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fcntl - manipulate file descriptor
#include <unistd.h> #include <fcntl.h> int fcntl(int fd, int cmd, ... /* arg */ );
fcntl() performs one of the operations described below on the open file descriptor fd. The operation is determined by cmd. fcntl() can take an optional third argument. Whether or not this argument is required is determined by cmd. The required argument type is indicated in parentheses after each cmd name (in most cases, the required type is long, and we identify the argument using the name arg), or void is specified if the argument is not required. Duplicating a file descriptor F_DUPFD (long) Find the lowest numbered available file descriptor greater than or equal to arg and make it be a copy of fd. This is different from dup2(2), which uses exactly the descriptor specified. On success, the new descriptor is returned. See dup(2) for further details. F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC (long; since Linux 2.6.24) As for F_DUPFD, but additionally set the close-on-exec flag for the duplicate descriptor. Specifying this flag permits a program to avoid an additional fcntl() F_SETFD operation to set the FD_CLOEXEC flag. For an explanation of why this flag is useful, see the description of O_CLOEXEC in open(2). File descriptor flags The following commands manipulate the flags associated with a file descriptor. Currently, only one such flag is defined: FD_CLOEXEC, the close-on-exec flag. If the FD_CLOEXEC bit is 0, the file descriptor will remain open across an execve(2), otherwise it will be closed. F_GETFD (void) Read the file descriptor flags; arg is ignored. F_SETFD (long) Set the file descriptor flags to the value specified by arg. File status flags Each open file description has certain associated status flags, initialized by open(2) and possibly modified by fcntl(). Duplicated file descriptors (made with dup(2), fcntl(F_DUPFD), fork(2), etc.) refer to the same open file description, and thus share the same file status flags. The file status flags and their semantics are described in open(2). F_GETFL (void) Read the file status flags; arg is ignored. F_SETFL (long) Set the file status flags to the value specified by arg. File access mode (O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, O_RDWR) and file creation flags (i.e., O_CREAT, O_EXCL, O_NOCTTY, O_TRUNC) in arg are ignored. On Linux this command can only change the O_APPEND, O_ASYNC, O_DIRECT, O_NOATIME, and O_NONBLOCK flags. Advisory locking F_GETLK, F_SETLK and F_SETLKW are used to acquire, release, and test for the existence of record locks (also known as file-segment or file- region locks). The third argument, lock, is a pointer to a structure that has at least the following fields (in unspecified order). struct flock { ... short l_type; /* Type of lock: F_RDLCK, F_WRLCK, F_UNLCK */ short l_whence; /* How to interpret l_start: SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR, SEEK_END */ off_t l_start; /* Starting offset for lock */ off_t l_len; /* Number of bytes to lock */ pid_t l_pid; /* PID of process blocking our lock (F_GETLK only) */ ... }; The l_whence, l_start, and l_len fields of this structure specify the range of bytes we wish to lock. Bytes past the end of the file may be locked, but not bytes before the start of the file. l_start is the starting offset for the lock, and is interpreted relative to either: the start of the file (if l_whence is SEEK_SET); the current file offset (if l_whence is SEEK_CUR); or the end of the file (if l_whence is SEEK_END). In the final two cases, l_start can be a negative number provided the offset does not lie before the start of the file. l_len specifies the number of bytes to be locked. If l_len is positive, then the range to be locked covers bytes l_start up to and including l_start+l_len-1. Specifying 0 for l_len has the special meaning: lock all bytes starting at the location specified by l_whence and l_start through to the end of file, no matter how large the file grows. POSIX.1-2001 allows (but does not require) an implementation to support a negative l_len value; if l_len is negative, the interval described by lock covers bytes l_start+l_len up to and including l_start-1. This is supported by Linux since kernel versions 2.4.21 and 2.5.49. The l_type field can be used to place a read (F_RDLCK) or a write (F_WRLCK) lock on a file. Any number of processes may hold a read lock (shared lock) on a file region, but only one process may hold a write lock (exclusive lock). An exclusive lock excludes all other locks, both shared and exclusive. A single process can hold only one type of lock on a file region; if a new lock is applied to an already-locked region, then the existing lock is converted to the new lock type. (Such conversions may involve splitting, shrinking, or coalescing with an existing lock if the byte range specified by the new lock does not precisely coincide with the range of the existing lock.) F_SETLK (struct flock *) Acquire a lock (when l_type is F_RDLCK or F_WRLCK) or release a lock (when l_type is F_UNLCK) on the bytes specified by the l_whence, l_start, and l_len fields of lock. If a conflicting lock is held by another process, this call returns -1 and sets errno to EACCES or EAGAIN. F_SETLKW (struct flock *) As for F_SETLK, but if a conflicting lock is held on the file, then wait for that lock to be released. If a signal is caught while waiting, then the call is interrupted and (after the signal handler has returned) returns immediately (with return value -1 and errno set to EINTR; see signal(7)). F_GETLK (struct flock *) On input to this call, lock describes a lock we would like to place on the file. If the lock could be placed, fcntl() does not actually place it, but returns F_UNLCK in the l_type field of lock and leaves the other fields of the structure unchanged. If one or more incompatible locks would prevent this lock being placed, then fcntl() returns details about one of these locks in the l_type, l_whence, l_start, and l_len fields of lock and sets l_pid to be the PID of the process holding that lock. In order to place a read lock, fd must be open for reading. In order to place a write lock, fd must be open for writing. To place both types of lock, open a file read-write. As well as being removed by an explicit F_UNLCK, record locks are automatically released when the process terminates or if it closes any file descriptor referring to a file on which locks are held. This is bad: it means that a process can lose the locks on a file like /etc/passwd or /etc/mtab when for some reason a library function decides to open, read and close it. Record locks are not inherited by a child created via fork(2), but are preserved across an execve(2). Because of the buffering performed by the stdio(3) library, the use of record locking with routines in that package should be avoided; use read(2) and write(2) instead. Mandatory locking (Non-POSIX.) The above record locks may be either advisory or mandatory, and are advisory by default. Advisory locks are not enforced and are useful only between cooperating processes. Mandatory locks are enforced for all processes. If a process tries to perform an incompatible access (e.g., read(2) or write(2)) on a file region that has an incompatible mandatory lock, then the result depends upon whether the O_NONBLOCK flag is enabled for its open file description. If the O_NONBLOCK flag is not enabled, then system call is blocked until the lock is removed or converted to a mode that is compatible with the access. If the O_NONBLOCK flag is enabled, then the system call fails with the error EAGAIN. To make use of mandatory locks, mandatory locking must be enabled both on the file system that contains the file to be locked, and on the file itself. Mandatory locking is enabled on a file system using the "-o mand" option to mount(8), or the MS_MANDLOCK flag for mount(2). Mandatory locking is enabled on a file by disabling group execute permission on the file and enabling the set-group-ID permission bit (see chmod(1) and chmod(2)). The Linux implementation of mandatory locking is unreliable. See BUGS below. Managing signals F_GETOWN, F_SETOWN, F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_GETSIG and F_SETSIG are used to manage I/O availability signals: F_GETOWN (void) Return (as the function result) the process ID or process group currently receiving SIGIO and SIGURG signals for events on file descriptor fd. Process IDs are returned as positive values; process group IDs are returned as negative values (but see BUGS below). arg is ignored. F_SETOWN (long) Set the process ID or process group ID that will receive SIGIO and SIGURG signals for events on file descriptor fd to the ID given in arg. A process ID is specified as a positive value; a process group ID is specified as a negative value. Most commonly, the calling process specifies itself as the owner (that is, arg is specified as getpid(2)). If you set the O_ASYNC status flag on a file descriptor by using the F_SETFL command of fcntl(), a SIGIO signal is sent whenever input or output becomes possible on that file descriptor. F_SETSIG can be used to obtain delivery of a signal other than SIGIO. If this permission check fails, then the signal is silently discarded. Sending a signal to the owner process (group) specified by F_SETOWN is subject to the same permissions checks as are described for kill(2), where the sending process is the one that employs F_SETOWN (but see BUGS below). If the file descriptor fd refers to a socket, F_SETOWN also selects the recipient of SIGURG signals that are delivered when out-of-band data arrives on that socket. (SIGURG is sent in any situation where select(2) would report the socket as having an "exceptional condition".) The following was true in 2.6.x kernels up to and including kernel 2.6.11: If a nonzero value is given to F_SETSIG in a multithreaded process running with a threading library that supports thread groups (e.g., NPTL), then a positive value given to F_SETOWN has a different meaning: instead of being a process ID identifying a whole process, it is a thread ID identifying a specific thread within a process. Consequently, it may be necessary to pass F_SETOWN the result of gettid(2) instead of getpid(2) to get sensible results when F_SETSIG is used. (In current Linux threading implementations, a main thread's thread ID is the same as its process ID. This means that a single-threaded program can equally use gettid(2) or getpid(2) in this scenario.) Note, however, that the statements in this paragraph do not apply to the SIGURG signal generated for out-of-band data on a socket: this signal is always sent to either a process or a process group, depending on the value given to F_SETOWN. The above behavior was accidentally dropped in Linux 2.6.12, and won't be restored. From Linux 2.6.32 onwards, use F_SETOWN_EX to target SIGIO and SIGURG signals at a particular thread. F_GETOWN_EX (struct f_owner_ex *) (since Linux 2.6.32) Return the current file descriptor owner settings as defined by a previous F_SETOWN_EX operation. The information is returned in the structure pointed to by arg, which has the following form: struct f_owner_ex { int type; pid_t pid; }; The type field will have one of the values F_OWNER_TID, F_OWNER_PID, or F_OWNER_PGRP. The pid field is a positive integer representing a thread ID, process ID, or process group ID. See F_SETOWN_EX for more details. F_SETOWN_EX (struct f_owner_ex *) (since Linux 2.6.32) This operation performs a similar task to F_SETOWN. It allows the caller to direct I/O availability signals to a specific thread, process, or process group. The caller specifies the target of signals via arg, which is a pointer to a f_owner_ex structure. The type field has one of the following values, which define how pid is interpreted: F_OWNER_TID Send the signal to the thread whose thread ID (the value returned by a call to clone(2) or gettid(2)) is specified in pid. F_OWNER_PID Send the signal to the process whose ID is specified in pid. F_OWNER_PGRP Send the signal to the process group whose ID is specified in pid. (Note that, unlike with F_SETOWN, a process group ID is specified as a positive value here.) F_GETSIG (void) Return (as the function result) the signal sent when input or output becomes possible. A value of zero means SIGIO is sent. Any other value (including SIGIO) is the signal sent instead, and in this case additional info is available to the signal handler if installed with SA_SIGINFO. arg is ignored. F_SETSIG (long) Set the signal sent when input or output becomes possible to the value given in arg. A value of zero means to send the default SIGIO signal. Any other value (including SIGIO) is the signal to send instead, and in this case additional info is available to the signal handler if installed with SA_SIGINFO. By using F_SETSIG with a nonzero value, and setting SA_SIGINFO for the signal handler (see sigaction(2)), extra information about I/O events is passed to the handler in a siginfo_t structure. If the si_code field indicates the source is SI_SIGIO, the si_fd field gives the file descriptor associated with the event. Otherwise, there is no indication which file descriptors are pending, and you should use the usual mechanisms (select(2), poll(2), read(2) with O_NONBLOCK set etc.) to determine which file descriptors are available for I/O. By selecting a real time signal (value >= SIGRTMIN), multiple I/O events may be queued using the same signal numbers. (Queuing is dependent on available memory). Extra information is available if SA_SIGINFO is set for the signal handler, as above. Note that Linux imposes a limit on the number of real-time signals that may be queued to a process (see getrlimit(2) and signal(7)) and if this limit is reached, then the kernel reverts to delivering SIGIO, and this signal is delivered to the entire process rather than to a specific thread. Using these mechanisms, a program can implement fully asynchronous I/O without using select(2) or poll(2) most of the time. The use of O_ASYNC, F_GETOWN, F_SETOWN is specific to BSD and Linux. F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_GETSIG, and F_SETSIG are Linux-specific. POSIX has asynchronous I/O and the aio_sigevent structure to achieve similar things; these are also available in Linux as part of the GNU C Library (Glibc). Leases F_SETLEASE and F_GETLEASE (Linux 2.4 onwards) are used (respectively) to establish a new lease, and retrieve the current lease, on the open file description referred to by the file descriptor fd. A file lease provides a mechanism whereby the process holding the lease (the "lease holder") is notified (via delivery of a signal) when a process (the "lease breaker") tries to open(2) or truncate(2) the file referred to by that file descriptor. F_SETLEASE (long) Set or remove a file lease according to which of the following values is specified in the integer arg: F_RDLCK Take out a read lease. This will cause the calling process to be notified when the file is opened for writing or is truncated. A read lease can only be placed on a file descriptor that is opened read-only. F_WRLCK Take out a write lease. This will cause the caller to be notified when the file is opened for reading or writing or is truncated. A write lease may be placed on a file only if there are no other open file descriptors for the file. F_UNLCK Remove our lease from the file. Leases are associated with an open file description (see open(2)). This means that duplicate file descriptors (created by, for example, fork(2) or dup(2)) refer to the same lease, and this lease may be modified or released using any of these descriptors. Furthermore, the lease is released by either an explicit F_UNLCK operation on any of these duplicate descriptors, or when all such descriptors have been closed. Leases may only be taken out on regular files. An unprivileged process may only take out a lease on a file whose UID (owner) matches the file system UID of the process. A process with the CAP_LEASE capability may take out leases on arbitrary files. F_GETLEASE (void) Indicates what type of lease is associated with the file descriptor fd by returning either F_RDLCK, F_WRLCK, or F_UNLCK, indicating, respectively, a read lease , a write lease, or no lease. arg is ignored. When a process (the "lease breaker") performs an open(2) or truncate(2) that conflicts with a lease established via F_SETLEASE, the system call is blocked by the kernel and the kernel notifies the lease holder by sending it a signal (SIGIO by default). The lease holder should respond to receipt of this signal by doing whatever cleanup is required in preparation for the file to be accessed by another process (e.g., flushing cached buffers) and then either remove or downgrade its lease. A lease is removed by performing an F_SETLEASE command specifying arg as F_UNLCK. If the lease holder currently holds a write lease on the file, and the lease breaker is opening the file for reading, then it is sufficient for the lease holder to downgrade the lease to a read lease. This is done by performing an F_SETLEASE command specifying arg as F_RDLCK. If the lease holder fails to downgrade or remove the lease within the number of seconds specified in /proc/sys/fs/lease-break-time then the kernel forcibly removes or downgrades the lease holder's lease. Once the lease has been voluntarily or forcibly removed or downgraded, and assuming the lease breaker has not unblocked its system call, the kernel permits the lease breaker's system call to proceed. If the lease breaker's blocked open(2) or truncate(2) is interrupted by a signal handler, then the system call fails with the error EINTR, but the other steps still occur as described above. If the lease breaker is killed by a signal while blocked in open(2) or truncate(2), then the other steps still occur as described above. If the lease breaker specifies the O_NONBLOCK flag when calling open(2), then the call immediately fails with the error EWOULDBLOCK, but the other steps still occur as described above. The default signal used to notify the lease holder is SIGIO, but this can be changed using the F_SETSIG command to fcntl(). If a F_SETSIG command is performed (even one specifying SIGIO), and the signal handler is established using SA_SIGINFO, then the handler will receive a siginfo_t structure as its second argument, and the si_fd field of this argument will hold the descriptor of the leased file that has been accessed by another process. (This is useful if the caller holds leases against multiple files). File and directory change notification (dnotify) F_NOTIFY (long) (Linux 2.4 onwards) Provide notification when the directory referred to by fd or any of the files that it contains is changed. The events to be notified are specified in arg, which is a bit mask specified by ORing together zero or more of the following bits: DN_ACCESS A file was accessed (read, pread, readv) DN_MODIFY A file was modified (write, pwrite, writev, truncate, ftruncate). DN_CREATE A file was created (open, creat, mknod, mkdir, link, symlink, rename). DN_DELETE A file was unlinked (unlink, rename to another directory, rmdir). DN_RENAME A file was renamed within this directory (rename). DN_ATTRIB The attributes of a file were changed (chown, chmod, utime[s]). (In order to obtain these definitions, the _GNU_SOURCE feature test macro must be defined.) Directory notifications are normally "one-shot", and the application must reregister to receive further notifications. Alternatively, if DN_MULTISHOT is included in arg, then notification will remain in effect until explicitly removed. A series of F_NOTIFY requests is cumulative, with the events in arg being added to the set already monitored. To disable notification of all events, make an F_NOTIFY call specifying arg as 0. Notification occurs via delivery of a signal. The default signal is SIGIO, but this can be changed using the F_SETSIG command to fcntl(). In the latter case, the signal handler receives a siginfo_t structure as its second argument (if the handler was established using SA_SIGINFO) and the si_fd field of this structure contains the file descriptor which generated the notification (useful when establishing notification on multiple directories). Especially when using DN_MULTISHOT, a real time signal should be used for notification, so that multiple notifications can be queued. NOTE: New applications should use the inotify interface (available since kernel 2.6.13), which provides a much superior interface for obtaining notifications of file system events. See inotify(7).
For a successful call, the return value depends on the operation: F_DUPFD The new descriptor. F_GETFD Value of flags. F_GETFL Value of flags. F_GETLEASE Type of lease held on file descriptor. F_GETOWN Value of descriptor owner. F_GETSIG Value of signal sent when read or write becomes possible, or zero for traditional SIGIO behavior. All other commands Zero. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
EACCES or EAGAIN Operation is prohibited by locks held by other processes. EAGAIN The operation is prohibited because the file has been memory- mapped by another process. EBADF fd is not an open file descriptor, or the command was F_SETLK or F_SETLKW and the file descriptor open mode doesn't match with the type of lock requested. EDEADLK It was detected that the specified F_SETLKW command would cause a deadlock. EFAULT lock is outside your accessible address space. EINTR For F_SETLKW, the command was interrupted by a signal; see signal(7). For F_GETLK and F_SETLK, the command was interrupted by a signal before the lock was checked or acquired. Most likely when locking a remote file (e.g., locking over NFS), but can sometimes happen locally. EINVAL For F_DUPFD, arg is negative or is greater than the maximum allowable value. For F_SETSIG, arg is not an allowable signal number. EMFILE For F_DUPFD, the process already has the maximum number of file descriptors open. ENOLCK Too many segment locks open, lock table is full, or a remote locking protocol failed (e.g., locking over NFS). EPERM Attempted to clear the O_APPEND flag on a file that has the append-only attribute set.
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. Only the operations F_DUPFD, F_GETFD, F_SETFD, F_GETFL, F_SETFL, F_GETLK, F_SETLK, F_SETLKW, F_GETOWN, and F_SETOWN are specified in POSIX.1-2001. F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC is specified in POSIX.1-2008. F_GETOWN_EX, F_SETOWN_EX, F_GETSIG, F_SETSIG, F_NOTIFY, F_GETLEASE, and F_SETLEASE are Linux-specific. (Define the _GNU_SOURCE macro to obtain these definitions.)
The errors returned by dup2(2) are different from those returned by F_DUPFD. Since kernel 2.0, there is no interaction between the types of lock placed by flock(2) and fcntl(). Several systems have more fields in struct flock such as, for example, l_sysid. Clearly, l_pid alone is not going to be very useful if the process holding the lock may live on a different machine.
A limitation of the Linux system call conventions on some architectures (notably i386) means that if a (negative) process group ID to be returned by F_GETOWN falls in the range -1 to -4095, then the return value is wrongly interpreted by glibc as an error in the system call; that is, the return value of fcntl() will be -1, and errno will contain the (positive) process group ID. The Linux-specific F_SETOWN_EX and F_GETOWN_EX operations avoid this problem. In Linux 2.4 and earlier, there is bug that can occur when an unprivileged process uses F_SETOWN to specify the owner of a socket file descriptor as a process (group) other than the caller. In this case, fcntl() can return -1 with errno set to EPERM, even when the owner process (group) is one that the caller has permission to send signals to. Despite this error return, the file descriptor owner is set, and signals will be sent to the owner. The implementation of mandatory locking in all known versions of Linux is subject to race conditions which render it unreliable: a write(2) call that overlaps with a lock may modify data after the mandatory lock is acquired; a read(2) call that overlaps with a lock may detect changes to data that were made only after a write lock was acquired. Similar races exist between mandatory locks and mmap(2). It is therefore inadvisable to rely on mandatory locking.
dup2(2), flock(2), open(2), socket(2), lockf(3), capabilities(7), feature_test_macros(7) See also locks.txt, mandatory-locking.txt, and dnotify.txt in the kernel source directory Documentation/filesystems/. (On older kernels, these files are directly under the Documentation/ directory, and mandatory-locking.txt is called mandatory.txt.)
This page is part of release 3.24 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.


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Sakthi Events (India and Abroad)
This section is about news and events of Sakthi Foundation and also Global news in different areas of health, science, environment etc. Please click the above drop menu's for news of your interest.
Click to see Pradheep Talks on Medicinal Secrets, Parenting, Education and Spirituality.
Click to see Madeswaran Talks on Medicinal Secrets, Parenting, Education and Spirituality.
Monday 25th December 2014 to Friday 2nd January 2015
Dr.Madeswaran will be giving talks on Education and Spirituality in Singapore and Malaysia.
Monday 25th December 2014 to Friday 2nd January 2015
Dr.Madeswaran will be giving talks on Education and Spirituality in Singapore and Malaysia.
Monday 17th November to Wednesday 20th November 2014
Pradheep Chhalliyil will be giving talks on Health, Education and Spirituality in Singapore.
Guruji Jayachandra Raj will also be giving Astrology Consultations in Singapore (17th to 22nd Nov 2014).
May 4th 2014
First Uni5 Sakthi Meet & Awards Ceremony
For the first time after the inception in 1998, we unified at Erode to discuss to move forward to create a change in our lives. We started with lighting the lamp of Awareness and then children classical singing of songs composed by great reformers of soceity.
Please click here for the details of Sakthi 2014 Awards.
Sept 2013
- Free eye camp [460 people] and surgery for 120 people has been conducted with Madurai Arvind Eye Hospital on last Saturday in Sendurai village - Dindigul district. Mr.Jeyaraman has organized this through Sakthi foundation.
- Mr.Sureshkumar [project manager] will be attending a day training in Bangalore. Topic: Sensorial issues with yound children organized by Karnataka spastic society and Montessori schools.
- 3 minutes documentary movie about our rural schools has been taken and edited. We thank Mr.N.Arulbalaji - ABN drugs for organizing this long project.
New Uni5 Sakthi school planned in Oct 2013 at kollidam
18th Nov 2013- Pradheep Chhalliyil and M.Madeswaran will be both presenting about Universal Energy -pattern Uni5 Education at the Education For Achieving Millennium Development Goals Conference- 16th to 18th November 2013, VARANASI, U.P, India.
Click to see other Pradheep talks

subset: commoncrawl


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Sometimes you will see a children's cartoon, where they will take the toy and push the button that shoots the missile or fist or something, and they will be so happy this occurs that they will stop playing and give each other a high five.
YOUR PRECIOUS OGRE ENCOUNTER WILL NOT CAUSE YOUR PLAYERS TO DO THAT. If you force them into an encounter—even if they are unaware of the fact that they are being forced, eventually they will grow to resent you. And it will not be long before they become aware.
This is in response to an article by Beedo over at the excellent Dreams in the Lich House.
First - what in the hell are we talking about? Illusionism is defined as being presented with a choice that doesn't matter. Beedo's current example are three groves that the players can explore in any order. Beedo provides two examples, one in which SCRIPTO-DM assigns content before the players encounter it, and another in which IMPROV-DM creates encounters (such as a cool ogre encounter) and leaves them unassigned. Then, no matter which grove the players enter, they have his ogre encounter.
What's wrong with making the ogre encounter being the first one the PC's select?
Let's look at some of the comments, and why they do impact agency, and therefore fun.
"By deciding at game time that the MacGuffin is not in Wood C, and the Ogre is there instead, has he *actually* violated player agency? Player will or choice has not been thwarted. They wanted to go to the woods, and Lo! - they are in the woods. And yet objectively he has preordained a game result." - BeedoPlayer choice has been thwarted, because the players were presented with a meaningless choice. Does it matter if they know the choice was meaningless or not? If the players have no hint of where the ogre is does it rob them of agency?
It matters for these reasons.
- If you always pre-ordain 'your precious encounter' then the players never have the experience of choosing correctly and skipping right to the end (which is fun for them).
- The flaw of the Quantum Ogre is that, if you have a party who plays smart, he won't be quantum long before you enter the woods, and then you've wasted time by not assigning him to a location already or you become the jerk DM where ESP doesn't work, the ground doesn't hold tracks, and if you try and teleport - suddenly anti-magic fields everywhere.
Let's take just one moment and talk about palette shifting. There is some misunderstanding of what is meant by this term.
A palette shift is when the players become aware of an encounter, and when making a choice to avoid that encounter, the DM re-skins (changes the 'color palette') the encounter and has them encounter it anyway.This can be as simple as the bandit encounter (Bandits to the east - we go west! ack, bandits here too!), or as complex as totally different monsters who lead you to exactly the same place. This can be used to either negate the players choice (You're going to fight my special bandits anyway!) or to negate player freedom (It doesn't matter what you do, you will meet the cultists of Bane!).
Pre-scripting 12 encounter lairs, and randomly generating which is in a hex that was unknown is *not* palette shifting. Having undefined "white space" in a campaign, and dynamically filling it with pre-generated content later is not palette shifting.
Sandbox Triangle
Fast, good, and cheap, pick 2 in the design and management of a sandbox doesn't apply.
It's based on a fallacy, one of wasted effort. There is no 'effort/detail/freedom' sandbox triangle in the OSR, and the postulation of one is a lie! Though it's an easily believable one. The idea is that work is 'wasted', that somehow if you put a lot of detail into areas that the players don't visit you will be having time you've spent preparing wasted.
Being creative does not, in fact, make you less creative. The more you create, the more your output increases! Let's ignore that there's enough free material on the web to stock 1 millarn over 9000 hexes and dungeons with no more effort than hitting print, not to mention random tables, and point out that if you can't get enough detail to give the players freedom because it takes too much effort then you are expanding the wrong kind of effort.
How long is a gaming session? 4-8 hours? I bet most of us are lucky to push 4 hours in a session. How much can be done in that time at the table? What will you need? 1 million areas? 5 areas? It just isn't enough time to go through that many options. Let's assume you don't know where your players will go. How many options do they need? 3? 5? Let's assume 6 (one for each hex face). So what do you need to come up with?
- six general encounters for hexes,
- a random encounter table, and
- a table of random stuff if they reject all six of your hooks.
"The idea being, the Dungeon Master built a forest village down the east road; when the group goes down the west road instead, and visits a new forest village, go ahead and use the (never visited) east village instead. Because no information has been spoiled, the players don't know the difference, and the DM doesn't waste any work. It's compelling if pulled off well, but changes many of my ideas about prepping for the sandbox." -BeedoAgency Theft
What's really terrible about the destruction of player agency in the above examples is the implicit thought that 'your encounter that's sooo cool' is what makes Dungeons and Dragons fun. It's not. It's getting in that Dispel Evil on Strahd that slays him outright. It's getting that critical on that dragon while it's talking shit. It's taking down that frost giant at first level—not a fsking precious encounter.
It's when through luck, chance, or skill, something amazing and heroic happens; Removing you from the real world and giving a rare glimpse with a few close friends into a realm where something truly unique and heroic has happened that the rest of the world will never see.
How can your little pre-planned scripted encounter compare to that?
Edit: The publication date has been changed for proper tag display. The original publication date was 9/11/11


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28-48 inches long with 9-15 inch tail. 6-18 pounds
Signs of their presence:
The animal itself
Holes in the lawn, around 3-5 inches wide and 1-3 inches deep
Uprooted plants and seedlings
Small burrow entrances near a structure. Around 7-10 inches in diameter
In some cases, cracks sidewalks, driveways, or foundation due to their burrowing
Scat: Pellets around an inch long with bits of food visible
Sounds: They will let out a shriek or squeal when in distress. They will emit a cricket-like chirp
Insectivores. They mainly eat insects and other invertebrates; however, they are known to eat small reptiles, amphibians, and plant matter as well. They consume beetles, termites, ants, maggots, snails, grasshoppers, worms, and larvae.
Typical activity patterns:
Social style: Solitary excluding breeding season and taking care of the young.
Daily activity: Mainly nocturnal. However, during colder months they will come out during the day to warm their body.
Hibernates: No
Migrates: No
Where found:
In Mississippi armadillos can be found throughout the state.
Prefers forests with mature trees including pine, oak, and hickory.
Territory and Home Range:
May vary. During breeding season armadillos defend their home range in order to better their chances of breeding a female.
Breeding habits:
Pair bonding style: Polygamous. Males are thought to have more than one breeding partner
Breeding Dates: July-August. Gestation takes about four months. Implantation is delayed three to four months, so the young are not born at a bad time.
Litter Size: Four young are born from one fertilized egg.
Birthing Date: Around March
Weaning Date: Around 3 months
Amount of time young remain after weaning date: three to nine months. After they are weaned they will forage with the mother and leave in six months to a year.
Common nuisance situations:
Time of year: Any time of the year
What are they doing?
Their presence might frighten people due to disease risks
Digging up lawns in search of food
Damaging underground pipes
Damaging foundations, sidewalks, or driveways with their burrows
Ripping up young plants in search of food
Disease Risks: leprosy
Legal status in Mississippi:
Unprotected. Armadillos causing damage to your property can be shot or trapped year-round.
Best practices
Fence off Vulnerable Areas:
Erect a wire fence around the foundation of your house. Bury the fence 2 feet deep and have it near 2 feet above ground. Put electric wire through the top of the fence to stop them from climbing over.
Put of the same fence for gardens and flower beds. Putting hardwood chips down may deter the armadillo as well. They will not want to dig through all the chips.
Make your yard uninviting:
Sprinkle cayenne pepper around the yard. This will irritate the nose of the armadillo
Get rid of the grubs and worms that the armadillo is digging for with pesticides
Spread castor oil repellents in the yard
This makes the grubs and insects taste bad and creates a foul smell in the burrows
Remove any wood piles, rotting woods, or other structures that bugs and grubs live in
Set up motion-activated sprinklers. Armadillos are skittish so a burst of water will deter them from an area
Install motion activated sound systems to deter the armadillo
Trap the armadillos near their burrows or areas they frequent
Remove Artificial Food Sources:
Feed pets inside
Store birdseed, pet food, and animal feed indoors or in a secured container
Store compost in a sturdy container, such as a 55-gallon drum or a store-bought composter
Store garbage in a closer container and do not put the garbage out over night.
Trapping strategies:
Live Capture:
Set a trap around 36 x 12 inches
Trapping armadillos can be extremely helpful in alleviating the issues.
Set a trap right in front of the burrow or along the wall or fencing closest to the damaged area
Create a funnel with wood guiding the armadillo to the trap
Bait the trap with earth worms
Lethal Traps:
Set a body-gripping trap at the burrows entrance or on a trail traveled by the armadillos
Set them at dusk and make sure pets cannot get into the yard
Set the trap in a cubby or enclosed in an area to reduce the risk of harming pets of children
Traps set on land cannot have a jaw spread exceeding 7 inches
Preferred killing methods:
CO2 chamber (if caught in a cage trap, simply place the trap in the chamber.)
Shooting, using a shotgun, rifle, bow, or crossbow (target the chest area)
Acceptable killing methods:
Control strategies that don't work particularly well or aren't legal in Mississippi:
Mothballs have been used but have no effect on armadillos.
Motion-activated lights have no real effect on armadillos since they have such poor eyesight
Pour vinegar around a vulnerable area to deter armadillos from entering
Poison has no real effect on armadillos as they eat grubs and worms that they dig up
For information on pesticides follow the link, https://www.mdac.ms.gov/bureaus-departments/plant-industry/pesticide-program/


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Spring 2013
I Used to Be a Design Student
By Frank Philippin and Billy Kiosoglou
Designed by Brighten the Corners
Laurence King, £17.95

Debates about education seem these days to have been reduced almost entirely to questions of employability, while students have been reduced to employees in waiting (and, given the economic climate, waiting, and more waiting).
I Used to Be a Design Student is a modest contribution to such debates: Frank Philippin and Billy Kiosoglou, who together form the design studio Brighten the Corners, have asked 50 graphic designers - from Ken Garland, who has been practising for 58 years, to Hyoun Youl Joe, only seven years in the game - to pick two of their own projects, one from student days and one from their professional life, and answer a set of questions about processes, outcomes and what (concept, look, attitude) connects them.
The plan, arising from a talk the pair gave at their own alma mater, Camberwell College of Arts, is to 'demystify' the transition from student to designer, to reassure students that their work will lead somewhere. Each contributor is asked to supply 'a piece of sound advice + a single warning to a design student' (Daniel Eatock's warning is intensely practical: 'Scalpels are very sharp'), followed by 'a valuable quality for a design student + a design professional'. Supplementary questions are intended to give a more rounded impression of a designer's life: what time did you / do you get up in the morning? What was / is your preferred mode of transport? How much did you / do you weigh? What designers, films, books influenced you then / influence you now? (It would be interesting to see comparative data in other fields: are graphic designers thinner than, say, quantity surveyors or surgeons? More likely to ride bicycles and watch The Wire?)
Designers are also asked whether they teach (most do, it seems), and whether it is possible to teach design (up to a point, seems to be the consensus).
The book itself is laid out beautifully: each designer gets two double-page spreads - one of text, one of pictures - while the responses to the supplementary questions are set out in a series of charts, printed in white on black. The format is seductively browsable, and makes it easy to spot aggregate trends: interesting to note, for example, that whereas the average rising time for students was 08:46, as professionals they have had to up their games, rising at 07:22.
The format puts misleadingly hard edges on what is essentially fluffy - though that in itself may be a useful lesson about the real function of graphic design. The other useful lesson may be found in the chart of responses to the question 'What do you dislike about working as a designer?' Common themes include financial insecurity, bad clients and the spillage of work into personal life. But I suspect that students will be struck less by the aggregate facts than by individual answers - the stray name-drop or brilliant drawing that sparks recognition or inspiration, the warning that has some personal application.
And one important message emerges: in responses to the request for 'a valuable quality', several ideas recur: hard work, punctuality, a thick skin. But the word that crops up most often is 'curiosity'. It is not a concept that fits easily into any educational model that revolves around obvious employability: I Used to Be a Design Student is a celebration of curiosity, and a stimulant to it.
Top: the screenprinted images, by Nikki Gonnissen of Thonik, Netherlands, were part of a self-initiated project at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (1993) and a 2010 campaign for NRC Media.
Eye is the world's most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. You can see what Eye 85 looks like at Eye before You Buy on Vimeo.


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The User Library is hidden by default on Mac. To temporarily show the User Library, open Finder, click on "Go" in the Mac's Menu bar, and hold down the "alt/option" key. Keep the key pressed down and click on "Library" that should now be in the drop down list. Release the "alt/option" key after clicking on "Library".
To permanently show the library...open Finder, select "Go" in the Mac's Menu bar and choose "Home". Now go to "View" in the Menu bar and choose "Show View Options". Check the "Show Library Folder" check box. Close all windows and close Finder. Open Finder and now there will be a "Library" when you select "Go" in the Mac Menu bar that takes you to the User Library at: Mac HD/Users/<user name>/Library.


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18 Mar Obama Sends "Stimulus" Funds to Phantom Congressional Districts
Obama Sends "Stimulus" Funds to Phantom Congressional Districts
March 18, 2010
By Thomas A. DeWeese
To promote bragging rights for how much good the stimulus money was doing for America, the Obama Administration set up a website called "Recovery.gov." Recorded on the site were details by zip code and congressional district as to how much money was sent there and how many new jobs were created as a result. It was a great piece of public relations where news reporters and politicians could find and quote the latest "good news for the economy."
However, there was one small problem. The Administration didn't count on a group called New Mexico Watchdog, a project of the Rio Grande Foundation. While researching the site, the Foundation's investigative research journalist Jim Scarantino noticed something strange. It seems the site was reporting money going to several New Mexico congressional districts that do not exist.
The website reported that $26.5 million went to ten New Mexico Congressional districts. The site credited that money with creating a whopping 61.5 jobs. That, in itself, should be a crime – spending more than $430,000 per job crated. However, that wasn't the big story. The fact is, those ten Congressional districts do not exist. New Mexico only has three – not thirteen.
As New Mexico Watchdog broke the story, investigators from other states took up the hunt, finding a total of 440 phantom congressional districts receiving nearly $6.4 billion to "create or save" just under 30,000 jobs – almost $225,000 per job. The "99th" District of North Dakota, a state which has only one congressional district, received more than $2 million.
Mississippi's 5th District and Oklahoma's 6th District, and Pennsylvania's 21st District each received $1 million. But none of them exist. All three were eliminated as a result of the 2000 census. Money also went to 35 congressional districts in Washington, DC and the four American territories, all of which have no congressional districts.
Then it got worse. Not only did the site almost double the size of Congress with its phantom districts, further examination showed money also going to zip codes that don't exist. The site reported that $373,874 went to New Mexico zip code 97052 – but no jobs were created. $36,218 was credited for creating five jobs in zip code 87258. $100,000 went into zip code 86705 – but no jobs were created. None of these zip codes exist.
Again, the nationwide search showed the same results. West Virginia – $28 million in non-existent zip codes; Nebraska – millions more in non-existent zips; Washington state – more stimulus funds in non-existent zip codes; Virginia – $9.5 million in phantom zip codes; Colorado – millions more; Oklahoma – $11.5 million – phantom zips.
And the excuse from the Obama Administration? Clerical error. Ed Pound, director of communications for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board blamed the problem on an oversight by the fund recipients. He said it appeared that some of those filling out the reports just didn't know their congressional districts (or zip codes apparently), and therefore listed an inaccurate number.
But the Administration is quick on its feet and in its transparency. The problem has been solved. All of the reports from non-existent Congressional districts and zip codes have been removed and re-listed under "unassigned congressional districts." No one, of course, has bothered to investigate where the money actually went.
Tom DeWeese is the President of the American Policy Center and the Editor of The DeWeese Report. TThe DeWeese Report is now available online, for more information click here.
Click Below to Join Tom DeWeese on
Facebook and Twitter


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Yute Air Alaska serves dozens of remote Alaskan villages with a fleet of 12 Cessna 207s and a single Cessna 172, and every trip involves at least one gravel strip landing. Three of the 207s will reach 30,000 hours in the next few months. AVweb's Russ Niles spoke with Matt Sullivan, the airline's assistant director of flight operations, about tough airplanes and the tough people who keep them going.
This podcast is brought to you by Bose Corporation.
File Size: download here


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Company Description
The corporate philosophy of Wakunaga is a commitment to research and a mission to serve public health. This mission is accomplished by providing products of the highest quality, which are supported by truthful science and accompanied by helpful consumer information. The company has two nutritionists on staff available to answer consumer questions on a daily basis.
Wakunaga is a leader in the field of scientific research with over 650 peer-reviewed scientific studies on Kyolic® Aged Garlic Extract™. At the end of 2011, the company will have four more scientific studies completed on Kyolic for heart health, one of them featuring the stress-reducing effect of Kyolic on firemen! State-of-the-art manufacturing systems and stringent quality assurance following current Good Manufacturing Practices and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO9001) quality management system result in products that are safe and effective. With distribution in 46 countries worldwide, it is Wakunaga's continuing mission to promote good health throughout the world.
Wakunaga of America has been serving the world for about 40 years now and the parent company, Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., in Japan, has been in business for 50 years.
The production of Kyolic odorless Aged Garlic Extract begins with garlic grown on Wakunaga farms under strictly controlled organic conditions without the use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. Raw garlic is aged, without heating, up to 20 months in stainless steel tanks. This unique aging process makes Kyolic up to 50 times richer in active beneficial compounds than raw garlic and is gentle on the stomach. This odor-eliminating conversion process, results in the truly odorless Kyolic Aged Garlic Extract that contains safe, stable, bioavailable and beneficial compounds.
Major Products
Studies have proven Kyolic to enhance immune function, protect cells from free radical damage and support cholesterol and overall heart health. Wakunaga's other products are Kyo-Dophilus, human-strain, shelf-stable (no refrigeration needed) probiotics. The company's probiotics are guaranteed stable at the time of consumption, not at time of manufacture. Kyo-Green, to energize and alkalize (also available in this category are Harvest Blend and Kyo-Chlorella), and Moducare, plant sterols and sterolins, to restore, strengthen and balance the immune system.
What's New?
Kyolic® Curcumin Healthy Inflammation Response*
Aged Garlic Extract with the key antioxidant Curcumin for a powerful and natural support for healthy inflammation response, joint function, cardiovascular benefit, colon and liver health, as well as a variety of other nutritional benefits.*
Kyo-Red™ Antioxidant Superfruit Blend ORAC 5000 with Fiber
A tasty powdered blend of natural Superfruits, Vegetables and Fiber. With essential polyphenols and rich in vitamin C, Kyo-Red provides a superior 5,000 ORAC blast of antioxidants and two grams of fiber in one serving! Drink daily to help boost your immune system, increase energy, promote detoxification and anti-aging, maintain regularity and colon health, support cardiovascular function and increase vitality.*
Kyo-Dophilus® Probiotics plus Cranberry Extract
A truly unique combination of the most stable, human-strain Probiotics on the market and the well-known, effective, Cranberry Extract to help promote urinary tract and intestinal health.* Taken regularly, it can help maintain a healthy bladder, as well as support overall intestinal function and immune health.*
Kyolic® Blood Sugar Balance*
Features a unique combination of odorless Kyolic Aged Garlic Extract™ from organic garlic, Salacia, Bitter Melon, Chromium Picolinate and Niacin. This synergistic blend of herbs and nutrients help maintain balanced blood sugar levels and healthy weight management.*
Kyolic® 102 Candida Cleanse & Digestion*
Aged Garlic Extract combined with Ginger & Glucanase Enzyme Complex to support internal cleansing, prevent yeast imbalance and to boost overall immunity to help strengthen the body's natural defense.*
Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd. Key Personnel: |
Published in WholeFoods Magazine, November 2011


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Yet Child 44 from dozens of user reviews averages a 6.5 of 10 on imdb, the international movie database, and a 3.8 of 5 on Amazon--admittedly hardly masterpiece level, but certainly better than the critical consensus. Being a fan of the film's star, Tom Hardy, I decided to give it a try.
Tom Hardy in Child 44 |
Tom Hardy has done his share of genre films in his still ascending film career: Inception (a heist film at its intricate Chinese puzzle box heart); Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (based on the classic John le Carre spy novel); Lawless (about Depression-era American bootleggers); The Dark Knight Rises (where he played arch-villain Bane, doubtlessly his most famous role worldwide); Locke (a suspense film of sorts, for which he won best actor awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Toronto Film Critics Association); The Drop (adapted from a Dennis Lehane short story and reviewed by me here); Mad Max Fury Road; and Legend (about an infamous and eccentric pair of British twin brother gangsters). And that's not to mention his recurring role in the quirky British television crime series Peaky Blinders. Hardy received his first Oscar nomination this year for his role as Leo Dicaprio's nemesis in the much-lauded western epic The Revenant.
Joel Kinnaman and benevolent leader |
Child 44 certainly has a stellar cast. In addition to Hardy, there is the brilliant Gary Oldman (who starred with Hardy in Tinker and Legend), Noomi Rapace (Hardy's female co-star from The Drop and the star of the Swedish film adaptation of Stieg Larsson's mega-bestselling Millennium Trilogy), Joel Kinnaman (who just popped up in Suicide Squad), Paddy Considine, Vincent Cassel (a memorably loathsome Russian gangster in Eastern Promises and son of Jean-Pierre Cassel, the noted French actor who played the railway porter in the 1974 film version of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express) and Charles Dance (a great British veteran thespian who is all over the place right now, including very recently in the latest adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, in a role he seems to have been born to play).
don't talk to strangers |
Like the novel, the film is loosely based on the real-life case of Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, a Soviet Union serial killer who was executed in 1994 for the murders of over fifty women and children during an appalling dozen year slaying spree that took place between 1978 and 1990. (A much more faithful 1995 television film, Citizen X, also was based on these events).
Author Tom Rob Smith took the kernel of the story of the Chikatilo murders and moved them from the Brezhnev and Gorbachev eras back to the Stalin era. (The murderer Chikatilo was born in 1936 and experienced great hardship as a child in the famine and war plagued then Soviet Republic of Ukraine.) Much lauded and a big seller, Smith's novel quickly drew interest from filmmakers, including Ridley Scott, but it took seven years for a film to come together, and then unsuccessfully so, at least in the eyes of most critics. Why the critical disdain for the film version of Child 44, when the novel was so well-received?
life under watchful eyes |
Briefly, Child 44 tells the story of the travails of Leo Demidov (Hardy) and his wife Raisa (Rapace) as Leo with Raisa's help struggles to investigate a series of murders of young boys during the waning days of the Stalin regime. Leo, who was orphaned during the Ukrainian famine and as a soldier became a propaganda hero of the Second World War (he was photographed planting the Soviet flag atop the Reichstag), is a captain in the MGB (Ministry of State Security), tasked with hunting down enemies of the state, but in the manner of Tom Hardy characters, he is morally conflicted, as he sees the horrific abuses and moral crimes committed in the name of the state (in some of which he is complicit). In the case of the child murders, Leo's superiors do not accept that such western decadence is possible in the USSR, so his attempt to get at the truth is stymied.
Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace |
Eventually Leo's and Raisa's fortunes take a drastic downward turn, as Raisa, a sensitive schoolteacher, is denounced as a subversive and the couple, Leo standing by her, finds themselves exiled to a remote city, Volsk, run by General Nesterov (Gary Oldman). But the string of brutual child murders follows Leo to Volsk and he is left trying to solve them while he himself struggles to survive.
I think where Child 44 succeeds well is in its portrayal of life in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Some Russian authorities were vocally offended by the film, but then these seem to be the sort that naturally would be. To be sure, some western critics, not special pleaders, criticized the film for being grey and drab; but, I ask you, just what was life like then for a lot of people? One would not expect life in Nazi Germany to be portrayed as jolly, why life under Stalin? Despite criticism of the film's use of Russian accents by its largely non-Russian cast, the performances are excellent, especially Hardy's and Rapace's, with Paddy Considine also being quite memorable in an underwritten part. (Many of the parts feel underwritten, including Oldman's, sadly.)
General Nesterov (Gary Oldman) lays down the law |
As a mystery thriller the film does disappoint somewhat, in that the murder investigation feel too peripheral to the film. Regrettably, I have not read the book, but I imagine it must have been more successfully integrated. In the middle of the film, the identity of the killer is offhandedly revealed, so people expecting intriguing mystery will be disappointed. But as a compelling picture of a time and place with strong acting, Child 44 deserves recommendation in my view. Sadly, the film ends leaving a clear expectation of a sequel, one we likely will never get now. I couldn't help thinking what splendid characters Leo and Raisa would have made for a television mystery series, a sort of Soviet Wallander.


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Skyscanner is a leading global travel search site, a place where people are inspired to plan and book direct from millions of travel options at the best prices.
We are unbiased and free, which means that the 80 million people who use us every month can trust our comprehensive range of flight, hotel and car hire options.
Our secret is in our unique proprietary technology that connects people directly to everything the travel industry has to offer. We also power travel search for over 1200 partners through our marketplace.
We're a high-growth business with a simple aim: to inspire travellers around the world and make travel search as easy as possible through our world-class technology.
Our highly-rated free mobile app has been downloaded over 70 million times. We're global but local and our products are available in over 30 languages and 70 currencies.
Founded in 2003, we employ over 1000 staff, with offices in Barcelona, Beijing, Budapest, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Miami, Palo Alto, Shenzhen, Singapore and Sofia. Skyscanner is part of the Ctrip group.
Skyscanner is always free for travellers and we never charge travellers commission. We work with our airline and online travel agent partners in a number of ways: some partners agree to give Skyscanner a commission for every booking made through us or for every time travellers visit a partner's website. Other partners advertise on the Skyscanner website and app. We always make sure any adverts are labelled or separate from any search results so users know exactly what's what.


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At Apparentia we are constantly renewing our collections, so we invite you to continue browsing our store to keep you aware the latest trends.
If you prefer, you can go to Apparentia's home page or use our search form in the main menu bar, clicking on the magnifying glass.
What would you like to visit now?


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Gourmet Cookies Made From Scratch with Fresh, NATURAL Ingredients
Cookie Delivery: Gourmet Cookies and Cookie Bouquets in a Box at Nearly Half the Cost!
Cookies From Scratch is well known in Wisconsin and NATIONWIDE for artfully crafting the best gourmet cookies! Our cookies are so famous they've been featured on multiple media outlets, including Country Woman Magazine, Fox News and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. From ooey gooey to crisp and crumbly, our 2"- 4" gourmet cookies are made to order in cookie heaven.
Made from scratch in a kitchen (never in a food processing factory), we use the freshest ingredients from Wisconsin's wholesome dairyland. Partnerships with trusted local producers of quality ingredients means each cookie we bake is 100% natural. We never use harsh chemicals, additives, artificial ingredients or preservatives like Maltodextrin, Xanthan Gum, EDTA and Butane (yes, Butane…for lighters…you would be surprised how often this is found in ingredient lists!). Cookies From Scratch believes in pure ingredients and pure goodness in every cookie. It's a difference you can truly taste!
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text: The staff at reception are some of the friendliest and most helpful people you will ever meet! They made me feel right at home from the minute I checked in and they organise so many special events. Some places might take your money then ignore you, but not at The Curve. They work around the clock to make sure you're 100% happy with everything all the time.


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- Thu Apr 25 2019
- 7:00 pm
- Main Hall
- TIM BAKER with Charlotte Cornfield
TIM BAKER with Charlotte Cornfield
At the end of 2017, twelve years after their inception, the multi-award winning band, Hey Rosetta! went on hiatus, after selling 10,000 tickets to five farewell shows. For the band's principal songwriter and lead vocalist Tim Baker, this was the start of a new chapter.
On his debut solo album Forever Overhead, Baker warmly welcomes you to it. The first words we hear him sing, on the first single "Dance," is akin to a toast: "here's to the other side." What follows are eleven songs that centre on kinship and show that Baker's sharp songwriting, the heart of Hey Rosetta!, is as affecting as ever.
When crafting the album, Baker drew from 70s songwriters, like Jackson Browne and Randy Newman, whose music filled his childhood home and from his contemporaries (Feist, Leif Vollebekk, The Barr Brothers). Produced by Marcus Paquin (The National, Local Natives), Forever Overhead blends piano ballads with ebullient folk-rock tracks featuring Liam O'Neill (Suuns), Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station), as well as Mishka Stein & Joe Grass (Patrick Watson).
In the album's opening track "Dance," Baker moves alongside soft piano chords as buoyant, 70s pop style instrumentation and a piercing guitar riff steadily build, bolstering his words of longing. He sings of connectivity and the tender emotions that are coupled with glances across a gym's confetti-lined linoleum floor, the air thick with potential. Like Forever Overhead as a whole, Baker brings beauty and hope into listeners' lives.


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If you operate or are planning to start a business, an important consideration is how you plan to use signage. A creative, attractive sign can help your business stand apart from the competition. According to ChamberofCommerce.com, customers are more likely to purchase from a business they have already heard of, so a sign can help plant the seed for future sales.
Signs serve as a type of silent salesperson for your business. Exterior signs draw attention to your place of business and help differentiate it from others on the street. Interior signs help customers locate merchandise and can lead to impulse sales when added to special displays. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration website, signs serve as a primary link between a business and its customers.
Exterior signs can be ground-mounted or building-mounted. Ground-mounted signs can take on a variety of shapes and sizes, and are typically mounted near a road to attract the attention of passing motorists. Building-mounted signs are attached to the place of business and may be useful in areas where foot traffic is prevalent, such as a downtown shopping area.
Signs can be an essential component of a business's overall marketing strategy. A sign that contains a business's logo can help reinforce its brand. Signs are also used to draw attention to promotions and to convey information about the business. Because an exterior sign is visible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, its effect is continuous.
For businesses that have limited marketing funds, signs can be a cost-effective form of marketing. According to the SBA website, the cost-per-thousand, a common method used to measure the cost of reaching a thousand potential customers, is much lower for signage than other types of advertising, such as radio, televisions and newspapers.
Signs can also be effective for off-premises use. Strategically placed billboards can convey a concise message to passing motorists. You can also place magnetic signs on the side of your vehicle to serve as a form of mobile advertising as well as pay other motorists to place signs on their own vehicles for additional reach.
Commercial Wraps
Solid Color Wraps
Color Changing Wraps


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- My Spanish literacy is very limited, so I'm grateful to the Royals for their recent efforts to educate me. I mean, who knew that "Jairo Cuevas" is Spanish for "Tim Pugh"? (And how many of you even get that reference?)
- I lumped Doug Waechter in with Kyle Farnsworth in my last post, as the news had just come across the wire before I hit "publish". Now that we know the details of his contract, it's clear that was unfair of me. Waechter signed a one-year deal for $640,000, and there's just no way you can describe a $640,000 deal to anyone as a bad deal. Waechter will be making about 14% of what Farnsworth will make in 2009, and even that understates the difference, because the league minimum is about $400,000 (it's now indexed for inflation, so I'm not sure the exact figure). Waechter is making just $240,000 in marginal salary over some career minor leaguer – in terms of marginal salary, he'll earn just 6% of Farnsworth's income.
I don't know much about Waechter except that he was once a crappy starting pitcher for the Devil Rays – back when that was sort of a requirement for his job – then blew out his shoulder and was re-invented as a useful reliever for the Marlins last year. The major difference between 2008 and the rest of his career was his performance against RHB. His line against LHB (.303/.358/.486) was along the lines of his career numbers (.289/.351/.521), but his numbers against RHB improved dramatically (.216/.281/.338 vs .267/.322/.432). It's hard to compare Waechter the post-injury reliever to Waechter the pre-injury starter, but he did appear to be a fundamentally better pitcher last season; his strikeout rate (6.54 per nine) was easily his career best. At worst, he's a useful ROOGY, a pale but still useful simulacrum of Ramon Ramirez.
- It's been a week, and the Kyle Farnsworth signing continues to baffle me. I appreciate that Dayton Moore probably does not have time in his busy day to read my blog, but after I defended the Coco Crisp trade in large part by detailing how Moore has built a high-end bullpen almost entirely on the cheap, it just amazes me that he would suddenly rip a page out of the Allard Baird playbook by trying to spackle the holes in his bullpen with hundred-dollar bills. We've seen this play run before. It didn't work with Roberto Hernandez. It didn't work with Ricky Bottalico. It didn't work with Doug Henry. I see no reason to think it's going to work with Kyle Farnsworth.
- Here's a friendly wager for
Using whatever metric you prefer – ERA, ARP, WXRL, whatever – I'm willing to bet that including Farnsworth and the first four pitchers on that list (I'm not sure the shoeicide bomber is ready for prime time), Captain Tightpants will rank no higher than third among these five pitchers at the end of 2009. Unless the metric you prefer is "salary".
- On the other hand, this almost made the Farnsworth signing worthwhile.
- When he's not signing pitchers with big fastballs and big ERAs to big contracts,
So I was dumbfounded when, immediately after the Rule 5 draft (i.e. as soon as the player was guaranteed not to be selected by another organization), the Astros completed the deal by sending the Royals Jordan Parraz. Parraz isn't a great prospect, but he's a prospect, the sort of prospect teams never get when they're clearing their rosters of the Tyler Lumsdens of the world. Parraz was a sixth-round pick of the Phillies in 2003 as a high school pitcher; after a year of community college, he was a third-round pick of the Astros as an outfielder.
He's a very good athlete, and has hit pretty well throughout his career, but for some reason has been promoted very slowly through the system – he's now 24 and has yet to play in the high minors. But he has speed (54 steals the last two years) and plate discipline (lifetime .372 OBP, and .399 last season), and has shown flashes of power. If he were two years younger he'd be a great prospect; even as old as he is, I love athletes who have shown secondary skills even if they haven't exactly learned how to hit yet. I would have traded Lumsden for him straight up even if Lumsden wasn't on the 40-man roster and didn't have to be DFA'ed.
This summer the Royals traded Horacio Ramirez to the White Sox for Paulo Orlando, a trade I heartily endorsed. I asked Kevin Goldstein who he liked better, and with the caveat that neither one is a great prospect, he preferred Parraz to
- Unfortunately, relaying this story just reminds me that
1) Signing a failed major league starter to a minor league contract, and trying him in relief: smart.
2) Signing the same pitcher, who was moderately successful as a reliever, to a seven-figure contract while attempting to move him back to the rotation: dumb.
- To clear payroll, the Royals axed John Bale and Joey Gathright. Bale might still re-sign, for less money than he would have earned in arbitration (a minimum of $1.6 million). If he can be resigned for less, I'd say he's worth it; if you eliminate the three starts in his ill-fated trial in the rotation, over the last two years Bale has a 3.16 ERA in relief. Like Ron Mahay, he doesn't have a big platoon split, so he can be used both ways, allowing the Royals to save Jimmy Gobble for LOOGY situations only. There's some untapped potential here.
Few players have more untapped potential than Gathright, but cutting him was the right move for this team. Gathright doesn't do anything that Coco Crisp can't do; Gathright is faster, but he has yet to show he can translate that speed into game impact yet. Cutting Gathright is painful, given that
On the other hand, this clears a path on the roster for Ross Gload. Speaking of sunk costs…
- The Royals are still doggedly in pursuit of Rafael Furcal, and while it doesn't appear they can afford him, I can't help but believe that
I'm talking about the fact that Moore will be paying somewhere between $6.5 million and $8 million in 2009 for the services of Farnsworth and Ramirez – roughly 70% of the money needed for Furcal's contract was wasted on two pitchers who are barely worth a roster spot. Furcal appears to have a 4-year, $40 million contract offer from
So get it done,
- This is just so sad on so many levels. In 2003, Rob Neyer and I met up in
I don't live in
- I wondered how long it would take for someone to make fun of my crush on Connor Barth after yesterday's game. Looks like it took reader Dave about 3 minutes.
I could respond by saying that until yesterday's game, not only had Barth converted all of his kicks, he would have made all his kicks if the uprights had been squeezed together by five feet on each side. I could respond by saying that both of his misses yesterday were by just a foot or two, and that I don't know a Chiefs fan alive who thought there was any chance, given all that had just transpired, that Barth was going to nail his 50-yard attempt at the buzzer. Even KC Wolf was shaking his head before the kick. (I have no response for missing a 34-yarder. Yeah, that was pretty inexcusable – almost, dare I say it, Tynes-esque.)
But instead, I'll just respond by saying that if Barth had squeezed his final kick through the uprights, this would not have happened. I said Connor Barth was The One…I just didn't say that he was The One Who Will Get King Carl Fired. Hey, I told you he was money.


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Many people rely on the price they paid for their home as a starting point for selling, but with the ever-shifting tides of the real estate market, the price paid is not always the best metric to go by. If you're putting your home up for sale and are looking for the ideal price point, here are some ways you can arrive at a number that will keep potential buyers interested.
Check Out Your Neighborhood
Your house may have a lot of different features than the homes of your neighbors, but checking out what real estate in your area is selling for can still be a good means of determining the price you'll be able to ask for. Instead of just perusing the pricing, ensure you're looking at the listings for what's been successfully sold in your neighborhood as only this will allow you to determine the conditions of the market and what people will be prepared to offer.
Complete A Home Inspection
Instead of being surprised by repairs that need to be completed after an offer price has been accepted, organizing a home inspection before your home is sold can make a difference in the price you're able to ask for. Not only will this provide you with a determination of what needs to be repaired or overhauled, it can be a boon to potential buyers who won't have to worry about your inspection revealing any hidden flaws.
Utilize Your Agent's Advice
Even if you've done your research and carefully considered the value of your home, it can still be complicated to come up with the right price, so be sure to enlist an agent who will be able to determine a fair amount with you. Since your agent has no attachment to your home, they'll be able to objectively strike the right balance between what won't sell and what's too low. The right price, after all, may mean you'll get to spend a lot less time selling it.
There are a lot of factors that go into arriving at the proper asking price for your home, but by organizing a home inspection and being aware of what's going on in the market, you should be able to arrive at a reasonable sum. Contact us for more information.


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The coronavirus crisis was gaining steam when President Trump announced via tweet on a Friday night that he was replacing his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, with North Carolina congressman and frequent confidante Mark Meadows.
Nearly three weeks later, Meadows is still transitioning into his new job and hasn't yet resigned from Congress.
He may have been inside the room at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday for White House negotiations with senators on the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package — but he still had one foot back in his old job.
"I'm still a member of Congress," Meadows told a reporter as he left the room. "Mick Mulvaney is still the acting chief, officially."
It's a precarious time for the White House to be between chiefs of staff, given that Trump is grappling with a public health crisis that threatens millions of Americans, testing his presidency just ahead of the November presidential election.
And complicating matters, both Meadows and Mulvaney have briefly each been in self quarantine due to possible exposure to the virus.
Confirming: Mark Meadows was advised this weekend that now 12 days prior at CPAC, he may have come in contact with the COVID-19 positive test individual. A precautionary test came back negative & he feels great. He'll be self-quarantined till the 14 day period passes Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/lNuOlFYmzv
— Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 10, 2020
Meadows hasn't voted on any bills since Trump named him chief of staff, including a previous multibillion-dollar coronavirus package. An aide says Meadows plans to resign from Congress around the end of March.
The constitution prohibits someone from serving in Congress and the executive branch at the same time. But Meadows has been at the White House, in and out of meetings. And Mulvaney is there, too.
Over the course of this lengthy transition, the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. has ballooned from a few hundred to more than 60,000. And Trump has gone from endorsing a "15 Days To Slow The Spread" campaign to questioning whether his administration's response to the coronavirus epidemic is causing too much economic damage. In a traditional White House, these sorts of decisions would be guided by a chief of staff, but there's little indication that is happening now.
Trump has burned through chiefs of staff at a record pace in his three years in office. The first, Reince Priebus, who was never able to tame the competing power centers Trump set up, was fired in the summer of 2017. He was replaced by John Kelly, who attempted to bring a general's discipline to the chaotic Trump White House. But Kelly made political missteps and his efforts at control wore on Trump, who over time found ways to undermine Kelly's authority. Mulvaney, who replaced Kelly on an interim basis, lasted more than a year but never got the "acting" removed from his title. He took more of a "let Trump be Trump" approach, but eventually Trump soured on him too.
Difficult job at a difficult time
It's not clear yet how Meadows intends to run the White House, a notoriously difficult job even without a global pandemic. People who know Meadows say he may be better positioned to succeed than Trump's first three chiefs of staff.
"Mark has a really good grasp of who the president is, how the president operates," said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's personal attorneys, who worked with Meadows on the president's impeachment defense. Long before being named chief of staff, Meadows was advising Trump. They talked on the phone all the time. And Sekulow says Trump trusts him.
"I feel that he will avoid any of the problem areas and that he will not interfere with the president's operating style, which is important," Sekulow said.
Trump and Meadows are close now, but they got off to something of a rocky start. Meadows didn't endorse him in 2016, though his wife Debbie campaigned for Trump — something Trump brings up regularly as he riffs about Meadows in speeches.
"His wife I actually like better than him, to be honest," Trump said at a victory rally of sorts in the East Room of the White House after his impeachment acquittal. "He doesn't know that I know that he didn't actually support me right from the beginning, but she did. And on my worst day — right? — on my worst day, my worst — I won't tell you why it was my worst, but it was not one of those good days — she got on a bus, got many other buses and women all over North Carolina, and they toured North Carolina."
Debbie Meadows was part of a group of women who campaigned for Trump in 2016 right after lewd comments he made on a hot mic ahead of an Access Hollywood interview became public — footage that nearly destroyed Trump's candidacy.
Rocky start with ACA bill
Just a couple of months into Trump's presidency, Meadows — and the House Freedom Caucus he led — handed Trump an early defeat on his first try at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.
"I am still a 'no' at this time," Meadows told reporters in March 2017. "I am desperately trying to get to yes. And I think the president knows that. I told him that personally."
Without Meadows and his fellow hard-liners, the bill had to be pulled without a vote, to avoid an embarrassing defeat. The House eventually passed a bill that Meadows helped negotiate, but it failed in the Senate.
For Meadows, clashing with his party's leaders was familiar territory by that point. In 2015, he used an obscure House procedure, known as a "motion to vacate the chair," to send a signal to then-House Speaker John Boehner that he wanted him gone.
Georgia Congressman Jody Hice, who considers Meadows a friend, says a lot of people urged him not to do it, including members of the Freedom Caucus.
"But Mark knew that was in the rules and he said it's in the rules for times like this," said Hice. "Of course, the rest is history. That really put him on the map in terms of people understanding that he knew the rules, knew how to play and he had the courage to step up when things needed to be done."
Meadows' motion didn't go anywhere. That kind of move could have ended his political career. Instead, it was Boehner who announced his retirement two months later. House GOP whip Steve Scalise, who was part of Boehner's leadership team at the time, now has nothing but praise for Meadows.
"You know, Mark's been in these positions where he'll call the president with a recommendation or an idea, and the president sometimes might take it and sometimes might not, but then they're able to move forward after that," Scalise said, adding that he thinks Trump wants advisers who can be honest with him.
Meadows is also known for having strong relationships with Democrats. He was close with the late Maryland Democrat and Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, tearing up as he spoke at the congressman's funeral. While Cummings was alive, Meadows came to his defense when Trump went after him on Twitter and trashed the city of Baltimore as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."
Not a 'yes-man'
California Democrat Ro Khanna said he figures there are at least 20 Democrats Meadows could call up at any time, which could prove useful if more bipartisan talks are needed on coronavirus aid. Khanna worked with Meadows on a bipartisan war powers resolution that Trump ultimately vetoed, which Khanna takes as a sign Meadows is willing to stand up to Trump.
"My hope is, Mark Meadows is a person of stature and substance and he's not going to be a 'yes-man'," said Khanna. "I think he is somebody who will have the ability to share a candid perspective with the president. I know he has."
But another Democratic congressman who has worked well with Meadows, Gerry Connolly from Virginia, thinks the dynamic could change when Meadows is an aide rather than an outside confidante and cable TV defender of Trump.
"How do you now undertake this new role that requires very different skills and a very different role for you, if you do your job?" Connolly said. "The country kind of depends on it, and that's an open question."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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RhoadsRoast Coffees & Importers
3 lbs. Peru Approcassi Cajamarca Fair Trade Organic Shade Grown Fresh Dark Roast 100% Arabica Coffee Beans
3 lbs. Peru Approcassi Cajamarca Fair Trade Organic Shade Grown Fresh Dark Roast 100% Arabica Coffee Beans
🚚 FREE USA Shipping available, carbon neutral w/Shop Pay
🚚 FREE USA Shipping available, carbon neutral w/Shop Pay
We ship via Priority, Express, and Ground services, depending on product, weight class, and final customer destination. Please refer to our shipping policy for further details. Thank you for your support!
Remember to store properly. Brew & Enjoy!
Remember to store properly. Brew & Enjoy!
Please store properly in an air-tight container, away from light, moisture, extreme temperatures, & oxygen. Once the beans are transferred into an air-tight container, please store in a dark pantry or kitchen cupboard for maximum freshness dating to up to 8 weeks.
- Fresh Roasted Each Morning & Shipped in the Afternoon! A mellow, gentle coffee with a subtle nutty flavor and a pleasingly natural sweetness.
- This coffee makes an amazing espresso and is ideal for cold brews too!
- There are two things that contribute to the amazing and unparalleled taste of Peruvian coffee:
- One, it is organically grown since 1700 AD and the technique that the farmers use has been handed over by word of mouth from generation to generation.
- And two, there is no interference yet from modern technology on any of the 110 thousand coffee farms in Peru.
- The combined effect of these two factors is that the organic Peruvian coffee has a remarkable taste the richness of which no one has yet been able to copy.
The town of Naranjas, located in Peru's northern Andean region of Cajamarca, produces one of the best coffees in the world due to its aroma, flavor and quality, reported US satellite and cable television business news channel CNBC. Sunshine in your cup, grown by farmers of the APPROCASSI Fair Trade Group from Cajamarca province in Peru. Which means you're not just getting an excellent coffee, you're supporting sustainable farming, too. The coffee crop is cultivated in between trees so it is shielded completely from the sun. The Peruvian coffee is grown completely in shade. The beans are picked over a period of five months, i.e. May to September by hand. The next step, pulping, is also done by hand after which the beans are stored in huge fermentation tanks which helps in cleaning them. Lastly, the coffee beans are transported to the market where about 80 percent is exported. The farms where the coffee is grown are small, about 2-3 acres each where the farmers work hard to uphold the amazing quality of the crop using exclusively indigenous methods. Each farm is equipped with a micro-wet milling system which is yet another effort to keep Peru free form any type of chemical pollution. Full City Plus, a few snaps into 2nd crack, was nice, chocolaty, but more one-dimensional. The wet aroma has heather-like flowers. At that magical roast level, at City Plus, the cup has a fantastic milky chocolate, almonds, coconut. It's like a candy bar! There is a muted, clean fruit flavor; Bosc Pear, turning to milk chocolate in the finish, with bittering hints of almond skins. Roast Type: Light, City Plus to Medium Roast, Full City Plus
This coffee is the best I've tried yet! I love that it's fair trade organic shade grown too!
I sent this to my daughter and she loved it so much she and her guest (of 4 days) had 2 pots a day. It's a treat to have fresh roasted coffee beans. I buy your green beans and roast them myself......once I got my routine and timing finessed, we're loving our fresh coffee beans!


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8/0 Japanese Seed Bead, Silver Lined Khaki Green*
Japanese 8/0 seed beads are wonderful medium sized beads that have many uses. They are halfway in between a smaller 11/0 and a larger 6/0 seed bead. They are great for bead weaving, peyote stitch, bead embroidery, Kumihimo, waist beads or as spacers in between stones. Japanese seed beads have more consistency and larger holes than their Czech counterparts. *This bead is dyed and may fade.
We sell most Japanese beads by the 6″ tube. Each tube holds approximately 1 ounce. There are approximately 1,050 beads per ounce. There are about 13 beads per inch.
- $4.25 per tube
- $21.25 for 6 tubes
- $37.00 for 18 tubes (1/2 kilo)
Made in: Japan
Manufacturer: unknown
Mfg. Color #: unknown
Universal Color #: 49
Outside Diameter: 3mm
Hole Size: 1.1mm
Needle Size: 10 or smaller
Thread Size: 6lb Fireline, Size D Nymo or equivalent, or S-Lon cord.


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Monster Pet
Adopt your very own monster! This virtual pet game is fun for all ages. Take care of your new monster friend, feed it, wash it and treat it when it gets sick. Earn coins by playing cool mini games and buy cute outfits and many other items in the shop. Don't forget that monsters need sleep as well and make your little buddy happy!