text:
Another Snowstorm's Coming
Here we go again.
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning, which is in effect from Monday morning through early Tuesday morning.
Light snow will begin across far western Minnesota late Sunday night and spread eastward into Monday morning. Snowfall will increase during the morning with heavy snowfall possible during the afternoon and evening, before tapering off Monday night.
Expect snowfall amounts of 6 to 8 inches by Tuesday morning.
Also, expect low visibilities in heavy snow and difficult travel conditions.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
KINSTON, North Carolina (WCTI) - The Greene Lamp Community Action Agency in Kinston, North Carolina is looking for volunteers to become foster grandparents.
The typical day of a foster grandparent includes helping preschool-age children with educational activities, being a positive role model and providing one-on-one care within a classroom.
Swanie Ellis, better known as 'Grandma Swanie,' has been a foster grandparent for 15 years. She says she gets as much out of the program as the children do.
"It's a joy when you see the kids come in -- and most of them will come in -- say hi grandma, give you a hug," Ellis said. "It's just good to have that feeling of knowing that you're helping the children."
The program requires no prior education or caretaking experience. Foster grandparents are provided a tax-free stipend as well as meals when they're on the job. Interested people must be 55 or older to apply and can expect to volunteer anywhere from 15 to 40 hours a week.


text:
Skip hire Coalville
UNFORTUNATELY WE DON'T CURRENTLY OFFER SKIP HIRE IN Coalville.
If you wish to be notified of new skip hire services in Coalville when they become available, please fill out the 'register for area alert' form.
Aylestone Skip Hire LE2 Bristall Skip Hire LE4 Stoney Stanton Skip Hire LE9 Oakham Skip Hire LE15 Calke Skip Hire LE65
Proskips is a leading skip hire company. We offer skip hire to both private customers and businesses across much of the UK, but focus on the East Midlands area.
Based in Raynes Park, London, we have depots in and around the LE67 area, which gives us unrivalled coverage for all your skip hire needs.
We have a range of skip sizes available for hire, from four yards to 16 yards. For further information about the size and capacity of skip you need, please get in touch.
Our competitively-priced skip hire service and experienced team have made us the skip hire company of choice in the UK. Working with homeowners, small builders and larger construction firms, our aim is always to meet and exceed your service expectations.
In addition to skip hire, we offer a waste management and recycling service. Our work in this sector led to us being named 'Construction Recycler of The Year 2009-2010' at the National Recycling Awards. Proskips is part of Prowaste Management Services, and we adhere to the recycling standards set out by the company. We are also a proud supporter of the Halving Waste to Landfill scheme. Our commitment to recycling and safe waste disposal gives our customers peace of mind that all waste will be dealt with responsibly.
Our Coalville waste recycling and skip hire service secured investment from Deborah Meaden and Duncan Bannatyne of BBC Two's Dragons' Den.
Even though we don't currently offer skip hire in Coalville, we do operate a skip hire service in the nearby areas of Aylestone, Bristall, Stoney Stanton, Oakham and Calke.
Read more in our blog
Skip Hire in Wimbledon - Cottenham Park Road - Scout HQ
Proskips provide Skip Hire in Wimbledon to the Wimbledon Scouts HQ. Proskips have provided a 12 Yard Skip in Raynes Park to the group who are currently clearing their HQ in preperation for the new year. Proskips have all skip zizes available in raynes park from 4 yard skips to 40 yard Roll On Off Containers
Ways to reduce skip fire risk
The arrival of a mini heatwave, in London and south-east England at least, during mid-July highlights the potential risk of fire breaking out in the skip you've hired. Skip fires are a rare occurrence and are more common around the time of Bonfire Night in November. However, they remain an ever-present risk - particularly when outside temperatures rise above 30C. Aside from it being an annoyance to your neighbours, a skip fire poses a real danger to surrounding property and can also end up being very costly. There are a number of steps that can be taken to prev…
26% of Britons don't recognise recycling benefits
The majority of the UK population acknowledges the value in recycling their products, but 26% don't realise the benefits of recycling. According to Recycle Now, the 'national recycling campaign for England', just over half of Britons want to know more about what their recycled products are used for. At present in the UK, less than 50% of plastic bottles are recycled, which means some of this will end up in the ocean, endangering marine life. The importance of responsible waste management cannot be underestimated, but policie…


text:
I have been pleased with the improvement of the offensive line this year. Not top notch but getting there. The running game is improved as well. I am surprised with their performance considering the loss of Colon in camp. Pouncey has stepped in nicely and brought their level of play up.
Special teams have looked improved as well. Sepulveda is booming them for us. Coverages have looked good. Punt return blows. Time to get ARE outta there. Reed needs a change of scenery imo.
Defense looks better, but how could it not with Smith and Polamalu back. Gay is back where he belongs and secondary is keeping balls in front of them (except one, dammit).
Do you think we've regressed in anything from last year?


text:
My Van For Your House, That's Fair, And Get Out Of The Car Or I'll Shoot Myself In The Leg: Gump File
Go gump file. Wednesday brings a slew of dumbness for your enjoyment. Remember, think before you act or you could end up as a gump story. Good for us, bad for you. Enjoy


text:
Food2Fork makes it easy to find great recipes.
Search by name or ingredients. Join to save your favorites for later.
Vegan Chocolate Cake
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
- 1 cup water
DirectionsView on All Recipes
Why don't we display directions?
|Nutrition Facts
|Serving Size 1/8 of a recipe
|Amount Per Serving
|Calories 275
|Total Fat 9.7g
|Saturated Fat 1.2g
|Cholesterol 0mg
|Sodium 304mg
|Total Carbohydrate 44.6g
|Dietary Fiber 1.2g
|Sugars 25.1g
|Protein 3g
|* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.
All RecipesView All 36792 Recipes
Visit Publisher Site
Recipe and photo copyright http://allrecipes.com


text: Feeling stump'd and can't find an answer to a question? No worries! In this forum you can be connected directly with the community staff and we will have an answer momentarily! Having reasonable concerns about miscellaneous aspects regarding the forums? That can be posted here as well. Members should use this forum as reference for all aforementioned questions/concerns before posting. Excited about the way the Plaza is being ran? Feel free to give the staff a friendly shout out about how they're doing!


text:
Chapter 6 Cellular Automata
A cellular automaton is a model of a world with very simple physics. "Cellular" means that the space is divided into discrete chunks, called cells. An "automaton" is a machine that performs computations—it could be a real machine, but more often the "machine" is a mathematical abstraction or a computer simulation.
Automata are governed by rules that determine how the system evolves in time. Time is divided into discrete steps, and the rules specify how to compute the state of the world during the next time step based on the current state.
As a trivial example, consider a cellular automaton (CA) with a single cell. The state of the cell is an integer represented with the variable xi, where the subscript i indicates that xi is the state of the system during time step i. As an initial condition, x0 = 0.
Now all we need is a rule. Arbitrarily, I'll pick xi = xi−1 + 1, which says that after each time step, the state of the CA gets incremented by 1. So far, we have a simple CA that performs a simple calculation: it counts.
But this CA is atypical; normally the number of possible states is finite. To bring it into line, I'll choose the smallest interesting number of states, 2, and another simple rule, xi = (xi−1 + 1) % 2, where % is the remainder (or modulus) operator.
This CA performs a simple calculation: it blinks. That is, the state of the cell switches between 0 and 1 after every time step.
Most CAs are deterministic, which means that rules do not have any random elements; given the same initial state, they always produce the same result. There are also nondeterministic CAs, but I will not address them here.
6.1 Stephen Wolfram
The CA in the previous section was 0-dimensional and it wasn't very interesting. But 1-dimensional CAs turn out to be surprisingly interesting.
In the early 1980s Stephen Wolfram published a series of papers presenting a systematic study of 1-dimensional CAs. He identified four general categories of behavior, each more interesting than the last.
To say that a CA has dimensions is to say that the cells are arranged in a contiguous space so that some of them are considered "neighbors." In one dimension, there are three natural configurations:
The rules that determine how the system evolves in time are based on the notion of a "neighborhood," which is the set of cells that determines the next state of a given cell. Wolfram's experiments use a 3-cell neighborhood: the cell itself and its left and right neighbors.
In these experiments, the cells have two states, denoted 0 and 1, so the rules can be summarized by a table that maps from the state of the neighborhood (a tuple of 3 states) to the next state for the center cell. The following table shows an example:
The row first shows the eight states a neighborhood can be in. The second row shows the state of the center cell during the next time step. As a concise encoding of this table, Wolfram suggested reading the bottom row as a binary number. Because 00110010 in binary is 50 in decimal, Wolfram calls this CA "Rule 50."
Figure 6.1 shows the effect of Rule 50 over 10 time steps. The first row shows the state of the system during the first time step; it starts with one cell "on" and the rest "off". The second row shows the state of the system during the next time step, and so on.
The triangular shape in the figure is typical of these CAs; is it a consequence of the shape of the neighborhood. In one time step, each cell influences the state of one neighbor in either direction. During the next time step, that influence can propagate one more cell in each direction. So each cell in the past has a "triangle of influence" that includes all of the cells that can be affected by it.
6.2 Implementing CAs
To generate the previous figure, I wrote a Python program that implements and draws CAs. You can download my code from thinkcomplex.com/CA.py. and thinkcomplex.com/CADrawer.py.
To store the state of the CA, I use a NumPy array. An array is a multi-dimensional data structure whose elements are all the same type. It is similar to a nested list, but usually smaller and faster. Figure 6.2 shows why. The diagram on the left shows a list of lists of integers; each dot represents a reference, which takes up 4–8 bytes. To access one of the integers, you have to follow two references.
The diagram on the right shows an array of the same integers. Because the elements are all the same size, they can be stored contiguously in memory. This arrangement saves space because it doesn't use references, and it saves time because the location of an element can be computed directly from the indices; there is no need to follow a series of references.
Here is a CA object that uses a NumPy array:
import numpy class CA(object): def __init__(self, rule, n=100, ratio=2): self.table = make_table(rule) self.n = n self.m = ratio*n + 1 self.array = numpy.zeros((n, self.m), dtype=numpy.int8) self.next = 0
rule is an integer in the range 0-255, which represents the
CA rule table using Wolfram's encoding.
n is the number of rows in the array, which is the number of time steps we will compute. m is the number of columns, which is the number of cells. To get started, I'll implement a finite array of cells.
zeros is provided by NumPy; it creates a new array with the given dimensions, n by m; dtype stands for "data type," and it specifies the type of the array elements. int8 is an 8-bit integer, so we are limited to 256 states, but that's no problem: we only need two.
next is the index of the next time step.
There are two common starting conditions for CAs: a single cell, or a row
of random cells.
def start_single(self): """Starts with one cell in the middle of the top row.""" self.array[0, self.m/2] = 1 self.next += 1
The array index is a tuple that species the row and column of the cell, in that order.
step computes the next state of the CA:
def step(self): i = self.next self.next += 1 a = self.array t = self.table for j in xrange(1,self.m-1): a[i,j] = t[tuple(a[i-1, j-1:j+2])]
i is the time step and the index of the row we are about to compute. j loops through the cells, skipping the first and last, which are always off.
Arrays support slice operations, so self.array[i-1, j-1:j+2] gets three elements from row i-1. Then we look up the neighborhood tuple in the table, get the next state, and store it in the array.
Array indexing is constant time, so step is linear in n. Filling in the whole array is O(nm).
You can read more about NumPy and arrays at scipy.org/Tentative_NumPy_Tutorial.
6.3 CADrawer
An abstract class is a class definition that specifies the interface for a set of methods without providing an implementation. Child classes extend the abstract class and implement the incomplete methods. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_type.
As an example, CADrawer defines an interface for drawing CAs; here is the definition:
class Drawer(object): """Drawer is an abstract class that should not be instantiated. It defines the interface for a CA drawer; child classes of Drawer should implement draw, show and save. If draw_array is not overridden, the child class should provide draw_cell. """ def __init__(self): msg = 'CADrawer is an abstract type and should not be instantiated.' raise UnimplementedMethodException, msg def draw(self, ca): """Draws a representation of cellular automaton (CA). This function generally has no visible effect.""" raise UnimplementedMethodException def draw_array(self, a): """Iterate through array (a) and draws any non-zero cells.""" for i in xrange(self.rows): for j in xrange(self.cols): if a[i,j]: self.draw_cell(j, self.rows-i-1) def draw_cell(self, ca): """Draws a single cell. Not required for all implementations.""" raise UnimplementedMethodException def show(self): """Displays the representation on the screen, if possible.""" raise UnimplementedMethodException def save(self, filename): """Saves the representation of the CA in filename.""" raise UnimplementedMethodException
Abstract classes should not be instantiated; if you try, you get an UnimplementedMethodException, which is a simple extension of Exception:
class UnimplementedMethodException(Exception): """Used to indicate that a child class has not implemented an abstract method."""
To instantiate a CADrawer you have to define a child class that implements the methods, then instantiate the child.
CADrawer.py provides three implementations, one that uses pyplot, one that uses the Python Imaging Library (PIL), and one that generates Encapsulated Postscript (EPS).
Here is an example that uses PyplotDrawer to display a CA on the screen:
ca = CA(rule, n) ca.start_single() ca.loop(n-1) drawer = CADrawer.PyplotDrawer() drawer.draw(ca) drawer.show()
Exercise 1
Download thinkcomplex.com/CA.py and thinkcomplex.com/CADrawer.py and confirm that they run on your system; you might have to install additional Python packages.
Create a new class called CircularCA that extends CA so that the cells are arranged in a ring. Hint: you might find it useful to add a column of "ghost cells" to the array.
You can download my solution from thinkcomplex.com/CircularCA.py
6.4 Classifying CAs
Wolfram proposes that the behavior of CAs can be grouped into four classes. Class 1 contains the simplest (and least interesting) CAs, the ones that evolve from almost any starting condition to the same uniform pattern. As a trivial example, Rule 0 always generates an empty pattern after one time step.
Rule 50 is an example of Class 2. It generates a simple pattern with nested structure; that is, the pattern contains many smaller versions of itself. Rule 18 makes the nested structure even clearer; Figure 6.3 shows what it looks like after 64 steps.
This pattern resembles the Sierpiński triangle, which you can read about at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierpinski_triangle.
Some Class 2 CAs generate patterns that are intricate and pretty, but compared to Classes 3 and 4, they are relatively simple.
6.5 Randomness
Class 3 contains CAs that generate randomness. Rule 30 is an example; Figure 6.4 shows what it looks like after 100 time steps.
Along the left side there is an apparent pattern, and on the right side there are triangles in various sizes, but the center seems quite random. In fact, if you take the center column and treat it as a sequence of bits, it is hard to distinguish from a truly random sequence. It passes many of the statistical tests people use to test whether a sequence of bits is random.
Programs that produce random-seeming numbers are called pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs). They are not considered truly random because
Modern PRNGs produce sequences that are statistically indistinguishable from random, and they can be implemented with with periods so long that the universe will collapse before they repeat. The existence of these generators raises the question of whether there is any real difference between a good quality pseudo-random sequence and a sequence generated by a "truly" random process. In A New Kind of Science, Wolfram argues that there is not (pages 315–326).
Exercise 2
This exercise asks you to implement and test several PRNGs.
6.6 Determinism
The existence of Class 3 CAs is surprising. To understand how surprising, it is useful to consider philosophical determinism (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism). Most philosophical stances are hard to define precisely because they come in a variety of flavors. I often find it useful to define them with a list of statements ordered from weak to strong:
My goal in constructing this range is to make D1 so weak that virtually everyone would accept it, D4 so strong that almost no one would accept it, with intermediate statements that some people accept.
The center of mass of world opinion swings along this range in response to historical developments and scientific discoveries. Prior to the scientific revolution, many people regarded the working of the universe as fundamentally unpredictable or controlled by supernatural forces. After the triumphs of Newtonian mechanics, some optimists came to believe something like D4; for example, in 1814 Pierre-Simon Laplace wrote
We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
This "intellect" came to be called "Laplace's Demon". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace's_demon. The word "demon" in this context has the sense of "spirit," with no implication of evil.
Discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries gradually dismantled this hope. The thermodynamic concept of entropy, radioactive decay, and quantum mechanics posed successive challenges to strong forms of determinism.
In the 1960s chaos theory showed that in some deterministic systems prediction is only possible over short time scales, limited by the precision of measurement of initial conditions.
Most of these systems are continuous in space (if not time) and nonlinear, so the complexity of their behavior is not entirely surprising. Wolfram's demonstration of complex behavior in simple cellular automata is more surprising—and disturbing, at least to a deterministic world view.
So far I have focused on scientific challenges to determinism, but the longest-standing objection is the conflict between determinism and human free will. Complexity science provides a possible resolution of this apparent conflict; we come back to this topic in Section 10.7.
6.7 Structures
The behavior of Class 4 CAs is even more surprising. Several 1-D CAs, most notably Rule 110, are Turing complete, which means that they can compute any computable function. This property, also called universality, was proved by Matthew Cook in 1998. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110.
Figure 6.5 shows what Rule 110 looks like with an initial condition of a single cell and 100 time steps. At this time scale it is not apparent that anything special is going on. There are some regular patterns but also some features that are hard to characterize.
Figure 6.6 shows a bigger picture, starting with a random initial condition and 600 time steps:
After about 100 steps the background settles into a simple repeating pattern, but there are a number of persistent structures that appear as disturbances in the background. Some of these structures are stable, so they appear as vertical lines. Others translate in space, appearing as diagonals with different slopes, depending on how many time steps they take to shift by one column. These structures are called spaceships.
Collisions between spaceships yield different results depending on the types of the spaceships and the phase they are in when they collide. Some collisions annihilate both ships; others leave one ship unchanged; still others yield one or more ships of different types.
These collisions are the basis of computation in a Rule 110 CA. If you think of spaceships as signals that propagate on wires, and collisions as gates that compute logical operations like AND and OR, you can see what it means for a CA to perform a computation.
Exercise 3
This exercise asks you to experiment with Rule 110 and see how many spaceships you can find.
6.8 Universality
To understand universality, we have to understand computability theory, which is about models of computation and what they compute.
One of the most general models of computation is the Turing machine, which is an abstract computer proposed by Alan Turing in 1936. A Turing machine is a 1-D CA, infinite in both directions, augmented with a read-write head. At any time, the head is positioned over a single cell. It can read the state of that cell (usually there are only two states) and it can write a new value into the cell.
In addition, the machine has a register, which records the state of the machine (one of a finite number of states), and a table of rules. For each machine state and cell state, the table specifies an action. Actions include modifying the cell the head is over and moving one cell to the left or right.
A Turing machine is not a practical design for a computer, but it models common computer architectures. For a given program running on a real computer, it is possible (at least in principle) to construct a Turing machine that performs an equivalent computation.
The Turing machine is useful because it is possible to characterize the set of functions that can be computed by a Turing machine, which is what Turing did. Functions in this set are called Turing computable.
To say that a Turing machine can compute any Turing-computable function is a tautology: it is true by definition. But Turing-computability is more interesting than that.
It turns out that just about every reasonable model of computation anyone has come up with is Turing complete; that is, it can compute exactly the same set of functions as the Turing machine. Some of these models, like lamdba calculus, are very different from a Turing machine, so their equivalence is surprising.
This observation led to the Church-Turing Thesis, which is essentially a definition of what it means to be computable. The "thesis" is that Turing-computability is the right, or at least natural, definition of computability, because it describes the power of such a diverse collection of models of computation.
The Rule 110 CA is yet another model of computation, and remarkable for its simplicity. That it, too, turns out to be universal lends support to the Church-Turing Thesis.
In A New Kind of Science, Wolfram states a variation of this thesis, which he calls the "principle of computational equivalence:"
Almost all processes that are not obviously simple can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication.
Applying these definitions to CAs, Classes 1 and 2 are "obviously simple." It may be less obvious that Class 3 is simple, but in a way perfect randomness is as simple as perfect order; complexity happens in between. So Wolfram's claim is that Class 4 behavior is common in the natural world, and that almost all of the systems that manifest it are computationally equivalent.
Exercise 4
The goal of this exercise is to implement a Turing machine. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine.
6.9 Falsifiability
Wolfram holds that his principle is a stronger claim than the Church-Turing Thesis because it is about the natural world rather than abstract models of computation. But saying that natural processes "can be viewed as computations" strikes me as a statement about theory choice more than a hypothesis about the natural world.
Also, with qualifications like "almost" and undefined terms like "obviously simple," his hypothesis may be unfalsifiable. Falsifiability is an idea from the philosophy of science, proposed by Karl Popper as a demarcation between scientific hypotheses and pseudoscience. A hypothesis is falsifiable if there is an experiment, at least in the realm of practicality, that would contradict the hypothesis if it were false.
For example, the claim that all life on earth is descended from a common ancestor is falsifiable because it makes specific predictions about similarities in the genetics of modern species (among other things). If we discovered a new species whose DNA was almost entirely different from ours, that would contradict (or at least bring into question) the theory of universal common descent.
On the other hand, "special creation," the claim that all species were created in their current form by a supernatural agent, is unfalsifiable because there is nothing that we could observe about the natural world that would contradict it. Any outcome of any experiment could be attributed to the will of the creator.
Unfalsifiable hypotheses can be appealing because they are impossible to refute. If your goal is never to be proved wrong, you should choose hypotheses that are as unfalsifiable as possible.
But if your goal is to make reliable predictions about the world—and this is at least one of the goals of science—then unfalsifiable hypotheses are useless. The problem is that they have no consequences (if they had consequences, they would be falsifiable).
For example, if the theory of special creation were true, what good would it do me to know it? It wouldn't tell me anything about the creator except that he has an "inordinate fondness for beetles" (attributed to J. B. S. Haldane). And unlike the theory of common descent, which informs many areas of science and bioengineering, it would be of no use for understanding the world or acting in it.
Exercise 5
Falsifiability is an appealing and useful idea, but among philosophers of science it is not generally accepted as a solution to the demarcation problem, as Popper claimed.
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability and answer the following questions.
6.10 What is this a model of?
Some cellular automata are primarily mathematical artifacts. They are interesting because they are surprising, or useful, or pretty, or because they provide tools for creating new mathematics (like the Church-Turing thesis).
But it is not clear that they are models of physical systems. And if they are, they are highly abstracted, which is to say that they are not very detailed or realistic.
For example, some species of cone snail produce a pattern on their shells that resembles the patterns generated by cellular automata (seee en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_snail). So it is natural to suppose that a CA is a model of the mechanism that produces patterns on shells as they grow. But, at least initially, it is not clear how the elements of the model (so-called cells, communication between neighbors, rules) correspond to the elements of a growing snail (real cells, chemical signals, protein interaction networks).
For conventional physical models, being realistic is a virtue, at least up to a point. If the elements of a model correspond to the elements of a physical system, there is an obvious analogy between the model and the system. In general, we expect a model that is more realistic to make better predictions and to provide more believable explanations.
Of course, this is only true up to a point. Models that are more detailed are harder to work with, and usually less amenable to analysis. At some point, a model becomes so complex that it is easier to experiment with the system.
At the other extreme, simple models can be compelling exactly because they are simple.
Simple models offer a different kind of explanation than detailed models. With a detailed model, the argument goes something like this: "We are interested in physical system S, so we construct a detailed model, M, and show by analysis and simulation that M exhibits a behavior, B, that is similar (qualitatively or quantitatively) to an observation of the real system, O. So why does O happen? Because S is similar to M, and B is similar to O, and we can prove that M leads to B."
With simple models we can't claim that S is similar to M, because it isn't. Instead, the argument goes like this: "There is a set of models that share a common set of features. Any model that has these features exhibits behavior B. If we make an observation, O, that resembles B, one way to explain it is to show that the system, S, has the set of features sufficient to produce B."
For this kind of argument, adding more features doesn't help. Making the model more realistic doesn't make the model more reliable; it only obscures the difference between the essential features that cause O and the incidental features that are particular to S.
Figure 6.7 shows the logical structure of this kind of model. The features x and y are sufficient to produce the behavior. Adding more detail, like features w and z, might make the model more realistic, but that realism adds no explanatory power.
Like this book?
Are you using one of our books in a class?We'd like to know about it. Please consider filling out this short survey.


text:
Brown Announces Arrests of Nursing Home Employees Who Drugged Patients for Staff's Convenience
February 18, 2009
Contact: Christine Gasparac (916) 324-5500
Brown Announces Arrests of Nursing Home Employees Who Drugged Patients for Staff's Convenience
BAKERSFIELD –Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced the arrests of a nurse, physician, and a pharmacist of a nursing home for "forcibly administering" psychotropic medications for their own convenience, rather than for their patients' therapeutic interests, actions that are alleged to have resulted in the deaths of three residents.
"These people maliciously violated the trust of their patients, by holding them down and forcibly administering psychotropic medications if they dared to question their care," Attorney General Brown said. "This is appalling behavior, which amounts to assault with a deadly weapon."
Earlier today, California Department of Justice special agents arrested three individuals:
• Gwen Hughes, the former Director of Nursing at the skilled nursing facility of the Kern Valley Healthcare District in Lake Isabella, Kern County on charges of elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon.
• Debbi Hayes, the former pharmacist at the Valley Healthcare District, on charges of elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon.
• Dr. Hoshang Pormir, a staff physician at Kern Valley Healthcare District, who was serving as the medical director of the skilled nursing facility, on charges of elder abuse.
Upon taking over as Director of Nursing in September 2006, Gwen Hughes ordered that Alzheimer's and other dementia patients be given high doses of psychotropic medications to make them more tranquil and easy to control. She ordered the administration of these medications to patients who argued with her, were noisy, or who were otherwise disruptive. Two patients who resisted were held down and forcibly given injections.
Ms. Hughes is also alleged to have directed Debbi Hayes, the hospital pharmacist, to fill prescriptions for these psychotropic medications. Hayes wrote and filled these prescriptions without first obtaining a doctor's approval.
Dr. Hoshang Pormir approved these psychotropic medications only some time after they had been administered and without examining the patients first and determining whether these psychotropic medications were medically necessary.
Several of these patients are alleged to have had medical complications as a result of being given these psychotropic medications, including lethargy and the inability to eat or drink properly. It is believed that that three patients died and one patient suffered great bodily injury as a result.
The investigation
Kern Valley Healthcare District operates a small community hospital and skilled nursing facility in Lake Isabella. The case came to the attention of authorities in January 2007, when an ombudsman reported to the Bakersfield office of the California Department of Public Health that a patient in the skilled nursing facility had been held down and given an injection of psychotropic medication by force.
The Department of Public Health immediately sent an investigative team with a doctor, a nurse, and a doctor of pharmacology. They determined that 22 patients, including some who were suffering from Alzheimer's at the skilled nursing facility, were being given high doses of psychotropic medication not for therapeutic reasons, but to simply control and quiet them for the convenience of the staff.
The Department of Public Health issued a Certificate of Immediate Jeopardy which resulted in the immediate dismissal of the Ms. Hughes. The matter was then turned over to the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse.
Special Agents from the Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse began a year-long investigation, with the co-operation and assistance of the Department of Public Health and the administration of the Kern Valley Healthcare District.
A search warrant was served on the facility in August 2008, resulting in the seizure of numerous medical files and records.
Criminal charges were filed in Kern County Superior Court. The defendants are being held in Kern County Jail in Bakersfield. They will be arraigned on Friday. If convicted, the defendants could face up to 11 years in prison.
The case is being prosecuted by the Attorney General's Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse, with the co-operation and assistance of the Kern County District Attorney's Office.
To report elder abuse or Medi-Cal fraud, call the Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse's hotline at (800) 722-0432.
The complaints are attached.


text:
The top 3 by DT selection (listed numerically) were:
#2 Jackie Edwards
#3 Elly's Creaties
#4 Toni Herron
And the winner of our Grand Prize by Random number generator is #7-
Creative Love Affair.
Our top 3 can grab a badge for their blog and if our winner can email me at email@example.com we can get a gift out to you.
Congratulations ladies!


text:
Your shopping cart is empty!
What will you get:
You will get Xbox Live 2100 EU Points Redeem Code (scan of the original prepaid card). You can activate this code on xbox.com or your Xbox console.
This code is suitable for EU accounts.
Experience one monts of pure gold! Your Xbox LIVE® Gold membership lets you connect and play with friends around the world and watch thousands of HD movies instantly from Netflix. In addition to Xbox LIVE features like available game add-ons, full Xbox 360® game downloads, Xbox LIVE Arcade games and unique fashions and props for your avatar, you will receive Gold-exclusive discounts like the Deal of the Week. Plus, with your Gold membership you get early access to some of the best new games and content.


text:
11:00 am
Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers "Part 1" Campbell discusses how the concept of the hero has infiltrated all cultures around the world, and has been a consistent cultural theme for centuries. He goes on to illuminate how all the hero stories are tied together, and reflect the same underlying structure. Campbell uses a number of diverse examples, starting with Moses and the exodus before moving on to Native American mythology and even today's Star Wars films. D
3:00 pm
Invitation to World Literature "The Bhagavad Gita" This epic tale of the warrior-prince Arjuna confronting a life-or-death dilemma during civil war presents a unique and powerful philosophy of duty, discipline, and serving a higher purpose. Beautiful illustrations connect the story with its rich history and culture. Featured speakers include Sheldon Pollack, Professor of Sanskrit Studies and acclaimed composer Philip Glass. D
3:30 pm
Invitation to World Literature "The Tale of Genji" This portrait of court life in medieval Japan follows the life and exploits of the great Genji. Written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady of the Japanese court, it provides an insider's view of Japanese court life, the official and behind the screen. Art, clothing, music from the time of the novel illustrate the obserations of authors Jane Smiley and Chiori Miyagawa, among others. D
4:00 pm
Making Meaning In Literature: A Workshop for Teachers, Grades 6-8 "Workshop 8. Planning and Professional Development" In order to grow in their careers, teachers need a great deal of sustenance. In this program, the teachers talk about the ways in which they fulfill this need as they develop individually and as members of a professional community. The group invites us into their classrooms to look at the way they have grown professionally, stimulated by their peers, their membership in professional organizations, and their willingness to seek out new thinking on literature and teaching literature. D
5:00 pm
Chef John Besh's New Orleans Crab Maison, Chicken and Dumplings, and Peach Upside-Down Cake. D
5:30 pm
Sara's Weeknight Meals "High 5 - 5 Ingredient Mains" The fewer the ingredients, the faster dinner gets to the table - that's why Sara's rustled up some delicious recipes featuring only 5 ingredients, and boy are they good! Try the Roasted Salmon with Hot Mustard Cracker Topping - crunchy on the outside and oh so tender on the inside. Buffalo Rice mixes the best tastes of Buffalo chicken wings - hot sauce, blue cheese, celery, crispy chicken - in a quick and flavorful rice bowl. Sauteed Duck Breasts have an Apricot Szechuan Peppercorn Sauce that's packed with sweet and spicy flavors. D
6:00 pm
Rick Steves' Europe "Venice Sidetrips" Rick puts on hip boots to wade into the muck of Venice and takes a speedboat tour of the lagoon. He visits Padua, Vicenza, Verona and Ravenna on the mainland.G
6:30 pm
Travelscope "San Antonio, Texas - More Than The Alamo" The finer things in life have always been a big part of the San Antonio experience and there's a slew of attractions to entertain the visitor - the Alamo, Riverwalk, fine dining, music, art - but it's San Antonio's diverse cultures and the way the people love to celebrate that is most impressive. Joseph returns to San Antonio, a town he's visited regularly since 1969, to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and introduce viewers to some of his favorite things and shows them why it's said that San Antonio is every Texans' second hometown. D
7:00 pm
P. Allen Smith's Garden Home "Entry with Impact" Allen leads a tour of Daffodil Hill at his home place, talking about color and daffodils, plus clustering containers for a bold effect. He also provides information on houseplants and a cheap way to light a path.G
7:30 pm
Ask This Old House "Tiling A Bathroom Floor; Weatherstripping A Front Door" Contractor Angelo McRae helps a homeowner tile his bathroom floor. Then, general contractor Tom Silva heads to Washington, DC, to help a help a homeowner weatherstrip her front door. D
8:00 pm
For Your Home "Gentlemen's Quarters, Part 8" Vicki introduces the healthiest and easiest solution to rid basements of dampness and odors. Then she creates a perfect haven with natural accents and warm colors. D
8:30 pm
Katie Brown Workshop "Sweet" The recipes and projects Katie presents promise to satisfy even the sweetest tooth and awaken your sweet side. In the Kitchen: Colorful Birthday Cake, Heavenly Orange & Cherry Brownies and Kyle's Famous Sugar and Spice Cookies. Projects: Make-and-decorate lip balm. D
9:00 pm
Knit and Crochet Now! "Great Gifts" Maggie knits up a pair of quick slipper socks and Myra shows how to crochet unique shapes that turn into a scarf. Interview with Edie Eckman. D
9:30 pm
Donna Dewberry Show "Botanical Clock" Donna uses textured white paint and bright green fern designs on an old wooden clock. She completes the room setting by painting a matching lampshade and base.G
10:00 pm
Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen "Retro Desserts" Bridget uncovers the secrets to perfect Banana Pudding. Then, Adam reveals his top picks for finemesh strainers. And finally, Erin updates a lost recipe and shows Chris how to make the ultimate Chiffon Cake. D
10:30 pm
Lidia's Italy In America "New York: New York Pizza" Lidia shows viewers a typical New York pizza and then pays a visit to Eataly, where Sal at the cheese counter shows viewers how to make fresh mozzarella. Lidia makes traditional Italian Pizza Margherita from scratch, a Sausage and Spinach Calzone, and is joined in the kitchen by Grandma, who performs the official taste test. D
11:00 pm
Theater Talk "On Wit and Silence! The Musical" A conversation about Wit, the searing drama about a woman's struggle with maintaining her self-awareness and sense of humor while grappling with a mortal illness. Playwright Margaret Edson discusses the revival of her 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, along with the current production's director Lynne Meadow, the Artistic Director of The Manhattan Theatre Club. D
11:30 pm
Closer to Truth "Does Metaphysics Reveal Reality?" Some think metaphysics is ancient nonsense; others that it's the bizarre occult. Real metaphysics asks the most profound questions, seeks the deepest truths. D


text: I am proof that defense lawyers do make a difference. In 1998, I was sentenced to 12 years and 3 months in federal prison for five armed bank robberies. I was fortunate to have competent counsel and to receive a sentence that, while long, was not long enough to make me stop thinking about my future. I quickly learned that I did not enjoy prison. I also realized that I did not want prison to define my life. Believing in the power of second chances, I endeavored to find a career, a passion. I found it in the law. My passion for the law began with an end-of-the-term decision by the Supreme Court in 2000. It was the now infamous decision Apprendi v. New Jersey,1 which ushered in a new era of Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. At the time, I could not have named a "right in the Bill of Rights."2 But I, like many of my fellow brethren, thought that Apprendi would reduce the amount of time I would remain incarcerated. I began the art of legal research by studying my ca


text:
Member? Sign in. Not a member? Register for free.
This app was removed from the App Store.
Panda's Puzzle Blast
iOS iPhone Games
player Reviews :
"I <3 this game!!! It is SO addicting but really fun. =)"
"Love this app soooo much everyone should get it. You can also meet people."
"Fun and beautiful. A must have"
"You learn in 15 seconds and play forever"
"Cute game and very addicting"
Reviews :
"Hardcore mode of this distant relation to Orbital is a compelling one-more-go challenge, where you have to clear all the blocks of a spinning shape by shooting them with your cannon but a single miss ends your game. Various bonus mechanisms put temptation in your way by inviting risky shots for lucrative rewards."
Panda's Puzzle Blast for iPhone/iPod Touch is the most relaxing puzzle game you've ever played. It is very easy to learn, but not so easy to master.
* Completely unique and addictive puzzle game.
* Three different game modes
* Over 200 puzzling shapes
* Unlimited gameplay
* Many different bonuses
* Online leaderboards
* You can listen to your own music while playing
* "one touch" gameplay
* Online chat!!!
* Funny sounds can be enabled from options menu
* Suitable for all ages
What's New
bug fixes


text:
Honor Scholarship Weekend Underwayby Jim Amidon • March 16, 2012 Share:
Wabash College rolled out the red carpet for 350 high school seniors visiting campus for the 119th Honor Scholarship Weekend.
Sunshine and record-high temperatures greeted students when they arrived for Friday morning's Activities Fair. While on campus, the students are taking competitive exams for merit scholarships totaling more than $3 million.
See pictures from Honor Scholarship Weekend.
In welcoming the young men and their families for the weekend, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Steve Klein talked about what makes Wabash special.
"As you sort out the differences in the colleges you're considering, you'll discover that at Wabash we're a very tight-knit community," he said. "Over the course of four years on campus, you'll have the opportunity to meet and get to know nearly every member of the faculty and staff."
Klein was one of five speakers who welcomed the Honor Scholars and their families. Dean of the College Gary Phillips gave the keynote address and said that while the Wabash community is a close one, "there is no one way to be a Wabash man."
"This weekend you will encounter some Wabash men who seem like you, some who seem quite different from you; men from Indiana and men from all over the world; a band of brothers here who form a rich and complicated mix, walking their own paths, reflecting a vibrant tapestry of races, ethnicities, faiths, interests, skills, desires, and hopes for themselves and our world. Wabash men reflect these many differences and more."
Lots of colleges make promises of life-changing opportunities, Dean Phillips said, and lots of schools will provide a good place to study for four years. But the students attending Wabash's Honor Scholarship Weekend want something more… and then some.
"In you, we see young men of achievement and courage who are ready to take the road less traveled. Some schools teach you how to hone the abilities you already know; Wabash helps you discover those that you never knew you had.
"We see men of strength and passion, hard working men who have already accomplished much. Some schools reward you for the excellence you have already achieved; Wabash challenges you to discover the potential for greatness not yet expressed.
"We see men of confidence, able to hear many voices and to speak for themselves. Some schools teach you how to lip sink the melody. Wabash teaches you to sing your song.
"We see men who want to be heroes in their own lives. Some schools teach you about the heroines and heroes of the past; Wabash teaches you to look into yourself and into the hearts of your fellow students and find what enables you to become a hero in your time."
Dean Phillips concluded by urging the Honor Scholars to ask current Wabash students hard questions about why they chose Wabash and how Wabash has changed them.
That sentiment was echoed by three student speakers — Student Body President Alex Robbins, Independent Men's Association President, David Roaten '14, and Inter-Fraternity Council President Colten Craigin.
"I encourage you to be selfish this weekend," Roaten told the high school men. "This weekend is about you. I urge you to look at everything Wabash has to offer. Go out, meet people, and ask questions. Be selfish, and find out if Wabash is right for you."
Roaten (above left) also described the many independent housing options available to Wabash students — from the newly renovated College Hall and Cole Hall to small houses owned by the College.
Robbins (right) gave students a couple of reasons not to come to Wabash: "If you're looking for a place where you can sit in the back of a lecture room and sleep, don't come to Wabash," Robbins said. "If you want it easy, don't come here."
Robbins said Wabash is a competitive place, but not in the normal sense of the word. He said Wabash men are "always striving to be the best community, the best college, the best gentlemen around."
Craigin (right), representing Wabash's nine national fraternities, dispelled myths about Greek life and noted that more than half of all Wabash students are members of fraternities. He described the benefits of structured study tables and the bonds of brotherhood that turn into friendships for life.
Craigin also urged the students to ask good questions. "Tour all of the houses this weekend, ask the members good questions. There's a place for everyone here at Wabash."
Dean Phillips summed up the weekend in his opening remarks when he said that the Honor Scholars provide the College a glimpse of its future. "You young men gathered in this special place represent the future of Wabash College.
"Wabash has a great history and an even greater future because of you young men. Everything that we do at Wabash is designed with one thing in mind, to educate you to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely."


text:
DeveloperWiki:Building in a clean chroot
This article is part of the DeveloperWiki.
Building in a clean chroot prevents missing dependencies in packages, whether due to unwanted linking or packages missing in the depends array in the PKGBUILD. It also allows you to build a package for the stable repositories (core, extra, community) while having packages from [testing] installed on your system.
Convenience Way
If all you want is to quickly build a package in a chroot without any further tinkering, you can use the helper scripts from the devtools package: $REPO-$ARCH-build
These helper scripts should be called in the same directory where the PKGBUILD is, just like with makepkg. For instance, extra-i686-build automatically sets up chroot in /var/tmp/archbuild, updates it, and builds a package for the extra repository. For multilib builds there is just multilib-build without an architecture.
Classic Way
Setting Up A Chroot
The devtools package provides tools for creating and building within clean chroots. To make a clean chroot, create a directory in which the chroot will reside. For example,
Now create the chroot:
$ CHROOT=/tmp/WORK/chroot $ mkdir $CHROOT $ sudo mkarchroot $CHROOT/root base base-devel sudo
$CHROOT/root/etc/makepkg.conf to set the packager name and any makeflags. Also adjust the mirror list in
$CHROOT/root/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and enable [testing]
$CHROOT/root/etc/pacman.conf if desired.
Alternatively, provide a custom
pacman.conf and
makepkg.conf with the following:
$ sudo mkarchroot -C <pacman.conf> -M <makepkg.conf> $CHROOT/root base base-devel sudo
It is recommended however users do not use custom
pacman.conf and
makepkg.conf during the initial creation of clean chroot to ensure no user-specific adjustments are made. Use with caution.
Building in the Chroot
Firstly, make sure your chroot is up to date with:
$ sudo mkarchroot -u <chrootdir>/root
Then, to build a package in your chroot run the following from the dir containing the PKGBUILD:
$ sudo makechrootpkg -c -r <chrootdir>
A unionfs is used to maintain the clean chroot during building. All installed dependencies or makedepends and other changes made during building are done in <chrootdir>/rw. Passing the -c flag to makechrootpkg ensures that this directory is cleaned before building starts.
Handling Major Rebuilds
The cleanest way to handle a major rebuild is to create a new chroot and build your first package (typically the package you are doing the rebuild for). Then create a local repo in your new chroot. To do this:
$ sudo mkdir <chrootdir>/root/repo $ sudo chmod 777 <chrootdir>/root/repo
The chmod statement allows you to copy package files and create the local repo as your user rather than root.
$ cp <package> <chrootdir>/root/repo $ cd <chrootdir>/root/repo $ repo-add local.db.tar.gz <package>
Then add the local repo to <chrootdir>/root/etc/pacman.conf
[local] Server = file:///repo
and update your repo
$ sudo mkarchroot -u <chrootdir>/root
With every additional package rebuilt, copy the package to the local repo directory, add it to the repo database and update your chroot.
Alternate Rebuild Handling
The above directions will work fine, but they can dirty the "pristine" chroot that makechrootpkg tries to keep in check (that is the point of using unionfs - dirtying a separate 'rw' directory).
Using a custom repo
Follow the steps above to setup a local repo inside the chroot.
Build packages using:
$ sudo makechrootpkg -r <chrootdir> -u
The -u will update the chroot before building (-Syu) but updates will be installed to the rw layer, maintaining a clean chroot.
Manual package installation
Packages can be installed manually to the rw layer of the chroot by using:
$ sudo makechrootpkg -r <chrootdir> -I package-1.0-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz
Installation after building
You can tell makechrootpkg to simply install a package to the rw layer of the chroot after building by passing the -i arg. Unrecognized args get passed to makepkg, so this calls `makepkg` with the -i arg.
$ sudo makechrootpkg -r <chrootdir> -- -i


text: November 18th, 2012, 10:10 pm dumbledummy Taylor Swift's AMA performance of "I Knew You Were Trouble." sourceTaylor has gone a little dark. And I fucking love it! Tagged: award show - american music awards, taylor swift, television - abc Post to Facebook Tweet this Send by e-mail Share 194194 comments Add comment


text:
Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animation legend whose work on "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms," "Jason and the Argonauts" and other science fiction and fantasy film classics made him a cult figure who inspired later generations of filmmakers and special-effects artists, has died. He was 92.
Harryhausen died Tuesday in London, where he had lived for decades. His death was confirmed by Kenneth Kleinberg, his longtime legal representative in the United States.
In the pre-computer-generated-imagery era in which he worked, Harryhausen used the painstaking process of making slight adjustments to the position of his three-dimensional, ball-and-socket-jointed scale models and then shooting them frame-by-frame to create the illusion of movement. Footage of his exotic beasts and creatures was later often combined with live action.
PHOTOS: Ray Harryhausen -- Career in pictures
Working with modest budgets and typically with only two or three assistants -- if any -- to keep costs down, Harryhausen created innumerable memorable big-screen moments.
In "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" (1953), a dinosaur thawed out by A-bomb testing in the Arctic goes on a Big Apple rampage in which it devours a New York cop before meeting its demise at Coney Island.
In "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), the mythological hero Jason, played by Todd Armstrong, slays a seven-headed hydra guarding the Golden Fleece, then Jason and two of his men battle seven sword-wielding warrior skeletons that spring from the hydra's scattered teeth.
In "The Valley of Gwangi" (1969), a group of turn-of-the-20th-century cowboys on horseback attempt to lasso the movie title's namesake, a 14-foot Tyrannosaurus rex, to capture it for a Wild West show.
And who can forget the prehistoric flying reptile that scoops up and carries off Raquel Welch, clad in an animal-skin bikini, in "One Million Years BC" (1966)?
The fantasy world of Ray Harryhausen inspired Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron and many other filmmakers, some of whom have paid cinematic homage to the special-effects maestro.
In Pixar's 2001 animated feature "Monsters Inc.," a Monstropolis restaurant is named after Harryhausen.
Director Robert Rodriguez's "Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams" included a Harryhausen-inspired multiple-skeleton swordfight and a closing-credit thank you to Harryhausen.
And Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode 2 -- Attack of the Clones" featured a gladiator-style scene, including two shots set up exactly like ones Harryhausen devised for his 1958 classic "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad."
PHOTOS: Celebrities react to Ray Harryhausen's death
"I had seen some other fantasy films before, but none of them had the sort of awe that the Ray Harryhausen movies had," Lucas said in "The Harryhausen Chronicles," a 1998 documentary written and directed by film critic and historian Richard Schickel.
In 1992, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Harryhausen with the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for technical achievement.
As part of a Hollywood contingent that wrote letters and donated money to get Harryhausen a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, Spielberg wrote: "Without Harryhausen's effects work over the last five decades, there never would have been a 'Star Wars' or a 'Jurassic Park.' His films continue to set our imagination on fire."
For Harryhausen, it all began with a giant gorilla named Kong.
Born in Los Angeles on June 29, 1920, Harryhausen was 13 when he saw "King Kong" during its run at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
"I haven't been the same since," he is repeatedly quoted as saying over the years.
"I came out of the theater awestruck," Harryhausen elaborated in a 1999 interview with the Chicago Tribune. "It was such a totally different, unusual film. The story line led you from the mundane world into the most outrageous fantasy that's ever been put on the screen."
Inspired by the landmark special effects of stop-motion animation pioneer Willis O'Brien in "King Kong," Harryhausen began creating dinosaur models and making experimental 16-millimeter stop-motion films in the family garage.
In high school, Harryhausen discovered that a classmate's father had worked on a film with O'Brien. The man suggested that Harryhausen call MGM and talk to his idol. He did, and to his surprise, his special-effects hero invited him to the studio.
PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments
After looking at the suitcase full of dinosaur models that Harryhausen had brought with him, O'Brien suggested that he study anatomy. O'Brien later provided further constructive criticism and encouragement after viewing footage of Harryhausen's stop-motion experiments.
While still in high school, Harryhausen enrolled in art and anatomy night classes at Los Angeles City College. To gain more knowledge of motion picture techniques, he took night classes in art direction, photography and editing at USC. The shy teenager even took an acting class.
In 1938, he met another young fantasy buff who became a lifelong friend: Forrest J Ackerman, who later became editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.
At Ackerman's suggestion, Harryhausen began attending meetings of the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, where he met another kindred spirit who became a lifelong friend, fledgling science fiction author Ray Bradbury.
The same year, Harryhausen began his most ambitious stop-motion project in the family garage: "Evolution of the World," a history of the world's beginnings through the age of dinosaurs and the appearance of mammals.
He gave up the "Evolution" project in 1940 after seeing the impressive sequence showing dinosaurs and their demise in Disney's animated feature "Fantasia," but he used his footage and models as samples to land his first professional job: Producer-director George Pal hired him, at $16 a week, to help animate the models for the "Puppetoons," Pal's series of shorts for Paramount Pictures.
From 1940 to 1942, Harryhausen worked on the "Puppetoon" shorts. Then, with the world at war, he enlisted in the Army.
PHOTOS: Ray Harryhausen -- Career in pictures
Assigned to the Signal Corps, he was transferred to the Special Service Division, where, among other films, he worked on the "Why We Fight" series supervised by Col. Frank Capra.
Harryhausen, a talented artist and sculptor, also was asked by Maj. Ted Geisel, who later became famous as Dr. Seuss, to sculpt a model of the comic character Pvt. Snafu to be used as a guide for artists in the animation studio for the Army's "Snafu" series.
After the war, Harryhausen began making a series of stop-motion animation shorts based on nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and his parents pitched in. His father helped construct the sets and made the metal armatures for the models; his mother created all the costumes and draperies for the sets.
The first four fairy tales were linked together under the title of "The Mother Goose Stories" (1946). A handful of shorts, including "The Story of Little Red Riding Hood" (1950) and "The Story of Hansel and Gretel" (1951), followed.
To earn a living while making his shorts after the war, Harryhausen took on commissions filming inserts and making TV commercials for companies and organizations.
His big break came when his mentor, O'Brien, gave him his first feature-film assignment -- to work with him on stop-motion animation effects for a film featuring another giant ape: "Mighty Joe Young."
Harryhausen later said he animated more than 90% of the 1949 classic, whose numerous stop-motion highlights include a tug-of-war sequence between Joe and eight strongmen. The movie won technical creator O'Brien an Academy Award for special effects.
Striking out on his own, Harryhausen's first solo stop-motion effort was the low-budget 1953 film "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms."
Harryhausen launched his three-decade partnership with producer Charles H. Schneer with "It Came From Beneath the Sea," a 1955 film about a giant octopus that destroys the Golden Gate Bridge.
To distinguish Harryhausen's brand of three-dimensional model animation process from animated cartoons and help sell their pictures to the public, Schneer came up with the name "Dynamation."
Other special-effects showcases for Harryhausen's work followed, such as "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver" (1960), "Mysterious Island" (1961), "First Men in the Moon" (1964), "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (1974) and "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977).
PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2013
Of his feature work, Harryhausen told the gathering of fans at the 2004 motion picture academy tribute: "Nine-tenths of what you see on the screen of all our professional films is the first take. I sometimes wanted to do another take, but we just didn't have the money to do it.
"We never considered our films special-effects films. It was journalists who attached that handle to it. We used special effects to put on the screen things you can't possibly photograph in the natural course of photography."
Harryhausen's last feature film as a visual-effects creator was "Clash of the Titans" (1981), a large-scale retelling of the Perseus myth, with Laurence Olivier as Zeus and Harry Hamlin as Perseus.
By then, however, stop-motion animation was viewed by many as being quaint. Indeed, a reviewer for Variety deemed the movie "an unbearable bore" with "flat, outdated special effects."
Of today's more-convincing, computerized special effects, Harryhausen told the New York Times in 1998: "I don't think you want to make it quite real. Stop motion, to me, gives that added value of a dream world."
In 2004, Billboard Books published "Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life," a coffee-table-tome memoir written by Harryhausen and British film historian Tony Dalton.
"Some people think it's childish to do what I've done for a living," Harryhausen told the Toronto Sun at the time. "But I think it's wrong when you grow to be an adult to discard your sense of wonder."
Harryhausen's survivors include his wife of 50 years, Diana, and a daughter, Vanessa.
McLellan is a former Times staff writer.
VIDEO: Upcoming summer films
ENVELOPE: The latest awards buzz
PHOTOS: Greatest box office flops


text:
Complete with a snazzy infinite loading portfolio, masonry layout, neat lightbox portfolio post, clean / minimalistic design & a powerful theme customizer – Folo is nearly the perfect setup for your online portfolio.
Key Features
- Powerful & Lightweight
- Sweet Portfolio Lightbox Feature
- Fully Responsive Build
- Retina Assets / CSS
- Built with HTML5 & CSS3
- SEO Optimized
- WordPress 3.8 Tested and Ready
- Fully translatable po/mo files included
- Cross Browser Support
- PSD Sources Included
- XMP Demo Data included
- Contact Form 7 Integration
- Widget Area Generator (Unlimited)
- Left and Right Sidebar Switcher on any default page template
- Post Likes Feature
- Custom Audio, Gallery, Video, Embedded Video Post Formats
- Related Posts
- Customizable 404 Page Included
- Powerful Theme Options Panel
- Resourceful Customization Options
- Color picker for styles in Theme Options
- Widgets: Dribbble Shots, Flickr Images, Newsletter Subscribe
- Templates: Portfolio, Default, Contact, Archives
- Beautiful & Extensive Documentation
- Multi-Portfolio Capabilities – Nice! (photography example & design example)
- Portfolio Archives
- Theme Customizer Functionality (Background Image Uploader, Header/Footer Color Picker)
- New Portfolio Media Uploader & Drag/Drop Organizer
- Embedded Video & Audio Portfolio Posts
- Multiple Performance Improvements / Bug Fixes
- Updated HTML Documentation
- Compatible with the free Bean Portfolio Plugin
- Compatible with the free Bean Shortcodes Plugin
- Compatible with the free Bean Tweets Plugin
- Compatible with the free Bean Instagram Plugin
- Compatible with the free Bean Social Plugin
- Compatible with the free Bean Pricing Tables Plugin
- Compatible with the free Bean 500px Plugin
- Compatible with the free Bean Dribbble Plugin
Some Happy Clients
This is the first theme I have used, and it looks great and is easy to use once you get the hang of it – prompt support from the author too. Can't wait to get my site live!
The design is excellent and the functionality is smooth. It is definitely one of my favorite themes.
Works as advertised and was a cinch to set up and customize.
100% hassle free. My new blog looks slick and it took less than 5 minutes.
Wonderful theme. Lightweight, easy to use and extremely subtle.
Beautiful theme! Please commit to updates and follow-up!
Fantastic! No problems at all, excellent work ThemeBeans!
Not only an awesome, easy to use theme, but support is great. These guys are really helpful!
Thank you for a fantastic theme, so easy to use!
Patient customer support and really great!
Theme Support & More
Review the theme documentation and changelog for what's included and the updates that have been pushed so far. Also, if you need any help – don't be afraid to ask.
Help Center | Changelog | Documentation
Made by ThemeBeans
Hi, we are ThemeBeans — a WordPress theme & plugin shop that builds simple, powerful products for people and businesses. We create first-rate experiences and solutions for creatives.
ThemeBeans is run by Rich Tabor, a ridiculously hard-working designer & developer, husband + dad, and aspiring writer about all things WordPress and business. Click here to learn more about ThemeBeans.


text:
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A rare and powerful snowstorm hammered parts of the Pacific Northwest on Thursday, dropping more than a foot of snow in parts of western Oregon and southwest Washington.
Part two of the storm was expected to hit Oregon on Friday afternoon, bringing another 6 to 12 inches of snow.
Thursday's storm left one person dead in a massive Interstate 5 pileup in southwest Washington, caused multiple other wrecks and closed schools and offices.
Many school districts in the region canceled Friday's classes as well.
The snowstorm also caused a string of multiple car crashes on I-5 near Albany, Ore., essentially closing the highway there for five hours, the Oregon Transportation Department said.
Highway crews in Oregon's Willamette Valley geared up for a night of snowplowing and sanding, focusing on highways that are most critical for commuters and businesses, Transportation Department spokesman Rick Little said.
The last back-to-back snow event like this in the region hit in December 2008, said meteorologist Colby Neuman in the National Weather Service's Portland office.
The big I-5 pileup that killed one person and injured others occurred across the Columbia River in Washington state's Clark County.
At least half a dozen tractor-trailers were involved in the collision on the snow-covered freeway, The Columbian reported.
Washington State Patrol Trooper Steve Schatzel said several people were trapped in the wreckage. One suffered injuries described as critical and two others suffered serious injuries.
Oregon State Police Lt. Steve Mitchell described a 25-vehicle pileup on I-5 near Albany as "pure chaos."
Traffic backed up for miles. Only minor injuries were reported.
Oregon's largest city, Portland, recorded 3 ½ inches of snow by Thursday evening. Cars slipped and slid as commuters left work early. Some good-hearted residents helped push vehicles that got stuck.
A school bus slid on ice and collided with a car Thursday afternoon in Aloha, west of Portland, but firefighters said one of the children on the bus was taken to a hospital.
Snowfall totals as of Thursday night included 13 inches in the small town of Vernonia, Ore., northwest of Portland, and 10 inches in St. Helens, north of Portland along the Columbia River. Snow also fell along the Oregon coast; the community of Wheeler got 9 inches.
In the Willamette Valley south of Portland, Corvallis got 9.3 inches and Albany reported 7 ½ inches.
In the Columbia River Gorge that divides Oregon from Washington, snow was accented by 30-40 mph winds that gusted to 60 mph, Neuman said.
In southwest Washington, Ridgefield got 9 inches of snow, Woodland got 7 and Longview got 5.
The storm struck quickly Thursday morning, dumping snow on the Albany region and then spreading north.


text:
Bead booster PL-1400A
Suit for most truck tires and some agricultural tiresOperating pressure:
Capacity 10 Gallon
N.W/G.W 14/14.5kg
Package size 60*48*36(cm)
Qty/carton 1pcs
Unite Auto Equipment offers 18 MONTHS LIMITED WARRANTY because we are confident with our products' quality and we want to help our customers save money on parts.
The warranty will cover the cost of parts & shipping with some exceptions*. To better understand our 18 month limited warranty read the following thoroughly.
The Warranty will activate from the date of delivery. You have 14 days from the date of delivery to return the warranty registration form filled out.
The limited 18 months warranty will NOT cover normal wear and tear. (Plastic protectors, Jaws on the turntable, belts, and gauges).
Lubrication is necessary to maintain the machines, if the malfunction happens due to the lack of lubrication, then the warranty is VOID.
The power supply should be 110 Volt, if the problem happens because of customer use the machines in a 220V outlet, then the warranty is VOID.
Unite Auto Equipment will not be liable for any injuries including death, to person or property from the use of the products.
For warranty part replacement/repair every customer will go through the following process and has to be approved by a Unite Auto Equipment.
• Contact 951-677-6936
• Provide needed information to find customer warranty.
• Our technician will ask for the photo or a video for the broken parts or the problem during the operation.
• Once we confirm that the problem is caused by manufacture defect, we will send the parts for the replacement.
All optional items/Add-ons will NOT be cover by the warranty (Plastic demount head, jaws protectors, ATV/motorcycle adapters, balance weights)
Unite Auto Equipment will provide after-sales service to each every one of our customer by phone calls or video guide for free.
Unite Auto Equipment will NOT provide the labor services but can assist in helping find a third-party technician.
If your warranty is terminated, we will sell you the parts for replacement in a special discount and we can guarantee it will be the lowest price in USA.
*Exceptions- If you would like to find out if a certain parts falls under our exceptions please contact 951.677.6936 for more information.
Where to send completed warranty form
Unite Auto Equipment
Murrieta, CA 92563
Unite Auto Equipment will honor the warranty governed under the laws of California, and shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court in the State of California in the county of Riverside


text:
Feed your fingers!
Shop for non-metal rings:
Read the full post and see more photos/designers here.
posted by The Carrotbox @ 12:01 am
<< Home
Hi! Visit the shop at thecarrotbox.com and get the full version of the blog at thecarrotbox.com/blog! I stopped putting a full copy of the blog here because I think Google thought I was some copycat weirdo.
View my complete profile