text:
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Laches and the Statute of Limitations
Can laches ever occur when plaintiff acts within the limitations period, in our case three-years from the time the claim accrues?
Statutes of limitation are pure creatures of legislatures; laches is a judicially created doctrine, and as a result some courts (those few who are modest) have expressed concern over separation of powers problems that would arise if laches is utilized to bar a claim brought within the limitations period. Professor Dobbs, the guru of such things, has traced the origins of laches to subject areas where there was no statute of limitations, and thus laches functioned as a form of judicial flexible statute of limitations. But where the legislature has acted, laches should not be available.
Courts do though have a hard time not dipping into the well of their self-created equitable powers, especially the Ninth Circuit which has used laches within the limitations period while ironically noting such applications are "rare." In Jackson v. Axton, 25 F.3d 884, 888 (9th Cir. 1994), that court wrote, without any supporting authority (who needs it when you create your own), "laches may apply whether or not any statutory limitations period runs."A subsequent opinion, Kling v. Hallmark Cards, Inc., 225 F.3d 1010, 1039 (9th Cir, 2000) seems to have misunderstood the issue entirely, writing:
[a] copyright holder would be vulnerable to the laches defense if
he had knowledge of a planned infringement more than three
years prior to filing his action, even if he complied with the statute
of limitations by filing less than three years after the infringement
actually began.
Try explaining that to a client. And then there is the case that led me to this post in the first place, a June 26, 2006 opinion from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Gloster v. Relios, Inc., 2006 WL 1737800: "[O]nce the statute of limitations has run, the defendant is entitled to a presumption of laches, which the plaintiff has to rebut." I would have thought that once the limitations is past, plaintiff loses, and that if one is within the limitations period either laches has no role at all, or if it does, defendant bears the burden.
12 comments:
- Anonymous said...
The Fourth Circuit's opinion in Lyons Partnership, L.P. v. Morris Costumes, Inc., 243 F.3d 789 (4th Cir. 2001) is probably the most cogent analysis of the separation of powers issue.
Fortunately, in my experience most district courts will follow the Lyons rule rather than the oddball decisions you cite in your post.
LKB in Houston - 12:33 PM
- Anonymous said...
It may overstate the case to say that "[b]ut where the legislature has acted [by enacting an SoL, I gather], laches should not be available".
This implicitly assumes that inequities may only arise due to the passage of time, rather than other factors.
Suppose a fact pattern where a party or group of parties repeatedly and unwittingly infringes a set of copyrighted works. The plaintiff could sue, but delays for the purpose of allowing future infringements to occur, increasing the number of potential defendants and the size of statutory damages. [Such a hypo might easily arise with respect to software distribution.]
Inequitable? Yes. Should laches operate? Perhaps - but the equitable inquiry turns on the plaintiff's conduct, not the absolute passage of time. To say that laches should only simulate an SoL would encourage this plaintiff to delay as long as 507(b) allows. And arguably, that's not an incentive that Title 17 should create. - 2:11 PM
- William Patry said...
I like Anononymous' hypo. The theory behind no laches within the limitations period, as I understand it, is that there has been a legislative judgment that any suit within that period can't be inequitable, even if that means delaying to get the largest recovery.
But such a possibility is always risky: how does one know for sure what the ultimate monetary award might be?
As for a single defendant, there is only one award per work so no increase there. As for multiple defendants, multiple awards are possible, but why would any delay necessarily affect the number of defendants? I assume you are thinking of third party-liability, where an early injunction against the service would cut off the number of direct infringers, to be sure, but such cases rarely involve claims againt the direct infringers anyway.
I do see the theoretical point, but I don't know how it might shake out in actual practice. - 7:57 PM
- Anonymous said...
What makes the Ninth Circuit's opinions in Jackson and Kling even more bizarre is that in an earlier case, Miller v. Maxwell's International, 991 F.2d 583 (9th Cir. 1993), the Ninth Circuit had this to say:
"The district court barred the remainder of Miller's ADEA claims under the equitable defense of laches. ***This was error because the doctrine of laches is inapplicable when Congress has provided a statute of limitations to govern the action.*** See, e.g., International Tel. & Tel. Corp. v. General Tel. & Elec. Corp., 518 F.2d 913, 926 (9th Cir.1975). Because Congress provided a statute of limitations to govern ADEA actions, see 29 U.S.C. § 255 (1988), Miller's ADEA claims cannot be barred by laches.
991 F.2d at 586 (emphasis added). Why this holding was not dispositive -- or even mentioned -- in Jackson and Kling is beyond me. (Of course, the Ninth Circuit is the same bunch that has produced such copyright gems as Rano v. Sipa Press, so maybe it's just something in the water out there. ;-) )
Re: anonymous' hypo, the answer under the Lyons' rule (which is followed by the Second, Tenth, and as noted above by at least some judges on the Ninth Circuit) is clear: Congress has decreed that a copyright owner has three years to file suit, and to allow a judicially-created (i.e., common law) defense to shorten this period would be an unconstitutional usurpation of Congressional power and/or a negation of a Congressionally-created right. Period. Ergo, if a three year statute of limitation leads to "unfair" results, write your Congressman and get the law changed -- don't try and end-run the statute via common law defenses.
From my experience, the far more common situation that anonymous' hypo is where an infringer is absolutely nailed for piracy, and is scrambling to find a fact issue that will preclude a partial summary judgment on liability (as well as perhaps give him a vehicle at trial for jury nullification [think: RIAA or ASCAP cases]). Laches is one of the most common ones I see in this context; i.e., even though the copyright owner filed suit well within limitations, a summary judgment on liability is argued to be inappropriate because the copyright owner "should have sued me sooner," based on an alleged fact question of whether the copyright owner knew / should have known of the infringement earlier. Application of the Lyons rule vaporizes this tactic.
Can application of the Lyons rule and a strict application of the statute of limitations lead to "unfair" results? No question, but that's life under a strict liability statute. Again, if application of strict liability in copyright law is "unfair," then change the law through legitimate (legislative) means -- not by judicial fiat.
LKB in Houston - 11:23 AM
- Max Lybbert said...
I believe anonymous's hypothetical stems from statements made in the SCO vs. IBM case. While the case is largely about Linux, SCO also terminated IBM's license to make and distribute a UNIX derivative (AIX). SCO then claimed the fact that IBM continued to make and ship AIX justified $1 billion damages (I don't know why they didn't say "an amount to be proven at trial"). In an interview, he explained that $1 billion could go higher: "We're sort of fine to let the AIX thing tick, because the longer it goes, when we actually end up in courtroom, we can go back to June 13, 2003, and add damages."
Since SCO also sued for $1 billion damages for IBM's Linux development, I had remembered the quote referring to Linux. However, I got the wrong $1 billion, and I think anonymous did too. - 11:33 AM
- Max Lybbert said...
Oops. "He" refers to SCO's chairman, Darl McBride.
- Anonymous said...
Wouldn't laches be a factor in a determination of whether the plaintiff would actually obtain injunctive releif as opposed to damages? For example, a music company has reason to know that its works are being incorporated into a film. It fails to act and instead waits for its release. It then seeks a manadatory injunction ordering the removal of the music from all copies of the film. Leaving to one side a balancing of hardships argument, certainly the delay on the part of the music company is analysed using the rubric of laches. The outcome could be a one-time award of damages or the imposition of a royalty with no injunction.
- Anonymous said...
Re: anon's laches / injunction hypo . . .
I have had a district court suggest in dicta (unreported case) that laches was *only* applicable to requests for equitable relief, because the statute of limitations governed liability / monetary damages under the Lyons rule.
Having said this, while I acknowledge the gut-level appeal of the argument, I still think it doesn't address the fundamental legal basis of Lyons and cases that have adopted it.
The copyright statute of limitations doesn't limit itself to claims for damages. (Cf. the patent statute of limitations (15 USC 286), which is so limited.) To allow laches to be used to "shorten" the period of time that Congress has decreed a copyright holder has to bring suit (which includes suits to obtain injunctive relief) is to allow a judge-made doctrine to trump the statute. Separation of powers principles do not permit this result. Any "unfairness" or "inequity" that may emerge doesn't change this Constitutional reality.
Further, where would laches be considered in the "four factor" test that Los Supremos have now dictated shall apply to requests for injunctive relief in copyright cases? Factors 1 and 2? No way. Factor 3? Maybe, but it would be quite a stretch. Factor 4? Even longer stretch, given the pretty clear authority that halting copyright infringement is per se in the public interest, and that the statute of limitations pretty clearly demarks what the public interest is regarding the timeliness of a copyright suit.
[I also strongly disagree with the apparent last conclusion anon makes -- that a future royalty could be forced on the copyright owner in lieu of a permanent injunction. See Sony, which rejected such a suggestion. But, as they say, that is another story . . .]
LKB in Houston - 6:40 PM
- Anonymous said...
Maybe I'm missing something, but if laches cannot be asserted if the claim is brought within the statute of limitations, then why even recognize the doctrine of laches? After all, if the claim is brought outside the statute of limitations, the defendant can just assert the statute straight up -- no need for laches with all its equitable fuzziness.
By the way, there's further discussion of this issue in Danjaq LLC v. Sony Corp., 263 F.3d 942, 954 (9th Cir. 2001):
For similar reasons, we reject McClory's argument that laches may never bar a claim for infringement brought within the statute of limitations. We have already determined that laches may sometimes bar a statutorily timely claim. Kling, 225 F.3d at 1039; Jackson, 25 F.3d at 888. And, although such an application of laches may be unusual, see Telink, 24 F.3d at 45 n. 3, it is appropriate here. Even leaving aside the special circumstance of re-releases, we conclude in any event that McClory's extraordinary delay and the extraordinary prejudice to Danjaq render laches appropriate despite the statute of limitations. Id. at 46 n. 5 ("If the defendant can show harm from the delay, the court may, in extraordinary circumstances, defeat the claim based on laches, though the claim is within the analogous limitations period."). - 6:55 PM
- Anonymous said...
Short answer to anonymous: you're not missing it -- under Lyons and similar cases that follow the same rule, laches is just not recognized as a valid defense: compliance with the statute of limitations ends the inquiry.
Re: Danjak, note that CTA9 doesn't mention its own prior, contrary Miller opinion. [In CTA5 and most other circuits, because one panel cannot overrule another, absent an intervening en banc or Supreme Court decision such an opinion would be treated as nugatory. See King Empire, SD Tex 2001 for an example of a court reconciling opposite CTA5 panel opinions on copyright limitations by disregarding the later one. For some reason, I don't think CTA9 follows this standard practice, which may explain the sometimes chaotic state of CTA9 law.)
Nor does Danjak attempt to address the constitutional issue (separation of powers) that forms the basis of the Lyons rule. I tend to view Danjak in the same way I (and most other commentators) view Rano v. Sipa Press -- a bizarre decision out of the 9th Circuit.
LKB in Houston - 9:27 AM
- Anonymous said...
LKB in Houston overlooks, I think, the differences within the Copyright Act between sections 502 and 504. 502 says that a Court "may" grant injunctions "on such terms as it may deem reasonable to prevent or restrain infringement of a copyright" with, I believe, the expectation that the court will sit in equity when considering the appropriateness or efficacy of an injunctive remedy.
Although a finding of laches results in an order that no action will lie, the rubric of laches is all about inequitable delay. So, in the music in the movie hypo I proposed, the plaintiff's delay would need to be broken down a bit for the purposes of evaluating injunctive relief. While this can be done by balancing hardships, that balance speaks to the hardship imposed by the grant of the injunction. It doesn't speak to the aspect with which the plaintiff is approaching the court to obtain an equitable remedy. Let us say that the court obtains facts that the delay by the plaintiff was designed to improve the plaintiff's economic leverage at the point that the case was filed in anticipation that a threat of injunctive remedy would make the defendant more generous in its settlement offer. There is nothing "unclean" about a plaintiff choosing a tactical approach that benefits itself. But in equity "waiting too long" isn't just about the time line or the absolute boundary of a statute of limitations. It's also, potentially, about what the wait did to the opposing party and its expectations and actions as a result of the wait. The plaintiff demands the court to order the defendant to take the music out of the film or take the film out of distribution. The court can rely on the timing of the plaintiff's actions, and the delay in those actions past a date at which the defendant could have acted differently, to deny the injunctive relief. You can call that process whatever you want but it's the learning from the doctrine of laches that's at work here. - 2:04 PM
- Anonymous said...
I have a law suit I am working on against a big corporation pro se in Federal Court. Civil, copyright infringement case.
The infringement occured in 2001,2002, and 2003. Discovery on my part was made partially in January of 2002. New discovery arose when the company infringed again in 2003. These infringements are involving photographs and therefore should be considered one wrongful infringing act, therefore the statutes of limitation should not start to run until the infringement ceased which would have been mid 2003 to my knowledge. However, the images could still be running internationally and will not know until Defendant bears burden of proof. Am I correct?
In regards to "Laches" this is a new term for me. But is it something I could use in regards to this Case.
Additionally, any helpful information you have as far as specific cases regarding statutes of limitations/laches would be greatly appreciated.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's persistent overtures toward Russia are placing him increasingly at odds with his national security and foreign policy advisers, who have long urged a more cautious approach to dealing with the foreign adversary.
The uneasy dynamic between the president and top aides has been exacerbated by the revelation this week of an extended dinner conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the recent summit in Germany. The previously undisclosed conversation, which occurred a few hours after their official meeting, raised red flags with advisers already concerned by the president's tendency to shun protocol and press ahead with outreach toward Russia, according to two U.S. officials and three top foreign officials.
The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Deep divisions are increasingly apparent within the administration on the best way to approach Moscow in the midst of U.S. investigations into Russian meddling in the American presidential election. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that the Russian government sought to tip the election in his favor and has dismissed investigations into the possibility of collusion between his campaign and Moscow as a "witch hunt."
Meanwhile, he has pushed for cooperation between Moscow and Washington on various matters, including the raging conflict in Syria.
But some top aides, including National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster, have been warning that Putin is not to be trusted. An intelligence officer-turned-politician, Putin is known for steering discussions in his own favor.
The three foreign officials who have spoken with top Trump advisers described a disconnect, or "mixed signals," between Trump and his team over Russia, highlighting a lack of a clear policy. U.S. officials echoed that sentiment, with one saying diplomats and intelligence officials were "dumbfounded" by the president's approach, particularly given the evidence of Russia's election meddling.
McMaster expressed his uneasiness over Trump's course to foreign officials during the lead-up to his trip to Germany. The general specifically said he had reservations about Trump's decision to hold an Oval Office meeting in May with top Russian diplomats and with the president's reluctance to speak out against Russian aggression in Europe, according to the three foreign officials.
McMaster and other national security aides also advised the president against holding an official bilateral meeting with Putin.
In a highly unusual move, McMaster did not attend the meeting with Putin. Only Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and a translator made up the U.S. side.
Meetings with such critical national security implications typically include a broader team, including the national security adviser and a regional specialist from the National Security Council — in this case, the head of the Russia directorate, a position recently filled by Russia expert Fiona Hill.
Foreign and U.S. officials said the Russians recommended that a note taker be present in the bare-bones official meeting. But Trump, who has repeatedly expressed concern over leaks, refused, instead relying on Tillerson to document the meeting. The session was scheduled for 30 minutes but stretched to more than two hours.
The White House did not respond to questions about Trump's refusal to have a note taker for his meeting with Putin, or about whether McMaster communicated his concerns to the president.
The formalities and discipline of diplomacy have been a rough fit for Trump, whose reputation as a businessman was that of a freewheeling, impulsive dealmaker.
As for his dinnertime conversation with Putin, unofficial discussions between world leaders over dinner do not violate protocol. But it is unusual and can be risky for a president to speak directly to Putin without a U.S. translator present. He was forced to rely on Russia's interpreter for the discussion, which reportedly went on for nearly an hour.
"The Russian interpreter probably interpreted very clearly, but the problem is there's no record of the discussion on the American side," said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. It would have been wise for Trump to have his interpreter take notes so there would be a record, he said.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was dismissive of the controversy surrounding the Trump-Putin dinner chat, blaming it on a "Russia fever" gripping the media.
She said other presidents, including Barack Obama, had similar informal conversations.
"To act as if this were some secret is absolutely absurd," she said.
Trump addressed his earlier, official meeting with Putin in an interview with reporters last week onboard Air Force One. The president said he repeatedly confronted Putin on reports of Russia's election meddling — interference that Putin staunchly denies. But Trump would not say whether he believed Putin's denials, as the Russian president claimed.
White House officials said the public may never know what was discussed between Putin and Trump over dinner. But advisers past and present said that characterizing any conversation with Putin as casual would be a mistake.
"There are no meaningless conversations between presidents," said Jeffrey Edmonds, the NSC's former Russia director.
"That's what is so divergent here," he said. "Relations have been at an all-time low because of Russian meddling in our elections and so it's hard to see how a meeting with President Putin for an hour during dinner isn't important."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
To Hell You Ride (#5 of 5)
This is a second-hand copy of the comic To Hell You Ride (#5 of 5). It comes bagged and boarded.
As this comic has a low price tag, we do not normally comment on the condition of the comic. To do so would be uneconomic. However, the product image is a scan of the actual comic and not a stock image taken from elsewhere. When scanning we check for any major defects and don't normally list them if we're not happy with the quality. If the condition of this comic is important to you, please get in touch and we can send other images, or go into this in greater detail.
We charge a set shipping rate per order of $5 for regular domestic shipping and $10 per order ($5 extra) for rural delivery.
Orders over $100 have free shipping inside New Zealand.
Pick up from our store is available during business hours.


text:
Going through the offensive projections over the past few weeks then reading the Tao's post yesterday (same guy!) I came to the realization this year's edition might be different.
Consider the projections I posted for Yunel Escobar and Rajai Davis - two players who figure to get into the lineup every day (top or bottom, does it really matter?) Both Davis & Escobar figure to post isolated power numbers right around the .100 mark. When league average is around .160, these two are staring Punch and/or Judy status right in the face.
The question I pose to you is this: which, if either, of these players will crack triple digits with the ISO? Both? Neither? The falling offensive stone that is Yescobar! or the bag-swiping urban-Ichiro Rajai Davis?
Based on his track record, Escobar seems like the safe bet. The man hit 14 home runs in 2009, though his ISO still lagged behind league average. A full season in the right handed cuddle-blanket that is the Rogers Centre should help, though his ISO as a Blue Jay was a paltry .081! His obsession with bunting runners over certainly won't help his cause.
Rajai Davis doesn't bunt quite as much as Escobar but he doesn't hit for power at all. Davis is yet to post a single-season slugging percentage above league average. He has but 12 career home runs! The one thing that might save Davis and put him over the triple digit threshold? His new ballpark.
Boon at power hitters as it might be, the Rogers Centre — by virtue of its very high fences and slow turf — is a triples haven. Though the rate at which Jays hitters leg out three baggers slowed in the past two years, it is still an above average place to see the "most exciting play in baseball."
So what do you think? Will some residual Citocity rub off on these two Marys or will one drink from the chalice of manliness? Cast your vote below!


text:
No. 10 Mizzou upset by Ole Miss
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) -- Missouri's first game without its leading scorer didn't go so well.
Mississippi's Murphy Holloway scored 22
points, Jarvis Summers added 12 and the Rebels easily beat the
10th-ranked Tigers 64-49 on Saturday night.
Senior forward Laurence Bowers missed
the game because of he sprained the MCL in his right knee in the league
opener against Alabama on Tuesday, and the Tigers (12-3, 1-1
Southeastern Conference) looked lost on that end of the floor without
their offensive catalyst.
"They were much tougher than us,"
Missouri coach Frank Haith said. "They played with much more energy.
Their fans were great. I thought that we didn't do things we've done all
year -- we didn't attack."
Jabari Brown led Missouri with 13
points. Keion Bell added 11 and Phil Pressey scored 10. The Tigers shot
just 36.8 percent (21 of 57) from the field.
Bowers is expected to miss at least a
week to rest his knee. Pressey said the rest of the team has to play
better to make up for his absence.
"Any given night, if we execute like
that we're going to get beat," Pressey said. "I put that on ourselves, I
put that on me. We've got to execute better. If we play like that it's
going to be a long season. But we're going to get back to the drawing
board and play like we play."
Holloway scored a game-high 22 points,
repeatedly getting his chiseled 6-foot-7, 240-pound body into good
position and finishing at the rim, as Mississippi jumped out to a 9-0
lead early and cruised to the surprisingly easy victory.
"He's an all-league player and we were
getting the ball to his big, broad shoulders and that left hand," Ole
Miss coach Andy Kennedy said. "He's a man. If the season ended today,
and I wish it did because we'd be the champions, he would be the league
Jarvis Summers added 12 points. He and
Holloway helped offset a mediocre night from Marshall Henderson, the
SEC's leading scorer who finished with only 11 points on 4 of 11
Ole Miss (13-2, 2-0 Southeastern
Conference) led the entire game, jumping out to an early 9-0 lead thanks
to timely shooting and superior defense. Holloway was nearly
unstoppable in the paint, making 8 of 12 shots from the field and 6 of
10 free throws.
"You know there's a little extra
motivation against the No. 10 team in the nation," Holloway said. "It's
motivation. You want to beat them, show them that they're not that good.
We had to make those (hustle) plays to beat that team."
Missouri pulled to 41-33 with 16
minutes remaining, but couldn't get any closer. The Rebels' defense was
suffocating for most of the night, forcing 19 turnovers. And it seemed
like every time there was a loose ball, an Ole Miss player would emerge
from the pile with possession.
"I don't think they ever got in an
offensive rhythm and that's a tribute to how much effort our guys had
defensively," Kennedy said.
The convincing victory capped an impressive week to open SEC play. The Rebels beat Tennessee on the road on Wednesday.
"Right out of the chute we got
challenged by a Tennessee team on the road and then we come back to one
of the best teams in the country in our own building," Kennedy said. "We
just did what we were supposed to do. We protected home floor. If you
have any aspirations of playing meaningful basketball in March, that's
what you have to do."
The Tigers needed nearly seven minutes
to score their first basket. Missouri shot just 11 of 33 (33 percent) in
the first half.
Ole Miss wasn't much better on offense
early, shooting 38 percent from the field in the first half, but did
enough to take a 31-22 lead into halftime. Derrick Millinghaus led the
Rebels with 8 first half points, including a pair of 3-pointers.
Henderson scored 32 points in the
Rebels' SEC opening victory against Tennessee, but it was obvious that
Mizzou had reviewed that game tape, and Tiger defenders were draped all
over him every possession. He made just 2 of 8 attempts from 3-point
But Holloway picked up the offensive
slack, constantly slashing into the lane and finishing with his left
hand over taller Missouri defenders. He's the only player in the SEC
averaging a double-double and he had another complete game on Saturday,
adding eight rebounds, four steals and a blocked shot.
Even without Bowers, Missouri figured
to make some sort of run with Earnest Ross, Alex Oriakhi, and Phil
Pressey all scoring in double figures this season. But the shots never
fell on a consistent basis.
It was a physical game and Ole Miss
consistently won the interior battles. The Rebels had 20 attempts from
the free throw line, making 15, while Missouri was just 5 of 6.
"We were way too timid and missed a lot of (close shots)," Haith said. "With just 49 points, our offense was really poor."
Ole Miss is not known for raucous
basketball crowds, but Tad Smith Coliseum was sold out and loud for this
one. The Rebels are 7-19 against ranked opponents under Kennedy.
"It gives us a lot of confidence," Holloway said. "We feel like we can play with anybody now."


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Please note this course is not running in Semester 2 2019.
The course is built around an investigation of what programming languages are, and the notion of programs as artefacts. Two key aspects of the study of programming languages are their semantics, and their syntax.
We will survey some of the fundamental principles of the semantics and computational behaviour of programs, including the lambda calculus, types and fixed-points. Rigorous proofs of properties of programs, such as are needed for safety-critical software, or for program transformations such as are carried out by optimising compilers, require a formal description of the 'meaning' and behaviour of programs. We will study two of the dominant approaches: denotational semantics and opertional semantics. In each case, standard proof techniques will be developed and applied.
The syntax of programming languages is routinely defined by well-understood means, in terms of formal grammars and their relation to certain classes of automata. We will investigate the algorithms underlying standard automata-bsed compiler generators and make practical use of them to construct simle translators.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
Students who succeed in all aspects of this course will be able to:
- manipulate and generate lambda-terms, extending a system such as Church numerals; check and assign types to lambda terms.
- solve simple recursive equations by determining the limit of the Kleene fixpoint construction.
- design and extend operational and denotational definitions for basic programming language constructs.
- prove properties of programs by various formal means, including structural and fixpoint induction.
- demonstrate correspondences between grammars, languages and automata.
- use standard parser and lexer generator tools to construct and implement translations such as a very simple compiler.
Indicative Assessment
- Assignments (40%)
- Final Exam (60%)
The ANU uses Turnitin to enhance student citation and referencing techniques, and to assess assignment submissions as a component of the University's approach to managing Academic Integrity. While the use of Turnitin is not mandatory, the ANU highly recommends Turnitin is used by both teaching staff and students. For additional information regarding Turnitin please visit the ANU Online website.
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Units | EFTSL |
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Second Semester
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text:
Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep It Holy
The institution of a Saturday worship service raises the question whether what we are doing here is right in view of 2,000 years of Sunday sabbath keeping in the Christian Church. And if it is right, it raises the further question what special place Sunday should have in the life of a Christian, especially for those who regularly worship on Saturday evening.
The Old Testament Sabbath Command
To help us answer these questions, I want us to try to get an overview of the biblical teaching on the sabbath. Let's begin at the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20. The sabbath commandment is number 4 and is found in verses 8–11.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
Five Comments
At least five things in these verses need special comment.
1. Remembering
First, Israel is to remember the rest day. Sabbath means rest. "Remember the sabbath day," means, "Don't forget to take a day off."
2. Keeping It Holy
Second, "Keep it holy," means set it aside from all other days as special. Specifically, as verse 10 says, keep it "to the Lord," or "for the Lord." In other words, the rest is not to be aimless rest, but God-centered rest. Attention is to be directed to God in a way that is more concentrated and steady than on ordinary days. Keep the day holy by keeping the focus on the holy God.
3. One Out of Every Seven
Third, the holy rest day should be one out of every seven. Verse 9: "Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God." Work six, rest one. Work six, rest one. That's the pattern prescribed in the Ten Commandments. Note it does not say that the sabbath ("rest day") has to be the last day of the week or the first day of the week. The concept of weeks is not even mentioned. The command is simply work six, rest one. Every seventh day should be a sabbath.
4. No Fudging
Fourth, no fudging on the commandment by saying, "Well, I will keep it, but I will put my maid to work, or set my ox to threshing with a carrot in front of his nose at 6 PM the evening of the sabbath so that it will thresh the grain all day while I rest." God says, No. You miss the point if you try to keep the business running by using servants or animals or relatives. What point?
5. God's Rest After Creation
Fifth, verse 11 leads us to the basic point of the commandment. It is based on God's rest after creation: "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it."
This is taken from Genesis 2:2–3.
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.
God "Blessed" and "Hallowed" the Seventh Day
Both Genesis 2:3 and Exodus 20:11 say that God "blessed" and "hallowed" the rest day. What does it mean for God to bless a day? I think it means that he makes the day a time of blessing. When God blesses a man, the man becomes rich with blessings. When he blesses a land, the land becomes rich with blessings. So when he blesses a day, that day becomes rich with blessings.
And what does it mean that he hallows the day? "Hallows" is the same word as "sanctifies." It means set the day aside for special focus on what is holy, namely, God and his holy works.
Now consider the two words together. He blessed the day and he hallowed the day. How do these fit together? He made it a source of blessing, and he made it to focus on himself. Isn't it obvious that the hallowing is included in the blessing and the blessing is included in the hallowing. When you hallow God and focus your attention on him, you receive more blessing than if you keep on busying yourself seven days a week with secular affairs, thinking that professional advancement and money are the route to true happiness. And (the reverse) when you seek your blessing in God rather than in the products of human labor, you hallow him and honor his holiness as the greater wealth.
God's Rest
The reason given in both Genesis 2:3 and Exodus 20:11 why God blessed and hallowed the seventh day is that "on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation." What does it mean that God rested? It means at least that he was satisfied that his work of creation was complete and was "very good." His rest means that he wanted to now stand back as it were in leisure and savor the beauty and completeness of his creative work.
This is the real basis of his hallowing and blessing the day of rest. He is saying in effect, "Let my highest creature, the one in my image, stop every seven days and commemorate with me the fact that I am the creator who has done all this. Let him stop working and focus on me, that I am the source of all that he has. I am the fountain of blessing. I have made the very hands and mind with which he works. Let one day out of seven demonstrate that all land and all animals and all raw materials and all breath and strength and thought and emotion and everything come from me. Let man look to me in leisure one day out of seven for the blessing that is so elusive in the affairs of this world."
The beautiful thing about the sabbath is that God instituted it as a weekly reminder of two things. One is that all true blessing comes from his grace, not our labor. The other is that we hallow him and honor him and keep the day holy if we seek the fullness of his blessing by giving our special attention to him on that day.
God as the Source of Salvation
It would be a mistake to conclude from these two texts that the only blessings we should focus on during our sabbath observance were the blessings of creation. Deuteronomy 5 gives us a second version of the Ten Commandments. Here the basis of the sabbath observance is different. Verse 15:
You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstreched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
In other words the mighty hand and the outstreched arm of God were not wearied by the work of creation. They are full of strength. God's rest was not for recuperation, but for exultation. Now the same God has shown his power not just to create but also to save. So the focus of the sabbath is on God not only as the source of creation, but also as the source of salvation. "Your God brought you up out of the land of Egypt . . . THEREFORE he commanded you to keep the sabbath day." One day of rest in every seven, kept holy to the Lord, reminds us and shows the world that GOD is our creator and our deliverer—we did not make ourselves, we cannot sustain or save ourselves without his grace. Be still and know that he is God.
The Sabbath as a Sign
What did the Lord say at the exodus from Egypt?
Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still.
Exodus 31:12–13 stresses again the truth that the sabbath signifies our utter reliance on God's grace.
And the Lord said to Moses, "Say to the people of Israel, You shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you."
The sabbath is a sign. It points to a truth that we are never to forget. The truth is that God (and not we ourselves) has sanctified us. He has chosen us and set us apart and worked to make us distinct among the peoples of the earth.
Summary of the Sabbath Command
In summary then, Exodus 20:11 and Deuteronomy 5:15 and Exodus 31:13 teach that the sabbath is a way of remembering and expressing the truth that God is our creator and deliverer and sanctifier. We are dependent on him for all we have in the world, for our deliverance from enemies, and for our holiness. He has indeed designed that we work. But our work neither creates, nor saves, nor sanctifies. For these we depend on the blessing of God. All things are from him and through him and to him. Lest we ever forget this and begin to take our strength and thought and work too seriously, we should keep one day in seven to cease from our labors and focus on God as the source of all blessing.
Good News Not Bad News
Before we leave the Old Testament, there is one other passage that clarifies a common misunderstanding of the sabbath. It is Isaiah 58:13–14. It is a shame that for so many people sabbath keeping is thought of solely in terms of what you can't do. Its original intention was certainly intended to be good news not bad news. The sabbath command is in fact a command to experience joy.
If you turn back your foot from the sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth.
God's Purpose for Us on the Sabbath
God's purpose for us on the sabbath is that we experience the highest and most intense joy that can be experienced, namely, that we "take delight in the Lord." And yet what he finds again and again is professing Christians who prefer little human-sized pleasures from things that have no close relation to God at all.
If you worked seven days a week in the hot sun to keep life and limb together, with scarcely any time for leisure and reflection, would you consider it burdensome if your God came to you with omnipotent authority and said, "I don't want you to have to work so much. I want you to have a day a week to rest and enjoy what really counts in life. I promise to meet your needs with just six days of work"? That is not a cruel command. It is a gracious gift.
Why So Many People Think of the Sabbath as a Burden
The reason that so many people feel it as a burden is partly that we have so much leisure, we don't feel the need for the sabbath rest; but more important, I think, is the fact that not many people really enjoy what God intended us to enjoy on the sabbath, namely, himself. Many professing Christians enjoy sports and television and secular books and magazines and recreation and hobbies and games far more than they enjoy direct interaction with God in his Word or in worship or in reading Christian books or in meditative strolls.
Therefore, inevitably people whose hearts are set more on the pleasures of the world than on the enjoyment of God will feel the sabbath command as a burden not a blessing. This is what John says in 1 John 5:3, "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." The measure of your love for God is the measure of the joy you get in focusing on him on the day of rest. For most people the sabbath command is really a demand to repent. It invites us to enjoy what we don't enjoy and therefore shows us the evil of hearts, and our need to repent and be changed.
Jesus' View of the Sabbath
When we come over to the New Testament we find that in the intervening centuries the rabbis have added a lot of details to the sabbath command and have missed the spirit of it as a wonderful gift for man's good. So Jesus slams head on into these traditions with a very different view than the one shared by the Pharisees. Let's look at this in Matthew 12:1–12.
At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck ears of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath." He said to them, "Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath."
And he went on from there, and entered their synagogue. And behold, there was a man with a withered hand. And they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath?" so that they might accuse him. He said to them, "What man of you, if he has one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath."
You Must Have a Loving Heart
What was wrong with the Pharisees? Why couldn't they see the Old Testament the way Jesus did? Why didn't they see David's eating the bread of the Presence and the priest's sabbath work in the temple as an indictment of their sabbath traditions the way Jesus did? According to Jesus the Pharisees could only condemn the innocent because they never had understood Hosea 6:6. He quotes it in verse 7: God says, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." In other words the whole law exists for the sake of mercy. All the law is summed up in this one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The Pharisees couldn't see the true meaning of the sabbath because they didn't have hearts of love. "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath," Jesus says in Mark 2:27. So if your heart isn't a heart for man—if it is not a heart of love—you cannot see the meaning of the sabbath. For the sabbath is a gift of love to meet man's need, not an oppressive burden to make him miserable or proud.
Jesus Didn't Abolish the Sabbath
So Jesus didn't come to abolish the sabbath but to dig it out from under the mountain of legalistic sediment, and give it to us again as a blessing rather than a burden. It is a day for showing mercy and a day for doing good (verse 12). It should not be governed rigidly by narrow definitions of what is work and what is not. It is a day to focus on the Lord. And now Jesus is the Lord of the sabbath (according to verse 8), so it is a day to focus on Jesus. And it is impossible that a day focused on Jesus should be a burden to the believing heart—"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!"
The Practice of the Early Church
As we move on into the early church it is clear that the weekly day of rest and devotion was not rejected, but was changed from Saturday to Sunday. This is nowhere commanded. But there are two verses that suggest it happened already in the days of the apostles. One is Acts 20:7 which says, "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and he prolonged his speech until midnight." This seems to be a formal gathering for the Lord's Supper on Sunday evening, the first day of the week. (It could have been Saturday evening since by Jewish reckoning the day begins at 6:00 PM the previous evening. But Luke probably uses the Roman way of reckoning days from midnight to midnight. Cf. 4:3; 23:31f.) So it looks as though the switch to Sunday for worship had already begun.
The other verse that points in this direction is 1 Corinthians 16:2. Paul is trying to prepare the Corinthians for a collection that he is taking up from the churches for the saints in Jerusalem: "On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come." It seems that the first day of the week is now the day when Christians are performing special religious exercises.
The First Day of the Week
Those are the only explicit references in the New Testament that seem to relate the sabbath to Sunday rather than Saturday. The real reason for why the church came to count the first day of the week as her day of rest and worship is that the Lord of the sabbath rose from the dead on the first day of the week (John 20:1). Just like the work of the first creation was finished on the seventh day of the week, the work of the new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Ephesians 2:10) was finished on the first day of the week by the resurrection of Jesus. So from the very earliest days Christians have set aside the first day of the week as their usual day of rest and worship.
Our Saturday Evening Service
What then shall we say about our Saturday evening service?
In view of the deep significance given in the Old Testament to a day of rest holy to the Lord, I do not in the least want to detract from the value of keeping the Christian sabbath holy, namely, Sunday.
Three Ways to View It
To this end I would suggest we look at the Saturday evening service in one of the following ways. In none of them is the Saturday worship a replacement of Sunday sabbath keeping.
- It can be viewed as a lengthening of the Sunday sabbath, starting five hours early at 7:00 PM instead of 12:00 AM.
- We could simply adopt the biblical/Jewish way of reckoning time and say that the first day of the week begins at 6:00 PM on Saturday. In this case the Saturday service would in fact be on the first day of the week, and our sabbath could run till 6:00 PM on Sunday or be lengthened at the other end to allow a sanctified place for the Sunday evening service.
- We could regard the Saturday evening service as not taking place on the first day of the Christian sabbath but as an extra service in the week to prepare us for the observance of the sabbath on Sunday. In that case the corporate sabbath worship might be what it was for the early church in Acts 20, namely, a Sunday evening service instead of a Sunday morning service.
How Can We Do This?
Where do we get the right to play fast and loose with the times of the sabbath like this? The answer is that we get it from the Jesus Christ the Lord of the sabbath. If Jesus were here today, he would say something like this: "If priests in the temple and pastors in the Christian church are permitted to work 16 hours on the usual day of rest, then the saints are permitted to worship one hour the day before. The sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath. Come, learn what it means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'"
He would send us to consult the words of his apostle in Romans 14:5, "One man judges one day above another, while another man judges all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind." We can take this to imply that some think that all days qualify for the sabbath. Some think that only Saturday qualifies. Others only Sunday. Do not condemn one another over these disagreements. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.
In summary, these four points:
1. Accept the gift of one day's rest a week. Humble yourself to believe you need it. And be willing to admit that your wealth and your significance and your true advancement in life depend far more on God's labor than on yours.
2. Devote one day a week to focus your attention on God in a special way. Keep a holy day and devote yourself to those things that deepen your love for God.
3. Except where you think obedience to God requires otherwise, let that day of rest and Godward focus be on the first day of the week as a witness to the world that Jesus Christ is the Lord of your sabbath and of your life.
4. For those of you who are free in your conscience to extend your holy exercises forward into Saturday night, let's dream together of new ways to sanctify Sunday morning. Could it be that the Lord is leading you to new dimensions of prayer, or new hours of personal Bible study, or new deeds of mercy for the poor, or Sunday morning visitation to a shut-in, or perhaps a home evangelistic Bible study for neighbors who would not come to church but might come to your home? Can you think of any better time to reach your neighbors with the gospel than between 10 and 12 on Sunday morning? Who knows—maybe the city will find its way to Bethlehem on Saturday night, or maybe Saturday night will free up the saints to reach the city on Sunday morning? If any of you has a sheep that falls into a pit on the sabbath, will you not reach in and pull it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good—all kinds of good—on Sunday morning.


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Click a button to view either program
Total run time: 83 minutes
8 Ball
Dir. Geoff Harmer - Basingstoke, England
Distraught man enlightened by casual soothsayer
Close Encounters
Dir. Douglas Caldow - Edinburgh, Scotland
Old flames wrestle with rekindled feelings
Les Oranges
Dir. Yannick Pecherand-Molliex - Paris, France
Mute man intrigued by blind woman
Best Man
Dir. Tomer Werechson - Tel Aviv, Israel
Wedding day mishaps of groom's assistant
Dir. Jessica Harris - Prahran, Australia
Lost boy's journey with homeless man
Dozdi (The Theft)
Dir. Mohammad Farahani - Tehran, Iran
Woman agonizes over young infant's fate
Shahre Sholoogh (Chaos Town)
Dir. Mohammad Reza Khavari - Tehran, Iran
Stray cat depends on butcher's kindness
Krot na More (The Mole at the Sea)
Dir. Anna Kadykova - Moscow, Russia
Dream beach trip frustrated by crowds
Un Lugar Mejor (A Better Place)
Dir. Moisés Romera & Marisa Crespo - Valencia, Spain
Optimistic youth banter about deferred dreams
Andersartig (Different)
Dir. Dennis Stein-Schomburg - Kassel, Germany
Isolated orphan recounts survival during war
La Dernière Scène (The Last Scene)
Dir. Sadaf Fouroughi - Montreal, Canada
Retiring projectionist encounters silent film actress
Dir. David Pavon - Torrenueva (Granada), Spain
Abandoned paper boat's voyage of discovery
Dir. Hamish Lambert - Montreal, Canada
Statue teaches child meaning of love
Dir. Jorge Dorado - Madrid, Spain
Tracking her life through her clothesline
S'oublier (To Forget)
Dir. Anh Minh Truong - Montreal, Canada
Couple's breakup contrasts sorrow and sweetness
Dir. Olga Popova - Kiev, Ukraine
Can man shake up domestic routine?
Zinì e Amì (Zinì and Amì)
Dir. Pierluca Di Pasquale - Rome, Italy
Man bewildered by unusual girlfriend's love
Total run time: 81 minutes
Ophelia: Love & Privacy_Settings
Dir. Bin-Han To - Ludwigsburg, Germany
Man's unexpectedly exposed thoughts prove embarrassing
Steffi Gefällt Das (Steffi Likes This)
Dir. Philipp Scholz - Hamburg, Germany
Social media junkie has "lucky" day
O Šunce (Ham Story)
Dir. Eliška Chytková - Nové Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic
Mischievous angel sends town into chaos
Perinde ac Cadaver
Dir. Philippe Crifo - Bordeaux, France
Curious villager discovers strange tower's secret
Hagoromo (Feather Robe From Heaven)
Dir. Yuri Nakamoto - Yokohama, Japan
Man ponders stealing heavenly creature's garments
Sheher Sheher... Everywhere (City City... Everywhere)
Dir. Pramod Pathak - Mumbai, India
Haunting exploration of industrialization's effects
Pervobytny Papa (The Primaeval Father)
Dir. Vladimir Danilov - Moscow, Russia
Caveman inventor fails to impress father
Anhold Mig (Arrest Me)
Dir. Michael Torp - Horsens, Denmark
Simple robbery becomes harder than planned
Crushed Willi
Dir. Volker Heymann - Mannheim, Germany
Older man struggles as trendy waiter
Ma Rencontre (A Chance Encounter)
Dir. Justin Pechberty & Samir Hamiche - Paris, France
Man encounters his decade older self
Dir. Mark Kozlowski - London, England
Internal monologue of grievances about girlfriend
Le Tempus Fugitus (The Tempus Fugitus)
Dir. Aline Quertain - Brussels, Belgium
Exotic slow motion animal's habits examined
Tears of Inge
Dir. Alisi Telengut - Montreal, Canada
Nomad's singing soothes camel giving birth
Missfall (Misfortune)
Dir. Martin Monk - Berlin, Germany
Women's complicated relationship threatened by pregnancy
Thé et Gaufrettes (Tea and Wafers)
Dir. Delphine Priet-Maheo - Rennes, France
Old friends play potentially dangerous cards
Dir. Christian Stahl - Berlin, Germany
Results when press freedom is irrelevant
Dir. Dominik Urban - Tabor, Czech Republic
Stray creature desperate to escape imprisonment
Dir. Lars Damoiseaux & Frederik Palmaers - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Top of food chain, or bottom?
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Columbian Beer Makers Fight for the Right to Rip Off The Simpsons
What started out as a novel idea has turned into a corporate tug of war, as two Columbian brothers are now deep in the trenches of a legal battle with 20th Century Fox for the right to brew beer inspired by the hit television series 'The Simpsons.'
The original idea for the beer was a blatant rip-off of Homer Simpson's infamous poison of choice, Duff Beer – right down to the same name. However, the company has since changed the name to DuH Beer and altered the look of the label by fudging the ffs to look like a capital H.
Alvaro and Oscar Ballesteros started producing an actual version of Duff Beer in 2006 before registering the trademark in 2008. They began distributing the following year.
"In 2009 we sold our first beers to bars in Bogota, and now we are in seven other Colombian cities, with a national production of 24,000 units a month," said Alvaro Ballesteros.
Needles to say 20th Century Fox didn't find any humor in the brothers' new found business venture and sent in some hard-hitting corporate attorney to sue the boys for copyright infringement in Columbia.
So, what does 20th Century Fox want?
According to attorney Alicia Lloreda, they want DuH Beer removed from the market because the brand does not belong to them. Apparently, government regulators agree and have ordered the brothers to cease all production, distribution and sales of beer in Columbia.
However, the Ballesteros brothers are not taking it on the chin, as they too have hired an attorney and plan to appeal the decision and defend their right to rip-off 'The Simpsons.' The brothers insist they are not assuming, copying or taking advantage of 20th Century Fox's brand "simply because they in reality do not have it. It appears only in cartoons, in a fictional world."
While we would like to see things work out for these guys, we have a feeling that by the end of this thing they will be screaming "D'oh!"


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You can't say they didn't warn you. On Monday, Google Reader will no longer be available. The search behemoth is putting its RSS reader to rest, leaving millions of dedicated users scrambling to find other platforms for organization of their news feeds and content exploration.
One of the leading contenders in the race to replace Google Reader is the recently relaunched Digg Reader. The man behind the effort is CEO Andrew McLaughlin. A former vice president of Tumblr, he also served as the White House's deputy chief technology officer and headed up global public policy at Google. As Wired magazine puts it in a recent profile, "Dude has bona fides."
Somehow, the indefatigable McLaughlin found time to chat during the frenzied, final few days of readying Digg Reader, which went live this weekend. We talked about content overload, the puzzling math behind our social media feeds and what one RSS reader's death means for reading's future.
What does the end of Google Reader signal for the future of how we read, watch or view media?
"Most people look at the death of Google Reader and say, 'Oh, RSS readers are a dead end; there's no need for them anymore.' In a narrow sense, that's true in that RSS specifically is not the most important thing for most users. But if you look around the Internet broadly, you see many, many more people online, many more people with smartphones and doing more of their reading digitally. So that just means that for the next 10 years and beyond the project of trying to make a really great reading experience is still a valid one. I mean, reading, viewing, watching.
"There's just going to be much more demand for a great reading experience. There's more demand for one part of the reading experience which is the ability to boil down the overwhelming flood of stuff that comes at you that competes for and demands your attention. Boiling that down in intelligent ways is integral to a great reading experience. Whether it's mood, situation, the time you have or what you want to do, there's going to be ways you want to slice and dice things."
But it does seem like there are feeds we rely on for surfacing news or information that are more useful for us than RSS feeds, like Twitter or Facebook feeds.
"RSS feeds are important. There are also things you want to follow or keep up with that are not RSS. Twitter shares lots of URLs. That's not an RSS feed. But what if we could rank them [the URLs] in terms of popularity in my world in New York, or the popularity two years ago if you'd like to know, or what's interesting to you based on what you like or tweet or reblog? Actions are an indication of what you find interesting. We're thinking around an uncluttered reading experience plus a bunch of other things. Distilling, sorting, ranking to make better use of your time. Flipboard, which I really like, creates that magazine browsing experience. Digg is trying to focus on reading and videos. We're not trying to make a gorgeous experience but a stripped-down one. We're making something more optimized for text."
How are you thinking through the fact that we're getting more and more content to choose from and consume?
"What we need are tools that cut through the thicket and dampen the noise. Our aesthetic choices [in the new Digg Reader] are designed to produce an emotional feeling of calmness. It should be that sort of thing. They reflect a conviction that distilling down and boiling down is the need. If you look at the right now, that's 70 things that cycle through that are picked by human editors. There's gotta be math, too."
How good is the math right now?
"We've built one algorithm for popularity, one for popularity within social circles, and we're starting to work on 'interestingness' in a personalized sense. It seems that there's a huge amount of room for improvement. The usual ways of calculating recommended for you kinds of things don't work that great. Betaworks' [the company behind the Digg Reader] expertise is in real data, social data, big data. That will be what we're noodling over — how to make usable, valuable products out of what's available.
"If you watch recommendation projects like Netflix, the trick to that is the only thing they know is what you watch, is what rating you give it. That's not that much. In the Internet world we can look at: What do you save? What do you open to read? How much of it did you read through? What did you do after you read it — delete it or archive it? That's a lot more signals. What did you tweet or send your Facebook friends?"
How concerned are you that the more these algorithms improve to tailor our content to precisely the topics or material we want to see, the more we live in our own "filter bubbles" of media — consuming only content that promotes and preserves our biases and preferences?
"It can. Part of what we're building is informed by what Eli Pariser [author of The Filter Bubble] and many before him wrote. Our sense about that is that the way to break through the bubble is not to have just one algorithm. Facebook has one way to decide what goes in your feed. We want to provide 10 or 15 ways to rank your items or any feed or any given folder. For example, if you go by popularity globally, that won't have a political bias if it really is the world. If you look within your social circles, you'll see things the rest of the world isn't paying attention to, what we are [paying attention to] domestically. We're also thinking about a sort by 'grade level.' You can analyze writing by grade level up to grad school. But I buy the critique. Which is why I don't think Google+ or Facebook is a good substitute for a reader."
Yeah, I feel like my Facebook feed is constantly changing and sending me more and more random stuff.
"Our feeds are getting puzzling — genuinely puzzling. Even if you click on chronological view, you still don't see everything. Even that is selected. It's not all of the things that all of your friends are sharing. That's probably maximizing monetization for Facebook, not your utility."
So readers aren't dead.
"Readers aren't dead because reading isn't dead. We're trying to build a comprehensive reading, viewing, listening experience. Our iPhone app and iPad app has a feature that allows you to play podcasts in your feeds, in order. You can hit that button and it pulls out podcasts and videos and plays them one after another. That's kind of great. We'll have a control panel so you can delete the ones you don't want or reorganize them. That's the kind of thing that Google Reader never did. It's about what you want to read, view and watch. There's no less need for reading. More reading is just happening on devices. So there's a huge amount of demand."
Who else is thinking about these issues in an interesting way?
, , . There's some edgier cases like Zite and Prismatic which are more about topical clustering. They take a different approach. Zite is source-based. Flipboard is that beautiful, visual magazine experience.
"We at Digg are trying to say it's not about just showing you everything you want to see in reverse chron that you scroll through. We're gonna try to give you ways to reorganize and reorder that stuff to get you the most important, longest stuff first and work the way through."
What's your advice for folks as we confront the end of Google Reader?
"Be prepared to sample and shop around; experiment with the different approaches, takes and user experiences. If you find one that you don't like, odds are there is another one that's what you're looking for."
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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A .Net event actually consists of a pair of accessor methods named add_EventName
and remove_EventName
. These functions each take a handler delegate, and are expected to add or remove that delegate from the list of event handlers.
In C#, writing public event EventHandler EventName;
creates a field-like event. The compiler will automatically generate a private backing field (also a delegate), along with thread-safe accessor methods that add and remove handlers from the backing field (like an auto-implemented property). Within the class that declared the event, EventName
refers to this private backing field. Thus, writing EventName(...)
in the class calls this field and raises the event (if no handlers have been added, the field will be null
You can also write custom event accessors to gain full control over how handlers are added to your events. For example, this event will store and trigger handlers in reverse order:
void Main() { ReversedEvent += delegate { Console.WriteLine(1); }; ReversedEvent += delegate { Console.WriteLine(2); }; ReversedEvent += delegate { Console.WriteLine(3); }; OnReversedEvent(); } protected void OnReversedEvent() { if (reversedEvent != null) reversedEvent(this, EventArgs.Empty); } private EventHandler reversedEvent; public event EventHandler ReversedEvent { add { reversedEvent = value + reversedEvent; } remove { reversedEvent -= value; } }
This add
accessor uses the non-commutative delegate addition operator to prepend each new handler to the delegate field containing the existing handlers. The raiser method simply calls the combined delegate in the private field. (which is null
if there aren't any handlers)
Note that this code is not thread-safe. If two threads add a handler at the same time, both of them will read the original storage field, add their respective handlers to create a new delegate instance, then write this new delegate back to the field. The thread that writes back to the field last will overwrite the changes made by the other thread, since it never saw the other thread's handler (this is the same reason that x += y
is not thread-safe). The accessors generated by the compiler are threadsafe, either by using lock(this)
(C# 3 or earlier) or a lock-free threadsafe implementation (C# 4). For more details, see this series of blog posts.
This example is rather useless. However, there are better reasons to create custom event accessors. WinForms controls store their events in a special EventHandlerList
class to save memory. WPF controls create events using the Routed Event system, and store handlers in special storage in DependencyObject. Custom event accessors can also be used to perform validation or logging.


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You must have 2 original Ford keys that start your engine to perform this procedure. If you only have one working key or none at all it must be programmed by a dealer or locksmith! Your New third (unprogrammed) key must also be cut prior to performing this procedure. Please Note: If one of your keys is a cloned key from a hardware store this procedure will NOT work. This procedure requires original programmed keys.
1. Insert an existing (working) key into the ignition cylinder.
2. Turn the ignition cylinder ON (just shy of starting the car Without cranking the engine) and back to OFF. Ignition should stay in ON position for at least one second.
3. Remove the existing key and WITHIN TEN SECONDS, insert a second working key and turn to ON and then back to OFF. Ignition must be on for at least one second but no more than ten seconds. Remove key.
4. Insert the New (unprogrammed) key before twenty seconds have elapsed and turn to ON. Leave it in the ON position for at least one second and turn back to OFF.
5. The security light will light up for THREE seconds to indicate the new key has been successfully programmed.
For those who do not have 2 original keys: These keys can NOT be programmed at hardware stores like Ace, Lowes, Walmart, & Home Depot. They must be programmed by an automotive locksmith or dealership.


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Is there merit to this observation or is this simply another example of sports parents tending to look at a situation through the lens of their child's interests? It's probably a little of both.
In youth sports, parent-coaches are essential—there are simply not enough individuals (without a child on the team) who are interested in coaching. Often, the parent-coach has played the sport in high school and is knowledgeable about the game. In these instances, the coach's child may be more skilled than others on the team, have a greater understanding of the game, and also enjoy playing (and practicing) the sport. In other words, the parent-coach's child may deserve to play a key position on the team or receive more playing time—especially in competitive leagues.
Coaches' kids are sometimes held to more exacting standards and may feel that other players on the team receive preferential treatment. The coach's child may face additional pressures including potential accusations of favoritism by their teammates. Sometimes, coaches over-compensate in their treatment of their child in an effort to remove any suggestion of favoritism. In these instances it's not uncommon for the child to retaliate verbally when the parent-coach "corrects" a skill or behavior.
Before you begin complaining about the parent-coach favoring his or her child, try to objectively observe how he treats all of the team's players. Do the parent-coach's strategies and schemes provide opportunities for each player to potentially succeed or are they geared to specifically benefit the coach's child? Does the coach give everyone an opportunity in practice and employ the teaching principles discussed elsewhere in this blog?
Be honest with yourself. Is the coach's child the best player for a position and does this child need to play for the team to compete? Is your child clearly superior to the coach's child or are they close in ability? The latter situation may prove especially difficult as some coaches may unfortunately justify playing their son or daughter based on their investment of coaching time and effort.
Also, talk with your child and understand how he or she feels about the coach's kid and their role on the team. Your child may believe that the coach's kid is the best player for the position. Despite your feelings, your child may like the coach and believe that the coach is fairly treating each player on the team.
If you believe the coach's child is receiving unjustified preferential treatment in comparison to your child and others on the team, you may want to discuss the matter with the coach. Arrange a time (other than after a game) to objectively talk about your concerns. Try to understand the coach's philosophy and specific reasons for making his or her choices. Do not accept blatant favoritism, but understand the difficult position that a child and their parent-coach sometimes face. If you feel strongly that the "system is broken," consider becoming a youth coach to provide the experience that you believe all young athletes should enjoy!
Copyright 2009-2012 Jeffrey S. Rhoads; All Rights Reserved


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David Weiss is renewable energy business man and avid kiteboarder from the east coast. He always questioned the reality of the world he lives in. On September 11, 2001 he was heading out the door to fly out of LGA airport in NYC when he saw the news. From his location he had a clear view across the long island sound of lower manhattan and realized from that moment that what we are told by the MSM is not reality.
He hosted a weekly podcast for 3 years called Deep Inside The Rabbit Hole which discussed many different deceptions that the MSM and TPTB cast over the population. Then in early 2015 he started looking at the what he thought was the most ridiculous topic, the flat earth. After trying to debunk it for several weeks he quickly became aware that our earth is stationary and flat and NASA is 100% a fraud. David makes short videos to give newbies to FE enough information to be willing to watch a longer more in depth video. His YouTube channel is DITRH.
This is the time to ask your questions from anyone on the panel! You don't want to miss this one! Comments


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Blind or vision impaired travellers
If you're blind or vision impaired, we've outlined the details you may need from the time you make a booking right through to your arrival.
On this page
Making a booking
- You're not required to travel with a carer unless you have specific requirements. If you need to travel with a carer, you may be eligible for discounted airfares.
- If you'd like to travel with your accredited Service Dog, contact us for assistance with your specific needs.
- As part of our special meal requests, pre-set meals may be requested at the time of booking and must be requested no later than 24 hours prior to departure. Special meal requests are not provided on QantasLink Dash 8 aircraft services.
At the airport
- At all our Qantas terminals within Australia we may provide kerbside assistance. This is subject to one of our staff being available and upon arrival at the airport you must be with someone who can advise our staff that you require assistance kerbside.
- A Meet and Assist Service is available for guidance to and from the aircraft gate. If you require this service, advise us at the time of booking.
On the aircraft
- If you have a walking cane or walking frame, it may be carried in the cabin if it can be accommodated in the overhead lockers or other storage space. Otherwise the device will be stowed in the aircraft hold and you will be offered wheelchair assistance to and from the gate.
- Due to safety regulations you will not be allocated an exit row seat if you are blind or vision impaired.
- You'll be boarded first and provided with an individual safety briefing.
- Safety cards in Braille format are available on most flights. This safety card will be provided to you after your safety briefing. Ask the cabin crew for this safety card if it is not provided to you.
- At your request, a friendly cabin crew member can read the menu to you prior to the meal service. He or she can explain where all the food is placed on your tray, if requested.


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BY Phillip Walter Wellman | Dubai – Gulf Arab states are beginning two days of joint military exercises, as fears of an armed conflict with Iran continue to grow.
The drills, dubbed "Islands of Loyalty," come amid an escalating territorial dispute between the United Arab Emirates and Iran over three strategic islands in the Persian Gulf.
Earlier this month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited one of the islands, Abu Musa, sparking a war of words between Abu Dhabi and Tehran.
The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Mohammed Gargash, said his nation was "fed up" with the Iranians' "occupation" of the land.
Iran's FARS news agency on Saturday provided one of the starkest warnings yet the dispute could result in war, quoting an unnamed military official as saying, "serious damage to the United Arab Emirates would be the first outcome."
Despite the strong rhetoric analyst David Roberts, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in Qatar, says both countries would prefer to avoid a serious confrontation.
"It is certainly for show, but that is absolutely not to ignore the potential prospect that something could accidentally spark off here," Roberts. "If you put all of these forces in a small proximity in a slightly fevered atmosphere, anything could happen."
Research Director Theodore Karasic, of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, agrees.
"It only takes one little accident or incident to set off a chain of events that could ultimately lead to some kind of military confrontation and it is possible that the islands' issue could do that," say Karasic.
All three of the disputed islands are controlled by Iran and lie near the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supplies are shipped.
Tehran has threatened to close the Strait in response to sanctions targeting its nuclear program and would likely use troops stationed on Abu Musa to do so.
Political risks analyst Andrew Bond, of the Institute of Gulf Affairs in Washington D. C., says many countries, including the United States, are concerned the islands confrontation could have a future impact on global oil supplies.
"There are some people in the [U.S.] administration who are nervous right now with what is going on," said Bond.
On Sunday, Iran's Majlis (legislature) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee reportedly held a meeting on Abu Musa to coincide with the Arab military drills.
The drills are being carried out by the Peninsula Shield Force, the joint army of the Gulf Arab states, to test the ability of ground, air and naval troops to carry out missions along coasts and on islands in territorial waters.
Peninsula Shield soldiers were used to quell Bahrain's anti-government uprising last year.
The United Arab Emirates says it is willing to take the islands dispute to international arbitration if a compromise cannot be reached diplomatically. Iran says its ownership if the islands is not negotiable.


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Steve Guttenberg Biography
Steve Guttenberg
actorBorn: 8/24/1958
Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
The likable, curly-haired Steve Guttenberg first appeared onscreen in a 1976 Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial; the following year he starred in the teen comedy The Chicken Chronicles. Although this was followed by the turkey Can't Stop the Music (1980), about The Village People, Guttenberg soon won acclaim for his performance in Diner (1982). He has since been a frequent comedic lead, appearing in Three Men and a Baby (1987) and its sequel, and in the Police Academy movies (1984, 1985, 1986, 1987). He has also appeared in such features as the film Home for the Holidays (1995).
Woody Guthrie | G | Fred Gwynne |
See also:


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Furnish Now, Pay Later!
Buying furniture from us is now more affordable than ever! Simply choose "Affirm" option during checkout and provide some basic information to get approved instantly!
What is Affirm?
Affirm is a financing alternative to credit cards and other credit-payment products. Affirm offers instant financing for online purchases to be paid in fixed monthly installments over three, six, or 12 months.
Affirm will allow you to buy and receive your furniture right away, and pay for it over several months.
If Affirm approves your loan, you'll see your loan terms before you make your purchase. See exactly how much you owe each month, the number of payments you must make, and the total amount of interest you'll pay over the course of the loan. There are no hidden fees.
How does Affirm work?
Choose "Pay with Affirm" during checkout and Affirm will prompt you to enter a few pieces of information: Name, email, mobile phone number, date of birth, and the last four digits of your social security number. This information must be consistent and your own.
To ensure that you're the person making the purchase, Affirm sends a text message to your cell phone with a unique authorization code.
Enter the authorization code into the application form. Within a few seconds, Affirm notifies you of the loan amount you're approved for, the interest rate, and the number of months you have to pay off your loan. You have the option to pay off your loan over three, six, or twelve months. Affirm states the amount of your fixed, monthly payments and the total amount of interest you'll pay over the course of the loan.
Does Affirm do a credit check?
Affirm does a "soft" credit check, which verifies the customer's identity but does not affect a customer's credit score. Affirm's underwriting model does not use a hard credit check. There is no effect on a consumer's credit score when they apply for an Affirm loan.
Questions about this? Chat or call us at 732-698-9221 M-F 9am -5:30pm EST or send us email to email@example.com.


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Last week, the Conseil Constitutionnel, the highest authority on the French Constitution, declared the provisions of a law permitting judicial and police use of a centralized national ID database to be unconstitutional. 200 members of the French Parliament referred the law to the Conseil following the law's adoption on March 6th. The Conseil determined that the use of the centralized database was incompatible with France's fundamental rights, including the right to privacy and the presumption of innocence.
The proposed legislation mandated compulsory civilian ID cards containing a chip designed to store personal and biometric information, including home address, marital status, eye colour, and fingerprints. Proponents argued that the biometric ID card would be used to stop "honest folk" from becoming the victims of identity fraud. In fact, the law would have enabled the "honest folk" database to be used for criminal and judicial purposes. The Conseil correctly determined that such uses constituted a serious incursion into the right to private life, disproportionate to the law's stated objective.
Another provision in the law would have allowed for a second, optional chip to be used for online authentication in e-commerce transactions. The Conseil determined that such use would require too broad a range of personal data to be collected without any guarantees of security and confidentiality. Furthermore, it condemned the law's vague conditions for authenticating individuals, especially minors. EFF welcomes the Conseil's decision to strike out substantial parts of the legislation to protect privacy. Nevertheless, the Conseil should explain their unmotivated reasoning behind leaving significant anti-privacy portions of the law intact, namely biometric data collection for the purpose of preventing ID fraud.
The argument for biometrics is predicated on the flawed assumption that a national biometric ID scheme will prevent identity fraud. Massive databases already invite security breaches and a biometrics database of this scale is a honeypot of sensitive data vulnerable to exploitation. Such a data breach is not just costly—it is irreversible, you cannot change your fingerprints or your irises.
In its decision, the Conseil emphasized that they are not ruling either for or against biometrics [PDF, in French] (p.21):
This decision of the Council's should not be interpreted as being either in favour of biometrics or against it. Nor is the Council expressing any opinion either in favour of a register of biometric data or against it. What the Council is saying is that the safeguards involved in the creation and deployment of this register are inadequate. In the circumstances, the Council is not in a position to over-ride the wishes of the legislature.
The Conseil's ambivalent statement is politically understandable. Regulators tend to romanticize the security and accuracy of biometric systems. In fact, there is a lack of evidence to demonstrate the reliability and proportionality of this new technology. Jean Marc Manach, a blogger and journalist from Owni.fr, argues that biometrics has proven inaccurate and therefore ineffective in fighting identity fraud or anything else. As long ago as August 2009, The Register magazine suggested that our trust in biometric technology is a delusion.
Last year, a French report revealed that 10% of biometric passports were fraudulently obtained [French]. The introduction of biometrics is exacerbating the problem of identity fraud instead of solving it. The French government already has several powerful surveillance technologies available to track people's movements, including mobile phone logs, web usage logs and credit card usage logs. They must provide evidence first that they can use this technology to enhance security before spending taxpayer money on another National ID biometric scheme.
French smart card and biometrics companies have lobbied heavily for the "honest folks" law. Their trade association, GIXEL (Professional Association of Industry and Electronic Components) gained notoriety in 2004 when they won the infamous French "Big Brother" award, for their systematic attacks on the right to privacy. Ironically, GIXEL got the award for their proposal to "educate" children under 6 years old and their parents about the need for biometric "security."
The proposed collection of this vast amount of biometric information gives governments too much unchecked power and opens the door for government abuse. In their referral to the Conseil, French parliamentarians quoted Martin Niemöller's chilling poem "First they came." They argued that had this kind of database existed during WWII, the Nazis and collaborators in Vichy France could have more easily arrested French Résistance fighters based on their fingerprints or facial scans.
EFF, as one of 80 civil liberties organizations, has requested the Council of Europe in 2011 to investigate if National ID biometrics laws in Europe comply with the Council of Europe Privacy Treaty and the European Convention on Human Rights.
In light of the long list of privacy concerns surrounding biometrics, and the guarantee of future security breaches, biometric national ID laws cannot be justified. As more nations continue to adopt and implement biometric ID laws, now is the time for the Council of Europe to comply with its duty to seriously confront all of these issues. Under our watch, we refuse to let states collect massive amounts of biometric data without regard to our privacy rights.


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Luminous Ion Karambit Blue VCT Yoru Comb Jett Go Volume 1 Knife 4 In 1 Pack
- Regular price
- Regular price
$200.99 USD - Sale price
- Unit price
- per
Luminous Ion Karambit Blue VCT Yoru Comb Jett Go Volume 1 Knife 4 In 1 Pack
Hello, friends, Leone here.
I carefully crafted the 4 cool weapon replicas.
They are hand-crafted by me and made of metal with nice details.
Ion and VCT are painted with luminous material that will glow in the dark after absorbing enough sunlight energy.
The blades are blunt and safe for play or collection.
It's interesting to play them before you wait for the game to start.
1. Ion
Length: 17.5CM/6.9"
Weight: 204.2g/7.2Oz
2. Go Volume 1 Knife
3. Yoru Comb
Length(Open): 24CM/9.4"
Length(Fold): 13CM/5.1"
Weight: 140g/4.9Oz
Length: 22CM/8.7"
Weight: 120g/4.2Oz
Scale: 1:1
Package: Carton
Material: Zinc Alloy
1. I ordered your item how can I track it?
Firstly, thanks for your support for my small business. You can track the order via the tracking code we send to your mailbox. Sometimes the mail might be blocked by your mail system. Please check your junk box or contact us via our after-sales e-mail address email@example.com to get the tracking code if this situation happens.
2. How long does the delivery take?
The delivery time is unstable during the COVID-19 period. It's about 15-25days to the USA and 20-40days to other countries. Sometimes it might be a little longer when the items are under review by your customs.
We will also keep some of my hot sale crafts in the USA warehouse I rent, they have a much faster delivery to the USA, like 3-5days. The item is various, you can contact us directly if you need to make an urgent order.
3. I don't want the order now, can I cancel it?
Yes, but please contact us within 24 hours, a cancellation is unacceptable after the order was shipped out.
4. I don't like my order any more, can I return it?
Sorry, we can not accept returns because most of the crafts here are not able to send back to us, they will be detained by our customs. So please make sure you really want my crafts before placing an order. What I can promise is all the pictures and videos of my craft are real so you will get what you see.
5. I played with it and broke it?
My crafts are mainly made for collecting and displaying. Some of them are thought functional, such as some of the game balisongs. But I don't suggest you purchase them mainly for training. You need to take the loss if you break it accidentally.
6. Can I get some spare parts to repair the craft?
I usually provide free parts (when it's available for repair) for customers to repair their craft, but the customer needs to overtake the shipping cost.
7. Scam?
As a small businessman, I will never never(another never is to emphasize) scam anybody who supports my small business. You can also contact me directly via firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any doubts about your order. Yes, problems happen sometimes, especially because of the specific characteristics of my crafts, but I never scam anyone for any reason. That's the most basic reason I can run this small site since 2019 and have over 100K followers on social media( You can find me on Youtube, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Tiktok.)
More Questions Answered Here


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Think of something that is valuable. Something that is infinite, yet finite for each of us. Something that you use every day. It is loathsome when waiting but fleeting and precious when enjoyed. No one in our culture has enough of it!
If you are thinking of time you're right! What's the best use of my time? It seems I have countless people – organizations, friends and family, who want a piece of my time so they're really taking a piece of ME!. Often, I don't know where to start. Yet time is my most valuable resource how do I decide where to use it?
Life is short. There never seems to be enough extra margin of time to do all that we desire. There are always things left undone. Culture entices us into wasting our time yet time is our most valuable asset. How do we know if we are investing it wisely?