text:
RSF Report: "China's Pursuit of a New World Media Order"
In a report titled "China's Pursuit of a New World Media Order", Reporters Without Borders (RSF) investigates Beijing's strategy to control information beyond its borders, a project that poses a threat to press freedom throughout the world.
China, ranked 177 out of 180 in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters READ THE REPORTHEREWithout Borders (RSF), is expanding its hold beyond its borders to impose its "ideologically correct" vocabulary, to deter any criticism of itself and to cover up the darker chapters in its history. Less well known than the Belt and Road Initiative, but just as ambitious, this project poses a threat to press freedom throughout the world.
This is what RSF reveals in its investigative report entitled "China's Pursuit of a New World Media Order", available in French, English and Chinese versions on its website rsf.org. The NGO highlights the strategy deployed by the Chinese state to achieve its goals. These strategies include: modernizing its international TV broadcasting, buying extensive amounts of advertising in international media, infiltrating foreign media... but also employing blackmail, intimidation and harassment on a massive scale.
"In the spirit of the Beijing regime, journalists are not intended to be a counter-power but rather to serve the propaganda of states," says Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of RSF. "If democracies do not resist, Beijing will impose his view and his propaganda, which is a threat for journalism and democracy".
Training "critical thinking" in Beijing
Over the past decade, China has invested massively in developing media capable of reaching an international public. And it has succeeded: state-owned CGTN broadcasts TV programmes in 140 countries and China Radio International broadcasts in 65 languages.
The regime has managed to convince tens of thousands of journalists in emerging countries to go on all-expense-paid trips to Beijing to "train their critical mind" in exchange for favorable press coverage. As for the Chinese diaspora media, many of which used to be critical of the regime, almost all have been bought out and disseminated into the propaganda apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Violence and intimidation
Beijing is also exporting its censorship and surveillance tools, including the Baidu search engine and WeChat instant messaging platform, and encouraging authoritarian states to copy its repressive regulations, a particularly effective strategy in Southeast Asia.
Beijing calls for intimidation and violence to silence dissidents, even in democratic nations. From freelance reporters to major media outlets, from publishing houses to social media platforms, no link in the news production chain is immune to the "invisible hand" of Beijing. Even Chinese ambassadors no longer hesitate to openly denigrate press articles that question the official narrative of China, and often in rather undiplomatic ways. Democracies are struggling to react in the face of these threats.


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The AsiaBSDCon 2010 ended with great success. Thank you very much for your attending!
- 20100312: iCalender file is avaiable. (Thank you, Rui!)
- 20100312: Experimental streaming of the paper sessions from the venue is planned. See details.
- 20100310: On-line registration now closed. On-site registration will be available at the desk.
- 20100309: On-line registration will close today. Register Now!
- 20100219: On-line registration now open!
- 20100212: The time table has been updated. On-line registration will open soon!
- 20091015: Initial update for AsiaBSDCon 2010. Please pencil "11-14 March 2010" into your schedule book!
AsiaBSDCon is a conference for users and developers on BSD based systems. The next conference will be held in Tokyo, in 11-14 March, 2010. The conference is for anyone developing, deploying and using systems based on FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, Darwin and MacOS X. AsiaBSDCon is a technical conference and aims to collect the best technical papers and presentations available to ensure that the latest developments in our open source community are shared with the widest possible audience.
General Chair
Hiroki Sato (FreeBSD Project, Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Program Committee Members
George V. Neville-Neil (Neville-Neil Consulting)
Hidetoshi Shimokawa (FreeBSD Project)
Mark T. Uemura (OpenBSD Support Japan, Inc.)
Masao Uebayashi (The NetBSD Foundation)
Important Dates for AsiaBSDCon 2010
- 20 December 2009
- Deadline for Paper Submission
- 20 December 2009
- Deadline for Submission of Tutorial Proposals
- 11 January 2010
- Notification of Acceptance of Papers and Tutorial Proposals
- 28 January 2010
- Deadline for Submission of Final Papers and Tutorial Materials
- 11 March 2010
- Conference 1st day: Tutorials and Meetings 1
- 12 March 2010
- Conference 2nd day: Tutorials and Meetings 2
- 13 March 2010
- Conference 3rd day: Paper Session 1
- 14 March 2010
- Conference 4th day: Paper Session 2
Experimental Streaming
The following was available. These experimental services may or may not work.
- ustream.tv, SD quality
- http://www.ustream.tv/channel/asiabsdcon-2010
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/asiabsdcon-2010-track2 - HD quality one (Silverlight required)
- http://bunji01.ipcasting.jp/asiabsdcon/

subset: commoncrawl


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The data files ("UCSC Chain Files") in this directory are property of The Regents of the University of California, and made available free for non-commercial use by Independent Researchers and Nonprofit Organizations. Any other use of UCSC Chain Files requires a commercial license, for which users should contact firstname.lastname@example.com. As used herein, "Independent Researcher" means an individual who is autonomous with respect to the research activities for which he or she uses the UCSC Chain Files (note: such use does not extend to any use of the UCSC Chain Files at the direction and/or for the benefit of a for-profit organization); and "Nonprofit Organization" means a university or other institution of higher education, or a not-for-profit organization officially recognized or qualified under the laws of the country in which it is organized or located, or any nonprofit scientific or educational organization qualified under a federal, state or local jurisdiction's nonprofit organization statute. Downloading or using UCSC Chain Files indicates your acceptance of the End User License Agreement (EULA) posted at "https://genome.ucsc.edu/license/EULA.pdf"; redistribution of UCSC Chain Files by you must include this README file with these license restrictions, in the same archive or directory with the chain files. This directory contains the data files required as input to the liftOver utility. This tool -- which requires a Linux platform -- allows the mass conversion of coordinates from one assembly to another. The executable file for the utility can be downloaded from http://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/admin/exe/ The file names reflect the assembly conversion data contained within in the format <db1>To<db2>.over.chain.gz. For example, a file named hg15Tohg16.zip file contains the liftOver data needed to convert hg15 (Human Build 33) coordinates to hg16 (Human Build 34). If no file is available for the assembly in which you're interested, please send a request to the genome mailing list (firstname.lastname@example.com) and we will attempt to provide you with one. To download a large file or multiple files from this directory, we recommend that you use ftp rather than downloading the files via our website. To do so, ftp to hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu, then go to the appropriate goldenPath/<assembly>/liftOver directory. To download multiple files, use the "mget" command: mget <filename1> <filename2> ... - or - mget -a (to download all the files in the directory) ------------------------------------------------------- Please refer to the credits page (http://genome.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/credits.html) for guidelines and restrictions regarding data use for these assemblies.
Name Last modified Size Description
Parent Directory - md5sum.txt 2006-03-23 09:55 57 mm2ToMm5.over.chain.gz 2006-01-23 13:15 4.0M


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IQ Societies |
Material on This Site |
External to This Site |
Change History |
Uncommonly Difficult IQ TestsWeb site was created and maintained by Darryl Miyaguchi until 2004. It is now hosted here to preserve its content.
Last updated April 24, 2004 |
About 400,000 visitors from June 10, 1997 to December, 2000.
Thinkers International email discussion group (Hi-IQ membership not required)
High IQ email society (Hi-IQ membership not required) [Wayback Machine link is dead]
Vitruvian Society (email list with no high IQ requirement)
High IQ Society.com 95th percentile
Mensa (USA site) 98th percentile
Sigma Society 98th percentile
Top One Percent Society 99th percentile
Mysterium 98th percentile
Intertel 99th percentile
Colloquy 99.5th percentile, email society
Poetic Genius Society 99.5th percentile
Cerebrals.com 99.7th percentile
One in A Thousand Society 99.9th percentile
International Society for Philosophical Enquiry 99.9th percentile
Triple Nine Society 99.9th percentile
Glia Society 99.9th percentile; Also, GliaWeb
IQuadrivium Society 99.9th percentile
SesquIQ 99.9th percentile
Minzar - The High IQ Society for Christians 99.9537th percentile [Wayback Machine]
Prometheus Society 99.997th percentile
Ultranet 99.997th percentile
* The Mega Society Page (West Coast) or Another site, with online issues of Noesis 99.9999th percentile
* The Mega Society Page (East Coast) and its online issues of Noesis-E. 99.9999th percentile [Vol. 1, No. 1 on Wayback Machine]
The Pi Society Page 99.9999th percentile
Mega HIQ Girls 99.9999th percentile among women [Wayback Machine]
Giga Society 99.9999999th percentile
* See this page for an explanation for multiple Mega Society links
Grady Towers was well-known and highly respected in the high IQ societies. Some of his finest contributions to the journals can be found at the Prometheus Society's website:
The Outsiders
Da Capo (not available online)
Theories of Multiple Intelligence
NOTE: In late November and early December of 1999, the Mega Test was compromised in high-visibility public forums, such that I no longer feel it is appropriate to host the test on this website.
The following is modified from Scot Morris's introduction to the Mega Test, in Omni magazine, Games column, April 1985, p. 128:
Most intelligence (or I.Q.) tests are designed so that average people get average scores, clustered around the midpoint I.Q. of 100. The tests are most powerful at their middle ranges, where the difference between an I.Q. of 100 and 105 may be a matter of several questions on the test itself. But at their upper ends, the tests don't seem to discriminate nearly as well -- the five-point difference between I.Q. scores of 145 and 150, say, may translate into raw-score differences of only one or two test questions.
There have been various tests devised over the years that make fine distinctions in the intellectual stratosphere. The idea is to make a test so difficult that geniuses will get average scores, and only supergeniuses will be able to achieve the highest scores.
Various high-I.Q. organizations have been established over the years. Mensa, the most famous group, is open to one person in 50 -- that is, people in the upper 2 percent of the population (98th percentile). The Top One Percent Society and Intertel have cutoffs at the 99th percentile, and the One-in-a-Thousand and the Triple Nine Societies have cutoffs at the 99.9th percentile. The Prometheus Society shoots for 1 in 30,000. But the most restrictive group is the Mega Society, which is theoretically limited to one person in a million (the 99.9999th percentile).
The founder of Mega and the author of one of its admissions tests is Ronald Hoeflin, of New York. At Omni Magazine's request, Hoeflin split his original long-form test into two parts of 48 questions each. One part, called the Mega Test, originally appeared in Omni (April, 1985, Games column). The other part appeared in the Omni I.Q. Quiz Contest, complete with answers (Marilyn Mach vos Savant, 1985; Published by McGraw-Hill Company, New York; Copyright by Omni Publication International, Ltd., and Marilyn Mach vos Savant, ISBN 0-07-039377-X).
Hoeflin estimates that the Mega Test has a floor of 100 (which means that if you get no questions right, your I.Q. is somewhere below 100) and a ceiling of 190+. At Omni's request, prior to its publication in the magazine, the test was administered to more than 150 people -- all members of the major high-I.Q. societies, in order to show, for example, that Mega members score higher than members of Prometheus, who score higher than members of Triple Nine, and so on.
1Of the test's 48 questions, 10 correct corresponds to an I.Q. of 133, the cutoff for membership in Mensa (although Mensa does not accept results of unsupervised tests like the Mega); 14 right, an I.Q. of 138, qualifies one for membership in the Top One Percent Society; 24 right, an I.Q. of 150, qualifies for the One-in-a-Thousand Society, 36 right, an I.Q. of 164, qualifies for the Prometheus Society, and 43 right, or an estimated I.Q. of 177, is the cutoff for joining the Mega Society.
One of the Omni readers who scored highest on the Mega Test was John H. Sununu, then the governor of New Hampshire, and later Chief of Staff under President Bush. His score of 44 correct gave him an estimated I.Q. of 180 (achievable by approximately one in 3 million). Marilyn vos Savant scored 46 (I.Q. of 186) on her first attempt. Two others have scored 46 on their first attempt (Note that Ron now specifies that only one attempt is allowed). About 3 people have scored 47, but only on a second attempt. This includes Eric Hart. "Eric Hart" turned out to be a pseudonym for an individual who scored 42 on his first attempt of the Mega Test [Ron Hoeflin, in a letter to me, made the distinction between first and second attempts of Eric Hart]. About 3 people have scored 45 right, including Steve Schuessler (who worked at NASA). Sununu's score of 44 has been tied by 3 or 4 other people so far, including Rick Rosner, who edited the Mega Society journal, Noesis. Of the three highest scores (46 right), two are women.
In reply to a letter I wrote to him, Chris Langan, the alter-ego of Eric Hart, has written that he sees no reason to conceal his identity any longer. It is his contention that his score of 47 could (or should) be counted as a first attempt, since his test-taking strategy was to minimize the effort and time required achieve the mega-level, which was 42 right in the original Omni magazine introduction to the Mega Test. One of my comments to him was:
"Your explanation of Eric's test-taking strategy is interesting; I suspect that few people who scored in this range followed the same strategy of maximizing the score-to-time-spent ratio with the goal of achieving a score of at least 42 correct. For those who are able, I would think there would be a powerful motivation to achieve the highest score possible, period."
His response was:
"As you speculate, the same mathematics [game or decision theory] can also be used to justify trying for the highest possible score. Mathematical expectation, as expressed by the gain/cost ratio, allows "gain" and "cost" to be defined in various ways. If one takes great pleasure in the solution of IQ test problems or in (meaningless) competition with other testees, then one might regard every minute spent on such a test as emotionally "gainful." And if one has nothing better to do anyway, the cost to one's other pursuits may be small. This can result in a higher perceived gain/cost ratio for solving as many problems as possible, at least for idle puzzle addicts."
1 The raw score equivalent IQ's are from Ron Hoeflin's sixth norming. The original column by Scot Morris read as follows:
Of the test's 48 questions: 8 correct corresponds to an I.Q. of 134, the cutoff for membership in Mensa; 22 right, and I.Q. of 150, qualifies one for membership in the Triple Nine Society; 33 or above, corresponding to a 164 I.Q., qualifies one for membership in the Prometheus Society; 42 right, or an estimated I.Q. of 176, is the cutoff for joining the Mega Society.
The Titan Test is a more difficult twin to the Mega Test. It consists of the best problems from six preliminary tests that were tried out on volunteers between 1985 and 1988. The May 14, 1997 issue of The Wall Street Journal 2 reports that "Rick Rosner, a TV writer, bar bouncer, nude model [is] the only person to get a perfect score on Dr. Hoeflin's latest test [I am informed that the test referred to is the Titan, which is no longer the latest test -- DTM]."
2 Visit the "More Reading Material Page" for summary information about this article.
Third in the series of tests that Ron Hoeflin has designed. First indications are that this test has a floor of about 100 I.Q. and a ceiling of about 180, which makes it slightly easier than the Mega or Titan and accessible to a wider group of people.
Combines the best problems from the Mega, Titan, and Ultra Tests, while omitting the verbal analogies and number sequences. Non-native English speakers may thus prefer this test to the others (and it can be more readily translated, if needed). Also, this test provides a legitimate avenue for resubmitting answers to problems on the other tests (as long as the test taker believes the Hoeflin Power Test is still a valid measure of his intelligence). So far (as of January 2001), the high scorer on the Power Test has been David Michael Fabian of Buffalo/Houston.
04/24/04 Chris Cole wrote to me: "As you know the Mega Society has been looking around for a new entrance test now that the Mega Test has been compromised. Were currently using the Titan Test but I fear that it will also be compromised in the future. Accordingly, some members of the Society have been working on a cheat-resistant test that can be administered online. It has several cheat-resistant features, one of which is that it never asks the same question twice. It is currently in a very preliminary stage, but you can take a look at it at www.mental-testing.com. The test is adaptive in the sense that it adjusts your score as more people take it. This is because the estimated difficulty of the questions is changed as more people take the test. I wonder if youd be willing to help us get some sample test takers by featuring it on your site? 04/12/03 Ron writes: "I am no longer going to score the Ultra Test or the Hoeflin Power Test, but am still willing to score the Titan Test and Mega Test. I am lowering the scoring fee for the latter two from $30 to $25, payable to 'Ronald K. Hoeflin.' Those requesting a copy of the Mega Test should send $25 with their request for the copy rather than waiting to pay if and when they send their answers. The Mega Society, One-in-a-Thousand Society, and Top One Percent Society all accept the Titan Test for admission purposes but only the latter two societies accept the Mega Test for admission." 09/24/01 Ron writes: "The lower scoring fee of $20 for my tests does not seem to be stimulating much interest, so please raise the fee to $30 per test." 07/30/01 My email address is changing to "miyaguch at eskimo dot com" 05/20/01 Tommy Smith has retired the OCIP 04/07/01 Added Mega Test Score Interpretation Booklet (first norm) 04/05/01 Ron Hoeflin asked me to lower the advertised fee on each of his tests to $20. 03/05/01 I am reducing my activity on this site to bare minimum. 02/25/01 Added link to Brain Board 3 02/23/01 Added link to BrainBoard Continued's new location 02/23/01 Changed link to Glia brochure; added link to GliaWeb 02/23/01 Paul Cooijmans has a new email address 02/02/01 Added link to Bill Bultas's Difficult Analogies test 02/02/01 Added link to Noesis-E 02/02/01 Added link to Mega HIQ Girls 01/24/01 Luminary Society appears to be gone (Wayback Machine link) 01/18/01 Added Laurent Dubois's 9 I 6 01/18/01 Paul Cooijmans has an email address now 01/08/01 Added link to Vitruvian Society 01/08/01 Added link to Inner Sanctum 10/31/00 Added link to an additional Mega Society Page (with online issues of Noesis) 10/29/00 Added link to Nathan Haselbauer's NYC High IQ Society Membership Exam 10/28/00 Added link to Nicolas-Elena's Tests 10/28/00 Added Robert Lato's Logima Strictica 36 10/14/00 Paul Cooijmans is feeling better 10/13/00 Moved "Beta Test" information to the Tests section 10/13/00 Added link to UltraHIQ 10/07/00 Added Beta test Rasch analysis 10/06/00 Added Beta test score comparability with SAT 10/06/00 Added Greg Grove's Mysterium 10/06/00 Added 1966-68 ACT information 09/26/00 Added Beta test factor analysis 09/12/00 Added Beta test discrimination plots 09/10/00 Added Beta test correlation with SAT 08/22/00 Added Norming #2 of the Langdon Adult Intelligence Test 08/22/00 Added SesquIQ site 08/22/00 Added the Marilyn is Right! page 08/05/00 Added Easy Factor 2.5 and Rasch 1.0 programs 08/02/00 Added Bob Seitz' Vocabulary Page 07/31/00 Added Bob Seitz' page 07/30/00 Added Supplementary Statistical Data for the LAIT, Norming #2 07/29/00 Copied Herb Weiner's "Marilyn is Wrong!" site link to the main page. 07/29/00 Added link to Thomas Lisa's song, "Questions for Marilyn" 07/29/00 Added results of Power Test (46 scores) 07/29/00 Added Grady Towers's "The Empty Promise" 07/29/00 Added posthumous letter from Grady Towers -- my last from him 07/29/00 Added link to Scientific American's special issue on intelligence 07/23/00 Removed tests by Paul Cooijmans at his request. Paul is experiencing health problems and wishes to cut down on his incoming mail. 07/20/00 Added link to Queendom.com's "Culture-Fair IQ Test" 07/20/00 Added link to Nik Lygeros' M-classification 07/06/00 Removed Greg Grove's Ready Reckoner at his request 06/27/00 Added direct link to Xavier Jouve's "Encephalist IQ T1 revised" test. 06/27/00 Added link to the Luminary Society 06/04/00 The Giga Society now has an official web site 06/03/00 Added link to Geniusweb: (Purported) Geniuses on the Web 06/03/00 Added link to High IQ email society 06/03/00 Added link to the Minzar Society (for Christians) 05/30/00 Re-added link to Tommy Smith's and Joel Willis' OCIP, which is hosted on the Cerebrals.com site. 05/30/00 Added link to tests by Xavier Jouve 05/23/00 Added link to "The IQs of Eminent Geniuses" page, with corrections for the Flynn Effect. 05/23/00 The Poetic Genius Society continues with approval from Greg Grove 04/30/00 Added Paul Cooijmans's Test for ESP (with statistics) 04/26/00 Linked to Grady Towers's "Theories of Multiple Intelligence" 04/25/00 Greg Grove has discontinued the Poetic Genius Society 04/18/00 Tommy Smith has closed MentalMadness. 04/09/00 Added link to the Sigma Society. Thanks to Barry Howard for the information. Barry's High IQ site [Wayback Machine] 03/25/00 Added followup to Grady Towers's "On using multiple tests for high IQ society admissions." 03/01/00 Added link to Justin Chapman's page (who is 6.5 years old). 03/01/00 Added 1999 ACT national and state scores. Thanks to Mike Hess for the link. 03/01/00 Added data from 1972-73 GRE. Thanks to Mike Hess 02/20/00 Added The Final Test Statistical report, June 1999 02/19/00 Added TFG Short Form Statistical report, June 1999 02/16/00 Added link to SAT/ACT comparison (College Board). 02/14/00 Added Mental Madness's Online Store 02/12/00 Removed Boffin Board link (http://dewell.com/boffinboard/) (has been broken for a long time). 02/01/00 Linked to Paul Maxim's website 01/25/00 Added link to Kevin Langdon's Polymath Systems Home Page (still in skeleton form). 01/22/00 Added Enigmus's Discussion Forum; Perception Test removed and replaced with The Chaos 01/19/00 Added link to Cerebrals.com 01/19/00 Changed link to Mega Society Page (West Coast). Thanks once more to Barry Howard for the information. Barry's High IQ site [Wayback Machine] 01/18/00 Added results of Hoeflin's "Smartest Person in the World Contest" 01/11/00 Added explanations for the compromise and removal of the Mega Test. 01/11/00 Paul Cooijmans revised the TFG (long form). 01/06/00 Added Peter Schmies' Quantity Quiz 01/06/00 Added link to the Mega Foundation's Ultranet (Global Ultra HiQ Network). 01/03/00 Paul Cooijmans dropped his idea for recruiting new testers.


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[A]s scrutiny of his record intensifies, it's hard for many to decide exactly what McConnell is: conservative, liberal, or a perplexing blend of both.
Capitol Hill sources and other players in the increasingly frenzied Supreme Court sweepstakes place McConnell, a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, at or near the top of the short list of possible picks for the high court if a vacancy occurs later this month.
And while some liberals like McConnell, others are gearing up for a battle royal against him, especially over his sharp opposition to abortion rights and his deep support for school vouchers and for aid to parochial schools.
"He is very troubling, and very likely," says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Yet if President George W. Bush appoints McConnell, 50, it appears he will have at least some support from liberal academics, as he did when more than 300 law professors supported him for the appeals court judgeship in 2002. "He has integrity, smarts, and is more open to a range of views than others we might get," says one liberal law school ally of McConnell who did not want his name revealed before a vacancy materializes.
UPDATE: Am I for Justice McConnell?, a commenter asked. I'm certainly one of the 300 lawprofs who signed the letter Mauro refers to. And I love the idea of a "perplexing blend" of liberal and conservative, and not just because that's what I consider myself. I'm sure my blend is different from his. But what I want is a real human being, a hardworking, serious scholar, who is not an ideologue, but someone we really can trust for the next thirty years. It will be a credit to President Bush if he picks Judge McConnell.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Gordon concurs.


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Determine Face Shape
Wigs and hairpieces should compliment the shape of your face. If you not sure about which wig style will be most flattering on you, use the following suggestions as a guide to find a wig that works with your face shape. At Wigsroyal, we discuss seven different face shapes, diamond, heart, oblong, oval, pear, round, and square, and what wig styles are most appropriate for those face shapes. To determine your face shape, look into a mirror and pull your hair back. Compare your face shape to our illustrations.
The Diamond shaped face has wider cheekbones with a narrow chin and forehead. A diamond-shaped face allows for lots of hairstyle options. Diamond shaped faces need a wig styled with fullness or width in the forehead hairline and the lower cheekbones of the face near the chin. Hair should be styled close to the head at the upper cheekbones where the face is broadest. Bands or a layered fringe will disguise a narrower forehead. The fullness at the jawbone with a style such as a bob or a shoulder length cut with jaunty layering to add some movement will give the illusion of a more oval shaped face. Wig styles that tuck in behind the ears also will work well, in addition to showing off your wonderful cheek bone structure.
The Heart shaped face has a large and wider forehead, high cheek bones, with sometimes a widow's peak hairline, and a narrow v-shaped chin. To soften the forehead width, look for a wig that allows you to bring some hair across it. Keep the hairstyle closer to the head near the eyes and fuller around the jaw, as well as below and in front of the earlobes where additional width is desired. A chin length bob is great for this type of face shape as it makes the jaw area appear wider and more balanced with the rest of your face. Longer, layered hairstyles also work well.
The Oblong shaped face has an elongated rectangular shape featuring a long straight cheekline. The wig style you choose should add width to help minimize the vertical length of your face. Look for wig styles that are short to medium in length with longer top layers such as wedges and graduated bob cuts. Chin and shoulder length looks that turn under or flutter out also work very well to add width. Straight across bangs, feathered bangs, or half bangs with side parts soften the forehead. Layered styles in medium and longer lengths with wavy and curly textures will flatter the face and neck while obscuring the straight long lines of an oblong face.
The Oval shaped face has no one area the is more dominant than another. An oval face is well proportioned, with the length of the face longer than the width. The oval face allows for the most versatility in wig choices. Most wig styles whether short or long, straight or wavy are suitable. Therefore, consider your best features such as eyes, checks, or mouth and then accentuate them with your wig style.
The Pear shaped face features a distinctly narrow forehead. The cheekbones and jaw line essentially broaden to showcase a wider look, while the chin adopts a rounded shape. With a pear shaped face it is best to look for wigs that will add volume above the jaw line. Layers create fullness on the upper half of the face. Don't be afraid to show your forehead which draws attention upward and away from a full jaw line. If you have bangs, angle them slightly and tuck them behind the ears to frame the jaw line and draw attention upward. Hair on the sides of your head and at the nape are best set and combed in a pattern close to the head since any style too voluminous will add weight to the bottom of the face.
The Round shaped face has a round chin and hairline with the widest part of the face through the cheekbones. Wig styles with a fullness and height at the crown, but not at the ears, are a good choice. Off center parts help reduce the roundness. Wigs with short hair styles with a swept-back direction or with hair styles that are longer than chin length should be considered. Wigs which have layering at the top to achieve fullness while keeping the rest of the cut relatively close to the face, will help make your round face shape appear longer and narrower.
The Square shaped face usually has a strong square jawline with an equally square hairline. Look for wig styles that add height to the top and narrowness at the sides. Height at the crown will elongate the symmetrical square shape. Short-to-medium length wigs, especially with waves or roundness around the face or wispy bangs to soften the angular shape are also good wig choices. Off-center parts with height at the crown look great on square shaped faces. Wearing a wig with layers and wispy looks around the face is another way to soften the shape of your face.


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The Equation of the Universe
Does the number 123456789101112 131415161718192021�have any meaning to you? At first glance it appears like a random list of numbers with some recognizable sequences such as 1 through 9 at the beginning, and three 1's in the middle. On closer inspection "Champernowne's Number C" is revealed as an orderly sequence of integers from 0 through 21 and upward. How about the number .42857142�? That's a bit harder, as no sequence is apparent. However, when we learn about what are commonly called "algorithms," we can recognize an algorithm of 3 divided by 7, the decimal equivalent of 3/7. Human beings need order. The mind is unsettled when confronted with a disarray of perceptions. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, in the introduction to his classic philosophic exposition "The Way of G-d," contrasts two types of people: One person has a wealth of information, and he also understands how all the information is interrelated. Another person has the same information as the first, yet he does not understand how all the different bits of information relate to one another. It's like the difference between looking at a well-arranged garden, planted in rows and patterns, and seeing a wild thicket or forest growing in confusion. Without order, one is not only dissatisfied but can literally "go crazy." From birth a person is equipped with a unique tool, by which he surpasses the rest of Creation, suited to the task of making order from chaos -- the human mind. "For the commandment is a candle, and Torah is light, and the path of life is ethical edification (Proverbs 6:23). At the beginning of his introduction to his great commentary "Derech Chaim" on "Ethics of the Fathers," the Maharal of Prague explains that man is lost in the dark of an opaque body, ensconced in the darkness of this world, until he wearies searching for the portal of light from above. The capacity of reason sets man apart from the animals, it enables him to explore, comprehend and seem to reign over his universe. Yet, reason alone is not a sufficient tool in the human endeavor to truly reign, to fully comprehend, and to sincerely and objectively explore. For man is trapped in the opaqueness of his physical nature. The commandments are the candle that lights our way, illuminating the path through the forest of this world as well as the rocks and stumps to avoid; the Torah is like an enormous bonfire which illuminates the entire countryside, giving meaning to the entire universe. The Shavuot festival is called the "Festival of Weeks" because of the counting of seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot. It is the only Festival for which a calendar date is not specifically mentioned; rather it is identified by its relation to another festival, Pesach. Seven, explains the Maharal of Prague, is the number of the physical world. There are 7 days of the week and 7 "sides" to a room (the 4 walls, ceiling, floor, and the interior living space). Shabbat is the "interior living space" that gives definition and meaning to the 3 days that precede it, and to the 3 days that follow it. By counting 7 weeks of 7 days, we explore every facet of the natural world and elevate these facets from their physical status, carrying them with us to the 50th day that is above nature. We bring light into the darkness of this world and "make sense" of a world of random numbers. May we merit, with Hashem's help, to raise ourselves to ever greater spiritual heights and assist in solving the "equation of the universe." |
Produced by Ohr Somayach Institutions, Jerusalem
Written by Rabbi Pinchas Kantrowitz
General Editor: Rabbi Moshe Newman
Production Design: Michael Treblow
Ohr Somayach Institutions is an international network of Yeshivot and outreach centers, with branches in North America, Europe, South Africa and South America. The Central Campus in Jerusalem provides a full range of educational services for over 685 full-time students. The Jewish Learning Exchange (JLE) of Ohr Somayach offers summer and winter programs in Israel that attract hundreds of university students from around the world for 3 to 8 weeks of study and touring.


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Water War Outdoor Game for Kids
Created by: Sharon Garofalow, Cupcakes and Cutlery
When the weather warms up, our family spends a lot more time outside. Since we don't have our own pool, we look for fun ways to cool off with water in the backyard. Each year, the kids look forward to playing our favorite outdoor game, Water War! It's a fun, summer twist on the classic card game, War. Since it is a familiar game most kids will know the rules and it's easy for a lot of different age groups to participate together. This game works just as well with two players or for a group of kids and is a great way to cool off on a hot day.
- 1-2 decks of cards (these will get wet and may get ruined so use an old deck that you already have or look for packs that are really inexpensive).
- 8 plastic cups filled about half way with water (you may need more, but you can refill these)
- 1 large pitcher of water
- Like the game of War, players turn over one card at a time, the same time as their opponent.
- Whoever draws the higher card, wins.
- The winner gets to dump a cup of water on the other player's head. Have an adult on hand to help refill the glasses as needed.
- If the players get War, the winner of that hand gets to dump the pitcher on the losing players head.
- Play until the cards run out.
- To play with a group of kids, split the kids in to two even teams. Have one player from each team play against each other and when that hand is over they move to the end of the line. Play is continued until the cards run out.
- Or you can make it tournament style with two players playing against each other until they get to their first War. The winner is then noted on a bracket (much like for football tournaments) and the next two players play. The winner from that game would then play the winner from the previous game. This style of play works great as a party game!


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Budweiser Can Gets First Makeover in a Decade
Anheuser-Busch will be rolling out a redesigned can for its iconic Budweiser brand this summer. Bud's first updated look in ten years will feature more red then before, and will give more space to Budweiser's bow-tie shaped logo.
Although Budweiser is still the number two best-selling beer in America — trailing only sister brew Bud Light — sales of Bud have fallen in each of the past two years, and industry insiders predict Coors Light will soon overtake it for the second spot. The redesign is part of an attempt to revitalize the brand.
Since it began selling cans in 1936, Budweiser has has featured 12 different designs. Budweiser's bottles will remain unchanged.
[via Ad Age]


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Bath: North Carolina's First Town
by Bea Latham
Reprinted with permission from the Tar Heel Junior Historian. Spring 2006.
Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History
See also: Bath (Encyclopedia of North Carolina); Port Bath
The adage that "the grass is always greener on the other side" can in some ways be applied to the exploration of unknown lands hundreds of years ago. Were it not for the curiosity of the initial explorers or for the monarchs' encouragement of expeditions in hopes of increasing their wealth, the whole scope of the Western world may have been "discovered" in a different time frame.
We normally think of the discovery of new lands and settlement in the past tense, as we know that few unexplored areas exist in our world today. But, possibly, future generations may look at our strides in space exploration over the past fifty years in the same light. Who is to say that three hundred years from now, new colonies will not be flourishing on other planets? That may be hard for us to imagine, since those places seem so faraway, and traveling there would be neither practical nor timely. But that concept is probably no different than the prospect of our forefathers boarding ships for long,
treacherous voyages across the sea or riding in covered wagons across open prairies. Were it not for those immigrants facing the unknown, many things in our lives would be very different today.
While we might like to think of these early settlers as adventurous, the fact is that most emigrants left their homelands to escape harsh living conditions. Such changes in residence were not specific to one class of people. In fact, our Carolina settlers were a very mixed group that included well-to-do planters, laborers, religious dissenters, apprentices, and convicts. Immigrants from continental Europe often fled wars, pestilence, and famine. Some wanted to escape religious or political persecution. The Scots-Irish colonists were largely indentured servants or displaced tenant farmers. The Germans were mainly unemployed artisans or yeomen without property or livelihood. For some immigrants, any place would have been better than where they were.
Let's explore how immigration and migration relate to eastern North Carolina and to Bath. We are familiar with early English efforts—including the 1587 one organized by Sir Walter Raleigh—to start a colony at Roanoke Island. Unfortunately, this group of about 110 settlers failed in its attempt and is better known to us as the Lost Colony. On
April 10, 1606, King James I of England chartered the Virginia Company of London to encourage colonization in the New World, in an area that then included present-day North Carolina. The first expedition sailed from London on December 20, 1606. On May 12, 1607, the three ships landed on a small island along the James River, nearly sixty miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. It was there that the 104 men and boys established Jamestown in present-day Virginia as the first permanent English settlement.
This group proved more successful in its attempt to survive partly because it developed an economy dependent on the cultivation of tobacco, which could be exported to Europe. Tobacco production required intense labor, and manpower was in short supply. Many people convicted of petty crimes in England were sent to the area as indentured servants required to work for four to seven years before earning their freedom. Africans were first brought to the American colonies to work as indentured servants, but as laws changed, many became enslaved to tobacco growers. Children also became part of the labor force. It was not unusual for a family of little means to legally sign a child over to another person to learn a trade, since public education was not available to everyone, as it is today. As uncaring as this system may seem, it gave children a way to eventually support themselves in adulthood and perhaps buy land of their own.
In 1618 the Albemarle. Settlers began to move to the area that eventually became northeastern North Carolina in search of more productive and fertile soil, referred to as "good bottom land." They found life profitable in this shore and creek area, but as word of the opportunities spread, migration occurred, the population grew, and soon it became necessary for some people to move even farther south through forests and swamps to the fertile soil associated with the Pamlico River region.
The early settlers of the Pamlico River area came from all classes of society and all walks of life. Some individuals were more accustomed to life in a new colony, since they had come south from Virginia. People arriving by ship from England and other European countries found life in the desolate region a difficult adjustment. Only a few of the early settlers had considerable wealth. Others had enough to live comfortably, but the greatest number had little more than the bare necessities. Homes were often of one or two rooms, and the floors most likely of dirt. Furniture was usually homemade and may have included only beds, a few chairs, and a table. Survival depended on work by all family members. Colonists learned skills such as weaving and farming at a young age.
Documents show settlers scattered throughout the Pamlico River region as early as 1690. In December 1700 English explorer and botanist John Lawson began his journey from Charleston, in present-day South Carolina, northward in search of land suitable for a settlement. He ended his quest in February 1701, when he sighted the high-banked land nestled in a quiet cove just off the Pamlico River. Word spread quickly of this desirable area that offered many advantages, such as water access, plentiful game, abundant pine and cypress forests, and rich farmland. A town with seventy-one lots was surveyed and named Bath in honor of Englishman John Granville, Earl of Bath. With the ability to purchase lots, residents migrated to the new settlement from the northern areas, and to a lesser extent, from Europe. This growth led to legislation passed on March 8, 1705, that made Bath the first incorporated town in Carolina.
As the first named town, Bath quickly became an area of importance. Government officials conducted business and established their homes there. Port Bath, the first official port of North Carolina, was so named in 1715. Ships brought not only settlers but goods for those living in the area. Those ships would leave the wharves lining the shore along Bath Creek filled with the valuable tar, turpentine, and pitch—or naval stores—collected from the longleaf pine trees and sought back in the homeland.
Some of our earliest descriptions of Bath and its people can be found in letters from missionaries sent by the Church of England to deliver the word of God. In 1709 the Reverend William Gordon reported that Bath consisted "of about twelve houses" but had not built a church. He went on to write that the "Pamlico area in all probability will be the center of trade since it has the advantage of a better inlet for shipping and is surrounded with pleasant savannas for cattle." In addition to growing numbers of English immigrants, Bath's early settlers included French Huguenots, who began moving from Mannakin Town on the James River in 1705. Some of their surnames are still found in Bath.
Economic growth and decline have been experienced in Bath over the years because of outside forces, such as the move of county government activities to Washington, North Carolina, in 1785, and the Civil War (1861–1865). At the end of the 1800s, Bath again flourished as steam mills appeared along the waterfront. Farming and fishing were lucrative professions, and families were often quite large, as it took many hands to succeed.
These days, we tend not to categorize people as they move from place to place as immigrants or migrants, even though the definitions have not changed. Moving within a town, city, state, country, or even the world is accepted as a way of life since the ability to travel easily and quickly has advanced. But, even today, this type of movement can greatly change the face of an area. Bath as the small hometown in the early to mid-1900s is a much different place now. In that earlier time, the land and water were sources of income, and several generations often lived in the same household, resulting in the town's population having reached 600 at times. As transportation advanced, more children began to attend college, and in seeking a more urban lifestyle, to migrate to the cities. Today, the quiet hamlet is home to about 280 residents. As our forefathers, whether fifty or 250 years ago, migrated to other areas looking for a better life, Bath's residents today are mostly retirees who have migrated there from the quicker pace of large cities, seeking the quieter, more relaxed pace of the waterfront town—and maybe an atmosphere that matches their childhood memories.
Many aspects of Bath, like the water and the land itself, have not changed much since Lawson landed on the banks of Bath Creek in 1701, but certainly the people making up the town have changed quite often. Who knows how many times one area can fluctuate between deprivation and prosperity or population growth and decline? But the bottom line is always—the only constant thing is change.
At the time of the publication of this article, Bea Latham serves as historic interpreter at Historic Bath State Historic Site. As part of Bath's three hundredth anniversary celebration, in 2005 she and Tricia Samford helped update a new version of Alan D. Watson's book Bath: The First Town in North Carolina. To learn more about Bath, visit http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bath/bath.htm.
Virtual tours of Historic Bath are available on the Historic Sites Web site at: http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bath/bathvt/bathvirtualtourV.htm.
References and additional resources:
"Historic Bath." NC Historic Sites. Accessed 10/15/2010. http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bath/bath.htm
"Bath Tricentennial Digital Exhibit." Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits. Accessed 10/15/2010. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/collection/bath.aspx
Ewen, Charles R. "John Lawson's Bath: A Subterranean Perspective." The North Carolina Historical Review 88, no. 3 (2011): 265–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23523631.
1 January 2006 | Latham, Bea


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Fifty24SF Gallery is pleased to present a first solo show by Franky Aguilar titled 'CLICK HERE'
"CLICK HERE" is a giant, robotic, slop-chopped'n screwed collection of digital artworks. This body of work examines the story of the data revolution, hardware, and it's subsequent connection to the internet. Eventually contemplating the obsession and addiction to being connected to the web. This is digital junk food for your eyes, CLICK HERE."
-Franky Aguilar
Opening November 8th, 7pm.
Posted by FIFTY24SF Gallery


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"Artemisinin concentration and antioxidant capacity of Artemisia annua distillation byproduct", Industrial Crops and Products, vol. 41, pp. 294-298, 2013.
, "Effects of plants and essential oils on ruminal in vitro batch culture methane production and fermentation", Can. J. Anim. Sci., vol. 92, pp. 395-408, 2012.
, "Erratum to "Rumen fermentation and production effects of Origanum vulgare L. leaves in lactating dairy cows" (J. Dairy Sci. 94:5065–5079)", Journal of Dairy Science, vol. 95, no. 1, p. 498, 2012.
, "Rumenfermentation and production effects of Origanum vulgare L. in lactating dairy cows", Journal of Dairy Science, vol. 94, pp. 5065-5079, 2011.


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The nonprofit group that administers the SAT will assign an adversity score to each student who takes the test to reflect social and economic backgrounds, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
The move comes amid heightened scrutiny that colleges are facing over the admissions process and the diversity of their student bodies.
"There are a number of amazing students who may have scored less (on the SAT) but have accomplished more," David Coleman, chief executive officer of the College Board, told the Journal. "We can't sit on our hands and ignore the disparities of wealth reflected in the SAT."
The number will be calculated using 15 factors, the Journal reported, including the crime rate and poverty levels of a student's high school and neighborhood. Colleges will be able to see the number when considering applicants, but students themselves won't be told their scores.
According to the Journal, 50 colleges used the adversity score in a beta test last year, and the College Board plans to expand the program to 150 institutions this fall.
CNN is reaching out to the College Board for confirmation of The Wall Street Journal's report.
According to the Journal, the score does not account for a student's race. Students are rated on a scale of 1 to 100 based on publicly available data from records such as the US census, Coleman told the paper.
A score of 50 would be considered average, the Journal reported, while a number above 50 indicates hardship, and a number below 50 privilege.
The news comes against the backdrop of a bombshell college admissions scandal, which saw a slew of indictments against wealthy and powerful parents who allegedly paid their kids' ways into elite universities. The scandal reignited the debate surrounding race and economic backgrounds and what role they play in college admissions.
Some parents were found to have paid bribes to have the SAT taken by others for their children. Not all the students were aware of the cheating arranged by their parents, according to the criminal affidavit in the case. No students currently face charges in the scandal.
A lawsuit against Harvard University also has accused the school of discriminating against Asian-American applicants by giving them low "personal" ratings that take into account traits such as leadership and likability — which lessen their chance of admission — while giving higher ratings to African-American and Hispanic students.
Harvard has denied there is any evidence of stereotyping. A judge has yet to make a ruling in the case.
The College Board has been concerned about income inequality influencing SAT results for a long time. White students scored higher on average than black students and Hispanic students in 2018, while Asian students scored higher on average than white students. And students whose parents are wealthy and college-educated typically did better than their peers.
Yale University was one of the schools that tried using the adversity scores as it worked to increase socioeconomic diversity on its campus.
Jeremiah Quinlan, the school's dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Journal that Yale has nearly doubled the number of low-income students and those who are first in their families to attend college to about 20% of new students.
"This (adversity score) is literally affecting every application we look at," Quinlan told the Journal. "It has been a part of the success story to help diversify our freshman class."


text:
Cruiser MPG 2550RB Travel Trailer For Sale
Cruiser MPG travel trailer 2550RB highlights:
- Sliding King Bed
- Designer Accent Walls
- Full Rear Bath
- 10.7 Double Door Refrigerator
Escape the hustle and bustle of the city life and retreat to the great outdoors in this spacious travel trailer. You will have plenty of space to relax in the main living area thanks to the slide out, and here you'll find a U-shaped dinette. There is also a sofa and an entertainment center where you can add an optional LED TV. There is an outside kitchen to cook breakfast outdoors, plus a full kitchen indoors if the weather isn't cooperating. You are sure to love the full rear bath that includes dual bath sinks, a spacious shower, plus a linen closet to store clean towels!
With any MPG travel trailer or toy hauler by Cruiser you will find a 6' 11" barrel roof, Azdel composite laminated walls, and a two-tone fiberglass front cap with LED lighting for a sleek look. There are seamless kitchen countertops and plywood flooring that will be easy to clean, plus residential hardwood cabinets with hidden hinges for a more at-home feel. The slam latch baggage doors with magnetic latches will make loading up easier than ever, plus the full belly storage system includes LED lights you are sure to appreciate. Each model also includes multiple charging stations with 12v and USB ports, a four speaker soundbar system to listen to your playlists, and a dual ducted BTU A/C to keep you cool during those hot summer months!
Have a question about this floorplan?Contact UsSpecifications
Sleeps 6 Slides 1 Length 30 ft 11 in Ext Width 8 ft 1 in Ext Height 11 ft 1 in Int Height 6 ft 11 in Hitch Weight 714 lbs GVWR 7608 lbs Dry Weight 6062 lbs Cargo Capacity 1620 lbs Fresh Water Capacity 44 gals Grey Water Capacity 30 gals Black Water Capacity 30 gals Tire Size 15" Furnace BTU 30000 btu Available Beds King Refrigerator Type Double Door Refrigerator Size 10.7 cu ft Cooktop Burners 3 Number of Awnings 1 Axle Weight 3500 lbs LP Tank Capacity 20 lbs Water Heater Capacity 6 gal Water Heater Type DSI Gas/Electric AC BTU 15000 btu Awning Info 19' with LED Lights Axle Count 2 Number of LP Tanks 2 Shower Type Standard Electrical Service 30 amp Similar Travel Trailer Floorplans
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API Integration: The Developer Community as a Critical Resource
Digital innovation is almost never a solo act. Creating cutting-edge technology (and keeping it at that edge) requires collaboration and cooperation — smart people putting their heads together, sharing ideas and insights, answering one another's questions, and challenging one another's assumptions. Developers understand that, and since the earliest days of the internet, they've looked for communities online where they can exchange information. Now, as your organization embraces API integration, your team needs a developer community more than ever.
In today's application programming interface (API) economy, developer teams spend a lot of time evaluating third-party APIs that can help them build superior functionality into their apps and websites. In addition to looking for productive and capable APIs, you should also be tapping into the associated developer community. This critical resource is a key differentiator in API integration because it provides developers with a collective knowledge base they can leverage. Insights from these communities enable developers to shorten their time to market, debug coding issues, and learn from the mistakes (and successes) of others to create a better overall user experience.
From discussing new features, projects, and code branches to sharing the latest hacks and workarounds, the developer community is an important consideration when deciding which APIs to incorporate into your communication-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) stack.
Evaluating Developer Community When Selecting an API Integration
Investing in an integration without a robust developer community behind it is like buying a new car without a dealer network: If you have problems, you'll have a hard time finding help. So when thinking about support for integrating APIs, consider whether the community is:
- Active.
- Engaged.
- Professional.
- Moderated.
- Honest.
Also, check to see if the API vendor hosts helpful content produced by developer advocates or other company subject matter experts (SMEs). While you should expect some discussion of the vendor's specific APIs in this content, it should neither contain overt marketing messaging nor bash competitive solutions from other providers.
The Vonage APIs platform (formerly Nexmo and TokBox) has a developer community that meets the mark on all the previously mentioned criteria. The goal of this community is not to promote the Vonage Business but rather to help developers help each other. And they do, all the time.
API Developer Communities Found Across the Internet
You may think of a developer community as a single, monolithic entity. But when it comes to CPaaS and integrating APIs, developer communities' specific solutions can be found across the internet. For example, popular forums for discussion of features, limitations, workarounds, and alternatives can be found on Quora and Stack Overflow. If you search for "Nexmo" or "Vonage APIs" on those sites, you'll find current and archival posts about short messaging service (SMS), virtual numbers, language support in Laravel and Java, and lively discussions around other topics. Developers can post questions and get answers from fellow developers or SMEs directly involved with the provider.
Other developers are out there right now, ready and willing to help you integrate and optimize communication APIs. All you have to do is join the conversation.
While not strictly considered a developer community, the GitHub Nexmo Developer repository contains many developer contributions that have helped improve the integration. There, you'll find more than 80,000 code samples and scripts that developers have supplied. You can copy and paste many of these into your own app development to shorten your time to market. In addition, you can have peace of mind that other like-minded developers — if not actual Vonage SMEs — have likely tested the code. If you have any doubts, you can click on the developer profile to see their contribution history and determine whether it meets the level of sophistication you seek.
With development communities, there can be latency between when a developer posts an issue and when an answer is supplied. If you need immediate help with an operational problem on your application integration, you can always contact customer support. But if you need real-time API feedback from other developers or developer advocates, you can join the open Vonage Developer Community Slack channel. As with any Slack channel, you can join in communication threads that interest you and leave threads when they're no longer relevant to you. You can also start your own thread if you don't see the topic you want to address, or you can initiate a private discussion with Vonage SMEs or specific community members if you have a sensitive question that you'd rather not discuss publicly.
The Vonage Slack channel is free to join — you only need to supply a valid email address. Once verified, you can immediately start connecting with the community, where you'll usually find one or more Vonage developer advocates online at any given time to answer questions.
Beyond the API Developer Community
Developer communities aren't the only useful resource for developer teams. You can also find useful insights in open-source, developer-related publications such as Hacker News (located on the Y Combinator site), SME how-to articles on ProgrammableWeb and other online developer resources, and articles from Vonage Business. Developers and SMEs in the Vonage community frequently author articles with specific examples of application development and API integrations. You can also contribute your own content.
In short, developer communities are an underappreciated but highly important part of any API integration, and their value should not be overlooked. Other developers are out there right now, ready and willing to help you integrate and optimize communication APIs. All you have to do is join the conversation.


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Short Sleeve V-neck tee is made in our fantabulous activewear fabric. Colors are made to match our skorts for a full uniform look
FestaSports' eco-friendly fabric features fantastic wick-away treatment for quick dry during intense perspiration, ventilation and breathability increasing air flow to keep you cool, antibacterial quality with odor resistance, and UPF 50 all day sun protection, all created in an environmentally friendly process*.
Content - 100% Polyester
Care Instructions - Wash cool, hang to dry or tumble dry low heat
*Fabric is made from a new environmentally friendly treatment that is made from a natural biomass called Chitosan. Chitosan is made from crab and/or shrimp shells. It can be combined with a variety of different fibers to create a fabric with many benefits. It is absorbant, breathable, durable, fast drying, soft, and static-free. It also has natural and durable anti-bacterial properties to strongly inhibit the growth of bacteria. Fabric stays fresh, hygienic and odor resistant. ChitoSante is the only anti-bacterial bio-agent in the world that is certified by the US Environmental Protection Agency. (July 13, 2015)


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How far would you go to find some peace and quiet for a nice read? French artist Abraham Poincheval stayed buried for a whole week in a tiny underground hole in the underpinning of a Marseille bookstore, with books as the only company.
On September 20, Abraham Poincheval began his unique performance, aptly entitled 604,800 seconds. Equipped only with a headlamp, some water, freeze-dried food, a camera and most importantly a small stack of books selected by the booksellers at the "Histoire d'un Jour" bookstore, he descended into a 62cm-wide and 1.7m-deep shaft dug in the underpinning of the Marseille venue. The size of the hole meant he couldn't sit or stand up, making the claustrophobic experiment all the more difficult. He was covered with a stone lid and started enjoying his seven days separated from the outside world by reading. During all the 604,800 seconds he remained buried under the bookstore, Abraham filmed everything he did (which obviously wasn't much, since he could hardly move), and the images were projected on the walls of the bookstore/gallery. He also stayed in touch with civilization via a microphone and speaker, which helped him communicate with visitors.
Photo: Gerard Julien/AFP
When the 604,800 seconds of his unique artistic experiment were up, Abraham's hermit cave opened up and he was allowed out. "It was pretty magical when the stone was lifted and I was again struck by the outside, the reality above ground," he told AFP. It was a challenging experience and his sore swollen legs were the best proof of that. "It was a real trip, not of a cosmonaut but rather of a "terronaut"", he said, adding that "the conscious and unconscious mixed, it was pretty incredible". He also made sure to mention that he finished all the books he took with him underground.
Photo: Gerard Julien/AFP
This isn't Abraham Poincheval's first unusual experiment. He has previously embarked on a journey from the city of Nantes to Metz in a straight line, using a compass, ignoring all obstacles in his way. In Spain he spent 20 days digging a tunnel through which he moved like a mole, and in Italy he pushed a 70kg capsule up mountain roads.
Sources: L'Express, Direct Matin


text: Stanley L Weinberg, a founder of NCSE, died in Ottumwa, Iowa, on March 28, 2001. He was 89 years old. He had not been active in NCSE affairs for several years, having suffered from a stroke. Stan is survived by his wife Irene and his two daughters, Ellen and Susan Weinberg. Stan was born in New York City on August 21, 1911. He received a bachelor's degree in biology from City College of New York in 1933 (cum laude) and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He had graduate training at Columbia, New York University, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, and received a masters degree from Northeast Missouri State University in 1971. He was a high school science teacher in New York from 1935 to 1957, interrupted by World War II, during which he was a captain in the Army Air Corps. After publishing a high school biology textbook, Biology: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Life (Allyn and Bacon), Stan retired to Irene's home town of Ottumwa, Iowa, in 1967. Among his many awards are the Iowa Academy of Science Distinguished Service Award (1982), election to honorary membership of the National Association of Biology Teachers (1985), the Iowa Intellectual Media Association Intellectual Freedom Award (1987), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award, which he shared in 1987 with Francisco Ayala and Norman Newall. He also received an award from the Friends of Education of the Ottumwa Education Association for his "lifelong commitment to the educational community and defense of legitimate scientific inquiry." He was a fellow of the Iowa Academy of Science and of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. Stan's concern with the creation and evolution controversy went back to the early 1970s, when the high school biology textbook he had authored was submitted for adoption in Texas. Because of its strong presentation of evolution, the book was denounced by creationists. His textbook was adopted, but the experience made Stan acutely aware of the importance of the political side of the creation and evolution controversy. continued During the late 1970s, the "creation science" movement appeared as a national force in science education. In May 1979, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) published a resolution encouraging school districts and state legislatures to promote "balanced presentation of evolution and scientific creationism" (Impact 1979; 71: 1). Although the ICR stated that "this is a suggested resolution, to be adopted by boards of education, not legislation proposed for enactment as law" (emphasis in original), South Carolinian Paul Ellwanger developed sample legislation to enact the ICR's resolution. Clones of the Ellwanger bill soon began appearing in states all over the country; by March 1981, 15 states had introduced "equal time" bills. Stan and many other teachers and scientists were concerned about this legislation and began planning how to oppose it. Stan's genius was recognizing the quintessential grassroots nature of both the legislative action and the anti-evolution movement itself. There was, in fact, no national push to promote this legislation — the Ellwanger model legislation circulated privately to individuals and organizations with which Ellwanger was familiar, and grassroots interest took over from there. But anti-evolution sentiment in the American public is easily tapped, and ordinary citizens in at least 26 states approached their legislators to introduce Ellwanger's or Ellwanger-like legislation: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia. Stan had been a former president of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT), an organization that understandably took the anti-evolution movement very seriously: biology teachers are on the front line in the creationist wars! NABT had been a plaintiff in a 1975 lawsuit in Tennessee regarding the inclusion of creationism in textbooks, and had worked for many years to educate its members about the problems of the teaching of evolution. In 1978, The American Biology Teacher published an article by Stan entitled "Two views on the textbook watchers", in which Stan proposed that teachers and scientists engage in public education about evolution and the nature of science, and also in political action. Stan's dream was to organize a grassroots network of scientists and teachers who would respond to local creationist initiatives. Many scientists and teachers already independently were engaged in combating state legislative efforts. In a 1980 Bioscience article, Moyer suggested that this network paralleled the Committees of Correspon- dence in the Revolutionary War, colony-wide groups of patriots who shared information (corresponded) about the British and what strategies worked best against them. The citizen network envisioned by Weinberg thus took on the name Committees of Correspondence (CCs). In July 1980, Stan and Jack A Gerlovich, an Iowa state science consultant, published a letter describing the Iowa CC in Science. Shortly afterwards, several individuals who had independently developed similar grassroots organizations contacted Stan, and the CC network was on its way. A pivotal symposium on "Creationism and Evolution" was held at Rockefeller University in December 1980, organized by the New York Academy of Sciences and a New York teachers' group, the Committee for Scientific Freedom. Speakers included Niles Eldredge, Isaac Asimov, and Stephen Jay Gould. The New York CC was organized, with Eldredge as its first president. In January 1981, Stan began circulating a newsletter to activists around the country — the "Memorandum to Liaisons for Committees of Correspondence". He wrote, "There is no prescribed form of organization for a Committee of Correspondence. Each CC is fully independent and autonomous. The most usual form will probably be a single CC in each state, with a single liaison." In the early 1970s, the Genetics Society of America and the American Society of Naturalists had solicited names of members willing to support evolution education. This list was made available to Stan and he in turn provided it to state liaisons to help to build the network. NABT also provided names of teachers who were willing to work on the issue. Stan also promoted the network by asking officers of a number of scientific organizations to inform their members about the existence of the network. These included the Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the American Association of Biological Sciences, and many others. Many of these scientific organizations responded with small donations — but by and large, Stan supported the CC network in the early years out of his own pocket. The amount of time he devoted to this issue was monumental. The network of teachers and scientists grew quickly. By March 1981, there were CCs in 17 states; by April, 22; by May, 24; by August, 35; by December, 42. The first national meeting of CC representatives was held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, DC, on January 3, 1982. (I was there representing the Kentucky organization.) During that meeting, we celebrated the US Supreme Court decision striking down the McLean v Arkansas "equal time for creation science" legislation, but we also realized that the struggle was not over. At that meeting, a committee was formed to investigate setting up a national organization to coordinate the CCs. This organization came to be called the National Center for Science Education, and it was incorporated in 1983. Stan went to work to raise funds for NCSE, and by the summer of 1986, he had secured $250 000 in start-up funds from Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Esther E and Joseph Klingenstein Fund, the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, the Deer Creek Foundation, and an anonymous foundation. The NCSE Board of Directors instituted a nationwide search for an executive director and hired me in November 1986 to open the national office. In January 1987, the national NCSE office began carrying on Stan Weinberg's dream of coordinating grassroots opposition to creation science and defending evolution education. The CC network was highly active during the early- to mid- 1980s. Many local issues were resolved, unfortunately resulting in local activist groups' dissolving. By the end of the 1980s, the original CC network had largely faded away, but NCSE continues to carry on Stan's original idea of combating the grassroots nature of creationism with grassroots opposition. Over the years we have seen the formation of ad hoc groups that assemble to combat a particular problem and then dissolve — sometimes only to re-form a few years later, unfortunately! NCSE is a permanent storehouse of information and advice to the activists in the trenches, monitoring the problems of evolution education and creationism. Although the CC network did not work out as Stan had originally planned, his dream of a union of scientists and teachers working together to defend the integrity of science continues. All of us in this effort owe Stan a great deal for his foresight in understanding better than anyone what the real issues were. He will be missed, especially by those of us at NCSE.


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Comix Talk for Friday, April 30, 2010
Stephen McCranie created a bit of ComixTalk fan art, thanks Stephen! Be sure to check out his comic Mal and Chad a really well drawn comic.
Congrats to the Penny Arcade duo for being included in Time's Top 100 list this year. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are a true American dream story — doing what they love and creating success with it.
BleedingCool.com reports that the Atlantic Centre For The Arts in Florida is offering a residency as Associate Artist for a comic book creator in October, under master artists THB creator Paul Pope, Blankets author Craig Thompson or manga creator Svetlana Chmakova. Wow, for almost any aspiring comics creator this seems like taking a PhD course.
MILESTONES: Brat-halla reaches 400 comics. Congratulations to Jeffery Stevenson & Seth Damoose (and colorist Anthony Lee)!
EVENTS: Noel Curry wants to make May 14th Dialogue Free Comics Day. It's a good point – which is to remind everyone of the important visual aspect of comics.
FROM THE MAILBAG: Al Schroeder writes: After two years and ten zillion cameos and interdimensional tomfoolery, the group webcomic CROSSOVERLORD, featuring superheroes from seven different webcomics, reaches the climax of its storyline. After this, only four or five more strips to go!


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Farrington, Christopher
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Farrington, Christopher
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Models of civil society and their implications for the Northern Ireland peace process
2004, Farrington, Christopher
A number of authors have argued that civil society was important in bringing about political change in Northern Ireland in 1998. Through the Opsahl Commission in 1992 and the 'Yes' Campaign in 1998, civil society offered new challenges to the established political parties, enabled a level of public participation and ownership of the peace talks and eased the path to a negotiated settlement. This empirical observation was coupled with the literature on ethnic conflict, which stressed the importance of 'bottom-up' peace building, giving civil society a potentially strong role in a post-Agreement Northern Ireland. However, this did not seem to have been realised and this working paper asks why this might be the case. It argues that civil society has to be conceived as a wider phenomenon, in that it performs a multitude of roles in relation to conflict resolution, governance, support structures for institutions and democracy in general. The paper then further argues that the 1998 Agreement fundamentally changed the context in which civil society operated and the apparent subsequent decline in civil society activity was merely a shift in focus.


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When the interview ends the candidates are given a simple assignment: the business needs to convert a csv file from one format to another. The candidates are given 24 hours to complete the task.
The first developer goes home and designs an amazing yet simple site where multiple files can be uploaded simultaneously and users can choose to be notified via SMS or email when the task is completed. It's great software.
The second developer receives the assignment and spends the next 30 minutes talking to the business to see how the software will be used and what value it provides. After he's gotten the information he needs he says thanks, but instead of letting him leave, the CTO offers him the job on the spot.
The first developer gets the "thanks, but no thanks" call the following day.
What the first developer didn't understand was that the assignment was designed to evaluate collaboration, not coding ability. Both candidates had previously submitted code samples and discussed their samples as part of the interview. Both developers could code equally well, but only candidate 2 had collaboration skills. Candidate 2 was clearly a better hire.
Developers love to talk about how software is about people. I know it's about people, you know it's about people, yet when I look around I rarely see developers interacting with people. It doesn't seem to make sense, and yet it happens the majority of the time. We're stuck in the ways of software development past.
Hackers put out code, often good code. That's great. Without hackers I wouldn't have messaging systems, proxies, web servers, etc. At least I wouldn't have such a good selection. But, being a good hacker doesn't make you valuable to a business.
Time after time I see requirements gathered and presented in a way that is totally disconnected from the business problem that's being addressed. There are two ways to handle the situation.
- Write the best code you can.
- Talk to the business.
But, a developer can deliver what the business is looking for the first time. A(n often) quick conversation with the business ensures that the developer knows what to work on and how it will benefit the business. This dialog often leads to a superior solution implementation where the business gets what it wants and the developer is able to do it in the most efficient way (e.g. I don't need a beautiful website, I need a command line application).
A hacker can deliver the same value to the business (on the 2nd or 3rd try), but the time difference between when the developer delivers and when the hacker delivers is the cost of employing hackers. Hackers create waste (lost time), which the business must pay for. Good developers avoid waste by ensuring that the business gets what they are looking for as quickly as possible.
This idea isn't mine, I just see the application of the idea constantly so I felt the need to write about it. Kent Beck has been talking about it for years, most recently at QCon in London earlier this year. Look for the video when it becomes available at InfoQ -- it's relevant for anyone developing software for a business, and Kent puts it much better than I do. When Kent talks about it you think "well, yes, obviously", but look around work and see if Kent's ideas are being applied. If they are, consider yourself lucky to be working with good colleagues.


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Comet Neowise at Brograve mill.
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