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Update #28 - Patch Notes
Hi everyone,
Update #28 is now available on the PUBG: Test Server and is scheduled to hit live servers very soon. As always, we'll keep you updated and announce when it goes to Live!
PUBG's latest update introduces our brand new feature Weapon Mastery! Weapon Mastery is a progression system that allows players to earn free rewards as they level up their gunplay skills. As part of Weapon Mastery we are also debuting Medals for players who perform awesome feats during their matches.
In addition to our latest feature, we've taken your feedback from our first round of Erangel loot rebalances and made adjustments. Speaking of adjustments, based on player feedback we have reduced the difficulty on a number of missions for Survivor Pass 3: Wild Card, including the elimination of a few missions deemed too difficult to complete.
There are a number of updates to how you can interact with items in the store, interface improvements for squads and over two dozen bug fixes.
Read on for more details on all of the changes and improvements.
Weapon Mastery has been added, a new feature that allows players to check their gun stats and earn rewards based on their skills!
- New Progression System
- Weapon Mastery is a new progression system where players can increase levels by gaining weapon XP based on players' weapon use.
- It operates all the time without being affected by seasons.
- Weapon Mastery offers 100 levels for players to achieve per weapon.
- In the lobby, players can check their weapon use information, last match results, and the rewards they acquired thus far through the newly created Mastery tab.
- Weapon Mastery Rewards
- There are three types of Weapon Mastery rewards. These rewards can only be acquired through Mastery achievement.
- Charms
- Charms are accessories that can be equipped to weapons.
- New charm can achieved at every five levels of progression per weapon.
- Charms can be used with any weapon skins.
- Acquired charms can be equipped/unlocked in the rewards page. Equipped charms can be seen in-game.
- Charms cannot be traded, sold, or exchanged for BP.
- Medals
- Medals highlight awesome accomplishments players perform with their weapons.
- Each medal can be earned multiple times. There is even a counter that tracks how many medals have been achieved.
- Tier Emblems
- Players can earn emblems equivalent to their level brackets achieved per each weapon.
- Up to 10 tiers can be achieved.
- There are three types of Weapon Mastery rewards. These rewards can only be acquired through Mastery achievement.
- How to earn Weapon XP
- Weapon XP for is earned when one or more of the following elements is satisfied during a match.
- Damage
- Headshots
- Defeats
- Defeats is a new term used for tracking actions that includes knockdowns, killing the last member of a team and killing solo players.
- You can acquire extra weapon XP based on distance of defeats.
- When earning Weapon XP, the amount received will increase based on how long you survived.
- Defeats follow the existing judgment rules for DBNO/Kills currently used in the game.
- Additional information:
- Weapon Mastery does not count friendly fire/team damage.
- Weapon Mastery does not count downs caused by road kills or environmental factors (blue zone, red zone, fall damage, or drowning).
- Weapon Mastery does not count throwables or melee damage.
- There is a maximum limit on each weapon that can be getting weapon XP.
- Weapon XP for is earned when one or more of the following elements is satisfied during a match.
For more information about Weapon Mastery, please read Introducing: Weapon Mastery.[www.pubg.com]
A second round of Erangel loot rebalances has been made, as well as improvements to some sounds and effects related to gameplay.
Erangel 2nd Loot Rebalance
As we have spoken previously in our Dev Letter: Erangel Loot Rebalance, we are constantly analyzing player feedback, play patterns and other data. With this update, we're implementing a second round of changes to improve the player looting experience on Erangel.
- The total amount of items spawned in Erangel has been increased by approximately 28%.
- Increased the overall amount of items spawned, especially the spawn rates of those higher priority items.
- Spawn rate of AR has been increased by approx 64%.
- Spawn rate of DMR has been increased by approx 114%.
- Spawn rate of SR has been increased by approx 177%.
- Spawn rates of equipment and armor have been slightly increased, especially level 2.
- Spawn rates of healing items have been slightly increased.
Erangel Blue Zone Rebalance Test (TEST SERVER ONLY)
- During this test server phase, we'll be testing some changes to the blue zone on Erangel. At this stage, these changes are purely experimental and we're looking for feedback to understand how players feel about the direction of the changes.
- There is no expected date or certainty that these changes will come to live servers, but we greatly appreciate and are looking forward to your feedback as we experiment with the blue zone changes specifically on the test server this week.
SR Damage Multiplier Changes
- Decreased the damage modifier of SR shots to the torso from 150% to 130%.
- Decreased the base damage of the AWM from 120 to 105.
- The AWM will no-longer kill full health players wearing a level 2 vest in one shot with these changes.
Sound Improvements
- We've now added more sounds for item interactions.
- Previously items were looted, dropped, equipped and unequipped, some items had the same sound effects regardless of the characteristics of each item. Sounds will now vary more between items.
- Added vehicle suspension sounds.
- Sounds of moving vehicles' suspension working can now be heard.
- Different sounds will be played in different situations. Vehicles moving on rough terrain or when landing from a jump will make unique sounds.
- Suspension sound volume is different between TPP and FPP.
Smoke Grenade Improvement
- Smoke grenades are now more accurately synchronized across all players and observers.
- Previously, smoke grenade duration for the viewer would start when coming into viewable range (1 km) of the smoke grenade. Smoke grenade plumes will now end at the same time for all players/observers.
Vehicles Effects Improvement
- Added vehicle lighting effects.
- Vehicle headlights, tail lights and dashboard are turned on when the vehicle's engine starts.
- The lights are only local visual effects and will not illuminate the surrounding areas.
Open/Close Doors Animation Improvement
- Improved the algorithm to determine when vehicles are blocking doors, preventing them from opening or closing.
After the launch of the Survivor Pass 3: Wild Card, we've been continuously collecting and analyzing mission result data. Additionally, we've been actively reviewing players feedback regarding specific mission difficulty. We have chosen to adjust and remove some missions which players found too difficult to complete.
- Daily Missions: Decreased the difficulty of 16 missions and deleted 4 missions which were too difficult.
- Weekly Missions: Decreased the difficulty of 16 missions and deleted 6 missions which were too difficult.
- Challenge Missions: Decreased the difficulty of 5 missions.
Store UI Overhaul
- Added Zoom in/out feature to item previews.
- Use mouse scroll to zoom in/out of the part where the mouse cursor is pointing.
- When zooming on the character, character UI is shown on the bottom right.
- You can zoom in to 4 different parts (Head, Torso, Lower body, Feet).
- Zoomed in parts are highlighted in the character UI.
- Click on different parts of the character model to select a view of that part (Head, Torso, Lower body, Feet).
- Horizontal rotations are now enabled in weapon and equipment previews.
- Release the mouse button during weapon or equipment preview to reset the camera view.
Team UI Overhaul
- Teammates boost gauges are now in the team UI visible while playing to enhance team play.
Changes in Display Mode Settings
- When using full screen mode, the window mode will be changed to full screen (windowed) while in the lobby to prevent specific crashing caused by typing. In-game will remain full screen.
- Full screen: In-game: Full screen / Lobby: Full screen(windowed).
- Full screen (Windowed): In-game: full screen (windowed) / Lobby: Full screen (windowed).
- Windowed: In-game: Windowed / Lobby: Windowed.
Survivor Title Season 3 Overview UI Improvements
- Season reward chart now shows 4 stages of rewards instead of 3.
- Additional UI has been added which shows points required for the next title.
- Optimized performance to decrease the time it takes to load into matches.
Observer Feature Improvements
- Kill message improvements
- To prevent confusion and distinguish individual messages from team messages, the existing individual multi-kill messages (RAMPAGE / EXECUTIONER / MASTERFUL / CONQUERING) have been removed to focus on the number of kills.
- Team Multi-kill messages will remain the same.
- The images for team multi-kill messages are now each shown with a separate image.
Added timer UI for Smoke Grenades while Observing
- To show the remaining time for the smoke grenades, each smoke will now have a timer UI showing the remaining smoke plume duration.
- The smoke timer lasts for about 40 seconds starting from the moment the smoke grenade plumes.
- When the timer hits approx. 20% remaining, the UI turns red and the icon shakes.
- When the timer hits 10% remaining, the icon shakes x2 as hard.
- The timer UI disappears when the spectator is farther than 100 m.
- The transparency of the UI changes depending on the distance.
Restored Kick Player Function
- Observers can find the KICK button by right-clicking a player's name on the player list. Click the left mouse on kick button to remove the player from the game.
- Players can be kicked in the middle of a game.
- In the replay feature, click right mouse button to toggle the REPORT button. Click the left mouse button again to report a player.
- The replay feature version has been updated. Existing replays recorded prior to this update are no longer playable.
- The PUBG 2nd Anniversary Cap will no longer be available after April 24th (KST) / April 23th(PDT).
- This is a free 2nd anniversary item, so don't forget to redeem it within the availability period!
- Item sales for FACEIT Global Summit Hoodies and Mask will end on April 24th( KST) / April 23th (PDT).
- 25% of the item's revenue goes to the teams participating in FACEIT Global Summit, support the teams by purchasing these items!
- Fixed an issue with some barbed wire fences blocking bullets.
- Fixed an issue where players are unable to pick up items that are placed under broken barbed wire fences.
- Fixed the issue with center screen DBNO and kill messages being delayed.
- Fixed the issue with interaction UI remaining in spectator screen when is killed during interaction UI activated.
- Fixed the issue with certain maneuver could prevent motorcycles from flipping.
- Fixed the issue which a vehicle could constantly move when system menu was opened.
- Fixed an issue with different UAZ model variants having different maximum speeds.
- Fixed the awkward character movement when using an emote and rotating the mouse in FPP view.
- Fixed the issue with a frag grenade ground burn mark textures overlapping the player character's model
- Fixed an issue where only one side of footsteps is output in certain situations.
- Fixed an issue which would remove player's hair completely when equipping caps.
- Fixed a visual issue when punk knuckle gloves were equipped.
- Fixed a visual issue preventing belts from being visible when wearing a fur coat.
- Fixed an issue where character's hair and face overlap when a female character equips specific hair styles and caps.
- Fixed a visual issue with shadows displaying incorrectly when swimming in FPP.
- Fixed a replay issue causing explosion effects to continue when moving through the timeline.
- Fixed an issue where players are unable to revive their teammates if casting UI freezes at 0 while reviving.
- Fixed an issue when using a scope and the character moves backward, the scope shakes.
- Fixed certain limb animations not playing while vaulting.
- Fixed an issue preventing the correct crosshair from being displayed after holstering a sidearm.
- Fixed an issue with Shirt (Plaid) icon not matching the in-game asset.
- Fixed a bug which prevented footsteps from being heard while walking over mud or water while wearing Harley Quinn Daddy's Lil' Monster Outfit


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Corsair AX750 80 Plus Gold: Putting Corsair's Best to the Test
by Martin Kaffei on November 30, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- PSUs
- 80Plus Gold
Corsair AX750
With sales of around 150,000 PSUs a month, Corsair is one of the largest vendors for retail power supplies. Corsair got in earlier than most other lateral entrants like GeIL or A-DATA, and their time in the market has enabled them to gather a lot of experience even if they don't have their own factory. In recent times they've used CWT, Seasonic and Flextronics as their PSU ODMs.
A few weeks ago Corsair presented their newest PSUs, the AX series. The goal is to provide performance, quality and high efficiency, this is apparently the best power supply Corsair can offer at the moment. Today we'll look at the AX750; is the 80Plus Gold certificate justified? And what other useful features does it provide?
The AX750 and 850W models are based on a Seasonic design (X-400FL and/or X-760) with some modifications in the details. For example Corsair uses flat peripheral cables and offers a 7-year warranty. They don't have the PWM fan from the original (it's an Antec patent), but they use the same kind of fan regulation; we will see that later in our test. Interesting features include the fully modular cable management and a silent, semi-passive fan control. Here's a complete rundown of the features (and marketing material).
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750 features:
- Supports the latest ATX12V v2.31 and EPS 2.92 standards and is backward compatible with ATX12V 2.2 and ATX12V 2.01 systems
- An ultra-quiet 120mm double ball-bearing fan delivers excellent airflow at an exceptionally low noise level by varying fan speed in response to temperature
- 80 Plus Gold certified to deliver at least 90% efficiency at 50% load
- Active Power Factor Correction (PFC) with PF value of 0.99
Universal AC input from 90~264V
- No more hassle of flipping that tiny red switch to select the voltage input!
- A dedicated single +12V rail offers maximum compatibility with the latest components
- Over-voltage and over-current protection, under-voltage protection, and short circuit protection provide maximum safety to your critical system components
- High-quality Japanese capacitors provide uncompromised performance and reliability
Completely modular cable system allows you to use only the cables you need
- Power supply upgrade and replacement is easy, as the cables only need to be disconnected at the power supply
- Low-profile, flat cable design reduces air friction and helps maximize airflow through your computer's chassis
- A seven year warranty and lifetime access to Corsair's legendary technical support and customer service
- Dimensions: 150mm(W) x 86mm(H) x 160mm(L)
- MTBF: 100,000 hours
- Safety Approvals: UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TÜV, CCC, C-tick
The 750W version is currently on sale for $150 online, with an additional $20 mail-in rebate. That's not too shabby, considering the older Seasonic X-750 still costs $170. However, we'll need to see if the quality of the AX750 matches the X-750 before we can determine if the reduced price makes this a better buy.
34 Comments
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Chapbass - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
On the cables and connectors page: last para:
The only potential issue is if you want to load up all we SATA connectors with a bottom-mounted PUS; the distance from the PSU to the first connector is only 45cm (give or take), with a fairly large 12-13cm gap between the connectors, so you'd want the HDD bays to be relatively close to the PSU rather than in the top portion of the case.
First sentence has a few typos. Still reading, but figured I'd point it out. -
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
Aren't all PUS's bottom mounted? -
Stuka87 - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
Many newer cases do use a bottom mounted CPU, but it is hardly the only form factor. -
Stuka87 - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
CPU should be PSU. Wish there was an edit :/ -
Iketh - Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - link
pretty sure they're rear-mounted when bent over -
Nintendesert - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
Last page, first paragraph.
"Gold requirements. 91% at 50% load is not to shabby."
It should be "too shabby." -
Chapbass - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
Gotta say this PSU looks impressive. I'm going to need something soon for my server (not much in the way of cpu and video power, but along the lines of 18-20 HDD's), and something like this might fit the bill. we'll have to see :)
props to corsair, another solid unit. -
prince34 - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
I've been looking for a new high quality PSU for a new build early next year. This looks very promising. Also, Newegg has a $20 mail in rebate and $15 promotional code with free shipping. Thats $135 up front and $115 in the end. That is hard to beat. -
mino - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
This left me puzzled though:
"The AX has DC-to-DC for the smaller rails, so +12V feeds +3.3V/+5V and you can't use the whole 62A there."
I know of exactly ZERO XXX-watt power supplies where you can load 3.3V or 5V _in_addition_to_ the XXX watts being consumed on 12V rails.
Actually, most PSU's on the market do not allow anywhere near 99% of its rated load purely via 12V rails like this one. So if anything, such an arrangement should considered a plus. -
Beenthere - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
These days there are lots of PSUs to chose from and the devil seems to be in the details. History has shown that Seasonic can produce good PSUs under their own brand and for other companies but that not all PSUs from them are not equal in design or performance.
Without knowing exactly what the hardware differences are between PSUs and how this impacts performance or reliability makes it challenging when purchasing a new PSU. I watch hardware sites for patterns of issues with specific PSU models and brands when I'm looking for a new PSU.

subset: commoncrawl


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Jefferson Lab operates a kilowatt-class, high-average-power, sub-picosecond free-electron laser, covering the mid-infrared spectral region. On July 21, 2004, 10 kilowatts of cw operation was achieved at a wavelength of 6 microns. This was extended on Oct. 30, 2006 to 14.2 kilowatts of cw light at 1.6 microns. Extensions of the FEL to 250nm in the UV are planned. The short pulses of electrons also produce hundreds of watts of broadband THz light, which is made available in a special user laboratory.
The laboratory also operates an ultraviolet free-electron laser which on August 31, 2010 lased in the spectral region down to 363 nm with 100W average power levels. Harmonics around 10 eV photon energy are expected to be present at the 100 mW level.
The program and this user facility derives from the primary mission of Jefferson Laboratory, namely, nuclear physics research and the world's first large superconducting accelerator for generating continuous multibillion-volt beams of electrons, called CEBAF.
The FEL program is led by George Neil.
Currently, Jefferson Lab is using the term Low Energy Recirculator Facility, or LERF, to refer to this facility, as future missions with potentially broader scope are under development. Therefore, a LERF webpage has been set up. Those seeking current information should see the LERF webpage. The Free-Electron Laser webpages are not being updated, but they are being maintained for archival and reference purposes.


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Abraham Lincoln was President and therefore Commander-in-Chief of Federal (Union) forces during the American Civil War. Lincoln was a Republican who put reconciliation with the South (Confederacy) at the top of his agenda as the war drew to a close. Many other Republicans were not as sympathetic to the South but Lincoln knew that if America was to progress and move on from the American Civil War once it had finished, reconciliation was the way ahead. What Abraham Lincoln would have achieved in the immediate years after April 1865 is open to speculation. However, John Wilkes Booth ended Lincoln's life at the Ford's Theatre in Washington DC and many 'Northerners' were unwilling to be as compassionate to the South post-1865 as Lincoln was.
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12th 1809 in Hodgenville, Hardin County, Kentucky. His parents were poor and lived on the frontier lands. Lincoln moved to Indiana when he was eight and his mother died when he was ten. Lincoln had little choice as a child but to learn how to hunt as wherever he lived the lands were full of wild animals. By 1830, Lincoln lived in Illinois.
Despite this background – working on farms, splitting wood for a living, working in a store etc – Lincoln taught himself to read and write and became fascinated by Law and Politics. He was sympathetic to the views of the Whig Party and in 1834 Lincoln was elected to the Illinois State Legislature. Despite the work involved, Lincoln maintained his interest in Law as a subject and in 1836 passed his bar examinations. He then became a lawyer. The amount of work he did as a lawyer was restricted to the size of the population where he lived – New Salem. Lincoln therefore decided to move to the state capital, Springfield.
In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd and two years later he went into partnership with William Herndon. Both men got on well together and in later years Herndon claimed that it was his views on slavery that helped to shape the future President's views, as it was a topic they discussed.
Between 1844 and 1850, Lincoln worked to build up his law firm. In 1850 he was appointed attorney to the Illinois Central Railroad. Lincoln quickly gained a reputation as a driven man who rarely stopped work.
In the Illinois State Legislature Lincoln spoke out against slavery but also made it clear that he believed that the South had the right to use slaves as it was part of their current system. Lincoln was also critical of the activities of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
In 1856 Lincoln joined the newly formed Republican Party. He challenged the incumbent Senator for Illinois, Stephen Douglas, for a place in the Senate. Both men clashed over the Louisiana Purchase. Douglas believed that anyone who moved to the states covered by the Purchase had the right to own slaves. Lincoln believed differently and believed that land covered by the Purchase should be slave free.
In 1858, Lincoln made it clear in a speech he made in Quincy, Illinois, what he thought about slavery:
"The Republican Party think it (slavery) wrong – we think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We will deal with it as with any other wrong…..and so deal with it that in the end of time there may be some promise of an end to it."
The speech angered Southern slave owners. Their anger became much greater in 1860 when Lincoln was nominated as the Republican Party's Presidential candidate in the forthcoming national election. In that election, Lincoln polled 1.8 million votes and won the election as he won more states than his nearest opponent.
However, a much larger number of people did not vote for Lincoln – a total of 2.8 million – in a sign that many in the US did not agree with his views but that the voting system was swayed in his favour via the Electoral College system.
What the election did show was the America was divided down the lines of slavery. All those states that voted for Lincoln were slave free states. All those that voted for one of his opponents (there were three in total) were slave states.
Lincoln won 18 states while his opponents won 17. Perhaps more ominously, the official Democrat candidate (Stephen Douglas) won just one state while the Deep South's candidate (John Beckenridge) won thirteen. John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party won the other three. The Deep South had not accepted the nomination of Douglas to be the Democrats choice as he was seen as being too liberal and too influenced by the North. Beckenridge was their choice – a hard-line pro-slavery man.
Lincoln selected his Cabinet with care as he wanted it to be as fully represented of all views as was possible. However, it did not include anyone who was an advocate of slavery. There were those who believed things should be left as they were and that slavery could remain where it was an integral part of the state economy. However, none of them believed in expanding slavery across the continent as the frontier moved further west.
Lincoln very quickly faced a very serious problem that threatened to break up the Union. Seven states, starting with South Carolina, seceded from the Union. These were states that believed that their very way of life was going to be altered by a Federal government that existed in Washington DC but had no knowledge about the way of life in the South. The seven states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida) formed the Confederate States of America. At its head was President Jefferson Davis and he was given the go-ahead to create a Confederate Army that totalled 100,000. Davis believed that all Federal property in the Confederacy now belonged to it and this included all Federal forts.
On April 12th 1861, the Confederate government ordered the surrender of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour. The commander there, Major Robert Anderson, refused and his fort was bombarded for 34 hours before he surrendered.
Lincoln saw this as a direct declaration of war. He called on all states loyal to the Union to provide men for the Federal Army. Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee refused and joined the Confederacy. Kentucky and Missouri refused to provide men but did not want to take sides.
Lincoln believed that one way to defeat the South was to strangle her economy. He therefore authorised the Anaconda Plan, which sort to blockade all Southern ports so that overseas trade was impossible. However, there were far too few ships in the Federal Navy to adequately cover the 3,000 miles of coastline. Blockade running was common and also highly lucrative for the crews involved.
Lincoln also persuaded the aged General Winfield Scott to retire as commander of the Federal (Union) Army. At 75 years, Scott was considered to be too old to be able to have the required energy to command the whole Union Army. General Irwin McDowell replaced him. He was urged by Lincoln to confront the Confederate Army near its new capital, Richmond. This resulted in both sides clashing at Bull Run (July 1861) and the defeat of the Union Army. It was a major blow to Lincoln and a huge boost to Jefferson Davis.
In November 1861, General George McClellan replaced McDowell. He wanted a major assault on Richmond, as he believed that if the Confederate capital fell, the whole secessionist movement would collapse. Lincoln enthusiastically endorsed McClellan's plan. McClellan gathered an army of over 250,000 men for the attack on Richmond. Then nothing happened.
Lincoln was angered by McClellan's reluctance to engage the enemy. Lincoln fought campaigns as a politician in Washington and not as a commander in the field. McClellan knew that if he lost a major battle, then the road to Washington would be open to Confederate forces. He was not willing to risk the Union's capital until the circumstances suited him. McClellan's intelligence also informed him (incorrectly as it happened) that the Confederate Army around Richmond was much larger than originally thought.
In January 1862, Lincoln summoned McClellan to Washington so that he could explain his lack of action. McClellan told those assembled that he needed to ensure that his withdrawal routes were adequate before he engaged the enemy. Some at the meeting accused McClellan of cowardice and Lincoln decided that he would use his position as Commander-in-Chief to force McClellan to act. He issued General War Order Number One on January 31st. This ordered McClellan to start an attack before February 22nd. He also made it clear that he did not approve of the way Richmond was going to be attacked. Lincoln only withdrew this reservation when the majority of senior commanders under McClellan offered their support to him and told Lincoln that what McClellan planned was the best way ahead. However, Lincoln did insist that McClellan left behind 30,000 troops for the defence of the capital and he removed him from overall command of the Union armies.
While Lincoln as President had the right to do these things, his judgment has to be questioned if only that it was he that appointed McClellan, despite his comparative youth at 35, to command the Union army and now Lincoln was very publicly undermining the man he appointed and attempting to interfere in tactical and strategic decisions. This was a theme that was to run throughout the war. Lincoln, correctly, believed that his generals were subordinate to him. However, his belief that military campaigns could only be won by constantly pushing forward and engaging the enemy, did not take into account what was actually going on in the field. Sherman, during his march through the South, was frequently hindered by appalling weather that was not conducive to an offensive campaign – yet his instructions from Lincoln was to advance on the enemy regardless. Lincoln seemed to have little idea as to how the individual in the field was affected – the lack of food, clothing, tents etc. Nor the sheer physical drain of marching. When Sherman tried to tempt his opposite, Johnston, to surrender in 1865 by offering peace terms that included how the South would be run after the war, Lincoln was furious. He could not tolerate a general interring in political issues but was quite willing to interfere in military ones – as McClellan, Sherman and Grant found out.
There was a great deal of sympathy in Washington for Lincoln in his dealings with McClellan. To many, McClellan did not seem to want to engage the South. On one occasion Lincoln said to McClellan: "If you do not want to use the army, I'd like to borrow it for a little while." On November 7th 1862, Lincoln dismissed McClellan and replaced him with General Ambrose Burnside. He, in turn, was replaced by General JosephHooker after the Union defeat at Fredericksburg. Lincoln seemed to have a positive relationship with his generals when they were advancing and the enemy seemed to be retreating. However, while he applauded the victory at Gettysburg, Lincoln was also very conscious that the casualties at this battle were horrific. Months later when Lincoln attended the official opening of the Gettysburg Memorial, he gave what was to become one of the greatest speeches in History. However, at the time his 'Gettysburg Address' was actually heard by few people and Lincoln himself considered that it had been secondary to other speeches given there. It was only when it was printed in newspapers in the following days that people came to realise its qualities.
Lincoln's belief in reconciliation also led him to reject the Wade-Davis Bill – passed by Congress in 1864; Lincoln refused to sign it into law.
However when it became obvious that the South was going to lose the war, Lincoln was heavily criticised in many areas for failing to push for a negotiated peace. He wanted unconditional surrender by the South and nothing less.
For the 1864 election campaign Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson as his running mate. He was opposed by General George McClellan – the man sacked by Lincoln for his ineffectual leadership of the Army of the Potomac. On the back of numerous victories by Grant and Sherman, the outcome of the election was rarely in doubt and Lincoln won a comfortable victory. Lincoln polled 2.2 million votes to McClellan's 1.8 million.
On April 4th 1865 Lincoln visited Richmond – just days after it had fallen to Union troops. On April 14th, Lincoln said in Cabinet; "There are many in Congress who possess feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which I do not sympathise and cannot participate."
On the night of April 14th Lincoln went to the Ford's Theatre in Washington to watch 'Our American Cousin'. Sometime during the third act Lincoln's assigned bodyguard, John Parker, left his seat outside of the box Lincoln and his family were using to get a drink. During this lapse in security, John Wilkes Booth shot the President in the back of his head. Booth fled the theatre and was later shot by Federal troops. Lincoln was taken to a house opposite the theatre and died early on April 15th 1865.
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Access 2010 for Access 2007 Users: What's New
- What's New in Microsoft Office Access 2010: An Overview
- Changes to the Office 2007 Ribbon User Interface
- Security, Trusted Locations, Packages, and Certificates
- Access Web Databases and SharePoint Lists
- Application Development by Templates
- Access Macros Redux
- SQL Server 2008 [R2] Express Edition Setup
Access 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 were very successful standalone desktop database platforms. The first Access team consisted of highly skilled development, marketing, and management personnel who were devoted entirely to making Access the premier desktop relational database management system (RDBMS) for Windows. Access, which reports say cost $60 million to develop, sold for US$99 and, according to Jim Gray of Microsoft Research, was generating revenue of about US$300 million per year by February 1994 or earlier.
Microsoft created Office 95 Professional by adding Access to Office 95 Standard's Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Schedule+ applications and adding US$100 to the retail price. Access gained a few new features with each subsequent release, but generally suffered from not-so-benign neglect by Office management. Access 2003, for example, delivered only minor, incremental improvements over Access 2002.
Access 2007 represented a sea change to the traditional incremental improvements in version upgrades. The Office team grafted what became known as the Fluent user interface (UI) to Access 2007, which caused consternation among access veterans. According to Erik Rucker, then Group Program Manager for Access, the development team for Access 2007 was about seven times as large as that for Access 2003. The overwhelming changes to its UI represented only a fraction of the new and mostly improved features of Access 2007.
To learn more about elements of earlier versions that Access 2007 dropped, see "Features Missing from Access 2007,"
What's New in Microsoft Office Access 2010: An Overview
Microsoft's primary goals for Access 2010 are to improve usability for new users and increase productivity for experienced users and developers. Following are brief descriptions of the most important new features of Access 2010:
File tab and Backstage View—Access 2010 replaces Access 2007's Office button with a File tab that opens what the Access team calls the Backstage View. The Backstage View contains command buttons that execute operations on entire databases, such as Open, which displays a list of recently used databases, or New, which opens a collection of templates on which to base new databases. (See Figure 1.1.) Chapter 3, "Navigating the Fluent Access User Interface," covers the Fluent UI and Backstage View in detail.
Figure 1.1 Clicking the new File tab opens the Backstage View of command buttons for opening a recently used database or selecting a template for creating a new database.
- Calculated table fields—Earlier Access versions required using Access queries to create computed columns. Access 2010 enables defining fields whose values are derived from other fields in the same table. Chapter 5, "Working with Access Databases and Tables," shows you how to define calculated fields.
Office Themes for forms and reports—Office Themes enable applying a standardized set of colors and fonts to all custom Office applications; they replace the Autoformat feature of earlier Access versions (see Figure 1.2).
Figure 1.2 Office Themes let you apply preset complementary colors and font families to all Access and Office 2010 applications.
Conditional formatting with data bars—Data bars convey the relative value of numeric cells with a color gradient, which emulates similar Excel 2010 formatting styles (see Figure 1.3). Chapter 15, "Designing Custom Multitable Forms," describes applying conditional formatting to databound text boxes to let users quickly spot data trends.
Figure 1.3 Access 2010 Data Bars let you emulate Excel formatting styles for numeric values.
Navigation control—A specialized hierarchical Navigation tab control, which Chapter 15 describes, enables point-and-click navigation between forms. Dragging a form from the Navigation pane to an [Add New] drop zone creates a tab named for the form. This new control is intended to replace earlier Access versions' Switchboard form (see Figure 1.4).
Figure 1.4 Drag a form icon from the Navigation pane to a horizontal or vertical drop zone tab of the Navigation control to create a new tab.
- Web Browser control—Access 2010's new Web Browser control lets you create web mash-ups and display web content in your Access applications.
Access Macro Builder—Microsoft deprecated Access macros in favor of VBA programming code beginning with Access 97. Macros enable limited application automation without requiring the .accdb file to be placed in a trusted location or having a signed .accde file from a package. The new Macro Builder offers IntelliSense and aids understanding of multiple macro actions (see Figure 1.5), which is likely to increase use of macros. You must use Access macros to automate web databases because Access Services don't support VBA. Chapter 19, "Automating Access Applications with Macros," shows you how to respond to events with macros.
Figure 1.5 Access 2010's new drag-and-drop Macro Builder with IntelliSense simplifies authoring macros.
- Data Macros—Access 2007 and earlier macros handle events triggered by forms and reports, as well as their controls. Access 2010 introduces Data Macros that handle table-generated events, such as Before Update, Before Delete, After Update, After Insert or After Delete of a row. Access 2010 Data Macros correspond to SQL Server's triggers. Chapter 20, "Emulating Table Triggers with Access Data Macros," teaches you how to take advantage of Data Macros.
- Collaboration with SharePoint—Microsoft downplays Access 2010/SQL Server projects for client/server applications in favor of linking Access tables from SharePoint lists and sharing .accdb files from SharePoint Document Libraries. Manipulating relational data in Sharepoint's nonrelational, web-based environment probably will interest only organizations that have a substantial commitment to an SPF 3.0 or SPS 2010 infrastructure. Chapter 22, "Collaborating with SharePoint Foundation 2010," introduces you to linking or moving tables to SPF or SPS.
- Web databases—Data Access Pages authored in Access 2003 were suited to private intranets but not the public Internet. Access 2010's new web databases and SPS's Access Services enable publishing browser-based applications to intranets and the Internet. Web databases substitute SharePoint lists for Access tables. Chapter 23, "Sharing Web Databases with SharePoint Server 2010," shows you how to publish a standard Access front end to an interactive web application.
The sections that follow expand on the brief descriptions in the preceding list and provide cross-references to detailed coverage of new features in later chapters.


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Crime in the City
A primitive mashup of crime data from Los Angeles's "Open Data" initiative, merged with the cities topography.
My goal was to explore manipulating accurate data in elementary ways. The space between data as a source of information and data as a compelling image has been a point of contention for me. This project became a space for me to investigate this conflict. Given more time I would have liked to work with this in a series to better communicate this tension. Due to the short time frame of this project I decided to focus on the process and use what I learned from it to further inform my practice.
I used Python to create the data mashup of various types of crime, from burglaries to wastewater infractions and generate a heatmap. The heatmap was then crudely dumped on top of a highly accurate elevation map generated by MicroDEM a program obtained through the U.S. Naval Academy website, using data sourced from The CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information.
Animation showing the growth of crime laid on top of the original elevation map of LA.
The final map was extruded using Blender. Sliced in Autocad and then lasercut as two separate maps, the real map of LA and LA reshaped by a mix of crime and misdeeds. What you see in the images below is a new city, a city geo formed by the most unsavory elements of Los Angeles.
Practically speaking the project was an experiment in data visualization and manipulation that introduced me to new methods of 2D and 3D creation.


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Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org
The reason for the U.S. government's hostility — at least since 4 February 2014 — toward Europeans, has been a mystery, until now.
This hostility wasn't even publicly recognized at all, until it leaked out, on that date, from a tapped phone-line of arguably the most powerful person at the U.S. State Department, the person whom American President Barack Obama had personally entrusted with running his Administration's most geostrategically sensitive secret foreign operations (and she did it actually throughout almost the entirety of Obama's eight years in office, regardless of whom the official U.S. Secretary of State happened to be at the time): Victoria Nuland.
Her official title was "Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs" and she was appointed to that post by the President himself, but nominally she reported to him through the Deputy Secretary of State William Joseph Burns, who reported to the Secretary of State, who, in turn, reported to the President.
She ran policies specifically on Ukraine (and, more broadly, against Russia). In the famous leaked phone call that she made on 4 February 2014 to the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, she instructed him to place in charge of Ukraine's government, once America's coup in Ukraine would be completed (which then occurred 18 days later and overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, entirely in violation of Ukraine's own Constitution), "Yats" or Arseniy Yatsenyuk. He did, immediately after the coup was completed, receive this crucial appointment — basically, the power to control all other top appointments in the new Ukrainian government. With this appointment, the coup, which had started by no later than 2011 to be planned inside the U.S. State Department, was effectively completed.
In this phone call, Nuland said "F—k the EU!" and no one, at the time, paid much attention to what this outburst was all about, but only that it sounded shockingly undiplomatic. Finally, however, clear evidence has now emerged, concerning what it was actually about.
This crucial evidence consists of a refusal (at long last) by both Germany and Austria, to ratchet-up further, as the U.S. regime now demands, economic sanctions against Russia, sanctions that are a key part of America's plan ultimately to conquer Russia — a plan that's been carried out consistently by all U.S. federal governments since the moment, on the night of 24 February 1990, when U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush himself secretly announced it to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and afterward to other U.S. vassal-heads-of-state — that, though the Soviet Union was already irrevocably in the process of ending the Cold War against the U.S. and its allies, the U.S. and its allies would secretly continue that war, henceforth, against Russia, until Russia itself would be conquered. He was implicitly informing them, there, that the Cold War, on the U.S. side, wasn't really about ideology (capitalist versus communist), but instead, was actually a long war for conquest, of the entire world (now it would be to strip Russia of its allies, and then to go in for the kill), by the U.S. aristocracy and its vassal aristocracies (whom those European leaders represented).
On 15 June 2017, the Associated Press headlined "Germany, Austria slam US sanctions against Russia", and reported that both of those U.S. vassal-nations, while paying obeisance to the imperial master, were not going to proceed further all the way to destruction of their own major oil and gas companies, in order to please that master:
In a joint statement, Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern and Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was important for Europe and the United States to form a united front on the issue of Ukraine, where Russian-based separatists have been fighting government forces since 2014.
"However, we can't accept the threat of illegal and extraterritorial sanctions against European companies," the two officials said, citing a section of the bill that calls for the United States to continue to oppose the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would pump Russian gas to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. Half of the cost of the new pipeline is being paid for by Russian gas giant Gazprom, while the other half is being shouldered by a group including Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell, French provider Engie, OMV of Austria and Germany's Uniper and Wintershall. Some Eastern European countries, including Poland and Ukraine, fear the loss of transit revenue if Russian gas supplies don't pass through their territory anymore once the new pipeline is built.
Gabriel and Kern accuse the U.S. of trying to help American natural gas suppliers at the expense of their Russian rivals. They said the possibility of fining European companies participating in the Nord Stream 2 project "introduces a completely new, very negative dimension into European-American relations."
Currently, and for a very long time, the leading energy-supplier to the EU has been Russia, in the forms of oil and, especially, natural gas, both of which are transported into the EU via an extensive network of pipelines, most of which travel through Ukraine, which is a major reason why the U.S. rulers wanted to take over Ukraine — in order to stop that, or at least to cause a necessity for Russia to build alternative pipelines (which the U.S. regime would likewise do everything to block from happening) — but now both Germany and Austria are saying no to this U.S. effort.
The U.S. regime wants fracked U.S. natural gas to fill an increasing portion of Europe's needs, and for natural gas from U.S.-allied fundamentalist Sunni royal regimes to fill as much of the rest as possible, so as to squeeze-out the existing top supplier, Russia. (Until recently, the plan was for U.S. ally Qatar, owned by the Thani royal family, to become Europe's main supplier, via pipelines which would traverse through Syria, for which reason Syria needs to be conquered (so that those pipelines through Syria can be built, perhaps even by American firms). However, the Sauds, who usually run U.S. foreign relations — often with assistance from the Israeli regime, which is far more popular in the United States and also in Europe (and thus serves as the Sauds' agents in the U.S. and Europe) — have now blockaded Qatar because of Qatar's insufficient compliance with the Sauds' demand for total international isolation of Iran and of any other nation where Shia are or might become dominant. (For example, the Sauds bomb Yemen to impose fundamentalist Sunni leadership there and kill the Shia population.) And, so, now, after the break between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even more than before, the main beneficiaries of cutting off Russian gas-supplies to the EU would be U.S. fracking companies.
However, the big European oil and gas corporations would then play a smaller role in the European market, because those firms have mutual commitments with Gazprom and other Russian giants. The only big winners, now, of increased sanctions against Russia, would thus be U.S. firms.
"Europe's energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America," Kern and Gabriel said.
Europe already has suffered considerable economic harm from complying with the U.S. on taking over Ukraine, and from absorbing millions of destitute and alien refugees from Syria, Libya, and other countries where the U.S. CIA, and other agencies, fomented the "Arab Spring" to unlock, in those countries, the oil and gas pipeline potential, which, if controlled by the U.S., would go to U.S. oilfield-services firms such as Halliburton, and not to European ones such as Schlumberger.
Kern and Gabriel — and the local national aristocracies (respectively Austrian, and German) whom they represent — are now speaking publicly about the limits beyond which they will not go in order to obey their U.S. masters.
Consequently, back in February 2014, when the European aristocracies complied with the U.S. aristocracy's coup in Ukraine even though knowing full well that it was a barbaric and very bloody coup and nothing 'democratic' such as the U.S.-manufactured story-line alleged it to have been, those aristocracies accepted the heist because they thought and expected to be cut in on enough of the looting of Ukraine so as to come out ahead on it. But that's no longer the case. Because of the Sauds' campaign against the Thanis (the owners of Qatar), the gang are starting to break up. The U.S. gangsters are no longer clearly in control, but are being forced to choose between the Sauds and the Thanis, and have apparently chosen the Sauds. The Sauds financed the 9/11 attacks in the United States, but are the largest foreign purchasers of U.S.-made weapons.
The U.S. aristocracy hate Europeans because the U.S. aristocracy are determined to conquer Russia, and because Europeans aren't fully cooperating with that overriding U.S. government goal — many EU billionaires want deals with Russia, but America's billionaires are determined instead to take over Russia, and so the U.S. (and the Sauds) might be losing its traditional support from the EU.
International affairs — U.S., Russia, Sauds, Thanis, Iran, Germany, UK, etc. — are in unpredictable flux. But Europe seems gradually to be drifting away from the U.S.
And resistant European aristocrats seem even to be digging in their heels on this. Here is a translation of a report dated June 17th from the most reliable source of news regarding international relations, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or "German Economic News":
Eastern Committee: US sanctions against Russia are a threat to Europe
German Economic News | Released:17.06.17 00:36 Clock
The Eastern Committee of the German economy is indignant at the new US sanctions against Russia.
The German companies have sharply criticized the US sanctions against Russia. "The sanctions plans of the US Senate are deeply alarming and, in principle, a threat to the European and German economy," said Klaus Schäfer, Deputy Chairman of the Eastern Committee of the German Economy, on Friday evening in Berlin. "America first is a new dimension to open up international markets to US providers at the expense of European jobs. Furthermore, we consider an extraterritorial application of economic initiatives generally wrong, "he said. In the Eastern Committee, the German companies active in Eastern Europe are organized. The federal government had also clearly criticized the sanction decision.
"Every further turn at the sanctioning screw increases the danger of new trade wars and the uncertainty of the world economy," warned Schäfer. The solution of the Ukraine conflict is not a step closer. A de-escalation on all sides was necessary. He pointed out that the US-Russia trade represented only one-tenth of the EU-Russia trade. "We pay the price of sanctions to Europeans", he criticized. "Implementation of the planned sanctions would make Europe more difficult to provide with favorable energy and inevitably lead to higher prices."
The most remarkable thing about this intensification of economic aggression by the U.S. aristocracy against some of the European aristocracies, is that instead of the aggression being spearheaded this time by the U.S. President, it's being spearheaded by an almost unanimous U.S. Senate: 97 out of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for this bill. One cannot, this time around, reasonably blame "Donald Trump" for this 'nationalism' — it is instead clearly a Cold War, this time, by the U.S. aristocracy (who are represented by the U.S. government and newsmedia), against some European aristocracies, which are paying insufficient obeisance to the demands by the imperial aristocracy: the U.S. gang.
Whereas, at the time of the U.S. coup in Ukraine, the EU swallowed in silence their shock at how brutal and bloody it had been, and stayed with the Americans because the Americans claimed that the takeover would benefit European aristocracies too ('expand the EU'), the lie about that is now clear to all (and Ukraine has been too wrecked by America, to be of much use to anyone but the Americans as a staging base for their missiles against Moscow), and therefore "the Western Alliance" might finally be breaking up.
The vassal-governments have put up with a lot from the U.S. aristocracy, such as when German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone was revealed to be tapped by America's NSA, and the case was quietly dropped because, "Prosecutors say they can find no actionable evidence to support claims German chancellor's mobile phone was tapped by US National Security Agency" even though everyone knew that the refusal by Germany's proecutors was based upon a lie, and that Germany "remains heavily reliant on the US," and that the U.S. government's knowing eveything that German politicians do, provides against those politicians a blackmail-potential against themselves, that cannot be taken lightly. On the other hand, perhaps there now exists a countervailing force that can outweigh even considerations such as that. Maybe Germany's billionaires have, somehow, finally become able to turn the tide on this.
The American public have been whipped into such a fury of hatred towards the Russian government, so that, on June 21st, Morning Consult headlined "Americans Show Bipartisan Support for Russia Sanctions, Poll Shows", and reported their poll, which showed that overwhelming majorities among all political categories — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — wanted the already-severe economic sanctions against Russia to be made even more severe. The owners of America's oil and gas giants, and of companies such as Lockheed Martin, not to mention of the major newsmedia, and of course the megabanks that are interlocked with those people, might have enjoyed a good chuckle, reading these poll-results. Of course, if one or more of Europe's aristocracies ends up blocking the effectiveness of such sanctions, then the U.S. and EU might have to go their separate ways; but this would then make Brexit seem like merely the antipasto before the main course of The West's break-up.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.


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Photo by Gayle Shomer Photography |
"If you wish to be a writer, write."
I remind myself of that constantly, especially when I feel discouraged that my career is stalled. Nowadays, I feel like there should also be some inspirational quotes out there relating to publishing. Two or three years ago, I wouldn't have even considered self-publishing my own work. But lately, it seems like every time I turn around, I find myself face to face with writers who have taken control of their careers and followed successful and satisfying journeys into self-publishing. I find myself more intrigued and inspired by the prospect each day.
I know that when I first started writing professionally ten years ago, there was still a bit of a stigma attached to self-publishing, particularly through vanity presses that virtually published anything as long as the authors were willing to pay the price.
But times have definitely changed. There are still writers who would prefer to try their hand at traditional publishing first, and that's perfectly fine. But there are some cases where self-publishing can actually help strengthen an author's platform or garner enough attention to attract a traditional publisher down the road.
I recently interviewed a local writer who decided to publish her historical fiction novel after she had actually secured an agent. While the agent loved this author's work and they had a great business relationship, the agent was unable to interest any publishing houses in the book because of the subject matter and genre. Instead of giving up, this author started work on a second historical fiction novel and pursued publishing the book on her own. She developed a marketing plan and drew up a list of book review blogs to contact and even garnered a positive review from the Sacramento Book Review. I checked on Amazon and as of this writing, the book has almost 30 reviews and has an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars.
Now, granted, this author has a full-time day job and writes fiction on the side like many of us, but she was positive and encouraging as she chatted with me about her experience. She did stress that you shouldn't self-publish impulsively but that it is definitely something writers should consider if they are getting good feedback from agents and editors but are stalled at finding a publishing contract.
While I am in the process of shopping around my middle-grade novel, I've also begun considering self-publishing either a novella or collection of short stories digitally. I personally know a few writing instructors who have found success in micro-publishing resource guides as PDFs and it is definitely something I want to explore further as a way to help grow my platform before I hopefully publish traditionally.
Here are a few articles on self-publishing that I think are helpful:
Divergent Paths to Publication
Which Publishing Path is Right for You?
Self-Publishing: The Debate is Over
Have you ever self-published your work? What did you like or not like about the process?
Renee Roberson is an award-winning freelance writer and editor who blogs at Renee's Pages.


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It Seems To Us: We Win In Court!
In fact, the FCC's mishandling of the issue was so egregious that the Court took an unusual step: it did not defer to the Commission's presumed expertise on a highly technical issue.
The Court of Appeals found that the FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not disclosing in full the staff studies on which the Commission relied. Writing for the three-judge panel that heard American Radio Relay League, Incorporated v. FCC and USA, the ARRL's petition for review of the FCC's Orders in ET Docket No. 04-37, Circuit Judge Judith W. Rogers said: "It would appear to be a fairly obvious proposition that studies upon which an agency relies in promulgating a rule must be made available during the rulemaking in order to afford interested persons meaningful notice and an opportunity for comment…there is no APA precedent allowing an agency to 'cherry-pick' a study on which it has chosen to rely in part….The League has met its burden to demonstrate prejudice by showing that it 'ha[s] something useful to say' regarding the unredacted studies…that may allow it to 'mount a credible challenge' if given the opportunity to comment….Under the circumstances, the Commission can point to no authority allowing it to rely on the studies in a rulemaking but hide from the public parts of the studies that may contain contrary evidence, inconvenient qualifications, or relevant explanations of the methodology employed….no precedent sanctions such a 'hide and seek' application of the APA's notice and comment requirements." [Emphasis added.]
In a concurring opinion, Circuit Judge David S. Tatel wrote: "[I]n this very case the Commission redacted individual lines [emphasis in original] from certain pages on which it otherwise relied….there is little doubt that the Commission deliberately attempted to 'exclude[ ] from the record evidence adverse to its position' [emphasis added]…."
The Court also found that the Commission failed to justify its decision to apply an "extrapolation factor that was designed to accommodate technologies different in scale, signal power, and frequencies used" to Access BPL and that it "summarily dismissed…empirical data that was submitted at its invitation." The Court found that the FCC's Reconsideration Order "…provides neither assurance that the Commission considered the relevant factors nor a discernable path to which the court may defer."
While the Court did not agree with us on every point, it found that the FCC's decision-making process was seriously flawed. The Court concluded, "On remand, the Commission shall afford a reasonable opportunity for public comment on the unredacted studies on which it relied in promulgating the rule, make the studies part of the rulemaking record, and provide a reasoned explanation of its choice of an extrapolation factor for Access BPL systems." In explaining its choice of an extrapolation factor the Commission must either "provide a reasoned justification for retaining an extrapolation factor of 40 dB per decade for Access BPL systems sufficient to indicate that it has grappled with the 2005 studies [three published studies suggesting that an extrapolation factor of 20 dB per decade may be more appropriate -- Ed.], or adopt another factor and provide a reasoned explanation for it."
You can read the entire decision in American Radio Relay League, Incorporated v. FCC and USA at pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200804/06-1343-1112979.pdf.
The Court's decision is a tremendous victory for radio amateurs and other licensed users of the radio spectrum -- indeed, for anyone who cares about the integrity of the federal administrative process. Yet, the remand does not guarantee that the FCC will correct its errors. We face another round of technical arguments. No doubt the FCC's technical staff, many of whom want to do the right thing, will remain under heavy pressure to ignore the laws of physics and give preference to wishful thinking once again. When the FCC reopens the BPL proceeding as the Court has ordered, we must leave no room for these technical issues to be settled on anything other than technical grounds. There's more work to do!
While all this was going on, the ARRL technical staff -- principally Ed Hare, W1RFI -- was working quietly with the BPL industry, persuading them that it was in their best interest to fix the interference problem. To their credit, the leading companies have taken the problem seriously and have gone beyond what the FCC rules require. But it took great effort, including our frontal assault on the flawed FCC proceedings, to get their attention.
The responsible BPL companies have shown they can do what's necessary to avoid interfering with Amateur Radio. FCC rules requiring all BPL companies to take these steps will protect them from irresponsible competitors.
BPL received another blow on May 1 when it was announced that the largest BPL deployment to date, in Dallas, would not be used to offer Internet service but would be used only to monitor the power distribution network. The Associated Press report began, "Goodbye, broadband over power lines. We hardly knew you." Thus the marketplace has added its verdict to that of the Court of Appeals.
This good news notwithstanding, the ARRL will not rest until the FCC rules give licensed radiocommunication services the protection they are entitled to under international agreements and federal law.
Even as we celebrate these dual verdicts, we cannot afford to become complacent. Our access to the radio spectrum is much too important to allow us that luxury.
David Sumner, K1ZZ


text: In October 1997 35 active networkers from 18 countries met in Dhaka to develop the third WLUML Plan of Action. We re-examined old concerns and identified emerging ones. We strategized about how best we could answer these needs knowing that we must act in the face of odds that sometimes seem overwhelming in our own specific locations.


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Manos Kapritsos and collaborators win USENIX security paper award
Their paper introduces a new programming language and tool called Vale that supports flexible, automated verification of high-performance assembly code.
A team of researchers including Prof. Manos Kapritsos has won a Distinguished Paper Award at the 2017 USENIX Security Symposium, which took place August 16–18, 2017 in Vancouver.
The paper, entitled Vale: Verifying High-Performance Cryptographic Assembly Code, introduces a new programming language and tool called Vale that supports flexible, automated verification of high-performance assembly code.
Strong cryptography is critical for security in a number of applications, from mobile computing through cloud repositories and digital currencies. Ideally, encryption should be correct, secure, and fast. However, producing verified implementations that meet these criteria is a challenge.
High-performance cryptographic code often relies on complex hand-tuned assembly language that is customized for individual hardware platforms. Such code is difficult to understand or analyze.
The Vale tool transforms annotated assembly language into an abstract syntax tree (AST), while also generating proofs about the AST that are verified via an SMT solver. Since the AST is a first-class proof term, it can be further analyzed and manipulated by proven correct code before being extracted into standard assembly. It is the hope of the researchers that Vale demonstrates that verified code can be as fast as highly-optimized, unverified code.
Prof. Manos Kapritsos received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas in Austin in 2014 and joined the faculty at Michigan in 2017 after working as a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research. His research interests are in the area of software systems, with a focus on fault-tolerant distributed systems. In his dissertation research, Manos reconciled replication with multithreaded execution by rethinking the 40-year-old architecture of replicated systems to enable the performance benefits of parallel execution. In post-doctoral work, he has worked to bring formal verification to distributed systems, proposing a new way of reasoning about complex distributed systems through a combination of reduction and multilevel refinement to partition them into smaller, manageable components.


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Illegal fuel market flourishes in Southeast Asia – Saudi Gazette
By Henning Gloystein and John GeddieAN alleged oil heist in Singapore that has already led to 20 arrests, the seizure of at least one tanker and allegations that thieves siphoned thousands of tons of fuel from Shell's biggest refinery is shining a spotlight on an illegal trade worth tens of billions of dollars worldwide. Working routes in a triangle of sea anchored by Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore and encompassing the oil facilities of Malaysia, the smugglers take advantage of a difficult-to-patrol sea and enticing black market prices, experts say.
The suspects in the latest case are accused of stealing oil from Royal Dutch Shell's Pulau Bukom refinery, often during business hours, and distributing it around the region. Several of the men charged worked for Shell. Employees of a major Singaporean fuel trading company and a London-listed business that inspects and certifies cargos have also been charged. "Siphoning off fuel is a common thing in Southeast Asia. There is a huge black market for it," said Ben Stewart, commercial manager of the shipping security firm Maritime Asset Security and Training, which has helped authorities in the region fight fuel theft and smuggling. Singapore is by far the world's biggest ship refueling port, and Southeast Asia's petroleum refining hub. Hundreds of vessels pass through the small city-state's waters every day. Security officers say the sheer amount of traffic makes checking every ship impossible, opening the door to illegal trade. In most cases, oil is discreetly siphoned from legal storage tanks and sold into the black market.
But there have also been thefts at sea and even hijackings of entire ships to steal their fuel. Data from the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP), based in Singapore, shows more than half of the serious shipping incidents reported in the past year have occurred off the east coast of the Malaysian peninsula. Some officials put the value of the illegal trade in Southeast Asia at $2 billion to $3 billion per year. But Yousuf Malik, principal at security consultancy Defence IQ, estimated about 3 percent of Southeast Asia's consumed fuel is sourced illegally, worth $10 billion a year.
"The scale of the illegal oil trade varies with oil prices — when oil prices are high, so is the level of smuggling," said Praipol Koomsup, former Thai vice minister of energy and professor at Thammasat University. Crude oil prices have risen by more than 50 percent since mid-2017 to about $70 per barrel, the highest level in over three years. That increases the black market demand in poorer Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and Thailand. "Smuggled oil has been known to be sold to factories for industrial use, or unnamed roadside oil stations. Regular citizens and fishermen are involved in the smuggling," Koomsup said. Several fuel traders told Reuters that the illegal sale of fuel is common enough that companies plan for losses of 0.2-0.4 percent of ordered cargo volumes.
Stewart said one common method of theft involves a simple fudging of paperwork at sea: captains overstate how much fuel their ship is using, then sell the excess. Sometimes entire ships are captured for their fuel cargo. When fuel is stolen on such a large scale, it tends to be transferred to other ships at sea. Legal ship-to-ship transfers frequently happen between oil tankers in registered zones. In the South China Sea, however, illegal traders use purpose-built ships – with some even disguised as fishing trawlers – to take in and distribute fuel. According to ReCAAP, the waters around the remote Natuna Islands, which sit between peninsular Malaysia and Borneo but belong to Indonesia, are a hot spot for piracy and illegal fuel transfers.The Atlantic Council, a policy research group, said many of the region's illegal fuel operations had links to organized crime. Police in Thailand and Vietnam said most illegal fuel comes into the country by sea, usually transported on mid-size trawlers in unmarked drums.
Smaller vessels then bring the fuel ashore for sale on the street. "The coasts of Thailand and Vietnam are vast, and its cities big. To catch or even trace the illegal fuel in this area is virtually impossible. That's why it happens," said one security source, speaking on the condition of anonymity as he was not cleared to talk to media about contraband operations. The Bukom heistBukom, just south of Singapore, is an island serving just one purpose: 1.5 sq. km of tropical land devoted to the biggest petroleum refinery owned by Anglo-Dutch Shell. It can process 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day. As global markets were gearing up for a new year in early January, Singapore authorities conducted coordinated raids across the city-state, arresting 20, charging 14 Singaporean and Vietnamese men, and seizing millions of dollars in cash. They even confiscated an oil tanker.
At the heart of the police operations is Bukom, where suspects, including current and former Shell employees, are accused of stealing oil worth millions of dollars in the past six months. Singapore's biggest marine fuel supplier, Sentek, last weekend saw its marketing and operations manager, as well as a cargo officer, charged in connection with the case. Another person charged works for Intertek in Singapore, a British-listed company specializing in quality and quantity assurance, including for fuel products. In a statement to Reuters, Shell said, "Fuel theft is an industry problem globally and not something that anyone can solve on their own."
The company added that it was working with governments and ReCAAP to address the issue. A representative for Intertek was not immediately available for comment. Sentek declined to comment. A lawyer representing one of the accused men said he had not yet had opportunity to obtain instructions from his client. Lawyers for some of the others charged were not immediately available for comment. The Prime South, the small 12,000-ton Vietnamese tanker police seized, frequently shipped fuel between Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City. The ship had also recently made stops at Rayong, Thailand. Between ports, the tanker often switched off its transponder, which every merchant vessel is required to carry.
The scale of the theft was big enough that Shell did not think it could handle the case internally. Instead, in August the company contacted authorities, triggering one of the biggest police operations in Singapore in years. Police investigations are ongoing. The charges in court documents allege the suspects in the Singapore case stole over $5 million worth of oil. Globally, oil theft could be worth as much as $133 billion, said Malik of Defence IQ. "Its sheer scale and the flows of illicit cash related to oil and fuel theft and smuggling exacts a toll on virtually every aspect of the economy," Malik said. — Reuters


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March 1, 2015
MoviePoet is closed. Wow, that's hard to write.
For many years, MoviePoet was my home on the internet - my second family - and it was awesome.
If you were here during the early days, you know just how special it was. We were a community of writers and friends who cared deeply about the craft of screenwriting and each other.
The stats are amazing: 8 years, 6,422 members, 96 contests, 3,332 entries, 128,633 reviews, and over 300 scripts produced. We never charged a dime, took any advertising, and rarely had to deal with trolls (imagine another web site that can say all that).
I am so proud of all we accomplished and I wish it could go on, but as many of you know, I started NJ Film School a few years ago and it has stolen my heart and all my free time. MoviePoet has been leaderless for too long and I would rather close the site now than watch it die a slow death.
I love you all, but I must give special thanks to all the moderators who helped run the site and kept me sane along the way: William Bienes, Caroline Coxon, Charlie Hebert, Rustom Irani, Rick Hansberry, Sally Meyer, Tim Westland, and JeanPierre Chapoteau - I couldn't have done it without you.
Honestly, I will miss the site terribly and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Chris Messineo
p.s. A bit of MoviePoet lore, this incarnation of MoviePoet was actually the second version (the first ran from 2002 to 2003). I hope there will be a third some day.