text:
Get Free Facebook Likes, Followers, Shares, And Comments!
Get "Free Facebook Likes" on the fast, simple and safe way now. Gather real "Facebook Likes", and users without bots, will push you into the social spotlight and raise your brand recognition.
Get "Free Facebook Likes" on the fast, simple and safe way now. Gather real "Facebook Likes", and users without bots, will push you into the social spotlight and raise your brand recognition.
To get the most out of your Twitter, you want to gain free followers on your Twitter. The more people that are following you there, the more likely it is that they will see what you're doing. We can help you grow your Twitter following safely and responsibly.
YouTube View exchange, like all features, works on a "More Active - First Served" basis! The users who are more active, get their pages displayed first. The more videos you watch, the more users will watch your videos back! "I watch your YouTube Video - you watch mine".
Google Plus integrates social services such as Google Profiles, Google Buzz, and introduces new services Circles, Hangouts, and Sparks. This social media is growing day by day and proved to be a great SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool. Works like this: "I Google Plus someone - they Google Plus back". The exchange is free, fast and easy with our "Google Plus On The Page" system...
StumbleUpon is a social website where people share their favorite websites with other members. It is a good idea to submit your niche stores to StumbleUpon for free backlinks and site promotion.
The concept seems easy. Provide engaging images of your product or service on your website, pin them to Pinterest, and allow the image to attract your customers to your site. Not only does this link forward people directly to your site, but will also boost your Search Engine Rankings.
Instagram pictures provide a great collage and give your audience a better insight into your company. You can promote anything your company may be doing and is absolutely free. From products and services - to employees - to customers - to conferences.
Vimeo refers to a video sharing platform that allows users to upload their videos, share videos and also watch videos uploaded by other users. Vimeo is a popular social networking platform lately. This popularity is utilized by well-known brands to promote their products and services globally.
Vine is an application website owned by Twitter. It offers it's users the possibility to create short video clips to a length of six seconds as a maximum. Having a Vine account is a useful tool for a budding film enthusiast or even a small business owner. These are proven marketing techniques that help kickstart with safe free fine followers and quality free vine likes.
Here is so much value exchange connected with social networking, hence our focus on the social links you can add to your profile - why not pad out your SoundCloud profile with links to your website, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and more.
Myspace is all-new, and it's all about making music social. The new site is backed by Justin Timberlake and incorporates many elements of modern web design, particularly an emphasis on visual media. The new Myspace is pretty. It incorporates many of the trends in modern web design and social media — big visuals, responsive design, easy discovery — and gives them a clear focus: connecting through music. And it really works.
Reverbnation is an online distribution and networking site for musicians who do not have a publishing or label to release their music. Reverbnation has tools and they can be used to upload songs. It can also be used to create a widget that is flash based to embed on your site. People can listen to your music and show up on your website or even join your mailing list or share your music.
Ask.fm is a website for social networking that allows users to ask questions from different parts of the world, with the anonymity option. On this website, Ask.fm, the answers are rated by the if they like them. You can get absolutely free Ask.fm likes and grow the rating of your answer.
Flickr is the best sharing and online photo management application in the world. It allows showing off your preferred videos and photos to the world. FlickrFaves refers to the small utility that allows downloading versions of the high resolution of your Flickr faves (favorites) to your hard drive. Flickr faves are written in Java and is a cross-platform utility.
Twitch starter is the name of the online community that assists you in getting extra followers and viewers. Professional to new gamers of all ages use Twitch as it makes streaming better. There are cool tools, blogs, forums and websites that Twitch gamers and streamers can get going.
OK.ru is the Odnoklassniki social network official app. This is a Russian social network identical to Facebook, mainly used in the ex-soviet republics such as Moldavia, Armenia, and Georgia. OK.ru allows free OK.ru joins and you can enjoy uploading pictures and videos, publish on others walls, chat with other users, in fact, enjoy sake Facebook experience.
VKontakte (Internationally branded as simply 'VK') is the most popular and free social network service in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. VK not only support an interface highly reminiscent of Facebook but incorporates media features that make it more like YouTube, Pandora, and MySpace rolled into one.
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We are rewarding our Top 200 users every week in two categories "Weekly Personal Bonus", and "Weekly Referral Bonus"... The users that earn most points in one week can collect bonuses as presented in the table:
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Branyan is a rural/residential district on the Bundaberg-Childers Road, seven kilometres south-west of central Bundaberg. It is also on the Burnett River, and has flat to undulating landscape.
Branyan is well renowned by locals and visitors alike for it's Sandy Hook recreational precinct where the Australian Grand Prix speedboats converge annually in November and where locals and visitors alike participate in a variety of watersports on the river.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).

subset: commoncrawl


text: Jim Lux wrote: > > The real question is whether one can synchronize the sampling of the > sound card. Synchronizing the processor to better than a microsecond > is fairly straightforward (one could always use some interrupt line, > for instance), but the interaction with a sound card is fairly complex. Depends on the sound card. If you have a card like the M-Audio Delta 1010 (96K, 24-bit, 8 analog inputs, 8 outputs), it comes with a "world clock". This should be able to be used to sync. the sample clocks on the cards. I believe there are some other studio cards with "world clock" inputs. http://www.m-audio.com http://www.rule.com/productDesc.cfm?productID=24&categoryID=6 You may also be able to use S/PDIF as a sync source. I have a couple of 1010's and they are excellent. I'm using the commerical OSS driver, but it does not support the world clock sync (yet). You might want to try contacting the opensound folks and the alsadriver folks for recommendations. For sync'ing your data, could you provide a sync signal on another channel as a rough sync (not nearly as good as if all the sample clocks are in sync)? Good luck, -- Wade Hampton


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Change the domain on my Office 365 email account
When you set up additional email addresses in Office 365, the default domain for your new email address will be the one you used during your organization set up. Sometimes you may need to change the domain associated with your address.
The following conditions need to be met before the option the change your domain will be available:
- Your domain name must be registered with GoDaddy.
- The domain needs to be registered in the same account as your Office 365 email plan.
- The zone file for the domain needs to be active with GoDaddy and in the same account as your Office 365 email plan.
- Log in to your GoDaddy account and open your product. (Need help opening your product?)
- Click on the email address you wish to update.
- Inside the area labeled Account Information, click Edit in the top right hand corner.
- Next to Username, click on Change domain. A dropdown list will appear showing all domains in your account that meet the requirements for use on Office 365.
- After selecting your new domain, click the Save button.
Note: If your password has expired, the system will prompt you to create a new password. In that case, enter and confirm a new password for your mailbox to proceed.Please allow up to 24 hours for your domain change to take affect.
More info
- For information on managing your domain's DNS at GoDaddy, please visit Manage DNS zone files.
- For help logging into your Office 365 email account, please visit Log in to my Microsoft Office 365 email account.


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Waterworks Studio
+ More
With origins in a family plumbing supply business started in 1925, Waterworks Studio, based in Connecticut, offers simple, luxurious bath products. Building on generations of experience, the brand uses the highest quality materials in its modern creations, working with in-house designers and prestigious collaborators that are committed to craftsmanship.
From the Transit Collection with its essential, clean lines to the Urban Concrete Collection with its industrial appeal, Waterworks Studio offers products with impeccable performance, durability and style.- Less


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Spice Rubbed Lamb Chops with Corn Salad Recipe
Your source for quick recipe every single week day.
- Yield:serves 4
- Active time: 20 minutes
- Total time:30 minutes
- Rated:
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tablespoon sugar
- Kosher salt
- 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 cups fresh corn kernels, from about 4 ears corn
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 3 tablespoons canola oil, divided
- 1 tablespoon garam masala
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 8 small lamb chops
Combine vinegar, sugar, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl and stir until sugar and salt dissolve. Add red onion and mint and stir well. Set aside.
Melt butter in a 12-inch non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add corn and cook, stirring occasionally, until kernels are very hot but not browned. Transfer corn to the large bowl with red onion, and toss until everything is evenly coated. Set aside to cool to room temperature. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Stir together garam masala, cayenne, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, and 2 teaspoons salt in a small bowl. Rub lamb chops with 1 tablespoon canola oil. Sprinkle chops on both sides with the spice mixture, and then use your hands to rub the mixture in.
Heat remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a large cast-iron skillet over high heat until just starting to smoke. Add as many of the lamb chops as will fit in one layer. Cook until browned on the bottom, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and brown on the other side, another 2 to 3 minutes. Remove and set aside. Repeat process with any remaining chops.
Divide the corn mixture and chops between four plates. Serve immediately.
This Recipe Appears InDinner Tonight: Spice Rubbed Lamb Chops with Corn Salad
This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.


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Training Professional Drivers Since 1971
Charlotte Truck Driver Training School was the first licensed private trade school for the training of tractor-trailer drivers in North Carolina. We feel our philosophy of giving the best training to all without sacrifice of personal attention has kept Charlotte Truck Driver Training School as the first school in the trucking industry.
What We Do:
By breaking the class into small groups for field and highway instruction, we are able to provide personal attention to the needs of every person in the class throughout the training period.
Statement of Purpose:
Charlotte Truck Driver Training School has one goal - that is to prepare you as the best tractor-trailer driver that you can be. Every person associated with the school is dedicated to helping you reach this goal, and as you put forth your best effort, the goal will be reached.


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Hold/Recall Request Form
- This form is for items that are currently checked out. Before placing request, please make certain that the item is not available through CUA or any other consortium libraries.
- Hold/Recall requests for CUA items is limited to current CUA students, faculty and staff. Current students, faculty and staff can Hold/Recall items owned by CUA Libraries only.
- You will be contacted via your CUA email when the item is available for pick-up at Mullen Library.
* field required


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Defamation Of Trenton, N.J.?: Guy From Trenton Is So Offended At Tee Yungstah! "Where Did You Find This Guy Grind Time" (Speaks On Tee Yungstah Vs Jay Focus GT Battle)
A guy from Trenton. New Jersey "BOOM BLAKE" SPEAKS ABOUT TEE YUNGSTAH GRINDTIME BATTLE. Hes offended about Tee Yungstah losing battle towards Jay
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


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Facing a Moving Robot
This is the third lab that follows after Lesson 8 of the Lesson Curriculum. The initial positions of both robots are known, and one robot moves in the environment, while the second robot has to continuously adapt and turn to face the first robot.
To do so, the relative position of the first robot from the second has to be computed. After each motion of the first robot, its relative position is updated using odometry. Once the position of the first robot is known, it computes the angle that the second robot has to turn in order to face the first, and communicates that action. The first robot then makes another motion, updates its position, and calculates a new angle for the second robot to turn.
This lab's purpose is both to reinforce Lessons 1-8, and also to reinforce multi-robot concepts. In order for multiple robots to communicate meaningfully, a common reference frame is required, and this lab uses the second robot's initial position as the origin. To update the first robot's position through odometry, concepts such as sine and cosine have to be used, and arc-tangent is also used to compute the angle that the second robot has to turn to face the first.


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The Refraction
Michael S. Lazarus 2/6/2008 2:30:22 AMI like the composition and lighting in this image Lee. Very creative. -Michael #847979
Sarah A. Tenace 2/7/2008 2:48:54 PMthis one looks like a winner! awesome job #5460208
RC Fritz 2/8/2008 5:12:06 AMVery, very creative composition, Lee! #5463450
Tania Bounader 2/13/2008 5:02:15 PMWow, awesome shot! #5491330
Carolyn M. DAlessandro 2/17/2008 7:44:37 AMWonderful POV and the clarity is perfect.I find that it pulls me in. A great composition! Overall a awesome image. Well done!! #5506416
Christine Welsand 2/20/2008 10:47:13 AMFabulous! Nice eye and work! #5522166
Kurt Hawkins 3/22/2008 5:34:12 PMvery cool .. and beautiful capture lee .. congrats .. B) #5679901
Kurt Hawkins 3/24/2008 6:42:21 PMBeautiful work. I can't seem to figure out how you did it... switching the colors from side to side. Yet, I love it! Congrats! #5691605
Elida Gutierrez 3/24/2008 9:11:09 PMCongratulations!!!
A Special Star
For all the Winners.
Jo Anne Shinn 3/25/2008 6:04:31 PMCongratulations! Love it!!! =) #5698033
Dominick M. Dimacale 3/27/2008 5:41:05 AMCongratulations Lee on your win.
Dominick #5705092
Brad E. Gibson 3/30/2008 6:06:58 PMVery good idea, Lee! I like it. And congrats, too! #5720795
Exif: F Number: 22, Exposure Bias Value: 0.00, ExposureTime: 10/2500 seconds, Flash: did not fire., White balance: Manual white balance, FocalLength: 70.00 mm, Model: NIKON D70
Uploaded on 2/6/2008 2:15:49 AM
Camera: Nikon D200 Digital SLR Camera
Copyright for this gallery photo belongs solely to Lee R. LaPine. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Log in to follow or message this photographer or report this photo.


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Member Login
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Thank You to ALL of our "I Love Shawnigan" Clean Up Day 2018 Participants!
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text:
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (AP) — Authorities still are unsure of what prompted a 64-year-old man to open fire at officers inside a suburban Detroit police station.
Southfield Police Chief Eric Hawkins told reporters Monday there is no apparent motive behind the shooting and that a preliminary investigation reveals the shooter, Harold Joseph Collins, was in poor health.
Hawkins says Collins of Southfield was a military veteran.
Collins was killed during a gun battle with officers Sunday afternoon in the lobby of the department's headquarters building. One officer was shot in the shoulder during the exchange.
Hawkins says the officer is in stable condition Monday.
Police say Collins first tried to shoot an officer behind bulletproof glass before he was confronted by other officers.
The Oakland County sheriff's office is investigating the shooting.


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Buy now and save! ONLY LEFT
I had a confirmation of shipping within 30 minutes of placing my order! That's incredible! On top of that, PC-Canada had the lowest price I could find in Canada.
I had to phone PC-Canada within minutes after placing the order (my mistake) and spoke with Stephanie. She was very helpful and polite.
What a great company to order from!


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Anti-tax evangelist Grover Norquist, one of Washington's most influential figures, is facing an apparent erosion of his power as leading Republicans begin opting out of pledges to his cause.
Norquist has amassed considerable clout over the last couple of decades by managing to get hundreds of Republicans in elective office to sign a controversial pledge vowing never to vote for a tax increase.
But there was growing feeling Sunday that the anti-tax crusader and his pledge were quickly becoming irrelevant as several party bigwigs said they would abandon the vow and analysts openly questioned his continued relevance.
"Grover Norquist is an impediment to good governing," Republican political strategist Matthew Dowd told ABC television's "This Week" program.
"The only good thing about Grover Norquist is, he's named after a character from 'Sesame Street,'" Dowd said.
"I think Grover Norquist's sell-by date has passed," said another longtime political observer, Joe Klein of Time Magazine.
Norquist, who heads the Americans for Tax Reform group, began collecting signatories to his pledge more than 20 years ago, gathering the names of politicians no less powerful than Mitt Romney, the recently-vanquished Republican presidential candidate.
Signatories to Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" agreed to "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses."
They also promised to "oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates."
A longtime Washington player, Norquist is a Harvard MBA and trained economist whose rock-solid Republican credentials include membership on the board of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the American Conservative Union.
He founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985, and the group's website says that in the current legislature there are 238 House members and 41 senators who have taken the pledge, as well as 13 governors and 1,244 state legislators.
Any Republican lawmaker who breaks the no-taxes vow faces the opprobrium of their party and a probable primary challenge from a more hardline opponent who can be counted on to toe the party line.
But prominent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss said last week that even a possible future election challenge was not enough to convince him to stick to his promise.
"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss told a Georgia television station last week.
As far as a primary challenge goes, he said, "I don't worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist."
Norquist's influence appears to have diminished quickly following the November 6 vote that re-elected Barack Obama and gave the president greater authority in talks to find measures to reduce America's ballooning debt.
Amid a growing consensus that it will take a combination of spending cuts and more revenue to rein in the deficit, the Republican leadership appears ready to jettison what had once seemed an iron-clad no-tax-hike promise.
"I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country," senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told "Fox News Sunday."
Republicans are only reconsidering their stance on taxes because a poison pill law -- designed to force action to rein in the debt -- will see a potentially catastrophic combination of tax hikes and spending cuts come into force if no deal is reached by the year-end.
Another prominent Republican to openly break with Norquist on Sunday was leading House representative Peter King.
One cannot be held to "a pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago," the New York lawmaker said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
"For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have signed a declaration of war against Japan. I'm not going to attack Japan today," he said.
"The world has changed," said King, "and the economic situation is different."
Copyright (2012) AFP. All rights reserved.


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MP3 Tokyo Decadence - It Never Has to End
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text:
Omedetou party!
Saturday I was at Omedetou Party, a lovely party to reward the students of the Japanese course held by my friend Grazia (she is a Japanese teacher ^^), the program was karaoke all the afternoon! With Chiara and Grazia we sang Fantastic Baby ahah it was hilarious, then there were a lot of people that sang, it was really funny 'cause usually there aren't so many people wanting to sing ^^ ( I also sang with my boyfriend the first opening of Sengoku Basara and with my friend Giada a Mermaid melody song and a Bleach opening). At the end of day I was so tired but really happy! Outfit of the day:
Cardigan (Super Lovers), Hair ribbons, necklace (Kreepsville666), Boots (Bodyline)
There were so many people at the event! I was so glad to met again friends and new amazing people!
Chiara sang the Evangelion opening (her strong point!), I also made a video but I enshrine it *_*
Fantastic baby moment with Chiara and Grazia
With Grazia and my friend Giada, she was so cute in her Enma Ai cosplay!
Lastly….a little piece of the video of Fantastic Baby, luckily you cannot listen me too much (Grazia and Chiara have powerful voices XD) but you can see me laughing so much that I had to escape 'cause I couldn't resist anymore X°D
I hope to have the chance to spend my weekend with friends soon, the next event will be a local comics convention in May, it will be the perfect occasion to wear again my Yuki Onna cosplay ^___^


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Morning Read: iShares Launches Target-Date Corporate Bond ETFs
- Order Reprints
- Print Article
Market check: Index futures point higher, gold's price rises above $1,400, crude oil gains 60 cents to $88.61 and the yen weakens to 99.30 per dollar. The DJIA and S&P 500 enter Friday with losses in four of the last five sessions.
Fund watch: BlackRock's (BLK) iShares today unveils a family of target-date maturity corporate bond funds, building up a credit-market niche where Guggenheim Investments already offers a suit of products called BulletShares. The funds' names are iShares 2016 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (IBCB), iShares 2018 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (IBCC), iShares 2020 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (IBCD), and iShares 2023 Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (IBCE). As Index Universe's Cinthia Murphy notes, the iShares target-date funds have a price advantage, costing 0.10% of assets annually apiece, versus BulletShares' 0.24%.
In the news: Copper narrowly evades bear-market terrain, reports the WSJ's Matt Day.
In case you missed it: 'Fear index' surging? This chart suggests it's a speed bump.


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That latest student craze sweeping China: Supercomputing wars
Dozens of universities battle for cluster contest slot
HPC blog In a Wall Street Journal article last Friday, a bit of light was shone on China's entry into the upper echelon of supercomputing nations over the past few years. In 2007 China had only 10 systems on the Top500 list. But like TV's George Jefferson adding dry cleaning stores, China has been movin' on up - it now has 74 of the top boxes.
When Jefferson moved into that dee-luxe apartment in the sky, as he put it, he constantly hatched schemes to thwart his business and personal rivals – much like what the Western world believes China will do with their new supercomputing prowess. The parallels are eerie.
The WSJ story points out that supercomputers in China are often used for local, non-supercomputing tasks rather than the ambitious basic research that these systems typically do in the rest of the world. But there's another side of the Chinese supercomputing surge – it looks like HPC is rapidly becoming a cool pursuit for China's university students.
The upcoming Student Cluster Competition at ISC'12 sparked a flurry of Chinese student cluster infighting to see which teams will carry the Chinese flag in Hamburg this June. China has been allotted two of the six competition slots, but there are dozens of Chinese universities vying for them.
To resolve the logjam, China's Ministry of Science and Technology (aided by the HPC Advisory Council and Chinese vendor Inspur) is sponsoring an intra-country clustering battle to select the best teams to represent the country at the ISC competition.
Each aspiring team will have to write a paper that showcases their HPC chops and discusses why they'd have the best chance to bring home the trophy. The teams who make this cut will face off in a cluster-building exercise using equipment provided by Inspur. The top two will travel to Hamburg to compete for the above-mentioned international student cluster trophy.
If you can read Chinese, here's a link I've been given that purportedly outlines the contest. Since I can't read Chinese, and Google's translator can't seem to make heads or tails of it, I'll have to take their word for it.
This is the first year that the International Supercomputing Conference will host a cluster competition, but the Supercomputing organization (SC11) has had them for the last five years. I've been covering these competitions for the last couple of years and have seen steadily increasing interest in most quarters. The SC competition typically sees 15 or so serious entries and selects the eight best proposals for the actual competition.
For one country – even the largest country in the world – to have dozens of universities applying to enter the ISC cluster competition is noteworthy. It indicates a groundswell of interest in computing in general and HPC specifically.
Some of this may be fueled by the publicity surrounding China's second place NUDT team from the SC'11 Student Cluster Competition (The Battle in Seattle) last November. It may also be due to the fact that HPC technology is now spreading throughout China, and that's whetting student appetites to learn more and see what they can do on the world stage.
It'll be interesting to see which teams advance to Hamburg for the finals in June. With both ISC and SC fielding student cluster competitions this year, is it time for The Reg to set up a Computer Sports Channel? We could start out covering the clustering stuff and then extend into robot wars, AI competitions, and the like. That would be huge fun and maybe score me a cool blazer. ®
Sponsored: Becoming a Pragmatic Security Leader


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In the world of allergens, potato is an unexpectedly common trigger for some people. In the course cutting out foods that seemed to bother Baby Yum, I found it necessary to cut out potato from my diet. I just about went crazy! Where were my hash browns, my french fries, my baked potatoes, my starchy gnocchi, my knishes? Oh my darling knishes, how I missed you! Not being able to bake some starchy goodness up in the oven or have my favorite In-N-Out gluten-free french fries made me one sad (and hungry) breastfeeding mama. But, when the diet gets restricted, it encourages you to start thinking outside of the box. First I tried sweet potato fries. Those are good. But, I wasn't quite sure they agreed with Baby Yum either. So, back to the drawing board. It took me a while but eventually I thought- wait! These starchy and sweet carrots I've been stir frying and munching on all hours of the day might actually make a pretty tasty roasted french fry if I prepared it correctly. So, out came the olive oil, the seasonings, my favorite baking sheet- and I sliced up those carrots just like a sweet potato or potato. And you know what? Roasted and drizzled with oil, they taste just like an extra sweet and addictive sweet potato fry, without actually being one! Whether you're on a gluten-free, allergen-free diet or not, anyone can enjoy this unexpectedly delightful side dish, and it goes with just about anything. In the recipe below I suggest you start with at least 5 carrots. I've never had a batch last through the night, and I've made some pretty big batches. My Mom, My DH, and even Baby Yum loves this recipe (her version is oil and salt-free). So, enjoy! And if this sauce doesn't appeal to you, try it with some yummy homemade ketchup. Trust me- it is worth the effort!
Roasted Carrot French Fry Recipe
At least 5 Organic Carrots
olive oil
Bouquet Garni Seasoning
Spicy Sauce:
Preheat oven to 400F. Cover a large cookie sheet with parchment paper (or not, but they may stick).
Peel carrots and cut off nubby ends. Slice each carrot into thirds (or in half); you want to cut them into your desired fry length. Then slice each third in half horizontally. Depending on your carrot thickness, you can either cut those halves in half or into thirds to make skinny fries. You want them to be no fatter than a typical cheap pencil.
Place carrots on your cookie sheet on top of the (optional) parchment paper. Drizzle with olive oil and then stir the fries with your fingers to distribute the oil evenly on them. Sprinkle one side with Bouquet Garni, salt, and pepper; then turn and season the other side.
Place in oven and roast for 15 minutes. Take them out and check the bottom side. If it is nicely browned, flip the fries and put them back in the oven for another 15 minutes. If the fries are not sufficiently browned, put them back in and wait another 10-15 minutes before flipping and then putting them back in the oven. I like my fries brown and crispy, so I run the risk of letting them burn. To prevent this, check more frequently. While waiting, make sauce by whisking together spicy sauce ingredients in a small bowl. When both sides are brown and crispy, remove from oven and serve with sauce.


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This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The University of Utah is disbanding an 8-year-old center devoted to documenting and preserving indigenous languages, framing the move as the best way to focus on Utah's tribal tongues.
However, the U. will severely narrow the scope of these efforts, a shift from the Center for American Indian Languages' (CAIL) current work on languages across the New World, particularly in South and Central America. The "restructuring" will "enable greater efficiency and coordination within the college and university-wide," officials said in an Aug. 31 announcement.
Far less clear is what will become of some initiatives started or nurtured under the leadership of the center's founder, Lyle Campbell, well-known among linguists for documenting native languages before they fall silent.
Hired at U. in 2004, he organized an annual conference on endangered languages and helped land at least $3 million in grants, mostly from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Endowment for the Humanities, to record indigenous languages, transcribe words and grammar, and create materials to keep them alive among young speakers.
The U.'s move has shocked many in the language conservation world, according to Chris Rogers, Campbell's former graduate student who led CAIL after Campbell left two years ago.
"There isn't another research center doing research with such a broad focus," said Rogers, dismissed by the U. in June. "It's such an important part of what linguists are doing now. Closing it is like shooting yourself in the foot."
An internationally recognized expert in Mesoamerican languages, Campbell is now a professor of linguistics at the University of Hawaii.
"It makes sense to build our initiatives around our current faculty, not those who have departed," wrote humanities dean Robert Newman in an e-mail. "While the Department of Linguistics has decided that Lyle's research focus is no longer a priority for future hiring, we intend to continue work on language revitalization and preservation, specifically as it relates to the Utah tribes."
Dozens of the Americas' indigenous cultures are expected to see their native languages pushed aside by European languages in the coming decades, according to Campbell and other experts who are in a race against time to record the last surviving speakers.
"They are not giving up their languages out of choice. In that respect it's a matter of human rights," he said Wednesday in a phone interview from his home in Honolulu. Entire systems of knowledge are at stake.
"A language is a unique window on the human mind," Campbell said. "It's a loss of human, cultural and scientific information" when a language is forgotten.
He said he was saddened, but not surprised by the demise of the center, because the College of Humanities had been devoting fewer resources to it and failed to hire a new director even after conducting a national search.
Some of his research remains at Utah, such as a federal grant to create "a talking dictionary" for Ninam, a language of tribes native to the Amazon. The U. will continue supporting this grant, but only until August 2013.
Moving to the west. • U. administrators plan to shift CAIL's outreach mission to the American West Center, which maintains an extensive archive of American Indian cultural materials and develops curricula for tribal schools. The language training programs will be housed with the College of Humanities' proposed new Language Center.
The dean initiated the changes without consulting CAIL's principal faculty member, Marianna Di Paolo, a former linguistics department chair who started and continues to lead the center's project to conserve the Shoshoni language. A member of the Academic Senate, she only learned of the restructuring from the U.'s Aug. 31 press release.
"I am in the process of trying to find out what will happen to me and my project," said Di Paolo, who holds tenure although her position and funding were recently moved from linguistics to the center. She said she intends to continue helping the Shoshone preserve their language.
Initially funded by an NSF grant, the Shoshoni Project has transcribed and translated recorded narratives of native speakers. There remain only a few hundred people fluent in the language of the various Shoshone and Goshute tribes that occupy territory stretching from northern Nevada to Wyoming.
Di Paolo has refocused the project on helping the tribes revitalize Shoshoni as a living tongue. Funding now comes from Barrick Gold Corp. and officials say the U. will continue its involvement.
"We are committed to sustaining, indeed to enhancing, this project and are exploring the best ways to do this with all stakeholders," Newman wrote in an e-mail. The dean declined to be interviewed.
A changed mission. • Since the 1990s, Di Paolo has been building on a Shoshoni language archive gathered by one-time linguistics chair Wick Miller. Following Miller's death in a 1994 car accident, the U.'s strength in native languages slipped, according to Di Paolo. A linguistic department review in the early 2000s urged the department to recruit a leading expert in Native American languages.
That prompted Di Paolo, then department chair, to launch the search that landed Campbell, who moved to Utah from New Zealand's University of Christchurch with the expectation of starting CAIL.
The center soon gave the U. national stature in the language preservation movement. An external 2009 reviewer of linguistics praised the department for supporting CAIL's "important mission."
But shortly after that review the department severed its oversight of CAIL and Campbell left.
Forrest Cuch, a Ute tribal official and former member of CAIL's advisory board, said he is neutral on the changes and remains hopeful the American West Center, known for its advocacy of historical documentation, will do a good job preserving Utah's tribal languages. Research by its director, history professor Greg Smoak, has focused on the Shoshone-Bannock tribe.
"I want us to play to our strengths. We have helped tribes create curricula. We have done many oral histories with tribal folks," Smoak said. "We can continue that type of work and broaden it. This isn't to say linguistic preservation is unimportant, but to look beyond that at cultural preservation."


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The Saint Bonaventure Catholic School boys' flag football team from Huntington Beach capped off an undefeated season by beating St. Hedwig, 36–28, bringing its record to a memorable 16-0.
The team, composed of 15 sixth-graders, went 9-0 in league play, outscoring opponents, 256-111.
The St. Bonaventure boys led the Parochial Athletic League Coastal 1B division in both total points scored and least points allowed.
Along with being crowned league champion, St. Bonaventure also took the title in both the St. Francis of Assisi tournament and St. Norbert's tournament.
The team was: Clark Gallagher, Cade Fuller, Ryan Kroll, Cade Rosenkranz, Brenden Moore, Richard Krebs, Alec Paz, Nathaniel Almendral, Andre Birkner, Ikaika Fuller, Trent McDuffie, Patrick Burke, Daniel Williams, Tim Fronek and Kyle Christy. The team was coached by John Burke, Andy Williams and Tim Rosenkranz.
— Reader submission


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Assembly appoints five new members to Committee
10-12-2012 News Release 12/242
Geneva (ICRC) – At its meeting on 15 November, the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appointed Hugo Banziger, Jacques Chapuis, Alexis Keller, Doris Schopper and Heidi Tagliavini as new members of the Committee. The Committee now has 23 active members who together exercise oversight over the ICRC.
Hugo Banziger is chief risk officer at Deutsche Bank. He is also a member of a high-level expert group on reforming the European Union's banking sector, and chairs the Eurex group (Zurich/Frankfurt) board of directors. Mr Banziger is visiting professor at the University of Singapore and at the London School of Economics.
Jacques Chapuis is a practitioner and teacher in psychiatric nursing, anaesthesia and resuscitation. He worked as an ICRC delegate in Pakistan during the mid-1980s. He currently heads the La Source Institute and Faculty of Applied Health Sciences in Lausanne, and is vice-president of the international secretariat of nurses in the French-speaking world.
Alexis Keller is professor of legal history and legal theory at the University of Geneva and visiting professor at the Institut d'études politiques of Paris. In 2003-2004, he served as the Swiss government's special representative for the Middle East peace process. Mr Keller is member of a number of academic societies, research institutes and foundations both in Europe and in the United States.
Doris Schopper, a professor in the medical faculty at the University of Geneva, is director of the Center for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action and head of the independent ethics review board for Médecins Sans Frontières International. She is a past president of the MSF Swiss branch and spent several years in the field. Ms Schopper also worked as a health policy adviser at the World Health Organization and at the Swiss Tropical Institute.
Heidi Tagliavini has been a career diplomat with Switzerland's Federal Department of Foreign Affairs for 30 years. She has served in various capacities in Lima, Moscow, The Hague and Sarajevo, and as deputy State secretary in Bern. Ms Tagliavini has also held high-level positions with the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Georgia, Russia and Ukraine. Until recently, she was a Diplomat-in-Residence at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
The five new members of the Committee will take up their duties in the first quarter of 2013.
The Assembly, composed of between 15 and 25 members of Swiss nationality, is the supreme governing body of the ICRC. It oversees all the ICRC's activities. It sets general objectives and strategy, and approves the budget and accounts.
For further information, please contact:
Carla Haddad Mardini, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 22 730 24 05 or +41 79 217 32 26
Sébastien Carliez, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 22 730 28 81 or +41 79 536 92 37


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Rules and regulations
Updated: May 11, 2016, 2:08 pm
Regulations that determine how people hunt, trap or fish for wildlife in Utah are contained in both state statutes (code) and division administrative rules. State statutes are passed by the state legislature; the administrative rules are passed by the Wildlife Board. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) and the Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) makes recommendations about rules to the Wildlife Board. The DWR implements and enforces these statutes and rules.
Links to more Utah hunting-related information


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A friend of mine recently forwarded me a recent publication titled The Limitations of Microcredit for Promoting Microenterprises in Bangladesh that appeared in the Jan-Mar 2012 edition of the Economic Annals. I sort of feel bad for picking on this one study but it's somewhat representative of a few others I've seen where a couple of things just bothered me a brick ton.. Here's a sampling. Apologies in advance to the authors; and I'm sure my turn will come soon enough 🙂
Claim 1: The field survey shows that about 11.7% of the microcredit borrowers are this kind of potential or growing microentrepreneur (Abstract).
Except, the survey this paper is based on was not randomly sampled (p.g. 43):
Samples were selected from urban (32.4%), semi-urban (27.2%), and rural (40.4%) areas, to ensure that microborrowers of different sized loans engaged in various categories of economic operations in rural and urban settings were adequately represented. In the absence of full knowledge of the structure and distribution of the microcredit borrower population in the country, random sampling as representative sampling is neither possible nor desirable (Molla and Alam, 2011). Moreover, in many situations random sampling is neither effective nor cost effective in serving the purpose for which sample data are collected. Purposive or judgment sampling is effectively used in such cases. Accordingly, a judgment sampling procedure was thought more effective and appropriate for this survey.
A couple of things:
- The 11.7% is not representative of the universe of Bangladeshi microcredit recipients, but of the non-random sample used in the study. Indeed, unless the distribution of microcredit borrowers is exactly 32.4%:27.2%:40.4% over urban:semi-urban:rural areas, the number is anything but 11.7%. Not a lot of MFIs want to work in urban areas, specially slums, where a large proportion of the urban poor and ultra-poor live. Ask Shakti Foundation, one of the few MFIs that serve this challenging demographic. The real number could be 5%, it could be 20% – who knows..
- I don't buy the excuse that random sampling is not appropriate. By the authors' own admissions, there are 15 million microcredit borrowers. (I think that's a low ball number, but let's go with it for now.) There are 150 million people in the country, including infants, the middle class, the elderly – demographics which are not obvious target populations of MFIs. You are almost guaranteed to hit a MFI borrower if you throw a … pillow a few times. Purposive or judgemental sampling is done when you are either targeting a very specific group and you don't care about being representative, or there are so few of those you want to talk to that you have to search them out with deliberation. I can't figure out how that could possibly be the case here.
- I find the suggestion that "in the absence of full knowledge of the structure and distribution of the microcredit borrower population in the country, random sampling as representative sampling is neither possible nor desirable" quite counter-intuitive. Indeed, if one does not know the underlying distribution of borrowers, a random sample would have illuminated that unknown too, contributing to the findings of this paper. Also, one has to look at the big three – Grameen, BRAC and ASA- and one can guesstimate fairly accurately what the distribution is..
It would have made much more sense to present the findings in three silos – urban, semi-urban and rural, and share all the findings within those segments. It would have been more appropriate than as an aggregate too since, conceivably, the urban implications of microcredit on microenterprises is somewhat different from rural ones.
Claim 2: A sizeable chunk of all borrowers, microentrepreneurs or not, have issues with the terms of credit, which are inadequate for entrepreneurial purposes. (p.g. 47, my summary)
The entire para is as follows:
About 20.7% of all the borrowers and 15.4% of the microenterprise borrowers believe that they do not have the scope to effectively use the entire loan amount at the start of activities. In practice about 29.2% of all the borrowers and 20% of the microenterprise borrowers did not use the entire loan amount at the start of their business operations (Table 3). On the other hand, about 27.9% of all the borrowers and 55.4% of the microenterprise operators had to top-up the loan fund with personal or other borrowed funds to start operations. On top of that about 21.4% of all the borrowers and 8.6% of the microenterprise operators invested additional funds during the year, either from personal sources or from credits obtained from other microcredit providers. About 28.3% of all the sample clients and 40% of the microenterprise clients received multiple loans (2-3 or more) from 2-3 or more microcredit institutions.
I agree with the general thrust of the message. The rigid disbursement and repayment schedules are not conducive to the fluid needs of business, and borrowers often have to borrow from other sources to make up working capital shortfalls.
But the numbers I see here actually don't seem that bad:
- If 20% of borrowers don't believe they can use the entire loan amount right away, then 80% believe they can, right?
- Similarly, if almost 3/4 of borrowers and 1/2 of microentrepreneurs do not have to top-up funds right at the beginning, that's not too bad, right?
- Also, similarly, if almost 80% of borrowers and > 90% of microentrepreneurs did not have to invest additional funds, that's not terrible either, right?
- 40% of the clients borrowing from multiple MFIs could be seen as a bad thing, but we have to be careful not to equate miltiple-borrowing with overindebtedness. PotP is chock full of examples which clearly demonstrate how sophisticated the poor are in their financial management, and Bangladesh was one of the study countries too.
I mean, it looks like microcredit is able to satisfy funding needs at various levels for 75-80% of borrowers in general and 50-90% of microentrepreneurs in particular, more or less. If we demand more, are we not holding microcredit to an unrealistically high standard, given the realities of the products and distribution channels?
Again, the bone I pick is not with the underlying message, but that the numbers put forward seem to weaken the case being made.
Claim 3: (The) preference for women as clients for credit is found to be a strong methodological limitation of the microcredit delivery system in promoting microenterprises. (p.g. 45-46)
The authors make a compelling enough case, up to a point. Men tend to run businesses in Bangladesh, and their survey shows how the female clients simply pass on the microcredit to their male counterparts. The respondents note the following as reasons for dependence on men (p.g. 45):
- inability and lack of skill of the women borrowers,
- more investment opportunities in man-relevant activities,
- male-dominated family structure where male members maintain and control family,
- social environment and custom where business activities are considered to be men's work, and
- women are not expected or respected in the domain of men's activities (business activities)
So .. Why don't MFIs simply lend to men? Blind ideology, or is this something based on reality?
Google "men microfinance" and you'll get a ton of useful discussion, interspersed by a couple of good studies on this issue. The short answer is that we may not always know why, but men tend make for crappy borrowers. There is something in the woman-borrower/man-entrepreneur dynamic that "works." (But may not always "work" in a way that is comforting – check out Lamia Karim's work for societal dynamics gone bad.) Man-borrower-entrepreneur models don't tend to work.
It is not constructive to simply take out the borrower intermediary when she clearly has something big to do with things.
It is also why SME lending has been so hard.
There are bunch of other things that gave me reason for pause, including:
- The study relies too much on the Grameen model. BRAC and specially ASA do not do things like Grameen, and the results might be quite different for them. The authors may find that the "stereotyped microcredit delivery system" may have considerable variation within it.
- There is no "counterfactual" to the claim that "microcredit is not sufficiently productive to generate enough revenue for interest payments if market rate wages are paid for family labour" for a significant portion of the borrowers. What if they did not borrow? Would they earn more? Would they starve?
- It calls 25%-65% interest rates exorbitant, citing Bangladesh Bank lending rates of 4-5%, and commercial lending rates of 10-12% (p.g. 42). 65% could be considered exorbitant, but 25%? And most importantly, there are very, very real reasons why microfinance interest rates are so high. And it's not because Grameen/BRAC/ASA are wannabe loan-sharks.
- Its citations are .. unimpressive. One study used to comment on male-female gender dynamics is from 1996 – arguably an eternity in terms of the evolution of microfinance (p.g. 45). Commercial lending rates are quoted from 1997 (p.g. 42). More than half the references are the authors' own, and the rest are mostly links to MFI reports.
Overall, this piece has decent analysis behind it. I think it gets into trouble trying to hammer out conclusions from it that are not adequately supported by the data.
By the way, if 11.7% of the (non-random) sample are microentrepreneurs of some stripe, what about the remaining 88.3%? What are they using microcredit for? If microcredit has limitations for "promoting microenterprises in Bangladesh," what is it overwhelmingly succeeding in doing?
Wouldn't that be fun to know!


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Warriors on target, win 131-117 at Denver
Golden State on target with its 3-guard lineup
Denver -- Ninety minutes before his team took the court for Game 2 against the Nuggets, Warriors head coach Mark Jackson wanted to clarify some things.
"I didn't say that they were better, and I didn't say George (Karl) was a better coach," Jackson said. "I said 'I'd give (them) the check mark if I was sitting on the other side (as a broadcaster).' Now, what was the question?"
The Warriors didn't need a news conference to answer the rest of the questions about being the underdogs in the best-of-seven, first-round series, generally trouncing the Nuggets 131-117 at a place where Denver had lost only three games all season.
The teams head to the Bay Area for Friday's Game 3 tied 1-1.
The odds had gotten even steeper for the Warriors, who were supposed to have gone from having little chance to no chance in the series when All-Star power forward David Lee was lost for the postseason with a torn right hip flexor Saturday.
But as they've done through most of the tough times this season, the Warriors were resolute. They shot an unworldly 64.6 percent from the floor, beat the league's best rebounding team on the boards (36-26) and slowed the NBA's best fastbreaking offense to eight transition points.
"We've had no expectations on us from the start," point guard Stephen Curry said. "Nobody picked us to make the playoffs. Nobody picked us in this series. I'm sure it was even easier to not take us when D-Lee went down. We understand that we don't have many expectations outside of our locker room, but we're a confident group, a resilient team. There's no reason why that would change now."
In fact, the Warriors seem to be at their stoutest when things look bleakest. Curry had 30 points, including 4-of-10 three-point shooting, to go with 13 assists, three steals and only one turnover, and the rest of the team pulled together to make up for the loss of Lee.
The Warriors had gone 3-18 without Lee in the lineup since he came to Golden State before the 2010-11 season. But they have stronger players waiting for chances now, and each one played a role against Denver.
Playing power forward for the first time, Harrison Barnes contributed 24 points and six rebounds, and, starting alongside Curry for the first time, Jarrett Jack had 26 points and seven assists. Klay Thompson added 21 points, including 5-of-6 three-point shooting, Andrew Bogut manned the middle with six points, eight rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot, and the bench scored 24 points.
Denver, which got very little from Kenneth Faried (four points and two rebounds in 22 minutes) in his return from a three-game absence because of a sprained left ankle, had six players in double-digit scoring. Ty Lawson and Corey Brewer led the way with 19 points apiece, and Andre Miller and Andre Iguodala each added 18.
Both coaches admitted that the "who's-at-forward, starting-lineup" ploys they concocted heading in Game 2 were pretty worthless. Still, they continued right up to the opening tip.
Jackson didn't believe that Faried was starting on the bench, so the Warriors' coach announced Carl Landry as Lee's replacement. When Wilson Chandler did indeed take the court instead of Faried, Jackson quickly shifted his starting unit to include Jack and moved Barnes to power forward.
"All along, my initial reaction was to put Carl in the lineup," Jackson said. "All day (Monday), I was by myself thinking, thinking about matchups, thinking about adjustments. ... All of a sudden, (I) started wondering. I came to my coaches (Tuesday) morning, and asked, 'Am I crazy to start Harrison Barnes at (power forward)? Somebody talk me out of it.'
"They all just smiled. They cosigned it, and I knew it was the right thing."
The kind of thing that might just answer any remaining questions.
Warriors vs. Nuggets
Best-of-seven series is tied 1-1
Game 1: Nuggets 97, Warriors 95
Game 2: Warriors 131, Nuggets 117
Friday: at Oakland, 7:30 p.m. CSNBA, ESPN2 (1050)
Sunday: at Oakland, 6:30 p.m. CSNBA, TNT (680)
Tuesday: at Denver, time TBD CSNBA (radio TBD)
*May 2: at Oakland, time TBD CSNBA (680)
*May 4: at Denver, time TBD CSNBA (radio TBD)
* if necessary
Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron


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Considering he's one of the best super smash bros players in the world I cut him a break on it
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It is said that in every arena that you go to in Italy, Italian bounded cuisine will differ. While this agency that even 10 mile stretches can aftermath hardly altered versions of the aforementioned sauce, it does not beggarly that you are traveling to ache with a poor product. The differences in the cuisine can be traced aback to the aboriginal roots of Italy, and the way the country was in actuality formed. History has played a abundant bold of body and clean over the years, yet one affair stands accurate and that is that the Italians adulation superior food.
Two Neighbors, Two Sauces
One of the aboriginal things that you will apprehension about Italian bounded cuisine is that even actual neighbors can accept the aforementioned compound aftertaste different. This is because just as they accept bounded differences they aswell accept differences amid the way families appearance recipes. A little abbreviate of this or a compression of that is all that it takes to accomplish the aforementioned compound a altered acquaintance in its own right. This sets the accent for abundant dining experiences, as it consistently seems as if you are aggravating something for the aboriginal time with aggregate you eat. There can be abounding altered influences associated with the way a compound can be fabricated and the way it tastes, and if there is a adumbration of addition ability in a ancestors added than acceptable it will appearance in the cooking.
Vegetables And Livestock Is Different
When it comes to Italian bounded cuisine, you can even apprehension a aberration in the way vegetables are developed and livestock is raised. There will be attenuate yet noticed aberration amid veggies and meat from one arena to the next, as practices are specific to the affairs that the being in anniversary arena experiences. Anniversary and every adaptation of what you try will action you a aftertaste of what activity is like in that area, and this is not to say that you are traveling to be aghast from one breadth to the next. This would be absolutely the adverse as a amount of fact, as the Italians yield abundant pride in aggregate that they do and this includes their cooking. Anniversary and every meal that you get the advantage of sampling will be as adorable as the endure and as admirable as the next afterwards it.
Restaurants Are afterward Suit
If you are one that enjoys dining out on Italian foods, you will bound apprehension that the restaurants are starting to chase clothing on Italian bounded cuisine as well. Abounding abundant Italian eateries are actual specific on what they serve however; this is not to say that they are not accommodating to try something new on the menu. The chef in the kitchen will adore alms the angel what they are accomplished with cooking, and this will reflect the arena that the chef is from. Anniversary restaurant will a lot of acceptable accept a altered circuit on the aforementioned recipe, and absolutely if you anticipate about it this is annihilation but bad for your aftertaste buds.


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Yesterday in the mail I got a small envelope that had registration info for ASURITE and instructions on setting up my ASU email address and how to get access to the Blackboard site. That is all.
Oh Noez,I can totally relate to your frustration--I've been waiting to hear from ASU for a long time as well. (By the way, I didn't get the e-mail). Good luck--just wanted to write to let you know I feel your pain!!!


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Data forms the base of all application programs. Whatever the domain, the core of the application's logic goes into extraction, processing, storage and presentation of the data. Each of these has evolved into a specialized domain of its own.
If storage is the context, then anything from persisting data to a file to persisting it into a database can become a part of the core logic. In the early days of programming, any level of storage of data was considered complicated, especially in databases. However in this era of Very High Level Programming Languages, complexity has become a thing of past (almost).
The major issue with VHLL is that most of them sacrifice flexibility for simplicity. Equilibrium between flexibility and simplicity must exist so that data-bound applications need not be termed either complex or user-unfriendly. This is where languages such as Python play a pivotal role.
The beauty of Python is that it can provide abstraction in data access and processing at various levels. In other words, Python provides for database access both at the SQL level as well as at the object level and to almost any database.
That justifies the first part of this article's title. Coming to the second part, of all the relational databases, MySQL is the best bet. There are two reasons. The first one is that MySQL is free. The second one is that MySQL is comparatively less resource hungry. Hence, a Python-MySQL combination is a good option for a data-bound application.
The first sections of this article will deal with the steps required for connecting with and retrieving data from MySQL. In the last section I will put the theory into practice by applying it in a real-world example. That's the agenda for this discussion.
{mospagebreak title=Accessing MySQL, Step By Step}
Python has provided aspecification for API for database access. This specification is in its second version and is known as DB-API 2.0. Any database access module has to conform to the DB-API 2.0 specification. Almost all the modules for RDBMSs conform to the specification. MySQLdb module is no exception. For accessing MySQL I will use MySQLdb. Four steps must be taken to make it work. They are:
1. Connecting with the database
2. Creation of the cursor
3. Execution of the SQL statement
4. Fetching the result set and iterating over the result set
The fourth step can incorporate any of the following: Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete, or CRUD in short. If the operation is Retrieve or Projection in terms of SQL, a fifth step is required. For all else, only the first four are required, and the fifth is optional. Here are the details:
1. Connecting with the database
A table resides within a database. This is particularly true for MySQL. To create a table, a database must be created first, or at least a database must be present. So to retrieve data from a table, a connection to the database must be established. This is done by using the connect() method. In other words, connect is the constructor of the MySQLdb. The parameters are as follows:
- host is the name of the system where the MySQL server is running. It can be a name or an IP address. If no value is passed, then the default value used is localhost.
- user is the user id, which must be authenticated. In other words, this is the authentic id for using the services of the Server. The default value is the current effective user. Most of the time it is either 'nobody' or 'root'.
- passwd — It is by using a combination of the user id and a password that MySQL server (or for that matter any server) authenticates a user. The default value is no passwords. That means a null string for this parameter.
- db is the database that must be used once the connection has been established with the server. However, if the database to be used is not selected, the connection established is of no use. There is no default value for this parameter.
- port is the port where the server is running. The default value is 3306.
There are more parameters. But these are the most important and most commonly used parameters. For example, to connect to a database 'test' running on a system having the name 'Demo' with the user 'root' and password 'adm1n,' the statement would be:
db= MySQLdb.connect(host='Demo', user='root' , passwd='adm1n', db='test')
The connect() returns a connection object. In the above example db contains the connection object. It is this object that will be used in the next step.
2. Creation of the cursor
In the terminology of databases, cursor is that area in the memory where the data fetched from the data tables are kept once the query is executed. In essence it is the scratch area for the database.
MySQL does not support cursors. But it is easy to emulate the functionality of cursors. That's what the MySQLdb does. To get a cursor, the cursor() method of connection object has to be used. There is only one parameter to this method — the class that implements cursor behavior. This parameter is optional. If no value is given, then it defaults to the standard Cursor class. If more control is required, then custom Cursor class can be provided. To obtain a cursor object the statement would be:
cursor= db.cursor()
Once the above statement is executed, the cursor variable would have a cursor object.
{mospagebreak title=Accessing MySQL, Step by Step continued}
3. Execution of the SQL statement
The steps enumerated until now have done the job of connecting the application with the database and providing an object that simulates the functionality of cursors. The stage has been set for execution of SQL statements. Any SQL statement supported by MySQL can be executed using the execute() method of the Cursor class. The SQL statement is passed as a string to it. Once the statement is executed successfully, the Cursor object will contain the result set of the retrieved values. For example, to retrieve all the rows of a table named USER_MASTER the statement would be:
cursor.execute("select * from USER_MASTER")
Once the above statement is executed, the cursor object would contain all the retrieved. This brings us to the fourth step, fetching of the resultset. Before moving on to the next step, there is one point you must understand. The execute() function accepts and executes any valid SQL statement, including DDL statements such as delete table, alter table, and so on. In the case of DDL statements, there is no fifth step (i.e. iteration over the results fetched).
4. Fetching the resultset
The flexibility of Python comes to the fore in this step also. In the real world, fetching all the rows at once may not be feasible. MySQLdb answers this situation by providing different versions of the fetch() function of Cursor class. The two most commonly used versions are:
- fetchone(): This fetches one row in the form of a Python tuple. All the data types are mapped to the Python data types except one — unsigned integer. To avoid any overflow problem, it is mapped to the long.
- fetchall(): This fetches all the rows as tuple of tuples. While fetchone() increments the cursor position by one, fetchall() does nothing of that kind. Everything else is similar.
The subtleties will become clear from the following example. To fetch one row at a time and display the result, the block would be:
numrows = int(cursor.rowcount) #get the count of total
rows in the #resultset
# get and display one row at a time
for x in range(0,numrows):
row = cursor.fetchone()
print row[0], "–>", row[1]
The above result can be achieved by using fetchall() as shown below:
result = cursor.fetchall()
# iterate through resultset
for record in result:
print record[0] , "–>", record[1]
The iteration is through the core Python APIs only. As the returned data structure is tuple, no extra API is required.
That covers all the steps required to access MySQL. What I have discussed up to now is "the approach of tackling a problem of the type database connectivity." However, in real life, reusability plays a more important role than it has in what you have seen so far. Hence in the next section I will be using the steps discussed until now to create a generic class for accessing MySQL.
{mospagebreak title=Accessing MySQL in the Real World}
Reusability has become the mantra of the current software development paradigm. So this discussion wouldn't be complete without implementing reusability for database access. The problem is simple; we need to create a generic class that provides the various data manipulation functionalities. I will be developing retrieve and delete functionalities. I am leaving error handling and other functionalities as an 'experiment'. So let's begin.
The first step is the required imports and the class name:
import MySQLdb
class GenericDBOP:
Next comes the constructor. It takes two parameters, the database connection and the table name:
import MySQLdb
class GenericDBOP:
def __init__(self, db, name):
self.db = db #database connection
self.name = name #table name
self.dbc = self.db.cursor() #cursor object
The connection is established and the cursor object is retrieved. Executing the SQL statement is what has to be done next:
import MySQLdb
class GenericDBOP:
def __init__(self, db, name):
self.db = db #database connection
self.name = name #table name
self.dbc = self.db.cursor() #cursor
def __getitem__(self, item):
self.dbc.execute("select * from %s limit %
s, 1″ %
(self.name, item))
return self.dbc.fetchone()
Here by encapsulating the retrieval functionality in the special function __getitem__ , the class has been provided the ability to access the database as python lists. Although the __getitem__ is good, it executes select query. To make the class more generic, let's add one more function that takes the query to be executed as a parameter:
import MySQLdb
class GenericDBOP:
def __init__(self, db, name):
self.db = db #database connection
self.name = name #table name
self.dbc = self.db.cursor() #cursor object
def __getitem__(self, item):
self.dbc.execute("select * from %s limit %s, 1" %
(self.name, item))
return self.dbc.fetchone()
def _query(self, q):
if self.debug: print "Query: %s" % (q)
Execution is done, but what if there is a requirement to see the statement? In that case, a debug variable is added to the class. This variable can have more utility in the future if the class needs to be more verbose in its output and logging. If the executed query is for retrieval (in other words, a select statement), then a function to fetch the result is required. An iterator pattern would be better in this case. So let's add an iterator and a function that uses the iterator to return the value one by one:
class GenericDBOP:
def __init__(self, db, name):
self.db = db #database connection
self.name = name #table name
self.dbc = self.db.cursor() #cursor object
def __getitem__(self, item):
self.dbc.execute("select * from %s limit %s, 1" %
(self.name, item))
return self.dbc.fetchone()
def _query(self, q):
if self.debug: print "Query: %s" % (q)
def __iter__(self):
"creates a data set, and returns an iterator (self)"
q = "select * from %s" % (self.name)
return self # an Iterator is an object
# with a next() method
def next(self):
"returns the next item in the data set,
or tells Python to stop"
r = self.dbc.fetchone()
if not r:# Ok here error is handled and rethrown
raise StopIteration
return r
That completes the class. So now it's time to test it. Here it goes:
if __name__=='__main__':
db = MySQLdb.connect(user="user", passwd="passwd",
books = GenericDBOP (db, "book")
for i in xrange(80, 100):
print "Book %s: %s" % (i, books[i])
Since the __getitem__() has been implemented in the class, we can access the database as python lists. Other functionalities can also be tested in the same way. That brings us to the end of this tutorial/discussion. From this discussion it is obvious that accessing databases from Python is really simple. This time the center of attention was MySQL. However, in the world of relational databases there are other big players and Oracle is one of them. I will be discussing them in future. Till next time.


text:
What is a Database
For a resource to be included in State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States pages, it must be:
- Produced by an agency of a state government or a political subdivision (i.e. county, city, school district, library district, etc).
- Available to be searched by the public.
- Be a database. What is a database? Here is our definition:
Database - An information resource where the end user varies input and gets different results based on the input.
- The input can take the form of typing in terms into a resource with fielded searching capability like Alabama's Architect Search.
- The input can take the form of choosing criteria from a list, like Alaska's Sand, Rock and Gravel Directory.
- The input can take the form of selecting from various drop down boxes or radio buttons, like Alaska's Fish Stocking Database or like {http://www.courts.state.md.us/opinions.html Maryland Appellate Court Opinions.]
- Stretching the definition a little, searching text from a single subject wiki like Wyoming's Author Wiki can count as a database.
Records in a database may be surrogates (meaning they describe an object) or they may be the objects themselves (like a database of full-text electronic government reports).
What doesn't count as a database? Links to top level pages for States or their agencies. This project isn't aiming to be an agency directory as most state websites already do a good job of that. Neither is it really intended to be a 50-State, "cool links" list because other sites like 50states.com are fulfilling that role, at least in part.
If you think that a resource is VERY useful even if it doesn't meet the above criteria, please put it on the "Not Databases" page at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Not_Databases. This page is for both state agency resources that are NOT databases and for databases that are not produced by state agencies.
Please use the talk tab for this page or e-mail Daniel Cornwall if the explanation above doesn't make sense to you.
Return to the SADATFS Volunteer Guide
Return to State Agency Databases listing.


text:
In partnership with the Store Manager, promote a sales culture to build productivity. Develop associates for future growth through hiring and developing great people. Provide leadership to achieve or exceed planned sales, payroll and controllable expense goals. Effectively manage store operations, and visual merchandising standards.
We are looking for people who want to join a winning team and who have the desire to service our customers and work in an environment that is fun. Assistant Store Manager candidates must have a proven track record in a fashion-forward, customer-oriented, retail-clothing environment. At least 2-3 years of store management experience. Have experience in leadership, training & development of staff, all while driving company initiatives.
· Ensure store meets or exceeds sales and contest goals.
· Prioritize, plan and adjust schedules.
· Hold team accountable to achieving goals.
· Recruit, interview, and select qualified candidates.
· Train and motivate all associates through on-going programs in sales, customer service and product knowledge.
· Ensure team provides an exceptional customer experience in the store.
· Maintain presence through effective floor management and ensure staff coverage in all areas of the store.
· Maintain a safe work environment and ensure ongoing safety training and awareness.
· Responsible for ensuring the store meets company guidelines in opening and closing.
· Monitor company assets through accurate inventory procedures.
· Exemplify and ensure associates comply with all Company policies and procedures.
· Create and maintain an environment where all associates are treated fairly and with dignity and respect.
What about the Benefits? We strive to be an Employer of Choice! Our plan includes medical, dental, paid vacations and personal days, 401(K), and a merchandise discount.
To apply for this job online, complete the form below, then click on the Submit button.
Let's socialize


text:
The following are updates on local athletes at the collegiate level.
John Salas (Crescenta Valley High, 2009) Cal State Northridge baseball junior: Salas enjoyed a breakout season for the Matadors, emerging from the bullpen to become a formidable starter in the second half of the season.
Arguably his best start came on May 12 in a 7-1 win over UC Santa Barbara, as he went the full nine innings, allowing just five hits and one run, while striking out six and walking one.
He struggled a bit in his final two starts of the season, going five innings and allowing four runs in a loss to Cal Poly on May 19, before getting a no-decision in a season-ending loss to Cal State Fullerton on May 25 in which he allowed three runs over 3 2/3 innings.
Overall, though, Salas put up good numbers for a Matadors squad that went 31-26 and 15-12 in the Big West. After transferring from College of the Canyons, Salas ended his debut season with CSUN at 4-6 after appearing in 21 games and making 13 starts. He threw two complete games and 80 innings, allowing 76 hits and 12 walks, while striking out 52 and turning in a 3.49 earned-run average.
Jason Ochart (Hoover High, 2008) Vanguard University baseball senior: It was a long road with plenty of baseball for the former Hoover High and Glendale Community College player, and Ochart wrapped up his playing days with some excellent numbers at his third college.
Ochart, who began at GCC before moving on to Cal State Dominguez Hills and then transferring to Vanguard, served multiple roles for the Lions.
At the plate, he was second on the Lions with a .313 batting average (57 for 182) as well as in hits. His eight doubles were a team-best and so were his 27 runs scored. He added 17 runs batted in and, on the base paths, had a team-leading 25 stolen bases in 31 attempts, 17 more steals than any other teammate.
On the mound, Ochart even made an appearance, throwing one scoreless inning.
Vanguard finished the season at 22-27 overall and 15-21 in conference.
In his last collegiate game on April 27, Ochart was one for four with a run batted in, as the Lions beat Concordia, 4-1.
David Olmedo-Barrera (St. Francis High, 2012) Cal State Fullerton baseball freshman: Following a freshman season at Fullerton in which playing time was sparse, Olmedo-Barrera has headed north to hone his craft.
Playing in the prestigious Alaska Summer League for the Peninsula Oilers, Olmedo-Barrera is getting in some extra work.
He's hitting .231 through nine games, tallying four hits in 26 at-bats. He's also drawn three walks and scored four runs. His best run so far was a three-game span in which he went five for 12 with four runs scored. Currently, he's walked in three straight games, including a 9-1 win over the Anchorage Glacier Pilots on Monday. The Oilers were 6-7 heading into a tilt Wednesday against the Pilots.
During his rookie campaign with the Titans, who went 51-10 and 23-4 in the Big West Conference, Olmedo-Barrera played in two games and had just one plate appearance, in which he drew a walk and scored.
Elliot Surrey (Crescenta Valley High, 2012) UC Irvine baseball freshman: A former multiple-time All-Area, All-CIF and All-Pacific League honoree, Surrey got his feet wet with Irvine this season and put together solid numbers in sparse appearances.
Appearing in 11 games, with two starts, Surrey threw 13 2/3 innings and tallied a 3.95 ERA with a 1-0 record and 10 strikeouts to five walks.
Irvine finished the season at 33-22 and 15-12 in the Big West.
As for Surrey, his last appearance was an excellent one, as he came on and pitched two innings of spotless relief on May 21 in a 6-4 loss to USC. Surrey closed out the game, striking out one batter against no hits or walks.
Alyssa Sovereign (Crescenta Valley High, 2010) Penn State softball junior: Sovereign concluded her third season as a Nittany Lions starter with a .248 average (27 for 109) through 42 games (35 starts).
She posted 15 runs, eight doubles, 11 RBI, 11 walks, a .314 on-base percentage and, as an outfielder, made just one error.
Penn State struggled to a 16-34 overall record and a 5-17 mark in the Big Ten.