text:
Attorney General Lockyer Files Major Electricity Market Manipulation Lawsuit Against EnronAlleges Inventor of Market Games Broke Laws In Bilking 'Grandma Millie'
June 17, 2004
(916) 324-5500
(SAN FRANCISCO) Attorney General Bill Lockyer today filed a lawsuit against Enron to recover potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from the company for the massive, unlawful market manipulation and fraud it committed during the California Energy Crisis of 2000-01.
"At the same time this corrupt enterprise successfully lobbied its friends in the federal government to block price caps and blame California, it was robbing our businesses and consumers blind," said Lockyer. "Enron was the architect of a rip-off scheme that bled billions of dollars from our state's economy. They may be bankrupt, but we will hold them accountable. Grandma Millie is California. I am her lawyer, and she seeks justice."
Filed in Alameda County Superior Court on behalf of the people, Lockyer's complaint alleges Enron's market manipulation violated the state's Unfair Competition Law (UCL) and commodities fraud statute. The lawsuit seeks restitution, damages and disgorgement of unjust profits. Additionally, the complaint asks the court to award civil penalties of $25,000 for each commodities fraud violation and $2,500 for each violation of the UCL.
The complaint does not specify the total relief sought. The court will determine that figure based on the evidence. But Lockyer said the damages, restitution, disgorgement and civil penalties could well total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The named defendants include: Enron Corporation; Enron Energy Services, Inc.; Enron Energy Services Operations, Inc.; Enron Energy Services LLC; Enron North America Corporation; and Enron Power Marketing, Inc.
The lawsuit is the latest enforcement action resulting from Lockyer's ongoing, three-year investigation of market misconduct by Enron and other power companies during the Energy Crisis. And it comes in the wake of the release of audio tapes and transcripts that record Enron trader conversations and provide disturbing evidence of the firm's market behavior.
"While the state reeled from the combined impact of sky high power prices, supply shortages and rolling blackouts, the Enron defendants enjoyed massive, unprecedented profits, and extracted millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains from utilities and their customers ...," the complaint says. "And through it all, the Enron defendants displayed a shocking disregard for the public welfare, as numerous telephone conversations involving their personnel vividly demonstrate."
On the tapes, the traders not only brazenly talk about exporting power and gaming the market, they spew profanity-laced boasts about bringing California to its knees, inflicting financial pain on "Grandma Millie" and Enron's influence with President Bush. Seeing profit in destruction, they express hope fires will torch California power lines, chanting, "Burn baby, burn."
Additionally, the tapes indicate Enron's top two executives, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, had knowledge of the market manipulation and received briefings on how it enriched the company.
Lockyer's complaint focuses on market gaming strategies Enron concocted to collect payment for energy sevices and power it did not provide, and to charge rates above price caps in effect at the time. "Beginning as early as 1998 and continuing at least through 2001, the Enron defendants willfully engaged in a startling array of manipulative and fraudulent trading schemes ...," the complaint alleges.
The games targeted by Lockyer's lawsuit include strategies to create false congestion and obtain premium prices to relieve the non-existent congestion. The games in this category include "Death Star" and "Wheel-Out."
The complaint also cites the "Get Shorty" game in which Enron engaged in paper trading of, and collected high prices for, reserve power Enron had no intention of providing. "Fat Boy" and "Ricochet" are two other games specifically mentioned in the lawsuit. In "Fat Boy," Enron intentionally overstated the amount of power it intended to provide, knowing it would receive the highest possible price for the excess.
In "Ricochet" transactions, Enron evaded price caps by buying power in California, selling it briefly to an entity outside the state, repurchasing it from the out-of-state entity, then selling it back into California. This game allowed Enron to charge above-cap prices because the state's grid operator paid such premiums for outof-state energy when supply fell below demand in the real-time market.
The Enron case marks the first time Lockyer has sued a company for commodities fraud using the enforcement authority granted him under a law that took effect Jan. 1, 2004. The statute, which Lockyer sponsored, gives the Attorney General concurrent jurisdiction with the state Corporations Commissioner to investigate violations of California's commodities fraud law, and to bring civil enforcement actions for violations. The commodities law prohibits fraud in the sale or purchase of commodities. Electricity is a commodity, as defined under the statute.
Lockyer's Energy Task Force, working in cooperation with utilities, state regulators and the Governor's Office, has produced seven settlements to resolve enforcement actions arising from the Energy Crisis. The seven settlements have a combined value of $2.42 billion. Of that total, more than $1.9 billion represents ratepayer relief.


text:
Atlassian Sourcetree is a free Git and Mercurial client for Windows.
Atlassian Sourcetree is a free Git and Mercurial client for Mac.
Cog is authored by Vincent Spader. It is released under the GPL. See COPYING for details. The libraries folder contains various decoding and tagging libraries, which i have created Xcode projects for, and possibly modified to make compile on OS X. The various libraries are under each of their own licenses/copyrights. All Cog code is copyrighted by me, and is licensed under the GPL. Cog contains bits of other code from third parties that are under their own licenses/copyright. If you would like the photoshop sources for the various icons and graphics, please send me an email, and I will be happy to get them to you. Share and enjoy. --Vincent Spader (email@example.com)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Black Friday shopping begins Thursday
Wick's World
Eight years ago on Black Friday, I rolled out of bed at 3 a.m. only to arrive in Duluth an hour later to find myself 300 people deep in line at the parking lot at Best Buy in Duluth. As the crowd had already begun to swell a few hours earlier, Arco and Sprint sent representatives around with free hot coffee and cookies. Adding to the festive atmosphere, K-Rock 95 pulled up and began broadcasting from their van.
With notebook and camera in hand, I walked to the front of the line to interview whoever held the sacred spot of the first shopper. To my amazement, there stood none other than Moose Lake's own Ben Wasche.
"I called up a couple of buddies and asked them if they wanted to do something crazy," Ben told me. By 7 p.m. Thanksgiving Eve, Ben had secured the prime spot, while his buddies went back to the car to stay warm. Although it would be several hours before Ben would get any company, Lady Luck seemed to be riding with him that evening. The next people to show up were two young ladies who mentioned they had a tent in their car along with a couple of sleeping bags. Always the gentleman, Ben of course offered to set up the tent in exchange for the warmth and comfort of the candle-heated interior.
I asked Ben what product drove him to such shopping idiocy. He stated, "I came to get one of the laptop computers, but I really didn't need one. I did this more as an adventure."
When I asked him if he would do it again next year, he instantly replied, "Oh, yeah! Just for the fun!"
Although eight years ago he bought the bargain laptop for $200, ironically he could buy an even better one today for that price without having to camp out to be first in line. I think he doubled his money though, so the waiting in line was undoubtedly worth it.
Once inside, bumping into people was a frequent occurrence Friday morning and I even got rear-ended by a shopping cart, which earlier doubled as a versatile parking lot tool. A couple of enterprising young lads overturned several of the carts, wrapped them in bubble wrap and placed a few strategic candles to create a warm shelter. Best Buy also became inventive when they created a barricade of shopping carts to prohibit line jumping, mostly to no avail.
After escaping Best Buy with my sanity and body mostly intact, I decided to check out the action at the mall. By then the crowds were already inside the stores, gobbling up merchandise like it was yesterday's turkey.
By 8 a.m. I had arrived safely back in Moose Lake to check out the local specials. Perusing the ads and the merchandise on the shelves, I quickly recognized that our local stores not only matched most things the cities to the north had to offer, but the personal attention and friendliness was superior to that of the Twin Ports.
Black Friday has lost some of its importance in recent years. Currently the battle is about who opens first for business on Thanksgiving Day. I guess the poor old turkey just doesn't get the respect it once did. Watch for the annual Presidential Pardon for Tom the Turkey to get dismantled with the Affordable Care Act.
If you want to save on gas, and dislike long lines and big crowds, think about supporting your hometown businesses. I found it so much easier and more pleasant to deal with our local Moose Lake establishments. Happy Thanksgiving, happy holidays, merry Christmas, Hanukah, winter solstice, Eid, Kwanzaa and best of the season for anyone I left out including Santa who is sleeping at my house.


text:
Search Constraints
You searched for: Author Great Britain. General Staff. Geographical Section Remove constraint Author: Great Britain. General Staff. Geographical Section Subject Topographic maps Remove constraint Subject: Topographic maps Subject Lisieux (France)—Maps Remove constraint Subject: Lisieux (France)—Maps
No entries found
Search Results
No results found for your search
Try modifying your search
- Use fewer keywords to start, then refine your search using the links on the left.


text:
How to make coffee your secret guest at your next holiday and New Year's Party!
Catchy holiday music is playing, candles are lit, kids are at the babysitters as you wait for the first car lights to begin shining through your holiday windows. Your holiday party is about to begin. In a moment, your first guest arrives. This year though will be different because you have a secret guest at your party so move on over Secret Santa, Secret Coffee is in the house!
Your neighbors come through the door and you graciously greet them with an unexpected, delicious, festive drink that they would never make at home -- a cinnamon espresso coffee martini you made from your easy to build coffee bar! Tres chic, no?!? Check out this easy recipe:
Makes 1-2 servings
Source: For additional details, visit http://www.food.com/recipe/coffee-martini-163967
Source: For to learn more about making that perfect coffee, visit http://www.mycafe.com/
Makes 4 to 6 servings
Strain mixture into a chilled martini glass and top with whipped cream.
Makes 4 to 6 servings
Source: http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/809451/iced-coffee-cocktails/page:2
This may cause the BUNN website to function incorrectly.
In order to have the best experience with our website, we recommend that you update your browser to the most current version.
Continue to website
(This may result in a poor experience on the site)


text:
Compliments or Complaints
The NYSP's Responsibilities
The NYSP recognizes its responsibility to maintain the public confidence and trust, and the need to ensure integrity and accountability both by the agency and by each employee.
The Public's Responsibilities
As we recognize the rights of all citizens, the public should recognize that NYSP employees must be able to exercise their best judgment in taking necessary and reasonable action in the performance of their duties without fear of reprisal.
Language Access
New York State's policy is to provide language access to public services and programs. If you feel that we have not provided you with adequate interpretation services or have denied you an available translated document, please provide us feedback.
NYSP Policy
It is the policy of the NYSP to respond to compliments or complaints received from the public.
Complimentary letters are:
- Reviewed by the employee's first line supervisor,
- Forwarded to the employee,
- Placed in the employee's personnel file and
- Forwarded for possible inclusion in the State Police internal newsletter.
- Included in the information distributed at the NYSP Annual Awards Ceremony.
Complaint letters follow a very specific complaint procedure that:
- Ensures fair and proper action is taken when an employee is accused of misconduct,
- Protects employees from unwarranted or false accusations and
- Helps identify and correct deficiencies in policies, procedures and/or training.


text: I'll second Joe's recommendation for Wiki's -- they have worked great both for conveying Admin-centric information as well as User-specific usage and application integration information. I'm still trying to weigh the utility-vs-effort of screen recordings that show users video of exactly how something is working or exactly how to do something. In general though I've found Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp ) is a great (if windows only tool) that makes recording computer usage trivial. I can point Camtasia at my SSH terminal window and it will follow the mouse focus and even "smart zoom" in on the text I'm typing into the terminal. One click later and I have a nice flash video that I can embed in a wiki or email to someone. I've been running it on a Mac under Parallels and have had no issues. Video is great for some things -- think of illustrating exactly how the pxeboot -> DHCP -> tftp process all tightly play together in a network boot or server provisioning process. A recording of a serial console window while this happens is a good way to show someone at a basic level what is going on behind the scenes. The cut-off point on the effort-vs-reward is whenever I'm thinking about adding text callouts or titles to the videos. If that happens I know from experience I'm better off writing up a wiki page and inserting static screenshots. Video screen recordings are useful to me only when I have to put next-to-no effort into producing it. As soon things get complicated its best to fire up a good text editor. From a email support perspective I find ticketing systems invaluable. Helps preserve history and it makes sure no requests fall through the cracks. I also like screen sharing technologies -- in many cases they can turn a multi-day email support burden into a 15 minute view/ diagnose/fix. My $.02 of course! -Chris On Apr 9, 2008, at 12:23 PM, Geoff Jacobs wrote: > The previous post on Windows access tools for clusters got me thinking > -- what is the most efficient means of information delivery for large > cluster installs? I'm interested in finding out, as all my > experience is > at the bottom end of the scale (really only a couple of teams). > > It seems to me that standard ticket systems as well as email support > systems are going to generate quite a lot of churn. Even the best > prepared online documentation is going to be ignored by a significant > portion of the user base. Are forums and public chat rooms any > better in > being able to provide some measure of self or mutual support? Do any > other members have ideas on how best to filter user support issues, or > at least make it easy to respond to the basic inquiries appropriately? > > -- > Geoffrey D. Jacobs > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf


text: >> > on that note, though - does anyone have comments about booting >> > machines from flash? >> > > have you looked into booting from usb-flash? that would be very > much dependent on bios, of course, but far more accessible. > Indeed, as Alvin says any system can be booted from a CF. Some mini-ITX Cases come with a little slot, which makes changing the CF card easy. I agree with the USB comment - I always travel with a USB stick which has Stresslinux on it. www.stresslinux.org This is a little distro which has lm_sensors, cpu_burn etc. on it, plus memtest. Invaluable for the roaming engineer :-)


text:
How old is Santa Claus?
Has Santa Claus ever missed a Christmas?
Does Rudolph always lead Santa's sleigh?
What are all the reindeer names?
Where does Santa Claus get all your toys?
How does Santa know who is naughty and nice?
How old are the elves?
How does Santa get in my house if we don't have a chimney or fireplace?
How does Santa Claus fit all the toys in his Christmas bag?
How tall is the abominable snowman?
Who is Father Christmas?
Does Santa like milk and cookies?
What do reindeer eat?
Santa Claus, what is your favorite snack?
Does Santa have any brothers and sisters?
Santa, what is your favorite kind of music?
What is Santa's favorite food?
How does Santa remember what everyone wants for Christmas?
What is a White Christmas?
What is mistletoe?
Has Santa's sleigh ever come close to being hit by an airplane?
What kind of child was Santa?
What are the elves' favorite colors to wear?
What is Rudolph's favorite color?
How does Santa find my house if we moved?
What is Mrs. Claus's first name?
Is Santa Claus always happy and jolly?
Santa, why do we decorate a Christmas Tree?
Who is Saint Nicholas?
Santa, why do people use Christmas trees?
Santa, why are you called Kris Kringle?
Where does Frosty the Snowman live?
Where can I write Santa Claus a letter?
Why do children hang stockings by the fireplace?
Why does Santa Claus live at the North Pole?
How does Santa know what I want for Christmas?
Why does Santa Claus wrap presents?
What is Santa's favorite drink?
Does Santa Claus ever sleep?
What are the most popular candy cane colors?
Why does Santa wear a red suit?
Does Santa Claus have a lot of money?
How does Santa understand all the different languages?
Do all the elves make toys?
What does Santa think about the internet?
Does Santa Claus use a computer?
Does Santa ever get sick?
How does Santa Claus know where he is going on Christmas eve?
What sports do the elves play?
Does Santa ever take a vacation?
Why does Santa make a naughty and nice list?
What would Santa Claus like for Christmas?
What would Santa like for Christmas ?
Are the elves ever naughty?
How does Santa get down a chimney if there is a fire burning ?
Why do we celebrate Christmas on that day?
Are you tired after delivering presents all around the world ?
Can anyone find the North Pole ?
Will Santa give me anything I ask for ?
How can I become an elf ?
What is Santa favorite book?
How do the elves learn to make toys ?
Is Santa Claus real?
How does Santa travel around the world
in just one night?
Why does Rudolph's nose glow?
How do reindeer fly?
What does Mrs. Claus do?
How did Santa meet the elves?
Does Santa Claus need snow to deliver presents?
How many children get presents from Santa?
How does Santa Claus get down the chimney?


text:
The Spaulding Rehabilitation Network provides the full continuum of rehabilitative care for patients recovering from injury, illness or surgery. Care is delivered at 6 inpatient facilities and at 23 conveniently located outpatient centers stretching from Cape Ann to Cape Cod and to Framingham in the west.
Please call for more information or to make a referral
Inpatient: 1.617.952.5350
Outpatient: 1.888.SRN.4330


text:
Loook at my soft cock. Really need some action to get it hard.
Love to work on it.
Playing with a huge penis with my very worn cock ring am I all Dick and Dickhead or what
Dick Silhouette
Pictures of my little dick for you women to enjoy
I want a nice big pussy who sucks his dick girls do you want
Just my Dick
My dick for all to see, hope you enjoy
just messing around taking pics of my dick
Some naked selfies have fun and show your friends my dick
dick and balls
My Dick
my dick
Playing with my dick late at night, I'm so fucking horny
Home solo naked playing with dick
My big dick horney for your enjoyment
Friday Night Pictures of My Dick to Share with Everyone Part III
A dick of her husband, who likes it, comment
Peewee long dick want to try this big dick
Greasy Cocks and Dick Art by Joeysmall
Friday Night Pictures of My Dick to Share with Everyone Part I
Friday Night Pictures of My Dick to Share with Everyone Part II
Several photos of me and my dick, do you like, i'm so hot
Just wanna show my young small dick
Dick pics at home while working on the computer getting an erection
Some more of my big throbbing dick
My horny hard cummed dick of mine in private moments
A collection of some of my favourite pics of my dick
My dick balls and cum
my big thick dick needing some passionate sex
Hello every one these are my big dick pictures I hope you like them
hot dick hard
Derbi drd pro photo of my dick album 1
Edging hard dick dripping with precum
Gallery Of Nothing But My Thick Cut 7 Inch White Cock
Me bored and horny selfies let's trade cut dick hard
This is my dick, i like to show it, for milfs only


text:
Pine Ridge Man Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Federal Officer
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson says a Pine Ridge man has been sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a federal officer.
Johnson says 47-year-old James LaDeaux wielded a knife at Oglala Sioux Tribe officer on Sept. 5, 2011, forcing the officer to subdue LaDeaux with a stun gun.
Because of a contract between the tribe and the federal government, many tribal officers are considered federal officers under the law prohibiting the assault of federal officers.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Material may not be redistributed.


text:
A Plan for All Reasons
I'm delighted to welcome designer Steven Murphy to our Signature Studio. Steven's work is inspired by some of Southern California's most famous modern architects, including A. Quincy Jones and Cliff May. His Solatrium Garden
House Plan 544-1 is a contemporary steel-framed ranch house that celebrates indoor-outdoor living. The view above shows how the main house and adjacent guest room/garage, open to the private pool terrace. The uncluttered shallow
gable is a signature of mid-century modern design and became increasingly abstracted in the work of May, Jones and other architects of the era. For example, here's an image of Cliff May's own house in Brentwood from 1953
the fourth house for his family), which was recently restored and updated with finesse by Marmol Radziner Architects. The surprise is the large skylight that
runs along part of the roof ridge to bring light deep into the interior (these two photographs by Joe Fletcher, courtesy Marmol Radziner). In Murphy's plan the
skylight is narrower but runs almost the length of the roof to brighten every major room. The Murphy design also recalls the dramatic gable-fronted tract houses that A. Quincy Jones and his design partner Frederick Emmons
designed for developer Joseph Eichler in the Balboa Highlands section of Granada Hills, from around 1964, as shown here, with openings in parts of the gable to bring in light and air (photograph courtesy LA Curbed).
Steven Murphy's floor plan is essentially an H under a wide roof: you enter at the
crossbar; ahead is a small outdoor reflecting pool. The house is carefully zoned: public areas to the left in great room and kitchen facing the pool terrace; private
areas to the right in bedrooms and study. Window walls and sliding doors open each end to private patios. Thanks to Steven Murphy, our collection of Mid-Century Modern, Courtyard-Oriented, and Cliff May-and-Eichler-Inspired ranch houses plans is expanding.
Speaking of A. Quincy Jones: one of his most sumptuous estates, Sunnylands, built for publishing magnate Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore in Palm
Springs in the mid 1960s, has just opened for public tours after an extensive restoration. Appearing to float beside its reflecting lake, it resembles a mirage of modernism (the hallucinatory pink of roof and foundation was meant to capture the color of a desert sunset, as requested by Mrs. Annenberg). It was here that the Annenbergs entertained presidents and British royals, not to mention Hollywood royalty. The Annenberg Foundation has also added the extremely elegant and contexturally deft Sunnylands Center (for approved retreats) by architect Frederick Fisher and Partners.


text:
Achievement Gap Continues To Narrow As Student Population Becomes More Diverse
"These results, like the long-term July data, confirm that we are on the right track with No Child Left Behind, particularly with younger students who have benefited from the core principles of annual assessment and disaggregation of data. The results in fourth grade are particularly encouraging, and we are truly heartened by the continued narrowing of the achievement gap.
"It's notable that as our student population has become increasingly diverse, the scores have continued to rise, and it's no accident. It is a tribute to the hard work of classroom teachers, school principals and local policymakers. These results clearly show a need to apply principles of accountability in middle and high schools."
Secretary Margaret Spellings
Newest Nation's Report Card Shows Steady Growth And Progress
- The latest Nation's Report Card, released today, shows steady growth and gains by America's schoolchildren, particularly among younger and minority students. The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2005 benchmark exam of fourth- and eighth-graders, confirm that real progress is being made in helping to ensure that the promise of No Child Left Behind is realized for millions of young Americans.
Closing The Achievement Gap And Realizing The Promise Of NCLB
Signed into law in 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act is working to bring all students up to grade level in reading and math, to close the nation's achievement gaps within a decade, and to hold schools accountable for results through annual assessments. Under NCLB, students in grades 3-8 are tested annually with one additional test administered in high school. The NAEP results show that achievement gaps continue to narrow even as student populations become more diverse.
- The achievement gap between white and Hispanic fourth-graders narrowed, reaching an all-time low in reading and matching its all-time low in math.
- The achievement gaps in eighth-grade math between white and African American students, and between white and Hispanic students, narrowed to their lowest points since 1990.
- The achievement gap between white and Hispanic students in eighth-grade reading narrowed to its lowest point since 1998.
- In fourth-grade reading, more progress was made from 2000 to 2005 (up 6 points) than from 1992 to 2000 (down 4 points), driven by gains among Hispanic (up 13 points) and African American students (up 10 points).
- In fourth-grade math, nearly as much progress was made from 2000 to 2005 (up 12 points) as from 1990 to 2000 (up 13 points), driven by gains among Hispanic (up 18 points) and African American students (up 17 points).
- Since 2003, African American and Hispanic fourth-graders have made significant gains in both math (up 4 points each) and reading (up 2 points each).
Continued Academic Progress
The Nation's Report Card, with state-by-state data, echoes the positive results shown by NAEP's Long-Term Trend data, released in July 2005. The new results show across-the-board improvements in mathematics and in fourth-grade reading, with African American and Hispanic students posting all-time highs in a number of categories. Across the country, a majority of states improved academically or held steady.
- Overall fourth-grade and eighth-grade math scores rose to all-time highs.
- Overall fourth-grade reading scores matched the all-time high.
- African American fourth-graders posted the highest reading and math scores in the history of the test.
- Hispanic fourth-graders posted the highest reading and math scores in the history of the test.
- African American eighth-graders posted the highest math scores in the history of the test.
- Hispanic eighth-graders posted the highest math scores in the history of the test.
- In fourth- and eighth-grade math, higher percentages of white, African American, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander students performed at or above "proficient" levels as defined by NAEP than in any previous year.
- Forty-three states and the District of Columbia either improved academically or held steady in all categories - fourth- and eighth-grade reading and fourth- and eighth-grade math.
More Work To Be Done
- The Nation's Report Card, with state-by-state data, shows across-the-board gains in mathematics and significant improvements in reading. However, the results suggest that more intensive instruction is needed to help older students stay on track. More work remains to be done. But thanks to No Child Left Behind, states and school districts now know what works and where to focus their efforts. We must now extend its high academic standards, accountability and assessments to every grade level so that all students can realize their full potential in high school and beyond.
About The Nation's Report Card
- The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as the Nation's Report Card, is the yardstick used to measure learning in each state and across the country. By providing policymakers with data about what works, it helps them make informed decisions that will help more students learn. Through two components, the long-term trend assessment (released every five years) and the main and state-by-state assessment (now released every two years), the Nation's Report Card measures what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. The 2005 main assessment, released today, includes national and state-by-state scores for 338,000 fourth-graders and 321,000 eighth-graders tested in reading, mathematics, and other subjects. The NAEP is carried out by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education. It is overseen by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), a bipartisan group of governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators, business representatives, and members of the general public.
For More Information:
- Please visit http://www.nationsreportcard.gov


text:
Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD) is reportedly weighing a $10 billion cash bid for Kabel Deutschland, Germany's largest cable operator, and believes its offer and lack of antitrust issues will put the U.K. wireless carrier ahead of Liberty Global (NASDAQ:LBTYA).
Continue Reading Below
On Monday, Kabel Deutschland confirmed that Liberty Global made a bid for the company but didn't disclose any further details.
Reuters said Wednesday that Liberty Global offered nearly $10 billion for Kabel Deutschland, including a share component, while Vodafone was looking to bid at least that much in cash.
According to one source cited by Reuters, Vodafone has notified Kabel Deutschland that it is preparing an improved offer.
Reports last week indicated that Vodafone was already considering a higher bid after its informal proposal was rejected.
The Reuters report added that Liberty Global, which owns Unity Media, the No. 2 German cable company, would be subject to more scrutiny from German regulators. In February, Kabel Deutschland was blocked from taking over smaller cable group Telecolumbus.
Liberty has already held discussions with the German antitrust office to discuss the deal, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters. The deal could also be referred to the Brussels competition watchdog that reviews large deals with regional implications in the European Union.
Shares of Vodafone fell 1.3% to $28.33 late Wednesday morning. Liberty was up 60 cents at $72.48.


text:
News >> Browse Articles >> Fire & Rescue News
30 Funniest Firefighting Jokes
Various Online
March 09, 2010
Three firefighter went out on a hunting trip. There was a rookie, a captain, and a chief. The weather was miserable and they hadn't seen any deer all day. Finally they came across an old shack where they went inside to play a game of poker.
After loosing a couple of hands, the probie threw down his cards and said "That does it! I am going out to get me a deer."
Fifteen minutes later, the rookie came back with a nice four point buck. The captain and the chief asked, "How did you get that?"
The rookie replied, "I walked out fifty feet, followed some tracks and shot this buck." The captain then said, "I've had enough of this I am going to get my deer." He came back a half hour later with a 6 point buck.
The chief asked, "How did you get that?" The captain then replied, I walked out a hundred feet, followed some tracks and shot this buck.
The chief not wanting to be out done said, "I'm out of here, I'm going to bag the biggest buck of the day." He came back an hour later, all mangled up and bloody. The rookie and the captain asked, "What happened to you?"
The chief replied, "I walked out there five hundred feet, followed some tracks, and got hit by a TRAIN!


text:
A Day With HIV 2012
November/December 2012
Utilizing social media, A Day with HIV spread the word: Grab your digital camera or smartphone, capture a moment of your day on Sept. 21, and share your story with the world.
Nearly 175 photos were taken that day. In addition to the U.S., pictures came from Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Uruguay, and the island of Cyprus. In fact, the first photo arrived via email, less than 90 minutes into A Day with HIV (Chicago time) from Ji Wallace, the Australian Olympic athlete who had only recently come out as HIV-positive.
What makes so many of the pictures taken on A Day with HIV so powerful are the words that illustrate the images. It's the story behind the photo that makes the image so compelling. For a young man in Kansas, the words "A Day with HIV" are all too literal: he has just tested positive. But he's already begun educating himself about what he needs to know and is about to begin treatment; he's actually more concerned about easing his mother's worries for his health. In his picture, the only thing visible is his t-shirt, bearing the words: "I am awesome."
We might come from different places, different walks of life, but on Sept. 21, we saw that people are the same. They have hope, determination, and dignity. That's A Day with HIV.
Visit www.adaywithhiv.com to see the full photo set.
This article was provided by Positively Aware. It is a part of the publication Positively Aware. Visit Positively Aware's website to find out more about the publication.
Add Your Comment:
(Please note: Your name and comment will be public, and may even show up in
Internet search results. Be careful when providing personal information! Before
adding your comment, please read TheBody.com's Comment Policy.)


text:
John Hogan, who was named chief risk officer at JPMorgan Chase & Co last year just as its London Whale trades began racking up billions of dollars of losses, may leave the company, CEO Jamie Dimon said on Thursday.
Hogan will hold a new title of chairman of risk after returning to work on Monday from a leave he started in January, Dimon said in a memo to employees which was seen by Reuters. Ashley Bacon, Hogan's deputy, will become chief risk officer.
Continue Reading Below
When Hogan became chief risk officer in January 2012 he inherited a dysfunctional risk management system, according to a report by the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The report found that Hogan had no role in approving the bad trades and that he was unaware of their size and mounting losses before press reports about them in April of that year.
The company disclosed one month later that the trades had lost at least $2 billion. The disclosure set off intense investigations by government and company officials of JPMorgan's risk controls and whether some banks are too big to manage safely.
Hogan worked on overhauling the risk systems under the scrutiny of regulators. In November, Hogan's father died after a long illness, according to a person close to the bank.
Hogan said in January that he had discussed the possibility of a leave with Dimon and other executives before deciding taking the action.
JPMorgan has lost, or reassigned, a number of top executives since the London Whale debacle, which ultimately cost more than $6.2 billion. Since last May, Dimon has replaced his chief financial officer and investment banking chief, as well as the head of the Chief Investment Office, where the London Whale losses occurred.
Dimon said in the memo on Thursday that Hogan will work with Bacon for "several" months.
"We then hope he will stay at the firm in another senior role, but he may choose to do something different outside of our company," Dimon said. "John is a highly talented executive who did a superb job as head of Risk when we needed him most."
(Reporting by David Henry in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Bernard Orr)


text:
Media Room
NAM Perspectives
The National Academies
Health and Medicine Division
About Us
Explore by Topic
Biomedical and Health Research
Children and Families
Environmental Health
Food and Nutrition
Global Health
Health Care Workforce
Health Security
Health Services, Coverage, and Access
Public Health
Quality and Patient Safety
Select Populations and Health Equity
Substance Use and Mental Health
Military and Veterans Health
Women's Health
Upcoming (0)
Previous (14)
Displaying: 1 to 10 of 14 Meetings
Engaging the Public in Clinical Research: Views of Patient Advocates
Date: September 2, 2004 (8:00 AM Eastern)
Creating the Infrastructure to Improve the Public's Health
Date: May 20, 2004 - May 21, 2004 (9:00 AM Eastern)
Central Challenges Facing the National Clinical Research Enterprise: The Response of Medical School Deans
Date: October 17, 2003 (9:00 AM Eastern)
During the meeting ten leading medical school deans discussed clinical research training and workforce issues, with the ultimate goal of facilitating development of a coordinated action plan.
Collaborative Opportunities to Address Clinical Research Workforce Needs for 2010: A Focus on Women and Diversity
Date: October 16, 2003 (8:00 AM Eastern)
This workshop discussed new models for developing and sustaining clinical research investigators who will be successful in the current and future research environment.
Central/Regional versus Local Review Mechanisms and Action to Improve Human Protections
Date: June 26, 2003 - June 27, 2003 (9:00 AM Eastern)
The focus of this meeting was on human protection issues in clinical research. The group explored streamlined review mechanisms, central and regional IRBs, and identified suggestions for OHRP, FDA, and others that can facilitate this process.
Re-engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise: Needs, Challenges, and Multistakeholder Options
Date: March 6, 2003 (9:00 AM Eastern)
The Clinical Research Roundtable explored new models that might be applicable to the clinical research enterprise at its workshop.
Exploring New Models for Engaging the Public in the Clinical Research Enterprise
Date: November 5, 2002 (8:45 AM Eastern)
The goal of this workshop was to identify new solutions and highlight model programs that make both research and the research oversight process more transparent and open to public input.
Streamlining the Clinical Research Enterprise
Date: June 13, 2002 (9:00 AM Eastern)
Streamlining the Clinical Research Enterprise
Challenges for the Clinical Research Enterprise
Date: June 12, 2002 (9:00 AM Eastern)
The workshop focused discussion on the need for health services, outcomes, and quality research and the need for additional comparative and evaluative clinical research
The Role of Providers in the Clinical Research Enterprise
Date: March 7, 2002 (9:00 AM Eastern)
The goal of this workshop is to understand how providers interact with the various components of the Clinical Research Enterprise, how the Enterprise can be improved, and to understand what the future vision of the Enterprise should be from the provider perspective.


text:
Matching Gifts – Double Your Donation
Many employers match contributions made by their employees, retirees and employee spouses to qualifying charitable organizations. Please contact your personnel, human resource or community relations department for a copy of the matching gift form. Complete the form and either return to your company's designated contact officer or send along with your donation (depending upon your company's instructions) to HLAA.
The Hearing Loss Association of America will fill in the required verification information and return the signed form to the appropriate company contact.
If you have questions about matching gifts, please contact HLAA's Development Office at 301.657.2248 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) – Designation #11376
CFC is the world's largest and most successful annual workplace charity campaign, with more than 200 CFC campaigns throughout the country and internationally to help to raise millions of dollars each year. Pledges made by Federal civilian, postal and military donors during the campaign season (September 1st to December 15th) support eligible non-profit organizations that provide health and human service benefits throughout the world. To request a CFC Charity List and/or a CFC pledge form, please contact your local CFC office.
Please designate the Hearing Loss Association of America CFC #11376 as your charity of choice.
HLAA has been awarded the Charities Seal of Excellence, awarded to members of the Independent Charities of America and Local Independent Charities of America that have, upon rigorous independent review, been able to certify, document, and demonstration on an annual basis that they meet the highest standards of public accountability, program effectiveness, and cost effectiveness. These standards include those required by the US Government for inclusion in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), probably the most exclusive fund drive in the world. One of the 1,000,000 charities operating in the United States today, it is estimated that fewer than 50,000, or 5%, meet or exceed these standards, and of those, fewer than 2,000 charities have been awarded this Seal.
State and Municipal Campaigns
Like federal employees, employees of many state governments can donate to the Hearing Loss Association of America through their annual payroll deduction plan. Please review your pledge card to determine whether you can designate the Hearing Loss Association of America to receive your gift. The Hearing Loss Association of America is usually listed under the Health and Medical Research Charities of America.
California State Employees Charitable Campaign (CSECC) HLAA #3591
HLAA participates in the California State Employees Charitable Campaign (CSECC). During the fall, each state employee is given a payroll deduction pledge form and access to the Donor Resource Guide listing the participating nonprofits. The California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board screens these nonprofits to ensure their eligibility but does not endorse them in any way. CSECC is an employee benefit for those who would like to donate to charity through the convenience of payroll deduction. Payroll deduction donations start for as little as $2 per month. http://www.csecc.org
Maryland Charity Campaign (MCC) HLAA #5990
The Maryland Charity Campaign (MCC) is a workplace charitable-giving program that offers Maryland state employees the opportunity to contribute to charities using the convenience of payroll deduction. Currently over 800 charities participate in the campaign. The campaign is administered by the Office of the Secretary of State. The United Way of Central Maryland serves as the Operating Agency. http://mdcharity.org
The Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) is a tax-exempt, charitable organization and is eligible to receive tax deductible contributions under the IRS Code 501(c)(3). HLAA's Federal ID #52-1177011.
Have questions?
Please contact HLAA's Development Office at 301.657.2248 or via email at email@example.com.


text:
On-line Booking System
On-Line Payments
Rotorua Cultural Experience
Lord of the Rings
Natural Wonders Tours
Auckland's Best City Tours
Essential Auckland (AM)
Coast to Coast Tour (PM)
Combined All Day Tour
Haere Ra Auckland Tour
Backpacker Tours
Classic Tours
Full Day Tours
Extended Tours
Vacation Tours
Bay of Islands
Central North Island
Northland Vacation
Kauri Coast Vacation
Premium Tours
Chauffeur Tours
Manager's Specials
Conditions of Supply
Check out the Mini Coach
Links worth exploring
Printer Friendly version
Current New Zealand time
The search engine
and web directory
for New Zealand
Visit the Official Site of Destination New Zealand
Go your way with the essential online New Zealand travel guide.
© Copyright 2004. Produced By
Graben Webdesign.
WebHosting with
Onthť Networks Ltd.
Site Map


text:
US Dollar
GB Pound
Canadian Dollar
Australian Dollar
Product 20/23
The T3S Changeable Coil Clearomizer is a bottom-coil replaceable atomizer tank design.
This clearomizers is JUST LIKE the T3 you know and love, with the exception of the coil assembly. Now, you simply replace the coil itself, rather than the entire assembly - saving you $$$. =)
The Kanger T3S Changeable Coil Clearomizer Features:• Compatible with all Joytech eGo batteries• 2.4ohm resistance• Holds approximately 2.8ml of eJuice• Wicks and atomizer are located on the bottom of the clearomizer to stay wet and vaporize consistantly•Easy to fill / maintain Unscrew bottom coil assembly (1 piece with multiple o-rings), fill from bottle, reassemble, doneClean vapor - no polyfill like traditional cartomizersTank is built from the same quality materials as the T3
Support forum
| Nicotine
Replacement Therapies
| National
related policy
| Ruyan E-cigarette V8
| Ruyan E-pipe
| Xpower E-cigarette
| Pen-style E-cigarette
| Mini E-cigarette
| Smart PCC E-cigarette
| Disposable E-cigarette
| E-cigarette Cartridge
| E-cigarette Cartomizer
| E-cigarette Accessory
| E-Liquid & E-Juice
| Xpower 900
E-Cigarette M401
E-Cigarette M402
E-Cigarette M403
E-Cigarette M6 |
E-Cigarette M7 |
E-Cigarette M8
Email:email@example.com:firstname.lastname@example.com Skype:matuoshan Yahoo ID:matuoshan


text:
I Do Not Use AccesskeysDecember 29, 2003
A standard is a standard is a standard. But what if those standards don't work as directed?
Over time, I've come to the conclusion that Accesskeys are more harmful than good. Until browsers allow a user to override a document's Accesskeys, I won't use them.
The idea is a simple one: by using the
accesskey="n" attribute on specific links in your HTML, you define n as a hot key that allows keyboard access to that particular link. Mark Pilgrim has more on the syntax and usage of Accesskeys.
WATS.ca has written a series of in-depth articles (Is it Worth it?, More Reasons…, Accesskey Alternatives) that go into the problems with this seemingly simple idea. Executive summary: key conflicts with existing browsers/operating systems/user macros prevent Accesskeys from doing the job as described.
The problem has been stewing in the back of my mind for a while. But it really hit home last week: I received an e-mail from someone complaining about a specific conflict that has been bothering me personally.
Go to the Zen Garden in any browser that allows the ALT+D key combination to select the address bar (IE and most Gecko browsers will do the trick, Safari will not). Try selecting the address bar from the keyboard. Instead of doing so, some browsers will select the fourth design from the list on the right, since that list has been assigned sequential keys from 'a' to 'h'.
The annoyance factor is high, and in some cases it may be downright harmful. Accesskeys are a good idea; too bad they're not practical.
Reader Comments
That's why most browsers are moving towards control-keys for browser control, freeing the alt keys for access requirements. For example, ctrl-L is now the preferred way to get to the location bar in Mozilla (or open a dialog for a new location in IE).
The problem is we're trying to support people who don't/can't use a pointing device while also trying to support a legacy of nonstandardisation. Someone is going to have to miss out here &mdash so the real question is which is more harmful?
Yes, I've been thinking about this, too. And the same problem is present regarding tabindex also, which is (among other standards) poorly supported in IE. Pressing 'tab' key in the freshly opened page will select adressbar(s) of the browser primarily, and then proceed with the actual document. More frustrating is that refreshing a page (F5) wouldn't help if visitor lost tabindex sequence. In case of, one should open a new browser window or just keep pressing..
For me, this is just another standard which has neither actually been tested in real conditions, nor made completely..
Maybe we should keep making different versions of each page after all? Or make a list of unused letters in browsers/OS and stick to it? We still have numbers, don't we? But they are not intuitive..
Some great comments flying around here - a few things to respond to, so I'll try to do that here in one reply:
1. Jor – regarding the use of . We had suggested similar in that last article on Accesskey Alternatives (see http://www.wats.ca/articles/accesskeyalternatives/52#standardization ), and believe it would be better to include it in a LINK element than an A element for the most part, unless the links are actually "visible" links by definition. That will require more testing as well, for a variety of reasons, including browser support.
2. Dave – re: how to deal with a mass of links like on Anne's site. I'm not really sure we need to deal with it that much for browsers like Lynx. We had also proposed using the LINK element as an alternative to using skip navigation links etc, so if you define a LINK to Page content near the top of the list of your LINKs in the HEAD, you'd be presented with that link almost first, which would deal with that problem. Of course other user agents may be different, but at some point the implementation would be up to them - we've done our job by creating the appropriate meta data. On our site, "Page Content" is listed as a LINK near the top of our list of LINKs.
3. Michael – re: the hierarchy idea. Yes, that would deal with one of the issues with accesskeys (i.e., conflict resolution). However, it still doesn't deal with the issue of standardization and the usefulness of accesskeys. I still don't believe that author defined accesskeys are the way to go. I'm all for us defining appropriate LINK rel types, and convincing browser makers to allow custom keybindings based on the users so that the users can define their own keyboard shortcuts to use on *every* site.
4. Opera's lack of support for Numeric Accesskeys just seems to be the nail in the coffin. Numeric accesskeys had very little conflict save for some conflicts with Window Eyes (see http://www.wats.ca/articles/accesskeyconflicts/37#numwineyes ). Many site authors looked to numeric accesskeys as their last hope, and in fact, many governments have advocated/mandated the use of numeric accesskeys. We recommended to the Government of Canada in 2002 (when our accesskey research began) that they stop using accesskeys on their pages for some of these very reasons. As we've continued with the research, we've found them to be more problems than they are worth – we'd rather see some other method for providing the same functionality, but without the problems seen with the current implementation of accesskeys.
Standards are there for some time now. It's surprising that many browser makers haven't fully supported them to this date (correct me if I'm wrong).
Is it the sheer laziness or the lack of technology to implement them to their next product?
When considering the open-source development model (Mozilla in particular) it's surprising that they also haven't implemented it fully.
IMHO, it's time that standard compliant web developers start to fill the missing pieces.
Not to miss the point entirely, the address bar can be selected by F6 too in most browsers.
But yes, you make a very good point. What could be useful is using numbers (any web browser using numbers as menu access keys is retarded anyway :)), but I think all are taken.
I understand what you are saying about interpage navigation and that's fine. My assumption has always been that accesskeys were geared more toward in-page navigation. I.E. moving THROUGH or TO a group of fields or navigating to a specific section of content within the page (My Input).
Will the LINK REL be able to address this part of the navigation or do we still need accesskeys for that portion?
I think the context in which it's being discussed here it seems more like "ALT-H" goes to "Home" page, "ALT-L" goes to "Links", "ALT-A" goes to "About". I personally think that's a different animal and not meant for using accesskeys.
Yes! Being an avid using of the Alt-D combo to jump to the address bar for years, this is an extremely ill side effect of the access keys. Although the idea of browsers moving their access keys to the Ctrl-D combo instead is moderately satisfactory, who decided to that Access Keys shall use the Alt-XX combo?
Is it not obvious that Alt-XX is the magic bliss of anti-mouse advocates and has been forever? Even in the crumpy DOS editor you can use Alt to get to the menu bar, surely choosing Ctrl-XX for the Access Key standard would have been a more suitable choice.
So, access keys have implementation issues. That doesn't mean that they, or something like them, are not a good idea. Clearly, there are two problems that need to be solved - how to enable rapid keyboard based navigation within a single document and how to enable rapid keyboard based navigation between documents. Clearly, for both cases, it would make sense to provide a convenient interface to the contents of the link elements. Effectivley, one one simply provide standard shortcuts for the items already visible in the Mozilla site navigation bar (Top, Up, Down, Previous, Next, Last). This would not cause any obvious problems. Links with a rel not in that defined list would be more problematic, but one can certianly imagine interfaces that would allow these to be accessed via the keyboard - a link sidebar for example.
The same is true of intrapage keyboard navigation to elements with a defined accesskey. These elements could be made avaliable via the (otherwise mostly useless) 'go' menu or via a sidebar - this would provide some keyboard access to important navigational elements, since the go menu can always be accessed via ctrl-g (or whatever). One could display the author defined access keys in the menu so that the user had a simple way of determining which keys were in use as access keys. Alternativley, a browser author may decide to ignore the accesskey part of the spec and instead implement a system where elements defined to have an accesskey were assigned a particular set of keybindings in some predetermined fashion - e.g. to the combinations alt+digit for each digit 0-9 according to order on the page. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would at least prevent conflicts.
In short, I think that many of the current issues with accesskeys are implementation difficulties rather than anything more fundamental - although I would be interested to know of any alternative proposals that encompassed the same functionality but without the difficulties (the most obvious I can think of would be to provide a simple attribute that indicated that a keyboard shortcut should be assigned to a particular element, relying on the UA to implement the actual shortcut, with predefined shortcuts for particular valoues of 'rel'). Moreover, if the majority od UAs support numeric accesskeys and they cause few problems, I don't see the lack of support from opera being a reason not to use them. It;s difficult to see any substantial disadvantage and if they come into wider use, Opera might be encouraged to add support.
In my opinion accesskeys are a flawed concept to begin with. While MSIE and Geckos allow basic keyboard navigation, Opera uses nearly the complete keyboard for navigation, so accesskeys are delegated to a special accesskey mode. Thus alt+D does not select the accesskey 'd', but 'shift+esc-and-then-d' does.
Accesskeys are badly documented, there is nothing in the spec detailing how they should be made visible, and since unlike the LINK types there are no standard accesskeys defined at all, there is little or no consistency across website, requiring a user to relearn accesskeys on a per-site basis. I've even encountered situations where page A of corporate website N had accesskeys defined, but page B of the same website had entirely different accesskeys.
I'm all in favour of dropping them completely: a far better accesskey scheme could be devised using the LINK types. Remember  is perfectly valid HTML! A user could then simply map a button or keypress to the 'accessibility' link type, and know that no matter what website he was on, he would go to the accessibility statement.
I am re-thinking accesskeys too. If they ultimately lead to something less accessible then, as you say, they do more harm than good.
Someone also emailed me recently about my site asking why, when they pressed a certain key combination, the browser did not do what they expected. Obviously, one of the accesskeys attached to a navigation element was overriding a keyboard shortcut for the browser.
This is a shame, because the idea is a good one (although there is that other problem of how you let the user know what the accesskeys actually are!). Maybe there are certain keys that have an improbable conflict, such as the numbers maybe?
Plus this would majorly conflict with the Moz/Firebird feature of automatically searching the page for what you type. I would get pretty ticked if I started typing a word then ended up on a whole new page or whatever!
As Jor pointed out, and somethng that we first commented on in November, there are other options to provide similar functionality – they just need further development.
We do like the idea of allowing the end user to map keystrokes to activate links that have specific relationships defined via the rel attribute – put the user in control.
Philosophically, I believe we should not be defining accesskeys in our documents, but rather we should be defining proper LINKs to those areas we see as important (we need to expand on the list of rel attributes that are defined by default within HTML), then allowing the users to define their own keystrokes to invoke them. That way, I can use whatever keystrokes I want to get to the HOME page, the CONTACT form, the SEARCH form if it exists, the ACCESSIBILITY statement, and we don't have to standardize accesskeys across different sites, because we leave it to the browsers/users. I use what I want, you use what you want, and we have less conflict to worry about…
The number of sites that use accesskeys is still relatively small, yet they are mired with conflicting choices for accesskeys. Even sites that say they are using "standard" accesskeys are free to add in whatever they like, making it difficult to claim any sort of standardization at all.
That is why we think we need to look at different methods as we outlined in the last article Dave pointed to – Link Relationships as an Alternative to Accesskeys (http://www.wats.ca/articles/accesskeyalternatives/52)
Then surely the problem lies not with the accesskeys themselves, but with conflicting use of them. Try to avoid browser hotkey combinations, and wouldn't accesskeys be great?
Heh, I ranted about this back in September, also got some good feedback in my comments:
> Try to avoid browser hotkey combinations, and wouldn�t
> accesskeys be great?
Read the linked article "Is it Worth it?" – The conclusion reached is that there are only three keys that *don't* cause conflicts, at least on English sites:
AccessKey / (slash)
AccessKey (backslash)
AccessKey ] (right square bracket)
I believe LINK is the way to go, but I'm concerned about various implementations. Since, for example, Lynx dumps all LINKed items at the beginning of the document, theoretically if you have a site that lists a ton like Anne's - http://annevankesteren.nl/ - you'll need a special "Skip Nav" link for your LINKs, no? How would one go about implementing *that*?
<link rel="bookmark" href="#top" title="0 Skip Links" >

I really like Jor's suggestion about rel="accessibility" or something to that effect.
I think, as with any standard, the browser makers need to see significant pressure in the form of use (or abuse) of the standard before they will step in and make changes to the browser.
If we abandon use the manufacturers assume it's not needed, not that the browser is broken. So our best bet is to attempt to use the standard whereever possible and then yell at the individual browser makers to resolve the very real accessibility issues caused not by the standard but by their applications.
Accesskeys and tabindex are accessibility tools. The application developers just need to find a way to support them properly.
My choice for accesskeys would be to set up a hierarchy. For example: The first time you hit "Alt-H" the applications looks at where the focus is, is it on the page? Is there an accesskey "Alt-H" for the page? Yes? Use it! No? Then travel up to the application level and see if there's an accesskey "Alt-H" there. Yes? Use it! No? Then travel up to the OS level and pass the Alt-H to it so that it can go on to either the OS or some hotkey helper application. An additional keypress on H would tell the application to move immediately up the chain if I know "that's not the alt-h I want".
In that scenario if the page has focus and I had Alt-e as an accesskey to an e-mail field then Alt-e would put a focus on the field whereas Alt-e-e would would go to Edit on the file menu. Then you could have accesskeys without worrying about real conflict. Accesskeys then become somewhat like Alt-TAB taskmanagement just Alt- then TAB until you get the selection you want.
Dave, did you get an email that looked anything like this? It's possible you were a victom of a automated email campaign to get webmasters to start using accesskeys…. not sure why someone would send out automated emails like this, but this email has been sent to several people I know:
Dear Webmaster,
Just a quick suggestion, since I cannot find it in your accessability statement… How about adding keyboard shortcuts to
some of the links on your site?
As well as being quite important to disabled people and the elderly, they also make everything faster and more convenient
for everybody else, too.
They work on almost all version 5 browsers, and clearly do not interfere with older (or non html-compliant) ones.
The code is simple enough:
The above produces a link that can be activated by the user pressing Alt+4 on their keyboard. In theory, any character can
be used, but in practice, most letters cannot be used, since they may interfere with the browser's own hotkeys for the menus.
However, some common numeric standards are emerging,
for example:
1 Home Page
2 Skip Nav (or What's new)
3 Site Map (or Printer Version)
4 Search
8 Terms Of Service
9 Feedback
0 Accesskey List
The above scheme is now in use on every UK government and council site, as well as on healthcare sites, and now also on USA
academic sites, Australian Government sites, and mainland Europe commercial sites.
Something to think about… Companies around the world are spending trillions on wheelchair access for buildings and
carparks, and there are many US, UK and international laws coming into force to require this (508, and the Disability
Discrimination act is only months away)….
Thanks for listening.
Nick, I believe I did get a copy of that a month or so back. Interesting that someone is concerned enough about accessibility that they'd resort to spam.
jgraham - It's most definitely an implementation issue. While your proposal is rather interesting, I'm faced with the reality of what is supported right now. In their current form they just don't hold up well.
Aside from conflicts, discoverability is a problem. If a numeric standard were to be followed, that would cut down on confusion. But it would also limit the functionality; the proposed numeric 'standard' doesn't take into account, for example, web apps.
One thing WATS didn't cover that I can only put forward as hearsay is that JAWS allows custom mapping, and many advanced users will have a lot of customized key combinations already setup. Conflict with those, and you're hurting the very people Accesskeys were built for. Again – hearsay, not first-hand experience.
Isn't it a solution to use accesskeys and tabindex together? Let's say yoy have multiple
's for navigation. Give the first item of each one a numeric (I don't think those are being used by the browser themselves) accesskey and from there let it over to the tabindex. As far as I know when you use an accesskey it jumpes then to the first item. Hitting tab will jump the focus to the second.
Unfortunately not all browser recognize numerics as accesskeys (OPERA).
This problem is *so* three-years-ago. See http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51940#c4 . ACCESSKEY is just one of the many things the W3C wouldn't have codified if they cared about usability.
And for general comments on Web authors complaining that they can't do all the cool stuff application authors can do (accesskeys being an example), see http://geocrawler.com/archives/3/138/2001/4/100/5508135/ .
> While your proposal is rather interesting, I'm faced with the reality of what is supported right now. In their current form they just don't hold up well.
Yeah, I know. But I'm interested to know whether this is an implementation issue or it's a fundamental problem with the accesskey spec. If it's just a case that implementations of the spec are poor, then the best that anyone can do is make an extension (or even a full blown patch) for their choice of browser (assuming they use a browser where user extensions are possible) and hope that people pick up on it so that support in general improves. If, on the other hand the spec is impossisble to implement in a satisfactory way, then this discussion should be happening on www-html, not here. (Incidentally, the most informative reference that I found (after a very brief search) about accesskeys on the w3c public mailing lists is http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/1999OctDec/0725.html ). This supports the view that problems with accesskey are iimplementation problems rather than spec problems.
Incidentally, another approach to avoiding the keybinding clash problems is to avoid using standard command keys to access accesskeys. One could use a mechanism consistent with the typeaheadfind in mozilla and use say # to put you in a 'go to accesskey' mode. The fact that the spec suggests using alt or cmd as a modifier to get to the accesskey is imho a bug in the spec that is responsible for many of the current issues.
Dave – the custom keystroke mapping in JAWS, WindowEyes, and Opera is what eventually lead us towards suggesting things being user configurable. In using JAWS and WindowEyes for minor testing I saw the *very* high degree of end-user configurability in terms of keystroke access. WindowEyes as an example reserves Alt + 0 through Alt + 9 for user defined "windows" that represent different areas of the screen. The keys can be reconfigured to allow the user to remap the keystrokes to something else if they choose. Same appears to be true for Opera in terms of defining keystrokes there via Edit > Preferences, and then modifying the keyboard setup. It is very easy for instance to change the Open dialog box from ctrl + o to simply the single keystroke o if I want to.
Many of the issues that we have pointed out are implementation issues. However, we believe that there *are* other issues to be dealt with at a higher level.
We believe that we are moving towards an end goal of putting the user in control. To us, this means providing a mechanism for rapid keyboard navigation in the user's User Agent of choice, based on what the user defines in their preferences rather than what the authors of individual sites decide is an "intuitive" key to use for a particular shortcut. Current implementation and philosophy of accesskeys don't support this end goal.
That is what eventually convinced us that there needed to be another way of providing the same type of functionality. Seeing that end user configurability and the W3C User Agent Guidelines are leaning towards allowing for binding of custom keystrokes to different actions meant that author-defined keystrokes could eventually become meaningless anyway.
So, if we need to make significant changes to the way things currently are anyway, we believe that we should be asking the questions that we have been asking for a while (use of "we" in these questions is a global collective we): "What *should* we be doing?", "Can we look for/develop a different solution(s) that will not have the same implementation problems?", "Can we come up with something that is more 'standardized' for the benefit of all?", "Can we come up with something better?"
As for where the discussion should be taking place – we see it all the time on discussion forums, on the WAI list, on the WebAIM list and others. Whenever it pops up, we participate.
In every forum in which we participate, and in our own resources/articles that we post, we are also very careful to state clearly that:
1. We like the idea behind accesskeys,
2. We find the implementation very problematic
3. We believe that we collectively need to examine the issue and determine if we need to develop other solutions that better suit the needs of everyone.
For what it's worth, bugzilla links about getting keyboard access to the link elements in Mozilla:
The usual "Don't comment unless you have something significant (e.g. an implementation) to add" disclaimer applies.
jgraham wrote:
Yeah, I know. But I�m interested to know whether this is an implementation issue or it�s a fundamental problem with the accesskey spec. If it�s just a case that implementations of the spec are poor, then the best that anyone can do is make an extension (or even a full blown patch) for their choice of browser (assuming they use a browser where user extensions are possible) and hope that people pick up on it so that support in general improves.
*Of course* this is an implementation issue. One browser that does it right is Mac Mozilla. Keyboard shortcuts are Command-key; accesskeys are Control-key. No conflict; no problem.
If other browser writers are too lame to implement accesskeys properly, that's no reason to punish users of browsers who can use them.
And the target audience of Accesskeys is more than just "JAWS users". It's anyone who doesn't use a mouse for navigation. That could be someone with Carpal Tunnel, using voice-actuation for navigation. It could be someone browsing in a text-based browser, …
And, as to the proposed alternative of providing client-side configurable key-bindings to the <link rel=""> elements, that's a fine idea, but it's *foolish* to assume that such keybindings would be useful across sites. Web authors are no more likely to "standardize" on a common set of link targets (beyond the predefined ones) than they have on a common set of accesskeys.
Lynx provides keyboard access to the <link rel=""> elements on a page. Mozilla and Opera expose them to the user, but don't provide keyboard access. it would be nice if they did.
But, even if they did, web authors would still gripe and complain and not use them, because "Browser X" doesn't support it.
> *Of course* this is an implementation issue. One browser that does it right is Mac Mozilla. Keyboard shortcuts are Command-key; accesskeys are Control-key. No conflict; no problem.
Well 'm not sure it's so obvious. The reason it works on the Mac is that there are a larger number of modifier keys than on most other platforms and the command key is largely unused (the links mpt posted suggest that it can be bound to user macros). At the very least, I think the part of the spec that suggests using modifier keys to access these functions should be removed - modifier keys are already used in complex platform and application dependent ways that a document author cannot hope to antcipate over the full range of platforms. Even though this part of the spec is clearly informative, it appears to be bad advice.
> Web authors are no more likely to �standardize� on a common set of link targets (beyond the predefined ones) than they have on a common set of accesskeys.
Well having the standard link targets avaliable for keyboard navigation would be a huge improvement in itself. This really is an implementation issue. On the other hand, if there are widely used link targets that are not standardised, maybe they need to be standardised too (that doesn't even require a html rewrite - one could simply produce a specifcation like a more useful version of xfn ( http://gmpg.org/xfn/index )). One can imagine rel="document-body" for a skip navigation type link and rel="navigation" for a link to a set of hyperlinks, for example. Getting people to support such a specifcation is, of course, harder, but that's a different problem.
> But, even if they did, web authors would still gripe and complain and not use them, because �Browser X� doesn�t support it.
Sad, but apparently true.
jgraham wrote:
"The reason it works on the Mac is that there are a larger number of modifier keys than on most other platforms and the command key is largely unused."
The Mac does not have an unusually large number of modifier keys. It has 3: Command, Option and Control (4, if you count Shift).
It just uses them more intelligently.
Application keyboard shortcuts are always Command-key. And you can combine modifier keys, so applications with a large number of keyboard shortcuts might avail themselves of Option-Command-key or Shift-Command-key as well.
So, using Control-key for accesskeys is wide open.
You are completely correct that the Spec should not have suggested implementation details. That should have been left to browser writers. HTML specification-writers clearly aren't user-interface experts and, even if they were, they should not presume to dictate the user-interface in all browsers on all platforms.
I agree strongly with Derek Featherstone's view that rather than relying on authors' proprietary sets of keyboard navigation we should "provide a mechanism for rapid keyboard navigation in the user�s User Agent of choice." We have to learn separate sets of keystrokes per browser anyway–it makes perfect sense that standard navigation be the responsibility of the browser.
Though not really keyboard-based, Opera has an interesting answer to standard data in that it displays the links as buttons above the web page. Examples can be seen on the following pages when viewed in Opera:
I believe it is safe to say that unlike us, non-computer enthusiasts generally dislike keyboard shortcuts and find them much trickier than pointing and clicking. If browsers were to implement something like Opera's visual solution AND assign them some kind of keystroke we'd have an excellent solution to our problem.
To me the problem is still one of implementation vs. specification. Access key behavior from the W3 documentation is pretty clearly defined.
The problem comes in the fact that:
1) Each OS has it's own methods of dealing with keyboard shortcuts.
2) Each user agent has it's own methods of dealing with keyboard shortcuts.
3) Each user has his/her own method of dealing with keyboard shortcuts.
4) Helper applications have their own method of dealing with keyboard shortcuts.
And there's no management process available to allow all these differing methods to meld.
In general on Windows it works like this (I say in general because there are stupid exceptions ALWAYS):
Alt+KEY handles on screen elements (navigating to a field or through a menu).
Ctrl+KEY handles context menu/application level elements (Copy, Paste, Print, etc).
WinKey+KEY handles OS level elements (Starting applications or opening dialogs quickly Winkey+E for explorer or Winkey+R for run).
Ctrl+Alt+KEY/Ctrl+Shift+KEY handles user defined shortcuts.
So at least for Windows there are two fundamental problems with conflict resolution for duplicate shortcuts and third party applications that override the guidelines (like shortcut/macro programs or helper applications).
I think that there is something that you can do about the first problem. Which I stated in my previous post. We need for the application or the OS to have a keyboard shortcut conflict resolution mechanism. The second problem you can do little to nothing for.
It will never be perfect…
Part of why all of these helper applications have sprung up and created their own keyboard shortcuts is because of a lack of consideration by the developer community as a whole to attempt to conform to a years old standard. The problem ends up being the AOL/ADA problem:
Years ago AOL's software was not screen reader compatible. AOL made the statement that "If more blind users subscribed to the service we'd have more incentive to make the software accessible". Of course how many blind users are going to sign up for a service that they can't use. So which should come first - USE or USEFULLNESS.
Right now there's no incentive for the browser makers to do anything different. JAWS et al already do a lot for keyboard navigation. So should we throw our hands up and just say to hell with it? If that were the case we'd all be using MSHTML right now.
I say use the standard where you can. If it reaches 86% of the userbase and they see it as good, then great. If the other 14% can't use that EXTRA feature (that's based on an existing standard) then maybe they'll complain to the browser manufacturer for a better implementation. We have to put pressure on the manufacturers to do better. It's a must.
"One browser that does it right is Mac Mozilla. Keyboard shortcuts are Command-key; accesskeys are Control-key. No conflict; no problem."
Just expanding on this thought - the problem in casting a spotlight on a Mac browser is that the Mac OS is more or less impossible to use without a mouse in the first place. Maybe this is my relative inexperience with the system talking though, it's true I've only been a user for a few months.
Changing gears - I've been a mouse user for over ten years, it's an extension of my arm at this point. And yet I *need* keyboard access to my operating system and my browser. It's the way I work.
So to someone like me, Accesskeys are a great idea. I'd love to see the proposed numeric standard take hold, nothing could be better than relying on one set of keys to do exactly the same thing across all sites you visit. It would be great if I had control over what those particular keys are, of course.
Looking at the spec, if I'm reading this right, the conflict I originally started this thread with (ALT + D) is actually valid and expected according to UAAG - http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10-TECHS/topics.html#input-config-res - just highly inconvenient, and problematic (especially considering the other half about 'alerting the user' doesn't happen) Spec problem or implementation problem? Probably a little of both.
Derek, you've done well highlighting the current issues with the technology, and how things might change. It's where I have to leave the discussion, since my own agenda lies in what's practical today. But with people such as yourself working to better the technology, I'm sure we can look forward to a useful alternative.
I didn't see any mention of using F6 to access the URL bar… It works for me in IE6 and Mozilla. Has anyone tested this in other browsers. This makes the Ctrl-D issue a non-issue.
For me, in Mozilla, F6 brings focus to the search field in my sidebar search…not the same as alt+d, which brings focus to the address bar.
Even if F6 did work the same, all the time, as alt+d…it's much harder to use as a shortcut since it requires moving your hand from the home position (unless you have REALLY long fingers.)
I've been thinking about this issue recently as well. I tried making my access keys (for site navigation) make sense to the user, and used CSS to label them as such (underlining the accesskey letter in the actual link.) Still, it bothered me that one or more of these keys may be used for something else on the users computer. I thought about switching to numbers, but the comment that WindowEyes reserves atl+number for it's own use has swayed me. For now, access keys are gone.
> http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10-TECHS/topics.html#input-config-res
That part of that document seems rather far removed from reality. As far as I know (although I may be wrong) applications have very little in the way of ability to detect keyboard conflicts. In Mozilla, for example, I believe that keyboard events "bubble" up through all the possible layers that can handle that event. Any event can call preventbubble which will stop any higher level events from finding out about the keyboard event - so they have no way of knowing that there is an event that they have missed. Now I suppose that one could, in principle provide some additional communication between layers to detect conflicts. However, there must be a similar mechanism that passes unhandled events to the operating system. As far as I know (and I could be wrong), there is no way for any application to tell if the OS will do anything with an event that it passes - so detecting conflicts is in fact impossible (modulo operating system rewrites).
Assuming that one could detect a conflict, it's not clear how much alerting the user would help. Given that the majority of users ignore alerts (presumably this would have to be a status bar type alert, since an alert that interrupted workflow would make keyboard navigation useless for people who did want to use it), they'd still wonder why alt+D wasn't focusing the location bar but was instead scrolling the page.
The most useful suggestion there is to place the author bindings in a menu , so that one could guarentee a shortcut of the form ctrl+menu access key+element accesskey, although one couldn't have two items with the same accesskey in this scheme.
> The Mac does not have an unusually large number of modifier keys. It has 3: Command, Option and Control (4, if you count Shift).
That's one more than the number of unique modifier keys that are expected to be on a PC keyboard (ctrl, alt, shift). Admittedly, Alt and Alt Gr are actually different, but I'm not sure if all operating systems (or all keyboards) make this distinction. Additionally, many recent keyboards have the Super (or Windows) key - but this is *another* key that is used for OS level events.
> nothing could be better than relying on one set of keys to do exactly the same thing across all sites you visit.
The obvious problem being that all sites are different, and so might have different concepts of what doing the "same" thing entails. Moreover, different sites have different elements that would be considred important.
> It�s where I have to leave the discussion, since my own agenda lies in what�s practical today.
Well no one has really covered the options. For example, define a set of accesskeys and provide a script to disable them. Or produce two versions of the page, one with accesskeys and one without. Provide a list of accesskeys and the option to switch to the alternative version of the site (controlled by a cookie on subsequent visits) if the user experiences conflicts. A lot of work for a little gain? Probably, but these things are still possible.
coming in late on this, and it's probably already been said, but…the point of accesskeys is to provide a minimal set of shortcuts. having more than a handful of them is actually more harmful and confusing than not having them. unless the site is visited on a regular basis, users will not bother to learn all the keys. having only the accesskeys for skipping to content, the search field, etc is the best solution, and in most cases (sticking to the numeric accesskeys) should not conflict with any other key assignments…
I used to use Access Keys all the time for the pages I put together for our intranet. However since I discovered Type Ahead Find in Mozilla I've been using that instead. It works on any page on any website with no effort from the designer (as long as they are smart enough to use "click here" for everything; and don't use images-for-links all over the place). Also there is no need to memorise anything – just type what you are looking for.
I sincerely hope all browsers implement a type-ahead find feature. It is the best browser innovation I've seen in a long time.
The first thing to notice is that wats.ca don't really know what they're talking about. They state that M can't be used as an accesskey because Alt+M is reserved in Opera. But then Opera doesn't even use Alt to invoke accesskeys!!
Marko- you wanna create a list of unused letters in every browser/OS? It's gonna take you a while to cover every language. And then what do you do when you've only got ] left?
Numbers are obviously the way forward (and I've got them to work with Opera 7.22 on Win2K, so I'm not sure about the people who say they aren't accepted). Aside from avoiding conflict, they are also usable on the new generation of internet devices. Think mobile cellphones, and the remote pads of MSN-TV set-top box (they only have 10 keys anyway!). A worldwide standard has already been set up, and without any other standard to compete with, it has been widely adopted. They are also pretty intuative:
Chintana- it's not that the browsers offer buggy support. They don't. They support them fully and perfectly. Accesskeys are supported on all browsers on all OS (with the one slight exception of Safari). IE4 had them in 1997. Netscape has them from 2000, so does Opera, iCab, Mozilla et al, Phoenix/Firebird, Amaya…
LINK REL types are OK for links, but what about form elements? No luck there.
Michael- I like your hierarchy idea for screenreaders.
And the other idea about browser-configurable modifiers, or "accesskey mode" sounds good as well. Alt is only a suggestion, but some other combination might also work. (how about Alt+Shft? or even Control+AltGr?)
If you're going with letters, then a Satus bar type alert sounds like another good idea. Maybe even ask the user in the settings if they want to dismiss all page-accesskeys that conflict with the browser ones…
I guess accesskeys are supported by at least all major browsers. But every browser define's its own HotKeys and functionality.
Therefore, you can add a help page with information about the use of accesskeys with diverse browsers. Or?
> The first thing to notice is that wats.ca don't really know what they're talking about.
We acknolwedge and have now stated the fact that Opera does not use the Alt + _ keystroke combination to implement Accesskeys on the Keystroke conflict resource page of our site. It was an editorial oversight rather than a lack of "knowing what we are talking about…" (Curiously, many proponents of Accesskeys, on their page which maps their personal implementaion of site accesskeys, also use the phrase "Alt + _", when in fact depending on the browser and/or OS, it may in fact be something completely different - right Mac users?)
However to set the record straight (and in the interest of completion), in Opera, to activate a letter accesskey, you hold down Shift + Esc + letter. When using numbers on the other hand, you must press Shift + Esc, let go, and then press the number.
We continue to stand by our overarching position though, that Accesskeys are a failure in their implementation and usability/accessibility and that the development community (that's us, guys and gals) need to come up with a better alternative.
Just discovered this interesting article/discussion while composing a posting on macosxhints about accesskeys in Safari. I'll just copy+paste most of that here:
Anyone here know how to disable accesskeys in Safari? They interfere with "emacs-style" control key shortcuts I frequently use while composing messages on several forums. For example, control-p often activates "preview post" instead of moving to the previous line. Or control-b inserts bold UBB code markers. Even worse, I've accidentally posted something that couldn't be edited or deleted without even realizing which accesskey did it.
One option for Safari might be to disable accesskeys while keyboard focus is in a text input widget (or whatever it's called), but this ain't my area of expertise so I'm not sure if that's the "right" thing to do or if the current behavior might actually be a bug.
Jacques Distler wrote: "So, using Control-key for accesskeys is wide open".
Unfortunately that's not true, per my example. It's my main issue (and gripe) with accesskeys in Safari. Bug or not, they've downgraded my browser usability, apparently without any immediate recourse. Same may hold true for OmniWeb 5, which I'll be checking soon now that this topic has interrupted me.
Just one final follow up on this post, as we've just added to our articles on accesskeys.
The latest working draft of XHTML 2.0 no longer includes the accesskey attribute and replaces it with a new "access" attribute that has more power and flexibility.
I've posted more detail in our latest article: The Future of Accesskeys
I find that one of the facets lacking in the discussion of Access Keys is that of Internationalization (I18N). I recently worked on a project where we were converting our website for B2B to allow for various translations of the same dialogs. Originally, we used Access Keys to provide some quick and easy functionality. However, we found in our necessity to internationalize, we were forced to completely remove the access key properties.
After all, "Done" button in one dialog could be translated to "Fin" in the French version. The original use of Ctrl-D no longer has any meaning to a French user. Thus, I consider that the need to internationalize sites and provide multiple language options also creates an issue in relation to the use of Access Keys.
(I'm only replying to this now as I've come across this post from one of Derek's articles mentioned above.)


text:
27 Years Ago: Ozzy Osbourne Gets a New Guitar Player for 'No Rest for the Wicked'
By the late '80s, Ozzy Osbourne had been lucky enough to work with some of the best guitarists in rock, including Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee — not to mention his former Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi. When Lee was fired following the tour for 1986's The Ultimate Sin, his replacement had some mighty big shoes to fill.
Given how lucky he'd been with guitarists before, it wouldn't have been surprising if Osbourne's luck finally ran out when it came time to record his next album, No Rest for the Wicked. But as fans quickly discovered when the LP hit stores in September 1988, rock's Prince of Darkness had stumbled across another brilliant axeman in Zakk Wylde.
Wylde's arrival coincided with the return of bassist Bob Daisley, whose lyrics formed a large part of Osbourne's solo catalog, but whose contentious relationship with the singer had put them on the outs since 1985. Wylde and Daisley helped write all but one of the songs on the album, which also featured songwriting contributions by drummer Randy Castillo and keyboard player John Sinclair. Only one track, "Devil's Daughter (Holy War)," ended up being credited solely to Osbourne.
With producers Keith Olsen and Roy Thomas Baker behind the boards, the newly augmented band set about recording some of Osbourne's most pointed solo material, including the single "Miracle Man," which gleefully poked fun at televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who'd made headlines by criticizing Osbourne's music before losing his ministry in a sex scandal. Though reviews were mixed — Rolling Stone snickered at the album's title, quipping, "apparently no brains either" — fans responded the way they always had, sending it to the Top 20 on the album chart and buying more than a million copies before the year was out.
Looking back on The Ultimate Sin as "much softer" than his other albums, Osbourne later described No Rest for the Wicked as being "more like the original Black Sabbath sound … I purposely went out of my way to make a heavier album." His words proved prophetic, considering that before long Daisley was out of the band again, replaced by Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler for the subsequent tour and live EP, Just Say Ozzy.
How No Rest for the Wicked stacks up against Osbourne's other efforts in terms of heaviness is up to fans to decide, but it definitely served to strengthen his grip on the charts. Between that and his appearance on Lita Ford's massive 1988 pop hit "Close My Eyes Forever," his solo stardom burned brighter than ever. With Wylde settled into the lineup, Osbourne ppeared poised for another decade of ear-splitting greatness.
Ozzy Osbourne Albums Ranked Worst to Best
This Day in Rock History: September 28


text:
Ai Media Server - Infinity 8 - Pro 1
Product Description:Avolites Ai Media Server - Infinity 8 - Pro 1
The award winning, record breaking Ai Infinity server is the talk of the industry. Its 8 unique full HD DVI outputs, each with internal EDID management and production & preview connectors are the envy of the competition.
The Infinity server includes many more unique hardware features, such as LTC timecode input, DMX 512 & Artnet output and a front panel touch screen showing the Ai Visualiser. All of these features reduce the requirement for other separate rack mounted products which also reduces the overall project budget and saves on precious rack space.
• Smooth playback of multilayer 4K or 8K* media using the AiM Codec.
• Up to 4 full 1080p HD outputs (Infinity 4) or 8 full 1080p HD outputs (Infinity 8).
• 8 fixture groups x 4 layers = 32 media layers.
• Internal EDID Management for each of the 8 outputs. Rear DVI connections are hot swappable!
• Integrated front panel touch screen interface.
• Genloc Camera Sync.
• LTC Timecode Input.
• 4 DMX outputs.
• Soft-edge blending of multiple projectors.
• Timeline, Timecode Sequencer.
• Support for 3D displays
• Build and create in the 3D Stage Visualiser.
• Remote vertex adjustment.
• Map and warp onto any 3D surface.
• Video map onto any moving scenery.
• Intuitive modular LED support.
• Configure multiple systems as Master Slave.
• Internet and iPad remote control (via VNC).
• Artnet and KiNet output protocols.
• Anti Shock & Internal Sub Frame construction.
• Supplied pre-installed with an extensive Media Library of 320 AiM clips
• Also available with 1 x VGA / DVi + 2 x HD / SDI capture inputs
or alternatively 4 x HD / SDI capture inputs.
* to enable playback of 8K Media the SSD upgrade option is needed.


text:
Every Monday during School Term.*
Come and learn all about Wanneroo's history! This exciting program is designed for children aged 2-5 years old and their accompanying grown up. You will learn all about our past through songs, stories, crafts and by exploring our museum.
No booking is required, but please come early as space is limited!
*Closed Public Holidays