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- Concurrency
- Old Stuff
- Optional extensions to basic standard
- Notes
- Status of Compilers
There is now a Draft Chapter under construction.
These are proposals on which we are generally agreed so far, with brief rationale.
- Some kind of concurrency will be included in the spec, including
MVars for communication.
At least the following interface will be provided:
- Control.Concurrent.MVar - everything except
- Control.Concurrent -
- Control.Concurrent.MVar - everything except
- We need a thread-safe interface to mutable state, for use in library code that does not otherwise use concurrency.
We have two choices:
- Use
MVars. A non-concurrent implementation might implement them in terms of
IORef, for example.
- Use STM. Easier to use, but not entirely trivial to implement, even in a single-threaded implementation, because exceptions have to abort a transaction (sample implementation).
- Use
- Concurrent foreign calls are required. A concurrent foreign call allows other Haskell threads to make progress before the foreign call returns.
- concurrent foreign calls are required to guarantee progress of other Haskell threads when one thread makes a blocking call.
- concurrent foreign calls are required for implementing I/O multiplexing, a principal use of concurrency.
- concurrent foreign calls are required to guarantee timely responsiveness of an interactive application in the presence of long-running foreign calls.
- Concurrent/reentrant foreign calls are required. A reentrant foreign call is a foreign call that calls a foreign-exported Haskell function. A concurent/reentrant foreign call is both concurrent and reentrant.
Hence, the
Haskell system must be able to process call-ins from arbitrary
external OS threads.
- the main loop of a GUI may block (hence concurrent) and makes callbacks (hence reentrant), we need to support this kind of usage.
- providing concurrent/reentrant foreign calls does not impose significant extra overhead on the rest of the system. For example, a call-in can check a thread-local variable (fast) to see whether it arose from a foreign call.
- Foreign calls will be able to specify independently whether they
are concurrent, reentrant, or both. (syntax and the sense of the annotations are still to be decided, see below).
- these annotations can have a profound impact on performance in some implementations.
- Bound threads are not required, but allowed as an extension, and we will specify their meaning.
Outstanding issues
There follows a list of issues on which decisions are still to be made. A numbered item, eg. 1.2, indicates a question, an item ending in a letter, eg. 1.2.a, indicates a possible choice for question 1.2.
1. Cooperative or preemptive concurrency?
Choice 1.a. The spec requires cooperative concurrency, and preemption is allowed as an extension. Both would be specified precisely in terms of what progress and fairness guarantees the programmer can expect.
- Allows many more implementations, including Hugs (although Hugs needs to be updated to handle concurrent and concurrent/reentrant foreign calls, and non-blocking I/O).
- Preemption isn't always required; a common case is an application that relies on concurrency for I/O multiplexing, where most threads are usually blocked.
- Cooperative systems can be faster, and are simpler to implement (see state threads reference).
- it is fairly difficult to tell the difference between a cooperative (with progress guarentee) and a preemptive system in practice on non contrived programs.
- STM is trivial and much more efficient to implement. no need to rollback ever except on an explicit exception. Can be almost as fast as IORefs.
- Portability problems: if a programmer develops a concurrent application on a preemptive system, there is no guarantee that it will work as expected on a cooperative system, and the compiler/runtime can give no useful feedback.
- Need to specify which operations are "yield points" in library documentation.
- Long-running pure code must be refactored into the IO monad so that explicit yield points can be inserted.
- Lazy I/O is not non-blocking in a cooperative implementation, so lazy I/O would be restricted to single-threaded programs.
- Extra restrictions: inside
unsafePerformIOwe can't guarantee that
yieldworks, or that concurrent and/or reentrant foreign calls work as expected. (ditto
unsafeInterleaveIO, which is why lazy I/O doesn't play with cooperative concurrency).
Choice 1.b. Preemption is required by the spec.
- Simpler from the programmer's point of view: no yield, no worrying about latency. "write code as if the current thread is the only one.".
- Imposes significant implementation constraints. Essentially only GHC and YHC would be able to implement it. JHC has no concept of thunks, which is a barrier to implementing general preemption.
- Even in a preemptive system, deadlocks are easy to program, and arbitrary starvation can result from laziness: evaluating arbitrary expressions while holding an MVar can prevent other threads from running. The fact that we therefore require seq and possibly deepSeq is disturbing, as is the notion that the programmer must think about "what is evaluated" when programming concurrent code.
- The main benefit of preemption, latency, cannot be guarenteed anyway.
1.b.1. Include thread priorities or not?
- Some applications require it
- It affects the fairness/progress guarantees, including the possibility of priorities from the outset may be simpler.
- Need to decide how rigidly to specify them. are they advisory? do we require priority inversion protection?
- Can be hard to implement, no implementations yet.
2. Syntax for foreign call annoatations.
2.1. choices for concurrent calls:
Choice 2.1.a. we annotate concurrent calls:
a. concurrent
b. mayblock
c. mightblock
d. blocks
e. longrunning
Rationale for using the term "block": blocking is the main reason for wanting concurrent calls. Concurrent calls allow the progress guarantee to be retained in the presence of a blocking foreign call. A foreign call that just takes a long time is still making progress.
Rationale for not using the term "block": the fact that the call blocks is immaterial, the property we want to provide is that it doesn't impede progress of other Haskell threads. A long-running call is indistinguishable from a blocked call in terms of the progress of other threads.
We often don't know whether a library call will block or not (it isn't documented), whereas saying a call should run concurrently with other threads is a choice the programmer can reasonably make.
Choice 2.1.b. we annotate non concurrent calls:
Rationale for annotating the non-concurrent calls: this is a performance issue. It is always correct to make a concurrent call, but it might be more efficient to make a non-concurrent call if the call does not block. An implementation might implement all calls as concurrent, for simplicity.
Against: John Meacham says "The FFI is inherently unsafe. We do not need to coddle the programer who is writing raw FFI code."
a. nonconcurrent
b. noblock
c. returnsquickly
d. fast
e. quick
2.2. choices for non-reentrant calls:
a. nonreentrant
b. nocallback
Rationale for annotating the non-reentrant calls, as opposed to the reentrant ones: we want the "safe" option to be the default (as in the FFI spec).
2.3. should we annotate foreign calls according to whether they need to access thread-local state (TLS) or not?
- a call that doesn't need access to thread-local state, called from a bound thread, can be executed much more quickly on an implementation that doesn't run the Haskell thread directly on the bound OS thread, because it doesn't need to context switch.
- libraries that require TLS, eg. OpenGL, often have many fast TLS-using functions. So implementations that need the no-TLS annotation in order to get good performance, will probably still get poor performance from libraries that need TLS anyway.
3. Semantics of IORefs
MVar operations must be strictly ordered; that is, a thread must never
MVar operations performed by another thread out of order.
We have a choice when it comes to
IORefs, however. (Note that
this only affects true multiprocessor implementations of concurrent
Choice 3.a Specify a weak memory model, in which
IORef updates
may be observed out of order, but specify that certain operations
MVar operations) constitute sequence points around which no
re-ordering may happen.
Choice 3.b Specify a strong memory model in which no re-ordering is observable.
- Some processors provide this anyway (current generations of x86, x86-64)
- The implementation will require some synchronisation in any case in order to prevent threads from observing partially-written closures. For example, if one thread builds a closure and writes its address into an
IORef, there must be a write barrier (and possibly a read barrier depending on the CPU) to prevent other threads from following the pointer and not finding the closure at the end of it. This synchronisation may be enough to provide the strong memory model anyway.
- Strong memory models are easier to program with, and leave fewer possibilities for a program to behave unexpectedly on a different processor or Haskell implementation.
- The Control.Concurrency module
- Concurrent Haskell (the original paper, including a semantics)
- Extending the Haskell FFI with Concurrency (a specification of the interaction between concurrency and the FFI, with a semantics)
- Software Transactional Memory
- Cheap (but Functional) Threads William L. Harrison. (a threading library entirely in user-space based on resumption monads, including support for system calls)
- A Language-based Approach to Unifying Events and Threads Peng Li and Steve Zdancewic. (another user-space implementation of concurrency, demonstrating efficiency and multiprocessor scalability).
other docs:
- State Threads for C
- A Draft report addendum (a shorter version of the above paper).
Old Stuff
What follows is old material, which we will probably want to incorporate into the main text later.
Progress Guarentee
- if any haskell thread is runnable then at least one thread will be running.
- foreign calls marked 'concurrent' will not interfere will the above rule.
Additionally, we have a fairness property of
- every thread is guarenteed to run in a finite amount of time if a program yields infinitly often. (weak fairness)
- A thread blocked on an
MVarwill eventually run, provided there are no other threads holding the
MVarindefinitely. (this is implied by the previous rule)
This means that
MVar blocking must be implemented in a fair way, eg. a FIFO of blocked threads.
In order to meet the progress guarentee, an implementation must yield to another thread, waiting for an appropriate event, before any action that entails blocking for an indeterminate amount of time.
MVar Guarentees
initial proposal is here:
Alternate, simpler proposal: full memory barrier at every putMVar and takeMVar.
perhaps a better phrasing of the first proposal exists, in practice, from a users point of view, it would be hard to tell the difference between the two models, but we should say something concrete on the matter.
Misc library stuff
yield is guarenteed to choose an alternate thread if another one exists and is
sleep guarentees the thread will wait as long as its argument at a
minimum. it may be blocked for longer.
I/O operations from
System.Process (and others?) do not prevent other threads from making progress when they are waiting for I/O to complete.
We could provide a lower-level non-blocking I/O interface along the lines of
threadWaitWrite, perhaps in
Optional extensions to basic standard
These are optional extensions a compiler may implement. In some implementations they may entail a run-time cost to non-concurrent code or a compiler might need a special option to enable them. However, A compiler is not required to provide more than one concurrency model as long as it can meet the requirements of the standard and any options it claims to support.
If a compiler documents that it supports one of the following options, then it must adhere to the rules of that option as well.
Optional Feature 1 - Preemption
The standard only requires a progress guarentee, that a thread is always running, making progress. If an implementation supports context switching during arbitrary computations and meets the stronger fairness guarentee below, then it can be said to support the 'Preemption' option.
Fairness Guarentee
- no starvation
new library calls provided
Possibly: define the meaning of using concurrent and/or reentrant foreign calls with
unsafePerformIO (see below)?
Optional Feature 2 - OS threads
The implementation additionally allows the following:
foreign exported functions, and function pointers created by
foreign import "wrapper", can be invoked from multiple OS threads
- bound threads:
- concurrent/reentrant foreign calls are supported
Although not mentioned in the standard, the use of Concurrency may affect the lazy sharing of computations. Consult an implementations documentation if this might be an issue for you.
The following operations inside
unsafePerformIO are undefined:
- concurrent or reentrant foreign calls
- I/O operations
Additionally, foreign imports that are both declared to return a non-IO type and declared concurrent and/or reentrant are undefined.
Check an implementation's documentation for details before depending on any particular behavior.
Status of Compilers
just coroutines (does not meet standard): hugs (standard concurrency planned?)
standard concurrency: jhc(planned)
standard + preemptive: ghc, yhc
standard + preemptive + OS threads: "ghc -threaded"


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Demdous – Mobile Vcard TemplateFor creative individuals. Let your website talk to users about you. Give beautiful mobile application looks to your website. Amazing Ajax technology, incredible Javascript animation. Hope you like it.
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Features:– Touch Optimized
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- PSD included
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Feel free to contact me on any queries by my profile contact form.
If you like this project, please don't forget to rate !

subset: commoncrawl


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Windows Phone Central forum user KoukiFC3S has managed to get a Lumia 920 running on the T-Mobile US network (reportedly making use of 1700MHz). Purchasing the developer unlocked device online, it was possible for a new account to be created with the carrier and the device to be used with some promising results.
Publishing a number of screenshots on our forums, KoukiFC3S was able achieve download speeds just shy of 9Mb/s. The Lumia 920 speed test supplied is shown on the left in the image below, while our own 3G speed test on the Three UK network is on the right (using a HTC 8X).
Should you be able to get your hands on an unlocked Lumia 920 and wish to make use of the handset on T-Mobile, there's hope at least. Be sure to join in the discussion on our forums by checking out the "I got a Lumia 920 on TMobile USA" thread.


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Author Notes: My mother makes this every Thanksgiving and has been doing so since before I was born. It has evolved over the years, but this is my favorite version. —Izzy
Serves: 6-8 with leftovers
medium sweet potatoes
2/3 cup
brown sugar
1/4 cup
apple cider
1/2 cup
raisins and/or 1/2 chopped apple (or more to taste)
1/4 cup
1/3 - 1/2 cup
chopped pecans
In This Recipe
- Wash the potatoes, but do not peel them (they may be sliced into large-as-possible chunks if necessary in order to fit the pot).
- Boil in salted water to cover until barely soft -- about 15-20 minutes. Drain, cool and peel.
- Slice potatoes (about 1/2 inch thick) into a buttered casserole, sprinkling in the diced apples as you go (about a 6-8 cup casserole or baking pan is fine).
- In a small saucepan, bring the brown sugar, cider, butter and raisins to a low boil, then add the rum. (If desired, you can then bring the mixture to a high boil for a minute or two to boil off the alcohol, but it's optional.)
- Pour the rum mixture over the potatoes.
- Sprinkle the chopped pecans over the top and poke them between the potatoes.
- Bake uncovered at 350 for 30 minutes, basting two or three times with the syrup in the pan.
- Serve hot from the oven, or cover with tin foil and put in a box with newspapers crumpled around to maintain the heat, transport it to your next potluck dinner and serve warm. Leftovers are great.
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Sweet Potato Recipe
More Great Recipes:
Pecan|Potato|Raisin|Rum|Sweet Potato/Yam|Vegetable|Christmas|Fall|Thanksgiving|Winter|Dessert


text:
How to Login to Ooma Telo As with any VoIP provider, seamless function with a residential VoIP device from Ooma is contingent upon ensuring the device is setup and functioning correctly. This...
Alliance Phones vs MagicJack Plus 2014
Compare Alliance Phones vs MagicJack Plus 2014. Find out whether Alliance Phones or MagicJack Plus 2014 is better for your VoIP business or home needs. The experts at VoipReview have analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of Alliance Phones and MagicJack Plus 2014 and detailed analysis of the comparison can be found below.
User Ratings & Reviews
- 12 Reviews
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Provider Info
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We had previously tried VOIP with a large carrier. We consistently experienced dropped calls and it impacted our business. We decided to try Alliance. We could not have been more impressed. Their platform is amazing and has allowed all our offices in different locations to connect and feel like one office. The call quality is outstanding. Most importantly, Alliance's customer service is exceptional. We are able to reach the Alliance team immediately and deal with the same great staff. With Alliance, there is no unending wait times and speaking to random individuals at a call centre. Their staff are informed and always have creative and resourceful suggestions to our requests and questions. We could not be more pleased to have transferred to Alliance and highly recommend them to anyone looking for a VOIP service provider. Thank you Alliance!
I switched from Jive to Alliance Phones. They are truly the best VOIP Phone System that I've had. They stand out from the rest with their real value for money and polite and prompt service. The online portal makes managing the phone system much faster and easier. All our drivers have the mobile app installed on their smartphones. It just makes things so much easier and simpler.


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2011 Oilers Skills Competition
Today the Oilers ran their internal, annual skills competition. Here are some of the highlights:
– Taylor Chorney was the fastest skater.
– Kurtis Foster had the hardest shot at 103.7.
– Sam Gagner and Tom Gilbert each went 4-for-4 in the shooting accuracy competition.
– Andrew Cogliano won king of the shootout, although there were a few dazzling shootout moves taken (see below for highlights). As expected, Linus Omark, Magnus Paajarvi and Taylor Hall each had some amazing shootout moves. I'm not sure which one I'd give it to based on entertainment value. I'd say Paajarvi or Hall though, because Omark's came out of his existing bag of tricks while Paajarvi and Hall pulled off something we've never seen before and some incredible stick work. I'd probably give it to Hall just based on being able to pull the move off in tight.
Here are some video highlights: Continue reading '2011 Oilers Skills Competition'»


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The 2013 Salone del Mobile (April 9-14) will feature the Mini Paceman as a dynamic sculpture. Anders Warming, head of Mini design, will present the sculpture in the Paceman 'Garage' to inspire creative interchange.
The inspiration behind the sculpture is from the car's Sports Activity Coupe attributes, which are emotionally led, breaking away from the normality of most automotive personalities.
The sculpture comes in two stages, and stage one is the rear of the Paceman, which has colorful threads coming from all directions, representing a highly energy-charged process. At the same time, the Paceman is connected to the profiles at the front end of the car.
Stage two begins in the middle, where the standard form is abandoned and is an idea made from paper, with the shape hidden by random pieces. While the paper covers the unknown shape, it also represents the creative process of automotive design.
The goal of the exhibit is not only showcase past Minis, but also well-known film and cult personalities.


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Home Page Organization Previous Symposia Proceedings
To stay informed on search-related events, please join the search-list on google groups.
(Internal Pages)
Heuristic search and combinatorial optimization are currently very active areas of research. For example, researchers investigate how to search in real-time, how to search with limited (possibly external) memory, how to solve sequences of similar search problems faster than with isolated searches, how to improve the runtime of the searches over time, how to trade-off between the runtime and memory consumption of the search and the resulting solution quality, and how to focus the searches with sophisticated heuristics such as pattern databases. Their results are published in different conferences such as IJCAI, AAAI, ICAPS, NIPS, ICRA, and IROS. The International Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS) is meant to bring these researchers together to exchange their ideas and cross-fertilize the field. Thus, in addition to seeking separate answers to questions like how to design more accurate memory-based heuristics, more I/O-efficient disk-based search algorithms, or more efficient clause-learning strategies, the symposium will stimulate thoughts on combining various techniques originated from different areas of search.
SoCS 2019 will be held in Napa, CA (USA), co-located with ICAPS 2019.
SoCS 2018 was held in Stockholm (Sweden), July 14-15, as part of the FAIM events that also include ICML, AAMAS, IJCAI and ICCBR.
SoCS 2017 was held in Pittsburgh (USA), June 16-17, directly before ICAPS 2017.
SoCS 2016 was held in Tarrytown (USA) near New York, July 6-8, directly before IJCAI 2016.
SoCS 2015 was held in Ein Gedi, the Dead Sea (Israel), June 11-13, directly after ICAPS 2015 (with a one-day overlap in Jerusalem).
SoCS 2014 was be held in Prague (Czech Republic), August 15-17, directly before ECAI 2014.
SoCS 2013 was held near Seattle (USA), July 11-13, directly before AAAI 2013.
SoCS 2012 was held in Niagara Falls (Canada), July 19-21, directly before AAAI 2011.
SoCS 2011 was co-located with SARA 2011 near Barcelona (Spain), July 15-16, directly before IJCAI 2011.
SoCS 2010 was held near Atlanta (USA), July 9-10, directly before AAAI 2010.
SoCS 2009 was co-located with SARA 2009 near Los Angeles (USA), July 8-10, directly before IJCAI 2009.


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Hi,1)how to wash strawberries,blueberries & grapes? Do they have pesticide and chemicals on them?2) What is the white layer on blueberry and some grape, is it safe to eat if they still there after wash?Hope to hear soon, thank you.May
Rinse under running water- a colander is helpful to mix them around in and make sure you rinse all surfaces. The white layer is called the bloom, and it is nature's preservative to stop the fruit from spoiling and drying out. It is definitely safe to eat.


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The finches are nailed to the mantle, the Tree of Life is set up in our living room, and the halls are decked with toy tortoises in preparation for the grand day of feasting, debauchery and licentiousness! Look on every street corner, and you'll see a young lad or lass singing praises to Our Exalted Chuck, with their hearts filled with the joy of the knowledge that all life is related and every piece of it is but a small piece of one long chemical reaction that started some four billion years ago.
Except, that's not how science works — that's how religions work, and you know it. Jodi and I are celebrating today, Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, by watching the BBC series The Voyage of Charles Darwin on Youtube. I'll try to embed the full playlist, so you can watch, and get an idea of the real story (or as close as anyone's ever gotten on camera, at least), behind Charles Darwin's journey of self-discovery, wherein he stumbled across the idea that would become the foundation of the theory of evolution. While his ideas were obviously flawed, having not been formed with the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of fossils that have since been discovered, nor the advances in geology that have since been uncovered to adequately date these fossils, nor any concept of inheritance via gene theory, nor plate tectonics to explain population separation, nor epigenetics to investigate the punctuated equilibrium observed in speciation, he sure did get a lot right — enough that the theory of evolution was cobbled together and has since been able to make predictions regarding what would be discovered after the fact. Long story short, no matter what problems people have with his ideas because his findings contradict their faiths, he got it pretty close to right, as close as anyone could have come given the knowledge of his day.
Despite religions coming around to evolution finally, obviously the concept that a four-thousand-year-old book written by a bronze-age Middle Eastern tribe might not contain the absolute canonical story of the creation of the Earth is threatening to some backward-minded individuals. This led a particular creationist by the name of Elizabeth Hope to make stories up about his deathbed conversion, a completely spurious claim that is parrotted to this day despite being discredited even in Answers in Genesis (probably the only time I'll ever link that site). In actuality, he started out studying theology, and eventually, bit by bit, came around to a rational mindset. He simply opened his eyes to the evidence all around us of the real story behind our wonderous planet.
Join us in watching this, and if you've got it, drink a dram to Our Sainted Chuck.


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smele necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 326 diseños de 117 diseñadores freelance.
KoKo bar-club-disco, is a new nightclub in the south west of England. A large venue with 5 bars and 1000 capacity. The contractors are in at the moment, turning an empty shell into the hottest place in town. Every room has a different design and feeling, from a quiet lounge area to the funkiest disco in town.
We need your help to design a logo for our venue. After some time we came up with the name KoKo, all you have to do is design a great logo for our venue.
A bit about the venue:
Bar - Drink, sit, sing, dance or watch the video DJ
Disco - Party room, funky 70's style disco with large illuminated dance floor
Club - The lasted grooves from coolest DJ's
Lounge - Chill out, relax, sip a cocktail and have a chat
Terrace/Deck - Get some fresh air and grab a cool beer from the bar
Here is an example of what the Disco room will look like once completed: http://www.lotelle.com/products/lot…floor.html
KoKo is aiming to appeal to the sophisticated hip types and the 25+ crowd. We will have plenty of VIP areas and booths, making us the perfect place for party's. Our range of drinks and cocktails is extensive and are prices are not the cheapest in town, but we have the largest venue and the most bars. You could come to us on a date, with a bachelor party or with a group from work and have a good time.
This is a logo that will be used company wide, from the sign above the front door to the to the cocktail menu's. We are hoping for something cool and sophisticated that perhaps has a corporate feel to it.
We would like the logo to have two forms; a simple form that could be used for the outside sign in a vector based design and another that can be used on all printed media, allowing more colours and more detail.
Colours: Your Choice
Fonts: Any
Tag Line: bar-club-disco (with or without tag line)
File Format:
Photoshop files for colour printing.
Vector based illustrator or CAD files for more simple logo elements.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Science Rendezvous EdmontonActivity by Frances Sutherland | added on Apr 20, 2011 | Canada
Sponsor(s): Telus World of Science, Edmonton Section of the Chemical Institute of Canada, ESON, Concordia University College,The King's University College, MacEwan University, NAIT, University of Alberta
Science Rendezvous is a one day festival style celebration of science for the public. Come celebrate science with us Saturday May 7 at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton!
A one-day Science Festival at TELUS World of Science
11211 142 Street Northwest, Edmonton
Designed to promote the importance of science to society. Science Rendezvous is an event that engages people in different activities, by de-mystifying science – with the ultimate aim of getting young people interested in science and technology education in the future. Science Rendezvous was initiated Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in 2008 and continues to develop collaborative partnerships between educational, civic, science-based associations and outreach programs and business institutions to promote science awareness as well as science culture and literacy. This year Science Rendezvous activities will be integrated with events held across the country celebrating the International Year of Chemistry (IYC), establishing a national presence for the festival in the future.
Activities at TELUS World of Science include:
Celebrating International Year of Chemistry – come see what scientists from across the city are working on. We'll have an opportunity for you to do science activities for all ages. Something for everyone from the serious to the quirky.
10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m
Participate in some of our indoor and outdoor activities in celebration of International Astronomy Day. Telescopes will be set up as well as amateur astronomers on hand to answer your questions.
1:00 p.m. until 12 midnight
Alberta Forest Week ends on May 7 – with a celebration of everything our forests have to offer us. Consider that forests provide habitat to many animals and plants; vital oxygen for our planet; places to go camping, walking and hiking; and provide jobs and materials that fuel our economy. Take the opportunity to make a personal connection with the forests that surround you, by participating in a variety of hands-on activities.
10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.
|celebrating chemistry, chemistry education, hands-on activities, demonstrations, science fair
|students, general public, educators, teachers, high schools, school children, secondary schools, secondary schools students
Want to submit your own activity or comment?
In order to do so you need to be part of the IYC network. Please log in or sign up now.
Join the IYC Network


text:
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Assalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuhu.
Could you shed some light on the conditions for obtaining an ijaazah according to the ullamaa of Qur'an and is this possible reciting 'nathriyyan' shukran.
assalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuhu
Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh,
A similar question was asked previously, and the following is a quote from the answer:
The word ijaazah means permit. When applying this word to the recitation of the Qur'an it means there is an authentic chain of transmission from the person back to the Prophet, peace, and this person now is permitted to listen to others and give them an ijaazah. The ijaazah from the early days was always with memorization of the Qur'an, meaning the one who has ijaazah listens to the student recite the whole complete Qur'an from Al-Faatihah until An-Nas, and testifies to the accuracy of their recitation and complete mastery of tajweed. To obtain an ijaazah you need to find someone with an ijaazah, be accepted as a student, then proceed to recite the whole Qur'an over a period of time to them. Although some in this day give ijaazah in tilaawah (reading from the open Qur'an), this is not the original concept of the ijaazah.
Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.


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Brand Label: Andrew Marc
ITEM MOVED TO ARCHIVE: On March 3, 2018 1:32 am, Fashion Stylist Online noted this item may be out of stock at Saks Off 5TH because it was not referenced in their latest online catalog. If this item is out of stock at Saks Off 5TH, you may be able to find similar fashions sold there or elsewhere on our Andrew Marc Designer Brand Directory.
Available for Purchase Online at Saks Off 5TH for $44.97Pin It
Quilted leather touches up these shoes with a penny strap. Moc toe. Leather upper and lining. Slip-on style. Man-made sole. Imported.
Shop other brand label items from Andrew Marc on FashionStylist.com.
This item was published for sale online by Saks Off 5TH on March 2, 2018 9:49 pm and last updated by us March 3, 2018 1:32 am.
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Vendor ecosystems: less than meets the eye
ERP vendors like to present their partnerships with complementary product vendors as ecosystems--an array of niche functionality and services that fill gaps in the ERP vendor's world. When a prospect's RFP calls for features not offered by the ERP vendor, the partner's product will be presented as the solution. The phrase "seamless integration" is often used in these presentations.
Vinnie Mirchandani has some good insights on these partner applications.For many industries, the partner applications are not "the last mile" - they represent core processing capability. As I wrote recently about Oracle's Insurance offering, most big vendors have not delivered vertical functionality for most non-manufacturing industries. So, another decision point is whose ecosystem? If I was a hospital CIO I would let my clinical application's ecosystem drive my financial or HR application choices, not the other way around.He also points out that, "while the bigger vendors boast thousands of partners in their ecosystems...they often represent agreements signed eons ago and atrophied partnering practices." In other words, the vendors may have a relationship on paper, but how real and current is the relationship? How many deals have they done together, and how successful were they?
Vinnie also argues that you may, in fact, be better off in choosing a complementary product that is NOT in the vendor's ecosystem. The reason? Pricing is likely to be better, as ecosystem vendors often have to pay referral fees to the primary vendor, and the non-ecosystem vendor will likely provide better support.
I would also add that, you're likely going to have to do more integration than you think, even if stay in the vendor's ecosystem. According to my observation, the integration of ecosystem partners is usually anything but "seamless." In many cases, the two organizations will have only done a handful of deals together and the integration would have been treated as a custom development project in each case.
So, in cases where complementary product functionality is unavoidable, check references thoroughly. Err on the side of overestimating the integration effort. And, if at all possible, get an implementation partner that has successfully done the same integration in the past.
Update, Oct. 2: In the comments section, Ray Wang calls attention to work he's done at Forrester to come up with a framework for evaluating vendor ecosystems. Ray's full report is on Forrester's website, and he also wrote a good overview on Sandhill.com. The framework includes a partner solutions maturity model. I like his definition of level zero (the lowest level of partner integration): "Barney deals" (i.e. "I love you, you love me"). In other words, "Solutions represent as-is offerings that have not been integrated or even repackaged. These deals emphasize marketing aspects including joint press announcements, minor go-to-market coordination, and some price coordination." Ray also points out the value for prospects in using a third-party consultant to evaluate the robustness of the partner relationship/integration.
Related posts
What is an IT ecosystem?by Frank Scavo, 9/30/2008 08:58:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Saturday, September 27, 2008
Open source ERP and CRM carry strong ROI
Over at Computer Economics, we've just released a new study on adoption trends for open source business applications, such as ERP and CRM, and the results are encouraging.
Bottom line: although adoption levels for open source apps are still low, the ROI reported by our survey respondents is quite strong. 65% report positive ROI within two years, while only 5% report negative ROI. That's one of the strongest performances for any of the 20 or so technologies that we surveyed this year. An executive summary and the full report on open source business applications is available on our website.
Traditional vendors, such as SAP and Oracle do not seem to be viewing open source products such as opentaps, Compiere, xTuple, SugarCRM, and others as a threat. Why should they? The open source ERP and CRM market share is tiny--today. But that may change as major vendors continue to increase their software maintenance costs. As our study found, the ROI for open source is very strong, which should ultimately drive increased adoption.
What will it take for open source applications to really become a serious threat to traditional vendors?
Thriving ecosystem of service providers needed
The primary need is to have a thriving ecosystem of service providers around a few open source products in each application category. Much of the discomfort with open source apps comes because business leaders by nature are conservative. They fear being "orphaned." They perceive proprietary software as being more viable in the long run than open source products.
This is in spite of the fact that the past thirty years have seen dozens of so-called major vendors go out of business, leaving orphaned products. Or, vendors are acquired and their products are relegated to subordinate status in the portfolio of the new owner. Think of ManMan (now in Infor's portfolio) or Manfact (now in Epicor's).
It is also in spite of the fact that each of the open source products listed above--opentaps, Compiere, xTuple, and SugarCRM--have commercial development organizations behind them. Contrary to popular belief, most open source business applications are not developed by "volunteers." Open source is a software licensing model--it has nothing to do with how the software is developed or maintained. Open source means you have rights to the code and are free to use it, enhance it, and even redistribute it, provided you do so on an open source basis.
It also means that anyone, any service provider, can build a business around supporting the software. As long as there are users that need support, there will be demand for services, and with open source there is no restriction on who can provide them. So in this aspect--as we indicate in our full report--open source may in fact be less risky than proprietary software. As long as adoption reaches a critical threshold, and there is a thriving ecosystem of support providers, the product will not be orphaned. And if the product is not widely implemented, at least you have full rights to the source code.
Where will open source service providers come from? Interestingly, I see ERP resellers and VARs becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. They have their own list of complaints, which I won't enumerate right now. Suffice to say that being an open source service provider is a much simpler life than being a "business partner" with a major software vendor. (Write to me or leave a comment below if you have an opinion on this point.) If open source adoption does increase, I can see a trend developing where service providers begin to add open source support to their offerings, or jump ship altogether in favor of supporting open source ERP and CRM apps.
Don't underestimate costs of open source
Our study sounded one cautionary note regarding open source apps: early adopters tend to underestimate costs. It might be that because they perceive the software as "free," they tend to underestimate the costs of implementation and support. Our full report provides details on the percentage of organizations that reported TCO greater, less than, or the same as budgeted amounts. Nevertheless, in spite of a tendency to overrun budgets, the ROI for open source applications is overwhelmingly positive. In other words, most projects had no problem reaching favorable ROI even with cost overruns.
It's too early to say that open source is the future of ERP, CRM, and other enterprise applications. It is more likely that proprietary software and open source apps will each carve out their respective niches--sometimes coexisting in the same organization. Nevertheless, experiences of early adopters show that the business case for open source is strong. The positive economic characteristics of open source can only lead to increased adoption.
Related posts
Court ruling strengthens legal basis for open source
xTuple: a hybrid open-source ERP development model
The disruptive power of open source
Total cost study for an open source ERP project
Compiere's open source ERP business model and growth plans
Open source ERP gaining adherents
Key advantage of open source is NOT cost savings
Open source: turning software sales and marketing upside down
ERP Graveyardby Frank Scavo, 9/27/2008 07:54:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Friday, September 26, 2008
Oracle confirms: maintenance fees are virtually all profit
If there was ever any doubt that the major ERP vendors are overcharging for maintenance, there's no question now for anyone listening to Oracle co-President Safra Catz speaking to financial analysts this week.
Catz was arguing that Oracle's maintenance contracts would continue to strengthen Oracle's financial performance through an economic downturn."We get to keep virtually all of that money," said Oracle Co-President Safra Catz. Sure, some of that goes to customer service, but Catz said that mostly customers are paying for access to the new software – and Oracle is going to develop that new software regardless of whether customers pay them maintenance fees. For Oracle, maintenance is pretty much free money, about $10.5 billion worth in its 2008 fiscal and about $1.5 billion more than that this year. "When many customers just send you money for something you're doing anyway, you literally can't help [but increase profits]," said Catz.Ben Worthen at the Wall Street Journal has the whole story.
Related posts
Oracle profits strong, thanks to your maintenance payments
Vendor software maintenance programs: top 10 wish list
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hike
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High software maintenance fees and what to do about themby Frank Scavo, 9/26/2008 07:56:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Monday, September 22, 2008
Is there really an SAP and Oracle skills shortage?
There continue to be conflicting news on the state of the economy generally, and the IT economy specifically. The latest is an article from CIO Magazine that reports a shortage of ERP consultants with Oracle and SAP experience. The article quotes AMR Research analyst Dana Stiffler:
"SAP and Oracle application skills, in particular, are in huge demand, with service providers reporting their ERP practices continue to experience double-digit growth and strong pricing premiums relative to other IT skills," Stiffler writes...."They tell us the packaged applications business is limited only by their ability to find, train, and place appropriate resources."
It continues:For SAP, which has more severe staffing problems (some 30,000 to 40,000 experts in need) than Oracle, the news is worse: "Unless the striking variance in skills availability is eliminated," Stiffler notes, "Oracle will become an increasingly attractive option relative to SAP."The goes on to speculate that this shortage will drive customers to the SaaS model--but forget about that for a moment. I'm questioning whether the shortage is real. If so, it's a real bright spot in the IT services market.
But one commenter on the article disagrees:This HUGE shortage you are referring to is only present for SAP professionals with 5+ years of experience. The other guys trying to come up aren't really doing that great.Another confirms the same point:There are plenty of people with SAP Skills may be just a few years experience but they are there. I personally know more than five people who have short term knowledge but no jobs. Employers are now asking for lots of years of experience due to economy turn down. Employers have personally told me they are only hiring senior consultants. Maybe the problem is something different...maybe the employers don't want to put effort to train people with short-term experience.Shortages of SAP consultants in particular were acute in the mid-to-late 1990s, when SAP was in its initial growth phase, and even newly minted implementers were billing in the $300 per hour range. Today, with SAP and Oracle widely installed around the world, there should be no shortage of experienced implementers.
So, which is it? Leave a comment on this post if you have insights.by Frank Scavo, 9/22/2008 07:49:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Friday, September 19, 2008
Oracle profits strong, thanks to your maintenance payments
True to the recent trend, Oracle reported strong first quarter profits yesterday, exceeding Wall Street expectations. Net income rose a whopping 28%, on revenue growth of 18%.
Oracle's results speak well for the prospects of the technology sector holding up amidst the turmoil in financial markets. That was not the case in the recession in the early part of this decade, when the downturn was led by the tech sector. Oracle's diversity in worldwide revenue sources--half of its sales come from outside the U.S.--is one factor in its success.
But I couldn't help but notice one other factor in Oracle's financial success:Chief Executive Larry Ellison, meanwhile, said the company is in a strong position because more than half its revenue comes from maintenance contracts and license renewals, which carry high profit margins.Oracle's financial model--like SAP's--has really turned into an annuity business. New software sales just open the door to the place where these vendors really make money: maintenance contracts. In fact, I'm hearing of one case recently where the vendor is essentially willing to offer upfront licenses for FREE. The maintenance businesses is apparently so profitable--as much as 85% profit according to one source--that they can actually give away the software and still make money.
Once again, however, I have to say that this model is unsustainable in the long run, as customers are already growing tired of it.
Related posts
Vendor software maintenance programs: top 10 wish list
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hike
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Total cost study for an open source ERP project
Reading the fine print on ERP contracts
High software maintenance fees and what to do about themby Frank Scavo, 9/19/2008 06:38:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Sunday, September 14, 2008
Vendor software maintenance programs: top 10 wish list
One of my hot buttons these days is the value--or lack thereof--in enterprise software vendor maintenance and support fees. With SAP and Oracle now charging 22% of the software license cost annually, customers are in essence paying again for the software in less than five years. What exactly are customers getting for their money?
Ray Wang hits the same button with a post last week, where he points out that many vendors take up to 85% of the money as profit, leaving 15% for actual support services.
He then provides a top 10 list of what he sees customers wishing their vendors would provide to justify their maintenance fees. I'll just comment on his top four.
Read Ray's entire post for the complete list--they are all good points. If vendors would deliver on these wishes, I think there would be a lot more value and a lot less dissatisfaction with vendor support programs. I also believe that these points are a roadmap for mid-tier vendors to compete on maintenance and support against SAP and Oracle.
- Ray lists "Service level agreements for response times and quality of resolution" as number 4. Many of the support agreements I've reviewed do include a response time promise. But when was the last time you saw a vendor held accountable for meeting that promise? And, what reporting is done on "quality of resolution?" I would really like to see vendors dinged once in awhile for failure to meet their service level agreements.
- For number 3, Ray lists, "Transparency in how much of the maintenance and support dollar is reinvested versus how much is going to profit." To this I would add, how much is going toward development of "next generation" products, apart from the product the customer is paying support for? Much of the initial license fee pays for the enormous amount of work that vendors spend in marketing and sales. Vendors count on maintenance and support fees to fund much of their new development.
- Number 2 is "Choice in support options and packages (i.e. tiered maintenance options)." I've touched on this one previously. Some vendors do offer tiered programs--but even the base level program is too rich, in my opinion. For a customer that doesn't plan on upgrading, why can't that customer buy a bare bones support package--for example, one that only provides bug fixes. Many customers on older systems would even opt out of help desk support, if they could.
- Ray's top wish is "Option for third party maintenance." I fully agree. If I buy a Lexus, I don't need to go to my Lexus dealer to get support. I can get authorized third-party maintenance from a variety of independent service centers. Why should it be any different for enterprise software?
On the other hand, if things don't change, I do believe we will reach a tipping point. Whether that will means a rise in the third-party support model, or a serious turn to open source, or some sort of antitrust legislation, I don't know. But things can't continue as they are today.
Related posts
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hike
Vendor maintenance fees: just say no
Legal basis for third-party ERP support industry
Custom systems: alternative to ERP
Total cost study for an open source ERP project
Reading the fine print on ERP contracts
High software maintenance fees and what to do about themby Frank Scavo, 9/14/2008 07:19:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Mr. Fusion leaving Oracle
Dennis Howlett is reporting on an internal Oracle email that confirms the rumor that Jesper Andersen, Oracle's SVP Application Development is leaving for Cisco.
This is a big deal in that, as Howlett points out, Andersen has always been considered the brains behind Oracle's Fusion program, its next-generation of products to take the best of the many products it has acquired.
In keeping with its recent practice of near-silence on Fusion, Oracle has not been forthcoming on Andersen's departure. Howlett interprets Oracle's silence and the loss of Andersen under three points:
I had the pleasure of listening to Andersen speak once at a PeopleSoft conference several years ago and was happy to know that he was assigned leadership of the Fusion effort. His departure has to be a loss to Oracle. Hopefully they can backfill his role.
- Fusion is happening but not at the pace Oracle originally thought.
- Coming as it does just before Oracle Open World, the story will be spun so that new releases will be branded as Fusion, regardless of whether they're new or something else.
- Vertical market plays, on which Oracle was pinning a lot of hope are up in the air.
Related posts
Oracle's secrecy on Fusion specificsby Frank Scavo, 9/03/2008 03:37:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Slate Voice: "Why Do Millennials Not Understand Racism?"
Listen to Jamelle Bouie read his most popular article from the month of May.
"Why Do Millennials Not Understand Racism?" was originally published in Slate on May 16, 2014. It was one of Jamelle Bouie's most read articles in May.
We plan to record more Slate writers reading popular pieces. Please nominate your favorite articles in the comments thread below! – Jeff Friedrich, Slate Plus editor


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It's no secret that Samantha Faiers was just voted best bikini body of 2013! This bombshell fought off the competition and won of course. She beat the bootylicious beauties Kim Kardashian, Beyonce and Kelly Brook. Sam is an English television personality, luxury model and beautician. With a hot body and gorgeous features, her career is just taking off at the age of 22. I can't wait to see what project she does next.
Currently, Sam appears on the hit show The Only Way is Essex, but she has also been involved in Shooting Stars, Celebrity Juice, and Celebrity Big Brother. She not only has done so much within her career thus far but she is still so young, I am excited to see what hit she will be involved in. With her super sexy bikini body, I chose a suit that would compliment her hazel eyes and look great with her skin tone. I chose Desert Rose designer swimwear for Sam, it has small hardware details that create for a fun time lounging by the pool or on a fun getaway vaca. I think this would be a fun, different look on her that would create a sexy yet exotic look.
It's no secret Sam loves white and why wouldn't she, she looks amazing in it. So I thought she would kill it in Summer Siren bikini. With a white triangle style top, it has fun distinct turquoise hardware on the top and bottom. This suit is one of my personal favs and I would love to see Sam in it. We have seen Sam before in our luxury swimwear rocking fun prints and a sexy bandeau, it's proven she looks amazing in everything she wears!


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New Zealand
Friday, June 15, 2012
RJ's Licorice Allsorts
There are lots of different kinds of black licorice with different flavor profiles and styles. There's American twist licorice, Dutch salty licorice and Australian soft chew licorice. New Zealand even has its own brand, RJ's Licorice.
I picked up this sample package at the Fancy Food Show earlier this year. It's RJ's Licorice Allsorts and they're made with all natural ingredients, with no artificial colors. I thought this was a great idea, because I'm often turned off by weird flavors and aftertastes from artificial colors.
The other New Zealand twist on this is the flavor set for these candies, they come in four colors and flavors: Passion Fruit, Black Cherry, Lime and Orange.
They smell really good. They're soft and have a strong anise and molasses note. The stack for the little sandwiches starts with a white layer or fondant, which seems to be unflavored or at least lightly flavored. Then there's a thin square of black licorice. On top of that is the special flavored fondant. This fondant is just a soft sugar mixture, there's no coconut in there like some Allsorts feature.
The orange pieces are Orange flavored. The white fondant is like a frosting, sugary and sweet and with only a light and soft touch of orange essence. There's no tartness and little balance. The licorice layer is soft and pliable, chewy and has a nice profile. It's a mix of woodsy molasses, toffee and other burnt flavors. It's only the faintest bit bitter and quite sweet in that light way that licorice is. The white layer is unflavored, as far as I can tell.
The green looks rather like a highlighter and is Lime. This one was not entirely pleasant. I didn't care for the lime layer, it was sweet and weirdly artificial even though it does use natural flavorings.
The faint pink is Black Cherry and has a great profile. The flavor is floral and a bit more punchy than the previous citrus ones. It dissipates quickly but still goes well with the licorice layer. It tasted far sweeter though on the whole than the other flavors.
The yellow sandwich was Passion Fruit which was the odd one in the batch. It was musky and had strong honey and floral notes. It goes pretty well with the licorice, which I never would have guessed. But still, it was a lot of different sweet notes, too much for me.
If you're the type who likes very sweet and sugary candy, the type of person who eats straight sugar cube, this is a good choice. It wasn't licorice-y enough for me and without enough of a fruity note from the fondant. I'll stick to plain licorice from RJ's for now.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:30 pm All Natural • Candy • Review • Fondant • Licorice Candy • 5-Pleasant • New Zealand •
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Loukoumi Artisan Confections
Last week I wrote about one of the oldest known confections, Jordan Almonds. This week I've got a huge array of Lokum, or Turkish Delight in front of me.
Sweet jellies have been know for at least 500 years in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. Early versions used honey and other fruit juices as a sweet base. Modern Turkish Delight uses sugar for the most part. But the result is similar. Instead of a firm and gelatinous confection like a true jelly (which has pectin as a thickener) or gummi (which uses gelatin as a thickener), Turkish Delight is a fiendishly simple, relying on a touch of starch and careful cooking to create a semi-solid cube of delicate, sweet flavor.
This is from Loukoumi Artisan Confections based in New Zealand since 1970. They use the traditional recipe for the product and it was absolutely fresh when I got it, so this was a real treat.
The first flavor I ever tried of Turkish Delight (which I think I knew as Turkish Paste when I was a kid) was Rose. I find floral flavors to be fresh tasting for the most part, though I know many of us find them a bit soapy.
This rose was a medium pink (kind of alarming, but completely natural). The squares are heavily dusted with powdered sugar, which is the worst thing about Turkish Delight. It's just not keyboard friendly.
The squares are surprisingly light, not dense and gelatinous, more soft and fleshy like Mochi can be. The texture is more like a soft and smooth paste than a jelly as well. Think of it like a firm honey.
The flavor is rather strong for rose - very straight ahead and traditional, like pushing your whole nose into a bouquet of heavily scented tea roses. But it melts easily on the tongue and doesn't feel too clingy or cloying.
One of the flavors that had me most excited when Ross McKenzie of Loukoumi contacted me was the line of Manuka Honey flavors. Manuka is from blossoms of the Tea Tree bush and has a strong balsam & spicy flavor to it. I tried the Manuka Honey & Rainforest Lemon which has aromatic Australian Lemon Myrtle.
I absolutely loved the design of the box on this one. Inside each of the boxes is an inset tray lined with light paper. They were only 250 grams instead of a full pound (I'm often stymied when I find Turkish Delight in prepacked pound boxes - I can't eat all that!).
Even though the pieces are a delicate golden yellow color, there are no colorings in there, it's all from the ingredients.
It smells like freshly baked lemon cake.
And oh, the flavor.
It feels a bit softer and smoother in the mouth than the Rose (if that's possible). It's not a sweet and has an aromatic quality that mixes the mellow honey notes with the light lemon, like a lemon essence or lemon balm.
It's barely sweet, like a bubble of honey with a touch of zest to it.
I can see how Edmund would sell out his family for something like this.
The last flavor I got was one I wasn't quite sure of from the description. Pomegranate.
All of the Turkish Delight I've had to date has been aromatically flavored, that is, it's all about the scent of the flavor. Lemon, orange or rose, it's never been juicy or tangy in any way.
This box even looks different from the others, with an extreme close up of luminous beads of pomegranate. It says: The sharp distinctive flavors of the pomegranate complement our soft, rich delight to create a perfectly balanced sweet that will leave your taste buds spellbound.
The scent is dark and jammy, like a mix of piping-hot blueberry pie and those raspberry filled shortbread cookies.
The flavor is at first sweet but dark and mellow, then the rich berry flavors come more forward. There's a little tangy bite to it that really reminds me of a berry jam. It's a much more intense flavor than the other Turkish Delight varieties here.
Loukoumi makes a wide variety of other flavors, I sampled but a few. They include the traditional array: Almond, Hazelnut, Lemon with Peel, Orange with Peel, Berry, Mint, Vanilla and Lime. And a range of gourmet flavors (many incorporating New Zealand & Australian flavors): Honey & Fig, Honey & Ginger, Honey & Hazelnut, Honey & Quince, Liquorice and Manuka Honey & Blackcurrant.
There are some major and minor issues with these confections. Turkish Delight is notoriously hard to eat. One of the things I like about most candies is that they're usually pretty easy to portion out and are ready to eat out of the package and require little or no cleanup. I got powdered sugar everywhere trying to eat these out of the box. It's a little easier when put a few pieces into a small dish and just ate it with it under my chin to catch the poof of powder.
The second issue is humidity. Dampness is not their friend. Luckily Southern California is a great climate to eat these, even when it's visciously hot. But if they do get a little damp they will get a bit of a crust on the outside, just a bit of graininess. It won't be great for the texture, but doesn't impede the flavor.
The third issue is getting a hold of it. Their website isn't up now, but I'm hoping that soon I'll be able to tell you about a place here in North America that you can order from (and save the international shipping).
Those issues aside, this is the best Turkish Delight I think I've ever had. I am really curious to try many more of the flavors, especially the honey based ones.
This is why we keep traditional methods alive, they work.
UPDATE 2/27/2009: Natural Candy Store is having an insanely good sale on Loukoumi right now. If you've been curious to try it, now's the time to grab some. They even had a custom box of Citrus Mix designed, so you can really get an assortment.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:12 pm
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Dove Beautiful vs Bloomsberry Beauty-Bar
With all the health claims & research studies revolving around chocolate these days it's not surprising to see bars also capitalizing on our vanity to get a few more sales.
I got both these bars around the same time, both samples. The Dove Beautiful bar is fortified to help promote beautiful-looking skin. The Beauty-Bar from Bloomsberry & Co is formulated to make you feel gorgeous ... on the inside.
Well, I admit, it's a beautiful bar to look at.
The Dove Beautiful bar features vitamins C & E plus the natural flavanols in cocoa to make you attractive.
The full array of additives is: tricalcium phosphate (10% of the RDA of calcium), ascorbic acid (10% of the RDA of Vitamin C), vitamin E acetate (10% of the RDA of Vitamin E), niacinamide (10% of the RDA of Niacin), zinc oxide (10% of the RDA of Zinc) and biotin (10% of the RDA).
The bar looks a bit darker than the standard Dove Smooth Milk Chocolate fare. It has the same slightly soft snap. A sweet scent.
The melt is nice, a bit cool on the tongue, milky and less sticky than its unfortified counterpart.
The flavor has some dairy components to it ... and an odd taste as well. I can't put my finger on it, but I want to say that it tastes like drinking out of a galvanized bucket. Slightly metallic ... not in a bad way, just in a narrowly noticeable way.
I've come to understand that I'm not the kind of person who likes to compromise on my candy. My candy is made for enjoyment and mucking around with the taste in order to pump up its nutritional value means that it simply doesn't fulfill its primary obligation - make me happy. Instead it makes me furrow my brow ... and that's not beautiful.
Rating: 5 out of 10
The second bar is just another in Bloomsberry & Co. huge line of high end novelty bars.
Bloomsberry & Co. has made a name for themselves world-wide with their inventive, imaginative and whimsical box designs (flat pack Easter bunny and eat me have made me chuckle - laugh lines are beautiful right?). I have fully advocated using chocolate bars instead of greeting cards, and their line meets most needs with all the major holidays covered and a line with an ultra-modern take on romance (and chocolate obsession).
All that aside, the funky box is fun the first time, but just like the pretty picture on the greeting card, what does it say inside? Well, to start with, the foil inner wrapping is also lovely. It's a graphic paper with a foiled paper under that ... plus the box. That's a lot of protection.
And all that protection paid off, the bar was pristine.
Instead of a lot of crazy additions, this is simply dark chocolate (sugar, chcoolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin & vanilla). It doesn't say what the cacao percentage is.
If I understand it correctly the idea goes like this: if dark chocolate is what you want and if you get what you want, you'll be happy and happy people are beautiful. Or something like that.
The bar is thick and has a profound snap to it. The flavor is well rounded, if a little bland. It satisfies a craving, but doesn't really do much else to make me swoon. As the bars usually retail for $4 to $5, unless the box is just so spot on, I'm going to pass. There are some wonderful bars that not only come in nice packages (that say more about the chocolate than my desires, of course) but area also tasty on the inside.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Both bars are Kosher.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:20 am
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Lifesaver Musk
Months and months ago a reader suggested I get familiar with a strange favorite it Australia - musk sticks. Basically they're pressed candy stick flavored like musk. You know, the perfume. I figured if I've eaten violet candies, rosewater ice cream and 10 year old Lifesavers, there's no reason I shouldn't try these.
I found them at Mel & Rose's, which seems to carry a lot of Australian candies. The package doesn't make them look that appealing, the word musk has those little "smell wafts" coming off of it. The candies themselves are the pressed chalk variety like Pep-O-Mint, not a hard candy like the Butter Rum Lifesavers.
They smell like incense or a soap shop. It's more like a lightly floral patchouli. So when I took the photo and then put the roll in my desk drawer, it was kind of like a sachet in there.
The little candy is sweet and of course easy to crunch. The flavor has no other notes besides this soapy detergent scent and made me wonder if this is what it'd be like to eat incense cones. There isn't any listing of ingredients on the package or dietary info, so for all I know, they are meant to be burned.
I have no idea if the Lifesavers version of musk is consistent with the other musk sticks so popular in Australia and New Zealand, but I think my curiosity is satisfied. I suppose if I were trying to cover up strong mouth odors (like smoking or antibiotic side effects) this might be a good candy, but for some reason I think my neck should be perfumed, not my breath.
Note: though these candies are branded Lifesavers, they're made by licensing agreement by Nestle.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:22 am
Thursday, February 16, 2006
SweeTarts Rope
There are a few new red licorice products out lately. Both Twizzlers and Wonka are in on this new explosion, perhaps fueled by Airheads' new products.
The SweeTarts rope is one of those new products. Kind of like the Twizzler Twerpz, these are a cherry red licorice tube filled with a blue, sour paste which is then dotted with little crunchy Nerd bits.
The texture mix is really interesting. You have the rather bland chew of the licorice, which is soft and clingy. Then you have the soft, frosting-like sour paste that doesn't have much flavor in it's own right, but has these little crunchy bits that are powerfully packed with more sour.
I tried eating this several ways. I tried the traditional bite and chew method, which mixed the flavors and textures and variations of sour and sweet very nicely. Then I tried squeezing the rope until the blue sour paste came out. That wasn't as satisfying because I couldn't get most of the paste out that way.
I was tempted to find a sharp knife and slit the straw open and scrape out the blue goo ... but then I thought that was a little too evil and I just ate the rest of it the normal way.
The photo on the package of the cross-section shows colored Nerds in there, but I think they kind of dissolve after a while.
I think this is a fun new candy and I'd probably eat it under the right conditions, but in order to get me to buy it again, it's gotta come in a citrus flavor variation. Given the choice, the Twerpz are gonna win out. I like the filling in those a bit better (it's more like a Starburst fruit chew).
If you've tried them and want to tell Wonka what you think, they have an online feedback survey. This product was manufactured in New Zealand. I don't think I've picked up a Nestle product in a long time that was actually manufactured in the United States. On another strange note, the Rope was rather hard to photograph. Something about its matte texture just sucked the light in and gave it this weird velvety look in the photos. They're not really that alien looking.
UPDATE 4/5/2009: It appears that the SweeTarts Rope has been discontinued. However, Nestle is introducing a new product called Kazoozles that looks an awful lot like these. Keep an eye out for them.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:28 am
Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.


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Table Service in "Purity" Episode 20 of Season 4
Pictured (L-R): Eric Christian Olsen (LAPD Liaison Marty Deeks), Daniela Ruah (Special Agent Kensi Blye) and Mark Espinoza (Detective Lopez). When cyanide in a communal water jug lethally poisons a lieutenant and leaves a Navy pilot in serious condition, the NCIS: LA team investigates whether this is an isolated incident or an early test for large-scale water contamination, on NCIS: LOS ANGELES, Tuesday, April 9 (9:00-10:01 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS ©2013 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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We decided to go up Pike's Peak when my dad was in town. Me working in the railroad industry was immediately attracted to the Pike's Peak Cog Railway. We made our reservations and heading down to Colorado Springs to ride the train up the mountain. During the drive down, we could see snow blowing off of the top of Pike's Peak in the wind. It was very gusty. Unfortunately, this proved to be a problem for us.
The train couldn't go all the way to the summit (14,110 ft). The winds when we got to about Windy Point (12,129 ft) were incredible. The windows on the train banged in their frames and the train rocked back and forth. Crazy. So it sucked that we couldn't get out of the train and walk around at the top, but we could see this:
Cog trains are kind of neat. I won't try to explain how they work; read here for details. I will say, though, that they can climb very steep grades, and the one we were on had front and back facing seats. We had back facing seats and had to fight gravity to not tumble face first into the people's laps in front of us.
We made a stop on the way back down so we could walk around and use the "facilities" (a picnic table or two and a port-a-potty). I had a chance to take some obligatory pictures of the train and rail at that point.


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by Hugh Hunter
Thwarted passions abound in "The Seagull," currently running at Allens Lane Theater in West Mt. Airy. Anton Chekhov staged it as a "comedy" in 1896, and It flopped. But two years later the legendary Stanislavsky revived it as a "tragedy," and the rest is history.
The melding of comedy and tragedy is clear from the start when Masha (Asaki Kuruma) tells us she dresses in black because "I am mourning for my life." The assemblage of characters in "The Seagull" was a Theater of the Absurd before there was a name for it.
Set in a lakeside estate, poor schoolteacher Simon loves Masha, but Masha loves Constantine, an aspiring playwright. Constantine however loves Nina, an aspiring actress, but Nina loves Trigorin, a successful writer. And there is lots more where that came from.
It is like the scenarios in modern soap operas — "One Life to Live" and such. But those long-drawn-out characters with all their pregnant pauses and significant looks take themselves quite seriously. Chekhov's sad and comic folk know their lives are ridiculous.
There are many thoughtful performances in Director Josh Hitchens' fine cast. Hilary Kayle Crist excels as Arkadina, the egoistic veteran actress, and there is wonderful chemistry between Adam Darrow and Megan Edelman in the difficult roles of Constantine and Nina.
But short of setting "The Seagull" in the Catskills, the production does all it can to take the play out of Russia. Costumes are not ethnic; incidental music is winsome and contemporary (think Joni Mitchell and friends), and large paintings of evergreens seem like a joke.
This approach goes along with the modern itch to stage classic drama out of its period, trimming plays to a thematic essence, presumably to help you understand in universal terms what the playwright "really meant to say." But I have little idea what Chekhov meant to say, and I doubt he did either. Like Constantine, Chekhov is searching for "new art forms." It is ironic that the Allens Lane production tries to disabuse you of the one thing you do know for sure: "The Seagull" is desperately Russian. And it is the Russia of a particular time and place. The landed gentry in "The Seagull" are short on money, impoverished by the recent emancipation of the serfs. (Chekhov's father was a freed serf.)
In retrospect, "The Seagull" seems prophetic. Though its characters live together in shared self-awareness, the community itself cannot act with force and direction. The same sort of ineffectual humanity must have populated the Kerensky Provisional Government of 1917.
For sure, "The Seagull" is universal in its appeal, but Chekhov's world is also singular and Russian, and at Allens Lane I missed the feeling of sitting on the shaded veranda of a dacha and hearing the distant strain of a balalaika from time to time.
Allens Lane is located at Allens Lane near McCallum. "The Seagull" will run through Feb 2. Reservations available at 215- 248-0546.


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Free Concert For Veterans Saturday At The Pavilion
If you're a veteran and don't have anything planned for Saturday afternoon, there's a free concert in your honor at the Washington Pavilion. The concert begins at 3 pm.
A Veterans Benefits Fair will also be held from 1 pm until 5 pm.
Brenda Stevens of the V.A. Medical Center recently stopped by the Main Street Cafe to talk about it.


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95 Results
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Mixed Bouquets
Bouquet. Isn't it a lovely word? Decidedly French in origin, the word rolls off the tongue - silky, delicate and soft, like flowers themselves. Of course, as lovely as the word might be, it can hardly touch what it signifies: one of nature's crowning miracles, flowers, lovingly gathered together by human hands into a bundle of breathtaking color and intoxicating aroma. Yes, bouquet is a lovely word and an even lovelier reality. The French have always known a thing or two about the finer things in life, and at FTD we have to say our flowers are among the finest. Even finer still, the FTD staff lovingly gathers together flowers of the highest quality into a perfect bouquet for you, and does this with every bouquet that leaves our doors, no exceptions. We offer the most popular flowers and arrangements for any occasion or season. From fall flower arrangements to spring pastel collections and everything in between, our customers trust us to deliver the perfect seasonal floral accents to celebrate events, seasons, holidays and all of life's occasions that call for a spritz of natural color. For those times where you need something exceptional for those special people in your life, try white calla lilies. When love is in the air, FTD recommends pink and white roses for the love of your life on Valentine's Day. Or try an orchid bouquet for your daughter, that delicate little orchid you love with all your heart. Your loved ones will know just how loved they really are when they receive a flower bouquet from you. No matter the time of year and no matter the recipient: FTD flower bouquets can be customized to any occasion. Order the perfect gift today and brighten someone's day.


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Updated September 28th, 2015
5-6 Players. Class/Role doesn't matter.
Our recruitment model has changed somewhat lately. We're running 3 Raids (with Alts) at the moment, and we have very flexible availability. What we need are capable Humans. What Class you play is of little importance, as long as you can execute.
Notes on Applying
- Read the 'About Us'. If what we want doesn't jive with what you want, turn back now.
- Get your shit together before you apply. Mistakes/oversights on your build will make you look like a moron.
- Every field on the application is absolutely required.
- 90% of our decision is based on Logs/Recorded Video. Your app will not move forward unless you provide one or the other.
- I don't want your life story. The best application would answer all questions completely, in as few words as possible.
- All applications threads are private. Only you and our members can read your application.
- Check out the Example Application.
- Be persistent. If 24 hours passes on your thread with no replies, feel free to ask what's going on. If you ask us something in-game and we don't reply, we're probably AFK. Ask again in a few minutes.
- Our Application process is going through an update. Application templates are to be filled out and submitted to Humak Via PM. If your application is serious it will be posted for the rest of the guild to see and ask questions.
Application Template:


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Submit Your Own Artwork Lip Balm-One Color-TLB2208
Order Details
- Price0.66
- Quantity50
- Est. Shipping Date:00/00/00
- Est. Delivery Date:00/00/00
- Set Up Charge:$30.00
- Custom Fee:$0.00
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- Total:$0.00
- Lip Balm Sleeve:Edit
Product Details
- Imprint Area: 1.73"W x 0.99"H (Click Here to view the artwork template.)
- Setup Charge: $30- Price includes a one color imprint on the entire label of the Lip Balm.
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Available Production:
Standard (6 Business Days),5 Day Production,4 Day Production,3 Day Production,24 Hour Production.
- Construction: Digitally imprinted label on highest quality synthetic polypropylene label stock.
Product Description:
Create a fully customized favor your guest or clients will use long after your event is over with our Submit Your Own Artwork Lip Balm. Great for business events, weddings, and parties, these Lip Balms come in 25 natural beeswax and 5 SPF flavors. Send us your unique logo to be digitally printed in one color on the lip balm label. Each of our Lip Balms are produced in an FDA compliant facility in the USA.
Free Delivery is not applicable to Alaska and Hawaii.
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+ Can I order lip balm tubes that are blank/without text or design?
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- Lip balm tubes should be stored in a cool, dry place. We recommend our lip balms be used within two years of purchase. Lip balms with Sun Protection Factor (SPF) have an expiration date on the tube, per the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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+ What is considered a 1-color imprint?
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+ How do you create the flavors in your all-natural lip balm?
- We use flavor oils that serve as lip-safe fragrances in our scented lip balm. Our lip balm does not have a taste; the flavor oils scent your lips to give the perception of taste.
Click on a Product Color swatch to see the non-recommended imprint colors.


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International News
Fiji: SPC Secures Life-Saving Drugs for HIV-Positive People
April 12, 2013
Adapted from:
The Public Health Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), in partnership with the Pacific Islands HIV and STI Response Fund, has negotiated access to antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for Pacific Islanders beginning July 2013.The Response Fund will finance the ARVs with the support of the Australian and New Zealand Aid Programmes and an SPC contribution of US $100,000. According to Dr. Dennie Iniakwala, HIV and STI team leader at SPC, the agreement gives people living with HIV peace of mind as the organization continues working on programs on HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). He noted that the agreement allows the organization time to find a longer term and sustained supply of these drugs.
Pacific News Center
Legislation in Some Asia-Pacific Countries Aimed at Protecting People Living With HIV Not Enforced, UN Development Program Report Says
This article was provided by CDC National Prevention Information Network. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.
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Fully-automated coat/develop process and high-throughput performance.
The new EVG150XT is a universal and fully automated resist processing tool supporting wafers up to 300 mm in diameter. This novel modular coat/develop platform is integrated with the newly developed XT Frame architecture. The overall design concept of the XT Frame is specifically geared toward combining tried and proven production procedures with new and innovative concepts for high-volume manufacturing.The EVG150XT was developed around three key aspects: improved processing, short cycle times, and smart software solutions for complex, high-frequency process flows. Symbiotic interplay of extensive process development, deep insights in production requirements gained through close collaboration with customers and the use of advanced materials and cutting-edge technologies with the experience from more than three decades of equipment manufacturing guarantees stable mass production at the highest standards for our customers.During in-line processing high throughput is accomplished by operating up to nine individually combinable process stations in parallel mode, while wafer handling times are minimized by the high-speed linear transport system. High tool uptime has been realized by ensuring the reliability of each component and making service and maintenance procedures as simple and quick as possible. An inline metrology module allows the validation of process results within the same tool. In addition, an extensive range of materials such as positive and negative resists, polyimides, high viscosity resists and spin on dielectrics can be processed on the EVG150XT.
EV Group Partners with NSI to Enable First Wafer-Level Heterogeneous Integration of GaAs on Silicon for RF Front-End Module Manufacturing
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SEMICON China 2019
Photonics Hub Symposium - Wafer Level Optics 2019
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