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March 31, 2014
Book Review - Country Loving by Cathy Woodward
Stevie left her family farm in Devon when her father insisted it go to her brother as the farm had always been run by the men in her family. She makes a life in the city but is called back to discover her father has had a stroke, his animals are in a bad way and her brother is nowhere to be seen. A cranky vet, distressed cows and a bad tempered father do not make the most romantic setting, but Stevie tackles her problems head on and finds some country loving in the process. A charming story. Wendy
March 29, 2014
Book Review - The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness
This is an enchanting and possibly enchanted book about love and forgiveness. Two ordinary people, George and his daughter Amanda are immeasurably changed when they meet Kumiko. A woman who may be the reincarnation of a wounded crane or may not. I loved it but know others who just didn't get it. It may be for you or it may not. "Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. A story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, a story is not an explanation, it is a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us." She sagged a little, as if exhausted by this speech. "As it surely, surely would." After a moment, George asked, "Has something extraordinary happened to you?" "To me", she said, "and to everyone…." Wendy
Labels: Fiction
March 28, 2014
Book Review - Cold Killing by Luke Delaney
The cover says 'No motive, no mercy, no remorse.' This is a fairly cold book all round, full of grisly murders and a most unsympathetic killer. The detective team try hard to have some humanity but in the end this didn't quite gel for me. It is good but just seemed to miss being very good and I don't know why? I think I got annoyed with the wife of the lead detective who wasn't given much to do except to be either irritated or annoyingly caring about her husband's way of immersing himself in the killer's viewpoint. Perhaps that's how detectives' wives are and there isn't a resolution if they don't divorce but I was left wondering how it helped the story and I don't think it did. Some of the minor characters seem to be more interesting than the leads so I wanted to see more of them. Anyway – give it a go and see what you think! Wendy
March 26, 2014
Book Review - The Wedding Bees by Sarah-Kate Lynch
This is a charming story of Sugar Wallace, an itinerant bee-keeper who arrives in a place only to sort out her new friends and then move on to pastures new chosen by her bees crawling on a map. But this time, Sugar gets more than she bargains for as her bees help her with her neighbours in a New York City apartment building and with her own bruised heart. Helping others can help you help yourself but you have to be open to life's hurts as well as its joys. I think this is my favourite read this year. Wendy
March 25, 2014
Book review - Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts
Eli Landon has escaped conviction of the murder of his estranged wife but no-one else is in the frame and suspicion lingers. He may have to face a civil suit brought by her family who are still looking for answers. He retreats to his grandmother's home at Whiskey Beach where a group of concerned locals help him find new love as he unravels a historical mystery which holds the key to his present travails. Nora Roberts can craft a fine tale with red herrings and a varied cast of well drawn supporting characters. Wendy
March 24, 2014
Book Review - False Start: a memoir of things best forgotten by Mark O'Flynn
This is a strange little collection of tales in three distinct parts. Mark spends time at a Queensland mine, at drama school and then involved in theatre in a regional town and then he goes to Ireland to distribute religious statues. He never quite knows what he wants to do with his life but he is entertaining enough as he tries to find out. So, if you feel like accompanying him on his journey, you can spend an amusing hour or two. Wendy
Labels: Australia, Autobiography, biography, Non-Fiction
March 22, 2014
Book Review - Give Me Excess of It by Richard Gill
I know Richard Gill only through his appearances on Spicks and Specks and via his participation in Operatunity OZ – a a search for undiscovered opera singers. He has always entertained and impressed with his passion for sharing music. This book covers his musical education thus far, including failures and successes; his ongoing quest for more musical challenges and deeper knowledge; and his infectious enthusiasm for developing and nurturing young talent. It touches only briefly on his personal life, apart from acknowledging the enormous support from his wife as he threw himself heart and soul into whatever was the preoccupation of the day. I enjoyed it and I hope this engaging man continues to teach and learn for many years to come. Wendy
Labels: Australia, Autobiography, biography, Non-Fiction
March 21, 2014
Book Review - Suddenly by Bonnie Burnard
Three Canadian friends, Sandra, Colleen and Jude, have lasted through the years of childrearing, sharing their joys and their sorrows. Sandra is dying and her family and friends keep her company. Using Sandra's journals as a jumping off point, we learn of several crucial events in their shared history. The friends and their husbands try to make sense of their relationships, their needs and fears. I normally swallow books up rather quickly, but this one demanded a more considered approach. Perhaps knowing a shared history means much more than you might initially think. Wendy
March 20, 2014
Book Review - Suspect by Robert Crais
A police detective, Scott, is dealing with Post Traumatic Stress disorder after a disastrous incident where his policewoman partner was killed and he was left very badly injured. Scott is transferred to the K9 unit where he meets Maggie, an Army dog, who lost her human handler in an incident when she, too, was badly injured. Should they both be medically retired or can they help each other heal? The developing relationship between the two is sensitively handled as they investigate the layers of deceit behind the death of the policewoman. Part of the story is told from Maggie's point of view, adding warmth and understanding to her story. A lovely dog story and an absorbing mystery.
Book Review - The Honey Queen by Cathy Kelly
This is classic Kelly! Three women at different times in their lives all come to a small Irish village. Lillie has come from Australia to meet relatives she never knew about, as her birth mother died and her secret was revealed. Lillie is mourning the recent loss of her beloved husband. Her 'new' half brother and his wife have taken on a large house but then he lost his job and financial strains are complicating their relationship. Peggy arrives in town to open a new knitting shop but must reconcile her past before she can move on to a shining new future. How these and other well-drawn characters interact and help each other is a heart-warming read and one I would be happy to come back to again. It's life-affirming. Wendy
March 18, 2014
Book Review - Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino
The cover blurb states "The Japanese Stieg Larsson" which is quite misleading and does them both a dis-service. This is a classical murder mystery with the main suspect, the wife, with a solid alibi, being many miles away when her husband dies. An interesting collection of detectives gather the evidence and interpret the clues. A friendly scientist works on the physical puzzles whilst others work on the psychology of the victim and his intimates. Intelligent and gently witty, this is more of an intellectual exercise than a thriller. A very satisfying read. Wendy
March 17, 2014
Book Review - Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather by Pierre Szalowski
This first novel is a funny, quirky and intelligent look at the loves and lives of a group of neighbours, who are brought together when a severe ice storm affects Montreal. The main character is an 11 year old boy whose parents have just announced that they are splitting up. He comes to realize that they have been 'frozen' into attitudes that mean they aren't happy, and they aren't alone in that. His voice is beautifully depicted as he painfully comes to a more adult understanding of his parents' dilemmas and his place in their deliberations. His neighbours include a couple of homosexuals who are afraid to come out, a meteorologist, a psychoanalyst, a stripper who is disillusioned with men, a Russian Mathematics student working on a PhD on the patterns in which fish swim, a failed musician single father & his son, three cats and a dog. None of them know each other at all, except to nod to going in and out but the storm makes them connect and nothing will be ever be the same, not even for the cats although the dog continues on much as normal! This small book packs a lot into a charmingly simple story of what happens over five days, when all normal routines are gone. Szalowski manages to look at prejudice, fear, marriage and love without judgment but with great empathy and hope in a wonderfully realized narrative. I loved it! Wendy
March 15, 2014
Book Review - Big Sky River by Linda Lael Miller
Pleasant escapist western romance as Tara establishes herself as a sort of chicken farmer in Parable, Montana, after a failed first marriage that seems to have left her with plenty of money and no need to earn a living. She doesn't at first take to her neighbour, the widowed Sheriff Boone Taylor but the inevitable happens. A new baby, orphaned dogs, adorable children, teen misadventures and new love in a small town community that knows your business and that means they help in a crisis. This is part of a series of Big Sky romances by this assured writer under the Harlequin imprint. Wendy
March 14, 2014
Book Review - A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell
This is much more of a history book than Who put the Beef into Wellington? Sitwell, a British TV and magazine foodie goes back in time to identify when foods first emerged and the historical contexts. Bread, porridge, roast beef, tomato sauce, oatmeal cookies and ice-cream sodas are a small fraction of what is covered. Including fragments from the earliest known writing about the dish, Sitwell's purpose isn't to help you cook it, but to appreciate its history. Find out why the tomato was viewed with great suspicion in Europe to begin with - apart from anything else, The Axtecs ate them but they also ate people…. , but it went on to be one of the essential ingredients of many cuisines. I found this a fascinating but slow read – a few chapters at a time. Be warned with both of these two food books you will experience a great need to read bits aloud to your nearest and dearest! Wendy
Labels: Cooking, History, Non-Fiction
March 13, 2014
Book Review - Who put the Beef into Wellington? 50 culinary classics – who invented them and why by James Martin
This book contains 2 double page spread about 50 iconic recipes. The first gives a short history of the origins and context of the dish emerging and also briefly how it has captured the public imagination. The second gives the author's updated version of the dish. Recipes include Tarte Tatin, Melba toast, Waldorf Salad etc The latter entry includes the original recipes from The Cookbook by Oscar of the Waldorf 1896. The book also includes short entries on 10 classic cocktails including Bellini and Martini. This is a very engaging coffee table book to dip into. Wendy
Labels: Cooking, Non-Fiction
March 12, 2014
Book Review - The Sacrifical Man by Ruth Dugdale
This is one of the most complex mysteries you may ever read as you try to decipher who is the victim here. Alice Mariani has assisted her boyfriend's suicide but their pact included her eating a part of him. Probation Officer Cate Austin is part of the legal system working to assess firstly what has happened and then assign legal responsibility and recommend appropriate sentencing. Very different to your normal forensic detecting, this is a dark and gripping narrative. I'm not sure that I liked Alice much at all but I "enjoyed" the journey she took me on. Wendy
March 10, 2014
Book Review - The Lawgiver by Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk is a major US writer and this was written when he was 97 so I am coming to his work a little late in his career. This a novel based on letters between the characters updated for the 21st Century as it includes emails, memos, texts and transcripts of interviews. Herman and his wife also feature as it is based on the travails of getting a film about Moses made whilst he is trying to write a novel based on Moses, where the chief investor wants Herman's approval of the script. You get deeply immersed in Jewish Hollywood as investors, scriptwriters, directors and producers all put their own spin on what should happen. There is a lovely inclusion of an Aussie hunk actor flown over for a screen test that never happens, a couple of romances and a family estrangement thrown in for good measure. This is a good and funny read and has a rather sad afterword as Herman's wife died between finishing the novel and this edition being published. Wendy
March 09, 2014
Book Review - The Happiness Show by Catherine Deveney
Lizzie is a quintessential Aussie backpacker , ie loud, brash, funny and irreverent when she meets Tom on the Trans Siberian Railroad. They connect but their ways part and Tom returns to England. Deveney is strongest in showing how the relationship develops and how their shared sense of humour underpins their sexual attraction. Years later after they have both established and happy relationships including children, they meet and discover that sparks still fly and they have unfinished business. Neither of them can stop thinking about the other and wanting them. There is nothing new in this story but Deveney shows a sure hand and unflinching honesty in depicting the various relationships that propel the narrative. Wendy
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elmoastro, are you blocked from reading the whole page or only the images are blocked?elmoastro wrote:Clicking on pg 24 of the Newtown thread yields a google page warning about malware due to a link to freeimagehosting.net.
This seems to be caused by the images posted by Seth at this post: http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?p=2379349#p2379349
I assume there is nothing harmful in the images themselves, however certain browsers flag freeimagehosting.net as a malicious website and issue a warning, probably because it hosts a "Free Virus Remover" on its pages that must be one of those fake antivirus programs.
If this gives problems or bothers many users maybe we'll invite all members not to use that particular hosting service, or ban it altogether from our pages.
Personally I only get the warning in firefox if I try to look at the pictures by themselves. But I get no warning by simply browsing page 24 of that thread itself.

subset: commoncrawl


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Study Abroad in Ireland Summer 2021
Although Ireland has a reputation for beautiful, though gloomy and blustery, scenery, the summertime is when it really comes to life.
As a student, you have the opportunity to study and learn about Irish culture, music, and history while spending a summer on a study abroad program there. Settle down for a course at one of Ireland's 20 universities, or join in on a study abroad travel program that will take you around all the sites.
Visit ancient castles and modern clubs in the same day. Listen to musicians in pubs weave together set lists that embody traditional ballads right alongside top 20 favorites. Find a new favorite food at a restaurant that offers traditional Irish meat and potatoes, or at a new modern spot -- especially in Dublin, Galway, Cork, and Belfast.
Get ready to find a great program and study abroad in Ireland this summer!
It is important to do an adequate amount of searching around for a program that fits you best. Things to look for are cost effectiveness, dates, and requirements. Don't feel overwhelmed, and look at each program one at a time!
ISA Galway offers an Irish Studies program at the National University. You have the opportunity to take two classes in the summer session. For about $5,300, you'll take classes, have numerous excursions, on-site staff and housing paid for. The GPA minimum requirement is 3.0.
API offers an Irish Studies program at the National University of Cork. For about $5,300, you'll take classes, have numerous excursions, on-site staff and housing in student dorms paid for. The GPA minimum requirement is 2.85. They also offer another program in Limerick with one class for the same price.
CEA Dublin offers a Business and Culture 4-week summer program with one class for $4,900. CEA partners their Global Campus with University of New Haven (Connecticut) to provide the classes in Dublin. Minimum GPA entrance is 2.5.
IFSA Butler offers a unique opportunity for nursing and pre-health students in Belfast. Spend 6 weeks taking courses from University of Ulster faculty. The cost is approximately $5000 including housing and the minimum GPA requirement is 3.0.
In any country, each city possesses its own unique quality. Make the best of your study abroad experience by finding one that best suits you. You can come out of your comfort zone or play it safe. Either way, immerse yourself and take in all that the city has to offer!
Dublin boasts the capital and is the biggest city in Ireland while still maintaining an element of small-town charm. For example, as people exit public busses they generally thank the bus driver- not something you see in many big cities. In Dublin you'll find the National University of Ireland, Trinity College, and University College.
It has a vivid nightlife and shopping area, and is close to the Guinness Brewery and the Jameson Distillery. Dublin is a popular tourist destination for Americans so there's a good chance of meeting several people from the United States while you're there. Dubliners seem happy to give advice and directions to tourists, so don't be afraid to ask for recommendations.
Cork is the third most populated city in Ireland and has the second largest natural harbor in the world after Sydney, Australia. It houses the University College Cork and Blarney Castle, where you may kiss the Blarney Stone, visit art galleries and museums, or go back in time by walking through St. Fin Barre's Cathedral. Spend time antiquing, then stop by a café in Shandon neighborhood. You won't run out of options for enjoyment in Cork but it's not large enough to be overwhelming.
Galway houses the National University of Ireland Galway. It is the seat of Gaelic language and heritage. It is the home of the Lawrence of Arabia actor Peter O'Toole. Ten percent of the population speaks Irish Gaelic. Galway is great for its proximity to some of Ireland's most beautiful landscapes. The Cliffs of Moher is one of the most visited attractions in Ireland. Also nearby are Burren National Park and the Aran Islands.
While technically part of England, Belfast carries its own charm and compelling attractions. Belfast is the largest city in Northern Ireland and home to Queen's University Belfast. When you visit Belfast you can learn the myth of the creation of The Giant's Causeway or explore the only museum in the world that can describe the creation of the Titanic in the very city where the famous ship was built.
The lush green landscape, the festivals, the music, and the food are best when seen, heard, and tasted through summer's lens. Ireland comes to life in the summer with music, heritage, and cultural festivals making wherever you go interactive. Meet locals, sample foods, and experience a mix of traditional and modern Ireland. Ceilidh (pronounced CAY-Lay) are traditional gatherings with folk music and dancing. These are very common in every part of Ireland. Here are just a few examples of what you might encounter.
In May there is the Cork International Choral Festival, in June you can attend Bloomsday in Dublin, in July the Galway Arts Festival brings visitors for two weeks, and in August you can experience Puck Fair, Ireland's oldest festival located in Killorglin. One advantage of studying in Ireland is the ease of travel, so it's possible to think of making it to more than one of these festivals. Excursions through Ireland are easy enough as well as to Northern Ireland. You can also find cheap flights to Scotland, Wales, England, and Brussels.


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A storage cloud with 10 Gigabit Ethernet speed and scalability to hundreds of petabytes has been launched to provide virtually unlimited storage capacity to supercomputing customers.
Built by the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, the SDSC Cloud has 5.5PB to begin with, but "is scalable by orders of magnitude to hundreds of petabytes, with aggregate performance and capacity both scaling almost linearly with growth," the SDSC says.
The supercomputing center believes this is the largest academic-based cloud storage system in the United States, and said it is designed for researchers, students, academics and industry users who need secure and cost-effective storage for data sets of any size. Each object stored will have a unique URL for sharing.
"SDSC's new Web-based system is 100% disk-based and interconnected by high-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching technology, providing extremely fast read and write performance," the center said in its launch announcement last week. "The SDSC Cloud has sustained read rates of 8 to 10 gigabytes (GB) per second that will continually improve as more nodes and storage are added. That's akin to reading all the contents of a 250GB laptop drive in less than 30 seconds."
Supercomputing in the cloud
SDSC's project is another example of cloud computing expanding the accessibility of high-performance computing (HPC) functionality once reserved for an exclusive set of institutions. Instead of being forced to build out huge clusters inside your own data centers, customers can outsource supercomputing needs to cloud vendors. Amazon offers special cluster compute instances for just such a purpose, and even built a supercomputer on the Elastic Compute Cloud that ranked among the Top 500 supercomputing sites in the world. Another project recently featured by Ars used the Amazon compute cloud to build a 30,000-core cluster for a pharmaceutical company that ran for about seven hours at a peak cost of $1,279 per hour.
SDSC's storage cloud is accepting new customers and already has users including several UCSD departments and "federally funded research projects from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes for Health, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services," the SDSC says. Storage costs begin at $3.25 per month for 100GB. "Condo" pricing is available for more cost-effective long-term use. A HIPAA- and FISMA-compliant option launches Oct. 1.
The SDSC Cloud is based on the OpenStack cloud infrastructure software, with the ability to use Rackspace and Amazon Simple Storage Service APIs, allowing applications built on those platforms access to stored data. The cloud uses "Arista Networks 7508 switches, providing 768 total 10 gigabit (Gb) Ethernet ports for more than 10Tbit/s of non-blocking, IP-based connectivity," and will soon feature both AES 256-bit encryption and off-site replication to partner UC Berkeley. High-bandwidth wide area connectivity is provided by direct connections to the CENIC, ESNet and XSEDE networks.
The cloud can be accessed through either a Web-based interface, a GUI application called Cyberduck, or a Python command line script called Swift, the command line being the best option for uploading files greater than 5GB.
Naturally, this isn't the only supercomputing service offered by SDSC. A 10,000-core supercomputer called Trestles launched earlier this year as a tool for researchers in fields such as astrophysics and molecular dynamics, ranking #151 in the list of the world's fastest supercomputers with a speed of 67 TeraFLOPS. The SDSC storage cloud will work in tandem with other systems like SDSC's Data Oasis, a parallel file system capable of moving a terabyte of data in less than 20 seconds.
But perhaps just as important as speed is the infrastructure that makes scientific data easily sharable.
"The SDSC Cloud marks a paradigm shift in how we think about long-term storage," SDSC deputy director Richard Moore says in the cloud announcement. "We are shifting from the 'write once and read never' model of archival data, to one that says, 'if you think your data is important, then it should be readily accessible and shared with the broader community.'"