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NEW YORK -- U.S. banks looking to get in on a booming market for financing new-car sales have run into a formidable competitor: automakers.
The financing arms of Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., Ford Motor Co. and other automakers, made half of all new U.S. car loans in the first quarter, up from 37 percent a year earlier and the largest percentage of the market in four years, according to credit data firm Experian.
The companies also write the vast majority of leases, which contributed a record 26 percent of new car sales in the quarter, up from 23 percent last year and 20 percent in 2012.
The financing arms are providing subsidies from the manufacturers, lowering monthly payments and extending loan terms to make it easier for buyers to drive away in a shiny, new vehicle. As a result, major banks are increasingly moving into riskier parts of the market to make loans.
US Bancorp, for example, for the first time ever decided to start financing used cars, an area of the market that the automakers' finance companies have little interest in. It also started offering loans to less creditworthy borrowers.
And Wells Fargo & Co. has been leveraging off a nationwide deal with General Motors to provide loans subsidized by the automaker. Wells sees this as a way to gain more of the used car loan business at GM dealerships.
The aggressive push by car companies is beginning to raise questions among industry analysts and consultants about whether it is sustainable.
If interest rates rise, the automakers could find the incentives too costly unless they are prepared to take a hit to profits -- with any pullback in the deals being offered customers running the risk of hurting demand. And, if used car prices weaken, the financing units could be hit with losses on vehicles coming back from leases and repossessions.
The automakers' financing companies are doing substantially more than they were just a year or two ago, said April Ancira, vice president in the San Antonio office of Ancira Motor Co., a Texas-based group with 11 dealerships selling GM, Nissan, Fiat, Chrysler, VW and Ford cars.
"They're being very aggressive with incentives," Ancira said.
Pete Carey, vice president for sales at Toyota Financial Services, said incentives are playing a bigger role as automakers look to stand out in a crowded market where the basic quality of cars is uniformly good.
"We're at a point in the industry that we're spending as much as we've ever spent," Carey said.
The strategy is currently paying off in spades for automakers. All the major automakers posted healthy profits in the first quarter. U.S. car sales rebounded in May to an annualized rate of 16.8 million vehicles, against 15.6 million for all of last year. Sales were only 10.4 million in 2009 as the recession crushed demand.
Outstanding U.S. loans on new cars totaled $811 billion at the end of March, up 11.6 percent from a year earlier, according to Experian.
Fears of used-car glut
The automakers are in a position to offer the deals because their cost of borrowing has gone down as their balance sheets have improved and as bond investors have lined up to buy securities backed by loans and leases.
But they risk sweetening the deals so much that it starts to cut into their profit margins. In a few years time, as the leased vehicles are returned, the strategy could lead to a glut in the used-car market.
If a car turns out to be worth less at the end of a lease than projected, the finance company will take a loss on the lease, said Jim Ziegler, a consultant to car dealers. "It appears as a profit until they get the car back," Ziegler said.
Analysts at Moody's Investors Service said car resale values at the end of leases have so far tended to be higher than assumed, resulting in double-digit gains for finance companies and lease investors. But the gains have started to decelerate to single-digits now and they expect to see that downward pressure continue this year.
"There is still room for used car prices to decline before we see any losses," said Aron Bergman, of Moody's. But, he added, "the gains are going down."
Sweet subsidies
The average monthly lease payment for the most-leased car in America, the Honda Civic, was $251 in the first quarter, according to Experian.
But when Jonathan Stierwald, a Minnesota resident, wanted to lease a car for his nephew, he found Mike Piazza Honda in Pennsylvania willing to lease him the car for three years for just $80 a month. He flew there to get the deal. The lease was financed by Honda's finance arm.
The details of the deal could not be determined. A salesman at the Langhorne, Penn., dealership, which is owned by Piazza, the former All-Star baseball catcher, said factors such as a high credit score and higher down-payment may have helped. Honda representative Steve Kinkade said the dealership could have added its own incentives on top of the company's promotions.
Honda, which was fifth in U.S. auto sales in the first five months of the year, increased its average subsidy per leased car by 26 percent to $1,476 in that period from a year earlier, according to Edmunds.com.
Kinkade said the company is pleased with how its finance unit has paced its leasing to drive sales without too many of the cars later coming onto the used car market and depressing prices.
Others are liberally using subsidies, too. Toyota subsidized 92 percent of its U.S. leases in its fiscal year ending in March, up from 82 percent the year before.
"We can get fairly aggressive with pricing or payments, depending on what we anticipate the used market to look like," Toyota's Carey said.
Auto industry analysts and consultants said they did not think the situation was getting out of hand just yet.
The average incentive per car sold so far this year was $2,918, up slightly from $2,825 a year earlier and just under 10 percent of the average transaction price, according to JD Power & Associates data.
Banks in used-car lots
Automaker finance arms are also offering loans at interest rates as low as zero percent. And, they are taking on more loans to borrowers with subprime credit ratings, according to data from Experian.
The length of loans is also increasing. Lenders granted one-in-four new car buyers more than six years to repay in the first quarter, up from one-in-five a year earlier, the figures show.
The average monthly payment on new car loans was $474 in the first quarter, only $15 more than a year earlier, even as the average amount financed rose by $964 to a record $27,612.
Unable to compete, some banks are in retreat.
Ally Financial Inc, which was once GM's financing arm but is now on its own, increased its financing of used car purchases by 14 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, but its new car lending declined so much that it made 6 percent fewer auto loans in total.
US Bancorp estimated that used cars will eventually make up 40 percent of its auto loans after doing none in the past. Consumers with "nonprime" credit scores, defined as below 675, will account for 15 percent of US Bancorp's portfolio, compared with none previously.
Not that the opportunity in the used car market isn't also large - in terms of numbers of vehicles sold the used car market is more than twice the size of the new-car market.
Tom Wolfe, executive vice president of consumer credit solutions at Wells Fargo, said its partnership with GM improves its ties with dealers and that for every subsidized new car loan it makes for GM at a dealer it will pick up three used-car loans. Wells Fargo is the largest U.S. used-car lender with a 7.1 percent market share, according to Experian.
Wolfe said customers who borrow to buy a used car so that they can get to and from work are good credit risks.


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Stephen Hawking: Why he wishes Higgs boson remained a mystery
The discovery of the once-elusive Higgs boson particle after a decades-long hunt is widely regarded as a major breakthrough, but legendary physicist Stephen Hawking thinks the field would actually be more "interesting" if the Higgs had remained a mystery.
"Physics would be far more interesting if it had not been found," Hawking told an audience at the Science Museum in London this week, according to The Guardian.
The Higgs boson is an elementary particle that is thought to explain why other fundamental particles have mass. Its discovery in July 2012, at the Large Hadron Collider housed at CERN's physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland, represented the final piece of the puzzle predicted by the Standard Model, the reigning theory of particle physics. [Top 5 Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson]
Last month, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in physics to Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of the United Kingdom, for their research in 1964 on the theory of particle masses, which established the foundation for the discovery of the Higgs particle.
But, had the Higgs not been found, physicists might have been required to rethink some of the prevailing ideas about the nature of particles, launching investigations into other "interesting" and tantalizingly unanswered questions, Hawking suggested.
Still, the search for the Higgs boson, and its subsequent discovery, received widespread attention, including early debates about whether the long-sought particle had actually been detected or not.
Hawking's initial doubts about the discovery ended up costing him. "I had a bet with Gordon Kane of Michigan University that the Higgs particle wouldn't be found," Hawking said, as reported by The Guardian. "The Nobel prize cost me $100."
Hawking spoke at an event earlier this week to celebrate the opening of a new exhibit about the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest atom smasher, at the Science Museum in London.
In addition to talking about the discovery of the Higgs particle, Hawking discussed some of the other theories he hopes will be probed by scientists at CERN.
One is supersymmetry, a popular theory based on the idea that all of the known subatomic particles have "superpartner" particles that have yet to be observed. If these superpartners do exist, scientists could begin to explain some of the most enigmatic riddles in physics, such as the nature of dark matter, which is an invisible substance thought to make up a quarter of the universe. Scientists think dark matter may be composed of as-yet-undetected supersymmetric particles.
"I think the discovery of supersymmetric partners for the known particles would revolutionize our understanding of the universe," Hawking said.
Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.
- The 9 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics
- 8 Shocking Things We Learned From Stephen Hawking's Book
- Beyond Higgs: 5 Elusive Particles That May Lurk in the Universe
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Wendell Berry: The Pleasures of Eating
Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural life, someone in the audience has asked, "What can city people do?"
"Eat responsibly," I have usually answered. Of course, I have tried to explain what I mean by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt there was more to be said than I had been able to say. Now I would like to attempt a better explanation.
I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as "consumers." If they think beyond that, they recognize that they are passive consumers. They buy what they want — or what they have been persuaded to want — within the limits of what they can get. They pay, mostly without protest, what they are charged. And they mostly ignore certain critical questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How pure or clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was it transported, and what did transportation add to the cost? How much did manufacturing or packaging or advertising add to the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or "processed" or "precooked," how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value?
Most urban shoppers would tell you that food is produced on farms. But most of them do not know what farms, or what kinds of farms, or where the farms are, or what knowledge of skills are involved in farming. They apparently have little doubt that farms will continue to produce, but they do not know how or over what obstacles. For them, then, food is pretty much an abstract idea — something they do not know or imagine — until it appears on the grocery shelf or on the table.
The specialization of production induces specialization of consumption. Patrons of the entertainment industry, for example, entertain themselves less and less and have become more and more passively dependent on commercial suppliers. This is certainly true also of patrons of the food industry, who have tended more and more to be mere consumers — passive, uncritical, and dependent. Indeed, this sort of consumption may be said to be one of the chief goals of industrial production. The food industrialists have by now persuaded millions of consumers to prefer food that is already prepared. They will grow, deliver, and cook your food for you and (just like your mother) beg you to eat it. That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into our mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so. We may rest assured that they would be glad to find such a way. The ideal industrial food consumer would be strapped to a table with a tube running from the food factory directly into his or her stomach.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but not by much. The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical — in short, a victim. When food, in the minds of eaters, is no longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. The current version of the "dream home" of the future involves "effortless" shopping from a list of available goods on a television monitor and heating precooked food by remote control. Of course, this implies and depends on, a perfect ignorance of the history of the food that is consumed. It requires that the citizenry should give up their hereditary and sensible aversion to buying a pig in a poke. It wishes to make the selling of pigs in pokes an honorable and glamorous activity. The dreams in this dream home will perforce know nothing about the kind or quality of this food, or where it came from, or how it was produced and prepared, or what ingredients, additives, and residues it contains — unless, that is, the dreamer undertakes a close and constant study of the food industry, in which case he or she might as well wake up and play an active an responsible part in the economy of food.
There is, then, a politics of food that, like any politics, involves our freedom. We still (sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else. But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its sources are controlled by someone else. The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.
But if there is a food politics, there are also a food esthetics and a food ethics, neither of which is dissociated from politics. Like industrial sex, industrial eating has become a degraded, poor, and paltry thing. Our kitchens and other eating places more and more resemble filling stations, as our homes more and more resemble motels. "Life is not very interesting," we seem to have decided. "Let its satisfactions be minimal, perfunctory, and fast." We hurry through our meals to go to work and hurry through our work in order to "recreate" ourselves in the evenings and on weekends and vacations. And then we hurry, with the greatest possible speed and noise and violence, through our recreation — for what? To eat the billionth hamburger at some fast-food joint hellbent on increasing the "quality" of our life? And all this is carried out in a remarkable obliviousness to the causes and effects, the possibilities and the purposes, of the life of the body in this world.
One will find this obliviousness represented in virgin purity in the advertisements of the food industry, in which food wears as much makeup as the actors. If one gained one's whole knowledge of food from these advertisements (as some presumably do), one would not know that the various edibles were ever living creatures, or that they all come from the soil, or that they were produced by work. The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared or fast food, confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality. And the result is a kind of solitude, unprecedented in human experience, in which the eater may think of eating as, first, a purely commercial transaction between him and a supplier and then as a purely appetitive transaction between him and his food.
And this peculiar specialization of the act of eating is, again, of obvious benefit to the food industry, which has good reasons to obscure the connection between food and farming. It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams, or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. And, though her sympathy for the slaw might be less tender, she should not be encouraged to meditate on the hygienic and biological implications of mile-square fields of cabbage, for vegetables grown in huge monocultures are dependent on toxic chemicals — just as animals in close confinements are dependent on antibiotics and other drugs.
The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry — as in any other industry — the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price. For decades now the entire industrial food economy, from the large farms and feedlots to the chains of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants has been obsessed with volume. It has relentlessly increased scale in order to increase volume in order (probably) to reduce costs. But as scale increases, diversity declines; as diversity declines, so does health; as health declines, the dependence on drugs and chemicals necessarily increases. As capital replaces labor, it does so by substituting machines, drugs, and chemicals for human workers and for the natural health and fertility of the soil. The food is produced by any means or any shortcuts that will increase profits. And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life.
It is possible, then, to be liberated from the husbandry and wifery of the old household food economy. But one can be thus liberated only by entering a trap (unless one sees ignorance and helplessness as the signs of privilege, as many people apparently do). The trap is the ideal of industrialism: a walled city surrounded by valves that let merchandise in but no consciousness out. How does one escape this trap? Only voluntarily, the same way that one went in: by restoring one's consciousness of what is involved in eating; by reclaiming responsibility for one's own part in the food economy. One might begin with the illuminating principle of Sir Albert Howard's , that we should understand "the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal, and man as one great subject." Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as we can, this complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive:
1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.
2. Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of "quality control": you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.
3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence.
4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.
5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to the food that is not food, and what do you pay for those additions?
6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.
The last suggestion seems particularly important to me. Many people are now as much estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats) as they are from the lives of the wild ones. This is regrettable, for these domestic creatures are in diverse ways attractive; there is such pleasure in knowing them. And farming, animal husbandry, horticulture, and gardening, at their best, are complex and comely arts; there is much pleasure in knowing them, too.
It follows that there is great displeasure in knowing about a food economy that degrades and abuses those arts and those plants and animals and the soil from which they come. For anyone who does know something of the modern history of food, eating away from home can be a chore. My own inclination is to eat seafood instead of red meat or poultry when I am traveling. Though I am by no means a vegetarian, I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable in order to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade. And I am getting almost as fussy about food plants. I like to eat vegetables and fruits that I know have lived happily and healthily in good soil, not the products of the huge, bechemicaled factory-fields that I have seen, for example, in the Central Valley of California. The industrial farm is said to have been patterned on the factory production line. In practice, it looks more like a concentration camp.
The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort.
I mentioned earlier the politics, esthetics, and ethics of food. But to speak of the pleasure of eating is to go beyond those categories. Eating with the fullest pleasure — pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance — is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. When I think of the meaning of food, I always remember these lines by the poet William Carlos Williams, which seem to me merely honest:
There is nothing to eat,
seek it where you will,
but the body of the Lord.
The blessed plants
and the sea, yield it
to the imagination intact.
"The Pleasures of Eating" from WHAT ARE PEOPLE FOR? by Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1990 by Wendell Berry. Used by permission of North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.
To purchase or find out more about this book, visit Powell's Book Store.


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1810 England. It was thought that humans walked the path of enlightenment leaving monsters and dark things behind. However, those monsters and night stalkers merely hide in the darkness, as a young maid, Bernadette, soon finds out.
A story about love and perseverance between a noblewoman separated from her lowly warrior, amidst a backdrop of a neo-classical Japan under invasion from spider mecha. Artwork by Sonia Leong, story by Lloyd Prentice.
Noa Takahashi is a normal teenage girl. Her parents, however, are crazy! When they decide to bet on who she'll fall in love with at her sixteenth birthday party, everything gets turned topsy-turvy. The race is on! Who will Noa pick? Lots of fun ahead!
Crossover High is just your ordinary high school, if by "ordinary" you mean a classroom with two wolf-demons, a fire sorcerer, a dark mage, a shadow alchemist, some random Jamaican guy, and... Loki. But then I'd have to wonder what dictionary you use.
A medieval knight and a Japanese ninja are forced to share an apartment in modern America. Can they achieve their missions without destroying each other?
It just doesn't make sense to maintain a civil war themed story among random humor pages... so I'm extracting this story from The Dock and transplanting it here.
A new spin on the classic legend of Dr. Faust... What happens when you sell your soul to the devil?
A Freux Journal.
A Final Fantasy VII doujinshi featuring Vincent Valentine, Yuffie Kisaragi and Red XIII.
The Lexcore System: a writing system based on the Lex - the soul - made to request the manipulation of the space around the user. The Lexcore System is not an unbreakable one, nor is it one that was created simply for the betterment of normal society..
Princess Natsumi, as she calls herself, is searching for 4 deputies to help her put a stop to the plans of two rogue agents. As crazy as her story sounds, Soichiro, Akira, Tetsuya, and Koutarou join her and enter a world of espionage and silliness.
Miharu Ogawa grew up believing that two people destined to fall in love were tied by a Red String of Fate. What will she do when she finds her chances at love have been cut short by an arranged marriage with a complete stranger?
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You know the drill.
Kira's been looking forward to playing on her high school team, but when she finds out that her new high school has no girl's team she decides to join the boys team - as a boy!
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legueu at 3:07PM, April 8, 2009
Hurray for kittens and thanks for the add ;P.
cameron11691 at 12:27PM, Nov. 28, 2008
I've been fine ^^ I finally took a different technique to help me get going on updates. My old technique use to be; draw, ink, update. That took too much energy out of me so I had to change it up. Now I draw 5 to 6 pages before I ink any of them ^^ Happily I have at least 24 pages ready to be taken care of ^^
cameron11691 at 11:11PM, Nov. 27, 2008
Hiya! It's bee a very long time since we've said anything ^^ Anyways, how is everything?
shisno15 at 12:00PM, March 25, 2008
It's been so long, we should really talk more often!
machiavelli33 at 7:29PM, Feb. 19, 2008
You're back! Sort of. Where'd you vanish off to?
Chaz McRich at 2:56PM, Oct. 16, 2007
Thanks for the add chum!
Freux at 9:04PM, Aug. 18, 2007
*wavewave* :D
MonkeyMafia at 2:45PM, June 30, 2007
:P I'll get round to it! In the mean time, join in with Glarg's 'Real Life Heroes' thread. It's finger-lickin' good.
monsterfriend at 2:07PM, June 26, 2007
like your comics
brotherhowie at 8:38PM, June 20, 2007
Great to meet you at WW Philly and thanks for coming out to support DD! Great pix in the formus too!
SpANG at 5:04AM, June 20, 2007
Thanks for the add! I think I stole one of your sharpies at the con by mistake. I'm a clepto! lol!
dgriff13 at 10:24PM, June 19, 2007
woo! Thanks for the add! And it was a pleasure to meet you as well! Keep up the good work!
shisno15 at 8:10PM, June 8, 2007
Wow, it's been a while since I've heard from you. Just checkin in!
SeriousQuiche at 10:04AM, May 14, 2007
Hullos!!!! :D:D:D:D
Hero at 8:42AM, May 7, 2007
Thanks much for the comment. You're one cool kitten youself.
Nikai Nockturne at 6:22AM, May 4, 2007
I'm good. Busy with school and lighting stuff on fire but I'm good. ^-^
machiavelli33 at 10:17AM, May 3, 2007
I SHALL FIND A WAY That way may or may not involve changing the rating to T+. I have another plan involving marmosets, and sour cream. I have to see how that one pans out first.
F_Allen at 4:07AM, May 2, 2007
no thank you & cheers for the add :D
dmc87 at 8:14PM, May 1, 2007
*gasp* You did it! I cannot believe you POKED THE PENGUIN.. Somebody's gonna get a hurtin'! XD But since you're so nice and your comic is hilarious.. *pats the penguin* I guess the penguin will let you go for now.. >_>
dmc87 at 8:29AM, May 1, 2007
Celrena! ^_^ Awesome updates. Now I dare you to POKE THE PENGUIN! >.<
Rina_ran at 11:08AM, April 30, 2007
Thank you! That is my picture. ^_^ I was about to check the forums to see if they were listed. â⢥
machiavelli33 at 10:23PM, April 29, 2007
Tcha. Didn't your mother ever teach you not to sow discontent amongst the enemy? Its impolite.
MonkeyMafia at 10:23AM, April 29, 2007
Thanks! But you're not off the hook yet, missy. I still haven't seen your entries.
FreakGamer at 10:40AM, April 28, 2007
Lol us neutral Rock! Thanks for letting me use your character.
Quacklin at 3:18PM, April 26, 2007
Quack V updated.


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Caribbean Playgrounds
Clip #: TFA-13A Length: 9:38 Year: 1955 Sound: Sound Decade: 1950s Description: A tour of sports played in the Caribbean in Puerto Rico and Jamaica,
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Puerto Rico
Clip #: TFA-200D Length: :31 Year: 1949 Sound: Silent Decade: 1940s Description: A brief visit to Puerto Rico in the late 1940s
Porto Rico
Clip #: TFA-211C Length: 2:42 Year: 1926 Sound: Silent Decade: 1920s Description: A tour of Puerto Rico in the 1920s
Holiday In The Caribbean
Clip #: TFA-25E Length: 9:35 Year: 1948 Sound: Sound Decade: 1940s Description: A tour of the Caribbean Islands including Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, St Thomas, Trinidad, Jamaica, Cuba,
Panama & West Indies
Clip #: TFA-210J Length: 8:14 Sound: Silent Decade: 1920s Description: A tour of Panama, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in the 1920s.
Clip #: TFA-25D-3 Length: 2:55 Year: 1938 Sound: Silent Decade: 1930s Description: A cruise to Kingston, Jamaica in 1938.
Puerto Rico - Showcase of America
Clip #: TFA-239B Length: 18:10 Year: 1962 Sound: Sound Decade: 1960s Description: A Puerto Rican boy gives a Caucasian girl a tour of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico - This World of Ours
Clip #: TFA-272B Length: 9:03 Year: 1950 Sound: Sound Decade: 1950s Description: Prominent locations, culture and agriculture of Puerto Rico in the 1950s.
Industry's Island Frontier!
Clip #: MF-31B-1 Length: 2:31 Year: 1955 Sound: Sound Decade: 1950s Description: Newly constructed American factories and plants in Puerto Rico in the 1950s.
Clip #: TFA-155G Length: 7:59 Sound: Silent Decade: 1960s Description: Home movies of tourists visiting Ocho Rios, Jamaica in the 1960s


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Posts Tagged 'home loss'
Asquared Studios provides information for working through your recovery after a disaster
It is nearly September 2020, and we once again find the North Bay Area in the Midst of a wildfire disaster. We are refreshing a post we created after the 2017 complex fires in Santa Rosa to offer advice and guidance to those who are suffering loss from the complex fires that exploded suddenly due to a rouge lightning storm. The lightning storm that hit nearly 2 weeks ago dropped approximately 11,000 strikes in the Bay Area, and the rumbling sky that accompanied this light show left many of us restless in the wee hours of the morning. This spectacular event produced a lot of amazing photographs on social media, but also sparked an unexpected and early wildfire event. In Santa Rosa we sit in the middle of every fire zone, surrounded by fires in all directions. This has given Tony and I plenty of time to think about how we can contribute to struggle that so many are facing once again. We recognize that there is simply A LOT of information to digest for those who are suffering total loss and for those who are faced with the monumental task of assessing damage to structures that survived the fires. This damage will likely stretch far beyond the visible aspects of flame and heat damage, most notably extending into architectural finishes, wall cavities, and ceiling cavities that are filled with all forms of insulation. As a result of our conversations we have assembled a simple outline or guideline that you may find useful in determining a process for recovery after a disaster. The link provided below will take you to the PDF of this outline. We have also included valuable links provided by our local Chamber of Commerce.
We urge you to be cautious when returning home!
With love + hope – Jessie, Tony, Kola, and Lucille
Click link below to learn more:
Disaster Relief : Insurance Recovery
Sonoma County Economic Development Board recovery tools and guides
Cal OES statewide wildfire recovery resources
Office of the Governor disaster relief resource guide and business assistance


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VFR sectional maps are instantly recognizable. They are our country as seen from the air, dotted with landmarks by day and expected lighting by night. This is your opportunity to carry a momento of the area around your favorite airport with your personal piece of the sectional at Hardy Ranch Airport (WY07) in Wyoming.
With high-resolution sectional data directly from the FAA's digital services division, these high-quality reproductions include the utmost detail. Notice how the accurate colors and crisp lines truly set these apart.
Take note that the mockup images do not represent the actual image quality on the high-resolution reproductions delivered with your order.
Like the image but not on a Water Bottle? See this same graphic elsewhere.
This 17-ounce double-walled stainless steel water bottle is perfect for your daily outings It will keep your drink of choice hot or cold for hours. Features an odor- and leak-proof cap. Throw it in your car's cup holder on your way to work, take it with you on hikes, or toss it in your bag for any time you get thirsty.
Love this bottle. I was very surprised at how glossy the map photo is. Feels like a very durable image.


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CCM Roofing LLC
3 years ago Services Hicksville 621 views Reference: 31Location: Hicksville
We have been a full-service roofing contractor for 15 years in the Long Island - Tri-State area. Our roofers possess many years of experience in the roofing industry. Our experience allows us to approach every project we do from a position of experience. There are not many roofing problems that we have not seen or repaired at least once.
We work with quality materials and are manufacturer trained to repair, install, and maintain their materials. We stay abreast of the latest industry advances in order to offer our customers the best selection and options. We have built our reputation in the industry, one roof at a time. No project is too large or too small. We welcome every project from small repair jobs to full-scale installations.
All of our employees complete safety and application training prior to being released to the field. We guarantee all of our work and our firm is fully insured to properly protect our clients. We take pride in our work and ensure that each customer is satisfied. Our projects are done on time and within budget.


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Using TLS-Encrypted Communications with Fossil
If you are storing sensitive information in a repository accessible over a network whose integrity you do not fully trust, you should use TLS to encrypt all communications with it. This is most true for repositories accessed over the Internet, especially if they will be accessed from edge networks you do not control, since that admits of various forms of man in the middle attack.
TLS protects the credentials used to access the server, prevents eavesdropping, prevents in-flight data modification, prevents server identify spoofing, and more.
There are two major aspects to this, both of which have to be addressed in different ways. Those are the subjects of the next two major sections.
Client-Side Configuration
You can build Fossil against OpenSSL to allow it to clone and sync with a remote Fossil repository via https URIs.
Building Against OpenSSL Automatically
The configure script will attempt to find OpenSSL on your system automatically. It first tries asking the pkg-config system where the OpenSSL development files are, and if that fails, it falls back to looking through a list of likely directories.
If it can't find the files it needs, the most common solution is to install the OpenSSL development package on your system via your OS's package manager. Examples:
- RHEL & Fedora: sudo dnf install openssl-devel
- Debian & Ubuntu: sudo apt install libssl-dev
- FreeBSD: su -c 'pkg install openssl'
- macOS: sudo brew install openssl
- Cygwin: Install openssl-devel via Cygwin's setup-*.exe program
The macOS case requires explanation. Apple last shipped OpenSSL develpoment files in OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), choosing to deprecate it from that point forward. (Apple wants you to use their proprietary platform-specific encryption methods instead.) Since macOS has no built-in package manager, a number have sprung up out of the FOSS world. It is not known to this author whether Fossil's current build system can find OpenSSL as installed with any of these other package managers, so unless you have a particular reason to avoid it, we recomend that you use Homebrew on macOS to install OpenSSL as above. Fossil's build system will seek it out and use it automatically.
Building Against a Non-Platform Version of OpenSSL
The Fossil build system has a few other methods for finding OpenSSL when the automatic methods fail or when you'd prefer that Fossil use a different version of OpenSSL than the one Fossil's build system picks on its own.
A good reason to do this is when the Fossil build system finds a functioning version of OpenSSL which is nevertheless unsuitable. One common case is that your OS is sufficiently outdated that the platform version of OpenSSL can no longer communicate with remote systems adhering to the latest advice on secure communications. An old OpenSSL might not support any of the cipher suites the remote Fossil repository's HTTPS proxy is willing to offer, for example, so that even though both sides are speaking a variant of TLS/SSL, the peers cannot come to an agreement on the cryptography.
If you've installed the OpenSSL development files somewhere that Fossil's build system cannot find on its own, you can clue it in by passing the --with-openssl option to the configure script. Type ./configure --help for details.
Another option is to download the source code to OpenSSL and build Fossil against that private version of OpenSSL:
cd compat # relative to the Fossil source tree root tar xf /path/to/openssl-*.tar.gz ln -fs openssl-x.y.z openssl cd openssl ./config # or, e.g. ./Configure darwin64-x86_64-cc make -j11 cd ../.. ./configure --with-openssl=tree make -j11
That will get you a Fossil binary statically linked to this in-tree version of OpenSSL.
Beware, taking this path typically opens you up to new problems, which are conveniently covered in the next section!
To verify the identify of a server, TLS uses X.509 certificates, a scheme that depends on a trust hierarchy of so-called Certificate Authorities. The tree of trust relationships ultimately ends in the CA roots, which are considered the ultimate arbiters of who to trust in this scheme.
The question then is, what CA roots does Fossil trust?
If you are using a self-signed certificate, Fossil will initially not know that it can trust your certificate, so you'll be asked if you want to accept the certificate the first time you communicate with the server. Verify the certificate fingerprint is correct, then answer "always" if you want Fossil to remember your decision.
If you are cloning from or syncing to Fossil servers that use a certificate signed by a well-known CA or one of its delegates, Fossil still has to know which CA roots to trust. When this fails, you get an error message that looks like this:
Unable to verify SSL cert from fossil-scm.org subject: CN = sqlite.org issuer: C = US, O = Let's Encrypt, CN = Let's Encrypt Authority X3 sha256: bf26092dd97df6e4f7bf1926072e7e8d200129e1ffb8ef5276c1e5dd9bc95d52 accept this cert and continue (y/N)?
In older versions, the message was much longer and began with this line:
SSL verification failed: unable to get local issuer certificate
Fossil relies on the OpenSSL library to have some way to check a trusted list of CA signing keys. There are two common ways this fails:
- The OpenSSL library Fossil is linked to doesn't have a CA signing key set at all, so that it initially trusts no certificates at all.
- The OpenSSL library does have a CA cert set, but your Fossil server's TLS certificate was signed by a CA that isn't in that set.
A common reason to fall into the second trap is that you're using certificates signed by a local private CA, as often happens in large enterprises. You can solve this sort of problem by getting your local CA's signing certificate in PEM format and pointing OpenSSL at it:
fossil set --global ssl-ca-location /path/to/local-ca.pem
The use of --global with this option is common, since you may have multiple repositories served under certificates signed by that same CA. However, if you have a mix of publicly-signed and locally-signed certificates, you might want to drop the --global flag and set this option on a per-repository basis instead.
A common way to run into the broader first problem is that you're on FreeBSD, which does not install a CA certificate set by default, even as a dependency of the OpenSSL library. If you're using a certificate signed by one of the major public CAs, you can solve this by installing the ca_root_nss package. That package contains the Mozilla NSS certificate bundle, which gets installed in a location that OpenSSL checks by default, so you don't need to change any Fossil settings. (This is the same certificate set that ships with Firefox, by the way.)
The same sort of thing happens with the Windows build of OpenSSL, but for a different core reason: Windows does ship with a stock CA certificate set, but it's not in a format that OpenSSL understands how to use. Rather than try to find a way to convert the data format, you may find it acceptable to use the same Mozilla NSS cert set. I do not know of a way to easily get this from Mozilla themselves, but I did find a third party source for the cacert.pem file. I suggest placing the file into your Windows user home directory so that you can then point Fossil at it like so:
fossil set --global ssl-ca-location %userprofile%\cacert.pem
This can also happen if you've linked Fossil to a version of OpenSSL built from source. That same cacert.pem fix can work in that case, too.
OpenSSL 3.2.0 or greater is able to use the stock CA certificates managed by Windows, and Fossil 2.25 (still in development as of 2024-07-15) takes advantage of this feature. This possibly eliminates the need to manually install the Mozilla certificate package, for example when connecting to Fossil servers secured by the widely-used Let's Encrypt certificates. Run the following command to check if the feature is supported:fossil tls-config show -v(See the "OpenSSL-winstore" section, requires Fossil 2.25 or greater.)
When you build Fossil on Linux platforms against the binary OpenSSL package provided with the OS, you typically get a root cert store along with the platform OpenSSL package, either built-in or as a hard dependency.
Client-Side Certificates
You can also use client side certificates to add an extra layer of authentication, over and above Fossil's built in user management. If you are particularly paranoid, you'll want to use this to remove the ability of anyone on the internet from making any request to Fossil. Without presenting a valid client side certificate, the web server won't invoke the Fossil CGI handler.
Configure your server to request a client side certificate, and set up a certificate authority to sign your client certificates. For each person who needs to access the repository, create a private key and certificate signed with that CA.
The PEM encoded private key and certificate should be stored in a single file, simply by concatenating the key and certificate files. Specify the location of this file with the ssl-identity setting, or the --ssl-identity option to the clone command.
If you've password protected the private key, the password will be requested every time you connect to the server. This password is not stored by fossil, as doing so would defeat the purpose of having a password.
If you attempt to connect to a server which requests a client certificate, but don't provide one, fossil will show an error message which explains what to do to authenticate with the server.
Server-Side Configuration
Before Fossil's built-in HTTP server gained TLS support, system administrators that wanted to add this had to put it behind a reverse proxy that would do the translation. Since advantages remain for delegating TLS to another layer in the stack, instructions for doing so continue to be included in our documentation, such as:
Enforcing TLS Access
To use TLS encryption in cloning and syncing to a remote Fossil repository, be sure to use the https: URI scheme in clone and sync commands. If your server is configured to serve the repository via both HTTP and HTTPS, it's easy to accidentally use unencrypted HTTP if you forget the all-important 's'.
As of Fossil 2.9, using an http:// URI with fossil clone or sync on a site that forwards to HTTPS will cause Fossil to remember the secure URL. However, there's a TOFU problem with this: it's still better to use https:// from the start.
As of Fossil 2.8, there is a setting in the Fossil UI under Admin → Access called "Redirect to HTTPS," which is set to "Off" by default. Changing this only affects web UI access to the Fossil repository. It doesn't affect clones and syncs done via the http URI scheme.
In Fossil 2.7 and earlier, there was a much weaker form of this setting affecting the /login page only. If you're using this setting, you should migrate to the new setting as soon as possible, because the old setting allows multiple ways of defeating it.
WARNING: Enabling HTTPS redirects at the Fossil repo level while running Fossil behind an HTTPS proxy can result in an infinite redirect loop. It happens when the proxy mechanism presents "http" URIs to Fossil, so Fossil issues a redirect, so the browser fetches the page again, causing Fossil to see an "http" URI again, so it issues a redirect...'round and 'round it goes until the web browser detects it's in a redirect loop and gives up. This problem prevents you from getting back into the Admin UI to fix it, but there are several ways to fix it:
- Reset via CLI. You can turn the setting back off from the CLI with the command "fossil -R /path/to/repo.fossil set redirect-to-https 0". (Currently doesn't work.)
- Backup first. This setting is stored in the Fossil repository, so if you make a backup first on the server, you can restore the repo file if enabling this feature creates a redirect loop.
- Download, fix, and restore. You can copy the remote repository file down to a local machine, use fossil ui to fix the setting, and then upload it to the repository server again.
It's best to enforce TLS-only access at the front-end proxy level anyway. It not only avoids the problem entirely, it can be significantly more secure. The nginx-on-Debian proxy guide shows one way to achieve this.
Terminology Note
This document is called ssl.wiki for historical reasons. The TLS protocol was originally called SSL, and it went through several revisions before being replaced by TLS. Years before this writing, SSL finally became entirely obsolete due to weaknesses in the protocol fixed in the later TLS series of protocols.
Some people still use the term "SSL" when they actually mean "TLS," but in the Fossil project, we always use "TLS" except when we must preserve some sort of historical compatibility, as with this document's name in order to avoid broken external URLs. The Fossil TLS-related settings also often use "ssl" in their names for the same reason.
This series of protocols is also called "HTTPS" after the URI scheme used to specify "HTTP over TLS."


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iCatholic.ie interviews at IEC2012
Monday 11th – Friday 15th June 2012, 12.00 – 12.30 GMT
iCatholic.ie did five programmes at IEC2012 that were streamed live on the internet, Monday to Friday from 12 noon to 12.30pm. The interviews took place on the balcony of the Main Exhibition Hall in the RDS (also known as Hall 1). The programme format consisted of interviewing three guests interspersed with some Congress News. The guests were a cross‐section of the speakers at the Congress along with some of the chief organisers. The full workshops of most of our guests will also be available on iCatholic.ie
The interviews were conducted by Ms Brenda Drumm (working in a personal capacity) from the Catholic Communications Office (CCO) of the Irish Bishops Conference which is based in Maynooth. Brenda also hosts (again working in a personal capacity) her own radio programme on a local radio station (KFM) in Kildare. The camera crew consisted of Irish Dominicans and other Congress volunteers, headed up by Br Luuk Dominiek Jansen OP who designed the Congress app. One of the features of that app is that it takes Congress video content from iCatholic.ie
IEC2012 live programmes
To access all these videos, you view under author – www.iCatholic.ie/iec2012-live/


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The book is downloading for online reading - it shouldn't take long!
You can also download the book as a PDF to a device for your personal use and offline reading. Click on the link below.
The printed version of the 2020 Book can be ordered - click on our Book Shop link at the top of the page.


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Overview of MeeGo Development Tools
Over the past week I've been playing with the MeeGo ExoPC tablet, experimenting with the various options for building programs.One advantage MeeGo has over Android or iOS is that there are quite a lot of language and toolkit options. If you have an existing program, especially if it runs on Linux, you can probably find a way to port it to MeeGo fairly without much extra coding.
But since MeeGo is still quite new, not all of the options work quite as well as you might hope -- yet. I'm sure they'll get better, but here's what the development climate looks like now.
C++, Qt and Meego SDK
C++ and Qt are the primary supported environment on MeeGo, via the MeeGo SDK, run in an IDE called QtCreator.
The documentation turns out to be somewhat incomplete; I'll write up a howto as a separate article. But once you get it installed (much easier than installing, say, Eclipse for Android), it runs nicely. You can use normal Qt, not a specialized environment, so existing Qt programs should be quick to port, and the IDE takes care of packaging, copying the app to your remote device and starting it running. Very painless.
Testing apps locally isn't so easy. They're set up to use QEMU, which only works if your development machine has hardware virtualization. Supposedly there's a way to make this work in virtualbox (which doesn't require hardware virtualization), but the docs don't address how.
Still, testing on the target device is easy. Unfortunately, not many of my existing programs are C++ and Qt. I mostly write Python, C, and Javascript/HTML web apps.
Update: I should have mentioned that QtCreator also lets you program in QML, an XML-like language that lets you design Qt user interface and even write application code.
Web Apps under C++ and QWebView
So what about those web apps? Since the C++ SDK was so well supported, I figured, why not use a QWebView so I can run my HTML and Javascript code?
Unfortunately QWebView turns out to be tricky to use, has very few sample apps available, and so far I've been unable to get it to work under MeeGo at all.
Nokia Web RunTime
But WRT apps are packaged according to the W3C Widget Packaging and Configuration specification -- so it's probably possible to roll your own without the big Nokia WRT package. More research required.
Python, Qt and PySide
I have a lot of Python apps, so I was very happy to see that Python comes already installed on MeeGo. (Perl is also supported; Ruby theoretically is but it's not installed by default.)
Since Qt is the officially blessed user interface, Python-Qt seems like the way to go. Except -- Python in MeeGo has no Qt bindings installed. The package that provides them is called PySide, but depending on where you look you'll either be steered toward a lengthy source compile on the MeeGo device, or a zypper install from someone's personal repository.
None of that is difficult for developers, but you can't expect users to enable experimental repositories or compile from source. Is PySide going to be a standard part of MeeGo by the time it ships to users? Nobody's saying. It makes me leery of putting much energy into Python-Qt development until I hear more.
A little frustrated with the options so far, I was idly poking around an interactive Python session and typed
>>> import gtk
And it worked! Even though Qt is the supported UI toolkit and nobody talks about GTK, it's installed on MeeGo -- complete with Python bindings. It gave two deprecation warnings, but what's a little deprecation among friends?
A simple test program ran just fine. So I whipped up a starter page for PyTopo, made a .desktop file and icon for it, copied the three files over with scp -- and everything worked great.
There's no standard way yet to make a MeeGo RPM from a Python program, so that will require a little hand-fiddling, but only a little. And sadly, python-webkit-gtk isn't included, so this isn't a good solution for porting web apps.
I'll be keeping an eye on PySide and continuing to experiment with PySide, WRT and C++. But in the meantime, it's great that it's so easy to port all my existing Python-GTK programs to MeeGo.
[ 11:33 May 07, 2011 More programming | permalink to this entry | ]


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Experienced and trusted double glazing company in East Molesey
Warmlite has very experienced Sales Consultants that will always give you best advice on any our double glazing services in our range without any pressure or obligation. We thrive on recommendations from our many, many happy customers in East Molesey and we want you to join them.
Years of expert knowledge in uPVC double glazing
Warmlite are an expert double glazing in company Surrey with solutions for those looking for quality UPVC, Aluminium and Timber replacement double glazed windows, doors and conservatories. With many years' experience in home improvement, we have the knowledge and expertise to handle the design, manufacture and installation of replacement double glazed windows and doors, and can also provide conservatory and orangery extensions.
Rest assured with a 10 year guarantee
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When purchasing new windows, doors, conservatories or orangeries, energy efficiency should be high on the agenda for every consumer. Approximately a quarter of the heat lost from the average home escapes through inadequate glazing and poor quality windows and doors. This affects the environment and has an impact on home comfort and energy costs.
Current building regulations for England and Wales state that new and replacement windows of all types and materials now need to have a BFRC Window Energy Rating (WER) of 'C' or above. By incorporating new technically advanced glazing, our PVCu windows comfortably achieve an 'A'-energy efficiency rating. This will reduce energy loss from your home by offering up to three times more thermal insulation than standard double glazing and a +20% efficiency advantage over low-E thermally insulated glass.
The outer pane of our 'A' rated windows allows optimal amounts of the sun's energy through the glass into the room providing free solar heating. The inner pane uses an advanced glass coating technology which reflects heat from inside the room back into the room. This technology is now offered by Warmlite as standard and at no additional cost.
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- We are locally based in Surbiton, Kingston close to the A3 with access to East Molesey and South West London
Manufactured to the very highest standards
As an established double glazed window company all our windows are manufactured to the very highest standards using environmentally-friendly lead-free PVCu from one of the UK's leading profile extruders, in compliance with recognised industry standards. For enhanced security, all our double glazed windows are internally glazed.
Improve your home with replacement double glazing
Our range of double glazed windows, doors and conservatories are exclusively designed for the UK's home improvement market. A unique slimline profile maximises glass area and reduces bulky frame appearance. Our double glazed windows are all individually designed and made to suit your requirements and are available in a number of different styles.


text: 3 Hi y'all! Dani from @popfizzpaper here with a tutorial showing you how to make a DIY Kindle case (or for any eReader)! I love swapping out my cases, but they can get pretty pricey over time. However, I can DIY a bunch of my own using one silicone sleeve that I can swap between them. […] Easy DIY Kindle Case Tutorial using Tombow Xtreme AdhesivesMarch 3, 2017 in Cards & Papercrafting / Design Team / General / Tutorials, Tips & Tricks tagged Dani Manning / diy / Gift Ideas / Kindle case / MONO Multi Liquid Glue / Power Tabs / reading / Technology / Tombow Adhesives / Tombow Xtreme Glue Tape / Xtreme adhesive by Dani Manning


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Last edited: 5 July 2009
Designed by Sharon Cousins (standing on the shoulders of giants), the EZ-3 Solar Cooker might best be classified as a small hybrid panel-oven, since the whole cooker goes into the cooking bag (eliminating the need to bag the cooking vessel). A cut out, foiled box corner is sized so that the whole cooker can be eased into a Reynolds turkey sized oven bag. Distance from the corner along the bottom edge can be 12" - 13", and the vertical measure can be 17" - 18" (which can include the box flaps, taped upright with duct tape or other heavy-duty tape). This is a surprisingly efficient little cooker for up to one quart of food and works very well with either small, dark pots or pint or quart cooking jars. It is Sharon's favorite cooker for heating up her solitary summer lunches. To make an EZ-3, measure, mark, and cut out the box corner (first taping up the top flaps if you need them to attain the proper height). One or two small triangles of bottom flap will usually come loose in the process. Glue these triangles back in place with white or wood glue. Do not glue the whole bottom together if you want to be able to fold the cooker flat for storage and transport! When that glue is dry, foil the inside of the cooker.
The whole cooker is enclosed in a Reynolds turkey size oven bag. When setting up the EZ-3, use a binder clip to secure the cooker. A 6" cake cooling rack or three or four small pebbles elevates the food so light can get under it, improving the efficiency. The cooker is gently eased into the oven bag. The opening of the oven bag is rolled up at the back of the cooker and secured with two clothespins. When folding for storage (after making sure any vapors have dried from the cooker and bag), remove the binder clip and fold flat, with the folded oven bag inside the cooker, and secure with the binder clip.
This is an ideal cooker for youth projects, as it is easy to make, is easy to aim using the shadow, and it works well. The recipe SharonID's Solar Project Soup in the Soup section of Recipes was developed for EZ-3 youth projects. It lets each person/youth make an individual pot of vegetable soup, with the vegetables set out so that each person fills their measure with ones they like.
The EZ-3 is also a good cooker for couples or people who live alone and only cook small quantities of food (for more than one food, make additional cookers) or for people who want a small cooker for backpacking or traveling. Homeless people in some circumstances might find it useful (you can even heat prepared food in the can if you open the can slightly to vent and slide it into a thin, black sock), and families with one member with special dietary needs might find it useful for small amounts of special foods. It's a great cooker for cooking up to a quart of anything, from soup stock to rice to fruit sauces (see Fruit ). It is also ideal for making a quart of solar coffee (see Beverages ). With the addition of a small, dark lidded pot (3-4 cups or .75-1 liter) the EZ-3 does a very good job of baking cake, cornbread, yeast bread, a big fat cookie, brownies, scones, a giant muffin, and more. Weight watchers might find it useful to be able to make a small amount of a special treat to avoid the temptation to overeat.
To increase the efficiency of an EZ-3, a small front booster panel can be made by tracing the bottom of the cooker on a flat piece of cardboard and marking a rectangle the width of the cooker and seven-ten inches deep (the farther south, the more front booster is needed). Cut out this triangle+rectangle shape (it will look a bit like a child's outline of a house) and score a fold along what would be the front edge of the cooker (between the triangle part and the rectangle part) and foil it.
In use, place the cooker on the triangle part of the booster and use a small pebble or two underneath to elevate the booster reflector to a good angle for shining into the cooker and onto the pot or jar.
For better winter cooking efficiency, make two EZ-3s in slightly different sizes, so you can nest two for the added insulation and bag the nested pair. In combination with a front booster panel, this double EZ-3 arrangement reached temperatures of 225F on a clear day in January, at 47 degrees north latitude, with ambient outdoor temperatures in the upper twenty degree (F) range.
Sharon has recently found a source for a larger sized cooking bag and is developing an slightly larger EZ-3 in hopes of coming up with one that can do a good job with a half-gallon cooking jar. She also reports that the oven bags used to enclose an EZ-3 last much longer than bags used to enclose cooking vessels. Sharon is primarily cooking at 47 degrees north latitude with an occasional foray into the San Jose CA area. She suspects that further south the EZ-3 will work better if it is tipped back a bit, with a stick or small board or pebbles under the front of the cooker to lift it. Level out the bottom with a false bottom (foiled, of course) and figure out some way to shim the corner so your pot or jar will still be reasonably level. Also, opt for slightly shorter and slightly wider at the bottom, within the limitations of your bag. Further south, you need less height and more side-wall.
Another trip south provided opportunity for further development, and there are now three versions of the EZ-3—still all basically simple box corners—that will work much better farther south than the original model (N1), especially with the addition of a simple additional black bottom piece. The more southerly models go into the turkey-size oven bags sideways instead of feet-first. S1 is a little simpler to make and has an amazing little late-day burst, S2 had the strongest performance in terms of reaching high heat and holding it until the first drop, but it only showed a late-day surge right at the end of the time of surge. S4 had a factor (newest model, still some glue moisture probably) that may have skewed its tests. I think it should have done better than it did and might be worth a try still. All of the southern models will work better with an additional black bottom layer. One way to achieve this is to trace the interior floor of the cooker and cut out a piece of corrugated cardboard. Trace and cut out a piece of black poster-board and glue it to the cardboard—you will need to smooth it flat and press it with some weight to make sure there is good contact. When dry, paint with two coats of black tempera mixed with a little white glue (Elmer's, PVA) or non-toxic-when dry spray paint. Without paint, the paper will fade very quickly, and the paint will go on more efficiently on the poster-board than it does on brown corrugated. An alternative to this black bottom might be two triangles from a 6" ceramic tile cut corner-to-corner, black or painted black, to put in the two front corners. Silver directly under and in front of the pot is good in the south, having a heat sink in the corners—even blackened cardboard—gives it an amazing boost. Sharon made the corrugated-plus-poster-board and paint bottoms for her side-by-side tests, with a thin center panel of foil folded over poster-board—just enough support for the foil to keep it flat. This arrangement was clearly superior to the original silver bottom in the trials near San Jose CA. Sharon will send a free pair of cut, painted ceramic triangles to the first person from farther south to contact her and let her know they have an EZ-3 built and ready for testing in exchange for test data.
EZ-3 also handles wind fairly well, if you give it a little support so it doesn't just blow away. You can put a couple of foiled chunks of rocks in it to add a little weight, and it can be braced behind with anything heavy—water jugs, big rocks, wood chunks, bricks, etc. Close it as tightly as you can if it will be cooking in the wind, to keep billowing to an absolute minimum
Using the EZ-3[]
Unfold the cooker, set up, secure with your binder clip, and ease the cooker into the oven bag (ease the front edge in first; you won't get the back corner in until the front corners are in and the edge of the bag pulled a good way up the sides, or for a southern model, where the cooker goes in sideways, you still have to get two corners in far enough before you can get it over the top corner). Put a small (6") rack or four small, foiled pebbles or a thick glass candle plate or ash tray on the bottom of the cooker to raise your pot or cooking jar so the light can get under it. If you want to, you can also put a small oven thermometer in, though it is not essential but it can be interesting. Your EZ-3 with food inside will probably run at least 200-225°F when the sun is high, which is plenty for most foods, as cooking actually begins at 180 degrees.
Put the food (in a covered dark pot or a blackened cooking jar) into the cooker. Roll the opening of the bag closed at the back and secure with two clothespins (if you have a southern model, there'll be some extra plastic you need to roll up, so you're only putting heat into the business area of your cooker). Put on your sunglasses; if you don't have sunglasses, be especially careful to look at the foil as little as possible.
Put your EZ-3 outside, facing the sun. Do not look at the sun to aim. Look at the shadow of your EZ-3. When the shadow is straight and even behind the cooker, it is pointed straight at the sun. Since you don't want to be turning the cooker every couple of minutes, you want to push it ahead of the sun a bit, so there is more shadow to the right than to the left (looking from behind cooker). If you think of the shadow as a sundial, you will soon get a feel for how much you can push it ahead to leave it for varying lengths of time. As you get a feel for it, shoot for pushing it about an hour ahead when you can, so the sun will sweep across the top of the food once per hour, which makes for more even baking
If you use the booster, which will always help your cooker work faster and hotter, especially in marginal cooking conditions, set the cooker on the triangular part and use a stick or a couple of small rocks under the reflector part to angle it up until the shadow underneath is about half the width of the booster.
If it is windy out, use something like a couple of rocks or bricks or jugs of water behind your cooker so it won't blow away or blow over, and cover a couple of flattish rocks with foil to put on your booster panel to keep it from flapping up. Once your cooker is all set, you can play or relax or do chores while the sun takes care of your food. Foods will not burn in your EZ-3, and most foods will not overcook, so except for adjusting the direction now and then, you are free to do other things while your food is cooking.
Cooking is hottest and fastest on a day when you can see your shadow most of the time, and during the time of day when your shadow is shorter than you are, but if you get food hot earlier in the day, your EZ-3 can keep it hot or simmering well into the afternoon or even early evening.
You can most foods cook fairly well with up to 25% clouds or a light haze, but when the sky is less than ideal it is especially important to get the food out early and use your booster. If you want to make baked goods, like muffins or cake or cornbread, set the cooker out by 10am if you can, or 11am at the very latest. It may help to preheat the empty cooker for a little while before putting in baked goods.
Foods will be HOT when you take them out. Remember to use potholders or a folded bandana to lift your pot or jar out!
Your EZ-3 will work best from late spring through early fall. You can use it in the off-season, if the weather is clear and sunny, but you should choose foods that cook relatively easily.
Remember, your EZ-3 cannot start a fire and will not make smoke. As long as you handle your pot with potholders, it cannot hurt you or the environment. You can take it with you on trips and use it to heat or cook food in places where a fire would be dangerous or against the rules. If anyone asks what it is and what you're doing, you have a perfect opening to be an advocate for solar cooking.
See also[]
- See Sharon Cousins.Sharon Cousins


text:
Arjuna. Thou whom all mortals praise, Janardana!
If meditation be a nobler thing
Than action, wherefore, then, great Kesava!
Dost thou impel me to this dreadful fight?
Now am I by thy doubtful speech disturbed!
Tell me one thing, and tell me certainly;
By what road shall I find the better end?
Krishna. I told thee, blameless Lord! there be paths
Shown to this world; two schools of wisdom. First
The Sankhya's, which doth save in way of works
Prescribed by reason; next, the Yog, which bids
Attain by meditation, spiritually:
Yet these are one! No man shall 'scape from act
By shunning action; nay, and none shall come
By mere renouncements unto perfectness.
Nay, and no jot of time, at any time,
Rests any actionless; his nature's law
Compels him, even unwilling, into act;
[For thought is act in fancy]. He who sits
Suppressing all the instruments of flesh,
Yet in his idle heart thinking on them,
Plays the inept and guilty hypocrite:
But he who, with strong body serving mind,
Gives up his mortal powers to worthy work,
Not seeking gain, Arjuna! such an one
Is honourable. Do thine allotted task!
Work is more excellent than idleness;
The body's life proceeds not, lacking work.
There is a task of holiness to do,
Unlike world-binding toil, which bindeth not
The faithful soul; such earthly duty do
Free from desire, and thou shalt well perform
Thy heavenly purpose. Spake Prajapati --
In the beginning, when all men were made,
And, with mankind, the sacrifice -- "Do this!
Work! sacrifice! Increase and multiply
With sacrifice! This shall be Kamaduk,
Your 'Cow of Plenty,' giving back her milk
Of all abundance. Worship the gods thereby;
The gods shall yield thee grace. Those meats ye
The gods will grant to Labour, when it pays
Tithes in the altar-flame. But if one eats
Fruits of the earth, rendering to kindly Heaven
No gift of toil, that thief steals from his world."
Who eat of food after their sacrifice
Are quit of fault, but they that spread a feast
All for themselves, eat sin and drink of sin.
By food the living live; food comes of rain,
And rain comes by the pious sacrifice,
And sacrifice is paid with tithes of toil;
Thus action is of Brahma, who is One,
The Only, All-pervading; at all times
Present in sacrifice. He that abstains
To help the rolling wheels of this great world,
Glutting his idle sense, lives a lost life,
Shameful and vain. Existing for himself,
Self-concentrated, serving self alone,
No part hath he in aught; nothing achieved,
Nought wrought or unwrought toucheth him; no hope
Of help for all the living things of earth
Depends from him. Therefore, thy task prescribed
With spirit unattached gladly perform,
Since in performance of plain duty man
Mounts to his highest bliss. By works alone
Janak and ancient saints reached blessedness!
Moreover, for the upholding of thy kind,
Action thou should'st embrace. What the wise choose
The unwise people take; what best men do
The multitude will follow. Look on me,
Thou Son of Pritha! in the three wide worlds
I am not bound to any toil, no height
Awaits to scale, no gift remains to gain,
Yet I act here! and, if I acted not --
Earnest and watchful -- those that look to me
For guidance, sinking back to sloth again
Because I slumbered, would decline from good,
And I should break earth's order and commit
Her offspring unto ruin, Bharata!
Even as the unknowing toil, wedded to sense,
So let the enlightened toil, sense-freed, but set
To bring the world deliverance, and its bliss;
Not sowing in those simple, busy hearts
Seed of despair. Yea! let each play his part
In all he finds to do, with unyoked soul.
All things are everywhere by Nature wrought
In interaction of the quahties.
The fool, cheated by self, thinks, "This I did"
And "That I wrought;" but -- ah, thou strong-armed Prince! --
A better-lessoned mind, knowing the play
Of visible things within the world of sense,
And how the qualities must qualify,
Standeth aloof even from his acts. Th' untaught
Live mixed with them, knowing not Nature's way,
Of highest aims unwitting, slow and dull.
Those make thou not to stumble, having the light;
But all thy dues discharging, for My sake,
With meditation centred inwardly,
Seeking no profit, satisfied, serene,
Heedless of issue -- fight! They who shall keep
My ordinance thus, the wise and willing hearts,
Have quittance from all issue of their acts;
But those who disregard My ordinance,
Thinking they know, know nought, and fall to loss,
Confused and foolish. 'Sooth, the instructed one
Doth of his kind, following what fits him most:
And lower creatures of their kind; in vain
Contending 'gainst the law. Needs must it be
The objects of the sense will stir the sense
To like and dislike, yet th' enlightened man
Yields not to these, knowing them enemies.
Finally, this is better, that one do
His own task as he may, even though he fail,
Than take tasks not his own, though they seem good.
To die performing duty is no ill;
But who seeks other roads shall wander still.
Arjuna. Yet tell me, Teacher! by what force doth man
Go to his ill, unwilling; as if one
Pushed him that evil path?
Krishna. Kama it is!
Passion it is! born of the Darknesses,
Which pusheth him. Mighty of appetite,
Sinful, and strong is this! -- man's enemy!
As smoke blots the white fire, as clinging rust
Mars the bright mirror, as the womb surrounds
The babe unborn, so is the world of things
Foiled, soiled, enclosed in this desire of flesh.
The wise fall, caught in it; the unresting foe
It is of wisdom, wearing countless forms,
Fair but deceitful, subtle as a flame.
Sense, mind, and reason -- these, O Kunti's Son!
Are booty for it; in its play with these
It maddens man, beguiling, blinding him.
Therefore, thou noblest child of Bharata!
Govern thy heart! Constrain th' entangled sense!
Resist the false, soft sinfulness which saps
Knowledge and judgment! Yea, the world is strong
But what discerns it stronger, and the mind
Strongest; and high o'er all the ruling Soul.
Wherefore, perceiving Him who reigns supreme,
Put forth full force of Soul in thy own soul!
Fight! vanquish foes and doubts, dear Hero! slay
What haunts thee in fond shapes, and would betray!
Entitled "Karma-Yog,"
Or "The Book of Virtue in Work."


text:
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text:
Canadian Association of Law Libraries 2014 Conference - Expanding the Influence of the Law Library
Lambert, a member of the executive board of the American Association of Law Libraries and the Director of Library & Research Services at Jackson Walker LLP in Houston, Texas, gave a presentation on the "Three Foot Radius of the Law Library" .
By that, he means that law librarians need to stop thinking of the library as a place, and start thinking instead of the services that are provided. This will require working to get clients to a point where they no longer think of the bricks and mortar, the tables, books on shelves etc. when they think of the law library. In other words, the "3-foot radius" means that where librarians walk through their organization, that is the library. It is less a place and more a "bubble of service".
To put that new brand idea into practice, Lambert had a number of suggestions.
- Get out: your space does not define you anymore, do you really need to be in physical proximity to the collection(s)? Is it possible to become embedded in the space where faculty members have offices, inside law firm practice groups, or where clients spend their time? This can mean suddenly being able to be part of conversations, and to engage with leaders. As an example, he mentioned a library reference desk being moved out into the foyer of a local family court in Texas
- Listen: what are leaders discussing, what are they doing and not doing, what are their pain points? Law librarians should be looking for opportunities to get involved to help the organization cope with these stresses. And most of all, law librarians must get over being afraid to ask what leaders are up to, what they need, what they are afraid of
- Solve problems that help customers get back to their core functions: profs want to teach and research, lawyers want to practice, judges want to hear cases. Yet, to use one example Lambert referred to, many judges find themselves spending an inordinate amount of time helping self-represented litigants understand and fill out forms
- Expand the library's reach: this can be done by doing non-library things. He gave the example of an entreprising librarian in Travis County, Texas who proposed setting up a self-help centre in the library for self-represented litigants in family law cases. The librarian convinced the court to assign 2 attorneys to work in the library to help with case-related paperwork and litigants were not authorized to show up in the courtroom until one of the 2 attorneys signed off on the forms. Last year, that local family court handled 80,000 clients and was able to speed up many of its procedures
Labels: careers, conferences, law libraries, library management


text:
Welcome to Chris Power's regular wander around the world of all kinds of pixelated sounds.
Robert Hood - Minimal Nation (Special Edition) (M-Plant)
Originally released in 1994, Minimal Nation is Robert Hood's undoubted masterpiece. Rather than just being a personal milestone it's also one of modern techno's greatest monuments, an album that proves endlessly rewarding (well, fifteen years and counting, anyway) in spite of the austerity of its construction.
Just so we're clear, this isn't 'mnml' minimal, much of which - in terms of chord progressions and structure - has far more in common with progressive house (compared to which both it and pretty much everything else is indeed very minimal) than 'proper' techno. While he makes no claims for his music other than it being designed to get people off their butts and onto the dancefloor, Hood's brand of minimalism can be seen to be of a piece with that of Reich, Glass and Riley. Like much of theirs his music changes while appearing to stay the same, the patterns he builds shifting microscopically from bar to bar. 'Museum' is typical, both in that it's constructed from just five sounds (three of which are percussive), and in that it's stunning. Remastered and expanded to include tracks left off the original version (not for reasons of quality, to be sure), this is about as essential as it gets. If you don't already own it, just listen to the bleep funk of 'Ride' or the swirling beauty of 'Sleep Cycle' and, shortly afterwards, you probably will (listen).
Pinch - Attack of the Giant Killer Robot Spiders! / Starkey - Miracles (Jamie Vex'd Remix) / Venetian Snares - Horsey Noises (Planet Mu)
Planet Mu is having a brilliant 2009 and a ludicrously good June. Tripping over the heels of the recently drooled-over debut from FaltyDL come three killer 12s. I wasn't taken with Pinch's 'Attack of...' the first couple of times I listened to it, but keep at it and an addictive tune comes scurrying out of the bowels of this seemingly disjointed and forbidding collage of tightly wound 2-step beats, one-note sub-bass and sad, airy pads that catch in your ear with subtle, blink-(or whatever the aural equivalent is)-and-you'll-miss-them glissandos. In the track's second half the bass clambers to the front of the mix, the pads pulse back and forth and an eastern melody trickles between the two. I think I can hear some human voices somewhere way down deep in the mix, as well, although this might just be proof of surrender to my family's unfortunate proclivity for dementia (listen).
Jamie Vex'd's remix of Starkey's 'Miracles' (listen) is every bit as detailed, expanding the understated original without losing its elegiacal feel, the vocal sample twisted and tweaked mercilessly atop chiming bass tones and heavy, intricate, casutically edited beats. On the flip Starkey's 'Creature' begins by getting its fraught and distorted wonk well and truly on before subsiding into a breakdown that blends clock chimes (this is a chime-heavy slab of wax), a distant vocal and a single strum of what I'm reasonably sure is a lute. But probably isn't.
Completing this excellent triumvirate, foul-mouthed CanadianVenetian Snares stuns the world (well, the electronica world; possibly certain equestrian circles) and throws down some vocals on the dementedly poppy 'Horsey Noises' (listen). 'Hey horse-teeth girl/I wanna make you make horsey noises' he sings to a percolating bass melody and some clattery, jazzy and glitched-up drum work. You know when people say "in a perfect world song x would go to number one"? Well, if this song went to number one the world wouldn't be perfect at all: it'd be chock-full of drug-addled lunatics and violent psychotics. Awesome track, though.
Jacaszek - Pentral (Gusstaff)
Cure fans of a certain age might remember the summer of 1989 as a fraught time of life, one dominated by leaps made in the direction of cheap stereo equipment as those lovely and very, very quiet wind chimes that open Disintegration gave way to an organ blast so loud as to streak your mascara. Imagine the opening chord of 'Plainsong' chopped and stretched to a minute in length, then the wind chimes, and you've got the basic idea of 'II', a stunning (literally) track from Jacaszek's Pentral. Those expecting a similar ride to that offered by last year's sublime and rapturously received Treny might be discomfited by its lack of lush melodies, but perseverance reveals this to be an equally rewarding experience.
Recorded in three of Gdansk's oldest churches, Pentral is an attempt to describe a Gothic church interior in sound. It's certainly easy enough while listening to visualise ribbed and vaulting domes, smoky depths and guttering candles - hell, maybe even a transept or a clerestory or two. Found sounds mingle with strings chopped and modulated in a Murcof-like fashion, scraps of incredibly moving (or, in the case of 'VIII', very eerie) choral singing, tolling bells and digital squelches embedded deep in the mix. Aside from those trouser-spoiling organ blasts, this is a journey so subtle that by the time you reach the meditative climax of 'X' the most scant of editions to the sound design seem epic. I've no idea where Jacaszek is headed next, but I'm going there too.
Hand on heart, you might get a little more out of this making of film if you're a Polish speaker:
Bodycode - Immune (Spectral Sound)
Alan Abrahams records as Portable when he's in tribal, microhouse mood, preserving his Bodycode moniker for productions aimed more at the dancefloor. That said, his second album under the name is a collection of deep tracks that, funky as they are, provide equally as much armchair'n'headphones pleasure. The spacious dynamics of 'Meaning and Memory' set micro vocal samples criss-crossing over one another, the percussive and melodic elements so tightly enmeshed that it becomes difficult, and then impossible, to discern where one element ends and another begins.
The haunting title track sets ponderous piano chords against a rich baritone refrain, but it's single 'What Did You Say' (available to totally legally download here) that takes pole position. A retro jacking house track with a tightly funky, muffled bassline that warps around Lerato's increasingly messed with (and messed up) 'How can you say you'll live without me?/How can you say you wanna leave me?', this is already tailor-made for misbehaving to in extremely dark rooms even before the bleeped-out 303 kicks in.
The Result - Niagara EP (Catenaccio)
To Anglophone types with an interest in the beautiful game the Italian word 'catenaccio' ('door-bolt') is usually familiar only as a once influential defensive system first employed by Inter Milan in the 1960s. Those who know their techno onions, however, might also recognise it as an excellent Berlin-based label the list of contributors to which includes Ricardo Villalobos, Jay Haze and Butane. The Result comprises label-head Benjamin Fehr and the extravagantly named Falko Brocksieper (boss of Sub Static), who have cooked up two lengthy and seriously involving techno tracks. 'Give Up' builds from skeletal beginnings into a swinging juggernaut, woodbock percussion and snipped vocal samples fighting for space with detuned radio effects. On the A-side 'Niagara' proves an immersive experience, it's popping beat and delayed stabs accompanied by some freakish vocal samples (they're really there this time, believe me) that sound like someone in quite serious distress. Not 'fun' as such, but 100% engaging (listen).
The Village Orchestra - I Can Hear the Sirens Singing Again (Highpoint Lowlife)
A live performance given to soundtrack the screening of an episode of Takashi 'Master of Pain' Miike's mini-series MPD Psycho_, I Can Hear the Sirens Singing Again is a one-track, hour-long ambient production from prolific Glaswegian Ruaridh Law, who also records as Accrual, Village Unit and TVO. Moving through passages of granular fizz, drone, running water, turntablist spinbacks, backwards vocals and some vast, echoing reverberations, it's a fascinating piece of work even when experienced separately from weird Japanese telly (listen).
William Fowler Collins - Perdition Hill Radio (Type)
Similarly ambient but of a pronouncedly darker hue, New Mexican William Fowler Collins takes listeners by the ears and drags them to some extremely menacing places on his new album. Until he blew it off, this are probably the sounds Bobby Peru had in his head the whole time. Comprising turbulent, stormy drones with titles like 'Grave Robbing in Texas', there is nevertheless an unholy beauty to be found embedded deep inside the pitch desert blackness. 'Dark Country Road' and 'The Ghost of Eden Trail' mark particular highs in this respect, their melodic line formed, I think, from heavily processed slide guitar licks. The title track and 'Slow Motion Prayer Circle', by contrast, are characterised by a seething white noise that sounds like - in fact probably originally was - wind blowing through mounds of cracked skulls. Music to pick up homicidal hitchhikers to.
Untold - Just For You (Hotflush Two)
Going all 4/4 and ravey, Jack Dunning isn't just ignoring the dubstep production rulebook, he's refusing to allow his own experimentalism become a rigid style in its own right. 'Just For You' floats a light Fantazia-era melody above clattering breakbeats, judiciously used piano stabs and some rush-provoking (well, this is a rave tune we're talking about) pads. UK funky don Roska slows down the tempo, thrusts some purposeful bounce into the bottom end and scatters conga hits around the central metallic snare. His habit of punctuating his tracks with idents ('Roska, Roska, Roska, Roska' etc.) grates a bit, but I suppose it saves you firing up Shazam in the club.
And finally, some one-line wonders...
Slugabed - Gritsalt/Let's Go Swimming (Ramp)
Slugabed borrows from Skweee but dirties it into something enticingly raw, countermanding the genre's Nathan Barley elements in a trice (listen).
Mathew Jonson - Walking on the Hands That Follow Me (Wagon Repair) Label owner Jonson takes responsibility for Wagon Repair's 50th release, the meandering mid-tempo intricacies of B-side 'When Love Feels Like Crying' providing the standout moment and, dropped at the right time, capable of provoking mass weeping (listen).
Gui Boratto - No Turning Back remixes (Kompakt) The Mole turns this, one of the better tracks from Boratto's disappointing Take My Breath Away, into a moreish tripped-out kosmische excursion, while Wighnomy Brothers keep the vocal intact but recontextualise it as a seductively brooding techno torch song.
James Ruskin - Sabre/Massk (Blueprint) 'Massk' is businesslike techno that Marcel Dettmann has been hammering of late, but 'Sabre' is altogether more unusual: a beatless, insectoid metallic twang pans around for dancefloor-clearing duration before Ruskin grudgingly remembers his job and allows an astringent beat and fractured, dystopian synth lines to creep in (listen)
Donato Dozzy & Cio D'or - Menta (Time to Express) Rome meets Cologne in the form of this hypnotic techno collaboration, with both 'Menta' (listen) and 'Limone', simultaneously moody and uplifting, operating on the border between minimal and subliminal.
Walter Jones - I'll Keep On Loving You (DFA) If 2009 witnesses a more summery combination than the corpulent synths, dishevelled backbeat, yacht rock guitar licks and warmly echoing vocal of Jones's DFA debut I'll eat my sun visor and wash it down with a pint of Hawaiian Tropic (listen).
And we're done. Parting is such sweet sorrow and all that, but I'll attempt to sugar the pill with Londoner L-Vis 1990's absolutely killer 'United Groove' (Mad Decent). He - probably pisstakingly - calls his style hyperbass, blending as it does the best bits of grime, funky, dubstep, tribal and jungle. Whatever it is, it's moreish.
Video: L-Vis 1990 'United Groove' (edit)
Chris Power is one half of British Males.


text:
When I received a review copy of the newly-published book, Facing Infertility – A Catholic Approach, I was a bit surprised there wasn't already a Catholic book which specifically dealt with the topic of infertility. When I searched online, I could only find secular or Christian books on this subject.
Jean Dimech-Juchniewicz's new book is an ideal resource for Catholic couples who want more information on increasing their chances of conceiving. At the same time, she explains why certain fertility procedures are morally wrong.
Because of a variety of factors, infertility has become increasingly common in our culture. Fortunately, with advances in modern technology, more infertile couples are able to conceive children. However, not all of these modern techniques are morally acceptable. For example, selective abortion and destroying embryos that are not implanted are procedures that are obviously wrong. But many Catholics don't realize that in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and other modern techniques are considered offenses against our faith (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2376, 2377) and considered mortal sins.
Dimech-Juchniewicz shares her personal infertility experience as well as the various things she learned in the process. She also includes short testimonies from infertile couples. Chapters touch on topics such as Expecting Fruitfulness, Working Through Denial, Understanding Your Options, Discerning Treatment, Handling Anger, Coping With Sadness, Considering Adoption, Following God in the Midst of Suffering and many others. Questions for Reflection and Discussion end each chapter. Several extensive appendices list resources for the infertility couple such as "Patron Saints for Infertile Couples" as well as prayers and other helpful books.
This is an outstanding book and an excellent resource. The emotional and spiritual dimensions of infertility are covered exceptionally well. Information on NaPro Technology and Natural Family Planning are mentioned and resources are given for these morally acceptable ways of achieving pregnancy.
Highly recommend!