it's just me screwing up. For example, when the three of them go to the club, Alex has on a shirt that has a band logo on it. From after that strip on, he doesn't have that shirt on any more... I think that the main character may switch between long and short sleeves, too. I don't remember for sure, though.
Let's just say that the club was kind of cold, so they changed their shirts half way through, ok?
- James
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Where's the rationale?
Right here!


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The 34-year-old seemed to deliberately stamp on flanker Simone Favaro during the first half of Ireland's match against Italy, an act he received a yellow card for.
An independant disciplinary committee in London found him guilty of the offence and issued the ban.
The suspension means the Irishman will miss Leinster's Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-final against the Wasps on April 5, as well as two Pro12 league matches.
The ban finishes three days after the quarter-final and he will then be able to play for Leinster in the push for the Pro12 title. They are currently in third position and look like they will be involved in the end-of-season playoffs.
O'Driscoll, believed to be playing his final Test for Ireland on his 125th appearance, was sent to the sin-bin after he stood on Favaro's chest, who yelled out in pain.
A statement released by tournament organisers read: "In applying the sanction, it was considered that the stamp, contrary to Law 10.4(b), was in the mid range of the IRB's sanctions for the type of offence.
"After hearing from Brian O'Driscoll and his representatives, a reduction of two weeks of mitigation was allowed, particularly taking into account the player's exemplary previous playing and disciplinary record.
"Brian O'Driscoll is suspended until 8 April 2013 and has the right of appeal."


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By Amanda Scott
Southern Maryland Newspapers Online, July 17, 2013
In an effort to bring a universal health care system to Maryland, local chapters throughout the state have been following the footsteps of a successful grassroots campaign by the same name in Vermont.
On Saturday, the Healthcare is a Human Right (HCHR)-Maryland Calvert County Chapter held its inaugural "Healthcare Speakout" at the Calvert Library Prince Frederick to share the movement's grassroots efforts to achieve universal health care for all Marylanders.
"We're pushing to start seeing health care as a right — not a commodity," said Sergio Espana, the state HCHR organizer.
The statewide campaign for universal health care began in December and has since gained traction in several counties where local chapters have been initiated, including Frederick, Howard, Baltimore, Montgomery, Calvert and Carroll counties. According to Healthcare-Now of Maryland's website, the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program and Healthcare-Now of Maryland partnered to create a "Health Care is a Human Right" campaign in Maryland.
In 2011, Vermont was the first state to adopt a universal health care system after the Vermont Workers' Center launched the grassroots Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign in 2008 in the state. According to the HCHR Vermont website, citizens in Maryland, California, Oregon, New York and Maine are using strategies from Vermont's campaign.
Stephen Wallace, a member of the Calvert County chapter, said Saturday the campaign is not political.
"It's not a left or right thing. It's about people. It's about people's health," Wallace said, adding that people's concerns about health care "just shouldn't be there." Those anxieties, he said, demonstrate that "the [health care] system isn't working."
According to Healthcare-Now of Maryland, a universal health care system would create a single-payer, publicly-financed, privately-delivered system that covers all Marylanders.
During Saturday's "Healthcare Speakout," four members of the Calvert County chapter shared stories of their experiences with the "broken" system and their hope for a new, universal, single-payer system.
Calvert County chapter member Brandon Johnson of Lusby said that after he and other members of his family had several medical issues, the medical bills "stacked up," and his parents had to file for bankruptcy.
"That's flawed. There's no reason anybody should have that problem," Johnson said.
Fellow chapter member Liam Fletcher of Prince Frederick said the stories he hears from other people about health care "just makes me sad."
Fletcher said the movement is about "not putting profit above people," like he said insurance companies will do.
Robert Wells, another chapter member from Prince Frederick, said, "We have to get rid of the profit-driven system" and the greed, so that everyone can get basic medical care.
"No one deserves to make a profit off of other people's suffering," Bobby Morrison, a chapter member from Huntingtown, said.
A universal system, member Cory Johnson said during Saturday's presentation, would eliminate co-pays, deductibles and insurance hassles.
Cory Johnson also explained that there are many myths about such a system, such as: it can't happen; it will never work; publicly-funded health care is too expensive and less effective; the government will choose doctors and make medical decisions; and it's a "socialized" system.
"So, it's not just the point that the system is bad for those who don't have [insurance]. It's also bad for those who do have it," Cory Johnson said.
According to HCHR-Maryland, under the Affordable Care Act, there will still be more than 436,000 Maryland residents without health care. In 2012, according to Saturday's presentation, there were 802,000 uninsured Maryland residents, accounting for 13.8 percent of the total population.
In 2010 in Maryland, there were an estimated 15,000 medical bankruptcy claims, according to the presentation. In its first year, a universal health care system in Maryland would save the state an estimated $7 billion, or 15 percent of existing health care spending, by reducing administrative costs and anti-competitive marketing practices, according to the presentation.
In addition, HCHR-Maryland claims the U.S. spends more money on health care than any other country and is less effective. A universal health care system could save the country more than $570 billion annually if implemented nationally, according to the presentation.
To increase awareness of the campaign in Calvert County, the chapter plans to host more "Healthcare Speakouts" and go door-to-door to meet with residents.


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Demographic Segmentation Becomes Common Packaging Strategy
Demographic segmentation, the time-tested tool of mass media advertisers, is becoming a more common packaging strategy as food companies develop line extensions to appeal to every conceivable sliver of the population.
Marketers are creating products for segments based on ethnicity, gender, age and household size — and creating packaging to appeal to individuals within those demographic categories.
One of the most attractive segments, based on purchasing power alone, is the U.S. Hispanic population. Research from the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia (www.selig.uga.edu), Athens, Ga., indicates Hispanic consumers will control $1 trillion in spending power in 2008, up from $653 billion in 2003.
"Marketers are seeing the numbers. Hispanic-Americans are spending money on their brands, so marketers are spending money to reach them," says Nancy Brown, managing partner with strategic branding firm Colemanbrandworx (www.cbx.com) and head of CBX's Minneapolis office. "More and more companies are getting off the fence and saying, 'We want these consumers. What's a motivating way to get them?'"
Pillsbury Polvorones are colorful shortbread cookies that are a holiday treat in the Latino community.
As an example, General Mills Inc. (www.generalmills.com), Minneapolis, reportedly spent $10.2 million on Spanish-language media in 2005, and just last month launched a three-times-a-year magazine, "Que Rica Vida" ("What a rich life"). Cocina Betty (Betty's Kitchen), which opened last year as a separate section of product development center Betty Crocker Kitchens, launched a churro-flavored version of its Bugles corn snacks, and developed an entirely new product for the Hispanic segment: Pillsbury Polvorones.
Polvorones are a colorful Spanish shortbread cookie, a holiday treat in the Latino community. The paperboard packaging is "very colorful and celebratory," says Brown, whose firm designed the package. Much of the copy on the package is in Spanish.
Brown adds that the package graphics "leverage the Dough Boy, which is a big equity for Pillsbury. The company used the back of the package for serving tips and to leverage the Pillsbury-in-Spanish website, which brings these consumers into the broader franchise."
Recognizing the strong brand loyalty of Hispanic consumers and the segment's above-average affinity for Bisquick, brand owner General Mills also has begun to put Hispanic-inspired recipes on the back of Bisquick packaging.
What women want
Gender-based segmentation is another increasingly popular strategy for product and package development.
"There does seem to be an increase in the number of food and beverage products in the USA that bear a gender-specific positioning," says Tom Vierhile, director of Productscan Online at Datamonitor Naples (www.datamonitor.com), Naples, N.Y. "For women, we tracked 240 new product stock keeping units that launched in 2005 vs. 71 in 2004, 93 in 2003, and 174 in 2002," he adds. "For men, the number was 127 SKUs for 2005 vs. 35 for 2004, 36 in 2003, and 39 in 2002."
The growth in food products for women is occurring in categories ranging from nutrition bars to wine. Clif Bar & Co. (www.clifbar.com), Berkeley, Calif., recently launched the Luna Sunrise bar, a morning nutrition bar created specifically for on-the-go women.
Clif Bar conducted product concept testing to determine what ingredients in the Luna Sunrise bar resonated most with women.
The Luna Sunrise bar packaging, a flexible pouch, uses the brand's signature blue and yellow palette but reconfigures the colors to make yellow dominant. Clif also varied the graphics on the packaging to connote morning, replacing the moon image with a sun image. In addition, the icon of a solitary dancer appears on the Luna Sunrise pouch instead of three dancers.
The company conducted product concept testing to determine what ingredients in the Luna Sunrise bar resonated most with consumers. "One of the things we learned is that we had packed this product with so many different nutrients that we had to do a good job of communicating what it all was," says Kristel Cerna, Luna Bar brand director at Clif Bar.
To do that, the company created an easy-to-read nutrition chart for the package's back panel that breaks out the ingredients into three categories:
- "Start Your Day," which includes the organic ingredients, heritage whole grains, fiber and soy protein.
- "Nourish Your Body," which lists vitamins and minerals.
- "Sustain Your Life," which provides the antioxidants.
"We've found a lot of people have heard the nutrition buzzwords through the media, but they don't always know what the nutrients are doing for them," Cerna says. "We're trying to help educate them."
At the opposite end of the consumables spectrum, O'Brien Family Vineyard (www.obrienfamilyvineyard.com), Napa, Calif., uses packaging to help position Seduction, a Bordeaux blend, as a red wine for women.
The Seduction bottle is merchandised in a sheer red gift bag, and an "O" printed in metallic gold on the front label shines through the fabric bag. The sensuous brand story carries over to the back label, where copy describes Seduction as "a voluptuous wine with sensual flavors and a velvet kiss."
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WikipediaRead full entry
- Common names: rattlesnakes, rattlers.[2]
Crotalus is a genus of venomous pit vipers found only in the Americas from southern Canada to northern Argentina.[1] The name is derived from the Greek word krotalon, which means "rattle" or "castanet", and refers to the rattle on the end of the tail which makes this group (genera Crotalus and Sistrurus) so distinctive.[3] Currently, 32 species are recognized.[4]
Members of this genus range in size from only 50–60 cm (C. intermedius, C. pricei), to over 150 cm (C. adamanteus, C. atrox).[3] In general, adult males are slightly larger than females. Compared to most snakes, they are heavy-bodied, although some African vipers are much thicker.[5] Most forms are easily recognized by the characteristic rattle on the end of their tails, although a few island populations form exceptions to this rule: C. catalinensis has lost its rattle entirely, C. ruber lorenzoensis usually has no rattle, and both C. r. lucasensis and C. molossus estebanensis exhibit a tendency for rattle loss. The rattle may also be lacking in any species due to a congenital abnormality.[3]
The rattle consists of a series of loosely interlocking hollow shells, each of which was at one point the scale covering the tip of the tail. In most other snakes, the tail tip, or terminal spine, is cone-shaped, hardly any thicker than the rest of the skin, and is shed along with it at each successive molt. In this case, however, the end-scale, or "button", is much thicker and shaped like a bulb, with one or two annular constrictions to prevent it from falling off. Before each molt, a new button will have developed inside the last one and before the skin is shed, the tip of new button shrinks, thereby loosening the shell of the previous one. This process continues so the succession of molts produces an appendage consisting of a number of interlocking segments that make an audible noise when vibrated. Since younger specimens may shed three or four times in a year, every time adding a new segment to the rattle, the number of segments bears no relation to the age of the snake. In theory, the rattle could become very long indeed, but in practice, the older segments tend to wear out and fall off. How quickly this happens depends on the snake's environment, but end segments tend to break off after the rattle becomes about six or seven segments long; it is uncommon to find specimens with as many as a dozen segments. In captive specimens, however, as many as 29 segments have been found.[6][7]
Geographic range[edit]
This genus is found in the Americas from southern Canada to northern Argentina.[1]
No species is considered aggressive; when threatened, most will retreat quickly. However, most species will defend themselves readily when cornered.[3]
How far these snakes can strike has been controversial. Obviously this depends on the size of the animal, but other factors may also play a role, such as the species, the position of the body, and the degree of excitement. Additionally, there is the question of definition: from which point on the snake should a strike be measured: from the front, the middle, or the back of the anchor coil on the ground? Even if the length of the specimen is known, once it strikes, it is almost impossible to determine the limiting point reached by its head and the position of its body when the movement started. Therefore, it is not surprising that many conflicting statements can be found in the available literature about how far these snakes can strike. Estimates have been given that range from one-third of the body length, to half, three-quarters or even the full length of the animal. They rarely strike further than half of their body length, and almost never more than three-fourths, but that it is still not wise to trust such values if only because it is not possible to accurately judge the length of a coiled snake.[5]
Their diets generally consist of vertebrates, although many invertebrate species have also been consumed. Smaller species feed mainly on lizards, while larger species start by feeding on lizards as juveniles and then switch to preying mainly on mammals as adults. Prey items more frequently taken include rabbits, ground squirrels, tree squirrels, chipmunks, prairie dogs, gophers, and rats and mice,[8] while those less frequently taken include birds, snakes, and amphibians. Cannibalism has been reported in a number of different species. Individuals that feed on rodents usually release their prey after a strike, and these snakes evidently can discriminate between trails left by prey that has or has not been envenomated.[3]:506
For all species, the most significant threats come from people, but they also face many natural enemies. These include other snakes, such as king snakes (Lampropeltis), coachwhips (Masticophis), indigo snakes (Drymarchon) and racers (Coluber), birds, such as hawks, eagles, owls, roadrunners, and ravens, and mammals, such as coyotes, foxes, wildcats, badgers, skunks and pigs.[9] Certain species of birds frequently prey on these snakes, but this is not without risk. Two cases were reported in which dead hawks found near venomous snakes had suffered hemorrhage and gangrenous necrosis due to snakebite.[3]:514
This genus is ovoviviparous, giving birth to live young.[5] The basic lifecycle of many Nearctic species has been known for quite some time. Females at an age of 26 months undergo vitellogenesis as they enter their third hibernation,[10] mate the following spring, and give birth later in September or October.[3]:516
A number of variations to this basic cycle occur. In North America, the females of some species store sperm in their oviducts for at least eight months, and the males (all species of which undergo spermatogenesis during the summer) store sperm in the vas deferens for at least a year. Thus, species that store sperm for a shorter duration mate in the spring and store sperm in the vas deferens, while those that do so for a longer duration mate in the fall and store sperm in the oviduct over the winter, after which fertilization occurs the following spring.[3]:516 In addition, species that occur further north, where it is colder during much of the year and the feeding and growing season is short, may reproduce only every other year or less. Those found in central and southern Mexico or the tropics have reproductive cycles that correspond mostly with the rainy season.[3]:519
Two main hemotoxic effects are caused by rattlesnake venom. First, zinc-containing metalloproteases act upon capillary endothelial cells to cause platelet aggregation and hemorrhage.[11] Second, the platelet antagonist crotalin creates a severe bleeding effect as it binds to the surface proteins, blocking aggregation.[12] These two starkly different effects may seem counterproductive, but the effect should be profound. Firstly, endothelial-cell disruption causes lysis and internal bleeding. Then, as these hemorrhages increase, the natural thrombin response is hindered by the effect of crotalin increasing the toxic effect. Their observed hunting technique is a bite-and-release method, so a fast-acting toxin would be ideal. Assuming the natural median prey would be a small rodent such as a mouse, the bite would elicit a fear response, quickening heart rate and increasing blood pressure. This would speed the toxic effect, as well as spread the hemolytic and hemorrhagic effects.
Neurotoxic effects may also be caused by rattlesnake venom. These effects vary by species, and within species by population.[13]
|Taxon author[4]
|Common name[3]
|Geographic range[1]
|C. adamanteus
|Palisot de Beauvois, 1799
|Eastern diamondback rattlesnake
|The southeastern United States from southeastern North Carolina, south along the coastal plain through peninsular Florida to the Florida Keys, and west along the Gulf Coast through southern Mississippi to southeastern Louisiana
|C. aquilus
|Klauber, 1952
|Querétaro dusky rattlesnake
|The highlands of central Mexico: Guanajuato, Hidalgo, México, Michoacán, and San Luis Potosí
|C. atrox
|Baird & Girard, 1853
|Western diamondback rattlesnake
|The United States from central Arkansas and southeastern California, south into Mexico as far as northern Sinaloa, Hidalgo, and northern Veracruz, disjunct populations in southern Veracruz and southeastern Oaxaca
|C. basiliscus
|(Cope, 1864)
|Mexican west coast rattlesnake
|Western Mexico from southern Sonora to Michoacán
|C. catalinensis
|Cliff, 1954
|Santa Catalina rattlesnake
|Isla Santa Catalina in the Gulf of California (western Mexico)
|C. cerastes
|Hallowell, 1854
|The southwestern United States in the desert region of eastern California, southern Nevada, extreme southwestern Utah, and western Arizona, northwestern Mexico in western Sonora and eastern Baja California
|C. durissus
|Linnaeus, 1758
|South American rattlesnake
|All South American countries except Chile and Ecuador (although the various populations are disjunct), some islands in the Caribbean[3]
|C. enyo
|(Cope, 1861)
|Baja California rattlesnake
|Western Mexico on the Baja California Peninsula from around Río San Telmo on the west coast and from opposite Isla Angel de la Guarda on the gulf coast, south to Cabo San Lucas, on the following islands in the Gulf of California: San Marcos, Carmen, San José, San Francisco, Partida del Sur, Espírita Santo, and Cerralvo, off the Pacific coast on the island of San Margarita
|C. horridusT
|Linnaeus, 1758
|Timber rattlesnake
|The eastern United States from southern Minnesota and southern Maine, south to east Texas and north Florida, in southern Canada in southern Ontario
|C. intermedius
|Troschel, 1865
|Mexican small-headed rattlesnake
|Central and southern Mexico, in southeastern Hidalgo, southern Tlaxcala, northeastern and south-central Puebla, west-central Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Guerrero
|C. lannomi
|W. Tanner, 1966
|Autlán rattlesnake
|Western Mexico in Jalisco
|C. lepidus
|(Kennicott, 1861)
|Rock rattlesnake
|The southwestern United States in Arizona, southern New Mexico, and southwestern Texas, south into north-central Mexico
|C. mitchellii
|(Cope, 1861)
|Speckled rattlesnake
|The southwestern United States in east-central and southern California, southwestern Nevada, extreme southwestern Utah, and western Arizona, in Mexico in most of Baja California, including Baja California Sur, on a number of islands in the Gulf of California and on Santa Margarita Island off the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur
|C. molossus
|Baird & Girard, 1853
|Black-tailed rattlesnake
|The southwestern United States in Arizona, New Mexico, and west and central Texas, in Mexico as far south as Oaxaca, in the Gulf of California on San Estéban Island and Tiburón Island
|C. oreganus
|Holbrook, 1840
|Western rattlesnake
|Southwestern Canada (southern British Columbia), south though much of the western half of the United States (Washington, Oregon, western and southern Idaho, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and likely west-central New Mexico), and into northern Mexico (western Baja California (state) and the extreme north of Baja California Sur)[3]
|C. polystictus
|(Cope, 1865)
|Mexican lance-headed rattlesnake
|Central Mexican Plateau, from southern Zacatecas and northeastern Colima east to east-central Veracruz
|C. pricei
|Van Denburgh, 1895
|Twin-spotted rattlesnake
|In the US from southeastern Arizona, and Mexico in northern Sonora southeast through Chihuahua, Durango, southeastern Coahuila and Nuevo León into Tamaulipas
|C. pusillus
|Klauber, 1952
|Tancitaran dusky rattlesnake
|West-central Mexico in southwestern and west-central Michoacán and adjacent Jalisco, probably also in northeastern Colima
|C. ruber
|Cope, 1892
|Red diamond rattlesnake
|The US in southwestern California, south through the Baja California Peninsula, except in the desert east of the Sierra de Juárez, also on a number of islands in the Gulf of California and two islands off the west coast of Baja California Sur
|C. scutulatus
|(Kennicott, 1861)
|Mohave rattlesnake
|The southwestern US in southern California, southern Nevada, extreme southwestern Utah, most of Arizona, southern New Mexico, and West Texas, and south into Mexico to southern Puebla
|C. simus
|Latreille In Sonnini & Latreille, 1801
|Middle American rattlesnake
|From Mexico in southwestern Michoacán on the Pacific coast, and Veracruz and the Yucatán Peninsula on the Atlantic coast, south through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to west-central Costa Rica[3]
|C. stejnegeri
|Dunn, 1919
|Long-tailed rattlesnake
|Western Mexico in eastern Sinaloa, western Durango, and probably northern Nayarit
|C. tigris
|Kennicott in Baird, 1859
|Tiger rattlesnake
|The southwestern US in south-central Arizona, and in northwestern Mexico in Sonora, on Isla Tiburón in the Gulf of California
|C. tortugensis
|Van Denburgh & Slevin, 1921
|Tortuga Island diamond rattlesnake
|Mexico, on Tortuga Island, in the Gulf of California]]
|C. totonacus
|Gloyd & Kauffeld, 1940
|Totonacan rattlesnake
|Northeastern Mexico from central Nuevo León through southern Tamaulipas, northern Veracruz, eastern San Luis Potosí, and northern Querétaro.[3]
|C. transversus
|Taylor, 1944
|Cross-banded mountain rattlesnake
|Central Mexico in México and Morelos.
|C. triseriatus
|(Wagler, 1830)
|Mexican dusky rattlesnake
|Mexico, along the southern edge of the Mexican Plateau in the highlands of the Transverse Volcanic Cordillera, including the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacán, Morelos, México, Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz
|C. viridis
|(Rafinesque, 1818)
|Prairie rattlesnake
|Southern Canada (Alberta, Saskatchewan), south through the US (eastern Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, extreme eastern Arizona), and into northern Mexico (northern Coahuila, northwestern Chihuahua)[3]
|C. willardi
|Meek, 1905
|Ridge-nosed rattlesnake
|The US in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico in Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, and Zacatecas
*) Not including the nominate subspecies
T) Type species[1]
See also[edit]
sound of a rattlesnake
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- List of crotaline species and subspecies
- Crotalus by common name
- Crotalus by taxonomic synonyms
- Crotalinae by common name
- Crotalinae by taxonomic synonyms
- Snakebite
- ^ a b c d e McDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré T. 1999. Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, vol. 1. Herpetologists' League. 511 pp. ISBN 1-893777-00-6 (series). ISBN 1-893777-01-4 (volume).
- ^ Wright AH, Wright AA. 1957. Handbook of Snakes. Comstock Publishing Associates (7th printing, 1985). 1105 pp. ISBN 0-8014-0463-0.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Campbell JA, Lamar WW. 2004. The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca and London. 870 pp. 1500 plates. ISBN 0-8014-4141-2.
- ^ a b c d "Crotalus". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 23 August 2007.
- ^ a b c Klauber LM. 1997. Rattlesnakes: Their Habitats, Life Histories, and Influence on Mankind. Second Edition. First published in 1956, 1972. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-21056-5.
- ^ Parker HW, Grandison AGC. 1977. Snakes -- a natural history. Second Edition. British Museum (Natural History) and Cornell University Press. 108 pp. 16 plates. LCCCN 76-54625. ISBN 0-8014-1095-9 (cloth), ISBN 0-8014-9164-9 (paper).
- ^ Stidworthy J. 1974. Snakes of the World. Grosset & Dunlap Inc. 160 pp. ISBN 0-448-11856-4.
- ^ Klauber (1936, 1971, 1972)
- ^ Keegan, 1944; Klauber, 1927, 1936, 1971, 1972
- ^ Klauber, 1936
- ^ Chang, Mei-Chi. Antithormbotic Effect of Crotalin, a Platelet Membrane Glycoprotein Ib Antagonist From Venom of Crotalus atrox. Blood, Volume 91 No. 5, March 1, 1998; pg.1582-1589
- ^ Hati, Rathanath. Snake Venom Hemorrhagins. Critical Reviews in Toxicology. Volume 29 Issue 1. 1999; pg. 1-19
- ^ Aird, S.D., et al. 1985. Rattlesnake presynaptic neurotoxins: primary structures and evolutionary origin of the acidic subunit. Biochemistry 24: 7054-7058.
Further reading[edit]
- Cope ED. 1867. On the Reptilia and Batrachia of the Sonoran province of the Nearctic region. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia 18: 300-314[310].
- Cope ED. 1883. Notes on the geographical distribution of batrachia and reptilia in western North America. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia 35: 10-35[13].
- Coues E. 1875. Synopsis of the Reptiles and Batrachians of Arizona; with Critical and Field Notes, and an Extensive Synonymy, p. 585-633.[609]. In Wheeler GM. 1875. Report Upon Geographical and Geological Explorations and Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian. Volume V. Zoology: Reports Upon the Zoological Collections Obtained from Portions of Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, During the Years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
- Fitzinger LJFJ. 1843. Systema Reptilium. Fasciculus primus. Amblyglossae. Braumüller et Seidel, Wien: 106 pp.[29].
- Heckel JO, Sisson DC, Quist CF. 1994. Apparent fatal snakebite in three hawks. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 30(4): 616-619.
- Houttuyn, M. 1764. Natuurlyke historie of uitvoerige beschryving der dieren, planten en mineraalen, volgens het samenstel van den Heer Linnæus. Met naauwkeurige afbeeldingen. Eerste deels, zesde stuk. Dieren van beiderley leven. Amsterdam. 558 pp.[290].
- Hubbs, Brian and Brendan O'Connor. 2012. A Guide to the Rattlesnakes and other Venomous Serpents of the United States. Tricolor Books. Tempe, Arizona. 129 pp. ISBN 978-0-9754641-3-7.
- Keegan HL. 1944. Indigo snakes feeding upon poisonous snakes. Copeia 1944(1): 59.
- Klauber LM. 1927. Some observations on the rattlesnakes of the extreme southwest. Bull. Antivenin Inst. Am. 1(1): 7-21.
- Klauber LM. 1936. Key to the rattlesnakes with summary characteristics. Trans. San Diego Soc. Nat. Hist. 8(2): 185-276.
- Klauber LM. 1971. Classification, distribution and biology of the venomous snakes of northern Mexico, the United States and Canada: Crotalus and Sistrurus. pp. 115–156 In Bucherl W, Buckley E. 1971. Venomous animals and their venoms, vol. 2. Venomous vertebrates. Academic Press, New York.
- Klauber LM. 1972. Rattlesnakes: Their habits, life histories, and influence on mankind. 2nd edition. 2 Vols. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Laurenti JN. 1768. Specimen medicum, exhibens synopsin reptilium emendatum cum experimentis circa Venena et antidota reptilium Austriacorum. J.T. de Trattern, Wien. 214 pp.[92].
- Linnaeus C. 1758. Systema naturae per regna tria naturae secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. 10th ed. Vol. 1. Stockholm. 824 pp.[214].
- Rafinesque CS. 1815. Analyse de la nature ou tableau de l'univers et des corps organisés. Jean Barravecchia, Palermo. 224 pp. (Herpetol. section) pp. 73–78[77].
- Rafinesque CS. 1820. Annals of Nature, or Annual Synopsys of New Genera and Species of Animals and Plants Discovered in North America. Lexington. (22): 1-16.[5].
- Reuss T. 1930. Glasnik Zemaljskog Muzeja u Bosni I Hercegovini. Sveska za Prirodne Nauke. 42: 57-114[60, 88].
- Wagler J. 1830. Natürliches system der amphibien, mit vorangehender classification der Säugthiere und vögel. München, Stuttgart und Tübingen. vi, 354 pp.[176], 9 pls.


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I just wondered if I am the only one with a seriously grouchy cavvy? Charlie has been this way since a pup - he has been an old dog in a young dogs body - he sneers at us, huffs at us and sighs at us and awful lot. We also have a 9mth old westie female pup who just wants to play with Charlie but all he does is grump at her or turn his back on her. Now I could understand all this behaviour if he was an old dog, but he has only just turned 4yrs and can and will still play when the mood takes him, its just that he is like a grouchy old man most of the time.
We occassionaly see flashes of playfulness, but it is rare and no amount of me crawling on the floor, making silly noises, rolling balls, etc etc will entice him, he ill just look at me like I am mental and huff. I dont understand it, and nor does poor little Dolly (my westie) - I adore Charlie, he is my baby but why is he so grumpy???


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SQL Saturday is coming to Phoenix, Arizona on February 19th, 2011. I have submitted my session for this event. If my session gets approved, it'll be the same presentation that I gave recently at SQL Saturday #55. Although my recent presentation was well received, I will be reworking it to make it even better.
Hope to see you there!
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What do you get when you mix brains with beauty? Well, you wouldn't end up with SoCal hottie, Sabrina Jane just yet. This fun and energetic Orange County, CA girl is also very creative and expresses herself through drawing, painting, fashion design and even experimental cooking. So, we're guessing that if she is into cars as well, Sabrina is the stuff dreams are made of. This dream girl is hardly high maintenance since she values intelligence far more than material things or "swagga". Sabrina also values that in herself as well, listing her "knowledge" as her most prized possession. Since she has been in the business for many years, her career has skyrocketed from a small car show back in 2003 to shoots in the Playboy suite at the Palms hotel, and now to the cover and pages in PAS Magazine!. Read on to find out what makes this bombshell have a beauty that is more than skin deep.
The Essentials
Zodiac Sign: Aquarius
Height: 5'1"
Measurements: 34D-23-33
Ethnicity: Caucasian/Hispanic
Hometown: Palm Springs, CA & Orange County, CA
Turn-ons: I like a guy who can make me laugh without being cocky or too into himself. He would have a clean and neat style, someone sweet and shy and who thinks I'm the most beautiful and greatest thing in the world.
Turn-offs: Bossy or clingy guys who fall in love too quick or pressure me into doing things I don't want to. Cheaters, liars, idiots and guys who talk about money. Ugh, I don't care what kind of car you drive dude, or where you got your watch! I'm unconcerned with those material things.
Pet Peeves: People who embrace slang or Ebonics as a primary means to communicate, as opposed to those who concern themselves with annunciation and proper use of the English language in order to cement the structural integrity of language and society in America for years to come. "Cool guys" who lay their quick-witted lines while wearing sunglasses at night should only be embarrassed for themselves. Intelligence is WAY more attractive than "swagga."
PAS: Where are you from? Where are you currently living?
Sabrina Jane: I grew up all around Southern California. When I was younger, I lived in Palm Springs and mostly went to high school in Orange County. I live in the OC now.
PAS: How long have you been modeling for?
Sabrina Jane: Since about 2003. So, around 7 years?! However, I wasn't modeling much then as I was busy with school. I started modeling much more in 2006 when I graduated from college.
PAS: How did you get your start in modeling?
Sabrina Jane: My friend set me up on a shoot. I received a few posters from that shoot and my girlfriend took me to a car show. I made a lot of money that day for no one knowing who I was! Then everyone started booking me, for everything. I'm much more savvy now. I know how this industry works. I cast a lot of girls and book a lot of girls now.
PAS: What's the best part of being a model?
Sabrina Jane: Getting paid, hands down! I don't care too much for the attention, but playing dress up and meeting new friends is so much fun too.
PAS: What would you say are your strengths as a model?
Sabrina Jane: All of them! I'm confident in shoots and it shows in my photos. So, I shoot quickly. I'm not ever worried about how I will look from a certain angle. I'm good from any angle and have no stretch marks or cheesy tattoos. Photographers love me for these reasons.
PAS: Describe yourself in three words or statements.
Sabrina Jane: Determined. Smart. Fantastical.
PAS: What are some of you modeling highlights so far?
Sabrina Jane: Too many to name. Let's just say…Cover Model for PASMAG!
PAS: Tell us your likes or dislikes about modeling?
Sabrina Jane: I always like shooting and seeing how the pictures turn out. I don't like a lot of shady people you meet in the modeling industry though. I can spot them from a mile away though, so it's not too bad.
PAS: What is your best beauty secret?
Sabrina Jane: I really don't have one. I hardly blow dry my hair. I guess that's one.
PAS: How do you keep in such great shape?
Sabrina Jane: I eat junk food and soda… I never work out. I despise the gym because I don't like creepy people watching me.
PAS: What is the strangest photo shoot that you've done?
Sabrina Jane: I'd have to say my first Michael Vincent shoot at the Playboy Suite at the Palms was the strangest. My hair was 2-feet high with a peacock feather in it and celebrities got in the way of our shoot, so I was over it and just left. Everyone was drunk and sloppy; the girls were fake and irritating. I left early to do something else. That was a strange party/shoot though.
PAS: What is your best physical feature?
Sabrina Jane: Everyone picks something different. My ex-BF says it's my boobs. I like my eyes. Everyone likes my hair & my butt too.
PAS: What traits do you like most about yourself?
Sabrina Jane: I'm sassy, clever and quite a ham, so I get along with everyone. It's rare someone doesn't like my personality. I'm real and I tell it like it is as eloquently as possible. I tell the truth but with tact.
PAS: What traits do you dislike most about yourself?
Sabrina Jane: I tend to lag. I don't have patience for insolence and can be pretty vengeful at times when someone deserves it. And BOY, do they deserve it!
PAS: What do you most value in your friends?
Sabrina Jane: The fact that I can tell them anything. Trust and knowing they will keep my secrets and/or forgive me always.
PAS: Can you tell us about your first kiss?
Sabrina Jane: My first kiss was with this guy I thought I was totally in love with. He was a total tool. I remember I was so nervous my leg was shaking. He screwed me over BAD, but they always come crawling back.
PAS: What is your top unfulfilled fantasy?
Sabrina Jane: Making love on the beach in the rain with the man I'm going to marry. I just got to find him now!
PAS: Do you have any birthmarks, scars or tattoos?
Sabrina Jane: I have a scar on my knee from hot glue dripping out of a glue gun during Sabrina's arts & crafts time. It sucks but it's not too noticeable.
PAS: Do you have any pets?
Sabrina Jane: Just the sassiest, most beautiful cat ever created on the planet! I call her the "Queen of Life". I've had her since I was like 13 or 14 and I'm just absolutely in love with her!
PAS: What do you like to do for fun?
Sabrina Jane: Cooking, cleaning, painting (oil & acrylic). Design work (branding, retouching, sewing). Dancing, organizing, shopping, drawing and singing. And shopping!
PAS: What frightens you the most?
Sabrina Jane: Passing away without letting the people I love know how much I appreciate them. Spiders frighten me. Even more… killing spiders!
PAS: What's your most prized possession?
Sabrina Jane: Knowledge. The knowledge I possess is far more valuable to me than anything else I can think of. It's the first thing in my head. I'm glad I've had the training I've had and the experience I have in all kinds of things.
PAS: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Sabrina Jane: Loving your work, loving your life and accepting with perfect understanding the people in it, where they stand and what they mean to you and you to them…and my cat living forever.
PAS: What is your favorite type of food?
Sabrina Jane: Beef. Every way it's served. Jerky is my favorite, but only a certain brand. Also pasta dishes, pickles, ice cream, mashed potatoes and my famous homemade gravy.
PAS: What is your dream car?
Sabrina Jane: An invisible one that can fly! They haven't made them yet… so, I'd settle for an Aston Martin.
PAS: Who is your favorite recording artist?
Sabrina Jane: Lyla Dee! Other than her, it would be Gwen Stefani
PAS: What is your favorite quote/lyric?
Sabrina Jane: There's WAY too many! The latest one is by Loretta Lynn. It goes "…it'll be over my dead body, so get out while you can, 'cuz you ain't woman enough to take my man!" She's hardcore!
PAS: What's the best prank you ever played on someone?
Sabrina Jane: Well, I wrote all over an ex-boyfriend's body with a permanent maker while he was asleep. That was fun! That was ages ago. I wasn't mad at him. His friend and I thought it would be funny.
PAS: If you had one wish, what would it be?
Sabrina Jane: To fly or to be invisible. Or both!
PAS: What is your greatest regret?
Sabrina Jane: Trusting dirt-bags.
PAS: Who are your heroes in real-life?
Sabrina Jane: My mom. She's sassy. She's a smarty pants and she works sooo hard! She's preciousness.
PAS: What was your worst childhood experience?
Sabrina Jane Hiding from the boys at recess in the bathroom! Traumatizing!
PAS: Have you posed in the nude?
Sabrina Jane: Nope. But maybe I will!
PAS: What quality do you like most in a man?
Sabrina Jane: Faithful and trustworthy.
PAS: What quality do you like most in a woman?
Sabrina Jane: The same as a man.
PAS: What can a guy say to make you melt?
Sabrina Jane: That I send a bolt of electricity through his body when he's 10 feet away.
PAS: What would make you slap a guy?
Sabrina Jane: Finding out he cheated on me 10 times since we met.
PAS: How do you seduce a guy?
Sabrina Jane: I don't have to. I've never tried it.
PAS: If you're planning it, how many kids do you want to have? Do you have any names picked out?
Sabrina Jane: 2 or 3. Basil and Garlic
PAS: Size or Stamina?
Sabrina Jane: Neither matters a lot to me
PAS: Tell us about any upcoming projects of yours?
Sabrina Jane: Revising www.sabrina-jane.com!
PAS: What current, past or future projects are you most excited about or are the most memorable for you?
Sabrina Jane: I'm working on a Swimwear Line. It's called "Stage Style". Aside from that, I'm working on expanding my graphic design business called "Sight Candy".
PAS: With any 'spotlight' type of job, you are looked upon as a role model. What advice would you give out to aspiring models?
Sabrina Jane: Don't take any crap from anyone! Make sure you get your money! Never ever do any crappy motel shoots or shoot with anyone without good references.
PAS: Do you have any shout outs or last words?
Sabrina Jane: I want to say aloha to my besties: Tara Love, Diana K, Philly F, Tickles, Wheenit, Dadwink, Avalynn and Bepper. I love my friends and family. Be on the lookout for "Stage Style" (www.stagestyleonline.com) on the runways, shoots, events and performance stages everywhere! I want to thank all my fans for being sassy! Sabby loves you!
{yoogallery src=[/images/phocagallery/sabrinajane] width=[150]}


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Satellite Imagery
- ISCCP Global ISCCP B1 Browse System (GIBBS)
Browse global geostationary satellite data. View nearly every location on the Earth at three hourly intervals from 1980 to present. More than one million images are available for browsing.
- NOAA Environmental and Visualization Laboratory
Imagery from NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory showing imagery related to current weather and climate events.
- Images, animations, and Google Earth files
from the Hurricane Satellite (HURSAT) for hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones from 1983 through 2009.
- Custom Images Support
Contact NCEI's Satellite Services Group for information about custom satellite images, and certification of images.


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Cooler Master Gladiator 600 Review
When picking out a new computer case for your rig, a few things come to mind. Some of those things are price, looks, air flow and build quality. Many high priced cases out there with flashy designs and lots of extra plastic are usually more form than function, and can leave the end user disappointed in their purchase. Cooler Master has become notorious over the years for its well-built cases that perform well, especially with the extreme heat that the latest and greatest hardware can produce. In this article, I will be reviewing the Gladiator 600 from Cooler Master. The Gladiator 600 is an upper-middle end mid tower case that offers good looks and seems to have some nice features as well, which will be discussed on the upcoming pages.
Closer Look
The Cooler Master Gladiator 600 is packaged in a nicely printed, gloss finish box with nice graphics on the outside. The front of the box shows a nice quarter shot of the case. Looking at this picture alone, it's already obvious that the case offers a simple and sleek look without a lot of flashy plastic. The sides of the box show specifications, such as motherboard support, dimensions, etc. The rear of the box show pictures of its individual features.
The Cooler Master Gladiator 600 is well protected between two large, flexible Styrofoam blocks and wrapped in a plastic bag with the usual package of silica gel. The case made it unharmed to my front door.