text:
I went out to milk this evening, though it felt a lot like a chore. It was dark, damp and cold. Even my light hardly penetrated the night. I get to the barn and start the chores. Even the goats did not want to come out in the wet. All of a sudden, over a door, I saw a flutter of something! It happened again; 5 little fingers looped over the stall door, fingers that quickly disappeared when I called out I saw them. A giggle and stealthy movement reached my ears, and into the barn lunged a shadow, hiding quickly between bales of hay. I continued my chores and the "shadow" ran out, touched a goat, and took off into the dark with a laugh. The boys were obviously inventing a game of "touch the goat without Mom seeing you" 🙂 It made me smile.
As I went up to the house after chores I called to the boys to come inside for bed, and a light flashed in the swamp, went out, and some rustles. Another flash of light. Silence. I call again and say I am locking the door and my swamp rats had better be inside and I saw the lights come on and the boys made their way out of the swamp. They had enjoyed their adventure a great deal, and I enjoyed seeing it. It all made me think of a blog post I saw on Facebook today about how we raise our children in the United States that is actually not so good. It talked about how in other countries young children play more in school, use sharp tools at very young ages, are responsible for walking distances to school or running to market for food. And that, in these countries, children have fewer accidents in all and are more able to cope and succeed. So, while my heart flutters a bit at the thought of my kids in the swamp at night, and while I know some will tell me I should be holding a tighter reign, I also feel proud of how my boys not only enjoyed a game they made up but that they made it out of that swamp in the dark without any muck on them. Pretty cool, eh? And if you want to read the blog, here it is 🙂


text:
Financial Systems, Analyst
Job ref:
Atlanta , United States
Steve Whiting
about 1 year ago
Our client is a global manufacturing company and they wish to hire a Financial Systems Analyst that will review and streamline processes, enhancing internal financial controls, leveraging technology and resources to increase quality of financial transactions and reporting.
Essential daily duties will include:-
- Create division level journals, run allocations, balance and reconcile, consolidate and push to other systems
- Revalue inventory from standard to FIFO cost
- Resolve division level AP matching discrepancies
- Run exception reports - Research and resolve issues prior to closing to ensure transactions are recorded properly
- Run monthly standard costing updates
- Assist interface partners with data discrepancies/questions
- Set up facilities, warehouses, and items as needed and coordinate with business and interface partners
- Support business processes to ensure valid financial transactions, and respond to Audit requests
- Perform an annual system closing and GL posting
- Data Mart – Maintain structure, mappings and provide support
- Spreadsheet Server – Provide user support and troubleshoot issues
- Approve security access to systems and public drives, then audit that access
- Assist in the completion of yearly sales and tax reporting
- Blackline Admin – Maintain user access, training and provide support
Job Requirements:-
- Bachelor's Degree in Accounting, Finance or Business
- 4+ years of experience in an Accounting or Analysis role
- Strong understanding or experience with GAAP and overall accounting functions
- SAP, Infinium, Infor or large ERP experience
- Basic understanding of inter-company transactions, and month end closing
- Conceptual understanding of the design and purpose of internal controls
- Aptitude and desire for learning new systems and improving processes through automation
- Experience with Excel – spreadsheet creation/editing, pivot tables, data manipulation/analysis and formula creation etc.
- Experience working with data analytics or visual data tools

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Monday, March 1, 2010
Motivational Monday—Embracing Failure
And along the same lines is this post from Rebecca Knight. Very inspiring!
A writer's life is filled with what can be construed as failures. Sometimes it feels like no matter what we do, nothing will ever be good enough—for our crit buddies, for an agent, for an editor, for ourselves.
As many of you know, I've been seriously devoted to this writing thing for the last year and a half. And when I started, I thought I was pretty good. Boy, was I delusional. I'm so glad I didn't get published then.
Sure, the seemingly instant success of authors like Stephenie Meyer is appealing, but I don't think I would be happy if I'd gotten published that way. Okay, the money would've been nice, but it would make me insane to know my work that was out there for the whole world to see was not the best I could've produced.
I cringe now just thinking about my first draft. Even after revising it a gazillion times, I can't believe I actually thought it was good enough to query. Having said that, I don't think I ever would've gotten to this point without those rejections. Every rejection—even the form rejections—led me to look at my manuscript with a more critical eye, eventually leading to my acceptance that it needed to be rewritten.
So even though they seemed devastating at the time, those failures have helped me become a better writer. A year from now, I'll most likely look back at what I think is so much better now, and it won't be good enough, but I'm sure there will be more failures along the way to get me there.
What about you? Do you embrace your failures?
24 comments:
I totally embrace them. Funny, I posted about my downer of a weekend today about how I thought I was not good enough. I don't like when I first embark on a failure but in the end it what I need to make me stronger to prove to myself that I can get better and I am good enough.ReplyDelete
Rejections take me a few days to get over, depending on how bad they are and how much I had my hopes up. But after I have time to let it sink in, they do make me better. You're right!ReplyDelete
I'm thankful for the time and opportunity to grow and learn. I thought, at one time, that my all-important goal was to snare the notice of an agent and get published. What I really want is for people to read my work and understand, and hopefully appreciate, what I'm trying to express. I don't really need an agent to accomplish that. I can always self-publish if I'm never officially discovered. That realization has taken a huge amount of pressure off my shoulders. I'll keep writing and improving for art and story's sake, and if others enjoy what I've done along the way, so much the better.ReplyDelete
I think failures are a great way to gain perspective. As you said, even the form rejections have forced me to be more critical of my wip.ReplyDelete
Thanks for a really great Monday post :)
If we don't learn from our mistakes, we're doomed to repeat them. That's one useful thing studying history has taught me! It definitely applies to the querying process.ReplyDelete
I've learned to stop thinking of rejections as failures and started to think of them as learning experiences. Great post!
We have to embrace them to some degree if we want to grow and learn. We need to listen to what is being said and remember that it is a journey -- a path -- and that it will take time.ReplyDelete
You know, I just pulled out my ms that sold over Thanksgiving to start edits and man-oh-man does it need a lot of work. I haven't looked at it in months and these fresh eyes are showing me all the errors
that and the massive red slashes from my editor. those help me see the mistakes, too ;)
Failure sucks, but if I didn't embrace mine, I'd still be writing lifeless characters with no voice, who told everything instead of showing it.ReplyDelete
Failure makes us better. That doesn't make it hurt any less.
Failures are steps in the right direction. I feel prepared to embrace mine, knowing that I'll be smarter and stronger next time!ReplyDelete
Oh yes. I would be hiding under the bed covering my head in shame if my first book had been published. My writing is so much stronger now. Thank goodness for rejection!ReplyDelete
You are so right about writing being a series of failures. I loved that!ReplyDelete
Just this past week I brought chapter to my crit group. It really wasn't stellar. As they critiqued it, I could feel myself teetering on that ledge we, as writers, walk all the time: Do I get upset? Or do I embrace the failure and accept I could have done better.
I embraced it.
And this weekend I wrote some of the best stuff I have EVER written all because I accepted there was room for improvement and then I REALLY TRULY applied myself.
If I hadn't "embraced the suck" I wouldn't have known just how much harder I could push myself.
Great post Abby! ♥
I once was terrified of failing. Now not so much. Don't get me wrong, self doubt is something I deal with just like everyone else (I recently did a post on it Our Extra Character: Self Doubt )ReplyDelete
but I realized that failure is much like true self-doubt. If we use it as something to build on, or apply to our work it can be used to our advantage. Life is supposed to be difficult, it should have trying times - if it weren't, our characters would be supremely boring. The key is to use failure as a positive. When it comes, assess what we know about it, maybe embellish it and throw it into each new draft, attempt, query, and synopsis. We may not understand (even when told) exactly why failure chose us on this day, and that confusion can lead to learning something about ourself or our work.
Roxy is right when she says above that getting the agent & published is AWESOME, but I like how she says that really our goal is for people to read our work, understand it and appreciate it. I have always said that if one person reads just one of my stories or scenes and are affected by it, then I have done my job as a writer.
So failure will just have to be a stepping stone. I cannot let it be an obstacle.
Visit My Kingdom Anytime
I totally embrace my failures. What choice do we have. We can either wallow in them, or embrace them, get up and try again. I'd much rather be moving forward, trying, than sitting there like a rock watching others have all the fun.ReplyDelete
Definitely! They're not very much fun while you're experiencing them, but looking back you can see how much you've grown. Great post!ReplyDelete
Thanks for this wonderful post....ReplyDelete
Do I embrace my failures? I think of each and everyone one of my failures as a stepping stone to success. Not just the writing ones.
I think my writing failures are easier than my other failures. My other failures had brought me to dangerous situations that could have seen me dead to what's dear to my heart.
As for my writing failures... They are a wonderful thing. A writer's best friend. How else are we to know what areas we can improve upon, hence become our best? :)
- AnonymousMarch 1, 2010 at 12:58 PM
I eventually embrace them as learning opportunities... but I have to be depressed about it for a little while first. ;o)ReplyDelete
The rejection always stings. "Why don't they think I am a freaking mastermind?" might flash through my brain before I calm myself down. (HA! Just kidding!!)ReplyDelete
Embracing failure is a must in this business. If you can't do it, then writing's not for you! :)
I hate getting them, but it doesn't hurt like it did. Now I know that it either needs work or just wasn't for them, and keep on keepin' on. But boy, that first one hurt. I had put it out there, and now everyone knew I was a poseur, just like I thought. Then I read how many rejections Stephen King or JK Rowling received and I thought "actually, these rejections mean I'm a writer, because I submitted." Perspective!ReplyDelete
If we're not failing, it means we're not trying! :) I try to remember to welcome failure because a) it's an amazing learning opportunity (like you pointed out), and b) it lets me know I'm putting myself out there and making it happen.ReplyDelete
We can't succeed without failing, growing, and becoming better than we were :).
Thanks for this, Abby!
It's definitely hard to learn from successes, so yes, I accept my failures. Since I want to be be the best I can be, I have to embrace them. (Though first I eat every M&M in the house.) Then I lay out the reasons for the failure, analyze them, and try to learn everything I can from them. At least in theory. :)ReplyDelete
I needed this today - thank you!ReplyDelete
I totally agree with you. The same exact thing happened to me. I was definitely delusional to think what I wrote a year ago was ready to query. The failures I've had since then have been the motivation for me to work that much harder.ReplyDelete
I embrace my failures after allowing myself some good wallowing time. But it's true, I've learned a great deal from failures--especially from those lovely agents who make suggestions.ReplyDelete
I'm with you 100%! I recently looked at some of my early stuff and felt that same gratitude for growth, knowledge, and perception. Cheers to you! Great attitude!ReplyDelete
I have to agree with you and everyone else. It is how we learn. Sooo, I should be really smart by now. Alas, as I am still unpublished, I'm apparently not smart enough.ReplyDelete
Come on failure, hit me. Make me better.


text:
One of Bed-Stuy's crown jewels, Restoration Plaza on Fulton Street, is getting ready to show itself off again after a five-year, $10 million renovation.
"We hope to have the plaza open for outdoor seating around June 1," said Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation Chief Operating Officer Dyrnest Sinckler. "At that time, the steps and windows in the building will be complete and Applebee's will put on a whole new face-lift on their store complete with new signage, awnings and outdoor seating."
The redesign, launched in 2006 with $8 million in funding through Council member Albert Vann and the New York City Council, and an additional $2.5 million in funding through Borough President Marty Markowitz and Mayor Bloomberg for the renovation of Billie Holiday Theatre, will boast a more airy, open and pedestrian-friendly design.
The redesign included the demolition of the façade to make room for expanded pedestrian access and street-level views to the inner courtyard, upgraded lighting and signage.
Upon final completion, it will include a video projection screen, an outdoor dining area, and an interactive and educational "Walk of Fame" honoring Restoration's founders and other community activists.
Future plans include the incorporation of animated water features, an outdoor lawn, and an indoor/outdoor pavilion that will accommodate events for upwards of 600 people.
Besides Applebee's and the Billie Holiday Theatre, current tenants include Foodtown, Duane Reade and Chase Bank. The complex also includes a small radio station and ample room for meetings, forums and educational space. Sinckler said they already have nine figures for the initial "Walk of Fame."
"It will honor individuals providing for the face of change in the building of Restoration Plaza and setting a model for the community and nation insofar as community organizations and development, and creating a healthy environment in restoring communities," he said.
Sinckler would not reveal any of the initial names and wanted to keep it as a surprise.
"We will hold off on that for the official announcement around September," he said.


text:
The Real Greek - Soho in London
The Real Greek - Soho
50 Berwick Street,
Cuisine: GreekBook now »
Description of The Real Greek - Soho
On Berwick Street, at the heart of Soho's famous cultural atmosphere, The Real Greek Soho creates authentic Greek flavours from fresh produce. Offering meze, souvlaki and sharing plates, the restaurant is a friendly respite from the bustle of nearby Oxford Street.
How to reserve a table at The Real Greek - Soho
We advise you avoid disappointment by booking your table in advance. We offer a completely free table reservation service for you. Click below to find availability and book your table...Book Now »
Photos available
The Real Greek - Soho Location
Local points of interest:
The following music venues, bars, clubs and hotels are near to The Real Greek - Soho:
- THE WARDOUR (Nightclub) 32 yards away
- Peter Stringfellow's Angels (Nightclub) 34 yards away
- Avalon (Nightclub) 44 yards away
- T Y Soho 50 yards away
- Simmons Oxford Street (Bar/Pub) 51 yards away
Find out more about the local clubs, bars, restaurants and points of interest: The Real Greek - Soho map


text:
Goodland Apple
Malus "Goodland"
As with all of our trees and shrubs, the apple trees we sell are grown right here in Manitoba and can withstand our harsh climate.
The Goodland Apple is exceptionally cold hardy and produces large, crisp, green apples with a red blush. Pollinator required. Harvest in mid-september.
- Full Sun ☀
- Mature Height: ~ 5 Metres
- Height as sold: ~ 2 Metres
- Width: ~ 5 Metres
Photos and data courtesy of Aubin Nurseries - https://www.aubinnurseries.com


text:
View source for Egyptian Shaykh: "Muslims Have Fewer Rights than Christians"
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text:
{early edition spring bloom lily; she's a-coming}
Winter sure came (this side North), and even in our tropical Caribbean where many nights lighter blankets were layered on our beds, and usually fully open windows were half-way there or less to break most of the chill from our mountain breeze. We are indeed grateful with experiencing a healthy season, work we continue to enjoy that have also treated us well, and being able to catch up with family and close friends each week, in some way. Our sidewalks were always cleared, and shovelled walk paths created for easy access to board our trains and streetcars. It continues to take a caring hands-on village, and for that we have much to be thankful for... Wrapping up the last official weekend of winter with this lovely, and a few behind-the-scenes, after the jump... Thanks everybody, and have a soothing one. ~xx
I lose myself in this ♫ loved travelling track each. and. every. time...
Thomas Lemmer feat. Naemi Joy - White Room (Gold Lounge in the Room Remix)
{family night get-together with Gi's homemade lasagna, garlic bread and a spinach salad}
{weekend getaway; hard to say no to these especially when you love trains :)}
{a serenade to winter; white musk, lavender and cedarwood; lighter smokey vibes to wrap up the season}
{currently catching up with... Dirty John; a later 2018 TV series that promises yet another season; we laughed so hard the very first episode-- "if you've got a shirt and shoes, you're ahead of the game, this is California..." :); and then things became unbelievably crazy-- but addicting to see what would/ could happen next... and it's based on a real-life story; yikes!}
{when your sister (or brother) calls you just past that noon hour and says she's coming over in the later evening with dinner to chill out; ready in 6 hours or less-- the no-bake cherry cheesecake, adapted from this simple and sweet recipe and using this ready to bake pie shell; #gluten-free glory}
{i used 1 package (250 g) cream cheese (softened), 1 can (300 mL) condensed milk, 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, pinch of Kosher salt, 1/2 can of a 540 mL can of cherry pie filling + 1 pie shell; and followed the directions}


text:
Artifact Evaluation: Tips for Authors
A number of software research conferences such as ICSE, ISSTA, PLDI, POPL, OOPSLA, SOSP, and USENIX Security incorporate an artifact evaluation (AE) process: authors of (conditionally) accepted papers can optionally submit their tools, code, data, and scripts for independent validation of the claims in their paper by an artifact evaluation committee (AEC). Papers with accepted artifacts get stamped with one or more badges. Personally, I'm a big fan of the AE process, as it promotes reproducible and reusable research.
But what makes a good artifact? Although there exist many great resources for writing good papers, as well as for writing good rebuttals, I haven't found anything similar for submitting artifacts for evaluation. This is my attempt at filling the gap.
In this post, I would like to share some insights that I gained while participating in two artifact evaluation committees (PLDI 2018 and PLDI 2019) as well as while submitting two artifacts of my own* (ISSTA 2019 and OOPSLA 2019). I am by no means an expert on this topic. However, I've identified some common pain points that make the AE process annoying for both authors and reviewers. Some of the insights in this post stem from my own past mistakes. I hope that this post helps future authors (and perhaps even reviewers and chairs) in ensuring that AE goes smoothly.
This post is heavily biased towards PL/SE/Systems-ish artifacts that involve tools, scripts, benchmarks, and experiments, since I've had most experience with such type of artifacts.
* One of these won a Distinguished Artifact Award!
- Tip 1: Submit a friendly package
- Tip 2: Estimate human + compute time and declare it upfront
- Tip 3: Explain side-effects before they occur
- Tip 4: Enable quick turnaround (via approximation if needed)
- Tip 5: Support hotfixing and failure recovery
- Tip 6: Cross-reference claims from the paper (and explain what's missing)
- Tip 7: Produce results in a standard human-readable format
- Tip 8: Use consistent terminology
- Tip 9: Make your artifact reusable
- Tip 10: Join an Artifact Evaluation Committee
- Other considerations
Tip 1: Submit a friendly package
The first decision you would need to make is how to package your artifact. There are two sub-parts to this tip:
Require the fewest dependencies
This one is obvious. Don't expect the AEC to install dozens of different dependencies in order to run your artifact. Do not force the reviewers to use a particular OS either. It is usually okay to have your package depend on technologies that are widely available for multiple platforms, such as Git, Java, Python, Docker, and/or VirtualBox—though you should try to require at most one or two of these. A good practice is to package your entire artifact inside a VM or Docker container, so that you can manage fine-grained dependencies yourself.
Do not expect the AEC to have lots of physical resources
This one is less obvious. It is probably not the best idea to submit humongous artifacts (e.g. over 100GB in size) or that require vast amounts of compute resources (e.g. 32 cores with over 256GB RAM). The exact threshold for okay versus not okay probably depends on the type of conference and what "commodity hardware" means at the time of submission. If you think you are on the borderline, it is a good idea to ask the chairs what is considered acceptable. Most artifacts that I've worked with can be packaged in under 10GB, require less than 16GB of RAM, and can be run on a single core machine (even if the authors used a different setup themselves).
If your artifact requires a bunch of data that is already publicly available online—for example, a benchmark suite consisting of open-source software—then you could avoid packaging such data in the artifact and instead provide scripts that will download the benchmarks at run-time. This doesn't reduce the overall storage requirement for the AEC, but reduces the bloat in the initial submission. It allows the AEC to get your artifact up and running much quicker in order to report issues with basic functionality. Not packaging external resources into your artifact also lets you avoid getting into trouble with conflicting licensing requirements, should you want to make your artifacts publicly available eventually.
If the nature of your artifact requires you to run on special hardware—for example, your paper may be about exploiting massive parallelism or benchmarking GPUs or circumventing SGX—then it is sometimes okay to provide your own hardware to the AEC. One strategy that I've seen work in the past is to provide remote SSH access to a server that you host, where the home directory has all the scripts and data necessary to reproduce experiments listed in a paper. As authors, it is your job to ensure that the server(s) meet all the resource requirements. Ask your chairs if this is allowed; you may have to provide a crypographic hash of the entire home directory at submission time to prove that you haven't modified its contents after the deadline. Gotcha: If you provide access to a single server, make sure that multiple AEC reviewers can interact with your artifact concurrently. A good solution for this is to provide scripts which when run generate files only in a specific output directory and nowhere else; that way, each reviewer can choose a unique directory name. Another important consideration here is that the AEC identities must usually remain anonymous to support blind reviewing; you should take steps to prove to the AE chairs that you are not tracking the AEC's logins in any way.
Tip 2: Estimate human + compute time and declare it upfront
One of the most important things to keep in mind when submitting an artifact is the AEC's time. Reviewing an artifact takes considerably longer than reviewing a paper, and it is very hard work. Respect the AEC's time and do everything in your power to prevent the reviewers from having to stare at your artifact for hours wondering if they are doing the right thing.
A simple way to address this issue is to clarify the amount of human-time and compute-time required for every single step in your artifact's README. In fact, I recommend providing an outline of each step with an estimate of human / compute time before going into the details. Here is an excerpt of a sample artifact README:
Artifact FooBar
# Overview
* Getting Started (10 human-minutes + 5 compute-minutes)
* Build Stuff (2 human-minutes + 1 compute-hour)
* Run Experiments (5 human-minutes + 3 compute-hours)
* Validate Results (30 human-minutes + 5 compute-minutes)
* How to reuse beyond paper (20 human-minutes)
# Getting Started (10 human-minutes + 5 compute-minutes)
* Follow the instructions at XYZ to run our VM/container (10 minutes read).
* Run `./install.sh` and go grab a coffee (5 minutes to install).
- You will see no output while the script runs.
- The script accesses the internet to download external dependencies such as Qux and Baz.
- Once complete, it will have created a directory called `stuff`.
- If this command fails, you can delete the `stuff` directory and try again.
# Build Stuff (2 human-minutes + 1 compute-hour)
* Run `./build.sh stuff` and get some lunch -- this should take ~1 hour to complete.
- You should see a progress bar while the command runs.
- Once complete, it will have created a `BUILD` directory.
- If the `BUILD` directory already exists, it will be overwritten.
The example above also shows some elements from our next tip…
Tip 3: Explain side-effects before they occur
In the artifact's README, whenever you ask the reviewer to perform an action, such as executing a command or script, clarify what side-effects that command will have. For example, does it create or modify any files? Does it create any new directories? Are the filenames dependent on the command-line arguments that you provide? Will the command try to access the internet? Will running the command lead to large amounts of additional disk space being used? What output should you expect if everything goes fine?
Such information helps AE reviewers sanity check. It also prevents errors in one step cascading to subsequent steps because the reviewer did not realize that some step failed. Cascading errors makes for very hard debugging, especially when the AE process allows only a fixed number of rebuttal opportunities. Try to help reviewers identify failing steps quickly.
Also, do not penalize reviewers for running the same command multiple times. Ideally, every step in the README should be idempotent.
Tip 4: Enable quick turnaround (via approximation if needed)
Many papers report results of experiments that can take very long to compute. For example, one of the artifacts that I submitted myself required 2 CPU-years to run the whole suite of experiments. Naturally, you cannot and should not expect the AEC reviewers to spend so many compute resources.
A good way around this is to provide alternative experiment configurations, which can run with much fewer resources, even if they provide only approximate results. I usually aim for less than 24 hours of compute on a single-core CPU. For example, you could provide the following in your artifact README:
# Run Experiments (~3 compute-hours)
* Run `./exp.sh 6 30m 1` to run our tool on only *6 benchmarks* for *30 minutes each* with only *1 repetition*.
- This command takes only **3 hours** to run in total, and produces results that approximate the results shown in the paper.
- Since there is only 1 repetition, there will be no error bars in the final plots.
- Results will be saved in a directory called `results`.
* Run `./exp.sh 20 24h 10` to replicate the full experiments in the paper
- This command takes **200 days** to run 10 reps of all 20 benchmarks for 24 hours each.
- Feel free to tweak the args to produce results with intermediate quality, depending on the time that you have.
- Results will be saved in a directory called `results`.
When providing means to produce approximate results, some AEC reviewers may not be satisfied that they can validate all the claims in your paper, because it necessarily requires weeks or months to reproduce the tables or plots that you have in the paper. In such cases, you could provide the results of the long-running experiments in your aritfact package as a sort of pre-baked data-set. Make sure that the the output of fresh-baked approximate experiments (as shown above) is in exactly the same format as your pre-baked data set. That way, you could increase the reviewer's confidence that had they performed the full set of experiments, they would have seen results similar to that shown in the paper.
Tip 5: Support hotfixing and failure recovery
No matter how hard you try or how many of your collegues you recruit to test your artifact, you can expect something to go wrong for at least one of the reviewers. Usually, the reviewer is missing some dependency, has limited resources (e.g. memory), or is running an OS or other platform that requires a slightly different configuration which you did not anticipate.
Fret not, as most AE processes provide a mechanism for reviewers to communicate issues relating to basic functionality of the artifact with authors, and receive remote tech support. In most cases, authors can identify the issue and quickly patch the artifact on their local machine.
Now, how do you send this fix over to the AEC? One way would be to repackage the entire artifact again and ask the AEC to re-download this giant 10GB file and load up another VM, etc. A much better solution would be to support hotfixing, i.e., patching the artifact while it is live and running on the reviewer's machine.
There are many ways to do this and I don't want to go into details for each method here. For Docker, you could post your container images to Docker Hub and have the reviewers simply
docker pull. Or you could embed a Git repository of your scripts/tools in the package that you send and simply have the reviewers perform a
git pull. Either way, the important thing is to support the hotfixing mechanism before you submit the first version. This is often a step that authors forget to do in their initial submission.
That said, hotfixing is not useful if your artifact cannot deal with failure recovery. A good artifact is one which can recover from crashes in any step of the README. For example, let's say the command
./install.sh downloads items into the
stuff directory, and this command crashes due to a bug in your aritfact. You've now identified a fix, pushed changes, and asked the reviewers to pull the latest version of the artifact, bug-free. A simple strategy would simply be to ask the reviewers to delete the
stuff directory and run the command again. In short, try to avoid any steps in your artifact causing global, irreversible changes, which cannot be hotfixed.
Tip 6: Cross-reference claims from the paper (and explain what's missing)
One of the main purposes of artifact evaluation is to enable the AEC to independently validate claims made in the paper. For this purpose, do not just ask the AEC to run a bunch of scripts and say "QED". It is important to list down items from the paper and cross-reference them with data from the artifact. For example, your README could say:
# Validate Results (30 human-minutes + 5 compute-minutes)
The output of the experiments will validate the following claims:
- Table 1: `results/tab1.csv` reproduces Table 1 on Page 5.
- Figure 2: `results/plot2.pdf` reproduces the plot in Figure 2 on Page 8.
- Page 7, para 3: "We outperform the baseline by 2x". See `results/comparison.csv`, where the second column (our performance) should have a value that is twice as much as the third column (baseline).
Our artifact does not validate the following claims:
- On Page 8, we say X, but this cannot be validated without access to specialized hardware/people, so we leave it out of scope of artifact evaluation.
Tip 7: Produce results in a standard human-readable format
If you have plots in the paper, then it is generally a good idea to auto-generate plots from the results of experiments, instead of asking the AEC to stare at log files and compare numbers from these logs with figures in the paper. If you do the latter, then adjust the estimation for "human-minutes" accordingly, as it takes longer for humans to read text than to read figures. Conversely, when reproducing tables from the paper, it is easier for a reviewer to read CSVs or ASCII-formatted tables rather than to read LaTeX-formatted tables in source form. Avoid auto-generating LaTeX, even if you did this for your paper. As a general rule of thumb, prefer standard human-readable formats (e.g. CSV or MarkDown) rather than custom human-readable formats (e.g. arbitrary log files) or formats intended for machines (e.g. JSON or XML).
Tip 8: Use consistent terminology
It is not uncommon for authors to rename tools, techniques, theorems, and other named or acronymized entities just a day or two before paper submission. This often leads to aritfacts and papers disagreeing on standard terminology, since the core of the artifacts are often developed before the paper is finalized and submitted. When submitting artifacts for AE, remember to refactor the artifact to use the same terminology used in the paper. Sometimes, this is not possible—for example, if your artifact contains pre-baked results of experiments that were run before you decided on a terminology. In such cases, include some explanation of old vs new terminology in your artifact README before you discuss how to run scripts or read provided files.
Tip 9: Make your artifact reusable
The point of AE is not just to get a badge on your paper. Well, it sort of is, but there should also be a larger goal: to make your research reusable for others*. This means that the research artifacts you produce should be easily reusable on datasets/inputs/workloads that are NOT part of the evaluation presented in your paper. To that end, I recommend including a section on "how to reuse beyond the paper" in your artifact README. This section need only describe the steps to run a single instance of your research tool or system for a small use case. Including such a section also forces you to ensure that your artifact has an understandable user interface, be it something as simple as sensible command-line arguments and readable success/error messages. Some conferences provide explicit badges for reusability. Even if not, completing this section will give the AEC more confidence that your artifact is not something that has been overfitted for the evaluation in the submitted paper.
* This may not be applicable to some types of artifacts such as mechanized proofs or results of empirical studies.
Tip 10: Join an Artifact Evaluation Committee
This tip is more strategic than tactical: it may not help you if your AE deadline is coming up soon. However, if you are a graduate student or early-stage researcher, try to get on the AEC of a conference in your area*. It's a lot of work, but a great way to get exposure to artifacts produced by other researchers. Not only will it help you in submitting your own artifacts for evaluation in the future, but it could also inspire you to refine the way you do research.
* Many AECs are formed via open invitation for applications – typically you submit a short bio about yourself via a Google Form or similar [Exhibit A, Exhibit B]. If you don't find one of these, look for conferences scheduled for about 3-6 months in the future that do not have an AEC finalized and email the AE chairs to find out how they will form the committee (chairs: apologies for the spam that I'm going to send your way). My guess is that they will be happy to talk to motivated grad students / researchers who are interested in such roles, especially if you have prior publications or AE experience.
Other considerations
On the topic of virtualization, Pierlauro Sciarelli, a PhD candidate at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, adds:
If the research papers are presenting benchmarks, it is extremely difficult to predict the overhead introduced by virtualization: the throughput can be extremely varying depending on architecture/operating system/configuration and a lot of other variables; paradoxically the discrepancies could invalidate the whole effort of presenting an artifact. One solution for trying mitigating the virtualization effects would be to include proposals of kernel patching, but that's really something that no evaluator would like to do (and maybe not even the authors). There are tools such as Singularity and Shifter that can help solving the mentioned problems as they are allowing to efficiently run a docker image with native performances. However, as both software are "very [sensitive]" to automatic conversion of docker images, it should be the author's duty to test that containers are properly working with those tools (or other similar ones).
Tej Chajed from MIT adds that it is important for authors to actually test the artifact using the instructions provided:
It's extremely frustrating as a reviewer to copy-paste a command from the artifact README only to have it not work, which is easily fixed by testing the entire artifact.
If you have experience with artifact evaluation yourself and have more tips to add, some insights regarding other types of artifacts (e.g. survey data, user studies, or mechanized proofs), or if you vehemently disagree with anything in this post, please let me know via email or twitter.
More Resources
- HOWTO for AEC Submitters by Dan Barowy, Charlie Curtsinger, Emma Tosch, John Vilk, and Emery Berger from UMass Amherst.
- Why I will never join an Artifacts Evaluation Committee Again by Moritz Beller. An unfortunate negative experience by an AEC member; if you are author, this is a good read to understand how hard artifact evaluation can be and why you should respect the AEC's time.
Join the Discussion!
I wrote an article on preparing good artifacts for evaluation in PL/SE/Systems conferences. It draws upon my experiences with artifact evaluation at PLDI, ISSTA, and OOPSLA.— Rohan Padhye (@moarbugs) August 7, 2019


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Author: George Saunders
Type: Fiction, short stories
Published: 2000
I read it: January 2017
I remember a short story writing class at ISU where one of the texts was The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and the story "Sea Oak" from this collection was definitely in that book. I instantly recalled the title, but strangely had no recollection of the story itself. Which is odd considering it involves a protagonist who works at a sort of strip restaurant to support his extended family, and an aunt who dies and returns from the grave to offer harsh encouragement on changing your lot in life: "It's the freaking American way—you start out in a dangerous craphole and work hard so you can someday move up to a somewhat less dangerous craphole." If only all our dead relatives could give us a similarly well-timed kick in the pants.
"Sea Oak" explores a lot of the same areas as the title story, which also involves a guy at a less-than-ideal, weirdly public job who balances working hard to help his ailing son and trying to not rat out his underperforming coworker. Employment is huge for Saunders, and his characters never have quite enough of it to make ends meet, or at least can't seem to properly balance life and home. The burden of family comes up not only in these two stories but also "Winky" and "The Barber's Unhappiness." Usually, although the main characters (often male) are riddled with flaws, they can't bring themselves to be cruel in the end.
At only six stories, there is a lot of early DNA here for Saunders' later stories. For example, if you combine the core elements of "The End of FIRPO in the World" and "The Falls" you basically construct "Tenth of December." This is not a bad thing, as Saunders' unique (and sad/funny) prose is inspiring even if it feels like you've heard this one before. Pastoralia is a slim yet solid starting point for the reader who wants a taste of this author's bent and subtle brand of Americana.


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1. Re: Filter configuration - alternative input?JoMe_264151 Aug 18, 2013 2:22 PM (in response to userc_43240)
The answer to your question depends on the target device you are thinking of: PSoC1, PSoC3 or 5, you are here in the "pure" software-forum.
2. Re: Filter configuration - alternative input?DaKn_263916 Aug 18, 2013 3:04 PM (in response to userc_43240)
PSOC 1, filters are switch cap, you can modify filter parameters with register writes. However
the filter response is not a simple write to a single register. You would build an array of
values for all the caps and clocks, for a given response, and use that to control config thru
register writes. Designer wizard could be used to get values for each desired response.
PSOC 3/5 different matter. Depends on use of IIR or FIR how you would approach. Right
now not well documented how to do this. But you can access coefficients of filter to alter
response. Or use the DFB assembler http://www.cypress.com/?rID=60720 and build from
the ground up. Note Creator wizard gives you coefficient values to use.
PSOC 4 has no DMA or DFB, but does have a 32 x 32 multiplier, so if sample rate of filter
not to high simple FIR or IIR coding for a filter could be done.
In closing the DSP approach in PSOC 3/5 probably easier to tune than PSOC 1, but all could
work depending on your goals.
Regards, Dana.
3. Re: Filter configuration - alternative input?userc_43240 Aug 20, 2013 5:47 AM (in response to userc_43240)
Thank you for your assistance.
Bob Marlowe, I'm using PSoc 5.
danaaknight, I'll use an FIR filter. The DFB assembler you're suggesting seems interesting, although it looks like a lot of effort for a relatively simple task as this.


text:
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text:
BreakFree on Clarence (formerly known as City Hotel), is a 3.5-star hotel of 50 rooms situated in the heart of Sydney CBD.
Surrounded by shops, cafes, restaurants and bars, with public transport on its doorstep and Town Hall train station just a 2-minute walk away, BreakFree on Clarence provides all the benefits of a prime location, without the cost.
The property was originally constructed in 1937 as a commercial building, undergoing major additional refurbishment in 1985. In 2011 its use changed from commercial offices to hotel accommodation, including an extensive refurbishment (at an estimated cost of $1.75 million). The property will undergo a series of enhancements to ensure it remains at high quality standard.
|193-195 Clarence Street, Sydney, NSW 2000


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Green Way, Chislehurst, 1937
Part of a ribbon of development that stretched from the Sidcup by-pass to Elmstead, Green Way was developed around 1931.
On the north west edge of Victorian Chislehurst, it was the beginning of infill development that culminated over the next twenty years in the building of the London County Council estate at Mottingham and of that at Coldharbour by the Woolwich Metropolitan Borough, closing the gap between Kentish Chislehurst and London proper.
No 48 (left) was home to Tom Bushell from 1931 to his death in 1976. Renowned local historian and author of 'Imperial Chislehurst', he did much to popularise the subject.
Here the family are seen celebrating the coronation of George VI.
Copyright: T.A.Bushell


text:
Set of Five Vintage Sign Cards (Thunderbird Lodge, Major Gas, Horseshoe Mote., Hyart Theater, 17 Bar & Club)
Regular price $17.00
Unit price
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Group TWO. Set of 5 Vintage Sign Cards
Note cards featuring original photograph of a vintage neon sign.
Set TWO includes Thunderbird Lodge - Laramie MT, Major Gas - Creston WY, Horseshoe Motel - Lovell WY, Hyart Theater - Lovell WY, 17 Bar & Club - Billings MT)
- Folded 4.5" x 6.25" greeting card with a white envelope
- Blank inside
- Printed on 100# coated matt white cardstock
- Packaged in a cellophane sleeve
- White back with a description and logo
– Original photographs by Renée Claire Tafoya.


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US exports 150 million gallons of ethanol in April
The U.S. exported more than 150 million gallons of ethanol and nearly 918,000 tons of distillers grains in April, according to data released by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service on June 6. Exports of both products were down when compared to April 2018.
The USDA's data shows U.S. ethanol exports reached 150.17 million gallons in April, up from 140 million gallons exported in March, but down from the 162.3 million gallons that were exported in April 2018.
During the first four months of 2019, the U.S. exported approximately 531.91 million gallons of ethanol, down from 684.33 million gallons exported during the same period of last year.
U.S. ethanol was exported to approximately 34 countries in April. Brazil was the top destination with 40.89 million gallons, followed by India with 34.1 million gallons, Canada with 31.02 million gallons, South Korea with 8.48 million gallons and the Philippines with 7.59 million gallons.
The USDA's data shows the value of April's ethanol exports reached $240.74 million, up from $234.26 million in March, but down from $290.95 million in April 2018.
The U.S. also exported 917,836 metric tons of distillers grains in April, down from 956,828 tons in March and 997,633 tons in April 2018.
Distillers grains were exported to approximately 39 countries during the month. Mexico was the top destination for U.S. distillers grains in April, with 182,229 tons, followed by South Korea with 107,488 tons, Vietnam with 89,464 tons, Thailand with 60,231 tons and Canada with 53,492 tons.
The USDA's data indicates the total value of April distillers grains exports was $195.35 million, down from $202.65 million in March and $203.8 million in April 2018.
Additional data is available on the USDA FAS website.


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It's nothing like Courchevel or Zermatt
I'm having dinner with Christian Erpenbeck, manager of the Silvretta Parkhotel, and his wife Kristina, who owns the Pine Cone interiors shop on Klosters high street. Kristina is busy telling me about working with The White Company founder Chrissie Rucker on the newly refurbished Haus Alpina – a jet-set hygge penthouse – when she glances out the window and spots one of the village's most famous residents.
For the first time since my arrival four days ago in Klosters – dubbed "Hollywood on the Rocks" in the Fifties when Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, Yul Brynner and Lauren Bacall were regulars – I feel I am about to have a celebrity moment of my own.
Peter Mandelson driving around in financier Nat Rothschild's classic Ferrari, perhaps (it happened back in 2008). Maybe Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, who have stayed at Chalet Luegisland, enjoying the calming night air before the partying and symposium madness begins over at the World Economic Forum in neighbouring Davos.
"No, look!" implores my dinner date pointing across the road. "The man walking the dog!" I strain my eyes to see a figure togged up in a smart down jacket, gloves and a woolly Tyrolean hat making his way confidently along the rapidly whitening path. It is -5°C but through the powdery scrim of falling snow I can confirm that the man is, inarguably, barefoot.
Later on Kristina will breezily recall encounters with Sigourney Weaver and Julia Roberts, she'll tell me about seeing Prince Charles and his boys on the slopes, and clocking the King of Sweden pushing a trolley in the local supermarket. Along with the man who walks barefoot in the snow, this is all part of the scenery at Klosters. And no one seems to give a damn.
No other world-famous Alpine resort disguises its affluence, glamour and stellar celebrity patronage with quite as much unflappable nonchalance as Klosters. It is a Swiss bank account of winter-sports destinations: cosmopolitan, understated, tucked away, rigorously organised, well mannered, secure and discreet.
"Actually, culturally and socially speaking, the way things are done and the way people behave, I think it's much more like Scotland," corrects Klosters regular Ben Elliot. "It's not fancy, it's not sceney, it doesn't have rocking nightclubs and bars." Elliot, who is the son of interior designer Annabel Elliot (née Shand, Camilla Parker Bowles' sister) first came here with his dad "who had first come with his father". "As young boys my cousin Tom Parker Bowles, Zac Goldsmith and I would be packed off to Klosters during the summer on these slightly militaristic, toughening-up, outdoor holidays. Of course, it never succeeded in toughening us up, but we grew to love it."
Elliot is now married to Mary-Clare Winwood, daughter of the musician Steve Winwood, coincidentally and conveniently also a Klosters homeowner. "You go to Klosters for the skiing. Everything else is low-key and unpretentious. It's no frills. Spartan. A bit eccentric." He once spotted Renée Zellweger at the restaurant of Hotel Wynegg. "She was being shouted at by the hotel's notoriously fierce and bossy owner, the late Ruth Guler, for the crime of sitting at the wrong table. Poor thing didn't know what had hit her." Once, Elliot tells me, a male guest, on seeing that he had been given a room with two single beds, made the mistake of asking Guler if he could swap for a double. "You are not here to sleep," she countered curtly. "You are here to ski."
Certainly to anyone initiated into its community of vigorous, wind-tanned skiers, cashmere-knit alpinists, various film stars, politicians, spritely Scandi-royals and vital-looking, 70-something Euros, the notion that Klosters is so often categorised with blinging St Moritz and super-grand Gstaad is baffling and rather ridiculous. Well-heeled patronage aside, the Prättigau Valley village (population 6,177 and around 1,200m above sea level) actually has very little in common with either.
Here is a list of things you won't find in Klosters: flashy hedge-funders, brassy Ruskis, fur coats, selfie sticks, thundering four-wheel drives (most people walk), high-fiving snowboarders in low-waisted pants (this is a ski resort!), house music ootz-ootz-ootzing from any bars. Lunch is rösti not sushi. Stop at the Skihütte Gruobenalp for an ambrosial slice of cremeschnitte cake and a sharpening shot of schnapps and you shouldn't be surprised to hear the refreshed inhabitants of an adjacent table suddenly breaking into a gently harmonious chorus of yodelling.
While St Moritz has outposts of Moncler, Chanel, Tod's, Louis Vuitton, Roberto Cavalli and Bottega Veneta, Klosters only has pharmacies, antiques shops, ski-hire outfits and a confiserie or two. The best store in town is a large and well-stocked branch of a Coop supermarket. It's easier to buy a box of kindling than a designer handbag, and the best massage, at the Residenz Vereina, is a reassuringly brisk stretch, pummel and rub down delivered with healing resolve by a sporty Teutonic man in a tracksuit.
There isn't a single five-star hotel in Klosters. A few years back the Campbell Gray group made an attempt to build one, but the scheme seems to have fizzled out. "A five-star hotel would send out all the wrong messages, attract a different kind of visitor," says Christian Erpenbeck with a wry smile. "We wouldn't want that." He takes me for dinner at the delightful Berghaus Alpenrösli restaurant, high up on the edge of the village with spectacular views of the Gotschna mountains, and tells me another amusing story of denial and rebuff. It is rumoured that Nat Rothschild tried to buy the restaurant and convert it into a private home with a helipad. A chopper flying up and down the valley? Nicht möglich said the locals and gave permission for the restaurant to get a makeover instead.
The Klosters way, it seems, is all about modesty, old money, living well, a sense of fair play, skiing hard, honour, and hearty, unpretentious good times. But, truth be told, celebrity endorsement is what put Klosters on the map in the first place.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited the Davos-Klosters region as early as the 1890s, discovering the thrill of the slopes and the restorative air with his wife, who was suffering from tuberculosis. "I am convinced that there will come a time when hundreds of Englishmen will come to Switzerland for the skiing season," he wrote. He was right. But it was the Americans who came first.
Back in the Forties, Walter Haensli, a noted ski instructor and racer from Klosters, was in St Moritz training the American women's team. Visitor Jack Heinz (of the Heinz foodstuffs behemoth) befriended him and, on the promise of some outstanding skiing, followed Haensli back to Klosters. Every subsequent year, encouraged by John Jay's documentary about the 1948 St Moritz Winter Olympics, some of which was actually shot in Klosters, more and more Americans arrived.
The Chesa Grischuna hotel (locals just call it the Chesa) soon became a second home for Peter Sellers, David Niven, Vivien Leigh, Truman Capote, Orson Welles and Julie Andrews. Famously, Gene Kelly danced on the tables in the cellar bar. Rex Harrison pored over scripts of My Fair Lady while Audrey Hepburn played skittles in the rustic bowling alley.
Writer Irwin Shaw – best known for his novel The Young Lions (the film version starred Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando) and Rich Man, Poor Man (adapted into one of the first TV miniseries) – set up home in Klosters in the Fifties. "Skiers formed a loose international club and the same faces kept turning up year after year," wrote Shaw, who recalled Greta Garbo taking long walks along the banks of Klosters' Landquart river "with a straw hat over her ears and an incongruous 'frowner' on her nose." One day, at lunch, the reclusive actress mistakenly called one of America's most brilliant and outspoken writers "Vigo Redal". Gore Vidal loved her for it and they became promenading, Alpine-air- taking friends. Interior designer Nicky Haslam, who first visited Klosters in the Sixties and has since created several homes in the region, remembers Garbo making a daily walk to the newsstand at the Klosters Platz railway station "where she would take a long examination of all the movie-star magazines so she could see what was going on in Hollywood".
The only nightclub in town, Casa Antica, opened in 1959. The New York society model sisters Marisa and Berry Berenson used to play 45s there. A young Anjelica Huston met her photographer boyfriend Arnaud de Rosnay on the dance floor.
The notion of Klosters as Hollyood on the rocks was fast fading by the time the British royal family arrived in the Seventies, but Prince Charles' low-key appearances soon won him approval in the village. "The Prince eats lunch at one of the cheapest places around," reads an entry in the Chesa hotel's ledger. "He was dancing at the Casa Antica... hires skis that he carries himself and invariably travels second class on the sports train." It also seems that the prince was fond of a rub down after a day on the mountain.
Enter recent divorcée Clair Southwell, who was working as a masseuse over in Flims. "I'll never forget the phone call," she says. "Can you come over to Klosters to massage Prince Charles?" She arrived, and never left.
For a while Southwell worked as the Prince's personal assistant, and her duties included organising the annual Klosters press call "...which Charles hated. He really just wanted to ski." On one occasion, she tells me, the heir to the throne turned up to meet the bank of photographers in a Groucho Marx false nose and glasses.
Southwell now hosts Mongolian and Middle Eastern guests during the economic forum (Klosters is officially linked with big-brother resort Davos) and arranges events such as the Christmas Day English carol service at the 13th-century church. "Absolutely packed every year," she says. "After a good sing-song, we all head down to Casa Antica where there's free bubbles."
She also manages a number of smart rentals, such as the immaculate modern-rustic Casa Bawald apartment near the church, owned and designed by gardener John Coke, founder of Bury Court Opera in Surrey. It's available to rent at a remarkably reasonable rate. But, this being Klosters, it's a word-of-mouth deal only and Southwell vets any applications to make sure they are Klosters insiders.
Prince Andrew is known to favour the grander pleasures and panoramic views available up the hill at Chalet Eugenia. It was originally built by Baroness Thyssen-Bornemisza in 1958, and its new owner, Rolf Theiler, a Swiss entrepreneur and philanthropist, has added a basement swimming pool and redecorated everything in super-plush, Heidi-married-an-oligarch style. A week here during peak winter season (and the Davos forum) starts from around AED 243,800. Bubbles are included. It's a ski-in, ski-out kind of place, naturally.
"With all the fuss about the royals and the film stars, people sometimes forget to mention how good the skiing is in Klosters," says Elliot. The Parsenn ski area is 307km of groomed pistes – loads of motorway-wide reds and blues make it ideal for families. But more advanced skiers will recommend run number 24, a cruise through the trees toward a lunch at the Alte Schwendi restaurant. From here you can tackle the 12km Parsenn run down to the railway station at Küblis.
Elliot likes to get up early, have a hot chocolate at the top of the Gotschna gondola and then clatter down the Parsenn Weissfluhjoch black run. "We stop and have a rösti lunch at Wolf's Den in Kessler's Kulm Hotel. Then we take the funicular railway back up to the Davos side of the mountain. It's an annual ritual."
For me, skiing in Klosters feels like falling through a time-travel crevasse, back to an era when winter sports attracted strapping types who thrilled at the chilly brace of mountain air and the rush of hard-packed snow beneath their boots. When Alpine villages were quaint, immaculate and slightly mysterious; when après-ski meant tea and cake in front of an open a fire. Maybe it's the clean air, maybe it's the long and testing ski days, or the carb-loading lunches, but every night in Klosters I go to bed early, sleep like a baby and rise bright and early the next day. Ready to take on the mountain and the cremeschnitte.
Chesa Grischuna A sweetly unpretentious and romantik spot in the middle of town still managed by its founding family. What it lacks in pampering (no pool, spa or big TVs), it makes up for in cosiness, a great restaurant and quirky, old-fashioned charm. Check out Swiss painter Alois Carigiet's racy frescoes and relax in the legendary bar. Doubles from AED 550; 0041-81-422 2222, chesagrischuna.ch
Piz Buin A recent, extensive makeover has furnished the Piz Buin with a new swimming pool, gym and piano bar. Interiors are modern gentlemen's club with lots of deep-seated leather chairs and antler motifs. It would earn a five-star rating anywhere else, but in Klosters they prefer to downplay things. Doubles from AED 700; 0041-81-423 3333, pizbuin-klosters.ch
Silvretta Parkhotel Built in 1870, this is a big, friendly and efficiently run family hotel with an indoor pool, spa, sauna, three restaurants, a piano bar and kids' club. Rooms have a view of the impressive Silvretta glacier, after which the hotel is named. The Klosters Platz train station and the gondola to the ski area are a short walk away. Doubles from AED 735; 0041-81-423 3435, silvretta.ch
Berghaus Alpenrösli Just outside the town, this self- styled Alpine tavern is both destination restaurant and hotel. Come for the magical views of the Prättigau from the balcony (we're 1,450m up here), the rustic comfort of the rooms and the full-moon fondue nights when guests gorge on vacherin gruyère then take a sledge ride down a marked run. About AED 390 for two; 0041-81-422 1357, alpenroesli-klosters.ch
Alp Garfiun A night-time sleigh ride across the wintry wilderness to this traditional fondue destination feels like a proper adventure. Bells mounted on the horses' headgear ring out to warn speeding tobogganists that they are approaching. Blankets, hats and gloves and flask of schnapps are all essential for the return journey under the stars. About AED 320 for two; 0041-81-422 1369, alpgarfiun.ch
Restaurant Höhwald Take a short drive out of town to Monbiel and you'll find this charming place full of locals and Klosters regulars. Staff wear proper Alpine dirndl dresses. Try the wienerschnitzel or spätzli with pear, cheese and roasted onions.
About AED 464 for two; 0041-81-422 3045, hoehwald-klosters.ch
Chalet Bear Carpenter Luzi Jugli built this beautiful chalet just before the start of World War II using wood he chopped himself. Jugli died in 2005, but the house was sensitively modernised by Klosters lifer Gilly Norton. Bedrooms have hand-made mattresses, linen is from Oka and The White Company, and bathtubs are huge. Ski photos and Alpine clutter make it feel like a family home. From AED 73,400 per week; 0044-77-1048 5668, chaletbear.com
Chalet Eugenia This one's got everything: Vast rooms with oak-beamed ceilings, large balconies and terraces with panoramic views, palatial bathrooms, pillared fireplaces, antiques, crystal chandeliers and jet-set art everywhere. An indoor swimming pool, sauna, waterbed massage. A private cinema. You can ski out to the Heid ski lift directly – but you might also never want to leave. Price on request; 0044-19-9389 9420, oxfordski.com
Emirates (emirates.com) and Swiss (swiss.com) fly direct from Dubai to Zurich, and Etihad Airways (etihad.com) flies direct from Abu Dhabi to Zurich, from where it's a 90-minute train journey on Swiss Railway (sbb.ch) to Klosters
This story originally ran in the March 2017 edition of Conde Nast Traveller UK


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Identity & Security
An update on Chronicle: Continuing to give good the advantage
In June, we announced Chronicle was coming to Google Cloud. Since then, we've been hard at work and wanted to give you an update on our progress as well as a sneak peak of what's to come.
Chronicle's mission has always been to give good the advantage. We've done this with our products VirusTotal and Backstory. The same mission underpins how we build and deliver Google Cloud security solutions that work on our platform and across multi-cloud deployments. As a result, we've consolidated our security solutions into a single group, enabling teams working on cloud-native controls, security integrations with partners and security analytics (i.e. Backstory) to collaboratively deliver next generation enterprise security services.
In one week we'll take the stage at Next UK, where we are sharing how we are connecting Chronicle and Google Cloud to create a comprehensive security business that will benefit all of our customers. During the opening keynote at Next UK, we'll be announcing multiple new native capabilities, and also demonstrating upcoming features in Chronicle's Backstory product, Google Cloud's flagship offering for hybrid security analytics. Tune into to watch live, or feel free to catch a replay after the event.
NCR is an example of a customer already seeing benefits with Chronicle. "We recently became a Backstory customer, and so far, we have been impressed with the innovation we are seeing from Chronicle," says Bob Varnadoe, CISO of NCR. "With Backstory, we can do in minutes what used to take days with our previous SIEM."
In addition to customer momentum, partners who have been previewing our new capabilities are excited about the investments in the product they are seeing since Chronicle joined Google Cloud:
"As an early strategic partner of Chronicle, we work very closely with the Backstory team and I can tell you first hand it has been full steam ahead. We're excited by the technology and the new capabilities we are building together with Chronicle and Google," says Gary Fish, CEO of Fishtech Group.
Security is one of the key solutions we are focused on delivering at Google Cloud, and with Chronicle, we'll reimagine enterprise security services to keep customers safe on GCP, on premises, or on other clouds.
See you in London!


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Memorable gift
I am always eager to scan the variety of Freshly Pressed blogs at WordPress each day so today, with much anticipation, I clicked the blog highlighted by a post entitled A lemon peeler for my love: a history of relationships through gifts. It began … If you've ever questioned your man's love for you, just take a look at the presents that you've received from him during the course of your relationship. I stopped to considered the gifts I have purchased for Joanna over the years and began to feel a bit uneasy. She has always said, "I like gifts that are useful. I like having good tools that make my work easier. What would I do with jewelry anyway? I don't need useless stuff." I've always taken her at her word, and to that end have endeavored to purchase gifts which are thoughtful, in the most literal of senses. One year I bought her a Jersey cow. There was the fruit picker. A cherry pitter. A pressure canner. A tomato strainer. Innumerable pairs of socks. And, of course, any number of spinning and weaving accessories. But then there is the gift that no one will let me forget. One year, for Christmas, I gave Joanna a lung scraper (the scary looking thing in the image below). Let me explain. I have posted before about raising and butchering meat birds for our freezer. Joanna and I have a very carefully arranged division of labor on butchering day. I do the killing, scalding, plucking, and gutting … and Joanna does the cleaning, cutting, and packaging. She begins her work by removing any of the organs that I have neglected to remove … and this always includes the lungs. I don't know how many of you have ever tried to remove a set of lungs from deep within the thoracic cavity of a chicken … but I can tell you that it isn't easy. Joanna says it rips her finger tips. So, when I first came across a lung scraper in a catalog, I knew she should have one. It was a thoughtful gift … a useful gift … a useful tool that she would enjoy using. Right? Well, she does use it. But perhaps it wasn't the most romantic gift … but, I repeat, it was very thoughtful. The Freshly Pressed blog post continued … If the gifts that I've received from my [loved ones] are supposed to represent their feelings towards me, then their message is unanimously loud and clear – clean, mend, or cook something. Perhaps the lung scraper was a really bad idea?


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About Conference
World's leading conference in the field of Rheumatology, Orthopedics & Sports Medicine. The assembling will be dealt with around the subject "Retrospective and Contemporary aspects in the field of Rheumatology, Orthopedics & Sports Medicine". 11th World Congress on Rheumatology, Orthopedics & Sports Medicine from March 28- 29, 2019 Osaka, Japan.
The Rheumatology Congress meeting will be staffed with organizers with many professional attributes of great quality, and the selected venue will allow conference speakers and attendees opportunities to engage in collaborative efforts while learning more about some of the current trends and research practices applied to address factors relative to Rheumatology, Orthopedics & Sports Medicine. The Rheumatology Congress 2018 meeting has extended global outreach efforts to invite speakers and attendees from many nations around the world, who have an opportunity to witness the results of quality research efforts provided by attending world renowned orthopedists, rheumatologist, sports medicine professional, specialists, physicians, health educators, and researchers. Such research efforts will place an emphasis on Rheumatoid, orthopedics and sports medicine, research, epidemiology, and treatment practices.
Rheumatology Congress 2019 will join world-class teachers, scientists, surgeons, students, researchers, doctors, pharma, business to discuss methodology for ailment remediation for Bone, Arthritis, Arthroplasty, Total Hip & knee replacement. Rheumatology, Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Conference are planned to give varying and stream preparing that will keep helpful specialists next to each other of the issues impacting the expectation, finding and treatment. The assembling will be dealt with around the subject "Retrospective and Contemporary aspects in the field of Rheumatology, Orthopedics & Sports Medicine".
ConferenceSeries llc Ltd deals with a meeting course of action of 1000+ Global Events thorough of 300+ Conferences, 500+ Upcoming and Previous Symposiums and Workshops in USA, Europe and Asia with sponsorship from 1000 more sensible social requests and disseminates 700+ Open get to journals which contains more than 30000 unmistakable personalities, reputed specialists as article board people.
Why to attend?
With people from around the world focused on getting some answers concerning Orthopedics, Rheumatology & Sports Medicine, this is your single most obvious opportunity to accomplish the greatest accumulation of individuals from the mending focuses, Universities, bunch, etc. This Orthopedics, Rheumatology & Sports Medicine conference in 2018 will coordinate, disperse information, and meet with recurring pattern and potential investigators and get name affirmation at this 3-day event. Broadly acclaimed speakers, the most recent frameworks, methodologies, and the most current updates in Orthopedics, Rheumatology & Sports Medicine field are indications of this conference. This World Orthopedics, Rheumatology & Sports Medicine congress or rather all Orthopedics, Rheumatology & Sports Medicine gatherings, Orthopedics, Rheumatology & Sports Medicine events and Rheumatology Congress will help in frameworks organization, B2B uniting amidst specialists and academicians
Target Audience:
- Surgeons
- Students
- Researchers
- Scientists
- Faculty
- Medical Colleges, Universities
- Societies & Associations
- Business Entrepreneurs
- Training Institutes
- Software making associations
- Manufacturing Medical Devices Companies
Conference Highlights
- Rheumatology
- Arthritis
- Foot & Ankle
- Hip & Knee
- Hand &Wrist
- Shoulder & Elbow
- Auto Immunity
- Physical medicine and rehabilitation
- Exercise & Sports Medicine
- General Orthopedics
- Orthopedic Surgery
- Pediatric Rheumatology
- Basic Science of Bone & Cartilage Metabolism
- Fractures
- Pediatric orthopedics
- Spine
- Skeletal trauma
- Hip & Knee Reconstruction
- Kinesiology & Biomechanics
- Medical Devices
- Orthopedic Infections
- Diagnostic & Imaging
- Congenital& Developmental Disorders
- Podiatry
- Tumors of Musculoskeletal System
Special Issues
- All accepted abstracts will be published in respective Supporting International Journals.
- Abstracts will be provided with Digital Object Identifier by Cross Ref.


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Your friends are fundraising. Don't miss out, opt in.
The Historic Cheshire Churches Preservation Trust ('HCCPT') is committed to facilitate the repair, maintenance and preservation of churches and chapels of all denominations throughout Cheshire Diocese and beyond. Our principal fundraising activity is the Annual Ride & Stride event, so please lend your support!
Historic Cheshire Churches Preservation Trust Registered charity number 213837
"Please accept this donation on behalf of St Cross Knutsford. Thank you for supporting us with our West Door steps project this year"
Grahame Nairn donated
£50.00 + £12.50 Gift Aid
"Altrincham St John held an Open Day on Sept 10th to celebrate our 150th anniversary which included a display about the history of the church and music from ex-organists. We raised £120 for HCCPT."
Christine Davison (Churchwarden) donated
£120.00 + £0.00 Gift Aid
"Unfortunately Altrincham: St John can't take part in the Ride and Stride this year but we will be thinking of all those participating on Saturday 12th September. Enclosed a personal donation."
Christine Davison donated
"St John, Altrincham couldn't participate in the Ride and Stride this year - this is a personal donation instead!"
"Well done Steve ;-)"
mike donated
£10.00 + £0.00 Gift Aid


text: Hello. This is a piece plugging our comedy benefit gig, and it has no jokes in it. The piece, that is; the gig will be full of them - from a brilliant line-up including Robn Ince from (amongst many other things) The Infinite Monkey Cage, the incomparable comic poet and songwriter John Hegley, comedian and comic actor Kevin Eldon, who has worked with Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, Stewart Lee, Martin Scorsese, and me - to name but a few, in no particular order of brilliance. Sindhu Vee is in my opinion one of the rising stars on the comedy circuit. It's a phrase I rarely use, but in this case it's bang on and can't be bettered even though it's a cliche. (And I'm a really good judge.) Catch her before she's huge. Likewise, Pippa Evans, whom you might have seen on Live at the Palladium last year. Her Edinburgh Fringe shows always sell out throughout the run, and she is a regular on The Now! Show on Radio 4. We are also proud and delighted to have the unique and wonderful double act of Ronnie Golden and genuine comedy legend Barry Cryer; you name any British comedy act, Barry has worked with them, for them, has an anecdote or twelve about them. Star of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, warm-up man for Monty Python's Flying Circus…the man is more than a comic force - he's a part of the country's cultural fabric. And Ronnie - lead singer of The Fabulous Poodles and Ronnie and The Rex, backing musician for Chuck Berry, touring and drinking partner of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Buddy Holly in The Young Ones, stalwart of the comedy circuit for over 30 years…it's going to be a proper treat. So why are we all doing this gig - at the Union Chapel, in Islington on Thursday 1 March? Well, English PEN campaigns for freedom of speech and for the rights and release of persecuted and imprisoned writers and journalists the world over. So it's total self-interest for us, really. Being able to say what you want, including being offensive, is an essential tool of our trade as comedians. In the same way that when Boris Johnson enters a china shop, he always needs a bull with him. Yes, OK, a joke, and yes, rather laboured. I'm not getting paid and it's late. The obvious comic route to take when you're plugging a gig about protecting freedom of speech is to say how we could all come up with a list of journalists we wouldn't mind seeing in jail, of offensive - or just tiresome - rentagobs you'd love to punch in the mouth. How people expressing different opinions is where all the trouble starts in the first place. Problem of course, everyone has a different list. I'm probably on some people's - I hope so. And actually, even if we all had exactly the same list, it would still be a problem. But it's an overused comic paradox, and especially as I've already used the cliche 'rising star' - albeit accurately, I'm just going to stick to the plugging: 1 March, Union Chapel, Islington. It's a Thursday. And a great bill. To finish off, some casually and randomly assembled cases from around the world, which, in my opinion, are all good reasons to support PEN and if you can, to support this benefit. Turkey: over 150 writers and journalists are in jail. Scores of media outlets have been closed down during the current state of emergency. Ironically, President Erdogan himself was jailed for four months in 1998 for writing a political poem. PEN would have been campaigning for him at that point. (That's a good thing. Not that the incontrovertible evidence of his hypocrisy loses him any sleep.) Malta: you'll no doubt remember the spectacularly horrific murder by car bomb of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia last October. She'd been exposing international corruption centred in Malta for 30 years. PEN is helping in the campaign to have her assassination fully and openly investigated. Bahrain: Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace has been in jail since June 2011, where he has been mistreated, tortured, denied adequate medical treatment and deprived of reading and writing materials. All because he is a human rights activist and blogger. And of course, many others share his plight. I wonder if they can hear the Formula One cars from their prison cells when the Grand Prix is on. That would make a nice change from the screaming from next door. Formula One got rid of hospitality-girls last week as a gesture to 21st century decency. Evidently, boycotting countries that jail and torture human rights campaigners is way more controversial. That's always the argument from the commercial interests and the democratic countries - that economic arguments constitute a force majeure - good trade deals must not be jeopardised. (That's assuming a hypothetical situation where Britain is actually capable of negotiating a good trade deal ever again, instead of sitting at the table like a poker player with no cards, no hands, and a big mirror behind them just for good measure). But let's live in the real world for a moment, shall we? Without repressive regimes, who do we sell our torture equipment to? I for one know that, were I being electrocuted with a cattle-prod in a subterranean dungeon somewhere, I'd feel a lot happier knowing I was supporting a traditional British craftsman who takes pride in making genital-burning equipment to the highest of traditional British standards. Not only that, it would cheer me to be part of the supply chain which enables that craftsman to pay for hospital parking while he spends all day and all night frantically running up and down a draughty corridor begging exhausted medical students to attend to his ageing, ailing mother, and ends up helping them break into the pharmacy to steal amphetamines in a desperate attempt to keep them awake for the entirety of their 72-hour shift. Knowing I was supporting a thriving post-Brexit economy would turn the searing pain surging through my testicles into a warm patriotic glow. I'm sure it would. I know it's more complicated than that - but at the same time, it's actually not: however desperate things get economically - for whatever reason (and I'm not pointing a finger at anyone or anything, least of all that mendacious megalomaniac Boris Johnson) - however desperate situations get, however attractive or acceptable it seems to take 'short term' repressive measures for 'the general good', or turn a blind eye to other people doing it - there always needs to be someone making the strong and simple counter-argument for basic human rights over profit. That's what English PEN does, and it needs money. Do come. I promise the gig will be a lot funnier. And if it's not, feel free to punch me in the mouth. Book tickets Watch the video from last year's gig with Adam Bloom, Andy Hamilton, Shappi Khorsandi, Stewart Lee & Jonny and the Baptists You Can't Say That! from Robin Samson on Vimeo. See photos from last year's Big PEN Comedy Gig here. Produced by English PEN and Funny for Good.


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Yosemite National Forest – Pt. 2
September 14, 2017
Incase you missed part one of our trip to Yosemite, go and read that one first!
Assuming you're all caught up, this post picks up after our first night camping at the top of the mountain. If you're also interested in watching the video I made of our whole trip (read: posts 1 & 2 combined), you may watch it here.
On our first evening of the official hike, we reached our campsite just as the sun was setting with enough time to set up our tent and eat a quick meal. Which, I didn't mention in the previous post, is the easiest tent I've ever set up! So bloody quick to assemble. This was our first night camping off the trail and away from fellow campers. Needless to say, we were incredibly nervous of a potential bear encounter as the guides had warned us of a savvy female bear in the area we were hiking. Sleep was minimal that night as every single sound was amplified by the complete tranquility of the forest.
I will say, sleeping right beside a creek is my favourite way to camp. The sound is just so soothing. If it weren't for fear of a bear encounter, I probably would have slept like a baby.
Before we began our hike for day two we filtered plenty of water for the hot day ahead. The creek was ice cold and absolutely perfect for stocking up first thing in the morning. It did, however, make showering quite miserable!
Filtering water is a bloody workout. This bottle saved our lives, though, and gave us total peace of mind drinking the creek water. The national park does a wonderful job enforcing the protection of the creek. We were not allowed to shower in it or within 100 feet of the creek to preserve its state. For that, I was grateful. Let's just say that showering was such a challenge, it only happened once the whole trip. Proof you really love someone: sleeping in confined quarters for days on end with minimal cleaning.
What We Packed:
(I'm only listing a few of the essentials below. If you have questions about any of these, or something I've left off, just ask!)
Tent, Backpack, Sleeping Bag, Water Bottle, Water Filter Bottle, Pillows, Food Packets
Samantha – Outfit Details:
Hat, Sunglasses, Shorts, Hiking Boots, Socks, T-shirt (similar here and here)
This was the perfect trip to stop, smell the flowers, and admire the bees.
Our third night camping was almost identical to the previous night. Every sound kept us awake in anticipation of a bear encounter. As I write this, I realize I sound incredibly paranoid, but when you're living through it, it's hard to put those thoughts out of your mind. Needless to say, we successfully avoided another bear encounter! However, this was all thanks to a ranger who asked us to move campsites. You can watch all about that in our video.
One of the beauties of escaping city life is zero light pollution – that means lovely pics like these taken by a very patient Eddie.
Our breakfast set-up was simple so that we could quickly get a meal in our bellies before burning calories and losing almost all our water consumption via sweat throughout the day. Also seen below, mank nails. Every girl needs to get down and dirty at some point in her life. Really get into nature, suffer for a few days, and learn to appreciate a nice cold shower and other activities/products we take for granted every day. It grounds you (pun intended).
The descent began and the gorgeous views continued. Absolutely breathtaking.
We finally made it to a view of the valley. This is where we would head back to where we began our hike three days prior. The end was in sight!
Going downhill was definitely better on my knee, however, I was still broken by the time we got back to the backpackers campground. A quick shower and we made our way back to LA.
Whilst our Yosemite trip was cut a tiny bit short due to my knee problems, it was still an incredible experience and one we'll remember forever. I highly recommend going during the summer as the temperatures were still plummeting even the beginning of July. Any recommendations for other camping trips would be appreciated! We've got Yellowstone on our list to visit soon too!
In case you missed it, we filmed our journey and made a little video! Give it a watch if you're interested.


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Once more out to Satapuala to get on with the job, not a pleasant day but makes little difference with the rain, bathing togs being the order of the day. Our problem is to keep our fuses dry for the gelignite. Jacko came with us for a while and when it came to the swimming parts, he folded up badly, not too fit.
It rained most of the morning and we got rid of two cases of explosives in spite of the rain. Got some nice fish also rather pretty ones, magnificent colouring of some of them and the oddest shapes too. The afternoon was reasonably fine and we blasted some more coral.
On returning home tonight Dr Milne rang to invite me to dinner on Thursday and gave me the latest information regarding the New Zealand case. Official advice from Wellington forbidding the use of our Catalina to go down and have a look, but intimating that the Lauthala Bay RNZAF Commanding Officer may use his discretion and do what we proposed to do.
The harbour master has asked for his pilot boat back again so that he can go to New Zealand and take with him a doctor from here. They are now asking a cockle shell of a launch to do 300 miles there and 300 miles back, it is beyond my comprehension.
The case is one for the man on the spot who is capable of doing the job using his brains and facilities to the best advantage. Very poor effort indeed and I'd question the rightness of the decision to send the pilot boat.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
South Pacific Survey 25th June 1951
Posted by William Le Couteur at 10:46 AM
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Strawberry Fields SmoothieJanuary 15, 2017
Make this smoothie after a long day, tough workout, or when you are craving something creamy and sweet. If you don't have plant protein powder, or just don't like to use it, replace with 2-3 tbsp chia seeds, hemp seeds, or flaxmeal and definitely don't skip the vanilla! Tastes just like strawberries and cream in a cup! Yum yum 🙂
For: 1 person
- 1/2 cup coconut water (or filtered water)
- 1/2 cup almond or coconut milk
- 1 cup frozen strawberries
- 6 raw almondss (best if soaked)
- 1 tbsp coconut yoghurt
- 1 tbsp flaxmeal
- 1 tsp vanilla powder/extract
- 1 tsp maca powder (optional)
- Blend all ingredients together until smooth and creamy!


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"I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth."
This thought is nestled among hundreds of pages of stunning words about war and humanity in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried in a page-long vignette called "Good Form."
I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I suppose it's a callback to an earlier piece in the collection entitled "How to Tell a True War Story." Farther down the page in "Good Form" O'Brien writes "What stories can do, I guess, is make things present."
I've been thinking about these ideas with respect to Odysseus' role as a storyteller in The Odyssey.
One of the absolutely jaw-dropping things about Greek epic is its capacity to distill and present human truth in such a basic, perfect simple light that you miss it for years if not decades until one day it snaps into clear view from where it's been hiding in the text, right in front of you.
I've read The Odyssey dozens of times in no fewer than 6 translations and numerous parts in the original Greek... I've digested extensive commentaries by the most accomplished scholars and thought about and basically lived the story for almost 20 years.
And yet still: as I drove the three hours from Chicago to Knox College for the last Odyssey show of my busy 20-plus show spring run I had a realization about something simple but ultimately profound that I'd never noticed: when King Alcinous asks Odysseus to tell his story at the end of book 8, Odysseus says not one word about the ten years he spent at war at Troy.
Now it is true that Demodokus (the blind bard of Phaeacia) has just finished narrating events of the Trojan War including the famous Trojan Horse that precipitated the fall of Troy. So it is perhaps appropriate from a narrative standpoint for Odysseus to pick up where the bard left off.
But thinking about this a little further as I drove I realized that as far as I could remember, throughout the entire Odyssey, its prolific storyteller utters not one word about his time at Troy: not in any of his famous "elaborations," not in his four book tale to the Phaeacians, and not (as far as we're told) in his recounting of his travels to Penelope in book 23 (Emily Wilson has him tell Penelope (perhaps tellingly) "how much he hurt so many other people, and in turn how much he had endured himself" before launching into specifics about his post-Troy journeys.)
It's kind of remarkable that a guy who is willing to use almost anything as grist for his story mills stays away from the decade he spent at Troy. What does that say about his experiences there that he won't talk about them?
Is it possible that to Odysseus "story-truth" is indeed truer than "happening-truth" and therefore his war stories are too much for him to bear (and too personal and sacred to use as raw material for fabrications) as they are and have been for soldiers and veterans from many wars since? Is it possible that telling these stories would make them too "present?"
I set up in a beautiful intimate round room in the Knox College performing arts center. My friends (and, as Knox alumni, the generous sponsors of the performance) Mark and Kat arrived as did the audience, many of whom had been participating in a Homerathon reading of books 9 and 10 of The Odyssey outside that afternoon in the beautiful sunny spring weather.
The performance was more intense for being in front of people I know well and also tinged with a bit of relief at having successfully survived several months of shows during which I navigated multiple rounds of illness and challenging weather.
The discussion afterwards was excellent and following it a student came up to ask me about a line that seems to get a lot of attention: at the end of "Blues in B," which is my attempt to distill all of Odysseus' tales in books 9 through 12 into one song, I have him sing "But through it all I've saved the skins I've shed."
This line comes up repeatedly post-show: audiences seem to like the idea that through Odysseus' changing identities and his framing of them he brings along pieces of his past, much as I think we all do with our own pasts and identities.
Later that night, I sat around a bonfire on Mark and Kat's farm and played some tunes with Mark. We played Knockin' on Heaven's Door and our voices floated up with the embers.
I thought that maybe if Odysseus had to sing his war story, it might actually sound a lot like the weary soul in Dylan's famous song:
Mama wipe the blood from my face
I'm sick and tired of the war
Got a lone black feelin', and it's hard to trace
Feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door


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