text:
Fort Hood shootings raise questions about tolls of Iraq, Afghanistan wars
By JAMES ROSEN | McClatchy Washington Bureau | Published: April 3, 2014
WASHINGTON — For years after the 9/11 attacks, Americans worried about fundamentalist Islamic cells infiltrating the homeland and radical jihadists hiding in their midst.
The latest mass shooting at a U.S. military base — and the second in less than five years at Fort Hood, Texas — raises a potentially more disturbing question: Have the Iraq and Afghanistan wars created American-grown human time bombs with grievous mental and physical wounds that the military and veterans' health-care systems can't adequately track and treat?
Senior Army officials Thursday provided conflicting views of Spc. Ivan A. Lopez's state of mind before his shooting rampage at Fort Hood a day earlier. Lopez killed three people at the base and wounded 16 others before taking his own life.
Military officials said Lopez bought the gun he used in Wednesday's attack on March 1 but had not registered it at Fort Hood as required by regulations.
"We have very strong evidence that he had a medical history that indicates an unstable psychiatric or psychological condition," said Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the commander at Fort Hood. "We believe that is the fundamental underlying causal factor here."
Army Secretary John McHugh, however, told Congress that a psychiatrist's examination of the Puerto Rico-born Lopez last month had not disclosed deep enough problems for him to be considered a threat to others.
"As of this morning, we had no indication on the record of that examination that there was any sign of likely violence, either to himself or to others, no suicidal ideation," McHugh told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Lopez, who served four months in Iraq, "was undergoing a variety of treatment and diagnoses for mental health conditions, ranging from depression to anxiety to some sleep disturbance," McHugh said. Lopez had been "prescribed a number of drugs," among them Ambien, a common sleeping pill, McHugh said.
Relatives of Lopez said he told them that he had sustained a brain injury and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. The Pentagon did not confirm those health problems.
Whatever Lopez's condition or motive turns out to be — should it become known at all — his rampage Wednesday brings to at least nine the number of fatal criminal shooting incidents at U.S. military bases since 2008. It was the same year that the number of American troops in Iraq reached a peak and the United States was simultaneously fighting another bloody war in Afghanistan.
In November 2009 at Fort Hood, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. Hasan, a self-avowed jihadist and "soldier of Allah," was sentenced to death last year and is imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Aaron Alexis, a former Navy sailor, shot 12 people dead last August at the Washington Navy Yard before he was slain.
With the suicide rate rising in recent years among both active-duty servicemembers and veterans, analysts said the military and veterans' health-care systems are struggling to deal with a broad range of mental health problems exacerbated by more than 12 years of war.
Drake Logan, a researcher with Civilian-Soldier Alliance, a group that tries to give servicemembers a greater voice, is completing a report based in part on extensive interviews during the past two years with soldiers at Fort Hood and veterans who formerly served there.
Logan said commanders at Fort Hood and other military installations where she's interviewed service members often ignore or countermand the directions of mental health providers treating their troops.
"Commanders in the military are allowed discretion over soldiers' medical and mental health treatment and the work restrictions that are placed on them by medical professionals," Logan said.
Harry Croft, a former Army psychiatrist who has treated 1,700 cases of PTSD and wrote a 2012 book on the illness, said he and other health-care providers tread a thin line between trying not to exaggerate such problems and imploring the government to do more to address them.
Noting that Lopez was under treatment when he went on his rampage, Croft said it is very difficult to identify such insider threats in advance.
"We still can't predict with tremendous accuracy whether someone is going to go out and hurt themselves or other people," Croft said. "I wish we could, but it's as much an art as a science."
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, made a similar point at a Fort Hood news briefing with Milley.
"Mental health issues are the most vexing issues from my perspective in terms of how do we identify people who have genuine problems that need to be treated," Cornyn said. "But I think at the same time, we have to be very careful and not paint with too broad a brush and assume that just because someone has been in combat that they necessarily have those issues."
In releasing the results of Pentagon investigations probes of the Washington Navy Yard shootings, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last month said that the reviews had "identified troubling gaps in our ability to detect, prevent and respond to instances where someone working with us — a government employee, member of our military or a contractor — decides to inflict harm."
Almost one-third of all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seen at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities have been treated for PTSD, according to the most recent VA report, and mental disorders are the second most frequent diagnosis.
While veterans have better luck finding jobs than their civilian counterparts, younger former troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan still lag behind, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month.
"At the same time we recognize that the vast majority of our military and vets are not in crisis, we must all acknowledge that there are indeed problems with the way mental health and transitional support is managed and available to our service members and veterans," Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told a Senate panel last month.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki told Congress last month that his agency added 2,400 mental health providers in the past two years, but shortages remain.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that President Barack Obama is frustrated by the failure of Congress to act on his legislation to increase mental health and criminal background checks for gun buyers.
"During the course of (more than) a decade of war, many (service members) have been on multiple tours of duty," Obama said. "To see unspeakable, senseless violence happen in a place where they're supposed to feel safe, home base, is tragic."
Lesley Clark, Maria Recio and David Goldstein of the Washington Bureau contributed.


text:
Unboxing Body by Body
"Brand Innovations for Ubiquitos Authorship" focuses on the rise of customizable print-on-demand products as aided by the internet. A sampling of the impressive roster of more than sixty artists includes Parker Ito, Daniel Temkin, Lauren Christiansen, and Jayson Musson. Artie Vierkant, who organized the show at Madison Avenue's Higher Pictures gallery, explained some of the thinking behind the exhibition:
I always thought of these services as a very interesting sign of where we're headed in consumer space. The Internet has helped make one-to-many content empires stumble and niches to become stronger, and consumer goods are now no exception. The idea is that we've moved past mass production and into something like custom/craft/artisinal production on a massive scale; production for each individual amongst the mass. It's easy to get wrapped into that idea--particularly if you watch something like Zazzle's 'About Us' video, which hits you with a combined rhetoric of liberation-through-self-expression and environmental-consciousness--even if in practice Internet-ordered custom items are often a cheap and mass-produced object marked with an image emblazoned by an expensive printer.
All objects were shipped directly to the gallery and opened on site with little to no prior knowledge of how the artists had chosen to customize their products. Videos of this unboxing process, like the one above, can be seen on the show's Youtube page. Vierkant stressed that by sending all products to Higher Pictures, artists in foreign countries avoided high shipping costs that could have barred even small objects from being included in the show. Vierkant added that not every artist had chosen to work with the suggested on-demand services: Borna Sammak, for example, contributed a limited edition jacket made by Buron, based on one of the artist's designs. "This kind of ...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Spring is the wettest season, and summer is hot, with July and August promising highs in the upper 90s F/32+ C. Humidity is low to moderate, so the daytime summer warmth is generally comfortable, and nights are cool (53-61 F/13-16 C). Early fall is dry and warm, with temperatures ranging 50-80 F/10-26 C in September and 39-66 F/3-17 C in October.
Ad unit code goes here
Here is an example


text:
D-Lib Magazine
In Print
The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting: Protocol Version 2.0 14 June 2002, Open Archives Initiative
A press release was issued on 14 June announcing the release of Version 2.0 of the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. The following is an excerpt from the press release:
"Ithaca, NY & Los Alamos, NM The Open Archives Initiative is pleased to release version 2.0 of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). The release of OAI-PMH v.2.0 comes after 16 months of worldwide experimentation with version 1.x of the protocol, an 8 month revision process by the OAI-tech group, and 4 months of alpha/beta testing. Thanks to this rigid testing and revision, we feel confident to release the OAI-PMH version 2.0 as a stable specification."
A full copy of the press release with information about the features of OAI-PMH version 2 is available at <http://www.openarchives.org/news/oaiv2press020614.html> and the specification is available at <http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/openarchivesprotocol.htm>.
Digital Imagery for Works of Art Final Report from a workshop held 19 - 20 November 2001, Harvard University.
The following announcement was received from Stephen M. Griffin, National Science Foundation, and Donald Waters, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation:
"On November 19-20, 2001, the National Science Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Harvard University Art Museums jointly sponsored an invitational workshop on Digital Imagery for Works of Art. This workshop was organized by Kevin Kiernan (University of Kentucky), Charles Rhyne (Reed College), and Ron Spronk (Harvard University), and was designed to bring together computer and imaging scientists who have been active in digital imagery research with a particular group of end users, namely research scholars in the visual arts, including art and architecture historians, art curators, conservators, and scholars and practitioners in closely related disciplines."
"The specific purpose of the meeting was to explore how the research and development agenda of computing, information and imaging scientists might more usefully serve the research needs of research scholars in the visual arts. At the same time, participants looked for opportunities where applications in the art history domain might inform and push information technology research in new and useful directions."
"The final report of the workshop is now available at <http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/mellon/report.html>. This Web page contains a copy of the report in HTML and a link to a printable version in Adobe Acrobat format. This Web page also contains a link to a comment form. The organizers and sponsors would very much welcome comments and other feedback from readers of the report. Of particular interest would be links to ongoing efforts in the various areas emphasized in the report, as well as pointers to resources (collections, tools, etc.) that may be useful for future collaborative work."
Preservation Metadata and the OAIS Information Model: A Metadata Framework to Support the Preservation of Digital Objects: A Report by the OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, June 2002, OCLC Online Computer Library, Inc.
The following is an excerpt from an OCLC press release, dated June 11, 2002, which announces the release of a new report:
"DUBLIN, Ohio, June 11, 2002--The Working Group on Preservation Metadata, an initiative jointly sponsored by OCLC and RLG, has released 'A Metadata Framework to Support the Preservation of Digital Objects,' a new report available on the OCLC Web site <http://www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/pm_framework.pdf>".
"The report is a comprehensive guide to preservation metadata that is applicable to a broad range of digital preservation activities. Preservation metadata is the information infrastructure necessary to support processes associated with the long-term retention of digital resources, and is an essential component of most digital preservation systems."
"The report represents the consensus of leading experts and practitioners comprising the working group, and is intended for use by organizations and institutions managing, or planning to manage, the long-term retention of digital resources."
"The working group based its work on preservation metadata element sets developed by several leading institutions and organizations in the digital preservation community, as well as the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model. OAIS is a conceptual framework that articulates the primary functional components of a digital archive and establishes concepts and terminology for describing and comparing architectures and data models."
For more information, please see the full press release about the new report at <http://www.rlg.org/pr/pr2002-metadata.html>.
Status of Technology and Digitization In the Nation's Museums and Libraries 2002 Report IMLS Public Report, Friday, May 10, 2002.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has announced the release of a report resulting from the first survey of technology use and digitization activities in libraries and museums. The following is an excerpt from the announcement:
"A federal report quantifies, for the first time, the prevalence of computers, software, and information sharing technologies in the day-to-day work of museums and libraries. The federal Institute of Museum and Library Services surveyed more than 700 libraries and museums about their technology use and digitization activities."
"Institute of Museum and Library Services Director Dr. Robert Martin said, 'This baseline study provides our first snapshot of the state of technology use and digitization by the nation's libraries and museums. It depicts pockets of digitization activity and planning that are making collections much more widely accessible. It is clear that emerging technologies are connecting more people to the services and information museums and libraries provide.'"
"The report surveyed activity in museums, public libraries, academic libraries and State Library Administrative Agencies (SLAAs.)"
The report is available in print copy, free of charge, from IMLS or may be viewed online. To order a print copy, send an email request to the Institute at <firstname.lastname@example.com>. To view the copy online, see <http://www.imls.gov/Reports/TechReports/intro02.htm>.
Five Cedars Project Guidelines Documents, Cedars Project, 2002.
Primarily funded by JISC through its eLib and Digital Preservation Focus programs, the Cedars Project (Curl exemplars in digital archives) began in 1998 and ended in March 2002 with the objective "to explore digital preservation issues [ranging] through acquiring digital objects, their long-term retention, sufficient description, and eventual access." Though the project has come to an end, the Cedars web site will continue to provide access to documents and other material related to the project. Of particular interest are five guidance documents produced in the project's last year. Below is a list of the five Guides:
Links to all five Guides and to other Cedars project documents are at <http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/pubconf/pubconf.html>.
Small Wonders, Endless Frontiers: A Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, (prepublication version) Committee for the Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, National Research Council, 2002.
The National Academy of Sciences has announced the availability of this prepublication report, which can be read online at the National Academy Press web site. The following description is quoted from the press release about the report:
"Manipulating individual atoms and molecules to alter a material's makeup at the most basic level seems more like science fiction than science, but scientists are doing just that, changing everything from the composition of lipsticks and sunblocks to the most advanced medicine and information technology. This science and technology, known as nanotechnology, is carried out on a scale of approximately 1/100,000 the width of a human hair.
For nanotechnology to fulfill its promise of revolutionizing industry, however, the government-funded National Nanotechnology Initiative needs to increase its support of long-term research and promote more interdisciplinary effort, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. The White House Economic Council and other federal agencies requested a review of the initiative, which has received almost $1 billion in funding since 2001.
The full report may be read online now, free of charge, at <http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10395.html>. Print copies will become available for purchase at a later date.
Guidelines for UK Government websites - Illustrated handbook for web management teams: May 2002
The following is from the introduction to the handbook:
"Digital media are becoming mass media. New audiences and new platforms are opening up new opportunities for government communications and services, allowing more personal and two-way communication than ever before. More members of the general public are visiting government websites. In order to benefit from this, government needs to ensure that its own digital media offer a best in class experience to the user. For example, material aimed at professionals may not meet the needs of a general public audience. Users expect content and services that are engaging, relevant to them and effective."
"In the future, owning a personal computer will no longer be the only way to interact electronically with the government. Users will have the choice of interactive digital television, kiosks, game consoles and third generation wireless mobile devices. Access to government services may be available, for example, through public libraries, local UK online centres and post offices."
"The Guidelines for UK Government websites comprises the Framework for senior managers, published in December 2001 and this illustrated handbook that focuses on improving websites and is intended for web management teams."
The handbook is at <http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/publications/guidelines/webguidelines/handbook/handbookindex.htm>
Journal of Digital Information, Special issue on Interactivity in Digital Libraries, Volume 2, Number 4, 2002
The Journal of Digital Information announces A SPECIAL ISSUE on Interactivity in Digital Libraries (Volume 2, issue 4, June 2002) The special issue is edited by Anita Coleman and Maliaca Oxnam, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
From the special issue editorial: "Advances in Internet technologies have made it seemingly possible and easy to create digital collections, repositories and libraries. However, facilitating interaction beyond searching and browsing is in the early stages. Interactive digital libraries are still evolving."
The problems facing digital library design can be reframed as three challenges, in the areas of:
"The information-learning-interaction spaces challenge provides a framework and directs digital library research and development to the human rather than just the technical problems. It is also grounded in the realization that libraries, whether they are digital or traditional, are socially constructed, and that the values of a society are embodied in the use of a library. We invite the community to discuss and explore. The papers in this issue show how current projects and initiatives are handling some of the challenges."
The Journal of Digital Information home page is at <http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/>.
Presentations from the 3rd Annual ASIST Information Architecture Summit, held 15 - 17 March 2002 in Baltimore, Maryland, published by the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T).
This third in the ASIS&T-sponsored series of conferences aimed at information architecture professionals had as its theme, "Refining Our Craft". The conference balanced "practical applications and case studies of information architecture with the big picture thinking of some of the field's leading figures." Presentation slides from the conference are now available online.
The presentations are at <http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2002/iapapers.html>.
Papers from Museums and the Web 2002, 18 - 20 April 2002, Boston, Massachusetts, published by Archives & Museum Informatics April 2002.
"The MW2002 [Museums and the Web 2002] program addressed Web-related issues for museums, archives, libraries and other cultural institutions. Participants were selected by the Program Committee, based on the quality of their proposal and their previous work."
The conference papers are at <http://www.archimuse.com/mw2002/speakers/index.html>.
Papers from the NetLab Conference - NetLab and Friends: Tribute and outlook after 10 years of digital library development, 10 - 12 April 2002, published by the Lund University Libraries, Lund University, Lund Sweden.
NetLab, the research and development department at Lund University Libraries, celebrated its 10 years anniversary with this conference and has made presentations from the conference available at the programme web page as they have become available. This conference was comprised of a number of sessions in areas that have been central digital library development themes for NetLab and for the community as a whole over recent years:
The presentations are at <http://www.lub.lu.se/netlab/conf/>.
Core Subject Taxonomy for Mathematical Sciences Education: Math NSDL Taxonomy Committee Report - April 2, 2002, Mathematical Sciences Conference Group on Digital Educational Resources.
From the Preamble: "At the February 2002 MathNSDL Meeting the Mathematical Sciences Conference Group on Digital Educational Resources charged a Mathematics Taxonomy Committee to review the Core Subject Taxonomy for Mathematical Sciences, make changes and review any suggested changes from those in the mathematics community under specific guidelines. The committee consists of the following members: Kurt Cogswell, Terese Herrera, Russell Herman, Brandon Muramatsu, and Robby Robson of which the last two were consultants in getting the discussions started and the first three are the core subgroup of working members of the committee responsible for the current revision."
"...The intent is that groups interested in classifying digital content with metadata can map their metadata to this core allowing for future integration into the National Digital Library. The major groups include representatives from College Board (AP Mathematics and Statistics), Eisenhower National Clearinghouse, iLumina, MAA, Math Forum, MathDL, JOMA, MERLOT, and NCTM."
The Math NSDL Taxonomy Committee Report is at <http://people.uncw.edu/hermanr/MathTax/>.
UNIMARC Manual - Authorities Format 2001 (Concise version), International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).
The following description of the manual is quoted from an announcement by Marie-France Plassard: "This is an abridged version of the UNIMARC Manual-Authorities Format, 2nd revised and enlarged edition and reflects the state of the format as at 25 January 2001. In response to requests we have added examples to the text while retaining the minimal description of fields, indicators and subfields."
The concise format is intended solely as an introduction. It is not a substitute for the full, printed, version." The abridged version of the UNIMARC manual is at <http://www.ifla.org/VI/3/p2001/guideindex.htm>.
Point to Point
MARC 21 XML Schema, Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office.
On June 5, 2002, the Library of Congress announced the completion of a schema for MARC 21 records in an ZML structure. An excerpt of the announcement follows:
"The Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office announces completion of a schema for MARC 21 records in an XML structure for use in communicating MARC 21 records. It is available from <http://www.loc.gov/marcxml>. This schema was developed in collaboration with OCLC and RLG and reviewed by the National Library of Canada and the National Library of Medicine (NLM), after a survey of schemas in use in various projects. Many schemas have taken the "slim" approach but all vary slightly. This schema will be maintained by the Library of Congress as will software that enables lossless conversion to and from MARC 21 records in the ISO 2709 structure. As illustrated in the introductory information on the web site, the Library of Congress will develop and provide, downloadable from the MARCXML web site, tools for various transformations and for record validations. A single schema serves all the five MARC 21 formats."
By collaboratively developing a communications schema, the Library of Congress encourages the standardization of MARC 21 exchange records in the XML environment, recognizing that MARC 21 records inside systems will continue to use different record configurations, tailored to the characteristics of the system. Provision of the tools for transformations to and from other metadata approaches, such as Dublin Core and the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), will help to standardize derivative metadata records also. (MODS is a new schema for a bibliographic element set that is a subset of MARC expressed in XML with language-based rather than numeric tags.) The tools take the mappings between MARC and other metadata sets, that have been maintained on the MARC web site, to an operational level."
The MARC 21 XML Schema web site is located at <http://www.loc.gov/marcxml>.
Center for Intellectual Property and Copyright University of Maryland.
The following announcement was received from Olga Francois, University of Maryland University College:
"The CIP is pleased to announce the development of an online, interactive tutorial on copyright basics called the ©Primer. The Primer is a free interactive online tool to assist educating faculty, staff and students about copyright principles and compliance. It's just a simple click away! <http://www.umuc.edu/odell/cip/cprimer>."
Also, if you have not visited the CIP in a while, come back for a refresher. You will find expanded and new resources such as a growing collection of intellectual property policies, and information about digital rights management, the public domain, and much much more. Please view our upcoming online workshops and review our future research initiatives like the Virtual Academic Integrity Laboratory (VAIL) and the Digital-Copyright Listserv."
The Center for Intellectual Property and Copyright web site is at <http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/>.
UNESCO Libraries Portal: An international information gateway for libraries and library users, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The UNESCO Libraries Portal has recently announced that it now has over 10,000 links. The Portal presentation is being modified and all links are being verified. The site welcomes comments and suggestions about the modifications.
The UNESCO Libraries Portal web site is at <http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_bib/>.
Calls for Participation
RIDE-MLIM'2003, 13th International Workshop on Research Issues on Data Engineering: Multi-lingual Information Management, 10 - 11 March 2003, Hyderabad, India. Call for Papers. The submission deadline is 1 August 2002.
"RIDE-MLIM'2003 is the thirteenth workshop in a series of annual workshops on Research Issues in Data Engineering (RIDE), which have been held in conjunction with the IEEE CS International Conferences on Data Engineering. In 2003, RIDE focuses on Multi-lingual Information Management. Multi-lingual information consists of data, text, or documents containing words from more than one language. The need for multi-lingual information management is driven by the proliferation of the Internet, the globalization of corporations, the development of virtual organizations, and the increasing use of multi-lingual digital media. The objective of RIDE-MLIM'2003 is to bring together researchers, industrial practitioners, developers, and users to exchange results and ideas on issues related to Multi-lingual Information Management."
Topics of Interest
Multi-lingual Database Management:
Query Languages. Query Execution Strategies. Indexing. Storage Management. Report Generation. Data Compression.
Multi-lingual Data Mining:
Text Classification. Association Rules.
Multi-lingual Web Information Systems:
Information Extraction. Information Exchange. Information Retrieval. Information Filtering. Information Summarization. Information Presentation. Information Dissemination. Portal Management.
Multi-lingual Language Processing:
Document Management. Natural Language Processing. External Storage Algorithms for Language processing. Benchmarks and Standards. Query Understanding and Natural Language Interfaces. Query Answering. Architectures for Scalable Performance.
All accepted papers will appear in the Proceedings published by the IEEE Computer Society.
For additional information, please see <http://www.iiit.net/conferences/ride2003.html>.
ACM Workshop on XML Security, 22 November 2002, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. Call for papers. The submission date is 10 August 2002.
"The ACM Workshop on XML Security will address security problems faced by users who try to develop XML-based applications, Web services, and security middleware for XML. It ranges from specific security features, such as digital signatures and element-wise encryption and access control of XML documents, to XML-based infrastructure, such as Web services and XML databases. Since many security features for XML have already been standardized, experimental evaluations of these standards is one of the important topics covered by this workshop."
"The XML Security workshop seeks submissions from academia and industry covering novel research on theoretical and practical aspects of the security required for XML-based systems. We also encourage submissions from standardization communities such as W3C and OASIS, particularly from the technical viewpoint."
For more information, please see the full Call for Papers at <http://xml.coverpages.org/ACM-XML-Security-2002CFP.html>.
National Convention on Library and Information Networking (NACLIN 2002): Bridging the Divide, Delnet, 21 - 24 October 2002, Kochi, Kerala, India. Call for Papers. The submission deadline is 15 September 2002.
"The revolution in information technology (IT) has transformed the world in a short time. India also has made a good deal of contribution in this field and has risen to considerable eminence in the world. Yet, in India the impact of information technology has not reached every sphere of activity or every individual. The same is the case with many developing countries."
"The existing IT infrastructure in the developing countries is out of date in most of the cases. With rapid changes taking place in the IT sector, institutions and individuals in the under developed and developing countries cannot afford to buy new hardware and software or upgrade their communication links regularly. Also, access to digital resources is not always free or cheaply available. Therefore those who can afford to buy new infrastructure and can access [the] best digital resources become more advanced and those who can't, are at a disadvantage. It is therefore necessary to see how we can bridge this divide that is shaping between the digitally rich and the digitally poor nations, institutions and individuals. In this context, a national convention on "Bridging the Digital Divide" has thus been considered appropriate for NACLIN 2002."
"The objective of NACLIN 2002 is to focus on Digital Divide. Participants will have the opportunity to exchange their experiences and share their ideas by interacting with peers. The convention is an ideal professional platform to discuss the various aspects of digitalization of libraries, identification of gaps and views on finding solutions to bridge the gap."
The first two days of this four-day conference are exclusively designed for tutorials conducted by experts on:
The subsequent two days will focus on the Digital Divide theme, which is divided into the following sub-themes:
"Participants are welcome to contribute original papers for presentation at the National Convention on the above sub-themes or related themes. The papers should be based on research, survey, case studies or action plans rather than theoretical explanations."
For additional information, please see <http://www.cusat.ac.in/naclin2002.htm>.
Goings On
International Summer School on the Digital Library 2002: Digital Libraries and the Changing World of Education, 4 - 9 August 2002, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
"The "Digital Libraries and Education" course aims to explore the ways in which libraries can accommodate the changes in further and higher education. These changes are brought about by more intensive use of information and communication technology (ICT) and the adoption of more active learning styles. The course will focus on strategic opportunities and experiences in leading institutions."
For further information, please see <http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/summer02/>.
International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML) Annual Conference, 4 - 9 August 200, Berkeley, California, USA.
IAML currently has "individual and institutional members in some 45 countries throughout the world. Founded in 1951 to promote international cooperation and to support the interests of the profession, IAML is a respected member of the international library and music communities. It has national branches in 22 countries, five professional branches, four subject commissions and various working groups, and is responsible for several large-scale documentation projects. IAML draws most of its membership from Europe and North America. It is also well represented in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, less well so in other parts of Asia, in Latin America and Africa. Extending its coverage to these parts of the world is an important goal for the Association. The membership comprises major music collections, music and audio-visual librarians, music archivists and documentation specialists, musicologists, music publishers and dealers. Membership is open to any person or institution interested in the work of the Association. English, French and German are the official languages."
IAML's principal aims are to:
For further information, please see <http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~troutman/berkeley.html>.
IASL 2002: School Libraries for a Knowledge Society, 6th International Forum on Research in School Librarianship, International Association of School Librarianship, 5 - 9 August 2002, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.
"The theme of the conference is School Libraries for a Knowledge Society, reflecting the preamble to the UNESCO/IFLA School Library manifesto:"
"The School library provides information and ideas that are fundamental to functioning successfully in today's information and knowledge-based societies."
"As we move from agricultural, industrial and information societies towards a knowledge society, it is timely to consider the implications for school libraries in a society characterized by knowledge and information being major resources, information and communication technologies being widely used, changes in technology being rapid, and globalization allowing for collaboration and competition."
For further information, please see <http://www.iaslmalaysia2002.org/iasl_introduction.html>.
SIGIR 2002 Conference: ACM 25th International Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, 11 - 15 August 2002, Tampere, Finland.
SIGIR is an "international forum for the presentation of new research results and the demonstration of new systems and techniques in the broad field of information retrieval (IR)". SIGIR 2002 has selected research contributions, posters, and tutorials, workshops, and system demonstrations related to any aspect of IR, with the major areas of interest being:
For further information, please see <http://www.sigir2002.org/>.
18th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning, 14 - 16 August 2002, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Three days packed full of 150+sessions:
New Directions Forums:
Online Course Showcases:
New to the program this year. During these 45-minute showcases, attendees will have the opportunity to tour computer stations where presenters will demonstrate and discuss their actual online courses.
For further information, please see <http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/>.
Cross Language Information Retrieval: A Research Roadmap, workshop at SIGIR-2002, 15 August 2002, Tampere Finland.
"Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) has been a research subfield for more than a decade now. The field has sparked three major evaluation efforts: the Cross-Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF) covering many European languages, the NTCIR Asian Language Evaluation (covering Chinese, Japanese and Korean), and the TREC Cross Language Track which currently focuses on the Arabic language. This workshop proposes to review and assess the progress that has been made and to prepare a roadmap for the next five years of research and development. Presentations will summarize the major techniques and accomplishments of the field (e.g. utilization of corpus, dictionary, and machine translation techniques for crossing language barriers, strategies for sense disambiguation and query expansion) and position papers will argue the directions the research should go in the next half decade. The expectation is to develop a step-by-step, year-by-year roadmap of research to be undertaken, with each year addressing progressively more difficult goals and expected accomplishments. Selected topics will include, but not be limited to:"
For further information, please see <http://www.sigir2002.org>.
New Directions in Metadata, SCURL and OCLC, preconference to the 68th IFLA General Conference, 15 - 16 August 2002, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Jointly hosted by the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), "this conference will address the latest developments in, and implications for, metadata in a distributed environment. Papers will cover topics such as collection description, preservation metadata, application profiles, audience levels, and subject retrieval. Focus will be given to the local as a key to understanding the global."
For further information, please see <http://www.oclc.org/events/ifla/preconference/>.
E-magine: gateways to the changing landscape of art information, ARLIS, the UK & Ireland Art Libraries Society, 15 - 18 August 2002, Glasgow, Scotland.
"ARLIS/UK & Ireland will hold its annual conference immediately prior to the 68th IFLA General Conference in one of Europe's most exciting cities - Glasgow."
"As always, the event promises to create an interesting, topical and wide-ranging programme of talks and interactive sessions. Additionally it allows its membership to network, share experiences and welcome new colleagues to the profession."
The "theme Gateways to the changing landscape of art information will confront the challenges we all face and inform our E-maginations."
For further information, please see <http://www.gsa.ac.uk/arlis2002/>.
Workshop on Distributed Computing Architectures for Digital Libraries, 18 - 21 August 2002, Vancouver, Canada.
Digital libraries (DLs) are increasingly common on the Web, providing ordered, vetted digital collections to targeted user groups. To date, much of DL research has focused on the acquisition and representation of digital objects, optimizing and personalizing user services, and interoperability efforts. Few DLs employ mirrors, much less some of the more sophisticated, non-client-server architectures found in WWW deployment, e.g. peer-to-peer systems and distributed storage architectures. Although these new architectures have been successfully applied to a large number of Internet services, they have had little impact on DL research. Are they technically suitable for DL use, or do social and economic issues prevent their adoption?
This workshop will explore these issues as well as highlight some of the more novel DL architectures. A range of theoretical, technical, and speculative papers have been sought to discuss and propose alternate DL architectures and approaches. Papers were requested for the following and related topics:
For further information, please see <http://www.cs.odu.edu/~jbollen/icpp2002/>.
Electronic Text Centre 2002 Summer Institute: Creating Electronic Texts and Images - a practical "hands-on" exploration of the research, preservation and pedagogical uses of electronic texts and images in the humanities, 18 - 23 August 2002, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
"The course will centre around the creation of a set of electronic texts and digital images. Topics to be covered include:
"The course is designed primarily for librarians and archivists who are planning to develop electronic text and imaging projects; for scholars who are creating electronic texts as part of their teaching and research; and for publishers who are looking to move publications to the Web. "
"Course participants will learn how to create TEI encoded XML files from a selection of manuscripts from UNB's Archives and Special Collections; and, then, how to turn these XML files automatically into multiple formats, including HTML, PDF, and EBook. Participants will also have the opportunity to tag an EAD finding aid and explore issues in creating digital images. The work of the class will be made available on the Internet through the Electronic Text Centre at the University of New Brunswick Libraries' Web Page."
For further information, please see <http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SGML_course/Aug2002/index.html>.
"Free access to information and the products of the imagination has always been recognised as the foundation for an inclusive society, a society that is based on shared values and open to change. Librarians have always played a major role in collecting and transmitting new ideas and better knowledge. Fundamental changes in the way information is used are now making an impact on every aspect of economic, educational and social activity. "
"In the knowledge economy that is emerging as a result of the rapid introduction of enhanced information and communications technologies, learning and a command of knowledge have become the key factors in individual, organisational and national success. Highly skilled people are needed to ensure that libraries can support effective learning and deliver efficient information services."
"Libraries continue to be valued by people of all ages, races and walks of life throughout the world, but our societies are continually changing as a result of new developments. The conference seminars, lectures, workshops and discussion groups will invite you to examine how libraries can continue to provide a variety of services, adapting them to meet the changing needs of our societies and encouraging democratic access to knowledge in the future."
Sub-theme: Building on the past - investing in the future
"Libraries have played a key role in preserving and making available the literary heritage and inspiration of nations. The professionalism of librarians has underpinned the international transmission of knowledge. Today, libraries and information services develop and provide increasingly sophisticated tools to help make information available globally. Information literacy is central not only to learning, but also to decision-making, evidence-based practice, and innovation transfer. Librarians begin to develop these skills by helping young people to recognize when information is needed and to have the ability to find, evaluate, and use it effectively. Then they help to support them in these activities throughout their lives. For the individual, community, organisation and policy-maker alike, the ability to handle complex information is a means of empowerment."
For further information, please see <http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla68/index.htm>.
28th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB 2002), 20 - 23 August 2002, Hong Kong, China.
VLDB 2002 will continue the 27-year tradition of VLDB conferences as an international forum for database researchers, vendors, practitioners, application developers, and users. The VLDB 2002 Program Committee (PC) invites submissions reporting original results on all technical aspects of data management as well as proposals for panels, tutorials, demonstrations, and exhibits that will present the most critical issues and views on practical leading-edge database technology, applications, and techniques. They also invite proposals for events and workshops to take place at the Conference site before or after VLDB 2002.
"For the past two years, the VLDB Conference has been working to broaden the range of topics beyond core database system technology and to address novel approaches rather than dwelling on incremental improvements of existing results. This year, we take a further step in this direction by creating a separate program committee covering Infrastructure for Information Systems, as distinct from Core Database Technology. Moreover, we will significantly increase the total number of accepted papers, to make room for more papers on Infrastructure for Information Systems. Thus, in a break from tradition, this year's VLDB Program Committee (PC) will be divided by subject area, rather than by geographical region. Despite this change, we remain committed to maintaining geographical balance in all aspects of the conference."
"VLDB 2002 [invited] submissions on a broad range of technical topics relating to the storage and management of data and to the usage of data management technology. VLDB 2002 encourages authors to consider novel topics and approaches, not just incremental improvements of existing results. Submissions may cover new research results, a vision that presents new viewpoints and challenges, or a description of the implementation or deployment of novel database technology in an industrial or application setting."
"The conference also [encouraged] submissions covering innovative commercial database implementations, novel applications of database technology, and experience in applying recent research advances to practical situations. Such papers [will] describe innovative implementations, new approaches to fundamental challenges (such as very large scale or semantic complexity), or other major technical improvements to the state-of-the-practice. Authors [were asked] to categorize their submission as 'research', 'vision', or 'industrial/application/experience', depending on its primary contribution."
For further information, please see <http://www.cs.ust.hk/vldb2002/>.
"Offering an annual program in Australia, the CAUDIT-EDUCAUSE Institute is designed as a professional development program for those who manage some aspect of information technology and resources in higher education, whether within their department or for the entire institution. "
"Participants come from a wide variety of backgrounds, from those who may be new to information resources management, through those who are ready to move up to the next level of management, to others who are interested in exploring the ways in which information resources can be better managed to support the overall institutional mission. "
"Members of the CAUDIT-EDUCAUSE Institute faculty are senior working professionals with years of experience managing information resources in higher education, drawn from both Australia and the United States."
For further information, please see <http://www.caudit.edu.au/caudit/institute/institute2002/>.
IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2002), 26 - 29 August 2002, Lausanne, Switzerland.
"ICME 2002 is a major annual international conference organized with the objective of bringing together researchers, developers and practitioners from academia and industry working in all areas in multimedia. ICME serves as a forum for the dissemination of state-of-the-art research, development, and implementations of multimedia systems, technologies and applications. Co-sponsored by four IEEE societies (the Circuits and Systems Society, the Communications Society, the Computer Society and the Signal Processing Society) the third edition of ICME will be held in Lausanne, Switzerland."
Topics covered will include but are not limited to:
For further information, please see the ICME 2002 conference web site at <http://www.icme2002.org/>.
Deadline Reminders
The Fifth International Conference on Virtual Communities, 17 - 18 June 2002, London, United Kingdom. For more information, please see the conference web site at <http://www.infonortics.com/vc/vc2002/vc02-announce.html>.
IT Leadership in the 21st Century, 17 - 19 June 2002, Charleston, South Carolina, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.educause.edu/conference/serc/2002/>.
Canadian Library Association 2002 Annual Conference and Trade Show, Inventing Our Future, 19 - 22 June 2002, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. For more information, please see <http://www.cla.ca/conference/cla2002/>.
ICADL 2002 - Digital Libraries: People, Knowledge & Technology, 11 - 14 December 2002, Singapore. Call for Papers. Abstracts are due on 20 June 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.cais.ntu.edu.sg:8000/icadl2002/>.
UKOLUG Biennial Conference, Finders Keepers, Loosers Weepers: Exploiting the Online Environment for Maximum Advantage, 20 - 21 June 2002, Birmingham, United Kingdom. Canceled. For more information, please see <http://www.ukolug.org.uk>.
NASIG 2002 - Transforming Serials: The Revolution Continues, North American Serials Interest Group, 20 - 23 June 2002, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.nasig.org/wm/>.
Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access, the European Commission on Preservation and Access, 17 - 23 October 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The registration deadline is 22 June 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/index.html>.
7th Biennial Participatory Design Conference, Participation and Design: Inquiring into the politics, contexts and practices of collaborative design work, 23 - 25 June 2002, Malmö, Sweden. For more information, please see <http://pdc2002.interactiveinstitute.se/>.
Digitisation, Conservation, and Preservation Workshop, 23 - 25 June 2002, Toledo, Spain. For more information, please see <http://www.erpanet.org/php/toledo/>.
20th Brazilian Congress of Librarianship, Documentation and Information Science, 23 - 28 June 2002, Ceará, Brazil. For more information, please see <http://www.cbbd.com.br/ingles-index.html>.
The New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (NRHM). Call for Papers. The deadline is 24 June 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/~NRHM/>.
Hand helds in the Museum Landscape: A CIMI Symposium, 24 - 25 June 2002, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.cimi.org/ci/hs_symposium_0602_home.html>.
Web Development with XML: Design and Application, ARL Workshop, 24 - 28 June 2002, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. For more information, please see <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/training/xml/june2002/>.
Choices and Strategies for Preservation of the Collective Memory, 25 - 29 June 2002, Dobbiaco/Toblach, Bolzano Province, Italy. For more information, please see <http://archives.dobbiaco2002.it/>.
HEDS Conference 2002: Developing the Digital Collection, 26 June 2002, London, United Kingdom. For more information, please see <http://heds.herts.ac.uk/conf2002/conf2002.html>.
4th International JISC/CNI Conference, coordinated by UKOLN, 26 - 27 June 2002, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. For more information, please see <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/jisc-cni-2002/>.
Expanded Conversations: Collaborating for Student Learning, LOEX West 2002, 26 - 29 June 2002, Eugene, Oregon, USA. For further information, please see <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/loexwest/>.
DLESE Annual Meeting 2002, Digital Library for Earth System Education, 29 June - 2 July 2002, Ithaca, New York, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.dlese.org/>.
PORTALS 2002: An Institutional Imperative, 1 July 2002, Nottingham, United Kingdom. For more information, please see <http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/portals2002/>.
Grindstone Island Summer Programs, Archives and Museum Informatics, 8 June - 26 August 2002, Ontario, Canada.
2002 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2002), 6 - 7 July 2002, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. For more information, please see <http://ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz/~hajic/emnlp02/>.
AUSWEB02, 6 - 10 July 2002, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. For more information, please see <http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/>.
2nd DELOS International Summer School on Digital Library Technologies (ISDL 2002), 8 - 12 July 2002, Pisa, Italy. For more information, please see <http://delos-noe.iei.pi.cnr.it/activities/trainingforum/SummerSchool/school2002.html>.
Digital Library -- IT Opportunities and Challenges in the New Millennium, 9 - 11 July 2002, Beijing, China. For more information, please see <http://www.nlc.gov.cn/dloc/>.
Digital Cultural Heritage IV: Networked Virtual Museums and Memory Institutions, Media Studies and Information Science, 10 -13 July 2002, Maastricht, The Netherlands. For more information, please see <http://www.amsu.edu/courses/media/media12002.htm>.
Special Issue on Information Customization Systems, IEEE Intelligent Systems. Call for Submissions. The deadline for submissions is 11 July 2002. "For additional details, please refer to the Intelligent Systems author guidelines at <http://computer.org/intelligent/author.htm>.
CATaC'02 - The Net(s) of Power: Language, Culture and Technology, International Conference on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication, 12 - 15 July 2002, Montréal, Canada. For more information, please see <http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/>.
JCDL 2002, ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 14 - 18 July 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.ohsu.edu/jcdl/>.
2002 ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management, in conjunction with the 9th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS-9), 18 November 2002, Washington, DC, USA. Call for Papers. The deadline for submissions is 15 July 2002. Electronic submissions emailed Joan Feigenbaum at <firstname.lastname@example.com> are preferred. Paper submissions may be sent to: Joan Feigenbaum, Program Chair, 2002 ACM DRM Workshop, Computer Science Dept., Yale University, 51 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511 USA. Phone: +1 203 432 6432, Fax: +1 203 432 0593. <http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/jf/>. Complete information should be available by the end of May 2002 at <http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/jf/drm02-submit.html>.
13th ASIS&T SIG/CR Workshop, Reconceptualizing Classification Research, ASIS&T 2002 Annual Meeting, 17 November 2002, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Call for Papers. The submission deadline for full papers is 15 July 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.ischool.washington.edu/mai/sigcr/cfp.htm>.
Usability for Digital Libraries, a workshop at JCDL 2002, 18 July 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/ridl/jcdl02.html>.
Second International Workshop on Visual Interfaces to Digital Libraries, a workshop at JCDL 2002, 18 July 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.ohsu.edu/jcdl/main.cgi?opt=sked-ws>.
Document Search Interface Design and Intelligent Access in Large-scale Collections, a workshop at JCDL 2002, 18 July 2002, Portland, Oregon. For more information, please see <http://www.ohsu.edu/jcdl/main.cgi?opt=sked-ws>.
Developing Digital Libraries Education and Training Programs, a workshop at JCDL 2002, 18 July 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA. For more information, please see <http://www.ohsu.edu/jcdl/main.cgi?opt=sked-ws>.
The Challenge of Image and Video Retrieval (CIVR 2002), 18 - 19 July 2002, London, United Kingdom. For more information, please see <http://www.civr2002.org/>.
Brick and Click Libraries: Changes and Challenges, A Regional Academic Library Symposium, 18 October 2002, Maryville, Missouri. Call for Proposals. The submission deadline is 19 July 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/pr/symposium/2002.htm>.
CoLIS4, The Fourth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science: Emerging Frameworks and Methods, 21 - 25 July 2002, Seattle, Washington, USA. For more information, please see <http://colis.ischool.washington.edu/>.
Theory Development in Information User Studies, workshop at CoLIS4, 25 July 2002, Seattle, Washington, USA. For more information, please see <http://colis.ischool.washington.edu/>.
Eighth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 23 - 26 July 2002, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. For more information, please see <http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigkdd/kdd2002/>.
New Directions in Humanities Computing, Joint International Conference of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing and the Association for Computers and the Humanities, 24 - 28 July 2002, Tübingen, Germany. For more information, please see <http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/allcach2002>.
International Summer School on the Digital Library 2002: Managing the Change Process towards Your Library of the Future, 28 July - 1 August 2002, Tilburg, The Netherlands. For more information, please see <http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/summer02/>.
Museums, Libraries, and Archives: Summer Institute for Knowledge Sharing, 29 July - 1 August 2002, Los Angeles, California, USA. For more information, please see <http://skipper.gseis.ucla.edu/orgs/gettysi/html/summer.html>.
ASIS&T 2002 International Paper Contest on International Digital Libraries and Information Science & Technology Advances in Developing Countries, for the 2002 Annual Meeting, 18 - 21 November 2002, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Call for Contest Papers. The submission deadline for full papers is 31 July 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.asis.org/paper_contest.html>.
Grants to State Library Agencies, Institute of Museum and Library Services. Call for Program Proposals. The deadline for submissions is 31 July 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.imls.gov/grants/library/lib_gsla.asp>.
New Five-Year State Plans for Library Grants, Institute of Museum and Library Services. Call for Program Proposals. The deadline is 31 July 2002. For more information, please see <http://www.imls.gov/grants/dedln/index.htm>.
AOM/IAOM 20th Annual International Conference - In a New Time, In a New Way: Management Solutions for the New Economy, Association of Management/International Association of Management 20th Annual International Conference, 31 July - 3 August 2002, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. For more information about Project 2005 and the 2002 conference, please see <http://www.aom-iaom.org/dir2-ann.html>.
Project 2005 - Reinventing Work: Interlocking Relationships between Management, Education, Cybertechnology and Leadership, 31 July - 3 August 2002, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. For more information about Project 2005 and the 2002 conference, please see <http://www.aom-iaom.org/Project-2005.html>.
(Unless otherwise noted, text enclosed in quotation marks above is quoted from the web sites for those items or events or from press releases received by D-Lib Magazine from the hosting or event-affiliated organizations.)
Top |
Search | Author Index | Title Index | Back Issues
In Brief
E-mail the Editor
DOI: 10.1045/june2002-clips


text:
Title: Crossing Stones
Author: Helen Frost
Pages: 178
Time Took to Read: 3 days
Cover Rating: 5/5
Character Rating: 4/5
Plot Rating: 4/5
Overall Rating: 4/5
I loved this book!!! It was a wonderfully, yet very uniquely written bo0k. The whole book was written in different kinds of poetry form. It was beautifully written, though I do not recommend it to people who don't like poems. What I liked about these is that they were beautiful and short, yet they were very easy to understand, and gave you so much more information than normal words of that length ever could. All in all I loved the characters and the plot and HIGHLY recommend this book!!!
Eighteen-year-old Muriel Jorgensen lives on one side of Crabapple Creek. Her family's closest friends, the Normans, live on the other. For as long as Muriel can remember, the families' lives have been intertwined, connected by the crossing stones that span the water. But now that Frank Norman—who Muriel is just beginning to think might be more than a friend—has enlisted to fight in World War I and her brother, Ollie, has lied about his age to join him, the future is uncertain. As Muriel tends to things at home with the help of Frank's sister, Emma, she becomes more and more fascinated by the women's suffrage movement, but she is surrounded by people who advise her to keep her opinions to herself. How can she find a way to care for those she loves while still remaining true to who she is?
Written in beautifully structured verse, Crossing Stones captures nine months in the lives of two resilient families struggling to stay together and cross carefully, stone by stone, into a changing world.


text:
As predicted by Battlestar Galactica, machines are beginning their takeover. An elderly woman in Cornwall, England was seated peacefully on her supposedly-helpful scooter when the iron-hearted machine forcefully drove her onto a highway without permission.
The scooter planned its move carefully. It knew the woman's husband, recovering from a triple-bypass surgery, would be unable to chase after it. It waited until its innocent owner had dozed off, leaving her incapacitated and vulnerable. And it even showed signs of weakness prior to the kidnapping attempt, appearing unreliable, so when it did make its move, it would be all the more shocking.
It did not, however, account for the superior force of the Cornwall police department, which found it "swerving" on the highway five miles from home. The Cornish police captured the scooter and returned it to its now-wary owner. According to the BBC, "It took [officer] Michael Ginnelly an hour to drive the scooter back to Perranporth."
Said owner Eileen Bishop, "I just lost him. I was half asleep to tell you the truth."
Chilling. [BBC, image also BBC]


text: Have you ever rented one of the facilities managed by the MD of Lesser Slave River? Take a few moments to let us know about your experience. This will help us better understand what works, what needs improvement, and what we can do to make our facilities even better for those who use them. Thank you for taking the time to complete our brief survey below.


text:
Fort Worth Central Office
Skip to content
Welcome to FTWCO!
Find AA Meetings
Online Meetings
Meeting App
About AA
Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous
Even More About AA
About AA
Central Office
Frequently Asked Financial Questions
Website Content Policy
The Central Office's Place Within A. A.'s 12 Traditions
Privacy Statement
Join the Supporting Member Program!
Central Office
Service Committees
Change Requests / Contact Us
Meeting Change Request
Group Change Request
Contact Us
Español Intergrupal
Meeting Statistics
Events Calendar
Make a Contribution
Search for:
Nothing Found
It seems we can't find what you're looking for. Perhaps searching can help.
Search for:


text:
Drunk driving can be murder
Repeat DWI offenders to face harsher charge.
By the time Frances Rosalez Ford drove the wrong way on U.S. 281 in October 2010 with a blood alcohol level of 0.19 — ignoring frantic warnings from other motorists — court records show she was already well aware of the consequences of getting behind the wheel drunk.
She had twice before been convicted of driving while intoxicated.
Prosecutors believe that knowledge made the resulting death of motorist Lawrence Vigier Belcher, 38, more than just intoxication manslaughter. They believe it was murder.
Ford, 39, who is set to be sentenced this week, agreed, making her the first person in Bexar County to go to prison for murder because of a repeat DWI offender status.
But her case shouldn't be seen as an aberration. It's the first of seven San Antonio-area intoxication manslaughter cases that have recently been upgraded to murder, part of a somewhat new tactic, locally and statewide, to keep habitual offenders off the streets longer.
"Anytime that we can pursue them as felony murders based on DWIs, that's the direction we're almost always going to move in," said Assistant District Attorney David Henderson, who recently took charge of the office's DWI unit. "When we've had to (prosecute) twice before, it's an appropriate response."
For families and prosecutors, the limitations of an intoxication manslaughter charge have often been frustrating for the most egregious cases.
While families of the victims often don't see the distinction between intoxication manslaughter and murder — their loved one is gone either way — the law does. The lesser offense is a second-degree felony carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while murder is punishable by up to life.
But about a decade ago, two DWI prosecutors in Harris and Tarrant counties independently found what appeared to be a loophole concerning Texas' "felony murder" law. Felony murder occurs when a death results — even if unintentional — while committing another felony, such as running from police.
For those who have been convicted at least twice before of misdemeanor DWI, subsequent arrests are considered a third-degree felony. So causing a death while committing felony DWI should qualify as "felony murder," the attorneys reasoned.
"We had used felony murder for years and years and years, but we always thought of it as a death that occurred during a robbery," said W. Clay Abbott, DWI resource prosecutor for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.
More Information
Repeat offender pleads guilty to murder for wreck
Juries less harsh than judges on DWI deaths
Bexar County to crack down on second-time DWI offenders
Tougher sentences possible in Bexar County
Frances Rosalez Ford is set to be the first drunken driver in Bexar County to be sentenced for felony murder instead of intoxication manslaughter because of prior DWIs. But she's unlikely to be the last. Prosecutors have so far upgraded charges for six other local cases and say more might be on the way. The pending cases are:
• Donald Huff, who on Aug. 6, 2009, allegedly killed his motorcycle passenger Arlene Harding-Watts, 46. He had two prior DWI convictions.
• Larry Wiedner, who on June 5, 2010, allegedly killed passenger Richard S. Alvarado, 39. He had four prior DWI convictions.
• Arturo Noriega, who on Sept. 4, 2011, allegedly killed fellow motorist Richard Casas, 47, after running a red light. He had four prior DWI convictions.
• Rogelio Rincon Jr., who on Jan. 5, 2012, allegedly killed his passenger Jennette Garcia, 37, and fellow motorist Johnny Mendez, 74. He had three prior DWI convictions.
• Christopher Hughes Lamar, who on March 22, 2012, allegedly killed Jessica Rodriguez, 28, and her 10-year-old daughter, Kaylee Flores. He had two prior DWI convictions.
• William Joe Rhomer, who on May 2, 2012, allegedly killed motorcyclist Gilbert Anthony Chavez, 40. He had four prior DWI arrests.
"It was creative use by those two very bright guys who knew the law ... and were thinking outside the box," Abbott added. "Once they created the template, everybody else fell in line."
Houston mechanic Mark Wayne Lomax was the first repeat DWI suspect in Texas to be convicted for felony murder, in 2003. He was more than four times the legal limit for intoxication and had two prior DWIs when he slammed into the back of a car in March 2002, killing 5-year-old Alexea Isabelle Castillo. Harris County jurors ordered him to serve 55 years in prison.
The Lomax case and several others were appealed as an improper use of the law. But they were upheld by appellate courts. Abbott added the strategy to his organization's prosecutor education curriculum in 2009.
Sentences have remained in the same range as Lomax's as the strategy has been duplicated dozens of times in recent years in every region of the state.
"All of the jury verdicts have been enormous," Abbott said.
That's something that attorney Raymond Fuchs, Ford's lawyer, also noticed. He's decided to try his luck before state District Judge Philip Kazen instead of a jury. As far as Abbott and local attorneys can tell, it will be the first time in Texas that a judge has been asked to decide a felony murder sentence for a habitual DWI offender instead of a jury.
Although recent statistics have shown that Bexar County judges have been overall harsher than juries on intoxication manslaughter cases, Fuchs said he hopes Kazen will have a more nuanced perspective than jurors regarding the wide range of murder offenses and their sentences.
In negotiations before Ford decided to plead guilty without any agreement in place, prosecutors had offered her a 50-year sentence. While Fuchs acknowledges his client will receive prison time, he doesn't yet know what amount he will ask for — only that the request will be "for mercy."
Even before the fatal wreck, Ford had been in Kazen's courtroom before. Her first DWI arrest, in February 2008, was initially charged as a state jail felony because she had a child in her car. The charge was reduced to a Class B misdemeanor as part of a plea agreement, and in March 2009 she was sentenced to probation.
Her second DWI occurred in the Cameron County town of San Benito in June 2008. Because she hadn't yet been convicted for the first incident, she avoided a DWI-second conviction. She took a plea in August 2010, two months before the collision with Belcher.
Ford had some egregious facts to her case, including her history, her attorney acknowledged. But she's also a completely different person now that she's been sober in jail for nearly 2½ years, he said.
"Without alcohol, she is a very good person," Fuchs said. "For some people, alcohol isn't a problem, but for others it's an absolute demon."
In numerous letters to the judge, Ford has detailed her inner turmoil, as well as her confusion over the felony murder law.
"I'm still baffled on the way my charge was upped to murder," she wrote in June 2011. "I in no way, shape, form or fashion had any intent on murdering Mr. Belcher."
The Army vet and mother of three said she had been at a low point in her life, having recently gone through "a terrible and emotional divorce" and the foreclosure of her home, when she started picking up DWIs in 2008.
"I have pretty much been an upstanding citizen the majority of my life," Ford wrote, adding in one letter that she at first wished she had died instead. "They say one drink can't hurt, well that one drink cost me everything. It consumed me and I don't even know how."
This time, she vowed in the letters, she will "never pick up another drop of alcohol" again.
Twitter: @HearsaySA


text:
Furnaces are some of the most popular and efficient heating options on the market today, and whether you want to install a furnace in your new home or it's time to replace an old model, you should only trust your furnace installation with experts. For two generations, the professional technicians at James A. Wheat & Sons have been installing and maintaining the furnaces of the DC metro area residents.
If you need furnace installation in Clarksburg, MD, contact James A. Wheat & Sons today by filling out the form to the right or calling 240-399-5051240-399-5051.
There's nothing more important to the lifespan of your furnace than the quality of its installation—that's why you should always trust it with the best. At James A. Wheat & Sons, we've been installing furnaces in Clarksburg, MD since 1978, so we have the experience and skills necessary to expertly install your new furnace. Our highly trained HVAC technicians have a thorough understanding of furnaces and can help you size and fit the right heating system to your home.
Furnaces may not be the only type of heating system available, but they are certainly among the most popular! Many people who choose a furnace installation for their Clarksburg home enjoy a number of benefits, including:
Improved energy efficiency – Furnaces are one of the most efficient type of heating systems available because the minimum efficiency rating for all new gas furnaces manufactured on or after May 1, 2013 is 90 percent—meaning that 90 percent of the fuel they burn goes straight to heating your home. This can mean a significant improvement in energy efficiency if you select a high efficiency system for your furnace installation.
Save money on monthly utility bills –Since a new furnace installation will improve your home's energy efficiency, it can lead to a reduction in your monthly utility bills. In fact, your savings could start paying off your investment over time!
Environmentally friendly – When you choose a high efficiency furnace, you're not just saving money, you're saving the environment, too. Because your new furnace will be so efficient, it will require less energy to run.
The experts at James A. Wheat & Sons can help you select the right furnace for your needs and budget so that you can enjoy a comfortable, warm home for years to come. Although we can install any make and model furnace, we recommend Carrier furnaces because we believe in the dependability and integrity of their products.
If you live in Clarksburg, MD, call James A. Wheat & Sons today to schedule your furnace installation! We can help you choose a furnace that's right for you and install it in a timely manner.
Contact us online or by phone at 240-399-5051240-399-5051 to schedule your furnace installation in Clarksburg.


text:
Editor's note: CNN has crews in Israel, Gaza and around the region reporting on the latest attacks, talks and fallout from the upsurge in the Gaza-Israel conflict, which has lasted nearly a week. Here are some of their stories:
[Updated 8:40 a.m. ET Tuesday]
resident: leaflets dropped by #israel warn residents in some areas of #gaza close 2 border to leave immediately and go to #gaza city—
Arwa Damon (@arwaCNN) November 20, 2012
Moments after we saw rocket fired from #gaza our Jerusalem bureau reported hearing sirens followed by a thud—
Arwa Damon (@arwaCNN) November 20, 2012
[Updated 8:38 a.m. ET Tuesday]
Three more rockets just launched from #Gaza City towards #Israel—
Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) November 20, 2012
IDF leaflet dropped from sky warning Gazans to stay away from Hamas. #Gaza #Israel instagr.am/p/SQJ8cuEkFT/—
Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) November 20, 2012
Just saw leaflets being dropped by IDF warning people in an area of #Gaza where rocket was recently launched to stay away from Hamas.—
Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) November 20, 2012
[Updated 8:34 a.m. Tuesday ET]
I'm in Beersheba where 11 Hamas rockets have just come in. There are casualties.—
Wolf Blitzer (@wolfblitzer) November 20, 2012
[Updated 10:09 p.m. ET]
Explosion sounds in #Gaza City as calls to prayers echo through the night—
Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) November 20, 2012
[Updated 7:01 p.m. ET]
4 rockets just fired from near media center in #Gaza City. The same media center bldg hit by three IDF missiles earlier today—
Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) November 19, 2012
[Updated 5:20 p.m. ET]
Tune in to CNN tonight at 8 and 10 p.m. ET for a special edition of AC360°. Anderson Cooper hosts live from Gaza.
[Updated at 9:32 a.m. ET]
"This is a very densely packed city - 1.7 million people. No matter where you are, you are very close to rockets being fired - you see them being fired, sometimes you just hear them, oftentimes you see them flying up, you see the smoke trail and so for residents here it is a very dangerous time. "
[Updated 3:42 p.m. ET]
CNN's Linda Roth, a producer out in the field with Wolf Blitzer in Ashkelon, Israel, shot a video today as she and the crew ran for shelter while sirens blared.
"The sirens went off minutes after we arrived. The camera was hanging around my neck,' she said.
[Updated at 7:49 a.m. ET]
I'm in Ashkelon where sirens went off & we heard some loud booms. Ran w/ others into a shelter. Iron Dome apparently worked.—
Wolf Blitzer (@wolfblitzer) November 19, 2012
[Updated at 11:30 a.m. ET]
Just interviewed Former British PM Tony Blair in Jerusalem. @CNNSitRoom 4-7PM ET yfrog.com/h6ai9wkj—
Wolf Blitzer (@wolfblitzer) November 19, 2012
[Updated at 10:45 a.m. ET]
"This town … on the border (of Gaza and Israel) is directly in the line of fire - especially from these very short-range rockets.
"This is something that is very common for the people here."
[Updated 6:17 p.m. ET]
After relatively quit evening four large explosions in central #Gaza city in Abu Khadra area.—
benwedeman (@bencnn) November 19, 2012
[Updated at 9:47 a.m. ET]
Shurouq Building moments after Israeli strike. Sources say target may be Islamic jihad functionary. 2 dead. #Gaza http://t.co/AnVzXjpX—
benwedeman (@bencnn) November 19, 2012
[Updated 6:39 p.m. ET]
Another massive explosion in #gaza—
Arwa Damon (@arwaCNN) November 19, 2012
[Updated at 8:40 a.m. ET]
3 rockets or missiles hit building used by media, same building hit yesterday #gaza yfrog.com/kglrsuij—
Arwa Damon (@arwaCNN) November 19, 2012
[Updated at 8:11 a.m. ET]
Outgoing rockets from #Gaza City moments ago http://t.co/kHR7BR2Y—
Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) November 19, 2012
[Updated at 5:42 a.m. ET]
In Beersheva. Two rocket alarms this past hours.—
Frederik Pleitgen (@fpleitgenCNN) November 19, 2012
[Updated at 5:25 a.m.ET]
we saw 3 rockets streak across sky fired from #gaza 2 #israel...@bencnn who is @ funeral 4 family killed sunday said ppl chanted "revenge"—
Arwa Damon (@arwaCNN) November 19, 2012
Israel is assisinated the palestine leader but the hypro democratic country is quit why palestine terrotery should be no fly zone israel must be punished for crime offense against humanity. Blockage of palestine from food and other necessary things is a largest offence of huminity. Nobel peace award should be given to those only who done or doing for peace not to super power contry men.
Whatever is happening now is very funny for the sense that this a way of the Americans and other world powers to shift away from what is happening in Syria.A lot of people continue to die in Syria and because of Israel the world is now forgetting about the Assad atrocities


text:
Should Ruby Be Added to Your Programming Repertoire?
As a longtime aficionado of scripting languages such as PHP, Perl, and Python, I'm kicking myself for only recently learning more about Ruby, an open source, purely object-oriented scripting language. Created by Yukihiro Matsumoto over a decade ago, the language has long been popular in Japan. But, lack of English documentation slowed U.S. adoption until just a few years ago when a few programmers discovered this rare jewel and began touting the language's capabilities. Yet, it was only very recently that Ruby really started capturing the attention of the larger programming community, most notably due to the considerable excitement raised by the fascinating Ruby on Rails (affectionately known as simply Rails) Web framework.
Indeed, Rails is quite impressive, inasmuch that it will be the focus of a future article in this short series on Ruby; however, it's important to understand the language's capabilities far supercede its present supposition as a giant killer in the Web technology arena. In this inaugural article, I'll introduce you to Ruby's finer features, hopefully painting a picture that will sway you towards wanting to learn more about one of the more promising scripting languages to come about in a long time.
Why Another Language?
Good question. Many programmers seem to loathe the idea of learning another language, instead choosing to use their anointed language as a hammer, smashing any screw/nail/thumbtack/poptart to be thrown their way. Or worse, paraphrasing a great quote I heard at the recent PyCon conference, when all a programmer has is a hammer, all screws appear to be stupid. That said, learning another language will not only enhance your knowledge of other languages in your repertoire, but it could very well open up new routes for landing contracts and jobs otherwise falling outside of your typical sandbox. Regardless of this, I think pondering the question of why other languages should be borne is akin to debating the merits of travelling to another planet. Or creating an alternative Web framework. Or sampling another flavor of ice cream. In short, perhaps the better question to ponder is why not? Of course, one would hope that each new language adopts the positive features of its predecessors while shunning the negative. It's with this mindset that Ruby was created.
On creating Ruby, Matsumoto recounts his intent to follow the rule of least surprise, logically meaning he wanted to ensure the language behaved in a manner causing the least amount of confusion, or surprise. The result was a language that is 100% object-oriented, dynamically typed, devoid of superfluous syntactical requirements such as indentation and semi-colons, and replete with libraries for facilitating practically any conceivable task. Ruby offers numerous signficant features; among those are the following:
- All of the capabilities expected of full-featured languages, including text file processing, string manipulation, networking, exception handling, and language extendability.
- Support for a wide variety of platforms, including many UNIX flavors, Windows 95/98/NT/Me/2000/XP, and Mac OS X.
- Web application development opportunities through mod_ruby, an Apache module for embedding the Ruby interpreter into the Apache Web server.
- A database-independent interface similar to Perl's DBI module. Presently, there are drivers (DBDs) available for DB2, InterBase, mSQL, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and others.
- The ability to create cross-platform GUI-based applications via projects like wxRuby.
- Easy package and application management using RubyGems. RubyGems operates similarly to the inestimably useful Perl CPAN, enabling complete control over packages through a convenient console interface.
- Built-in support for Web Services through packages such as RSS and soap.
- A hyper-active user community. Just check out the Ruby Application Archive and RubyForge for a sampling of the hundreds of projects presently under development.
Given such features, it's easy to understand why Ruby has is capturing the attention of so many programmers. Read on to learn how you can install and begin using the language.
Installing Ruby
In this section, I'll offer a brief overview of the installation process for both the UNIX and Windows platforms.
Installing Ruby on Unix
You can download the latest Ruby source from here: http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020102.html.
Once downloaded, Ruby installs just like any other typical distribution:
%>./configure [options] %>make %>make test %>make install
As always, you'll need to possess superuser privileges to install Ruby in its standard location (/usr/local). If you'd like to change the installation directory or any other default option, execute the following to learn more about the configuration options:
%>./configure --help
Note: If you're running Mac OS X, you may be surprised to know that Ruby is installed by default on versions 10.2 and greater.
That's it! Once installation completes, move on to the "Using the Interactive Shell" section.
Installing Ruby on Windows
If you're running Windows, the easiest way to install Ruby is to go to the following Web site and download the installer: http://RubyInstaller.RubyForge.org/.
Once downloaded, just double-click on the installer to begin the installation process. Review the ReadMe and licensing agreement, and pending acceptance of the latter, choose which components you'd like to install. Next, choose the installation folder and click Install. Once the installer completes, move on to the next section.
Using the Interactive Shell
Ruby comes with the Interactive Ruby (irb) shell that allows you to execute Ruby commands on-the-fly. Open up a terminal and execute irb. You'll receive the following prompt:
From here, you can start experimenting with the language. To give you a feel for the language syntax, consider a real-world scenario. Suppose you want to determine the length of an e-mail address. Begin by assigning the address to a variable:
irb(main):001:0> email = "email@example.com" => "email@example.com"
Next, determine the length of the email variable. Because Ruby treats everything as an object, you can call upon the length method, which will return the total number of characters:
irb(main):003:0> length = email.length => 17
In line with Ruby's intent to make programming as easy as possible, we can consolidate these two statements, producing the length like so:
irb(main):004:0> "email@example.com".length => 17
If you wanted to output length in conjunction with perhaps a user-friendly string indicating the number's context, you'll need to enclose the variable or method in special syntax, like so:
irb(main):005:0> puts "Email address length: #{email.length}" => Email address length: 17
The #{} syntax is used to tell the interpreter that the delimited string should be evaluated rather than output verbatim.
What about retrieving the e-mail's domain name? The split method should take care of this quite nicely. In fact, you can use it to retrieve both the domain and username:
irb(main):006:0> components = email.split(/@/) => ["jason", "example.com"] irb(main):007:0> puts "The username is #{components[0]}" The username is jason => nil irb(main):008:0> puts "The domain is #{components[1]}" The domain is example.com => nil
As you can see, split returns an array consisting of substrings divided according to the delimiter, in this case @.
Of course, while the irb is great for experimentation, most of your time will be spent writing scripts and then executing them with the Ruby interpreter. This is the topic of the next section.
Page 1 of 2
This article was originally published on April 8, 2005


text:
Welcome, Language Schools Alumni!
The Language Schools, of which you are an integral part, have a long history interwoven with the events of almost a century—from the founding of the German School in 1915 through the launching of our School of Hebrew in 2008. Between those signal events came several generations of students and faculty who have used their skills to affect the world in myriad ways. Today, those skills are more essential than ever.
Middlebury is proud to have Language Schools alumni contributing as global citizens, in every possible field and region. We know that we can count on your continued input and support.
We look forward to hearing from you and hope that you will find many of your most frequently asked questions answered here or by our staff. We are always pleased to hear from you.
Steve Snyder
Dean of Language Schools
Questions and Information
Elizabeth Karnes Keefe
Associate Dean of Language Schools
Sunderland Language Center
Middlebury College
Middlebury Vermont 05753
News and Events
Keep up with the latest from the Language Schools!
We invite alumni and friends of the Language Schools to join us for events throughout the summer.
All events will be livestreamed on the Middlebury Language Schools YouTube Channel.
Official Transcripts
To obtain an official Language Schools Transcript, you'll need to submit a request in writing to the registrar's office. Please visit the registrar's site for more information.


text:
David Grisman's bands in their various quartet and quintet configurations, have showcased acoustic music ever since he started the first DGQ in the fall of 1975. That band featured David on mandolin, Todd Phillips on mandolin, Joe Carroll on bass, Tony Rice on guitar, and Darol Anger on fiddle. Ever
since then, the DGQ has been the leading force
in establishing his new genre of instrumental acoustic string music.
Through the years, the DGQ has been a breeding ground for new acoustic talent. Band alumni including guitarist Tony Rice, Nashville super session picker and Grammy Award winner, Mark O'Conner, Mike Marshall of the "Modern Mandolin Quartet" and Darol Anger of the "Turtle Island String Quartet." Grisman's bands have also had a strong impact on the new generation of musicians, like banjo phenomenon Bela Fleck who saw a traditional bluegrass instrument like the Mandolin being taken beyond the bounds of one idiom.
The current David Grisman Quintet includes David on mandolin, Jim Kerwin on bass, George Marsh on percussion, Frank Vignola on guitar, and Matt Eakle on flute.


text:
A paraboloid takes parallel rays and reflects them so that they concentrate and pass though a single point. It can also do the opposite, taking a set of rays from a single point and reflecting them so they are parallel. This would suggest that two parabolas with a common foci could serve to concentrate a parallel beam. A large parabola could gather a relatively large amount of rays and deliver them to a smaller parabola to be straightened. The attached picture is a visual representation of such a scheme. Sunlight is relatively parallel, so in theory such an apparatus could be used to produce a very strong coherent beam of reflected sunlight.
For more details:
edited by moderator, references out of topic / commercial


text: Twitter tends to yield cool stuff like this every now and again. if you're into post secret, or group hug, or anything else to do with human truths, you should like twistori. it's based on some of the work done by we feel fine, and depending on which emotion you click on it gives you a perpetually scrolling story made up of what people are tweeting about.


text:
Here is why I love the business I am in – because it piggybacks on the biggest thing in Travel since the Wheel (ok – mild exaggeration, but still…)
The Internet has become the most popular medium for Chinese travellers seeking information about their trips, according the latest Nielsen China Outbound Travel Monitor. The Nielsen survey found that travellers will search for conventional destination information ahead of their trips (61 percent of leisure trips taken), and then turn to online travel discussion forums (48 percent) to fine-tune their plans. This suggests that opinions and comments about travel experiences posted to online forums are nearly as likely to influence travellers' decisions as the destination websites themselves. Conventional travel agents were approached on only two in five travel occasions.
The Nielsen survey also found that travellers were much more likely to recall seeing Internet advertising for travel destinations, compared to seeing travel advertising on other mediums. Close to 70 percent could recall seeing travel advertisements on the Internet, with only four in 10 recalling seeing a travel advertisement in a magazine or newspaper, at a travel agent or on TV and radio.


text:
Tinryland Flower Delivery
Flowers by Lucy personally deliver flowers in Tinryland. Would you like a arrangement or maybe a handtied. Our Tinryland flower delivery service can deliver for you. Order your flowers online or call us directly on 056 77 62585.
Same Day Tinryland Delivery
We offer same day flower delivery in Tinryland, Monday to Saturday, excluding Bank Holidays. We can also offer same day delivery to other areas including: Bagenalstown, Ballycallan, Ballygunner, Ballyragget, Bilboa, Butlerstown, Carlow, Castlewarren, Cuffesgrange, Dungarvan, Dunnamaggan, Ferrybank, Goresbridge, Graiguenamanagh, Grantstown, Johnswell, Kilkenny, Kilmanagh, Knocktopher, Milford, Mullinavat, Nurney, Palatine, Paulstown, Quinagh, Slieverue, Thomastown, Tramore, Waterford,


text:
Looking for evidence of rebalancing in Europe? Don't look here: German 2012 trade surplus soars despite weak December reports
Germany's trade surplus was the second highest in more than 60 years in 2012, pointing to an underlying resilience in Europe's largest economy, although both imports and exports disappointed in the last month of the year.
Exports rose just 0.3 percent in December from November, compared with a forecast rise of 1.3 percent, and imports fell 1.3 percent against expectations for a rise of 1.4 percent .
Analysts blamed poor demand from the euro zone and beyond for the weakness of exports, and Germans' reluctance to spend for the fall in imports, but pointed to signs of recovery ahead, including a 0.8 percent rise in December industrial orders.
"Imports fell noticeably in December but were stronger then exports over the entire quarter, which really weighed on economic growth," said economist Andreas Scheuerle at Deka Bank.
"Looking forward the sky is brightening. Global early indicators have improved noticeably and give hope that export business will improve again."
European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi weakened the euro on Thursday with a subtle hint of concern about the impact of the currency's recent strength on a euro zone economy reeling from the impact of searing budget cuts across its southern half.
That undermines Spain, Portugal and others' efforts to be more competitive in markets beyond the currency bloc – but there were signs in Friday's data that they are at least selling more and buying less from Germany.
In 2012 German exports to the euro zone declined 2.1 percent while imports from the single currency bloc rose 0.7 percent. That may largely be a sign of the weak demand in Spain, Italy and elsewhere, but if continued it would go some way to addressing the bloc's long-term problem with Germans selling more goods abroad than they spend at home.
"Germany made a contribution to the rebalancing of the Eurozone in 2012, but offset the inevitable loss with success elsewhere," said Christian Schulz at Berenberg bank.
Sky Brightening?
The US, Germany, China, Japan, UK, Spain, Italy, and in fact every country wants to be a net exporter to create jobs. Mathematically it's impossible.
There is no significant reblancing, only Illusions of Stabilization.
Moreover, in the non-news of the day on Thursday ECB president Mario Draghi went out of his way to sink the euro with his statement "Risks to Downside".
In that article I took a look at the Nascent Recovery in Spain, pointing out Two Things Spain Needs (and Won't Get).
Rebalancing the Wrong Way
It's clear that Draghi wants to sink the euro to help exports. But what needs to happen is for Spanish, French, and Italian exports to soar. Instead exports from Germany have soared (primarily based on renewed unsustainable growth in China).
A sinking euro may help net European exports a bit, but it will not help Spain and Italy in relation to Germany.
As long as all countries remain committed to the eurozone, European rebalancing improvement must come from rising unemployment and/or still lower wages in the rest of Europe relative to Germany.
With Spanish unemployment over 26% and youth unemployment over 50%, how much more "rebalancing" of this nature can Spain take?
Mike "Mish" Shedlock