text:
"In terms of Classical mechanics, one watt is the rate at which work is done when an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against constant opposing force of one newton."
Blah, blah, blah. What the hell is a newton anyway?
Just kidding. I'm a nerd. I know what all of this means. Basically, a watt is a way to express the rate at which work is being done. When you're dealing with electricity, volts x amperes = watts. I actually think that transposes to mechanics easier than the crazy jibberish above.
The weight you apply to the pedals is like Volts. The speed you're cranking on them is like amperes. The combined work being done can, in fact, be expressed in watts.
I mentioned this a few days ago: fixed gear doesn't seem to have slowed me down at all. When I first hopped on the Wabi Special, I gave myself twice the time to get to work, just in case. I figured that I'd have a hard time climbing hills. I also figured I'd have to take it slow going downhill. To me, this whole thing sounded like a recipe for a slower commute. I got to work as fast as usual. Maybe faster. I didn't have a cyclometer, but total elapsed time with stops was 25 minutes, which is par for the course. This has been puzzling me for a few days. I keep leaving a little early. I keep thinking maybe I'm just hammering it harder than usual to make up for the time. I keep getting to work in 25 minutes. The return trip home is also about the same. What's going on?
When I'm riding on my own, I tend to fall into this pace. It's not particularly fast, but it's not very slow, either. I always thought this had something to do with my pedaling cadence. I'd adjust my gearing to keep my cadence somewhat stable.
Riding fixed gear, though, I've found out that I have settled into roughly the same pace, even though my cadence is all over the place. I'm now starting to understand how this all works. It's not about cadence, it's about watts. Without being able to trade-off effort for crank revolutions with dozens of gearing combinations, I still exert roughly the same amount of energy per minute regardless which bike I'm on. I just push harder on the uphills than I normally would, and spin faster than usual on flat land. The same amount of energy exerted moves the bike roughly the same speed on average.
Bonus: the fixed-gear drivetrain is actually more efficient and feels more connected to the road. You'd have to try it to know what I mean. The end-result is a remarkably simple, efficient and fun way to get around, so long as you don't have many steep hills around.
Mystery solved.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Behold, the watt.
"In terms of Classical mechanics, one watt is the rate at which work is done when an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against constant opposing force of one newton."
6 comments:
- Apertome said...
I'm glad you're enjoying the fixed gear. I have to admit, I'm jealous. I've never ridden one.
Another factor is wind resistance. As you go faster, drag increases exponentially -- of course, this is true regardless of drivetrain. So, drag contributes a lot to the fact that your cruising speed is the same on both bikes.
- July 13, 2010 9:49 PM
- rorowe said...
I second Apertome's jealousy (and maybe fixie curiosity). I've never ridden one, and I think I would likewise give myself a lot of extra time riding fixed for my commute.
Your conclusion makes sense, though. I'd be interested to see what a cycle computer says.
- July 13, 2010 10:24 PM
I've never ridden a fixed gear... I just can't imagine trying to go down a hill with any sort of incline at all, at least without taking my feet off the pedals. So, I'll third on the curiosity point. Still, a fixed gear seems like it fits that vacation cliche -- nice to visit, don't know that I'd want to live there, though.
I do ride a single speed quite frequently, and yeah, the simplicity that comes with not shifting is very nice.
- July 14, 2010 9:56 AM
- Noah said...
Basically, you ride the brakes on your way down steeper hills, and you push back on the pedals a bit to tame the smaller descents.
It's really strange how much momentum this bike picks up even on the smallest declines, though. It feels like a cannonball rolling down the road. Sections that seem flat but are actually slightly downhill become instantly apparent as the bike slowly picks up speed without any extra effort, just a faster cadence.
I rode The Twelve this morning. There are a few complaints I have about this bike, and fixed gear in general. The complete lack of eyelets for a rack is a big no-go for me. As Jordan said, nice to visit, but wouldn't live there. If I could easily mount a rack for my panniers, it might be better.
The other thing is the ass-hatchet that this thing shipped with. Combined with the extra taint-crushing weight of being forced to wear a backpack on my daily commute, it's not comfortable. Easily fixed, but this is a demo bike. I already had to provide my own (cheap resin MTB platform) pedals to test this bike. I don't have a spare saddle laying around, though.
- July 14, 2010 10:10 AM
My LBS built-up a Surly Steamroller recently that has a Sturmey Archer 3-Speed fixed hub. Possibly the best of both worlds. It keeps you "fixed" but allows you to get a little bit of mechanical advantage for those big hills (like the 1-block long 12% grade on my commute home). You can check it out here. (you'll have to scroll down, their "blog" doesn't link to individual posts.) I like the concept, but it's not the bike I'm looking for right now.
- July 15, 2010 10:21 PM
- Unknown said...
Hey Noah!
I haven't checked your blog in a while and I'm glad your trying a fixed gear. I'll be riding mine to the Dark Side ride tomorrow night. I've been commuting on it daily from JCCC downtown and I'm really loving it. See you there!
- July 16, 2010 10:05 PM
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Guests: Buzz Bissinger, Jeremy Roebuck, David Von Drehle, Charles Lane
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, GUEST HOST: When is a tax not a tax?
Let`s play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I`m Michael Smerconish, in for Chris Matthews
Leading off tonight: What we have here is a failure to communicate.
From the moment the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate by calling
it a tax, Republicans say, A-ha. See? President Obama raised taxes. But
today, Mitt Romney`s chief spokesman told our Chuck Todd, No, the mandate
is not a tax after all.
Why would Eric Fehrnstrom say that? Because if it is a tax, that
means Romney raised taxes with his health care plan in Massachusetts. This
is exactly why Rick Santorum said Romney would be the worst Republican to
carry the anti-health care reform message into the fall.
Also, we`re now hearing that Chief Justice Roberts initially planned
to strike down the mandate, but switched his vote. A rare an fascinating
look at the inner workings of the Supreme Court.
Plus, count on seeing the Obama campaign keep up their attacks on Bain
Capital. Both campaigns now admit it -- the attacks on Mitt Romney`s
business experience -- they`re working.
And newly uncovered e-mails show that Joe Paterno was apparently far
more involved in protecting Jerry Sandusky from authorities than he ever
admitted. Buzz Bissinger on the crumbling of a legend.
And finally, yet another reporter learns the hard way, Don`t mess with
Chris Christie.
We begin with the debate over whether the individual mandate`s a tax
or penalty. "Time" magazine`s Mark Halperin is MSNBC`s senior political
analyst and "The Washington Post`s" Chris Cillizza is also an MSNBC
political analyst.
Gentlemen, the Supreme Court gave Republicans one major gift with
their decision on Thursday, suggesting the mandate was a tax. There`s only
one problem. Mitt Romney isn`t exactly well positioned to take advantage
of that, given his history in Massachusetts.
The problem was illustrated this morning when Eric Fehrnstrom went on
MSNBC and Chuck Todd asked if Romney agreed that the mandate is a tax.
ERIC FEHRNSTROM, ROMNEY CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: The governor
believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty, and he
disagrees with the court`s ruling that the mandate was a tax. But again...
CHUCK TODD, NBC WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT/POLITICAL DIR.: So he
agrees with the president -- but he agrees with the president that it is
not -- and he believes that you shouldn`t call the man -- the -- the tax
penalty a tax. You should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine?
FEHRNSTROM: That`s correct. But the president also needs to be held
accountable for his hypocritical and contradictory statements.
MATTHEWS: Now, that`s not in line with Republican talking points on
the issue. On Sunday, Senator Mitch McConnell was asked about the box
Romney finds himself in.
CHRIS WALLACE, "FOX NEWS SUNDAY": If the Obama mandate is a tax on
the middle class, isn`t the Romney mandate a tax on the middle class?
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: Well, I think Governor
Romney will have to speak for himself about what was done in Massachusetts.
MATTHEWS: There`s plenty of archival footage to keep Romney playing
defense on the issue right through election day. on "MEET THE PRESS" back
in 2006, Mitt Romney had trouble explaining why the fees he raised in
Massachusetts weren`t taxes.
TIM RUSSERT, HOST: A fee`s not a tax?
MITT ROMNEY (R-MA), FMR. GOV., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A fee -- well,
a fee -- if it were a tax, it`d be called a -- it`d be called a tax.
RUSSERT: But governor, that`s a gimmick. That`s a gimmick.
ROMNEY: No, it`s -- it`s reality. It`s -- it is -- but -- and I have
no -- I am not trying to hide from the fact. We raised fees. We raised
fees $240 million.
MATTHEWS: Mark Halperin, does the GOP need Romney to play ball if
they intend to sell this as a tax?
MARK HALPERIN, "TIME," MSNBC SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Michael, I`ve
been on this program one or two other times. I`ve never said this before.
I can`t figure it out.
I think that, clearly, you see an extreme tension between everyone
else in the Republican Party and their presidential nominee on a not
insignificant issue.
The law itself, though, is a point of tension between them. There`s
not very many people in the Republican Party today who think the law Mitt
Romney signed in Massachusetts is a good law because the individual mandate
but also because of -- of the facility that if you don`t -- if you don`t
get health insurance, you have to pay a tax or a fee, depending on what you
call it.
I think it`s possible -- possible -- that the party can finesse this
because they`re unified on repealing "Obama care," but today was an ugly
day and they benefited from the fact that Congress isn`t in session. So
while you had Mitch McConnell saying one thing and Eric Fehrnstrom saying
the other, you don`t have the ping-pong, which I think they`ll eventually
have to confront.
MATTHEWS: Chris, do they have a different route to go? I mean, maybe
it`s because of the archival footage. We showed that clip with the late,
great Tim Russert. Was there a different strategy they could have pursued?
CHRIS CILLIZZA, "WASHINGTON POST," MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You know,
I don`t really think so, Michael, because the biggest thing the Romney
people worry about always is he`s a flip-flopper, he lacks -- he lacks a
core. He doesn`t believe in anything.
And there`s no way that you can finesse -- I`m with Mark on this. I
just don`t see any way that you can finesse calling it a fee or a penalty,
whatever you`d like, in Massachusetts and then somehow moving to calling it
a tax when it`s essentially almost the virtually the exact same thing. I
think if Mitt Romney had his way, he wouldn`t talk about health care at
The one thing that I`d point out -- saw a lot of coverage after Eric
Fehrnstrom was on with Chuck this morning about, Eric Fehrnstrom makes a
gaffe. This is not a gaffe at all.
This is the reason that the establishment of the party -- not
(INAUDIBLE) conservatives, too, but the establishment of the party were
worried about the prospect of Mitt Romney as Republican nominee because
they thought, Health care is something that revs up our base, this is
something we can go after Obama about. He spent two years getting
something that remains less -- less -- viewed less favorably than it is
unfavorably. We can go at him on this.
It`s very hard for him to do because Mitt Romney doesn`t want to
relitigate Massachusetts in any way, shape or form.
MATTHEWS: Mark Halperin, he makes Rick Santorum look like a
soothsayer. I mean, here`s what Santorum said back in March about Mitt
Romney, and it`s complications, I think, like this that Santorum had in
RICK SANTORUM (R-PA), FMR. SEN., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Why would we
put someone up who is uniquely -- pick any other Republican in the country!
He is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama!
Why would Wisconsin want to vote for someone like that?
MATTHEWS: Mark Halperin, did he have it right?
HALPERIN: Well, look, there`s still -- as Chris just said, as your
question suggests, there`s still a problem here, and I don`t think it`s
played out.
But Republicans are united more than they`re divided on "Obama care."
This is a point of tension. They want to -- all want to repeal it,
including Mitt Romney. They all point to the other tax increases in "Obama
care" that they say are bad. They all think it`s bad to have a federal
takeover of health care, and they think that you can talk about "Obama
care" as something that`s hurting the economy, so you don`t have to have an
either-or choice on health care.
This, though, is what Rick Santorum was talking about. As I said,
Romney, I think, is lucky that it`s breaking now, where it`s not white-hot.
Congress isn`t in session. You could imagine, if Congress were in session,
you`d have quotes and quotes from Republican members of Congress saying,
This is a disaster. This is a problem. We don`t know how to deal with
It`s possible, because there`s so much that unites them on health
care, that this will tamp down, and although the Obama people will try to
stoke it, that they may be able to get by. There`s no way to get by this
one point except to, again, rally around the things that unite them on the
issue of health care.
MATTHEWS: Mark, when the far right throws Chief Justice John Roberts
under the bus, like they`ve been doing -- Glenn Beck selling "traitor" T-
shirts, and so forth, how does that cut politically? What`s the message
that independents might take home from that?
HALPERIN: I`ll sneak in one more thing that unites them. They don`t
think you should do "Obama care" without reforming Medicare and Medicaid.
I think that the party is still trying to figure out what to say about
John Roberts. "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board today very tough
on him. I think it takes the Supreme Court issue away from Mitt Romney,
very hard for him to talk about the kind of justices he`d appoint.
It also, though, takes it somewhat away from the president. So even
though the Supreme Court and the ability to nominate justices for the next
four or eight years should be a huge issue in the campaign, I don`t think,
based on what Roberts did and the right`s confusion about what to say about
him -- I think that takes that off the table as an issue.
MATTHEWS: Hey, Chris, this distinguishing between tax and penalty is
difficult on both sides of the aisle. On "MEET THE PRESS" on Sunday, by
way of example, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was challenged on the
Democratic position that the mandate constitutes a penalty and not a tax.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: No, it`s a penalty.
DAVID GREGORY, HOST: ... sold to the American people.
PELOSI: No, it`s a penalty. It`s a penalty that comes under the tax
code for the 1 percent, perhaps, of the population who may decide that
they`re going to be free riders. But most people are not affected by that.
GREGORY: But it`s a new tax.
PELOSI: No, no.
GREGORY: It is a new tax on the American people.
PELOSI: No, no. No. It`s not a tax (INAUDIBLE) it`s a tax -- it`s a
penalty for free riders.
MATTHEWS: And exactly how many people will be affected by the mandate
and forced to pay a penalty? It`s not as many as you might think.
According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office, quote, "About 21
million non-elderly residents will be uninsured in 2016, but the majority
of them will not be subject to the penalty. In total, about 4 million
people are projected to pay a penalty."
Chris Cillizza, I can tell you that there`s a lot of confusion out
there. I have heard from any number of people on the radio who say, Well,
OK, I`m now being assessed a taxed to pay for "Obama care." And I say,
Well, do you have insurance? Yes, I already have health insurance. Well,
you`re not being assessed a tax. They think that they are.
CILLIZZA: And you know, number -- two things, Michael. One, yes,
there`s a lot of misinformation. Two, that Pelosi interview shows you why
this issue could cut and hurt Democrats and hurt Barack Obama if Mitt
Romney wasn`t the nominee. You can clearly see there Nancy Pelosi does not
want to say the word "tax" in relation to this. She simply does not.
Now, if you had -- I hate to echo Rick Santorum`s line. Remember how
much controversy, by the way, that line drew, He`d be the worst nominee.
Rick Santorum got all kinds of bad press for that.
But in a way -- let`s say you had anybody but Mitt Romney, someone who
had passed a health care law that had that penalty, that fee, that tax in
it. You can bet Republicans would be much more united on that front.
You`d have them all bashing that idea that, See? Tax-and-spend liberal.
Barack Obama wants to grow government, he wants to raise your taxes, and he
wants to do it to pay for a health care bill you don`t even want.
Now, I agree with Mark, they`re more united on health care than they
are divided. Repeal is the message they will rally behind. But imagine a
scenario in which Mitt Romney was not the Republican presidential nominee.
You would have a more unified party. We would not be spending time talking
MATTHEWS: I have to -- I have to...
MATTHEWS: ... tax issue.
CILLIZZA: This should be a 100 percent winner for Republicans any
time they talk about taxes. Nancy Pelosi`s reaction proves that.
MATTHEWS: I would say this. I think the Obama administration has
done a terrible job in selling the key aspects of it, if a large number of
Americans are walking around thinking they`re about to be assessed a tax,
when, in fact, they aren`t.
CILLIZZA: ... been the case, Michael. I mean, that`s -- if you go
back and look at the data, you know -- if you ask people, Do you support
the Affordable Care Act, you`re going to get in the low 40s view it
favorably, the high 40s view it unfavorably.
If you ask some of the specific provisions on it...
MATTHEWS: Right. They like it.
CILLIZZA: ... wildly more popular.
MATTHEWS: I know.
CILLIZZA: But the bill itself is just not popular, and I don`t -- the
law itself -- and I just don`t see that changing because people have
cemented -- they think they know things that they don`t know about.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me -- let me focus on Mitch McConnell for a
moment because -- question? What`s the Republican proposal to help the 30
million-plus Americans without health insurance? That`s what McConnell was
asked this weekend. Watch his response.
WALLACE: What`s specific thing are you going to do to provide
universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?
MCCONNELL: That is not the issue. The question is, how can you go
step by step to improve the American health care system? It is already the
finest health care system in the world...
WALLACE: But you don`t think the 30 million...
MCCONNELL: ... what our friends on the other...
WALLACE: You don`t think the 30 million Americans uninsured is an
MCCONNELL: Let me tell you what we`re not going to do. We`re not
going to turn the American health care system into a Western European
MATTHEWS: Mark Halperin, quick "Game Change" kind of a question.
Does the GOP need to do more than that? People are saying, Well, they got
to articulate something. Do they? Is articulating opposition enough?
HALPERIN: Well, look, unfortunately, because I think we shouldn`t be
the only industrialized democracy that doesn`t have universal health care,
it is not a politically dangerous place to be, where Mitch McConnell is, to
say, You know what? We should do things to make health -- access to health
care easier and more likely but not guaranteed.
That`s the position the Republican Party has pretty much had
throughout its history, and they don`t seem to pay much of a price for it.
I`m not sure, given that the current law`s unpopular, this is the election
where they`ll feel on the defensive to take that position.
They do have some policies that Mitt Romney supports that are in --
some of which are in Paul Ryan`s budget, some of which are supported by
Senate Republicans, that would extend health care, in theory, to more
MATTHEWS: But nothing comprehensive.
HALPERIN: But not comprehensive...
MATTHEWS: Got it.
HALPERIN: ... and not universal and not very easy to explain.
MATTHEWS: Understood. Mark Halperin, thank you. Chris Cillizza,
thank you very much.
Coming up: You can bet the Obama campaign will keep up their attacks
on Mitt Romney`s record at Bain Capital because both sides now admit
they`re working.
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
MATTHEWS: Mitt Romney is the least liked presidential candidate at
this point of the campaign since Bill Clinton 20 years ago. That`s
according to the polling by NBC News and "The Wall Street Journal." Romney
is viewed positively by just 33 percent of Americans, 39 percent view him
negatively, and that`s about where Bill Clinton was in the summer of 1992.
Of course, Clinton turned things around with a series of town halls
and that famous appearance where he played sax on "The Arsenio Hall Show."
So who are the candidates with the highest favorability rating at this
point in their campaigns? Bill Clinton 1996, George W. Bush the year 2000,
and Barack Obama in 2008.
We`ll be right back.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. The Obama campaign`s Bain
strategy criticizing Mitt Romney for his work with Bain Capital is paying
dividends in crucial battleground states. New data from Cantar (ph) Media
shows that from early April through late June, 100 percent of the ads
sponsored by pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA mentioned Bain Capital by
The super-PAC showered the swing states with multi-million-dollar ad
buys aiming to chip away at Romney`s purported business bona fides. And
both the Obama and Romney campaigns agree the ads are working.
Eugene Robinson is an MSNBC political analyst and columnist for ""The
Washington Post." "Mother Jones" magazine`s David Corn is also an MSNBC
political analyst and author of "Showdown."
Eugene, when I hear that they`re doing it by super-PAC, it tells me
that it`s not an ad that requires the president at the end saying, I`m
Barack Obama and I approved this message. Very, very successful, and yet
the president maintains some distance from it.
EUGENE ROBINSON, "WASHINGTON POST," MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.
The president gets to have clean hands in all of this, while allies go
after Mitt Romney on what he portrays as his strength, his business -- his
record in business, his record of success.
He says, That qualifies me to be president. And the president`s side
is arguing, Well, wait a minute. Let`s look at what he did in business and
look and see if this is the kind of experience we want in the president of
the United States.
MATTHEWS: It reminds me, David Corn, of Governor Romney`s handling of
his religion. In other words, it`s a subject he seems loath to discuss.
He`ll talk about his record as creating jobs, vaguely described, maybe a
reference to Staples or some other business, but you just don`t hear him
address the nitty-gritty of Bain. Is it because he has no message that he
can sell in that regard? I mean, what`s holding him back?
DAVID CORN, "MOTHER JONES," MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I think because
the nitty-gritty is kind of dirty. I mean -- I mean -- I don`t want to be
too pejorative here, but their point was -- and the president made this
point himself, not ads but in remarks -- that Bain`s existence was to
create profits, not jobs, for the investors. And sometimes that led to
good results for the firms they bought. Other times, as Priorities USA and
others are pointing out, it led to disastrous results for the workers.
And so if you get into the nitty-gritty of the private equity world,
it`s not necessarily a template that you want to bring to the White House.
So if you, you know, couldn`t -- could Mitt Romney come on this show -
- as if he would ever -- and talk for 10, 15, 20 minutes about some of the
details of the deals he did or where his initial investment money came
from? Salvadoran families. There`s a lot in Bain that just wouldn`t sit
right with middle class Americans.
MATTHEWS: Eugene, do you buy into that? I mean, I love Staples. I
am a stationery store kind of a guy. Don`t ask me why. It`s one of my
quirks. Isn`t there a Staples story that he could be touting in a 60-
second spot and walk you through the growth that Bain produced?
ROBINSON: You know, I don`t know if he would sustain that for a whole 60
ROBINSON: I mean, maybe for a 15-second or 30-second spot,we -- you
know, we helped Staples get started and it`s -- you have one around the
corner from where you live.
SMERCONISH: Right.
ROBINSON: And it`s a great thing. You like to go there.
But to talk about the details of that deal, I`m not sure that that
really connects with people.
SMERCONISH: Well, let`s take a look at how these things are being
raised thus far.
Here`s a pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Ad attacking Romney`s
tenure with Bain Capital.
NARRATOR: Romney bought companies, drowned them in debt. Many went
bankrupt. Thousands of workers lost jobs, benefits and pensions. But for
every company he drove into the ground, Romney averaged a $92 million
profit. Now he says his business experience would make him a good
president? If Romney wins, the middle class loses.
SMERCONISH: Hey, David, did...
CORN: Yes.
SMERCONISH: ... the Cory Bookers of the world know misjudge the
impact this would have? And when I say Cory Bookers, you of course know
I`m referring...
CORN: Yes.
SMERCONISH: ... to those D`s who came out and said, hey, not all --
not all things about Bain are bad. Did they not see this coming? Because
it seems like outside the beltway, it played very well.
CORN: Four years ago, we had a crash. Wall Street crashed and really
Main Street paid the price with 14 million lost jobs.
I think that the Bain attack from the Obama side and the criticism, if
you will, or critique, has to be effective. I don`t think Americans like
the idea of people like Mitt Romney, who get golden parachutes, have golden
elevators -- he had no risk when he took the Bain Capital job and also when
companies lost money, he still made money.
It`s sort of the certain type of free enterprise that is maybe not all
that free, but very enterprising for the 1 percent. So, I never understand
understood Mayor Booker`s arguments. President Clinton referred to this
and others did. I think this is a very -- this cuts to the heart of Mitt
Romney`s values.
SMERCONISH: When I say they have been effective, let me back that up.
Because the latest NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll -- and we showed it on
HARDBALL last week -- shows evidence of how effective the Obama campaign`s
Bain strategy may be.
People in the dozen swing states polled, just 18 percent said that
what they have heard about Romney`s business career gives them a more
favorable opinion of him. A third of the group said they have formed a
more negative opinion. The swing state polling is worse for Romney than
the national numbers, which show a significantly closer split.
Eugene Robinson, your reaction to those numbers.
ROBINSON: Well, I mean, first of all, I think they`re targeting the
right swing states from the Obama campaign`s point of view because they`re
-- as you said, the impact seems to be greater there than nationally.
You know, it -- I think that the interesting disconnect is between
kind of the New York-Washington Acela line access, which all seem to think
that private equity fine and why are the president`s people being so mean,
and the rest of the country, which really doesn`t -- which has a problem, I
think, with this particular style or this slice of this -- of capitalism.
SMERCONISH: Well, I agree with you, for what it`s worth. I think
because everybody in that Acela corridor knows -- has a relative or knows
somebody, or if...
ROBINSON: There you go.
SMERCONISH: ... they`re a politician, took money from someone who`s
in that.
ROBINSON: There you go.
SMERCONISH: Mitt Romney`s campaign -- Mitt Romney`s campaign is
pushing a new line of attack that will aggressively portray Obama as a
craven political figure.
ROBINSON: Yes.
SMERCONISH: According to "The New York Times" it revived this 4-year-
old footage to make this debut ad. Let`s watch this.
NARRATOR: Barack Obama`s attacks against Mitt Romney, they are just
not true. "The Washington Post" says on just about every level, this ad is
misleading, unfair and untrue. But that`s Barack Obama. He also attacked
Hillary Clinton with vicious lies.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: He continues to
spend millions of dollars perpetuating falsehoods.
NARRATOR: Mitt Romney has a plan to get America working. Barack
Obama, worst job record since the Depression.
CLINTON: So shame on you, Barack Obama.
SMERCONISH: David Corn, I don`t know. There`s a lot more recent
footage out there from the GOP side where they`re all sniping at one
another. Is that effective to dust off Hillary from four years ago?
CORN: I don`t think Hillary is a big critic of Barack Obama these
You have Newt Gingrich calling Mitt Romney a liar just a couple of
months ago. You could dust off, you know, miles of footage of John McCain
saying similar things about Mitt Romney from the 2008 campaign.
Listen, this is one thing I don`t understand about the Romney strategy
and some of the super PACs on his side. Barack Obama, I don`t know if they
got the memo, he`s been president for three and a half years now.
Americans can -- will and can judge him on what he`s done as president. No
one`s going look at what he did or didn`t do in 2008 and what was said or
not said about him that far back. It`s kind of idiotic.
SMERCONISH: I think it`s also a reflection of her strong numbers.
And that`s why they`re using it.
Thank you, Eugene Robinson.
SMERCONISH: Thank you, David Corn. We appreciate it.
CORN: Sure thing.
SMERCONISH: Up next, a reporter in New Jersey gets the Chris Christie
treatment after asking the governor a question he didn`t want to answer.
That`s next in the "Sideshow."
And, remember, you can follow me on Twitter if you can spell
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
SMERCONISH: Back to HARDBALL and now for the "Sideshow."
First off, we have seen what happens when somebody breaks Chris
Christie`s ground rules at a press conference, right? Well, this weekend
was no exception. The New Jersey wanted to answer questions about a
damaged water treatment plant in his state. No other topics allowed.
Here`s what went down when a reporter tried to shift subjects.
QUESTION: On Monday, are you going to be addressing the legislature?
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Did stay on topic? Are you
stupid? On topic. On topic. Next question. Good. Thank you.
CHRISTIE: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very much. And I`m
sorry for the idiot over there. Take care.
SMERCONISH: He didn`t even get the full question out before being
called stupid an and idiot.
Next, what does Mardi Gras have to do with Supreme Court decision on
health care? Before you say absolutely nothing, let`s turn to Louisiana
Governor Bobby Jindal. Here`s his attempt at defending Mitt Romney`s
support of the individual mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts .
GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: Mitt Romney`s always been against
the national mandate. He`s always been against Obamacare, always said he
wanted to repeal it. Look, states are different. I come from one of the
most distinct cultural states in the entire country. Mardi Gras is great
for Louisiana. It may not work as well in Vermont or other states.
DAVID GREGORY, MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS": You`re really comparing
Mardi Gras to universal health insurance?
JINDAL: What I`m saying is, every state is difference.
SMERCONISH: Mardi Gras and health care? I`m with David Gregory on
that one.
And Chief Justice John Roberts has been getting a lot of attention for
being the unexpected swing vote in the health care decision. The folks at
Business Insider wanted to do something to highlight his surge in
popularity. How about some ideas for his own hey, girl meme, you know,
like the one featuring Ryan Gosling?
Here`s one. "Hey, girl, your beauty should be unconstitutional." Or
"Hey, girl, our love is for a life term" as she gazes at Antonin Scalia. A
Pew poll back in 2010 found that fewer than three in 10 Americans knew that
Roberts was chief justice.
On the day the decision came down, Google reported that searches for
Justice Roberts jumped over 25,000 percent.
Finally, team Romney got some unsolicited advice from none other than
Rupert Murdoch this weekend via Twitter. He said what he -- quote -- "Met
Romney last week. Tough O. Chicago pros will be hard to beat, unless he
drops old friends from team and hires some real pros. Doubtful."
I guess that didn`t sit well with team Romney, because here`s this
morning Murdoch follow up. "Romney people upset at me. Of course I want
him to win, save us from socialism, et cetera, but should listen to good
advice and get stuck in," whatever that means.
That one came after a tweet reminding us not to forget about the
Fourth of July.
Thank you, Rupert.
Up next: Legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno may have been far
more involved in protecting Jerry Sandusky than he ever admitted. Buzz
Bissinger joins us for the latest blockbuster in the Sandusky case. That`s
You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
HAMPTON PEARSON, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: I`m Hampton Pearson with your
CNBC "Market Wrap."
The Dow ends down nine points, the S&P is up three, the Nasdaq at 16
points. Stocks wavered after a weaker-than-expected report on
manufacturing, which showed contraction in the sector for the first time
since July of 2009. Meanwhile, Barclays` chairman resigned following an
interest rate rigging scandal. The company has been fined $453 million.
And Bristol-Myers Squibb is paying $5.3 billion for biotech firm
That`s it from CNBC, first in business worldwide -- now back to
SMERCONISH: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
The late Joe Paterno may have played a much bigger role than he had
claimed in persuading Penn State officials not to report Jerry Sandusky to
authorities. Now, as you say, graduate assistant Mike McQueary reported
that he saw Sandusky sexually abuse a young boy in the campus showers.
NBC`s Michael Isikoff reports that in one e-mail among college
officials following that report, then athletic director Tim Curley
references a conversation he had with Paterno. The details of that
conversation are unknown, but following that conversation, Penn State
officials changed their minds on how to proceed, and they didn`t report the
alleged abuse to authorities.
Jeremy Roebuck has been covering the story for "The Philadelphia
Inquirer." The great Buzz Bissinger is the bestselling author of "Friday
Night Lights" -- that`s his latest book -- and "Father`s Day" -- that`s his
latest book. Now he`s a regular talk show host on WPHT 1210 AM in
Philadelphia, as well as a sports columnist for The Daily Beast.
Jeremy, let`s walk through what we think we know. So, there were
deliberations allegedly, reportedly, as to what they were going to do about
two weeks after the McQueary incident. And the plan that they seem to have
adopted was a three-part plan where they were going to as one prong contact
the authorities. Then something changed.
What can you shed on that?
JEREMY ROEBUCK, "THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER": Well, some details that
came to light over the weekend about these e-mails, we heard that athletic
director Tim Curley referenced this conversation with Paterno and said,
after thinking about this, chatting it over with Paterno, he came back and
suggested to the other people involved in this controversy , maybe the best
thing to do is to sit down with Jerry Sandusky first, talk it over with
him, tell his charity, but hold off on notifying the authorities until they
see how he reacted.
SMERCONISH: And then they have a go-around and they actually use
supposedly the word vulnerable. This may be the best course. They want to
be humane, not necessarily to the victims, but to Sandusky. And they
recognize that they might be vulnerable if this is the posture they adopt.
ROEBUCK: Yes, according to these e-mails, university president -- or
then university president Graham Spanier was the one that actually used
that word vulnerable.
He said this sounded like a decent plan and it sounded like a humane
plan, as you said. And he suggested though he was a little concerned
about, say, Sandusky didn`t listen or they couldn`t get the response that
they desired, that they might be vulnerable to some repercussions down the
road if it did come out that they didn`t report it at the time.
SMERCONISH: And one thing we do know for sure is what Graham Spanier
said when he was fired. And he said in his statement in part was that he
had no knowledge of any of these sort of acts having taken place. True?
ROEBUCK: Yes, absolutely, although it is kind of important to note
that it`s a little unclear from what we have learned about these e-mails so
far whether these gentlemen are talking about child rape, as Mike McQueary
said that he told them and made very clear that that was what he saw, or
whether this is more along the lines of what they later told the grand
jury, that they were thinking the whole incident was horseplay.
SMERCONISH: Well, yes, but there`s also reference supposedly to the
prior incident.
And, Buzz, that would mean the 1998 incident, which, if you add it all
up -- well, I`m not going to add it up. You add it up, Buzz. What`s the
BUZZ BISSINGER, AUTHOR, "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS": Well, I mean, the
takeaway is, is that, as far as I`m concerned, Joe Paterno has no legacy
You don`t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Tim Curley
has a three-pronged plan, one of which is, it`s going to be reported to the
Department of Welfare. He talks to Paterno. All of a sudden, the key
element of that plan has disappeared.
And even Paterno himself in his very brief and frankly odd grand jury
testimony said he knows that something of a sexual nature occurred. They
know that Sandusky, at the very least, was in the shower with a 10-year-old
boy. They don`t care about the victim. It`s all about spin. It`s about
treating Jerry humanely.
And Graham Spanier was right. It gets out, they were vulnerable and
more than vulnerable. I think it just cements Paterno not only as someone
who was cowardly and did not do what he should have in the beginning, but
also a liar.
SMERCONISH: Hey, Buzz, you know that according to testimony presented
at the Sandusky trial -- I don`t think I have to say allegedly, reportedly
any longer -- within...
BISSINGER: Thank God.
SMERCONISH: ... six months of this McQueary incident, one of these
victims was assaulted by Jerry Sandusky.
And there are a lot of bad acts that took place in the decade that
followed. The real takeaway here is that, had these men acted, presumably,
a decades` worth of abuse would not have taken place.
BISSINGER: Well, you know, at this point, anyone who believes that Joe
Paterno did not know about the 1998 incident is a fool. He did know.
SMERCONISH: I`m sorry. I was going to say the family says, look,
Joe was not an e-mail guy. Joe didn`t participate in any of this email.
Don`t jump to conclusions based on leaked reports. I apologize, I cut you
BISSINGER: Yes, but I don`t -- so he didn`t use e-mail. I mean, I
think he still had the ability to talk. He must have told Curley something
to get Curley to change his mind and say, let`s not report it to welfare
I`m now convinced and just connecting the dots and every dot has been
connected. Paterno knows about the 1998 incident, why does Jerry Sandusky,
the defensive coach of the year then resign a year later?
And, Michael, you write a terrific column that got no play at all.
Why was Mike McQueary made the receiver`s coach? He was a quarterback. He
had no experience. There was a guy named Kenny Jackson who had been the
receivers coach for Penn State, then for the Steelers, had played at Penn
State, had four times the experience and I now believe it was Paterno, he
was embarrassed and it was almost like hush money.
SMERCONISH: I`m going to address as a matter of fact at the end of
tonight`s program.
Jeremy Roebuck from the "Philadelphia Inquirer". I thought it a bit
odd the response from the Curley-Schultz lawyers after this report
dominated the cycle this weekend. They seemed to wrap themselves in
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett.
Can you explain that to our audience?
JEREMY ROEBUCK, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: Yes. It`s interesting.
Governor Corbett has come under a little bit of pressure in the sense of
why did they take so long to arrest Jerry Sandusky. And he said all along
that they had to build a case, they had to know that they had the evidence
to convict him. Otherwise these would have been all blown up in their
So, when the information about these emails came out this weekend, we
heard from Curley and Schultz`s lawyer who said, you know, as Corbett said
earlier, our clients had to sit there and figure out what was the best way
to handle this allegation, because they, you know, rushed and put that
information in the hands of child welfare authorities and it turned out not
to be true, it could blow up in their faces. Now, whether that`s an
argument we can all get behind, that`s at least the argument that they`re
making for now.
SMERCONISH: Jeremy, thanks so much. It will be interesting to see
whether the Louis Freeh investigation also gets into the matter of why this
was an apparently understaffed investigation for its first year? Why did
it take them so long by way of example to even figure out that Sandusky had
written a book with the oddly named title, "Touched"?
Thank you, Buzz Bissinger. Thank you, Jeremy Roebuck.
Up next, did Chief Justice John Roberts actually switch his vote to
uphold the health care reform law? We`re now hearing that he initially
planned to strike down the mandate, but flipped to the other side. That`s
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
SMERCONISH: Latino voters will be key to President Obama`s
reelection hopes, especially in key swing states like Florida, Colorado and
New Mexico. The Gallup polling shows more than half of Latino identified
as political independents. Fifty-one percent say they`re independents,
versus 32 percent who call themselves Democrats and just 11 percent who say
they`re Republicans. But asked which way they lean, those independents
shift to the Democratic Party by a margin to 2-1, 52 percent to just 23
We`ll be right back.
SMERCONISH: We`re back.
Ever since Thursday morning`s health care decision, there`s been
speculation that Chief Justice John Roberts switched his vote late in the
game. Legal scholars say that the conservative dissent reads more like a
majority opinion that lost its fifth vote at the last minute. And now, CBS
News is reporting that based on two sources with knowledge of the
deliberations Justice Roberts did indeed initially side with the other
conservatives, but changed his vote.
According to CBS, Roberts then withstood a month long desperate
campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said.
Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy believed by many conservatives to be
the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law -- led the effort to
try to bring Roberts back to the fold. "He was relentless," one source
said of Kennedy`s efforts. "He was very engaged in this."
What should we make of it all?
David Von Drehle is editor at large for "Time" magazine. He wrote
this week`s cover story on Justice Roberts.
And Charles Lanes is an opinion writer for "The Washington Post.`
David, does it comport with your reading of the tea leaves about the
way in which Justice Roberts functions -- Chief Justice Roberts -- and the
way in which court members treat one another?
DAVID VON DREHLE, TIME MAGAZINE: Well, sure. This is not entirely
surprising. This is -- this case is one of a kind. So, to expect it to go
simply and easily is probably a bit naive.
Jan Crawford, who reported that for CBS, is a terrific reporter, one
of the best. Her sources are excellent. So, I believe what she`s reported
there, my one question is whether he changed his vote or whether he added
to his vote. He did decide that the law was unconstitutional under the
Commerce Clause and what he did was to uphold the law under a different
congressional power, the power to tax.
And so it may not be so much that he changed his opinion as simply
did something he announced he was going to do at the first conference where
they discuss their initial reaction.
SMERCONISH: On the issue of how much pressure he may have faced, how
much was Justice Roberts influenced by outside pressure, CBS said this,
quote, "Over the next six, as Roberts began to craft the decision striking
down the mandate, the external pressure began to grow. Robert almost
certainly was aware of it. Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As
chief justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the court. And
he`s also sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public."
Charles, does that make sense to you, that perhaps he took one for
the team? I mean, I note that you`ve got Tom Friedman on the left and
Charles Krauthammer on the right, both coming the conclusion that this is
why Roberts may have taken this path.
CHARLES LANE, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, it`s plausible. I don`t
see this as some capitulation to pressure because if you read this bundle
of opinions carefully, you`ll see that Roberts accomplished many of the
conservatives` movements of objectives. First of all, enshrining this
narrow video of the Commerce Clause. Secondly getting a 7-2 holding that
the Medicaid expansion is unconstitutionally coercive. That`s something
conservatives can use a lot in the future.
And there are two liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan,
and they seem to have switched their votes. I`d like to hear more about
that because at oral argument, both of them said there was nothing coercive
about this Medicaid expansion, much less anything unconstitutional about
it. Then lo and behold they sign an opinion that says it`s
unconstitutionally coercive.
That tells me that they have to give a lot to get Justice Roberts to
come over. That doesn`t sound like somebody who`s so freaked out by the
negative press coverage that he just capitulated.
SMERCONISH: You know, since the decision, conservatives have said
that they feel betrayed by Justice Roberts. Congressman Jack Kingston
tweeted Thursday, "With Obamacare ruling, I feel like I lost two great
friends, America and Justice Roberts."
And an editorial in "The Wall Street Journal" said the particular
tragedy is all four justices would have overturned all of Obamacare as
unconstitutional. Only John Roberts prevented it.
David on the right, a lot of consternation. Isn`t that they not
appreciating what Charles just said? That perhaps Roberts is striking a
compromise that preserves much of what conservatives were looking for.
VON DREHLE: Sure. But on the right there are a lot of conservatives
who didn`t want a compromise here. They wanted a clear cut, hands down,
100 percent victory. And they did not get that. The law is still on the
But what Chief Justice Roberts has to pay attention to is the fact
that the Supreme Court is not a seminar at a law school. It is a branch of
the United States government. And so, politics does come into play there.
And this was an incredibly politically charged situation in which you
had four justices on the right, all of them appointed by Republicans.
That`s very unusual. Four on the left all appointed by Democrats.
Again, to have this ideological split match up with the partisan
split is very rare in the history of the court. We`re in the middle of an
election campaign. We`re talking about a huge piece of legislation passed
by the Congress, signed by the president. And to walk into that and say
that I`m going to decide this case exactly the way I want to because I`m on
the court and let the consequences fall as they may, it`s not necessarily
what the chief justice`s job is to do.
SMERCONISH: Charles, I have just 30 seconds left. If you could
answer this quickly, I`d appreciate it. Is it possible to an extent there
was a late switch by the chief justice, those who were disappointed with
him deliberately left words intact so that tea leaves could be read and
people would know, hey, this is not the way he was initially going to go.
CHARLES: It`s possible and I sure would like to know who these
people leaking are. These people trying to spin the story purporting to
have inside knowledge of the Supreme Court trying to make the chief justice
look bad. That is a pretty interesting phenomenon. You rarely see that
kind of leak coming out of the court.
SMERCONISH: It made me think -- I guess the book was "The Brethren".
It made me think of "The Brethren." We haven`t had such an insight into
the court since that book came out.
In any event, thank you, David Von Drehle and Charles Lane.
When we return, allow me to finish with the latest news in the
Sandusky case and what it might reveal about Joe Paterno.
You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
SMERCONISH: Let me finish tonight with this: Penn State and Jerry
Sandusky were back in the news this weekend amid reports that e-mails show
that top Penn State administrators included president Graham Spanier
weighed whether to report Sandusky back to authorities back in 2001 after
Mike McQueary`s report of a shower incident.
Then says one of the emails, after one of them spoke to Joe Paterno,
they changed course, decided not to make the report while worrying that
their new plan could leave them, quote, "vulnerable".
Jo Becker had a tidbit in one of the final paragraphs of her coverage
in "The New York Times" yesterday. She said that former FBI director,
Louis Freeh, as part of his investigation is exploring the circumstances
the surrounding Paterno`s hiring of Mike McQueary.
Well, I think I know why that might be of interest. I find it
curious he was hired as the receiver coach four years after he reported the
Sandusky episode. McQueary, after all, played quarterback for Penn State.
Then after an unsuccessful attempt to pro ball, he returned to his alma
matter in 2000 to pursue a career in coaching.
At the time of the shower incident, he was a graduate assistant.
Then he become an administrative assistant and then he was hired to coach
the wide receivers.
But in 2005, Paterno could have invited someone else to return to the
wide receiver coaching position, Kenny Jackson. Jackson was the school`s
first all American receiver, an important part of a national championship
team. He played pro ball as a wide receiver. And then the coached wide
receivers at both Penn State and for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was
available at the time that McQueary was hired.
So why in 2005 didn`t Joe Paterno ask the 42-year-old former all-
American receiver to return to Penn State instead of hiring a 29-year-old
former college quarterback with very limited coaching experience? Maybe
because McQueary`s resume included one thing Jackson was lacking: a report
to Paterno about what he`d seen in the showers in 2001.
That`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.
"POLITICS NATION" with Al Sharpton starts right now.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
A Man of Few Words is a Quest given by Darvo in any Relay. It tasks the player with rescuing a Grineer contractor of Darvo, who is disobedient to the Grineer Queens.
This quest can be replayed via the Codex.
"You're not supposed to be in here! You're going to ruin the surprise!"The following section contains spoilers. Please finish the quest before proceeding.
Rescue the contractor: Stephano, UranusEdit
The first mission takes players to a Rescue mission on Uranus to find and free the contractor, whom Darvo explains is a Grineer soldier that has a genetic flaw making him disobedient to the Queens, and had been on the way to retrieving an artifact when he was captured.
Upon arriving at the prison complex, the termination timer of 2:30 minutes will immediately start regardless of player action, making the task of freeing the contractor from the pod a race against time. Large amounts of Grineer reinforcements, as well as Leekter of The Grustrag Three, will arrive to hinder any attempts at retrieval. The hostage, revealed to be a Lancer named Clem, must be safely extracted to complete the mission.
Retrieve Clem's Grakatas: Caliban, UranusEditBack on the Orbiter, Darvo informs the player that Clem will need his custom-made Twin Grakatas to be fully combat ready, and thus sends them on a Salvage mission to retrieve them.
Clem will accompany players on this mission, initially equipped with a Latron to fight off enemies, with Darvo lamenting how Clem is helpless without his custom weapons. The custom-made Twin Grakatas can be picked up at a barracks room, and will be equipped by Clem when acquired. Once retrieved, Darvo informs the Tenno that Clem wants to deal with the ones who took the Twin Grakatas, pointing players to an Assassination target. The target turns out to be Vem Tabook of the Grustrag Three, whom players have to kill before extraction.
Help Darvo get the relic: Puck, UranusEditThe third mission is a Survival mission on Uranus, as Darvo finally assigns the Tenno to recover the artifact that Clem had originally been assigned to.
Clem again assists players, still armed with his Twin Grakatas, as they distract the Grineer while another of Darvo's agents finds the artifact. This mission will play on as a standard survival mission, until around 3 and a half minutes away from completion, when the Tenno will be attacked by the last remaining member of the Grustrag Three, Shik Tal. Upon finding the relic, Darvo calls it "The Potent Orokin Technical Augmentation and Tactical Offensive device," which he acronyms as POTATO. A Clem Clone Blueprint will be rewarded upon completion and extraction.
When the player finishes the mission, Darvo will ask them to come to a relay so they can thank the player in person. The player will receive an Exilus Adapter when Darvo finishes talking.
Weekly MissionEdit
Completing the quest will unlock weekly "Help Clem" Alert. Every Monday at 00:00 UTC, players should get this mission added to alerts section of the world state window that can be clicked to visit Darvo in a relay and use the prompt "Does Clem need my help?", which will trigger a Survival mission largely identical to the quest's final mission. At the five minute mark the Cell will be attacked either by Shik Tal, the Lynx, or a Juggernaut, depending on whether the Cell is fighting the Grineer, Corpus, or Infested respectively. This mission is repeatable, but can only be performed once every seven days after successfully completing it. As with the quest mission, the weekly mission will reward a Clem Clone Blueprint.
- Clem's initial appearance in the first mission will see him have shields as a defense. His succeeding appearances in the next two missions of the quest, however, will see him rely on regenerating health instead.
- Even if the player has not unlocked Uranus yet, they will still be able to do the quest.
- This is the first official appearance of the popular player created character, Clem.
- Clem was created by player Datareaper, who also designed the winning melee contest design Kronen. Datareaper's comics featuring Clem also seem to have inspired the Twin Grakatas, which is Clem's weapon of choice.
- This quest also became the third official concept that was largely inspired by a community-run gag, the first and second were A Favor For Darvo and Derf Anyo respectively.
- Clem wields a Latron in the second portion of the quest to retrieve his weapons, a reference to the original comic where a Tenno insisted Clem use a Latron.
- During the Survival portion of the Quest, Darvo says the artifact obtained by his other operative was "the Potent Orokin Technical Augmentation and Tactical Offensive device", which he shortens to "POTATO"; a reference to the common fandom nickname for Orokin Reactors and Orokin Catalysts, since their appearance is similar to that of a potato.
- A random member of The Grustrag Three will often spawn instead of Shik Tal during the final quest mission, though will continue using Shik Tal's taunts.
- During the first mission in which the player encounters Clem, it is possible to become stuck in the pod containing Clem if the player jumps on to it before Clem leaves in order to give him their secondary weapon. If this happens, typing "/unstuck" should free you from the pod. However if this does not work then the only way to complete the mission is to abort and then restart the entire mission.
|Tenno Awakening
|Awakening • Vor's Prize • Once Awake • The Archwing • Stolen Dreams • The New Strange ( Chroma) • Natah
|Zariman Ten Zero
|The Second Dream • The War Within • Chains of Harrow ( Harrow) • Apostasy Prologue • The Sacrifice ( Excalibur Umbra)
|The New War
|Rising Tide • Chimera Prologue • Erra
|Side Quests
|Howl of the Kubrow • A Man of Few Words • Hidden Messages ( Mirage) • The Limbo Theorem ( Limbo) • Patient Zero ( Mesa) • The Jordas Precept ( Atlas) • Sands of Inaros ( Inaros) • The Silver Grove ( Titania) • The Glast Gambit ( Nidus) • Octavia's Anthem ( Octavia) • Saya's Vigil ( Gara) • Mask of the Revenant ( Revenant) • Vox Solaris ( Garuda) • The Deadlock Protocol ( Protea) • Heart of Deimos ( Xaku)
|Story and History


text:
Volvo Dynamic Steering on Volvo FMX
Since day one Volvo's Volvo Dynamic Steering has provided perfect stability in high speeds and total control at low speeds. The latest version of the system brings with it some very useful features for your everyday tough driving conditions. It's now more customisable, and helps you maintain position on the road and can even step in when it detects a skid or slide is about to happen.
Dynamic Steering during your day
With Volvo Dynamic Steering the vibrations and kicks that feedback through the steering wheel while driving on uneven road surfaces are eliminated. Reversing and close-quarter manoeuvring is also made easier – steering wheel resistance is reduced by up to 70% at low speeds. In addition, the steering wheel automatically self-centres as soon as your grip on the wheel lightens.
At higher speeds, the truck confidently maintains its direction even on poor surfaces and in strong side-winds. The technology works with your truck's hydraulic power steering, assisted by an electronically regulated electric motor that continuously adjusts steering inputs and provides added turning force if and when you need it.
Less time spent adjusting your settings
With Volvo's Volvo Dynamic Steering you can quickly choose your steering settings via an onboard menu and start your journey. You can also engage Lane Keeping Assist, depending on where you'll be driving, at the touch of a button. Stability Assist is always working in the background.
Welcome to your new cab
Volvo Dynamic Steering with External Steering lets you operate your truck via a remote control. This is ideal for where repeated short movements of the truck is combined with work outside the cab. Your productivity improves, not to mention how your working day becomes a lot more comfortable.


text:
Posted by Editoress on 08/27/13
Final preparations are underway for what will be the first ever UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships on the African continent. The host of the Championships is Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, who are well qualified after organizing World Cups in three of the past four years. Pietermaritzburg is in the KwaZulu-Natal region on the eastern side of South Africa.
The track is hard, dusty and fast
The XC's opening switchback climb up Noogies Knoll
The Ampitheatre will be a fast section
Rapid Rocks is the first major technical section, coming at the one-third mark of the lap, and is also in the Eliminator course
Rainbow jerseys will be awarded to a total of 18 riders across the Trials, Cross-country, Downhill and Eliminator disciplines, in the Junior, Under-23 and Elite men and women categories. Canada has one of the larger teams at the championships at 38 athletes, across every category except Trials, with nine Downhillers and 29 Cross-country. In total, the championships have 813 entries and 46 nations.
The first world title will be awarded tomorrow (Wednesday) in the Team Relay, a cross-country event contested between nations, with each team consisting of a Junior Man, Under-23 Man, Elite Woman and Elite Man. Each rider has to do one lap of the cross-country circuit, with the first team to complete four laps being awarded the title. Italy are the defending champions and the current European champions, but France, Switzerland and Canada usually field strong squads also. Germany would usually be among the contenders, however, they suffered a serious blow when Elite woman Sabine Spitz crashed out of the championships earlier today, injuring her shoulder. [see Daily News]
Sharkas Playground has already taken Sabine Spitz out of competition
Riders check out the Tree House rock garden
The Corkscrew is the final technical section of the lap
Teams can send out the riders in any order they wish, so there is considerable strategy involved; do you send out your fastest riders first to build up a lead and try to hang on, or do you keep them to last and hope you can catch the early leaders. The winner usually isn't known until the final straightaway.
Canada is not entering its top elite stars. The team will consist of Derek Zandstra (Elite Men), Sandra Walter (Elite Women), Mitch Bailey (Under-23 Men) and Peter Disera (Junior Men).
The Trials competition takes place throughout the week, and is one of the most popular events with spectators. Consisting of a series of extremely challenging obstacle courses, riders hop, jump and ride through each section, with the goal of avoiding putting a foot down. Each 'dab' results in a penalty point, and the rider with the lowest number of points wins. Riders advance through qualifying rounds to reach the medal finals in each category. Canada's medal hopeful John Webster will not be competing for the first time in 5 years. Webster finished 7th in 2010, 4th in 2011 and 6th in 2012.
The cross-country begins on Thursday with the Junior categories, and culminates with the Elite races on Saturday. This is the Olympic event, and every top star of the World Cup circuit is in attendance. This season, the Elite men's category has been a battle between defending champion Nino Schurter of Switzerland and Julien Absalon of France, and we can expect to see the same here at the world championships. Schurter holds the edge, with wins in the past two years at Pietermaritzburg, but Absalon decisively won the last round of the World Cup leading into these championships. Geoff Kabush, Max Plaxton and Canadian champion Derek Zandstra are joined by Raphael Gagne and Cameron Jette in the Elite men.
Nino Schurter on Sharkas Playground at 2012 World Cup
Defending Champion Julie Bressett rides the rocks at 2012 World Cup
The Elite women's race is wide open, with five or six strong contenders for the title. Defending champion Julie Bressett of France has returned strongly from a broken clavicle early in the season. Slovenia's Tanja Zakelj leads the World Cup after winning two events and is the most consistent rider. Katerina Nash (Czech Republic) is coming off the first World Cup win of her career, and Maja Wloszczowska (Poland), third in the World Cup standings, can never be discounted. Canada's top two women, Catharine Pendrel and Emily Batty, both battled injury and sickness earlier in the season, but both are healthy here, and have been improving steadily, so either could be a medal threat, since both have been on the podium here in the past. They are joined by Andreanne Pichette, Amanda Sin, Sandra Walter and Mikaela Kofman.
On Sunday morning, after the Cross-country races have finished, the riders will line up again for the Eliminator, the newest world championship discipline, only in its second year. The top 32 riders in the men and women from qualifying runs will race in heats of four riders at a time on a short, very technical course, with the top two riders moving on to the next round. The top four in the men and women will race for the world titles.
Alexandra Engen (Sweden), the defending women's champion, has been the most consistent rider all season, but she will face stiff competition from her team mate Jenny Rissveds, as well as Eva Lechner (Italy) and Jolanda Neff (Switzerland). Canada has entered a full slate of riders - Pendrel, Batty, Pichette, Andreane Lanthier-Nadeau, Rachel Pageau, Maghalie Rochette and Laura Bietola.
The men's Eliminator should come to a showdown between the two most consistent riders of the season, Daniel Federspiel (Austria) and Miha Halzer (Slovenia). Others sure to be in the battle for medals include Simon Gegenheimer (Germany) and Mels Fabrice (Belgium). Again, Canada has seven riders entered - all the Elite men, plus Leandre Bouchard and Evan Guthrie.
The final event of these world championships will be the Elite Downhill, and the course at Pietermaritzburg is one of the most physically demanding on the circuit. To do well here requires both technical skill and endurance for the long pedaling sections.
Rachel Atherton (Great Britain) has been the most consistent woman on the circuit this season, with three wins in four World Cup races, but she was beaten in the last round by former world champion Emmeline Ragot (France). Others to watch include Manon Carpenter (Great Britain) and defending world champion Morgane Charre (France). An interesting tidbit is that Rachel Atherton has never raced here before. Canadian champion Micayla Gatto, Casey Brown and former Junior world champion Lauren Rosser will race for Canada.
Greg Minnaar is hoping to win on home ground
In the men's Downhill, all local eyes will be on Pietermaritzburg's own hero Greg Minnaar, the defending world champion. Minnaar is locked in a tight battle on the World Cup with Gee Atherton (Great Britain) and Steve Smith (Canada). The South African also has two wins in three years on this home course, however, Smith is on a tremendous roll, winning at Mont Ste Anne as well as at Crankworx in the past few weeks.
Steve Smith will be looking to improve his World Championship record
Canada also has strong medal possibilities from defending Junior women's world champion Holly Feniak, and from Mark Wallace in the Junior men.
The action begins on Wednesday at 1600h (local / 1000h Eastern)
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As the largest country in South Asia and the seventh-largest in the world, India is home to over one billion inhabitants. This extremely diverse country boasts one of the world's fastest-growing economies and with its 38 JCI accredited facilities, it's considered a prime destination for Medical Tourism. India welcomes an ever-increasing number of medical tourists each year, many of which travel for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation procedures. Its low-cost medical procedures draw tourists from all over the world, particularly Western and Middle Eastern countries. Highly specialized doctors speak English and the vast majority are trained in the UK or the US, with heart surgery procedures being especially common in India. Local accreditation bodies include the Indian Healthcare Federation, the Indian Medical Tourism Council, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH)
Home to around 1.3 billion people, India is the second-most populous country in the world, with its multi-ethnic society, spiritual beliefs, architecture, and diverse wildlife.
There are four climatological seasons in India.
The best time to visit India is in the month of March or October when the weather is warm and sunny.
Indira Gandhi International Airport is the busiest airport in the country and is located in Delhi. The airport serves domestic and international flights. It connects the city with almost every country around the world and serves budget airlines such as Air Asia India, Go Air, and IndiGo. There are three other main international airports in Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru.
The most affordable way to travel around the city is by bus although it can be very crowded. Buses are very reliable and fast. Airport taxis are available as a quick, easy, and hassle-free transportation mode especially for tourists who carry big baggage.
The best way to get around India is by train. Trains are everywhere and quite affordable with many different classes. The most popular class for travel is the Sleeper Class. It is best to purchase train tickets online.
Buses are a nice option for short-distance travel. Some of the buses can be very uncomfortable but there are luxury buses with air conditioning. Tourists can purchase tickets online, in the station, or even on the buses.
Taxis are relatively affordable, but tourists have to bargain. Tourists can ask the taxi driver to use the meter but the drivers will usually say it's broken. It is advised to ask your hotel or hostel how much a taxi should cost before getting in one to avoid getting ripped off by taxi drivers. Rickshaws (Tuck-Tuks) are cheaper than taxis, but you also have to bargain. Hiring a car is not recommended due to the lack of respect for traffic laws and the chaos on the roads. Uber is available.
All visitors need to obtain and apply for a visa to enter India, except the citizens of Nepal and Bhutan. Visa on Arrival is available for citizens of Japan and South Korea. The country provides an online visa application. e-Visa is available for 150 nationalities and valid for 60 days. It is a double-entry visa. There is also a six-month tourist visa for longer trips.
Passport must be valid for at least 180 days after your entry to India and should have at least two blank pages.
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by Wade Maki
In my last post I discussed comments made by our Governor on what sorts of things we should, and shouldn't, be learning in college. This is a conversation going on across higher education. Of course we should learn everything in college, but this goal is not practical as our time and funds are limited. We are left then to prioritize what things to require of our students, what things will be electives, and what things not to offer at all.
One area we do this prioritization in is "general education" (GE), which is the largest issue in determining what we learn in college. Some institutions have a very broad model for GE that covers classic literature, history, philosophy, and the "things an educated person should know." Exactly what appears on this list will vary by institution with some being more focused on the arts, some on the humanities, and others on social sciences. The point being that the institution decides a very small core for GE.
The drawback to a conscribed model for GE is that it doesn't allow for as much student choice. The desire for more choice led to another very common GE system often referred to as "the cafeteria model" whereby many courses are offered as satisfying GE requirements and each student picks preferences for a category. This system is good for student choice of what to learn, but it isn't good if you want a connected "core" of courses.
In recent years there has been a move to have a "common core" in which all universities within a state would have the same GE requirements. This makes transfers easier since all schools have the same core. However, it also tends to limit the amount of choice by reducing the options to only those courses offered at every school. In addition, it eliminates the local character of an institution's GE (by making them all the same), which also reduces improvements from having competing systems (when everyone does it their own way, good ideas tend to be replicated). If we don't try different GE systems on campuses then innovation slows.
No matter which direction we move GE, we still have to address the central question of "what should we learn?" For example, should students learn a foreign language? Of course they should in an ideal world, but consider that foreign language requirements are two years. We must compare the opportunity costs of that four course requirement (what else could we have learned from four other courses in say economics, psychology, science, or communications?). This is just one example of how complicated GE decisions can be. Every course we require is a limitation on choice and makes it less likely that other (non-required) subjects will be learned.
As many states look at a "common core" model there is an additional consideration which is often overlooked. Suppose we move to a common core of general education in which most students learn the same sorts of things. Now imagine your business or work environment where most of your coworkers learned the same types of things but other areas of knowledge were not learned by any of them. Is this preferable to an organization where its already employed educated members learned very little in common but have more diverse educational backgrounds? I suspect an organization with more diverse education employees will be more adaptable than one where there are a few things everyone knows and a lot of things no one knows.
This is my worry about the way we are looking to answer the question of what we should learn in college. In the search for an efficient, easy to transfer, common core we may end up:
- Having graduates with more similar educations and the same gaps in their educations.
- Losing the unique educational cultures of our institutions.
- Missing out on the long term advantage of experimentation across our institutions by imposing one model for everyone.
Not having a common core doesn't solve the all of the problems, but promoting experiments through diverse and unique educational requirements is worth keeping. There is another problem with GE that I can't resolve, which is how most of us in college answer the question this way: "Everyone should learn what I did or what I'm teaching." But that is a problem to be addressed in another posting. So, what should we learn in college?


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Arden, NC1224 Rockcrest Way
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More details about the Boston Marathon bombing emerged Wednesday — two and a half weeks after the attack killed three people and wounded more than 200 — when two college friends of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were charged with removing a backpack and a laptop from his dorm room and another was charged with lying about it to the feds.
The laptop was turned over to the FBI, one of the friend's lawyer said, and a backpack containing deconstructed fireworks was ultimately recovered from a landfill. The friends also revealed that Tsarnaev has boasted that he knew how to make a bomb about a month before the attack.
Now, as the pool of evidence against Tsarnaev grows, so does the list of people related to or involved in the case. The friends — college classmates Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev, and Robel Phillipos — are only the most recent names to be added to a list that includes family members, a boxing coach, law enforcement officials, a car hijacking victim, a mechanic and of course the victims killed April 15: Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lingzi Liu.
Here is a guide to the many people involved in the Boston Marathon bombing case, and what we know (and don't) about them.
The Lowell Sun & Robin Young via AP
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Naturalized American citizen of Chechen descent and the sole surviving suspect in the attack, recovering in a federal prison hospital in Massachusetts. He was injured in a firefight with Watertown, Mass., police three days after the bombing, and was captured in a boat parked in a Watertown backyard. Investigators say he told them that he and his brother acted alone and carried out the attack to defend Islam after the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev: Older brother of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He was killed in the firefight in Watertown — though how he died, from police fire or from being run over by his brother, is not clear. He was a legal permanent resident of the United States and a competitive boxer who traveled to Russia for six months in 2012. Russian authorities asked the U.S. for information about him twice in 2011, and U.S. investigators found no sign of terrorist activity. U.S. investigators say the Russians never answered their request for more information on why they were seeking intelligence.
Reuters, AP, Getty Images
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, Anzor Tsarnaev, Katherine Russell and Ruslan Tsarni
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva: Mother of the Tsarnaev brothers. She has insisted that the two are being framed. Russian authorities have told American investigators that they captured a conversation between her and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in which the pair discussed jihad. She was placed in a U.S. terror database in the fall of 2011, according to a counterterrorism official.
Anzor Tsarnaev: Father of the Tsarnaev brothers. He was an attorney in Russia, then worked as an auto mechanic in the United States after the family emigrated a decade ago. He has told NBC News that he has brain disease and returned to Russia to die. He also insists his sons are innocent: "You could kill me," he said, "but I would never believe they had anything to do with this."
Katherine Russell: American widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the mother of his young daughter. She returned to her family in Rhode Island after the blasts and has met with the FBI. As investigators try to determine who else may have handled the pressure cookers that contained the bombs, they have taken DNA samples from Russell's home. At least one pressure cooker had a woman's DNA on it, an official said.
Ruslan Tsarni: Uncle of the Tsarnaev brothers, living in Maryland. First became known hours after the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, when he gave an emotional press conference outside his home in which he said that the brothers were "losers" who brought shame to Chechens.
Zahara Tsarnaev: Three-year-old daughter of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Katherine Russell.
Azamat Tazhayakov, left, Dias Kadyrbayev, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
Azamat Tazhayakov: College friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. From Kazakhstan, he is 19 and in the United States on a student visa. He was charged Wednesday with plotting to remove items from Tsarnaev's dorm room, including a laptop and a backpack containing fireworks.
Dias Kadyrbayev: College friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He is also 19 and in the United States on a student visa from Kazakhstan, and was charged Wednesday with plotting to remove items from Tsarnaev's dorm room. He recognized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from video from the bombing scene and texted him about it, court papers say. The papers say Tsarnaev texted back: "lol."
Robel Phillipos: College friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He is an American from Cambridge, Mass., and was charged with lying to investigators.
"Mischa": Also spelled in some accounts as "Misha." Described by Tsarni, the uncle, as a friend from the United States who may have radicalized Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Tsarni told NBC News that Mischa presented himself as an "exorcist" who specialized in "removing demons from people's bodies." Investigators later downplayed Mischa's role in the story.
John Curran: Former boxing coach of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He remembered Tsarnaev as a gifted athlete and respectful, and said it was "mind-blowing to think" that Tsarnaev might have been behind the attack.
Gilberto Junior: Cambridge auto mechanic who said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev brought a car to the shop during the week between the bombing and the capture. Junior said Tsarnaev was biting his fingernails and shaking. He told NBC affiliate WJAR: "He said he wanted it right now. I said I haven't even started working on the car. He says, 'I don't care. I don't care. Right now. Give me the keys.' He took the keys, got the car out of the parking lot and left."
David Henneberry: Homeowner and boat enthusiast who lives in Watertown, Mass. When authorities lifted their order for people in the Boston area to stay in their homes, late on April 19, he went out for a smoke and noticed his boat, parked beside the house, didn't look right. It turned out to be where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was hiding.
"Danny": Chinese entrepreneur who authorities say was carjacked by the marathon bombing suspects on the night of April 18, and has concealed his identity in media interviews in recent days. He told NBC News that he made his move to escape at a gas station, when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left to pump gas. Tamerlan Tsarnaev tried to grab him as he lunged out of the car, he said. "I think I was really lucky," he told TODAY. "God was with me."
MIT via Getty Images, MBTA via AP
MIT campus police officer Sean Collier, left, and MBTA transit police officer Richard Donahue
Sean Collier: A campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was shot dead in his patrol car the night of April 18 — the beginning of the wild sequence of events that led to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's capture and Tamerlan Tsarnaev's death, authorities say. He was known for his ability to make foreign students at MIT feel comfortable.
Richard Donohue: Transit officer severely injured in the firefight in Watertown. In a message Wednesday to well-wishers, he said that he had "almost no blood and no pulse" when he was taken to the hospital but believes he will fully recover. He said that a bullet will probably remain lodged in his leg, but he joked that it should only cause pain for his wife: "I will be using it to get out of things such as mowing the lawn, doing laundry and painting the deck."
AFP - Getty Images, Getty Images, AP
Richard DesLauriers, left, Thomas Menino and Deval Patrick
Richard DesLauriers: Plainspoken special agent in charge of the Boston office of the FBI. A day after the attack, he vowed: "We will go to the ends of the earth to find the suspects responsible for this despicable crime." Two days later, he released the photos that started a manhunt for the men later identified as the Tsarnaev brothers.
Thomas Menino: Mayor of Boston, affectionately known as "Mumbles" for his speaking style. "This is Boston," he said at a prayer service three days after the attack. "A city with the courage, compassion and strength that knows no bounds."
Deval Patrick: Governor of Massachusetts. Issued the April 19 order for people in and around Boston to stay in their homes while authorities hunted for the suspects. He told "Meet the Press" the following weekend that it was important that civic rituals like the marathon go on, and pledged that it will be bigger than ever. "So many acts of kindness and — and grace shown to victims and to others in the course of this," he said. "This has been just a really beautiful thing to behold."
AP, Campbell family
Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lingzi Lu
Martin Richard: Eight-year-old boy killed near the marathon finish line. He was remembered as soft-spoken and sweet, and was pictured in a heartbreaking photo from school holding a poster that said "No More Hurting People."
Krystle Campbell: Restaurant manager killed in the attack. Remembered by President Barack Obama this way at the prayer service: "Those who knew her said that with her red hair and her freckles and her ever-eager willingness to speak her mind, she was beautiful, sometimes she could be a little noisy, and everybody loved her for it."
Lingzi Lu: Boston University graduate student killed in the attack. She was watching the race with two friends, and the day before had learned that she passed the first half of her master's degree exams. The chairman of the BU math and statistics department recalled: "She's a very bright young scientist. Enthusiastic, very bubbly, talkative. Her friends are going to miss her deeply."
Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News contributed to this report.
This story was originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 4:20 AM EDT


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Sox Sign Drew Sutton
Drew Sutton was born in Arkansas, attended high school in Tennessee, college in Texas, and lives near Dallas now. But despite the variety of southern stops, Sutton has a dream that makes him sound like a New Englander.
"It was always on my bucket list to go to Fenway Park," Sutton told me. "Having a chance to play there is incredible."
Sutton will have that opportunity in 2011 after signing with Boston as a minor league free agent on Monday. The 27-year-old switch-hitter is a jack-of-all-trades who can play anywhere in the infield as well as the corner positions in the outfield.
"We had five or six teams that called once they could contact minor league free agents and my decision came down to San Diego or Boston," Sutton said. "The Red Sox were more aggressive with their offer and it seemed like a better overall situation as far as the opportunities in Triple-A and also the possible opportunity to contribute to the big league team."
Sutton has major league experience with Cincinnati and Cleveland, batting .229 (.302 OBP) with 3 HR in 55 big league games. In 7 minor league seasons, he's batted .279 (.379 OBP/.434 SLG) with three seasons of 15 or more home runs. His deal with the Red Sox includes an invitation to big league training camp in Ft. Myers, and Drew hopes to be this year's Nick Green (2009) or Darnell McDonald (2010) – players who signed minor league deals but wound up spending the year in Boston.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted what happened with the Red Sox last year as far as how many injuries there were and how many free agent signees they needed to use during the season," Sutton said. "That's one of the crazy things about baseball. I was in a similar situation in 2009 when I was with the Reds – I happened to be in the right place at the right time. You always hope for an opportunity to get to the big leagues, but you can't control what happens with injuries or how guys play. The best you can hope for is to get the opportunity to play every day at Triple-A and produce. Then when the time comes, you're the first guy that pops into their head."
While his goal is to play in Boston, Sutton knows there's a strong possibility that he'll begin the season with the PawSox.
"When you're on a minor league contract, you have to prepare for the possibility of being sent down, and being in Pawtucket is a great worst-case scenario because of the support of the fans. And it may sound funny, but it's great when the team has a nice clubhouse because there's where you wind up spending the majority of your time."
Best of all, McCoy Stadium is one stop from Fenway.
"Me and my wife started a bucket list and I had to put that on there," Sutton said with a laugh. "She wants to go to Rome and Paris. She also has one that's a little scary – she wants to go to Australia and swim with sharks. We might have to wait until baseball is over for that one."
* * * * *
I'd love to hear from you. Please take a moment to tell me who you are and where you're from in the comments section or you can e-mail me at email@example.com.
And if you Twitter, you can follow my tweets at http://twitter.com/Dan_Hoard


text: Mimas 152 Posted November 29, 2011 To help spread information on DQX I thought that I would translate the Japanese official website for the game. After I catch up to the websites current contents I will go ahead and start updating the thread when new information is released there. The official website itself can be found here. I would also like to thank my friend Kichimaru for looking over my translation and giving me guidance and help. Features of Dragon Quest X Game Info Game Topics: Gathering Comrade for your Adventure Things that will Help you in your Adventure Grand Story Save your Memories as Photos. World View -Orgreede & Pukland -Wenna & Eltona -Dwachakka & Mysterious Vehicle Five Tribes The Story of the Human World Battle System Job System Become a Craftsman! Various buildings Communication New Monster Encyclopedia What is a Beta Test? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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Option 3 (Best): Use an Active Object to Encapsulate the Resource
In [3] and [4], we covered how to encapsulate a threads within an active object, which gives us a disciplined way to talk to the thread using plain old method calls that happen to be asynchronous, as well as to easily manage the thread and its lifetime just like any ordinary object. It turns out that this is a generally useful pattern, and if you didn't already believe me before, consider how naturally it helps us out with the
logFile situation.
For Option 3, let's continue to buffer and do the work asynchronously just as we did in Option 2, except now use an active object to express it in code instead of having a distinct visible thread and message queue. Note that the queue buffer is still there, but now it's implicit and automated; we simply use the active object's message queue, and it happens naturally because we just turn
write into an asynchronous method on the active object so that the actual
logFile.write call is sent via the internal queue to be executed on the active object's hidden private thread:
// Example 3: Private -- expressed as active object (see [3] for details) // class AsyncLogFile { public: void write( string str ) { a.Send( [=] { log.write( str ); } ); } private: File log; // private file Active a; // private helper (queue+thread) }; AsyncLogFile logFile; // Each caller just uses the active object directly string temp = …; temp.append( … ); temp.append( … ); logFile.write( temp );
This has all the benefits of Option2, including full concurrency and scalability, but expressing it this way is significantly better. Why?
First, it's simpler and better encapsulated. Instead of exposing a raw queue and helper thread, we instead raise the level of abstraction and provide a simpler and more natural object-based interface to calling code. The caller gets to use the original and natural
logFile.write "object.method" syntax instead of dealing with an exposed message queue.
Second, shutdown is greatly simplified. Now, whenever we're done using the
logFile and destroy it, it naturally performs its own orderly shutdown of the private thread, including that it correctly drains its remaining messages (if any) before returning from the destructor (see [3] for details). We no longer have to worry about special code to arrange shutdown of the helper thread, because we've expressed the thread as an object and so we can just deal with its lifetime the same way we do with that of any regular object.
If you have high-contention and/or high-latency shared state, especially I/O, prefer to make it asynchronous. Doing so makes buffering implicit, because the buffering just happens as a side effect of the asynchrony. It also makes correct serialization implicit, because buffered operations are naturally performed in serial order by the single private thread that services them. Prefer to use the active object pattern as the most convenient and simple way to express an asynchronous object or resource.
In convenience, correctness, and (most especially) performance and scalability, this strategy can beat the pants off using a mutex to protect popular and/or slow shared resources. If you haven't tried this technique already in your code, pick a high-contention or high-latency shared resource that's currently protected with a mutex, test the performance of replacing the mutex with an active object, and see. Try it today.
[1] H. Sutter. "Associate Mutexes with Data to Prevent Races" Dr. Dobb's Digest, May 2010.
[2] H. Sutter. "Sharing Is the Root of All Contention" Dr. Dobb's Digest, March 2009.
[3] H. Sutter. "Prefer Using Active Objects Instead of Naked Threads" Dr. Dobb's Digest, June 2010).
[4] H. Sutter. "Prefer Using Futures or Callbacks to Communicate Asynchronous Results" Dr. Dobb's Digest, August 2010.
Herb Sutter is a bestselling author and consultant on software development topics, and a software architect at Microsoft. He can be contacted at www.gotw.ca.


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Make Your Choice…
Occupy Everywhere
Stop Hydrofracking!
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Bribing Democracy, Optical Scans & Voting in an Ignored State
'merica – Six billion dollars and a politically wasted year later Americans reaffirmed they are a nation divided to the core. Wednesday brought sudden silence after the months long onslaught of blaring impersonality. The electorate has chosen and hundreds of … Continue reading


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So, I'm sitting in a big traffic backup this morning.
I know, imagine that occurring in Northern Virginia. What a shock!
Anyway, I'm sitting there pondering the meaning of life or rocket bombing the 100 cars in front of me I can't remember which one, when I look out my passenger window and see a man standing in the lane next to me. Now you might think that's weird, as I did for a split second, but then I noticed that he was standing behind a garbage truck. He was the garbage man, picking up the trash cans and dumping the contents into the back of the truck. Good thing it was too cold to have the top down this morning!
What is the point of this story? Well, as is very often the case in Northern Virginia, a road that obviously used to be a rural highway has been converted into a major traffic thoroughfare by the home builders/buyers leapfrogging the old country homes out into the ex-urbs. As most of you on this Blog have no doubt seen on 29 between Charlottesville and DC, houses are built right on the highway with driveways connecting to the major road. There is/was no concept of a subdivision with such low building density.
I was on my way to the gym at 7:15 this morning on the road, and why wouldn't it be horribly backed up at 7:15? Silly me, I should've gotten up at 5:30 to beat traffic. But I digress...the point of this pointless story is that I'm sitting on this road, and the garbage truck is stopping, the guy gets out, dumps the trash into the truck, compacts it, and then hops back into this truck, drives 50 feet to the next driveway, repeat...and all of this is having absolutely no effect on the traffic flow. It's as if having a guy stopping a truck every 50 feet on a major highway is a normal thing.
I can't wait to move.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Posted by Michael at 9:55 AM
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