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for Cynsations
Lessons Lived by J. Anderson Coats from EMU's Debuts. Peek: "She grabbed two of us by the forearms and said, "Look, guys. We're in New York. They want us to dance with a Broadway cast. When do you think this is ever going to happen again?"
How to Install IndieBound Reader on Kindle Fire by Samantha Clark from Motivation for Writers. Peek: "While the default settings for the Kindle Fire don't allow the installation of apps that are not in the Amazon Store, including the IndieBound Reader app, there's a quick and easy way to allow your Kindle Fire to accept these outside apps."
Disability in Children's Books Part 1 by Renee Grassi from ALSC Blog. Note: annotated bibliography of recommended reads.
List of Wordless Picture Books: recommendation from Gathering Books.
Drawing from Memory by Allen Say recommended by Elizabeth Bird from A Fuse #8 Production. Peek: "Allen discovers something about himself and his own past every time he draws from his own memory."
Marketing Books by agent Chip MacGregor from Chip's Blog. A ten-post (and step) series of insights and recommended strategies. Peek: "Balancing opportunity and threat, strength and weakness -- that's where you'll start your marketing plan. Focus on your strengths." Source: April Henry.
What I've Learned about Writing Nonfiction by Cynthia Levinson from EMU's Debuts. Peek: "Trust my editor. Her probing questions—'Is it really accurate to say that the civil rights movement was failing?', 'Why does it matter who was the mayor?'—led to revisions and expansions that were absolutely essential."
|Read Veronica's blog.
Contains Strong Language by Ash Krafton from QueryTracker.netBlog. Peek: "Perhaps the most valuable advice I'd found was the simplest concept: word choice. The strength of a word determines the effect it will have on the reader."
Books into Apps: An Author's Perspective by Roxie Munro from ALSC Blog. Peek: "We hired a graduate student for six months to do marketing (very important!). Regular book review venues are not always helpful with apps. You have to reach individual parents, and the audience is worldwide. The maze apps sell in 64 countries (no language issue) and the Doors app, which is in English, sells in 24 countries."
Are Your Dreams Big Enough? Shooting for the Moon by Kristi Holl from Writer's First Aid. Peek: "I'm big on goal setting. And I'm not trying to set you up for a big fall. However, I sometimes wonder if all of us achieve less simply because we start out with 'reasonable, achievable' goals instead of reaching for the stars."
List of Picture Book Agents by Heather Ayris Burnell from Frolicking through Cyberspace. Peek: "As a picture book writer I know it can be difficult to track down which agents represent picture book authors. Not author/illustrators (how I wish I could illustrate!), but authors only."
Highlighting Five Middle Grade Novels of 2012 by Caroline Starr Rose from Project Mayhem: The Manic Minds of Middle Grade Writers. See also The Ten Middle Grade Novels I'm Looking Forward To in 2012 by Betsy Bird from A Fuse #8 Production.
A Year of Thinking About Diversity by Malinda Lo from Diversity in YA Lit. Peek: "...after a year of working on Diversity in YA, my own awareness of diversity has shifted immensely. I think about books differently. I think about writing differently. I actively notice whether a book is about a person of color or not. I've seen where my own fears and assumptions have limited me, both in my writing and in my everyday engagement with race and sexual orientation/gender identity." Note: thank you to Malinda and Cindy Pon for their efforts this past year.
Diversity: Wow, It's Complicated by Brent Hartinger from Brent's Brain. Peek: "We all need to be aware of this issue — in our own works and in the works of others. If the characters you're writing (and reading) are exactly like you, it's worth asking yourself, 'Why might that be?'" Note: check out Brent's newly redesigned author website.
Show and Tell by Danyelle Leafty from QueryTrackerBlog.net. Peek: "... I think show, don't tell is more about balance than choosing one thing or the other. There will be some places in the story where telling works more effectively than showing, but the trick is figuring out which ones."
An Awarding Adventure: Serving on a Student Choice Award Committee by librarian Laura Randolph from ALSC Blog. Peek: "Every once in a great while, you find a book that is so meaningful, you want to buy a whole box of them, stand on a corner and hand them out to everyone who passes. This is that book!"
Jewish Children's Books by Marjorie Ingall from Tablet. See also Marjorie's extended list. Source: A Fuse #8 Production.
The Dance of Avoidance by Jennifer R. Hubbard from writerjenn. Peek: "...don't let the character wriggle out of this scene without taking a risk."
Cover Stories: Witch Eyes by Scott Tracey from Melissa Walker. Peek: "People tell me that my book is dark – I don't see it that way, but I definitely think of it as 'serious.' As serious as a book about a gay witch cursed with magic eyes who walks into the middle of a feud between powerful warlocks can be, at least."
Lisa Yee's Newly Redesigned Website: newly redesigned by Lisa herself. Pages include Creating a Cover and All About Peepy.
Year-end Feature: Children's Poetry Titles Published in 2011 from Poetry at Play. Peek: "Brave volunteers Sylvia Vardell, Diane Mayr, Rebecca Davis, and Lee Bennett Hopkins (with help from Steven Withrow) took on the challenge of creating as comprehensive a list of poetry titles as we could make: all books of poetry published for young people ages 0-18 in English in 2011. We even tried to include books from outside the United States, adding some titles published in Canada and the UK. If we missed any, we welcome further recommendations."
Environment, War and Fantasy: Janni Lee Simner's Bones of Faerie and Faerie Winter by J.L. Powers from The Pirate Tree: Social Justice and Children's Literature. Peek: "When I started writing the Faerie books, I think a part of me wanted straightforward answers. I wanted my characters to eventually find a way of saying, 'And now, with all we've learned, we're going to see to it for certain that tragedies like the war never happen again'–even though we've never yet managed that in our own world.But my characters, who so often understand my stories better than I do, wouldn't let me get away with that."
Revision Strategies - A Chapter Worksheet by Dee Garretson from Project Mayhem: From the Manic Minds of Middle Grade Writers. Peek: "Once I have a draft I'm fairly happy about, I go back and revise by chapters, trying to ensure each chapter holds together as a unit itself and adds to the story as a whole."
Creative Cajones by Sara Zarr from Good Times and a Noodle Salad. Peek: "I'm very glad to be making my living as a writer, and know how fortunate I am to do so, and believe artists should be paid. I just don't want to cling to my situation so tightly that I forget to make at least some choices based on passion and joy and the desire for adventure, growth, challenge. To take a chance now and then." Source: Janni Lee Simner at Desert Dispatches.
The Excitement of a Small-town Setting by Elizabeth S. Craig from Writing Mystery is Murder. Peek: "When everyone knows everyone else, you feel the need to hide things that you don't want the whole town knowing about."
On Responding Graciously by Phoebe North from YA Highway. Peek: "I've finally figured out how to be gracious—how to take a compliment and not be rude in response."
Goal-setting for Writers by Jane Lebak from QueryTrackerBlog.net. Peek: "Without goals, we lack a means to judge our performance. In setting goals, however, we must be careful to make 'us-dependent' goals rather than 'them-dependent' goals."
E-reader for the Holidays?
Cynthia Leitich Smith is now available for free download from Barnes & Noble (U.S.), Books on Board, Amazon.com (U.S.) and Amazon.com (U.K.). It will be available from additional e-retailers soon. From the promotional copy:
Spirit, Texas, is a town of secrets, and as the new owner of the local haunted movie theater, Cody Stryker is juggling more than his fair share.
When a mysterious new girl comes to town and runs afoul of the ghost that lives in his theater, Cody's caught in the middle and needs to figure out exactly who he can trust.
"Haunted Love" is a short story by New York Times Bestseller Cynthia Leitich Smith -- featuring new characters and set in the same Gothic universe as her novels Tantalize, Eternal, Blessed, and Tantalize: Kieren's Story, illustrated by Ming Doyle.
Note: "Haunted Love" has been in the top 10 in Youth and YA at Books on Board for the past four weeks! Thank you for your support!
Cynsational Giveaways
Enter to win Dreaming Anastasia and Haunted by Joy Preble (both Sourcebooks)! To enter, comment on this post (click preceding link and scroll) and include an email address (formatted like: cynthia at cynthialeitichsmith dot com) or a link to an email address. Or email Cynthia directly with "Joy Preble" in the subject line. Publisher-sponsored. Eligibility: U.S. Deadline: midnight CST Dec. 31. See also Joy Preble on Embracing Risk.
Enter to win an ARC of Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, Book 1) by Robin LaFevers from Brodie at Eleusinian Mysteries. Eligibility: international. Deadline: 11:59 p.m. Jan. 2. Note: highest recommendation.
Elevensies Giveaway Featuring Books by 2011 Debut Authors from Anna Staniszewski. Peek: "The winner of the giveaway will get to choose one of the Elevensie books released in October, November, or December of this year..." Eligibility: international. Deadline: midnight Jan. 11.
This Week's Cynsations Posts
- Happy Holidays: From My Home to Yours
- Christmas at Chez Leitich Smith
- New Voice: Kimberly Marcus on Exposed and Scritch-Scratch: A Perfect Match
- New Voice: Prudence Breitrose on Mousenet
- Mary Casanova on the Author-Illustrator Collaboration (Creating with Ard Hoyt--Again!)
- Keir Graff on The Other Felix: How I Titled My Book
Lauren Oliver talks about the Delirium trilogy (HarperCollins). Source: YA Books Central.
More Personally
Diabolical are both at the end of January, so I've been revising my work-in-progress and setting up promotional initiatives for the launch.
On the manuscript front, I have one major character shift to make--a secondary character is being rewritten from a twelve-year-old female werecat to a forty-five-year-old male human attorney. Otherwise, the story seems to be working in the whole.
What it needs right now is to be more--more suspenseful, more mysterious, more romantic, funnier, and sharper in its surprises.
With regard to the launch, my wonderful publisher, Candlewick Press, does the heavy lifting. I'll be showing off my new bookmark and announcing tour dates soon. But I am pitching in here and there, as we authors tend to do. On a related note, COS Productions is distributing my Diabolical trailer, and I'm shopping for next month's Diabolical mega giveaway.
Review of Diabolical by Cynthia Leitich Smith from MaryAnn and Gabrielle at Chapter by Chapter. Peek: "Smith has a writing style that is so addictive! With all the different twists and turns throughout the book…omgosh! Sooo good. How many more plot twists can Smith come up with? Just when I think that there couldn't possibly be anything else she can come up with, I'm foiled yet again! I just love, love love (!) her writing so much…"
School's Out: Holiday Reading for Your Young Charges by Debbie Reese from Native American Fair Commerce Coalition. Peek: "...try Cynthia Leitich Smith's vampire trilogy." Note: watch for book 4, Diabolical, releasing in January from Candlewick Press.
Personal Links:
- Buffy Won't Be Rebooted...For Now
- Pulling Up Stakes and Other Piercing Stories: a new YA e-book short story anthology from David Lubar
- "Big Bang Theory" from Teen Fiction Cafe (trying this show at P.J. Hoover's suggestion)
More Than That... by students at Todd County High School Mission, South Dakota. A response to "Children of the Plains" on "20/20" (Oct. 2011). See also Teacher and Librarian Resources for Children's and YA Books with Native American Themes.
From Greg Leitich Smith:
- Dangerous Waters: An Adventure on the Titanic by Gregory Mone
- The Hammacher-Schlemmer 20 foot animatronic Triceratops
|My holiday reports (and movie picks) from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
See Cynthia's upcoming events in Austin, Albuquerque, Tucson, Sandy (Utah), Southampton (New York), and Montpelier (Vermont). Note: the date of the multi-author fantasy panel at BookPeople in Austin is Feb. 10.


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speising wrote:I'm not a pilot, but i'm pretty sure that, cruising along over the atlantic at 30000ft, the pilot doesn't have to be on split-second watch all the time. If the autopilot has a problem, it'll emit some noise, the pilot puts their coffee away and starts to look for what's up.
Pretty much... most people simply don't understand that automatic driving is vastly more difficult than automatic flying. Which is one of the reasons we've had autopilot for many years, and we're still a few years away from automatic driving.
There is much more to account for on the ground. In the air you have much greater distances between you and other objects, you can change altitudes, and perhaps most importantly, you have literally thousands of people around the world who's job it is to watch where you and every other aircraft is and to prevent conflicts long before they occur.
People hear the word "autopilot" and they think it's going to work like on an airplane; that they can simply sit back and relax and if something comes up, they'll get pinged. The problem is that when driving, even if it does work that way you often have mere seconds to react. Most people find that stressful and difficult even when they're actively driving. Getting pinged out of a movie, book, daydream or whatever and then reacting to something in seconds... it's too much to expect from even skilled drivers.
In that light, using the term "autopilot" was irresponsible on the part of Tesla. That the term might be misconstrued is fairly obvious. They need to make it completely clear - obnoxiously clear - that the driver needs to pay attention.
If you're in a car, cruising on the highway on "full auto", it's nigh impossible too maintain the same level of concentration like when you're actively in control. (and if it were, it would make the autopilot useless)
There have been studies that have shown that even basic cruise control can increase the odds of driver error, because people tend to be more likely to zone out. This can be mitigated by stuff like automatic braking, adaptive speed, etc; but anything that encourages the driver to lose focus and stop paying attention is dangerous.
Google has the right idea... if a car is going to be auto driving, it needs to be so completely capable as to never need driver intervention at all.

subset: commoncrawl


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Amoeba Music and Phil Blankenship are proud to present some of our film favorites at Los Angeles' last full-time revival movie theater. See movies the way they're meant to be seen - on the big screen and with an audience!
Saturday August 2
James Brolin in
Night Of The Juggler
1980, 101 min
New Beverly Cinema
7165 W Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Midnight, $7
August 2 Night Of The Juggler
(No one can stop James Brolin!)
August 9 Rainbow Brite & The Star Stealer
(Rainbow Brite's first movie - insanely RARE performance!)
August 23 The Gate
(... pray it's not too late!)
August 30 Little Darlings
(Paramount Archive 35mm Print! Rare Screening!)
September 6 Idle Hands
(9th anniversary for the 1999 stoner horror comedy!)
September 13 Showgirls
(Beyond your wildest dreams. Beyond your wildest fantasies!)
September 20 Michael Mann's The Keep
(25th Anniversary! Paramount Archive 35mm Print!)
September 27 Over The Top
(Sylvester Stallone. Big Rig Truckin'. ARM WRESTLING!)
October 4 Hard To Kill
(Steven Seagal is Mason Storm. Mason Storm is... Hard To Kill!)
October 18 All Night Horror Show!
(100% Movie Mania! New Bev Fundraiser! 12 Hours Of Movies, Fun & ??)


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I am amazed you printed Carl Turner's letter in last week's Magnet. I began becoming politically aware more than twenty years ago. I'll give an example from a different newspaper.
"Police gun down man who allegedly shot officer."
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Science Friday® is produced by the Science Friday Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Science Friday® and SciFri® are registered service marks of Science Friday, Inc. Site design by Pentagram; engineering by Mediapolis.
|Physicist and Exploratorium founder Frank Oppenheimer is profiled in "Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens". Author K.C. Cole, a friend of Oppenheimer's, digs into FBI files and personal memories to describe the complex man also called the "Uncle of the Atomic Bomb."


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WATCH: Good Samaritan neighbor rescues woman from burning home
The 96-year-old woman is now in the hospital
The 96-year-old woman is now in the hospital
The 96-year-old woman is now in the hospital
Paolino Nola got off the bus in front of his West Palm Beach home Tuesday afternoon and immediately noticed his neighbor standing outside, screaming for help.
Then he noticed the neighbor's house was on fire.
"She was frantically yelling. I saw smoke coming out of the house and she said her mother was still in there so I just ran in there and tried to get her out," Nola said in an exclusive interview with WPBF 25 News.
The neighbor, Linda Zammiello, said she was asleep on her couch on 57th St. around 1:30 when her mom woke her up.
"I hear my mom start screaming, 'Fire, fire, fire,'" Zammiello said.
Zammiello said she sat up and all she could see was thick, black smoke throughout the house. She then noticed the dryer was on fire.
"I pulled out the blanket from the dryer and then the fire, the fire just went up," she said.
Zammiello grabbed her two-year-old nephew and ran out of the house. But Zammiello's mother will be 97 years old next week and is no longer able to walk. She was trapped inside.
That's when Nola heard Zammiello screaming and ran inside the burning home.
"The smoke was really intense. I could hardly breathe myself," Nola said. "So she was on the couch and I saw she had a walker so I tried grabbing the walker closer to her. She wouldn't get up. She was all frantic."
Nola said as he was trying to figure out how he would get the woman out of the burning house, firefighters showed up and were able to carry her out.
"God sent him. He's a godsend," Zammiello said of Nola. "Because if it wasn't for God who sent him to help us, I don't know what would have happened. I probably would have lost my mom."
"Someone could have died!" Nola said when he was asked why he would risk his life. "We're human beings. I want to try to save someone if I can."
The home was severely damaged by the fire. Zammiello said she's been told she and her family will have to find somewhere else to live for at least the next several months.
If you'd like to help, you can go to https://www.gofundme.com/pqgegk-disaster-fund.


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NRIS.COM is one of the premier NRI website that provides a range of resourceful services to Indian expats residing in the USA. Visiting the site you will find comprehensive information related to restaurants, casinos, pubs, temples, carpool, movies, education, real estate, and forums. The simple and easy to navigate format allows NRIs to gain information within a fraction of a second. Moreover, advertising through its column of Indian free classifieds in USA allow businesses to improve visibility of their brand.


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Santa Barbara, Calif. - The UC Santa Barbara Men's and Women's Track and Field squads will meet UC Riverside this Saturday for their third straight dual meet showdown against the Highlanders. The competition will be this Saturday, March 15th at UC Riverside's Track and Field Stadium. The schedule has been pushed back 90 minutes from the original start time due to warm weather concerns so the women's hammer and women's long jump will kick the action off at 1:30pm. The running events are slated to go off at 3:30pm.
The Gaucho men are coming off a win at the All-UC Championship. Led by a surge of men's harriers, UCSB swept the distance events from the 800m through the 3,000m steeplechase. The UCSB women's squad took second last week at the All-UC meet and saw wins from Jessica Emde (HJ), Hanna Person (hammer), Maxine Goyette (3k Steeple), Shannon Trumbull (110mH) and Hallie Brauner (400mh).
Spectator Info: Ticket prices – Adult ($5) / Seniors (ages 65+), Faculty/Staff, Alumni Association, Military, Youth (ages 4-17), College Student w/ ID ($3) / UCR Undergrad w/ ID, Ages 3 & below (Free)
How it's Done
The collegiate dual meet is making a comeback. The purity and essence of track and field is highlighted in that only two from each team score. 5-3-2-1. Relays are 5-3. The focus is on the one-on-one competitive battles. Dual meets make for an exciting spectator experience as each event is important in the final scoring. Teams from the Big West Conference are industry leaders in scored meets as they often go head to head. On top of UC Riverside, the Gauchos have an annual dual with Cal Poly to close out the regular season before the Big West Championships begin.
ENTER: Andrew Verdin
Before last weekend only a few people knew of Andrew Verdin. A red-shirt freshman from Loyola High School, Verdin has quickly established himself as a Big West caliber perfomer after the double he dropped last weekend at the All-UC. Verdin ran a 3:53.27 1500m and followed with a 1:55.83 800m.
Hurdlers Rally Women's Squad
Sophomore Shannon Trumbull (100mH) and Freshman Hallie Brauner (400mh) each won their respective hurdle events at the All-UC and in doing so sent a message to the rest of their team. Brauner, a former high school basketball player, running in only her second 400m hurdle race, clocked a 62.19 to take the win in San Diego- a mark good for 9th all time in UCSB history. Shannon Trumbull took .16 off her wind-legal PR to take the 100m hurdles in 14.31.
Waiting to Breakthrough
Bailey Miller, a Big West scorer in the 10,000m one year ago, ran a lifetime best in the 1500m at the All-UC. Miller looks poised to have another breakthrough as she starts to step up in the distance events. Sophomore, Melissa Rake has opened her 2014 campaign with a first and second finish in the javelin. Last weekend she had a personal best mark of 127'1.
Brady's Back
In 2011 Tyler Brady punched a ticket to the NCAA West Regional Championships in the 1500m after running 3:47.58 in the Big West final. Last weekend he opened with a 3:49.74 in the 1500m and doubled back in the 800m with a 1:53.53, half a second off his lifetime best. Brady's smooth form in his finishing kick resembles the wheel of a stationary bike spinning at red-line. Look for him to challenge the lead pack each time he lines up to toe the line.
Coach Dolan's Take
"There were many exciting events at last weekend's All-UC meet. This weekend, I see us finding our identity as a team and dual meets are the best place for a team to come together. After last week we are starting to see the core we can count on. Who's going to join that core? Who's joining the elite? You don't get an invitation into this group you just go out and make yourself known. When the team is looking at you in a dual meet, you have to step up. This weekend it's just us vs. the Highlanders. "


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Nation & World
Science panel: Feds making wild horse situation worse
The federal government should do large-scale drug injections of wild horses to make them infertile, according to a highly anticipated recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences.
The report released Wednesday said the Interior Department's strategy for wild horses is making a bad situation worse. The government has rounded up nearly 50,000 wild horses and put them in corrals and pastures. More of America's wild horses are now in holding facilities than estimated to be roaming the wild, in what the National Academy of Sciences called a failure to limit the animals' fast-growing numbers.
The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management requested the report amid frustration and skyrocketing costs of the wild horse and burro program. The annual cost to taxpayers of the program has nearly doubled in four years to $75 million, with more than half going to costs of holding facilities.
The BLM says roundups and holding facilities are needed because swelling horse populations are too much for the wild range to sustain. Wild horse advocates say the issue is really about favoring the interests of ranchers whose cattle and sheep graze upon the public lands.
The National Academy of Sciences said a big problem is that the Bureau of Land Management doesn't really know how many wild horses and burros there are in America, or their true impact on the rangelands. The report concluded that BLM is likely underestimating the number of wild horses in America and that their populations are growing by as much as 20 percent a year.
The independent panel of scientists that wrote the report said the agency needs a more defensible scientific backup for its decisions on wild horses, including consideration of the impact of livestock on the range.
"The science can be markedly improved," said Guy Palmer, a Washington State University professor who led the panel.
The government's roundups of wild horses are just making the population problem worse, according to the report. Shutting tens of thousands of horses in holding facilities means less competition for food and water on the range and more population growth, it concluded.
Leaving the horses alone to roam the range would lead to a competition among them for food and water that would meet the goal of cutting their numbers, according to the report. But "having many horses in poor condition, and having horses die of starvation on the range are not acceptable to a sizable proportion of the public," the authors concluded.
The best alternative is a widespread use of fertility control measures, the independent scientific panel decided. They recommended chemical vasectomies for stallions and the injection of the contraceptive vaccines GonaCon and porcine zona pellucida for mares.
BLM spokesman Tom Gorey responded that the agency is increasing its use of fertility control. But the vaccines wear off after a year or two and it's tough to inject wild horses spread out over 27 million acres in the West, he said. There are no easy solutions, he said.
Wild horse advocates are split on the panel's conclusions.
The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, which opposes roundups and supports fertility control, called the report a "powerful validation of what wild horse advocates have been saying for years." The Humane Society of the United States said the report echoes its concerns and needs to be heeded.
But the Association for the Advancement of Natural Horse Care Practices said chemical contraceptive vaccines can cause metabolic disorders in the horses.


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Authorities are interviewing witnesses and searching for suspects after a Lancaster man reported he was beaten and robbed in a driveway early Friday, Feb. 1.
Police were called to a home in the 500 block of Miller Street at 12:48 a.m. about an assault, according to a Lancaster Police Department incident report.
There, they spoke with a 47-year-old man who was upset, crying and appeared to have been assaulted, the report said. Officers noticed the victim had several knots on his head and face.
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Published Jul 4, 2014
These guys sweat the small things and it pays. Who makes your car look good as new?
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The 2014 Akron-Canton HOT LIST awards are based on more than 43,000 votes from local Akron-Canton-area experts.


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Science Friday® is produced by the Science Friday Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Science Friday® and SciFri® are registered service marks of Science Friday, Inc. Site design by Pentagram; engineering by Mediapolis.
|Twenty five years ago, author Steven Levy published the book 'Hackers,' with profiles of and conversations with some of the leaders of the emerging digital age, from Bill Gates to Steve Wozniak to Richard Stallman. We'll talk to him about what's changed in 25 years, and about some of the new leaders, such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, that made it into the new edition of the book.


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Capacity Development and Building
DeBrenna LaFa Agbényiga
As a profession, social workers must understand and work well within the realms of capacity development. This understanding is important because it provides a foundation for working at the micro and macro levels to engage communities, organizations, systems, and individuals. However, the complexity of capacity development has made it difficult for social workers to fully engage from this stance. This entry discusses the historical development of capacity development and building while linking it to social justice. It also provides a theoretical perspective and methods for understanding and utilizing capacity development and building in social-work practice.
Charitable Foundations
Helmut K. Anheier and Marcus Lam
Foundations are private institutions for public benefit. With a long history that reaches back to antiquity, foundations are experiencing a renaissance and increased attention paid to them by policy makers. Already by the mid-1980s, observers had begun to report the end of the relative decline in the overall size and importance of the foundation sector—a trend that had characterized the previous decades. Some analysts suggest the possibility of a new, third "foundation wave," after a first growth period in the late Middle Ages, alongside the rise of commerce and finance, and a second period of growth in the late 19th century, following the industrial revolution. Political stability, an increase in demand for social, educational, and cultural services of all kinds, and economic prosperity are certainly significant factors behind this growth. Yet a more immediate reason is the way in which foundations have been suggesting themselves as instruments of welfare state reform in the broadest sense.
Global Community Practice for the Global Agenda
Manohar Pawar and Marie Weil
This article presents an integrated perspective and framework for global practice towards achieving the Global Agenda. First, it presents the origin and current understanding of the Global Agenda for social work. Second, it illustrates the utility of the term "global practice" as a progressive, comprehensive, and future-oriented term that encompasses social work and social, economic, and sustainable development at multiple levels: local, national, regional, international, multinational, and global. Third, it discusses ways of moving forward on the Global Agenda at multiple levels through an integrated perspectives framework consisting of global, ecological, human rights, and social development perspectives to guide practice. Finally, it concludes that global practice and the Global Agenda need to be translated into local level social work and development practice and local level agendas, making a case for social work and sustainable social development leadership and practice at grassroots and national levels.
International Social Welfare: Organizations and Activities
Doreen Elliott
The major international governmental and nongovernmental organizations and their activities are discussed with reference to their global co-coordinating, advocacy, service, and research functions. Attention is also given to the work of international professional associations.
Organizations and Associations
Bradford W. Sheafor
In U.S. society, individuals are designated "professional" when they meet the requirements for a profession. However, professions are developed and maintained through various professional organizations and associations. As social work has evolved, the professional membership and professional education organizations have periodically unified, split, and later reunified when maintaining an identity as a single profession competed with the need to address the interests of different practice specialties, educational levels, and special interest groups within social work.


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SKY REPORTER: Mars Shines Brightly While the Moon Winks main content.
by Steve Beyer on
If the sky is clear during early morning hours of Tuesday April 15th, viewers in the Eastern Time zone will see the Full Moon enter Earth's umbral shadow at 1:58 am, with the total eclipse beginning at 3:07 a.m. and ending at 4:25 a.m. The partial phase concludes at 5:33 a.m. At the time of maximum eclipse, 3:46 a.m., the Moon will be a quarter of the way from horizon to zenith in our southwestern sky.
Aspects of this eclipse that make it especially worthwhile staying awake for include the Moon's dramatic proximity to Mars—at mid-eclipse the pair has just nine degrees of separation, equivalent to the width of your fist seen at arm's length.
By coincidence that night, Mars will be the brightest it's been since 2007 and won't be as bright again until 2016. Spica, most vivid star in Virgo, may be seen even closer to the Moon, just a degree and a half from the lunar edge.
As you watch these three objects apparently so close, in 3-D it's a very different story. Light from the Moon takes just over one second to reach us, reflected sunlight from Mars requires four minutes to travel to Earth, and light you see from twinkling Spica left that star when George Washington was a teenager.
Before partial phase begins that night, Mars and Spica are nearly overwhelmed by brilliant Moon light but as the eclipse progresses the red planet and white star become increasingly easier to see. After totality ends they will again seem to fade in contrast to the brightening Moon.
Total eclipses, in fact, seldom totally darken the lunar disk. Some sunlight usually is refracted through Earth's atmosphere around a ring of sunrises and sunsets causing the eclipsed Moon to appear reddish-orange. Everyone on Earth where the moon is above the horizon at night may simultaneously view the progression of eclipse phases, weather permitting, albeit at varied local times.
And, we don't have to wait long for the next total eclipse of the moon, it will be October 8th.
|First Quarter
|April 7
|Full Moon
|April 15
|Last Quarter
|April 22
|New Moon
|April 29
In April, Mercury is too close to the Sun's direction for casual observation. Venus is in the early morning sky and will be near the waning crescent moon on Friday the 25th and Saturday the 26th. Mars is in Virgo and is currently the brightest it's been for the past five years. It is on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun on Tuesday the 8th when Mars rises around sunset. The red planet is closest to Earth and brightest on the 14th—about 57,447,000 miles from us. (See more about the opposition of Mars.) Jupiter remains prominent in the southwestern sky from evening until early morning hours. The waxing moon passes within six degrees of Jupiter on the night of April 6th. On Thursday evening April 17th the moon will be one degree of arc, about two lunar diameters from Saturn.
|Rises 6:00 a.m.
|Rises 4:34 a.m.
|Rises 6:35 p.m.
|Sets 1:48 a.m.
|Rises 9:33 p.m.
|Rises 5:48 a.m.
|Rises 4:28 a.m.


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Our buddy Yozzie just pulled this hot one off the AP wire:
China's oldest carmaker plans to build an assembly plant in Oklahoma to help revive an English automotive brand — the M-G.
That's right, the first US-built MG since, er, ever will be under the tutelage of new owner Nanjing Automobile, which plans to create a manufacturing plant and parts-distribution hub in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Oklahoma City will host the company's global sales HQ, with the University of Oklahoma hosting a new R&D facility. The company also plans to restart the Birmingham, UK plant shuttered when MG-Rover disintegrated last year. The company intends to reintroduce MG cars in China and Europe before the first model rolls off the assembly line in Ardmore about two years from now.
[UPDATE: More at Detroit News].
More on MG-Rover [internal]


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April 21, 2011
NORTH DARTMOUTH, MA-The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's softball team and host Salem State split their non-conference doubleheader at Alumni Field Thursday. The Vikings won the opener, 3-0, and the Corsairs took the nightcap, 4-1.
After falling behind in the first inning of the second game, UMass Dartmouth scored twice in the fourth inning and twice more in the seventh. UMD got back to back doubles from junior pitcher Brittany Eldridge (Raynham, MA/Bridgewater-Raynham HS) and junior catcher Hannah Rounds (Lincoln, RI/Lincoln HS) in the fourth inning to erase a 1-0 Viking lead. In the seventh, one run scored on an error and the second on a single by freshman shortstop Emily Pontes (Tewksbury, MA/Essex Agricultural HS).
In the first game, the Vikings scored in the second on an infield grounder by left fielder Michelle Flower, and added two more in the sixth on a homer by right fielder Taylor Orlando.
Eldridge pitched both games for the Corsairs and limited SSU to nine hits in the twin bill. She lost the opener and won the nightcap and is now 8-13. Lauren DiCredico was the winner in the opener for SSU and improved to 9-3, while Nicole Wilson took the loss in the nightcap and dropped to 4-4.
"We played solid defense, and we hung in long enough to allow our bats to come alive," said UMass Dartmouth Head Coach Amy Sasin. "We were able to squeak a couple across in the second game, and we scored twice in the seventh to secure things. We came out with more intensity today; it just took us a while to get our bats going."
The Corsairs are now 9-18, while the Vikings are now 18-16. UMass Dartmouth will return to action when they visit Framingham State Monday. SSU will host MCLA Friday. .


text: Launched in Florence in 1921 by luggage maker Guccio Gucci, this legendary fashion house is renowned for its refined luxurious appeal, which has recently been updated with a rock n'roll twist. Current creative director Alessandro Michele brings a contemporary twist to the brand's trademark elegance. The brand's stunning selection of rings is defined by the finest metals, logo-embossed designs, fine gemstones and delicate, sophisticated designs.


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KCK man pleads guilty to 12 robberies in 10 days
A Kansas City, Kan., man admits he went on a robbery spree last year.
On Tuesday, 45-year-old Llewellyn Richard pleaded guilty to robbing 12 businesses over a 10-day period in late December last year. All but two of the robberies were in Kansas City, Kan.
Police arrested Richards on Jan. 1. He fled when officers tried to pull over his truck but was arrested when he crashed.
Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 25. KAKE-TV reports a plea agreement recommends a sentence of 20 years in federal prison.


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I used to have a vacuum pump from a fridge compressor, and it had a bunch of oil in it, and seemed to give out a slight fine oil mist. After a while it died. I have a couple other compressors from the local scrap metal guy, and found one that seems to work. The only thing is, it does not seem to sound oily or spit or mist any oil at all. I suspect that this thing could have been lying on its side before I got it and that the oil all drained out. (This was too much of a shoddy operation for these guys to have actually drained the oil on purpose).
SO, the question is, do all fridge compressors show evidence of having oil in them? Should I add oil to this one? I have some compressor oil from an air compressor. Or do some compressors not need it? I would think they all need some kind of luubrication, and there's no way to check with a dipstick. Should I pour some in and see what happens? Or is it likely that I'm OK with what I have? I'm thinking I have more risk of it not working if I leave it without oil than if I add some. Sound right?


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Plan and share activities for IYC 2011
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
In this section, your ideas for IYC2011 can start to become reality. Here, you can submit activities for consideration and, after a short review, they will be listed below and any related events will populate the IYC calendar. Activities listed here have a clearly defined theme and describe how, when, and where they will take place.
If you are not quite ready to submit a plan, keep working at it and come back soon. And remember, you can always browse and search this forum to find out what others are planning and even add your own comments to the discussion.
SOCMA's 8th Annual Chemical Industry Golf Tournament Liesa Brown | added on Jun 07, 2011 | United States One-day golf tournament to raise money for the American Chemical Society (ACS) Scholars Program. Proceeds will help sponsor scholarships for qualified minority applicants who want to enter the fields of chemistry, biochemistry or chemical engineering and students seeking degrees in chemical technology.


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New to IT Security & Compliance? Start here!
The "digitization of everything" trend is forever changing our lives. The growth of mobile devices along with their increasing capabilities result in people having instant access to information on-the-go. They can conduct business wherever they are at any time, often blurring the line between work and leisure. Because of the always-on, always accessible nature of the digital economy, your customers expect a consistently excellent user experience regardless of whether they are at home or at work.
But keeping organizations secure in this increasingly digital world has never been tougher. The fast-paced demands of users put even more pressure on enterprises to prevent and stop threats and data breaches, meet regulatory compliance requirements, and govern their operations more efficiently.
What's the best way for your organization to address this challenge? By developing processes to meet new digital requirements for security and compliance and automating those processes as effectively as possible. Automation should integrate the objectives and activities of Security and Operations teams and enable them to protect the enterprise while providing the performance and availability required for businesses to remain competitive.
Organizations who rely on manual administration of security and compliance find it impossible to scale, which in turn limits their ability to keep up with business opportunities and challenges in the growing digital economy. Plus, manual administration is also particularly subject to human error, which makes it dangerous. Delays in responding to security threats and compliance issues can lead to breaches, failed audits, financial loss, and damage to a company's reputation and other serious business consequences.
In this guide, you'll learn about the security compliance audit process, security risk management, and how to deal with persistent threats in the digital economy. The guide will also describe how best-practice processes and automation can help organizations meet the challenges of today and the future while also increasing collaboration between Security and Operations. This unifying strategy can enable these teams to improve uptime, customer satisfaction, and security.
Having an effective strategy is critical to success. This guide will help you understand the risks that must be mitigated or eliminated. You'll also learn important considerations for developing a plan that focuses on integrating the roles of people, processes, and technology to address the increasing challenges related to security and compliance in the digital economy. As Figure 1 indicates, vulnerabilities and exposures to threats are increasing rapidly. Organizations must prioritize efforts and focus on the most critical vulnerabilities.
Figure 1. Common vulnerabilities and exposures are increasing
The role of Operations in maintaining security, compliance and control
Keep in mind that maintaining a secure environment is more than just the Security team's concern. Operations teams play a critical role as well, however they may not appreciate how important they are in the process. The Security team identifies the risks, but Operations must implement the changes to remediate those risks.
Officially the charter of the Security team is to keep the organization secure while the Operations team works on supporting the business demand for high availability to avoid risking performance or reliability on production systems.
This situation creates a gap between Security and Operations known as the SecOps Gap: Two groups driven by competing priorities which ultimately result in long lag times to close security vulnerabilities, business-system downtime, excessive labor costs and challenges in meeting regulatory requirements.
Many attacks can be prevented by closing this gap. More than 80 percent of attacks target known vulnerabilities and 99 percent of exploits were compromised over a year after the CVE was published. According to Rob Joyce, Chief of NSA's Tailored Access Operations, "There're so many more vectors that are easier, less risky and quite often more productive than going down that route. This includes, of course, known vulnerabilities for which a patch is available but the owner hasn't installed it."
Closing the SecOps Gap protects company assets and reduces costs
The misalignment between Security and Operations goes beyond poor communication paths and conflicting objectives. A Forbes Insights survey commissioned by BMC reported that Operations and Security teams have only a general or little understanding of each other's requirements. So they are not even speaking the same language or providing one another with what they need to be successful. Some examples include – Security runs a scan and delivers it to Operations and it is sorted by IP address. If the Operations team does not use IP address as a reference point, they have to sort through the data line by line trying to figure out what it means. Going in the other direction, Operations provides their plans to remediate vulnerabilities to Security based on server group. Unless Security knows which servers are in the group and what role those servers play it does not help in giving them a view into the security posture of the organization.
Breaches occur even when vulnerabilities and their remediation have been identified, but not yet implemented, due to a lack of coordination between the teams. Half of the organizations that experienced a breach in the last year also reported a loss of data, which can result in failing to meet compliance requirements, fines, and impact the business by having to deal with this loss. It can also cause customer dissatisfaction that leads to litigation.
Providing a secure environment involves a clear focus on people, processes, and technology to address vulnerability remediation and compliance. This guide, which offers a comprehensive overview of security and compliance, helps explain how best practices and automation can enable organizations to optimize their resources, increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve the quality of service while meeting security and compliance objectives.
BMC's Complete Guide to IT Security & Compliance
BMC's Complete Guide To IT Security & Compliance
- IT Security & Compliance Introduction
- IT Risk Management & Governance
- Automated Patching for IT Security & Compliance
- Advanced Persistent Threats
- Compliance Audits
- Compliance Programs
- Introduction to PCI Compliance
- Introduction to HIPAA Compliance
- Introduction to SOX Compliance
- Introduction to SEC Compliance
- Security Guide: SOA Compliance
- Introduction to DISA Compliance
IT Compliance Best Practices
IT Security & Compliance Solutions
TrueSight Vulnerability Management
TrueSight Vulnerability Management (formerly SecOps Response Service) enables IT operations and security teams to prioritize and remediate threats based on potential impact to the business.Learn More
TrueSight Server Automation
TrueSight (formerly BladeLogic) Server Automation helps IT rapidly remediate known vulnerabilities, and automate compliance checks for regulatory requirements such as PCI-DSS or security standards like DISA.Learn More | Free Demo
TrueSight Network Automation
TrueSight (formerly BladeLogic) Network Automation enables IT with a policy-based approach to regulatory standards for network management with real-time compliance audit reporting and vulnerability detection and remediation.Learn More
BMC Discovery
BMC Discovery (formerly ADDM) automatically discovers data center inventory, configuration, and relationship data, and maps business applications to the IT infrastructure.Learn More | Free Trial


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Susan Collins met with Susan Rice today. Rice was hoping, no doubt, to make a better impression on the Maine moderate than she did earlier this week on John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte.
If Rice succeeded, she did so only marginally. Collins said afterwards that the meeting left her with a sense of disappointment with Rice. She added that she is not ready at this point to support Rice for Secretary of State.
In addition to discussing Benghazigate, Collins asked Rice about two deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa when Rice was in charge of the Africa desk at the State Department. The ambassador to Kenya, whose embassy was hit, had asked State for more protection, but was turned down. Collins asked Rice, who likely would have been in the loop, about this decision.
Collins told Greta Van Susteren that Rice said she hadn't expected the question at a meeting regarding Benghazi, and would have to refresh her recollection. Apparently, though, she also denied turning down the request. If Rice is nominated to be Secretary of State, this line of inquiry will need to be pursued.
But regardless of the facts pertaining to Kenya, Collins' disappointment with Rice's answers pertaining to Libya is bad news for the U.N. ambassador's prospects for promotion. Unlike McCain, Collins can't be cast as a bitter old white guy. Unlike Graham, she isn't a southern white guy. Unlike Ayotte, Collins isn't even a conservative. If Rice's supporters want to claim that Collins is a racist, I say good luck.
The bad news for the U.S. is that John Kerry seems to be the frontrunner for Secretary of State if Rice doesn't get the nod. Kerry is at least as bad as Rice on substance and, unlike Rice, is loathsome personally, in my view. But Collins expressed strong support for her fellow New England Senator as a potential Secretary of State.
Oh well. At least if Rice falls out of the picture, we won't be saddled with the worst of all plausible worlds — Rice at State and Kerry at the Pentagon.


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Congrats to you being there and your guy winning it. It would be nice for him to take 8 championships putting him ahead of Dale and the King. A fifth would be a step in the right direction.
I really think that Jeff would've won the race if the damn thing would've stayed green for awhile at the end. He was about to pass Jimmie before the one caution came out. After that, his momentum was gone. Oh well. Nothing wrong with a third-place finish.
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Thursday, October 4, 2007
What I Learned From X That Made Me A Better Programmer In Y
X = Acting classes; Y = Any programming language
Trust your instincts. Act on the first idea that comes into your head, just to see what will happen.
X = DJing in clubs; Y = Presenting at conferences
Show off. The worst that could happen is that somebody will put you down. The only way they can put you down, if you're showing off, is by teaching you something better. So you win either way.
X = Common Lisp; Y = Java
Objects do not need to have any substance at all. They can consist entirely of behavior.
Compartmentalize everything. Use simple names.
X = The dot-com boom; Y = Rails
If you hand-code CGI, then graduate to Perl's CGI.pm, you're in the position of using a framework which automates stuff you used to do by hand. In this position, you can program rings around people who only know how to use the framework. The best way to use a framework is to know on a very practical level what it's doing every step of the way.
X = smashing boulders with a skidster; Y = JavaScript
My parents are building this high-tech hippie house that is part miniature ecosystem. I helped them by clearing rubble and turning big sandstone boulders into rubble to be cleared. One time I was up at their property all on my lonesome for hours in the skidster, and it was assumed I'd only be able to clear existing rubble, rather than smash up any new boulders, because it takes two people to take the scoop off the front and put the piledriver on instead.
(This is my parents' skidster. The aging hippie's my dad. The scoop is pictured attached.)
I cleared all the rubble, and because I was having fun, went ahead and smashed some boulders anyway. Being sandstone, they were soft enough that you could smash them up just by deliberately colliding with them at the skidster's maximum speed (about 3mph) if you hit them with the scoop at just the right angle. Later my folks were surprised by how much I'd done on my own. Not only was it possible to smash rocks without going to the trouble of attaching a special hydraulic piledriver, it was also a lot more fun.
Nine times out of ten, when you want to do something with JavaScript, you don't really need Prototype or Scriptaculous. Using external libraries is awesome when it makes your work easier, but it's much less impressive when it just circumvents ignorance. Not only is it possible to get interesting interactivity with just JavaScript and the DOM, it's also a lot more satisfying.
X = Ancient Greek; Y = Any new language I'm learning
No syntax any serious computer language has ever used will ever be as tricky or bewildering as attempting to translate Sophocles or Plato. I have not ever seen and never will see programming syntax that scares me. Even including languages designed for the sole purpose of being difficult to program in. Such syntax does not exist. If you can tackle Ancient Greek, you can take on any language. (And that goes double if you can actually read Homer.)
Also, no matter how hard it is, it gets easy if you do it often enough.
X = Python; Y = Perl
Emphasize readability.
X = releasing DJ records nobody bought; Y = open source projects
Buy-in is everything.
X = Perl; Y = Ruby
Dynamically designed data structures rock.
Never write code if you can convince your language to do it for you.
X = playing with Legos; Y = any language
Idioms are resources, not rules.
(That goes for design patterns too. Design patterns essentially are idioms, but just so it's clear.)
X = playing Werewolf; Y = any group context
Give people the trust they earn. No more, no less. Likewise accept from people exactly the trust you earn.
Be warm and open to people, but be very clear-headed when you encounter known warning signs. Any time I've gotten screwed politically in some corporation, or lost in some way playing Werewolf, the signs were there all along.
X = TDD; Y = situations where using TDD frameworks was impossible
Test like you're a robot. Do the exact same thing, over and over again.
X = LSD; Y = Ruby metaprogramming
Sometimes things which seem to make you smarter really do.
X = marijuana; Y = Ruby metaprogramming
Sometimes things which seem to make you deep really make you silly.
X = astrology; Y = debugging legacy systems
Just because it works predictably doesn't mean it makes any sense.
X = pencil drawing; Y = Haskell
If you're only doing things that come easily to you, you're totally underperforming. Anyone smart enough to program well is smart enough to do something strange and unusual, outside their comfort zone. Take something that seems weird, put time, effort, and brains into it, and the payoff will be worth it.
X = driving; Y = corporate politics
At a certain point in my life, from studying hypnosis, I got really attuned to body language, and realized that body language is expressed through driving. I started to pay attention to it and came to the absolutely firm conclusion that almost everything people do when they're driving is subconscious social behavior. People don't drive fast because they're in a hurry; they drive fast because they want other people to notice them.
In the same way, many, many decisions made in corporations have nothing to do at all with the subject of the decision. It's almost entirely social behavior. We go with Bob's plan because Bob successfully asserted his dominance over Fred. If we're lucky, Bob is good at making plans as well as asserting dominance, but if he's bad at making plans but good at asserting dominance, his plan is still the plan we use. Sometimes entire corporations go out of business because some idiot had the shiniest hair.
Ever since I noticed this thing about driving being mostly social behavior, I've been a different driver. I spend a lot less time passing people and a lot more time letting people cut into my lane if they want to. In reality, all that subconscious social behavior's expressed through potentially lethal gigantic metal objects moving at high speed. I'd rather take the hit in terms of social status than be hit with tons of fast steel. (And you have to remember, a lot of those people are idiots.)
Likewise, if you recognize that a lot of the decision-making process in corporations is about asserting social dominance, you can accept that fact and deal with it. Countless brilliant geeks have driven themselves nuts trying to get corporations or groups to turn away from idiotic decisions, never realizing that the way to get the corporation to stop being stupid is not to prove your point but to wash your hair. (Alternatively, align yourself with a skilled corporate politician and let them deal with it.)
X = my ex-girlfriend; Y = irb, the Unix shell, and OS X
My gf at the time criticized me during the dot-com boom, because I was making a lot of money but living the same way I had when I was making a quarter as much. It was a gentle criticism, but it was accurate: "You don't know how to live rich, man." She'd had an extremely rich friend in college. Basically she meant I had the ability to set myself up in comfort, but I wasn't using it.
Living rich on your computer means owning your operating system. Don't use Unix commands; write them. When I'm in irb or bash, I'm not using the irb or bash other people use; I'm using special dialects of each shell which I've built up around my own common use patterns. My bash has grammatical conventions - for instance, when a command ends in ?, it signifies a question. Likewise, I've got a Unix command I call from the OS X GUI (and Evan Light showed me how to add many more).
It's not really your computer until you own it. A programmer whose computer works like anybody else's doesn't know how to live rich (and should learn).
X = Java; Y = Ruby
Obie Fernandez's hyperbole was pretty much dead-on - Java reeks like muskrat butt. However, I can say this because people have given me money to write Java. I think it's actually a competitive advantage. A lot of Rubyists seem prejudiced against Java, and by prejudiced I mean they're making judgements based on ignorance, which is how prejudice works. Those Rubyists shouldn't dis Java until they learn it, and they should learn it. Criticizing something you don't understand is bullshit.
A lot of the freebies you get with "scripting languages" gloss over complexities that you're better off knowing about. You're not usually better off working with those complexities by hand, but being totally unaware of them screws you in the long term. It's actually a very good thing to be aware of the difference between a string and a string buffer. Likewise, having to remember all the idiotic flaws in Java's numeric implementations has a great side effect - you think about what your program is doing in more detail. It's a pain in the ass, but it's healthy to jump through those hoops once in a while.
I came to Java from Perl, and went from Java to Ruby. Coming back to a higher-level language, I'm a lot more comfortable in my new environment, but I always have those lower-level concerns floating somewhere in the back of my head. That's really valuable. The most obvious example is with Rails #find statements, which almost invariably generate wasteful duplication of SQL connections and statements. This causes unnecessary slowdowns in your site - but if you've seen it coming, you can avoid that lag factor. Working at a high level with awareness of the lower level is much more powerful than working at a high level with no awareness beyond that.
14 comments:
Wow! Great article. Loved it. Agreed, to live rich, you need to own the computer that you use. I know of several people who don't switch away from Qwerty because "Oh! What if X wants to use my computer". That to me, is merely an excuse not to try something new. Its easy to get stuck in a rut where conventions become a part of you, and questioning them seems to be useless...ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 5, 2007 at 9:10:00 AM PDT
Quite niceReplyDelete
can you explain about the bash usage more though?
How does the
notation work?
It's crazy to me that Java is considered a low-level language these days, and I'm only 29!ReplyDelete
It's really pretty straight forward. You can use ? in alias names in bash, just like you can use ? in method names in Ruby.ReplyDelete
So g? is grep, g+? is an enhanced grep, ps? is an alias to a sequence of commands which does a ps and then greps it for the arg -- e.g.
ps? mongrel
will give you all the mongrel processes -- and so on and so forth. Likewise h? greps history.
Anything that begins with m8 sends a file to TextMate. So m8p sends my bash profile to TextMate, m8irb opens .irbrc, m8ar opens ActiveRecord, m8pack opens ActionPack, etc. Client names take me to the directories their projects live in.
It's nothing more than convention over configuration, but it's very handy. It becomes necessary to have some consistency if you build a large profile. It's pretty to easy remember that h is show history and h? is grep history, while ps is show processes and ps? is grep processes.
"It's crazy to me that Java is considered a low-level language these days, and I'm only 29!"ReplyDelete
To me, as well. And I'm just 21. ;p
I can remember when people would talk about how their assembly experiences have helped them understand C++.
>> People don't drive fast because they're in a hurry; they drive fast because they want other people to notice them.ReplyDelete
That makes completely sense. I feel like an idiot now. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Some very wise words there.ReplyDelete
You had me until the part about Java being a low-level language. Sorry, but Java hides and glosses over way too much to be considered low-level. I don't think Java is any lower-level than Perl or Python, it's just more verbose.ReplyDelete
As for people driving fast to be noticed, I'm sure that accounts for some people's driving, but some people are just in a hurry. When I go fast it's often to distance myself from the other drivers -- that's a habit you get from motorcycle riding.
Sooooooooooooooooo good.ReplyDelete
Glad to see you back in the blogging saddle full force.
Makes visiting the rss reader worth it again.
- AnonymousOctober 5, 2007 at 11:45:00 PM PDT
"You can use ? in alias names in bash, just like you can use ? in method names in Ruby."ReplyDelete
Thanks for explaining, this is very insightful. I believe it makes sense to use the '?' as part of a query (to your system or shell, in this case with h? for asking history). Really nice idea IMHO.
Also, I believe Ruby kinda had a footprint on your thinking too since using "def foobar?" methods is quite common. I especially like something like "def include? argument"
The beauty of a good Ruby way had a footprint for me too. I am especially in total love of human readable, clear DSLs :)
Hope to see you give us more food-thought later, cheers for the good blog!
"... I believe Ruby kinda had a footprint on your thinking too since using "def foobar?" methods is quite common. ..."ReplyDelete
You may also expect that this was influenced by Lisp (particularly Scheme), where this has been common place for what seems like forever... though less so in Common Lisp.
Lisp was a big influence on Ruby, so it stands to reason :).
Take care,
Common Lisp tends to use -p as a suffix to indicate that the function is a predicate. Scheme uses ?.ReplyDelete
E.g., in Scheme you'd have "fast-driver?", while in Common Lisp you'd have "fast-driver-p".
The difference is historical; although I'm a Common Lisper, I actually prefer the Scheme style, though searching for [!?] and friends with some Unix tools isn't so easy.
Giles, this is a great post. And Tiago: I completely agree with you and feel the same!ReplyDelete
Giles, this is a great post. I have translated it into Russian, you can find it here:ReplyDelete
Please let me know if there are any issues concerning my translation.


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Bret Hart was interviewed by The Boston Herald, here's some of the highlights:
Thoughts on CM Punk leaving:
"When you look at it closely, Punk's burned out," said Hart. "He's always given 100 percent in all his matches, and delivered some of the best pay-per-view matches in the past 10 years. And it's not easy when there are legends who only work part-time, and guys like Punk and Bryan do all the work, and watch someone like Brock Lesnar walk in and take those big matches and big paydays without having to be on the road all the time. I think that had a lot to do with his decision, and rightfully so.
One of Vince McMahon's favorite sayings is, 'Life's not fair.' I don't see Punk being a factor at WrestleMania, but he still has a lot of greatness left in him. As a fan, I hope he comes back, and as a wrestler, I have a lot of respect for him, too."
Thoughts on Daniel Bryan winning the title at WrestleMania XXX:
"I hope they give Daniel Bryan his chance to win the belt at WrestleMania, He earned it a long time ago, but it wouldn't surprise me — like Charlie Brown with the football — if they pull it away from him one last time. I really hope they give him his proper run, as he hasn't had the opportunity yet to be the champion he deserves to be. Hopefully this year at WrestleMania, it will be a crowning achievement for Daniel Bryan."
Remembering his match at WrestleMania X with his brother Owen:
"WrestleMania X will always be my most special one because of the memory of being with my brother Owen," said Hart. "There was a lot of pressure on Owen to fill those shoes as a top heel. The storyline was the bitter hatred between two brothers, but Owen was really grateful to work with me. I went to bat a lot for Owen for that chance, and he really shined that night. I thought that was one of his finest hours. There were two reverse sharpshooters in that match, which had never been done before. Those are the tiny little things that no one really remembers or notices, but made that match a real treat. And what I really love about the match is how it launched my brother's career."
Read the full interview here. Tons of great stuff in there such as losing the title at WrestleMania IX, planned opponents around that time period, working with Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13, thoughts on wanting to have worked WrestleMania 14 & more!


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I am curious what others think about his reasoning. What would be the motivation to fabricate the New Testament?
Views: 416
Joke right! To further ones personal perspective regardless of what you don't know. This is a joke right?
wow, the writer makes some big claims. First he claims that there is material evidence of Jesus because it's a historical event. Ironically he only states that Christians witnessed this. He also claims that other religions are not based on historic events. Where the writer gets this evidence is beyond me. He only quotes the NT. While I commend the fact that he doubts and questions, he quickly discounts any evidence or ideas outside of Christianity. So in essence, his so called reasoning is very very flawed.
I agree. However, what would the motivation have been for the Christians to make up their evidence for what they knew to be false?
Maybe it wasn't so much an issue of Christians falsifying evidence in order to get others to believe what they believed, but falsifying evidence as a means of getting others to believe what they wanted them to believe whether they themselves actually believed it or not. Religion has always been used as a tool to control the masses.
Every Xtian I meet today makes up lies that are obviously & demonstrably false, and the drivel you linked to is no exception. Every point he makes begins with an unfounded assumption that ignores a huge body of science & history. If this is his or your standard of proof, I have a bridge in Manhattan to sell you, cheap. It's okay, I'm trustworthy. It says so right on the TA blog. What motivation could I have to lie?
What would be the motivation for the earliest followers to have invented the resurrection story? What did they have to gain from spreading that lie?
I substituted them because for there to have been writings, there must have been an oral tradition that preceded the writing, or are you saying the authors were themselves eyewitnesses to the resurrection? The story had to have a beginning, yes? What was the purpose of its genesis if the story at its conception is false?
But who started the story and why? What did they gain from it?
The whole Jesus myth is a repetition of the same things said about numerous other gods that predate Jesus. Go look up Mithras, Horus, and Osirus for starters. There is nothing about Jesus that can't be attributed to an earlier god. Only the names have changed over the centuries.
Hmm... I suppose so, but I'm still wondering why anybody would bother to change the name. What did they have against Horus?
How come Jesus himself would have left nothing in the way of writing? I've always found this odd. The four gospels were written by folks that (likely...) never met Christ. Reality is, one could go as far as to argue Christ himself maybe never even existed at all. Outside of the bible (which doesn't serve as solid evidence) there is very little documentation of his existence from the time he actually/apparently existed. For me this speaks volumes.


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A tip from a reader alerted me to the fact that this week is National Engineers Week, as deemed by the National Engineers Week Foundation.
That means now is a time to recognize how important engineering is to our communities. The foundation's website characterizes engineering as a "stealth profession," because engineering plays an often-unnoticed role in so many things.
Engineers are very much behind-the-scenes workers whose goal is to create things that work effectively and without incident.
Engineers create things we use daily but likely don't think about until something goes wrong. From roads and buildings to tiny mechanical parts and even complex chemicals, many elements of our lives are improved by effective engineering.
Growing up with a dad who is an engineer, I often struggled to grasp his role in developing roads, sidewalks and parking lots. He doesn't lay concrete or stripe pavement, but I now know his plans are crucial to an effectively executed project. I'm learning more, too, in my master's degree program, about how integral engineering is to our communities. I see every day the way civil engineers, electrical engineers and others contribute to productive societies. It makes me appreciate even more the important job engineers do.
The reader who tipped me off to this week of recognition, Don Brewer of Sycamore, also encouraged me to pay special recognition to women in engineering. As we work hard to establish equality in traditionally male-dominated fields, it is important to recognize the efforts of women and encourage diversity.
The Northern Illinois University chapter of the Society of Women Engineers is one organization that promotes women in the field. Although jobs in the math, science, technology and engineering are traditionally held primarily by males, organizations such as SWE are working to balance the roles and bring more opportunities to women.
Diversity is important in all fields because different people bring different perspectives that elevate the quality of work being done. Whether it's different genders, difference races or different levels of experience, the possibility of positive contribution from diverse sources is greater than we can even imagine.
Engineering is just one example of an area where diversity can bring positive effects.
So this week, thank engineers of all backgrounds for the positive work they bring to society. Without them, our lives would be much different.
• • •
I wrote a recent column about a possible Sycamore water rate hike and a creative way (using less water) residents could combat the hike if it is approved. After that column was published, I received an email from a Sycamore resident who lives near Sycamore Middle School. She said she uses water from a well at her property, but that city sewer service costs are $120 billed every two months.
The reader noted that because the fee is assessed at a flat rate, less usage isn't an option to lower costs. It is important to recognize that some fees are unavoidable, and sometimes an attempt to assess fair rates still leave some residents feeling as if they aren't getting a very good deal because of a diversity of needs (in this case, city water users versus well users).
Fairness and equity are major hurdles that even the most progressive governments struggle to administer, and unintended or unforeseen consequences often arise out of policy decisions. One of the best ways to address equity issues is to bring them up to local decision-makers, especially if there are other, more fair options that haven't been considered.
The only way the government can effectively represent its constituents is if it is aware of their opinions, so make sure the government is aware of yours.
• Lauren Stott is a Maple Park native and a graduate student at Northern Illinois University in the master of public administration program. She can be reached at email@example.com.


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As an environmentally conscious person are you passionate about implementing green building design for your next project? Then you need to look for a reputed and experienced green builder who's equally passionate and motivated in coming up with energy efficiency designs. Consider the following points while hiring one:
1. Whether it's a commercial or residential project, you can hire a well committed architect who relies on the latest technology and is capable of coming up with customized solutions for any project category.
2. The green architect you choose to work with should be able to come up with practical net zero design for your project. He/she must be able to communicate every aspect of construction with clarity and care. You need to hire an individual who can reason well and think independently to give you the desired end result.
3. It's better to talk with the references they provide to really understand and see for yourself how well the builder executes green building solutions on large or small scale projects.
4. More importantly, the builder must be capable in carefully monitoring the budget and communicate at regular intervals about the project status.
5. It's good to choose an architect who's certified by LEED program as their designs and practices are well approved and recognized by the Green Building Council.
A green building approach can turn out to be not just Eco-friendly, but also helps in conserving and producing energy while saving you considerable money on your monthly power bills. On the other hand, a green building will decrease waste production and cut down on pollution. In short, the design will be environmentally efficient and responsible all through the building's life-cycle. So the right green architect should be able to help you right from siting the right place to designing and construction or renovation of the project. You can choose a company that specializes in offering green building design that smartly addresses any energy consumption issues. A well experienced firm will provide you with a wide range of options to help you in assessing all the available possibilities and choose the best for energy conservation for your industrial or residential projects. They will help you with designing a building that makes effective use of water, energy and various other important resources, while protecting the health of people who live within its premises. The sustainable building design principles can be effectively applied for new construction projects as well as renovation work, so its time you considered it by choosing the right people.


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Mending Plate Zinc Plated 125mm (PK 4)
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Turbines are huge, intricate, beautiful machines. And if you drop something inside of them, they double as musical instruments. But as YouTuber AgentJayZ demonstrates, the delightful xylophone sound that makes is actually horrible.
Why? If you've got a screw in there and you turn it on, you're going to be the owner of a brand new broken turbine. And if you want to get it out, well, it's time to take the whole sucker apart and go fishing for bolts. Not fun. But if you're not too busy screaming "oh god no!" it's a fantastic little noise to hear.
SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us in Facebook


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Topic: People who could Beat Fett (That have been decided.)
So of the Role-Playing ......Vs Boba Fett...
Who did we decide won.
I think Bane won.
I would say the Deltas won...But some of you disagreed with both Bane and them....Plus I made both of theose threads, so I'll confirm that Bane did actually win because not enoug of you have read Path Of Destruction and therefore your judgement on the issue is biased.
2 people reckoned Bane would win having read Path Of Destruction
0 confirmed readers of Path of Destruction going for Fett.
I say from that then Bane wins.
As for the Republic Commandos well that was slightly fairer as plenty of people here have read the books and played the games. So I'll leave it to someone else to make the decision on that one.
Um. There was also Master Chief.
I think by and large we decided Fett would win...But if Fett had made much more than one miscalculation then he would lose....
So at the moment we have
Darth Bane
Possible Winners (depending on circumstances)
Master Chief


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- Graduation Rates
- What is the Percent who did not finish the 9th grade?
- What is the Percent with an associate's degree?
- What is the College Graduation Rate?
- What is the Percent with a graduate or professional degree?
- What is the Population Count?
- What is the Population Density?
- What is the Land Area?
- What is the Student Teacher Ratio?
- What is the Median Earnings?
- What is the Mean Job Proximity Index?
The high school graduation rate of Prince Edward County, VA was 83.10% in 2016.
Graduation Rates
Above charts are based on data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey | ODN Dataset | API -
Education and Graduation Rates Datasets Involving Prince Edward County, VA
Wayne County Life Expectancy by Zipcodedata.detroitmi.gov | Last Updated 2016-08-22T17:34:24.000Z
Life expectancy is a measure of the average life time of an individual at birth. Life expectancy was calculated from 2004 - 2013 death data from MDHHS Vital Records and Health Statistics. The average number of deaths across the ten years was calculated in order to match population data from the 2000 US Census and 2010 US Census.
County Budgeted Expenditures By Service Area By Fiscal Yearmydata.iowa.gov | Last Updated 2019-07-09T15:06:17.000Z
This dataset provides budgeted expenditures for the counties within the State of Iowa beginning with FY 2005 (fiscal year ending 6/30/2005).
Number Of People Aged 25 Older With High School Diploma Or Equivalent All Statesopendata.utah.gov | Last Updated 2019-04-19T05:36:53.000Z
Number Of People Aged 25 Older With High School Diploma Or Equivalent All States
Consolidated Property Tax Rates in Iowa by Tax District And Fiscal Yearmydata.iowa.gov | Last Updated 2019-07-09T14:04:08.000Z
The dataset provides consolidated property tax rates for each urban and rural taxing district in Iowa by fiscal year, starting with FY 2002. Property tax rates are the dollars collected per $1,000 in a property's taxable value. The consolidated rate represents the combined rate for all levy authorities (e.g. counties, cities, school districts, townships, etc.) represented in a tax district.
Address Informationdata.norfolk.gov | Last Updated 2019-07-19T11:55:33.000Z
The Address Information Resource is a compilation of information related to active and pending addresses in the City of Norfolk. It provides a consolidated source to allow for quick and easy access to information about an address including details related to school districts, municipal services, planning, public safety, and civic leadership. It is one of the main data resources that provides content for the Norfolk AIR website (http://norfolkair.norfolk.gov/norfolkair).
ICN Leased Telecommunications Connections (Part III Sites)mydata.iowa.gov | Last Updated 2019-07-09T16:13:29.000Z
Listing of current leased public and nonpublic school district sites connected to leased fiber-optic infrastructure that contains vendors and current telecommunications connection types. Data does not include Part III sites owned by the State.
Iowa Assessed Property Values By Tax District and Yearmydata.iowa.gov | Last Updated 2019-07-09T13:49:16.000Z
This dataset contains 100% assessed property values for classes of real property in Iowa beginning with assessment year 2000. Real property is mostly land, buildings, structures, and other improvements that are constructed on or in the land, attached to the land, or placed upon a foundation. Typical improvements include a building, house or mobile home, fences, and paving. Classes of real property include the following: Residential, Agricultural Land, Agricultural Buildings, Commercial, Industrial, Utilities, and Railroads. The assessed property values help determine the net taxable valuations for property tax levies (e.g. 2012 assessment property values help determine the net taxable valuations for FY 2014 property tax levies).
Taxable Property Values in Iowa by Tax District and Yearmydata.iowa.gov | Last Updated 2019-07-09T14:17:28.000Z
This dataset contains taxable property values for classes of real property in Iowa by tax district. Taxable values are based on assessed valuations after application of the statutory assessment limitation (i.e. rollback), and is the value to which tax rates are applied (e.g. 2012 net taxable valuations are used for the FY 2014 property tax levies). Real property is mostly land, buildings, structures, and other improvements that are constructed on or in the land, attached to the land, or placed upon a foundation. Typical improvements include a building, house or mobile home, fences, and paving. Classes of real property include the following: Residential, Agricultural Land, Agricultural Buildings, Commercial, Industrial, Utilities and Railroads.
State Historical Museum of Iowa Outreach Events Fiscal Year 2016 & 2017mydata.iowa.gov | Last Updated 2019-06-07T20:30:24.000Z
Overview of how State Historical Society of Iowa (SHSI) programs reach Iowans beyond museum attendance. This dataset demonstrates the statewide impact of the historical society and shows the variety of activities that engage Iowans year round. Data begins with Fiscal Year 2017.
Iowa Physical and Cultural Geographic Featuresmydata.iowa.gov | Last Updated 2019-07-09T14:21:16.000Z
This dataset contains is a list of Iowa features contained in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). The GNIS is the Federal standard for geographic nomenclature. The U.S. Geological Survey developed the GNIS for the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a Federal inter-agency body chartered by public law to maintain uniform feature name usage throughout the Government and to promulgate standard names to the public. The GNIS is the official repository of domestic geographic names data; the official vehicle for geographic names use by all departments of the Federal Government; and the source for applying geographic names to Federal electronic and printed products of all types. See http://geonames.usgs.gov for additional information. The Geographic Names Information System contains information about physical and cultural geographic features of all types, current and historical, but not including roads and highways. The database assigns a unique, permanent feature identifier, the Feature ID, as a standard Federal key for accessing, integrating, or reconciling feature data from multiple data sets. The GNIS collects data from a broad program of partnerships with Federal, State, and local government agencies and other authorized contributors.


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Use Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to promote this forum and to encourage your friends to visit, or send them a personal invitation by email using the simple form below.
It's simple! Enter the email addresses for people you wish to invite, edit the message if you like, and click "send." The email addresses you enter will remain private (Delphi Forums will not use them for any other purpose).


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Beauty queen gained confidence through platform
Staff writer
Shannon Tajchman seems like a person who has confidence to spare.
She is a beauty pageant veteran, winning her first competition, Miss Teen Great Bend at 17 years old.
The Ms. United States Pageant has four main competitions — the opening interview, swimsuit portion, evening gown category, and on-stage questions. Some women have nightmares where judges inspect their bikini bodies beneath the bright spotlights of a national stage.
After winning Miss Hawaiian Tropic, Wichita and Kansas City, in her 20s, Tajchman said the swimsuit competition is her favorite contest.
She does not think this is vain or sexist. She works hard to stay fit — two Pilates classes a week, intense aerobics, and plenty of time on Elliptical and Stairmaster machines.
"I want to look my best and feel my best," she said.
Her personal trainer was one item on a busy agenda Thursday. She also worked both of her jobs, first as a hair stylist at Salon Safari and as a server at Oakwood Country Club in Kansas City. In the back half of the day's schedule, Tajchman had a meeting with her life coach. The life coach's task is to improve Tajchman's confidence, specifically in public speaking. One of the coach's methods is hypnotherapy.
"I know somebody who quit smoking with that," Tajchman said.
Improved confidence helps with the nerve-grinding interview portions of the pageant — stuttering through the statistics involved with her platform could cost her a placement.
The life coach is also important because Tajchman was not always the beauty queen ready to compete and win.
When Tajchman was a freshman at Marion High School, she spent one lunch period huddled in the bathroom. She was avoiding bullies; the isolation only intensified a feeling of loneliness.
"When you go through things in life, looks can work against you," Tajchman said. "I was bullied because I was a cheerleader. I was told I was a ditz."
She was an all-star cheerleader, earning a spot on an elite squad that same year. She quit cheerleading because she was tired of the abuse from classmates. She still regrets this decision.
Tajchman's confidence issues go deeper. They can be explained by her platform. She is competing in the Ms. United States Pageant to combat physical and sexual abuse.
There are multiple levels of the Miss United States pageants including teen, miss, and Ms. At 35, Tajchman competes in the Ms. competition. Were she to win, she would want to use the crown to raise awareness and funding, especially for the Synergy Foundation, which has shelters in the Kansas City area. Tajchman is promoting a clothing and supplies drive for Synergy Services in April.
As a child, Tajchman was sexually abused by a baby sitter. She moved to Great Bend when she was a sophomore in high school to be closer to her sister who was sexually abused by her stepfather.
Being a victim of sexual abuse hindered Tajchman's confidence. She was also affected by her parent's divorce. She was raised by her father, Mark, and grandmother, Angela.
"The last couple of years I had to figure out who I am," she said.
That personal search led her to Los Angeles but then back to Kansas City. Tajchman was not sure how much longer she could compete in pageants; she was sure the window was closing, as she got older. She had the opportunity to work at an A-list salon, called MG Studios.
She only stayed in Los Angeles three months.
"LA was a tough city for me," she said. "I really needed my family. You have to be pretty strong and independent. I ended up coming back and feeling like a failure."
Eventually, she turned back to the pageant world. A former Ms. Kansas, Celine Ziller, introduced Tajchman, 35, to the competition for women between the age of 28 and 55.
"I don't think any 55-year-olds," she said.
Tajchman said the Ms. United States pageant is providing her with a purpose, which is to spread her platform against child abuse. According to statistics she compiled, one in every three women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. In the United States, a woman is beaten every 15 seconds. A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds. Four children per day die because of abuse.
She has always found the relationship with other contestants to be friendly. She is still close with some of the competitors from that first pageant in Great Bend. But, every girl wants to win.
There is an exception, something other girls have pointed out — when the contestant's strength is in her platform.
"She has something she has to do with that crown," Tajchman said.
Tajchman is confident a national win as Ms. Missouri would do a lot for her platform.
Tajchman is set to compete in the Ms. Missouri competition on April 20. She is on Twitter, @ShannonTajchman.


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Jason Buffet with Glass Doors
Item #: 156707C_312
72.75"w x 36.5"h x 20"d
Jason Buffet with Glass Doors
Item #: 156707C_312
72.75"w x 36.5"h x 20"d
Choose Finish
Mushroom with White Glaze (312): Light cool brown-gray stain with white glaze, moderately distressed, worn edges, medium sheen.Shipping:
Custom made, ships Premier In-home Delivery. You will be contacted within 7 to 9 weeks to schedule a delivery date for this item.Additional Information
Product Details
Four is more—when it comes to storage, that is. A quad of ample compartments makes this buffet with molded top, fluted pilasters, and tapered feet the perfect solution for a gracious dining room. Glass center doors provide the option for use as a media cabinet.
- Crafted from maple with a tight, uniform grain that lends itself to all finishes, including light stains and paints
- Ideal for use as a buffet, sideboard, or media cabinet
- Two adjustable shelves behind center tempered glass doors, one adjustable shelf behind right/left wood doors
- Vented back panel behind center glass doors for optional electronics storage
- Fluted pilasters
- Levelers
- Also available: Jason buffet with wood doors (156707W)
- Additional premium Vintage finish options available at your local Design Center
Additional Information
- Made in the U.S.
- Packaged weight: 218 lbs
Download the Ethan Allen Limited Warranty >


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The new season is all about natural freshness as nothing cat top the beauty of perfect, radiant skin. To help you achieve an iconic, universally flattering, day to evening makeup look, Bobbi Brown has created the Brightening Nudes makeup collection for spring 2012, a collection that aims to 'make you look like you're lit from within', so take a peek at the brand's new season must haves and pick your favorites. Nude colors are definitely the buzzword when it comes to fashion and style this upcoming season as their elegance and subtleness make... Read More


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It was happening again.
Almost a week after Syracuse's improbable comeback against Virginia, the Orange again trailed big against North Carolina in the second half of Saturday's national semifinal game. Then, the lead started to vanish: a three-pointer, a dunk, a layup. When Malachi Richardson, last week's hero, hit another three-pointer, the lead was in single digits, at seven.
North Carolina was reeling. It was dominating inside, but was 0 for 13 on three-point attempts. At the other end, Marcus Paige tried another.
The lead had evaporated. Overtime loomed.
For Villanova, its season hung in the balance in Monday's national championship game, thanks to North Carolina guard Marcus Paige's circus-shot three-pointer that tied the game with less than five seconds left. But that shot was about to be upstaged.
With the clock ticking down, Ryan Arcidiacono brought the ball upcourt, and tossed back to Kris Jenkins. Jenkins let it go.
The starting lineups for the NCAA championship game:
Villanova (34-5): Junior forward Kris Jenkins; senior forward Daniel Ochefu; freshman guard Jalen Brunson; junior guard Josh Hart; senior guard Ryan Arcidiancono.
North Carolina (33-6): Junior forward Kennedy Meeks; senior forward Brice Johnson; sophomore forward Justin Jackson; sophomore guard Joel Berry II; senior guard Marcus Paige.
HOUSTON -- There came a time in the first national semifinal game — much of the second half, really — when a sense of decency had to be preserved.
It was the waning minutes of Villanova's seismic, historic 95-51 demolition of Oklahoma on Saturday. Villanova guard Phil Booth tore off on another breakaway. He chopped his feet, anticipating a dunk.
"Coach was telling him, 'Cool it down! Cool it down!'" Villanova forward Daniel Ochefu said. "We all understood at that point, we're not trying to disgrace anybody. We're not trying to make ourselves look like bad people."
Piccolo Girl was among the last to know she'd become "Piccolo Girl."
At some point while Roxanne Chalifoux was playing in the Villanova band that day, a year ago, her phone died. It was just as well. Villanova had just been upset in its second NCAA tournament game. Chalifoux was crushed.
Afterward, she was commiserating over dinner when highlights of the game flickered on. She didn't want to watch.
WHO: No. 10 Syracuse (23-13) vs. No. 1 North Carolina (32-6)
WHAT: NCAA Final Four, Saturday, 5:49 p.m.
WHERE: NRG Stadium, Houston. TV: TBS; Radio: 710.