text:
Bill to End FFEL, Reengineer Perkins Loans Approved by House Committee
July 23, 2009
The higher education agenda proposed by the Obama administration in its FY10 budget proposal moved one step closer to becoming law July 21 when the House Education and Labor Committee approved the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 (HR 3221). The legislation would use savings from ending the bank-based Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program to provide higher Pell grants, grants to states to promote access and completion, additional support for community colleges and would reengineer the Perkins Loan program.. The bill would not, however, make Pell Grant funding an entitlement as originally proposed, and a significant proportion of the FFEL savings would go to priorities unrelated to higher education. Elementary and secondary public schools stand to gain $10 billion for renovation of facilities, and another $10 billion would be dedicated to federal deficit reduction.
The House is moving quickly on its bill, which was first introduced by committee chair George Miller (D-CA) on July 15. The committee met for four hours on July 21 to consider amendments, approving 16. HR 3221 is scheduled to go to the full House for consideration during the week of July 27. The Senate is not expected to take up its version of the legislation in earnest until September.
Major Provisions of HR 3221
Pell Grants. The maximum Pell Grant would be set at $5,350 for 2009-10, $5,550 the following year, and then would be indexed to the CPI plus 1 percent for subsequent years. The current hybrid funding model would continue, with a mix of mandatory and discretionary funding. The scheduled increases would be added to the mandatory portion of the funding and Congressional appropriators would still annually determine the discretionary amount and resulting maximum grant.
State Innovation Completion Grants. The bill authorizes $600 million annually for five years for grants to states to support innovation that improves "student success, completion, and post-completion employment," particularly for underrepresented groups, and the development of related data systems, metrics, and reporting systems. States would compete for grants and would need to come up with 1/3 matching funds.
Student Loans. Beginning July 1, 2010, all new guaranteed Stafford student loans would be made through the Federal Direct Loan program, ending the bank-based FFEL program. As it does now, ED will contract with multiple private lenders and servicers to collect loans and provide other services. Selection criteria for servicers would include price, capacity, capability, and default aversion services. The bill sets aside some of the servicing work for nonprofit state agencies, and provides for retention incentives to encourage hiring of personnel who serviced FFEL loans.
Under current law, interest rates for subsidized Stafford loans are scheduled to drop to 3.4 percent in 2011 and rise again to 6.8 percent in 2012. HR 3221 would retain the 6.8 percent fixed interest rate for unsubsidized loans, but would make subsidized rates variable beginning July 1, 2012, set at the 91-day T-bill rate plus 2.5 percent. A provision to end subsidized loans for graduate and professional students was dropped in the committee markup.
FAFSA Simplification. Changes to the need analysis formula would eliminate a number of questions from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Information would no longer be collected on assets, although the bill would impose a $150,000 cap on assets to be eligible for need-based aid.
Perkins Loan Reform. The Perkins Loan program would be completely revamped and renamed the Federal Direct Perkins Loan program. Loans would continue to be awarded at the institutional level, but would be disbursed and collected as part of the Direct Loan program. Direct Perkins loans would retain the existing loan limits and the 5 percent interest rate, but could only be awarded to students after their eligibility for subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans was exhausted.
Overall funding levels would increase to allow for $6 billion in new loans per year, up from $1 billion currently. The allocation formulas in HR 3221 are quite complicated, with half of the funds distributed to institutions based on the self-help need of their students, a quarter as a "low-tuition incentive," and a quarter based on the graduation rate of Pell recipients at the institution. No institution currently participating in Perkins would receive less than the average of the Perkins loans it awarded over the last five years. Institutions that participate in the new program would be required to deposit unspecified matching funds in an escrow account to provide student loans.
Balances in existing Perkins Loan revolving funds would be liquidated and distributed to ED and the institution based on the original capital contribution formula. Institutions could either continue to collect outstanding loans and return the ¾ federal share to ED, minus an administrative fee of 0.5 percent of outstanding principle and interest, or assign the loans to ED and receive payments of the ¼ institutional share from ED. There is a provision addressing outstanding short-term no-interest loans made by institutions to their funds.
Community College Modernization and Construction. HR 3221 would make $2.5 billion available in FY11 for grants to states to support new construction, renovations, and repair of community college facilities. The funds could be used to reduce financing cost for loans, provide matching funds for capital campaigns to support construction projects, or to capitalize revolving funds. Funds would be allocated to states based on enrollments. At least 50 percent of the assistance received by a community college must be used to carry out certified green building projects (such as LEED). Four-year colleges that award a significant number of certificates and associate degrees may also be eligible for this program, but institutions which receive facilities funding under the Higher Education Act or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are not.
American Graduation Initiative. Under this program, $630 million would be authorized annually from FY10 to FY13 to fund four-year grants of at least $750,000 to community colleges and certain other entities to support innovative programs to train students for skilled occupations in high-demand fields. Then, for the next four years, FY14 to FY19, the same amount would be available to states on a competitive basis for grants to support systematic reform of community colleges by carrying out programs, services, and policies whose effectiveness was demonstrated in the earlier program.
More information about the bill is available from the House Education and Labor Committee. An updated version of the bill, reflecting the amendments approved by the committee is now available.
Anne Gross
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs
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text: [[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/myers031707_9054.jpg]][[caption-width-right:300:The Shape of things to come.]]-> ''"I met him, 15 years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this... six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and... the blackest eyes - the Devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... '''evil.'''"''-->-- '''Dr. Samuel Loomis''', ''Halloween'' (1978).In 1978, Creator/JohnCarpenter and producer Debra Hill made ''Halloween'', a low-budget independent horror film. The success of this film popularized the SlasherMovie genre and inspired other similar franchises such as ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' - and it also turned the film into the first of a major horror film franchise. Taking place very close to or during Halloween, the series (save for the third movie) follows various characters trying to survive the wrath of psychotic, masked murderer Michael Myers, who lives solely to make AllHallowsEve a night of horrific carnage and mayhem.The series starts off with the original two films:[[index]]* ''Film/{{Halloween|1978}}'' (1978) -- At the age of 6, Michael Myers stabbed his older sister Judith to death on Halloween; this led to his incarceration at a mental hospital. Fifteen years later, Michael escapes from the asylum on the night before Halloween and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois to stalk teenager Laurie Strode and her friends. Only Sam Loomis, Michael's former psychiatrist, stands any chance of stopping Michael.* ''Film/{{Halloween II|1981}}'' (1981) -- On the same night as the original film, [[FinalGirl Laurie]] gets taken to a hospital to recover from Michael Myers' attack, but the serial killer follows her there. The film [[TheReveal soon reveals the reason Michael stalks Laurie]]: [[spoiler:he wants to kill his long-lost sister, who doesn't know about the familial relationship between them]].Carpenter followed those films with:* ''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch'' (1982) -- A toymaker uses rocks from Stonehenge to create masks that cause children's heads to explode into writhing piles of snakes and bugs if they watch certain Halloween commercials. This plan also involves robots and [[DeathRay lasers]]. Carpenter originally envisioned the ''Halloween'' franchise as a GenreAnthology series, which makes ''Halloween III'' the only film of the franchise that ''doesn't'' feature Michael. The film's poor reception killed the anthology idea, though.From there, the films go off into a couple of different continuities. First, we have three direct sequels to the original two films:* ''Film/Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers'' (1988) -- Michael Myers awakens from a ten-year coma just before Halloween to return to Haddonfield and kill Laurie Strode's young daughter, Jamie, who lives with a foster family.* ''Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers'' (1989) -- After the events of the previous film, Jamie lands in a mental hospital to help her recover. Michael uses his psychic link to Jamie to lure his young niece to him by stalking her friend Tina.* ''Film/HalloweenTheCurseOfMichaelMyers'' (1995) -- Years after the previous film, a group called The Cult of Thorn try to kidnap an adult Jamie's newborn baby, Steven, as part of a plan involving Michael (who keeps trying to kill his niece).The AlternateContinuity comes next:* ''[[Film/HalloweenH20TwentyYearsLater Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later]]'' (1998) -- This film [[CanonDiscontinuity ignores the events of the previous three films]]. Twenty years after the first two films, Laurie Strode -- who faked her death to escape Michael -- runs a boarding school under the assumed name of Keri Tate. After years of searching for her, Michael finally manages to track her down to finish the job he started twenty years ago.* ''[[Film/HalloweenResurrection Halloween: Resurrection]]'' (2002) -- Michael [[spoiler:finally kills Laurie]], then returns to Haddonfield to find an Internet reality show has set up shop in his old house. The contestants and crew get more than they bargained for when Michael decides to kill the trespassers.After ''Resurrection'', the franchise laid dormant until Rob Zombie brought it back and [[ContinuityReboot rebooted the story]]:* ''Rob Zombie's Film/{{Halloween|2007}}'' (2007) -- This film, directed by Rob Zombie, reimagines the original film while adding a more extensive look at Michael's childhood in the first half of the film. (The second half follows the events of the original film, albeit at a quicker pace and [[BloodierAndGorier with bloodier violence]]).* ''Rob Zombie's Film/{{Halloween II|2009}}'' (2009) -- On the night of the previous film, the body of Michael Myers -- who had been shot point-blank in the face -- disappears ''en route'' to the morgue. Two years later, Laurie Strode continues to struggle with nightmares about Michael, Dr. Loomis attempts to spin his experiences with Michael into fame and fortune, and the still-alive Michael returns to finish what he started...And after that came '''another''' AlternateContinuity:* [[Film/{{Halloween|2018}} A currently-untitled movie set for 2018]], [[MilestoneCelebration just in time for the 40th Anniversary of the original]]. The movie [[CanonDiscontinuity ignores every single sequel]], as well as the two Rob Zombie movies, and takes place forty years after the Haddonfield murders. The movie involves Creator/JamieLeeCurtis returning as Laurie Strode and features John Carpenter returning to the franchise (though not in the director's chair).!Spin-offs:[[AC:Comic Books]]* ''Halloween'' -- A three-part miniseries by Chaos! Comics.* ''Halloween: 30 Years of Terror''* ''ComicBook/HalloweenNightdance''* ''Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode''* ''Halloween: Sam'' -- Focusing on Sam Loomis and detailing the 20-year gap between ''Halloween II'' and ''H20''.[[AC:Literature]]* ''Halloween: The Scream Factory''** ''Halloween: The Old Myers Place''** ''Halloween: The Mad House''[[AC:Video Games]]* ''VideoGame/DeadByDaylight'' - Michael Myers and Laurie Strode both appeared as {{DLC}} characters.[[/index]]----!!The ''Halloween'' franchise provides examples of the following tropes:* TheAdjectivalMan: Before any of the characters knew Michael Myers' name, they simply referred to him as "The Boogeyman".-->'''Laurie:''' Was...was that the Boogeyman?\\'''Dr. Loomis:''' ...as a matter of fact, it was.* AllHallowsEve: Speaks for itself.* AllThereInTheScript: Michael is never called "The Shape" in the movies, despite the script, credits and certain DVD covers referring to him as this.* AnachronismStew: It's a slight case, but in the remakes it's utterly baffling to try and figure out just when they take place. The openings with the Michael Myers as a child are definitely somewhere in the early 1980s judging from the clothing and hair styles, but after the TimeSkip to "Seventeen Years Later" (which should put the events with Laurie somewhere in the mid to late-nineties), people talk on post 2004 cellphones, make references to Austin Powers, and watch flatscreen [=TVs=] like they're in 2007 (when the film was made). To confuse things even more, no one references music beyond 1990, all the cars are pre-2000, and nearly all the things seen on TV are pre-1970. No one at all seems to know when the movie actually takes place.** WordOfGod says this was deliberate. In a deleted scene from the sequel, Mya says she was born in 1990, though.* AxeBeforeEntering: Michael Myers likes this trope.* BadassGrandpa: ** Dr. Loomis in every appearance he makes. This guy took so many ass-kickings from Michael and still came back for more.** Creator/DonaldPleasence in real life. According to the writer of ''Halloween 4'', he did most of his own stunts in the film. He did all this while pushing 70!*** In addition to that, he also survived a plane crash and torture in a POW camp during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.* BigBad: Michael Myers aka The Shape.* BlackEyesOfEvil: See page quote.* BloodlessCarnage: The original only contains two shots with blood, and neither is particularly explicit. This is mostly because the film relies on lighting and suspense for its scares. The sequels avert the trope to an increasing degree, and Rob Zombie's versions also avert it.* BloodierAndGorier: ''The Curse of Michael Myers'' and the remake. The original, [[CreatorThumbprint being a John Carpenter film]], is pretty tame when it comes to blood, instead relying on an ''incredible'' amount of effective tension-building.** The new ''Halloween II'' [[UpToEleven is even more violent, bloody and brutal than the remake.]]*** The original ''Halloween II'' was written with this concept in mind. It even has a character slip in a pool of his co-worker's blood!* [[BottleEpisode Bottle Movie]]: Most of the movies take place over October 30/31.* BrokenBird: Laurie by ''Halloween II'', Jamie by ''Halloween V'', and Lindsay Wallace gets a really nasty version in one comic strip. It seems for female characters in the ''Halloween'' universe, the lucky ones are the ones who DON'T survive. * CanonDiscontinuity: ** ''Halloween: H20'', the seventh film in the franchise, completely ignores the fourth, fifth, and sixth films.*** ''H20'' arguably ignores ''all'' of the sequels. A doctor at one point mentions that Michael Myers's body was "never found." This seems to follow the ending of the original film more than it does the second, since there is no mention of the hospital explosion in which both Loomis and Myers were killed. However, ''Halloween: Resurrection'', a direct sequel to ''H20'', establishes that ''Halloween II'' (1981) is canon as a TalkativeLoon briefly mentions Michael victims at the hospital from the second movie. Also in ''H20'', Laurie's son, John, mentions to her of the time she told him of when "she watched him burn", referencing the ending of the second movie. That, and Loomis was said to have survived the hospital explosion.** ''Halloween: Resurrection'',....Period! [[spoiler:He finally kills the main heroine of the series only to get stopped by....''Busta Rhymes?!!'']]** The third film may or may not be ignored as well, considering that it has nothing to do the Michael Myers plot of the other movies.** ''Halloween 2018'' takes a page from ''H20'' and ignores every single sequel only canonizing the 1978 original.* CassandraTruth: Dr Loomis's career in regards to Michael is this. No one ever listens to his warnings about the danger Michael poses to society...even after the dead bodies start piling up.* CharacterDevelopment: Laurie goes from shy wallflower to action girl between ''Halloween II'' (1981) and ''H20'' (1998).* ChaseScene: Lot of chasing will happen when Michael Myers makes himself properly known.* CleanCut: Michael is quite fond of this trope.* ClothesMakeTheLegend: Michael's mask and boiler suit.* ContinuityReboot: Thrice. ''H20'' was a partial continuity reboot, ignoring ''Halloween''s 4-6. Rob Zombie's 2007 film was a remake, ignoring all previous films. ''Halloween 2018'' takes only the original film as canon ignoring every single sequel.** H20 is more broadstrokes. The newspaper article of Laurie's "death by car crash" is pinned to Loomis' wall during the credits.* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Conal Cochran of ''Season of the Witch''.* CutPhoneLines: ** Michael does this in practically every ''Halloween'' movie.** In ''The Return of Michael Myers'', Michael doesn't just cut the phone lines of his victim's house. He cuts the phone lines ''and'' causes a blackout in ''the entire town''.* DeathBySex: According to director John Carpenter, this was actually unintentional - in the first film, at least.* {{Determinator}}: Michael spent fifteen years in a mental hospital, waiting for a chance to escape so that he could kill his sister. When he failed in killing her, he then spent the next ten years massacring everybody related to her. Then, depending on which canon you follow, he spent 10-20 years searching for his sister again.* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: ** While the earlier ''Halloween'' movies aren't so bad, the later ones revolve around the typically unlikable, rebellious teens with ~teen issues~ that are standard in many slasher flicks. In fact, Michael Myer's killings come off as more of a background issue to the love-triangles and teen angst of the protagonists.** This is especially prevalent in the Rob Zombie remakes where practically every character is a mean, brainless JerkAss whose scenes revolve around how awful they are. It seems to be Zombie's way of making the viewer sympathize with Myers, but it makes the scenes with any character who isn't Myers downright painful to watch.* DramaticIrony: Virtually the entire first film, and much of the later ones, is simply "Hey! There he is in the background! And the characters can't see him! [[OhCrap Crap!]]"* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Sam Loomis dies offscreen at the end of the sixth movie due to Donald Pleasance's death.* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first movie is actually a fairly subtle PsychologicalHorror movie with relatively little blood and gore, and it frequently employs NothingIsScarier. It arguably has more in common with ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' than with movies like ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'', which it inspired.* EmbarrassingMiddleName: The [[{{Revision}} extended scenes]] found on the [[{{Bowdlerise}} TV version]] reveal The Shape's full name to be Michael '''Audrey''' Myers. We now know the real reason behind his homicidal rampage.* EvilIsNotAToy* EvilMakesYouMonstrous: Michael Myers went from a [[SuperStrength super-strong]], [[TheSociopath sociopathic]] human with plans to kill his sister to a [[JokerImmunity completely unkillable supernatural being]] bent on massacring half of Haddonfield. And if you follow the sixth movie's canon, his power is making him grow bigger in each movie.* EvilPhone: In the original movie, Michael strangles Lynda to death with a phone cord just as she calls Laurie. Michael then picks up the phone to listen to Laurie's frantic cries, before calmly hanging up.* EvilUncle: Michael, to both Jamie Lloyd and John Tate.* FakingTheDead* FinalGirl: ** Laurie Strode, original and zombie-verse versions.** Jamie Lloyd in 4 through 6, a role she shared with her half-sister Rachel [[spoiler:up until 5]].** Sara Moyer from ''Resurrection''.** Kara Strode from ''Curse of Michael Myers''.* FirstPersonPerspective: In the original movie the opening sequence in which a young Michael Myers spies on then murders his older sister is done from his point of view. * GeniusBruiser: Micheal has proved that he ain't just a dumb brutish killing robot. He usually observes his victims closely, figures out their weaknesses, take advantage of it, kills their friends and family in order to make them weak mentally, cuts out all escape routes before he goes in for the kill and he knows when and who he can kill and when not.* {{Gorn}}: The deaths in Rob Zombie's film come with buckets of blood. Ironically, the first film in the franchise, which arguably invented the modern, Gorn-loving slasher genre, features very little gore.* GreaterScopeVillain: The man in black, who is really [[spoiler:Dr. Terrence Wynn]] the leader of the Cult of Thorn, [[spoiler:who placed the curse on Michael in the first place.]] They wish to aid or possibly control Michael. * HollywoodKiss: Most of the characters kiss this way.* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Halloween was a trope codifier for this too.* ImmuneToBullets: Michael Myers alternates between bullets hurting-but-not-killing him and bullets causing nothing more than a minor nuisance.* ImpendingDoomPOV: ** The beginning of the original film.** And at the end of the fourth.* ImplacableMan: Guess who. A particular example is in the seventh film, after getting an axe in the chest, Michael nonchalantly rips the weapon out and keeps going.** Not only has he taken an axe, he's been stabbed and shot repeatedly, electrocuted, impaled, hung, set on fire, bludgeoned with blunt objects, fallen from great heights, crashed through a windshield, etc and yet somehow, Michael just keeps coming back for more.** ''The Curse of Michael Myers'' explains this is because of the "Curse of Thorn" that imbues great, supernatural power on those inflicted.* InNameOnly: ''Halloween III'' has a separate story and characters from the other films.* InstantExpert: As lampshaded in the original film, Michael immediately knows how to drive a car despite having spent most of his life in an insane asylum.* {{Irony}}: Halloween is already supposed to be scary, but mostly in a festive sense. It's the one night of year dedicated to the macabre and human fear of the unknown at it's peak (at least in Western cultures). Now let's see what happens when you throw in an inhuman, homicidal psychopath and inject ''REAL'' fear into those wanting to celebrate.* ItIsDehumanizing: Loomis, as per his not-unjustified belief that Michael is nothing but pure evil, calls him an "it" on several occasions.* {{Joisey}}: Averted. Michael Myers' hometown of Haddonfield is in Illinois. The real Haddonfield is actually located in New Jersey.* KarmaHoudini: Josh Pinder in the spin-off book ''The Old Myers Place''. He at first appears fairly normal, but his status as a [[ItsAllAboutMe spoiled]], [[{{Jerkass}} assholish]] RichBitch soon becomes apparent, and he eventually tries to rape the main character (with it being revealed he tried doing the same to another girl the previous year). You'd think all that would cause Michael to zero in on him like a homing missile, but no, he survives.* LampshadeHanging: How ''did'' Michael learn to drive?* LateArrivalSpoiler: Laurie Strode is Michael's sister; something that is spoiled on the ''Halloween II'' DVD cover.* {{Leitmotif}}: The simple piano melody played throughout the series.* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Laurie to Michael, probably. Though especially in the remakes.* MadArtist: Some see Michael as one of these, due to how he sets up and, in a few cases, seemingly admires the corpses of his victims.* MadeOfPlasticine: Practically every victim in the series is this.* MadeOfEvil: Dr Loomis believes that Michael is this....and he may be right.* MadeOfIron: Michael Myers started out Made of Iron, but it was later RetConned into supernatural NighInvulnerability.* MaskOfPower: Especially in the first film; Michael doesn't kill anyone except when wearing a mask. In the intro he froze when his dad removed his clown mask, and later when Laurie knocks his mask off he takes the time to put it back on, giving her a better chance of escaping. First thing he does before starting his spree is steal the mask, but not for disguise since he never takes it off and few people would recognise him. In the sequel, he still wears the mask (getting an innocent lookalike killed) and is discovered to have scrolled ''Samhain'' (Halloween) on the wall of the mask store he robbed, suggesting he somehow links dressing up with murdering people; he ''becomes'' the Boogeyman.* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The idea behind Michael himself. Is he simply just an incredibly durable, super-strong, knife-wielding psychopath...or is there a truly supernatural aspect to him?** ''Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers'' then explains that it actually is magic, since Michael's superhuman qualities are the byproduct [[BlessedWithSuck of an ancient, mystical, Celtic curse]]. However, when ''H20'' rendered ''Curse'' non-canon, the question of whether he's some type of paranormal being or not was, once again, left up in the air.* MenacingStroll: Michael's highest level of speed, at least [[OffscreenTeleportation when the camera isn't on him]].* MotiveDecay: Inverted: Michael's motives are actually fleshed out in Rob Zombie's reboot. However, it turns out the fans liked it more when Michael was a soulless, mysterious psychopath, probably because the "motive" explained in the remake boils down to a FreudianExcuse.* TheMountainsOfIllinois: Literally.* NeckLift: Some of Michael's kills start with this as he's inhumanly strong.* NeverFoundTheBody: Michael has a habit of pulling disappearing acts after seemingly being killed.* NotQuiteDead: Done again and again throughout the series, but used to full effect to justify ''Halloween: Resurrection'': [[spoiler:it turns out that Laurie had killed a paramedic instead of Michael at the end of ''[=H20=]''; Michael had attacked the paramedic, crushed his larynx, and switched places with him before "Michael's" body was carted out to the ambulance]].* ObviouslyEvil: Averted. Unlike [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy]], [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]], and [[Franchise/TheTexasChainsawMassacre Leatherface]], when Michael is (briefly) unmasked in the climax of the first movie, he's revealed to have an almost ''angelic'' face.* OffscreenTeleportation** Possibly justified; Michael seems to take joy in scaring people, not just killing them, so he may very well be running when they can't see him in order to invoke this trope.** Though its played with beautifully in some of the movies, there are the films where he appears in one part of the town mere moments after appearing in another part of the town. It could be due to the possible supernatural "boogeyman" element of him.* PeekABooCorpse: Michael is a master of this.* QuizzicalTilt: Michael Myers does this when examining some of his victims.* RasputinianDeath: Usually subverted. Each film, obviously save for the third one, has Michael taking a certain amount of abuse that would off a normal human instantly before being seemingly killed for good -- only to reveal he's, as mentioned above, Not Quite Dead.** But then ''Halloween H20'' [[spoiler:tried decapitation]].*** [[spoiler:Only for it to be retconned in ''Halloween: Resurrection'' as Laurie apparently didn't kill Michael, ''but a poor paramedic the real Michael made to pose as him'']].* ReCut: ** For the original film's network television premiere in 1981, Carpenter - in between shooting for ''Halloween II'' - filmed twelve minutes worth of additional scenes detailing Michael's commitment to (and escape from) the Smith's Grove asylum, as well as another scene with Laurie, Annie, and Lynda, which aired in place of some of the original footage that was deemed too graphic for TV. The film is now occasionally shown with a third cut: the uncut original film with these scenes spliced in, known as the "extended cut". Both the theatrical and extended cuts are available on DVD.** ''Halloween II'' also features an alternate TV cut, supervised by director Rick Rosenthal. Unlike the latter example however, the differences between the theatrical and TV cuts are larger and more specific here, and also feature ALTERNATE takes and scenes. This cut did finally end up on DVD as a bonus disc on the collector's edition DVD/Blu-ray, although it didn't lose the television censorship to the language, violence, and nudity.* TheSheriff: Leigh Brackett, in the first two films (and Rob Zombie's remakes); Ben Meeker, in ''4'' and ''5''.* ShootTheShaggyDog: ** Myers [[spoiler:finally kills Laurie]] in ''Resurrection'', along with several RedShirt characters, and he's still NotQuiteDead at the end.** Jamie takes the cake though. She gets mocked for being related to Michael, becomes mute due to a powerful connection with Michael, has all her friends, her sister, and her dogs killed, gets kidnapped by a cult and is forced to have sex with Michael, and she's finally impaled by farm equipment. Jamie is possibly the most depressing character in all of the horror genre.*** She gets shot to death in the Producer's Cut of ''The Curse of Michael Myers''.* ShootingSuperman: In a non-superhero example, Michael Myers. This trope gets referenced in the commentary of ''Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers'' - in a scene where a cop clumsily shoots at Michael, one of the commentators mentions that, as a lifelong resident of Haddonfield, the guy should have realized shooting Michael just pisses him off.* TheShrink: Loomis' official occupation, which he isn't shown doing until the Rob Zombie's films. * SlashedThroat: Appears to be Michael's default method of killing.* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: ''Halloween III: Season of the Witch''.* StockSubtitle: Words "Return", "Revenge", "Curse" and "Resurrection" are among the most typical subtitles, and all get used in the franchise.* ThematicSeries: As mentioned, the franchise was originally meant to be a series of horror movies centered around Halloween but poor reception of the third movie killed any chances of this idea being carried through.* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight: The Shape (aka Michael Myers), from the original ''Halloween'', is repeatedly compared to the boogeyman, apparently unkillable, and deeply enigmatic. He also seems to particularly target teenagers who are [[DeathBySex transgressive against social norms]]. In a subversion of this particular trope, he doesn't show much if any interest in actual children, with the major exception of his niece Jamie Lloyd.* TimeSkip: The original film skips from 1963 to 1978, while both of Zombie's films open in Michael's childhood and then the Laurie storyline 17 years later. There is a second time jump in the sequel to two years AFTER the events of ''Halloween (2007)''.* TooDumbToLive: Countless examples, though especially prevalent in Zombie's films when several people insult and strike Myers. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that Myers in those films is A SEVEN FOOT TALL GIANT!!!** Justified in-universe. It's implied in TheRemake that Michael took the janitor's words about about living in a world inside your own head to heart - aside from his mask-making and when they occasionally drag him out for probation hearings, he is functionally catatonic most of the time.* TraumaticCSection: In a flashback sequence in ''Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode'', a young Michael Myers is shown daydreaming about cutting baby Laurie out of his mother during a meal.* TropeCodifier: The first film, along with ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'', is this for the slasher genre.* VaderBreath: Accompanies the shots from Michael's POV.* VillainBasedFranchise: Played semi-straight, in that Dr. Loomis (the hero in the first movie) came back for every sequel until [[AuthorExistenceFailure Donald Pleasence's death]], with Laurie Strode (the original's final girl) appearing in the remainder of the sequels. Whilst Michael is the only character in every installment (barring the third one), he is always opposed by one of the survivors from the first movie.* VillainExclusivityClause: Michael is the main antagonist in all the movies (well, all the movies he's in, ''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch'' is generally not considered part of the series as a whole). Although in some of the movies other characters are manipuating him behind the curtain. * TheVoiceless: ** In the original series Michael never spoke and only ever uttered generic noises like grunts, which themselves are barely audible in most cases. In the remake series Michael's shown to talk, but only as a child.** ... until [[spoiler:the director's cut for ''Halloween II'' (2009), where screams "DIE!" at Loomis before stabbing him multiple times.]]** An early version of ''H20'' also had Michael speak. Right before Laurie kills him with a javelin, he would've said her name.** Laurie didn't speak at all in ''Resurrection'' until her final confrontation with Michael. According to a nurse at the insane asylum she was being held, she hadn't "said a word in years".* WeaponOfChoice: The knife. Also strangulation.* WhiteMaskOfDoom: Michael's mask in the original series. Rob Zombie's films have him wearing the same mask, albeit dirtier.* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Michael in the Zombie directed films.* YouKillItYouBoughtIt: One of the Chaos! comics has Laurie taking Michael's place after killing him in ''H20''. This was ultimately rendered non-canon by ''Resurrection'' though.** The ending of ''Halloween II'' (2009) on the other hand ends with Laurie becoming as crazy, evil and twisted as Michael, even briefly putting on his mask, after killing him.** Which itself becomes funny when Bill Mosley, the original actor, dropped out from playing the role. The reason why its funny is because he had a victim role in the reshot scenes of the 2007 remake, appearing the theatrical cut of the film.** ''Halloween III: Season of the Witch'' includes appearances by Nancy Loomis as Challis' ex-wife and (via voiceover) Jamie Lee Curtis as a telephone operator.----

subset: commoncrawl


text:
With graduation season kicking off, we wanted to start this week with some inspirational quotes perfect for grads (and really everybody). What are your favorites? Have any good ones we missed? All of our graduation invitations can be customized with any wording, so it's easy to add your favorite inspirational quote…
Excellence is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution and the ability to see obstacles as opportunities.
~ Author unknown
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
~David Lloyd George
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
~Beverly Sills
Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
~Arnold H. Glasow
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
~Henry Ford
The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
~Sydney J. Harris
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
~Dr. Seuss
Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you'll make a difference.
~Arie Pencovici
The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.
~Edward Koch
There is a good reason they call these ceremonies "commencement exercises." Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning.
~Orrin Hatch
"…believe that the sort of life you wish to live is,
at this very moment, just waiting for you to summon it up.
And when you wish for it, you begin moving toward it,
and it, in turn, begins moving toward you."
~ Suzan-Lori Parks
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.
~ Author unknown
Calm provides clarity. Pause to consider the gifts you have been given, the difference you have made and the direction in which you are headed.
~ Author unknown
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
~ Albert Einstein
Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.
~ Leonardo da Vinci
The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber.
~ William Mather Lewis
Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
~ Norman Vincent Peale
What other good graduation quotes do you know? We would love to add them to our list!


text:
Cost-Effective Computer Efficiency
Computers consume nearly 10 terawatt-hours of electricity in California each year. These and other plug-loads will become an ever larger portion of electricity consumption in the state as California aggressively pursues lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and building envelope efficiency improvements. Although this is a daunting problem, the rate of technological change in the computer industry is rapid. New and innovative efficient technologies will continue to provide opportunities to reduce computer electricity consumption without sacrificing performance.
This study investigated, identified, and demonstrated cost-effective efficiency opportunities in desktop and notebook computers. These opportunities may ultimately inform the development of meaningful mandatory appliance efficiency standards in California.
(Note: The original version of the report was posted on 12/16/2012. An updated version with minor, non-substantive edits was completed on 1/22/2013 and posted on 3/13/2013.)


text:
We spent the day at the Natural History Museum, even though we knew you were to young to actually understand anything you were seeing. We were so excited and surprised when you befriended a turtle and he returned the friendship. The two of you sat their for a good 20 minutes staring at each other. Every now and then you would reach out and touch the glass and he would swim up to it as if he was letting you pet him.
Anna Aspnes
Tribute PageSet
Katie Pertiet
Orange Paper//Color Challenge
Double Up Stitching No. 01


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Alcohol Makes You Smarter OR Another Bogus "Study" to Serve Alcohol Industry
12 April 2012
Edip Yuksel
The benefit of the wine comes from the grape juice, not the alcohol. A recent Yale study demonstrated a correlation flaw in the so-called studies showing the benefit of wine against heart diseases. Besides, the beer and wine industry spends billions of dollars annually to promote their products, and part of the promotion is sponsoring "scientists" to come up with good news about their products. I have heard the same story of benefits of wine, for years after years cooked and presented by the media as "fresh" news.
The following news published by Addiction.com in 23 March 2012 supports my contention. It is worth reading.
The influence of "Big Alcohol" in the health arena deserves as much scrutiny as Big Pharma and Big Tobacco, especially in light of evidence of bias in funded research, unsupported claims of benefit, and inappropriate promotion and marketing by the alcohol industry, says a new editorial in this week's PLoS Medicine. The PLoS Medicine editors argue that the statistics about problem drinking are troubling enough, but what also demands more attention and research is the influence of the alcohol industry on health research, government policy, and public perceptions of the harms and benefits of alcohol.
In the UK, for example, there have been scathing allegations that the current government is too close to the drinks industry, including its recent invitations allowing industry representatives to influence public health policy, which led to a withdrawal of support for a key alcohol policy by major organizations including the British Medical Association, Royal College of Physicians, and several alcohol control charities.
Other analyses have documented a laundry list of misdeeds by the alcohol industry: promoting the health benefits of alcohol while downplaying harms; deflecting attention away from scientific data that contradict industry exaggerations of benefit; evading government controls on advertising by evolving new strategies to market to youth; and engaging in philanthropy to promote brand loyalty, among others.
"If this questionable behavior is reminiscent of the strategies developed by the pharmaceutical, tobacco, and other industries to further their agendas," say the editors, "it should be a wake-up call to us all."
They continue: "Whether the solutions are stricter regulation over advertising and promotion, banning sports sponsorships, setting minimum pricing, restricting access, introducing mandatory safety labeling, or holding the industry to account for the harms associated with their products, there is a need now to target more attention to and research on the alcohol industry that can support and fuel legislative, regulatory, and community action to protect the public health."[1]
We all know that media receives billions of dollars ad revenue from beer, vodka, and wine commercials. I will not be surprised if the researchers and/or news reporters too received vacation gifts, money or promise of money from companies producing and distributing alcoholic beverages. Here is the title of the news in Science News magazine, which was echoed around the world in the media as "good news" for beer and wine industry, and of course, bartenders.
Getting a buzz from booze may boost creativity. Men who drank themselves tipsy solved more problems demanding verbal resourcefulness in less time than sober guys did, a new study finds.
Sudden, intuitive insights into tricky word-association problems occurred more frequently when men were intoxicated but not legally drunk, say psychology graduate student Andrew Jarosz of the University of Illinois at Chicago and his colleagues. Sober men took a more deliberative approach to this task.
A moderate alcoholic high loosens a person's focus of attention, making it easier to find connections among remotely related ideas, the scientists propose online January 28 in Consciousness and Cognition.
In the study, 20 social drinkers watched an animated movie while eating a snack. Volunteers then drank enough of a vodka cranberry drink to reach an average peak blood alcohol level of 0.075 percent, just below the current 0.08 percent cutoff for legal intoxication in the United States. Another 20 social drinkers watched the same movie without eating or drinking.
Men in both groups then completed a creative problem-solving task. For each of 15 items, volunteers saw three words — say,peach, arm and tar — and had to think of a fourth word that forms a phrase with each of them, such as pit.
On average, participants at peak intoxication solved about nine problems correctly, versus approximately six winners for the sober crowd. It took an average of 11.5 seconds for intoxicated men to generate a correct solution, compared with 15.2 seconds for sober men.
Both groups performed comparably on the test before the study began.
Jarosz and University of Illinois psychologist Jennifer Wiley, a study coauthor, suspect their finding applies to musical and artistic inspiration. "A composer or artist fixated on previous work may indeed find creative benefits from intoxication," they say.
Other preliminary evidence – some from the Chicago team — finds a creative bump from additional approaches to broadening attention's scope, such as watching a mood-enhancing movie or using biofeedback to reach a relaxed mental state.
Jarosz's team offers an intriguing glimpse at how an alcoholic buzz prompts intuitive insights into problems that require searching pre-existing knowledge, says psychologist Mark Beeman of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Further studies with intoxicated volunteers should employ complex problems that require information gathering and recognition of novel patterns, key features of many real-life problems, Beeman suggests.
Intoxication may aid verbal creativity partly by lowering the ability to control one's thoughts, comments psychologist J. Scott Saults of the University of Missouri in Columbia. He and his colleagues have found that alcohol reduces recall of sequences of sounds and images but leaves working memory unaffected.
Saults' team has also reported that intoxicated individuals become less afraid to make mistakes, another possible creativity booster.[2]
This is another so-called research to promote alcohol and will be celebrated and repeated by media that receive billions of dollars from alcohol manufacturers in terms of advertisement. This news is now circulating in the media and will be echoed and served for years to come. For instance, about three weeks after this report in Science News, I heard it on April 10, while watching the morning news on CBS channel. Hundreds of newspapers too picked the story cheering customers in bars. For instance, The Daily Telegraph used the following title with a picture of men drinking beer in bar and getting "smart" and "creative": Alcohol sharpens the mind, research finds: Men who drink two pints of beer before tackling brain teasers perform better than those who attempt the riddles sober, scientists have found."[3]
Common Flaws or Tricks Employed in Pro-alcohol Research
This so-called study has major problems and one need not be a rocket scientist to notice them. Having a sober mind is sufficient to notice many of these problems.
- HASTY GENERALIZATION: The population is too small: comparing the 20 people with 20 people does not warrant the conclusion… The margin of error is huge. A few more people with higher IQ ending up in one group could improve the average performance of that group significantly.
- PICKING A NARROW TESTING CATEGORY. The study does not use different tests that provide better measure regarding the diverse intellectual skills one person has. Some scholars, such as Beeman, criticized the research, "further studies with intoxicated volunteers should employ complex problems that require information gathering and recognition of novel patterns, key features of many real-life problems."
- DOCTORING STUDIES TO CHANGE REALITY: It is incredible that educated people with ostentatious titles even suggest conducting studies for obvious facts such as the adverse effect of alcohol on the performance of human brain. Do we really need scholars or researchers to tell us that using alcohol make a person more stupid? It is like asking researchers to do further studies to check whether jumping from the fifth floor increases the chances of breaking one's bones. No wonder, a subscriber of the magazine, Peter Denholm, dropped the following real life testimony under the news: "I think I have read about alcohol making one more intelligent. The article said those drinking very high proof alcohol had higher IQs. But it is not something I have experienced; I think alcohol lowered my IQ when I used to drink."
- LIKELIHOOD OF COMMITTING CORRELATION WİTH CAUSE: "False Cause" is is one of the informal logical fallacies that I teach to my students of Introduction to Logic… Unfortunately, this is one of the most popular fallacies among researchers who are not raised as critical thinkers during their formative years at home and K-12 education. The educational system, unfortunately, produces some researchers and academics filled with too much fragments of information and data, yet with poor critical thinking skills. I am glad to notice that another subscriber of the Science News magazine, Richard Bentley, noticed this glaring problem with this so-called research: "How do we know it wasn't the eating that improved their performance? Seems like the control group should have gotten snacks and non-alcoholic cranberry juice." I am even happier to read another sober reader of the magazine, David Fields, directing similar criticism by highlighting the obvious problem couched with a justified cautionary phrase, a sign of a critical thinker: "Seems like there is a really basic flaw in the design of this study, Perhaps I'm misreading or the reporter misreported, but the control group NEITHER ATE NOR DRANK, while the test group did both. How do we know that the performance enhancement effect was due to the alcohol? Perhaps it was the (probable) carbohydrate load in the snack, or for that matter in the cranberry flavoring of the drink. Please, what's missing here?"
I second one of the messages posted by a subscriber, Gabriel Mayer of Orlando, Florida: "The 'creative' behavior described here is better known as drunk. As for the authors who designed the study parameters, perhaps they should be administered a breathalyzer test."
These sorts of research are periodically repeated and they are fed to the public through media with fanfare. For instance, a "study" led by UCL professor Sir Michael Marmot made news all around the world and was embraced by millions of drunks and alcoholics as justification for their addictions. The researcher declared the conclusion of his research in the following hyperbole:
"Our results appear to suggest some specificity in the association between alcohol consumption and cognitive ability… Frequent drinking may be more beneficial than drinking only on special occasions."[4]
Using researchers and scientists to promote a TOXIC and ADDICTIVE drug
Not only some studies are served repeatedly, but sometimes they are served deceptively. The following news is a good example of how an old study with bad news about consumption of alcohol is re-published to promote alcohol consumption. The catchy title of the news was: "Cleverest women are the heaviest drinkers"[5]
The news read, "Those with degrees are almost twice as likely to drink daily, and they are also more likely to admit to having a drinking problem. A similar link between educational attainment and alcohol consumption is seen among men, but the correlation is less strong."
This was published in Daily Telegraph in 2010 and you assume that the research must have been done in 2010, since it is published in a DAILY newspapers. Well, you will be wrong, very wrong. Let's read further:
"The findings come from a comprehensive study carried out at the London School of Economics in which researchers tracked the lives of thousands of 39-year-old women and men, all born in the UK during the same week in 1970. The report concludes: "The more educated women are, the more likely they are to drink alcohol on most days and to report having problems due to their drinking patterns."
Again, the devil is in details. Of course we are not given all the relevant details that will greatly undermine and even refute the distorted research and its conclusion. We are expected to believe in a "cause-and-effect" relationship between alcohol and intellect by swallowing the implicit cunning message and by committing the very popular logical fallacy of "affirming the consequent":
- "If you are a woman and not heavy drinker, you are not very clever."
- "If you are not a heavy drinker woman, most likely you are not very clever."
- "If you want to be a clever woman, you should start drinking alcohol, a lot of it."
'The better-educated appear to be the ones who engage the most in problematic patterns of alcohol consumption.'" But the devil is in detail… The researcher's remark contradicts the implication and message of the title of the news. Alcohol, as it appears, is just one of the correlations. The real possible causes, as it seems, were acknowledged by the researchers:
"The authors of the report, Francesca Borgonovi and Maria Huerta, suggest several possible explanations as to why better-educated women drink more. They tend to have children later, postponing the responsibilities of parenthood. They may have more active social lives or work in male-dominated workplaces with a drinking culture. As girls, they may have grown up in middle-class families and seen their parents drink regularly."
In other words, if you study the cars or shoes of the better-educated women you may come up with the following conclusion and great news for BMW and Mercedes: "Cleverest women use Mercedes." Or "Cleverest women have more shoes and use expensive perfume"
And even a more important conclusion of the study contradicts the message of the title: "Higher educated women were 1.7 times more likely to have a drinking problem, as assessed through their questionnaire answers, than their less-well-educated counterparts." The news continues to take the fizz and buzz out of the title, which will be remembered by most readers, rather than the following information:
"'Reasons for the positive association of education and drinking behaviours may include: a more intensive social life that encourages alcohol intake; a greater engagement into traditionally male spheres of life, a greater social acceptability of alcohol use and abuse; more exposure to alcohol use during formative years; and greater postponement of childbearing and its responsibilities among the better educated,' says the report."
Commenting on the findings, a spokesman for the Alcohol Concern charity said: "This raises concerns which need to be addressed.
"People with higher qualifications have more disposable income, and we have seen a trend where there has been an increase in the marketing of wine, particularly aimed at working women. People who abuse alcohol face a higher risk of suffering from health problems including cancer, liver cirrhosis, lung and cardiovascular disease, and mental and behavioural issues."
Here a list of few news titles published by the influential British newspaper about the benefits and harms of alcohol.
- Alcohol sharpens your brain (Robert Matthews, Daily Telegraph, 1 August 2004).
- Cleverest women are the heaviest drinkers (Roger Dobson, Daily Telegraph, 4 April 2010)
- Just one glass of wine a day linked to breast cancer (Rebecca Smith, Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2012)
- Alcohol sharpens the mind (Matthew Holehouse, Daily Telegraph, 11 April, 2012).
Wait, these and similar rehashed dubious studies are also gathered and introduced as scientific proof that alcohol is beneficial or even essential for good health. I do not deny some benefits of alcohol, but evaluated together with its harms to human mind, health, quality of social and family interaction, its role in traffic and work related accidents, its addictive nature, its financial tall on society, the choice of avoiding alcohol or been a teetotaler is no brainer.
But, listen to the so-called researchers. If you are not a frequent moderate drinker, then according an impressive list of hundreds of research you should not waste a day and go to a bar and start consuming your "moderate" doze. According to research, an article authored by David J. Hanson, a retired sociology professor at State University of New York at Potsdam, introduces alcohol as panacea for a plethora of diseases and problems:
"Moderate drinkers tend to have better health and live longer than those who are either abstainers or heavy drinkers. In addition to having fewer heart attacks and strokes, moderate consumers of alcoholic beverages (beer, wine and distilled spirits or liquor) are generally less likely to suffer strokes, diabetes, arthritis, enlarged prostate, dementia (including Alzheimer's disease), and several major cancers."[6]
I did not expect to find the list of hundreds of other studies indicating the opposite. For instance, you will not find the study that made little news in March 2012 concluding that, "Just one glass of wine a day linked to breast cancer."[7] Prof. Hanson is a prolific author and a relentless activist for the promotion of alcohol, even for teenagers. According to his words, he has dedicated his life to promotion of alcohol and has written 300 "scholarly papers" and textbooks. [8]
Hanson has been on major news channels including NBC, CNBC, CNN, ABC, BBC and popular TV programs as an "alcohol expert" more than all the millions of ordinary victims of alcohol and more than many of the famous victims of alcohol, such as:
John Ford, Ulysses S. Grant, Ernest Hemingway, Janice Dickinson, Jack Kerouac, Stephen King, David Hasselhoff, Michael J. Fox, Meredith Baxter, Eric Clapton, Hunter S. Thompson, Anne Lamott, Robert Downey, Jr., David Crosby, McKenzie Philips, Alexander the Great, Edgar Allen Poe, Larry Hagman, John Daly, George W. Bush, Diana Ross, Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke, Tracy Morgan, Amy Winehouse, Anna Nicole Smith, Melanie Griffith, William Shatner, Eddie Van Halen, Keith Urban, Johnny Cash, Ben Affleck, Buzz Aldrin, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Carrie Fisher, Kris Kristoferson, Franklin Pierce, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, John Barrymore, Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy, Ava Gardner, Betty Ford, Robert Young, John Denver, Mel Gibson, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Carver, Robbie Williams, Ozzie Osborne, Brett Butler, Tim Allen, Errol Flynn, Tom Arnold, William Holden, Steve McQueen, O. Henry, Jim Morrison, Hank Williams, Billie Holliday, Veronica Lake, W.C. Fields, James Thurber, Lorenz Hart, Dylan Thomas, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Robin Williams, Melissa Gilbert, Beverly DeAngelo, Linda Carter, Samuel L. Jackson, Kelsey Grammer, Billy Joel, Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Michael Landon, Demi Moore, Joe Namath, Jackie Gleason, Ted Kennedy, Joan Kennedy, Boris Yeltsin, Joseph Stalin, Alexander Gudonov, Ed McMahon, Dave Mustaine, Ray Charles, Doc Holiday, Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, John Bonham, George Carlin, Anthony Hopkins, Slash, Eugene O'Neill, Ringo Starr, Trent Reznor, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Joe Dimaggio, Lester Young, Herve Villachez, Glenn Beck, Lee Marvin, Colin Farrell, Steve Clark, Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain, Charlie Sheen, Rob Lowe, Chad Lowe, Chris Mullin, Steven Tyler, Gene Simmons, Anthony Kedis, Elton John, Natalie Wood, Nick Nolte.
[1] A Laundry List of Misdeeds By The Alcohol Industry, Addiction.com, 23 March 2012, See: http://www.addictionts.com/2012/03/23/a-laundry-list-of-misdeeds-by-the-alcohol-industry/
[2] Bruce Bower Vodka delivers shot of creativity: A boozy glow may trigger problem-solving insights, Science News, March 24th, 2012; Vol.181 #6 (p. 12)
[3] "Alcohol sharpens the mind, research finds: Men who drink two pints of beer before tackling brain teasers perform better than those who attempt the riddles sober, scientists have found." Matthew Holehouse, The Daily Telegraph, 11 Apr 2012.
[4] Robert Matthews, Alcohol sharpens your brain, say researchers, Science News, 01 Aug 2004
[5] Roger Dobson, Cleverest women are the heaviest drinkers: Women who went to university consume more alcohol than their less-highly-educated counterparts, a major study has found, The Telegraph, 4 Apr 2010.
[6] Alcohol and Health, David Hanson, published at http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/AlcoholAndHealth.html
[7] Rebecca Smith, Just one glass of wine a day linked to breast cancer, Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2012
[8] See: http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/AboutYourHost.html


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Circle Hooks required for bottom fishermen on March 3 in South Carolina
Circle hooks, designed to improve the survival rate of released fish, will be required in both state and federal water beginning March 3, according to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The requirement for non-stainless steel circle hooks will apply to all marine species in the snapper-grouper complex, a grouping of bottom fish species defined by the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (SAFMC).
See the complete list (Pdf file) of species in the snapper-grouper complex.
Species caught in state waters most affected by this new regulation include sheepshead, spadefish and black sea bass. Circle hooks come in a full range of sizes and are readily available at tackle shops.
Circle hooks have the point turned inward, back towards the shank to form a circle or oval. They hook fish in the corner of the mouth causing only superficial injury and almost never gut hook a fish, which usually is fatal.
The DNR has long recommended the use of circle hooks in saltwater because of their proven ability to increase survival of released fish of many species.
The SAFMC will this year consider recommending removal of 35 species from the complex, which would transfer management to the states lifting the federal requirement for the use of circle hooks.


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My Powers DisappearedWell, I first discovered them when I was 15. A few months after. If you want to know the specifics message me but it was awesome. My powers grew and grew and grew until it was like cutting cake and one day..... it's all gone. I stopped activly uing and practicing for awhile but this is strange. Any else expirience this?
Dear Nemo (aka Darkshark)
Wow, I never thought I'd see you here again. I thought you were just cruising through (maybe after a few drinks). Now I see that you actually want to express nagging concerns you have on the topic of psychic ability. You are really snarky, but I don't mind that much.
I see that the word "power" used by the original post really rubs you the wrong way. Actual psychic people don't have any power over others. You don't need to worry about some arch villain rising up to destroy society. I think the psychic posters here are misspeaking. Maybe younger people are googoo-eyed, thinking they can do something that others can't. Maybe they've read too many fairy tales about mystical beings and exciting adventures, magic beans, so to speak.
It would be better to compare psychic ability to singing. It can be called a gift you are born with. It can be referred to as a skill. Practice does make it better, if you have any talent to begin with. But power? To do what?
I don't believe there will ever be a psychic person who will ever represent a threat to other people. People with a particular psychic skill called "luck" can be a threat to casinos, but certainly not to other people.
Back to what's rubbing me the wrong way about what you are doing. Your comments sound mean-spirited and cruel. Whether you are conversing with actual psychics, or just a combination of crazy people and young hopefuls, you still need to show kindness.
My dad has Alzheimer's, and he is now deluded most of the time. But I can't imagine anyone mocking or bullying him. So what's the payoff for you?
Also, you may recall in my previous post to you, how I am frustrated by the "gypsy tell you fortune" crap that is flooding the Internet, completely drowning out the voices of ordinary people who just wanted to talk to their own kind.
There's this show on in the U.S. (I'm assuming you're from somewhere in Britain because of your use of the word "whilst") called "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding", which follows American and Irish gypsies as they plan spectacular weddings for their daughters. It's like the cornerstone of their traditions.
Anyway, there was one episode where a mother explained that all gypsies are psychic, and this is the primary way that gypsy women bring money in. Then, she proceeded to show how she was grooming her very young daughters to become psychics.
Two things were happening. First, the children were learning the trappings of fortune telling, such as tarot cards, incense, proper behavior to convince people that they were psychic, and so on.
The second thing that was happening was that these very young children were being systematically brainwashed to believe they were psychic. This way, when they became adults, they would truly believe in themselves, so that they could pull off a seamless con on unsuspecting customers.
For every one actual psychic, I believe there are thousands, even millions of fake psychics. This is why I do agree in large part with vocal skeptics warning people not to believe. It is the only way to protect people from this avalanche of fake psychics out there, ready to fleece customers of all their money.
So, as a general rule, your position is acceptable. I've always felt very sad that this maelstrom of con artists has flooded every means of communication which would otherwise be available to the much smaller group of actual psychics.
I only found this board several weeks ago. I was just stunned to see that it even exists. "Experience Project" or "EP" is actually not a message board for psychics. EP is a formula, like Google. The comments are automatically sorted according to topic. The "message boards" grow out of this organizing step.
The EP websites are building themselves. They are being produced organically by the people participating as "members". See what's happened? EP has been able to navigate through all the garbage on the Internet to create a pristine final product. I googled EP and it says this is the next big Face Book. Essentially, people have grown tired of putting all their personal information on a site. They are looking for a veil of privacy. EP provides that privacy in spades. You can delete your posts at any time. You can shield your personal information in various ways. EP wants you to find your own odd little group, and join their community.
This is why you are suddenly seeing these "just psychics-not con artists" cropping up. All the things you have been taught about the non-existence of real psychics---put all that aside when viewing this site. This is a very, very new phenomenon.
Even I have to weed through this site, to eliminate people who may be mentally ill or who are just kids playing "black magic". What I've figured out already (I just found this site several weeks ago) is that psychics can recognize each other through common behaviors and ideas. I won't elaborate only because this wouldn't be relevant to you (right?).
Just to clarify, psychic abilities are natural, not "supernatural". And they're definitely not "divine" (although if I were Catholic, I might feel otherwise. They see Jesus in potato chips).
PBS (I think) did a special about ten years ago (back when you were in grade school). They set up a double blind study, completely authentic and empirical. They tested dogs. For some reason, dogs know when their owner is coming home. The owner can be miles away, far out of reach of sound or anything else a dog could sense with.
The dog would begin its ritual of pacing and getting excited as the owner walked out to his car at his place of work. Now the question became "is this just because the dog knows it's about time for the owner to come home?" So the researchers added the element of surprise. The owner left during the work day at various times. Still, the dog began pacing and whining as soon as the owner walked out to his car.
Maybe this is a less threatening example of psychic ability for you. It's just a dog. What harm can it do? Plus, the dog doesn't engage in agonizing assessments on whether it's psychic or not. It just does its dog thing.
I checked through your post to see if I missed anything (relevant) and I guess you blew right past my comment on Einstein. Einstein believed premonitions fit into his analysis of time and space. He's a scientist, right? Wait, no---he's the greatest scientist of all time.
I've been a news junkie for fifty years. I remember listening to Eleanor Roosevelt on the radio. To me, it sounds like you have only a rudimentary grasp on the nature of news. I think it would take too long to bring you up to speed, but I'll try a few points.
Did you ever see the movie "Wag the Dog"? It has Dustin Hoffman and Robert Dinero in it. This would be a good movie for you to watch, because it shows how packaged and controlled "news" can be. And there's no "just news". There's left wing, right wing, labor, scientific, humanitarian, community, world, Hollywood, fake (The Onion or Glen Beck), non-profit, infotainment, slander/libel, religious, parroting your parents' views, global warming, fashion, Highlights Magazine (for children), political, war and conflict (small war), Baby Boomer, Generation X, Generation Next, okay, that's enough, although I'm tempted to go on for several more paragraphs.
When I was college, I used to meet up with my lab partner for morning coffee. The first time he explained that most American news is just propaganda, I remember feeling like I had been kicked by a mule (I was your age, except it was forty years ago).
Also, two of my college majors were Humanities and English Literature. Humanities was a fascinating way to study human culture. They would take a period like Baroque or Rococo, and then show how art, philosophy, politics, even the understanding of the human brain, were all interwoven during that period. During the industrial revolution, the brain was a machine. During the computer age the brain was a computer.
I found out as an English major, that "fiction" aka literature, held the greatest truths of the human condition. Junk fiction can be quite meaningless, but classics are classics because they contain such valuable information about what it means to be human. Another function of literature is to express opinions that might be too forward-thinking to be accepted as non-fiction treatises.
Oh, by the way, one of my majors in college was Psychology. It was no walk in the park because the department was ranked the fifth in the nation. That meant all our classes were flooded with brilliant graduate students, so the curve was pulled way up.
I actually met B.F. Skinner, the father of modern (behavioral) psychology. I just sat down in the front row watching people talk to him because I was too shy to approach him. But what a moment.
There's no such thing as "right minded" thinking. That is just a turn of phrase. God help you if you believe you must think in a right way.
Your idea that doctors are the ultimate authority regarding the human mind reflects a very simplistic understanding of modern medicine. Neurologists and psychiatrists would be the first ones to tell you that their practice does not go much beyond administering medication. Also, people with true mental illness, such as schizophrenia and manic-depression, lead very difficult lives. They are terribly disabled by their disease. There's just no comparison between mentally ill persons and psychic persons. They are dramatically different.
Finally (thank God; this is a lot of work), if you click on my icon, you can go to a page that lists my other posts. I think you would enjoy reading them. I would like to see you broaden your horizons. I will be 57 in two months, which means I have been around for three of your lifetimes. You have a long road ahead of you, and your opinions on many things will change back and forth over the years.
Another movie to watch is "The Sixth Sense". I was riveted the first time I saw it, not because I see dead people (I don't), but because it captured the sometimes dreadful fear that psychics experience. As my mom said the other day "why on earth would anyone want to be psychic? It's scary and unsettling". (my mom is psychic, her mom was psychic, and so on.)
If you want to find people to discredit, back out of the "psychic" section and look at some of the other groups who are organically forming. For example, one group are all raving misanthropes. They hate the entire human race with a passion and consider all humans to be parasites. Now that's a group I would be a little concerned about.
So, swim along little Nemo. There's a great big ocean out there to explore.
I've commented so much on this thread, I might as well come up and say hello to you. Yes, psychic abilities come and go and come again. Periods of high stress can stimulate psychic awareness. Close relationships can create a psychic bond, most commonly experienced with the "I knew you were going to call" phone call.
Also, I think most psychics have internal mechanisms which quiet or suppress psychic abilities. I believe it is because we are barely evolved enough to manage our mental powers. Psychic activity can be like burning the candle at both ends. It can be overwhelming.
So don't be worried that you are going through a quiet time. This is good mental rest.
Try a game I and a psychic friend of mine play. We call it the parking lot game. Drive into any mega-store parking lot and drive directly to the best parking spot available. You can't look for it visually, because that would be cheating. You just drive right up there like it's your own reserved spot. "Poof", there it will be. This game is a good way to exercise your psychic abilities without feeling anxious. It will also gauge how psychically active you are at present.
Hope this helps.
Don't listen to him. He really has no idea. Anyways, I have had times where my psychic abilities were almost nil and times when they were strong. I have had times when they shut down for around a year or so. Since they don't really help in any signifigant way, I wouldn't worry too much that your psychic skills aren't working. If you have ever watched Medium, she had a few times when she lost her abilities too.


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The Rockets have little hope left that they can bring back point guard Goran Dragic with the sides so far apart on contract proposals that the meeting on Monday ended with the Rockets ready to move on, a person with knowledge of the process said.
"Goran's not coming back," he said. "It's just not happening."
ESPN.com reported on Monday that Dragic was seeking a contract that would begin at 10 million per season, much more than the Rockets were willing to offer.
The Rockets met on Sunday with Hornets guard Eric Gordon, a restricted free agent after reaching agreement with Bulls center Omer Asik on an offer sheet.
The Rockets are still among the teams in talks with the Orlando Magic about a trade for Dwight Howard, according to a person with knowledge of the talks said. Howard has said he would become a free agent after next season unless he is traded to the Brooklyn Nets.


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Dog walker rescued from Langstone Harbour mud
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She was treated by the ambulance service at the scene but her condition is not thought to be serious.


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Brenda Wright
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Before joining Demos in 2007, Brenda served as Managing Attorney at the National Voting Rights Institute in Boston. Brenda also served previously as Director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Board of Directors of Common Cause Massachusetts and the advisory board of the Prison Policy Initiative. She received her law degree from Yale Law School and her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College.
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The former official, George Engelmann, 64, headed a German office in Poland during the war charged with administering Jewish property. He was accused of repeatedly stating of the Jews in public that "too few of this race has been gassed." The court described the statement as a grave insult to the Jewish community.


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got this e-mail from a friend who received it from a friend of the author. or something like that. anyway, it sounds like a typical sacrament meeting to me, but told in a pretty funny way:
It all went horribly wrong when my daughter Scarlett farted during Sacrament.
Not only did the child fart like a fifty-year-old retired sailor. She then pointed her finger at Mark and screamed "Daddy farted!" Because Mama taught her long ago that little girls don't do things like that. But if they DO, then blame the nearest man or animal.
So, at this point, I'm very seriously on the floor pretending to get something out of my purse, but very obviously snorting and shaking uncontrollably. Mark is hunched over the seat, because he's too big to fit on the floor with me. Scarlett is beet red, and continuing to scream "I didn't do it!"
Zack took this opportunity to escape, really the only intelligent option. But, once I'd reasonably composed myself, I noticed him up at that white, lacy table thing off to the left. He was pointing to a young man who looked terrified. I ran up just in time to hear Zack say, "....sandwich!" I can only imagine.
Rather than make an early exit, which would only have drawn more attention, we stuck it out. We should have just called it a morning.
A little old lady arrived late in the proceedings. She was ROCKIN' this knitted sweater, and I mentioned to Mark that Sara could probably make that for me.
That was when he decided to take a snapshot of the woman with his cell phone camera. Oh, not once--real quick-like and sneaky. He did it TWICE. Commenting after the first one, "Not close enough. And that sweater is FLY!"
At the end of the morning, after spending an hour getting kicked by a baby, I went to the nursery to pick up Zack. I found him at the back of the room. The adults had apparently given up on him. He was standing on top of a "kitchen" with his arms in the air, screaming "MY MOUNTAIN!!!!" I saw him from the back. And when I called his name, he turned around, the most evil of grins on his face, and a sign around his neck that read "Jesus Loves Zack".
No one else had to wear a sign.
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text: On_A_Fest Play via YouTube OPEN IN APP NSFW Safe Is this playlist safe for work? Tilting The Horizon January 24, 2012 | 14 tracks | 126 11 | Stats Sølyst Martyn Milanese technodubelectronic jazzdrumstep Liked Collect Share Edit Liked! Share this mix with friends: Tilting The Horizon Wrong video Collect Share Liked! Share this mix with friends:


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Coca-Cola Amatil Profit Misses Estimates on WritedownsDavid Fickling
Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd., Australia's largest soft-drink bottler, posted full-year profit that missed analyst estimates after taking A$146 million ($150 million) of writedowns on its packaged food business.
Net income fell 22 percent to A$460 million in 2012, the Sydney-based Coke bottler said in a statement today. That compares with the A$558 million average of nine analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Profit before one-time charges rose to the top of the company's forecast of a four percent to five percent growth rate.
Imports of cheaper overseas produce and a 20 percent fall in the price of fresh fruit forced a writedown at its SPC Ardmona foods business, whose products include tinned tomatoes and Goulburn Valley fruit in syrup, the company said. The previous year's profit included a A$60 million one-time gain related to the sale of its beer venture to SABMiller Plc.
"The high Australian dollar continues to have an impact on SPC, reducing its product's competitiveness versus imports," Mark Christensen, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in Sydney, wrote in a Feb. 5 note to clients.
Coca-Cola Amatil shares rose 2 percent to A$13.90 at the close in Sydney. The stock has gained 16 percent in the past year, trailing the 19 percent rise in the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index. The Coke bottler is 29 percent owned by the Coca-Cola Co., the world's biggest soft-drink maker, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Restructuring Charges
The one-time items included a A$48 million writedown of goodwill in the SPC Ardmona business and A$98 million in restructuring charges as it cut the value of inventory to more realistic selling prices.
"Our business is in the best shape ever," Terry Davis, managing director, told an investor briefing in Sydney. Coca-Cola Amatil's level of profit margin, which was 21 percent in its Australian drinks business during the year, "are still seen as the benchmark performance levels across the global Coke system", he said, referring to the group of companies that bottle Coca-Cola's concentrates.
Total revenue increased 6.3 percent to A$5.18 billion during the period, while cost of goods sold -- the amount spent on cans, bottles, soft-drink concentrate and other product inputs -- was little changed at 56 percent of trading revenue.
Earnings before interest and tax in Australia rose 3.3 percent to A$627 million as the company increased sales volumes in the face of discounting by Asahi Group Holdings Inc., the Australian bottler of Pepsi and Schweppes.
Indonesian Growth
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea posted a 17 percent rise in Ebit to A$103 million, with volumes up 10 percent on the back of strong performances from Minute Maid Pulpy juice, the company said.
Sales from the unit would exceed A$1 billion during the year, Davis said, and it would take up about A$200 million of the A$420 million the company plans to spend on capital projects this year.
Ebit from New Zealand and Fiji fell 12 percent to A$70 million as New Zealand experienced a cool, wet summer and local retailers reduced stock levels.
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Health21 February 2018
Trigger warnings are taking over universities, but do they work?
Talk of trigger warnings and microaggressions are sweeping through university campuses, but some researchers question whether they have any psychological basis
Physics | Space23 February 2018
Weird particle soup may have formed stars in the early universe
Pions are particles that usually decay very quickly. But right after the big bang, they could have made stars that last long enough for us to detect now
Health20 February 2018
How you speak predicts if psychedelic therapy will help you
Psilocybin, a compound in magic mushrooms, may help treat depression in some people. Now speech analysis can indicate who would benefit the most
Health22 February 2018
Almost every antidepressant headline you'll read today is wrong
A review of the evidence on antidepressants has been hailed as the final word on these drugs, but questions remain for people with less severe depression
Humans23 February 2018
We may be overdue a massive war, says a statistical analysis
Since the end of the second world war a "long peace" has prevailed around the world, but far from being a new era in history it could just be a statistical fluke
Health23 February 2018
Eating fish as a child seems to protect you from hay fever
Infants who eat fish are less likely to develop hay fever later on, a finding that suggests changing diets have played a role in rising allergy rates
Humans21 February 2018
Ancient 'dark-skinned' Briton Cheddar Man find may not be true
The headline was that an ancient Briton from 10,000 years ago had dark skin, but the genetics of skin colour are so complex that we can't be sure
Health22 February 2018
Having children may add 11 years to a woman's biological age
Having a baby seems to be linked to shorter caps on the ends of a woman's chromosomes – a sign of ageing that has been linked to disease and a shorter lifespan
Health22 February 2018
Miniature personalised tumours could help you get the best chemo
Growing mini tumours in the lab from a patient's own cells could help doctors discover the best way to treat each person, homing in on the right drugs to use
Humans22 February 2018
Neanderthals made the oldest cave art in the world
We weren't the only ancient artists – the discovery of 66,700-year-old cave art show our Neanderthal cousins also liked to draw
Technology22 February 2018
Why do firms like Uber and Citymapper keep reinventing buses?
Apps want to disrupt public transport by creating "innovative" services that look suspiciously like buses, but real-time data could make for a better ride
Bats spread Ebola because they've evolved not to fight viruses
Bats can carry viruses like Ebola and Marburg that are lethal for humans. This may be because, in order to fly, their bodies have given up on fighting such viruses
Technology22 February 2018
There's an alt-right alt-Twitter and it's filled with hate
An analysis of a social media site called Gab, set up as a champion of free speech, reveals that one in 20 posts uses hateful language


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By Josh Clifton
If you're in the hospitality industry you know how important customer service is. It's because that's all the customer knows. They don't know what goes on behind the scenes, or who your suppliers are, or the problems you're having with your staff. To them your venue is a place where they go to enjoy themselves and receive the same type of service they received last time. When that service goes down hill – they leave.
How are you actively implementing techniques to train your staff in specifically – customer service, or as I like to call it 'people skills'. It's a great goal to want to give the BEST customer service possible, but what is your BEST training technique to do this? In my opinion it's hard to train a person in 'people skills' and if you have to, it can take a lifetime – they either have it or they don't.
All is not lost and there are ways to speed up your team to really get in tune with your customer.
Below is my way of determining how suitable a person is for customer relations:
1. Have them buddy up with your best customer relations
2. Lead by example and show the standard you expect from your team
3. When a problem arises ask your staff to put themselves in the customers shoes in the scenario
– How would you like to be treated here?
– What would you expect as the customer?
– What do you think would 'sweeten the deal' and leave the customer feeling acknowledged and satisfied with the outcome.
There will always be people you can't please and no matter how hard you try (even from the most experienced staff members) it feels like you can't win. But you can focus on the other 99% of people who are here to have a great time.
Action List
– Have a team meeting and ask your staff what 'customer service' means to them and share your ideas
– Then brain storm ideas on how you can implement a customer service training program that all staff could enjoy and work well with one another.
I truly believe that any industry that has a very high interaction with customers ultimately needs constant evaluation and training methods to stay in touch with customers. With so many new venues opening up around you, it all comes down to giving the ultimate customer experience which trumps the rest!
I look forward to hearing from you!
To your success!
Want more information, strategys and tactics just like this?
Josh writes a great blog at www.masterbar.com.au you can also find him on Facebook 'MasterBar Coaching' in your FACEBOOK search


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We're starting yet another trade show in what's always been the "trade show season" of the fall; this time it's 4G World. The timing may be trite in a calendar sense but it's fitting in a market sense because we're certainly on the cusp of some major changes in wireless. The changes may in fact be driving the bigger and broader changes we talk about a lot—cloud and SDN.
One thing that's clear from the show even now is that we have the same forces at work in wireless broadband as we had in wireline broadband, just wielded by different players. OTT players were the big push behind the service-model changes of the past. For wireless it's the handset/appliance players obviously. If you look at the commercials for smartphones you see people doing everything but talking, which pretty well sums up the way phones are heading. The biggest focus is on video, and that of course encourages users to consume it, which makes video the biggest force in disintermediation in wireless, just as it was in wireline.
One effect of this that I can already see in survey results this fall is a considerably greater level of interest in small cells and agile radio networks. Another is improved integration of Wifi and 4G. Both are aimed at increasing the total capacity pool available in a given geography so that video traffic doesn't stall the network. NSN has been one of the leaders in this space (Alcatel-Lucent the other) and the small-cell trend and NSN's ability to address it have given NSN the largest improvement in strategic influence of any network vendor except Huawei, and the largest overall for Tier One operators.
Zillions of little cells increase capacity by providing more feed points (backhaul) per unit geography and by improving frequency re-use plans. They can be tuned to match consumer movement; per-cell using tunable multi-beam antennas and at the macro level by balancing the capacity allocated to different cells. They also increase the cost of the network, of course. Still, just a year ago, there were few operators seriously planning for agile RAN strategies and today we have 100% commitment by Tier Ones and nearly that for Tier Two providers.
Another impact of the mobile explosion is a shift in the cloud focus. I'd noted in past blogs that while operators recognized content, mobile, and cloud in that order as their monetization priorities, they were executing faster on the cloud and slowest in mobile. There are signs that's changing now, as operators recognize that mobile broadband services are perfect cloud applications. A mobile user has an almost transactional need for information if you exclude content delivery; make a request and get an answer. This model is perfect for a RESTful interface and awful for traditional IMS sessions; too much signaling per unit of service delivery.
Signaling is the other side of the picture, of course. Not only are services themselves risks to signaling traffic, handsets tend to use more signaling for keep-alive functions—the so-called "dormancy protocol" that's been evolving as handset vendors try to reduce power consumption during idle periods without losing connectivity. We think that Alcatel-Lucent's decision to cloud-host IMS is a critical one because we think that some elastic-cloud vision of IMS is critical in addressing the signaling problems of the network. Note that this also shows up in the operators' Network Functions Virtualization priorities.
In the SDN world, mobile is focusing attention on the applications of SDN technology to backhaul and even to mobility, which in our view are related. One of the challenges of the LTE designer is that the focus of planning has been on "Internet offload" and suddenly applications that look very Internet-like are the revenue source you're targeting! We have to think about how mobile content delivery and mobile cloud services are supported—is it EPC or are they offloaded? If the latter, to what? If the former, how do we contain costs? I think that the biggest metro infrastructure question operators have today is how to design an "EPC" that doesn't present such a cost premium as to make it useless for these cloud-and-content apps.
Clearly vendors will see this particular trend as an opportunity, which it is. Mobile services already present between 20 and 100 times as many metro endpoints as consumer voice and broadband services in wireline form, and with small cells rushing on I expect you'll see some areas with a thousand times as many cell connections as central offices. This kind of change will generate big bucks, and the questions are first how carriers will balance between the layers and second how vendors will present their offerings. The marriage of SDN and optics could revolutionize metro at the very time when mobile is crying for revolution.