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Josh Noem tried rustic retreats in the woods. He tried combining workouts and prayer. He even tried holding discussions at the local pub. But much to his chagrin, nothing worked. When Mr. Noem was hired as a campus minster at the University of Portland in 2005, he was asked to involve a larger number of young men on campus, but his programs failed to engage more than a handful of students, and many of those who did show up were already regulars.
All that changed in 2007 when Mr. Noem and Thomas Bruketta, then a part-time campus minister at the university, came across an article called "Men, Spirituality, and the Collegiate Experience" by W. Merle Longwood, Mark W. Muesse, and William Schipper, O.S.B., that detailed the origins of a successful men's discussion group at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn. Mr. Noem and Mr. Bruketta adapted the plan for their own students. They gathered 11 freshmen recommended by hall directors or professors and pitched the following: A small group would meet regularly for the next four years; each year, the men would discuss a different theme, keeping in mind the concepts of truth, brotherhood, justice and authentic masculinity. The freshmen were intrigued. They called themselves the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in a playful homage to the comic book series.
"By the end of the fall there was a different energy about this group," Mr. Noem said. "They were asking when the next meeting was. Getting them to attend wasn't like pulling teeth. They were willing to take on leadership roles."
The group at Portland, which goes by the nickname LXG, has since grown to include more than 70 young men engaged in nine small groups at the college. For many, LXG was their first contact with campus ministry. Here is how it works: In the first year the men meet regularly—usually every week or every other week—to answer the question, "Who am I, and what do I believe?" In the second year, they discuss relationships. Year three covers resiliency, which Mr. Noem describes as a "code word for suffering." In the final year they discuss their vocations. The discussions are facilitated by two members of the college faculty or staff, including laypeople and religious. The members also help to organize service opportunities and campuswide events that reach out to other men. Mr. Noem estimates a 75-percent retention rate overall since 2007.
The purpose of the discussion groups, Mr. Noem said, is to provide a safe, confidential environment in which the participants can build core relationships and talk about those things that are "deeper and more authentic" than the stereotypically male topics of sports or women or video games. Spirituality may play a role in these discussions but it is not necessarily the focus, and students of all faiths or no faith are welcome. Mr. Noem said that listening to other men describe their beliefs enables participants to open up to one another in new ways.
"For them to just name their experience puts that experience in the open, and there's a solidarity that supports them," Mr. Noem said. "They realize they're not alone, and it's O.K. to rely on other people." Mr. Noem serves as a facilitator for a group and has accompanied those first 11 members through to their graduation this past May. "The big conclusion we had was [that] we're all dealing with things, and the general tendency was to keep it inside, and they were realizing that that wasn't healthy."
A Model to Replicate
Last November, LXG was named an "exemplary program" for "facilitating personal development" by the Catholic Campus Ministry Association, meaning that the program offers a successful model that can be imitated by other colleges.
Gar Kellom, a researcher who served as the executive director of the Men's Center at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., for nearly two decades, was one of the founders of the student discussion groups on which LXG was based. In 2008 he obtained a grant from the Lilly Endowment and awarded funds to 14 U.S. colleges to help them identify the best practices for increasing male engagement in vocational discernment activities. Some institutions, like the University of Portland and Siena College used some the funds to assist with men's discussion groups, while others sought to motivate male athletes to spend time volunteering or to train faculty members for new courses or to conduct research.
Mr. Kellom knew that college men needed a bit of motivation. According to a study from the Higher Education Research Institute, 68 percent of male college students are interested in spirituality, but men were less likely than women to demonstrate that interest. Women are also more likely to take part in service learning opportunities. "Men are socialized not to be in touch with feelings or emotions or inner lives," Mr. Kellom said. "You hear people say, 'man up', in other words, 'Don't show emotions or feelings,' and that includes a spiritual side."
Through approximately 1,000 interviews with men at the colleges that received grants from the Lilly Endowment, Mr. Kellom and his fellow researchers found that the college-aged men perceived their friends as being committed to traditional masculinity, even while they saw themselves as able to go against those stereotypes. "We asked them about participating in men's groups and they said, 'I'd be interested in spirituality groups, but my friends wouldn't,'" he said. "The biggest inhibitor is the misperception of the socially constructed masculinity. Guys are willing to talk, contrary to what others say. They need to get past the inhibitor that it's not cool to do it."
Creede Caldwell, 21, of Helena, Mont., was one of the founding members of LXG at the University of Portland. He graduated this year and will serve as a full-time volunteer at a L'Arche community in Syracuse, N.Y., through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Mr. Caldwell said that his small group forced him to be more thoughtful about what it means to be a man. "I had a really good role model for what a man is in my father, but I hadn't necessarily spent a lot of time in my own life contemplating it," he said. "What LXG did was give me room to explore the specifics, the basic principles and the actions and gestures a real man would use, rather than fitting into the stereotypical."
Seeking Out Stereotypes
Sometimes, however, the stereotype comes in handy. One of LXG's yearly events is called the Manquisition, a kind of mock trial involving cartoonishly macho judges who demand explanations from those men who do not conform to similarly macho stereotypes. The list of defendants at the event (the tone of which is described by Caldwell as "Stephen Colbert meets Monty Python") has included a priest, a male student majoring in education, a student engaged to be married and a senior who made a quilt for his girlfriend for Christmas. Amid the humor, "defendants" offer moving testaments to their atypical choices and lifestyles.
But, according to Mr. Noem, for the event to be successful it had to attract the kind of college men who might not consider attending the discussion groups. So the posters advertising the event depicted a man fighting a grizzly bear with a chainsaw. "We don't want to be speaking only to guys who are well adjusted and integrated," Mr. Noem said. "We want to speak to guys who take this stereotype seriously, so we use that stereotype but always as an invitation to transcend."
This intention was not immediately clear, however, to some members of a feminist discussion group on campus, who objected to the event and, in general, questioned the need for the men's discussion groups. So Mr. Noem invited a representative from the feminist group to an LXG planning meeting, which he said has led to a fruitful, ongoing discussion. "We realized we were on the same page about authentic human development and the need to transcend those gender roles that society puts upon us," he said. "It's not just women who are oppressed by the false masculine. Men are too, and it's important to keep that dialogue open."
Eric Grussing, 22, of Lakefield, Minn., a recent graduate of St. John's, said that remaining with his small group for four years helped him to feel comfortable discussing issues of relationships and masculinity in a way that was different from the communication style he used with his closest friends. He found he was more open about his own thoughts and opinions and of those around him. "It's made me more empathetic toward the lives of others," he said. "The majority of experiences I had before were basically guys just relating to each other on a sports basis or something. When guys are good buddies they can give each other a hard time and be comfortable making fun of one another. But this experience was an opportunity to have more thoughtful conversations about the things we normally bottle up."
Men who restrict themselves to macho male stereotypes often suffer from it, said William Schipper, O.S.B., the director of campus ministry at St. John's University. "The male script is that you're only supposed to be strong and independent, but that's not always a healthy script," he said. Father Schipper has helped to organize and facilitate the men's discussion groups at St. John's since 1997. "Men can also be very restrictive when it comes to physical touch with other men," he said. "Often it has to do with homophobia and the desire to convey the message: 'I'm not gay.'" Father Schipper said this fear can rob men of the fulfillment of the "basic human need for human touch that is sustaining and positive that doesn't have to be sexual."
The confidential discussion groups can help young men to gain a personal perspective on larger social issues. "Human beings in general, when they see a face and they look someone in the eye, are much more accepting than when it's in the theoretical," Father Schipper said. "I've had students at various stages of the discussion come out to the group and talk about their experience of being gay," he said, adding that he has witnessed only acceptance and support in the students' reactions. "You have to realize they're in a group that has become close," he said. "In this context, the students have more of a personal investment."
The effects of these discussion groups can extend beyond the regular meetings. Brandon Morgan, 19, a sophomore at the University of Portland, is in his second year of LXG. He has become close friends with the other men in his group, and he says they often discuss the issues and experiences they have had through LXG, outside the group setting. He said that one friend who had not been a part of LXG during his freshman year has decided to join one of the groups in the fall. "We didn't try to convince him," said Mr. Morgan. "He just saw how close we'd become and all the fun we were having and he didn't want to miss out on that experience." Mr. Morgan hopes his friend will find the program as beneficial as he has thus far. "It's been an enlightening experience to see who I actually am instead of who I think I am or who I show to the world."
Browse additional resources for male ministry.


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March 02, 2017 - Read Across America Day at Matthew A. Henson Elementary School
Photography by: Mark L. Dennis and Jay L. Baker
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[Pittsburgh, September 24. Image via Getty]
PITTSBURGH - SEPTEMBER 24: A man carries his crying daughter away from a Boston Market fast food restaurant after anti-G-20 Summit protestors smashed its windows September 24, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The restaurant had customers in it at the time but was quickly closed and surrounded by police. Marchers gathered in neighborhoods several miles from Pittsburgh's downtown but were dispersed by police using tear gas and amplification machines. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)


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It's only 2 days to go to Christmas!
So excited! I'm writing this post in the middle of my hectic schedule. Sorry for the postponed post (since i had mentioned on Instagram that i was going to post tonight, but i didn't) so sorry! There are some circumstances back on those days that made me couldn't post, so here it is!!
Decided to go light in pastel outfit. One of my favorite color is baby blue! To create pastel-ly dreamy vibes on my outfit, i matched with neutrals and white color.See, there are 3 neutral colors i wore: black, beige and white so the focus of the whole outfit is the baby blue color, plus it is from brocade material that adds instant chic ;)
I am very, very busy these days! i know i should relax a bit, i want holiday so bad! But can't do it for now, because i'm having a year- end bazaar for AmyGo at Mal Puri Indah, jakarta Barat from 22 Dec- 3 Jan. Please do come, say hi and shop! ;D
Some people may see me ambitious or perfectionist, or may see me too hard working, but i consider myself work too much because i know, there are some times i get lazy and super unproductive. My schedule and days are fully packed, and some of my friends complained whenever i can't join them, hahaha. I know i should stop and relax, but i'm happy! I'm happy when i am productive, but i feel guilty whenever i'm laying on my bed doing nothing, so i ended up get busy again.
Anyway, any idea where to go places for hang out and casual errands? Or maybe recommended place to a short getaway? ;D
All photos were taken by: Dinan, thank you!
I also took a picture with my new friend Yoga, but sadly somehow the picture is gone! ;'(
I'll tell more stories what i've been doing these days, so keep updated and stay tune. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram +Thelma Aruana Kisela and see you on the next post! :)


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My name is Ray W. and I accept spent the accomplished 40 years belief and arena every anatomy of gambling/betting systems in existence. From the time I absolved into my aboriginal basin anteroom at the age of 16 I've been absorbed with every aspect of it. I assumption that makes me somewhat of an expert, if there absolutely is such a thing. It's not just me that's absorbed though.
According to government statistics, 86% of Americans accept appear bank on something in the accomplished 12 months. Approximately abandoned 1/3 of the citizenry consists of non-bettors. They accompaniment that 46% of adults activity in casinos and seven out of ten common non-casino gambling. The primary antecedent of which is horse racing, sports betting, accompaniment lotteries and online or clandestine agenda games.
48 states accept some anatomy of legalized bank with abandoned Utah and Hawaii getting the abandoned two that do not. There are currently 13 states that accept legalized bartering accompaniment sponsored casinos with a absolute of 443 of these establishments. The accumulated gross acquirement for these 443 casinos was $30.74 billion annually.
The numbers are absolutely staggering.
Although I, like so abounding others, acquire a abundant accord of amusement from it, any blazon of bank that risks a being accident abundant money to affect their accepted of active (or that of their family) is self-destructive and should be abhorred at all costs. I accept abandoned watched a man lose his absolute aluminum balustrade business brief during a ridiculously continued affair of heads-up gin rummy. Hard to believe, I know.
My allure to bank and bank table amateur in particular, is abiding in a abysmal admiration to win every time I play. There is annihilation besetting about my access to bank gambling. In fact, I do aggregate I can to yield as abundant of the activity out of it as possible.
The acceptable access consists of abandoned arena amateur that accept no added than a 2% abode advantage (Craps .60%, Baccarat 1.25%, Roulette 2.6% on even-money wagers and Blackjack, even money depending on the use of able "Basic Strategy") and accurate adherence to an iron-clad set of precepts which are the "golden rules" or The 10 Commandments as I like to alarm them.
1. Never activity if annoyed or depressed.
2. Never activity with added than you can calmly allow to lose.
3. Do Not booze alcohol afore or during bank sessions. It is the chloroform the casinos accommodate to abstracted the amateur from their money.
4. Keep arena sessions short.
5. Consistently preset a audible backing for bank and Do Not beat that amount.
6. If you are activity "negative" about your ambience (the table, dealers, added players or if in a accident cycle) stop activity and leave the table. The tables will still be there if your affection changes.
7. Avoid arena after a bright plan of activity (betting strategy, min./max. wagers).
8. Do Not access the admeasurement of your bets if losing. Access wagers abandoned if winning. This will absolute losses and let accomplishment run up.
9. Apperceive that the action is not amid you and the casino… it is amid you and you alone. Consistently beforehand your self-discipline.
10. Consistently abdicate if winning.
Winning consistently at these four bank table amateur is not that difficult. I do it all the time. There are arena and activity strategies that I accept accouterment the advantage from the "house" to the amateur in any accustomed abbreviate affair of play.
The aloft 10 rules of bank accept been handed down to me by the a lot of adroit able gamblers I accept accepted over the years. They are capital to able and connected winning. Anyone who is not able to chase these rules has no business in a bank bank with absolute money.
Life, like gambling, is a connected action with the unknown. If you knew what the aftereffect would be in beforehand it would yield all the fun out of it.
"The austere charlatan is a man who is at war with chance. In the bank there is, whether he wins or loses, certainty… he consults the table, which speaks to him through the dice, as the Greeks consulted the oracles, and the answer rewards him by cogent him now, not next anniversary or next year, whether the choices he makes are appropriate or wrong."
- William Pearson
"The Muses of Ruin"
Best of luck,
Ray W.
At Players' Bank Club you can apprentice acceptable playing/betting strategies and actual accomplishments absorption on the four best bank table amateur of Craps, Blackjack, Roulette & Baccarat.
Winning at bank bank is not difficult if you apperceive how. It is a accomplishment that can be learned.
Multi-deck "Basic Strategy" for acceptable Blackjack and agenda counting techniques are absolutely explained.
My ambition is to appearance the actual best arena and activity methods that will accord anyone that walks into a bank the best adventitious of acceptable every time. The advice is consistently FREE.


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7 Grand Steps
Entrant 2013
Mousechief Co.
There is a wonderful tale within you. It is the story of your ancestors and how you came to be. Tales of love, striving, family struggles, excellence, tragedy. Then there are the great legends: rags to riches, world-changing discoveries, and heroic adventure. Some may even be true.
'7 Grand Steps' is the game that connects people to the cultural roots of western civilization. From the sweat of laborers to the perspective of kings, experience the wonder of a family lineage that survived the changing ages. Or did they survive? How you guide them will determine their fate.
Like life, gameplay is a constantly shifting puzzle. Try to get the most for spending resources in the best way and in the best order. Every turn, the optimal tactic will change. Some turns will be joyful, perfectly played. In some you'll see a more optimal play, too late.
The basics are simple: spend resources to advance, but the price of resources is retreat. Think two steps forward, one step back. Behind awaits the hunger of crocodiles, ahead the challenge of ages. It's a bit like life but more grand.


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The Salvation Army's 12th Annual Flower Power LuncheonAugust 3rd, 2016
Leigh Martinez, show more of Leigh Martinez photos or correct name Ron Morgan show more of Ron Morgan photos or correct name
Perfect for printing with no watermark up to 8x12. If you need something larger, we can usually do a custom print.
Perfect for screen and social, but not great to print. There is a small watermark in the lower right corner (you can crop it out).
For a commercial or editorial license, please email firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Author Notes: Growing up my Mom made meatloaf almost once a week. It was never the same since she didn't use a recipe, but it was always delicious. This was one of my favorite ways she made it, with a little bit of cheese and lots of basil. We made it together over the weekend (hence her hands in the picture) and I did my best to quantify the ingredients while we assembled it! —Kelsey Banfield
Food52 Review: I made Kelsey's meatloaf tonight and it was a hit! I followed her advice to make it early in the day and wrap it and refrigerate it for later, which I think was the right thing to do because the meatloaf mixture is quite wet. Letting it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours helped it hold together. I did two things differently: I used all ground beef because my husband doesn't eat pork and I couldn't find ground veal (and haven't yet invested in the meat grinder for my KitchenAid mixer). I also used fresh bread crumbs rather than Italian bread crumbs -- I just prefer to make my own. I also don't have a convection oven so I cooked it at 375 for about an hour and 15 minutes, which was longer and hotter than she recommended. It formed a nice crust, and the cheese and basil were melted together in the center. Even my husband--who grew up in a Kosher house and says he doesn't eat milk and meat together (except for chicken parmigiana, but I digress) liked it very much and took seconds. It was kind of like an inside-out meatball pizza, without the crust. We also put warm marinara sauce over the slices when we served them. I took Kelsey's suggestion and baked two potatoes and sauteed a little broccoli in olive oil -- it made a good, easy dinner, and we have more for another night. - drbabs —The Editors
Serves: 6-8 people
pound Meatball mix (ground beef, ground pork, ground veal)
teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce
teaspoons Italian Seasoning
cup marinara sauce (homemade or storebought)
tablespoons Italian breadcrumbs
teaspoon Kosher Salt
teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
tablespoons Fresh Mozzarella, shredded
cup fresh basil leaves, torn (we used the ones we had frozen from last summer)
- Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl mix together the meats, egg, Worcestershire Sauce, Italian seasoning, marinara sauce, salt, pepper and breadcrumbs until everything is totally combined.
- On a clean surface pound out the meat with your hands until it is about one inch thick. Then, scatter the shredded mozzarella and most of the basil leaves in a line in the center (pictured above), leaving one inch on either end. Then, fold up the sides and ends of the meatloaf and pinch the meat to seal in the cheese. Form a loaf shape with your hands. Scatter the remaining basil leaves on top.
- Transfer meatloaf to a roasting pan topped with aluminum foil. Poke a couple of holes in the foil so that the drippings can drain while cooking. Or, you can just bake it on a cooking sheet. (Note, we prefer this method to baking it in an actual loaf pan because we think it cooks the outside more evenly and the loaf develops a better crust).
- Bake at 350 for 45 minutes on Convection. If you don't have convection bake for about 1 hour and 5 minutes. To check if meat is done cut into it and make sure it isn't pink on the inside and the outside has a nice crust. Serve hot (preferably with a baked potato, which can be baked simultaneously in the oven along with the meatloaf).
- Notes: This is great to make-ahead. If you make it during the day (like I do) wrap the finished meatloaf in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until you are ready to bake it.
- This recipe is a Community Pick!
- This recipe was entered in the contest for The Best Recipe or Technique Your Mother Taught You
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Meatloaf
More Great Recipes:


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TUCSON, Ariz. — NASA's new robot on Mars has reached out and touched the soil for the first time, leaving behind a striking impression that looks like a footprint.
The Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm was making a test run, just one week after its landing. The spacecraft, which is also its own laboratory, will soon start scooping up soil and ice and running tests on it.
"This first touch allows us to utilize the robotic arm accurately," said David Spencer, Phoenix's surface mission manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"We are in a good situation" for the future testing, he said Sunday.
The camera on Phoenix's robotic arm also took a number of images of what appears to be exposed ice under the lander.
Phoenix, which touched down on Mars on May 25 after a 10-month, 420 million-mile (676 million-kilometer) journey from Earth, will bore into the ground and study water and soil samples to determine if conditions were ever suitable to support life.
"What we see in the images is in agreement with the notion that it may be ice, and we suspect we will see the same thing in the digging area," said Uwe Keller of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany.
"We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone," agreed Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.
"We'll test the two ideas by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera. We think that if the hard features are ice, they will become brighter because atmospheric water vapor will collect as new frost on the ice," Arvidson added in a statement.
The Viking landers in the 1970s and early 1980s conducted similar tests on surface soils. The detection of subsurface frozen water in 2002 by Mars Odyssey prompted scientists to propose the Phoenix mission.
This report includes information from The Associated Press and Reuters.
© 2013 msnbc.com


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I do, i was 4 years old when i taped the christmas special after reading about it in TV guide and was one of my fave Christmas specials growing up.
Funny to see Skeletor smile.
I do, i was 4 years old when i taped the christmas special after reading about it in TV guide and was one of my fave Christmas specials growing up.
Funny to see Skeletor smile.
"You killed Captain Clown, YOU KILLED CAPTAIN CLOWN"-Joker.
I do. I recorded it on VHS when it aired and watched it with my youngest sister a bunch of times.
I think it was the first time I saw Snout Spout because I remember when I saw him, I got excited and said "What the heck?!" From that day on, anytime my baby sis saw Snout Spout she'd point and excitedly say "What the heck! What the heck!" She must have thought "what the heck" was his name.
Weekly hosted horror, sci-fi, suspense, and fantasy films!
On television scare-waves throughout Haunted New England
I remember it! I believe it premiered during the night on a Saturday (maybe 6PM or 7PM). We were visiting my grandmother's house, and my sister and I couldn't believe Skeletor turned "good" at the end. It was all we talked about on the drive home. That episode kinda changed how we viewed Skeletor when we played. That, along with the big grin on the Skeletor toy, led him to sorta being a good bad guy for us. Only Hordak was the fully evil leader henceforth.
I saw it in the UK when it aired for the first time, in fact we had not long purchased our first VCR and it was one of the first shows we ever recorded. I still have the videotape! I was always annoyed that my Mum hadn't set it properly and my copy begins with He-Man grappling with the arms on the Collector.
We had to get it taped by someone who had cable or satellite, since we weren't sure if it would show on the channels we got. So we have a copy from Black Friday of 1985, aired on KSMP-9 out of Minneapolis/St. Paul, although I didn't get to see it until a few days later. I just converted it to DVD last week.
I remember seeing it, remember it was on at night, but can't recall if it was the weekend or how I learned about it or whatnot. I'm assuming there must have been commercials for it because I do recall anticipating it (in other words I wasn't randomly flipping channels and finding it by surprise). I was very excited that it spent an equal amount of time on Eternia and Etheria, but I really hated those two children and Orko going to earth by accident. But then, I guess if none of that had happened, there wouldn't have been a story to tell...
I do. I was 10 years old !
The Xmas Special aired in Brazil for the firs time in December 25th, 1985.
Since SOTS and POP cartoon did not debuted in Brazil until this date, I was a bit confused about those new characters.
I do! I believe we taped it. I remember my sister and I singing the song that the kids sung while Bow played the harp.
I do, I recorded it on VHS & watched it again & again many years in a row. My favorite part was how many of the "new guys" where in those early scenes (Rattlor, Snout Spout, the Laser Bolt)
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I recently found my VHS tape of the Christmas Special and watched it again. I think my mom must have gotten the record and pause buttons mixed up because there are more commercials than the actual show.
The special was great indeed, but I loved reliving the vintage toy commercials. Below are a few pics of the boy toy commercials I took to share with fans. There were also My Little Pony, Barbie, a Mickey Mouse Phone, Wuzzles....
Yeah man, thats the one! I don't have the beginning with Rod Grams, but I sure can watch the Little House Christmas episode anytime I want. Its actually not that bad.
Those toy commercials sure do bring back some memories. Do you recall Children's Palace off Cnty Rd 42 in Burnsville and Kay B Toys in the Burnsville Center? Got a lot of great toys from those places back in the day.
Yes. I remember being utterly charmed by Skeletor and the puppy as a kid-- and wishing that the children would be quiet and let Bow sing that weird little song. (He sang quite well when he wasn't clowning.) And who doesn't love Skeletor giving an explosive "get lost" to Horde Prime towards the end? So much fun.
Signed by-- ME!
Did I ever grow up? Probably not. I'm sure the day-glo socks gave it away anyway.
I was in middle school and it was during Christmas vacation. I remember that it was on a Saturday afternoon. It really caught me by surprise because there was supposed to be a sports show or something on. I thought it was a bit too cutesy with the dog, but I kind of liked seeing Skeletor forced to be nice.
You just read a post from the head Honcho of Nerds On A Couch!
AHH those Sectaurs commercials that aired during the xmas special were the best!!!!
I remember seeing it when it first aired. It was on during my bday party, so I didn't get to see too much of it, and I haven't seen it since. I was hoping for the big 30th anny celebration that we would see it is dvd stores......
The Christmas Special That show always brings a smile to me. I was about 8 when I first saw the Christmas Special at home with my sister. Seeing Skeletor smile was a surprise as we where not expecting that. Every time of this time of the year and during Christmas I play me the dvd that bci had released back then.
Long Live MOTU/MOTUC'S
For me I actually remember it sometime during the week in the evening, on Fox 5 I believe it was a Thursday night. Snout Spout actually served a purpose in the episode as well!!!
'Tis the wind and nothing more.....
I remember catching the very end of the X-mas special. I was so in awe that I got to see Snout Spout animated!
However, I was really upset that I just caught the end of the show and didn't even know about it airing. Recently
I got to see the whole thing. Awwwww Fights are fun!
Hey Guys,
Just watched the Christmas special with my seven year old nephew, he loved it! What are you favorite memories about it. One thing that always bothered me, I used to think it was crap that the Sorceress wasn't in the movie, they couldn't invite her to the party?...Lame.
I think I watched it once when it originally aired, so not much for childhood memories. It didn't get a yearly network run like Rudolph. I liked seeing some of the appearances of minor toy characters. I own both the DVD sets.
Xmas Special aired for the first time in Brazil in Xmas Day, 1985.
Two scenes were impressive for my ten years old eyes:
-- first, the battle in which He-Man used the (never seen before) Laser-Bolt vehicle and Skeletor's minions were Spikor, Two Bad, Webstor...and Rattlor ?!
Laser Bolt.jpg
-- Second, the end scene where most of the Heroic Warriors are shown in an amazing celebration. I think only Sorceress and Roboto were not invited...


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App reviews: Sunrise helps you manage your schedule, Duolingo offers language lessons
Sunrise iOS; free
Stay on top of things
A clean but full-featured calendar program, Sunrise aims to make sure that you're on top of your schedule to sunset and beyond. The app will let you tap into many places on the Web where you make plans, with options to display appointments from Google and iCloud calendars as well as Facebook. You can also opt to link up accounts from Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare to get more information on people with whom you have appointments. Smart typing suggestions try to predict what you're scheduling, whether it's a meeting or a call.
The app also gives you a three-day calendar view so you can know what the next couple of days offers. The view is nice for getting a quick glance ahead - and reducing the chance that you'll double-book yourself.
Learn language basics
Learning a new language is never easy. But picking up the basics doesn't have to be so hard, thanks to a smartphone app from Duolingo that lets you take basic lessons in Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese. It lets you set your daily goals for study and quickly walks you through the basics.
Users can share progress with friends or even opt to test out of a level of practice if they feel that their linguistic skills are up to snuff. The more answers you get, the more points you can accrue to buy things in-game such as new outfits for your digital language coach. You won't be writing novels in another language after you complete the program, but with help from Duolingo, you should be able to get by on your next trip.


text:
The prompt for week 32 of The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers in The Colour Red in homage to Halloween and all things gory and gruesome. I love ghosts and the gothic at any time of year but it is a long time since I went to a Halloween party, and when I did I just looked like Robert Smith of The Cure. My kids are also past the age of Trick or Treating thank goodness – the sooner that evening of permission to beg for revolting sweets at the doors of strangers goes out of fashion the better in my view (what is the equivalent of Bah! Humbug! for Halloween?). So as I know Tara is always happy to look at the prompt from every camera angle I thought I would post one of a series of pictures – basically tinkering with a tree.
Actually, looking at it again, out of context (there were other colours in the series) it does look somewhat gory, like the blood vessels in a lung. Uugh….


text:
- Glass coffee maker set
- Glass tea set
- Glass cup
- Glass jar
- Glass pour over coffee pot
- Hand blown Glass carafe
- Glass Pitcher/Jug
- Glass Coffee Server
- Glass Cloche
- Glass candle holder
- Glass wine cup
- Glass vase
- Glass perfume bottle
- Crystal Wine Decanter
- Glass Tea Pot
- Glass Oil Bottle
- Borosilicate Glass Beakers Laboratory Glassware Beaker Sets
- Borosilicate Glass Water Bottle
- Borosilicate Material Glass Bowl
- Borosilicate Glass Straw for Drinking Water
- Borosilicate Glass Wine Bottle
- Water Pipe Thick Smoking Hookah
- Borosilicate Glass Sauce Pan
- Borosilicate Glass Sauce Pan
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Contact Person
- Tim Chen
- Address:
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text:
Turn off Website Accelerator
Warning: If you disable Website Accelerator, you can no longer reenable it. It will be permanently removed from you account.
If you no longer want to use Website Accelerator, you can disable it.
Note: Don't disable Website Accelerator if you simply want to see site updates immediately. You can enable Developer Mode, instead. For more information, see Enabling Website Accelerator Developer Mode.
- Log in to your GoDaddy account.
- Click Web Hosting.
- Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Manage.
- From the Tools section, click Website Accelerator.
- Click Settings.
- Click the slider next to Enabled so it displays Off.
- Click Disable.
- Click Close.


text:
Notable Events
- The Assyrian Peach Exterminations continue with The Extermination of Newer Peach City in G.R. 2012.
Forum Battles
-Of Steam and Magic by Zahru II
-Killing Time by Bragallot
-Election 2012: The politician primary by Silent-sigfig
-Depths of Peril by Zahru II
-Raid on Tranquility Glade by Zahru II
-A.N.U.S. Protocol Saves the Day by Arkbrik
-The President's Speech by BrickSyd
-Into The Dragon's Teeth by Silverdream
-Battle of the Maren by Silverdream
-Sky Runs Red by Bragallot
-Operation Blau by Apollyon (Ft. Vindicator SHDT)
-Quest of Piltogg: Head Separator Part III by Natalya; Pro-immortal forces led by Piltogg and the Akkadians assault the asyrian Death Wall in a daring attempt at retrieving a valuable Artifact of Preceation; the head separator! as a part of the Quest of Piltogg. After much conflict, a heavy metal band begins playing in the middle of the Assyrian city, and all looked upon it and saw that it was awesome. However, in a suprising turn of events, once pro-immortal forces reached the bunker where the head separator was being kept, the Assyrians simply handed over the artifact, ending the game on a somewhat anti-climatic note.
-Tea Party of Doom by ikensall
-Peach Incident on Meridian by Pwnerade
-Digging Up the Past by Theblackdog
-BrikwaRPG by Zupponn
Reports From The Field
-Chosen outpost by alphafalcon451
-Bane of Reyo by alphafalcon451
-Victors of Reyo by alphafalcon451
-Fight for the Maniac Beer by alphafalcon451
-Outpost now you see it now you don't by alphafalcon451
-Island of Maniacs by alphafalcon451
-4chan battle report (WARNING: overload of awesomeness) - by Anonymous
-Ambush of Nova Colonia by Apollyon
-Desperate Measures by Collete
-Operation Umsturzen by Collete
-Blood and Particle Physics by Collete
-Battle of WIP castle by Ben-Jammin
-Lounge Room vs Kitchen - by BlueBright
-weeknight Shenanigans - by Bluebright; featuring pictures of actual, real life girl.
|BrikVersal Rekonstruktions
|Previous: BR 2,011
|Next: BR 2,013


text:
Dutch designer Guus ter Beek doesn't really like what he sees when he watches watches World Cup games on ESPN, so he and his colleagues went and invented a new, better way to broadcast the games.
From FastCo Design:
"When we have a closer look at ESPN we immediately notice the soft gradients and the black and purple colors not looking very appealing; they are popping in our face and shouting," [ter Beek] says. And ESPN isn't the only one; ter Beek checked out lots of sports channels, and says, "They always had either too much drop shadow, or frivolous elements, and an abundance of gradients." This conceptual design offers something different: flat graphics, bold colors, and a carefully curated emphasis on certain bits of information.
Ter Beek's idea also comes with a variety of icons that can periodically be thrown up on the screen to relay important information:
Yeah, I'd definitely watch a lot more soccer if it looked as pretty as this.


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|Lipscomb Head Coach
Bill Taylor enters his tenth year as the Head Men's and Women's Cross Country and Track and Field Coach at Lipscomb University. During his time at Lipscomb the program has seen a dramatic rise into the regional and national picture at the NCAA Division I level.
Taylor's women's cross country teams have won five consecutive Atlantic Sun Conference Championships (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015), while the Men's Cross Country team has won the past three Atlantic Sun Championships (2013, 2014, 2015).
Taylor's highlights at Lipscomb include:
-ASUN XC Champions:
Women: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
Men: 2013, 2014, 2015
-Five NCAA Division I All-American honors in track and field
-Madi Talbert, 2016 US Olympic Trials Qualifier, Steeplechase
-NCAA Division I Indoor National Championship qualifiers: Gemikal Prude: High Jump, 2014
-NCAA Division I Outdoor National Championship qualifiers: Madi Talbert: Steeplechase, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016. Gemikal Prude: High Jump, 2014. 2015.
-NCAA Outdoor National Championship Prelim qualifiers: Madi Talbert, Steeplechase 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 & 5000m 2015, Barbara Lee Ball 10,000m 2016. Paige Stoner, Steeplechase 2015 & 5000m 2015, Sally Larson, 5000m 2015 & 10,000m 2016, Karly Hibbard, Javelin 2015, Gemikal Prude, High Jump 2014, 2015, 2016. Wayne Newman, 110m High Hurdles 2015, 2016 & 400m Hurdles 2016, Colin Dempster, 400m 2014, Tucker Peabody, 100m 2014 & 200m 2012, 2014. Kendra Lobley Steeplechase 2012, Dani Walker, 5000m 2012.
-65 ASUN individual champion honors. 372 All-ASUN athlete honors.
-ASUN COY honors for women's XC 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and men's XC 2013, 2014, 2015.
-79 of 92 men's and women's school records have been set.
-USTFCCCA National Academic Honors for all teams every year. Women ranked first in the nation 2015 NCAA Division I Track and Field for team GPA. Men ranked first in the nation 2009.
-Team has conducted seven mission trips in the past six years to LA, Belize, Haiti twice, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic twice.
Outside of the competitive arena and the classroom, Coach Taylor has built a unique culture that emphasizes team environment, total person development and service.
Team environment means that high character is emphasized in recruiting and in being a part of the program. The result has been the strongest team environment in the nation, where the athletes love to be around each other, motivate each other and take care of each other. By having a culture of high character and creating a team family, the Lipscomb athletes have more fun and achieve more in every aspect. The team environment is a large reason for the rapid success the program has achieved, as well as the gigantic PR rates.
A Total Person Development philosophy of coaching emphasizes academic success, spiritual development and personal growth in addition to high athletic success. This means striving to be the best in the world athletically, while keeping athletics in perspective. It also means that Taylor and his staff believe that athletics are a tool for growth, and that their job is to help their athletes grow in every aspect of their lives.
As a service culture, the cross country and track and field teams are active in the community on a regular basis. Every semester the teams organize and conduct at least two Community Service projects. This has taken many forms, ranging from Habitat for Humanity builds, to Special Olympics help, to storm clean-up, to making sandwiches and handing them out to the homeless, to working with an inner-city youth organization and so many more.
The Lipscomb Cross Country and Track & Field teams have also done seven mission trips the past six years, and will continue return to the Dominican Republic again this year.
Prior to Lipscomb, Taylor coached 11 years at the collegiate level, five years at the high school level and two years privately coaching elite runners.
From 1994 to 2004 he created and guided the Northwest University (Kirkland, WA) Cross Country and Track programs to national prominence. In particular, the women's distance program at Northwest rose to an elite level.
His 2002 Women's team won the NAIA National Cross Country Championship and his 2003 team finished second in the nation. From 2000 to 2003 (his final season at Northwest), his women finished in the top seven nationally every year and added two top ten national finishes in indoor track as well.
From 1999 to 2003 his women's cross country teams boasted a 98 percent winning percentage against all competition and an 84 percent winning percentage against NCAA Division I competition.
Along the way his women picked up four consecutive Cascade Conference Championships and two Regional Championships. His peers honored him with 17 Conference, Regional and National Coach of the Year honors.
He also had an incredible 100% PR rate at Northwest for 5000m. Every athlete that joined the program over the 10 years at Northwest PR'd, and the average PR rate was just about 2-minutes. This type of improvement is rarely seen on such a scale at the collegiate level.
At Lipscomb this trend has continued, with average PR rates for 5000m well over the 2-minute mark.
In total at Northwest, Taylor coached 52 Athletic All-Americans, 31 Academic All-Americans, 201 National Qualifiers and 53 Cascade Conference Champions at Northwest University.
Kristina Proticova won individual National Championships in the Indoor 3000m and the 3000m Steeplechase and set the Slovakian National Record for the steeplechase while at Northwest.
In the Spring of 2012, Taylor and his 2002 Northwest University NAIA Women's Cross Country National Championship team were inducted into the Northwest University Athletics Hall of Fame.
In 2006-07, Taylor served as an assistant coach with the women's cross country and track programs at Belmont University, helping them regain the Atlantic-Sun Cross Country championship.
A native of the Seattle, Wash., area, Coach Taylor and his family moved to Nashville in 2006. Taylor has a Bachelor's degree from Belmont University, is completing a Master's degree in Conflict Management from Lipscomb University, and holds USATF Level I and II Coaching certification. When he has time, he enjoys reading, writing, hiking, outdoor sports, marksmanship, fitness, and relieving stress on a set of drums. In the past he served six years as a 19D Cavalry Scout with the Washington Army National Guard, and volunteered for 11 years with Snohomish County Search & Rescue.
Most of all, he enjoys spending time with his family. He and his wife Tabetha have been married for 28 years. They have two daughters, Bella and Ellie and Golden Retriever named Wiley. They reside in Franklin, Tennessee.


text: On Tue, 23 Sep 2008, Donald Becker wrote: >> XML is (IMO) good, not bad. > > I have so much to write on this topic, I'll take the first pot shot at RGB > ;-) > > XML is evil. Well, evil for this. Oh, it's fine. I've gone the rounds on this one with Linus Himself (who agrees with you, BTW:-). However, I present case study of the two approaches below that shows that a) this is really a question of tradeoffs, cost-benefit, with advantages and disadvantages both ways but DIFFERENT advantages both ways; b) the costs of using XML are less than you are implying, for at least the kind of cluster and usage for which xmlsysd was designed. Either way then, one has to consider whether benefits are worth the costs -- to you, for your cluster and your task mix -- as usual. > Ganglia does consume a significant portion of resources. I've heard > first-hand reports of 20% CPU. (Admittedly before they figured out what > was happening and turned the reporting list and frequency way down.) > > When we found that we needed to support Ganglia, I grumbled mightily and > set out to figure out why it was so bad. Deep in its black heart I found > the source of evil: XML. And not just the detailed evil of the syntax, > the evil power had seeped into the higher level architecture with > needless flexibility.[*1] I'd argue -- persuasively I think -- that the evil was not in XML per se but in various other aspects of ganglia such as its flexibility and ability to absorb and report back "any" statistic. The CPU overhead on a node required to generate a single packet or short message spanning a few packets of ANY sort -- including compressed and encrypted -- at a time granularity of once per second is a negligible fraction of a percent. Now, Linus did argue equally (or even more:-) persuasively that the overhead associated with converting /proc itself to use XML per se was too great and sure, he's probably correct. Still, there would be an ADVANTAGE to doing so, even if one did it as an exercise and then simply threw it away: constructing an XML view of /proc would force one to directly confront all of the deep, abiding evil that resides therein from NOT enforcing any sort of XML-like hierarchical view of its contents. Anybody who has had to write code that parses /proc has to deal with what, three or four distinct constructs for associating a variable of interest with a value, with an even greater variety of ways of expressing the hierarchy in which that value lies? /proc contains everything from file containing value name (separator) value to name (separator) value_1 (separator) value_2 ... value_1024 (often in the same file, e.g. /proc/stat) to tables (/proc/net/dev) to pathlike hierarchy /proc/path/value_name files with contents value. Where the latter, I would note, is more or less identical to at least one of the canonical views of XML and is in fact how I lay out and parse the XML returned by xmlsysd. Values laid out in this way constitute most of the newest ones provided by the kernel -- the problem is that there is a LEGACY of code that provided values laid out however the inventor of that particular chunk of code wanted to lay it out. One day (maybe) we can hope that an e.g. 3.x kernel will come along and enforce a strict standard hierarchical view of /proc that "is" XML even if it uses nominal filesystem paths to precisely correspond to XML hierarchical nesting, but because of inefficiencies in using the filesystem in this way INSTEAD of single files with XML, or because of the demands for efficiency when parsing minimal but nearly human-unreadable e.g. /proc/PID/stat perhaps not. So I >>agree<< with your point 1, but it isn't the correct point. /proc was written without XML but ended up an ill-disciplined mish-mosh of (possibly) locally optimized parsable objects as a consequence not of use or non-use of XML, but because of a lack of discipline in the design and layout or clear correspondance with data objects. Point 1 basically says that using XML doesn't FORCE you to use discipline and consequently one can implement it badly and nothing could be more true, but it isn't for lack of trying in the XML standard. XML is flexible and extensible for a reason, but that doesn't mean that it should be taken as an excuse not to -- eventually -- develop a sound set of data objects. If anything, it should be a means to help one figure out what that sound set of objects really IS, because the process of encapsulation most naturally reflects the data structures into which they are placed in memory. Its biggest problem isn't discipline, it is size. The hierarchical discipline it attempts to force on users is, if anything, good for them in most cases. It forces them to confront the question of just what the right data objects are and how they relate to other objects and are most naturally arranged. The data view thus produced is self-documenting to the extent sensible tag names are chosen, manifestly hierarchical (it may not be the RIGHT hierarchy, but it is a hierarchy just the same), and consequently quite human readable. It can be parsed trivially with readily available tools instead of black magic (where /proc is much more in the latter category). To the extent that one has built a GOOD data hierarchy, it is quite extensible -- it is easy to poke new objects into the data hierarchy without breaking the path to old objects, so backwards and even forwards compatibility isn't out of the question. To the extent that the data objects thus encapsulated are well defined, one can even build tools that manipulate the data automagically in many ways while pulling e.g. attributes to control the process from the XML itself -- XML is in principle rather portable. It is, in fact, rather BEAUTIFUL. The beauty has a price, and the price is size (and to a lesser extent, the additional time required to generate the beautiful human readable view). The cheap way to send a data structure across the network is to take the raw data structure, treat it as an anonymous block of memory, and send it, placing the block on the other end into an identical data structure via the magic of pointers and thereby dereferencing its contents. The information being sent will in such a way will often be almost incompressible so that you CAN'T make it any smaller. It is efficiency itself -- the smallest packet one can produce with the least possible amount of handling and processing. It is also human unreadable, tremendously fragile (if e.g. one end is bigendian and the other littlendian or data objects have different sizes in the struct etc it will fail silently and often tragically), nearly impossible to debug, and STILL subject to good or bad data objects in the layout of the struct itself. So the tradeoff is really a familiar one. Code/Data efficiency vs Code/Data readability and robustness. These tradeoffs make everybody unhappy but lets them CHOOSE their personal degree of unhappiness. They can send raw binary and be happily efficient and sad when it breaks or changes or they are developing the application. They can send XML and be happily robust, happily readable by humans, happily debuggable and extensible and portable, but sad when they see how large the message is that they send compared to an information-theoretically minimal message with the same content, sad when they note that they have to do a bit of work to prepare the message in the first place for sending. What is the RIGHT tradeoff? Depends on the problem, of course. Human readability and maintainability and extensibility is worth a lot, but some problems will tolerate the loss of efficiency it costs to achieve them and some won't. Some problems will tolerate it at SOME SCALES but not at EVERY scale. Usually, the best possible tradeoff is one that doesn't, one that yields the best of both worlds. For example, XML would be just great if it were possible to construct an a priori tag dictionary, create a map from tags to information-theoretically minimal binary (where every tag in most problems could be reduced to one or at most two bytes in length), and install the DICTIONARY on both sender and receiver ends. This would effectively compress the actual XML to where the overhead associated with sending the message is down to perhaps 10-40% of the raw binary message, not an unreasonable price to pay for trivial library-based reversal at the other end into human readable, debuggable, etc XML, and it could accomplish it with minimal CPU -- less than what would be required to actually compress each message and send along a per-message dictionary and probably less than what is required to construct the uncompressed XML message. But this is just one of many binary XML schemes and projects underway, and if/when any are adopted as real standards and widely supported by library calls people will have to continue to make a moderately unsatisfactory choice or roll their own (e.g. (de)compressing with gzip on both ends). In the particular case of xmlsysd, it is roughly the fourth complete rewrite (the first two were called procstatd and were ugly and undisciplined, the first xmlsysd was much prettier and disciplined but didn't get the hierarchies quite right, and the current version of xmlsysd is -- I think -- very nicely hierarchically organized. It achieves adequate efficiency for many uses a different way -- it is only called on (client side) demand, so the network isn't cluttered with unwanted or unneeded casts (uni, multi, broad). It is "throttleable" -- the client controls the daemon on each host, and can basically tell it to send only what the client wants to monitor (at some granularity in the hierarchy -- not specifying individual fields but the contents of e.g. specific proc-derived files). So if you aren't monitoring memory, you don't read or parse or send the contents of /proc/meminfo. If you are only interested in (say) 1, 5, 15 load average, you throttle so that only that is sent: init off all on loadavg send Content-Length: 217 <?xml version="1.0"?> <xmlsysd init="1"> <proc> <loadavg tv_sec="1222275182" tv_usec="443155"> <load1>0.05</load1> <load5>0.12</load5> <load15>0.05</load15> </loadavg> </proc> </xmlsysd> This is down to a few hundred bytes. Sure, it could be sent in 20 bytes as four uints and a luint, but then it would look like: %!1 ) or some such, and nobody could read it without a binary tool, and one would have to parse the receiving socket by byte count since EFFICIENCY doesn't even permit a line terminator. So the cost in message length is profound -- a factor of 10 in this case. The cost in human readability and portability is equally profound -- one is, one isn't, period. But what is the cost in what REALLY counts: time? Well, both of them have to be sent by the network. One can choose UDP or TCP for either one, and each has advantages and disadvantages (with -- gulp -- the same tradeoffs between reliability and robustness and speed). Fine, pick (say) TCP. In that case one pays a TCP latency hit to send EITHER message, and then a bandwidth hit roughly proportional to the total message size INCLUDING the requisite header. Including the header the longer message is only roughly four times the size of the latter, not ten. The TCP latency hit is also (usually) much larger than the bandwidth hit for minimum size messages -- so much so that it might well take less than twice as long to send the longer message than the shortest possible one. And that cost is the cost of A SINGLE NETWORK MESSAGE -- worst case a few hundred microseconds, even if the message spans several packets. Sending a message every second might therefore be expected to "waste" as much as 1/1000th of the compute time available in that second -- 0.1% -- compared to the unreadable but shortest possible message, which itself requires just under 0.1%. In practice (using xmlsysd to monitor system load while it itself runs) this is a reasonable estimate that is if anything conservative. UDP has a similar analysis, but scaled down by a factor of two or so -- it doesn't really change the general conclusions, which are that the impact ON THE NODES of running xmlsysd -- especially on its recommended/wulfstat-default 5 second sampling interval -- is pretty much negligible, XML and all, for non-synchronous nodes. For synchronous nodes, serially polling the nodes (as wulfstat does) leads to serial interruption of node progress and the efficiency hit is nonlinearly amplified. One can get around this by sampling less often -- even out at 1000 nodes it should update in around a second, so polling them only once every 120 seconds gives you node status on all nodes within the last two minutes at less than 1% cost in efficiency, or of course scale up to even greater efficiency even less often. But truthfully, xmlsysd wasn't designed for usage on a large cluster running synchronous code. > Those familiar with BeoStat might point out that it does not have the same > functionality. It doesn't report everything that Ganglia can. That's > exactly the point of BeoStat -- it reports only the essential state, > status and statistics for nodes. And it reports the same items, every time > and in every installation. It's much more easily used by tools because > they can count on which values will be reported, and the update frequency. > Static values are gathered once a "node_up" time, and changing values > are updated once per second while the node is up. All good and very similar to what xmlsysd does as well, except that xmlsysd only updates values when requested by the master node/client, and imposes no load at all until it is needed. But you use beostat as part of a tightly integrated set of tools that function as a cluster "kernel" -- I was just writing a cluster monitoring tool that doesn't generally need to collect information on a time granularity smaller than once every 5 seconds or so and that might as well turn off entirely when I'm not watching. > BeoStat is used by multiple schedulers, mappers, stat displays (e.g. > Ganglia) and GUIs. It's an essential part of the Scyld architecture and > reflects it design philosophy -- minimizing operational overhead on the > compute nodes, while simplifying and unifying the cluster. We use a > single reporting daemon per compute node, and the results are gathered > together and published at one place -- master nodes. Actually, from here on down -- with the exceptions of choosing to use xml to encapsulate the return, TCP instead of UDP, and allowing the client side to control and throttle the daemon so that one can tune the impact of the monitoring to the demands of the cluster and task, the two things sound very similar -- as they should be, given that they're both N>3 generation tools. I expect yours works better on really large clusters and more efficiently on all clusters, at the expense of not being terribly easy to get at without the tools of your particular toolset. xmlsysd, OTOH, is like sendmail. You can telnet to it and talk to it with a simple command set and read (or parse) what it sends back with tools either provided or that you construct yourself. And it requires nothing special -- drop it in place, use it. Works on LANs and personal systems as well as cluster nodes. rgb -- Robert G. Brown Phone(cell): 1-919-280-8443 Duke University Physics Dept, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Web: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb Book of Lilith Website: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Lilith/Lilith.php Lulu Bookstore: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=877977


text:
Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is a slow and progressive circulation disorder. Narrowing, blockage, or spasms in a blood vessel can cause PVD.
PVD may affect any blood vessel outside of the heart including the arteries, veins, or lymphatic vessels. Organs supplied by these vessels, such as the brain, and legs, may not get enough blood flow for proper function. However, the legs and feet are most commonly affected.
Peripheral vascular disease is also called peripheral arterial disease.
The most common cause of PVD is atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque inside the artery wall. Plaque reduces the amount of blood flow to the limbs. It also decreases the oxygen and nutrients available to the tissue. Blood clots may form on the artery walls, further decreasing the inner size of the blood vessel and block off major arteries.
Other causes of PVD may include:
People with coronary artery disease (CAD) often also have PVD.
A risk factor increases your chance of developing a disease. Some can be changed, others cannot. Risk factors that you can't change:
Risk factors that may be changed or treated include:
Those who smoke or have diabetes have the highest risk of complications from PVD because these risk factors also cause impaired blood flow.
About half the people diagnosed with PVD are symptom free. For those with symptoms, the most common first symptom is painful leg cramping that occurs with exercise and is relieved by rest (intermittent claudication). During rest, the muscles need less blood flow, so the pain disappears. It may occur in one or both legs depending on the location of the clogged or narrowed artery.
Other symptoms of PVD may include:
The symptoms of PVD may look like other conditions. See your healthcare provider for a diagnosis.
Along with a complete medical history and physical exam, other tests may include:
The main goals for treatment of PVD are to control the symptoms and halt the progression of the disease to lower the risk for heart attack, stroke, and other complications.
Treatment may include:
An angiogram may be done before angioplasty and vascular surgery.
Complications of PVD most often occur because of decreased or absent blood flow. Such complications may include:
Following an aggressive treatment plan for PVD can help prevent complications.
To prevent PVD, take steps to manage the risk factors. A prevention program for PVD may include:
To prevent or lessen the progress of PVD, your doctor may recommend a prevention plan.
If your symptoms get worse or you get new symptoms, let your healthcare provider know.
Tips to help you get the most from a visit to your healthcare provider:


text:
Full version, Basic version, Tiny version
Specification link: 20.4 The 'glyph' element
This files tests the lang attribute support of the glyph element. The test should produce an upward-triangle for the first (en) test element and a square for the second (fr) and third (fr-ca) text element. In the third case, a glyph for fr is also suitable for a more specific language text fr-ca. In the fourth case, no suitable language specific or general glyph is provided by the test so a fallback font for the letter 'a' should be used. A triangle or square must not be displayed in the fourth case.


text:
The Giants' NLDS roster has been announced, and it's devoid of any surprises. In fact, it's identical to the playoff roster predictions I posted a week and a half ago. The Giants will go with 12 pitchers, which is a good thing: two of Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Lincecum, and Barry Zito — presumably the former two, but we still don't know for sure — will be starting games in this series. Given the uncertainty in the back of the Giants' rotation right now, and Bruce Bochy's tendency to deploy relievers for short appearances, the Giants are wise to go with some extra bullpen depth. The downside is that they are now without a good designated pinch-running option for Aubrey Huff, but that shouldn't be a big deal. As Alex Pavlovic notes, Ryan Theriot could assume that role.
Anyway, here's the list:
Pitchers (12)
41 Jeremy Affeldt LHP
40 Madison Bumgarner LHP
18 Matt Cain RHP
46 Santiago Casilla RHP
70 George Kontos RHP
55 Tim Lincecum RHP
49 Javier Lopez LHP
50 Jose Mijares LHP
59 Guillermo Mota RHP
54 Sergio Romo RHP
32 Ryan Vogelsong RHP
75 Barry Zito LHP
Catchers (2)
28 Buster Posey C
29 Hector Sanchez C
Infielders (7)
13 Joaquin Arias IF
9 Brandon Belt IF
35 Brandon Crawford IF
17 Aubrey Huff IF
48 Pablo Sandoval IF
19 Marco Scutaro IF
5 Ryan Theriot IF
Outfielders (4)
7 Gregor Blanco OF
12 Xavier Nady OF
16 Angel Pagan OF
8 Hunter Pence OF


text:
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Smiling Fish Thailand International Series, May 1-6
Discussion in '2007 Tournaments' started by Sandy, Apr 27, 2007.
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Some of the humans you watch advancing to a bank are there alone to adore the feel of the place. They aswell bet on assertive games, but anon they apprehend that they are accident a lot of money! Well, my admonition to such humans is that they should at atomic apprentice the basics of a bold if they ambition to appointment a casino. A few simple bank bank tips can advice such humans from accident a lot of money.
Be it roulette, poker, slots or bingo, you should apperceive the rules of the bold afore you alpha arena and gambling. The best way to apprentice the rules is to apprehend about them or try out the game. Yes, you ability anticipate that you will lose money if you play the bold afterwards alive the rules, but afterwards account the rules, you accept to aboriginal convenance afore arena the absolute game.
There are few sites that acquiesce you to play the bold with minimum startup fees. If you are planning to play for cash, it is brash that you ensure that the website or bank you are abutting has account in the circle. On your part, you charge to set a few banned so that even if you lose money, it is not an abandoned amount. Additionally, you should aswell absolute the time you are playing.
One of the a lot of basic credibility to bethink is that whether it is online bank or in a casino, the abode consistently has advantage. So, you should not await too abundant on strategies. Even if you accept a acknowledged strategy, the abode is abiding to adviser it and acquisition a adverse action for it. The case is alone tougher with online bank because anniversary and every move of castigation is monitored. Based on those, they plan out strategies with the advice of adult software.
If you are arena poker, don't jump into a clash until you accept baffled the game. The basal band is, if you accept gone there to accomplish money, so accept others! So, you should at atomic bout their accomplishment if not be bigger than them. Aswell abstraction the habits of your opponents as this will absolutely advice you win in the continued run.
It is brash that you should finer play those amateur area the bank advantage is beneath than or alone 3%. As you advance with the game, so should your betting. Afterwards every win you can accession your bet by bisected the bulk and afterwards every loss, go aback to your minimum action amount. This is accepted as accelerating betting.
Lastly, if you wish to accomplish austere money or you accept visited the bank just for fun, bethink that if you are accident absorption in the bold or it annoys you or it has chock-full getting fun for you, again you should abdicate the bold and airing away.


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Winery Tour
November 21, 2020 @ 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 3:00 pm on Saturday, repeating indefinitely
Join us for a tour of the winery and learn more about us, our process and the River Arts District. The tour lasts approximately 30 minutes and includes three tastings and a souvenir glass. No reservation required.


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If Tim Daggett ever needed a reminder to keep his analysis simple during national television coverage of gymnastics, he could always watch figure skating.
Gymnastics and figure skating have to be the two most popular sports on television that most viewers don't really understand. The moves and spins are athletic and artistic, but too technical for many viewers to decipher.
That's where Daggett comes in. A member of the 1984 Olympic gold medal men's gymnastics team, Daggett understands all the nuances of each routine, but he realizes that many viewers don't. So he'll do his best during NBC's live coverage of the American Cup at the DCU Center from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday to explain what's going on, but will avoid getting too technical so the casual viewers won't get lost.
"If I was explaining or commentating for the gymnastics community," he said, "it would sound completely different, and I never want to fall into that trap."
Daggett watches figure skating on television during the Olympics and admits he doesn't know all the nuances of it. So he relies on the commentators to explain things like he does in gymnastics.
"And sometimes I still don't understand what they said," Daggett admitted with a laugh.
The same production crews work gymnastics and figure skating for NBC. David Michaels, older brother of "Sunday Night Football" announcer Al Michaels, is executive producer and director for both sports. He'll be in Worcester Saturday.
One move on the parallel bars is well known in the gymnastics community as simply a Diomidov because former Soviet gymnast Sergey Diomidov first performed it. Daggett, however, realizes that many viewers don't know that, so he explains the move on the air.
"It's a lot more technical than this," he said, "but if I were setting it up for the viewer, I would say, 'He's in this beautiful handstand and he's going to swing his body down and he's going to spin on one arm and land right back in that handstand with two arms again.' The gymnastics people roll their eyes because they're like, 'He's swinging down and doing a Diomidov.' But I'm trying to explain it to the novice."
Daggett, 50, has traveled the world analyzing gymnastics in the last six Olympic Games for NBC, but on Saturday he'll be only about an hour from his home in East Longmeadow. Daggett grew up in West Springfield before competing for UCLA. After living in L.A. for nearly a decade, he returned to Massachusetts to be close to family and live a less hectic life. He also missed the changing of the seasons.
"Although I don't think I missed February," he said, "and I know that's true now."
Daggett owns a gymnastics center in Agawam, which has produced national champions and senior national team members and helped 30 students receive full athletic scholarships to college. His 15-year-old son, Peter, was a member of the junior national team last year and hopes to make it again this summer.
Two years ago in the USA Gymnastics state championships, Peter Daggett became the second member of his family to score a perfect 10 on the high bar.
His father did it to clinch the team gold medal for the U.S. in the 1984 Olympics, but he didn't think about that when he watched his son score his 10.
"He's my son and he's the priority," Daggett said. "I'm just the old guy now."
Daggett was standing under the high bar coaching his son during the perfect routine, but afterward he couldn't resist giving his son his play-by-play as a joke.
The American Cup is an all-around competition that features former and future male and female Olympians.
Daggett won the American Cup men's title in Indianapolis in 1985. He has analyzed each American Cup for NBC since 1989, including the 2010 competition at the DCU Center.
Needham's Aly Raisman, captain of the women's Olympic gold medal gymnastics team in London last year, burst onto the national scene when she finished second in the 2010 American Cup. Daggett wouldn't be surprised if Katelyn Ohashi of Plano, Texas, or Simone Biles of Spring, Texas, did the same on Saturday. Both will be competing in their first international competition as seniors.
Daggett considers defending American Cup champion and 2012 Olympic all-around bronze medalist Danell Leyva of Miami to be the favorite among the men, even though Olympic all-around silver medalist Marcel Nguyen of Germany is also in the field.
Contact Bill Doyle at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillDoyle15.


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|Catholic Posters by Pater Eddie Dwyer
"Holy and learned, great St. Luke, we praise you, closely you followed in the steps of Jesus; as supreme witness to His life and teaching, shedding your life-blood.
Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you left in writing, for all time to study stories unrivaled for their depth and beauty, Christ's love revealing.
Yours are the records which we read with pleasure of the beginning of the Church to fervent, under the impulse of the true and living Spirit of Jesus.
Paul's earnest helper, sharer in his travels, zealous as he was, with a heart as loving; make our souls also steadfast and devoted to the Lord Jesus.
Tender physician, use your gift of healing, comfort our weakness with a faith unswerving, so that rejoicing we may praise forever God the Almighty. Amen." ---Pausibus Luca canimus (Hymn from today's Lauds in the Breviary.)


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Jan. 9, 2008
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Smith College withstood a late surge by MIT to open up New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) play with a 54-45 victory on Wednesday night. Berit Schelde paced the Pioneers (3-7, 1-0 NEWMAC) with 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the floor while Sally Simpson tallied 14 points, including nine from three-point range, for the Engineers (6-5, 0-1 NEWMAC).
Both sides traded baskets to start the game until a trey by Schelde put Smith ahead, 7-4, at the 17:26 mark. MIT stayed close, as it trailed by four (18-14) midway through frame. Following over three minutes of scoreless play, the Pioneers tallied six straight points to push their advantage to 24-14 with 2:35 on the clock. After a timeout by the Engineers on their ensuing possession, Clara Yuan drained a three-pointer which was countered with a put-back by Smith's Lisa Marie Vuono for a 26-17 halftime lead.
MIT opened the second half with a lay-up by Cheryl Kwinn, but the Pioneers responded with a 19-5 run that spanned the next 11 minutes. Sally Simpson registered a four-point play to end a six-minute scoring drought by the Engineers at 7:53. The Cardinal and Gray continued to attack as it tallied 17 of the final 26 points, including a 9-1 spurt during the final four minutes of regulation.
Samia Mahjub picked up her second double-double of the season as she totaled 10 points and a team-high 10 rebounds for MIT. Kwinn contributed eight points and four boards while Kimberly Soo Hoo registered five assists and two steals.
Along with her game-high scoring performance, Schelde paced the Pioneers with four assists. Laura Miller notched 15 points and 10 caroms as Meredith Murelli led the way with 13 rebounds and two blocks. Vuono finished the night with eight boards and a trio of assists and steals.
MIT continues its homestand on Monday, Jan. 14 went it hosts Newbury College while Smith will continue conference play on Saturday, Jan. 12 when it visits the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.


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Join Us At Our Three Upcoming Public Events!
Leveraging Technology and Partnerships to Promote Equity in South Asia
Wednesday, April 18 at 9:00AM
The Next South Asia Regional Flagship on equity and development (March 2013) will feature an eBook which will combine interactive multimedia as a part of the World Bank Open Data and Open Knowledge initiatives. This signals a new era in development analysis is produced and shared.
Please RSVP to Alison at [email protected] by Tuesday, April 17th to attend.
Twitter hashtag: #wbequity
Breaking Down Barriers: A New Dawn on Trade and Regional Cooperation in South Asia
Thursday, April 19 at 3:00PM


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64-Bit ARM CPUs Coming in 2014; GPUs in the Cloud
As chip technology evolves, two interesting trends are emerging: ARM architecture chips are being aimed at data centers and chips of all kinds are moving into the cloud so computing can be virtualized among multiple machines. Today, two firms confirmed these directions; Calxeda announced its roadmap for its ARM-based server chips that includes a 64-bit version, and Nvidia announced it will ship GPUs that can be virtualized in the cloud.
Calxeda, the startup focused on ARM server ships, disclosed its roadmap for the next couple of years. The company is already shipping systems based on its current EnergyCore ECX-1000 processors, based on four ARM Cortex A9 cores. It announced that system vendor Penguin Computer will be shipping systems in North America based on the system aimed at Hadoop and cloud storage, and that Boston Limited already has early system available in Europe. Sometime in 2013, that platform will be updated to a new chip called "Midway," which will be based on quad-core Cortex-A15 ARM cores. This will include a new version of the company's fabric that will add new features such as dynamic power and routing optimization for public and private clouds. This seems aimed at markets like storage and networking where 32-bit processors are sufficient.
Calxeda's third-generation platform, code-named "Lago" is due out in 2014 and this will be based on more than four 64-bit cores that use ARM's V8 architecture. This will include scaling features, known as Calxeda Fleet Services, essentially a fabric designed to connect up to hundreds of thousands of nodes. The company is also working with RedHat, Canonical, and Citrix to help create the software for such systems.
Of course, there are other companies working on ARM server chips, and I saw a number of such machines at Computex recently, including a Dell system based on Marvell's 32-bit ARM chip. Meanwhile, other companies are talking about 64-bit ARM solutions, including Applied Micro, which recently announced plans to make a 64-bit ARM-based CPU known as X-Gene available later this year. Other companies, including Cavium and Nvidia (with its Project Denver) are also working on 64-bit ARM chips.
It still seems like ARM servers are at least a couple of years away from truly impacting the server market, but it's an interesting contrast to the existing market, which is mainly served by Intel Xeon chips. Both Intel and AMD have also talked about microservers; Intel is pushing its Centerton version of Atom and AMD purchased SeaMicro with its fabric for connecting lots of chips.
Meanwhile, Nvidia announced its cloud-based VGX K2 GPU, designed to let companies host graphics in the cloud and access it via virtual machines. The idea here is to bring virtual machine technology to workstations.
The VGX K2 is based on the company's Kepler architecture, combining two workstation-class GPUs on a single board, with 4GB of graphics memory per GPU. Nvidia says this will allow for low-latency remote displays (without as much lag as is often seen in virtual desktop computing) and improved power efficiency. The company announced a partnership with Citrix where its XenDesktop environment with HDX 3DPro uses the new board.
Again, it's a neat idea that should allow VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) for users who need the graphics features.


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In medical agreement bank addiction is termed as ludomania. This implies a being needs to activity admitting alive the adverse consequences. Bank addiction is a behavior which can affect a lot of of the above aspects of life, for archetype it can affect you psychologically, physically and bassinet your amusing life. Sometimes bank addiction is referred as a hidden affliction as you cannot see any concrete symptoms. According to the American Psychological Association, addictive bank is a brainy bloom ataxia and those afflicted accept no ascendancy over it. Bank addiction is a ache which is abiding and progressive. This agency a being gets added and added absorbed appear it every time he or she gets the befalling to gamble. According to a analysis about 4 percent of the American citizenry has a bank addiction.
According to Dr. Richard Rosenthal there are three belief for a being to be listed down as a dissection charlatan or a being affect with bank addiction. An intolerable activity or state, which is a being activity abandoned for no reason. Depression can be a reason; a being ability get depressed due to problems at plan place, problems with family, etc. Another archetype is if a being develops a top accommodation for self-deception. If a charlatan avalanche beneath these criteria, he is afflicted with bank addiction. Bank addiction is about classified into two types, activity bank and escape gambling.
Action bank agency a being is absorbed to yield risks, humans falling beneath this class wish to play with added gamblers, and they wish to prove themselves as a champ in foreground of everyone. They wish to analyze themselves and actualize an image, they will abide bank until and unless they ability the position. Escape bank is area a being gambles because of the acumen that they are afflicted with some claimed matters. The being is accepting problems with affecting aspects in activity or the being is not adequate with life. Humans accepting escape bank addiction usually play abandoned or they like to sit alone, they are rather begin arena atramentous jack or at aperture machines. Escape gamblers just abstain animal contact. It is begin that men are added absorbed appear activity bank and women are absorbed appear escape gambling. It is aswell begin that adolescent humans tend to accept bank addiction rather than adults. Teens are about 3 times added acceptable to abatement beneath bank addiction. This is absolutely antipodal in advertence to added addictions area problems a part of adults are added accustomed than children.
Gambling addiction is a brainy ataxia accepting no actuation in authoritative it but it is diagnosable and treatable. A actual able way to get advised is by the advice of hypnosis. Analgesic has a actual top amount of success in healing humans from bank addiction. You can download mp3 versions accessible on the Internet. As anon as you are over with all the sessions of analgesic you will no added be accident money at the casinos. You will be a champ and will set an archetype in foreground of anybody on how fast and calmly you could get rid of bank addiction.


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Lower Saxony, German Niedersachsen, Land (state) of Germany. The country's second largest state in size, Lower Saxony occupies an important band of territory across the northwestern part of the country. It is bordered by the North Sea and the German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg to the north and by the states of Mecklenburg–West Pomerania to the northeast, Saxony-Anhalt to the east, Thuringia and Hessen to the south, and North Rhine–Westphalia to the southwest. The Netherlands borders Lower Saxony to the west. The state of Bremen, formed by the cities of Bremerhaven (at the mouth of the Weser) and Bremen (40 miles [64 km] up the river), is an enclave within Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony was established on November 1, 1946, by the British military government, which merged the former Prussian province of Hanover with the states of Braunschweig, Oldenburg, and Schaumburg-Lippe. Its capital is Hannover.
Physical features
With the exception of a small highland area to the south, the landscape of the state is dominated by the great North German Plain. Much of the state's northern half consists of sandy lowlands of heath, bog, and polder, interspersed with scattered forests. In the northwest the East Frisian Islands—12 islands in the North Sea—and about 325 square miles (840 square km) of coastal land are actually below sea level and are protected from inundation by dikes similar to those nearby in the Netherlands. More than half of Lower Saxony is drained by the Weser River and its tributaries, the Fulda and the Werra. At the mouths of the Weser and other rivers flowing into the North Sea, fertile marshes are found, mostly supporting a pasture economy. In the state's northeastern region, there is a less-fertile area of land partly covered with forests. This contains the Lüneburg Heath (Lüneburger Heide), which is noted for its old-fashioned red farmhouses and the ancient megalithic structures known as "graves of giants." In the south-central part of the state are two sizable lakes: Steinhuder Lake (about 12 square miles [30 square km]) and Dümmer Lake (about 6 square miles [15 square km]). The highland area occupies the southern portions of the state and contains the Weser, Deister, and Harz mountains. The important Mittelland Canal runs east-west across the south-central part of Lower Saxony.
The sandy lowlands of the north are sparsely populated in comparison with the south-central belt. The troughlike valleys of the forested southern uplands provide good-quality agricultural land, as do the foothills farther north. The latter form part of a treeless belt of rich loess soils known as the Börde, which runs in a narrow east-west zone across the state. Lower Saxony's climate offers mild winters, moderately warm summers, and a steady year-round rainfall ranging from 24 to 35 inches (600 to 900 mm).
The population of Lower Saxony regards itself as Low German, linked by a common ancient Saxon origin and the use of the Low German dialect known as Plattdeutsch. The latter, a dialect closely related to Dutch, Frisian, and English, is quite distinct from the official High German (see also German language). Some regional literature is still written in this dialect, and it remains the language of the home in much of the state. About four-fifths of the population is Protestant, with a Roman Catholic minority in the state's western part.
In 1939 the population of Lower Saxony as presently defined stood at about 4.5 million. By 1946 the influx of refugees from other areas of war-torn Europe had caused an increase to about 6.2 million, despite wartime losses. By 1950 the population had reached 6.7 million. During the 1950s more than 340,000 refugees were transferred to states of the Federal Republic of Germany that were able to offer better living conditions. Nevertheless, by the late 1990s the population was close to eight million. Recent growth is largely attributable to immigration. The major cities of Lower Saxony are Hannover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Oldenburg, Salzgitter, Göttingen, and Wilhelmshaven.
Economy, transportation, and government
Agriculture, the traditional mainstay of the local economy, remains more important in Lower Saxony than in most other German states, with farms producing wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, sugar beets, and dairy and beef cattle. The Emsland region has endured a long struggle to drain its peat bogs. Farmers there and farther west have created new farmland by mixing the peat with underlying sand, artificial fertilizers, and manure from livestock raised on technologically advanced, capital-intensive farms. These practices, however, have come under scrutiny because of the conditions under which the animals are raised and the impact on groundwater.
Manufacturing and services now form the base of the economy, however, and Hannover and Braunschweig are major centres of diversified industries. The state's chief manufactures include trucks and other motor vehicles, heavy machinery, rubber goods, chemicals, radio and other electronics equipment, and dyes and inks. Lower Saxony also produces small amounts of coal and oil.
Lower Saxony has excellent transport facilities, and Hannover is the most important road and rail junction in northwestern Germany. The state's importance in the regional economy of Germany was enhanced by the building of such inland waterways as the Mittelland Canal, the Dortmund-Ems Canal, and a host of others. In addition, the major rivers, notably the Weser and the Elbe, are navigable for considerable distances. Many tens of millions of tons of goods pass through the ports of Wilhelmshaven, Emden, Nordenham, and Brake each year, an indication of Lower Saxony's importance in regional and world trade. The state's main airport is Hannover-Langenhagen.
The governmental structure of Lower Saxony includes a prime minister, the Landtag (state parliament), a state chancellory, and several ministries. Justice is administered by means of a constitutional court, courts of appeal, regional courts, and local courts.
National parks and cultural life
The beautiful Lüneburg Heath Nature Reserve attracts a considerable number of tourists. The Lower Saxony Wattenmeer (Wadden Sea) and Harz national parks also protect some of the state's fragile ecosystems and provide recreational opportunities. In 2009 UNESCO designated the Wadden Sea tidal-flat region—which includes Lower Saxony's Wattenmeer National Park, the Wattenmeer National Park of Schleswig-Holstein, and the Waddenzee conservation area in the Netherlands—a World Heritage site. Also of interest to visitors to Lower Saxony are the winter sports centres of the Oberharz, the most famous of which are Bad Harzburg, Hahnenklee, and Braunlage. Goslar is a picturesque old-world imperial city situated on the northern fringe of the Harz range. In 1992 its medieval city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, along with the nearby mines of Rammelsberg, which were the source of the city's wealth and historical importance. In summer the extensive sand beaches and dunes along the coast are the basis of a thriving summer resort industry.
In common with other German states, Lower Saxony has a lively and well-subsidized cultural life. There are state theatres at Hannover, Oldenburg, and Braunschweig. Hannover, the state's cultural capital, boasts three other theatres, among them the Landesbühne, which gives performances in dozens of towns in the region. Other notable theatres are, in Wilhelmshaven, the Landesbühne Niedersachsen Nord; in Göttingen, the Deutsches Theater; in Hildesheim, the Stadttheater; and in Celle, the Schlosstheater, whose plays are performed in a fine Baroque building dating from 1674. In recognition of their Romanesque architecture and art, St. Mary's Cathedral and St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1985.
Higher education is offered by the University of Göttingen (1737), the institutes of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, and universities in Hannover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Lüneburg, Oldenburg, and Clausthal. Area 18,394 square miles (47,641 square km). Pop. (2008 est.) 7,947,244.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
Germany, country of north-central Europe, traversing the continent's main physical divisions, from the outer ranges of the Alps northward across the varied landscape of the Central German Uplands and then across the North German Plain.…
North Sea
North Sea, shallow, northeastern arm of the Atlantic Ocean, located between the British Isles and the mainland of northwestern Europe and covering an area of 220,000 square miles (570,000 square km). The sea is bordered by the island of Great Britain to the southwest and west, the Orkney and Shetland…
Schleswig-Holstein, Land(state) located in northwestern Germany. Schleswig-Holstein extends from the lower course of the Elbe River and the state of Hamburg northward to Denmark and thus occupies the southern third of the Jutland Peninsula. Along its eastern coast is the Baltic Sea, and along its western coast is the…
Hamburg, city and Land(state), located on the Elbe River in northern Germany. It is the country's largest port and commercial centre. The Free…
Mecklenburg–West Pomerania
Mecklenburg–West Pomerania, Land(state), northeastern Germany. Mecklenburg–West Pomerania borders the Baltic Sea to the north, Poland to the east, and the German states of Brandenburg to the south, Lower Saxony to the southwest, and Schleswig-Holstein to the west. The capital is Schwerin. Area 8,947 square miles (23,173 square…


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The following are updates on local baseball players at the minor league level.
Jason Botts (Glendale Community College, 2000) outfielder, Piratas de Campeche: The former Texas Ranger appears to be adjusting well to life in the triple-A Mexican League. He's continued to sizzle at the plate since joining the league June 13, slugging five home runs and hitting safely in nine of his first 10 games with Campeche.
Botts hit .350 (14 for 40) with two doubles and nine runs batted in through Sunday. He's scored eight runs and has a .775 slugging percentage.
Botts' latest home run came Friday during Campeche's 4-3 road victory against Rojos del Aguila de Veracruz. Botts hit a two-run home run in the first inning to give the Piratas a 2-0 lead.
In a 4-2 loss against visiting Guerreros de Oaxaca on June 19, Botts hit a solo home run in the third to give Campeche a 1-0 advantage.
On Sunday, Botts had two hits, walked once and scored a run in Campeche's 6-4 win against Veracruz.
Campeche is 39-42 and in sixth place in the Sur Division.
Fernando Valenzuela, Jr. (St. Francis High, 2000) designated hitter/first baseman, Leones de Yucatan: Valenzuela, who also played at Glendale Community College and UNLV, has hit safely in eight of his last 10 games with Yucatan of the triple-A Mexican League. In that stretch, Valenzuela is batting .324 (11-34) with one home run, four doubles and 11 RBI.
Overall, Valenzuela is batting .318 (89 for 280) with six home runs and 38 RBI through Sunday.
Valenzuela drove in three runs in Yucatan's 5-4 loss against Petroleros de Minatitlan on Saturday. He had a two-run single in the fourth and then notched a run-scoring double in the sixth.
Yucatan is 31-51 and in seventh place in the league's Sur Division.
Ryan Sherriff (Glendale Community College, 2011) starting pitcher, Palm Beach Cardinals: The former Glendale Angeleno turned in another impressive performance during his last start Thursday for Palm Beach, a Class-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals of the Florida State League. Though he didn't figure in the decision, Sherriff, a left-hander who helped Glendale college advance to the state tournament in 2011, allowed one run on four hits and struck out three on Thursday in Palm Beach's 3-2 victory against the visiting Jupiter Hammerheads.
Sherriff faced 26 batters en route to lowering his earned-run average to 2.18 in five appearances with the Cardinals. Sherriff (4-0) and has allowed 10 runs (eight earned) and struck out 18 in 33 innings.


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Birck Solar Research Seminar Series
Published on
The Solar Research Series includes presentations from researchers at Purdue and leading researchers across the nation on developments in wafer-based, thin-film, organic and cross-cutting technologies in photovoltaics (PV) and related solar power. Results to be presented will include a mixture of theoretical, experimental and industrial studies.
Sponsored by
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN


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Gil in my opinion is one of the best dhamma teachers we have in the states! For me he is the best lay teacher we have. He is extremely versed in Theravada Buddhism and Pali. He has a Phd from Stanford in Buddhist Studies. I believe he is the transcriber of an addition of the Dhammapada from the pali to english.Mojo wrote:Thank you. I found a short bio of Gil on wikipedia. It said he had trained in Zen then Insight meditation. I didn't see anything about Anapanasati proper. Is he considered a good source of instruction on Anapanasati?Rasko wrote:Anapanasati Practice - Mindfulness of BreathingMojo wrote:Does anyone know of a good and free program to help ease one into a full Anapanasati routine over an extended amount of time?
"Recordings of the Dharma Practice day series on Anapanasati Practice offered by Gil Fronsdal."
The recordings start with an Introduction (September 7, 2007).
I think he has a great blend of what people call vipassana schools and samatha schools.
There are many great talks on his site here
with metta