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Beauty and Roughness
Nearly all common patterns in nature are rough. They have aspects that are exquisitely irregular and fragmented—not merely more elaborate than the marvelous ancient geometry of Euclid but of massively greater complexity. For centuries, the very idea of measuring roughness was an idle dream. This is one of the dreams to which I have devoted my entire scientific life.
Let me introduce myself. A scientific warrior of sorts, and an old man now, I have written a great deal but never acquired a predictable audience. So, in this memoir, please allow me to tell you who I think I am and how I came to labor for so many years on the first-ever theory of roughness and was rewarded by watching it transform itself into an aspect of a theory of beauty.
* * *
The broad-minded mathematician Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) remarked that some questions one chooses to ask, while others are "natural" and ask themselves. My life has been filled with such questions: What shape is a mountain, a coastline, a river, or a dividing line between two river watersheds? What shape is a cloud, a flame, or a welding? How dense is the distribution of galaxies in the universe? How can one describe—to be able to act upon—the volatility of prices quoted in financial markets? How to compare and measure the vocabularies of different writers? Numbers measure area and length. Could some other number measure the "overall roughness" of rusted iron, or of broken stone, metal, or glass? Or the complexity of a piece of music or of abstract art? Can geometry deliver what the Greek root of its name seemed to promise—truthful measurement, not only of cultivated fields along the Nile River but also of untamed Earth?
These questions, as well as a host of others, are scattered across a multitude of sciences and have been faced only recently . . . by me. As an adolescent during World War II, I came to worship a major achievement of a mathematician and astronomer of long ago, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630). Kepler combined the ellipses of ancient Greek geometers with a failure of ancient Greek astronomers, who mistakenly believed that persistent "anomalies" existed in the motion of planets. Kepler used his knowledge of two different fields—mathematics and astronomy—to calculate that this motion of the planets was not an anomaly. It was, in fact, an elliptical orbit. To discover something like this became my childhood dream.
A most impractical prospect! Not one leading to a career in any organized profession, nor providing a way of shining in life—a prospect that my uncle Szolem, an eminent mathematician, repeatedly called completely childish. Yet somehow fate did allow me to spend my life pursuing that dream. Through extraordinarily good for- tune, and a long and achingly complicated professional life, it was eventually fulfilled.
In my Keplerian quest I faced many challenges. The good news is that I succeeded. The bad news, or perhaps additional good news, is that my "success" raised a host of new and different problems. More- over, my contributions to seemingly unrelated fields were actually closely related and eventually led to a theory of roughness—a challenge dating back to ancient times. The Greek philosopher Plato had outlined this challenge millennia before our time, but nobody knew how to pursue it. Was I that person?
* * *
An acquaintance of mine was a forceful dean at a major university. One day, as our paths crossed in a busy corridor, he stopped to make a comment I never forgot: "You are doing very well, yet you are taking a lonely and hard path. You keep running from field to field, leading an unpredictable life, never settling down to enjoy what you have accomplished. A rolling stone gathers no moss, and—behind your back—people call you completely crazy. But I don't think you are crazy at all, and you must continue what you are doing. For a thinking person, the most serious mental illness is not being sure of who you are. This is a problem you do not suffer from. You never need to rein- vent yourself to fit changes in circumstances; you just move on. In that respect, you are the sanest person among us."
Quietly, I responded that I was not running from field to field, but rather working on a theory of roughness. I was not a man with a big hammer to whom every problem looked like a nail. Were his words meant to compliment or merely to reassure? I soon found out: he was promoting me for a major award.
Is mental health compatible with being possessed by barely contained restlessness? In Dante's Divine Comedy, the deceased sentenced to eternal searching are pushed to the deepest level of the Inferno. But for me, an eternal search across countless scientific fields beyond obvious connection managed to add up to a happy life. A rolling stone perhaps, but not an unresponsive one. Overactive and self-motivated, I loved to roll along, stopping to listen and preach in lay monasteries of all kinds—some splendid and proud, others forsaken and out of the way.
* * *
At age twenty, I was one of twenty men who won entry into the most exclusive university in France, the École Normale Supérieure. When I retired at eighty, I was in the mathematics department at Yale as Sterling Professor—one of about twenty people at Yale's highest rank. I entered and left "active life" under the most exclusive and noncontroversial conditions possible. And along the way I did gather some "moss."
My life since age thirty-five—a turning point—has been most atypical in different but fruitful ways. It reminds me of that fairy tale in which the hero sees a small thread where none was expected, pulls on it, harder and harder, and unravels a variety of wonders beyond belief . . . all totally unexpected. Examined one by one, these wonders of mine "belonged" to fields of knowledge far removed from one another. One could pursue each on its own, to great benefit, as I did early on in my career. But I later adopted a broader point of view, for which I was well rewarded. All those contributors to different fields were easiest to study when recognized as "peas in a pod," pearls of all sizes from a very long necklace.
Do those fields seem far removed from one another? Did I scatter my efforts to self-destructive excess? Possibly. Tight and deliberate self-control kept me focused on those rough shapes that had no common name but begged for one. Bringing these separate fields together put me, step by step, in the unexpected, rare, and dangerously exposed position of opening a new field and gaining the right to name it. I called it fractal geometry.
Every key facet of fractal geometry suffers from a quandary that physicists of the early 1900s called a "catastrophe." The theories of that time predicted an infinitely large value for energy radiated by certain objects. In reality, this was not the case, so something had to give! Solving this quandary was achieved by quantum mechanics, one of the major revolutions of twentieth-century physics and the foundation of much of modern technology, including computers, lasers, and satellites.
What unified all my "peas" was the opposite end of the same quandary. Many domains of science that I dealt with centered around quantities that were assumed to have well-defined finite values, such as lengths of coastlines. However, those finite values resisted being pinned down. Measuring the length of a coastline with shorter measuring rods detects smaller features, leading to longer measurements. The insight that let me study those fields was that one should allow those key quantities to be infinite.
* * *
How did this all come to be? Uncle Szolem and I were both born in Warsaw. We each had a good eye and became counted as mathematicians. But the overly interesting times that cursed his teens and later mine, helped shape us into altogether different people. He found fulfillment as a sharply focused establishment insider, while I thrived as a hard-to-pigeonhole maverick.
As an adolescent during World War I, Uncle roamed around a Russia in the throes of revolution and civil war. He was introduced early to a well-defined and nonvisual topic: classical French mathematical analysis. He fell in passionate lifelong love with it and moved to its source. He was soon handed its torch and kept it burning through fair weather and foul.
As an adolescent during World War II, I found shelter in the isolated and impoverished highlands of central France. There I was introduced to a world of images through outdated math books filled with illustrations. After the war, upon acceptance into the École Normale Supérieure, I realized that mathematics cut off from the mysteries of the real world was not for me, so I took a different path.
* * *
Half a century before I was born, Georg Cantor (1845–1918) claimed that the essence of mathematics resides in its freedom. His peers went on to invent—or so they thought—a batch of shapes called "monsters," or "pathologies," and their study pushed mathematics into a deliberate flight from nature. Helped by computers, I actually drew those shapes and diametrically inverted their original intent. I went on to invent many more, and identified a few as tools that might help handle a host of often ancient concrete problems—"questions once reserved for poets and children."
Within the purest of mathematics, my unabashed play with abandoned "pathologies" led me to a number of far-flung discoveries. An exquisitely complex shape now known as the Mandelbrot set has been called the most complex object in mathematics. I pioneered the examination of reams of pictures and extracted from them many abstract conjectures that proved to be extremely difficult, motivated a quantity of hard work, and brought high rewards.
Within the sciences of nature, I was a pioneer in the study of familiar shapes, like mountains, coastlines, clouds, turbulent eddies, galaxy clusters, trees, the weather, and others beyond counting.
Within the study of man's works, I began with a curio: a law for word frequencies. I peaked with an extremely down-to-earth issue: the "misbehaviors" observed in the variation in speculative markets. And I added my grain of salt to the study of visual art.
So where do I really belong? I avoid saying everywhere—which switches all too easily to nowhere. Instead, when pressed, I call myself a fractalist. A challenge I kept encountering—one I never knew quite how to manage—was to do justice to the parts and the whole. In this memoir, I try very hard.
Altogether, plain old-fashioned roughness in science and art is no longer a no-man's-land. I provided a theory and showed that an astonishing number and variety of questions can now be tackled with powerful new tools. They challenge standard geometry's conventional view of nature, one that regards rough forms as formless. It appears that, responding to that ancient invitation of Plato, I have extended the scope of rational science to yet another basic sensation of man, one that had for so long remained untamed.
In a life far more interrupted than I would have preferred, basic stability was provided for thirty-five years by IBM Research and then for many years by Yale, and I lived long enough for my work to be appreciated in more grand ways than I ever imagined.
Writing this memoir earlier might have made my professional life a bit easier. But the delay has been fruitful. It has rubbed out some less important details, and my life's course has become clearer, even to me.
"A heroic story of discovery. . . . Illustrate[s] what it takes for great new science to be created." —Stephen Wolfram, The Wall Street Journal
"Mandelbrot had the kind of beautiful, buzzing mind that made even gifted fellow scientists feel shabby around the edges. . . . The Fractalist evokes the kinds of deceptively simple questions Mandelbrot asked . . . and the profound answers he supplied." —The New York Times
"Fascinating and engaging . . . A compelling look at one of the greatest multidisciplinary thinkers of the 21st century." —Wired.com
"Mandelbrot was a spell-worker who saw connections no one else did and united apparently disparate phenomena. The mathematics of fractals—and pictures of the Mandelbrot set—offered many budding mathematicians their first taste of 'real' mathematics, in all its beauty, utility and sheer unexpectedness." —The Economist
"The delight Mandelbrot took in roughness, brokenness, and complexity, in forms that earlier mathematicians had regarded as 'monstrous' or 'pathological,' has a distinctly modern flavor. Indeed, with their intricate patterns that recur endlessly on ever tinier scales, Mandelbrot's fractals call to mind the definition of beauty offered by Baudelaire: C'est l'infini dans le fini." —New York Review of Books
"If you love fractals, you will love this memoir. . . . Mandelbrot describes his life and times with both introspection and humor." —New York Journal of Books
"Charmingly written . . . The memoir of a brilliant mathematician who never thought of himself as a mathematician." —Kirkus Reviews
"Captures the enthusiasm as well as the memories of a visionary who loved nothing better than studying complex multidisciplinary concepts." —Publishers Weekly
"[Mandelbrot's] work has spread and impacted so many fields that there's nobody in the world who is broad enough to appreciate the full impact. . . . [His] mix of gall and genius gave him license to ask the questions no one else did." —Thomas Theis, director of physical sciences at IBM Research
"Mandelbrot brings us back to the sense of the wonder of things, without giving up the logic." —John Briggs, author of Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos
"When we talk about the impact inside mathematics, and applications in the sciences, [Mandelbrot] is one of the most important figures of the last 50 years." —Heinz-Otto Peitgen, professor of mathematics and biomedical sciences at the University of Bremen


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Messier 61
Messier 61 (M61) is a barred spiral galaxy located in the southern constellation Virgo. M61 can be found in the southern portion of the Virgo Cluster. It occupies an area of 6 arc minutes, corresponding to a spatial diameter of about 100,000 light years. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 10.18 and lies at … [Read more…]

subset: commoncrawl


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Itali GTB
The Itali GTB is a vehicle in Grand Theft Auto 1 that can be found in Vice City. It's fast and handles well, yet its durability is poor, sharing the same attributes as the Itali GTO. It resembles a Ferrari 348 GTS. It's name is a parody of Italy, which Ferrari come from.


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How to Free Yourself From Any Fear... No Matter What!
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Classroom Talk: 7/26/2020 - There is no greater strength than knowing that everything life brings to you is for you as well. And as this wondrous fact grows clear to you, old enemies either vanish or they're transformed into your allies. Precious energies once wasted in futile self-defense are turned into new powers for further self-exploration...$0.00
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Discover the Place and Time Within You Where No Fear Can Enter
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Classroom Talk: 3/18/2020 - Until we are fully present -- awake and attending to each moment as it enters our consciousness -- we dwell somewhere outside of what is being ceaselessly revealed. This means that to whatever extent we are absent from what is real, neither can our response (to it) be real; and so, it follows...$0.00
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Classroom Talk: 11/27/2019 Part 1: The more you remember this one great Truth in times of trial, the sooner will its power help set you free: Each moment of life unfolds as the seed of a brand-new possibility... But only if, and as, you allow it to show you who and what you can no longer agree to be! Part 2: To observe the moment...$0.00
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Student Talks: 2/3/2019 - Key Lesson: There's only one way to ensure a Divine wind remains at your back... and that is to always turn and face whatever you may fear.$0.00
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Classroom Talk: 12/12/2018 - Part 1: We fear whatever we don't understand, and then blame the thing feared... Instead of seeing the real source of it: (unconscious) self-ignorance. Part 2: There is no fear now.$0.00
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Here's the real reason a "coward dies a thousand deaths." By law, any fear we refuse to face always returns...until we finally learn its essential lesson: resistance ensures repetition, so that whatever we try to go around will come back around again.$0.00
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Stop Identifying With Negative Imagination and Start Ending Your Fears (Student Talks)
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Once you realize that you can't separate an imagined fear from the level of self that believes in what it has imagined, you are near the end of your fears.$0.00
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No fact is frightening unless it runs into conflict with what we want.When this happens, the fear is not in the event -- but in us -- who havedecided that in order to feel secure, life must jump through our hoop. So,the fear we feel is in our hoop, not the fact that life may have jumpedunexpectedly.$0.00
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Learn to turn the things that you don't want to do in life into deliberate conscious actions, and it won't be too long before you'll want to do the things that you've always tried to avoid.$0.00
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How to Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
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Revealed: The Two Faces and Phases of Fear
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The pillars of responsible innovation
A promise of reliability to consumers, respect for human and environmental diversity, ethical commitments L'Oréal has based its innovation strategy on a platform of fundamental values, shared by all its teams around the world.
L'Oréal 's Research and Innovation teams apply the principles of sustainable and responsible innovation on a daily basis. Listening to the expectations of consumers, they are committed to the pursuit of ethical beauty that respects diversity. In its research activities, the group is particularly vigilant in five areas: human health (employees, consumers, professionals), environmental protection, ethics, fair trade and consideration of the social and societal impact of innovation.
An absolute priority: product safety
In 1909 when Eugene Schueller created the « Société des teintures inoffensives » that was to become L'Oréal, he was a pioneer. Since then, the group has continuously invested in the evaluation of the safety of its products and the ingredients from which they are made. Thanks to its constant scientific commitment, L'Oréal has contributed to progress in knowledge about toxicology*. Today,thanks especially to predictive evaluation to which the group has dedicated an ultramodern global center in 2011, the teams know how to make very early and reliable predictions on the undesirable and beneficial effects of ingredients and products.
* the study of harmful effects of substances on an organism
To be in the service of beauty is also to preserve the beauty of our planet. L'Oréal has always been one step ahead of the regulatory provisions regarding the environment. As early as 1995, the Group acquired an eco-toxicology laboratory to measure and model the potential impact of products on the ecosystems (water, soil, air) and on biodiversity. In 1999, it adopted the principles of green chemistry for the synthesis of ingredients. Since 2006, its portfolio of raw materials has been under constant monitoring for environmental indicators. Innovation processes are in compliance with the guidelines for ecodesign that reduce the impact of products on the environment throughout their whole life cycle. These guidelines are shared with the suppliers and partners.
Science and ethics advance together
L'Oréal 's researchers have successfully put scientific advances (tissue engineering, decoding the human genome, modeling, imagery techniques) at the service of responsible innovation. Recourse to new-generation testing makes it possible to evaluate the safety of ingredients without testing on animals (L'Oréal stopped testing finished products on animals in 1989), and in the near future, will be able to evaluate clinical effectiveness without recourse to biopsy (human tissue sampling).
Towards fairer procurement
Through the global program of fair trade procurement, Solidarity Sourcing, launched in 2010, L'Oréal has implemented a global procurement process for its ingredients in a global fair trade initiative guided by the expertise of The Body Shop brand. In the selection of suppliers, it takes into account, in addition to fair pricing, other dimensions such as protection of biodiversity, the fight against biopiracy, and the social and societal autonomy of local communities.
Innovation adapted to global diversity
Respect for the diversity of types of beauty is a constant source of inspiration for L'Oréal's innovation process. For over ten years, thanks to geocosmetics, the group has made listening to consumers and observing beauty rituals around the world a core part of the mission and activities of its Research and Innovation. With the ambition to create products adapted to everyone, according to individual needs, habits, environment, purchasing power.


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June 11, 2014
Book Review - Arena by Simon Scarrow and T.J. Andrews
Simon Scarrow has written very good sword and sandal epics in his own right but teams up here for a straight forward lot of biff with T. J. Andrews. Originally published as 5 ebook novellas, don't come here for subtlety or literary plotting. What you see is what you get, lots of fight action interspersed with a little political chicanery, a lot of fairly gross details on food, sanitary arrangements and some matter of fact understanding of what impact slavery and conquest had on Roman society. Terrific fun. Wendy
Labels: Action Adventure, Fiction, Historical, Rome
June 10, 2014
Book Review - The Outline of Love by Morgan McCarthy
Persephone was raised by her father in the isolated Highlands of Scotland after her mother died when she was very young. This story begins with her leaving for London and university. The mountain landscape of her childhood appears impervious to human interaction and she is hoping to find a place where she feels connected to other people. She is drawn into the orbit of Leo Ford, ex-rock star and luminary author with a reputation for being a recluse and a disdain for the normal trappings of celebrity. She links up with him but is never quite sure how he feels. The writing here is beautiful and startling with metaphors like describing club bouncers as large fat elephant seals in their tired suits and with their ponderous power. I'm not sure that I liked anyone in this book, including the city of London which is a palpable presence, but I did like the writing of it, the feeling of it and its unexpected moments of grace and truth. Perhaps, Persephone's struggles to know herself are too reminiscent of my own youth? Wendy
June 08, 2014
Book Review - The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
Just get everything by Lisa Jewell and read it. Her families are awfully tangled and they deal with real life events, getting hurt and broken and not always knowing how to heal or forgive themselves, let alone other family members. Lorelei spends her life in a bubble of hippy-ish creativity and avoidance of the hurts and dramas her husband and children go through. Keeping her own hurt at bay with excessive hoarding, for example, she clings on to a broken kettle because it went bang on a happy family day, or to packets of nappies when there are no babies who need them because she was thinking happy possible future baby thoughts about possible babies when she bought them and to give them away denies that bright future she saw. Her family try but cannot get through to her and in the meantime they are out in the world, trying to make sense of their own lives. How they negotiate life and love, how much they can give and how much they can receive support from others, family or not, is all part of the story Wendy
June 07, 2014
Book Review - Backyard Farming by Terry Bridge
One of the many books catering to the desire, or rather the necessity, of people living more sustainably and producing their own fruit and veg rather than consuming factory farm produce. It provides a solid overview but ends there. The first line plainly states "This is not a book about self sufficiency, where no outside help is required... instead, this is a guide to using to the optimum what available land you have, however small it may be..." And there we discover a problem. The examples are little more than real estate porn. Large farmhouses set in lush English pastureland, blossoming greenhouses the size of the average studio apartment, veggie patches that could feed a small economically struggling country, and livestock to rival a zoo. The authors conception of a backyard is generous with real estate and resources but limited with imagination. Most of us do not have sufficient space or time to tend such extravagant "backyard" farms, even if we dream to do so. Sustainability relies not on large parcels of land but clever uses of small spaces. Considering the plethora of titles within the genre you would hope for more tailored gardening ideas. One of particular relevance for those with limited space is Josh Byrne's Small Space Organics. Alternately, if you are interested in preserves or farm craft like bee culture there are titles that tailor more specifically to those activities as well. Bridge's Backyard Farming may get full marks for being inspirational with its beautiful images and introduction to viable self sufficiency techniques, but its emphasis on farming and its lack of imagination with the backyard is problematic. Andreas
June 06, 2014
Book Review - Letters from Skye by Jessica Brookmole
This book is beautiful and poignant and marvelous. A woman finds her mother's letters to a man from the time of WWI just as she is understanding her feelings for her own man as he goes off to WWII and keeping in touch by letter. Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which also covers WWII and is told through letters, yet wholly and truly its own self, just read it and see for yourself how a great love story can unfold. I liked it so much I have bought a copy for myself and one for each of my sisters. Wendy
June 05, 2014
Book Review - Depressive Illness: the curse of the strong by Dr Tim Cantopher
This is a small but very positive book. The causes and physical symptoms of depression are explained and the various treatments and therapy options are canvassed. Firstly it is helpful to understand just what is and what isn't clinical depression. Secondly, Dr Cantopher is very definite that sustainable help is possible, that change can be made and people can regain their happiness. He does make the caveat that he is only talking about stress-induced depression in this book and that there are other types of depression that will not be helped completely by his suggestion treatments, but they may be improved. Anyone could find ways to make improvements in their general mood and their ability to cope with life events by reading this book. Wendy
Labels: Mental Health, Non-Fiction
June 04, 2014
Book Review - Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
Cook's interrogation of the myth of mateship in the Australian outback follows John Grant, a Sydney born and educated school teacher, who does a stint in a microscopic town in Outback Australia. Looking forward to a six week escape in Sydney he passes through Bundanyabba. Little does he know he will not be getting to Sydney, instead falling into the dark wonderland that is 'the Yabba'. This is a land of drink and death, of blokes and brutality, and after one night Grant finds himself a broke drifter. Desperate, he passes through the beer glasses of several hosts, experiencing new nightmares with each of these new mates. Upon sobering he realizes the peculiarity that meant you could "sleep with their wives, despoil their daughters, sponge on them, defraud them, do almost anything that would mean at least ostracism in normal society, and they would barely seem to notice it. But refuse to drink with them and you immediately become a mortal enemy." This is the heart of Cook's narrative, the harsh, drunken masculinity of 'mateship' and its disregard for all else. Like many literary works of the 1970s by male authors the female characters are underdeveloped, mere placeholders and window-dressing. But in the world Cook creates there would be little for them to do, apart from being used and abused. This savage land leaves Grant at the mercy of the two foes he comes to distrust the most, with beer becoming his saving grace and violence his only salvation. An antidote to the heroism of "Banjo" Patterson's "Man from Snowy River", Cook rounds out the myth that is the Outback. Wake in Fright is a worthwhile read for anyone wanting to really understand all about Australia. Andreas
June 03, 2014
Book Review - A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay
A small town near Niagara Falls. A man trying to understand why his son died. He is accosted by a teenage girl seeking a lift from a notorious local bar. He wouldn't have got involved but she knew his son. A corrupt police force. A grandstanding mayor. Who is she trying to get away from? This story builds in intensity because, as more details are uncovered, the deeper the mystery becomes. All the loose ends are tied together well in the denouement of this page-turner. Wendy
June 01, 2014
Book Review - The White Princess by Philippa Gregory
I like English history and I like Philippa Gregory but I found this a bit hard going. Her meticulous research is to the fore but this story of Elizabeth of York who married Henry Tudor to provide peace, after the War of the Roses, just seems to drag on in endless worries about the pretender York princes. Probably that is truly what happened, but drama should be life without the boring bits and there were too many left in this one for me! One for the fans only Wendy
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In a recent post on A List Apart, author Sunni Brown wrote about how a struggling biological sciences student used "draw rudimentary visual representations of every concept in" her textbook to aid in learning organic chemistry. This went against all the conventional wisdom about learning tools of the time, yet she aced her final exam. This student went on to become Dr. Scofield, "a celebrated immunologist, earning accolades for one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs related to HIV transmission. She credits much of her success, then and now, to her world-turning decision to doodle."
In addition to being an inspirational story, this post goes on to describe how doodling actually aids learning, including increasing focus, and unifying the "three major learning modalities: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic." Next, Brown goes on to define and describe strategic doodling, a way of tracking "auditory or text-based information" and displaying it back to an audience. After providing examples of doodles for this process, she wraps up her post with suggestions for applying doodling to group work, such as understanding and rethinking a structure or process, or planning for the future.
In our visual-oriented culture, this is a new approach to traditional brainstorming — creating lists of ideas without prejudging them. In a context where no participants suffer from visual, auditory or cognitive impairments, this approach is refreshing and worth considering. Yet nearly one-fifth of Americans suffer from some form of disability. How can a person with visual impairments see, let alone utilize, a doodle? What must be done to make sure a person with auditory impairments can hear ideas offered spontaneously from other participants in a large-group seminar?
Creating and using new ways for increasing group-creativity and problem solving is part of what keeps a committee, library, or other organization moving and growing. As we try them, let us not leave anyone behind. If a quadriplegic like Stephen Hawking can has the genius to revolutionize the structures of both the universe and the atom, what hidden gifts are waiting to be discovered in our neighbors, coworkers and colleagues who also happen to struggle with impairments of one kind or another?


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It has been less than a week since I was gazing at gondolas…..and now I am on a road trip though the heart of Texas! I was invited to talk about my work at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas….which ( I found out ) is the oldest town in Texas. Being that this is my home state, I was more than a little curious. Stopping for bolied peanuts on the side of the road confirmed that this was going to be a very good trip.
We stumbled upon these lovely girls at a local restaurant. I asked if I could take their picture, and they were instantly ready to strike their pose. The university mascot is the lumberjack, so their cheerleaders are (naturally?) the Lady Jacks.
There was a screening of Handmade Nation after my slideshow at the Cole Art Center.
I'm usually much better at this but Italy wiped me out! So I was only able to leave this in the gallery.
What could be more American than a Veteren's Day Parade??? I thought it couldn't get better than boiled peanuts and Lady Jacks, but this took the….. cherry pie.


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Tyler Tulius scored 19 points to lead the Pleasant Valley High boys basketball team to a 60-48 victory Friday in the semifinals at the Oak Ridge tournament in El Dorado Hills.
Blake Marchant added 15 points for the Vikings, who play in the 8 p.m. championship game today.
Tommy DeArmond chipped in 10 points and seven rebounds for Pleasant Valley (9-5).
Orland 67, Trinity 22
Jud Sailsbery led the team with 21 points, and Jordan Long added 13 as Orland cruised to the victory. Micah Fleming and Kavi Ram each scored nine points for Orland (12-3), which will play tonight at 5:30 as part of the championship in the Corning tournament.
Corning 43, Anderson 35
Michael Shoemaker led the team with 16 points as Corning advanced in their own tournament. Nick Hoag also had 11 points for Corning (14-0), which will play in the championship game tonight at 5:30 against Orland.
Central Valley 56, Durham 31
Will Belton scored 10 points, but it wasn't enough as Durham fell to Central Valley. Durham will play at 10 a.m. against Willows as part of the Corning tournament.
American Christian 50, Champion Christian 18
Daniel Lee scored 13 points, but it wasn't enough as Champion suffered a tough defeat. Champion Christian (0-7) will play against Dunsmuir and New Life Christian today as part of the American Christian tournament.
Biggs 48, Maxwell 45
Nathan Callaway led all scorers with 22 points as Biggs pulled out the win. Andrew Perez added 10 points for Biggs (8-5), which will play tonight at 7 p.m. against tournament host East Nicolaus.
Biggs 38, Maxwell 33
Darci Roles scored 16 points as Biggs got the win. Biggs (5-7) will play host East Nicolaus tonight at 5:30 in the Spartans' tournament.
Central Valley 58, Orland 35
Jessica James scored 17 points, but Orland couldn't pull out the win. Orland (4-12) will play Gridley today at 8:30 p.m.


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With the advent of cutting-edge technology, it has become a feasible option to perform 'minimally invasive' surgeries with precision and finesse. Laparoscopy and Hysteroscopy are two such surgeries used to diagnose and cure certain female infertility conditions.
Laparoscopy: A procedure conducted using a small but significant telescope named 'Laparoscope' to which a light source and camera are attached. It enables doctors to see ovaries, outside of the uterus and fallopian tubes inside the abdomen. Doctors can perform surgeries while looking inside the abdomen. Laparoscopy is done to determine the causes of infertility, symptoms like pelvic pain & abdominal pain and to check if there are any scar tissues or blockage in the fallopian tubes. Doctors use this technique to treat cysts, endometriosis, and fibroids.
Hysteroscopy: A tool called 'Hysteroscope' is used to see inside the womb. The tip of the tool is put inside the uterus and trawled gently. A light source and camera are attached to the tool. Hysteroscopy is usually done to determine the cause of abnormal bleeding and to remove growths in the uterus like fibroids and polyps. During the test, the doctor can find and treat the problem at the same time.


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standing in the rug section of the home department.
i am neither running ahead of my myself
or trying to drag myself to catch up.
while looking at welcome mats, i realized that
i was actually standing in the center of my being
noticing what it feels like to be here now.


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The laws of affinity express the mathematical relationship between flow, pump speed (rpm), head and power consumption for centrifugal pumps.
The laws shows that even a small flow reduction will result in significant power reductions and hence energy consumption. The laws are the foundation of energy savings.
When one of the variables involved in pump performance is changed the other variables can be calculated by means of the law of affinity.
Q1/Q2 = n1/n2
H1/H2 = (n1/n2)2
P1/P2 = (n1/n2)3
Q = flow [m3/h]
n = pump speed [rpm]
H = head [bar]
P = power [kW]
The formulas show that if the pump speed is reduced by 50%, the flow will be reduced to 50% as well. The head will be reduced to 25%, and power consumption will be reduced to 12.5%.


text: Sign Up for a free download Application performance testing Performance testing/ Application performance testing The goal of performance testing is to appraise any user experience in realistic scenarios on your target application. It will allow you to assess machine and infrastructure capability. Performance testing, load testing, stress testing, capacity testing are all based on business requirements. It's a professional approach to evaluating the performance of an application. It requires the simulation of real load scenarios running against your target applications or websites. So that means concurrent users. For testing sophisticated web applications, you also need a mix of relative transactions running at correct pacings. So that's the speed at which each of the users is running at a correctly generated load. The load must be generated conforming to a HTTP standards. If you're following all of those four points, then you end up with realistic load, which will then give you a fingerprint of the response time that the application will deliver. In fact it will give you the response time that you can expect and also the transaction rate that we know the application can deal with at its peak. Why is your application so slow ? Does your system comply with your business requirement ? What will happen if your business grows ? Performance testing : Highlight performance bottlenecks in your hardware and software infrastructure Reduce hardware and software costs by accurately predicting application scalability and capacity Next What is performance testing Performance testing : Helps you establish intelligent service level agreements (SLA) Verify that application meet specified performance requirements and avoid issue in production Guarantee a successful rollout Performance testing : Lets you simulate all type of user load to analyse system reaction Helps you anticipate change and evolution of your needs Ensures you an elevated ROI by reducing response time and minimizing unavailability


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A lot of network devices has a terminal RJ-45 socket, which is usually a simple COM-port. So, to configure such a device, you have to connect RJ-45 socket to PC's (or terminal's) DB-9 COM-port. Documentation usually says: "use the terminal cable, provided with the device", and then the awful discovery shows up: "Hmm... uh... terminal cable? That tiny little thing, which I threw out just after buying the device five years ago?"
The only way to patch situation up quickly - to use handmade cable, which you could do in couple of minutes, knowing the propper pinout.
So that is the case, which terminal cable pinouts for such things as CISCO or D-link devices do you know?


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The world depends on mariners. Mariners depend on SCI. And we depend on you.
Photos of Kirby Corporation vessels and employees in Channelview, TX, taken May 2012.
Photos by the Rev. David Rider, President & Executive Director.
The Seamen's Church Institute cares for the hardworking men and women of maritime commerce, but our mission would not be possible without the help of individuals, churches, corporations and foundations that work with SCI to meet their needs.


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Due South
TORONTO — It's about that time. I've got one last load of laundry to do before I can finish packing up my bags for my trip to Florida.
I leave Toronto and its freeeezing temps tomorrow morning and am due to arrive at six-week home early evening. It's been a long offseason and I'm definitely ready to get back to working the ball fields.
As I did last year, I'm planning on toting my camera around camp and snapping pictures for the first couple weeks. I'll start up a photo album that you can check out similar to last spring. Unlike most of the newspaper beat guys, I'm down for the duration. They tend to send writers down in waves. So I'll be bringing coverage starting on Feb. 14 through March 27 or so. Toward the end, I'll be taking a day or two to catch my breathe before Opening Day in the Bronx.
And I've been following all the reaction and uproar in the Jays blogosphere on the recent ticket sales situation (opening sales to Red Sox fans for April 5-6 and tigers fans for April 18-21). My stance on the issue is basically that I can understand why the Jays would do it, considering the attendance following Opening Day at Rogers Centre tends to drop off significantly. It's definitely an easy way to grab some additional dough to pump into the franchise.
What I don't get, and I'm with you fans on this one, is why would the Jays open sales to opposing teams' fan bases before single game tix go on sale for Jays fans on March 2? At least Opening Day at the Dome isn't included in the advance ticket availablity for BoSox fans. But is this going to be enough for Jays fans to boycott buying tickets? I doubt it. Maybe it seems shady, and mainly it's the principle of the thing, I get that, but there's always plenty of open seats at the Rogers Centre.
Anyways, enough on that for now. I'm sure we'll be talking about it more once we get down to Dunedin, where we can ask team prez Paul Godfrey more about the matter when he arrives. Until then, I've got some packing and planning to do. I'll fire up the blog once I get settled in Florida.
I'm interested in seeing what Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee have to say during the Congressional hearing tomorrow. Too bad I'll be flying when that's all going down. I'll have to catch the Sportscenter highlights when I get to Tampa. Talk about a soap opera, huh? Taped phone calls and bloody guaze and needles stored for nearly a decade in crushed beer cans. You can't make up stuff like this. And once Congress is involved, well, one of these guys is going down for the count when it's all said and done.
Enjoy this cold weather while I'm gone.
UPDATE — 11:15 p.m. ET: For those of you who are upset with the recent Jays ticket issue, it's worth noting that single-game tickets are available to fans online on Feb. 15. So, that's one way to get your paws on tix quickly, and well before they're available elsewhere on March 2.
11 Comments
I enjoyed your pics from last spring and hope to see more this year!
Keep up the good work!!!
Three more sleeps until the pitchers and catchers report!
I think it's a great idea to sell tickets to opposing fans, and it would be really neat if they could reserve a block of seats for them. They need to give away fans more lead time to make travel plans, etc., so they need to offer tickets ahead of time. Bringing in a few Boston or Detroit fans likely won't result in a sellout anyway.
If you go to Baltimore's website, you will see that they are offering complete travel packages to Spring Training, including airfare, hotel, car rental, and tickets to both home and away games. I think the Jays are missing the boat here.
some great points in my opinion. Besides fans of other teams always add more atmosphere to the Rogers Centre, so I don't mind that the Jays are doing that. Can't wait for the season and i'm looking forward to more great work from you Jordan.
Did you guys read the poll on the Jays website? It says "What is the most important issue for the Blue Jays to settle this spring training?" The answers were
B.J. Ryan's return date
Finding a fifth starter
Settling on a lineup
Or sorting out the bullpen?
I think all of those issues are just about equal in importance. What do you guys think?
I feel that they are all important but the most important is Ryan's return date. Once that is set it'll help them sort out the bullpen and possibly allow them to place Jannssen as the fifth starter. As for sorting out the lineup while that is an issue, it's not a concern. Generally through out the season lineups change based on injuries and who's hot or cold so to me that's not as big an issue.
The only ticket issue I have, is the service charges. I was going to buy 2 500 level tickets for opening day, $18 for the seats, grand total with fees and other garbage, $30.50. Thats almost double the price!!! I have decided NOT to buy tickets through the box office, and go through ebay and scalpers for seats. Guaranteed to get a better deal (not against bosox and yankees). I don't mind a little bit, a buck or 2, but $12.50 is just not right
Saw a nice little segment on Ryan last night on sportsnet, he said he feels right were he should be, and that there has been no effect on his spring training from his surgury. He is throwing 80-90% velocity. Sounds like good news to me. Although he did add, that he wouldnt know exactly how effective he is untill he faces live batters.
I saw that very same thing. It makes me a little more optimistic that he will be back by late April early May at the latest.
Can't wait for your spring training coverage! Just wanted to say that I'm signed up for the Jays Inside Pitch newsletter, and because of it I got to buy my tickets online last Friday (Feb 8th). All set for opening weekend!
Cullum, if you buy in person, the only charge is a 1.50 tax per ticket.
As well, if you are an Inside Pitch Subscriber (which I think you end up being once you register here), you were offered the ability to buy tickets last Friday.
I don't quite understand selling to those fans before us, since Tiger and Sox die hards will come here anyways, regardless of when and what tickets they get. Better to give Jays fans first dibs on the great seats. All I can say is that if anyone's complaining, I fully expect to see you at the Rogers Centre, drowning out the visiting crowds.
gsumner where are you.
Looks like we have a good team so far this year I like the changes that they made so far this winter.
Frank Thomas is willing to change his program in the hopes he will have a better start this spring that is a good thing.
If Jansen becomes a starter this year that will be great.
One more thing how many of you think Clemmens is guilty I do.


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Directed by Oh Jong-rok (오종록)
Screenplay by JK Youn (윤제균), Kim Gyoo-wan (김규완), Kim Ji-yeong-I (김지영), Oh Jong-rok (오종록), Park Kye-ok (박계옥)
•Comedy •Romantic comedy •Melodrama108min | Release date in South Korea : 2003/06/27
Also known as "First Love Rally"
SON Tae-il(CHA Tae-hyun) is a super problem child of Kang High. He has an incredible IQ of 148, but, unfortunately, he's only interested in marrying his first love Il-mae(SON Ye-jin). When Tae-il demands marriage with Il-mae and strays farther away from school, Young-dal(YOO Dong-geun) and Il-mae come up with a proposal to 'bring Tae-il back to the right track.' He openly declares that he would allow Tae-il to marry his daughter Il-mae if he could raise his rank up to top 3, 000 nationwide from his current status of 300,000.
Tae-il accepts the ridiculous proposal without a second thought. And 2 years later, he does pull up his rank up top 3,000 nationwide and is admitted to the Law School of Seoul National University. However, fooled by Young-dal's skillfully touching(?) performance, incorporating tears and snots, Tae-il gets softhearted and promises Young-dal that he'll keep Il-mae 'pure' until he passes the judicial examination. A man's words weigh and worth as much as thousand gold! From then on, Tae-il's ultimate mission is to protect Il-mae from all the sleazeballs who approach her~!
Tae-il's new job as Il-mae's personal bodyguard has begun. However, his double-duty of studying for the judicial examination and monitoring Il-mae's whereabouts is keeping him awake 24-7. On the other hand, Il-mae, who wants to enjoy her college life and date boys, gets frustrated watching Tae-il, who only focuses on his study and even rejects Il-mae's approach to kiss him. What she doesn't realize is that he's doing all this to be with her.
After countless night of no sleep and nosebleed, Tae-il finally passes the 1st level judicial examination. However, at his congratulatory party, Il-mae drops the bomb by confessing her love for another man. Tae-il can't believe his ears. Can this be really happening? Will Tae-il be able to regain and keep his first love?
You're reading the news with potential spoilers, make them spoiler free, dismiss
View all 18 pictures for "Crazy First Love"
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At first glance it looks like some hotel in Belgium has sacrificed floor space for a massive four-sided novelty alarm clock to attract tourists. But in reality, what you're seeing is actually the top of a clock tower with a hotel built around it.
It's the work of Japanese artist Tazu Rous, who built the single room—surrounding the city of Ghent's train station clock tower— some 75 feet above the ground. So it offers beautiful views of the city, and the most effective morning wake-up call you'll ever experience. You can even book the room for just $130 per night, but you'll want to go light on the luggage since the temporary structure holding it up doesn't appear to include an elevator.
[I Love Belgium via Neatorama]


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Handbook of Volatility Models and Their Applications book
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The Dying Will Flame (死ぬ気の炎, Shinuki no Honō; Viz: Deathperation Flame) is regarded as the symbol of the Mafia World. At the beginning of the series, it had only minor relevance with the overall plot (mostly through its relation with Reborn's Dying Will Bullet and Tsuna's "resurrected" form). But as the story progressed, it became a more central element and is currently the source of most of the supernatural powers seen in the series.
There are many items in the series that light up and/or use Dying Will Flames for some purpose. Among those, the Rings treasured by the Mafia deserve a special mention due to their long history and importance. In the Future Arc, the Flames of these Rings serve as the power source for the Box Weapons.
The Dying Will Flame is described as high-density form of energy that is refined from one's own life-force.
Due to the way it resonates with one's emotions, it has been regarded as a type of battle aura. However, unlike the aura, which is a supernatural phenomenon that can only be seen by a few individuals, the Dying Will Flame is in many ways more alike to a real flame, possessing even its own destructive properties.
Dying Will Flames are graded according to their purity, which has a direct relationship with the strength of an individual's resolve. Among other things, this rate of purity serves to indicate how much of the special characteristics of the Flames are being drawn out. Each Flame's attribute has its own special characteristic.
There is an eighth element called the Flame of Night, which Daemon Spade and the Vindice could control.
There are two kinds of Dying Will Flames, Flames of the Sky and Flames of the Earth. However, there are also several special Flames that do not belong in any of those categories.


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Hotel Transylvania Movie Review
It turns out that monsters are more afraid of us than we are of them, according to the animated comedy Hotel Transylvania. Too bad that Monsters, Inc. already tackled this twist of reality ten years earlier.
Hotel Transylvania stars Adam Sandler as Count Dracula, who offers up his castle to werewolves, zombies, Frankenstein, the Invisible Man and countless other creatures as a place of refuge, away from all the pitchfork-wielding and torch-throwing humans that want nothing more than to kill them all. Dracula's perfect world is thrown into disarray, however, when a teenage and very human backpacker (Andy Samberg) arrives and immediately attracts the attention of Dracula's daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez).
The movie is a goofy and breezy film without much plot or purpose other than to preach acceptance and feature lots of crazy, off-the-wall antics. Hotel Transylvania is mindless entertainment, harmless fun that will appeal to kids and be relatively painless for adults.
There is just not much to sink your teeth into. Pun intended.
To compare Hotel Transylvania to Monsters, Inc. isn't very fair, but since I already did, I'll dive into it a bit more. While the two movies are very different in many ways, at their core they are both about a fundamental misunderstanding between monsters and humans. Monsters, Inc. was clever, imaginative and unique; Hotel Transylvania has a great premise, but it opts for the lowest common denominator when it comes to an actual storyline.
Hotel Transylvania is by no means a bad movie, but it is opportunity squandered. It won't suck you dry, but it won't make your blood boil either.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.


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Michigan Cops Upset at Pot Grower's Probation
DETROIT, MI — Probation for a southeastern Michigan farmer caught growing more than 8,000 marijuana plants is not "logical or reasonable" and sends the wrong message to people considering similar schemes, the head of an anti-drug task force said Wednesday.
Detective Lt. Robert Sinclair of the state police reacted a day later to the sentencing of Edwin Schmieding, who got an extraordinary break from a federal judge in Detroit.
Instead of prison, the Lenawee County man was placed on supervised release, or probation, for two years. He was arrested in 2011 after an investigation by a police task force in Lenawee and Hillsdale counties. Federal agents subsequently took over the case.
"It does not seem logical or reasonable to sentence a person growing this much marijuana to two years of probation, especially when it obviously was not for personal use but for monetary gain," said Sinclair, commander of the task force.
"We will continue to pursue all criminal activity including illegal marijuana growing operations," he said.
Schmieding, 61, began growing marijuana after raising cut flowers for years. His wife told police they wanted to sell it for use by people approved for medical marijuana, although large-scale production is illegal.
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman said Schmieding, who is recovering from cancer, deserved a break. The marijuana was not considered to be high quality and many plants were immature.
"It's inconsequential to me," Sinclair said. "It's marijuana, and it's being grown for profit. That's the way we look at it."
Friedman met privately with attorneys before the court hearing. Assistant U.S. Attorney C. Barrington Wilkins said he recommended a prison sentence. He declined to elaborate.
Michigan Cops Upset at Pot Grower's Probation was written by Associated Press and appears in full on The Daily Chronic.
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We are your source for locating and linking to free live internet Baseball game broadcasts.
Are you at work? Traveling? Need to listen to a baseball game but can't find where. Then you've come to the right place. If it's being broadcast, you can listen to it, FREE.
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If you're having trouble opening live streaming click on hints.
Keep trying all the stations on both sides of a game until you can find one that's streaming
If there is a TV link at the end of the station list, you should be able to view the game if you like.
If you go through all the stations and cannot find the game, sorry, you've been shafted by the man.
If you just have to listen, click here to go to the official MLB site and pay to listen.
Good luck.


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SALE Istanbul Collection Circus Cat Illustration Turkish Bath Towel, Animal Art Printed Graphic Boho Beach Towelikiikishop
SALE Cember Turkish Beach Towel, Circus Cat Of Istanbul Bath Towel, Animal Art Peshtemal, Wedding Gift, Boho Towel, Peshtemal Clearance
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A peshtemal is a traditional Turkish towel used in Turkish baths.
A staple of the Ottoman hamam culture, dating back hundreds of years, the pestemal was originally designed to help individual bathers maintain their privacy.
Today, this light weight garment lends itself perfectly to quotidian use.
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Our Handmade traditional bath towel is printed with bold and vivid designs.
ikiiki Design - Illustrated by Ali Gulec


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Morning Brief: March 10
The funeral for the late Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop of New York from 2000 to 2009, will be held today at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. Mourners have been pouring in to pay their respects. Many shared kind words about the man. One, Greg Packer of Huntington, NY, remembered the Cardinal for his strength of hand.


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It's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of dresses to talk about at the Oscars, so I needed an extra day to process this year! I wanted to start with my own personal red carpet favorites (other critics be darned!) and why I think they worked. I'll also slide in some great ways to accessorize like the stars. Let's get started!
Vera Farmiga in Marchesa and Fred Leighton jewelry.
Love love love. Vera was really a vision of fab in this deep, dark pink ruffled gown. I found this dress a risk that really worked. The color played off of her fair skin beautifully and the silhouette, while dramatic, wasn't overpowering. It felt modern and classic at the same time.
Her simple Leighton jewelry (1920's Diamond Ear Clips; 1960's Diamond Cluster Cocktail Ring; Diamond Leaf Brooch in her hair) let the dress really do all the talking. Get Vera's look with our Platinum Art Deco 1920's 2.50 ctw European-Cut Diamond Disc Earrings.
Rachel McAdams in Elie Saab and Lorraine Schwartz jewelry.
It's just. so. pretty. Normally I'm not a fan of wispy pastels, but this watercolor-esque dress works on so many levels. Even though it's there's a lot of fabric here, it feels light and airy and perfect for spring. It's so hard to do a print for formalwear but this dress gets the job done.The criss-cross bodice is ultra slimming and her natural multicolor diamond earrings finish the look without being overdone.
Want a big, sparkly earring like Rachel's without spending the big bucks? This pair of huge vintage lucite earrings is a lot of look for not a lot of money.
Gabourey Sidibe in Marchesa.
She's been at every major red carpet event this season, but I think she finally nailed it at the Oscars. This dress is what Mo'Nique's royal blue number wishes it was–it's full of personality but still jaw-droppingly glamorous at the same time. Again, the use of the criss-cross bodice is ultra flattering and the sparkly floral appliques make the draped silhouette shine.
I liked her jewelry choices as well: a grouping of blackened platinum, diamond and sapphire pieces by Schwartz. These Estate White Gold, Diamond, Blue Sapphire & Akoya Pearl earrings have the same palette and will never go out of style.


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A coagulation factor replacement therapy for hemophilia B met its primary efficacy and safety objectives in a phase III trial, which will underpin a marketing application to be filed early next year, its developers said.
The product is a recombinant Factor IX Fc fusion protein (rFIXFc) that its sponsors, Biogen Idec and the Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi), have designed to last longer in circulation than current clotting factor replacements.
In the new study, called B-LONG, rFIXFc treatment for up to 77 weeks in 123 teenage boys and men produced the following annualized rates of breakthrough bleeding under three different dosing regimens, according to a press release from the two companies:
- Weekly treatment, starting dose 50 IU/kg: 2.95 bleeding episodes per year
- Dosing 100 IU/kg at variable intervals: 1.38 episodes per year
- Dosing only after bleeding episodes began: 17.69 episodes per year
The drug dose in the weekly treatment arm was adjusted to produce trough levels in circulation minimally adequate to prevent bleeding.
In the variable interval arm, the dose was kept constant but the interval between doses was increased or decreased to achieve minimally adequate trough levels. The interval was initially 10 days for all patients, but the actual median interval during the final 6 months of the study was 14 days.
"Overall, 90.4% of bleeding episodes were controlled with a single injection of rFIXFc," Biogen Idec and Sobi indicated.
Adverse effects reported in 5% or more of patients included nasopharyngitis, influenza, arthralgia, upper respiratory infection, hypertension, and headache.
In 12 patients receiving rFIXFc in conjunction with surgery, the treating physicians reported excellent or good bleeding control in all cases, according to the press release.
No patients appeared to develop anti-rFIXFc antibodies.
The relatively long lifetime of rFIXFc in circulation was confirmed in a pharmacokinetic study performed in some of the participants. It found a mean approximate terminal half-life for the agent of 82 hours, compared with 34 hours for a conventional Factor IX therapy (BeneFIX).
Biogen Idec plans to submit a marketing application to the FDA in the first half of 2013. An ongoing trial in children younger than 12 must be completed before similar applications in Europe, pursuant to regulatory requirements there.
The companies are also conducting an open-label extension study of participants in these trials.


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Apple's iPhone dominance in the U.S. is largely due to carriers suppressing market economics, an analyst said today.
U.S. carriers artificially dampen demand for lower-cost smartphones by disconnecting calling and data plan prices from the hardware. The result: No matter which smartphone the customer buys, the total cost of a two-year data plan is nearly the same, said Sameer Singh of Tech-Thoughts.
In countries where contract plans prices are dependent on the smartphone's cost, Apple's share of the market is weaker, Singh maintained.
"The scale of the difference between the iPhone's presence in the U.S. versus Europe suggests that [data plan] pricing plays a significant role," said Singh in an email Tuesday.
In a blog post today, Singh analyzed plan pricing in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia
According to Singh, since late 2011, when Apple released the less-expensive iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 globally, the iPhone's share of the U.S. market has been between 10 and 15 percentage points higher than in the U.K. and Australia.
He attributed that to the pricing structure of U.S. calling and data plans, which don't jibe with smartphone costs. While the highest unsubsidized price of seven handsets from Apple, HTC and Samsung was a whopping 71% more than the lowest-priced model, the difference between plan costs over 24 months was a measly 14%.
"This gives high-end smartphones, including the iPhone, an unnaturally high share of the smartphone market," Singh said.
That's not the case in the U.K., where -- as in other European countries -- competitive carriers more closely match the price of a two-year contact package to the price of the smartphone.
"The unsubsidized prices of devices are far more in sync with the relative contract pricing -- the contract [cost] of an $820 iPhone 5 is 91% higher than that of the $224 Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 -- which leads to a far more natural price-demand relationship," Singh said.
Because price-sensitive U.K. consumers are more likely to opt for a cheaper handset like the Galaxy Ace 2, which is accompanied by a two-year outlay half as much as the iPhone 5, it's no surprise that the latter has a lackluster share of the European market.
In Australia, carriers use a mixed model that falls somewhere between the U.S. and the U.K., said Singh, by basing the monthly cost of a contract on the smartphone's price, but only until the total value of the calling and data contract reaches a certain point. The bottom line: A difference of 61% between the lowest and highest two-year costs, but some incentive to purchase a higher-priced handset.
"The iPhone's market share in the U.S. is a direct outcome of a pricing model that encourages purchases of high-end devices over mid-range or low-end devices," Singh concluded.
In the 12 weeks ending Nov. 25, 2012, Apple scored a 53% share of U.S. sales, largely on the back of the then-new iPhone 5, said research firm Kantar Worldpanel Comtech last year. Metrics company comScore, however, recently put Apple's share of all U.S. smartphone subscribers at 38% for the three months ending January 2013, ahead of all other handset makers but behind Android's overall share of 53%.


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The Georgia Parole Board has decided that a mass email campaign counts as a denial of service campaign, and is consequently dropping traffic from Amnesty International New Zealand.
The human rights organization had launched a campaign in New Zealand calling for clemency for Troy Davis, convicted of killing a policeman and sentence to death by lethal injection. The case has generated protests and has attracted criticism from high-profile figures like former US president Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The New Zealand campaign was a straightforward Web petition. The withering barrage of 800 emails – no, The Register hasn't left out some zeroes here – was apparently fingered as a DoS attack by the Parole Board's IT department, and all traffic from Amnesty NZ was blocked, according to National Business Review.
After the traffic was blocked, Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand wrote that the board's actions "shows a callous disregard … for those New Zealanders they prevented by taking action by blocking our server".
Its CEO Patrick Holmes denies that sending 800 mails falls under the definition of a denial of service.
With the execution due at 7pm on 21 September (Georgia time), it's quite likely that international campaigns are now too late to make any difference. There are faint hopes of either appeals through the courts, and the NAACP says it will ask President Obama to intervene. ®


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Tuncalya, S.L. - 2016
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Hi Larry. I see that you be-friended me. Thanks. It's been a long time since I have looked at this forum. I've never been to Texas, but I hear there is some great diving. like the Flower Banks? I'm strickly a Northwest guy living near the Portland, OR area in Vancouver. Most diving has been in the cold waters of the Puget Sound, and cold water lakes. Only 2 warm water dives in Maui, which my profile pix shows.
We don't go there... we go to Clear Springs Scuba Park as there is a lot more depth (60 ft instead of 17 feet) and a lot more life. And it's closer for us. We have a pavilion out there and have classes every weekend.
Thanks larry, how is athens dive park have you been their hows the viz.
You can do that... Get two, then return the other, or if you give us a shout, and we help with the sizing we are pretty good most the time. If it doesn't fit, we'll send the other size out to you, and you can return the other... we won't even charge you for the replacement suit - just swap them and let them pass each other in the mail. And 200 miles is probably next day shipping with UPS. So should be quick turn around.
Just give a call on Monday or Tuesday!
Larry if i bought a wet suit from yall and it didnt fit how would yall handle it? should i buy 2 and send the one that doesnt fit back? live about 200 miles from dallas
Diving Info, Certs, Logged Dives


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Antiquity is a new planned community located in the city of Cornelius at the just adjacent to the Cornelius Town Center. Just 20 miles north of Charlotte adjoining the town of Davidson. Antiquity, with its covered-bridge entrance reflects the at-ease, friendly feeling envisioned for this new community. The future Lynx Red Line corridor passes right next to Antiquity making future access to downtown Charlotte just a quick train ride away.
The streets inside Antiquity will be lined with more than 1,000 residences built with all ages and stages in mind, from couples and growing families to young professionals and empty-nesters. On-street parking and garages accessible only by alleyways allow residents to enjoy uninterruped sidewalks throughout Antiquity, including those leading to and around the town center.


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Water cascades down the miniature makeshift mountain, dragging tiny plants, pebbles and soil with it. Holding a now-empty jug, eight-year-old Yan Kolpakov giggles as his tutor uses her hands to dam the muddy flow, while delivering a florid narrative on the miracles of the water cycle.
Private Tutor: Tutoring the oligarchs' children
"Do you see, my darling, how those little stones are first washed down the river and then settle? Meanwhile the sun is shining, the water is evaporating and just look at that serious erosion! As for all those trees and plants, they're transpiring like fury! Is that making sense to you, my dearest angel?"
Kate Nicholls's theatrical delivery betrays an eclectic career trajectory that began in the Royal Shakespeare Company and then veered off into science. But, today, aged 58 and a grandmother-of-three, Nicholls is following a new calling – as a "super tutor" to the Russian elite.
It's a burgeoning industry. While a growing number of professional British families, who would have once sent their children to private school, struggle to afford the fees, schools in the independent sector are receiving an increasing number of applications from wealthy Russian parents.
The number of pupils with parents living in Russia has more than doubled in the past five years, from 816 in 2007 to 1,722 in 2012, according to the Independent Schools Council (and these figures don't include children whose families have relocated to the UK).
They are attracted to Britain for a whole host of reasons: the shambolic state (as they see it) of Russian education; the international reputation of British public schools and their record of producing well-educated, well-rounded individuals; and a benign tax regime which has made the UK, and London in particular, a magnet for Russians.
But getting their children the "right" education has not been as simple as they imagined. The most sought-after public and prep schools restrict their numbers of foreign students and the competition for these places has never been more intense, nor the institutions more discerning. Applicants to schools such as Westminster, St Paul's and Wellington have to pass the rigorous entrance exam, obviously, but they also have to be fluent in English, prove themselves in non-academic disciplines such as sport, music or drama, and convince the school that they'll fit in.
A day under Nicholls's tutelage offers her pupils as much insight into English culture, food and humour as the entrance exams she prepares them for. Lessons, which take place in her house in Kensington, London, happen mostly in the morning on a one-to-one basis. Afternoons are set aside for excursions – to a local market, where the children are given money to negotiate over fruit and vegetables or to museums or historical landmarks.
Yan was one of the first Russian children Nicholls home-schooled. She had recently returned from 15 years in Africa and was contacted by Maria Amenitskaya, an education consultant who had heard about Nicholls from a colleague and was impressed by the results Nicholls had achieved with her own children, whom she had home-schooled and who had been offered places at American universities including Stanford and Cornell, and at Oxford.
Yan's family had just arrived in London, he had just one word of English and his parents wanted to know how long it would take Nicholls to get him ready to sit prep-school entrance exams. "I simply had no idea," she recalls. "I asked them to give me one term with him, and then to ask me that question again. 'Fruittella' – that's the only word he knew in English, the name of his new favourite sweet.
"I had Yan all day, six days a week for a complete immersion in English language, history and culture. He didn't understand a word I said to begin with, but like all my Russian students after him, Yan was very bright, keen to learn and so, after that first term, I told his parents he would be ready to sit the entrance exams after just one more.
"He got into every school he applied to and is doing brilliantly. He comes to me for the odd lesson in his holidays, but he more than keeps up with his British contemporaries and now sounds about as English as they do."
Nicholls's success led to Amenitskaya, director of Anglia Education Consulting, recommending her to other Russian families for whom Nicholls provides "a very useful bridge" into their new lives in England. "For many Russian children the regime of boarding school can come as a bit of a shock," Amenitskaya explains. "Coming from well-off families, they're not used to a bedroom without an en-suite bathroom, for example, or sharing with other children or being away from home and not having a concierge."
Nicholls, who teaches children between the ages of seven and 18, puts up some of her pupils in her own home, to give them the "boarder experience". But, although pampered (one pair of siblings were driven to her house from the Ritz each morning), they are not from the very richest families in Russia. Stricter international laws over the movement of money, the collapse of the Russian stock market and the increasing power of Vladimir Putin have dwindled the ranks of the stereotypical Russian oligarch and seen the emergence of a new generation of comparatively muted "minigarchs" who, according to Amenitskaya, "feel more at home in London than probably any other European city".
A senior housemaster at one of Britain's oldest schools expresses some relief at this development. "A few years ago, the arrival of new Russian boys into the school could often be a very cloak and dagger affair – with helicopters landing in nearby fields, minders, and fees being offered in cash. Cultural blood feuds spilt over into the dorms – I remember an actual fight with knives between a Russian and a Kazak over some loss of face or sign of disrespect.
"These days, the Russian families we see on open days are very much more low-key. We choose the boys we feel are confident enough to get the most out of the boarding experience and be comfortable with the culture of the school. They seem to find friends quickly, work hard, keep up with the banter and, after a short while, it's only their names that give away their nationality. Out of all the foreign boys we have in our houses, it is the Russians who now seem to find it the easiest to fit in."
Amenitskaya agrees that expatriate Russians are slowly shedding their rather unflattering reputation. "They have started to realise they cannot go about things in the same way as they would at home.
"During the process of preparing their children for English schools, parents learn as much about the culture of the country they have moved to as their youngsters. I'm occasionally contacted by mothers who need advice about what is expected of them in certain situations. If their child is invited to spend a weekend with an English family, for example, I might get a call to find out if they would be expected to offer any payment. The learning curve can be quite steep."
Nicholls commends them for even attempting it. "It's brave what they are doing for their children, really, and it's not because they want to turn them into little English boys and girls, but because education is treasured in their culture. Many of the families I deal with talk of their great sadness at what they see as a hideous decline in standards in their own academic institutions."
Denis Khodjaev's seven-year-old son Max spent eight weeks being taught by Nicholls last year. The family have since returned to Moscow where Max continues to have three lessons a week via Skype.
"Twenty years ago we had one of the best education systems in the world and now we do not," he says. "The rate of pay for teachers is poor and there is an element of corruption." (One of Russia's most popular comedy shows features a fictitious teacher, Snezhana Denisovna, who is continually devising scams to make money from her students.)
"Kate doesn't just teach Max how to speak English," Khodjaev continues. "She's opened him up to the world of 'being English'. When Max was with Kate every day was an adventure. She found ways of exciting him about the subjects he finds difficult."
On the day of my visit, Nicholls was concluding a six-hour Skype tutorial with a child in Moscow which included a science experiment involving a bottle of fizzy drink and a packet of mints.
"I love to do messy work with my Russian children," she says. "I find they aren't used to getting their hands dirty. But they soon get used to it when they're with me and realise that the fun really is worth all the cleaning up."
Nicholls, who is the aunt of the actor Tom Sturridge (Sienna Miller's fiancé), also takes them to the theatre and art galleries and arranges tennis lessons and wall climbing. But, while part of her role is to teach students about English manners and customs, she insists she is not running a "finishing school". She does not teach elocution or deportment. And she has learnt that there are certain Russian ways that can't be challenged.
"Like cold drinks!" she laughs. "Russian mothers, bar none, always implore me never ever to give their children drinks from the fridge, or with ice. They genuinely think cold drinks are a health hazard, it is so intriguing. They are very anxious about their children getting ill."
The competition to support Russian families in their quest to educate their children in Britain is fierce and a number of tutorial colleges targeting the Russian market have sprung up which Nicholls is happy to concede may well enjoy the same success that she does.
One woman, Dina Karpova, a former aerospace engineer, works with a company called English Mentors to teach children not just how to pass the exams, but also how to shoot, play polo and choose a suit.
But Nicholls takes a more down-to-earth approach. "I'm not so formal," she says. "The children who spend their days with me see how I interact with visitors, with neighbours, other people we get chatting to, and absorb the sort of social interaction that reflects life in Britain.
"I teach my young Russians with the same passion I taught my own children and I love the fact that home schooling is enabling me to fund my youngest son's college education in America. I can empathise with these families because I know what it's like to live in another culture – it's exciting but bewildering too."
Follow Seven magazine on Twitter: @TelegraphSeven
Read more from Telegraph Education's anonymous private tutor columnist:


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Give the furry fun of making a stuffed animal friend. Each new friend can be brought to life online for FREE at Buildabearville.com – our online world stuffed with fun to play together and get pawsome virtual stuff! Animals start at only $10 (U.S.) Over 325 stores worldwide. Visit BuildABear.com to find a store near you.
Use of this card constitutes acceptance of the following terms: Your Bear Buck$® gift card can be redeemed for merchandise at participating Build-A-Bear Workshop® or friends 2B made® locations in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and the United Kingdom, or online at www.buildabear.com or www.friends2Bmade.com. To use, present this gift card at the time of purchase. Purchase amount, plus applicable taxes, will be deducted from available balance until the value reaches zero. Cards are non-refundable, cannot be exchanged for cash and cannot be replaced if lost or stolen, except as otherwise required by law. Dollar values are in the currency of the country where this card is purchased. If this card is redeemed for merchandise priced in a currency other than the currency in which the card was purchased, the card's valuation will be calculated using the exchange rate quoted by our bank at the date of redemption. ©Build-A-Bear Workshop, Build-A-Bear Workshop®, Bear Buck$® and friends 2B made® are trademarks of the issuer used under license. All rights reserved. To check available balance go to www.buildabear.com, call (toll free) 1-888-566-4977 or visit a store near you. For a store near you visit our website or call (toll free) 1-877-789-BEAR (2327). No value until activated.


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Italian Marines Mess: 10 Funny Twitter Reactions
1. When Our PM Spoke
India seems to have messed up big time with respect to the Italian Marines controversy. Atleast according to Twitter users who took on the government, Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Salman Khurshid.
Teen word bol diye, ab do mahine aaraam! RT @timesofindia PM Manmohan Singh on #ItalianMarines: Italy's actions unacceptable - Times Now— Aap Chutiye Hain (@AapChutiyeHain) March 12, 2013
2. Aur Pact Ho Gaya
Image Courtesy: Cartoonist Satish Acharya
3. Khana Khazana
#ItalianMarines Italy showed the world how to make a pizza. And now India has shown the world how to do a home delivery.— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) March 12, 2013
4. Itna Bhi Nahin Kar Paye
We could have at least sent the #ItalianMarines back in one of our AgustaWestland VVIP choppers.— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) March 12, 2013
5. Par Mujhe Bhook Lagi Hai
Image Courtesy: Cartoonist Satya
6. Be Scared Italy, Be Very Scared
Salman Khurshid promises to use his strongest English words to reply to Italy's letter. #ItalianMarines— IndiaSpeaks (@IndiaSpeaksPR) March 12, 2013
7. The Biggest Slap Back
India lodges strong protest, the two #ItalianMarines won't be able to play IPL.— Gabbar singh (@GabbbarSingh) March 12, 2013
8. Desh ka Namak
Sonia Gandhi asks MMS to take it easy, after he slams Italy for not sending back the 2 #ItalianMarines— The UnReal Times (@TheUnRealTimes) March 12, 2013
9. Waiting for the Cheese Now
No no, not reasoning. It's seasoning. @ndtv: We will respond after seeing what Italy's reasoning is: Salman Khurshid #ItalianMarines— Rofl Indian (@Roflindian) March 12, 2013
10. Dictation Classes
PM Manmohan Singh- Italy's actions unacceptable. Ki?? aur bolu?? hmm.. hmmlet me ask madam ji.— amit (@amitbliss) March 12, 2013
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Start a conversation, not a fire. Post with kindness.


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Get DVD Talk Feeds
Imprisoned for rape and dying of AIDS, Alex (Hill Harper) is trying to spend his last months and days reconciling himself with his family; the "perfect" brother and the "judgmental " father. Throughout the movie, Alex maintains his innocence but that hardly seems the point of the film. Regardless of whether he's guilty or not, it is apparent that Alex is in need of a change, a change from without and within. Truly Alex is a prisoner, not only physically, but mentally as well. His visits with his parents and his brother are cathartic on both sides. These visits are where we are introduced to the elements that helped propel Alex into the world he now inhabits. His father (Billy Dee Williams) is a harsh and rough-edged man that feels the only way to communicate with Alex is by constantly bringing up past mistakes by comparing Alex's failures to his brother's successes. His brother (Obba Babatunde), now a successful businessman, leads his life with his wife and children in a world very far away from the one his brother has found. His mother (Marla Gibbs) longs for the days when Alex was the little boy who used to play in the front yard of their home. And Felicia MacDonald (Rae Dawn Chong) is the woman he loves and has loved since they were kids. In these last few days, Alex and his family will come to realize just how important these visits are; not only to Alex but to themselves as well.
The audio is presented in a Dolby Digital 2.0 platform that adequately presents all of the aural tones of the film. The film is dialogue driven and there are no surround effects to speak of. The score is a heady brew of blistering jazz composed and performed by Ramsey Lewis, Stefan Dickerson and Michael Bearden. The video is a widescreen presentation that presents a largely dull and flat image. The colors tend to be both subdued and neutral.
The only extra is the film's trailer.
The Visit, like all films, is attempting to make an emotional connection with the viewer to solidify its impact. While I really wanted to "feel" for Alex, I couldn't. I felt the acting was very well done and the story line held my attention to the very end. But I can't help but think, there is definitely a missing element. The film's redemptive moments came either too late or not at all. The end result left me with a feeling of ambivalence towards the characters and their situations in total. While I think it's definitely worthy of your attention, I don't know that it's worthy of anything more than a rental.


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Last December, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off for drilling some of America's most spectacular wilderness landscapes.
Remote country dominated by towering cliffs and serpentine slickrock canyons right on the doorstep of Canyonlands and Arches national parks and Dinosaur National Monument, popular recreation areas bordering the famous Monitor and Merrimac buttes north of Moab and lands that the BLM itself found to have wilderness value -- all were going to be handed over to oil companies who are already sitting idly on nearly 4 million acres of leased public lands.
Source: The Salt Lake Tribune