text:
Los Angeles SWAT cop Jack Traven is up against bomb expert Howard Payne, who's after major ransom money. First it's a rigged elevator in a very tall building. Then it's a rigged bus--if it slows, it will blow, bad enough any day, but a nightmare in LA traffic. And that's still not the end.
Released: 1994-06-09


text:
Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts/topics this month:
- "Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?" contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009. Is it relevant now? Well, you be the judge.
- "Simple Log Review Checklist Released!" is often at the top of this list – the checklist is still a very useful tool for many people. "On Free Log Management Tools" is a companion to the checklist (updated version)
- "Top 10 Criteria for a SIEM?" came from one of my last projects I did when running my SIEM consulting firm in 2009-2011.
- "On Choosing SIEM" is another old classic (from 2010) that often shows up on my top list; it covers some tips on choosing SIEM tools.
- "SIEM Bloggables" has one possible view on higher-level SIEM use cases and basic functionality, and a quick discussion of SIEM user types (circa 2009)
- Finally, my classic PCI DSS Log Review series is popular as well. They outlined log review approach, useful for building log review processes and procedures, whether regulatory or not.
In addition, I'd like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog:
Current research on incident response:
- Incident Plan vs Incident Planning?
- On Importance of Incident Response
- Is That An Incident In Your Pocket – Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
- Time-tested Incident Response Wisdom?
- Incident Response: The Death of a Straight Line
- Alert-driven vs Exploration-driven Security Analysis
- My Next Research Area: Incident Response
Current research on endpoint detection and investigation tools (ETDR):
- Endpoint Threat Indication & Response?
- Endpoint Visibility Tool Use Cases
- On Endpoint Sensing
- RSA 2013 and Endpoint Agent Re-Emergence
- A Quiet Assumption
Miscellaneous fun posts:
- 9 Reasons Why Building A Big Data Security Analytics Tool Is Like Building a Flying Car
- Bye-bye, Compliance Thinking. Welcome, Military Thinking!
(see my published Gartner research here)
Also see my past monthly and annual "Top Popular Blog Posts" – 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012.
Disclaimer: all content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on Aug 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.
P.S. Please send congrats with my 2nd anniversary @ Gartner!
Previous post in this endless series:
- Monthly Blog Round-Up – June 2013
- All posts tagged monthly.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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December 19, 2012
CR Holiday Interview #2—Scott Snyder
Scott Snyder
the breakout writing star
of DC Comics' Fall 2011
New 5
2 initiative. His work on
won readers over in an old-fashioned way that's almost completely absent from the mainstream comics world of the last quarter-century: given dozens of choices for comics behind which to throw their enthusiasm, DC's fans chose Snyder's work with
Greg Capullo
. For all the opportunities now coming his way, including the writing gig on a Superman-related effort with artist
Jim Lee
sure to be a sales highlight for 2013, Snyder is a relative babe in the woods in terms of the number of comics he's penned and the amount of time between when he started toiling in the monthly comics field and experiencing the surge of attention he's now received. Among his other key titles are the
American Vampire
series and one of the other New 52 efforts, the
Swamp Thing
relaunch. He'll soon depart the latter.
I think Snyder's skills are best seen in the well-received
work. As we discuss below -- and as critic
J. Caleb Mozzocco
and I will hopefully mull over in a future installment of this series -- I see Snyder's greatest strength as a skill for extremely deliberate pacing married to an offbeat sense of psychological insight into these characters. I think the former solves the problem of perceived value in that every one of Snyder's comics feels like
something important is happening
. I think the latter keeps that the material just fresh enough for another walk through these characters' primary stories. I enjoyed our brief discussion, transcribed below, and I hope to continue it in 2013. I have a lot of additional questions. I wish Scott all the best with the opportunities beginning to come his way. -- Tom Spurgeon
I'm very excited to talk to you because I don't know that I've ever talked to someone in your exact position: where you're the guy in comics that's kind of coming on gangbusters, and people are really responding to your work. I wonder, do you have the chance to step back and appreciate that people are responding so positively? Is it fun?
Yeah. It doesn't get old. It's definitely been a bit overwhelming, though, honestly. The work is on these characters you grew up loving. My kid goes around wearing a Batman t-shirt, and you go to the store and you see guys with Superman stuff on. So for me, you try and block a lot of that out, because it gets intimidating and paralyzing. When I first got the job to write
, my wife will tell you I was so terrified that the night before I really got to start writing I was like, "Maybe I should just call in sick all year." [Spurgeon laughs] Because the characters mean so much to you throughout your life that it can be crippling. So I try to block out a lot of the response.
I definitely go on Twitter and stuff like that right around the launch of each issue and try to promote it. And I get a glimpse of what people are saying, but you have to sort of put on horse blinders a bit, or it becomes pretty paralyzing, because you get overwhelmed by how much the fans love the characters themselves outside of the stories. It can be really hard to do your own versions and your own story and take it to a place where you can push the characters when you see how globally important they are to people.
Is there any concern about people wanting to get to you as well? I have to imagine there are at least some professional opportunities that arise, and that more people want you to do things. How do you manage that sort of professional development side when you have a surge of interest like this?
[laughs] Poorly, I think, right now. My friends tease me -- I talk to guys that are sort of the generation above me that I'm friendly with, which is an honor, like
Ed Brubaker
Greg Rucka
, and guys like that. And they're sort of like, "Who's your agent?" And I say, "I don't have one." I had a literary agent when I was in the book world I'm close with, but in terms of branching out of comics or doing something like that, as sort of naive and silly as it sounds, I'm not really looking for it right now. I really love doing this. I have a good bunch of stories I really want to do, both on
and on
and with
American Vampire
. My writing schedule is sort of so full for the next couple of years, I've kept my head down and stayed really involved with this. They're all making fun of me, so maybe in a year I'll talk to you again and I'll be more savvy about it, but right now I'm sort of overjoyed to be doing what I'm doing.
You're very early on in terms of the years you've been doing this and the number of comics that you've done. I wonder if there's still a significant learning curve, if there are still things you find yourself kind of scrambling to know. Are you confident in your skill set? Or are there still things you feel like, "I'd like to figure that out." Is there still an educational process for you?
Oh, 100 percent. Believe me, my friends tease me that I've become the least well-rounded person in the world. [Spurgeon laughs] I let my subscription to
The New Yorker
lapse by mistake. I let my subscription to the
lapse. I read comics all the time. I've always loved comics and always read them religiously, but the reason I've been reading them
religiously lately is because there are so many good writers out there right now at
and I absolutely feel I have a lot to learn.
I read stuff like... well, like
Geoff Johns
. Geoff and I have become good friends over the last couple of years. Which is something I feel great about, I came up reading him and admiring him tremendously. But the way he approaches story and the way I approach story are really different, even though we meet in the same place and our priorities are the same about character and making sure the story really means something. But in terms of the priorities as we're writing, sometimes we come at it a little differently. There are things he does in a story that I am in awe of all of the time, in terms of the plotting, in terms of the moments he's able to create, in terms of the pacing. I read those issues and think, "I've got to become better at this." I want to be able to achieve the same effect he does at times.
Then there are other writers like Jason Aaron or Jeff Lemire, who have completely different skill sets when it comes to plotting these really big, ambitious arcs with the slow burn, emotionally. I read that, this longform storytelling not in terms of the plot but in terms of these simmering emotions, and I'm like, "I wish I were better at
." So I have certain elements in my skill set I'm very confident about, and proud of, but in terms of thinking I'm there, where I want to be, I think the moment you think that you start to slip, and I genuinely feel I have a lot to learn in my writing. Hopefully things get better.
Now do you have
conversations with you peers, and with those in the previous generation? Do you access them as kind of coaches and advice-givers?
Definitely. I literally was on the phone with Geoff Johns two nights ago and telling him about the next story we're doing in
and asking his advice on certain beats in it. Do you think this is something that's too bombastic? Do you think this is something that will sink the first part of the story because it's too dark? If Batman loses in this part, do you think in some way that will set a bad tone for the second part? Stuff like that. And like certain friends I've come up with, like Jeff Lemire for example, I trade everything with. We go back and forth pretty much every day. Then there are guys coming up beneath me. Like
James Tynion
, who's writing
with me, who is a former student of mine, I do the same thing with him. I help him with his stuff, but he also helps me in terms of being a great idea guy and a story repairman in a lot of ways, too. So you have friends that are incredibly important to you as a writer.
For me, it's not that you can't do it completely alone. If you were alone on an island and you had to write a
story, it's not like it wouldn't be something you're proud of. For me the real extra layers, the extra richness that come in anything I do, if there is an extra layer, comes from those conversations with friends, or having another set of eyes looking at it. So I'm a really big advocate of if you have friends, not just going to school for writing or anything like that, but having gone to school for writing clinging to people you trust to read your work. If you have a friend that you think gives you good advice, there's nothing more valuable than keeping that free flow of ideas going back and forth. For me, it's a real lifeline.
Reading a bunch of your work at once, it seems to me that one thing you do really well in terms of your pacing is boil things down to very specific story beats, and then hit them really hard. It's not the old model, or even the thing you were talking about with a long-simmering element. It seems like your comics stress very strong
, and that as a result you can kind of mark issue to issue in terms of "This happened then this happened then this happened." I think in a way it flatters the way comics work right now. Is that a storytelling goal of yours, to hit those beats really hard, to hit certain moments very hard. Is that something you try to do?
I think there are two priorities for me in each comic. The way that I design the story is to first figure out -- I'm a big planner. A good friend of mine in the prose writing world, if he knows the end of the story he's writing, he can't write it. It's really boring to him. He has to figure it out as he goes. And I'm 180 degrees from that. I need to know everything about the beginning and the end, and what it means, and a couple of major beats along the way. The rest I enjoy figuring out and that's my time to explore.
I try and figure out what's most exciting to me about the character I'm working on in their trajectory. We just finished the big Court of Owls story; Batman relied on the family heavily for that. It's interesting for me to think of the idea that whether or not he wants to admit it, he's become used to getting help from them. So I try to think, "Why is that interesting to me? What nerve does that hit?" I think to myself, "I have two sons, my second son is over a year old." When I started thinking of the story he was just born. For me the reason I think it hits a nerve, is because once you have family, or people you're responsible for, as a father or a father figure, you're almost never safe from the world. No matter how closed off you are, no matter how emotionally protective you are, there's no way to protect them or protect yourself from hurting when they're hurt. Once I had that I knew that the Joker's the guy to hear you think that, and be the devil's tongue in your ear and say, "I heard you say that you wish that you didn't have to worry about them anymore." And you say, "No, I didn't say that." "Yes you did, you don't want to admit it. You don't want to admit that you just wish they were dead and you could just go back to playing with me." I knew that that was it, that's what the story is about.
You can get some curveballs in comics. Sometimes things pop up that you have to include in your comics. Sometimes things get shortened because of schedules. To me the most important thing is knowing the thing that it's about. You can put characters in they need you to put in, you can change things, as long as you have that north star.
So with each comic -- sorry this is such a rambling answer -- the priority for the comic is to make sure that every issue pushes that emotional arc forward, that thing that it's about. So every issue of
with the Joker is about pushing Batman closer and closer to admitting that as long as the family exists he will never be safe. And having to admit that there's a part of himself that has mixed feelings about that. It's the toughest thing to admit. It doesn't mean you want your family dead. It doesn't mean you wish you never had them. They're the greatest joy of your life, when you're a father in real life. It does mean for Batman admitting something he doesn't want to and pushing him closer. So I make sure that every issue has a big moment like that, and that it's the most important thing in every issue. It means something. Each issue has a beat that ratchets that conflict up.
And then the second part, like you're saying, is every issue I really want to have significant plot moments that push the story closer to the kind of final conflict between Bruce and Joker on this particular issue. This particular issue -- not the issue of a comic, but whether or not he wants the family around. Those are the twin priorities with it. For me the plot, the moments, the big moments, as fun as they are, all come out of the emotional stuff. The plot moment's only good if it ratchets that up, but I try to keep my eye on that, too, so it's not just all Bruce being pushed emotionally, but that there are big movement, the wheels turn in the story in a way that pushes the plot forward.
I hope that makes sense.
The last thing I'll say is that I try to go back and make sure that there's at least one fun moment of Batman either technology or badassery. [Spurgeon laughs] One thing I feel you can lose sight of when you're doing stories that are personal, or are dark, is the joy of watching Batman kick ass in some regard. So I try to have something like, "Look at that device he whipped out." Or "Look at how he just kicked that guy through a wall." Just something that is like "It's fun to read
." Because it's fun to write
You were talking about
American Vampire
in an interview, and you mentioned how you could place your characters in different time periods where there were things going on with those characters, and that this change provided insight into what your psychological keys might be. People and situations change over time. It struck me that when you're talking about these commercial properties like Batman, they don't really develop over time, not in that same way. Are you worried that there's a limited canvas with these major properties, that they might not take an endless series of psychological insights being they are what they are?
Well, it depends if you mean for me personally as a writer, or if you mean culturally. Because culturally, Batman's already been around for 70-plus years, Superman's been around the same. So I'm not worried --
But what about you personally? If it has to interest
, can you always come up with new material? Do you wonder if it will always stay as interesting to you as it is right now.
Yeah, I 100 percent do. I had this conversation the other day, literally, with Lemire. I was like right now I have stories in mind for Batman that take me through another almost two years of writing
. But the last thing I would ever want to do is stay on the character if I didn't have a story as exciting to me as the Joker story is, or the one coming up afterward. The one coming out afterward I can't talk about openly, but it's another big, nine-issue, epic story. So in that way, if I don't have one of those lined up, or I can't think of one that means as much to me personally as these, I will happily walk away from the character. In a moment. That's one thing I swear to everybody. Batman means too much to me -- and Superman and Swamp Thing, too -- to stay on the character once I don't have a story that's important to me personally. I do worry about it. But luckily right now I have plenty on my plate.
Here's a place where you and I might not connect. What is the
significance that something like Batman has for you? You talk about the cultural significance of it, and there's certainly a psychological trigger these characters afford in terms of letting you access things that are important to your life. But the character itself, how is it important to you? Are characters like that just a means to a narrative end?
No. They have personal importance to me in different ways. Because they're such different characters they mean different things to me. Batman himself means a particular set of important things to me. I think in some ways as someone that struggles with dark times, psychologically at different points in my life, the idea that Batman is someone that has this incredibly complicated blend of self-destructive, obsessive mythology and ultimate heroism is endlessly inspiring and interesting. He clearly is someone who is one of the greatest if not the greatest self-sacrificing heroes ever. And yet at the same time there's something really pathological about the way he behaves. That sort of rich, complicated gray area is something that hits a nerve personally with me. That's someone that doesn't have powers and stands next to these god-like figures and through this incredible drive and determination is the one they look to for answers sometimes. But at what cost?
So he's always been someone for me, and this is something that comes up honestly in a big way in the next story we're dealing with, as someone who walks a fine line between obsession and mission, altruistic mission. There's no separating them without destroying the character. That's part of what's so wonderful about him, those things are intertwined, always, and that's why villains like the Joker are so potent and his rogues gallery is so potent is that they're all extensions of something he's psychologically afraid of in himself but won't admit. The crazy duality of his life in Two Face, or the fall into insanity if he fell into his cave and never was Bruce Wayne, the Joker, that fear that he's not good enough because part of him is human and fallible, in the Riddler, that he can't always be smart enough, he can't always know everything. In those ways, those villains have an incredibly resonant element to them, each one separately in an individuated way, because Bruce is flawed in a most heroic and interesting way of all of these characters. When you're growing up you like him for different reasons. He's cool, he has amazing cars and incredible gadgets and if only this girls knew I was a superhero... but I think when I try to explore for myself now writing him why he's interesting to me now, it's that. He's endlessly fascinating for the blend of pathology and heroism that makes him who he is. I think it makes him intimidating as well as a character.
I hope that makes sense.
Superman as a kid you live because of the powers and he's the strongest and he's the best. When I write him as an adult, you have to figure out what you've always loved about him to write the character. Me personally, not everybody, but I have to figure it out. I have to figure out what matters to me about them right now. It's an extension of this core thing. Each Batman story I have done is about this heroism versus pathology core that makes me interested in him. With the Court Of Owls, are you so obsessed with the notion that you know the city that you can't see the forest for the trees? What's going to happen when the city lets you know you don't know it at all?
With Superman for me it's really this notion of restraint. He's a superhero that in some ways can't do what he's capable of doing without becoming the villain. Meaning Superman could reshape the world however he wanted. He could take down countries. He could sculpt the political landscape however he wanted. But he looks to us to do that and serves a different mission. It's tremendously painful for him as well. As proud and as inspired as he is, I think the heroism comes from that restraint and how much he admires the human race. That's kind of at the core of the story we're doing with Superman. So for me I try to figure out what's at the core of the hero that's interesting to me. That doesn't mean that they're interesting to other people. That might not be the core of Batman for
Frank Miller
Alan Moore
. But you have to figure out where your interests are. Or I feel they're empty stories. That's not to say anyone needs to follow my example as far as how to proceed. That's just how I proceed. If I don't figure those things out and build a story out of that core material I don't feel it resonating for me, and I can't do it.
I want to ask you about your educational background, which is fascinating to me.
You have an undergraduate's degree in writing and a master's in same, which isn't really common in comics. A lot of the British writers in particular either didn't continue with school or dropped out at some point. Comics is dealing with the prejudices towards being educated in art right now as comics programs proliferate. More and more people are heading into prose writing programs with the thought of doing comics as well. I assume your education had value to you, and provides the core of your skills. You still teach. I wonder if you could talk about what your education as a writer has meant for you. I think it's something people still have a problem understanding. Why didn't you just start writing, Scott?
For me, there are two sides to it. There's why it was really important to me in the classes as a student, and then why it's really important for me to keep with it as a teacher even though I'm completely an idiot for doing it, time-wise. I just signed up to do it again next semester at Sarah Lawrence, teach a comics-writing class in their graduate program. I don't know why. I mean I know why.
As a student, I think first, the reason it was so important to me is that I wanted to be around other people that were excited about the same things that I was. I wanted to be around people that were inspired by writing and by stories the way I was with Stephen King and all these stories I found as a kid in high school. That wanted to talk about these things, and explore them. I didn't know where to find that until I started taking classes. As soon as I got to college, one of the reasons I picked
was that it had a creative writing major, and it was close to the
Rhode Island School Of Design
. I had this fantasy I would go there and take art classes and do a comic where I was writing it and drawing it. I wasn't bad, honestly, as an artist. I had a portfolio. [Spurgeon laughs] I don't think I was good enough. I was disappointed because the schedule there made it hard to take classes at both at the same time. There was a trimester program and a semester program.
The point is when I got to college and I started taking writing classes, it was so inspiring in that regard. You found people that had grown up feeling the same way, loving comics or loving books or being interested in playwriting. Storytelling. Finding people that were in love with story the same way. Finding writers you could show your stuff to and trust editorially. Having that same camaraderie. To this day two of my closest friends that I show things to are from my college writing workshop.
I felt like I was getting so much better, too. You're in an environment where the other really important part of taking a class if you can -- and not everybody needs to go to school for this at all -- but the benefit of why it was helpful to me is that if you have a deadlline to turn something in every week it trains you not to be so precious about your writing. That's one of the the keys to me of becoming a writer. I tell that to all my students. You can't be afraid of writing something shitty. That's the excuse. You say, "I'm going to wait until I'm inspired." Or "I'm not going to do it today." The talent isn't as uncommon as you might think, in my opinion. I've seen people go from not being that good, honestly, at least what I thought of them in class as a peer, to being phenomenal because of hard work. You can learn how to write as a trade. That doesn't mean everyone has that capacity. But most people have the capacity to write within the skill level necessary to write professionally -- to some degree, if they're willing to put in the time.
The thing I think people don't take seriously with writing a lot of the time is that you have to train -- at least I did -- the way you train for most careers. Where you're writing every day. If you're going to school for medicine, you're in that field every day. That takes sacrifices as you get older. You're not the guy going to your high school reunion with a secure job. You're the guy going there tutoring and waiting tables and working at Starbucks because you're trying to write.
I graduated from college with a degree in it, and I went to grad school for it. It was really for the same thing. It was just that it keeps you on deadline, it trains you to prioritize your day, and it gives you space to do it if you can. For me it was sort of like, "This is your job." You're writing. You're not going to an office. It was about learning to write from 9 to 4. This is my job. I'm not doing that, with this on the side.
As a teacher, the thing that's so important at least for me is the values I learned in that environment as a student and in writing classes is that there are no parameters of what you can write and what you can't. You could go into that class and you can hand in anything you wanted. There was no directive: "You have to write about this." The priority was to write a story you can come in and feel proud of. I had some great teachers that said I could write whatever I wanted as long as I was happy with it. The rule of the class I teach, when I was teaching prose, now that I'm teaching comics, it's the same thing: you can only write the story you want to pick up and read more than any other one right now. It doesn't have to be the smartest, it doesn't have to be the best. It can be anything you want. It has to be something you're passionate about.
When I teach, even at the level where I'm at now in comics, where the stories I'm writing have a lot of pressure on them and they're tied into these iconic characters and you have a lot of people looking at them, when you tell students that and you see how brave they are about coming back with stories that are intensely personal about traumatic events in their lives, and other times incredibly whimsical and experimental, but still brave for being that, you go home and you think, "What an asshole I would be if I didn't follow the same rule, and write the next story for Batman or Superman or my own stuff that's the one I'd like to read even if it's not the smartest or the best." It keeps me young as a writer to be a teacher. And inspired. It keeps you hungry -- at least for me it does. It's also a great place to meet people that maybe one day you'll be able to bring into the industry, if they keep up with it and are serious about it. The guy I"m writing
with, James Tynion, he does the back-ups in
, he was a student of mine at
Sarah Lawrence
. He kept sending scripts and kept writing, and when there was an opportunity to bring someone in on the back-up, I thought it'd be a great chance.
For me it's a really important part of my writing background. It keeps me on the straight and narrow to be able to go in and tell the students, "These are the priorities of the class." And to come home and apply those priorities to my own writing.
Scott Snyder
Swamp Thing
American Vampire
Announcement of Superman Project
* Batman image from the initial run with the character in the New 52 initiative
* three different scenes from Snyder's
comics, or I hope that's what they are; the third is the Batman "family" he refers to -- characters that have been trained by or inspired by Batman that help him out from time to time and kind of operate in his sphere of influence
* a dialogued scene from
American Vampire
* Batman: the character
* a panel from his
Swamp Thing
* Batman doesn't want to hear it (below)
* my thanks to Alex Segura and Pamela Mullin for setting this up
posted 4:00 am PST
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On Friday at our P and Q picnic ( which I didn't even get around to blogging about - nice catch up, but a small turn out, at the usual venue, which got chased off by weather just after lunch - again ) M came along with all the Canteen bandannas that have been donated so far. Back in November last year I blogged about this project which our group is taking on this year.
I selected bandannas in black, white and blue. There were 4 blue, 3 black, 2 different white and one grey and black and white. Yesterday morning after looking at them all spread out on the floor for some time I decided how I could use them.
They were not all the same size or condition but I found I could after a good deal of squaring up cut 4 blocks 9.5 inches squares from each bandanna.These look good together but lack something - a splash of different colour. So I am adding some dark green and bright yellow squares. I aim to make disappearing 9 patch blocks with the bright green and yellow as the centre patch ( which will then get cut up tiny at the next stage. ) I have these all ready to sew when I get the chance. They are not very thick or strong so will need careful handling.
One or two members who already had the bandannas have made lovely little knee rug size quilts already. I think 4 might be finished. We are then donating them back to Canteen for young cancer patients.
My Dictionary tells me: bandanna or bandana : a large silk or cotton handkerchief or neckchief. ( from Hindi bandhnu - tie dyeing. )


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Soft Bras Are Essential
Is it just us, or are you over underwire bras too? If you've worn one, then you must be familiar with the pinching, chafing, and rib squeezing. Does taking off your bra at the end of the night feel like the highlight of your day? It shouldn't have to.
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There are as many body types as bras and even more opinions on this fashion basic. Every single body type is beautiful. We know that everyone deserves to have easier access to clothes that will fit them and make them feel confident.
Whatever your ideal bra silhouette, TomboyX has a design for you — from bralettes to compression tops and the star of this particular show: the Essentials Soft Bra.
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Bra shopping can be a pain (literally and metaphorically). Underwire and coarse materials used to be our only options. Times have changed, and we're totally over this old-fashioned undergarment trend.
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Let's talk about support. We all need a little support now and then from family, friends, and our bras. Underwire has long been a go-to in terms of support. The Essentials Soft Bra is double-layered, and with our signature stay-put band that is as smooth as it is powerful, you can rely on TomboyX to give your mood a gentle boost.
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The New York Times goes deep on The New Republic's latest reinvention. I wrote a couple of pieces for the venerable magazine many years ago, and I wish it well. But I also wish Times reporter Christine Haughney had explored a conflict of interest in TNR's relaunch: the participation of new owner Chris Hughes in a major interview with President Obama.
I don't necessarily begrudge Hughes' wanting to play a role on the editorial side of TNR. It's now his magazine, and previous owner Marty Peretz was a legendary interferer — sometimes for better, usually for worse. TNR is a small place, and it's unrealistic to expect the publisher to exercise the same sort of restraint as, say, the publisher of a major daily newspaper.
But Hughes, the 29-year-old co-founder of Facebook, is also the "former online campaign adviser" to the president, as Haughney puts it — and by all accounts the key person in building Obama's 2008 online presence. In April 2009, Fast Company ran a long profile headlined "How Chris Hughes Helped Launch Facebook and the Barack Obama Campaign."
The TNR interview with Obama was conducted jointly by Hughes and the magazine's editor, Franklin Foer. So what kind of hard-hitting questions did Hughes ask? Here they are:
Can you tell us a little bit about how you've gone about intellectually preparing for your second term as president?
Have you looked back in history, particularly at the second terms of other presidents, for inspiration?
You spoke last summer about your election potentially breaking the fever of the Republicans. The hope being that, once you were reelected, they would seek to do more than just block your presidency. Do you feel that you've made headway on that?
You inspired a lot of people in your first presidential campaign, and with your books, by talking about a new kind of politics. And now, four years later, it's a time in Washington that's characterized by nastiness more often that not. How do you reconcile those two things four years in?
It seems as if you're relying more on executive orders to get around these problems. You've done it for gun control, for immigration. Has your view on executive authority changed now that you've been president for four years?
The last question is about Syria. I wonder if you can speak about how you personally, morally, wrestle with the ongoing violence there.
A not-uninteresting group of questions. To be fair, I've included all of them so that you could see the meaty as well as the fawning. And Hughes and Foer elicit substantive answers from the president. Nevertheless, given Hughes' background, I found myself asking if he might have been tougher if he were interviewing a president he hadn't worked for.
This is no more than a minor misstep. The real challenge facing TNR is that it is trying to carve out a niche in a world that has utterly changed since it was — at least in the movie "Shattered Glass" — "the in-flight magazine of Air Force One." The Internet has made all but a tiny handful of political opinion magazines irrelevant.
Getting TNR back into the game will be a daunting task. Hughes just made it slightly more daunting. I hope he comes to realize that himself.
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Prodigy Biography
rock bandMasters in the art of electronica, Prodigy emerged into the British music scene in 1992. The band's first album, The Prodigy Experience (1992), spent five weeks on the U.K. Top 40 chart with help from hits like "Charly". The band changed its music flavor, taking on grunge-influenced sound in Music For A Jilted Generation (1994). The move paid off. In 1996 Prodigy released Firestarter, which debuted at number one in both the U.S. and U.K., and helped the band earn the Best Dance Act at the Brit Awards. Surprisingly, Howlett announced that the band would disband after its third album The Fat of the Land (1997). Its members include: Liam Howlett, Maxim, Keith Flint, and Leeroy Thornhill.
Harold Prince | P | Juliet Prowse |
See also:


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Lord of the Flies, 1963, directed by Peter Brook, from the novel by William Golding.
On his pseudo-commentary track for Lord of the Flies,1 William Golding tells a story about a student in a creative writing class who goes to his teacher and says, "I've finished the story I was writing. Now should I go back and put the symbols in?" You can't do it that way, of course; symbols are either an organic part of your story or they're a disastrous mistake. The genius of Golding's novel (about a group of English schoolboys stranded on a desert island, if you're one of the two people on the planet who didn't read this in middle school) is that his story is perfectly coherent on a literal level. This makes it ideal for a film adaptation in a way that, say, Beloved is not. In fact, the novel is at its strongest the less it strays from the literal story, and is weaker in the places where Golding hits you over the head with the other meanings he's playing around with. Compare these two death scenes, for example. Here's Piggy's death:
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed out again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.
And here's the death of one of the pigs Jack's hunters kill:
Here, struck down by the heat, the sow fell and the hunters hurled themselves at her. This dreadful eruption from an unknown world made her frantic; she squealed and bucked and the air was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror. Roger ran round the heap, prodding with his spear whenever pigflesh appeared. Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife. Roger found a lodgement for his point and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight. The spear moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream. Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her. The butterflies still danced, preoccupied in the center of the clearing.
To me, the second scene, with its Grand Guignol violence and overwritten sexual connotations ("a lodgement for his point," indeed), is mildly embarassing. Piggy's death, in contrast, is terrifying precisely because it is described matter-of-factly. "His head opened and stuff came out and turned red," is much more nightmarish than the pig's death. Peter Brook seems to have understood this difference, and the tone of his film is much closer to the first passage than the second, more cinéma vérité than Hollywood. And the more Lord of the Flies feels observed rather than staged, the more horrific it is.
Brook does a good job, then, of mimicking Golding's style when he's at his best. He also benefits from the immediacy of film in a way Golding can't. Reading the novel, it's easy to forget just how young Golding's characters are (my memory of the novel was that the main characters were early high schoolers). In fact, however, the oldest kids would be in middle school, and the youngest are toddlers. But reading that Golding's characters are young doesn't have quite the visceral edge that, say, this does:
It's impossible to forget, watching the movie, that all of these kids are prepubescent. I also found that some scenes and images that didn't particularly stick with me while reading the novel became iconic when captured on film:
Perhaps I was a lazy reader, but I didn't realize how visually striking the choir's black robes would be against the white sand until I saw it on screen.
What's most impressive about Lord of the Flies, however, is that Brook managed to make it at all. Nearly everyone who worked on it was completely green. Tom Hollyman, the D.P., was a still photographer who had never touched a motion picture camera. Gerald Feil, the editor, had never edited anything. Peter Brook had directed film before, but had mostly worked in theater. The cast featured thirty-two children, only one of whom had ever acted in anything before. And none of the children's parents would allow them to miss a day of school, so the movie had to be completely finished over summer vacation, shooting in the middle of nowhere with infrequent access to dailies. If all that weren't enough of a challenge, Peter Brook shot it in sequence, working from the novel itself, without a formal screenplay.
As you can imagine, the results owe a great deal to luck and improvisation. I think the single best thing about this movie is the casting, done by Terry Fay and Michael McDonald. When you're casting children, you don't necessarily look for someone who's a good actor, but someone who has to do as little acting as possible to become the character you need. There's no way for a kid to do a Charlize Theron or Robert DeNiro-style body transformation, and the psychological insights a six-year-old can have into another person are, shall we say, limited. But the kids they used were perfect, start to finish. Here's the principal cast:
James Aubrey as Ralph. Simon and Piggy are visible behind him.
Aubrey's kept acting; he was in Tony Scott's Spy Game in 2001.
Tom Chapin as Jack.
This is the one questionable casting decision, as Chapin had lived in the United States for some time and his accent wasn't British enough; he was ultimately overdubbed by another actor. But look at that profile; that's Jack for sure.
Hugh Edwards as Piggy.
Tom Gaman as Simon, staring at the pig's head.
Even the minor characters are remarkably cast. Here's Samneric, the twins, played by David and Simon Surtees:
And this is Roger Allen Elwin (see comments for correction) as my favorite minor character, Roger, the only true sadist in the whole group:
Roger drops a boulder on Piggy.
Apparently Roger Elwin got a little too much into character; according to the commentary track he spent a good deal of the summer catching lizards and throwing them into fires.
As you can see from the stills, Fay and McDonald did an amazing job of finding the right kids for the movie. If you had a very different mental picture of any of those characters when you read the novel I'd be pretty surprised.
The movie's certainly not without its weaknesses, though, and I can't really recommend it as something to sit back and watch as pure entertainment. It was, after all, made by a bunch of first-timers with no money, and although it's better than it has any right to be, sometimes the seams show. For one thing, Brooks found it was impossible to record synchronized sound because they were shooting on the beach all the time (the sound of the waves makes recording impossible). However, he had a tight shooting schedule, such rare access to dailies, and a mortal terror that his actors' voices would change. So instead of waiting to do ADR against actual footage, he would shoot until the light faded, and then go inland with the actors and immediately record the sound for the scenes he'd just shot, relying on memory to get the timing right so he could match it with the film he'd shot earlier in the day. Needless to say, this produced mixed results, and was one of the main reasons the movie took a full year to edit. There aren't any synch issues with what you see onscreen, but the timing seems a little behind the beat throughout (timing in the "actors delivering their lines realistically" sense, not the "sound matching moving lips sense").
The sound doesn't improve much from start to finish (and maybe it's just me, but I hated Raymond Leppard's score, which really took a lot away from the movie for me). But everyone else, from the actors to the cameramen, learned how to their job better the longer they'd been doing it. And because Lord of the Flies was shot in sequence, this means that the overall quality of the movie improves the further into the story you go. The opening scenes seemed very stilted to me; it really got moving around the time Simon encounters the pig's head. In the novel, we're privy to Simon's vision, but in the film the head doesn't talk. Instead, Brook cuts back and forth between a slow push in on Simon's face (the shot of Simon above is from this sequence) and the head on its stake:
The jaunty smile on the pig's face and the buzzing flies on the soundtrack provide the same mixture of good cheer and menace that Golding gives the reader when he has the pig say, "We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island!" This is the first point where I thought the movie was demonstrably better than the novel, but not the last. The night of Simon's death is a particular standout. Brooks just got all the kids wound up and had two cameramen follow them around for hours as they ran amuck; the result seems like documentary footage, not a scene from a movie. Some parts of this sequence are really beautiful:
The log is the main (only?) light source in the shot, so it lights up the ocean as it flies through the air; the result is impossible to capture in a still, but it's stunning.
And some parts are terrifying:
This picture would not be out of place in Diane Arbus's portfolio.
Both of these shots, and the sequence as a whole, feel completely natural, accidental, and observed, and watching these kids completely give in to chaos is the single best part of the movie. Unfortunately it feels stilted again when Simon emerges and the kids once more have to be part of a narrative. Perhaps Brooks should have just kept the cameras rolling and let the kids do whatever they wanted all summer. As Golding understood, prepubescent boys don't need much directing to descend into chaos and cruelty.
- Lord of the Flies was shot with handheld Arriflex cameras, which are jittery as hell if handheld. Feil and Hollyman came up with a number of great technical solutions for problems they had working with these; the most striking is their dolly. They used model railway track and cars, camera tripods, and a gate to create something they could quickly move around the beach. What's more, the gate could be used to smoothly change from a tracking shot to a push in or out. Here it is on set:
- The first day of shooting was also the first day of the Bay of Pigs, which was not necessarily the best day to be sharing a Carribean island with a U. S. military base. Nobody knew what was going on, but they could see warships hovering off the coast all day.
- During the shoot, Brooks and his crew started getting back dailies in which every third frame or so was washed out. The laboratory kept telling them something was seriously wrong with one of their cameras, since it was flashing the negative; the crew said nothing was wrong, and they fought back and forth about this until one of the crew flew to the laboratory in New York City and observed the development process. It turned that one of the developers was smoking cigars in the lab; when he would take a drag, whatever frame was currently being processed was ruined.
- Part of Golding's commentary track is him reading excerpts from the novel; I was jolted to hear him have Piggy yell "Which is better—to be a pack of painted n-----s like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?" My copy of the novel (the Perigree edition, probably the one you had in school) has it as "a pack of painted Indians," and in the movie it's "a pack of painted savages." So I don't know what to believe, but I do know that Golding's original version of the line (which I think might still be around in British editions) is jarring for no good purpose.
- Golding's novel has two main plot threads: the Boy's Adventure stuff of surviving on the island and the heavier descent into savagery. In the movie, the fun stuff was mostly cut out for lack of time. But the actors got to have a full on adventure of it while shooting the movie. Here's the dorm they stayed in, an abandoned factory (the picture is from a Life magazine article about the production while it was going on).:
- And here's a page from the newsletter the kids wrote while shooting (mimeographed, no less!):
- When it became apparent to Brooks that the kids were bored, he gave them their own camera and let them write and direct their own movie on days they weren't on set. And when they weren't working on their own movie, they were running around on a beach, shirtless and screaming and hitting each other on camera. In short, it sounds like the best summer camp ever.
1"Pseudo" because it's a set of readings from the novel along with statements about it and—although it's been edited to overlay the same scenes in the movie—doesn't seem to have been designed with commentary in mind. Not too surprising, since it was recorded in 1976.


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"A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom , the country's leading internet service provider.
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa's largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.
Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.
The company has 11 call-centers around the country and regularly sends data to its other branches.
Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment."
The best parts of this story are (1) the pigeon's name, and (2) the last sentence!
Hat tip to Mrs. Angus


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The Irish Mansion in Greeneville, Tennessee.
William Dickson left County Antrim, Ireland at the age of 16 for a better life in Greeneville, Tennessee. He succeeded. By 1796, when he was 21, he was commissioned by President George Washington to be the town's first postmaster, a lifetime appointment. He also amassed a considerable fortune as a merchant.
This mountainous region of northeast Tennessee was not easy to get to except along old Indian trails. It did have a good water source, known as "Big Spring," but there is nothing to explain why the area was amenable to the Irish, or to merchants, who needed to ship goods in. They named an early road Irish Street, so they obviously worked it out. No matter the difficulty of the terrain, what the Irish settlers found was a vast improvement over conditions in the homeland, as reported by Dickson's brother John, in an 1816 letter from Rocksborough, where landlords charged enormous prices and tenants could not pay their rents or afford oatmeal or wheat. "I think there is very little prospect of doing any good in this country for a long time, as the people are destroyed with religious feuds and heavy taxes."
About half the first families of northeast Tennessee came from Ireland, with the largest numbers from Antrim and Ulster according to the East Tennessee Historical Society, which has been identifying the First Families of Tennessee. There were more Irish settlers there than the combined sum of Scottish, German and English.
Two years after his letter, John Dickson arrived in Greeneville with his wife to live in what must have seemed a paradise. By then William Dickson had married Eliza Douglas, the daughter of one of George Washington's soldiers (she was 9 years his senior), and they had a daughter Catharine, their only child, on whom they bestowed what was at the time an exceptional education for a girl, so that she would be able to skillfully manage the family business and, hopefully, a large household. Dickson had already built fine homes on Main Street for his and his brother's family, but he was already planning the ultimate dream house for his daughter. Although Catharine did not marry Dr. Alexander Williams (another wealthy merchant) until 1823, Dickson, in 1815, began construction of the imposing high Federal style mansion that would be his daughter's wedding gift. He hired Irish artisans Thomas Battersby and John Hoy to direct the construction and do the finishing work.
Catharine was a gracious hostess and the home and gardens became known as the "Showplace of East Tennessee." Presidents Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and Andrew Johnson were entertained here, as well as "celebrities" like Davy Crockett and the Marquis de Lafayette. William Dickson himself must have enjoyed visiting his grandchildren in this spacious home. Catharine gave birth to ten children, but only four survived: Elizabeth Douglas (1824), William Dickson (1826), Joseph Alexander (1832), and Thomas Lanier (1838). William Dickson died in 1842 and did not live to witness the incident that would make this house famous for all time.
On September 3, 1864, General Thomas Hunt Morgan, known as The Thunderbolt of the Confederacy because of his surprise raids, arranged to stay in the home of his friend Mrs. Williams, now a widow. Although Tennessee did secede from the Union, northeast Tennessee was known for its Unionist sentiment. Catharine never said which side she favored and entertained both Union and Confederate officers when they were in town.
Learning of Morgan's presence, Union troops, with orders to take him dead or alive, surrounded the block. Morgan, who had been in the upstairs bedroom shaving, pulled on his pants and ran from the house in his nightshirt, razor still in hand, and headed for the stables. He was chased and fatally shot and his entire staff was captured with the exception of Catharine's son, Captain William D. Williams, who, according to local historian Robert Orr, hid in the cistern until he could escape. Some reports say young Lucy Williams, Joseph's wife, tipped the Union but she denied the charge for the rest of her life. (The razor Morgan carried out with him is now displayed in the upstairs bedroom, known as the Morgan Bedroom.)
The horror of the event at her home is said to have led Catharine to despair and she died six years later. The mansion eventually passed from family hands and over the next 100 years served as a school, a tobacco factory, an inn, and a hospital, until it was privately purchased and restored to its mid-19th-century appearance. It is now operated by the Dickson-Williams Historical Association as a museum.
William Dickson's great-great-grandson, Beverly Williams, 66, (descended from Thomas Lanier Williams) has, with his wife Wilhelmina, always been involved with activities at the house. Since his retirement from the dairy industry, he is a full time tour guide. (His unusual first name is a family name from the Beverley family, which came from England to Virginia in the 1600s.) He has lots of stories to tell.


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27 Rock Star Video Games
Once the video-game boom took hold, developers began turning to rock stars to create games based around their images and music. We uncovered more than two dozen times where musicians and video games got together below.
It started in 1982 with a game for the Atari 2600 console that traded on the success of Journey's Escape album and continues all the way into the era of the smartphone app. Over the years, the level of involvement by artists ranged from a last-minute deal to put Motley Crue's name on a pinball-based video game to David Bowie helping to write the story line for one.
While many games found ways to incorporate a band's music and image into a storyline for a playable, multilevel game with many challenges, three arrived in the mid-'90s that took players deeper inside the works of Peter Gabriel, Prince and Bob Dylan. These CD-ROMs contained information about their history and most recent projects, and featured content exclusive to the game.
So if you ever wanted to visit a world where you needed to rescue Aerosmith from captivity or one where Gene Simmons was a skateboarder, check out the below list of Rock Star Video Games. We also included an entry dedicated to the times musicians like Paul McCartney, Trent Reznor and Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh created new works specifically for a game.


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TADS 3.1 (an interactive fiction language) adds web-based play, collaborative...
Interactive fiction programmers: there is a competition for games written in ...
The new version of the interactive fiction language ADRIFT adds embedded expr...
You can now play Zork over Twitter by talking to @playzork. (h/t @savetherobo...
Darkstar combines difficult puzzles with full-motion
video reminiscent of early-1990s adventure games, and represents a
labor of love for its creator, J. Allen Williams. But how is it as a
In Reviews > Graphic
Reviews from judges of the 2009 GameplayComp.
Games entered in the competition were to explore non-traditional
forms of gameplay while still remaining IF.
In Reviews > Text
Reviews from all of the judges of the 2009 AbilityComp.
Games entered in the competition were to feature a player character
with a special ability outside the natural norm.
In Reviews > Text
Reviews from all of the judges of the 2009 EnvComp.
Games entered in the competition were to explore new or unusual
In Reviews > Text
What if the room, the basic structural unit of most
interactive fiction, obscures other ways of organizing and thinking
about interactive fiction? Nathan Jerpe looks at the room as a
metaphor and explores what other metaphors might replace it.
In Writers > IF Theory
Eric Eve is one of the few IF authors to have worked
extensively in both Inform 7 and TADS 3. Here he shares his insights
in the two languages' similarities and differences.
In Writers > IF Theory
Want to make better puzzles? Try thinking about what
make puzzles satisfying to you, and don't neglect the logic that
undergirds many puzzles.
In Writers > IF Theory
Making NPCs that act on their own is a tough
undertaking. This article describes some of the approaches to making
autonomous NPCs, looking in depth at the game Child's Play as
a case study.
In Writers > IF Theory
Gunther Schmidl takes a look at the final episode
in the series and pronounces it good, though be warned: if you
haven't played prior episodes, there's a good chance you'll have to
solve one puzzle by brute force.
In Reviews > Graphic


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Almost every day there are major economic data releases that could have a significant impact on your current open positions.
These releases typically give an insight into a particular country's economic health and can have wider ramifications if the data is from a major economy, such as the US or eurozone. These important figures are seen as statistical evidence to back up a view on whether or not a region is doing well.
Most global economic data releases are similar across the major world economies but, for the benefit of example, the US and its currency will be used. Typically, these releases are closely followed by those who look to trade foreign exchange, but be aware that these releases also affect global stocks, commodities and treasuries.
A major point to be aware of is that the biggest moves in the market usually occur if the figures come out majorly against general consensus. Most economic data is preceded by economists and investment banks expressing a view on what they think these figures might be like, and publishing these views or expectations in advance. It can make for an exciting ride if, or when, the 'experts' get it wrong.
To get started, let's look at major US statistics that influence the foreign exchange markets directly.
Released quarterly (at 1.30pm GMT), about 30 days after the quarter ends
This is the broadest measure of US transactions with the rest of the world. This quarterly statistic measures US trade in goods and services and includes income from investments overseas and payments to entities overseas. A positive value (current account surplus) indicates that the flow of capital from these components into the US exceeds the capital leaving the country (more money coming in than leaving the country). A negative value (current account deficit) means that there is a net capital outflow from these sources (there is more money leaving the country than coming in). Rising long-term current account deficits can have negative implications for the US dollar as it impacts the likelihood of future interest rate hikes if the economy is not doing so well.
Released (at 1.30pm GMT) about 40 days after the month's end
This statistic is the difference between US exports and imports of goods and services, such as cars, electronics, textiles, banking and insurance. A positive balance is known as a trade surplus and this occurs if there are more exports than imports of the above goods and services. A negative balance is referred to as a trade deficit or, informally, borrowed prosperity, living beyond a nation's means, or a trade gap. Export demand and currency demand are directly linked because foreigners must buy the domestic currency to pay for the nation's exports. Export demand also impacts production and prices at domestic manufacturers. The implications over the long term of a deteriorating trade balance is to put downward pressure on the dollar.
Released monthly (at 1.30pm GMT), about 15 days after the month ends
This is a measure that examines the weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, such as transportation, food and medical care. The CPI is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them; the goods are weighted according to their importance. Changes in CPI are used to assess price changes associated with the cost of living. The CPI is commonly considered the best monthly measure of inflation for the US economy. Food and energy prices account for about a quarter of CPI, but they tend to be very volatile and distort the underlying trend. The FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) usually pays the most attention to 'core' data (which excludes food and energy from the CPI figure), and so do traders. A rapid increase in the value of the CPI figures can give way to inflationary fears as rising prices could lead the central bank to respond by raising interest rates. Raising rates generally leads to less disposable income, reducing spending and thus decreasing inflationary pressure. An increase in interest rates usually increases the value of a nation's currency, but it can negatively impact the stock market in the short term. This is because some investors may decide to hold money in deposit as cash to earn interest rather than investing in the market, which is seen to be more risky.
Released monthly (at 1.30pm GMT), about 17 days after the month ends
This index measures the change in price of factory produced goods. Analysts focus on 'core' PPI inflation — the rate of change in finished goods' prices, excluding food and energy prices (as these tend to add too much volatility to the figures). The PPI is a goods-only index and does not include the cost of transportation, wholesaling and retailing. It does not measure costs in the service sector. PPI tends to have more impact when it's released ahead of CPI data because the reports are significantly correlated. It's a leading indicator of consumer inflation — when producers charge more for goods and services the higher costs are usually passed on to the consumer. A rapid rise in PPI is considered inflationary and can depress bond prices and increase long-term interest rates. The impact on the US dollar and stocks is not usually clear and has to be read in conjunction with other economic data releases.
Released monthly (at 1.30pm GMT), usually on the first Friday after the month ends
This is a monthly survey statistic of nationwide non-farm payroll employment across the US and is one of the most important and closely watched economic releases in the world. It is intended to represent the total number of paid US workers of any business, excluding:
The total non-farm payrolls account for approximately 80% of the workers who produce the entire gross domestic product of the United States. Job creation is an important leading indicator of consumer spending, which accounts for a majority of overall economic activity. The non-farm payroll statistic is used by government policy makers and economists to determine the current state of the economy, and to predict future levels of economic activity. If employment is strong, interest rates and the US dollar will normally rise. If the figures are weak then interest rates and the dollar will usually fall. A strong payrolls figure can provide the stock markets with a boost if it signals a recovery in the economy. Make sure to note this date in your diaries each month.
Released weekly (at 1.30pm GMT), five days after the week ends
This is the number of individuals who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time during the past week. This is the US's earliest economic data. Market impact fluctuates from week to week and there tends to be more focus on the release when traders need to diagnose recent developments, or when the reading is extreme. Although it's generally viewed as a lagging indicator (it comes out five days after the week ends), the number of unemployed people is an important signal of overall economic health because consumer spending is highly correlated with labour-market conditions. If unemployment claims increase, you might expect the stock market and US dollar to fall in value.
Released quarterly (at 1.30pm GMT), about 30 days after the quarter ends
The gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the primary indicators used to gauge the health of a country's economy. It represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period — you can think of it as the 'size' of the economy. Usually, GDP is expressed as a comparison to the previous quarter or year. For example, if the year-to-year GDP is up 3%, this is thought to mean that the economy has grown by 3% over the last year.
As one can imagine, economic production and growth (what GDP represents) have a large impact on nearly everyone within that economy. For example, when the economy is healthy, you will typically see low unemployment and wage increases as businesses demand labour to meet the growing economy. A significant change in GDP, whether up or down, usually has a significant effect on the stock market and that nation's currency. If the US came out with a positive GDP figure it would be expected that the US dollar would rise as the economy strengthens.
Released monthly (at 1.30pm GMT), about 14 days after the month ends
This figure represents the total of durable and non-durable goods sales to consumers. Services are largely excluded from this statistic. Retail sales have additional relevance during the Christmas period as this sector makes a large percentage of its total yearly revenue at this time. Monthly changes are often erratic and the data is subject to later large revisions. Despite this, the implications of strong retail sales can be good news for stocks and the US dollar and vice versa.
Released monthly (at 2.15pm GMT), about 16 days after the month ends
This report measures changes in output for the industrial sector of an economy. The industrial sector includes manufacturing, mining, and utilities. Although these sectors contribute only a small portion of GDP (gross domestic product), they are highly sensitive to interest rates and consumer demand. This makes industrial production an important tool for forecasting future GDP and economic performance. Industrial production figures are also used by central banks to measure inflation, as high levels of industrial production can lead to uncontrolled levels of consumption and rapid inflation. An acceleration of growth in industrial production is, in the first instance, positive for the US dollar and can put pressure on interest rates to rise.
Released monthly (at 3pm GMT), on the first business day after the month ends
The PMI is an index based on a survey of corporate purchasing managers (from construction, services and manufacturing) on the state of the industry as they see it. PMI is a very important sentiment reading, not only for manufacturing, but also for the economy as a whole. Although US manufacturing is not the huge component of total gross domestic product (GDP) that it once was, this industry is still where recessions tend to begin and end. For this reason, the PMI is very closely watched, often setting the tone for the upcoming month and other indicator releases.
The magic number for the PMI is 50. A reading of 50 or higher generally indicates that the industry is expanding. If manufacturing is expanding, the general economy should be doing likewise. As such, it is considered a good indicator of future GDP levels. Many economists will adjust their GDP estimates after reading the PMI report. Another useful figure to remember is 42. An index level higher than 42%, over time (months and years), is considered the benchmark for economic (GDP) expansion. The different levels between 42 and 50 speak to the strength of that expansion. If the number falls below 42%, recession could be just around the corner. The index is designed so that a reading above 50 means that purchasing managers expect manufacturing conditions to improve. PMI readings should rise as the pace of spending remains healthy. Accelerating manufacturing output will strain capacity, pushing producer price inflation higher. If the PMI is well above 50, interest rates and the dollar may rise.
There are a lot of other minor statistics in addition to the ones mentioned above. These are released on an ongoing basis and serve to further reinforce the overall statistical picture of the US (and for that matter, any other) economy at any particular point in time.
In practical terms, other major economies, like the UK, Japan and Germany, have their own versions of similar 'major' and 'minor' statistics. The Japanese Tankan report of Japanese investing intentions is an example. These statistics are used to paint that country's own fundamental economic picture and serve as the basis for currency and international comparisons.
Remember to take note of these important data releases, as they can have a large impact on your current open positions and give further insight as to the real state of the economy you are monitoring.


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The paramita of generosity is a great teaching for our time. (Or any time, but let's stick with our time for now.) Whether one gives material goods, deep listening, or a few words of dharma, the ability to share with others in a non-attached, open way is one of the most underrated qualities I can think of in the wild and crazy world of ours today.
And yet, I think it's important to examine both how we define generosity, and also the differing levels of impediments that hinder people from being giving in their lives. It is commonplace, at least in my country, to immediately link generosity with money and other material gifts. This doesn't mean people totally ignore non-material gifts, but from what I have seen, material gifts tend to be highly privileged. For example, the IRS provides tax breaks for people who donate money or valuable material goods to non-profits and other charity organizations. If I give X number of hours to the same organizations, I cannot expect to receive anything equivalent, unless, perhaps, if I work for a large corporation that offers incentives to its employees in exchange for their service, which is considered a "gift" to the corporation's public image.
Now, here's one of the rubs. Everything I described above seems to be giving that has some attachment laden in it. Wanting tax breaks for donations isn't freely giving. Corporations wanting good public images, and more profits as a result, taints the giving being done in their name. And beyond all of this, there is a continued emphasis on some sort of material value to giving, which is not in line with the depth of the teachings on generosity in Buddhism.
Khentin Tai Situ Rinpoche offers a short teaching on the paramita of generosity, beginning with this:
The practice of generosity is to give what is worthwhile and to give it with non-attachment. This can be studied through three main aspects: giving things, giving loving protection and giving loving understanding. The teaching on the first of these, material generosity, explains what is proper generosity and what is improper. We should abandon improper generosity and practice the proper one.
Motivation is very important when we give. If we give with a wrong motivation, such as making gifts which we hope will harm others or which we intend to bring us fame, or if we give with an inferior motivation such as through fear of future poverty, then that is improper. What we actually give is also important. A Bodhisattva should never give what is harmful, for instance, when he gives something suitable it should be generously, not meanly. To whom we give to is important - always pandering to the wishes of the crazy and the gluttonous would not be proper generosity. Finally, how we make our gift is important. The Bodhisattva avoids reluctant giving, angry giving, disrespectful giving and scornful, derisory giving, all of which are improper.
When it comes to living in societies that obsessively link giving with material value, and by extension with power, I think it's pretty challenging to tease out proper giving from improper giving. In fact, I'd argue it's challenging for many of us to actually see generosity when it's occurring because we have accepted a certain definition of giving, and any action that falls outside of that definition isn't even considered. In other words, generosity is happening all over the place, but our conditioned minds just leap right past it, over and over again.
Consider these lines from a recentpost on the blog Feministe:
Which brings us to the idea of a gift economy. [Seth] Godin suggests, and I think he means well, that a gift economy is something like an exchange of acts of great art and generosity without expectation of return. He suggests that it creates a virtuous circle of gift exchange that turns the givers into indispensable people who, in the natural course of things will eventually be rewarded.
What would a gift economy look like? What does it have to do with women's pay?
In 1995, the United Nations estimated that women around the world generated work for which they were not paid to the tune of $11 trillion, or $15 trillion in 2007 dollars, as Raj Patel notes in his book, "The Value of Nothing." Patel says that in 1995, "The daily work of rearing children, maintaining a household and engaging in civic work … [was worth] more than half the world's total output."
Godin suggests that offering wonderful, useful work as a gift will eventually draw a reward. Yet women's gifts of necessary work, often microtargeted to the exact needs of a particular family, not only bring little compensation, they're often barely noticed.
Now, certainly in these days, some men have joined the ranks of extensive family caregiving. However, women still do by far the majority of this kind of work, and yet how often do you hear people speak the word "generosity" when it comes to raising children, for example? There are, by extension, a whole array of activities that are either ignored or downplayed by societies which are, in fact generous. Deep listening to another who is suffering. Helping neighbors with basic chores. Telling funny stories to sick children. All hospital volunteer work or caregiving to sick folks. Offering kind words to stranger.
And it goes beyond gifts to people. Liberating animals, planting trees on formerly damaged lands, and simply limiting your general impact on the planet - all of these, too, can be acts of generosity.
Materially driven societies, however, aren't apt to uphold these kinds of actions because frequently have no "value," don't add to the "bottom line," and in some cases, actually hinder the all mighty "productivity and growth" that are seen as keys to a successful nation.
So, for many of us, cultivating true generosity requires that we run against the grain of our entire society. It requires that we break through the conditioning we have around what it means to be generous, and how such generosity looks. And it requires that we let go of getting anything in return.
At the same time, I believe we have to be more engaged about generosity on a social level. By doing what? I'm not sure exactly. But maybe a good place to start is to be more generous with what you see as generous. Second, be willing to call out acts of generosity that are normally ignored or downplayed. Third, it might be helpful to recognize that women, for example, probably have more of their generosity ignored collectively than men do. Or that acts of generosity by poor folks are often rendered invisible by the current social standards and mores.
At the end of the day, wanting to be recognized for acts of generosity is an attachment, and thus a hindrance to actually being generous. However, that absolute perspective must be balanced by paying close attention to, and working with, conditions in the relative, everyday world.


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Roots "Respond/React"
Альбом: Illadelph Halflife
[Black Thought]
It's jazz - hip-hop hangin in my head heavy
Malik said "Riq, you know the planet ain't ready
for the half" when we comin with the action pack
On some Dundee shit representin the outback
Yo, we do it like this (All the way live, from 2-1-5)
You witnessin the 5th Dynasty family click (All the way live, from 2-1-5)
Across the map, one time for ya (All the way live, from 2-1-5)
It's time to react to respond to react to respond (All the way live, from 2-1-5)
We settin it from Southside, pushin this up North
From Illadelphian reps, to fly points across the map
Bring it back to Respond/React
Then bring it back to Respond/React to this
[Verse One: Black Thought]
The attractive assassin, blastin the devil trespassin
Master gettin cash in an orderly fashion
Message to the fake nigga flashin
Slow up Ock, before you get dropped and closed like a caption
Fractional kids don't know the time for action
Styles got the rhythm that of an Anglo-Saxon
Round of applause then avalanche of clappin
{*BLOW*} that's what happen, now what's your reaction
We heavyweight traction, pro-pornographin
Specialize in science and math and, original black man
Bustin thoughts that pierce your mental
The fierce rippin your sacks and
Vocal toe to toe impeccable splittin your back son
Simple as addition and subtraction
Black Though, the infinite relaxed one
Shorties say they love it with a passion
Bring the international charm, see a squad I harass
[Verse Two: Malik B]
REACT, you best adapt when I sling this rap
Another chapter, before when I have to trap ya
Map your whole path out
Go get your crowd so we can clap out
I drive down streets and take back route- positionin
When I'm in your system like glycerin
Fans listenin, from Michigan to Switzerland
Malik be blitzed again - on the station with the discipline
Solicitin, sometimes illicit or explicit with it and
from the deep end where the hills are steep
Nobody cares to speak, a land where life is cheap
The street mentality, mixed with the intellect
Personality, hell where I dwell as well
Niggas rebellious, bodies are found down in the cellars
My man caught a shot to the stomach, now who want it?
Confronted by these dusty blunted - cats who act like
they don't know that the fact is that they're bein hunted
A process of elimination
Activate your mind with the stimulation
Enter your zone with penetration
I've seen more horror than Bram Stroker
Strip your broad or play poker, then drink mocha
The sometimes socializer, the joke despiser
You woke the wiser, dealin with the Roots vocalizer
Up in your flesh from South Philly to West
I stampede your style, I'll compile then bless
[Chorus] - 2X
[Verse Three: Black Thought]
Hey yo, I'm just a lyricist, a chemist of the hemp
The beat pimp, the ill Philly resident
That's far from hesitant, corrupt like a President
Never benevolent but poetically prevalent
Cooler than peppermint
The Lieutenant for niggaz talkin bout represent
No doubt, it's obviously evident I get bent
Far from temporary son I'm very permanent
Hittin MC's like an intoxicant, sent to prevent
Monopoly is my intent, the means is what I invent
This mental murder pay the rent
Lyrically I'm the dominant ingredient, the swift extravagant
Smooth lubricant, down with the M-the-Ill-itant
(ch-ch-ch...) That's the sound of the Dynasty chant
We surround your camp, assumin the war stance
And bring it from the chest, now let's dance
[Verse Four: Malik B]
M-ILL-ITANT, feel the 5th guerilla chant
Y'all talk about bodies but you would not kill a ant
My skill is amp, would peel a nigga like a stamp
Caliber is of Excalibur now you be damp
When I operate a crowd will copulate my game
I make a womb populate and 2-1-5th is the stock of hate
Peep the logistics, slump your squad of misfits
They all get they wrists slit, blast your ass if you insist it
Leave no trace so there's no trace for ballistics
Turn your soul and body to statistics
In particular I've got that extracurricular
Squad in the stash who could be stickin ya
Slip and they vickin ya
Harass your po-lice commissioner
Don't like chicks with weaves talking 'bout, "I need conditioner"
That shit's deader than niggaz with a mortioner
A jenazah, up in your flesh like plasma
Take away your last breath when you got asthma
Then meet Bad Lieu down at the plaza
Hip-hop extravaganza, tell your man I slump him with a stanza
Now "Who's the Boss?" not Tony Danza
My force not green but the force is obscene
P.O. took a piss test it came out not clean
Brody with my man Miz-Moose and Hakeem
My squad from deuce-four up to West Oak Lane
All the way to Takahwana and Frankfurt they know the name
It's like that... M-Ill-itant
[Black Thought]
M-Ill-itant, Eric Al he hostile, Bad Lieutenant
Check it out, (??) style check it out
[Chorus] - repeat w/ ad libs
См. также:
Roots (feat. Ursula Rucker) "Return to Innocence Lost"
Все тексты песен Roots
текст песни Roots "Respond/React"
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Product details:
- Printed on 1 side
-Not 3D Toy
- Made of acrylic.
- Size: 3.5 inches / 4.5 inches / 5.5 inches
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For acrylic ornament, there will be a thin layer of transparent stroke on small details to ensure these details are not broken during transportation.


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Italian Jewelry | Fashion Jewelry and Style Tips. — halloween bracelet
Top 3 Halloween jewelry and makeup ideas to copy :)
halloween halloween bracelet Halloween costume halloween earrings halloween fashion halloween jewelry halloween makeup halloween nail art Halloween necklace halloween ring halloween rings handcrafted jewelry
Dear Rockmantic People, in one of my latest blog post, I spoke about 4 rings and nail art ideas to try to celebrate Halloween and it was just the beginning!If you want to spice your look or your outfit up a little bit, you are in the right place.I've got 3 Halloween jewelry (chokers) to combine with 3 cool make up ideas..so why don't you try them for yourself? 1. Skeleton makeup: want to be a little extra spooky this year? Try the skeleton makeup with the choker leather and skull charm. 2. Butterfly makeup: want a more cute and...
4 Halloween rings and nail art ideas to try
cross crosses Día de los Muertos gold gothic bracelet gothic bracelets gothic earrings gothic jewelry gothic necklace gothic rings gothing ring halloween halloween bracelet Halloween costume halloween earrings halloween fashion halloween jewelry halloween nail art Halloween necklace halloween ring halloween rings holidays horn jewellery jewelry raven raven jewelry ring rings silver skull triplet
Dear Rockmantic people, if you want to celebrate Halloween in a very simple, easy, funny but stylish way, this blog post is for you! This week, I decided to choose 4 Halloween inspired rings to wear with a cool nail art to celebrate Halloween in a rockmantic way... Have a look at this 4 Nail Art from Harper's Bazaar and combine them with some Halloween inspired rings 1. In Stitches Frankenstein's inspired nails and silver cross ring. 2. Sparkly Skulls Combine cool gray nail polish and silver skulls with a gold horn and skull ring 3. Golden candy corn Sweeter...