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On the night of 10 April 1934, one of the twelve oak panels that comprise Jan van Eyck's famous painting, Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, was stolen from Saint Bavo Cathedral, in Ghent, Belgium. Often referred to as "The Ghent Altarpiece," this monumental oil painting is arguably the single most influential painting ever made. It is also the most-frequently stolen, having been burgled, in its entirety or in parts, at least six times—quite a feat, considering that it is the size of a barn door (14 x 11.5 feet) and weighs about two tons. It was the most-desired artwork by the Nazis, including Hitler and his second-in-command, Hermann Göring.
The two Nazi leaders actually raced one another to be the first to steal the altarpiece. The Nazi art theft unit, the ERR, captured it first for Hitler, from its hiding place at Chateau de Pau, in the south of France, where the Belgian government had sent it for safe-keeping. But an emissary from Göring appropriated it for the Luftwaffe head's massive stolen art collection, which included some seven-thousand masterpieces, displayed at his country estate outside Berlin. Hitler got wind of this, and intercepted the altarpiece, sending it first to Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, where it was restored, and then for storage in a salt mine in the Austrian Alps near Altaussee, where the twelve-thousand most famous stolen artworks from Nazi-occupied Europe were kept in secret, destined to feature in Hitler's planned "super museum," which would be the size of a city, and display every important artwork in the world. From the Altaussee salt mine, the Ghent Altarpiece and its fellow captives were ultimately rescued, thanks to the combined efforts of Austrian miners and a pair of Monuments Men, Robert Posey and Lincoln Kirstein, who only learned of the Altaussee hoard thanks to a fortuitous toothache that led them to a former SS officer, an art historian who was in hiding as the war drew to a close. The upcoming George Clooney film, The Monuments Men, dramatizes some of these stories, though taking a great many liberties in the process.
The iconography of The Ghent Altarpiece has long fascinated scholars. The painting was immediately the most famous in Europe, when it was completed in 1432. It was the first major oil painting. Oil had been used to bind pigments to paintings since the Middle Ages, but Jan van Eyck was the first to demonstrate the true potential of oils, which permit far greater subtlety and detail than largely-opaque egg-based tempera paint, which was preferred before The Ghent Altarpiece popularized oils. The altarpiece contains over 100 figures, and is an elaborate pantheon of Catholic mysticism—at its center stands a heavenly field, brimming with uniquely-depicted figures around a sacrificial lamb, representative of Christ (the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb from which the work draws it title). The lamb stands upon an altar and bleeds into a chalice—the Holy Grail.
Hitler so craved the Ghent Altarpiece because it was one of the most famous artworks in history, and it was by a Germanic artist, in the realistic, Northern Renaissance style that Hitler preferred. It had also been forcibly repatriated to Belgium after the First World War, before which certain panels of the altarpiece had been displayed in Berlin. The Treaty of Versailles mentioned only four works of cultural heritage, foremost among them The Ghent Altarpiece. Hitler wanted to correct the humiliation inflicted on the German people by the Treaty of Versailles, and recapturing the altarpiece would go some way toward that goal.
But there may also have been a more fantastic reason why Hitler wanted this painting above all others. Rumor had it that he was convinced that the painting contained a coded map to lost Catholic treasures, the so-called Arma Christi, or instruments of Christ's Passion, including the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Grail, and the Spear of Destiny. Hitler believed that the possession of the Arma Christi would grant their owner supernatural powers. As the tide of the war turned ever more against the Nazis, Hitler cranked up his efforts to seek some supernatural way to bring victory to the Third Reich.
Cue the soundtrack to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The idea that the Nazis had teams of researchers hunting for supernatural treasures, religious relics, and entrances to a magical land of telepathic faeries and giants might sound like a bad History Channel documentary, or out-takes from an Indiana Jones movie. But despite the considerable popular interest in all things Nazi-related, and all things supernatural, relatively few people are aware of a very real organization that was the inspiration for the Indiana Jones plots: the Nazi Ahnenerbe, or the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Organization.
The Ahnenerbe (which literally means "Inheritance of the Forefathers") was a paranormal research group, established by order of SS head Heinrich Himmler on 1 July 1935. It was expanded during the Second World War on direct orders from the Fuhrer. Hitler and other top Nazi leaders' (Himmler foremost among them) interest in the occult is well and widely documented. The Nazi Party actually began as an occult fraternity, before it morphed into a political party. Himmler's SS, ostensibly Hitler's bodyguard but in practice the leading special forces of the Nazi Army, was wholly designed based on occult beliefs. Wewelsburg, the castle headquarters of the SS, was the site of initiation rituals for twelve SS "knights" that was modeled on Arthurian legend. The magical powers of runes were invoked, and the Ahnenerbe logo features rune-style lettering. Psychics and astrologers were employed to attack the enemy and plan tactics based on the alignment of the stars. Nazis tried to create super-soldiers, using steroids, in a twisted interpretation of Nietzsche's übermensch, and they sought to reanimate the dead—coffins of famous Germanic warriors were found hidden in a mine, with plans to bring them back to life at the war's end.
The Ahnenerbe sent expeditions all over the world. To Tibet, to search for traces of the original, uncorrupted Aryan race, and for a creature called the Yeti, what we would call the Abominable Snowman. To Ethiopia, in search of the Ark of the Covenant. To the Languedoc, to find the Holy Grail. To steal the Spear of Destiny, which Longinus used to pierce Christ's side as Christ hung on the cross, and which disappeared from a locked vault in Nurnberg. To Iceland, to find the entrance to a magical land of telepathic giants and faeries called Thule, which Hitler and most of the Nazi brass believed was the place of origin of the Aryans, and was very real. If they could find this entrance, believed to be accessible via a secret code hidden in a Medieval Icelandic saga called The Eddas, then the Nazis might accelerate their Aryan breeding program, and recover the supernatural powers of flight, telepathy and telekinesis that they believed their ancestors in Thule possessed, and which was lost due to inter-breeding with "lesser" races.
As crazy as all this may sound, it was fervently believed by many in the Nazi Party—so much so that huge sums of money were invested into research, along with hundreds of workers and scientists. This pseudo-scientific institute both sought supernatural advantages for the Nazi war effort, but also had a propagandistic agenda, to seek "scientific" evidence to support Nazi beliefs, like Aryan racial superiority.
With all this in mind, it is entirely plausible that Hitler believed that the Ghent Altarpiece contained a coded map to supernatural treasure. After all, the Ahnenerbe was hard at work looking for a secret entrance to the magical land of Thule in the Icelandic saga, The Eddas. Whether such a map is in The Ghent Altarpiece is another matter, one that scholars dismiss out of hand, though it is tempting to interpret the complex, enigmatic iconography and disguised symbolism of van Eyck's masterpiece in terms more exotic than those in the average art history textbook. But there is also another component to the story that fuels this theory, and it is linked to the 1934 theft of that single panel.
There has never been a convincing explanation for the motivation for the theft of the Righteous Judges panel, referred to as such because it depicts a group of Biblical wise men (while also hiding several portraits, including one of van Eyck). While the man who masterminded the theft of the Judges panel, Arsene Goedertier, is known, he could not have acted alone, and his motivation is uncertain. The panel was ostensibly stolen in order to ransom it back to the bishopric of Saint Bavo—but Goedertier had more money in his bank account than was asked for in the ransom demand. For lack of a clear motive, various theories have arisen, one of which is linked to a Nazi art detective, Heinrich Köhn, who was sent to Ghent to find the stolen Judges panel several years before the Nazis seized the other eleven panels of the altarpiece.
Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, along with Himmler, conceived of the idea to find the lost Judges panel and give it as a gift to Hitler at the tenth anniversary of his assumption of power in Germany, in 1943. Köhn investigated throughout the city of Ghent, even taking apart portions of the cathedral (for one theory held that the panel had been hidden on-site, never having left Saint Bavo). He found nothing, and was sent to fight in the Eastern Front for his failure. Why would the Nazis wish to locate a single stolen panel? They surely had designs on seizing the entire altarpiece, and did not wish it to be incomplete when they did so. Some have suggested that the coded treasure map leading to the Arma Christi was missing a key component that was hidden in the Judges panel. In order for the map to bear fruit, that panel was needed. It was stolen in 1934, therefore, to keep it out of Nazi hands, should the nascent Adolf Hitler follow through with his plan to recapture The Ghent Altarpiece and make it the focal point of his super-museum.
While there are plenty of non-supernatural, non-Da Vinci Code-y rationales for Hitler to desire The Ghent Altarpiece above all other objects, it is entirely plausible that Hitler might have believed in the coded treasure map theory. It seems far-fetched to us today, until we consider the other crazy theories that were truly believed by Hitler and his cronies. If The Eddas might contain a code to gain entrance to the magical land of Thule, where Aryan ancestors lived as flying telepathic faeries and giants then, according to Nazi logic, then the world's most important painting might indeed contain a treasure map leading to the Holy Grail.


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This release contains a variety of fixes from 9.1.7. For information about new features in the 9.1 major release, see Section E.10, « Release 9.1 ».
A dump/restore is not required for those running 9.1.X.
However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 9.1.6, see the release notes for 9.1.6.
Prevent execution of enum_recv from SQL (Tom Lane)
The function was misdeclared, allowing a simple SQL command to crash the server. In principle an attacker might be able to use it to examine the contents of server memory. Our thanks to Sumit Soni (via Secunia SVCRP) for reporting this issue. (CVE-2013-0255)
Fix multiple problems in detection of when a consistent database state has been reached during WAL replay (Fujii Masao, Heikki Linnakangas, Simon Riggs, Andres Freund)
Update minimum recovery point when truncating a relation file (Heikki Linnakangas)
Once data has been discarded, it's no longer safe to stop recovery at an earlier point in the timeline.
Fix recycling of WAL segments after changing recovery target timeline (Heikki Linnakangas)
Fix missing cancellations in hot standby mode (Noah Misch, Simon Riggs)
The need to cancel conflicting hot-standby queries would sometimes be missed, allowing those queries to see inconsistent data.
Prevent recovery pause feature from pausing before users can connect (Tom Lane)
Fix SQL grammar to allow subscripting or field selection from a sub-SELECT result (Tom Lane)
Fix performance problems with autovacuum truncation in busy workloads (Jan Wieck)
Truncation of empty pages at the end of a table requires exclusive lock, but autovacuum was coded to fail (and release the table lock) when there are conflicting lock requests. Under load, it is easily possible that truncation would never occur, resulting in table bloat. Fix by performing a partial truncation, releasing the lock, then attempting to re-acquire the lock and continue. This fix also greatly reduces the average time before autovacuum releases the lock after a conflicting request arrives.
Protect against race conditions when scanning pg_tablespace (Stephen Frost, Tom Lane)
CREATE DATABASE and DROP DATABASE could misbehave if there were concurrent updates of pg_tablespace entries.
Prevent DROP OWNED from trying to drop whole databases or tablespaces (Álvaro Herrera)
For safety, ownership of these objects must be reassigned, not dropped.
Fix error in vacuum_freeze_table_age implementation (Andres Freund)
In installations that have existed for more than vacuum_freeze_min_age transactions, this mistake prevented autovacuum from using partial-table scans, so that a full-table scan would always happen instead.
Prevent misbehavior when a RowExpr or XmlExpr is parse-analyzed twice (Andres Freund, Tom Lane)
This mistake could be user-visible in contexts such as CREATE TABLE LIKE INCLUDING INDEXES.
Improve defenses against integer overflow in hashtable sizing calculations (Jeff Davis)
Fix failure to ignore leftover temporary tables after a server crash (Tom Lane)
Reject out-of-range dates in to_date() (Hitoshi Harada)
Fix pg_extension_config_dump() to handle extension-update cases properly (Tom Lane)
This function will now replace any existing entry for the target table, making it usable in extension update scripts.
Fix PL/Python's handling of functions used as triggers on multiple tables (Andres Freund)
Ensure that non-ASCII prompt strings are translated to the correct code page on Windows (Alexander Law, Noah Misch)
This bug affected psql and some other client programs.
Fix possible crash in psql's \? command when not connected to a database (Meng Qingzhong)
Fix possible error if a relation file is removed while pg_basebackup is running (Heikki Linnakangas)
Make pg_dump exclude data of unlogged tables when running on a hot-standby server (Magnus Hagander)
This would fail anyway because the data is not available on the standby server, so it seems most convenient to assume --no-unlogged-table-data automatically.
Fix pg_upgrade to deal with invalid indexes safely (Bruce Momjian)
Fix one-byte buffer overrun in libpq's PQprintTuples (Xi Wang)
This ancient function is not used anywhere by PostgreSQL™ itself, but it might still be used by some client code.
Make ecpglib use translated messages properly (Chen Huajun)
Properly install ecpg_compat and pgtypes libraries on MSVC (Jiang Guiqing)
Include our version of isinf() in libecpg if it's not provided by the system (Jiang Guiqing)
Rearrange configure's tests for supplied functions so it is not fooled by bogus exports from libedit/libreadline (Christoph Berg)
Ensure Windows build number increases over time (Magnus Hagander)
Make pgxs build executables with the right .exe suffix when cross-compiling for Windows (Zoltan Boszormenyi)
Add new timezone abbreviation FET (Tom Lane)
This is now used in some eastern-European time zones.

subset: commoncrawl


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Service & Parts Specials
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We will ship any vehicle to your home for only $299!
Once you have found your vehicle of interest, return to this form to request a customer service representative to coordinate having the vehicle delivered to your location.
*Shipping up to 200 miles from nearest Wise Auto Group dealer. For further deliveries please inquire in the comments below.


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Parasitic DNA proliferates in aging tissues
- Date:
- December 20, 2013
- Source:
- Brown University
- Summary:
- As mice age, cells in tissues such as the liver and skeletal muscle lose control over rogue sequences of DNA called "retrotransposable elements," according to new research. The elements, which may undermine health, were able to proliferate in old mice and were also abundant in cancerous tissue. A low-calorie diet, however, restrained their advance.
- Share:
The genomes of organisms from humans to corn are replete with "parasitic" strands of DNA that, when not suppressed, copy themselves and spread throughout the genome, potentially affecting health. Earlier this year Brown University researchers found that these "retrotransposable elements" were increasingly able to break free of the genome's control in cultures of human cells.
Now in a new paper in the journal Aging, they show that RTEs are increasingly able to break free and copy themselves in the tissues of mice as the animals aged. In further experiments the biologists showed that this activity was readily apparent in cancerous tumors, but that it also could be reduced by restricting calories.
"As mice age we are seeing deregulation of these elements and they begin to be expressed and increase in copy number in the genome," said Jill Kreiling, a research assistant professor at Brown, and leader of the study published in advance online Dec. 7. "This may be a very important mechanism in leading to genome instability. A lot of the chronic diseases associated with aging, such as cancer, have been associated with genome instability."
Whether the proliferation of RTEs is exclusively a bad thing remains a hot question among scientists, but what they do know is that the genome tries to control RTEs by wrapping them up in a tightly wound configuration called heterochromatin. In their experiments, Kreiling and co-corresponding author Professor John Sedivy found that overall, the genomes of several mouse tissues become more heterochromatic with age. But they also found, paradoxically, that some regions where RTEs are concentrated became -- loosened up instead , particularly after mice reached the 2-year mark (equivalent to about the 70-year mark for a person).
An important advance in this paper compared to the prior work in cell cultures, Sedivy said, is that the researchers were able to show the loosening of control over RTEs was associated with the chronological aging of the whole organism and specific tissues. Before in cell culture the aging they tracked was based on the number of times individual cells were able to divide. That kind of cellular aging is called "replicative senescence" and is believed to be rare in many normal tissues.
"This brings home the magnitude of the problem," Sedivy said. "We looked in some pretty major tissues. This appears to be a much more widespread phenomenon. The observation that RTEs become activated with chronological aging of mouse tissues also brings this research in close alignment with very similar discoveries using the fruit fly Drosophila in the labs of Brown Professors Stephen Helfand and Robert Reenan,. The remarkable evolutionary conservation of these fundamental molecular processes indicates that they are likely important aspects of aging. "
In the new research, the team including lead author Marco DeCecco looked at cells from the liver and skeletal muscle of mice at ages 5, 24 and 36 months. Comparing gene expression and DNA sequences from the cells, they found elevated expression in both tissues of many RTEs after 24 months. Not only were the RTEs expressed more, but also they succeeded in copying themselves and showing up elsewhere in the genome. For example, an RTE named "MusD" became more than twice as abundant in liver tissue between the ages 24 and 36 months.
The RTEs were considerably less successful in proliferating, however, in mice who were still adequately nourished, but fed 40 percent fewer calories than mice fed a standard diet. Calorie restriction has been widely shown to mitigate many consequences of aging in different animal models.
On the other hand, the researchers found that several RTEs were much more abundant in mouse tissues affected by naturally occurring cancers, such as lymphoma and hepatocellular carcinoma.
The research does not yet provide evidence that RTEs have a causal role in cancer, Sedivy said. For the time being it's only an association. But he said that researchers have a path forward to study the health consequences of the RTE proliferation that apparently occurs in aging. Certain drugs can inhibit RTE proliferation so researchers should be able to see if doing so extends the amount of time an animal is healthy and free of chronic disease in future mouse experiments.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Brown University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Marco De Cecco, Steven W. Criscione, Abigail L. Peterson, Nicola Neretti, John M. Sedivy, and Jill A. Kreiling. Transposable elements become active and mobile in the genomes of aging mammalian somatic tissues. Aging, December 2013
Cite This Page:


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Temporomandibular Joint Disorders, the Cervical Spine, and Spinal Manipulation
Published on under Advanced
In biomechanics, there is a rule that notes that the regions of the body that have the greatest mobility have the least stability; and reduced stability is coupled with greater injury and stress risk. Joints that have multiple planes of motion are particularly prone to increased stress and injury risk. The jaw not only open [..]


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Buying a new TV: I came to the realization that my manroom, while great, was inadequately equipped with a mere 50″ screen. So I decided to go big (then go home). Spent a long while researching options, ended up with the Samsung PN63C590, Samsung PN63C8000, and the LG 60PK950 as my top three choices. Two of these three had 3D and Internet connectivity, the other was just a big honking 63″ screen. I went with the big honking screen and skipped on the frills. I realized I don't much like the current 3D experience in theaters or homes (makes me a little nauseous), and the likelihood that I'd want to frequently watch 3D at home was pretty low. Regarding Internet apps, I'm not really impressed with most of the available apps, and I'm not very convinced that the current platforms won't be obsolete within 12-18 months (looks like I'm not the only one who feels that way on both topics).
In a nutshell – the TV is awesome, manroom now operating at near-100% efficiency.
Cord-Cutting: So my new TV is great, and also huge. And there's an interesting downside to it being huge – the gaffes of lower quality video are worse than ever. As soon as everything was hooked up, I turned on the NHL HD channel (sports channels seem to be at the top of the quality spectrum in the HD channel lineup). All I could see were the jaggies and other terrible aftereffects of the highly compressed video Comcast delivers to my house. So how did I make my TV look good? I turned on my Xbox! I think this "faux" HD experience is something that actually could cause cord-cutting in 2011 – far more than Smart TVs will. More on this over on the Stage Two blog.
Smart TVs: Speaking about Smart TVs (the continuity in this post would astound my high school English teacher), I read an article on "What Smart TVs need to Succeed" with the highlights being: Unlimited Content Access, Extensive Use of Apps, and Immersive Experience. I think I understand that perspective, but I also think it is missing the boat. People tend to compare Smart TVs to Smart Phones. If you recall, the first several *years* of smart phones were some truly terrible products. But when it comes to phones, that's "ok" because they are low cost (relative to TVs) and owners expected to replace them in fairly short cycles. TVs, on the other hand, are expensive and consumers tend to replace infrequently (unless of course they have awesome manrooms that warrant the upgrade). A generation of underwhelming Smart TVs will likely put a damper on the entire industry. What Smart TVs really need to succeed is great, intuitive, television-like user experiences. And I will be blunt by saying none of them do it right now. And I don't see this changing for at least the first half of 2011. Which is why we've got a new thing cooking in Stage Two's labs, all about making a really good TV user experience. Will show ya next year.
Del.icio.us shutdown: Just like everyone else in the Web 2.0 era, I used Delicious for about 45 minutes back in the mid 2000's, then stopped. I know there's still a solid fan base, and a lot more people found it a lot more useful than I did, but Yahoo's let it languish since about 6 months after purchase. Other than buying a better domain for it, it doesn't seem like the company cared about it one bit. And now they are shutting it down. I think this is pretty terrible, and as I tweeted… "irony of delicious shut-down? bartz could've made only $46.2M last year and still had a full-time TEAM on *improving* the product…" Shame on them. I'm sure there's some great spreadsheet somewhere that shows why its the smart business decision, but the audacity of the entire Yahoo situation is just plain infuriating. Highly recommended reading: Thomas Hawk's letter to Carol Bartz.
Online privacy: The entire concept of privacy is up for grabs these days. Some feel it's dead, some feel it must be protected at all costs. I sit closer to the "protect my privacy" camp, and as a result am encouraged to see the government taking some form of action. Unfortunately, I don't know how much actual good it will do, but since the industry isn't self-regulating, I have to assume it can't make things too much worse. I remain convinced that the mega-millionaires who run the companies who effectively control our online privacy have the incorrect moral incentives in place, especially considering they can pay their way out of the issues the rest of us face.


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Jimenez solid, but O's held scoreless in loss
Righty allows two runs on three hits with five walks over six innings
BALTIMORE -- Ubaldo, the escape artist.
With the Orioles poised to make a roster move soon, as right-hander Miguel Gonzalez is set to come off the disabled list, the struggling Jimenez was on the proverbial hot seat heading into Friday's start against the Blue Jays.
And while the right-hander -- signed to a four-year, $50 million deal this winter -- lacked command, Jimenez managed to work out of several jams to turn in a quality start.
Whether the six-inning outing -- in which he tied a season-high five walks -- was enough for Baltimore to be encouraged was unclear. But it wasn't enough to counter an Orioles offense held in check by Blue Jays righty Drew Hutchison, who fired seven dominant innings as the O's lost, 4-0, at Camden Yards in a series-evening defeat.
"We just didn't do much offensively," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said of his club, which has scored one run total over its last three losses. "[Jimenez] presented himself better. The walks are still an issue, but I thought his stuff was better. Down in the zone a little more against a good-hitting team."
Baltimore (34-32) was fortunate that Hutchison -- at only 96 pitches -- was lifted due to a 21-minute rain delay, and looked poised to get things going after a pair of one-out singles off reliever Brett Cecil. But after Cecil exited mid at-bat to Chris Davis with left groin tightness, Dustin McGowan kept the O's in check, striking out Davis and retiring Nelson Cruz on a groundout, with the call standing after a replay review.
"He's got a good angle on his ball, so he kind of starts out behind you, and he's able to sink it and run it and got a real tight slider, and run it up there at 93," Orioles catcher Caleb Joseph said of how Hutchison was able to baffle the O's. "Just kept us off balance, and couldn't get anything going off of him. Credit him. Ubaldo pitched great, but their guy pitched just a little bit better."
The defeat dropped Jimenez to 0-6 at home, and in front of a sellout crowd of 44,031 on Friday, as the right-hander is winless since May 8. Are the Orioles, who have lost 11 of Jimenez's 14 starts, struggling to keep up a good offensive tempo with him on the hill?
"I'd hate to think that," Showalter said of Jimenez, who is 2-8 with a 4.86 ERA. "That's a very convenient way to perceive it and find that angle, but we didn't score any runs tonight. No matter how he pitched, we didn't score any runs. And I thought he gave us a good chance to win a baseball game tonight. Most times, two runs against the club through six innings ... I thought he showed a little something there with the last out, because it was a tough decision whether to leave him in, and to get [Edwin] Encarnacion out in that situation, that's a pretty good finish for him, so hopefully that will carry over."
Early on, Jimenez looked like he was destined to have another short departure, issuing a walk and single to put runners on the corners before he could record an out. But he got an inning-ending double play, the first of two over the first two innings, and also benefited from Joseph catching Anthony Gose stealing to end the fifth. Joseph, who took a pitch to his right hand earlier in the game, stayed in and said the replay looked worse than it was.
And perhaps the same can be said for Jimenez, who only had one walk come around to score -- on Juan Francisco's two-run homer in the second -- as the righty was able to hold a scuffling Blue Jays lineup in check. Jimenez had two clean innings in the 101-pitch outing, scattering three hits and exiting in favor of Tommy Hunter after turning in his second quality start in his last six games.
"I was able to hang in for the team," said Jimenez, who tried to emphasize fastball command more. "I was able to at least get a quality start. I still have a lot of work. That's something that I need to still work on. But I was good. I was OK."
Hutchison was better.
The right-hander continued his dominance over the Orioles, turning in his third scoreless outing in five career starts. After leaving the bases loaded with two outs in the fourth -- which ended on Jonathan Schoop's warning-track flyout -- J.J. Hardy gave the Orioles a leadoff double in the seventh. But Hutchison got a trio of flyouts to center to keep Hardy cemented at second before the rain.
"I think I've just made good pitches in those particular games," Hutchison said of his 2-0 record and 1.16 ERA against Baltimore. "I had a good game plan and executed good pitches."
Jimenez showed flashes of that on Friday but turned in his second consecutive five-walk outing. Still, he saw it as a step forward when compared to the 2 1/3 innings he went in his previous start against Oakland.
"It wasn't that bad," he said of his command on Friday. "Just was a couple hitters, I got with two strikes and tried to be too fine with it. Overall, I think I was pounding the strike zone. If you take away the five walks to those guys, I felt good. I was able to attack the strike zone."
"I don't think it's a pace issue," Joseph said of the team's record with Jimenez. "It seems like there's one guy every year, and there's really no rhyme or reason to it. Pretty sure every guy in here wants to win every single day. It's one of those weird coincidences. The games he has really pitched well, we don't score runs for him. His record indicates that. We're trying out there as best as we can to win the game. He's giving us a chance, so we have a chance."
Hunter, after firing a scoreless seventh inning, allowed a pair of runs to extend the Orioles' deficit to 4-0 in the eighth. Gose worked a leadoff walk and advanced to third on Jose Reyes' grounder that deflected off Hunter and went through Schoop's legs at second. Gose scored on Hunter's wild pitch and, one out later, Jose Bautista's RBI single chased Hunter in favor of righty Josh Stinson. Stinson recorded the final five outs.


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Hot on the heels of the The Power of the Quick Turn article is this followup post about what happens after you tip into a corner. Too many riders struggle with cornering, not necessarily because they are afraid to lean, but becasue they do not understand how to properly complete a turn.
Cornering Basics
By now you know that motorcycles must lean to change direction and that leaning is done by countersteering. Read about countersteering HERE.
Once the bike begins to lean, countersteering pressure is reduced and other dynamics take over that cause the motorcycle to arc around the curve, including front end rake and trail geometry, as well as something called camber thrust. Camber thrust is the term that describes how a tapered object (a motorcycle tire leaned over) orbits around its axis when rolling along a surface (the pavement).
In other words, the rounded profile of a motorcycle tire acts like a tapered styrofoam cup when it's rolled on its side. Give it a push and it rolls in a circle.
Here is how author and fellow USCRA racer Tony Foale describes camber thrust:
"As the inside edge of the tyre is forced to adopt a smaller radius than the outer edge, then for a given wheel rotational speed, the inner edge would prefer to travel at a smaller road speed, this happens if the wheel is allowed to turn about a vertical axis through the point of the cone. Just as a solid cone on a table if given a push."
For our purposes, all you really need to understand is that your motorcycle is designed to track around a curve with minimal effort once the bike is in a lean. Front end geometry (caster effect, rake, trail, etc.) all make this possible. If you want to read more, go to Tony Foale's website and learn all about it.
If your bike is properly maintained and has relatively new tires with nearly the original profile intact, you should be able to initiate lean and then maintain that lean angle without introducing any significant handlebar inputs. Problems occur when the rider messes this process up. Most bikes will track predictably and with little effort as long as the rider doesn't interfere with the process or introduce counterproductive inputs.
Variations in Machine Design
Some riders insist that they cannot round a corner without using significant handlebar pressure to keep their machine on the desired path. Instead of being able to relax and let the bike carve the path, they fight the bars all the way around the curve. It is possible that the machine is to blame, but these days this is rarely true.
While I have ridden bikes with really bad cornering dynamics, the vast majority of modern machines offer balanced, neutral handling that requires little-to-no mid-corner intervention. The only reason for handlebar adjustments are because of mid-corner changes in turn radius, camber or surface condition. A smooth constant radius curve, ridden well, requires almost no additional handlebar pressure.
It's important to note that different types of bikes handle differently. Sportbikes are responsive to steering inputs, while cruisers tend to be slower steering, but more stable. Still, if the rider does all the right things, then the differences in machine does not make that much of a difference. The trick is to have the knowledge and skill to complete a corner proficiently.
Basically, it's usually much more productive to evaluate the user instead of blaming the machine.
User Error
To repeat…once the necessary lean angle is established, most bikes are happy to track around a corner with little effort. So, why do some riders struggle with this part of the cornering process? The answer lies in a few areas.
- Tension at the handlebars. The front of the bike needs to be free to move up, down, and side -to-side in response to both large and small changes in the road surface. Being stiff on the handlebars interferes with this motion and causes the motorcycle to feel reluctant to turn. It also asks the tires to work harder to stay in contact with the surface. Another problem with stiff arms is that you are inhibiting the slight countersteering corrections that may need to occur to deal with changes in camber or other variations in corner surface. Loose arms allow fluid reactions.
- Poor body position. Think of your bike as your dance partner who wants you to lead. In the case of the cornering dance, a slight dip of the shoulder to the inside of the curve will encourage smoother cornering. In contrast, a rider who stays upright or leans outside is stepping on the bike's toes, causing it resist fluid cornering.
- Not using the Throttle Correctly. For the motorcycle to track around the corner predictably and smoothly, the suspension must be stable and in the middle of its travel. Smooth, gradual acceleration throughout the curve produces the best results. Be sure to slow enough at the beginning of turns so that you can comfortably roll on the gas all the way to the exit. Unfortunately, a lot of riders fail to use steady throttle in corners. This is a problem, because changes in speed and drive force alter the arcing path the motorcycle takes. Abruptly chopping on or off the throttle upsets this stability and causes the bike to lift and fall in and out of the established angle of lean and introduces forces that result in a wobbly or weaving line around the corner. Note that acceleration typically makes the bike drift wide and deceleration can either cause the bike to drop into the corner more or cause it to stand up, depending on how abruptly the throttle is chopped and how the machine /tire combo responds to this input.
- Not Looking through the Turn. You tend to go where you look, so look where you want to go! By keeping your visual attention through the turn and toward the corner exit, your mind is able to better manage the corner. The other advantage is that the landscape slows down when you look ahead. This reduces anxiety and helps complete the concerning process. Looking ahead will not suddenly make you a cornering master, but without habitually looking ahead, you will never become one. Keep your eyes up.
Cornering Technique
Okay, so let's break it down.
- Look well ahead.
- Countersteer to initiate lean for the corner.
- Crack the throttle as soon as the bike is leaned. Use gentle drive at first and then progressively feed in more drive force. Roll on with more authority as lean angle is reduced near the corner exit. Steady drive creates steady cornering.
- Relax! If you established the correct angle of lean for the turn, the bike should require only slight adjustments in handlebar pressure. Corners that tighten will require you to press more on the inside bar to lean the bike more, but keep the throttle as steady as possible.
- Finish the turn. You're not done yet. Keep looking toward the corner exit and roll on the throttle a bit more to let the bike drift toward the outside of the curve. This facilitates the "outside-inside-outside" cornering line, which I will discuss in a future post.
- Rinse and repeat for the next corner.
There is so much more to learn about the cornering process, but this is a good start. Implement these steps and you're well on your way to becoming a cornering master.
What tips can you share that help you to corner with more confidence?
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Check out these related posts:
- The Power of the Quick Turn
- Just Go Faster
- Countersteering Will Save Your Life!
- The "No Countersteering" Myth
- Valuing Motorcycling Skill Development
- #1 Reason for Motorcycle Crashes in Corners


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This cycle of pregnancy workouts is designed for women who have previous experience with strength training and yoga and want to integrate a range of exercise modalities. The third trimester workouts focus on regular movement throughout the day, long walks or hikes once a week, and easily modified bodyweight workouts.
Although pregnancy isn't the time to be focused on setting PRs or progressive weight training, there's no reason you can't track your progress. I found that keeping a fitness journal during pregnancy kept me motivated and helped me regain my fitness level faster after delivery.
I designed these workouts with active moms in mind who are at an intermediate fitness level. If you have been training with weights before pregnancy, there's no reason you can't continue to do so, provided you have your doctor's approval. Enjoy the workouts.
Week 33, Day 1
3 Rounds
Push Press x 10-12
Pull Up x 5 – 8
One Arm Row x 8-10 per side
Kettlebell Swing x 20
3 Rounds
Front Squat x 10
Calf Raises x 12 – 15
Step Up x 20
Walking Lunge x 15
Kettlebell Swing x 20


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Who Is the Mystery 'Famous Actor' Vanessa Carlton Wrote 'A Thousand Miles' About?
In 2002, Vanessa Carlton rocked the world when she dropped her instantly catchy debut single, "A Thousand Miles," a breakthrough hit which remains the singer-songwriter's signature song to this day.
In a new VICE "The Story of..." mini-documentary, Carlton reveals the little-known story behind the beloved tune, which, as it turns out, was written about a fellow Juilliard student whom Carlton had a crush on while attending the school back in the mid-90s.
Watch the doc, below:
In the doc, Carlton chooses to withhold the subject's name because he's a "famous actor" now. So, who could it be?
An in-depth Reddit thread has been investigating the timeline surrounding "A Thousand Miles," which Carlton said was written around 1995. While going through a list of Juilliard attendees from that year, one eagle-eyed web sleuth noticed a few notable actors graduated or attended around the same time Carlton may have attended the school: Wes Bentley, Christian Camargo, David Conrad and Alan Tudyk. Another user suggested the song could have been written about It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Glenn Howerton.
However, yet another Reddit user backed up the Wes Bentley theory, referring to an alleged post in a Vanessa Carlton Facebook fan group that stated the song was written about Bentley "at a show." Bentley, who reportedly dropped out of Juilliard after about one year, is only two years older than Carlton, which means that they both may have attended the school at the same time.
While a possible connection between Carlton and Bentley seems possible, there's no way we can know for sure unless Carlton decides to let her secret crush be known. Regardless, whoever Carlton is singing about in her iconic music video is one lucky guy.


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On July the 26th, It will be three years since I founded this art and design blog. It was a lonely journey during the first couple of months, but I slowly started meeting artistic bloggers from around the world and developing many blogging relationships as well. Blogging about my art journaling, drawing, painting, lettering, paper crafting, decorating, and photography has helped me improve my craftsmanship, experiment in new areas, and become more confident in my artistic abilities. Blogging has also allowed me to share my faith with others, as well as helped me better understand the faith of others, which is highly important for world peace. Finally, I've had the support of many of my blogging friends during my personal ups and downs. Thank you for being an integral part of my journey! I hope the following pieces express visually what I mean.
Ostinato Refrain Watercolor Pencils, Micron Pens, & Marker Art Journal Journey - Flower Power Ramona's Inspire Me Monday #133 Karen's Word Art Wednesday #142 |
Genevieve Gouverneur (Iconographer) Quote Marker & Pen Alexandra's Sunday Sketches Jen's In The Studio Jenn's Artist's Playroom #116 |
Hebrews 6:19 Watercolor Pencils and Micron Pens Pia's Mix It Monthly Challenge - Sailboat Dion's Friday Sketches - Week 20 Eva & Kristin's Paint Party Friday Week 20 Year 4 |
The 3 art journal pages above are all representative of my faith. Each of them is like a little prayer that keeps me focused, helps me express who I am, and allows me to explore my creativity, which is a precious gift from the Lord above. They are also fun to work on and serve as a record of my growth as an artist.
Dragonfly Mobile & Tag Origami, Die Cuts & Organza Ribbon Carolyn's Tag Tuesday - Bugs Order of the Opus Gluei Challenge #187 - Picnic Moo-Mania Challenge - Anything Goes |
Dream Greeting Card Mixed Media & Hand Lettering Freshly Made Sketches #145 by Narelle Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - About a Face Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Spots & Dots |
The 2 projects above are reflective of my love of paper as a creative medium. The first one features my love of origami and nature, as well as my love of gift wrapping. The second one features my hand painted paper, on which I did some mono-printing, stenciling, and spraying, as well as my hand lettering.
My Girls Black & White Digital Photograph Bella's 52 Photo Project - Year 4 Gallery 12 {Happiness Is} |
Art Studio Shots iPhone 4s Photography & ComicStrip App Lorik's Mandarin Orange Monday #102 Denise, Roger & Leslie's ABC Wednesday B is for Bountiful Art Haven Julia's What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday #268 Maria's Orange You Glad It's Friday #100 Manon' Paper Saturdays |
Finally, I have some of my photographic compositions. The first one depicts one of my major sources of happiness, whom are my daughters. I took the photograph during the 4th of July weekend. The photo montage shows different areas in my "Bountiful Art Haven." I chose to share my reading area, a couple of my storage units, and the top of my drafting table.
This brings me to the end of my post, so I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you once again for your support and all your constructive comments during the first 3 years on my blog. Blessings!


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The Quanta team has just released the first Bleeding Edge technology preview of Quanta from the new kdewebdev module. This includes KMDI, CSS enhancements, a new link checker, imagemap editor and a new embedded PHP debugging interface (be sure to get Gubed and the howto for setting up Gubed if you want to try it out). There's too much new to list in a small space but you can run Quanta BE and Quanta side by side with separate configuration files and there is crash recovery. So there is no risk in trying it. Check out the screenshots, get the full story on all the new features and grab a copy. If you like what we've done remember that Quanta sponsors two developers now so your donations really do make a difference.
Does anyone else find self defeating that the Quanta website is so ugly? I'm sure that Quanta is a great editor and all but wouldn't it be a good idea to use Quanta.sf.net as a showcase for what beautiful website it can be used to create?
Maybe it's just me.
I read that they're working on it. Maybe you can help :)
We will create a new site. See the http://mail.kdewebdev.org/mailman/listinfo/kdewebdev-site mailing list.
As they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thanks for saying it's ugly. I used KDE icons and I personally think the trendy white on black sites that I have to press my face to the monitor or highlight the text to read it are hideous. I had to choose between running a business so I could eat and sponsor Andras and Michal, working on Quanta or building a web site. I don't like sourceforge either so that's even more work. Seeing as how I already have to do almost everything for my business (including building kittyhooch.com which is now at over 7,900 lines of PHP) and Quanta absorbs so much time I got an experienced open source project manager who has also lead commercial projects, a team of developers and a professional graphic artist together to work on developing kdewebdev.org.
In the final analysis though anyone with a fraction of a clue knows you can create a fantastic site with a console editor and utter crap with $50,000 worth of the best software. (look at the source on a webshpere generated page some time) So the rational way evaluate a tool is still to download it and evaluate it. Somehow this reminds me of the comment on Slashdot about Kommander where someone saw a screenshot of a dialog I created for my use and assumed that was Kommander and it had a poor interface design. I've seen people say the web site is the best argument against Quanta. There's no rational connection in the real world and you can't persuade those who are irrational by addressing their issues. I agree though that an exemplary web site would be a good thing and we're working on it but it takes months to do on the scale we want to.
For the longest time as the saying goes... "Nobody didn't do nuthin". So we put Somebody on it and now we're making progress.
Hi Eric. We all are really thankful for your great support for Quanta. But the website makes someone who never used the program wonder in what league Quanta is playing quality-wise. It is small stuff like the header (http://quanta.sourceforge.net/images/sechdr.png) and typos like the following on the screenshot-page (http://quanta.sourceforge.net/main2.php?snapfile=snap04):
* User Interface configuratin options
I think there are lots of Quanta users with artistic talent that would be glad to support the project with their skills - be it a pagelayout, some graphics or some css work. Just let the world know...
feel free to offer your help making the new kdewebdev site better on
http://mail.kdewebdev.org/mailman/listinfo/kdewebdev-site ;-)
besides that, I can only recommend to try out the new quanta -
there are really lots of new, exciting features to be discovered !
(IMHO, quanta has now - if not already earlier - reached a level
of maturity that makes it just unique in its category,
even compared to commercial products - does DW have an integrated php debugger ? - not that I would know of...).
> Hi Eric. We all are really thankful for your great support for Quanta. But the website makes someone who never used the program wonder in what league Quanta is playing quality-wise.
That's why I had an announcement on the dot that we are developing a new site. No matter how many time I say it people will miss it until it goes on line. The process for what my actual vision for doing a site right takes months, and even with others doing it it still takes even more of my precious time. People feel I should do something, probably because I haven't quite done enough. ;-) You can help.
> It is small stuff like the header (http://quanta.sourceforge.net/images/sechdr.png)
I don't remember how long ago I did that. I guess it doesn't look spectacular and I could do better but it's still subjective. Everyone who has offered to help has offered to do the whole thing. Why is it so hard for people to grasp that I'm going to be stuck maintaining it or finding someone to maintain it?
> and typos like the following ...
Fixed, thanks. My fingers don't work so well at 3:30 AM. I got to bed at 5 AM.
> Just let the world know...
Oh if only you could be in my shoes for a release. ;-)
(wait, I'm not wearing shoes) I've "let the world" know repeatedly. I'm also very busy with kittyhooch.com. I don't want to work on quanta.sf.net but I put a header on the main page saying it's being replaced so that people will stop asking me to fix it. Working on two sites for quanta is pointless.
Let's talk about Quanta, the site is in work.
Quick note
"User Interface configuratin options"
Configuration is mispelled on the screenshots section
Well, at least the screenshots could be improved by using anti aliasing in the (KHTML) preview and also for the menus.
It seems that Eric is not bothered by the aliased fonts. Maybe he even likes them. ;-)
I have that set, unless some install overwrote it. I also edited things with gimp. I can't explain where this comes from. Things look crystal clear and anti aliased in front of me now and I set up all the configurations...
In germany there was a time when you could detect the quality of a website by its own poor quality website. The worse the website the better the company.
Saved this article and opened it up and is came up very nice! It seems to have some trouble placing the cursor where I click though. It just selects areas. I am using cvs from Monday if I just need to update.
-Ben Meyer
I think your problem has to do with selection being broken in cvs. I can't select anything except in an editor right now. And even there it's broken.
Curius, does Quanta use KConfigXT?
No, or not yet. The reasons are:
- KDE 3.1.x compatibility (but we drop this after this release, so we can use it. KConfigXT is present in KDE 3.2, no?)
- I haven't took the time to look at KConfigXT (and the tutorials).
I'm sure it would help us and simplify the code, but well, somebody has to do it (and that somebody needs time to do it).
KConfigXT is present in KDE 3.2, I already ported a small app to KConfigXT running KDE 3.2.2.
Porting is easy, first writing a XML file and after converting the function calls. Maybe you could do this with some substitution commands.
What exactly is KConfigXT? Is it something like Gconf on steroids?
GConf is to KConfig as ? is to KConfigXT :)
KConfigXT does a number of things. Mostly it boils down to 2 things:
1) Settings and default values are stored in 1 xml file, not all over in code, in ui files, in config files, etc etc
2) Configure dilalogs don't really need to be coded anymore. Toss together some ui files, give it a pointer to your kconfigxt and wham it does the rest. Takes care of loading, disabling, saving, etc. This amounts to major major savings both in time wasted coding, debuging and in user interface as every config dialog that uses kconfigxt behaves the same.
Check out the tutorials or some apps in cvs (KTron in kdegames is a excellent small simple application that uses it)
-Benjamin Meyer
One thing that is missing from the release anouncement: it's possible to use other editors, not just Kate.
The feature is (highly) experimental and can be enabled with the --enable-editors configure switch.
Use with care and send patches. ;-)
A few other things that didn't get mentioned too...
* use Kate plugins in Quanta now
* another fun tip from the mailing list - Create a Konsole plugin... Use kde3/libkonsolepart.la as filename
The only problem I have is, I belive, because I'm using Mandrake cooker: the toolbars exept main simply don't save option to have only icons, it's always with text under icons, so I've edited the main toolbar to have all items I need and made others empty :)
Man, the visual now is so clean! I have all the space I need to editing my php scripts, awesome!
One more great version of quanta and I can only thank you very much - because I don't have money to donate :(
If cooker is using CVS, which I believe it is, then there are bound to be some problems in this area. in fact we just had to work though a change that temporarily made toolbars unable to be customized.
As far as donating, it's true that only a fraction of a percent ever do and we applaud them. But I love to read your comments so I'm still happy. ;-)
You may remember a story posted here about finding out that Wil Wheaton (Stand By Me, Star Trek the Next Generation, Dancing Barefoot) is a big Quanta fan and then meeting him. Well we just got mentioned again on his blog at WilWheaton.net. It seems his cat Felix has kidney problems. When we saw Wil the second time we gave him some Kitty Hooch toys for Felix. I guess Felix loved them so he mentioned he ordered more in his blog.
BTW our new order system is up taking credit cards again and we have new products on line. Much appreciation to Wil for mentioning us as it has sent business our way.
Folks, I can only admire what you are doing, but let me ask you something: Is KFileReplace a thing that could be integrated into Kate too? I am not trolling, it is not a problem for me to do the things I want in Quanta and then return to Kate (converting the code of a Slovak document management system written in plpgsql (see also: PostgreSQL) into English), but you know, what effects lazyness has on mankind... Thanks for reading this far.
AFAIK KFileReplace is a standalone app, so you can just use that. Missing would be the ability to open files in kate automatically (a guess, I use perl to change things in files on disk ;).
Using it as an external tool, you'd be warned if anyting had changed in open files inside kate, with the option to reload those.
If KFileReplace is implemented as a KPart, it would be fairly simple to write a kate plugin, which could then be shared by quanta if i understand things correctly.
In my opinion, the ability to replace over multiple files in kate is more important than integration with this tool, but if you write a plugin it will be wellcome in kdeaddons, and I'll as allways be willing to help on the #kate irc channel at the freenode irc network.
KFileReplace is already a KPart and can be used also from Konqueror. ;-)
The original KFileReplace was written as a stand alone application and was maintained through KDE 3. Our version has been updated to a KPart, which is how we use it as a plugin in Quanta. Quanta can easily embed KParts as plugins by using the plugin editor on the settings menu. This version of Quanta also uses Kate plugins. (Settings>Configure Editor::Plugins) So if you can write a plugin for Kate that's great... but it seems to me you can access everything now from within Quanta 3.3 BE 2.
Along with this take a look at Settings>Configure Actions and note that you can interact with the editor content using any scripting language. Actions can be triggered from a toolbar, key combination or template insertion. They can take input from the entire content, selected text or none and outputs to editor content, selected text or cursor. You can also build dialogs with Kommander. Now Kommander is capable of saving the value of any widget as well as having it's widgets manipulated by DCOP. Open kdcop and look at Quanta and a Kommander dialog (kmdr-executor-[pid]). Kommander can get the caling dcopid as well as it's own and you can write DCOP scripting within the dialog and even initialize widgets with population text. You can lift elements out of the editor, create lists, whatever you can imagine. Kommander and Quanta give you a virtually extensible environment where you can write your next upgrade in bash, perl, python, ruby or even PHP if you have 4.3 CLI installed. If you like you can even use all of them. ;-)
We're planning a new release in a month that has data access, a simplified interface, a small collection of special funtions with a function wizard, DCOP simplification mapping and tutorials and demos. Kommander enables users to convert a number of universal applications into a single personal application. Our objective is to make it newbie friendly yet extremely productive by focusing on conceptual flow instead of the constraints of language. People inherently have difficulty putting concepts into lannguage so it's about time someone advanced a conceptual paradigm.
You can get on our new Kommander list to ask questions and get help at http://mail.kdewebdev.org/mailman/listinfo
Anyone who wants to write a plugin for kate using kfilereplace is wellcome.
Same goes for kommander.
I'm not really seeing myself installing quanta right now, since i have more than enough to do and I wont use it for anything but a shiny thing to look at.
Personally, I still believe that we should merge kate, kdevelop, quanta and kile into one very simple (KMDI) shell with a unified plugin interface and a profile system, allowing you to define a custom application. I really find this hunting good features/implementations from the sibling applications silly.
> Anyone who wants to write a plugin for kate using kfilereplace is wellcome.
Sure. We didn't do anything really special we just made the part and incorporated some DCOP so it's pretty standard.
> Same goes for kommander.
Kommander doesn't currently create KParts, though that could change. It uses the Qt Designer base to make a KDE application. The editor builds dialogs, which are essentially *.ui files renamed to *.kmdr and containing KDE widgets that inherit Kommander's ability to bind text to widgets. The executor runs the dialogs. There is also a side project to make stand along dialog applications.
> I'm not really seeing myself installing quanta right now, since i have more than enough to do and I wont use it for anything but a shiny thing to look at.
Whatever. We actually had someone working on a Document Type Editing Package for Povray.
> Personally, I still believe that we should merge kate, kdevelop, quanta and kile into one very simple (KMDI) shell with a unified plugin interface and a profile system, allowing you to define a custom application. I really find this hunting good features/implementations from the sibling applications silly.
Up till now I had the impression you had some technical savvy but that is now difficult to sustain. Kate is integrated into Quanta effectively and the editor part is used by Kdevelop too. I'm not sure about Kile but I think so. I think that was an application I emailed the developer and offered to work together and got no response, but they seem to have done a good job with it. We looked into trying to merge the Kdevelop framework because I really like it. We're working on being able to share plugins. We're doing what we can there but there is one limiting factor... It's a helluva lotta work!
While I try to go to great lengths to make users happy there are some times where I have to tell the user that it's a lot easier for them to download and build these applications that it is for us to put in thousands of man hours. Not only that you said "simple" and I find this so incredibly bizzare I should probably just avoid answering it. No matter how brilliant you are there is a limitation in how much you can defeat the inverse relationships of focus to diversity and features to simplicity. Then there is the matter of who decides what and the inevitable loss of both focus on and competitive ideas that exemplifies the Microsoft monoculture.
Frankly going too far in merging things together makes it hard not to end up with a steaming pile of crap that everybody walks away from. Having said that I will conversely say this about my little part of the world. Quanta can directly load Kparts from the user interface without writing anything. Quanta will probably be able to load Kdevelop plugins soon and it already does load Kate plugins. Quanta *is* KMDI in this release and Andras is now one of the maintainers. All of this seems of nominal use if you're not going to bother to load it.
Given the disturbing rate of the escalation of complexity in Quanta we are looking at a system to enable "personalities" to be enabled for projects and users. This will allow task driven interface customization. Given the nature of our user model I don't think it's rational to attempt to constrain it to other applications user models. Also Quanta is the kdewebdev module now with 5 additional appliations a 6th pending and a 7th in review. Quanta is already merging with applications and already has a high degree of reuse. We already are striving for interperability. We are NOT going to abandon our focus on web developers by throwing Quanta in a pile and stopping all work on everything but making it work again for six months though.
> Personally, I still believe that we should merge kate, kdevelop, quanta and
> kile into one very simple (KMDI) shell with a unified plugin interface and a > profile system, allowing you to define a custom application. I really find
> this hunting good features/implementations from the sibling applications
> silly.
The idea is good (in theory), but unfortunately it's hard to do (IMO). I can mostly talk about Quanta's POV. It's true that we modularized a lot in the recent time, but still it is quite monolithic and I don't see it easy to break down in pieces. We can do it step by step, and supporting each other's plugins is a good start. Or better: having a common plugin system is the good start.
Currently Quanta's plugin system is fairly simple It can uses *any* KPart as plugin. The configuration (like what URL should be opened when the KPart is loaded) is saved in a simple .rc file. I believe in Kate (in KDevelop for sure) there is an application specific interface that is used for communicating with the plugin. Such interfaces are good, just that you end up having to write application specific plugins. So plugins would be the first step to solve.
Next would be to try to make the parser of Quanta a loadable parser for KDevelop. This would be the hardest step, plus solving the problem of communicating with the parser in other plugins (like a plugin for the document structure view, autocompletion, etc.). Sincerely I don't have the slightest idea how it is done in KDevelop.
There are other features in Quanta that I don't really know how would them fit in the current KDevelop architecture.
Finally there are design (UI and code) decision that are different in the 3 applications, but this may be solved by discussion.
Now if we finally (some time in the future) could unify those application, then I still think that we shouldn't offer to the user just a shell that he can configure. We should offer preset "schemas" and maybe wrappers so when one calls this mega-application as "kate" it will load only the parts needed for advanced text editing, when one calls it as "quanta" only web and xml developing parts are loaded and so on.
Remember, there are applications which are highly configurable, act only as a shell and many users don't like them (like noatun). I also fear a little of such integrated applications.
Anyway, I don't see this happening soon. The best I can see is putting similar features in libraries or plugins so code can be shared. KMDI was a good example of such a codeshare.
I like Quanta a lot and use it fairly often. I'm looking to do a couple sites from scratch (not just maintain a couple as I have been doing). The thing that bugs me a bit about Quanta is there are no templates (ala Frontpage...) to really choose from for a foundation for a new site (or a new face for an old one).
As it stands now, if I find a site I like on the web, I DL the css, and a page or two for templates after striping out content and force feeding that to Quanta. Is there really a bonus to using Quanta over kdevelop (for project management features), or just simply using Kate?
I hate to come off like I'm flaming since I, by no means, intend it to be a flame, I just think there's a large need to increase the ease of use for noobier folks to be able to slap together a (standards compliant! :-) ) site as easily as they can with Frontpage.
*I'm not endorsing Frontpage, I freakin' hate that package, but it does have it's advantages for a n00b.
>The thing that bugs me a bit about Quanta is there are no templates
> (ala Frontpage...) to really choose from for a foundation for a new
> site (or a new face for an old one).
Quanta has a template system, just that we need contributors who create site templates, code snippets, etc. With the help of the TemplateMagic script, it's even possible to use customizable templates, like asking for some input from the user and replace parts of the template with the user input.
>Is there really a bonus to using Quanta over kdevelop (for project
>management features), or just simply using Kate?
I'd say there is. ;-) Autocompletion, visual editing, table editing, easier tag attribute editing, problem checking and reporting, integrated preview, php debugger and so on, things that make html & xml editing more easier.
We introduced templates in the end of 2002 and made several big appeals for people to make templates. We have had several people say they would. You're incorrect about there not being templates. Dave Reddish contributed some very nice ones that were included in the BE 2 release. Most of them are in kdewebdev/quanta/data/templates/pages/html/xhtml/. Get them at
-rw------- 1 eric users 3342 Apr 3 11:24 Quanta_Times.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2081 May 4 01:05 leftMen_BB.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2359 May 4 01:05 leftMen_Quanta.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2063 May 4 01:05 rightMen_BB.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2344 May 4 01:05 rightMen_Quanta.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2535 May 4 01:05 twoSideMen_BB.html
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The problem with templates being loaded up is as follows...
1) How do we know they are good templates for you?
2) How do we know they are applicable to the DTDs you're using?
3) How do we know they are arranged in a way that makes sense for you and you will be able to find what you want?
It's easy with FlunkPage if you're just going to shovel crap in there that looks cute when rendered, but when you have all the DTDs and preprocessing language options it becomes a much tougher question to do it right.
Fundementally our templates break down to global, user and project scopes. Can you honestly say global should be loaded down? If so please offer some because free software is *community* driven, "community" of course meaning us and Dave Reddish so we can tell him to get on it. ;-)
Templates are easy to create...
* Layout your initial framework for a file and save it - edit as needed
* Take a file and save it as a template and strip out what you don't need
* Highlight some text for a snippet and select File>save as template
Templates are just files in your file system so they're easy to copy from one project to another... in fact if you have those FlunkPage templates in a mounted directory you can soft link them. It seems to me that after you've been doing a little development you're goint to have a nice collection of templates, unless you just want a page made for you... in which case there are tools that will give you fast and sloppy. You have to make a little effort to resource fast and good.
Inherently though the real problem is deciding between a deluge or spartan global templates. Spartan was easy since we decided we would be better occupied coding. One of the features that we will be working with in our next release is the ability to use Global resource repositories for toolbars, actions, templates and scripts. We plan to integrate access into Quanta. This means you will be able to be on line and select from the menu to search Quanta's repository for a particular resource, say DHTML page templates or CSS layouts. You will be able to find what you want and download it directly to your template directory in the appropriate scope. Likewise if you develop a template and the guilt of not contributing jack becomes heavy you can select to submit to the repository. There it will be received and vetted by an admin whose job it is to make sure that no harmful, useless or overly redundant resources make it into the library.
All of these ideas together add up to what I feel is the best way to resolve this intelligently. As to why Quanta is better than other tools for this Andras gave an answer, but I'm not going to bother. Our users confirm our experience in technology, usability and web development have created a tool that rocks and that many feel is better than Dreamweaver. FrontPage is neither a credible tool nor a market leader. Quanta is designed exactly for getting the most done with the least time and effort. It has features you need to use to see the value of and in the use you realize it can't be beat.
As far as comparing us to FrontPage, I don't consider that a flame. You're talking about a tool for dead languages that incorporates proprietary extentions. You're also talking about a ruthless multi billion dollar company convicted of criminal violations of the anti trust act. All that is by the way, but the key point is that MS FrontPage is a CONSUMER product that you plop down your cash for. Not that I feel that we shouldn't strive for a product that meets or exceeds expectations, but this comparison is looking at Quanta from a "consumer entitlement" position. This is community software freely given. That doesn't mean that we should say "we've given enough and we don't care". It does mean that when you say "this product is deficient here" where that deficiency can be addressed by someone with your skill set that I can say "Well this is what we've done, why don't you help us with that part?" It certainly looks like we have a common interest here.
I'm very idealogically attached to Free Software. I know that most people won't do much, but when someone can but they want somebody else to do it anyway that is annoying. I put in at least 20-30 hours a week and have invested thousands of dollars in this project. As a matter of principle I'd like a few people to put in 10 hours or so and change this. Is that too much to ask? When we put out a call for help and a year and a half later ONE PERSON has stepped forward and done something with it. I have to be honest. That's dissapointing.
The inevitable fact is we made Quanta user extensible because we don't have the manpower to do everything. If we can't come up with a way to involve more people in the community in the way we all rah rah that Linux and open source is an invincible jauggernaught then we will have to decide where to limit our ambitions. User and comminity involvement is in our plan, but if everyone is to thoroughly entrenched in a consumer mind set then we will not be anywhere near as good as we could be. World domination takes time though. The real solution happens when the on line resources are launched. It will finally be so easy that people will be able to participate with almost no effort. I belive that is when we will begin to shine here. Until then perhaps you could help?
I downloaded gubed and read the HowTo. All was fine until the line:
"4. in Quanta, go to the 'Debug' tab, select 'Run' ..."
I built Quanta from the latest Gentoo ebuild quanta-3.3_pre20040506 and it builds as 3.3 be2.
So the question is what do I have to do to get the debug tab in quanta?
By the way I love the app and have used it for several college projects and personal sites, keep up the good work.
Project->Project Properties->Debugger: select Debug. Now a Debug menu and a Debug toolbar should appear. If it doesn't appear: DTD->Change DTD->OK (causes toolbar reload).
a tutorial "Debugging PHP scripts with Quanta Plus and Gubed PHP Debugger" can be found here:
Wow, the PHP debugger combined with Quanta is absolutely brilliant. That's something I wasn't expecting to be able to use outside of when I did C++, but damn... Beautiful. Just beautiful. My endless thanks for another brilliant addition to an already brilliant product.
/me goes to play with the debugger some more now...


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So here we go with this week's super hunk:
Costume/Appearance: It's hard to say that Batman's costume is sexy, exactly. If he's going to lose points, it's going to be here. I mean...it's got pointy ears. But he makes it work somehow. It's all about confidence. He believes he looks awesome, and therefore we believe he looks awesome. And confidence is the sexiest thing a man can wear (I think I read that in GQ).
There have been a whole lot of variations on the Batsuit over the years. Is there one that is sexiest? As much as I love the grey and blues, the black and grey really is the more attractive suit. But I'm not here to get into a whole debate about what Batman's best outfit is. I'm here to rate him on a scale of one to forty based on how hunky he is.
Batman is in excellent shape. There aren't a lot of men who can pull off that look, but he works it with his hot body. Shame the mask covers his ruggedly handsome face. I think extra points should be awarded for the fact that he makes his own costumes and accessories.
And I do like those gloves.
Alter-ego: The only thing hotter than Batman is Bruce Wayne. You want to argue with me on that, you will lose. First of all, he's a billionaire. Secondly, he's sad inside. Thirdly, he's, like, the smartest person on Earth. And fourthly, he's, like, the hottest guy on Earth (not mentioned nearly enough in JLA profiles).
Dark hair and blue eyes: always a solid combination. Add a square jaw and a perfect body, and you've got yourself a damn good-looking man.
Bruce Wayne has proven himself to be good with children, and makes a good father figure to younger heroes as well. Sure, there's that whole Jason Todd fiasco, but at least Bruce took a chance on the kid that was stealing his hubcaps. He's nice like that.
Bruce is a good actor. He has an array of costumes and can fool anyone. I admire that.
Now, personality-wise, yeah. Bruce is kind of...withdrawn. A little cranky. He's got some guilt issues to work out. He may walk the thin line between sane and totally nuts (though I believe he's closer to the sane side). One could even argue that he's taken the whole Batman thing a little far, but you're not gonna hear that argument from me.
I mean, look at how Bruce Wayne asks ladies out on dates:
And speaking of which, Bruce Wayne is a hit with the ladies across the globe. I like a superhero who takes time to get a little sugar.
Also: he can kick your ass. While drinking a mug of coffee. And he will not spill a drop.
Sexiness of Superpowers: According to my packet of Batman Hot Chocolate, Batman's super power is that he has trained himself to the peak of human physical and mental perfection. I have no choice but to award that a...
Day Job: Bruce Wayne is a jet-setting billionaire industrialist and philanthropist. Sure, sometimes he goes a little crazy and uses his limitless funds to build things like, say, scary satellites that can kill people from space. And maybe sometimes those satellites turn against him. But when he's not doing that, he's just a sexy man who dresses well and has a big pile of money.
Cons: What? There is nothing wrong with Batman or Bruce Wayne at all. Not one single flaw.
Alright, he doesn't have a great track record with relationships, and he tends to be attracted to sexy female career criminals.
And he has been known to make...unfortunate mistakes...that sometimes lead to mass destruction. And he has a hard time admitting these mistakes.
And he has a bit of a temper.
And he...kinda...dresses like a giant bat and throws bat-shaped objects at people. And drives around in a bat-shaped car. And flies a bat-shaped plane. And pilots a bat-shaped boat. And has bat-shaped tracking devices. That doesn't mean he's...like, crazy or anything.
Did I mention he has nice hair?
Alright fine. I'll knock a point off.
- 1
Final Score: 37/40
Ladies and gentlemen we have a new champion! (Was there really any doubt?)


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Business IT News &
Technology Information
Hurricane Harvey: Another Brutal Reminder
Natural Disasters Can Have Devastating Impacts on Business – How Can Local Companies Prepare and Bounce Back?
Natural disasters, like hurricanes and tornadoes, can be devastating to any business. Loss of power, damage to the office and/or network and even damaged or stolen computers are just some of the issues that business owners must consider when facing a potential natural disaster. Natural disasters come in many shapes and sizes, and with Hurricane Harvey recently taking hold of Houston, many professionals across the country are looking at their own levels of protection and preparedness, wondering what impacts they might experience should disaster strike.
{company} wants to brainstorm the best ways for professionals to prepare for disaster and protect their resources and livelihood. How should business owners prepare? What considerations should be made? What are the best options for support and consultation? In the worst-case scenario, how does a company bounce back from a disaster after it's happened? Let's look at some of the critical questions companies should ask themselves when preparing for and responding to a devastating natural disaster:
- Where is my business data being stored? Is it stored in more than one location?
- If back-ups are in place, how often have I tested backups and how do I know they will work effectively? Who monitors the backups? Who notifies me if there is a failure?
- If back-ups are not in place, how much does data backup cost? Remember to make cost considerations for downtime and data loss if disaster strikes a network with no back-ups.
- Are backup and disaster recovery services something I can handle internally or should I seek out consultation from an experienced Managed Services Provider (MSP)?
- If disaster strikes, how long can my business survive without functionality? An hour? A day? A week?
- How quickly do I need to be back in action?
Make sure that you understand the difference between backup and data recovery – there is a difference. Backup is where you make copies of your data onto the cloud or external drive to be kept offsite in case of a disaster or other catastrophic event. Having the right data recovery system means you have a strategic plan in place to have your data recovered and productivity reinstated when responding to a disaster.
You don't want recovery to go wrong or to lose the data again, so it's often a great idea to seek consultation and support from an experienced IT service provider. IT professionals can help ensure that both backup and recovery plans are implemented seamlessly. However, no matter how much support or assistance a business seeks out, business owners still must play an active part in both preparing for and responding to disasters. At the end of the day, no one knows the layout of their company like the team that runs it. It falls on the business owner to consider the big questions like:
- Do you have secondary suppliers? How will vendor relationships be affected in the case of disaster?
- Are important documents secured? Are company lifelines protected?
- How will you contact employees when disaster strikes? Is there a disaster-response protocol in place?
- Are computers, modems, and servers turned off and as safe from harm as possible?
With so many considerations to make, business owners can often feel overwhelmed when trying to get prepared or trying to restore operations. The worst thing for professionals to do is avoid the stress altogether and put off disaster recovery planning. {company} has created a list of the TOP 3 rules business owners should follow when considering disaster response plans:
Some small businesses think that they can save capital and take care of issues internally by hiring an in-house IT guy instead of an MSP. Depending on the scope of the business, for some, this may be a suitable option. However, for businesses unsure of where to start or looking for iron-clad reliability, connecting with an MSP is the safest bet. Even if it isn't feasible for a company to take on fully-managed IT services, an MSP can offer strategic insights to put professionals on the right track.
In addition to their strategic experience and expertise, most MSPs can offer cloud storage to store business data as well as a comprehensive disaster recovery service should a company go down during a big storm. Beyond storage, an MSP can offer unparalleled support to help get company resources restored and running after a disaster. Lastly, for what it's worth, an MSP can probably get productivity restored a lot faster than Bob in accounting, who has also been taking on IT issues as they arise.
Setting up secure backup solutions ensures that company data is replicated safely in an online storage location. Ideally, data should be backed-up in more than one place, like the cloud AND an off-site physical location. Regardless of where you store your data, the golden rule of backups is to never keep your data stored in the same place as the originals.
If your area is prone to hurricanes or tornadoes, then it might not be a bad idea to back up your data in the second server outside your geographic location. If original data is lost and local back-ups can't be accessed due to storm conditions, it's incredibly strategic to have data sitting in a safe, out-of-town, storage space where it can be retrieved without jumping over hurdles.
This third rule is perhaps the most important. The last thing a company wants to hear after a disaster is that online backups didn't work or that your resources simply won't rebound after a power failure. Testing the reliance of backups and executing "disaster recovery drills" is critical to ensuring a company's data will be accessible and their recovery plan will be executed correctly. Never assume that everything is safe and functional. Test backup and disaster recovery methods frequently and any reported issues should be addressed and rectified immediately.
The cost of business interruption can be devastating if a business is unprepared. With images of Hurricane Harvey all over the news, {company} wants local businesses to know that if and when disaster strikes here in {city}, they are never alone. {company} has the experience, resources, and strategies available to help local business owners get prepared for impending disasters or rebound from the devastating impacts.
Don't wait for disaster to strike. Reach out for consultation and help from {company} at {phone} to see what they can do to prepare your business for disaster or bring your business back from the brink.


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Sometimes the simplest things in life can be the best. And while sometimes you need fifteen buttons to play a game, sometimes you only need two. Today we'll be reviewing the two-button fighting game, Divekick. Originally envisioned and created by a tiny team of gamers in the fighting game community, Divekick seeks to break down the complex fighting game into a single move, a jumping downwards kick (or divekick). First conceived very late at night after a tournament ("hey, wouldn't it be hilarious to make a game where you can only divekick?"), it ran through a successful kickstarter campaign, cancelled that campaign since they found a publisher, successfully got greenlit on Steam, and now released on Steam/PSN/Vita. Not bad at all for its origins.
Skyward Collapse
What does it mean to be a god if no one will listen to you? Arcen Games looks at this with a bit of humor in their latest release, Skyward Collapse. Here, we play an omniscient, omnipresent celestial being, tasked with cultivating and manipulating two factions that would like nothing more than to see the other eradicated. That's an interesting scenario on its own, but we are further entangled by a godly need for entertainment (conflict) and plagued by natural "woes." To further jumble our troubles, rogue elements including deities and mythological creatures try to spoil our day. In this turn based strategy/god sim, we inherit the intriguing situation of lacking direct control yet commanding plenty of manipulation.
Mobile Minute: Pudding Monsters, TNNS, Extreme Road Trip 2
Yes, yes, this site still functions. I apologize for not writing anything in... a long time, but I'm actually playing games! Loving Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny on the PS3 and just picked up a 3DS with Super Mario 3D Land, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, and Fire Emblem: Awakening! With all the great games coming down the pipe from Nintendo and third party developers, I figured I had better get on the 3DS train sooner than later.
In the meantime, here are some more thoughts on Android and iOS games I've been playing lately.
The Cat Lady
Well, I was not entirely ready for this. The Cat Lady, released last year by Screen 7 and created almost entirely by Remigiusz Michalski, was absolutely no where on my radar until I recently saw a preview of it in action. I suppose this isn't overly surprising. Michalski's and his studio, Harvester Games, have only developed two titles. The first, released in 2009, is called Downfall and is apparently both highly acclaimed and fairly successful. The second is this game, The Cat Lady. Both are created in Adventure Game Studio and are horror adventures, further limiting the client base (unless you have the media strength of The Walking Dead).
Yet, this ended up being one of the most interesting and complete titles I've played in ages. And somehow, that's even more satisfying when it's a complete surprise. It feels like this game has been stirring and simmering over the course of many years, and that probably isn't very far from the truth. This is an unbelievably mature experience, most likely the most mature game I've ever played. Many of the themes are very dark and complex and real, and this is one of the few instances I can imagine where an age/user discretion is actually warranted. And that can also be a bit of a warning for the rest of this article.
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
Luigi has strangely found his niche in the Mario universe as the ghostbusting, mansion tip-toeing brother. Why Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto decided to make a GameCube tech demo out of a ghostly mansion and then have it star Luigi may be a question for the ages, but 12 years later we are here with its sequel, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon for the 3DS.
It's been a decade since I played the original Luigi's Mansion, but I remember it being a charming, if repetitive experience highlighted by Charles Martinet's incredible voicing of a freaked out Luigi. With the Wii U in seemingly more need of quality software than the 3DS, I'm surprised some tablet-utilizing version of Dark Moon didn't show up on the console, but the likelihood of me playing the portable version is much higher, so I personally appreciate the 3DS release. Let's play.
Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny
It's been a few... months since the last first hour review, but that's okay, I'm happy with everything else I've been doing with my extra time, and you're probably happy because you're reading this and not the comment section of my Persona 3: FES review.
So while I have your attention, let's talk quickly about Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny. Rune Factory is a shoot-off series of Harvest Moon, and I've talked about both sets of games quite a bit here. I've never really enjoyed console Harvest Moon games since the Nintendo 64, and never played the previous console Rune Factory game, so I decided to take a chance and try out Tides of Destiny for the PlayStation 3 (also available on the Wii). Honestly, part of me just wanted a game I could play in front of the kids since Uncharted 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 don't go over very well.
This will be an incredibly informal first hour, as I didn't even bother to take notes, but I suppose if you're looking for a formal first hour review you would have gone somewhere else a long time ago.
Mobile Minute: Knights of Pen & Paper, Androminion, and Triple Town
I've been distracted by life's other bits the last couple of weeks, but there's pretty much always time to play games on my phone. I'll spend a minute writing about each game, hopefully summarizing my thoughts as quickly as if I were telling you about a mobile game in person.
I covered Super Hexagon last go around, and have since played it on the PC, and I have to say the experience is a lot better on the big screen. It's definitely fun on the go, but I managed to reach 60 seconds on Hard on my second attempt using my keyboard.
Mobile Minute: Temple Run 2, Subway Surfers, and Super Hexagon
I used to write reviews on nearly every Android or IOS game I spent more than an hour on, but I've fallen behind lately, so here's my first round at some reviews. I'll spend a minute writing about each game, hopefully summarizing my thoughts as quickly as if I were telling you about a mobile game in person.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
It's been a long while since I've written a review, which is pretty commonplace due to my busy schedule. But as my days have cleared up due to seriously inclement weather, I figured I'd write a review. Not just a review, but a review on a game in a series that I am in love with. This is something I had been saving and looking forward to for the right time.
Unfortunately though, this didn't pan out like I had hoped. This is hard for me to write. Not just because of the fact it's a multiplayer experience I'm reviewing, but also because it's a dream of mine being crushed.
As I've mentioned before, I was a pretty avid player of Counter Strike, and much more so, Counter Strike: Source. My father and I played CS: Source from around 2005 until 2007. We were in a clan, competitively. (The name of it was Exemplar Sect, best player was Pug.) Anyway, we loved that game, and I remember upgrading computer parts all of the time to increase framerates, and every weekend was a Mountain Dew fueled weekend of meeting people all over the world and killing them. But then other games became popular (I played Battlefield: Bad Company 2 quite a bit.) and I went over to them, but I always visited CS: Source, and always had a blast.


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The exponential explosion of information and our ability to access it make our ability to validate its truthfulness not only more important but also more difficult. Information has importance in proportion to its relevance and meaning. Its ultimate value is how we use it to make decisions and put it in a framework of knowledge
Our perceptions are crucial in appreciating truth. However, we do not apprehend objective reality. Perception is based on recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli derived from patterns of electrical impulses. From this data, the brain creates analogues and models that simulate tangible, concrete objects in the real world. Experience, though, colors and influences all of our perceptions by anticipating and predicting everything we encounter and meet. It is the reason Goethe advised that "one must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste." This preferential set of intuitions, feelings, and ideas, less poetically characterized by the term bias, poses a challenge to the ability to weigh evidence accurately to arrive at truth. Bias is the non-dispassionate thumb which experience puts on the scale.
Our brains evolved having to make the right bet with limited information. Fortune, it has been said, favors the prepared mind. Bias in the form of expectation, inclination and anticipatory hunches helped load the dice in our favor and for that reason is hardwired into our thinking.
Bias is an intuition, sensitivity, receptiveness which acts as a lens or filter on all our perceptions. "If the doors of perception were cleansed," Blake said, "everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." But without our biases to focus our attention, we would be lost in that endless and limitless expanse. We have at our disposal an immeasurable assortment of biases and their combination in each of us is as unique as a fingerprint. These biases mediate between our intellect and emotions to help congeal perception into opinion, judgment, category, metaphor, analogy, theory, and ideology which frame how we see the world.
Bias is tentative. Bias adjusts as the facts change. Bias is a provisional hypothesis. Bias is normal.
Although bias is normal in the sense that it is a product of how we select and perceive information, its influence on our thinking cannot be ignored. Medical science has long been aware of the inherent bias, which occurs in collecting and analyzing clinical data. The double blind, randomized controlled study, the gold standard of clinical design, was developed in an attempt to nullify its influence.
We live in the world, however, not in a laboratory and bias cannot be eliminated. Bias critically utilized sharpens the collection of data by knowing when to look, where to look, and how to look. It is fundamental to both inductive and deductive reasoning. Darwin didn't collect his data to formulate the theory of evolution randomly or disinterestedly. Bias is the nose for the story.
Truth needs continually to be validated against all evidence, which challenges it fairly and honestly. Science with its formal methodology of experimentation and reproducibility of its findings is available to anyone who plays by its rules. No ideology, religion, culture or civilization is awarded special privileges or rights. The truth, which survives this ordeal, has another burden to bear. Like the words in a multi-dimensional crossword puzzle, it has to fit together with all the other pieces already in place. The better and more elaborate the fit, the more certain the truth. Science permits no exceptions. It is inexorably revisionary, learning from its mistakes, erasing and rewriting, even their most sacred texts, until the puzzle is complete.


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Album Review
Exec Files: Vol. I
The WRMC executive board presents their favorite tracks, albums, artists, and/or music videos of the week, old and new, but mostly new. TRACK: Mr. Twin Sister – "Blush" The Long Island dream-pop band Mr Twin Sister (formerly known as Twin Sister, androgyny win) just released an eponymous full length LP. The music is equal parts lovely, dancey,… Read More