text:
In mid-January, after two months of investigation, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland made the announcement that consumers who thought they were buying beef in the form of frozen hamburgers and prepared meals were actually buying horsemeat, or pork. The news was not well received, particularly since the supermarkets in Ireland that stocked the products had ties to supermarkets in England.
The scandal spread from Irish and English Tesco supermarkets to their suppliers—Silvercrest Foods and Liffey Meats in Ireland, and Yorkshire supplier Dalepak—and far beyond the borders of the U.K. Silvercrest and Dalepak are subsidiaries of ABP Food Group, one of the largest European beef processors. ABP, which gets its meat from a variety of sources, claimed the adulteration occurred with supplies from Spain and the Netherlands, then later pointed to Poland as the source.
However, Poland's government has found no problems with the labeling in its horse slaughterhouses, and the search continued even as adulterated products were found in more retail outlets, including restaurants, and even schools. In the U.K., Taco Bell restaurants, outlets of hotel and restaurant chain Whitbreads PLC, and even schools found horse DNA in various types of prepared meals. Ikea's Swedish meatballs and lasagna were found to be part horsemeat, and supermarkets from France to Switzerland found themselves caught up in the contamination as well, with some DNA tests revealing between 80%–100% horsemeat instead of beef. Food giant Nestlé has also pulled some of its products from the shelves of Italian and Spanish markets and French caterers, and the contamination has reached as far as Hong Kong.
Aside from the personal scruples of whether one wants to consume horsemeat in the guise of beef—after all, France, Belgium, and some other European countries do eat horses on a regular, if limited, basis—are fraud, labeling, contamination, and health issues that affect more than just food processors, wholesalers, slaughterhouses, and retail outlets; not just businesses but also state and international agencies are on the line.
After the mad cow scare in the 1990s, Europe banned British beef and set in place stiff controls designed to account for the country of origin of animals slaughtered for fresh meat. However, when that meat is further processed, most controls other than tests for food safety slip away, leaving plenty of opportunities throughout the vast and convoluted supply chain to insert ringers—not just horse and pig, but, as additional DNA tests have determined, even donkey. Horsemeat has also surfaced in fresh meat, however, so even there safeguards have not been foolproof.
The source for the majority of horsemeat found in the wake of testing has been variously reported as Poland, Romania, and several other countries. Some of the horsemeat did come from Romania, and was sent, via a Cyprus-registered trader, to another trader in the Netherlands named Draap Trading (which is Dutch for "horse" spelled backwards). Draap sold the Romanian horsemeat to French meat wholesaler Spanghero, which then sold it to Comigel, a French frozen food processor. From Comigel the meat went to many countries under the label of Swedish-based Findus, in lasagna and other products.
Director Jan Fasen of Draap was already convicted of selling horsemeat as beef to France in January of 2012, and during his trial it emerged that he had sold Mexican and South American horsemeat to France as far back as 2007 that was labeled as Dutch and German beef. Fasen has said that the meat he sold to Spanghero was clearly labeled as horsemeat, and that Spaghero and French manufacturers were aware of what they were buying.
As Europol prepares to investigate how deep the problem goes, Britain's environment secretary Owen Paterson said in news reports, "I'm concerned that this is an international criminal conspiracy here and we've really got to get to the bottom of it." Outraged British newspapers have taken up the cause, reporting the involvement of international crime rings in the horsemeat trade who make millions from substituting horse for beef (the former is far cheaper) and intimidate officials and vets into approving as beef cheaper meats, from horsemeat to pork.
The outcry is growing throughout Europe for labels declaring country of origin on all processed meats; up till now, only fresh meat was required to be so labeled. In addition, individual countries in Europe are saying that they will use only products that come from their own countries, and importers and exporters are not pleased. Consumers, meanwhile, have cut their consumption of meat, turned to small local markets, or altogether abandoned processed meats such as frozen hamburger for larger cuts that are harder to adulterate. This has ramifications for food producers all over Europe and even farther afield, particularly since management consultancy KPMG has cited 450 points at which supply chain integrity can be compromised.
There are several valid reasons for consumers to fear unlabeled—and untested—products. While health concerns are among them, other issues loom large as well. Among threats to health is the presence of trace amounts of horse DNA in a meat product. While that does not indicate mislabeling of meat, is more likely to be a sign that food processing equipment has not adequately been cleaned—a source of worry in itself.
Drugs are another worry. Products with high concentrations of horsemeat could contain phenylbutazone, or "bute," a veterinary drug used on horses that can be harmful to humans. While horses destined for slaughter are supposed to be identified as bute-free, falsified papers have become all too common in the global supply chain and French authorities confirmed in late February that horsemeat contaminated with bute had entered the food chain in that country. The horses had been exported from Britain to France.
Then there are broader issues of food allergies and sensitivities, not to mention religious issues surrounding the consumption of pork.
If food supply chains are in question all over Europe, with the horsemeat scandal still unfolding, there are bright spots among the dark for investors: local food producers, who sell locally and whose wares are not in question; producers of vegetarian alternatives, whose sales are skyrocketing; and testing services, which determine exactly what is in food so that companies can confidently state that their goods are free of contamination.
Sales of frozen processed meats may be plummeting in Europe, but veggie alternative companies such as Quorn and VeggieDay have seen substantial increases in their own sales, resulting in accelerated production schedules. And increased demand for testing has reached as far as U.S. shores, with the trend likely to continue for some time.


text:
Main Page
From Gaia Science Alerts Working Group
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Welcome to the web site of the Gaia Science Alerts Working Group!
The Science Alerts Working Group is focussed on the real-time detection of variable sources. These include supernovae, microlensing events, exploding and eruptive stars, etc.
Workshop 2011 - Gaia alerts verification and follow-up
29th June - 1st July 2011, Cambridge
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This wiki is maintained by Lukasz Wyrzykowski.

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text:
Physics for Scientists and Engineers A Strategic Approach with Modern Physics
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- Publisher: Pearson
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As the most widely adopted new physics book in more than 50 years, Knight's Physics for Scientists and Engineerswas published to widespread critical acclaim from professors and students. In the Third Edition,Knight builds on the research-proven instructional techniques he introduced in the first and second editions, as well as national data of student performance, to take student learning even further. Knight's unparalleled insight into student learning difficulties, and his impeccably skillful crafting of text and figures at every level-from macro to micro-to address these difficulties, results in a uniquely effective and accessible book, leading students to a deeper and better-connected understanding of the concepts and more proficient problem-solving skills. For the Third Edition, Knight continues to apply the best results from educational research, and to refine and tailor them for this course and its students. New pedagogical features (Chapter Previews, Challenge Examples, and Data-based Examples), end-of-chapter problem sets enhanced through analysis of national student metadata, and fine-tuned and streamlined content take the hallmarks of the previous editions-exceptionally effective conceptual explanation and problem-solving instruction-to a new level. This package contains: Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach with Modern Physics, Third Edition


text:
STAMFORD, CT, OCTOBER 2011 – Splash Car Wash, which operates 17 locations throughout New Haven, Fairfield and Westchester, NY counties, was recently selected as a "Top Workplace in 2011" in Southern Connecticut based on an independent employee survey conducted by Workplace Dynamics LLC and sponsored by Hearst Communications.
Splash Car Wash, one of the largest car-care companies in the country, employs more than 400 workers and offers a unique career path for employees without college degrees. The company's advanced training programs can qualify managers to practice open book management and supervise car wash locations.
Workplace Dynamics surveyed employees of participating companies to gauge their attitudes and impressions of their workplace. Employees responded to 22 questions on a range of statements, such as, "I believe this company is going in the right direction;" "New ideas are encouraged at this company;" and "This company operates by strong values and ethics."
"We treat our employees with the respect and care that we want them to give our customers. Plus, our business and career track is not typical since our training prepares qualified employees to be responsible for all aspects of the business, including financial management," said Mark Curtis, co-founder and CEO of Splash. "Some employees who started on the production line washing cars, now run million dollar sites. We are proud to have one of the highest retention rates of employees in our field. Many have been with us for 5 to 15 years; a few employees have been on the team for 20 years."
According to Workplace Dynamics, "Top Workplaces is a stamp of approval from the company's employees. This vote of confidence is a powerful indicator to customers and the community that the organization has strong values underpinning its behavior."
In addition, Splash Car Wash is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year. Throughout its history, the company has contributed annually to hundreds of organizations, schools, churches and youth groups with cash donations, raffle prizes or auction items. They also have been recognized by Professional Car Wash & Detailing magazine as one of the ten best car washes in the USA. Splash Car Wash has also been voted as the "Best Car Wash" by the readers of Fairfield County Weekly for 13 years running and "Best of the Gold Coast" by Moffly Publications for the past six years.
About Splash Car Wash Founders Mark Curtis and Chris Fisher opened their first location in 1981 in Greenwich, where they later developed Splash's innovative concept for washing cars by hand while they moved through the tunnel on conveyor. Splash currently employs more than 400 people and washes more than one million cars each year. Splash Car Wash car care services include: Hand Wash, Express Wash, Complete & Express Detailing, and Lube & Oil Change.
For a complete list of car care services and more information please visit www.splashcarwashes.com.


text:
In certain cases, users must be prevented from installing
a port. There are several variables that can be used in a
Makefile to tell the user that the
port cannot be installed. The value of
these make variables will be the
reason that is shown to users for why the port refuses to
install itself. Please use the correct make
variable. Each variable conveys radically different
meanings, both to users and to automated systems that depend on
Makefiles, such as
the ports build cluster,
FreshPorts, and
BROKEN is reserved for ports that
currently do not compile, install, deinstall, or run
correctly. Use it for ports where the problem
is believed to be temporary.
If instructed, the build cluster will still attempt to try to build them to see if the underlying problem has been resolved. (However, in general, the cluster is run without this.)
For instance, use
BROKEN when a
does not compile
fails its configuration or installation process
installs files outside of
does not remove all its files cleanly upon deinstall (however, it may be acceptable, and desirable, for the port to leave user-modified files behind)
has runtime issues on systems where it is supposed to run fine.
FORBIDDEN is used for ports that
contain a security vulnerability or induce grave concern
regarding the security of a FreeBSD system with a given port
installed (for example, a reputably insecure program or a
program that provides easily exploitable services). Mark
ports as
FORBIDDEN as soon as a
particular piece of software has a vulnerability and there
is no released upgrade. Ideally upgrade ports as soon as
possible when a security vulnerability is discovered so as
to reduce the number of vulnerable FreeBSD hosts (we like
being known for being secure), however sometimes there is
a noticeable time gap between disclosure of a
vulnerability and an updated release of the vulnerable
software. Do not mark a port
for any reason other than security.
IGNORE is reserved for ports that
must not be built for some other reason. Use it
for ports where the problem is believed to be
structural. The build cluster will not, under any
circumstances, build ports marked as
IGNORE. For instance, use
IGNORE when a port:
does not work on the installed version of FreeBSD
has a distfile which may not be automatically fetched due to licensing restrictions
does not work with some other currently installed port (for instance, the port depends on www/apache20 but www/apache22 is installed)
If a port would conflict with a currently
installed port (for example, if they install a file in
the same place that performs a different function),
CONFLICTS instead.
CONFLICTS will set
IGNORE by itself.
To mark a port as
only on certain architectures, there are two other
convenience variables that will automatically set
ONLY_FOR_ARCHS and
NOT_FOR_ARCHS. Examples:
ONLY_FOR_ARCHS= i386 amd64
NOT_FOR_ARCHS= ia64 sparc64
A custom
IGNORE message can be
set using
ONLY_FOR_ARCHS_REASON and
NOT_FOR_ARCHS_REASON. Per
architecture entries are possible with
If a port fetches i386 binaries and installs them,
IA32_BINARY_PORT. If this variable
is set,
/usr/lib32 must be present
for IA32 versions of libraries and the kernel must support
IA32 compatibility. If one of these two
dependencies is not satisfied,
will be set automatically.
Do not quote the values of
IGNORE, and related variables. Due to the
way the information is shown to the user, the wording of
messages for each variable differ:
BROKEN= fails to link with base -lcrypto
IGNORE= unsupported on recent versions
resulting in this output from
make describe:
===> foobar-0.1 is marked as broken: fails to link with base -lcrypto.
===> foobar-0.1 is unsupported on recent versions.
本文及其他文件,可由此下載: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/。
若有 FreeBSD 方面疑問,請先閱讀
FreeBSD 相關文件,如不能解決的話,再洽詢
關於本文件的問題,請洽詢 <email@example.com>。


text:
HTC may have promised to stick to its 'One' series of unified brand, but the latest handset from the company definitely bucks the trend. The Desire X from HTC sports a typical One series styling, mid-range internals and a budget price tag for emerging Asian markets.
The Desire X is the first phone to make use of Qualcomm's S4 Play processor. According to Anandtech, the Qualcomm S4 Play processor is based on the 45nm fabrication process and packs in two Cortex-A5 cores clocked at 1GHz, along with an Adreno 203 GPU. Other specs of the Desire X include 768MB of RAM, a 4-inch Super-LCD with WVGA (800*480) resolution, a 5MP camera with F/2.0 and a 28mm wide-angle lens, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth, GPS with A-GPS and the other usual bunch of features and sensors.
The Desire X will be available by mid-September in most markets of Asia at an "affordable" price. The handset will be running on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with HTC's Sense 4.0 UI on top of it out-of-the-box, but should get the Jelly Bean treatment as well. There is also a 1650mAh battery inside the 9.69mm thick body of the phone, which should hopefully be enough for it to last a day.


text:
Every year I get to travel to San Francisco and L.A. for the Renegade Craft event. It's a little vacation for me and I get to spread the word about our awesome handmade products. We started in San Fran. Next weekend is L.A.
I stayed with my friends Rob and Kat. Rob was my sales assistant this year. We saw BATMAN together. I got a little emotional at the end.
... and their dog Millie. Millie is a little-big-dog. Lots of personality in a little package and wasn't fru-fru. Millie did get into the chicken coup behind their house and ate a bunch of chicken feed. Please note chicken feed includes gravel that aids in digestion. This did not aid in Millie's digestion and so she threw up all over the house... and my super awesome jacket! No picture needed for that one.
Assembling the riveters for the custom belts we will make during the show.
Mostly setup. Not as fancy as our East Coast setup, but pretty good considering we shipped most things... and dove dumpsters for the rest. No joke.
Awesome Safeway sandwich! One of these fed the two of us.
After the San Fran show fellow crafter friend and I, Kelso, went to Six Flags magic Mountain in L.A.
This was disturbing. The park parade people were not that enthused to be doing their jaunt through the amusement park. Six flags should stick to roller coasters and not ruining my memories of Bugs Bunny. How is it that Disney manages to get such upbeat people walking in their park parades and Six Flags cannot? The answer is most likely that Disney bumps them all up with cocaine before each show. I know I am going to regret that statement in the future when Disney calls to collab on some projects.
Dear Disney, does it help that I can sing most of the songs to the Little Mermaid?
Kelso of Kelso Doesn't Dance.


text:
Brian Rudy Austin Americas Bilotta. Has written books for a number of years. You will find The Jackson children's story and the Sahs STORY. Two handshsakes from John Phillip Sousa. Yes Brian the author shook hands with the man who shok the hand SHOOK with John Phillip Sousa. This is my America. Brian's Calculating Method at the track. Tear Down Detroit. Do not play with these Toys The Presidents, a short story for kids to remember.Cabrin,and Real Cuba. Card Trivks
to entertain your kids. Dad's Dog Tags John Wayne Gacy And the tru e story of Brians Working career with Tt 90% of these stories come from real life encounters of Brian


text:
Filters: Author is Wahl, L M [Clear All Filters]
Perspectives on the basic reproductive ratio.. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface / the Royal Society. 2(4):281-93. Abstract. 2005.
Treatment Interruptions and Resistance: A Review.. Deterministic and Stochastic Models for AIDS Epidemics and HIV Infection with Interventions. :423-456.. 2005.
Improving estimates of the basic reproductive ratio: using both the mean and the dispersal of transition times.. Theoretical population biology. 70(2):135-45. Abstract. 2006.


text:
I am Carrie Bradshaw. Or at least by the reckoning of The CW's The Carrie Diaries–which puts the Sex and the City protagonist in high school in 1984–I'm roughly her age and pop-culture-reference peer. I also watched every episode of SATC when it originally aired, give or take. So I watched The Carrie Diaries pilot with interest, but expected to be disappointed.
I wasn't disappointed at all! Part of getting older is accepting that nothing will be exactly the same when you return to it a second time. And so, yeah: Carrie Diaries does not feel like my raw childhood experience the way, say, Freaks and Geeks did. (Though it might have hit closer for someone who grew up in an upscale suburb, like the Connecticut town its young Carrie Bradshaw lives in. Also, the V-neck Rob Lowe sweaters deserve an Emmy for costuming accuracy.) Nor is it really the same show as SATC: it's less arch and more openly emotional.
And if Carrie Diaries manages to stay on the air, that's exactly why it will work. AnnaSophia Robb is not really a teenage version of Sarah Jessica Parker–just look up an old Square Pegs clip if you want to see that–but she manages to capture something of the sensibility of the adult Carrie. Really, part of the essence of Carrie in the HBO show is that she's still part teenager–in the sense that, however much she gets burned by experience, she still looks at the world like an unopened present. Carrie Diaries takes these broad-strokes essentials and packages them in a smarter-than-average teen dramedy, where they fit pretty well.
If you want a lot of continuity in story and tone with SATC, you'll find a lot to dislike in the show. For starters, there's a lot of focus on Carrie's family, who as far as I recall were nonexistent in the HBO series, raising the question of what happened between them.
But I look at Carrie Diaries as a kind of rebooted superhero-origin story—the Carrie Bradshaw version of Smallville—where in this case the superpowers the hero is discovering include fashion sense and wordplay. So the first episode ticked off some touchstone Carrie moments like a Superman origin story introducing kryptonite. Carrie stands awestruck on a Manhattan avenue! Carrie meets her first gays! There's even a trademark Carrie monologue complete with groaner pun: she still hasn't had sex but she lost her virginity "to a different man–ManHATTAN." Yet it also gives Robb room to depart from Parker's version of the character, which she'll have to if the show is to last.
In its charming pilot, anyway, Carrie Diaries managed to echo its big-sister story without being enslaved to it, while playing to nostalgia not just for the '80s but for SATC and for a certain breed of light, less-dour teen shows that The CW's predecessor The WB used to specialize in.
No, it's not exactly the same, but nothing is. (One price of the show's possible success will be listening to mopey cover versions of every Cyndi Lauper and New Order single of my youth, the better, I assume, to sell soundtracks with.) You SATC fans out there may remember an episode that introduced the dubious concept of "revirginizing" yourself. We'll see if it lasts, but The Carrie Diaries may just have pulled that off.


text:
Omara "Bombino" Moctar has taken the guitar world by storm. Bombino is a phenomenal player, who absolutely mesmerized a large crowd at the 2013 Outside Lands festival in San Francisco. The acclaimed Tuareg singer-songwriter-guitarist from Agadez, Niger is currently touring in support of last year's highly heralded "Nomad." The rising world music star performs Sunday at The Independent in San Francisco. Waterstrider and Harry Duncan are also on the bill. Show time is 9 p.m. and tickets are $22-$25, www.ticketfly.com.
Bob Dylan is bringing his so-called Never Ending Tour back to the Bay Area. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, considered by many to be the genre's greatest songwriter, performs Oct. 28-30 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland.
Tickets are $55.50-$129.50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Sept. 5, www.ticketmaster.com.
Dylan last performed in the Bay Area in August 2013, headlining an all-star-Americana bill at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View that also included Wilco and My Morning Jacket.
Follow Jim Harrington at http://twitter.com/jimthecritic and www.facebook.com/jim.bayareanews.


text: Stephen Burks is one of the most recognized American industrial designers of his generation. He and his New York studio, Readymade Projects, have been responsible for creative design direction on projects ranging from retail interiors and events to packaging, consumer products, lighting, furniture and home accessories. He has developed innovative concepts and products for renowned international brands including Artecnica, Audi, B&B Italia, Boffi, Calvin Klein, Cappellini, Coty Prestige, Estee Lauder and Missoni, as well as continuing his commitment to sustainable design in the developing world as a design activist through his association with the American non-profits Aid To Artisans, the Nature Conservancy and the Clinton Foundation. Since 2005, Stephen has worked as a consultant collaborating with artisans around the world in Australia, India, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and Senegal building a bridge from authentic developing world artisanry to first world distribution. In 2007, he designed the Tatu wire table collection produced by hand in South Africa for Artecnica's Design With Conscience program. In 2008, he designed Cappellini's first ever eco-conscious collection entitled Cappellini Love. In 2009, Stephen was commissioned to coordinate, art direct and design the M'Afrique exhibition for Moroso in Milan at the Moroso showroom on via Pontaccio. And more recently, he began collaborations in Haiti, Rwanda and Kenya. His work has been featured in numerous design publications and journals and exhibited around the world at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, the Salone del Mobile in Milan, the Cologne Furniture Fair, Stockholm Furniture Fair, Tokyo Design Week, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and the Yerba Buena Center, as well as Design Miami Basel and Design Miami. He has hosted design workshops and been a visiting critic at design schools internationally, while also serving on the trend board of the IMM Cologne Furniture Fair for four consecutive years. In 2007, he was honored to serve on the jury of the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Institution's National Design Awards. Stephen studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Product Design at IIT'S Institute of Design, as well as attending Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture. He is a recipient of the Illinois Institute of Technology Alumni Professional Achievement Award, the Brooklyn Museum Young Modernist Award, the Architektur & Wohnen Audi Mentor Prize and the 2008 United States Artists Architecture & Design Target Fellowship Grant for his outstanding work in product design. In the Spring of 2011, Stephen will have two museum exhibitions in New York City. 'Stephen Burks | Man Made', his first solo New York museum show, opens at the Studio Museum of Harlem in March 2011 and 'Stephen Burks | Are You A Hybrid', his first museum curatorial project, opens at the Museum of Art & Design in May 2011.


text:
Halloween is the most popular holiday in the United States, but did you know that other countries celebrate it too? Countries around the world have ways of honoring and remembering the dead during this time of year. Even different countries in Asia like to celebrate Halloween, but not in the traditional costumes-and-pumpkins way we might think.
Each October 31st, people across China celebrate Halloween, or Teng Chieh, by offering food and water to the dead. They also light lanterns with the belief that they will help to guide deceased loved ones as they make their visit to the "land of the living" in Halloween night.
For more on Asian culture and popular holidays like Halloween, please visit Fujimini Island on Facebook and Twitter.
The Japanese also utilize lanterns for their Halloween customs. The lanterns are traditionally colored red and are hung in every house. These red lanterns are also placed on boats and float through rivers to guide the spirits of the dead back to the homes of their families for the night. It is also traditional for Japanese families to clean the gravestones of their ancestors and prepare special dishes to honor and remember them. These customs and traditions are all referred to in Japan as the Obon Festival.
Halloween is not big in Korea, but offerings of food and flowers are still made to their ancestors to show respect.
Hong Kong remembers their lost loved ones through a traditional festival known as the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts. During this time, pictures of fruits or money are burned with the belief that these images will reach the spirits of the dead and provide comfort.
Although many of the Halloween traditions in Asia are different from those in the United States, certain countries are beginning to pick up many Western Halloween traditions. For example, Halloween recently arrived in Japan. Now around this time of year, decorations such as jack-o'-lanterns can be seen around town of in shop windows and every year Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan puts on extravagant Halloween shows and events. Trick-or-Treating is still not a common practice in Japan, but costume house parties aren't that uncommon.
To learn more about the cultural and diversity taught at Fujimini Island, please click here.
Besides the traditional and culture-rich Festival of the Hungry Ghosts, Hong Kong also likes to celebrate the more commercialized side of Halloween. Each year bars all across Hong Kong are decked out in Halloween decorations in an attempt to increase local interest in the holiday. Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park also host a Halloween Bash each year to promote and celebrate the holiday.


text:
We are gratified that this week the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled to strike down the Massachusetts law that allowed for the creation of 35-foot buffer zones around the entrance of abortion facilities.
For people to be able to express their convictions in public is a right, and we trust that those holding vigils at abortion clinics are not harassing people but rather praying for them and offering them an alternative because we know that many women opt to accept the help that is being offered to them by sidewalk counselors.
The Supreme Court's decision is a very important one that protects religious freedom in a time when there are many challenges to religious rights.
I'd like to share with you the statement I released through the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops shortly after the decision was announced:
Today the Supreme Court found unconstitutional a Massachusetts law imposing criminal penalties on pro-life Americans who peacefully pray for and offer alternatives to pregnant women approaching abortion clinics. This discriminatory law barred these citizens from gathering on nearby public sidewalks, while exempting "clinic escorts" trained to expedite women into the facility. Clearly this was an attack on pro-life Americans' freedom of speech, and we welcome the Court's decision to overturn the law.
This now overturned legislation reflects an ominous trend in our society. Abortion supporters, having long denied that unborn children have a right to life, would deny that their fellow Americans who seek to protect the unborn have the same rights as other Americans — the right to freedom of speech and freedom of association; the right to participate in the public square and serve the vulnerable in accord with our moral convictions. Increasingly we see this trend evidenced at various levels of government. We are encouraged and pleased to know that with regard to this particular issue, our highest court has affirmed the American tradition of basic constitutional rights for all.
– – –
Last Wednesday we celebrated the Jubilee anniversary Mass for our priests and religious brothers in the archdiocese. Along with our diocesan priests who were celebrating 25 years of ordination, there were two Xaverian Brothers celebrating 50 years of religious life, two Brothers of Hope celebrating 25 years, and one Salesian father who joined us for the celebration.
With the jubilarian priests
There was a concelebrated Mass in Bethany Chapel and afterwards we had a gathering with them and their friends and families.
With the jubilarian brothers
It was a very joyful occasion to be able to celebrate the jubilees of our priests and consecrated religious.
– – –
Thursday, was the final meeting of the archdiocese's Improved Financial Relationship Committee. They have been very successful in guiding and implementing the archdiocese's financial new model that promotes greater cooperation between the archdiocese and the parishes.
Their dedication was extraordinary. I believe they have had more than 50 meetings over the years. We are very grateful to all those who volunteered and serve so generously on that board along with our staff members who have done extraordinary work and particularly Denise McKinnon-Biernat.
To thank them for all their hard work over these many years at the end of the last meeting we had a light reception with them.
– – –
Friday, I was visited by Bishop John Baptist Kaggwa of the Diocese of Masaka, Uganda. He was accompanied by Father Joseph Kayongo, who is a priest from Uganda who ministers to the Ugandan Catholic community here in the archdiocese while pursuing a graduate degree at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, and Fathers Emmanuel Delli and David Ssenkaii.
Bishop Kaggwa was in Boston for the annual Mass for the Ugandan Martyrs, celebrated at St. Mary Parish in Waltham. The Mass is always an inspiring tribute to the faith of the Ugandan people and an uplifting and joyous celebration.
– – –
Saturday, I visited St. John Parish in Townsend to dedicate and bless their new parish center. It was the Feast of Corpus Christi so there was a Eucharistic procession at the conclusion of the Mass.
The whole parish participated in the celebration and part of the celebration was the blessing of the new parish center.
Father Jeremy St. Martin is pastor at St. John's. He is doing just a fabulous job there and oversaw the construction of this new center. I know it will be a wonderful resource for the parish for years to come.
– – –
Sunday, as we do each year in the spring, we have an opportunity for couples from throughout the archdiocese who are celebrating significant wedding anniversaries to come to a Mass at the Cathedral and to renew their vows. We had a full Cathedral for the celebration this year.
Couples celebrating more than 60 years of marriage:
50th anniversary couples:
25th anniversary couples:
Among those renewing their vows were the parents of Father Jonathan Gaspar and Mary Ann McLaughlin co-director of our office of worship and spiritual life.
It is always a beautiful, happy occasion.
During this year's celebration we were blessed to have a relic of St. John Paul II present at the Cathedral. The relic was brought in procession at the beginning of the Mass and placed by the altar.
Afterwards, it was taken to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, where the lines to venerate it were out the door.
– – –
Then, in the afternoon, I went to greet the people at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Mission Church). It was the Feast Day of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, who is the Patroness of Haiti.
There was great enthusiasm because the new Cardinal from Haiti came to celebrate the Mass this year, Cardinal Chibly Langlois, who is staying with me at the rectory.
– – –
During Cardinal Chibly's stay with us at the cathedral rectory we were visited by Brother Jim Peterson and Father Frantz Giles, a Capuchin from Haiti who is staying in Boston this month.
It was good to learn about the Capuchins' ministry in Haiti and how they are assisting with the ongoing work of assisting people in need there and rebuilding the work of the Church following the devastating earthquake there.
– – –
Then that evening, I attended the annual gala dinner to support our Redemptoris Mater Seminary which was held in Norwood.
This year, they honored Bob Mahoney, who serves on our archdiocesan finance Council and John Garvey, President of the Catholic University of America.
With Bob Mahoney and his family
With President Garvey and Bob before the dinner
President Garvey was the evening's keynote speaker.
He delivered a stunning address to the people on the effects that artificial contraception has had on modern society by separating sexuality from the transmission of life and from relationships. It was a very powerful exposition that I think was a very important one.
The Church's teachings on contraception are often little understood and sometimes greeted with great condescension on the part of secular society. Even by some Catholics, this teaching is seen as another one of the Church's "goofy rules." The Church's rules are not goofy. There is great wisdom behind them and President Garvey's very erudite and cogent presentation of the Church's teaching on contraception was one of the best that I have heard. Fortunately, there was a video taken of the talk, so you have a chance to hear it for yourself:
The dinner was a great success. I understand it was the largest attendance that they have had so far and many priests from throughout the diocese attended.
As they do every year, the seminarians sang a number of songs for us at the end of the dinner.
During one song, they even briefly put a sombrero on the head of Dr. Helen Jackson!It was just a very joyful evening and we were very happy to be able to honor two very fine Catholic laymen, Bob Mahoney and President Garvey.
Until next week,
Cardinal Seán


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CASE29359: Horary consultation concerning Alice Hammond (PERSON19839)
Question asked by the patient on 2 July 1605 at 06:15
RN Alce Hamm
Alce Hāmont of whaddon 23. y. Iulij. 2. ♂ h. 6. 15 ant m 1605.1
[Astrological Chart]
sick in mynde
tempted in mynd & pinched about her stomacke most when shee calleth on Ihus
' in chart
Transcribed excerpt from MS Ashmole 216, f. 141r (upper left part of page)


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Lil Duval "Nigga Please" Episode 3! (Parody Of George Bush Dodging Shoes)[Comedy]
Lil Duval's "Nigga Please" Episode 3. Shout out to Gabriel
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Visit the famed, National Historic Landmark where liberty found its allies and the American Revolution gained its voice. Within the walls of Old South Meeting House, meeting by meeting, vote by vote, a revolution began. Since 1729, when it was built as a Puritan meeting house, Old South Meeting House has played an important role in American history. It was on this site that the Judge Samuel Sewall publicly apologized for his role in the Salem Witch Trials. It was on this site that Benjamin Franklin was baptized. It was on this site that slave and poet Phillis Wheatley explored the meaning of liberty.
In the years leading to the American Revolution, thousands of colonists gathered at Old South Meeting House to challenge British rule, most famously to protest the Boston Massacre and the tea tax. The largest building in colonial Boston, Old South Meeting House was the stage for an overflow meeting on December 16, 1773, which adjourned to Griffin's Wharf for the infamous event that would become known as the Boston Tea Party. Almost a century later, Old South Meeting House was threatened with destruction. In 1876, Bostonians fought to save the building from the wrecker's ball in the first successful historic preservation effort in New England. Today Old South Meeting House is open daily as a museum and treasured landmark and keeps its revolutionary heritage alive as an active gathering place and a haven for free speech in the heart of downtown Boston.
The exhibit Voices of Protest traces the story of the people who have made history at Old South Meeting House. Explore the rich history of the Meeting House through rare artifacts, such as a vial of tea from the Boston Tea Party and a 3-D historic model of colonial Boston. Information:Old South Meeting House (OSMH) is open daily (April - October) 9:30 a.m.- 5:00 p.m. and (November -March) 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Admission: $6 adult, $5 seniors and students, $1 children age 6 - 18. Under age 6 is free. Freedom Trail combination ticket available. Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum combination ticket available. OSMH is wheelchair accessible and conveniently located to the State Street and Downtown Crossing stops on the MBTA. For tickets or information call 617-482-6439, email email@example.com or visit www.osmh.org.


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About event
Join us for the hottest pregame on South Beach! Then Club CAMEO for the best hip hop and R&B party on Saturday nights!
With this VIP package you'll spend more time partying inside the club and less waiting outside to get in.
Package total is $60/80 gentlemen.
$20 deposit due now to reserve your spot
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2. Party bus transportation to Club CAMEO
3. Express nightclub admisssion/ no waiting in line.
For more info call 702-720-3350.


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Liverpool edge Swansea in 7 goal thriller
Daniel Sturridge and Jordan Henderson scored two goals apiece as Liverpool registered...
The Charlotte Bobcats look to put the brakes on a seven- game losing streak when they resume a three-game homestand Monday night versus the Golden State Warriors.
The Bobcats' losing trend continued with Saturday's 132-102 blowout loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Kemba Walker scored 23 points, Gerald Henderson netted 13 and Ramon Sessions posted 12 points in Charlotte's fifth straight defeat at home.
San Antonio set a new franchise record as the team made 19 3-pointers in the game (19-of-34). The Spurs shot 55.6 percent from the field.
"They can get you with shooters from all angles and all ways," said Charlotte head coach Mike Dunlap. "So you kind of have to pick your poison in how you want to play them."
Charlotte will close out the homestand versus the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday and is one win shy of eclipsing last season's total (7-59).
Walker has been playing well lately, averaging 21.5 ppg in his last four. He has notched 20-plus points in three of the past four contests and has scored in double figures in 18 of 19 games this season.
The Bobcats hope to keep the score close Monday and are 6-2 this season in games decided by four points or less.
Golden State is perfect (3-0) so far on a season-long, seven-game road trip and recorded a 101-97 victory at Washington the last time out on Saturday.
David Lee recorded a double-double with 24 points and 17 rebounds, while Klay Thompson registered 23 points. Stephen Curry, who left the game briefly in the fourth quarter with a knee issue, added 22 points for the Warriors, who have won 10 of their last 13 games and improved to 7-4 as the guest.
"We've got good momentum right now. The team's playing well," Curry said. "We're finding all sorts of different ways to win. We had to hold on when they were making all those crazy threes at the end, so I'm just glad we got the win tonight."
Curry has scored 20-plus points in seven straight games and is averaging 21.9 ppg over the past 11.
Golden State has won 13 of its first 20 games for just the second time in the past 30 years and is 4-1 in a stretch of nine consecutive games against Eastern Conference opponents. The Warriors are 7-1 against the East this season.
The Warriors still have bouts with Miami, Orlando and Atlanta remaining on the trek. In injury news for Golden State, forward Richard Jefferson is questionable Monday with a strained right calf.
Golden State lost the only meeting with Charlotte last season and has dropped seven of 10 and eight of the past 12 matchups between the teams.


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Windham NH Senior Apartments
There are 0 Senior Apartments in Windham, New Hampshire and 2 Senior Apartments nearby.
Birch HeightsDerry NH 03038 - Distance: 4.7 miles
Situated on beautiful grounds in the scenic town of Derry, you'll love the quiet elegance of our facilities while enjoying the convenience of being in ...Independent Living - Senior Apartments
Summer PlaceChelmsford MA 01824 - Distance: 14.7 miles
History comes alive at Summer Place. Located in the heart of Chelmsford, the town square dates back to the 1600's and we're just ten minutes from Wald ...Independent Living - Senior Apartments


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We are temporarily suspending issuing Veterans' Discount cards
Veterans can record their military discharge forms regardless of the length of time of separation. These are the most important documents veterans will receive from the military after completing their service. Once these documents are put on record in our office, the veteran can come get certified copies at any time. It also allows the Veteran to participate in our "Thank You for Your Service" discount card program.
The public can also honor our veterans every Election Day through the "Vote In Honor of a Veteran" Program, sponsored by the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Recording Military Discharges
"Thank You for Your Service" Discount Program
This program entitles veterans to receive discounts at participating businesses after filing their DD Form 214 in our office.


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A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, Université René Descartes, Paris, France
We are looking forward with joy to the forthcoming International Congress of Mathematicians 2006 (ICM2006) in Madrid. The ICM has been recognized as the most important mathematical festival by mathematicians from all over the world, who present their major mathematical achievements carried out in all subfields and in different regions of the world. In my experience at ICM2002, the ICM is also an important opportunity to highlight the beauty, influence, and power of mathematics to the whole of society, which in turn has a big impact on the further development of mathematics. Mathematics is both an independent discipline valued for precision and intrinsic beauty, and a rich source of tools for application in other disciplines. The highly abstract languages, structures, methods and ideas created by mathematicians have been time and again proven to be universal instruments useful to other fields of science and technology and to commercial and social practices. This reflects the marvellous and close relation between mathematical theories and the objective world. In our time science and technology have experienced extraordinary developments that no-one could have dreamed of in previous generations, such as the exploration of outer space, the use of nuclear energy, the invention of the computer with the rapid development of internet and information technology, and the advent of biological engineering. All these reveal that human beings are striding forward towards an unprecedented epoch in which the progress of society depends more and more on scientific and technical innovation, and among all such innovative activities the innovation of mathematical knowledge is indispensable and fundamental. It is well known that mathematics has played indispensable roles in making computers, in developing both space and energy programs, and in investigating the structure of the DNA molecule. Mathematical methods are widely used even in economics, finance, medicine, agriculture, architecture, art areas, and so on. Mathematics has been respected as the queen of the sciences, and now we might say that mathematics is as well the basis of high technology, and, in a certain sense, a symbol of modern civilization.
Zhi-Ming Ma
Member of the Executive Committee of IMU
The ICM2006 Madrid has launched a weekly bulletin containing information about the congress: interviews with speakers, novelties in mathematical research, explanation of the content of the different sections and more. The bulletin is published electronically in English and Spanish.
You can find it in the
IMU on the Web
Choosing Someone Else To Publish Your Journal How is a small academic journal to survive? The only way may well seem to be to ask a professional publisher to provide valuable marketing and essential bundling. The CEIC offers brief but useful advice to Society Councils and Editorial Teams at http://www.ceic.math.ca/News/IMUonWeb.shtml#CEIC14
e-Gripe of the Month: This first complaint is pre-e. I say: It can only be mindlessness that leads many of us to prepare our overheads in letter rather than landscape mode. Click as above for more.
e-Comment of the Month: Impatient audience member to speaker still fiddling with her computer: Are you just giving a powerpoint presentation; or do you have something worthwhile to say?
Alf van der Poorten (firstname.lastname@example.com), member of the CEIC.
News from DCSG
Among its most recent initiatives, the Developing Countries Strategy Group, together with the African Mathematics Millennium Science Initiative (AMMSI) and the London Mathematical Society, submitted applications to two of the United Kingdom's premier foundations, the Nuffield Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust. Both of these applications have had successful outcomes. The Nuffield Foundation awarded a GBP 105,000 grant for a two-year pilot project to support mathematics and its teaching in the Anglophone countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Work under this grant is now in the initial stage of partnering mentors in the U.K. with institutions in Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa. With respect to the second application, in which the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Edinburgh, U.K.) also joined, the Leverhulme Trust awarded a GBP 150,000 grant for a three-year international programme in support of mathematics in sub-Saharan Africa, to commence later this year.
The first project focuses on mentoring partnerships between individual mathematicians in the UK and mathematics centres in Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa. The second has the coordinated aim of nurturing the next generation of African mathematicians and mathematical leadership in situ, focusing particularly on building the community of postgraduate students and young researchers. Both aim to combat the mathematics "brain drain" of mathematical talent from sub-Saharan Africa by increasing the relative attractiveness of contributing one's mathematical expertise at home rather than moving permanently to the developed world. Building and maintaining bridges of shared research interests with individual and centres in the developed world is seen as an essential part of sustaining the community of postgraduate students and young researchers in Africa. In turn, sustaining the region's mathematical infrastructure is seen as essential to education and economic development.
In other news, IMU recently received a second major grant from the Niels Henrik Abel Memorial Fund towards its activities in sustaining and promoting mathematics and mathematicians in developing countries. These latter funds, besides supporting mathematics and mathematics education in Africa, are being employed inter alia to support the project of CIMPA-ICPAM (Nice, France) to rebuild the mathematical infrastructure in Cambodia, in cooperation with Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia.
ICMI awards: The 2005 Felix Klein and Hans Freudenthal Medals
The Felix Klein and Hans Freudenthal Medals are the two awards created by the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI), for recognizing outstanding achievement in mathematics education research. The Felix Klein Medal, named for the first president of ICMI (1908-1920), honors a lifetime achievement. The Hans Freudenthal Medal, named for the eight president of ICMI (1967-1970), recognizes a major cumulative program of research. The awards represent the judgment of an (anonymous) jury of distinguished scholars of international stature, chaired by Professor Michèle Artigue of the University Paris 7.
ICMI is proud to announce the second awardees of the Klein and Freudenthal Medals. The Felix Klein Medal for 2005 is awarded to Ubiratan D'Ambrosio, Emeritus Professor at UNICAMP, in Brasil. This distinction acknowledges the role Ubiratan D'Ambrosio has played in the development of mathematics education as a field of research and development throughout the world, above all in Latin America. It also recognises Ubiratan D'Ambrosio's pioneering role in the development of research perspectives which are sensitive to the characteristics of social, cultural, and historical contexts in which the teaching and learning of mathematics take place, as well as his insistence on providing quality mathematics education to all, not just to a privileged segment of society.
The Hans Freudenthal Medal for 2005 is awarded to Paul Cobb, Professor at Vanderbilt University, in the US. This distinction acknowledges his outstanding contribution to mathematics education: a rare combination of theoretical developments, empirical research and practical applications, which has had a major influence on the mathematics education community and beyond.
Citations of the work of these medalists can be found below. Presentation of the medals, and invited addresses of the medalists, will occur at
ICME-11 in Monterrey, July 2008.
Recipient of previous ICMI Awards:
2003 Felix Klein Medall : Professor Guy Brousseau
2003 Hans Freudenthal Medal : Professor Celia Hoyles
EMS article competition
The European Mathematical Society, through its committee for Raising Public Awareness of Mathematics (RPA), has recently run a competition for articles that have appeared in a newspaper, or some similar general magazine, in the home country of the author. The 2006 winners are:
Professor Nuno Crato, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal. For a three-part article Cibersegredos invioláveis (Unbreakable ciber- secrets), published in the Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso, on 8, 22, 29 September 2001.
The prize winning articles by Crato can be found in Portuguese and English at:
Professor F. Thomas Bruss, Dpt. de Mathématiques, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. For the article Der Ungewissheit ein Schnippchen schlagen (Playing a Trick on Uncertainty), published in the magazine Spektrum der Wissenschaft, 6 June 2000, and a similar article in the daily German newspaper Die Welt, 17 May 2001.
The prize winning article by Bruss can be found in German and English under "Publications" at:
Professors Sava Grozdev, Ivan Derzhanski and Evgenia Sendova, Union of Bulgarian Mathematicians, Sofia, Bulgaria.
For the article For those who think mathematics dreary, published in the Bulgarian daily newspaper Dnevnik, 27 December 2001.
The prize winning article by Grozdev, Derzhanski and Sendova can be found in Bulgarian and English at:
News from UMALCA - Latin American Mathematical Union's 10th Birthday
The Mathematical Union of Latin America and the Caribbean (UMALCA), an affiliated member of the IMU, has turned 10 years old. The celebrations took place at the 14th Latin American School of Mathematics, held in Montevideo, Uruguay last December. On the occasion, the President of UMALCA, José Antonio de la Peña (Mexico), awarded Mario Wschebor (Uruguay), Roberto Markarian (Uruguay), and Jacob Palis (Brazil) the Union's Medal, for their outstanding contributions as first President, Secretary General, and Scientific Coordinator, respectively. The celebrations also included round table discussions on the perspectives for mathematical research and education across the continent.
UMALCA was founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1995, with the mission to foster the development of Mathematics across Latin America, by sponsoring scientific meetings, promoting the exchange of graduate students and researchers, and contributing to improve teaching and research conditions in the region. It is formed by the national mathematical societies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, each holding one vote in the General Assembly. Rules and procedures for admission of new members are defined in the statutes (see the official web site http://umalca.usach.cl). The annual fees of the members constitute the main source of funding for its activities, but generous support has been obtained also from CDE/IMU, CIMPA, ICIAM, ICTP, UNESCO, and various latin american research agencies.
Since its inception, UMALCA has been active in promoting the exchange of talented young researchers within Latin America. Calls for travel grant applications are issued three times a year. Applicants selected by the Scientific Council have their travel expenses to carry out scientific research or attend a meeting in another country in the region covered by the Union. This program is greatly contributing to enhancing scientific collaboration between Latin American research groups.
The Latin American Congress of Mathematicians, organized by UMALCA every fourth year, is the main scientific meeting in Mathematics in the whole region. It includes plenary lectures and parallel sessions, as well as mini-courses, at the very highest level. The first two Congresses took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2000), and Cancun, Mexico (2004), and the next one will be held in Chile in 2008. The Union also took upon itself the organization of the Latin American School of Mathematics, a traditional event in the region that is now held on a regular basis every third year. The most recent Schools, in Lima, Peru (1999), Cartagena, Colombia (2002), and Montevideo, Uruguay (2005), focussed on such topics as Algebraic Geometry, Dynamical Systems, Partial Differential Equations, and Probability and Stochastic Processes.
Just as important, the Union also organizes more elementary mathematical schools, the EMALCAs, designed to attract talented students from the least developed countries to graduate studies and a research career. Since 2001, schools have been organized every year, alternately in Mexico and in Venezuela, targeting students in Central America and the Caribbean. Starting from 2004, this initiative was greatly expanded to enhance its regional reach by having smaller schools organized in other countries as well: Bolivia, Cuba, Costa Rica, Paraguay and, soon, Nicaragua and Ecuador. Recently, UMALCA joined efforts with the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), in organizing the first International Congress on the Applications of Mathematics. The ICAM took place in Santiago de Chile, 13-17 March 2006, and was a great success, attended by more than 200 scientists and doctoral students from all over the world. Conversations for the organization of ICAM 2010 have just started.
Marcelo Viana
Scientific Coordinator of UMALCA
IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Abel Prize awarded
On May 23, the Queen of Norway presented the Abel Prize for 2006 to the Swedish mathematician Lennart Carleson. Carleson presented his Abel lecture on May 24, followed by lectures by Lai-Sang Young, Oded Schramm, and Sun-Yung Alice Chang.


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Inside Apple's Foxconn Factories everything remains the same, however, outside the building of the factory giant – which employs 1.2 million people and supplies many of the biggest names in consumer internet gadgets and iPhones – the 'net' is taking on more and more meaning.
Employee dormitories are now equipped with protective and/or suicide nets which can be seen in the picture below.
When I saw the picture – which has been making it's rounds on face book – something about it just didn't sit well with me. One doesn't have to be the smartest kid in class to know by now that people within our world don't really give a shit about each other no matter how much we pretend to.
The proof of how little we care is everywhere. We don't care about the thirty-thousand + number of children around the world who starve to death daily, or the thousands upon thousands of people who don't have clean water to drink, or even a toilet to shit in. We only care about me, me, me and what can I get, get, get so I can FEEL better. Ever notice the FEE in feeling?
So what's the purpose of providing nets to the 1.2 million employees in China who are slaves to 76-hour work weeks? That's working 11 days in a row earning as little as £150 a month so that the rest of us – who don't really give a shit about their overworked and underpaid lifestyle – can get some internet gadgets and iphones.
The way I see it, the nets that have been placed outside the factory dormitories, they're like 'hush money', and prove how we exist in absolute denial of the Real Problem that exists within our current world/money systems.
It's like saying: " you know what, we really don't care whether or not you want to kill yourself on our time but by God at least the nets will make sure you aren't able to do it where the world can see it because the world doesn't want to witness your suffering because we fear seeing the truth of what we accept and allow, so if we don't see your pain we'll never have to face ourself in realizing how equality is all that will make us stop caring only about making money."
When is enough enough?
Sharing is Caring – Investigate: Equal Money


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Your death can further medical knowledge.
Your death can further medical knowledge.
Donating your body to science gives medical students the chance to learn information that could someday lead to a cure or greater longevity.
"There are never enough donations to meet the needs of the medical schools in Pennsylvania," said Clariza Murray, director of public relations and the donor program for the Humanities Gift Registry in Philadelphia.
Students study human anatomy as part of their medical training. Because of the shortage of donations, "it often means several students share one body, which isn't an ideal learning situation," she said.
The registry receives between 680 to 700 body donations a year.
Debora Hompesch-Loch of Reeders thinks more medical personnel should be educated on the process of how to leave a body to science.
In January, her mother, Jean Smith, a lifelong resident of Monroe County, was dying from cancer and decided to leave her body to science in hopes that medicine could learn about the type she had.
"Basically, there two types of cancer cells: large and small. The type my mother had was small-cell cancer, and it is much harder to diagnose," she said.
By the time Smith knew her ill health wasn't just minor stomach trouble, the cancer had invaded nearly every internal organ.
"My mom had scans, but because of it being small-cell cancer, the tumors didn't show up," she said.
During the last week of Smith's life, she made the decision to leave her body to science, according to her daughter.
"The problem was (that) no one knew how we should go about it," Hompesch-Loch said.
After asking her mother's nurses and hospice providers if they knew how to make such a donation, Hompesch-Loch was still no closer to a contact. Her mother's funeral director didn't know much about the donation process, either.
Finally, after much searching and questioning, Hompesch-Loch found a national organ registry in Chicago online, where she was able to learn more about the donation process.
"We were running out of time before my mother would die, and I really needed to find out what we should do," she said.
After she was directed to William H. Clark Funeral Home in Stroudsburg, Hompesch-Loch said that the wheels began to move.
"Three days after my mother died, her body was delivered to The Commonwealth Medical School in Scranton," she said.
If you live in Pennsylvania, the Human Gifts Registry of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, can help.
"We are able to accept most bodies, and it is only under the rarest circumstances that a donor's body might be rejected," Murray said.
One of the biggest misconceptions Murray hears is that the registry sells organ parts for money.
"Absolutely not," she said.
The Humanity Gifts Registry is a nonprofit agency, and the organization is focused on the receipt and distribution of bodies donated to all medical and dental schools in the state for teaching purposes.
The participating schools pay only for the actual expenses involved in obtaining and distributing the donated bodies to the medical facilities in the registry.
"The Auditor General of Pennsylvania regularly comes in and examines our the financial records to make sure all the funds are accounted for," Murray said.
Murray often talks to groups about how to become a donor. "I always tell them to think how through their generosity, knowledge will continue to grow," she said.
For information, visit hgrpa.com, call 215-922-4440 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Web shop instructions
Merkki-Albert's web shop offers a wide rage of stamps and postcards. The items have been sorted into different categories, which you can browse using the menu on the left. After every category with items, the total number of items is displayed in parenthesis.
When you are browsing items you can sort them in three different ways: by name, by number or by insertion date. You can also choose to look at the items separately with small pictures or in a list without pictures.
The items have been divided into several pages to make browsing easier. You can change the page by using the drop-down box in the upper right corner or by using the previous/next links above the items.
It is easy to find specific items using the search-function, which can be found on the left under the categories. The search finds items containing the word or part of a word that the user has entered into the box. The search results can be browsed in the same way as a normal category.
If you want to look at an item more closely you can go the items page by clicking its picture or name. On this page there is a larger picture and additional information about the item. There are also previous/next links for browsing.
When you add an item to the shopping cart ("add to cart"-link) an orange cart will be displayed in the upper right corner of the items picture.
The shopping cart itself is located in the upper right corner of the page and contains links to view the cart or to proceed to the checkout.
An order can be made in 4 simple steps
After you have added the desired items to the shopping cart you can begin the checkout process by selecting the "Buy"-link in the upper right corner of the page:
1. Log in / register - the first step involves collecting information from the customer, like name and address, so that the order can be shipped. If you are already registered, you can simply log in using your e-mail address and password. If not, proceed by clicking on the Register button.
2. Choose payment method - on this page the payment methods are explained.
3. Summary and confirmation - here you will se a summary of your order and have the option to confirm the order.
4. Order placed - the last page informs you that your order has been placed and any additional information will be displayed, like more detailed payment instructions.


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That smoke detector outside your bedroom door could be giving you a false sense of security. It might not sound quickly enough to get you up and out if there's a fire when you are asleep.
It feels like heresy to question the value of smoke detectors. Clearly, these are life-saving devices. But some of the nation's firefighters are doing just that. They're on a crusade to get people to change the type of alarms found in most homes.
Smoke alarms 101
- Install smoke alarms on every level of your home, including the basement, making sure that there is an alarm outside every separate sleeping area.
- Mount smoke alarms high on walls or ceilings (remember, smoke rises). Ceiling mounted alarms should be installed at least four inches away from the nearest wall; wall-mounted alarms should be installed four to 12 inches away from the ceiling.
- If you have ceilings that are pitched, install the alarm near the ceiling's highest point.
- Don't install smoke alarms near windows, doors, or ducts where drafts might interfere with their operation. Do not install in or near cooking areas or bathrooms.
- Test smoke alarms at least once a month.
- Dust smoke alarm vents regularly to prevent particles from blocking sensors.
- Never disconnect a smoke alarm or remove the batteries for any reason, except to change them.
- Replace the batteries in your smoke alarm once a year, or as soon as the alarm "chirps," warning that the battery is low.
- Smoke detectors get old. Replace them every 10 years or as the manufacturer recommends.
House fires will kill about 3,000 Americans this year. Surprisingly, more than a third of the victims will have at least one working smoke detector in their home or apartment.
How could this be?
As it turns out, not all smoke alarms are the same.
There are two basic types of detectors: ionization and photoelectric. Ionization models are quicker to spot flaming fires. Photoelectric models react more quickly to smoldering fires, the kind caused by a cigarette on the couch or an overloaded extension cord. These smoldering fires produce toxic gases that can kill people sleeping in the house before there are any flames.
While any smoke detector is better than nothing, a growing number of experts favor photoelectric or dual-mode alarms to guard against both fire and smoke.
Nine out of 10 homes in the U.S. have ionization alarms. There are two reasons for this. They are cheaper to buy, and fire departments across the country have given them away for decades.
Comparison tests show differing results
Many safety experts believe either type of smoke detector is adequate, as long as the unit is working properly. Six years ago, the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology conducted an extensive test. The report said both ionization and photoelectric detectors "consistently provided time for occupants to escape from most residential fires."
Others disagree. For almost 20 years, B. Don Russell, a professor of electrical engineering at Texas A&M University, has studied smoke alarms. He uses a full-scale test facility to see how the detectors respond to different fire conditions and various materials. Russell says there is little difference between the two types of alarms when there's a flaming fire, but his tests show ionization alarms are dramatically slower when it comes to smoldering fires.
"When you're asleep, you need the earliest possible warning to get out and you do not get that with just an ionization detector," Russell says. "So if you were going to pick a single smoke detector to put in your home, pick a photoelectric detector."
Building codes changing
In Massachusetts, new or renovated homes or apartment cannot rely solely on ionization alarms for fire protection. If a detector is within 20 feet of a kitchen or bathroom, it must be photoelectric. It took Boston's deputy fire chief Jay Fleming years to get the law passed.
"Any smoke detector is better than nothing." Fleming says. "I don't want anyone to throw out what they have. But there's an alternative out there that for only a few dollars more works better than what most people have in their homes."
In Vermont, all new homes and those sold to new owners must have photoelectric detectors on every floor. State lawmakers passed the law after a tragic apartment fire in the city of Barre claimed the lives of four children and their mother in 2005.
Firefighters say the ionization smoke alarms didn't go off even though the building was filled with smoke. As part of the investigation, the detectors were checked and found to be working.
To find out how this happened, Barre firefighters did some experiments, testing both ionization and photoelectric alarms. They used a soldering iron stuck in a couch. The photoelectric alarms sounded in about 10 minutes. It took an hour and six minutes for the first ionization alarm to go off.
"If you and I had been sitting a desk next to each other, I wouldn't have been able to see you," Lt. Mike Cetin told me. "You think you're well protected with an ionization smoke detector, when you're not really protected that well at all."
Two cities in California, Albany and Palo Alto, also have new regulations that favor photoelectric alarms. Albany's fire chief, Marc McGinn, says he would like to see a nationwide changeover.
"If we could wave a magic wand right now and get rid of all the ionization smoke alarms and replace them instantly with photoelectric smoke alarms, we would cut out fire deaths in this country by more than 50 percent," McGinn says.
Nuisance alarms
Tests also show photoelectric alarms are less prone to nuisance alarms. Studies show that as many as a third of all smoke alarms in U.S. homes are disconnected, which could account for hundreds of fire deaths each year.
People often remove the batteries when cooking or moisture from the bathroom causes the alarm to sound when there's no danger. You want that alarm to go off when there's a threat to your life, not when you're cooking a steak.
Misguided effort?
Some think the push for photoelectric detectors is misguided. The National Fire Protection Association says "either type of smoke alarm will provide sufficient time for escape for most people for most fires of either smoldering or flaming type."
First Alert, a major manufacturer, takes the same position. Kidde, the other big smoke alarm manufacturer, goes one step further. Spokesperson Heather Caldwell says, "Banning a proven technology can truly limit innovation and could be a disservice to consumers."
Even Underwriters Labs says the science doesn't support outlawing ionization detectors.
The bottom line: Consider dual detectors
Many safety experts recommend a smoke alarm with both an ionization and photoelectric sensor. These combination models, which are widely available, guard against both flaming and smoldering fires. That way you're protected no matter what type of fire you have.
Consumer Reports recommends replacing ionization units with these new dual sensor models. The editors also recommend alarms that are wirelessly interconnected, especially if you have a multilevel house. That way if one goes off (say in the basement) they all sound throughout the house.
Find more information
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text:
- LJ Index, October 2008
- It's All Like...What?
- Laundering Blog Layouts for Mobile Devices
- They Said It
- What They're Using: Mike Warot
- New Videos on LinuxJournal.com
- diff -u: What's New in Kernel Development
LJ Index, October 2008
1. Number of Firefox 3.0 downloads in 24 hours starting June 17, 2008: 8,002,530
2. Position of the above download number among Guinness World Records: 1
3. Minimum millions of Firefox users: 180
4. Minimum number of countries in which Firefox is used: 230
5. Millions of dollars in VC funding for open-source vendors in 2007: 328.5
6. Millions of dollars in VC funding for open-source vendors in first half of 2008: 321.3
7. Percentage increase in VC funding in first half of 2008 over 2007: 62
8. Total billions in open-source funding through first half of 2008: 2.80
9. Age in years of a reported bug in BSD discovered in May 2008: 25
10. Linux's market share percentage of counted browser visits in January 2007: 35
11. Linux's market share percentage of counted browser visits in January 2008: 64
12. Linux's market share percentage of counted browser visits in June 2008: 80
13. Linux year-over-year percentage growth in server sales in Q1 2008: 8.4
14. Linux server revenue in billions of dollars for Q1 2008: 1.8
15. Linux-based server percentage of all server revenue: 13.7
16. Number of Linux-based laptops to be distributed to students in the Tamil Nadu state of India: 100,000
17. Price in dollars for Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) in ValuSoft boxes at Best Buy and Amazon: 20
18. Number of Linux distros listed on DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking: 100
19. Position of Ubuntu among top distros in the six months ending July 16, 2008: 1
20. Position of OpenSUSE among top distros in the six months ending July 16, 2008: 2
1–4: SpreadFirefox.com
5–8: 451 Group
9: TheInquirer
10–12: NetApplications.com
13–15: International Data Corp (IDC)
16: LinuxWatch
17: DesktopLinux.com
18–20: DistroWatch.com
It's All Like...What?
Google phrase searches can produce results that seem like random answers to a Rorschach test—only more amusing. Here are the top results (on a day in July 2008) for "The Internet is like...":
"a vast uncataloged library"
"a vagina"
"Joey Bishop"
"a series of tubes"
"alcohol in some sense"
"a newspaper"
"going down the Chinese road"
Closer to home, "Linux is like...":
"switching from a car to a motorcycle"
"a pizza"
"ice cream—too many flavors to choose"
"a fixed-wheel bicycle"
"turning on your first computer and figuring out what all those weird boxes did"
"a common cold"
"a whole new species"
"Ubuntu, only different"
Our hat tip for this observation goes to reader Mike Warot. (See "What They're Using?" on page 17 for more about Mike.)
Laundering Blog Layouts for Mobile Devices
Whenever I run across something new, cool and Web-based, I check Netcraft's "What's that site using?" to see whether the site's servers are running on Linux. You can't always tell, and the results can be misleading, but it's a good first sniff test.
That's what I did with MoFuse (www.mofuse.com), and it passed. "Linux Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.0.63 OpenSSL/...", it said.
What's cool about MoFuse is that it launders the layout complexities out of blog posts and turns them into simple lists of linked headlines. It does this free if you like, or you can pay for extra services, such as advertising revenue sharing and URLs that don't have "mofuse.mobi" in them.
MoFuse isn't alone, of course. Mippin (www.mippin.com) has been doing similar stuff for a while, and Netcraft shows them running Linux too (Red Hat, in this case).
And Google, naturally, also has an interface that can turn any blog into "mobile.blogname.whatever". Of course, that's Linux too.
In any case, the percentage of Web surfing via mobile devices is going to skyrocket—especially after the next generation of unlocked, uncrippled Linux-based devices start hitting the market. Formatting for the hand screen will shift from exception to rule.
They Said It
Our passion is about Linux for human beings, it's not Linux for Linux specialists, or Linux for anything other than the people who we care about.
...our goal, very simply, is to make sure the free software ecosystem can deliver a Mac OS-like experience, or an experience that will compete with the Mac OS. We see Apple as the gold standard of the user experience. We believe that, while it can be a challenge, the innovation inherent in the free software process can deliver an experience that is comparable and in many ways superior.
Proprietary drivers are a horrible kludge; they're a little bit like introducing a cast iron pot into a titanium machine. You have something that is inherently brittle and therefore reduces the value of the whole.
—Mark Shuttleworth, itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3757246_2
For every artificial scarcity, there's an equal and opposite artificial abundance.
—JP Rangaswami, a talk reported at Reboot10, twitter.com/dweinberger/statuses/844937650
If you provide your customer with solutions, you'll have a well-defined market. But if you provide your customer with the opportunity to create new solutions, your customer will create new markets for you.
—Bob Frankston, private e-mail message
Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring....a tool...has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it. It's when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen....
—Clay Shirky, from his book Here Comes Everybody, page 105
What They're Using: Mike Warot
Linux converts don't always come in groups. Among IT folks, they tend to come one by one. Case in point, Mike Warot, a reader I knew for insightful comments and fun ideas (for example, see "It's All Like...What?" on page 16). Mike's experience is a good sample of what must be happening in countless shops, even though each is different. Now, here's Mike's description of "what he's using":
I'm a one-man IT staff in what used to be a Windows shop. Today I have two machines on my desk. The one I just let run is Ubuntu. It just runs, 24x7, and it's there when I need it.
The change came once it became apparent that we were going to have to put our Windows servers behind a firewall. I decided to use Linux to make a firewall. I used Red Hat and EBtables to create a transparent bridge to avoid having to re-address our servers and let everything keep its public IP address. This was nice, because it still wasn't necessary to have a firewall, it was just an extra precaution at the time.
That worked well for about a year, until I got worried I wouldn't be able to restart it. That's when a friend told me about IPcop in his work with nonprofits. IPcop is a very easy to configure and maintain Linux-based firewall, which does a great job in almost all circumstances. I used IPcop for a year or so, until problems with multiple Internet connections forced me to seek a better solution.
At the same time I put in the IPcop box, I learned (eventually) two very important facts about Windows 2000 Servers and the Internet. First, if your domain controllers have multiple subnets from which to choose, they will get confused and not be able to find each other (meaning users might not be able to log in). And second, if you followed common sense and used your real domain name for your Windows domain name, you were FUBAR, because active directory then puts all of your local addresses in the DNS, and you can't remove them (or the domain stops working again).
This required another Linux box, for DNS services to the world. It's running Fedora Core 5, but I'm about to replace it, because I don't know how to update the DNS to fix the current exploit. It'll get replaced with a VMware virtual machine running Ubuntu (more about VMware below). I now have an Ubuntu box with iptables (or ipchains, I always forget), which connects us to our three Internet connections.
With the proliferation of servers, VMware's offer of the free VMware Server was a godsend. And, I've since learned that Linux makes a far better host than Windows does. So, I've got some of my VMware servers running on Ubuntu, with Windows and other things inside them.
Ubuntu has made it pretty easy to set up a new machine—not that Red Hat was very hard. But with apt-get, installation of almost any program is trivial. I use an editor called joe to do editing when I don't have the X Window System set up (on some of the older servers), and it's just sudo apt-get install joe, and I'm up and running.
I'm not a guru, but I've learned enough over the years to get around. Linux offers a wider set of tools than Windows ever could. Bottom line: Linux is amazing, and it's getting better all the time.
New Videos on LinuxJournal.com
As some of you may have noticed, there have been a number of new videos on LinuxJournal.com. If you haven't noticed, well, get over to LinuxJournal.com to learn something interesting in one of our new tutorial screencasts. When you are not enjoying Shawn "Gadget Guy" Powers' antics, you'll surely find something new and useful in our new series of videos. Visit www.linuxjournal.com/video to check out the selection. Perhaps you'll learn how to edit video with FFmpeg or something else to add to your bag of tricks.
As always, Shawn will continue to bring you reviews and commentary from his Gadget Guy studio, so keep watching those too. There's so much to enjoy!
diff -u: What's New in Kernel Development
Keeping firmware in the kernel is a somewhat controversial issue, because it means keeping binary blobs of data in an open-source project. But removing it, as David Woodhouse is trying to do, turns out to be controversial also. Folks like David S. Miller are violently opposed to the idea on the grounds that it would break certain drivers (like tg 3) or make them much worse. Also, it takes a part of the kernel that essentially had been approved by Linus Torvalds—even in binary form—and puts it in the hands of someone else. Unlike GCC, libc and other projects on which the kernel depends, this external firmware project would not be anything like a universal tool; it just would be a key part of the kernel that was stored and maintained outside the official source tree.
But, now that the effort actually is underway, it may be unstoppable. A lot of folks find the problem interesting on a technical level, which generally means they'll eventually find solutions that satisfy everyone. For now, it seems as though firmware definitely will be relegated to its own little spot in the kernel sources. From there, it could end up getting a separate git tree altogether.
Willy Tarreau has adjusted the 2.4 release schedule, based on the results of an informal survey of existing 2.4 users. He found that about 80% of current users didn't upgrade, because a lot of their employees or customers would be inconvenienced by any hiccups in the upgrade path or by the downtime required to do the upgrade successfully. The rest of the users could upgrade easily if they wanted to or if they knew how, but they either were running it on their home systems and simply didn't need the benefits of 2.6, or they were running it on firewalls, routers and so on, and the folks maintaining them didn't have a clearly defined upgrade path—although Willy reckoned it wouldn't be too hard to do.
From all this, Willy concluded that he would put out stability fixes more frequently, so people could get what they needed to fix whatever small problems remained on their 2.4 systems, but that he'd slow down on putting out major releases, and do that only for versions with new PCI IDs, big driver updates, compiler support changes and so on. Willy also suggested that someone write up a complete description of the differences between 2.4 and 2.6 and how to address all the problems of upgrading.
It's useful to be able to write to files under CramFS, SquashFS and even mounted CDs, knowing that the changes will not be permanent and will go away after a reboot. Arnd Bergman has recently implemented this kind of temporary write support for CramFS, and Phillip Lougher also is planning to write a similar feature for SquashFS. A lot of folks objected to Arnd's approach though, saying that this kind of thing should be accomplished by using UnionFS to stack something like TmpFS on top of CramFS. But, it turns out that UnionFS is kind of a mess and not really able to do the job well. Some folks, like Phillip, also feel that stackable filesystem support should go right in the VFS, instead of clunking around in a filesystem of its own.
The uproar against writing one-offs for each affected filesystem (CramFS, SquashFS and so forth) subsided when it became clear that CramFS and SquashFS would be the only two filesystems to do this, except for perhaps ISO9660. At least with a small number of filesystems, the amount of duplicated effort would not be too great. But, the people interested in making UnionFS the canonical method of accomplishing this sort of thing apparently have redoubled their efforts. So, it may be that both groups will get what they need soon enough.
Geert Uytterhoeven asked when SquashFS would be accepted into the kernel tree, and Phillip Lougher said that he actually was making some major changes, after which it would presumably take some time for the code to be reviewed by users and any remaining sizable bugs shaken out. Among the changes, Phillip is considering changing the on-disk data layout, which would solve certain problems but break backward compatibility.
The venerable AdvFS filesystem has been released by Hewlett-Packard under the terms of the GPL version 2. This filesystem has been around since the 1980s, supports journaling and file undeletion, and is very fast in general. Nowadays, there are plenty of journaling filesystems, but this release represents a solid and excellent body of code—and a really terrific body of documentation—available to the Open Source world for the first time. The AdvFS release is not, as Linda Knippers from HP has pointed out, a port of the filesystem to Linux. HP sees this release as providing a lot of cool stuff for open-source developers to use in any various projects where they might be useful. But, it's also likely that some kernel folks will want to do a real port. So, we probably can look forward to seeing AdvFS in the main kernel tree at some point.


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So it's fairly late in the evening and the sun has just set or is just about to. You decide on a nice walk for half an hour and you grab your HS25 for the wander. It's the time of year when many flowers are at or near their peak, so it is a good time to see what the neighbors have been up to.
Before I left on the walk, I started in my own back yard. The Hansa Rose bush is now covered in blooms. Looks terrific. Here's a reasonably nice one, straight from the camera except for resizing.
Note: the majority of these images are straight from the camera, except wher I note that the image is processed. All are shot in EXR DR mode. I shot the first third of the image at auto ISO 400, but as the light waned I was forced to shoot auto ISO 1600. Meter was set to averaging the entire time.
fuji hs25 400iso f/5 1/80
Here is the same image as I usually prefer to render it.
Yes, the difference is subtle. But subtle differences matter.
Another bloom with the stamens showing.
fuji hs25 400iso f/5 1/150 -2/3ev
Although it is not a sunny or contrasty light, I prefer to drop exposure a bit to protect pinks and reds, which are really hard to capture without blowing them out.
The whole bush as Fuji would render it and then as I would render it. No EXIF, it is embedded if you want to see it.
A robin lands right in front of me on the fence, and then walks towards me. I actually have to zoom out to get the whole thing in. Ho cocks his head at me as the camera is beeping (I am furiously trying to turn off macro mode.)
Again, Fuji's and then mine. I correct white balance by clicking the dropper on the fence.
For those who don't like to process, perhaps working with custom white balance will suffice. But I would seriously consider getting Lightroom 4, which is half the price that Lightroom 3 used to be.
As I was about to leave the yard, I noted that the moon was up and looked really nice in the late evening blue sky.
That's hand held of course. I tried exacting more detail and the sky turned to sandpaper, so I went with black and white and much prefer this rendering, even though it is nothing like the original scene.
For those wondering how clean the moon came out at around 100%, the answer is not very.
There is quite a bit of coarse detail, but the smearing is brutal. And this is 100ISO! Perhaps there was slight movement because it was hand held. Anyway, I have better output from this cam on the tripod.
So … off I went for a walk. I still had the camera set to auto ISO 400, so I got some blurry shots. Since this is an experience report, you get to see evrything.
This shot is blurred, but the camera did a nice job with the white balance. Still a bit cool, but nice overall. Note that I am shooting for capture quality, which means that these are all low contrast. I also have DR400 set up in EXR DR mode.
Fuji hs25 400iso f/5.6 1/50 -2/3ev 687mm EFL (too long for the shutter speed)
The next shot are Lupins. Gorgeous. And I got lucky on the stabilization.
Fuji hs25 400iso f/5 1/50 -2/3ev
Lucky again with these Poppies.
fuji hs25 400iso f/5 1/30(!) -2/3ev
A neighbor decided that the Lilac had to go. Bummer. I like Lilacs.
Note the leaning garage. I pointed the lens down to capture the scene, and that makes anything straight up and down lean outward.
Nice looking fluted flowers. Can't remember the name, but they remind me of Morning Glories, which bloom much later on.
Generally, the color is coming out pretty well from the Fuji. Sometimes the cool white balance is too obvious, but other times it looks fine to me. YMMV of course.
This neighbor has an incredible set of Hostas out front. I processed this one for sure.
There must have been 6 or 8 take-offs during my walk. Here's one just climbing over head … heavy crop shows the grain.
Got another sharp one. Some Iris at full zoom. No idea how I got it sharp at 1/60 …
A bit more muted than I like, which is the fault of the white balance I think.
Next door we see more Lupins. Almost fully bloomed. Great background provided by their porch.
I don't recommend shooting 400ISO in the dark, but I did get quite a few keepers. But it gets harder as time goes on, as the sun is definitely gone by now.
Right next to the gorgeous Lupins we see the bent ones and I got blur again. Can't complain at these shutter speeds (1/25 in this case.
The Alliums (yes, of the onion family) next to them came out all right, but there is still a bit of blur if you look for it.
Another shot of Irises, and another ruined shot. 1/25s is too slow and I still have not quite figured out what is happening. Duh …
These Cosmos are almost sharp, but alas, not quite. The bull's eye composition would normally have been fixed with a crop, but I am posting what I shot. In this low light, I am finding it a chore to compose images at full zoom. This is something I have noticed about the HS25 … not really a tough light camera. Everything seems a bit more difficult.
And finally, I notice the ISO is too low., The Peonies are gorgeous and I really want this shot. The two before this one were horrid. This one is still blurred, despite being shot at 1600 ISO.
Because it is dark, the speed still only came out to 1/70. So still pretty slow for full zoom.
But here I get a very crisp image of these Irises. The shutter is fast enough at 1/220.
These Clematis look great. But I don't like the cool tint, so I process them myself again.
Now this one had no excuse to be blurred at 1/250s … but statistically it is still going to happen. I should have shot it 3 times to be certain.
And yes, that one was processed. This is what Fuji did …
A cropped shot of a rabbit at full zoom and 1/70s. Not very sharp, not very clean, but hey … it's a wascally wabbit.
I went to wide angle and got a nice shot of a Peony down the road from the rabbit. At wide angle, you really have to watch your backgrounds. This worked well.
Then I back off a bit and shoot with more zoom and macro mode set. There is much less to worry about in the background with this narrow angle of view.
And once more … a wide shot of an Iris, then a tele shot in macro mode.
Again, the background makes a huge difference.
A while later, I notice this way cool flowering bush between two houses. I think I want one of these. Anyone know what it is? By the way, this one is processed.
Iris is a popular flower around these parts.
Second bunny in 10 minutes. Cool.
I had to reset white balance to show how pretty these Iris were. Wow …
1/90 was just to slow for the closeup. Again … had I shot it three times … maybe.
Last image … just before I turned the corner for home. This house is just gorgeous … the huge Maple in the front yard with the Ivy on the brick and the lovely stone driveway. Very nice …
So is it fun to carry the HS25 in fading light? Well, mostly. I enjoyed carrying it. It is light and unobtrusive. But it has hesitations on the AF and the LCD / EVF freezes while that is going on. The EVF and LCD do not really show you what you are getting, although the LCD is far better than the EVF, which is a bit of a joke as a viewing device.
But I still find myself framing with the EVF because long zoom needs stability and the third point of pressure on the camera (eye socket) makes a lot of difference.
The noise and grain is ok, but not spectacular. At these sizes, full shots look fine at 1600ISO. But cropping is not going to make you happy.
One of these days I need to bring the D7000 out in this light. I expect a slaughter.


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OVER 800 LOTS!!......Huge Established Local Boiler Service-Fabrication Business Liquidation which includes a South Bend lathe, CNC Machine, Clark forklift, Pirahna Ironworker, GMC 6000 stakebody, Ford F-150 crew cab, Linclon welders, Wells metal band saw, Ruwac concrete grinding system, Rock Island vise, Lisle drill grinder,Go-Fer II welder, PerformX drum sander, Rockwell planer, Northfield joiner, Ridgid pipe tools, steel tables, pressure washers, ladders, grinders, barn wood, tooling, sanders, fasteners, chains, scaffolding, hoists, lifting straps, lifting cables, roll motor, boiler tools, hand & power tools PLUS a whole lot more! This is a NO RESERVE SALE!
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1. Forklift assistance will be available on items that can be safely fork-lifted on to the buyers' trailer. Any items that cannot be fork-lifted is the sole-responsibility of the winning bidder to be moved and loaded. *Please bring dollies, tie-downs, load binders, carts, hoists or any other means needed for you to safely load your winnings. Bring totes, boxes or containers to load and transport your multi item lots to your vehicle time efficiently. *Everything in this auction must be removed by the posted load out dates. Absolutely No Exceptions!
2. There are no transfers, hold-overs, alternate pick-up dates/times available for this auction...so please make plans in advance.
3. All items are sold in as-is condition with no returns available.
4. Last but not least, everyone at Mitch & Phyllis' Online Auction Team and Auction Ohio truly appreciates your business and continued support.