text:
The Supreme Court has ruled that six men detained after the September 11 attacks are not legally able to sue top officials from the Bush administration.
The men, who are of Arab or South Asian descent and in the U.S. illegally, were detained with hundreds of others and held for periods of between three and six months at a federal facility in Brooklyn, according to the opinion. Five are Muslim.
The men say they were subject to harsh condition and physical abuse in detention. For example: "Guards allegedly slammed detainees into walls; twisted their arms, wrists and fingers; broke their bones; referred to them as terrorists; threatened them with violence; subjected them to humiliating sexual comments; and insulted their religion."
They sued seeking damages and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that the lawsuit could proceed. But the Supreme Court said the former detainees are not able to hold top Bush administration officials personally liable for constitutional violations. The officials named in the case include former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former FBI Director Robert Mueller. The case is Ziglar v Abbasi.
"The court's decision allows for high-level officials to violate the Constitution without fear of personal accountability — a dangerous message in this time of rampant state-sponsored discrimination against Muslim and immigrant communities," attorney Rachel Meeropol said in a statement. She represents the former detainees through the Center for Constitutional Rights.
In a 4-2 vote, the justices found that Congress has not provided a legal mechanism for seeking damages for "constitutional violations by agents of the Federal Government." Such a mechanism exists for constitutional violations by state officials.
In his majority opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote that Congress' silence on the issue is unlikely to have been accidental.
There is "a balance to be struck, in situations like this one, between deterring constitutional violations and freeing high officials to make the lawful decisions necessary to protect the Nation in times of great peril," the opinion reads. However, "the proper balance is one for the Congress, not the Judiciary, to undertake."
As NPR's Nina Totenberg reported, Kennedy said it is Congress that generally authorizes damages suits. And while he acknowledged some exceptions, "he said those exceptions do not apply in this case."
He stressed that the Supreme Court's opinion "should not be read to condone" the alleged abuse, calling it "tragic."
The opinion also remanded back to a lower court a prison abuse claim against a warden in charge of the New York facility.
Justice Stephen Breyer "took the rare step of dissenting orally from the bench," Nina reported. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined him in dissenting.
Breyer said he is critical of the court's apparent reluctance to weigh in on balancing rights and security at times of national emergency, suggesting that history provides examples of executive or legislative overreach at these moments:
"As the Court correctly points out, the Constitution grants primary power to protect the Nation's security to the Executive and Legislative Branches, not the Judiciary. But the Constitution also delegates to the Judiciary the duty to protect an individual's fundamental constitutional rights. Hence when protection of those rights and a determination of security needs conflict, the Court has a role to play."
Three of the justices played no role in the case. As the Associated Press writes, "Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor had been involved in earlier stages of the lawsuit, before they were on the court." And the case had already been argued which Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court.
This is not the first time the justices have sided with Ashcroft; according to the AP, "The decision was the third in which the court has intervened and ruled for Ashcroft in lawsuits against him and others from Muslims who were arrested in the U.S. following the 2001 attacks."
It's not clear how far-reaching this decision is, Nina reports.
"I think that with regard to policymakers, it's a pretty strong statement that you're not going to have damages actions for policy-level decisions," William McDaniel, who represented one of the Bush administration officials, tells Nina.
Seton Hall law professor Jonathan Hafetz tells Nina he does not think the decision reaches "rogue acts by individual federal agents, or other unconstitutional acts by government officials in a different context."
However, as Nina reported, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck says this opinion cements "far greater limits on damage suits unless they are explicitly authorized by Congress."
Here's more from Vladeck:
"What's so surprising and alarming about this ruling is its breadth, not just to be limited to the special and specific context of the post-9/11 counter terrorism response, but actually to make it harder for just about everybody to sue the federal government for damages when our constitutional rights are violated."
Plaintiff Benamar Benatta, who flew in from Canada to witness the case being argued, said in a statement from his lawyers that he was "very disappointed" in the court's ruling. He added: "Being labeled a terrorist and sitting there in your small cell without any distraction or reading material, not knowing what will happen to you or where you will end up is the worst thing that can ever happen to a human being."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Frank_omatic called me the other day.
Frank: I saw you in the newspaper. Your face looks so smooth lar. You go for facial is it?
Me: No, I think they photoshop it!
[Read full article here (in Chinese)]
I attended this 114A event organised by The Attorney General's Chambers (AGC). The AGC invited the Bar Council and CyberSecurity to present as well. I briefed Bar Council's representative for the talk on my views but nevertheless still attended the event to hear AGC and CyberSecurity's views.
When the floor was opened for questions, I bombarded the speakers with questions. Although I was not one of the speakers, Sin Chew interviewed me nonetheless.
The trick I learn from attending events is that one should ask questions when the floor is opened for questions. This allows everyone to know who you are. Probably you can drop a line or two to say what you do.
With this, you won't be one of the nameless faceless in events.


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NASA Astronauts Launch from America in Historic Test Flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon
For the first time in history, NASA astronauts have launched from American soil in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off at 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday on the company's Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"Today a new era in human spaceflight begins as we once again launched American astronauts on American rockets from American soil on their way to the International Space Station, our national lab orbiting Earth," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "I thank and congratulate Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley, and the SpaceX and NASA teams for this significant achievement for the United States. The launch of this commercial space system designed for humans is a phenomenal demonstration of American excellence and is an important step on our path to expand human exploration to the Moon and Mars."
Known as NASA's SpaceX Demo-2, the mission is an end-to-end test flight to validate the SpaceX crew transportation system, including launch, in-orbit, docking and landing operations. This is SpaceX's second spaceflight test of its Crew Dragon and its first test with astronauts aboard, which will pave the way for its certification for regular crew flights to the station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
"This is a dream come true for me and everyone at SpaceX," said Elon Musk, chief engineer at SpaceX. "It is the culmination of an incredible amount of work by the SpaceX team, by NASA and by a number of other partners in the process of making this happen. You can look at this as the results of a hundred thousand people roughly when you add up all the suppliers and everyone working incredibly hard to make this day happen."
The program demonstrates NASA's commitment to investing in commercial companies through public-private partnerships and builds on the success of American companies, including SpaceX, already delivering cargo to the space station.
"It's difficult to put into words how proud I am of the people who got us here today," said Kathy Lueders, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager. "When I think about all of the challenges overcome – from design and testing, to paper reviews, to working from home during a pandemic and balancing family demands with this critical mission – I am simply amazed at what the NASA and SpaceX teams have accomplished together. This is just the beginning; I will be watching with great anticipation as Bob and Doug get ready to dock to the space station tomorrow, and through every phase of this historic mission."
SpaceX controlled the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy's Launch Control Center Firing Room 4, the former space shuttle control room, which SpaceX has leased as its primary launch control center. As Crew Dragon ascended into space, SpaceX commanded the spacecraft from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California. NASA teams are monitoring space station operations throughout the flight from Mission Control Center at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to dock to the space station at 10:29 a.m. Sunday, May 31. NASA Television and the agency's website are providing ongoing live coverage of the Crew Dragon's trip to the orbiting laboratory. Behnken and Hurley will work with SpaceX mission control to verify the spacecraft is performing as intended by testing the environmental control system, the displays and control system, and by maneuvering the thrusters, among other things. The first docking maneuver began Saturday, May 30, at 4:09 p.m., and the spacecraft will begin its close approach to the station at about 8:27 a.m. Sunday, May 31. Crew Dragon is designed to dock autonomously, but the crews onboard the spacecraft and the space station will diligently monitor the performance of the spacecraft as it approaches and docks to the forward port of the station's Harmony module.
After successfully docking, the crew will be welcomed aboard the International Space Station, where they will become members of the Expedition 63 crew, which currently includes NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy. NASA will continue live coverage through hatch opening and the crew welcoming ceremony. The crew will perform tests on Crew Dragon in addition to conducting research and other tasks with the space station crew.
Three astronauts aboard the International Space Station will participate in a live NASA Television crew news conference from orbit on Monday, June 1, beginning at 11:15 a.m. on NASA TV and the agency's website.
Robert Behnken is the joint operations commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as rendezvous, docking and undocking, as well as Demo-2 activities while the spacecraft is docked to the space station. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2000 and has completed two space shuttle flights. Behnken flew STS-123 in March 2008 and STS-130 in February 2010, performing three spacewalks during each mission. Born in St. Anne, Missouri, he has bachelor's degrees in physics and mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and earned a master's and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Before joining NASA, he was a flight test engineer with the U.S. Air Force.
Douglas Hurley is the spacecraft commander for Demo-2, responsible for activities such as launch, landing and recovery. He was selected as an astronaut in 2000 and has completed two spaceflights. Hurley served as pilot and lead robotics operator for both STS‐127 in July 2009 and STS‐135, the final space shuttle mission, in July 2011. The New York native was born in Endicott but considers Apalachin his hometown. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Tulane University in New Orleans and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Before joining NASA, he was a fighter pilot and test pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps
Mission Objectives
The Demo-2 mission is the final major test before NASA's Commercial Crew Program certifies Crew Dragon for operational, long-duration missions to the space station. As SpaceX's final flight test, it will validate all aspects of its crew transportation system, including the Crew Dragon spacecraft, spacesuits, Falcon 9 launch vehicle, launch pad 39A and operations capabilities.
While en route to the station, Behnken and Hurley will take control of Crew Dragon for two manual flight tests, demonstrating their ability to control the spacecraft should an issue with the spacecraft's automated flight arise. On Saturday, May 30, while the spacecraft is coasting, the crew will test its roll, pitch and yaw. When Crew Dragon is about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) below the station and moving around to the docking axis, the crew will conduct manual in-orbit demonstrations of the control system in the event it were needed. After pausing, rendezvous will resume and mission managers will make a final decision about whether to proceed to docking as Crew Dragon approaches 20 meters (66 feet).
For operational missions, Crew Dragon will be able to launch as many as four crew members at a time and carry more than 220 pounds of cargo, allowing for an increased number crew members aboard the space station and increasing the time dedicated to research in the unique microgravity environment, as well as returning more science back to Earth.
The Crew Dragon being used for this flight test can stay in orbit about 110 days, and the specific mission duration will be determined once on station based on the readiness of the next commercial crew launch. The operational Crew Dragon spacecraft will be capable of staying in orbit for at least 210 days as a NASA requirement.
At the conclusion of the mission, Behnken and Hurley will board Crew Dragon, which will then autonomously undock, depart the space station, and re-enter Earth's atmosphere. Upon splashdown off Florida's Atlantic coast, the crew will be picked up by the SpaceX recovery ship and returned to the dock at Cape Canaveral.
NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with SpaceX and Boeing to design, build, test and operate safe, reliable and cost-effective human transportation systems to low-Earth orbit. Both companies are focused on test missions, including abort system demonstrations and crew flight tests, ahead of regularly flying crew missions to the space station. Both companies' crewed flights will be the first times in history NASA has sent astronauts to space on systems owned, built, tested and operated by private companies.
Congratulations to our friends at #NASA and #SpaceX from #Oxigraf
Source: NASA – May 30, 2020; RELEASE 20-057:


text:
Racing Leather Suit Superior Kids biker Wear (MX22)
Racing Leather Suit Superior Kids biker Wear (MX22)
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Our goal is to provide customer satisfaction with our product and service. We Take Great Care About Quality, We Try To Use High-Quality Raw Material And All Processes Of Manufacturing Until Packing And Sending The Shipments To Our Clients Have To Be Very Carefully Monitored By Our Experienced Team. OUR MISSION It is our mission to place the right product, to the right customer, at the right place, at the right price, and at the right time. Racing Leather Suit. |


text:
Add a VGA LCD to a Chumby
For hackers, the fun part of consumer electronics is taking things apart and making them do things they weren't originally meant to do. Since most consumer electronics devices are closed source, it's a laborious process to do a hack; first you must reverse engineer the platform, and you are often relying on gut and instinct to grope around at the edges of your knowledge about the platform. Thus, on most platforms, it's a challenge to reskin or case-mod the device, and deducing the location of a debug port and opening a console shell on the device is a big deal.
Chumby is different; it is open source, and designed to be hacked. For example, the serial port is spelled out on the silkscreen for you and there's a backdoor to enable sshd, so it's not big deal to bring up the console. Because of its hackability, you are enabled to do significant modifications due to the availability of all levels of design documentation—hardware, drivers, and application software. While it would be an enormous task to, for example, open up a Zune and put a larger screen on it, here, in this post, I will show you how to hack a chumby to have a larger, higher-resolution screen without too much effort. The native chumby screen is a 3.5" QVGA (320×240) display, but after you complete this hack, you will be treated to a 5.7" VGA (640×480) display.
Click on the photo for a larger version.
Selecting the LCD
The first step in the hack is to select a compatible LCD that's also conveniently available. For various reasons related to how the flat panel display market works, LCDs are difficult to purchase in their raw form. Fortunately, Mouser Electronics has a fair selection of LCD modules available and in-stock, although the price is no where near wholesale. I found that the Microtips MTF-TV57NP721-AV was a good match; you can buy these directly from Mouser for $150.80 by ordering part number 668-MTF-TV57NP721-AV. This LCD module uses a compatible signal format, has an LED backlight that works with a slightly modified chumby backlight driver, and also features a 4-wire resistive touchscreen, which is exactly the technology used by the stock chumby device. While the datasheet for this display is not available for convenient download, the datasheet itself is not marked proprietary or confidential, so I was able to secure a copy with a phone call to the local Microtips sales representative.
The Adapter Board
The next step is to build an adapter board between the chumby and the LCD. The adapter board is necessary because the flat-flex connector used by the Microtips LCD has a different size and pinout from the existing chumby LCD connector. The design of the board doesn't require many components, as it is just rewiring the signals between two connector formats, but getting the design right does require attention to detail. It's particularly important to make sure you get the location of the connectors right, so as to minimize the stress on the flex cables, and you need to be aware of the pinout inversion that happens between the two sides of a flex cable mating to the same type of connector: pin 1 goes to pin 50, and vice versa. Here is a link to the schematic for the adapter board, and a link to the gerbers.
The bill of materials for the assembly is as follows:
Qty Digikey P/N Description 1 RP20T5.6FCT-ND 5.6 ohm, 1/3W 1% 0805 resistor 1 RB070M-30CT-ND Schottky diode, 30V 1.5A SOD-123 1 HFF-50U-02-ND Flat flex cable, 50 position, 0.5mm 2" 1 HFF-36U-03-ND Flat flex cable, 36 position, 0.5mm 3" 1 WM7077CT-ND Molex connector, 0.5mm 50 position, R/A 2 487951-4-ND 4 position 1MM FPC top entry, R/A 1 929647-09-36-ND 36 position 0.1" header strip (breakaway) 6 A26242-ND Shut headers with handle 1 100-4-18-BO-ND Flat flex cable, 4 position, 1mm, 1" 1 100R04-180BO-ND 7" version of above, use if above is out of stock… Qty Mouser P/N Description 1 IL-FPR-33S-HF-N1 JAE connector, 0.5mm 33 position, R/A 1 668-MTF-TV57NP721-AV 5.7" VGA LCD panel with touchscreen 1 PCB per gerbers – can process through Protoexpress.com's "No Touch" service for $72.45; less if you order in quantity
You'll notice that a 36-pin flat flex cable is specified, even though the Microtips display uses a 33-pin cable. This is because I couldn't find a 33-pin cable in stock anywhere, but you can use a pair of diagonal cutters to slice a 36-pin cable back into a 33-pin cable. Since there is a chance that you don't get the cable cut exactly right the first time, I'd recommend buying a couple extra so you can practice on a couple pieces.
Board assembly can be done by hand, although it's recommended you do it only if you have access to a soldering workstation with a microscope due to the 0.5mm pitch leads on the flat-flex connectors (and use plenty of flux!). Fortunately, microscopes of sufficient quality for soldering work have fallen in price. I recently bought a microscope in China that was a clone of the Accu-Scope 3055 series. While it only costs $100 in China, you can get it in the US for around $260 – about the price of a nice snowboard – and it's quite a nice microscope for soldering work and performing microsurgery on those nasty hang nails.
Here's a picture of the fine-pitch SMT rework setup in my hotel room in China. The neat thing is I was able to buy the whole thing on a Saturday afternoon just wandering around the street markets of Shenzhen, where you find electronic parts vendors cheek to jowl with pushcart stands selling gak and girls pushing fake Chinese tax receipts. "Quick! It's Saturday and you have to solder 0.5mm pitch wires, but you're in a hotel room and you need to buy equipment! Where do you go? SEG electronics market!"
Modifying the Chumby Core
In order to do this hack, you need to sacrifice one chumby. You can take the chumby apart by first breaking the glue seal between the bezel and the soft frame. The easiest way to do this is to pry up on any of the long edges of the soft frame with your finger and start separating the glue bond, and then use a screwdriver or your finger to "chase" the tear around the chumby. If you are careful to always apply the force of the screwdriver or finger toward the hard plastic bezel, there will be no external cosmetic damage to the device and you can reseal it using almost any common superglue (the formulation used by the factory is a little more sophisticated but I've had good success bringing chumbys back to "like new" conditions with supermarket-bought superglue).
Once you have the core module separated from the bag, detach it from the ribbon cable. Remove all of the fluffy fill on the inside, and then use a small Philips screwdriver to remove the four retaining screws between the back bezel and the switch/speaker assembly.
You should be able to lift the assembly out of the chumby without much effort. The back bezel should also be stripped off of the leather bag as well, but you will have to peel it off as it is glued in place. When you have all these components out, re-attach the back bezel to the switch/speaker assembly so that the power switch is easily accessible, as the power switch knob is an integral part of the back bezel assembly. Keep all the electronic parts; dispose of the bag and the fill.
Since you won't need the old LCD anymore, loosen the two long Philips screws on the wifi riser assembly and liberate the core from the LCD/bezel assembly by detaching the two flat flex cables that connect to the core board. Save the wifi riser assembly, screws, standoffs and cables. Also leave all the thermal pads in place; they will hold on their own if you do not peel them off of the circuit boards.
You will need to do some minor rework to the core circuit board of the chumby in order to beef up the backlight driver to work with the more power-hungry backlight of the larger LCD. The original chumby backlight is a 10.2 volt, 40 mA 3-LED backlight. The backlight inside the Microtips LCD is also a 10.2 volt backlight, but it requires 200 mA. Fortunately, the boost converter used to drive the chumby's backlight has a current switch capable of handling that magnitude of current—the TPS65101 has a 2.3A switch in it. However, some of the external circuitry has to be upgraded. In particular, the catch diode D502 has a forward current rating of 0.5A. While the LCD only draws 200 mA, it is a boost converter so the amount of current going through the catch diode is going to be a bit bigger than the ratio of the output voltage to the input voltage times the average current. Therefore, D502 has to get an upgrade to a footprint-compatible but higher current version, such as the 1A-rated MBRX130TP by Micro Commercial, or the 1.5A-rated RB070M-30TR by Rohm. Finally, in order to actually increase the amount of current pumped into the LCD, the current sense resistor in the feedback network of the boost regulator has to be modified. R524 programs the backlight current in the "on" state of the backlight, though the following relationship: I = 1.146V / R524. Its stock value of 57.6 ohms yields a current near 20 mA; replacing this with a 5.6 ohm resistor will yield a current just over 200 mA.
Replacing D502 is a fairly straightforward task; just be sure to install it with the correct polarity! However, installing a replacement for R524 is a bit trickier. The original resistor is an 0402 sized device that can dissipate up to 0.063W, but the new application requires about 0.25W power dissipation. Therefore, a larger 0805 device needs to be installed. It can be tricky trying to solder a larger SMT component onto pads that are too small for it, so the easiest way to install it is to put it on sideways, spanning between one of the original pads of R524 and the adjacent, connected pad of R525, as shown below.
Rework locations are highlighted with the pink arrows.
Installation for R524. The 0805 device is kitty corner between its lower pad and the adjacent pad of R525, which is connected to the same signal.
Just make sure you get the polarity right!
Mounting the Chumby to the new LCD
Now that you've got all the bits and pieces, it's time to put it all together. It's good practice to mount the pieces so that they aren't "floating"; the flat flex cables are fragile, and they will easily strain and break if you move the unit around too much. If you have access to a laser cutter, you can build the LCD mount using the designs presented below.
Download all of the designs in Adobe Illustrator format (suitable for printing to a Versalaser VL300 laser cutter straightaway) at this link.
A VL300 lasercutter.
The front bezel could be a simple affair, but I decided to snazz it up a bit by using a process that simulates the look of in-mold decorated injection molded plastics. Normally, with a laser cutter, you engrave on the outside surface, leaving a dull-looking patch and potentially some marring of the work area due to the heat of the laser. In the process I describe here, you first paint the back side of a clear acrylic sheet to the desired color, and then you engrave away the paint from behind. The result is a crystal-clear and mirror-smooth front surface, with a buried color layer and crisp-looking white-colored pattern engraved into the color layer. I finish this off by laminating the back with a second, thin protective layer of acrylic, to prevent the paint from chipping as the piece is handled.
Now, for the details. First take a 1/8" piece of clear acrylic, and strip back the protective shipping tape on one side only in an area that's about 12″x12″. Immediately spray paint the exposed surface to the color of your choice; in this example, the color blue is used. When selecting a spray paint, pick one that is formulated to adhere to plastic surfaces. Before you spray paint the sheet, it's important to keep the exposed region free of finger oil, dust and dirt, as these will get trapped underneath the paint and you'll be staring at those defects forever.
Allow the spraypaint to dry overnight, and then put the assembly into the laser cutter, and load up the front bezel design file.
First, use an engraving-only step (e.g., delete the red lines in the drawing source, or if you are using advanced mode on the laser cutter disable vector cutting) to selectively remove the paint in the shape of the logo you want to have on the bezel. Keep in mind that you are engraving from the back, so the logo has to be flipped about the vertical axis before you do the engraving. You may need to repeat the engraving a couple of times depending upon how thick the paint is, and what color the paint is; in this example, I had to engrave the logo three times before it came out completely clean of dust and dark-colored laser burn products. So before you move the workpiece, take a look at the engraved area and be sure that you can see a consistent, clean sheen of acrylic, free of paint and residue in all areas!
Then, you can cut the bezel out using the red cutting path. Clean the logo regions of any remaining dirt or paint specs using a dry Q-tip and an canned air duster. Do not use a solvent or liquid, as I have found these can get underneath the paint or cause cracking in the freshly cut acrylic.
Next, cut a second protective bezel using 1/16" clear acrylic using the reverse bezel pattern. This pattern also has alignment markers on it, which are important for making sure the LCD's active area is centered in the opening of the bezel. There is no need to treat the reverse bezel with paint because it is simply a protective layer to protect the painted front bezel from chipping and scratching.
Glue the reverse bezel and the front bezel together using a spray-on adhesive, such as the 3M 3094 Photo Mount Adhesive. To do this, first spray the adhesive onto the reverse bezel (do this on the side without the engraved alignment marks, and be sure to remove the protective plastic layer first) until the whole sheet is frosty.
Then quickly press the two halves together, paying attention to which way the alignment markers should go for the display to be right side up relative to the logos, and hold in place until the adhesive sets. When you are finished, the bezel should look something like this, as viewed from the rear.
Once you have the bezel prepared, cut out the back mounting plate using 1/8" clear acrylic and the backplate pattern.
Finally, cut out the LCD mounting corners and the stand for the assembly using ¼" acrylic and the frame stand pattern.
A set of gaskets are applied to the outside of the LCD along the silvery circuitry area of the touchscreen panel in order to improve the touchscreen's robustness against heat warpage of the acrylic that can cause the bezel to inadvertently touch down onto the screen. The gasket material in this case is Poron, but you may also use a couple layers of thin-cut pieces of masking tape to create a small offset between the bezel edge and the display.
Before screwing the backplate in place, attach the 33-pin flat flex cable (that you previously made by cutting down the 36-pin cable), and connect the other side to the adapter board; at this time, also connect the 4-pin touchpanel cable and the 50-pin cable for the LCD signals to the motherboard. Then, fold the adapter board assembly over and screw it in place using 4x M2x6mm socket cap screws.
(click this image for a larger version).
Now, connect both the 4-pin touchpanel cable and the 50-pin flat flex cable to the chumby core board. Screw the chumby core board in place using the original screws, standoffs, and wifi riser.
You're almost done! Flip the LCD assembly into the bezel, using the alignment pattern on the bezel as a guide, and glue the four LCD mounting corners in place, paying attention to ensure that the holes on the mounting corners line up with the holes on the back plate (you can accidentally put a mounting corner on upside down and have the holes end up on the wrong edge of the LCD). Standard super glue works well for this application. Allow the glue to dry for at least a half hour before proceeding.
Once the glue is dry, screw on the backplate using 4x M2x12mm socket cap screws.
The final step is to build the stand for the display. In order to do this, you will need a drill press and 1/16" drill. Carefully drill holes vertically into the large, semi-rectangular piece with the slot in it as shown below.
Then, use 2x M2x12 socket cap screws to hold the triangular supports onto the middle piece. One piece has the top of the triangle truncated so that it does not interfere with the adapter board mounted on the backplate. Therefore, take care to make sure you put the truncated piece on the same side as the adapter board!
Connect the speaker/switch assembly to the core assembly via the ribbon cable, and prop the whole assembly up on the stand; there is a tab on the speaker/switch assembly that fits into a slot in the stand so the whole unit can be lifted up and carried around without leaving pieces dangerously dangling.
Click on the above image for a larger version.
Modifying the Kernel and Scripts
There's one more step left in the hack, and that's to modify the kernel and the boot scripts of the chumby. A stock chumby knows nothing about how to drive a VGA display!
The kernel contains the code that initializes the video frame buffer's size, so the timing needs to be programmed into these registers by modifying the kernel source. Here is a patchfile that you can apply to the 1.5.0 kernel (build 565) that performs the appropriate initializations. The patch modifies one of the clock registers inside the MX21 to increase the frequency of the clock feeding the LCD controller, and it also modifies the LCD controller registers itself. It also patches code that handles copying the initial logo screen from a staging area in RAM to its final location. It's more involved to get the bootloader to behave properly and show a more elegant startup screen; here is a link to the modified bootloader source. This code replicates the QVGA bitmaps stored in the bootloader four times over inside the VGA frame buffer for the chumby, and it handles some other corner cases during the hand-off between the bootloader and the kernel at higher resolutions as well.
Now, you need to tell the Adobe Flasplayer inside the chumby to use a VGA resolution when rendering content to the screen. This is done by using the –x and –y command line arguments to specify the screen resolution when the Flashplayer is called. You can use a series of backdoors built into the bootscripts to subvert all of the points at which the Flashplayer is called so that even if the Flashplayer restarts itself due to a timeout or other error condition, it starts with the correct resolution settings (thanks to Henry Groover at Chumby for putting together these scripts!). One of the elegant features of the Chumby Networks' content is the fact that widgets are typically written using scalable vector graphics in Flash, so for the majority of content, changing the rendering resolution just works and it also looks great.
The following is a link to a USB dongle image that you can use to retrofit your chumby with the above patches, assuming your chumby has previously been updated to firmware version 1.5.0. Download the link, and burn it to a blank USB drive. Then, insert the USB drive into your chumby.
SSH into the device, and execute the following commands:
cd / tar –xzf /mnt/usb/psp-640.tgz
This operation installs all of the scripts required to override the default settings of the Flashplayer into the read-writeable storage partition /psp.
Finally, reboot while holding down the touchscreen so that you enter the "Special Options" mode. When the selection screen comes up, you should be able to log in via the serial console and execute the command "update.sh USB", which will overwrite the bootloader and the primary kernel with the code patches mentioned above. For safety reasons, the backup partitions' kernel is not modified by the dongle, so you always have a safe partition to return to for re-flashing a broken chumby. The graphics on the screen will look funny in this mode, but it's not harmful for the LCD.
Once the system reboots, you can remove the dongle and enjoy your new high-res, large-screen chumby hack!


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... and the link to the walkthrough @ The Circle doesn't work, by the way
I found two keys, the basement key and the control room key. After using the control room key they both disappeared and now they are missing in my inventory. What the hell happened to them?
... and the link to the walkthrough @ The Circle doesn't work, by the way
This is really strange! I restarted the mission and this time the first key wasn't on his place so I didn't find it. And another key disappeared again after using it. Is this a bad joke? Perhaps a conspiracy? (Because the walkthrough doesn't work )
Please help, I'm losing my mind
OK, now I have a new problem. I found two doors and one key, but the key doesn't open any of the doors. So I don't know how to proceed. Has nobody else played this FM? Strange.
Cool, I found a walkthrough in the FM's zip file.
What a nice monologue thread
Many of the objects are randomly placed around the world (random between a few designated possibilities), so as to add replay value. Yes, they keys get "used up", I actually liked it because it kept my inventory uncluttered.
- The Keep of Metal and Gold - All Thief Fan Missions Ever, with Screen Shots (old address here)
- See tons of screenshots from not yet released missions!
- Send in your upcoming FM screenshots or newly completed missions or Demo missions or...


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We can only imagine that, some 6 million years ago, when hominids began to stand upright, there was a tremendous controversy amongst the proto- australopithecines as to whether assuming this new posture was "natural." Weren't Lucy and her ilk simply violating their most basic nature?
The debate has continued ever since, as humans have learned new skills and augmented their minds and bodies for reasons both aesthetic and practical. Today we live in an age of unprecedented human malleability — pacemakers, nose jobs, laser eye surgery, and other wonders. But that's nothing compared to where we're going next. We may soon be able to match the level of change that occurred in the six-million-year ascent from Australopithecus to modern human — only we'll do it in a single human lifetime, or perhaps a matter of years, or maybe even faster than that.
What might we become?A panel of futurists join us to discuss the prospects for an expanded and improved definition of humanity.
Join us:
Wednesday, July 20, 2011


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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The darkly suspenseful tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives—all over the course of one meal. Now a major motion picture."Chilling, nasty, smart, shocking, and unputdownable."—Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl
It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse—the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act—an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families.
As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.
Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.


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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL
Undergraduate - Unit
Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.
Organisational Unit
Unit guides
This unit is designed to provide students with a theoretical and practical appreciation of the central role marketing communication plays in the general business environment. The unit provides a framework for examining, analysing and evaluation various aspects of the marketing communications process and the relevant marketing communications tools most commonly used. It is further designed to assist business managers to make choices regarding which marketing tools to use under a variety of dynamic environments. Topics covered include: advertising, PR, personal selling, direct selling, Internet marketing, sponsorship, sales promotion, emerging technologies and their potential.
The learning goals associated with this unit are to:
- demonstrate a detailed understanding of the marketing communication strategies used to build brands
- understand and apply marketing communication functions
- analyse and apply the marketing communication processes as they apply to specific targets
- analyse the social, legal, and ethical issues associated with marketing communication from both a national and international perspective
- determine and apply the processes associated with evaluating the effectiveness of marketing communications across a range of media vehicles.
Within semester assessment: 50% + Examination: 50%
Workload requirements
Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Independent study may include associated readings, assessment and preparation for scheduled activities. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.
See also Unit timetable information
Chief examiner(s)
Students must have passed one of MKW1120 or MKG1120 and one of MKW2402 or MKG2402 before undertaking this unit.


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...one of the most highly
regarded and expertly designed C++ library projects in the
— Herb Sutter and Andrei
Alexandrescu, C++
Coding Standards
The primary motivation for Boost.Signals2 is to provide a version of
the original Boost.Signals library which can be used safely in a
multi-threaded environment.
This is achieved primarily through two changes from the original Boost.Signals
API. One is the introduction of a new automatic connection management scheme
relying on shared_ptr
and weak_ptr
as described in the tutorial.
The second change was the introduction of a Mutex
template type
parameter to the signal
class. This section details how
the library employs these changes to provide thread-safety, and
the limits of the provided thread-safety.
Each signal object default-constructs a Mutex
object to protect
its internal state. Furthermore, a Mutex
is created
each time a new slot is connected to the signal, to protect the
associated signal-slot connection.
A signal's mutex is automatically locked whenever any of the
signal's methods are called. The mutex is usually held until the
method completes, however there is one major exception to this rule. When
a signal is invoked by calling
the invocation first acquires a lock on the signal's mutex. Then
it obtains a handle to the signal's slot list and combiner. Next
it releases the signal's mutex, before invoking the combiner to
iterate through the slot list. Thus no mutexes are held by the
signal while a slot is executing. This design choice
makes it impossible for user code running in a slot
to deadlock against any of the
mutexes used internally by the Boost.Signals2 library.
It also prevents slots from accidentally causing
recursive locking attempts on any of the library's internal mutexes.
Therefore, if you invoke a signal concurrently from multiple threads,
it is possible for the signal's combiner to be invoked concurrently
and thus the slots to execute concurrently.
During a combiner invocation, the following steps are performed in order to find the next callable slot while iterating through the signal's slot list.
The Mutex
associated with the connection to the
slot is locked.
All the tracked weak_ptr
associated with the
slot are copied into temporary shared_ptr
will be kept alive until the invocation is done with the slot. If this fails due
to any of the
being expired, the connection is
automatically disconnected. Therefore a slot will never be run
if any of its tracked weak_ptr
have expired,
and none of its tracked weak_ptr
expire while the slot is running.
The slot's connection is checked to see if it is blocked or disconnected, and then the connection's mutex is unlocked. If the connection was either blocked or disconnected, we start again from the beginning with the next slot in the slot list. Otherwise, we commit to executing the slot when the combiner next dereferences the slot call iterator (unless the combiner should increment the iterator without ever dereferencing it).
Note that since we unlock the connection's mutex before executing
its associated slot, it is possible a slot will still be executing
after it has been disconnected by a
, if
the disconnect was called concurrently with signal invocation.
You may have noticed above that during signal invocation, the invocation only
obtains handles to the signal's slot list and combiner while holding the
signal's mutex. Thus concurrent signal invocations may still wind up
accessing the
same slot list and combiner concurrently. So what happens if the slot list is modified,
for example by connecting a new slot, while a signal
invocation is in progress concurrently? If the slot list is already in use,
the signal performs a deep copy of the slot list before modifying it.
Thus the a concurrent signal invocation will continue to use the old unmodified slot list,
undisturbed by modifications made to the newly created deep copy of the slot list.
Future signal invocations will receive a handle to the newly created deep
copy of the slot list, and the old slot list will be destroyed once it
is no longer in use. Similarly, if you change a signal's combiner with
while a signal invocation is running concurrently, the concurrent
signal invocation will continue to use the old combiner undisturbed,
while future signal invocations will receive a handle to the new combiner.
The fact that concurrent signal invocations use the same combiner object means you need to insure any custom combiner you write is thread-safe. So if your combiner maintains state which is modified when the combiner is invoked, you may need to protect that state with a mutex. Be aware, if you hold a mutex in your combiner while dereferencing slot call iterators, you run the risk of deadlocks and recursive locking if any of the slots cause additional mutex locking to occur. One way to avoid these perils is for your combiner to release any locks before dereferencing a slot call iterator. The combiner classes provided by the Boost.Signals2 library are all thread-safe, since they do not maintain any state across invocations.
Suppose a user writes a slot which connects another slot to the invoking signal. Will the newly connected slot be run during the same signal invocation in which the new connection was made? The answer is no. Connecting a new slot modifies the signal's slot list, and as explained above, a signal invocation already in progress will not see any modifications made to the slot list.
Suppose a user writes a slot which disconnects another slot from the invoking signal. Will the disconnected slot be prevented from running during the same signal invocation, if it appears later in the slot list than the slot which disconnected it? This time the answer is yes. Even if the disconnected slot is still present in the signal's slot list, each slot is checked to see if it is disconnected or blocked immediately before it is executed (or not executed as the case may be), as was described in more detail above.
The methods of the signals2::connection
class are thread-safe,
with the exception of assignment and swap. This is achived via locking the mutex
associated with the object's underlying signal-slot connection. Assignment and
swap are not thread-safe because the mutex protects the underlying connection
which a signals2::connection
object references, not
the signals2::connection
object itself. That is,
there may be many copies of a signals2::connection
all of which reference the same underlying connection. There is not a mutex
for each signals2::connection
object, there is only
a single mutex protecting the underlying connection they reference.
The shared_connection_block
class obtains some thread-safety
from the Mutex
protecting the underlying connection which is blocked
and unblocked. The internal reference counting which is used to keep track of
how many shared_connection_block
objects are asserting
blocks on their underlying connection is also thread-safe (the implementation
relies on shared_ptr
for the reference counting).
However, individual shared_connection_block
should not be accessed concurrently by multiple threads. As long as two
threads each have their own shared_connection_block
then they may use them in safety, even if both shared_connection_block
objects are copies and refer to the same underlying connection.
The signals2::slot
class has no internal mutex locking
built into it. It is expected that slot objects will be created then
connected to a signal in a single thread. Once they have been copied into
a signal's slot list, they are protected by the mutex associated with
each signal-slot connection.
The signals2::trackable
class does NOT provide
thread-safe automatic connection management. In particular, it leaves open the
possibility of a signal invocation calling into a partially destructed object
if the trackable-derived object is destroyed in a different thread from the
one invoking the signal.
is only provided as a convenience
for porting single-threaded code from Boost.Signals to Boost.Signals2.
Last revised: June 12, 2007 at 14:01:23 -0400 |


text:
The original cut-to-tune FireStik KW custom blended, fiberglass reinforced shaft antenna is a 27 MHz antenna and is N.O.A.A. weather channel ready. 2 foot antenna is 5/8 wave rated for 100 watts 3 foot antenna is 5/8 wave rated for 300 watts 4 foot antenna is 5/8 wave rated for 400 watts 5 foot antenna is 5/8 wave rated for 500 watts 6 foot antenna is 5/8 wave rated for 600 watts 7 foot antenna is 5/8 wave rated for 700 watts Standard 3/8x24 threaded ferrule 100% American Made
Looking for an easy tune option? Check out the ! It has a tuning tip under the cap that makes antenna tuning much easier!
Tuning the KW CB antenna is required for properly setting the SWR of your CB radio. Don't neglect this important task. Be sure to use a quality SWR meter for best results. We offer an online You Tube video with basic instruction on How to Tune a CB Antenna like the KWX.Essentially, if your SWR readings show that you need to shorten the antenna, you remove the antenna cap, and cut back the plastic coating on the tip of the antenna to slightly expose the copper wound wire. You will trim the wire, maybe 1/8" at a time, put the cap back on, and recalibrate/recheck your SWR readings until you achievethe desired result.If your SWR readings show that you need to lengthen the antenna, you could add a spring or possibly switch to a longer section of coax cable. In any case, be sure to properly store any excess coax in a figure 8. This is very important.Firestik does offer their easy tune tuning tip antennas, the Firestik II antennas (check out the FSX), but they only go up to 5 feet in length.Shipping cost is based on weight. Just add products to your cart and use the Shipping Calculator to see the shipping price.
We want you to be 100% satisfied with your purchase. Items can be returned or exchanged within 30 days of delivery.


text:
Welcome to our resources page on Marketing Management - the fine art of leveraging marketing techniques to drive organizational success. Here you can discover valuable insights on trends, best practices, and strategies to develop and maximize the value of your marketing. Develop the tools and techniques to drive your business forward today with our expert resources.
IT'S FREE! Become a member to get the tools and knowledge you need to market smarter.
We respect your privacy.
CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Customer Experience
Although its importance is never denied, "personalization" in marketing can be such a nebulous word. Is it even measurable? How do you find out whether it affects the bottom line? Check out this five-step guide.
CONTENT TYPE: Podcast | TOPIC: Artificial Intelligence
Generative AI is certainly a hot topic in a general and philosophical sense. But how can it actually be integrated into business processes to change the way we do marketing? Join host George B. Thomas and guest David Greenberg for a conversation about conversations: AI-powered conversations, conversational metrics, conversational benchmarks, and more.
CONTENT TYPE: PRO Webinar | TOPIC: Marketing Strategy
SESSION 2 of 4: Your company believes in the product, and distribution is in the works. Now the company needs your marketing to get the buyers' attention! Learn how to fill your Go-to-Market Plan with marketing tactics that make your executives, management, and customers happy.
CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Branding
Companies are fighting to survive, and Marketing needs to be more than a cost center. Although it's easy to preach about the value of brand marketing, the rubber needs to meet the road in practical execution and deliver tangible results.
CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Marketing Management
The job market has been volatile recently, see-sawing between pandemic layoffs and the "Great Resignation." This article looks at the company characteristics that help attract and then retain B2B marketing talent.
CONTENT TYPE: Podcast | TOPIC: Marketing Strategy
Host George B. Thomas and guest Jill Roberson delve into the differences between digital evolution and digital transformation, including why companies should get used to being uncomfortable and mark their digital journey with evolutionary milestones instead of treating transformation as a single task.
SESSION 1 of 4: There are no guarantees in business. But when you're entering a new market or releasing a new product, you can stack the odds in your favor with a Go-to-Market Plan. Create a comprehensive GTM plan that aligns your product with your sales and marketing teams to give your business the best chance at success.
CONTENT TYPE: Chart | TOPIC: Marketing Content
Most software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketers say text is the format they use most for their case studies, but that they want to create more video case studies in 2023, according to recent research from Uplift Content.
CONTENT TYPE: Chart | TOPIC: Marketing Management
A significant share of workers say they would be deterred from taking a job offer if the company takes a political stance contrary to their own, according to recent research from Hi Bob.
CONTENT TYPE: Chart | TOPIC: Marketing Strategy
B2B marketers say the term "revenue marketing" encompasses a wide range of results-focused tactics and goals, according to recent research from Demand Spring.
CONTENT TYPE: Infographic | TOPIC: Marketing Management
More than half of remote workers say they've cooked food and done laundry while on the clock, according to a survey of 1,005 workers conducted by CraftJack.
The cheeky adage "if you want something done right, do it yourself" is impractical (to say the least) in modern business. You have a team for a reason. It's time to put them to good use.
CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Martech
Your data-driven marketing is only as good as your data. Clean rooms can be a useful resource, but only if the data shared in them follows certain standards.
Digital transformation can't be done all at once or off the cuff. Adopting automation and new martech must be a deliberate process that ensures business success while prioritizing the right tech.
Host George B. Thomas and guest Amrita Mathur dive into how marketing-led growth can get you from $0 to $30 million in less than three years. Learn what marketing-led growth is, why marketing is more than just sales support, how to implement what you learn from campaigns, and more.
CONTENT TYPE: Infographic | TOPIC: Artificial Intelligence
Can generative AI do a better job than humans of creating pitch decks intended to secure funding? To find out, Clarify Capital had 500 investors look at decks that had been created by GPT-4 as well as successful decks that had been created by people.
Companies today must embrace digitizing nearly every aspect of their business to ensure compelling, engaging, and valuable digital buyer journeys. That is, no doubt, a monumental task. But there is a path forward.
This infographic from Abode explores data points and best-practices related to successfully hiring and retaining Gen Z talent.
CONTENT TYPE: Podcast | TOPIC: Measurement & Analytics
Host George B. Thomas and guest Bonnie Crater talk marketing attribution, from single-touch and multitouch to attribution and funnel metrics and the differences between them. They also discuss how attribution helps you maximize your budget in a tight market.
If you're concerned about your company's customer experience, don't just throw a CXO into the fray and expect that person to fix it. Leaders need buy-in from all departments to improve customer experience.
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text:
With a map in hand I feel like I can go anywhere |
How to print a free topo map
Picture this: it is midnight on Friday and your weekend plans changed, freeing you up for a two-day backpacking trip. Do you wait until the stores open on Saturday to go buy a map and get a late start? Do you head out into the backcountry without a map? Do you quickly print a map from your computer?Step 1: Create a map
Step 2: Press Print
This image is from the beta site |
Step 3: Set up specs in the Print dialogue box (most of it is set up for you)
Step 4: Direct your printer to scale the map
This is the system dialogue print screen for the Chrome internet browser. Enter your scale percent in the field marked "scale" circled in red. |
Optional: Troubleshooting Print Scale
Use the zoom function on hillmap on the left side of your screen. You can check the level of detail after hillmap has generated your map in your browser (this is after you have hit print in hillmap, and before you hit print for your browser).
Zoomed out |
Zoomed in |


text:
It sized me up. It was clear that Josh is the person it trusted. He asked it to step onto his glove so I could examine it.
And it did, this wild bird. No flapping, no panicking, just acquiescence. Trust.
It allowed me to stretch its left wing, where I found a break near the wrist joint. It gave me the slightest nibble with its golden bill when I found the bad spot, to tell me that it hurt. Oh poor creature. If I could wave a wand and fix you...
I couldn't resist digging my fingers into the deep, incredibly silky soft feathers on its head and giving it a little rubdown. I have had a barred owl push back up against my caress just like a cat. It didn't do that, but it didn't seem to mind, either.


text:
Email Spam Blocker 2 - Expression Web Add-In
Protect your email addresses from being grabbed by spam bots.
Do you list email addresses on your web site? If you do, you must take some extra effort to protect them. Why? Unprotected plain text email addresses are an easy catch for spam bots, special computer programs harvesting email addresses from web sites. Once an email address is collected it gets into an unsolicited bulk email database and starts receiving spam emails.
The Email Spam Blocker Expression Web add-in is an effective solution to the email harvesting. It allows to hide email addresses from spam bots, while leaving them readable and accessible to human site visitors.
- Powerful protection - spam bots never see real email addresses, they are stored in an encrypted form and are only displayed to human visitors. Real people see real email addresses as if they were never encrypted and can click on them to send emails.
- Full cross-browser compatibility - works in all currently used browsers (such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, IE8 - IE11, Safari, Opera, etc.), degrades gracefully in very old browsers.
- Valid HTML and CSS - email spam blocker markup complies with HTML, XHTML and CSS standards and passes W3C and Expression Web validity checks.
- Lightweight and fast to load - CSS and JavaScript files are generated and optimized based on particular settings and are stripped off of unused functionality.
- No frameworks required - no third party frameworks are required, the code is light, fast and easy to maintain. No Flash, Java or canvas is required.
- User-friendly Expression Web add-in GUI - GUI is there for you to make style editing as easy as it can be. If you need to change a color, all you do is pick a color, you don't change a hex value in a CSS file. All settings are organized, grouped, and labeled.
- Live WYSIWYG preview - see how your email address link looks and behaves in a browser, as you edit it. Any change in the style or structure is instantly reflected in IE browser embedded into this window.
- Unlimited number of sites - use this add-in to protect email addresses on as many sites as you need.
- No monthly fee or subscription - you don't have to pay monthly fee or subscription fee.
- Dedicated support team - our support team is more than happy to assist you in resolving any issues.
- Free trial - no need to buy a pig in a poke, take advantage of a risk-free fully functional 15-day trial before handing over your money.
- 60 day money back guarantee - If our product does not suit you, we will return your money, no questions asked.
System requirements
Microsoft Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000
Microsoft Expression Web 4, 3(SP2), 2, 1, Microsoft FrontPage 2003, 2002, 2000


text:
- Description
25,000 BTU's
37"W x 11 1/2"D x 27 3/4"H
Weight 98lbs
Venting Included
Millivolt Wall Thermostat Required (Not Included)
Clearances: Top 48", Sides 6", 4" Bottom
Wall Depth: Min 4.5", Max 13"
Vent Wall Opening: 7 1/2" dia.
Download Specs / Brochure
Download Owner's Manual
Heating larger areas is convenient and economical with Empire's Direct Vent Units. Delivering ample, room-filling warmth, each furnace is stylishly crafted and fits against an outside wall.
Optional automatic blowers install easily into each model for more even heat distribution.
DV 25 = 25,000 BTU's, DV 35 = 35,000 BTU's
All installation and service of these units should be performed by a qualified installation and service agency including the use of the installation and service manuals which are specifically intended for use by a qualified installation and service agency.
* This Item Ships By Freight
Freight Receiving and Damage Reporting Procedure
Your signature on a delivering carrier's freight Bill Of Lading (BOL) constitutes acceptance of the merchandise "as is" and in good order. If you do not inspect before signing you are, for all practical purposes, waiving "our" right to collect on a damage claim even if the damage is "concealed". Remember, once you sign, the merchandise and the responsibility is yours!
During delivery should you determine any damages or shortages, you MUST note the damage or shortage on the delivery "Bill Of Lading" before you sign it!
Freight Shipment Policy


text:
Select a row below to filter reviews.
Simply hang onto the original packaging and contact us within 30 days of receipt if you are not satisfied with this product. We will have the item picked up at our cost and refund you in full. We are that confident you will love this product!
Please note that items must be in their original packaging and in the original condition for this return policy to apply. Also, please be sure to contact us within 30 days of receipt. Lastly, if you are unsure whether this product will fit your needs please contact a customer service expert toll free at 866-308-5484.


text:
'The shape of the foot conforms to that of the shoe'
-Dr. Phil Hoffman, 19051
Modern footwear is largely focused on style, rather than the function of the human foot. Choice of shoe is a hugely important task, as this determines how our feet will function both in and out of them.
'The shape of the foot conforms to that of the shoe'
-Dr. Phil Hoffman, 19051
Modern footwear is largely focused on style, rather than the function of the human foot. Choice of shoe is a hugely important task, as this determines how our feet will function both in and out of them.
Foot Anatomy vs. Footwear
To understand what makes a good shoe, we must first understand the shape and function of the human foot. In humans, the foot supports us during locomotion and usually directs our bodyweight forwards. Therefore, the wider and flatter the foot, the more support.2
When walking, the gait cycle usually begins with a heel strike, then travelling through the foot ending with the toe-off phase, with an inverted pendulum mechanism. During running, a spring mechanism takes over,3, 4with forefoot or mid-foot landing, followed by the toe-off phase.5
During this toe-off phase is when the hallux (big toe) must press into the ground, halt foot pronation and direct the body in the sagittal plane. Any valgus of the hallux may compromise this function and shift the load elsewhere, usually out to the sides.2
This can potentially cause knee valgus, pelvic twisting and additional pressure on other joints, and is usually seen in the foot of the trail leg splaying out to the sides.
Restricting the hallux using a splint has been observed to reduce single leg performance.6 Considering that running is a single leg activity, this finding is rather significant.
Poor footwear essentially mimics the effect of a splint, creating a dysfunctional foot that is no longer capable of support or directing bodyweight during locomotion.
Even during standing, the hallux presses into the floor and exerts twice the pressure of the remaining four toes, if it functions correctly.6
Distance between the hallux and second toe is also key in optimal human foot function (see Fig. 1). Shod runners have been shown to possess a 6.28mm and 5.39mm distance in men and women respectively, while barefoot runners displays distances of 23.73mm and 19.38mm in men and women.7
This hallux adduction helps give the foot width, and provides an optimal angle to function correctly by providing greater leverage to halt foot pronation. Simple observation shows that the barefoot runner's feet provider a wider base of support than that of shod runners.
Diagram from:Foot Morphological Difference between Habitually Shod and Unshod Runners7
What Makes Running Shoes So Bad?
Many running shoes now have features that work the polar opposite of anatomy: narrow toe boxes, high toe/heel drops, thick and cushioned soles, and a toe spring.
Narrow toe boxes do not allow correct hallux function, squeezing the toes together and essentially shutting down the foot's ability to direct bodyweight. When this happens, other tissues will have to compensate for the ineffective hallux.2Fig. 1 beautifully shows the differences between shod and barefoot runners for a visualisation.
Toe springs, identified by elevated toes of the shoe, take away the foot's natural ability to absorb, store and release energy. The naked foot's spring action returns about 17% of the energy from each step.4
When that mechanism is hindered, other tissues are once again needed to compensate, and the next available spring is the Achilles tendon. Toe springs in shoes might sound like an advantage, like these shoes are helping us run faster and for longer.
However, due to shoes taking away these functions, our feet are becoming unable to perform their natural roles, causing muscles to atrophy and connective tissue to become fibrotic.
Cushioned shoes are thought to interfere with the body's ability to change from an inverted pendulum (walking) gait to a spring gait (running), and create rear foot striking.5
During walking, the heel lands first. Ground reaction forces (GRF) travel through the first point of contact and provide information as to how hard the heel is striking the ground. Once these GRFs increase, the risk for injury increases, and the body reacts by changing to a running gait.
Adding cushioning to the heel dampens this feedback, increasing the speed at which you can run with a heel strike. Again, the effect is that additional tissues come in and compensate for this alien running technique.
Reversing the effects of years of anatomically incorrect shoes is not an easy task. [Photo credit: Pixabay]
The Problem with Poor Footwear
The whole kinematics of shod runners appears different to barefoot populations.8
Shod runners experience increases in stride length, stride time and ground contact time compared to barefoot running. Shoes also seem to enable higher hip flexion, which may be tied to the increased stride length and time.5
The biomechanical differences between shoes with different toe/sole drop are substantial. Comparing shoes of 0mm and 8mm drop, a 4.2° increase in foot-ground angle (the acute angle of the foot relative to the ground) was observed during the touchdown phase of running.9
In other words, the more the heel is elevated, the more one will land heel-first during running. This tendency to land on the rear foot or heel strike may also explain the decreased knee angle at touchdown.
The negative effects of shoes can also be observed in a very short amount of time. Hallux valgus and deformation has been observed in habitually barefoot teenagers in a mere 6 weeks after wearing shoes. In adults, hallux valgus may take as long as two years to correct with barefoot shoe use.2,10
The feet appear to quickly morph to the shoes they are encased in, and these effects may be easier to resolve at a young age.
What You Can Do About It
As previously stated, a cushioned sole is likely to interfere with the foot's natural function and sensory feedback,2as well as contribute to this increase in heel striking tendencies.5
Due to the vast biomechanical differences between conventional running shoes and barefoot, it is advisable to ease into barefoot running. A transition shoe or multiple transition shoes, depending your starting point, would be optimal to prepare your body for barefoot running.
This transition shoe(s) should slowly move in the direction of barefoot running by featuring a reduced heel/toe drop or wider toe box.
Reversing the effects of years of anatomically incorrect shoes is not an easy task, but the younger you start this process, the easier and faster it will be. An ideal place to start could be a barefoot policy in your home. The end goal is to achieve a foot similar to Fig. 1B rather than 1A.
Self-myofascial release of the foot spring can be beneficial, specifically the plantar aponeurosis, Achilles tendon, tibialis anterior and soleus. Any tissue that is compensating for another is likely locked in a shortened position.
Coaxing these tissues to full function and increasing the neural pathways to lesser active (locked long) tissues of the foot may improve the overall function, strength and movement of your feet.
Strength training of the intrinsic foot muscles is also key, specifically flexor/extensor hallucis longus, flexor/extensor digitorum longus, and abductor halluces. Howevers this shouldn't take a priority in your rehabilitation. Achieving a structurally robust foot must accompany strength gains of these intrinsic muscles.
Pick the Right Shoe
Proper running shoes must have a wide toe box to allow the toes to splay out and encourage distance between the hallux and second toe. They should have zero toe/heel drop to allow the feet to function correctly, and feature a thin, non–cushioned sole that will not dampen feedback from the ground.
While no shoe compares to the effects of barefoot running,8,11a shoe that interferes as little as possible with the natural form and function of the human foot while providing plantar protection against puncture injury is the most beneficial.
This article has been written regarding running shoes. But this information can also be applied to nearly every type of shoe for every occasion from running to black tie events.
All modern shoes appear to feature similar defects to running shoes, such as narrow toe box, elevated heels, toe springs, and so on. Barefoot shoes, though they are an oxymoron if there ever was one, are increasing in popularity, which means an increase in availability. Take these points into your next shoe purchase may just put you on the path to getting your feet back to full strength.
More on anatomy and impact forces:
Impact Forces, Shoes, and Lower Leg Injuries: Part 1
1. Hoffmann, Phil. "Conclusions drawn from a comparative study of the feet of barefooted and shoe-wearing peoples." American Journal of Orthopedic Surgery 2, no. 2 (1905): 105-136.
2. Wilkinson, M., & Saxby, L. Form determines function: Forgotten application to the human foot?. The Foot and Ankle Online Journal, 9 (2):5.
3. Bolgla, L. A., & Malone, T. R.Plantar fasciitis and the windlass mechanism: a biomechanical link to clinical practice.Journal of athletic training,39(1), 77.
4. Bramble, Dennis M., and Daniel E. Lieberman. "Endurance Running and the Evolution of Homo." Nature 432, no. 7015 (2004): 345-52. doi:10.1038/nature03052.
5. Mei, Qichang, Justin Fernandez, Weijie Fu, Neng Feng, and Yaodong Gu. "A Comparative Biomechanical Analysis of Habitually Unshod and Shod Runners Based on a Foot Morphological Difference." Human Movement Science 42 (2015): 38-53. doi:10.1016/j.humov.2015.04.007.
6. Chou, Shih-Wei, Hsin-Yi Kathy Cheng, Jen-Hua Chen, Yan-Ying Ju, Yin-Chou Lin, and May-Kuen Alice Wong. "The Role of the Great Toe in Balance Performance." Journal of Orthopaedic Research 27, no. 4 (2009): 549-54. doi:10.1002/jor.20661.
7. Shu, Yang, Qichang Mei, Justin Fernandez, Zhiyong Li, Neng Feng, and Yaodong Gu. "Foot Morphological Difference between Habitually Shod and Unshod Runners." PLoS ONE 10, no. 7 (2015). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131385.
8. Bonacci, Jason, Philo U. Saunders, Amy Hicks, Timo Rantalainen, Bill (Guglielmo) T Vicenzino, and Wayne Spratford. "Running in a Minimalist and Lightweight Shoe Is Not the Same as Running Barefoot: A Biomechanical Study." British Journal of Sports Medicine 47, no. 6 (2013): 387-92. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2012-091837.
9. Chambon, Nicolas, Nicolas Delattre, Nils Guéguen, Eric Berton, and Guillaume Rao. "Shoe Drop Has opposite Influence on Running Pattern When Running Overground or on a Treadmill." European Journal of Applied Physiology Eur J Appl Physiol 115, no. 5 (2014): 911-18. doi:10.1007/s00421-014-3072-x.
10.Knowles, F. W. "Effects of shoes on foot form: an anatomical experiment."The Medical Journal of Australia1, no. 17 (1953): 579.
11. Lieberman, Daniel E., Madhusudhan Venkadesan, William A. Werbel, Adam I. Daoud, Susan D'Andrea, Irene S. Davis, Robert Ojiambo Mang'Eni, and Yannis Pitsiladis. "Foot Strike Patterns and Collision Forces in Habitually Barefoot versus Shod Runners." Nature 463, no. 7280 (2010): 531-35. doi:10.1038/nature08723.


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Just had a little issue that seams to be common in the web. Got a new server with Plesk 11 (sorry for that) and it took me nearly a day to get it working and setup for capifony deployment of Symfony2 projects.
The typical issues with not correctly set access rights for the root directory of the project (should be 755), manually editing of parameters.ini and other stuff was ok. But what nearly killed me was that my Plesk installation always returned a 503 when running PHP as apache module. FastCGI was default and seemed to be working, so I went with this.
Unfortunately this did not work with the admin interface that was running in a "virtual" subdirectory. It was not possible to login. In the background it is using the default, simple, boring and potentially unsecure basic authentification.
Did you know that there is a problem with FastCGI, Symfony2 and basic authentification? I did not, but know I know. It is fixed in the current release (2.0.16) – which is good. But unfortunately there is a RewriteRule that has to be written inside your web/.htaccess. Check the comment in src/symfony/src/Symfony/Component/HttpFoundation/ServerBag.php:
* php-cgi under Apache does not pass HTTP Basic user/pass to PHP by default * For this workaround to work, add this line to your .htaccess file: * RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}] * * A sample .htaccess file: * RewriteEngine On * RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
Unfortunately, I tried a different line that was written in the ticket above:
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization},L]
This did not work, but resulted in 401 results for all requests. Just remove the ,l which means that this .htaccess file will be left.
So if you are running a Symfony2 project with FastCGI, add this line to your web/.htaccess file:
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]