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Tournament anglers encouraged to consider oxygen injection in livewells
ATHENS—The hotter the weather, the more difficult it is to keep bass in livewells healthy, especially during tournaments, when heavy limits of fish may be held for several hours until weigh-in.
– Lake Mohave
"Dissolved oxygen is the single most important factor for keeping bass alive," said Randy Myers, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) Inland Fisheries biologist from San Antonio. "It is very difficult to supply enough oxygen to keep tournament limits of 30 pounds or more alive. Such limits are common at Falcon, Amistad and other Texas reservoirs."
Modern bass boats typically have two ways of maintaining oxygen levels in livewells. One is to continuously exchange water in the livewell with lake water. The other is to mix air with water so that oxygen in the air can be dissolved into the water. For specific instructions concerning livewell management procedures see http://assets.espn.go.com/winnercomm/outdoors/bassmaster/pdf/b_con_KeepingBassAlive.pdf.
Unfortunately for the fish, neither method can maintain sufficient oxygen in the water when the weight of fish in the livewell exceeds one pound of fish for every gallon of water and water temperatures are high. "There is only a small buffer between the oxygen level maintained by recirculation systems and the oxygen level detrimental to fish survival when a livewell contains a small to moderate limit of fish," Myers said. "Fish displace water in the livewell, reducing the amount of water available to hold oxygen, and in the case of a heavy limit, there may not be enough water in the livewell to hold sufficient oxygen to keep the fish alive."
Tournaments exact a penalty for dead fish brought to weigh-in, so anglers do what they can to keep their catch alive, but their options are limited. "It is not advisable to continuously exchange water during summer months, because reservoir surface water temperatures often become excessive later in the day and can contribute to mortality," Myers said. "Alternatively, anglers can add ice to the livewell to slow fish's metabolism, run recirculation pumps continuously to provide oxygen by mixing and exchange water in livewells only two or three times a day."
Recent research by TPWD showed that during summer months most mortality of tournament-caught fish occurs one to three days after they are released back into the reservoir. This is called delayed mortality. "Delayed mortality ranged from 18.2 percent to 43.1 percent of the fish in tournaments held when the water temperature exceeded 79 degrees Fahrenheit," Myers said. "Adding mortality of fish weighed in dead can result in total mortality of 50 percent. Use of appropriate livewell management and fish-care procedures will increase the likelihood of long-term survival of fish caught in tournaments and then released."
TPWD hatcheries routinely use oxygen injection in hauling tanks to maintain the health of fish even when transporting more than one pound of fish to one gallon of water. "However, boat manufacturers do not offer oxygen injection systems, and very few tournament anglers have installed oxygen equipment on their boats," Myers noted.
In addition to being a fisheries biologist, Myers is a tournament angler, and he has installed an oxygen injection system in his personal boat. "The total cost of components is less than that of many high-end fishing rods," he said.
TPWD's Inland Fisheries team in San Antonio tested various oxygen cylinders, regulators, hoses, connectors and diffusers and developed a simple, effective and safe system that anglers can install in their bass boats. Equipment was evaluated on three different bass boat makes, each having a slightly different recirculation system. Testing revealed that livewell oxygen concentration after one hour was about twice as high for the oxygen injection system compared to standard recirculation.
"Proper installation and operation of an oxygen injection system will ensure oxygen levels remain above the preferred level of 7 mg/l even when livewells contain heavy limits," Myers said.
Myers and his team produced a PowerPoint presentation detailing the components needed, installation procedures, sources of components and approximate costs. It can be viewed at http://www.slideshare.net/raminlandfish/livewell-oxygen-injection.
Demonstration oxygen injection units can also be seen at Falcon Lake Tackle in Zapata and Angler's Lodge in Del Rio. Anyone with questions can contact Myers at (210) 688-9460.
For Additional Information
A more detailed version of the information in this press release may be found at http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/inland/livewells.phtml.
Tournament-caught fish also often suffer from overinflated air bladders, a condition called barotrauma. This condition can be relieved by a procedure commonly called fizzing. For information about barotrauma and fizzing see http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/?req=20110202d.
– Lake Mohave


text:
How Working Out Benefits Our Eyes
Exercise improves our mood, keeps our bodies fit, and decreases risk for certain diseases. Did you know that exercise may also reduce your risk for eye disease?
Exercise Keeps Our Eyes Feeling Young!
Studies show that regular physical activity may decrease our chances of developing age-related eye diseases like glaucoma and macular degeneration. In a study of over 5,000 people, regular exercise decreased the incidence of glaucoma by 25%. How does this work? A controlled lab study of mice showed that regular exercise bolstered the eyes' natural defenses against degeneration.
A Healthy Lifestyle Protects Against Weight-Related Eye Problems
Some eye diseases are linked to unhealthy weight problems. For example, high blood pressure can cause eye strain, damaging delicate nerves and blood vessels. Studies also show a link between obesity and increased age-related cataract risk. For those who suffer from diabetes, diabetic retinopathy is one of the leading causes of blindness in adults. A healthy, active lifestyle helps you protect against, and manage, problems like diabetes and hypertension.
4 Ways To Make Exercise A Part Of Each Day
- Find activities you enjoy! If you like soccer, join a city league. If hiking is more your thing, pick a hiking day each week.
- Make activity part of your daily routine. We're creatures of habit! Pick a time of day and set it aside for exercise.
- Find a buddy. Exercising with a friend, spouse, or co-worker can make it more enjoyable and help you stick to your goals.
- Something is better than nothing! It's okay to do your daily workout in pieces. Take a walk on your work break, and do a few squats while watching TV.
Simple Exercises You Can Do Anywhere
[iframe http://www.youtube.com/embed/i5vYqomnwoE?rel=0 620 349]
We Care About Your Whole Body Health
As your partner for a lifetime of good health, we want to empower our patients to live lifestyles that support healthy vision AND a healthy body. Consider this one more reason to be motivated in your daily workout. Do you have any great exercising tips of your own? Share them on our Facebook page! We love to hear from you. And remember, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your eye health, talk with us. We're always happy to help.

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Ron Onesti: The Return of Led Zeppelin
It's 1975, I'm thirteen years old, and I am just starting to figure out what it is I like musically. Chicago is going crazy because rock supergroup Led Zeppelin is coming to town. Stairway To Heaven, the group's unofficial signature song, is everywhere. I am breaking all kinds of air-guitar records and belting out lyrics at sold-out performances in front of my bedroom mirror. I had it down, note for note. Yes, I was an original "Guitar Hero" in front of my imaginary throngs of fans. Ok, it was in front of my younger sister and brother, but still…they were captivated, and I rocked.
Fast forward forty-five years later. I'm in the music business living a dream, producing concerts with some of my early heroes. The music of Led Zeppelin is as popular as it ever was, named on every list from Rolling Stone magazine and beyond as the all-time best. And at our Arcada Theatre in St. Charles, Rock N' Roll royalty came, and conquered. Jason Bonham, the talented son of original Zep drummer John Bonham, brought his incredible live-band, multi-media "Led Zeppelin Experience" to St. Charles. His band was nothing short of incredible as he masterfully did what he was born to do behind the drums (including a 32" timpani, like his father). Each musician, including the amazing vocalist, had the songs literally coming out of their pores. Watching them was as wonderful as hearing them.
And after a two-hour extravaganza of Zeppelin hits and rare, personal video footage, I found myself chatting one-on-one with this musical-family legend on his tour bus.
The original Led Zeppelin band consisted of vocalist Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones, guitarist Jimmy Page and drummer John "Bonzo" Bonham. They began in England in the late sixties, and in the seventies, became what the Beatles were the decade before…international superstars.
It all came to a tragic end in 1980 when the thirty-two year old Bonham overdosed on vodka after a long night of rehearsals. The band announced that they could no longer continue without their dear friend and band-mate. Bonham's son, Jason, was an impressionable fourteen-year old, and could have gone in many directions. His father's legacy prevailed, and Jason carried the torch, becoming a drumming force to be reckoned with.
Jason began his journey in music at the age of four, "power drumming like dad," he said. He joined several bands and played with numerous rock stars. In a 1995 personal high and career moment, he, along with his sister Zoe, joined the remaining members of Led Zeppelin as the band was inducted into The Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame. "My mom (Pat) did not join us. To this day she still can't handle his death. Actually, none of us can. That's why doing this show is so incredibly important" Jason said.
In 2007, the remaining members of Led Zeppelin decided to perform one last time together in a tribute concert to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun in London. But who was going to be on drums? There was no hesitation, who better than the closest link to the band itself? Who better than John Bonham's son Jason? "The guys all watched me grow up," Jason said. "I did a few things with the guys on an individual basis, and I of course knew the music. I hit the drums harder that night than I ever had. It was wonderful to be a part of…it was a natural fit."
The concert was magical, yet it would not be released on DVD for another 5 years. It is called "Celebration Day," and came out this past November. "It was an emotional thing, I really didn't think it was going to come out at all after so long," Jason said.
Another 2012 milestone for the band was receiving the Kennedy Center Honors for Lifetime Achievement. Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page received the awards from President Obama. For the show finale, another seventies supergroup, Heart, took the stage and performed Stairway To Heaven. There was a hundred-member choir and on drums, Jason Bonham.
"Jason, what was going through your mind during all of that," I asked. He replied, "I was so nervous. The guys didn't know I was going to be there. In fact, if you watch the video, you will see Robert Plant jump up and point at the stage. Robert told me later that night, 'I was just saying to Jimmy that we all have our children with us, Jason should be here. Then you popped up on stage!' He then got very emotional and hugged me."
Very near to the end of the song, Jason paused, looked up and then shut his eyes tightly, physically becoming part of the moment. "How did that cameraman capture that most incredible shot," I asked Jason. "The director actually asked my wife, 'When does he get emotional during that song?' Quite the silly question since it is never planned. But he was watching for it!"
"What were you thinking at that second?" I asked. "Just that he was with us, and after all these years, they were still applauding for dad," he said.
I thanked Jason for sharing that heartfelt moment with the millions of people watching. It was truly an incredible glimpse into Jason's relationship with his father and his "uncles" Robert, John and Jimmy. Jason's expression allowed me to, in some way, feel his pain while sharing his pride in his father.
Still, 2020 being the fortieth anniversary of his death, John Bonham has been named the number one drummer in history by Stylus, Rhythm, Modern Drummer and Rolling Stone magazines. And nobody fosters his legacy better than his own son.
The song may have remained the same, but audiences all over the world will be forever feeling a whole lotta love for Jason and his heartwarming tribute to his father and Led Zeppelin.


text:
Rabbi Doniel Staum, LMSW
Rabbi, Kehillat New Hempstead
Social Worker, Yeshiva Bais Hachinuch
If you know anyone interested in receiving Stam Torah via email each
week, send their address to: firstname.lastname@example.com
In the introduction to his sefer V'ha'arev Na1, Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein shlita relates the following story about his father-in-law, the eminent Torah sage Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv shlita:
In Iyar 5768 (1998) Rabbi Elyashiv, had to be hospitalized2. Despite his hospitalization he was determined to maintain his daily learning schedule which entailed awakening at 3 A.M. and studying Torah uninterrupted until 7 A.M. However, he was so feeble that he was unable to finish buttoning his shirt; he simply lacked the energy. Still he felt that it was disrespectful to learn with his shirt not fully closed so he asked the grandson that was staying with him for assistance.
After his grandson closed his buttons, Rabbi Elyashiv opened his seforim and learned his usual four hour regiment with complete concentration.
Rabbi Zilberstein added that it was a living example of the words of the Maharsha3, "There is nothing sweeter in all of the engagements of man than the engagement in Torah." When one achieves that level of love and devotion to Torah study there is nothing in the world that gives that person as much satisfaction and enjoyment as Torah study.
Reciting blessings are a very important component of a Jew's life. The gemara relates that in order to ward off a fatal plague that was ravaging Klal Yisroel, Dovid Hamelech enacted that a Jew should recite a hundred blessings every day. The recitation of blessings constantly arouses within a person a perpetual realization and recognition of the Omnipotence of G-d and His Hand in everything that transpires.
Although almost all blessings were obligated and ordained by the Sages, there are two blessings that are Biblically mandated:
- (Devorim 8:10) "You will eat and you will be satisfied, and bless Hashem, your G-d, for the good land that He gave you." The gemara4 explains that from this verse we learn the commandment to recite Grace after Meals, whenever one eats a bread-meal and is satiated5.
- (Devorim 32:3) "When I call out the Name of Hashem, ascribe greatness to G-d." From this verse the Gemara6 exegetically derives that one must recite a blessing prior to studying Torah.
The gemara derives a kal v'chomer one must also recite a blessing before one eats7. But the blessing prior is only derived from logical reasoning and therefore is only rabbinically obligated. In addition, the gemara discusses the need to recite a blessing after one completes studying Torah. But that too is only a rabbinic obligation.
There is a glaring difference between these two exclusively Biblical blessings, i.e. when they are recited. Why are the Biblically-mandated blessings for Torah study recited prior to one beginning to study, while Grace after Meals is recited after one has completed his meal?
The Vilna Gaon explains that the difference between the recitations of these two blessings is rooted in human nature. When a person desires something physical it is relatively easy and natural for him to be polite and cordial. If a child wants a snack and the parent replies that the child can only have it if he asks nicely, generally the child will pleasantly and politely restate his request.
After one has received what he wanted however, it is common for a person to forget how much he wanted it beforehand, which in turn causes him to forget to express his appreciation for what he received, or at least to express it without adequate feeling. The gemara8 says that a lion does not roar when it is hungry, but rather when it feels full and satiated. When one is satiated after a fairly large meal, it is common for him to become complacent, and to have a feeling of indolence and lethargy9.
On the other hand, in regards to spirituality the opposite is true. The hardest thing is for one to get started. Our Evil Inclination utilizes the force of inertia to restrain us from undertaking good endeavors, such as prayer, Torah study, and mitzvos. But if one is able to overcome his natural sluggishness and indeed prays with concentration, engages in meaningful Torah study, or performs a mitzvah, it will infuse him with a feeling of spiritual bliss and unparalleled fulfillment10.
In the two Biblically-mandated blessings the subtle profundity and wisdom of the Torah as the Book of Life and human nature becomes apparent. In regards to food – the symbol of physical enjoyment – one is Biblically obligated to recite a blessing after he has eaten and is satisfied, because it is specifically after one is satiated that he often forgets to express his gratitude for what he has received11.
In regards to spirituality the converse is true. One must recite the blessings of Torah study prior to beginning his studies, because it is at that point that one may lack a proper feeling of gratitude for the privilege to study Torah. After one has studied he naturally feels a sense of deep gratitude and love for G-d for the ability to comprehend some Torah thoughts. Anyone who has studied Torah and understood some of its depth can relate to that feeling of spiritual fulfillment and achievement.
Doron Mahareta grew up and went to school in Ethiopia, and therefore his background in Judaic studies was weak. When he arrived in Israel in his teens he wanted very much to study Torah in the noted Yeshivas Merkaz Harav. But because of his limited familiarity with Talmud study the yeshiva told him he would not be able to keep up with the level of study. He replied that if he could not become a student in the yeshiva he wanted to get a job helping the kitchen, washing dishes and preparing meals. The yeshiva agreed to accept him. For a year and a half Doron worked in the kitchen during all meals. But as soon as he had completed his kitchen duties he would head to the Bais Medrash and study with uncanny devotion. He would often study very late into the night, learning the tractate that the students were studying.
One day Doron approached the Rosh Yeshiva and asked him to test him on the tractate of Talmud that the yeshiva was studying. Doron and the Rosh Yeshiva subsequently became engaged in a lively Talmudic discussion. The next day Doron was a full-fledged student and was no longer washing dishes.
On weekends when Doron would go home to visit his family in Ashdod, he would spend almost the entire Shabbos engaged in study in the Melitzer Shul or he would study Shulchan Aruch and its commentaries in the Gerrer shteibel. In Shevat 5768, after being in the yeshiva for over ten years, Doron completed his study of the entire Shulchan Aruch!
On Rosh Chodesh Adar 5768 (March 6, 2008), Doron was one of the eight yeshiva students at Merkaz Harav who was tragically murdered by Arab Terrorists.
Doron's story is analogous to the story of the great Hillel who slept on a roof in the snow so that he could hear and study the Torah learning that was being discussed in the warm Bais Medrash below him.
The timeless wisdom of the Torah in dictating which blessings must be recited reminds us that after one has enjoyed physical bounty he must arouse himself to express his appreciation properly, because he naturally loses his impetus to do so. This is true in regards to our relationships with others as well.
At the same time the Torah itself reminds us that we must recite a blessing before commencing its study because at that point it may look daunting, intimidating, and unappealing. But after one has studied and mastered any small amount of Torah the joy he feels is unparalleled and blissful. It is literally worth dying for!
"When I call out the Name of Hashem, ascribe greatness to G-d."
"You will eat and you will be satisfied, and bless Hashem"
1 Lit. "Please make sweet"; the opening words to the blessings recited each morning prior to studying Torah. The sefer is a compilation of fascinating halachic questions based on the weekly parsha which demonstrate the Torah's contemporary applicability to every facet of life in a most engaging and intriguing manner. A second volume was published recently.
2 At the time Rabbi Elyashiv was 98 years old. G-d should grant him many more years.
3 Berachos 11b
4 Berachos 48b
5 If one eats an olive's-worth of bread but is not completely satiated he has a Rabbinic obligation to recite Grace after Meals.
6 Berachos 21a
7 A kal v'chomer is a method of Talmudic derivation. The gemara reasons that if one is Biblically obligated to recite a blessing after he has completed his meal, surely he must recite a blessing before he begins to eat his meal.
8 Berachos
9 The only exception is one who eats a large meal in a spiritual fashion on Shabbos. Rashi (Beitzah 16a) explains that the 'neshama yesayra' ('added soul') one is blessed with on Shabbos allows him to partake in greater doses of physical pleasure and yet not be physically repulsed from doiung so, as one would throughout the rest of the week.
10 The Orchos Tzaddikim explains that if one wants to have a minute taste of what the World to Come – a world without physicality – is like in our world, the temporary blissful feeling one has after performing a good deed or learning Torah with great zeal, is the most analogous to that world, albeit on a far more magnified scale.
11 The Rabbincally mandated blessing prior to eating logically follows, because it is easier to recite a prayer thanking G-d for food before one has enjoyed it and is still tantalized by the food before him.


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What are my choices?
When looking for a beer in the Windward Islands, the choices are not as abundant as they are in the beer aisle up north. In the Windwards, the choices are boiled down to two types of beer: lagers/pilsners (like Budweiser or Labatt's) or Stouts (like Guinness). This may seem strange to someone coming from the land of micro-brews and the marketing great invention "Dry" beer, but this is the land of the Pina Colada and Daiquiri; it is my guess that beer is not as big a concern (neither is wine, but that is for another time) as rum. Being very adventurous in all forms of barley and hop-type beverages, I looked forward to trying every beer available to me.
What did I discover?
What I discovered was a small selection of local beers, a strange variety of imports I had not had the pleasure of being acquainted with, and a few "old stand by's." These "old stand by's" were not Bud, Labatt's, and Beck's like you might expect, with all the advertising they seem to do, but Heineken, Guinness and Red Stripe.
Heineken didn't surprise me, having sailed in the Caribbean before and reading sailing guides about the adventures of one Don Street, who as it so happens, has been know to put back a few Heinekens. For those who don't know the famous Don Street, he was the Chris Doyle of yesteryear, writing about all the islands, their people, and anchoring where most probably had never anchored before (and most will never anchor again).
Beyond Don Street drinking his Heineken, wearing his white cruising tuxedo, what other beer does the Windward Islands have to offer? Guinness was a bit of a surprise, but my thought on this is that since it is such a popular destination for Europeans, that they wanted some beer representation besides Heineken. I knew from The Usual Suspects website that Carib was their beer of choice, but would there be other local beers?
The adventure begins…
My curiosity was heightened by the fact that soon after touchdown at the Castries Airport in St. Lucia, the crew of our vessel was telling me about the local beer they had last night called Piton. Well, I thought it was time to go to the bar and start tasting some of the finer local brews. Soon after dropping off our baggage at our Hotel in Rodney Bay, I was face to face with the Piton itself. A cold one in a clear bottle with a good looking label – a silhouette of the famous twin Piton mountains that we would be anchored at the next day. My friend Billy, who had arrived there the day before, was at the bar enjoying a Jamaican Red Strip, a beer I find back in Boston to be a bit bland, but in the heat of the Caribbean, really hits the spot. I stayed on course with my Piton and found it very satisfactory (as almost all beers are in the Caribbean). The other crew members had not given it favorable reviews at first, but they would soon grew very found of Piton.
A major concern during provisioning was beer storage. Would there be a cooler for the beer onboard? This cooler thing concerned me; I knew certain parties on this vessel would not appreciate me using the entire fridge for beer storage. Some suggested a Styrofoam cooler. Now I know the structural integrity of the Styrofoam cooler is not enough to withstand a calm day at the beach, much less two weeks on a sailboat heeled over 35 degrees in 15 foot seas. So the great Styrofoam cooler experiment was shot down before we could even discover that finding one in the Windward Islands was not as easy as going to your local 7-Eleven on Memorial Day weekend. The answer, just buy the beer and figure out the cooling process later.
Buying your beverage
First stop was the liquor store in the Rodney Bay Marina called The House 'O Spirits. Let me say this. Price gouging is a way of life around the marina. Being right at the marina gave them the power to raise the prices on spirits to levels that, where quantity would be a problem, this was not an option. Fortunately we had a back-up plan, the rental car, giving us the power to venture into the interior of the island without the help of an expensive taxi.
After avoiding a few mishaps because of driving on the opposite side of the road thing, we where off to the find a reasonably priced place to purchase food and beverages. At the grocery store, the beer selection was quite limited, Piton or Heineken in PONIES (the small 8oz. bottles that have all but disappeared in the U.S. and Canada, replaced now by the larger 16 oz. variety). After picking up a case of 12 oz. Pitons and some food to stock the unimportant parts of the fridge with, we were off to find a more amply-supplied liquor store.
Another House 'O Spirits away from the marina furnished us with more reasonable prices and a better supply of beer. We added two cases of Heineken (bringing the total beer haul to three cases) and some wine. Walking out of the store with my two cases of "Heiny" in the customary plastic cases found everywhere in the West Indies, I felt that either I was getting stronger and could lift two cases with more ease then before, or something was awry. After further investigation I discovered that I had been deceived into buying two cases of Heineken PONIES. That means instead of 576 oz. of beer, I had just bought only 384 oz. (Note, always check the case before purchasing to make sure you are getting the size you want). Well, we would be in Bequia in two days and I could buy some beers there.
We were stocked. During these stops, I discovered that the price of cans was more than the price of bottles (not because I was buying PONIES either), strange for a person who grow up in a drinking society that treats cans as second class citizens. I contemplated getting cans because on a boat glass breakage and garbage tend to be a problem. The can avoids these problems by the natural no-breakage make-up, and the crushing properties that help reduce garbage.
Let the cooling commence
When I got to the boat I made just the discovery I wanted – the integrated cockpit cooler for easy beverage-grabbing while underway. So after buying 5 bags of ice to keep the beer cold for two days, we were ready to go – off to the Pitons.
An unexpected discovery
After some minor engine trouble in the Pitons, we had to stop at Chateaubelair on St. Vincent (unable to make Bequia before dark). After two days on the boat, we were ready for a drink ashore, getting a water taxi from Maxroy (via a call on Ch. 16), we were off to the Beachfront Restaurant and Bar for drinks before dinner. There I made a most interesting discovery – Hairoun beer.
This was a very exciting find and after two straight days on board, it tasted like heaven. This we discovered, is a local St. Vincent Brewery and their beverages (they have many besides beer) would accompany us most of the trip (make sure to try the Ginger Ale, excellent stuff). After a few Hairouns, or "Heroins" as they would later be called for their addictive qualities, we were back on the boat ready for dinner and tomorrow's sail to Bequia.
Bequia, beers in paradise
In Bequia, after a beautiful sail, we were ready for lunch at Mac's Pizzeria. There I discovered another strange new sort of beer, EKU. After correctly ordering one, I think, I was pleased when the waitress bought me a nice cold EKU, which was excellent. I immediately concluded that this beer has to be found and brought on to our vessel for further investigation. Knowing I would be doing a little provisioning the next day, I vowed to find this beer and buy some for the rest of us to enjoy. After a few more at the Frangipani at Happy Hour that featured our first really beautiful sunset (it rained a lot in the higher elevation islands, so no sunsets), I was totally convinced that I had found a beer staple for the trip.
Fooled again
The next day, I did buy a case of EKU bottles in a cardboard box. Getting back to the boat, I was putting these soon-to-be-cold beers on ice when I found that a cruel trick had again been played on me. Inside the enclosed cardboard I found 24 EKU PONIES. I again had been tricked by just picking up a case of beer without inspecting it first.
Not to be disturbed by this latest development, I chilled my beers. I had actually started to like the ponies. I know to any die-hard beer drinker this sounds crazy, but I started to understand the pony philosophy. You see down there, where it is always a thousand degrees, beer gets warm fast (even for the quickest drinkers). So the ponies are really a solution for this. Now, you do tend to drink more beers, but at least they are cold beers.
Continuing the journey
After stops in Mayreau and the Tobago Cays, it was time to re-supply at Union Island – off to the famous Lambi's Grocery Store. Trusting the fine source The Usual Suspects on Lambi's being a good re-supply place, we ventured in to find Lambi himself behind the counter, quite happy to see us. When I said I needed beer, he directed me over to a stack of suspicious looking cans. After he assured me that it was indeed beer, I bought a case of Polar, from Venezuela, in white and blue cans. It looked a little suspicious, being the least expensive, among other reasons, but I hadn't tried this beer so I took a chance.
After many curious looks, we got ourselves back to the boat where I decided I better cool one of these beers fast to see what sort of mistake I had made. A six-pack went immediately into the freezer, right next to a lot of ice. Venezuelan beer seems a little suspect to me. My sister, having been to Venezuela, said that she had this product and informed me that after a little "working in", it isn't that bad. I noticed throughout the rest of the trip she never tried to "work herself into" drinking it.
After an hour or so, I popped the top of my first Polar and took a sip. I immediately realized that the "working in" phase of this beer better be short or we better find some Boat Boys to pawn this off on. After 3 or 4, you did settle in to the taste of Polar, but for the rest of the trip we were suspicious of where Lambi had gotten his hands on such a brew; we hadn't heard about any recent piracy of Venezuelan boats.
The Land of the Caribs
Now it was off to Grenada, the land of the Caribs. When we got to St. David's Harbor, one of the many inlets on the south side of the island, we went to shore for lunch (I had a craving for French Fries) and a local cold one. There was a nice bar at the Grenada Marine facility and I had the pleasure of trying Carib on draft. I had my first Carib in a clear bottle at The Charthouse Restaurant in Rodney Bay and found it to be a little lacking. This may upset some Carib faithful, but I must say it was true, so I had not had one since leaving St. Lucia.
The draft though was ice-cold and tasted great. Later in Prickly Bay, I got to try my first Carib in the brown bottle and it was much better then the previous Carib I had in a clear bottle. I always have believed that beer keeps bettered in colored bottles, and this trip seemed to prove this. On our tour of Grenada, our guide/taxi driver drove us by the Guinness / Heineken Brewery as well as a Carib Brewery. Quite exciting.
While doing a little provisioning on Grenada I picked up a Mackeson's at the grocery store. I had seen this beer in St. Lucia, but hadn't tried it. It is a stout and let me just say, Guinness it is NOT. It tasted like a cross between sour coffee and licorice. It was not tried again.
"Completing the cycle"
On the way back up to St. Lucia, I had to "complete the cycle," so in Canouan I had a Guinness at the Pirate Cove Bar and found it OK for Guinness in a bottle, but being from Boston, it is really not allowed to have Guinness any other way but out of the tap in a nice tall pint glass (why they call it a pint I don't know since they serve it in a 20 oz. glass). I had only one, because Guinness in that heat sort of gives you the impression of motor oil.
For my final different beer of the trip, I had to have a Red Stripe. For this I waited until our final trip up the coast, so I could have one at Spinnaker's overlooking the beach in Rodney Bay. That last day sitting at Spinnaker's, looking out at our boat at anchor, I had time to reflect on the journey and concluded that anyone who can't enjoy ANY ice cold beer put in front of them while sailing in the Caribbean shouldn't be sailing in the Caribbean.
A few tips about purchasing beer down there
- Get the beer in the plastic crates. There are good and bad things heard about the plastic crates. One bad thing is that they are full of cockroach eggs. While this might be true, our boat had a live-aboard family of roaches who were already there long before we got there, so we just brought them some company. Don't fool yourself either; I have yet to go on a boat of any type in the tropics that didn't have a bug problem. But these crates are a great to store your empties. We put them in one of the cockpit lockers. Also, when going to buy more beer, these crates full of empties are returnable, so you don't have to worry about disposing of the bottles with your garbage.
- Cans, since they don't seem to recycle cans, are more expensive and have to pretty much be thrown in the trash afterward. Also, most of the beer drinkers I know, sort of thumb their nose at beer in cans, so most likely you will not be purchasing them.
- If you don't want ponies, inspect what you are buying beforehand. I got stuck with ponies twice, which ended up being fine, but if you want 12 oz. bottles, either ask for them, or inspect what they bring you. It's not like in the U.S., where there are stacks and stacks of cases lying around. In the Windwards, they get your cases for you so make sure you ask for big bottles. They might not even have them.
- Variety – I always had at least three different beers on board. I like the variety. The Pitons I bought the first day lasted until the end of the trip, because wherever we went, I would pick up something different so the crew was always enjoying something new. The beers down there are very similar in taste, so if you have a Piton first and then an EKU second, it's not that different. Not like having a Sam Adams and then a Bud.
Well, I guess the only real disappointment was that I didn't get to try more beers. It's something I love to do and there just aren't that many to try in the Windward Islands, but there are plenty that taste great. After a great day of sailing, and sometimes during a great day of sailing, nothing is better than an ice cold beer.


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See more, plan less – try Google Trips
But knowing what to do once your vacation starts can turn what's supposed to be fun into a lot of work. You might get recommendations from friends, professional travel guides, or online reviews — but figuring out how to squeeze everything you want to do into a finite window of time can be stressful, especially when you're in a new place, often with limited access to the web. In fact, a GoodThink study showed that 74% of travelers feel the most stressful aspect of travel is figuring out the details.
We wanted to reduce the hassle and help travelers enjoy their hard-earned vacations. So today, we're introducing a new mobile app to help you instantly plan each day of your trip with just a few taps of your finger: Google Trips.
Google Trips is a personalized tour guide in your pocket. Each trip contains key categories of information, including day plans, reservations, things to do, food & drink, and more, so you have everything you need at your fingertips. The entire app is available offline — simply tap the "Download" button under each trip to save it to your phone.
Choose your own adventure
For the top 200 cities in the world, Google Trips shows you a variety of day plans featuring the most popular daily itineraries. We've automatically assembled the most popular sights, attractions, and local gems into a full day's tour — all based on historic visits by other travelers. Say you're visiting Barcelona. You can choose from multiple day plans, like "Eixample District," which maps out the can't-miss buildings by Antoni Gaudi, the famous Spanish architect.
Plan each day of your trip like magic
Everyone has different interests and time constraints. No matter how popular an itinerary is, there's no one-size-fits-all solution for the perfect day or the perfect trip. Google Trips can help you build your day around places you already know you want to visit.
Say your friends told you that you have to see the Sagrada Familia — and you're looking for suggestions on things to do around that spot. Press the "+" button in the day plans tile to jump into a map view containing all the top attractions in your destination. If you're time constrained, you can specify above the map whether you have just the morning or afternoon, versus a full day. Then simply tap and pin the Sagrada Familia to build your itinerary around it. Google Trips automatically fills in the day for you. If you want more options, tap the "magic wand" button for more nearby sights. You can pin any new spots you like, and if you want even more, each tap of the "magic wand" instantly gives you a new itinerary with updated nearby attractions like Palau Macaya or Parc del Guinardo, so you can build your own custom itinerary in minutes while munching on your morning churro.
All your travel info, all in one place
Keeping track of all your flight, hotel, car and restaurant reservations when you travel can be tough. With Google Trips, all your travel reservations are automatically gathered from Gmail and organized for you into individual trips, so you don't have to search and dig up those emails. They're waiting for you within the reservations tile, even without WiFi.


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On May 15, 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the "PTAB") instituted two Inter Partes Review ("IPR") proceedings against U.S. 5,822,523 (the "'523 Patent"). The '523 Patent generally relates to group messaging in interactive applications. The petitioner is Riot Games, Inc. ("Riot Games"), maker of popular titles like League of Legends The patent owner is Paltalk Holdings, Inc. ("Paltalk"). From 2006-2009, the '523 Patent was asserted by Paltalk in patent infringement cases against Microsoft, Sony, Activision Blizzard, NCsoft, Jagex, and Turbine Inc., among others.
Claim 1 of the '523 Patent reads:
1. A method for providing group messages to a plurality of host computers connected over a unicast wide area communication network, comprising the steps of:
providing a group messaging server coupled to said network, said server communicating with said plurality of host computers using said unicast network and maintaining a list of message groups, each message group containing at least one host computer;
sending, by a plurality of host computers belonging to a first message group, messages to said server via said unicast
network, said messages containing a payload portion and a portion for identifying said first message group;aggregating, by said server in a time interval determined in accordance with a predefined criterion, said payload portions of said messages to create an aggregated payload;
forming an aggregated message using said aggregated payload; and
transmitting, by said server via said unicast network, said aggregated message to a recipient host computer belonging to said first message group.
Both Riot Games and Paltalk agree that the '523 Patent expired. While it might seem strange for Riot Games to attack the validity of an expired patent, a patent owner may sue for damages that were incurred when their now-expired patent was valid, though they cannot recover damages that were incurred more than six years prior to the filing of the lawsuit. As it appears that the '523 Patent expired in 2016, Paltalk could potentially file patent infringement lawsuits up until around 2022, but only for damages that they incurred prior to 2016, and only so long as their damages were in the six years before they filed the lawsuits. For example, if Paltalk sued a game company for patent infringement on Jan. 1, 2021, they could recover damages from Jan. 1, 2015, up until the date the '523 Patent expired in 2016.


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That's a custom donut car, in game and working just fine.
I also found the real car settings, not the fake ones on the car select screen, so now you can make a car that accelerates so fast it takes off and flies right out of the track… err, good times…
Tag Archives: Reverse Engineering
Sweet 4-bit colour
Exporting cars
Thought I'd take a break from the tracks and look at the cars again, which are a lot less complex. I'm now at the point where I can export a car with correct textures to an .obj file. Doing the reverse and putting a modified car back into the game is now just a matter of implementing it (unless there's something I don't know I don't know… which is quite possible).
The power of visualization
Sometimes opening a file in a hex editor and staring at it is enough to begin working out patterns and possible meaning, other times I can see structure but the meaning is totally beyond comprehension.
Overlaying this data onto already understood data in a visual form can sometimes make its meaning clear. For example, each track collision section has an array of "Triangle" structs which describe the collision mesh. Each Triangle is comprised of 3 indices into the vertex array, and then 4 Bytes of unknown data. The last of these four Bytes is always a low value (<6), often the same value for most of the Triangles in a section, but I have no idea what-so-ever as to its meaning.
So as an experiment, I render the collision mesh and use this value to select a colour for each Triangle from an array of pre-defined colours:
Aha! These different colours match exactly with the different parts of the track, this value must be the collision's type, which could be road, dirt, grass etc. I still don't know where these types are defined but this is a good start.
Moving on, each collision vertex is defined as 3 floats for position, 4 Bytes for lighting color (R8G8B8A8), and two shorts whose purpose is unknown. The first short is sometimes 0xFFFF, and otherwise has similar values to the second short which seems to start at 0 for the first vertex and gradually increments by 1 for later vertices.
If I colour the mesh differently depending on whether or not this vertex has a 0xFFFF value, this is the result:
The collision sections with a 0xFFFF value are the sections where the different variations of the track diverge from each other.
If I instead alter the meshes colour depending on the value of the second short I get this:
I'm still not sure what this data is, but now I can see the overall pattern. Perhaps the increasing values are how the game determines if you are going the wrong way around the track, or each cars placing. Doing this colouring using the first shorts values shows that excepting the 0xFFFF values, these are forming a similar – but less segmented – pattern in reverse.
So I spent the past months going down a rabbit hole. When the game loads a track it doesn't just inflate all the parts and dump them into RAM, as it does, it modifies some of them, and even calculates some things and inserts them between the parts.
"Well", I thought, "if the game does it, then I must too!" And that's how I spent the past few months decompiling the track loading functions by hand. Only to realise, as I got deeper and deeper, that to do the job properly I would more or less have to write an N64 cpu emulator to emulate the whole game.
At that point I gave up. That point was yesterday.
When I thought about it, the data I want to replace is what's in the ROM, not the RAM, so really I don't care what the game does with the data once it's in the RAM, so long as the data I put into the ROM is compatible.
Moving on then, I've now parsed the basics of the track models, bringing me back to where I was last time I tried this years ago. Onwards!
Pretty but not very helpful
Happily the data I thought was normals turned out to be normals, which you can see rendered here. They're most obviously used to show reflections on the cars.
Each car has the hi-def model made of 25 individual parts, and three LoD models, in addition to 4 wheels and a few other entries with <3 vertices. Not sure if those are used for something or just dummy data.
I haven't really looked at the wheel data yet, at the moment they're displaying with the texture only covering half of the wheel, I guess the bottom half is meant to be a mirror of the top but I have to find out what causes this (or is it hard-coded? wheel textures have their own table).
Still no idea how a given model/texture is assigned a palette, and I feel like there might be a problem with the palettes I'm inserting, for one model I've noticed the palette doesn't seem to match the in-game one anymore.
Zlib it is :)
So it turns out the game does use an unaltered version of Zlib. My bad data was a result of assumptions about how the texture data is inserted into the car's data blob.
At first glance it appears the texture data is just dumped straight into the gap that exists for it, but this is not the case. What I thought was a second table of texture descriptor pointers is actually a list of all the individual textures the car uses. After inflating the car's data this table is walked through and used to transfer the needed textures into their positions within the blob, so in some cases not all the inflated data ends up transferred into the blob. As simple as that!
I was able to work this out pretty quickly using MAME, not only does it actually run WDC, the graphics are correct, and it has an excellent debugger with every feature I could dream of a N64 emulator having. I can't believe I didn't find out about this sooner. The only down-side is it runs very slowly, but frankly I couldn't care less!
The reason I'm only showing LoD models and not the most detailed ones, is that the detailed models are split up into separate pieces (grill, bonnet left, bonnet right, etc) and I haven't added the ability to draw them all at once yet. Soon, soon.
Textures and compression
Well on the path to getting car texture support done, but there have been a few trials along the way.
Firstly the game uses a format I haven't run into before:
The indices are stored in interleaved order (all even rows, then all odd rows) and the odd rows are word swapped (xxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy is stored as yyyyyyyy xxxxxxxx), very strange.
Second problem I have yet to resolve, I haven't found how the game keeps track of the texture sizes. This may be hard-coded for car data, as they seem to use 80×38 textures for everything except the wheels, and the wheels have a separate block of texture pointers to the rest of the car parts. Hopefully looking at the track data which has a variety of texture sizes will shed more light on this.
Finally, and perhaps most frustrating, the game appears to use a slightly modified version of zlib 1.0.4 (there's a string referring to this version in the ROM) to inflate the compressed data. You can use vanilla zlib to decompress and compress data and more often than not you'll get the same output as the game, buuut not 100% of the time. Hoping that it was perhaps just some breaking change in zlib (which is currently v2.x) I grabbed the source for 1.0.4 and tried that, but it gives the exact same output. So now I have to reverse the game's inflate routine to be able to extract correct data. Reversing an ASM routine is kinda fun, but can be painful as well.
Such is life.


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The coloured star icons in the month column show for which type of event each star was awarded, as follows: -
- Attending or taking part in a 2-4-CIX display.
- Flying to or from one of our established Base or Roving Base airfields.
- Flying into one of our monthly Guest airfields.
- Taking part in the monthly Club event.
There are pop up windows on column headers, each member name, aircraft registration, dates, and large star to provide additional information.
Hover over the headings for further explanation of column contents. Click on the headings to sort alphabetically or numerically (descending) as appropriate
Links from each individual member name, aircraft registration, and dates provide access to more details for that member.


text:
TML-TechCentral was incorporated due to a growing need for efficient warranty support and world class technical support services to an increasingly savvy end user base in New Zealand. TML has been in this business for the last 10 years and is highly regarded by product vendors as being the leader in the marketplace that is best placed to facilitate the full complement of customer support, techinical service and product research and development. TML have adopted state of the art work processes and systems to track warranty support and technical support services for some of the global brand names for example : International Business Machine , Asustek Computers , Creative Technologies , Lenovo etc. TML undergoes continuous scrutiny by vendor groups to ensure that world class standards and practices are adopted and maintained at all times.
If you need an business account to OPEN JOBs and REVIEW JOBs. Please click the following link to send us an Email with your registration details. We will contact you ASAP. Thank you


text: All: I've defined another phase to candidate review. After Announcement and before Interim Decision, there may be some candidates that at least one person will suggest to MODIFY, RECAST, or even REJECT. Such candidates may be moved into an intermediate Modification phase if necessary. For candidates in the Modification phase, the Editor (as I'm calling myself for lack of a better thought-out name) may make changes to the candidates. The Editor will re-propose these newly changed candidates, noting what changes have been made, for subsequent review by the Editorial Board. I expect that most candidates in the Modification phase will be extremely close to moving to Interim Decision. The first round of candidates in the Modification phase will be resubmitted later today. Basically, it's most of the rest of the CERT cluster where someone added a reference or suggested a minor change to a description. - Steve


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Games & education – a contrarian view
These are not scripts or courses in waiting…
<image http://www.flickr.com/photos/durka/4879338779/ by Thomas Durka>
It is almost a truism to say that games represent a bold new future for education. The Chancellor of the OU, and one of the wisest people around, Lord Puttnam, has often said as much: "The video game is probably the most powerful learning tool that's ever been created, and if we can only get the software right, as it were 'connect up the pieces', we could create something utterly remarkable."
And the linkages seem irresistible – games create a structured environment where the player has to learn certain procedures to progress. They are given tips, have the opportunity to practice and have regular rewards. Most attractively, they are highly motivating and engaging, with players devoting hours to solving the problems presented to them. The player learns through trial and experimentation, sometimes collaborating with others, in a structured, scaffolded manner. If that doesn't scream 'Education!' at you then you're not paying attention. And, there has been some success in applying game based approaches to learning.
But whenever the logic seems irrefutable, and everyone is lining up to testify how great it is, then a contrarian tick kicks in for me. It's probably because I've read too much Hitchens, but I want to take an opposing view, just to see how it pans out.
So here are my reservations about games as the future of education:
Discipline suitability – although there are open games, such as World of Warcraft, many games have a very definite structure. You have to follow the narrative, and this may work well for some well structured disciplines, but not for more discursive ones.
Creepy treehouse – games are fun and motivating precisely because they are about imaginary worlds where the player is an elven wizard, or a Miami based drug dealer, or a premiership football manager. Making games about the actual stuff we need to learn about removes all of this, and is an example of creepy treehouse syndrome. When my daughter was young we used to occasionally watch Clifford the Big Red Dog, which always ended with Clifford being read a story, at the end of which the girl would pontificate 'Reading is fun!'. Even as a three year old, my daughter could spot this as a sledgehammer message. I think 'let's play a game about quantum physics' would set off similar alarm bells in any savvy 20 year old.
Inappropriate pedagogy – I think this one is less convincing, as you can have constructivist or collaborative approaches in games, but many of the conventional game engines are based around a fairly Skinnerian reinforcement principle. We would need to be wary about adopting this wholesale.
A misleading metaphor – my main concern though is that the seeming similarities between education and gaming mask more fundamental differences. My argument for this lies in observing another industry that has been seduced by the apparent similarities with games, namely the film industry. Adapting games has proven irresistible for the film industry and the logic again seems sound: games have an existing fan base; they have an easy narrative which can be adapted; they are highly visual; much of the design, look, feel, and characterisation has been done already; they're modern and sexy.
Yet, almost without fail, game adaptations have been disasters, artistically speaking. I don't know if they've returned a profit, and if they have, few have gone onto be the real blockbusters the producers would have hoped. Yet they persist because of that damn irresistible logic. Tomb Raider, Doom, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Street Fighter, Prince of Persia – none of these have blazed standards for cinematic achievement. Look at this list of games that have been made into films and tell me of one that you'd bother to see a second time (or even a first).
The danger is that this reliance on games (and comic books, but that's another argument), creates a laziness in film making and a loss of their own creativity. Hollywood (and it is almost exclusively Hollywood that is obsessed with games) has, I would argue, made a mapping error and transferred the wrong elements across from games, and missed what is fundamentally different about films.
Games require less characterisation than films because the player participates in the game. In a movie this participation needs to be achieved through engagement and empathy with the characters. When you transfer a game to a film this lack of character creates a fundamental weakness.
In addition they operate over different time frames – a game that only lasted two hours would be considered light, and a film that endured for forty hours would be a tough sell. In games this prolonged engagement allows the player to become involved, to invest in the game. In a film this has to be compressed so all you are left with is the surface story and action.
Lastly they underestimate the discrimination of their customers. People who play Tomb Raider are quite capable of seeing romcoms or dramas. What they want from movies and what they want from games are quite different.
I wonder if the same misapplication of gaming is happening in education as it has in film. There are interesting things being done with games, letting town planners play with Sim City seems a great thing to do, and I'm sure people can point me at lots of great examples. But I think it's worth noting these reservations and thinking of games as useful in some contexts, not the great educational utopia they are often proclaimed to be.
2 Comments
Yes, this got me thinking. I've too many words to write here, so I've written a quickie blog post with my initial woolly and inconclusive thoughts, here:
http://greaneynet.com/blogs/?p=1124 -
Rob Stringer
As an educational games designer I am happy to hear some sensible thought on the matter! People are too eager to just crowbar educational and games together without thinking it through.


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Mushrooms (also called toadstools or puffballs) are the fruiting body of a fungus. They appear when the conditions are right for the fungus to reproduce and spread spores. This usually happens after heavy rains or watering.
Most of the fungi that produce mushrooms are growing on decaying organic matter in the soil. Mushrooms are often the result of lumber left by builders, rotting railway ties or timber, decaying stumps or roots. They can also be the result of the decay of the lawn's thatch or manure or other organic matter in the soil.
Mushrooms are not harmful in any way to the lawn. They can however be unsightly and spoil the appearance of a lawn. Some may be poisonous and some may be foul-smelling.
If possible, dig up and remove the decaying stump, roots, or lumber to remove the source. If this if not possible, simply remove the mushrooms by hand (or foot), rake or use the lawn mower. Mushrooms will continue to appear until the organic matter is completely decayed. This may take several years.
Fairy Ring. In lawns, if the mushrooms are growing in a circular pattern, it may be due to a fungus called fairy ring. Fairy rings are caused by certain fungi, not all of which may produce mushrooms. In some cases, the soil in the ring becomes so matted by the fungus mycellium(so-called roots of a fungus) that water cannot move through it. As a result, the grass in the ring grows poorly, and may die from lack of water. The best solution to this problem is to aerate the soil in the ring, then water deeply. This should improve lawn root growth and eliminate, or at least reduce, the effects of a fairy ring fungus. Often the ring of dead grass will move outwards as the fairy ring fungus moves through the soil. Sometimes, there will be a ring of greener grass where the fungus has released nutrients that are now available for the turf.


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'The Shack' takes moviegoers on an emotional journey
Forgiveness is the ultimate form of love—and that love is a creation of God that is seen throughout Octavia Spencer's performance as Papa, a character that is one of the depictions of God , in The Shack. Mack Phillips, played by Sam Worthington (Avatar), is a character whom some would call a "churching" Christian due to a combination of an upbringing by an abusive father who was an elder in the church, and the unwavering faith of his wife.
The movie, based on the bestselling novel with the same title, centers on Mack's loss of faith after his daughter is kidnapped and killed during a period the author calls "The Great Sadness." When Mack receives a letter from Papa, he encounters the many faces of God, including Jesus (Avraham Aviv Alush), Wisdom/Sophia (Alice Braga), and what is described as the Breath of Life (Sumire Matsubara). This film will take moviegoers on a spiritual and emotional journey beyond the Bible and help them understand how God works all things out with love. Be prepared for a light chuckle, the vibration of an elevated way of thinking, and a healing upon leaving the theater.
We Are Made in His Image
In a time when the racial rhetoric has become aggressive and the Bible is sometimes used as justification, it is beautiful to see the different elements of God played by a racially and ethnically diverse cast. There was some criticism leading up to the film's release that Papa was being portrayed as a Black woman: To some people, that is just not how God looks. As the film reaches more people, the color and gender of God depicted will matter less. Papa appears as many people to convey the idea of many religions in the film; the message is that, essentially, we are all connected through the same God, no matter the appearance.
Bad Things Happen
The biggest question that is continually reiterated in this film is: "Why did you let this happen?" This is a question on everyone's mind as our world is filled with senseless violence, corrupt politics, and very little compassion for our brothers and sisters. Sometimes we wonder why terrible things occur if God is so mighty and powerful, or why God has abandoned us. One moviegoer, Chaunetta, a former doubter, identifies with this sentiment.
"I've always felt like I got the short end of the stick when it came to my life," Chaunetta explained. "I use to say that God may be all-present but he forgot about me. Seeing this film was right on time, because now I see that I am not alone [in that feeling]. This was a message to all who feel like they've been abandoned, and they haven't been."
There is a powerful image of Mack drowning in his fears and sorrows instead of relying on God, in all forms, to work with Him and take it away. When unfortunate things occur, we can blame ourselves, God, and whomever else before surrendering it to God, which drives us into a deeper darkness and further from our peace.
We Must Forgive
Mack goes through a path of forgiveness in which he combats a variety of emotions, including anger. Wisdom gives him a "Ghost of Christmas Past"-like awakening to show that Papa is the final judge and that our willingness to take that power away is so rampant that it creates wars and more sorrow, as explained by the Holy Spirit. Jesus teaches Mack how to rely on God for healing and in those moments you'll feel like you can walk on water. Forgiveness in this film is the direct key to peace for Mack and although it is not an easy road, it is worth the journey.
The Shack is a film for the moviegoer who wants to experience a connection to God instead of the sermon of a preacher. It is also for those who want to experience God's grace through the eyes of Mack. And for those who have questions about God's existence, this is a great flying lesson that reinforces how the love of our omnipresent God is with us always.
Check out the official movie trailer of The Shack below:
Do you agree with the portrayal of God in The Shack? Share your thoughts below.


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CHARLES W. MORGAN: Sailmaker's plan for mizzen staysail
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Lucas, Don
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8.5" x 11", pencil on paper, CHARLES W. MORGAN: Sailmaker's plan for mizzen staysail, scale 1/4"=1', 07-07-1989. Note: "Cloths drawn at 21" to allow for false seams in 48" or 72" material. Cotton canvas quality no. 6. U.S.A."
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Best Business Books 2007: Strategy
Planning for Uncertainty
(originally published by Booz & Company)William Duggan
Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement
(Columbia University Press, 2007)
William H. Marquard
Wal-Smart: What It Really Takes to Profit in a Wal-Mart World
(McGraw-Hill, 2006)
Michael E. Raynor
The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and What to Do about It)
(Doubleday, 2007)
Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson
Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition
(Harvard Business School Press, 2007)
Chris Zook
Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth
(Harvard Business School Press, 2007)
It is widely held that growth is the fundamental strategic challenge for business leaders. I agree with that idea wholeheartedly, and I would add that creativity is essential for sustained growth. Effective execution of existing strategies can bring increased revenue and profits, but the most successful strategies are often the most creative, delivering growth by developing new ways to create value for customers and capture it for the enterprise.
Today's business environment is making creative strategy even more critical. Virtually every business author argues that the world is getting more complex, whether it's the new rules of the Internet economy; the "flattening" of global markets; the emergence of new world-scale competitors; or the fluidity of people, ideas, and capital. In this environment, constant strategic re-creation may offer the only hope of long-term success.
What role, then, can business books play in a strategist's own creation? Such books tell stories of great strategic triumphs (and failures), examining heroic leaders and critical decisions, analyzing businesses individually and en masse to glean lessons and codify rules. But what value does this serve in preparing leaders for the creative process of developing the next strategy? Many of the heroes of our best strategic tales, including some told in the books reviewed here, were not great students of strategy. Indeed, many of our modern business icons — Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Richard Branson, Fred Smith, and the like — didn't proceed from theory to action. And perhaps their genius can't be codified. As the philosopher Immanuel Kant argued, "Genius is a talent for producing that for which no definite rule can be given, and not an aptitude in the way of cleverness for what can be learned according to some rule."
It is therefore no wonder that most business books discuss how to evaluate a strategy, but few offer much help in creating one.
In Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement, my choice for the best strategy book of the year, Columbia University professor William Duggan explains that Michael Porter's classic Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (Free Press, 1980) "tells you how to analyze your own strategy in light of your industry and your competitors. But it does not tell you how to come up with a strategic idea: that's a 'creative step' Porter leaves out." Even management academics themselves are raising doubts about the value of business scholarship, with luminaries including Jeffrey Pfeffer, Warren Bennis, Henry Mintzberg, and the late Sumantra Ghoshal all questioning whether business schools can develop effective managers and challenging the relevance, and even the validity, of academic research.
However, in business, and across many more traditionally creative fields, talented practitioners do study and learn from both theory and literature, from rules and stories. Famously, Fats Waller warmed up with classical piano pieces, and it was reported by a collaborator that "he knew Brahms, Liszt, and Beethoven as well as he knew jazz, and often discussed and analyzed their work." Artists sketch from great paintings to explore their composition. Mathematicians work through the landmark proofs, both to learn their results and to understand the methods behind them. Such study does not make these individuals creative geniuses, but it lays the foundation for them to exercise their genius, developing a context for their activities, outlining the "rules," and building a repertoire of examples and fragments from which new ideas can be assembled.
There is another reason to study business theory and read stories of successful strategy. Strategic theories can ultimately shape the very context in which strategies are developed and executed. The interplay of theory and actual behavior is particularly important when the paradigm of business shifts and our understanding of new potential strategies lets us create new markets or reshape competitive dynamics. In business, unlike in nature, the fittest often survive by helping create the environment that favors them.
We may have passed through just such a shift sometime in the last decade. The rules of business seem to have mutated. Familiar market boundaries have blurred, or even disappeared. Companies have lost mass and gained speed. Every business faces uncertainty. Chris Zook and his Bain & Company partners put it this way: "Almost all of our clients and their competitors [are] confronting more fundamental and more frequent threats to their core businesses." Throughout this period, managers have become less confident, a clear sign of impending change and a need for fresh theories.
Four of the strategy books reviewed here are well worth reading for their informative and insightful treatment of strategy, in theory and in practice: The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and What to Do about It), by Michael E. Raynor, for its view on how strategic uncertainty can best be managed; Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition, by Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson, and Wal-Smart: What It Really Takes to Profit in a Wal-Mart World, by William H. Marquard, for their analyses of how emerging dominant competitors are changing the strategic environment; and Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth, by Chris Zook, for rules and examples for renewing business. The fifth and best, Duggan's Strategic Intuition, takes on a more challenging task: identifying the processes that lie behind the creative flash of genius and suggesting the means to develop greater intuitive strategy skills.
Creating Strategic Flexibility
Strategists have long argued for strategic purity (i.e., focused, distinctive strategy) and commitment (i.e., clear alignment of all resources and capabilities with that strategy), citing research and examples showing that the highest returns are correlated with focus and commitment. In The Strategy Paradox, the most rigorous and scholarly of this year's selection, Michael Raynor identifies the fundamental paradox in this thinking. Since one cannot plan for an unknowable future, the same focus and commitment that promise the highest returns necessarily imply the greatest probability of failure.
In Raynor's analysis, this is caused by the strategic uncertainty inherent in the marketplace. The choices underlying a focused, committed strategy must often address a future that involves unpredictable changes in consumer response, market dynamics, and development paths. "Middle-of-the-road" strategies offer more resilience, "but at the cost of being able to generate significant returns," he writes. It is impossible to build sufficient adaptability at the business level, even if competitors' responses might be parried. With classic examples, including Sony Betamax, Raynor illustrates that the firms that guess right and commit more vigorously to the strategy that fortune ultimately favors will defeat their competitors, but they risk catastrophe.
Raynor believes the resolution of this paradox at the business level lies in strategic flexibility at the corporate level. Corporations can reduce risk by "managing strategic uncertainty through the creation of strategic options," investing in a portfolio of positions, even as individual businesses take the risks inherent in high-return strategies. As decisions move up the corporate hierarchy, executives' time horizons should lengthen and their priorities should shift from managing commitments to building options on an uncertain future. "CEOs should not see their role in terms of making strategic choices — that is, commitments," Raynor writes. "Rather, they should focus on building 'strategic options,' that is, creating the ability to pursue alternative strategies that could be useful, depending on how key uncertainties are resolved."
Building strategic flexibility is messy and difficult, as Raynor shows in his analyses of Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and Vivendi Universal, as well as in the processes he describes for developing a range of possible future scenarios and then assembling and managing a collection of options to address them.
This philosophy of strategic flexibility, because it is costly and complex and unavailable to the individual entrepreneur, may be appropriate only for the largest of companies. More fundamentally, assembling a portfolio of options may best be left to investors, not operators. A collection of businesses reflecting alternative views on an uncertain future seems more like a venture-capital fund than a classic corporation. The justification for flexibility as a corporate strategy, Raynor recognizes (in a discussion similar to Chris Zook's arguments in Unstoppable, discussed below), is the potential for linkages across the portfolio: "Corporate diversification makes sense to shareholders only if it either captures synergies or creates options on synergies that investors cannot replicate."
China Rising
The rise of China in the global economy is one of the greatest forces changing today's context for business strategy. Consider how it has reshaped certain industries once dominated by American companies: According to Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson in Dragons at Your Door, in air conditioners, microwave ovens, and cranes, the global market share of Chinese firms is 50 percent; in marine containers, lighters, and sewing machines, it is more than 70 percent. China is also enjoying high levels of trade surpluses, foreign direct investment, and foreign currency reserves.
Zeng and Williamson conclude that the most successful Chinese companies collectively represent a disruptive competitor of unprecedented scale and threat, exploiting a new strategy of "cost innovation," offering "high technology at low costs…presenting customers with an unmatched choice of products in what used to be considered standardized, mass-market segments — using low costs to offer specialty products at dramatically lower costs." By using a huge workforce that combines high skills and low wages, China is able to break the traditional trade-offs among sophisticated technology, product line complexity, and cost — at the design, process, and production levels.
In many ways, Chinese businesses today are retracing the evolutionary paths of their Asian predecessors. From the 1960s through the '80s, Japanese and then Korean companies introduced low-cost products built for the home market (albeit not on the same scale as modern China), then migrated quickly up-market as the incumbent players retreated to high-feature (but ultimately undefendable) niches.
However, China's threat is developing with greater speed and severity than that of the earlier Asian tigers. In addition to low wages and talented labor, China provides its companies with significant advantages, including subsidized access to government assets and intellectual property, management autonomy and stability, weak shareholder protections, and a national commitment to globalization and industrialization. Moreover, Zeng and Williamson note, the world in which Chinese companies are competing has opened new gateways for them: the increasing modularization of products and services, a more sophisticated knowledge economy, the concentration and globalization of retailing, a more fluid international market for talent, and professional services and a more open market for corporate control.
Finally, the Chinese market has embraced world trade relatively early in its development process, attracting foreign (and overseas Chinese) capital, technology, and human resources, further accelerating growth and innovation.
How does a competitor address these challenges? Zeng and Williamson describe a range of strategic responses for organizations under threat, including emulating the strategy of cost innovation, which is difficult for most Western incumbents with high costs and legacy processes. Another response is to "give China a global mandate" by creating a local operation serving the Chinese market while providing cost innovation in products and development to the entire company. This approach can preempt the emergence of a world-scale local competitor. And the third suggestion is to build alliances with "dragons" to accomplish the same end, by positioning a partner's Chinese capacity as part of a global product portfolio and manufacturing footprint.
The best companies already pursue these strategies. For example, Procter & Gamble is developing lower-cost products to move beyond the wealthiest 8 percent of the Chinese market. Many industrial companies are focusing capacity investments in China to capture demand and preempt local competition.
However, the future of the dragons is not guaranteed; China's growth may be generating challenges of its own. Costs are rising in Guangzhou and Shanghai. Local demand is becoming more sophisticated. And in the Wal-Mart world that William Marquard describes, China's current performance in terms of quality, safety, emissions, and governance may not be acceptable to global consumers in the long term.
Competing in a Wal-Mart World
In Wal-Smart, William Marquard, a former Wal-Mart executive, examines the strategy behind a second great force shaping the current business environment and also recommends responses to China. Wal-Mart "is the dominant company of our era," he declares, representing 2.5 percent of the U.S. economy and nearly 1 percent of the global economy. Wal-Mart has transformed the retail world, making big boxes and "everyday low prices" part of every consumer's shopping experience. It has triggered among competitors greater specialization and focus on the shopping event so that they can offer consumers a distinctive alternative. Among its suppliers, Wal-Mart has changed patterns of product development and operations. Marquard says that "half the increase in retail productivity [from 1995 to 1999] could be traced directly or indirectly to Wal-Mart."
As hundreds of articles and many books have done before, Marquard's work describes Wal-Mart's killer strategy of relentless cost reduction, internally and through suppliers, that drives price reductions and in turn volume increases, feeding the cost reduction loop. Supporting this are strong processes that spread the improvements quickly across company stores.
The value of Marquard's book is that it identifies potential responses to this familiar situation. He believes competitors must make choices about "how to differentiate, what to emulate, and where to dominate" in order to distance themselves from Wal-Mart's low costs, utilitarian range, and experience. For suppliers, the preferred response seems to be to engage Wal-Mart on its own terms, leveraging brands, investing in supply and development processes, and diversifying channels.
Wal-Smart is a more thoughtful, and hopeful, analysis than most books about Wal-Mart. It recognizes that Wal-Mart is formidable, but understands where its limits might lie, both in Porter-esque terms of supplier, customer, and competitive power and in terms of its acceptability to the communities and societies in which it operates. For suppliers and competitors, the author makes clear the dynamics underlying Wal-Mart's success and the choices that must be made in response.
Whether you are a friend or a foe of Wal-Mart on issues of social responsibility, Marquard shows how the implications of Wal-Mart's strategic success for employees and communities are as important as its impact on competitors and suppliers. Wal-Mart "turned into a lightning rod for outrage over labor rights, human rights, women's issues, urban sprawl, energy consumption, small-town decline, you name it…. Thanks to the catalyzing effect of Wal-Mart, business was witnessing the birth of a new progressive social movement." Marquard's prescriptions are less well formed and less compellingly argued, perhaps because the phenomena he describes are themselves in the formative stage.
Beyond the Core
Unstoppable is the final volume in Chris Zook's "Core" trilogy. Having explained how to Profit from the Core: Growth Strategy in an Era of Turbulence (Harvard Business School Press, 2001) and to move Beyond the Core: Expand Your Markets without Abandoning Your Roots (Harvard Business School Press, 2004), he now describes how to develop a new core business when the current one no longer provides sufficient growth. In many ways, this is the practical handbook for developing and managing the sort of options for an uncertain future advocated by Raynor.
As in his earlier books, Zook still encourages companies to leverage their current customers, established businesses, and existing capabilities to sustain profitable growth. However, in Unstoppable, he acknowledges that it may become necessary to create a new core business, because of a "shrinking or shifting of the future profit pool," a direct threat from a competitor with a fundamental economic advantage, or failure of the current growth strategy to produce results.
All moves away from the core are risky, but Zook's research suggests that redefining the business to center on its "hidden assets" is far more likely to succeed than either making transformational acquisitions or diversifying into hot markets. He identifies three categories of hidden assets that offer the promise of new options and a more attractive future: undervalued business platforms (products, adjacencies, support organizations, noncore businesses); unexploited customer assets (unrecognized segments, privileged access or trust, underused information); and underused capabilities.
Like Raynor, Zook begins his book by telling readers to develop "a view on impending turbulence" and its likely impact on the business core. Unstoppable's great value lies in the way it addresses the increasingly common problem of creating growth where there is none, especially the author's pragmatic detailing of the range of hidden assets and means of identifying them. However, like Raynor, Zook describes what an attractive asset- and option-driven move should look like, while offering only limited help on the creative processes for those trying to invent one.
The Creative Flash
Taking on a fundamentally different challenge than the other authors discussed in this review, William Duggan declares in Strategic Intuition that he hopes to fill a gap in modern strategic thinking, where "the reigning models of business strategy…leave out how strategists actually come up with their ideas." In one of the more ambitious books in recent years, he wrestles with the nature of strategic intuition — the "creative spark" — and how to develop it.
Duggan views the process of creating new ideas as complementary to the more rational tools for analyzing them: "Strategic analysis and strategic intuition are the two main pieces of the modern puzzle of business strategy." As he writes, "A creative flash yields rational insight." This linkage is most easily seen in mathematics, where the processes of discovery and demonstration are distinct. Discovering a new theory or proof is messy, with no clear rules or prescribed processes, only an array of tools and techniques. Once discovered, however, it can be presented with clear, compelling logic and praised for its elegance.
Duggan's close reading of military strategy and the history of science informs the book greatly. Thomas Kuhn, for example, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, shows that revolutionary insights are constructed from existing pieces of information. "The common idea of how a leap of progress happens is a leap of imagination," Duggan writes. "[Kuhn] gives us an alternative: a selective combination of elements from the past make something new. The elements themselves are not new." The raw material feeding the creative process is past experience, either direct or learned from history. The strategist searches for a better combination of resources, actions, and even goals.
Duggan illustrates this through a distinctive reading of the recent history of the computer industry. He studies Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Lou Gerstner, and their critical strategic decisions, showing how their context and experience provided the pieces they assembled to create new strategies. He concludes, "When we step up close to study the details of each new bend in the road, we find that each strategist took elements from the past to make a new combination in the future."
This view, that "a flash of insight draws on past elements," suggests a very different way of reading strategy. There is some value in studying theory, to understand what "rules" there may be (provided one recognizes that the rules of business may change). And synthesized lessons can help apply today's solutions to today's world. However, the real value is to be found in close study of the specific decisions and actions of the past, to assemble the pieces from which a new idea can be created. As Duggan writes, "You must study the past in detail, to put on the shelves of your brain what later comes together in a new combination."
This is consistent with creative artists' use of theory and literature. A writer is more likely to learn from reading great works closely than from absorbing literary criticism. Although architects need to understand building codes and mechanical engineering, they must also see how others have solved the problems of space and light. Musicians listen to learn.
There is another reason to put the literature of strategy on an equal footing with the theory of strategy. Ultimately, strategic insight and strategic leadership are human activities. Yet most strategy books are sparsely populated by people, with Bill Gates or Sam Walton serving as emblems of their businesses rather than as the creative and motive forces behind them. Most writing about strategy focuses on the dead artifacts of the strategic process, rather than on the live, human creative act itself. This may be interesting in its own right, but it is of limited use to a reader hoping to become a creative strategist and leader. For that, we need to experience the context, the people, and the leader's actions.
In reading strategy as stories of individuals taking action, we might do well to keep in mind the view of Bruno Bettelheim, the Austrian-born American writer and child psychologist, who posited that reading about the trials, tribulations, successes, and failures of fairy-tale heroes will prepare children for the trials, tribulations, successes, and failures that they will encounter in their own lives. In The Uses of Enchantment (1975), Bettelheim wrote, "The fairy tale reassures, gives hope for the future and holds out the promise of a happy ending." The best writing about strategy won't help us predict a successful future, but it may help us create it.
David Newkirk (firstname.lastname@example.com) is CEO of executive education at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business. He was formerly a strategist with American Express and a vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton.