text:
The expectation at the start of every war is that it will be short. "The reason is psychological and compensatory," Paul Fussell wrote. "No one wants to foresee or contemplate the horror, the inevitable ruin of civilized usages, which war will entail."
Fussell, a professor of literature and a literary historian, wrote that in a book about the Second World War. But he could as well have said it in his much-acclaimed volume examining the literary output of World War I, "The Great War and Modern Memory" (Oxford University Press, $19.95).
In the summer of 1914, soldiers marched off to fight, promising their loved ones, "Home by Christmas." The French alone lost 75,000 dead by the end of August, with another 200,000 wounded or taken prisoner.
But they and the British stopped the German thrust at the Battle of the Marne, when the taxi cabs of Paris ferried troops to the fighting, and by the end of September the Western Front had settled into the hell of trench warfare that would drag on another four years.
The immediate occasion for the war was, of course, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Serbia, on June 28. The Austrians, apparently wanting war, laid down terms the Serbs couldn't accept and on July 28 declared war on Serbia.
At that point, a series of treaties and private understandings clicked mechanically into operation: the Russians coming into the conflict on the side of the Serbs, the Germans on the side of the Austrians, the French on the side of the Russians. Soon, very nearly the whole of Europe was aflame.
Historians still argue about the deeper causes of the Great War. But all agree that the factors included: German ambition and aggressiveness; Russian fear of Germany and a Russian military buildup that led Germany to contemplate striking before Russia became too strong; and French and British abhorrence of the idea of German dominance on the continent.
Before the war was over, more than 16 million soldiers and civilians had died and many more had been wounded. Four empires — German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman — had either collapsed or were on the way. (The Ottoman Empire didn't formally fold until 1922.) And the stage was set for an even greater slaughter barely two decades later. Historians never tire of pointing out that the Great War destroyed a European civilization that in 1914 was the envy of the world.
A prime reason for the huge loss of life was the use of new tools of warfare. Yet when the war began, many military leaders supposed that mounted cavalry would play an important role, while the French infantry went into battle wearing decorative bright uniforms from the 19th century. "Not many of the commanders were at all bright, and some were downright dim," author Norman Stone wrote. The fighting ended with machine guns, tanks, air battles, zeppelins and planes dropping bombs on civilian targets, and the introduction of what we now call weapons of mass destruction: weaponized chlorine gas.
Winston Churchill, British First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 to 1915 (when he lost his position in the wake of the disastrous Allied attack on the Turks in the Dardanelles), offered this summing-up after the war: "Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them to win. Germany, having let hell loose, kept well in the van of terror, but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. ... The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate ...
"Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers. Liquid fire was projected onto their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames or were smothered slowly in the dark recesses of the sea. ... Torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian states had been able to deny themselves — and they were of doubtful utility."
And this was a war waged in the name of liberty, human dignity and human rights. "The world must be made safe for democracy," declared President Woodrow Wilson upon leading the United States into World War I in 1917. Yet the conflict brought the Bolsheviks to power in Russia, inaugurating a long era of totalitarianism, and paved the way for the Nazis in Germany.
If political consequences were largely negative, the war's spiritual and psychological consequences were even worse. In his monumental study "A Secular Age," Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor says the Great War "called into question the basic assumption that the belligerent states were truly civilized, or else more deeply, the very idea of civilization itself."
At the beginning, nonetheless, the war was commonly seen very differently. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany called the German people "the chosen of God." The Anglican Bishop of London pronounced the conflict "a Holy War." Religious voices on all sides echoed similar sentiments, thus making active support for the conflict a moral imperative. On the eve of the congressional vote in April 1917 taking the United States into the war, Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, leader of the American hierarchy, said this: "The primary duty of a citizen is loyalty to country. This loyalty is manifested more by acts than by words; by solemn service rather than by empty declaration. It is exhibited by an absolute and unreserved obedience to his country's call." Cardinal Gibbons was no warmonger. Churchmen at the time generally thought that way.
One who didn't was Pope Benedict XV. In the face of great pressure to do otherwise, he adamantly refused to take sides — and brought down on his head the resentment of every side for not siding with it. In November 1914, with nearly a million men already dead, the pope issued an encyclical, his first, titled Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum ("Appealing for Peace"). "Surely," he pleaded, "there are other ways and means whereby violated rights can be rectified." Perhaps there were, but the combatants weren't interested.
During the war, the Holy See labored bravely to relieve the suffering. Its efforts included collecting and sharing information on the situation of POWs, arranging for some 26,000 wounded and sick to convalesce in Switzerland, spending 82 million lire, a huge sum for the time, on humanitarian relief, and lobbying Wilson and other leaders on behalf of peace.
When the fighting ended, Pope Benedict wanted badly to be represented at the Versailles peace conference, but the anticlerical governments of Italy and France said no. Arguably, it was a blessing in disguise, since the Holy See couldn't be blamed for a harsh and vindictive peace treaty that a historian calls "a formula for economic disaster and future war."
"Did all this happen so that a gang of wretched criminals could lay hands on the fatherland?" demanded Adolf Hitler in his autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf. The Germans believed they ought to have won the war and thought their defeat due to a stab in the back — no doubt delivered by Jews. These things had to be set right, and he, Hitler, had been summoned by history to see to that.
The Great War is often said to have undermined faith in God, but it also contributed to a deep-seated loss of faith in man. That the most sophisticated, technologically advanced nations of the world should have inflicted such devastation on one another spoke volumes about that heart of darkness — the human heart. "What is man that you are mindful of him?" the psalmist asked. And the answer was, "a little less than the angels." But what happened from 1914 to 1918 seemed to situate humankind in demonic ranks.
Humane sentiments clashed with the brutality of combat. In 1916, a French writer named Henri Barbusse published Le Feu, ("Under Fire"), one of the first novels of the war by someone who'd actually been in the fighting. At a point in the story, a soldier accuses the Germans of "unfair tricks" in using poison gas. A hardened veteran explodes at that:
"You make me tired with your fair ways and your unfair ways. When you've seen men squashed, cut in two, or divided from top to bottom, blown into showers by an ordinary shell, bellies turned inside out and scattered anyhow ... you've seen that and yet you can say 'There are clean ways!'"
The war that began in idealism ended in disillusionment. Adding to the horror was the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920. Estimates of the number of dead range from a low of 20 million to a high of 100 million, far more than the number who died in the fighting. People speculated that two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — war and pestilence — had arrived. The other two could only be close behind.
Faith in eternal truths was understandably shaken by such events. "Something has happened that has never happened before," wrote the Anglo-American poet T.S. Eliot: "Men have left God not for other gods ... but for no god." The result was "an age which advances progressively backwards."
In a sense, it wasn't new. Some such process had been underway among the Western intellectual classes at least since the 19th century under the influence of the ideas of figures like Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, or their popularizers.
World War I seemed to support a view of history as the ongoing record of a Darwinist evolutionary struggle for the survival of the fittest, or the operation of a Marxist dialectic driven by economic determinism, or a Freudian narrative of the acting out of sublimated libidinous impulses.
But above all it was Nietzsche who seemed vindicated. The angry German thinker, an atheist who died in 1900, declared that "God is dead" — meaning the anemic version of God in whom bourgeois Christians of his day believed while, Nietzsche contended, largely ignoring him — and that the moral code of "slave morality" had died with him, to be replaced by the "master-morality" of a new superman (übermensch).
In "Beyond Good and Evil" (1886), he wrote of a time when this "new caste" would rule by "a dreadful will of its own, that can set its aims thousands of years ahead." And he added: "The next century will bring the struggle for the dominion of the world — the compulsion to great politics." Hitler gave this vision a name: the Thousand Year Reich.
Nietzsche's image suffered undeserved damage from the Nazis' selective use of his ideas. Yet elements of his thinking did have a seminal influence on Hitler, who liked to have his photo taken standing beside a bust of Nietzsche. Addressing him as "masterly debunker of our liberal fallacies," British poet W.H. Auden wrote: "In dim Victorian days you prophesied a reaction, And how right you've been. But tell us, O tell us, is this tenement gangster with a sub-machine gun in one hand really the Superman your jealous eyes imagined ...?"
But when the Great War ended, this lay a few years in the future. The immediate postwar reaction, wrote author Charles Taylor, was "crushing disappointment." It wasn't just that the conflict failed to deliver liberation and peace. Still worse was what it delivered instead.
"The spiritual hunger with which many entered the war remained unsatisfied. Various extremist movements built themselves on this continuing aspiration, both communist and fascist ... Fascism gives us the paradigm of a counter-ideal of the modern order, one which extolled command, leadership, dedication, obedience, over individualism, rights and democracy, but which did so out of a cult for greatness, will, action, life. There was no place left for the morality of Christianity."
In sum, Taylor writes, a process — call it secularization, de-Christianization, loss of faith — that had impacted Western elites for several centuries was popularized in the crucible of World War I: "The spiritual condition of the elite became that of the masses."
In modern times, the Church has made a serious effort to combat this spiritual malaise by reaffirming the dignity and transcendent destiny of the human person. This was a central part of the message of both the Second Vatican Council and Pope St. John Paul II.
In Gaudium et Spes ("Joy and Hope") from 1965, the council taught: "It is only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. ... Christ the Lord, Christ the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear."
John Paul II reaffirmed this Christian personalism throughout his pontificate, starting with his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis ("The Redeemer of Man") in 1979. Quoting what Vatican II had said, he declared: "This is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity."
For people of faith, these are deeply meaningful insights. But faith is what Western secular culture tragically lacks in the wake of two devastating world wars.
Possibly in that light, it makes sense to end an overview of World War I and its results with something that usually doesn't get a place in the history books — but should.
Over a span of six months beginning in May 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared monthly to three peasant children near the remote village of Fatima, Portugal, and delivered a message about peace. According to a memoir by one of its recipients — Lucia Santos, 9 years old at the time, who later became a cloistered Discalced Carmelite nun — Mary told them to pray the rosary and said in part:
"You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI."
The Virgin called for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for a "communion of reparation" on the first Saturday of each month. "If my requests are heeded," Sister Lucia quoted her, "Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church."
No one is required to believe private revelations, but the Church has declared the apparitions at Fatima "worthy of belief." And Mary's words, spoken as the Great War raged, still point the way to peace.
Russell Shaw is an OSV contributing editor.
Copyright © 1996-2018 Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.


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In 2010, the average NAEP U.S. history score for twelfth-graders who reported that they were either currently
enrolled in or had taken an Advanced Placement (AP) course in U.S. history was 304, which was higher than the
score of 284 for students who reported not taking the course. Results from the 2009 NAEP High School Transcript
Study (HSTS) provide information on the extent to which students have access to an AP U.S. history course in their
school and the proportion of students who complete the course.
As part of the HSTS, transcripts from a representative sample of America's public and private high school graduates
are collected and analyzed to provide information about recent high school graduates. For nearly two decades, the
study has informed the public about the type of courses graduates take, the number of credits they earn, and the
grade point averages they receive. Results from the 2009 HSTS are based on a nationally representative sample of
around 38,000 transcripts that represents approximately 3 million high school graduates from the "Class of 2009."
For this analysis, graduates were considered to have access to an AP U.S. history course if at least one student in the school took the course or the course was listed in the school catalogue or course list. Differences in students' access may be attributed to a number of factors, such as school enrollment.
From 1990 to 2009, the percentage of graduates who
had access to an AP U.S. history course increased from
51 percent to 80 percent. These percentages also increased for Black graduates (50 percent to
83 percent), Hispanic graduates (54 percent to
91 percent), White graduates (49 percent to 75 percent), and Asian/Pacific Islander graduates (78 percent to 94 percent).
* Significantly different (p < .05) from 2009.
NOTE: Black includes African American, Hispanic includes Latino, and Pacific Islander includes Native
Hawaiian. Race categories exclude Hispanic origin. Results are not shown separately for students
whose race/ethnicity was American Indian/Alaska Native or unclassified.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, High School Transcript Study (HSTS), 1990 and 2009.
See complete data (14KB XLS). Browse questionnaires for the NAEP assessments.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Preferred Sands is an owner-operated industrial sand company driven by an entrepreneurial
spirit, a results-oriented culture, and a philosophy based on individual performance and responsibility.
With locations throughout the United States, Preferred Sands is a leading supplier of high-quality coated sand,
white sand, proppants, and frac sand.
Our Polymeric Proppants offer a wide spectrum of product types and grades that offer almost unlimited
flexibility to perform under virtually any well condition and depth.
Preferred's rail fleet and unparalleled supply chain network allows us to deliver products with reliability, efficiency and consistency.
Preferred Sands' focus is simple and steadfast: supply superior products and service to our customers
while maintaining a strong sense of loyalty and commitment to our customers, employees, surrounding
communities and the environment.
Preferred Sands recognizes and honors its responsibility to create sustainable business practices that
protect the environment and support the communities in which it operates.


text:
Difference between revisions of "GCC"
(→GCC 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 code generation bug)
|Line 13:
|Line 13:
[[SDE|SDE 5]] is based on gcc 2.96 and [[SDE|SDE 6]] is based on gcc 3.4.
[[SDE|SDE 5]] is based on gcc 2.96 and [[SDE|SDE 6]] is based on gcc 3.4.
=== GCC 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 code generation bug ===
=== GCC 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 code generation bug ===
A code bug<>http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=.
== External links ==
== External links ==
Revision as of 19:55, 5 September 2012
Kernel builds with gcc
Linux 2.4
The recommended compiler for building Linux 2.4 is gcc 2.95. New compilers upto gcc 3.3 have been used successfully to build the kernel however with gcc 3.4 there may be problems when certain configurations. With Linux 2.4 being in deep freeze mode we generally don't intend to fix such problems but rather recommend to use an older compiler for the kernel.
The latest "official" GCC 2 is version 2.95.3. The GCC 2.96 is unofficial massively patched version. It provides more efficient optimization with -O2, more strict syntax checkhing and supports more recent C++ standards. Unfortuntely the C++ ABI is not compatible with "official" 2.95.3 nor 3.0.
Linux 2.6
Kernels upto 2.6.15 require a gcc 2.95..4.0. Gcc 4.1 is still considered experimental at this point so not recommended where reliability matters. Kernels newer than 2.6.15 require at least gcc 3.2. See a related article on Kerneltrap.
Gcc 3.4.6 incorrectly inlines arch_mem_init().
SDE 5 is based on gcc 2.96 and SDE 6 is based on gcc 3.4.
GCC 4.7.1 and older code generation bug
A bug in these two compiler versions results in bad code for the kernel in such ways that could be taken for a hardware bug, for example error messages about lost interrupts or similar. As of 2012-09-05 the status is that apparently the code generation for __builtin_unreachable() is broken for MIPS and a fix has been checked in upstream but no releases based on that are out yet. It appears that kernels built with -O by modifying the kernel's main makefile are ok. Presumably this is caused by GCC bug 54369.
GCC 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 code generation bug
A further code generation bug[1] may also affect the kernel.
External links
- http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki The GCC wiki
- MIPS ABI Changes in GCC 3.4
- GCC Forum - hosted by Nabble archiving all gcc mailing lists into a searchable forum.
- GCC hacks in the Linux kernel


text:
A 42-year-old man is expected to survive after he was struck by a tractor-trailer Monday morning on Interstate 290 west.
At 9:05 a.m., the man, who state police did not identify, pulled over his 2000 Honda Civic in the breakdown lane between Solomon Pond Mall and the Church Street exit.
For reasons yet to be determined, the man then walked into the travel lane and was struck by a tractor-trailer unit. He was taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center � University Campus, where was treated for his injuries.
He is expected to survive, state police said.
The cause of the crash, as well as the initial reason the man pulled over his car, are under investigation.
The right and center lanes were closed for about two hours to allow for rescue operations and gathering of evidence, state police said.


text:
Building used for recreation programs offered by the city's parks and recreation department.
The city of Ionia plans to apply for a Recreation Passport Grant of $45,000 from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to finance facility improvements at the Armory Community Center. The grant deadline is April 1.
The city council adopted a resolution at its meeting Tuesday night authorizing City Manager Jason Eppler to submit the application. The money will be used to replace 30 windows in the gym and elsewhere in the building, replace entry doors, install Americans with Disabilities-compliant door openers at the east entry, and replace restroom flooring. The proposed improvements were not part of remodeling and restoration completed more than a dozen years ago at the Armory, Eppler said.
Eppler told council members that the windows, which were installed in the 1950s and 1960s, are not energy efficient, and that the city spent about $15,000 last year for natural gas and electricity for heating and cooling of the facility.
The estimated cost of the improvements is $145,000. The balance of needed funds will come from the city's general fund or the parks facilities improvements fund, if the council reauthorizes the 1 mill levy for fiscal year 2013-2014.
The city's five-year community parks and recreation plan for 2012-2017 identified improvements to the Armory Community Center as a top priority for any available funding, Eppler said. The building is used for recreation programs offered by the city's parks and recreation department, including classes, sports leagues, craft sales and community events.
About $750,000 is available statewide through the Recreation Passport Grant, which is funded through the sale of recreation passport license plate tabs, Eppler said.
Also at its meeting, the city council approved a Class C liquor license with dance permit application by Ryam 2 LCC, which owns and operates the Steele Street Hall at 115 S. Steele St. Approval by the council is the first part of the licensing process. Mayor Dan Balice asked to abstain from voting, stating his nephew, Ryan Gregory, is the applicant.
Balice said Gregory, who also owns Gregory's Tavern and caters at Steele Street Hall, is considering opening a part-time or full-time bar at the hall with dancing.
In other action, council accepted a bid by Pollution Control Services of Kalkaska for cleaning and televising designated sanitary sewer mains in the city in the amount of $11,445.60.
Council also approved the collective bargaining agreement between the city and the Police Officers Association of Michigan, which represents 16 union Ionia Public Safety officers, covering the period of July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2016.
Follow Karen Bota on Twitter @KarenB_ISS.


text:
2012-2013 uphill skiing access policies in Summit County
November 3, 2012
Uphill access policies for local ski areas have many areas holding off until later in the season to allow such activities as skinning, snowshoeing, and hiking.
Keystone Resort and Breckenridge Ski Resort have adopted the same policies for the 2012-2013 season. Keystone began allowing uphill access opening day, Friday, and Breckenridge will begin allowing Nov. 9. Uphill access is only permitted during the resorts' off hours. It is prohibited to utilize uphill access during normal operating hours.
As trails at Breck and Keystone open for downhill access during business hours, those trails will also be available for uphill access during the off hours, according to Kristen Petitt Stewart, spokeswoman for Breckenridge Ski Resort.
Copper Mountain will allow limited uphill access beginning Dec. 25 with activities restricted to before and after the ski area's operating hours.
"With limited open terrain and aggressive snowmaking activity during this period, we feel that the early season presents more opportunity of incidents on the hill," said Austin Williams, spokeswoman for the mountain.
Currently Arapahoe Basin is rewriting its policies for a mid-November anticipated announcement and is not permitting any uphill access at this time.
Recommended Stories For You
"We're fine tuning our policy," said Alan Henceroth, ski area chief operating officer. "We're still going to allow uphill access when it's ready and available. It's still very early in the season and there are a lot of mountain grooming and snowmaking operations taking place."
Loveland, too, will not allow early season uphill access but anticipates trails will be ready during mid-December according to Duncan Maxwell, Loveland director of events and promotions.
"It can be very dangerous when people are getting really close to grooming and mountain preparation equipment," Maxwell said. "We want everyone to be safe and it's just best to wait until those types of operations have ceased and natural snow has taken over a little more."
Runs undergoing snowmaking operations including trail work, equipment across runs, snowmaking, snowmobile and snowcat use make it unsafe for skiers recreating on the areas and uphill access is not permitted during mountain preparation.
Local ski areas agree uphill access for skinning, snowshoeing, hiking or other activities should not impede or obstruct ski area operations at any time. For the safety of uphill recreators, trails undergoing mountain preparation will be marked 'closed.' Violation of uphill access policies for local ski areas could result in prosecution for a criminal offense.
Loveland Ski Area recommends two routes for uphill activities. Route A extends up to the top of Chair Two following trails Home Run, Tango Road to A/B Split at the Creek Trail intersection up Turtle Creek to Fire Bowl.
Loveland's Route B for uphill access goes up Creek Trail at A/B Split to Apollo and Rookie Road to the top of Chair Nine.
Copper Mountain's designated routes for uphill access from East Village, head up Skid Road to Main Vein to Rhapsody ending at Solitude.
From Center Village, skinning, snowshoeing and hiking is permitted up Main Vein to Rhapsody ending at Solitude and another trail beginning up Carefree or Lovery to Coppertone, east on Easy Road ending at Solitude.
At Union Creek, uphill access and special trails are available up Roundabout to West Ten Mile ending at the national forest access point gate.
Breckenridge recommends four uphill access routes on Peak 7, 8, 9 and 10. Starting at Peak 7, start at Fort Mary B to Claimjumper to Lower Forget Me Not to the top of Independence, returning down the same route.
Uphill recreators more inclined to Peak 8 can begin at Pringmeier to Upper Four O'Clock to Lonewolf Access up to the T-Bar hut returning down the same route.
On Peak 9, uphill access is recommended from Silverthorne to the Lower America to Bonanza to the top of Beaver Run Chair or top of Mercury, returning down the same route.
On Peak 10, use Silverthorne run to Red Rover onto Crystal to the top of Falcon for uphill access.
At Keystone, the River Run and Spring Dipper top-to-bottom routes are the most popular for off-hour uphill access to the ski area, according to Craig Simson, Keystone ski patrol director.
"We really love it when people come up here and we encourage everyone to take advantage of our top-to-bottom uphill access," Simson said.


text:
So back in May, as you may remember, I went to Germany to visit our wounded troops.
To do this I had a friend watch my kids while my wife Heather went to work.
Instead of payment in the form of money, she asked I do paintings of her little boys favorite
Star Wars characters to hang in his new bedroom.
This is what I did. Hope he likes them, eventually I plan on doing a Yoda painting.


text:
Lot 292 Copper Point: Hailed as one of the best waterfront developments ever in the Midwest, Copper Point is a 350 acre community with 2 miles of Castle Rock Lake waterfront and 3.5 miles of private lake waterfront. Every homesite on each of the three 20 acre spring fed, sand bottom lakes has its own private sand beach to enjoy swimming, kayaking, fishing etc and come with boat slip on Castle Rock Lake. 10,000 sqft clubhouse offers many deluxe indoor & outdoor amenities. Adjacent to Buckhorn State Park
Features Lots and Acreage
|Total Acres: 0.62
|Zoning: PUd
|Present Zoning: PUD, Single family
|Lot Size:
|Lot Description: Adjacent to park/public land, Rural - in subdivision
|Taxes: $0
|Elementary School: New Lisbon
|Middle School: New Lisbon
|High School: New Lisbon
|School District: New Lisbon
|Body of Water: Castle Rock Lake
Estimate your monthly mortgage payment
How much can I borrow?
Speak with a mortgage consultant: 608-276-5210


text:
IKEA 2010: New for the Kitchen
We are gearing up for our annual trip to IKEA and so we were excited to see this sneak preview of their new spring and summer releases, due out in February. Here's a peek at a few new things for the kitchen.
There's nothing terribly groundbreaking here — just gentle updates of old favorites. The new kitchen tools are especially unexciting — new whisk? New pancake turner? Oh yippee.
But we do like the striped and polka-dot trend in their new linens and we think we will almost certainly be picking up a few new towels in those patterns. And that origami tea cozy? Love!
We also love that LEENDE glass carafe; it's an inexpensive basic that will probably become a classic. (It's priced at $7.99.)
And finally, we also like their brightly-colored and stylishly-designed cleaning basics. A red broom may be just the thing our kitchen floor needs.
Have you found any good basics at IKEA lately?
Related: New IKEA Favorite: SLOM Bottle with Stopper
(Images: IKEA)


text:
Building a Healthier Savory Snack
Crispy, salty, crunchy savory snacks are healthier than ever. But whats next? Manufacturers and ingredient companies are working together to help build the next generation of savory snacks.
In spite of health recommendations telling us to avoid eating between meals, snacks are a growing multibillion-dollar industry covering a wide variety of items -- from bars to chips, from carbohydrate-based to protein-based. Perhaps the real challenge is, for many consumers, the term "healthy snack" is an oxymoron. But today's food processors are working to change that.
"I'm a busy working mom, and I need 20-30 snacks a week to put in lunches for my kids," says Nicole Dawes, mother of two boys (ages 2 and 6) and owner of Late July Organic Snacks, Barnstable, Mass. "But I also have to keep my eye on what comes back. I might think something is healthy and delicious, but if it comes back, I know it's not worth it. It's my obligation as a food manufacturer to make as healthy a snack as possible, while still making it something the consumer thinks is delicious and will actually consume."
It's no longer just about removing the bad things – empty calories, trans fats and artificial ingredients – from snacks. "In the overall trend toward a concern for health, we're moving beyond 100-calorie snacks into the substance of health," she continues. "For example, snacks that have a variety of other healthful components for nutrition -- protein, whole grains, fiber – we'll be seeing more and more claims beyond simply calorie count."
When it comes to healthful indulgence, ingredient companies are becoming more interactive with manufacturers when it comes to reconciling what consumers say they want and what they will truly eat. "It used to be consumers wanted a snack that was good for them, and then they hoped the flavor profile was pleasing; nowadays, consumers expect a good-for-you product that also is a delicious treat to keep them going," says Mia Arcieri, market manager for FONA International Inc., Geneva, Ill.
For some makers of healthier savory snacks, the big issue is reducing calories, which customers often expect to come from fat. "The challenge to reducing calories by cutting fat is to keep the texture the same," says Aida Prenzno, laboratory director for Gum Technology Corp., Tucson, Ariz. "Gums and gum blends excel in this area. They add texture, reduce oil pick up during processing, keep solids in suspension, add fiber and promote satiety."
But not all formula adjustments should focus on fat content. "Consumers are more aware of the benefits of healthy eating, making traditional savory snacks less appealing," says Prenzno. "But in order to make [such] snacks more appealing, industry is finding ways to alter formulations by reducing calories, adding exotic flavors, using natural ingredients and creating functional and satiety-promoting snacks."
Attractive additions
Baking, oven-toasting and air-drying are replacing deep-fat frying for many snacks. While the technical challenges of changing the cooking method differ with the product, crackers are a natural for baking.
Crackers deliver unique ingredients, textures and flavors consumers "would not accept in other snacks," according to Courtney Kingery, marketing and customer development manager for ADM Specialty Food Ingredients. "The explosion of the vegetable blends of crackers is a great example of this," she says. "Crackers are no longer the sidekick for a dip; the dip flavors are now on the crackers."
"The challenge has been to achieve a full serving of vegetables into a snack product with a small serving size," says Sean Craig, senior executive chef for Gilroy Foods & Flavors, Omaha, Neb. "Creating palatable snack products with a full vegetable serving can be done with the help of ingredient systems such as Controlled Moisture vegetables or GardenFrost purees," which eliminate excess water in vegetables by up to half and also have significantly less salt than vegetable bases. "They do not contain flavor-muddling acids or preservatives-and it shows with a clean label," he adds.
Kingery says one major goal in savory snack formulation is "how to push the boundaries in snacking while still keeping the food familiar." To that end, ADM continues to develop "novel technology and ingredients that allow us to deliver familiar snack shapes and textures with added nutrition."
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> It's common sense that you used and have H1.5 at least.
However, I do disagree with you here.
Some one with such strong feelings, harboring reasons right or wrongly about that product ,vehemently advocating never having use that product- In point of fact common sense would dictate that you could never determine the contrary.
> Lies! You say untruthful hurtful things. It's common sense that you used and have H1.5 at least.
What is common sense for you, can be rubbish for me, and vice versa. I don't use also Komodo, Critter, Fire-, Robbo-, Ippo- and many others. I just don't. I have no need for that.
As for the rest, you believe what you want, I believe what I want. You can believe that the Earth is flat, for all I care. You believe a person can come out of nowhere and produce the best chess playing program so far? Oh, yes, Vasik did so, too. The only difference is Vasik made another couple of hundred ELO later, demonstrating he is able to produce mirracles ON HIS OWN. Houdart didn't do nothing, and is trying to sell this nothing around. In my book, it sucks.
> telling someone to shut up is not the answer
Agreed, but that was just my way of saying "Ok, I was able to understand what you are doing and am not particularly angry as obviously today many people do this, to the point when it's almost normal, and I could have coped with your existence while you we're quiet, but when I read your posts, and see how difficult and egoistic you are, I go berserk."
We will see very soon if Vas is able to surpass Houdini and Rybka get the throne again. I think he can do it, but in the last interview he did not look very confident in seeking only that goal. If his main goal is still the Cluster project, then I doubt Rybka 5 will do it. Probably the gap with Houdini will be reduced a lot but no so much to surpass it. This will be very interesting. We will see.
Per Lukas (and I hope he doesn't mind my quoting him here)
Atm Rybka 5 is top priority. After this cluster development will continue
I am hopeful that we will see a state of the art Rybka 5 that will meet all expectations. I think that this time around there is more on the line than just making a version update. I believe he see this and it has been factored into making this his priority.
Two questions:
1. Can you please give us some news about the next Komodo 4 and its strength improvement over version 3?
2. Rybka 4.0 was made in May 2010 and 4.1 in March 2011. Certainly Vas has had time to improve the engine. But according to CCRL Houdini 2.0c is now +67 Elo stronger than Rybka 4.1 (both on 6 cores) on 40/4 blitz TC, and +54 Elo stronger on 40/40 TC (both using 4 cores). Do you expect Rybka 5 to be stronger than Houdini 2.0c? Or do you expect Houdini will continue leading for much longer?
Best wishes to you and Don in your work with future Komodo versions, Larry.
So the real question is: Has Vas developed enough improvements in the 19 months since May 2010 that he is willing to expose in a released UCI version to overcome the ~70 Elo deficit to Houdini? Please note that this question has two parts; 1) How strong is the strongest Rybka for SMP?, and 2) How much of this strength will be released in R5?
> The goal of Rybka 4.1 was NOT to improve playing strength. In fact, its goal was to fix bugs in Rybka 4 WITHOUT improving playing strength (aside from bug related reductions). Vas was very clear about this with the general public, and even clearer with the beta testers.
> So the real question is: Has Vas developed enough improvements in the 19 months since May 2010 that he is willing to expose in a released UCI version to overcome the ~70 Elo deficit to Houdini? Please note that this question has two parts; 1) How strong is the strongest Rybka for SMP?, and 2) How much of this strength will be released in R5?
Yes this is the most accurate way of seeing the issue. I'm pretty sure (based on my rental of the Rybka Cluster earlier this year) that the answer to Q 1) is > Houdini 2. But the answer to Q 2) may be depressing.
The MP version should follow in January. Price $39.95, but if you buy the SP now, the MP will be half price so the SP now is still effectively free for anyone planning to buy the MP.
The eval has been changed quite a bit, plus some search improvements. Elo gain probably somewhere in the ballpark of 20, though I'm hoping it will turn out to be more.
I would expect Rybka 5 will surpass Houdini. Perhaps all that's needed to do this is to duplicate the changes Houdart made to create Houdini 1.5 from Ivanhoe, which have already been published by Critter author Richard Vida. If Ivanhoe is really pretty much a "clone" of Rybka, that ought to work. Anyway I'm sure Vas has plenty of his own improvements.
We need one really good idea for Komodo to catch Houdini, I think. If Rybka is first, Komodo second, and Houdini third in a few months, that will be fine with me!
I don't like it, but I think it's a smart move considering many people use Komodo under IDEA and they only need the SP version.
I thought having a SP version free would be a nice thing other engine developers could adopt, that way I could get a shot at using Hiarcs 14 SP or Shredder 14 SP. But now that Komodo abandoned it, it's something that just won't happen...
>the MP will be half price so the SP now is still effectively free for anyone planning to buy the MP.
That's a weird statement, considering the SP version has no use whatsoever if you own the MP version, as the MP version can be set to 1CPU.
However, I was unclear as to your estimate of K4's strength ("20 Elo improvement over K3"). Where would that place K4 vs. R4.1?
Don's delivery of the download was super efficient and rapid. The Help file explaining Komodo 4 options was exemplary. Hopefully, other engine makers will take note.
I did not see any provision for TB files. Will that be in the Komodo 4 MP?
> He is a very decent guy as well as a great programmer. He has already helped us improve Komodo in more ways than one. Critter is a really good program, but it is very similar to Houdini and the other Ippos in many ways. I would like to see Critter be the best of the Ippo-like programs.
If that statement isn't a great example of an "asteism" than I would be hard pressed to find one that is.
Painting his engine as tainted and Komodo as , what?
1. Copying an existing program and then making changes to improve it. Example: Houdini. This is okay if the author of the copied program doesn't object and if you acknowledge that this is what you are doing. By this standard, "Fire" is okay while Houdini is not.
2. Writing a new program "in the image" of an existing one, meaning that you use almost all of the ideas and formulas of the existing one, perhaps with modifications and improvements, but you write your own code. This is what Ippo did with Rybka, what Rybka is accused of doing with Fruit, and what Critter did with Ippo. It is legally defensible, and if the author of the older program does not object it is morally ok. The newer program cannot compete in tournaments though without the express permission of the older one's author, which would be hard to get in the case of Ippo since no one knows who the author is. So I am not criticizing Critter here, or Rybka (the objection from Fruit coming five years too late); Ippo can be criticized on the grounds that Rybka did object.
3. Writing a new program using selected ideas from various other programs, with no strong resemblance to any one. This is what Komodo does, and is the standard for tournament participation without anyone else's permission.
There is a world of difference between each of these 3 methods. All are okay if they follow the above guidelines, which Critter did and which Houdini did not.
> Maybe you are right. Do you favor leaving it up to the ICGA to decide? If not, then who?
Ask Komodo's programmer that pip of a question! eh!
> Do you favor leaving it up to the ICGA to decide? If not, then who?
The origin of Komodo investigated by the same ICGA measuring rod as Rybka was, pushing rule #2 to its limits, would very well not have a typical Hollywood ending.
From the Doch 09.980 README file we read:
Also, much credit goes to the authors of open source chess programs. Many of the ideas and techniques for doch have been borrowed from these wonderful works of art.
Can you not see the similarities between Vas and Don ?
1. Studied and learned from open sources.
2. Coming out of the blue with an incredible elo.
Can this be done without copying? I believe the answer is yes. The post-internet generation learns 10 times faster than the pre-internet generation. I think Richard just proofed that, Don too, Vas and Fabien also. It's just the ICGA who are the slow learners here.
> From the Doch 09.980 README file we read:
> Also, much credit goes to the authors of open source chess programs. Many of the ideas and techniques for doch have been borrowed from these wonderful works of art.
What constitutes a "technique"? Seems to be something different from an idea, as it is split out in the above citation.
> That leaves them without a competition at all.
They have already been left without a competition at all, even without doing what you suggest.
This is clearly not true. The first released version of Doch was a reasonably good program, but not as good as any of the "name" programs like Shredder, Fritz, Hiarcs etc., never mind Rybka. Each subsequent release was moderately stronger until Komodo eventually passed everyone but Houdini (so far). This is not at all consistent with the idea that we copied from anyone. We have used various search ideas from both Stockfish and Ippo (more from Stockfish than from Ippo), but the details are always different as is of course the code, and we have rejected a huge number of their ideas as poor ones. The eval is completely original, with only the fact that I worked on both Rybka 3 and Komodo giving them any commonality. It is my view that if a new program shows excessive similarity in either search or eval with an existing one, regardless of how it is coded, then it should not be allowed in competition without the express permission of the earlier author. This is of course a judgment call, and it is the right of the sponsoring organization of the competition to make that call. I'm not taking any position on the Rybka-Fruit issue as I have not studied it myself. I have stated that even if one accepts the ICGA judgment on Rybka 1, later versions (let's say at least 2.3 and beyond) were surely sufficiently different to be eligible to play on their own merits, though of course this would have to be demonstrated. The only program that I feel is clearly NOT original enough to be allowed to compete without express permission from another is Houdini, and since we don't know the author of Ippo he can't get that permission. As for Ippo itself, it is a borderline call. At least they went to some trouble not to be so similar to Rybka as to make the case a slam-dunk.
Larry - This is clearly not true. The first released version of Doch was a reasonably good program, but not as good as any of the "name" programs like Shredder, Fritz, Hiarcs etc., never mind Rybka.
Doch 09.980 64-bit 2969
Rybka 1.0 64-bit 2919
So I am a bit surprised you saying this.
> This is not at all consistent with the idea that we copied from anyone.
Did you feel I said or implied this ?
As you perhaps know my beef is with the ICGA and their stupid rule #2 which they pushed to its limits to get the wished effect, my beef is not with Komodo. The similarities between Vas and Don are striking and if the origin of Komodo were hold to the same measuring rod Don could be the next victim if you decide to participate. Something to think about.
It's also quite funny that Don's similarity utility pleads Rybka free and the difference between Rybka 1.0 and the first Komodo is negligible, only 3%, see the second chapter of this page: http://www.top-5000.nl/quick_guide.htm
I have talked with Don about that page, assured him it has nothing to do with Komodo and he was okay with that.
You also might have a look at the real clones, a study of Adam Hair, see: http://www.top-5000.nl/clone.htm
I know you didn't accuse us of copying, but many readers might take it that way. I just don't agree with the characterization of early Doch as having an "incredible elo". Rybka 1 was already hopelessly out of date by then.
Without taking any position on the Rybka 1 vs. Fruit issue, I can say that I am confident that any comparison of Komodo with Rybka, Ippo, or any other program will not show any suspicious degree of similarity, except that most of the eval terms (but not the weights) are similar in all the programs that I worked on (Komodo and Rybka 2.3.2.a thru 3.0) and therefore also in Ippo, Houdini etc. So if any eval similarity is demonstrated between Komodo and any Ippo-derived program, it would only be evidence for disqualifying the Ippo program. I suppose that if both Komodo and Rybka wanted to enter an ICGA tournament (assuming no ban on Rybka), they could refuse to allow both on the grounds of one common contributor to both (myself), but I think that would be a stretch.
Anthony found the extreme futility pruning in early Rybka to be new and significant, and even tried (unsuccessfully) to implement the idea in ZIIM.
"chapter B.1. : The principal new idea in Rybka 1.0 Beta seems to me to be the loosening of the stringent cutoff values for futility previously used in the AEL pruning of Heinz. These add up to about a 75-100 Elo improvement on a 32-bit machine, comparable to the amount that Fruit itself gained over the second half of 2005."
Among other things Larry missed I can mention Rybka's unique idea to use a pawn-value=3200 in EVAL and a pawn-value=100 in search which in the meantime is adopted by many. I think that also was brand new. It's simply brilliant.
> Among other things Larry missed I can mention Rybka's unique idea to use a pawn-value=3200 in EVAL and a pawn-value=100 in search which in the meantime is adopted by many. I think that also was brand new. It's simply brilliant.
Can you please explain to the layman, what is the purpose of this brilliant idea, and how does it work?
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text:
0 0>=40 .vs 0u 0<=39 .vs 0p typedef struct { int type; unsigned long serial; Bool send_event; Display *display; Drawable drawable; int x, y; int width, height; int count; int major_code; int minor_code; } XGraphicsExposeEvent;
0 0>=40 .vs 0u 0<=39 .vs 0p typedef struct { int type; unsigned long serial; Bool send_event; Display *display; Drawable drawable; int major_code; int minor_code; } XNoExposeEvent;
When you receive these events, their structure members are set as follows.
The type member is set to the event type constant name that uniquely identifies it. For example, when the X server reports a GraphicsExpose event to a client application, it sends an XGraphicsExposeEvent structure with the type member set to GraphicsExpose. The display member is set to a pointer to the display the event was read on. The send_event member is set to True if the event came from a SendEvent protocol request. The serial member is set from the serial number reported in the protocol but expanded from the 16-bit least-significant bits to a full 32-bit value. The window member is set to the window that is most useful to toolkit dispatchers.
Both structures have these common members: drawable, major_code, and minor_code. The drawable member is set to the drawable of the destination region on which the graphics request was to be performed. The major_code member is set to the graphics request initiated by the client and can be either X_CopyArea or X_CopyPlane. If it is X_CopyArea, a call to XCopyArea initiated the request. If it is X_CopyPlane, a call to XCopyPlane initiated the request. These constants are defined in <X11/Xproto.h>. The minor_code member, like the major_code member, indicates which graphics request was initiated by the client. However, the minor_code member is not defined by the core X protocol and will be zero in these cases, although it may be used by an extension.
The XGraphicsExposeEvent structure has these additional members: x, y, width, height, and count. The x and y members are set to the coordinates relative to the drawable's origin and indicate the upper-left corner of the rectangle. The width and height members are set to the size (extent) of the rectangle. The count member is set to the number of GraphicsExpose events to follow. If count is zero, no more GraphicsExpose events follow for this window. However, if count is nonzero, at least that number of GraphicsExpose events (and possibly more) are to follow for this window.
Table of Contents


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Brief SummaryRead full entry
Molossidae (including Tomopeatinae) is a diverse group of fast-flying aerial insectivores. Some species live in very large colonies that can exceed 5 million individuals. Molossidae currently includes over 13 genera and 80 species (Koopman, 1993; Sudman et al., 1994). Two clades are currently recognized within Molossidae: Tomopeatinae and Molossinae (Sudman et al., 1994; Simmons, 1998; Simmons and Geisler,1998). Tomopeatinae is monotypic, containing only Tomopeas ravus, a species found only in Peru. All other molossids belong to Molossinae.


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Each of these elegant rooms enjoys its own individual design, making the most of the hotel's unique layout and tranquil setting. Warm and welcoming with either soft carpet or wooden floors, deep plush furnishings and character features such as sloping ceilings or exposed beams, these rooms are wonderfully atmospheric and inviting. Decorated in creams and beiges, with touches of red and blue, the soothing palette is in keeping with the building's history as a monastery. In the bedroom guests have the choice of a king or queen size bed, while the adjoining bathroom has been fitted with limestone floors warmed by underfloor heating. Views stretch over the pretty streets of Mala Strana or our peaceful garden.
Located in the Baroque, Renaissance, Spa Wing
Images may not be to scale. Floorplans are for illustrative purposes only and some details may vary from room to room.


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|2012-11-02, 23:26
|Link #181
Paper-Fan of DOOM!!
Join Date: Jul 2010
|2012-11-02, 23:29
|Link #184
Okuyasu the Bird
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Alberta, Canada
Age: 26
I feel pretty much the same way towards this like I did back when Disney purchased Marvel Comics. Since I'm only a casual fan of both, I'm not really concerned. In fact I probably like Disney even more so than Star Wars OR Marvel.
And it's not like Star Wars and Disney haven't had connections in the past. The Star Tours attraction at Disneyland/World in particular comes to mind. This isn't very out there to me when I think of that.
I'll probably like the new trilogy anyway. I'm one of "those people" who didn't really have problems with the prequel trilogy. Maybe because I've never really been interested in deeply analyzing the Star Wars series.
The concept of Luke Skywalker being the protagonist in films where the Jedi are prevalent again is intriguing to me too.
Last edited by SilverSyko; 2012-11-03 at 01:53.
|2012-11-03, 01:17
|Link #185
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 29
George Lucas Will Donate Disney $4 Billion To Education
May the force be with the next generation.
|2012-11-03, 02:08
|Link #186
Join Date: Feb 2008
Also, stealthy mod is stealthy
|2012-11-03, 02:32
|Link #188
Okuyasu the Bird
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Alberta, Canada
Age: 26
But hey if it is bad from an objective standpoint, it can still be entertaining from a subjective view no? I expected a sci-fi action adventure story from Star Wars I, II and III and that's what I got.
|2012-11-03, 05:30
|Link #189
Call me MK! :)
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: The top of the world.
Age: 29
Michael Moore auditions to direct Star Wars VII, hilarity ensues. XD
|2012-11-03, 08:09
|Link #190
Join Date: Feb 2008
"I hate sand, it's coarse and it get's everywhere, unlike here, where everything is soft, and smooth"
"No, it's because I'm so in love with you!"
I still cringe when I remember those scenes. The original trilogy were hardly Oscar material, but at least they weren't this bad.
|2012-11-03, 11:32
|Link #191
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2011
Location: where magic is reality
|2012-11-03, 11:45
|Link #192
Ha ha ha ha ha...
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Right behind you.
Age: 30
But I bet Disney would have at least picked better actors. Moustache Dad was the only good actor in that entire series. Ugh.
|2012-11-03, 11:51
|Link #193
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Virginia
Age: 41
|2012-11-03, 13:34
|Link #195
formerly ogon bat
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Mexico
Age: 47
Last edited by mangamuscle; 2012-11-03 at 13:45.
|2012-11-03, 13:35
|Link #196
The Comet has Come
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 41
The novelization were much better. The trouble with Revenge of the Sith was that the film missed some of the excitement it should have had in the beginning. When the only cheers from the audiance are when R2-D2 kick some droid butt, you know you have a problem. Rspecially when you are suppose to have cheer momemnts for Skywalker and Kenobi.
However the novel had two things in the openning that were far, far superior to the film.
One was the introduction to the Battle over Coruscant. The intro talks about the state of the Republic, how the war has gone, the Jedi that have fallen, both to the enemy and to the Dark Side. It talks about the fear the adults have about the war. The battle over Coruscant has it that the Chancellor himself has been captured. The fear and worry on the adults it clear. But the children have no fear. They have hope and they know. The children tell their parents not to worry, Skywalker and Kenobi will be there. The parents don't quite believe, but smile at thier child's hope. But what they don't know is that their children are correct. For just at the edge of the battle, two small fighter have come out of hyperspace. Skywalker and Kenobi have arrived.
The other part was the duel. The duel was told from Dooku's point of view. We have his thoughs about these two jedi he's facing. He wants Palpatine to take Kenobi for a new dark sider, but Palpatine says it will be Skywalker. The boy is powerful but unrefined. The duel starts and the text goes into how the two jedi are using the same stances they used on Geonosis, though they are much more coordinated this time. Dooku is bored with them and ask Obi-wan "Surely you can do better" To which Kenobi smiles and says "Alright than" and leaps stright up, to be replace by a very hard hitting Anakin. The power behind the swings throws Dooku off balance for a moment, "where did that come from?" He manages to knock Skywalker away, but then Kenobi is back. Both are using much more advacned stances now. The old stances were a trick. "clever". Dooku finds he can fight Kenobi, but cannot break the Jedi's defense...they are practically perfect. He also finds he cannot deflect Skywalker's blows because he's new style is raw power (Vader's style). Dooku has a very bad feeling about this.
The novel then switchs to Anakin's point of view.
I liked the narrative at the beginning because it gives that sense that the children know. The age of heros may be almost over, but at least at this point, Skywalker-Kenobi is the hero team that will win and the chldren still believe in heros. And that the children are right makes it more fun.
The inner thoughts of Dooku on his analysis of the jedi he fights is fun as well. Not just for his reactions, but also because there are a few lines of dialogue that would have been perfect for the film. While there was some, I enjoy the verbal sparing that happens in the older lightsaber duels, and this duel has some, but most of it was cut. I especially like it when Kenobi verbally spars back with a smile. He did this during the Grievious fight later on and on the Death Star years later. Unfortunately that part of the lightsaber duel in the film was done rather quickly, slowing down to the novel's pace once Dooku takes Kenobi out of the fight.
|2012-11-03, 18:04
|Link #197
Black Steel Knight
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Indonesia
C'mon now, be more positive. I believe Disney won't succumb that low.
Then again, there's that Disney movie Bedtime Stories made by (and starring) Adam Sandler which is even worse than Twilight. Yikes.
|2012-11-03, 19:50
|Link #198
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 30
Though generally Hayden Christiansen was bad. Wooden as a plank. I think Lucas makes for a poor script-writer/director. The prequels are a case of him having too much control and running it into the ground. The original trilogy were nothing incredible in the script/directing department, but they didn't have the excesses of the prequels.
Lucas should stick to what he's good at, special effects, and leave the rest for film-makers better skilled at that kind of thing. In fact, you could see the beginnings of the problems the prequel trilogy had in Return of the Jedi. Empire Strikes back really had just the right balance, and it's also the film where Lucas had the least direct control.
I bet by the time of the prequels Lucas had such a big name that no one dared to to oppose any of his bad decisions. It's something I've seen happen to many creative types, they strain against their executive oversight, but once they hit it big and their name carries weight, they run away with themselves. Look at Coppola and One From the Heart.
|2012-11-03, 19:54
|Link #199
Ha ha ha ha ha...
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Right behind you.
Age: 30
But yeah, I agree. I still have faith in Disney. They're probably the only movie-producing company I actually have faith in nowadays. Not perfect by any means, but at least they usually show a modicum of effort, unlike Hollywood.
|star wars
|Thread Tools


text: Last night, Dave Grohl and a grip of musicians who he featured in his documentary about Sound City Studio — including members of Rage Against The Machine, Fear, and Cheap Trick, among others — played a lengthy show at NYC's Hammerstein Ballroom. Divided into seven sets, the night was filled with renditions of the bands' respective hits, the musicians backed up by different members of Foo Fighters. We sent photographer Kenny Sun to capture the evening.


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The Dolphins announced moments ago that Sunday's 1 p.m. game against Oakland has been declared a sellout and will be televised locally in South Florida.
The sellout took some work. The club had to work it until the 5 p.m. deadline and even then had to guarantee the purchase of whatever tickets are not sold between now and game day. I am assuming the club got a sponsor or sponsors to share the cost of making that guarantee.
"As we've said many times, keeping the games on local television has been a priority of Steve Ross' since he purchased the franchise," said Dolphins Chief Executive Officer Mike Dee. "Any remaining unsold seats will be offered to Dolphins premium seat holders and season ticket members on a first come first served basis."


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As my first trip to Israel edges closer, I have been thinking more and more about what I want to see and accomplish. I'm striking for a balance of the historical and modern, religious and secular, educational and fun.
I started to make a mental list of must-see sights in each major city: namely Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa.
I'm especially excited about Jerusalem – I have heard one month wouldn't be enough for Jerusalem. The Holy City has some main draws like City of David and Dome of the Rock; at the same time – lots of tourist traps like people trying to sell you useless crap. Also downloaded a few apps to assist me in my planning. This should be one great learning and fun adventure. I have already secured my stay in Tel Aviv through Airbnb. I'm staying with a kind and young couple in the happening part of town. They have already demonstrated to me their hospitality by offering me a small discount for me to stay with them. They've never had a guest from Hong Kong!! I may be the rare "Asian" person in Israel. One that has not made aliyah…yet. 🙂
Tel Aviv should be where I can get my fix of the modern and fun. Haifa would be historical and educational.
Below is what I'm thinking given my week in Israel. Obviously, I can't see and do everything. I have to save time for another trip in the future!! Have you been to Israel? Any other sights that you would recommend?
- City of David
- Jewish Quarter
- Western Wall
- Tower of David
- Mount of Olives
- Muslim Quarter
Tel Aviv:
- Neve Tzedek
- Old Jaffa
- Tayelet Beach
- Museum of the Jewish People
- Attend a Shabbat Service
- Experience the nightlife
- Baha'i Gardens and Golden Dome
- Theatre at Caesarea National Park
- Ramat HaNadiv
- Louis Promenade
- National Museum of Science, Technology, and Space


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To succeed, we have to be fully integrated into the communities we serve. Local and independent is more in line with consumer behavior, and allows us to be more flexible in terms of adjusting to consumer wants and needs. Most importantly, it ensures that we have the resources required to not only meet industry standards but to exceed performance expectations by our clients.
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The Essentials
Name: Tina Yong
Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Check out Tina's website
"Like" Tina on Facebook
Birthday: July 16th
Height: 5'3"
Weight: 108lbs
Measurements: 32-25-36
Ethnicity/Nationality: Vietnamese / Australian
The Interview
Where are you from?
I'm born and raised in Sydney and currently still living here.
Does your personality match your Zodiac sign?
My personality does match my Zodiac sign. Cancers are known to be emotional and caring. They're also very social and mix well with all sorts of people. I can definitely be very emotional at times and I would say I'm a people person. I'm always looking to meet new people and I love making new friends.
What would you say are your strengths as a model?
I would say I'm very adaptable to different scenarios. Sometimes things don't go as planned and you have to be able to work with what you've got.
What is your best beauty secret?
Exfoliate your skin at least once a week! It'll get rid of the dead skin cells on the surface that makes your skin look dull and tired.
What are your future plans?
My future goal is to travel to the U.S and Canada to work at car shows and hopefully one day become a well-known Aussie import model.
Do you drink?
Yes, I drink. I always have a vodka soda lime with a dash of cranberry juice.
What is the best present you received?
The best present I've received was a Holiday to Vietnam with 5 of my friends. This was in July for my birthday and we all went away for 2 weeks. The best present I've given to someone was a surprise sea plane ride and dinner at Jonah's Restaurant in Whale Beach. The restaurant has an amazing water view and the sea plane ride there and back is such unforgettable experience!
Where do you like to eat?
I am a big fan of Thai food. I love spicy food and whenever I'm having Thai, I'll always order spicy papaya salad. Yum!!
What do you do on your spare time?
If I'm not busy working then I'm busy spending. Haha. I spend my spare time online shopping. I know! It's such a bad habit but I just can't help myself when I find a great deal!
How do you keep in such excellent shape?
I've recently started hitting the gym more. I try to go at least 4 times a week to do weights and cardio. Some days it does get hard to drag butt to the gym but I find it helps when you train with a friend.
Are you big on first impressions?
Like they say, first impressions count! The first thing I notice in a guy is his height. Tall guys always score extra brownie points. Then comes his body language. If he's a shy and timid guy then its a no go. You have to be confident to catch my attention!
What's on your travel itinerary?
I'm actually planning a vacation with best friend next year in March. She's just finished university so we're celebrating by travelling to Bangkok, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
How would you like your boyfriend to propose to you?
I'd like it if he surprised me and popped the question in front of my family and friends. It'll save me from repeating the story of "how he proposed" over and over again to everyone. Haha
Marriage song?
A Thousand Years- Christina Perry because it's one of my favourite songs and I want to our love to last for more than a thousand years.
What else can you tell us about yourself?
I've recently become a health freak and have a new obsession with eating clean healthy food. My goal is to get abs before the end of summer!
Any shout-outs or last words?
I'd like to give a big shout out to all my friends and family who have continued to support and push me to be the best person I can be. Thanks everyone! Love you guys!


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And the hits just keep on coming.
On the day the Eagles signed Jason Avant to a five-year deal and restructured Stacy Andrews' contract, they announced that they have traded wide receiver Reggie Brown for an undisclosed 2011 draft choice.
It seemed as if the Eagles would trade Brown, their second-round draft pick in 2005, before last season, but he hung on all year. He was hardly used, however, and caught just nine passes for 155 yards.
Now he's gone.
Stacy Andrews agreed to take a pay cut next season, the Eagles agreed to pay his $4.1 million bonus, and the guard will be back next season, according to a team source.
Andrews' 2010 base salary will drop from $2.95 million to $1.15 million. Last month, the Eagles said that Andrews would need to restructure his contract if he hoped to return for next season. Andrews said that he would accept a pay cut, but that he didn't want his bonus "messed with."
Apparently, both sides got what they wanted.
The Eagles signed Andrews to a six-year contract last off-season, only months after he tore his ACL. Andrews played tackle in his last two seasons with the Bengals, but was switched to guard by the Eagles during the spring.
Andrews, though, hardly played at all. The team said his recovery from the knee injury stalled his return, but Andrews insisted that the knee was alright. He said that playing a different position in a new system kept him from performing up to his capabilities.
With a deal reached, Andrews should be in the mix at right guard, along with Nick Cole, who started there most of last season.


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|Voice of Fire is a sound sculpture with 13 flames that act as speakers. As people speak into the microphone, their voice comes out on the thirteen flames at different delays. As they are speaking, their voice is recorded, and when no one is speaking, the system plays back random bits of people speaking, different soundbites on different flames, gradually fading away to silence.
Tim Black and his team of mad scientists built the Voice of Fire for
BurningMan 2003.
Here's how it works: ionize a propane flame so that it conducts
electricity; place a 400 volt current across the flame; and modulate
the current with an audio source. The current will cause the plasma
gases in the flame to expand and contract at audio rate, moving air,
and making sound.
My contribution to the project was to write the audio software. I used Max/MSP running on a powerbook G4, with a MOTU 828 audio interface that would take input from the microphone, and produce 13 outputs, one for each flame. The core of the software is a sound snippet database system with a silence detector and random-interval recording system that would record soundbytes from 15 to 45 seconds long, and place them in a filesystem organized by time. A random playback system would select a file to play, and send it to its assigned flame. When a snippet finished, the system would delay a random amount, then play the next one. The random delays would increase if no one was speaking into the microphone, so that when someone spoke, there would be a burst of activity that would gradually fade to very sparse, only occasional sounds coming out. For each sound snippet, the burner would burst into flame (if it wasn't already going), wait a bit, then speak.


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Normally, the placenta is attached to the uterus above the cervix. When
the placenta blocks the cervix, it is called placenta previa. The amount
of cervix covered by the placenta may be slight (marginal), moderate (partial),
or complete (total). This picture shows a complete placenta previa.
Last Revised:
February 3, 2012
Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
Sarah Marshall, MD - Family Medicine & William Gilbert, MD - Maternal and Fetal Medicine
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information. Your use of this information means that you agree to the Terms of Use. How this information was developed to help you make better health decisions.
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.


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Big Sounds Championships - we have winners and new themes
A month ago we told you about the Big Sounds Championships, where Reason owners get to show off their sound sculpting skills, creating huge-sounding Combinator patches in different categories.
So far, we have covered the Big Bass and Big Leads sections of the Championships. The results of the first two rounds can be downloaded as ReFills with hundreds of Combinator patches from the Winner's page: http://www.propellerheads.se/go/DB2C6800
Next round is Big Pad. The contest is open and we need your submissions by Friday Nov 24th, so there is still time for you to show us what Big Pad means to you.
This week's prize offering is mighty sweet too! The winner of the Big Pad! contest will receive a AlphaTrack from Frontier Design Group. So smokingly brand new it hasn't even been released yet (you'll be first in line when it hits the streets in January).
The AlphaTrack combines natural controls, like a motorized fader and transport buttons, with productive innovations like touch-sensitive encoders and a unique touch-sensitive jog/shuttle strip - and to make things easier for you, it's even Remote compliant! Read all about it at the Frontier website: http://www.propellerheads.se/go/711EAA73
Related Products
Propellerhead Recycle 2.2
How is it done? ReCycle will analyze your groove and break it up into its rhythmic components. You are now in complete control and free to change the tempo or the pitch, without one affecting the other. And that's just scratching the surface. Then what? Load the resulting REX2 file into your audio sequencer or software sampler and you can…
Web Price:179.00
Availability:Normally 3-5 Days


text:
Black Swan
Eastern Promises
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A Dangerous Method
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L'Instinct de Mort
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Movies.com, the ultimate source for everything movies, is your destination for new movie trailers, reviews, photos, times, tickets + more! Stay in the know with the latest movie news and cast interviews at Movies.com.
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|Episode Description
|Tuesday, Mar 12, 2013 - 6:00 PM
"Separating Twins"
Abandoned shortly after birth at an orphanage in Bangladesh, twin girls, Trishna and Krishna, are joined at the head and have little chance of survival. Aid workers take them to Australia where they spend two years battling for life before doctors can attempt a marathon separation surgery to allow them to live separate lives. G
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The Empire strike back
Alias Empire – the band formerly known as Dry County – are back after a five-year break. They talk about moving away from bedroom intimacy and making a bigger noise
What's in a name? Well, if you're Alias Empire, quite a lot, actually. Much of the Dublin trio's history is tied up in their previous moniker, Dry County, whose 2007 debut Unexpected Falls generated critical acclamation and a nomination for the Choice Music Prize.
But, as Kevin Littlewood and Phil Porter of the indie-electronica band tell it, names can be tricky. "I think the music was going in a different direction, anyway," says Littlewood, when we meet in Dublin.
Sipping his cup of tea, he adds, "If we'd released [new album] Safety in Numbers under the Dry County name, I just don't think it would have worked. We had to do something."
"There was another band in Canada with the same name, and they went to the trouble of sending us some pretty horrible emails," smiles Belfast native Porter.
"And after meeting the hundredth person to say 'Oh, I thought you were a country band', it was like, 'Right, fuck this!' We used to get people calling us 'Dry Country', too. You'd arrive somewhere to play a gig and see a poster with 'Dry Country' on it. It just got a bit annoying, so we just thought 'Let's change it'. Saying that, people have called us Alien Empire, too," he says, with a roll of the eyes, "so you can't win!"
The band's genesis lay in Littlewood's mellow acoustic solo project, but when he crossed paths with the electronically minded Porter more than a decade ago, the band that would eventually become known as Alias Empire began to take shape.
"I was still in the headspace of guitar-bass-drums-vocals; Phil was getting into synths and stuff like that," he explains. "So we got together and he put some synth stuff onto my recordings, and that really opened my eyes to the recording process – that you can make something innovative without being forced into a studio on someone else's time."
"For me, it was just about making it a little bit bigger," nods Porter. "That's kind of been a constant thing up until now, making things a bit bigger, a bit more electronic. Unexpected Falls was a step up from the first few EPs, and this new album is another step up again."
Their progression may be audible in their recordings, but the band's absence from the scene over the past few years means that re-establishing themselves after a long period of inactivity may be an uphill struggle.
"I think people reckon we've been waiting for the right time to release something, but that's not the case," says Porter. "It's just taken us this long to make it, for one reason or another. Around the time that we would have started recording again after the first album, we got a bit of interest from the UK to do some shows and to put the record out there. So we thought, 'OK, let's postpone writing and pursue this avenue for a while'."
"And that was concurrent with the name change as well . . . The name change was a big setback for us," admits Littlewood. "There were a few other factors, too. Without getting too into it, band morale had reached a low point after the name change – and then another member left, because he wasn't happy. On a completely personal level, I was going through a lot of stuff and I wasn't in a healthy place to finish a record; neither was Phil. So there were all of these factors, pushing us further and further from what we wanted to do."
Although the band went through a rough transitional period, Littlewood insists that they never came close to splitting. "No, even though I think it would have been easier to do that, because there was a time that we weren't doing anything," he nods. "We hadn't been talking that much; we didn't know what to do, and we just felt a bit flat. The original plan after we changed the name in 2009 was that we'd stop playing live, and write. And I think that's where it started to get a bit difficult; people weren't happy with how stuff was working, and it got a bit messy."
When they eventually regrouped to write and record Safety in Numbers , their spark was re-ignited in the unlikeliest of places. Leaving Dublin for the countryside, their distinctly urban-sounding music came to life when they decamped to a house in rural Oldcastle, Co Meath.
"It's lovely, because you go outside and you can barely get a signal on your phone: there's no internet, there's no TV. There's a field and there's cows, and it's great," laughs Littlewood. "I love living in the city and I wouldn't change it because I'm a city kid, but I think when you go away, it just changes how you think about things. You have to take turns making dinner for each other and that sort of thing; I know that sounds really basic, but it creates a real bond. You're not just meeting up to rehearse and go for a beer – you're living together. That's what creates the true dynamic."
The band's recording and writing routine often involved working through the night, and it's audible in some of the more atmospheric songs on Safety in Numbers , such as Dead Zoo and December . The songs took shape in several ways: some began on the piano, some with a bassline; others still – such as Lay Down – crystallised when Littlewood was messing around with drum samples on the computer. Striking a balance between the intimacy of the songs on Unexpected Falls and the desire to progress wasn't always easy.
"We probably played the first album live a bit too much, but because we were gigging heavily, we wanted to get a bit of the live feeling on this record," says Porter. "I think even some of the bigger songs on the first album were still almost kind of 'bedroom' songs. And that was the charm of that album; on the whole, it was all written and recorded in a bedroom. But this time, we wanted to get past that lo-fi aspect."
The charm of their debut was certainly a factor in its success, but there is also the reality that when it was released, the Irish music scene was predisposed to bands who were successful at blending indie and electronica; acts such as Channel One and Super Extra Bonus Party ruled the roost. These days, the Irish acts making international waves are mostly guitar-based, such as Villagers, Little Green Cars and Kodaline. Do they worry that their long absence and failure to capitalise on the success of Unexpected Falls means they've missed the boat?
"Not to sound standoffish or anything, but we always just make records that we wanna hear," admits the earnest Littlewood. "If you try to pander to what you think people want, you're gonna end up with a messy record – a mish-mash of things you think people want to hear, but that doesn't work all together. It's probably not the business-minded way of looking at it, but we still look at albums as a whole. We've never made records that we thought would sell – it's always been about making one that we want to listen to. If people like it, that's brilliant. But if we tried to make an album any other way, we'd be miserable."
"Saying that, we still want to sell millions, like," deadpans Porter.
The plan to build a million-selling empire starts here, but nonetheless they're determined not to fall into the trap of playing the same venues over and over again.
"I love Ireland and the Irish music scene, but I think if you really want to do this and make a living, you have to go further afield," says Littlewood. "And I hate the mentality of 'good for an Irish band', or 'good for an Irish film'. But we're not trying to be U2; we just want to be able to make a living from playing music. I want to tour, I want to see the world, I want to play music. Maybe that's a romantic way of looking at things, but that's all I've ever wanted to do.
"We just hope that people give this record time before making up their minds, because it's not an instant album. It's one that takes time. It's one that's rewarding. It's the only one we could have made."


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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The MIT men's lacrosse team saw 11 players earn at least a point in its 17-6 victory over UMass Boston on Tuesday afternoon. Sophomores Chris Cook (Tully, N.Y.) and Jake Slonaker (West Windsor, N.J.) both posted four goals and an assist for the Engineers (2-5) while the Beacons (2-8) were led by sophomore Donny Delpha (Walpole, Mass.) who registered a hat-trick.
MIT generated five goals in the first quarter with three coming during the opening two minutes. Cook converted a feed from freshman Paul Orrson (Baltimore, Md.) after 1:21 elapsed then Slonaker set up freshman Chris McPherson (Gaithersburg, Md.) for his first intercollegiate marker. A solo effort by sophomore John Kramer (Glastonbury, Conn.) completed the early spurt but Slonaker followed with a pair of goals that were set up by senior Sean Burke (Centennial, Colo.).
UMass Boston ended the shutout at the 13:27 mark of the second stanza courtesy of an unassisted marker by junior Pete McNichols (Norwalk, Conn.). A defensive battle ensued until the Engineers went on a 3-1 run during the final four minutes of the half, resulting in an 8-2 lead at the intermission. Freshman Luke Verdi (Middletown, Md.) found Orrson for the first goal but Delpha countered with one of his own. Moments later, Cook buried a man-up strike that was set up by Orrson while Slonaker found the back of the net 22 seconds after the ensuing faceoff.
MIT produced another 3-1 spurt to start the third quarter to increase its advantage to 11-3 with 9:43 on the clock. The score remained unchanged for the next six minutes until UMass Boston recorded an unassisted goal from McNichols that was quickly followed by Delpha's extra-man strike. The Engineers countered with blasts by Burke and Cook during the last two minutes to enter the final frame ahead, 13-5.
Freshman Jonah Hessels (Poolesville, Md.) carried the momentum into the fourth quarter as he found the back of the net for the Cardinal and Gray after 40 seconds expired. The game became a back-and-forth affair until Delpha notched what proved to be the final goal for the Beacons with 8:35 remaining. MIT closed out the game with three more goals, the final one being a man-down effort by junior Elliot Sykora (Wilmette, Ill.) with 1:19 left to play.
Orrson finished with two goals and two assists while Burke had one goal and three assists for the Engineers. Freshman Alex Seo (Westport, Conn.) totaled one goal, two assists, and five groundballs as Kramer chipped in one goal and one assist. Freshman Graham Francis (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.) registered the first goal of his career while Sykora picked up five groundballs. Junior Britt Cyr (Cincinnati, Ohio) won 16 of his 23 faceoffs and tallied 10 groundballs as classmate Tim Wilczynski (Old Lyme, Conn.) earned two caused turnovers. In net, senior Christopher Rullan (Wexford, Pa.) racked up 12 saves in 50 minutes while freshman Eric Bartell (San Diego, Calif.) closed out the game with four stops in his first action of the season.
Junior Thomas Petitti (Quincy, Mass.), McNichols, and Delpha each contributed three groundballs as Pettiti rounded out the Beacons' attack with a goal. Junior Patrick McGoff (Charlestown, Mass.) went 3-of-5 in faceoffs and had four groundballs while sophomore Xavier Donaldson (Centerville, Mass.) came away with six victories in his 11 faceoff attempts. Sophomore Parker Barrell (Belmont, Mass.) posted six saves in the first half while freshman Craig Frehill (Norwell, Mass.) turned away eight shots in the second half.
Both squads visit conference foes on Saturday, April 6. MIT travels to Springfield College for its Pilgrim Lacrosse League opener while UMass Boston heads to Little East Conference rival Western Connecticut State University.


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New Quattro Could Be Shape of Digital Photography to Come
Feb 11, 2014 11:11 AM PT
Sigma is known mostly as a maker of lenses for other companies' cameras, but a few years ago it latched on to a new kind of sensor technology and produced an innovative byte snapper that caused a stir in photography circles.
Now it's introducing a new generation of its Foveon cameras with a redesigned sensor and a speedier image processor.
"Foveon sensors are different in that they are more like film than traditional digital sensors," said Shawn Barnett, features editor for DPReview.com.
"They capture light in layers, much like film did, and potentially offer more accurate color data for each pixel," he told TechNewsWorld.
Traditional sensors use color filters placed in a horizontal plane to feed color information to their pixels. Those pixels can accept only one color -- red, green or blue. That means that to ascertain the color values for a scene, they must be computed by the camera's processor.
The pixels on the Foveon sensor can capture all three colors at once.
"The Foveon uses stacked diodes, which means there's no filter and no interpolation, which leads to more accurate color reproduction," Stan Horaczek, online editor for Popular Photography, told TechNewsWorld.
Upgraded Processor
The new dp Quattro Foveon cameras are an improvement to the line, Sigma said.
"The new Quattro camera series delivers higher resolution with a brand new Foveon chip," Sigma spokesperson Patrick Santucci told TechNewsWorld.
"It also features faster write times, better high ISO, improved AF speed and accuracy," he added.
The new sensor improves image resolution 30 percent while decreasing the data needed to produce that image, which allows for faster image processing and better battery life, according to Sigma.
To complement the new sensor, Sigma also has upgraded the line's image processor. Its new TRUE (Three-layer Responsive Ultimate Engine) III contains a proprietary algorithm that makes it possible to quickly process an immense volume of image data without any deterioration of the final images. The result is high-definition, 3D-like photographs with rich color detail, Sigma said.
Processing power has been a sore point with the prior generation of Foveon cameras.
"That's why conventional sensors can be as good as or better than the Foveon sensor," said David D. Busch, creative director of the David Busch Photography Guides.
"A lot of the final image comes from the digital image processor in the camera," he told TechNewsWorld.
Warts and All
Sigma's Foveon cameras have experienced other problems, too.
"In the past they've ended up with noise and not a lot of difference between them and a conventional sensor," Busch said.
Warts aside, the Sigma snapper's color rendering is still outstanding, maintained Pop Photography's Horaczek.
"The strong suit of the dp line has been color reproduction," he said. "The Foveon really does an awesome job."
"It doesn't handle high ISOs the same as some of the other cameras and the processing has been relatively slow," he acknowledged, "but they're promising to speed things up in this model, so that sounds like a plus."
Sigma hasn't announced when the three new Foveon models will be reaching retail shelves or their pricing when they do. Previous Foveon models sold in the US$600-$800 range.
The first new model to be released is expected to be the Quattro dp2, a fixed-lens camera with 30mm glass (35mm equivalent of 45mm). It will be followed by the dp1 with a 19mm lens (35mm equivalent of 28mm) and the dp3 with a 50mm lens (35mm equivalent of 50mm). All lenses are fairly fast at f/2.8.
Odd Shape
The cameras have 3-inch LCDs that support 920,000 dots and top shutter speed of 1/2000 of a second.
While the lack of a unit without interchangeable lenses may deter some photographers from giving the cameras a serious look, that should not be the case, Horaczek said.
"Sometimes we get so hung up on interchangeable lenses and options that we forget how rewarding it can be to just really home in on one focal length and make it work -- develop an eye for it," he observed.
The new Foveons are also oddly shaped. They measure 2.6 inches x 6.4 inches, and their depth varies by model from 3.2 inches to 4 inches.
"As far as the design goes, it looks different, for sure," Horaczek said.
"It's being subjected to the typical Internet angst," he continued, "but as someone with big hands, I'm all for the addition of better grips. If it makes the camera easier for me to hold on to, I don't care what it looks like."


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Sens take aim at 4th straight win against Maple Leafs
The Ottawa Senators hope that a fourth straight victory on Saturday evening will be enough to give them a share of the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Sens take aim at their second-longest winning streak of the season in a matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who themselves are riding a seven-game point streak.
Ottawa lost the opener of a five-game homestand on March 21 to the Boston Bruins, but has rebounded to win its next three games and sits fifth in the Eastern Conference with 44 points. That is two back of the fourth-seeded Bruins, who have two games in hand and visit the Philadelphia Flyers earlier on Saturday.
The Sens also sit just two points ahead of the Maple Leafs, but have played one fewer game than Toronto.
Ottawa wraps its residency tonight two days after shutting out the New York Rangers 3-0 behind 24 saves from Ben Bishop. It marked the second shutout of his NHL career.
"It's always nice when you get the win against a good club like that," said Bishop. "I thought the guys in front of me played unbelievable."
Andre Benoit broke the scoreless game with a power-play goal with just 49 seconds left in the second period, while Guillaume Latendresse and Colin Greening adding third-period tallies. Mika Zibanejad and Chris Neil each had two assists, with Zibanejad having posted five assists in his last four games.
The effort pushed the Senators' home record this season to 13-2-3 and they are 7-1-2 in their past 10 overall.
The Leafs are keeping pace thanks to a 4-0-3 record in their past seven. They head to Ottawa having won back-to-back home games, including Thursday's 6-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes. Dion Phaneuf added a tying goal in the third period to his two-assist game, while Joffrey Lupul put home the game- winner with 3:10 left to play.
It was Lupul's seventh goal of the season and they have all come in the five games he has played since missing a majority of the season with a broken forearm.
Jay McClement and Nikolai Kulemin had empty-net goals, Tyler Bozak ended with a goal and two assists, while Phil Kessel had a pair of helpers. James Reimer made 19 saves in the win.
"There were parts of our game that we could have been better at, but I think that happens every game," said Reimer. "We just managed to stay focused and stick to our game plan."
The Maple Leafs have won four of their past five versus the Senators, with the lone loss in that span coming in Ottawa on Feb. 23. Toronto has won a pair of home meetings against its division rival this season and has still taken six of the last nine played in Ottawa.


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General Information
Welcome all alumni of PreCollege Programs (PCP), University Support & Preparation Services (USPS) and Early Academic Outreach (EAO). Over the years our department has changed but our mission has remained the same: to empower students to access and succeed in higher education by providing a spectrum of services that promote academic, social and personal success.
We have achieved this mission through TRIO and non-TRIO grant funds. The Federal TRIO Programs are federally funded outreach and student service programs designed to identify and serve individuals from low income, disadvantaged backgrounds. Sonoma State University houses eight TRIO programs targeted to serve and assist low-income individuals, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to postbaccalaureate programs. Our non-TRIO funding is geared to providing tutorial services at various school sites and empowering parents with knowledge needed to ensure their student can obtain their goal of graduating from College and more.
Why was this website set up?
In order to ensure TRIO programs and services are viable we track the progress of current and prior program participants. This collected data is provided to the United States Department of Education for their use in aggregation of all TRIO programs.
If you would like to see more detailed information you can go to the main TRiO website at http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/index.html.


text:
Training Centre
Go green in your job
Trainer for a Living Planet – New course in October 2010
New professional opportunities
Where do you stand?
Every branch of business and every job requires specific environmental knowledge and every industry can contribute to a climate and environment friendly economy – including your line of work.For example, the building sector requires knowledge of solar energy and energy efficiency; the agricultural and forestry sectors need to be familiar with biodiversity and organic farming; the banking and finance sector requires sustainable investment consultants; and the tourist industry needs experts in sustainable travel.
Improve your green skills
Join a network
For further information:
3011 Bern/Switzerland
++41 31 312 12 62
Support of the WWF Training Centre
The WWF Training Centre in Switzerland intends to broaden its remit to an international level by developing international recommendations for different professions and businesses.


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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The nationally-ranked No. 18 MIT field hockey team saw four student-athletes receive New England East Region honors from the National Field Hockey Coaches Association on Thursday. Senior Molly McShane (Lake Bluff, Ill.) along with juniors Erin Kenney (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) and Maddy Wharton (Swarthmore, Pa.) earned spots on the first team while junior Michelle Teplensky (Somers, N.Y.) was placed on the second team. The Engineers' four selections marks the fourth year in a row they have earned multiple regional accolades.
McShane is the first player in program history to be a four-time all-region recipient as she picked up her fourth straight first-team plaudit. The 2012 NEWMAC Athlete of the Year, she finished the season ranked eighth in the country in assists per game (0.85) while tying for eighth in the conference in points (37). On the defensive side, she marked the opponent's most dangerous player and as a result she was honored by the NEWMAC earlier this season with Defensive Player of the Week accolades.
Kenney, Wharton, and Teplensky each collected their first regional honor after being tabbed to the NEWMAC all-conference team for the first time in their careers. From the left midfield, Kenney consistently thwarted upfield play while helping MIT rank third in the conference in goals allowed and goals against average. The NEWMAC Tournament Most Outstanding Player, Wharton was fourth on the team in goals and points at right halfback and powered a defense that limited opponents to 11.2 shots per game compared to the Engineers' average of 25. Playing at center halfback this season, Teplensky regularly took the ball off opposing players' sticks and disrupted plays in the circle. Her performance in MIT's regular-season 1-0 win over Springfield College resulted in her collecting NEWMAC Defensive Player of the Week plaudits.