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I've been blogging for 6 or more years but I think it's time to move on to doing other things, so I'm letting my hosting expire (it's due for renewal in a few weeks) in a month or so.
Have a wonderful life. You deserve it. We all do.
I've been blogging for 6 or more years but I think it's time to move on to doing other things, so I'm letting my hosting expire (it's due for renewal in a few weeks) in a month or so.
Have a wonderful life. You deserve it. We all do.
And I am. The surgeons got all the cancer with clean margins and it had not spread outside the bile duct. I have somewhere in the vicinity of 1/3 the liver I had before surgery (although "somewhat" is accurate since the liver does regenerate itself) and what remains is functioning nicely. My cancer was the slow-growing version so annual checkups should keep track of it quite well if it does return. However, since it is slow growing and I am old, something else will probably kill me off rather than the bile duct cancer. That's called winning.
Everything you find on the internet about that type of cancer is a dire bummer, really. The aggressive version doesn't give up, isn't responsive to radiation or chemo, and keeps coming back like the Energizer Bunny. Just not having the aggressive type of the cancer is a huge miracle by itself. It's an enormous blessing to be where I am in life despite what I've gone through.
My heart has lost it's beat – it's fluttering more than it should rather than beating in the proper rhythm – but the doctors are working on fixing that. I'm not able to do as much as I used to before the surgery, but that's mostly something that should decline with time and exercise. Exercise is now something I do regularly (unlike beforehand) and I try to walk at least a mile and a half every other day at a stretch.
For the moment, I'm semi-retired but I consider myself on sabbatical. I'm still recuperating anyway from the surgery – an eight hour ordeal that my surgeon refers to as the most that can be done to a human body in one stretch – and I doubt I'd have the stamina or patience to put up with a full day of working at a computer. But I'm enjoying this semi-retirement thing as well. I don't have to go anywhere or dial into a long, dull conference call but there aren't the people to interact with as well. That's the one thing I do miss about working – the people. Mostly the people I have worked with have been good people that I love with only a few asses in the mix. But I'm still leaving open the possibility of a short contract down the road if I need or want it. But I'm not feeling the need to work 12 months out of the year. I got spoiled last year by working 7 months and taking 5 off and, if you can afford it, it's a schedule I do recommend.
We're also thinking about downsizing and moving to a condo or some similar sort of living arrangement where no yard maintenance is necessary. I'm tired of tending several acres of land, maintaining the exterior of houses, and having as much invested in yard and lawn and home maintenance equipment as a car would cost. So we may head to Florida where all the retired people live. Quien sabe? After all, there are lots of really elderly people there so we'd be the younger generation, plus there are so many cardiologists practicing there that you could practically hit one by tossing a rock over your shoulder. We went into a Florida restaurant recently and we were the youngest couple in the place by a good decade and a half, if not two. I've worked since 1977 and it's about time anyway. It's never too late to live happily ever after. Start now and make it happen for yourself. I'm going to.
Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, wrote in one of the Bond novels that "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." I think the "enemy action" one is more a function of the spy business than real life, but my life has been filled with coincidences, regular, recurring, frequent coincidences. So many, in fact, that it can not really be considered as coincidence any more. It's got to be intentional. I have a charmed life and yes, damn it, you'd think that WOULD include the lottery, but …
And it's been this way most of my life. When I was in college they instituted the draft lottery system, to make it more equitable to find human fodder to send to Vietnam and my lottery number was 10, so low that companies wouldn't even schedule interviews with me – there was no point. So the Navy sent me a letter telling me about a program they had that would keep me far out to sea away from Vietnam, would get me promoted faster, and potentially trained in something useful for the future. Coincidence maybe, but it worked.
When I finally finished the Navy and got a Master's and moved back to Nashville, I had all the interviewing skills and personality of a cross between Al Gore and a wooden indian. Despite having the highest recommendations possible from the CEO of Hospital Corporation of America, I blew four or five excellent interviews there and eventually got a job by testing highly on openings at the state, where they had to pick the highest rated people period. My future wife and the love of my life worked there. Coincidence, I don't think so.
This job changed over time and I became a grant officer, helping establish programs for the disadvantaged across the state. We had a "special" sort of funding and we were encouraged to experiment with things that were a little out there. So we funded a program for displaced homemakers, women who had ben out of the job market taking care of children and were suddenly needing to earn a living, usually because their husbands had found someone younger. The twist this program put on the process was that they purchased a video camera and a monitor. They'd video the women in mock interview situations and then analyze what the cameras saw in the interview – body language, hesitations, etc.
One day I was talking with the director of the program and mentioned I was thinking about trying to get into industry and out of government, because the pay was so much better. She suggested we spend a weekend in front of her video camera. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was working in aerospace with a 60% raise. Not a coincidence.
Aerospace pays well but one reason it does is that it is highly dependent on government budgets for fighter and bomber budgets. When they end, so do the aerospace jobs so two years later I found myself unemployed and headed back into a state office building looking for a job. I was walking down a lower hallway in the Cordell Hull building when suddenly a woman came out of a stairwell and around a corner right in front of me. We both went flying, landing on our rears. It was an old friend I had known years before at the state. She asked what I was doing there, I told her and she immediately said "I have a friend who needs someone just like you." Not a coincidence.
Within a week or so I had a decent job, paying nearly what I'd made in aerospace and a few weeks later, my new boss got promoted and reorganized her department, making me a director with another 50% raise. Because I had a Master's in Economics, I was in charge of the budget as well as writing our annual plans. I created separate Excel spreadsheets on a 512K Mac, one for each of 16 departments, and a summary one that added up the individual categories and let me do reporting faster than our accounting department could.
Plus we were working with the local Apple reps on trying to negotiate a deal for Tennessee schools. I upgraded my 512K to a Mac Plus (I still have the motherboard) and I did some freelance design work for the Apple sales people, getting paid in software (they'd given up paying off in hardware by this time). I got a program called PageMaker, Illustrator 88 and a beta of some image editing program called Photoshop. Each one came on a 300K single-sided diskette. By now it could no longer be coincidence, it was fate.
I used to Pagemaker to design the impending annual planning document. This was required by Federal regulations to get the money (several hundred million smackers) and tended (in other states and in Tennessee in the past) to be dense beyond measure and approved by the State Board of Education only because Federal law required it in order for us to get the money. But when I looked at what it really needed to say and started rewriting it to be simpler and more straight-forward, it became more useful and truly understandable. It also became a lot smaller document. I used the data from my spreadsheets to show what we'd done in past years and how that was to change in the future to meet (as best as possible) real demand in the local school systems. The State Board of Education called it the simplest and easiest to read state plan for Vocational Education they'd ever seen. Not a coincidence.
Then a new administration came in and, since I was a director-level person, I was considered a political appointee and I was replaced fairly quickly. I used my writing skills to find a position with an accounting firm that was moving its computer center from Manhattan to Nashville as a cost savings and I started supervising writers doing system documentation manuals. Unfortunately, all we had were writers so there was nobody to create the hundreds of forms necessary for all the systems or design the page layouts or create cover art. Some forms had already been created as nightmarish pages of form fields, broken up by hash marks for each character, and some forms had yet to be created. I learned that creating a paper form is something anyone can do, but making it usable is another thing altogether. I made them usable.
While I'd been looking for work, my wife had landed a job at Saturn as a visual designer working in their training department. They had more work than she could complete in even 60 hours a week, despite having eventually hired a dozed remarkable artists and designers, so I began helping her do her work here and there until we were working almost 50-50 on some of her projects, earning money like crazy, and becoming a better and better designer.
So once I started at the accounting company, I started doing the design work as well as supervising the writers because there was no one else to do designing. After a year or so, our team merged with another writing team and I became the lead designer, after having taught myself how to design using magazines like Step-by-Step and it's co-publication Step-by-Step Electronic Design. Because everything was still print then, using Illustrator and FreeHand were preferable for design because of things called trapping, chokes and holds and CMYK separations, arcane aspects of design lore from the inky abyss of print.
This was fun and we were getting paid to do it. I went to Seybold annually, a magical conference at the intersection of print and the electronic future where everything in the industry premiered and where I was by now a second tier player, having trained with Jeff Schewe, Bert Monroy, Sueki Woodward, Kai Krause, and others at the top of the game. I'm not sure there were ever coincidences involved
We started creating interfaces, electronic transaction and interaction kiosks, primarily supporting in-house IT functions and meetings, complete with everything from conference displays with session and room information and 3D directions (including carpeting and wall coverings mapped to the 3D environment) displayed on screen. The first few interfaces were horrible, but the learning from them was incredible. Then we began to create interfaces for internal Lotus Notes databases, creating dozens of custom looks and applications. As part go that process we learned how insanely impossible it could be to get "leaders" to decide what the users really needed and wanted (or what look they liked for any current project).
By then, the web started to take off in the late 90s. Nobody wanted the responsibility for the company's website but our partner saw the value and realized that there was also a need for an internal version of a website as well, an intranet. Wild dreams back then. Our writers became part-time content specialists and our designers became part-time interface designers. From our first experiments in Lotus Notes until we had a full user experience team with researchers, testers, designers, and multiple managers, It took fifteen years of effort to get beyond the leadership and the subject matter experts to the real users, but we did it.
We built a usability team, laid half the team off under a development-oriented CIO, and rebuilt it a few years later into an exceptionally talented group of 20 individuals around the world, thanks in large part to a new Chief Information Officer who lived and breathed the user experience as intently as we did, simply because it made sense. Sadly, in time he was made the global CIO and was replaced at the national level by someone who thought that he, like Steve Jobs, knew what the users really needed without having to ask. He destroyed the team there a second time.
But none of this was really coincidence. Haphazard at times, perhaps, especially the three times I was laid off, but it all built to a crescendo of a wonderful life focused on making things easier to read and use. That's a story that never ends.
Change is difficult for people. We prefer the comfort of the familiar over the strange. Despite that, the world around us and how we interact with it is changing incessantly. Being aware of how your customers perceive the experience you are providing them is becoming good business. It's critical in healthcare, particular when the illnesses are life-threatening.
I have cancer, hylar colangiocarcinoma. It's a very rare (1,000+ per year) cancer of the bile ducts in the liver, and it's mean. It doesn't respond much to chemo or radiation treatments, just cutting it out. Even with successful surgery, there's a really high rate of recurrence (58%). People who get this cancer will die from it sooner or later. There is no permanent cure. There is living a few years more or living less than a year.
My experience at receiving the same basic recommendation and prognosis from two different oncologists illustrates the current divide that exists still in medicine. This divide needs to end.
When I was diagnosed, I had several physicians who instantly recommended a local doctor. "He's the best there is here." and "If I needed surgery, he's the one." were what we heard over and over, so that's who we went to see. He gave us no statistics.
After he looked at the CT scan images, he came in to meet with us. He explained where the tumor was located and told us it had affected the right half of my liver and the right bile duct already. They had to come out.
Then he told us that the CT scan wasn't clear enough to determine if the left bile duct (there are two) was clear or not. He'd have to see once he got in there whether it was affected or not. He wanted to do a second CT scan to see if it would tell us something different, but it looked like it would be a close call as to whether the surgery could be done at all, much less be successful.
We asked him if he felt comfortable doing this sort of surgery or if there was another facility that did more of them we should go to. He responded "I do liver surgeries, I don't sell them." We told hime we just emanated to make sure he felt comfortable doing the surgery and he responded "Yes, I can do it." He gave us no statistics.
He then took a few minutes to show us the CT scan onscreen, pointing out where the right duct suddenly closed off and where he said the left one was iffy. CT scans are splotches of gray and black on a screen. It takes a trained eye to understand what you're seeing. He turned us over to the scheduler, who set up the second CT scan and the operation itself. It was to take 190 minutes.
We left the office unconvinced about how much experience he had with this specific cancer. He had offered us no data, no percentages, nothing concrete except his faith in his own abilities.
Afterwards we accidentally ran into our primary care physician who asked how things had gone. After we told her, she asked if we wanted a second opinion and we said we did. She told us she'd do some research to see which cancer centers we should call and would get back with us tomorrow morning. She recommended two, Mayo and Sloan Kettering. We called Mayo first but they had more demand than supply and couldn't handle us. So we called Sloan in New York.
Cancer centers have toll-free appointment numbers. When you dial in you're usually presented with a phone routing system. At Sloan, I was asked to state the kind of cancer I had. Then it asked me if I wanted a clinical or a surgical oncologist. Since surgery is the only path to survival, I picked that. I then was told "Connecting you with colangiocarcinoma." Even the phone system specializes in my disease. I got an appointment for Christmas Eve.
We were called back to an exam room and a doctor came in almost immediately. He was an associate of our surgeon. He told us he wanted to get preliminary medical history information while the doctor was looking at the scans we had brought up. He said the doctor would be in not long after we finished the history. He then proceeded to take my complete medical history, asking questions for about five minutes. By the time he was ready to step out, he had already spent as much time with us as the local surgeon.
The lead surgeon came into the room with his entire team of nurses, two other doctors, and his physician's assistant. He introduced the team to us and then asked what we knew about the cancer so far. Once we finished, he took up a diagram and proceeded to show us where the tumor was and what else in that area was potentially affected. He also discussed the risks of the surgery, including my dying during the operation. (Nationwide the rate is 10% for this operation, according to the American Cancer Society.) He told us that the rate at Sloan was 4%. He also talked at length about the things they didn't know yet and the complications that would arise from them – what could keep the surgery from succeeding. Then he told us what would take place during the surgery.
The CT scan we brought up with us from home only covered the right half of my abdomen, which he indicated was unusual and didn't provide him information they needed to make a decision critical to the operation. He needed to be able to determine as closely as possible how much liver he could leave behind – it had to be sufficient to sustain my life, and the CT scan did not show that. Nor did it show whether the left bile duct was affected. He also suggested an ultrasound that could give more information on the left bile duct.
He discussed what he was looking to determine with each test. Also, since I had other medical issues in the past, he also wanted to make sure he clearly and completely understood the state of my health, so they were going to schedule appointments with a physician and a cardiologist. Once they had time to talk to the physicians and look at the test results, he wanted to meet with me again on New Year's Eve.
He then asked what we planned to do for Christmas Eve since we were away from home and family. We had talked about finding a nice Italian restaurant, and that's what we told him. He said they would go get us a list of Italian restaurants in the area and have the staff make some recommendations on which ones were the best. In a few minutes, we had a five page list of Italian restaurants in Midtown Manhattan, and four or five recommendations for specific ones.
Over the next week, I had two ultrasounds, a CT scan, and appointments with other physicians. The day after Christmas, the doctor called me to let me know that the results of the CT scan and the ultrasound showed the left bile duct was not yet affected, nor was the artery leading to the liver. He was very encouraged by this and felt the surgery had a much likelier prospect for success. He had set aside an operating room and set a date for surgery.
By New Year's Eve when we saw him the second time, I had been scanned and poked and prodded everywhere, plus they had discovered a blood clot behind my left knee that they were treating prior to surgery. The first thing he wanted to know was what we'd done for dinner on Christmas Eve and whether we had enjoyed Christmas in Manhattan. Then he went into detail about the surgery again and his remaining concern – the vein that feeds from the liver. It was the only thing they didn't know. It hides behind the bile duct and they couldn't determine if the tumor had reached it. The tumor had not affected the left bile duct or the artery. We discussed the surgery and it's aftermath on me. The surgery would take anywhere from six to seven hours. Then we talked about how long the recuperation period would be and what I should expect day-by-day in the hospital after surgery.
Both physicians told us the same basic information – surgery was necessary and there were unknowns, so it might not be successful.
One took the extra time and effort to explain everything about the disease, and the treatment and did days worth of additional testing to try to find out everything possible about whether the surgery could be successful first and whether we understood all the possibilities and risks. He felt he could get the cancer and return me to my baseline health status for several years.
The other scheduled surgery.
Which would you have picked?
Well, the CT scan isn't conclusive one way or another (so they're going to do an MRI this week) but it's possible that the left bile duct isn't affected. Which is great news. They can whack off the right part of the liver and I'll do just fine without it, but it's just possible at this point, not definite.
If the MRI shows more detail one way or another, then the oncologist will have a better idea of whether the surgery is worth it or not. If it doesn't show the left duct any better, that means opening me up and finding out afterwards whether the left bile duct isn't affected (or can be resected). Or is too affected or not resectable. After.
It would be better obviously to know or at least have a better indication of if, or to what extent, the left duct has been affected by the tumor, but the line in the sand is that operating is definitely a risk but not doing it is waiting to die.
If they can't get it all, once I recover from the surgery (6-8 weeks to get back to 70% or so of where I was before surgery), I'll probably have maybe a year left.
We've heard from multiple authoritative sources that the oncologist is the best liver guy in Nashville, but we've also reached out to Mayo and Sloan Kettering for second opinions. Mayo was a no – they have more demand for help than specialists to give it. We're waiting on Sloan. Waiting is the worst part of waiting.
When you hear someone in a white lab coat say, "it's malignant." or "it's cancer." you'd expect the reactions to be dramatic and you're wrong. But you actually have a good indication before hand. Doctors have seen cancer before and it not only is abnormal cell behavior, but it also looks abnormal and, well, bad. And they'll tell you that "they're sending samples off for pathology to look at" but "it doesn't look good." So you know, but it's "unofficial."
Well, it's official. I have hilar cholangiocarcinoma, a form of bile duct cancer. (Don't look it up on wikipedia. Trust me on this. That's depressingly worse than WebMD by a long shot, which is saying something.) If you try to send that information to someone on your phone, autocorrect changes "hilar" to "hilarious" and "bile" to "bike duct" cancer, which is just funny as all get out in a gallows humor sort of way. And not. Both. It's kind of a "My plan was to live forever. So far, so good. Oops." kind of situation.
What that means in terms of treatment differs a lot. I've read it does and doesn't respond to radiation or chemotherapy, that it requires surgery, but sometimes it's inoperable, and that you can and can't get a liver transplant. All pretty mixed news. But the survival rates really suck. Only 29% make it two years (only 91% make it through surgery anyway) and 17% make it to five years.
Mostly treatment is up in the air because we don't see the bile cancer oncology specialist until later in the week. There are lots of unknowns and the websites are generally less than specific because it all depends. (As a user experience professional who uses that phrase a lot in his work, the irony isn't lost on me.)
Like real estate, cancer is all location, location, location. Can they cut it all out (as in every little bit) and replumb the bile ductwork successfully? We don't know that and it will probably take some other sort of operative intrusion into my innards to figure out.
Nashville has huge medical complexes and it's home to lots of hospital organizations. They also have a really good bile cancer oncologist we see Thursday. That's our first step. We'll keep you up to date.
If there was a list of all the design tools I've tried over the years, it would be pretty long. The first one I had was Illustrator 88 on a 300K diskette, partial payment for design work I did for Apple as my first freelance project. Over the years, I've seen and tried almost every one that's come along, up until about a half-dozen years ago. That's when the team I was on settled on Fireworks as our standard.
I have more familiarity with standard vector-based drawing tools, like Illustrator and FreeHand, and with Photoshop because I was a visual designer, but Fireworks can be a great tool for teams, particularly if you want to standardize what you do. Its Library feature has great potential for creating and dispensing standard components.
I had one team member create vector versions of every standard form and application element we currently used. Each element was created using styles as a wireframe element, as a fully rendered, brand-compliant element, and in inactive, active, selected, and deselected states, as appropriate. We then used an ActionScript-based add-on panel for corporate styles. Selecting an element (or a screen full of them) and selecting the right radio button could change every element from wireframes to fully-rendered mockups while you went for coffee. A huge timesaver.
All a designer had to do was drag an element onto the file from the library and modify the size and labels to meet the application needs. It included tables, standard form elements, text boxes (complete with content), complete banners for intranet sites with brand, search, personalization links, etc., everything we used on a regular basis. The screens still needed to be designed, but the components all looked as they should and no matter who the designer was, there was consistent appearance and behavior built in to the system.
Adobe never had a handle on what a web-oriented design application should be. For print, designers had to use a vector app for illustrations, logos and visuals (Illustrator or FreeHand), exported as .eps files, Photoshop for imagery, exported as tiff or .eps, and then put it all together in yet another application (Pagemaker or Quark, at first, then InDesign). They wanted the same thing to happen in the web world (Illustrator/FH, Photoshop, into Dreamweaver) but the designers at that time didn't want to code HTML in Dreamweaver. They just wanted to design stuff and let someone less purist convert it into prosaic HTML. Now they've decided to stop supporting Fireworks and let it die, just as the other products they bought from Macromedia have also died.
When I'd try out a new design application, I had a process for it. I'd install the application and use it for one of my projects with an impending deadline. Yes, no training, no manual, just dive in and see if it's shallow water. Thats what I'm planning to do with the current tests (although I've only done one so far). For the first tool, I decided to create a full set of the Teehan-Lax iPhone PSD files as the test. T-L had just released them and I hadn't looked at them yet (not having a project to use them on). There was no deadline, but it would be a test involving standard mobile UI components, small, highly detailed images, and it would be a file with lots and lots of elements to create.
As you can see from the results, creating iOS7 files using Sketch is obviously possible. I was able to create each and every UI element in Sketch. I made a jpg of the PSD file, dropped it into the bottom layer of Sketch, locked it, and started drawing. However, after starting with the individual UI element portion of the PSD file, I ran into a snag and it was a big one.
As I work, I organize things. It's a learned skill from trying to pick up work others have done and make changes. I group things into folders (or grouped elements) so they stay together and I can figure out what line goes where. So when I create a keyboard, for example, I'll do each row of keys and collect them into a folder and I'll have each row of letters in its own folder with letters in the folder in left-to-right order and the key shape layer right below the letter it goes with and the background for that keyboard at the bottom. Organized.
In addition to all the elements that make up a component, that adds complexity and more things to the files, but it's great for six months down the road. Once I had created the individual UI components and started working on some of the dialogs and screens, Sketch stopped letting me add objects. I apparently hit the upper limit on the number of objects I could create in one file.
Most of the projects I've worked on are corporate applications. Internal and external applications with heavy data usage and lots of things ending up on the screens. Having limits on the number of objects I can create in one file doesn't work well in those situations. No matter how I tried to restructure the file, it was obvious I wasn't going to get it all in there. When you also consider that a simple drop-down picker requires a rectangle, a square, a downward pointing arrow, a label, and content text, items multiply faster than you'd think. This is a crippling feature for large applications. Combined with the lack of a library for reuse and storage, it's less than I want for screen mockup purposes. It's a good application for sketching but that's not what I'm looking for.
Some time back I heard an interesting NPR Report on hearing loss (with sound examples) that can give you a good foundation of understanding what it is like to be hearing impaired or be around someone who is. Hearing loss isn't linear or across the board. I hear low tones pretty well but as the frequency climbs and the pitch rises, I hear less and less of it. That's typical nerve damage-related hearing loss. Working around loud machinery, too much loud rock and roll through headphones, and similar noisy environments can do real damage. Usually, the greater loss comes in the higher portion of the hearing spectrum. People begin to have difficulty hearing consonants more than vowels.
Analog: boosts the volume of sound coming into your ear – like tiny loudspeakers. Boosts the level of everything with limited filtering, some targeted help. Lesser cost (which in hearing aids is a hugely relative term. You can spend $7,000 or more for a pair of high-end digital hearing aids). To be honest, this may now be a historical category. I don't know if they are still made.
Digital – the latest in very expensive, very tiny sound processing equipment using digital sound processing technology to make things sound clearer, less distorted and LOUDER, while trying to filter out background noises. Offers noise reduction and almost no feedback. If you've never had hearing aids, feedback is like a kid with a loud whistle hiding inside your ear. It's usually caused by poor fit. It is guaranteed to make you wince and grab madly for your ear in public. Newer technologies can take sounds at a certain spectrum of frequencies and short them to a slightly different part of the spectrum. If you hear very poorly in one section of the hearing spectrum, those sounds get shifted to another part of the spectrum where you hear a bit better.
Analog programmable – a hybrid of the two with some programming capabilities.
Note: The technology in hearing aids changes almost as often as does other modern technology, like laptops and phones. This is up to date as of when I wrote it and thus, completely out of date.
Types: (Note that size and price are not linearly related to each other. If anything, they're inversely related.)
Barely visible at all – fits inside the ear canal (and called ITC – in the canal) and has a nearly invisible flexible stalk with a little ball on the end you use to grab it and remove it. Least noticeable of all hearing aids and appealing to your vanity. They offer cosmetic advantages (harder to see by others) but their small size limits the amount of technology inside them. Uses the smallest batteries and thus has the smallest battery life.
In the ear – called ITE. Capable of handling digitally programmable technology that allows for several advantages. The audiologist can set break points in the audio boost to better tailor what gets amplified to match your actual hearing loss patterns. Can have both a volume switch and a tiny push switch you trigger with a fingertip to change the audio boost for certain types of environments (such as in a noisy restaurant with hard walls and ceilings which echo like crazy, or a concert/tv setting). Custom environment settings can make a difference between understanding the conversation at your table and impossibly trying to pick sounds out of the whole restaurant to hear and understand.
Behind the ear – (called BTE, you seeing the pattern?). These come in tiny versions (which can be thought of as training wheels for hearing aids) which can provide a nice boost to hearing for people who don't yet need a significant jump in decibels. The smallest BTE aids can be perfect for small children and adults new to hearing aids with lower levels of hearing loss. They have a small clear tube that runs from the hearing aid to the (usually) flexible earpiece. They can be hard to notice if you aren't looking for them.
When you think of the hearing aid your grandfather or great-grandfather wore, this is what you think of. These days, with technology, the huge ones like grandpa had are dinosaurs. The modern ones are much smaller (a quarter the size) and much more powerful. They can be unobtrusive. Bigger size can also mean more room for high-tech gadgetry including directional microphones to help you hear what the person in front of you is saying. (Hearing aids make everything a little louder, so you can hear things being said at restaurant tables two and three tables away almost as easily as hearing your dinner partner.) Keeping your hearing focused where you want it can be a trial to learn. This type of hearing aid usually has a larger clear plastic tube that runs from the hearing aid, over the top of the ear and into the ear. The less technology-savvy versions of the BTEs can be in the $500 each range, which is great if they work for you. You don't want to know the top end.
The earpiece itself frequently has an open fitting which is a central dome inside an open, vented tip. This open type lets air get in your ears and reduces sweating that would take place if the ear was completely filled with a hearing aid. Hearing aids that fill your ear can make you feel as if your ears are plugged (Surprise! They are.) They have holes that run from the outside of the hearing aid through to the inside, called vents, that help. Vented tips don't feel as intrusive and can be more comfortable.
There's also a kind of BTE that actually has a small speaker on the tip that fits in your ears. Somewhat akin to magic. Some BTE's come with remotes. Why would you want a remote? In a word, bluetooth. The remote can link your hearing aids and your smartphone together so that when you get a call you tap the remote and the call is fed right to your ears through the hearing aid. This is serious magic.
Remember when I mentioned the little buttons that you use to change the settings when you go in that trendy restaurant with the brick walls and tin ceiling? Well, the buttons are on the outside of your hearing aid where you can easily tap them. When you stick your smartphone up to your hearing aid it can hit those same little buttons. As the button changes a setting, it tells you with a set of beeps or a voice that things just changed. You're having a conversation (or trying to) and suddenly you hear the conversion punctuated with beep, beep, beep or a voice saying Three, One, Two as you accidentally tap the buttons with your phone. The person on the other end won't know it is happening. They'll keep talking even though you can't keep up.
Also, have you see those commercials for those headphones that can make the TV sound louder? the remote can work the same way. Set it in front of the TV and turn it on and the TV is piped straight into your ears.
Other things to know:
Hearing aids don't fix your hearing problems. The most common damage is from nerve damage. Those nerves won't heal. You will still have difficulty figuring out what the sounds are and what words those sounds are creating. (That NPR clip is an excellent example.) Most hearing loss is from nerve damage caused by exposure to loud noises. If you have a good degree of nerve damage, people will mumble louder once you have hearing aids. Mental sound processing will still be required, particularly if you are really hearing impaired. Nerve damage-based hearing loss is the most common and that loss makes it harder to hear consonants in spoken words. Write a sentence down on a white board and then erase the consonants. If you hadn't written it down yourself, would you be able to figure out what it used to say? Begin to see the problems.
You have two ears. Had you noticed? Your mind processes the sound input from both ears to generate how you understand what you hear. If you need hearing aids, unless you had only one ear suffering from hearing loss somehow, you will also probably need two hearing aids. It's a binaural world out there.
Using them with phones
Features you want to have in a hearing aid: Telecoil – means the hearing aid can sense that you have a phone next to your ear and it turns the hearing aid off. You want this because having something up against your ear usually creates feedback. Feedback hurts and prevents you from paying attention to anything else in the world at that moment. If you have a house phone or a standard office phone at work, this can be important.
If you have a VOIP (internet-based phone) at work or home that plugs into a USB port, you need a headset that has a cushion to keep the ear pieces off your ears. The earpieces provide space – not too much so the telecoils work as they should, but not so close that the headphones trigger any mode-changing buttons on your hearing aids. If you like to listen to music on your phone or iPod, you'll probably need a similar type of earphone with them. One that stands off your ears and lets you switch from music playing to answering the phone will be difficult to find, but not impossible.
Cellphones are available that work with hearing aids. They are specifically labeled as hearing aid compatible. (HAC is the acronym you look for.) If you are not near the end of your contract, changing phones could be a cost to deal with in addition to the hearing aid costs. Remember, you're going to have thingies in your ears. You can't put ear buds in there too.
Most cell phone sales locations don't display hearing aid compatibility information but the sales people can be beaten into confessing which models work. You can also search for accessibility at the vendor's site as well. The Bluetooth gadgets you wear over one ear may not work with your hearing aids but you can use a hands-free bluetooth gadget in your car.
Other useful info
Hearing aids are expensive. They may fit in your pocket easily but you could also use that money to buy a used Mazda Miata. Add them to your homeowner's insurance so they are covered. See if your employer's insurance will cover some of the purchase cost. My employer at the time covered ½ the purchase price, but they would only do that once in my lifetime. I waited to use that benefit until I got the fancy digital ones and told my audiologist I wanted ones that would last me forever. They didn't but I happened to change insurance carriers to one that covers the whole cost. By the way, if you are approaching Medicare age, have insurance coverage for hearing aids and need them, go ahead and get them. Medicare doesn't cover the cost.
So how do you decide which hearing aid is right for you and how do you sort through the manufacturers? That's where your audiologist comes into it. You have to find a good one that you can trust. You can ask doctors (like an ear, nose and throat specialist) for a recommendation, that works sometimes. The audiologist may be friends with the doctor (you'll sometimes find an audiologist working in-house with an ENT practice) or there may be an undisclosed financial connection (happened to me).
Also, some audiologists are virtually a sole source vendor for one manufacturer. That sort of exclusive deal can get them special pricing but not necessarily the best product for you. This is about you, not them. Manufacturers can also compel audiologists to buy certain quantities of certain models on a regular basis, which is an incentive to prescribe what they have on hand instead of what's going to be better for you in the long run.
You can try Angie's List or a Google search, but word of mouth works the best. There's probably someone you work with or know or see in church or the grocery that wears hearing aids. Ask them who they use and if they'd recommend them. I started with one recommended by a friend. I was tested and she recommended ITE hearing aids. They worked excellently but I wasn't accustomed to them. Everything was so loud. I'd gotten used to having the world on mute and had a hard time adjusting. I returned the hearing aids within the 30 day period. I went with an audiologist recommended by an ENT physician. He fitted me with small BTE hearing aids that boosted the volume and were tiny. I became accustomed to hearing better with them on and a few years later moved back to the ITC types. I also moved back to the first audiologist. The second audiologist said some things that didn't jibe with what I'd been told by the first one and I trusted the first one more. You have to go with trust. She eventually sold her practice to someone that treated customers poorly. Another friend then recommended my current audiologist and I've done business with him for a decade.
As part of trying to figure out what I'll move to now that Adobe is ending support to Fireworks, I'm looking at alternatives. First up was Sketch, partly because lots of people use it and like it, so I decided to try it out. From past lives, I've found the best way to learn a new application is to grab a project, set a deadline and try to make it happen in the new software. This can be painful. Since I didn't have a personal project to toss at it, I decided I'd just create something.
I took a JPG export of the Teehan+Lax iPhone OS7 template, dropped it into the background, and off I went. (Those people, by the way, are significantly amazing. I've used their iPhone templates for as long as they've been making them. I'd convert them into Fireworks files and jigger them around to create what I needed. I have a lot of respect for what they've done. If you use Photoshop or Fireworks, use their stuff.)
My goal was to completely recreate that file in its entirety all as vectors. No bits were mapped in the making of this project. Every icon, gadget, and everything else are either vector images or Sketch objects. (Do not try to deconstruct the settings gears icons, I'm letting you know ahead of time, that one's a pill.) As a result, you won't see shiny iPhone cases and dreamy space scenes as background images, but nobody really uses them when designing applications anyway. You also won't see perfectly constructed icons, either, but they do have usable ones. If you use them, your mom won't be embarrassed for you.
What I discovered as I finished all the screen components, the Apple application screen samples, the two iPhones, the AirDrop, table views, new message screens, and then started in on creating the underlying home screen they had as an image under the control center, is that Sketch seems to have a limit on the number of objects one file can handle without repeatedly crashing and burning. It just stopped letting me make objects, period. They aren't huge files. It happens.
As a result, I broke out the components into one file, and kept working. Then it stopped a second time and I couldn't add anything else. As a result, I have three sketch files, the screen components, the screens sets within the applications, and a third file with the two phones, the home screen and the Control Center overlays.
What these do also include that T+L didn't include (and I don't blame them. That was a pain.) a fully rendered vector version of the home screen, including all the icons but not the space background image.
What these files do not include: The lock screens. They're nice looking, but I don't create lock screens when I design applications. It also doesn't include the two notification screens for the same reason. (Oh, and I'm tired as well. There were five of these screens.)
After having been living in the East Dallas area for a couple of months, it's becoming obvious to me that there are distinct advantages to living inside the city. Everything is closer. My employer is only a few miles away and it takes less than 15 minutes to get there. Grocery stores and shopping areas are nearby a well. I filled up the gas tank on my car at the end of January. I've driven everywhere I needed to go since then and didn't have to fill the tank until the 9th of March. That's seven weeks. Amazing.
And walking to places is easier in the urban area, well, if you pick the right places to live. in some cities. I've got a grocery, a hardware, two coffee shops, two Tex-Mex, one Chinese, one Italian, and one Mediterranean restaurant, all within walking distance. I'm really getting accustomed to this urban lifestyle thing, Once this contract job is done, I'll probably move back home and we'll try to downsize our stuff, and our lives.


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Bristol Palin: 'Abstinence Didn't Work for Me!'
Hoping to set an example for others with her own experience, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol would like to become an advocate for preventing teen pregnancy.
"Everyone should wait 10 years," the younger Palin told Greta Van Susteren on a FOX News segment that aired Monday night. "I hope people learn from my story ... It's so much easier if you're married, have a house and career. It's not a situation you want to strive for."
Palin, 18, also said in the interview -- her first since the teen made headlines last summer during Sarah Palin's GOP vice-presidential campaign -- that her mother's view of abstinence, especially in regard to teenagers, is "not realistic at all."
Bristol further stated that although her mother is an outspoken Right to Life advocate, "It was my choice to have the baby. It doesn't matter what my mom's views are on it. It was my decision."
Recounting how she first informed her parents, Todd and Sarah Palin, of her condition, Bristol said she gathered her boyfriend, Levi Johnston, and her best friend, but that getting the words out of her mouth was "harder than labor."
The friend broke the news to the parents, said Bristol, who also described Johnston as a "hands-on dad." She added, "Eventually we'd like to get married."
As for her new situation, "I like being a mom," said Bristol. "I love it, just seeing him smile and stuff. It's awesome."
Appearing late in the interview, carrying her grandson Tripp Johnston, Gov. Palin said, "Hey, life happens." Of her unwed, teenage daughter's pregnancy, she said, "Not the most ideal situation, certainly you make the most of it."
The fact that she raised a daughter that is comfortable expressing different opinions from her has greatly improved my view of Sarah Palin!
I was a teen mom. I was 18 when I got pregnant with my son, 19 when I had him. I was in college when I got pregnant, and I dropped out because I couldn't see how I was going to raise a son and go to school at the same time. I wish I'd stayed.
Anyway, I think Bristol is right. As much as we should be encouraging abstinence in teens, we also have to be realistic and know that not all of them are going to abstain, no matter how much we encourage them to.
Sexual education must be well rounded, including both abstinence and birth control education. I'm glad that someone as high profile as Bristol Palin is being realistic and saying that abstinence only education isn't going to work because teens are going to do what they are going to do.
I agree with the respone made by Gwynne (above). I hate to say that abstinence is unrealistic, but it's true. I agree with teaching abstinence to ym daughter when she is old enough, but also agree with sex education as far as birth control goes and everything along with it. If she chooses to have sex before marriage than I will strive to teach her about safe sex. Life defnititely happens..like Sarah Palin said, even when the sitaution isn't "the all american dream"…you have to make the most of it and see it as a blessing instead of a burden.
Yeah, Most of Sarah Palin's views are unrealistic… Good luck Bristol, you will need it.
I agree with the comments. I am a teacher in a public school that teaches abstinence. We have had several teen pregnancies. Sex education is almost a taboo. As an educator it angers me that parents continuously believe my child won't have sex. So I think birth control should be taught as an option, not a sign of condoning the act.
I was raised in a 'total abstinence' religion. It worked for me, but at the price of my being extremely lonely and later, extremely backward socially by the time I reached adulthood. Luckily I found another super strictly raised male virgin to marry. But a good friend of mine who was raised similarly was not so lucky. She suffers socially even now, and she's over forty. In short, I think abstinence can only work if the vast majority of your peers are on the same page. Such was the case in Victorian times and even as current as the 1950's. But now? I'm a parent, and I wouldn't want to subject my son to a pariah lifestyle, regardless of how it might keep him out of trouble for a short time. There are long term consequences that I think abstinence pushers don't realize exist in these modern times. Such as, the hurdle adult virgins face when they're suddenly not teenagers anymore and their dates expect them to have at least five years experience in the bedroom.
Abstinence absolutely works if you use it. I know that some parents (and I don't know the case here, so i'm speaking in general)are just hard on their kids in everything so they get to the age where they feel like no one can tell them anything and they do any and everything they feel like they're big enough to do which doesn't stop at unprotected sex. I believe that a balance has to be found while children are yet young so that they won't want to go that way; so that they'll know that there are other things they can do for entertainment or if they're bored. The lines of communication should be open between children and their parents so that they can freely talk to their parents about such a topic as sex. The commercial that says take time to think holds true. Your virginity should be the one gift that you should have reserved for your husband.
Milla, proponents of abstinence are fond of quoting the failure rate for various types of contraceptive. And they're right, any form of contraceptive has a failure rate.
But they they claim that abstinence is 100% effective.
Except it's *not*.
Oh, it is if you never mess up, never make a mistake, never end up having sex… but kids being kids - and, more correctly, being *human* - sometimes they make mistakes and do things they might regret. And all those teens who attempted to be abstinent and failed due to simple human failings, all of a sudden they're not counted as having use any method at all! It would be more honest to count them among people who intended to be abstinent, but did not achieve that goal, laudable though it may be.
And when it's done, far better they regret it a little, because they were educated about safe sex, than that they regret it a lot, because they *weren't* in the misguided notion that ignorance would somehow keep them safer!
(As far as reserving my virginity for my husband… eh, I think whoever that guy is (should I ever even decide to get married!), he'll just have to settle for a tie.)
Seriously people! Bristol Palin is eighteen she's not fifteen. Last time I checked eighteen was a legal adult. I was eighteen when I had my first child. I'am now twenty seven and have three. I don't regret for one second having my first so young. A friend of mine is 32 and just had her first child and all she does is complain about how "old" she'll be if she has any more. My point is that times are different now Bristol is an adult, she's not a young girl.
It's a matter of biology, we have a huge drive to have sex before we even reach marriage age. Abstinence only is unrealistic, always has been, we should spend more time making sure people are aware of how to prevent disease and pregnancy. I'm glad to see Bristol is speaking up about this long standing problem.
Abstinence education is a great thing - when presented as the best option out of a lot of other options, because it is realistically the BEST plan. However, it's an unlikely plan, which makes abstinence only education, leaving out the other options, a terrible plan.
And for quoting those success rates and abstinence as 100% … what about the Virgin Mary? She was abstinent .. went real great for her. 99.99999% effective, maybe?
bristol, wake up the father is not marrying you…that just one of the lines that is appropriate to say at the time…join the single mothers group.
If the father does marry Bristol after so long persuation and guilt, the marriage is destined to fail.
Abstinence only doesn't work because nothing ONLY EVER WORKS.
Children making the decision to have sex are not doing so because they saw ONE TV program. It's because they are bombarded by sexuality in music, TV, at school, friendships, magazines etc.
Unfortunately the bombardments occur at a time they are least likely to be able to handle it; the early teen years.
Make no mistake having children inside a marriage is the goal. I don't care how many folks are single parents, I pity you. I did not have my kids until 36 and 39 as I did not marry until 35. I wouldn't be a never been married parent to save my life.
Abstinence education can work if combined with supervision, honest discussion of sex education, STDs, a spiritual backdrop to the advantages of celibacy, a restriction of exposure to sexual images on TV, music etc.
Let's also face another reality—if the goal of abstinence is no sex until after marriage, if the failure allows someone to delay sex as long as possible, I see it as a partial success.
To have a boy or girl so significantly alter their life because they are being driven by their hormones alone is sad. Children alter your life in a positive way for the rest of your life. That alteration should happen when it is planned, and when the parents are willing and able to make that sacrifice. It should not be forced upon you at 12, 16 or 18 because no one is there to help keep your hormones in check.
The reality is most parents are far too lazy to do what it takes to limit TV, book, internet and magazine exposure. Parents suddenly think 16 is the age to begin letting go and the opposite is true.
I don't care about Sarah Palin's children and what they do. The only reason it's news is because she aligned herself with the holier than thou right and she got caught. Her daughter is now one of those ugly single parents just like those in the ghetto they so like to look down on. NO DIFFERENT.
She's a classic babymama.
If she ever marries she will have a messy family with kids by different men.
Personally do I care? Not one iota. Just glad it's not me.
Youre so cool! I dont think Ive read anything like this before. So good to find somebody with some original thoughts on this subject. Thanks for starting this up. This blog is something that is needed on the web, someone with a little originality. Good job for bringing something new to the internet!
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

subset: commoncrawl


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In seven years of teaching, the requests have come from students who barely passed my class. They have come a day after graduation and stated the obvious when they read "I'm not sure if you remember me, but…" They have come addressed to another professor, thanks to forgetting to change the salutation when they were copied-and-pasted into emails to anyone that may be able to put a face with an email address and write the coveted glowing reference.
The deeper I get into my teaching career, willing I have been to give into my guilt and write them. "Will you write me a reference letter?" is often code for "Will you follow the specific instructions to write individual letters for the 10 grad schools and 10 entry-level positions I have applied for?" I tried to limit my reference-letter writing to students who received an A or B in my class and, later, an A. Then I tried to limit it to students who have taken more than one class with me or have given me some other way to get to know them beyond the 37.5 hours of classroom time I have with them in a given semester (assuming they don't miss any classes).
I have tried to gently point out that, as an adjunct professor, my reference will not have the weight and impact that a letter from a full-time faculty member will have, particularly if the student is applying for a graduate program. I also point out that they may get a better reference letter from a professor who taught a class in which they actually spoke or offered some other way of helping the professor remember who the fuck they were.
And still the requests came.
Policies did little to deter them. If anything, they resulted in an email back-and-forth in which more time was expended explaining and reiterating my policy on reference letters than it would have been to simply drag out the boiler plate and send the damn letter. Refusal was often — coincidentally, I'm sure — followed with a shitty, anonymous review on Rate My Professor days, or even hours, after I had politely explained why writing a reference was something I could not do.
The biggest reason for not wanting to honor every reference letter request is it cheapens the ones I write for the students I actually want to write reference letters for. Right now I'm finishing up a round of letters for a former student who I feel genuinely deserves my time and effort; it's been more than five years since she was in my class, but I still remember specific interactions and her efforts to actually learn something. She was one of those rare, contemporary students who figuratively asked "What can I learn in this class?" instead of "What do I need to get an A in this class?" Too often students mistake my genuine like for them as people with a firm belief that they can "excel in a graduate program" or "be a fine addition to your corporate culture."
I don't know if hiring managers and admissions committees actually read the reference letters; there must be some gems from the students who truly over-estimated the professor's views of their abilities, and perhaps those blunt missives about a candidate's shortcomings are helpful to people deciding between applicantss who all look alike on paper. But if those people are actually reading them, they will be reading even fewer from me thanks to my latest policy to deal with the glut of requests I get.
I'm not going to write them anymore.
Like most rules I make, there are instances where I will want to (and instances where I will) break my own rule. But the general rule of thumb going forward is prove something to me. Take multiple classes with me and show an intellectual curiosity that goes beyond getting through my class as another checkmark on the list of things you have to do to get to graduation. Understand that, in a typical class, I have less interaction with you than I would if you worked for me as a full-time employee for a single week. If the request is going to come a year or more after you are in my class, keep in mind I will have as many as 100 new students since then; if you didn't make an effort to get to know me by showing up to office hours or staying after class to talk about your career plans, I may need a refresher on who you are.
And most of all, when I say no, understand I am saying no to benefit you. I'm saving you from the half-hearted effort I would put into writing the letter and pushing you to find that one professor or boss you really connected with who can write the types of letters that make the reader take notice.


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Today my son asked me if he could have a little Sister! Seeing as I'm 3 months away from my delivery date I have to admit it's been something that's been playing on my mind a lot recently. I replied to him "Why do you want a sister sweetie? Wouldn't you rather a little Brother to play with?" to which he replied "So I can look after her"! It was the sweetest moment. I treasure all of these sweet moments of innocence from my child as I'm sure most mothers do!
I would love to have a little girl to dress up and treat as my little princess, as I've mentioned previously. Don't get me wrong – another little boy would be fantastic too. All the preparations we have been making such as buying new clothing, decorating the room as so forth have all been quite neutral up to this point, so we are prepared for whatever comes our way in the future.
Thinking about what he asked me made me reflect upon my life and how many children I would ideally like to have. I would love to have a little girl as I'm sure most people would but I don't know how many children I would want as yet! One is a lot of work but he's more than worth it, he's my world. I'm looking forward to the challenge of bringing up two children and the obstacles I will face along the way.
How many Children do you have & How did you handle the whole gender hopes and dreams?!


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Credits & Info
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- Score
- 4.43 / 5.00
- Date
- 06/25/2009
- Category
- Illustration
- File Info
- 600 x 1092 px
- 134.4 kb
- Tags
- sexy
- pencil
- girl
- maid
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Author Comments
Yes... I know that the head is big... I worked so hard on it though...
Rated 5 / 5 stars Aug 28, 2009
Is it just me or do I see that the arms are a bit skinny?? Anyway great drawing man :D
Lol~! It's not that her arms are skinny, it's her head... it's just really big... lol
And, btw... I'm a girl... lol
Rated 5 / 5 stars Jul 18, 2009
Its aperently a skinny girl the only thing that bugs me is the positin of here right eye bugs me looks a lil high.
lol... I don't edit pencil drawings...
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars Jun 27, 2009
Good, but...
Just that the arms I'm seeing them a little bit skinny than the maid. But the most important of it is that is a great drawing.
thank!!! :)
Rated 4 / 5 stars Jun 26, 2009
gret but...
is really weel done, but, i don't like the arms, just the torso and the head like me, and the dress like me too
It's anime... I think I just drew the head too big...
Rated 5 / 5 stars Jun 26, 2009
she is soooooooo pretty!
Awww!!! thank you so much!!!


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Why the Shape Of Your Beer Glass Matters
The Economist
We know the shape of wine glasses matters, but does the shape really matter for beer glasses? Yes, it does, but not only for the reason you think.
Much like wine, the aroma, color, and taste of beer is affected as soon as it hits a glass. (That's why, at a bar, you'll often be served beer in brand-specific glasses.) But there's another reason the glass shape matters. According to researchers at the University of Bristol, the shape of a beer glass can help regulate how quickly people drink.
The Economist reports that the study in question had 160 undergraduates (80 women and 80 men) drink beer out of a straight glass, out of a beer flute (which has sides that curve outward towards the rim), or drink lemonade from one of those two glasses. The researchers were interested in how quickly the beverages would be consumed. They found that a full straight glass of beer was finished in 11 minutes, while "a full flute, by contrast, was down the hatch in seven," the same amount of time it took to drink a full glass of lemonade, regardless of the type of glass it was in.
So why is it that people end up drinking beer more quickly when they drink out of a curved flute rather than a straight glass?
[The] hypothesis is that a beer drinker, wishing to pace himself through an evening, is monitoring the volume remaining in the glass, probably with reference to the halfway mark... A curved-sided glass, though, makes exercising such judgment hard... Most volunteers thought the halfway mark in the flute was lower than its true value, and if a volunteer had drunk from such a glass originally, the degree of misestimation correlated with how fast he had drunk.
Interesting! Have you ever noticed that the pace at which you drink beer changes depending on the type of glass you're using?
Read More: Shape Up | The Economist
Related: Good Foam, Bad Foam: What's the Deal with Beer Foam?
(Image: Emma Christensen)
8 Comments
Why weren't they running this study when I was an undergrad? I only got to "buy stock" in a computer model!
This raises a very important question: Whatever happened to Strongbad? Did the creator just fall off the internet, or did I just lose touch?
@Somewhiteguy - I'm pretty sure one of the creators of HSR went on to help out with Yo Gabba Gabba (aren't we all not at all surprised).
Loved me some HSR in high school. It was the first thing I noticed about the picture. ^_^
The glass shape definitely changes how you drink. Have you ever noticed when you drink out of the signature Sam Adams glass you drink very slow? I think it is because tilting the glass to get the liquid out is very cumbersom... thoughts?
Aw, Dan, you dodged a bullet, man. Because lemme tell you... a One that is not cold, is scarcely a One at all.
Beer & Strongbad? Happy Friday! :)
I can totally agree with this, and so can these craft beer tees: http://etsy.me/Q9C0DX
Splomo for the win!


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Want To Be In Good RelationshipI really hope I can find a guy I have a lot in common with, and has the same flaws I have. I was always happiest when I associated with guys who had the same flaws I had. We perceived the society the same way, and were able to laugh together. I want to find a guy who is sensitive, and was over-sheltered by parents, had controling parents, and maybe also has blocked emotional development issues.
Being ambitious like me and into career and making money is a plus, but I'm mainly looking for someone who will fit with me (when it comes to internal social/emotional qualities).
I'm not interested in getting involved with a guy who I'm out of his league. I don't know a WHOLE lot about relationships, but one of my theorys is that a die alone formula for women is when they "hook up" or get sexually involved with a man who are in a better league then them, when they stay with a boyfriend like that for an extended period of time, or if they have a friends with benefits with one of those for a period of time. When I mention the man is in a better league I mean has experienced a better social life growing up, more sophisticated, has higher self esteem, had healthy emotional development, never went though the negative experiences I went through. I'm very serious about wanting to be in a good relationship, and am not interested in being some man's girl toy.
The guy who had it better than then girl will just use the girl as a toy and devalue her. I want a guy who wants to laugh with me, and relate to me, and be a very close companion, not look down on me or waste my time.
journeytowhere 22-25, F 1 Response 3 Jun 21, 2011
I agree with having compatibility on key aspects of ourselves and common background. I disagree with having shared emotional damage and wounds. I think that is a recipe for break up. I believe if one has strength or maturity or healthiness in one area of life and the other does not then s/he can carry the relationship in that one area.

And for the other person has other healthy qualities as well. Ex. When someone has experienced a distant or abusive parent the other has a more loving upbringing then s/he can be more patient.

I do believe that any of us with our past wounds from childhood need to get therapy on it in order to have a healthy relationship.


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We came to Fairway Suites after a disappointing booking for a nearby cottage that was misrepresented by the owner. They had room for us immediately and accommodations were found for us that suited and really more than met our needs. The manager is a gem and is there to help with everything one could possibly need. The staff was friendly and helpful always. All is all it was one of the best vacations we have ever had. Being right on a beautiful golf course was a real plus! Pond and golf course views, great roomy rooms, A/C when needed, our own laundry room, gorgeous flower gardens, a beautiful heated salt water pool and a fully equipped gym just add to the experience.
Excellent property. Views are great we will be back!


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The recent benching of Robert Griffin III by Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan has been a decision that has called into question quite a few elements of Football. Shanahan benched Griffin after the team fared poorly and lost chances of playoffs and to keep his quarterback out of danger and injury, he benched him for offseason.
Hall of Fame coach John Madden is one to loudly voice his disapproval of that decision, saying that the benching of the quarterback is something which may have more effect that predicted and was a bad decision in itself.
Madden said that Shanahan's decision to bench the quarterback to ensure he would be ready and uninjured for the coming season was not in the spirit of Football. The Redskins are 3-10 and that may be a disappointing score and for everything the season may seem lost but there are still three games left to play and a healthy player should be included in that, especially if that is a starting player and has no issues with attending. Madden said that every game counts and the Redskins would have Griffin on the field if they had chances of making it to the playoffs and that was reason enough for them to have him playing whether they were or were not going to make it to the playoffs this season.
"I do know this: when the going goes tough you don't quit," Madden said. "And you don't fold up. And you don't go in the other direction. I think you stay with what you believe you stay with who you are, you stay with what you are."
Madden said that the games they were playing were of the NFL regular season and had importance. Every game as important as the other one and playoffs were a major target but losing them did not mean that the rest of the games were lost and should be played half-heartedly.
"We have an integrity piece here too. You can say well they're 3-10, they're out of it, so now they can do these things. No you can't," Madden said. "This is still regular-season football. Draft order, that's one small thing, but you still owe it to the people that are playing, that are still in the playoff picture."
He said that the integrity of the game was being marred with such actions.
"And when you can affect that and you don't affect it with an all-out performance, then I think that affects the integrity of the game … If you're in the regular season," he said "there's only one way to play, and that's to play your best people to win the game, every regular season game."
John Madden says that benching Griffin III an issue that puts into question the very essence of Football
12/16/13 in NFL | BrianMaddock | 1429 respect


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On Sunday after 26 years of club play, the Bucs Lacrosse team took the field as a NCAA Varsity team. First was a scrimmage against the University of Texas Longhorns club team. Working out the jitters took some time, as the Longhorns controlled the ball for most of the game. The largely rookie defense did its best against the seasoned offense of the Longhorns, allowing many players their baptism of fire, and finally getting to run their much practiced defensive sets against someone other than teammates in practice. The Horns won handily and went on to dominate the day overall.
In the second game, many of the nerves had worked their way out, and the team played much more strongly against the Sam Houston State Bearcats. Calming down, the Bucs controlled the ball on the offensive end of the field, while effectively disrupting the Bearcats offense on the other end. The Bucs carried the game against the Bearcats vastly improved team from the year before.
The final game of the day for the Bucs was against the Texas State Bobcats, who had previously given the Horns a very tough game. The Bucs played with heart, but the long day stretched legs thin, and the Bobcats were able to control the game. Despite the fatigue, the young Bucs remained cool, running plays and executing defensive schemes well.
After the final whistle blew, spirits were high for the Bucs. "The fan support was great," said first-year captain Ed Williams, "and while we will use this as a building block towards the regular season, and I can't wait to get started in the spring."
Junior captain Luther Faulk was concerned about the image presented to the rest of the lacrosse world. "I think that overall the tournament was a success in that it gave us playing experience, which is essential at this point. We won an important matchup against Sam Houston, and despite the fact that I wish we could have played better against UT and Texas State, it showed us what we need to work on.
My expectations are that we set off a good first impression of Southwestern Lacrosse and that we will be a force to reckoned with, if not now, soon. I want what I feel everyone on our team wants… to work hard and win in doing so," Faulk said.
The team overall seemed to enjoy the day and was encouraged by the spirit the team had. "I have never been on a team with so much heart. I'll play with these boys any day!" said sophomore Donnie Murray.
Many of the parents were generous enough to organize a tailgate with barbecue and fruit after the games, so for a while after the games, the parents and players mingled, meeting and greeting one another.
Coach Joe Ernst was pleased by the day overall, not just his team's performance. "Our First Annual Pirates Fall Classic was a huge success. We had four great lacrosse teams on campus, had a day filled with great competition, reconnected with alumni and connected with the families of the current players. We got a win and got the chance to see where we needed more work for the spring season. I am proud of how far the players on this inaugural team have come and look forward to a successful and fun season," he said.
The Bucs will next take the field in January in an alumni game and then will begin regular season play in February. Being a largely underclassmen team, there is a lot of work to be done, with team bonding and still coming to trust one another, but the Bucs look forward to the work with relish, ready to make a Texan mark in the Lacrosse world.


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Walden Media is unique in Hollywood in possessing the will and the expertise to effectively promote the cause of education reform. Its conservative Christian CEO, the billionaire donor and strategist for right-wing causes Philip Anschutz, has built what may be the only media empire ideologically inclined and powerful enough to assemble an all-star, all-union cast to carry water for an anti-union crusade on 2,500 screens in wide release (though apparently not strong enough to get that cast to admit it). "Won't Back Down" is, as even teachers' union leader Randi Weingarten admits, an emotionally charged and well-crafted piece of propaganda. For neophytes to the debate — and Walden executive Chip Flaherty has described these people as the film's target — "Won't Back Down" will send warm "Stand and Deliver"-meets-"Free Willy"-style fuzzies fluttering around the otherwise cold phrase "school choice." The company hopes the film's emotional wallop will linger long enough to drive downloads of the film's activist tool kit and enlist new foot soldiers in the education reform movement. But the thing is, "Won't Back Down" is no more useful in understanding the real politics of that movement than Walden Media's adaptation of "Charlotte's Web" prepares audiences for careers in chicken farming. But that's not the point — Walden is aiming for the heart, not the head.
Tensions within the world's most powerful media family were dramatically laid bare on Thursday when Elisabeth Murdoch set out her own vision of media leadership, emphasising humanity over profit and criticising her father's News Corporation for operating with an absence of values.
Giving the keynote MacTaggart address at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Rupert Murdoch's second daughter also explicitly contradicted her brother James, chose to praise the BBC, and argued that the Olympics experience demonstrates that television is a force for storytelling rather than a route to political power.
Speaking in public for the first time about the phone-hacking affair, which prompted her to fall out with her brother a year ago, Elisabeth Murdoch said that News Corp had to ask "significant and difficult questions about how some behaviours fell so far short of its values" in the wake of what happened.
She said the lesson from the affair was that any organisation needed to "discuss, affirm and institutionalise a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose" - in contrast to News Corp's traditional mode of governance based on executives second-guessing what Rupert would do.
The cri de coeur from the 44-year-old, who runs Shine Television, the News Corp-owned maker of programmes such as Masterchef and Merlin, will be interpreted as a bid for power at her father's company - although her friends insisted she had no desire to lead the company her father built, which spans from Fox News in the US to the Sun in Britain.
Elisabeth Murdoch took aim at her younger brother James in an extended passage that referred to his own controversial MacTaggart lecture given three years ago.
That speech ended with James - weeks before the Sun switched to the Conservatives - observing that "the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit".
Elisabeth said that while loss-making media organisations had their independence "massively challenged", her brother's statement nevertheless "left something out".
Making little effort to soften the rift with her younger brother, she added: "Profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster."
Report: Rupert Murdoch has resigned as director of a string of companies behind The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times - The Telegraph
Today's most amazing tweet…
Love it when irony bites people in the butt.
Rupert Murdoch griping about Twitter abuse, when he hacked into hundreds of peoples' private phone records? Give me a break!!
The only real "abuse" here is what you're subjecting us to around the world with your drivel from Fox News, Sky News, New York Post, and your many other smaller affiliates.
That's verbal and mental abuse to the extreme!
On a day when the full voice of the British government told the world that the media empire of Rupert Murdoch is a truthless, reckless enterprise, the journalistic equivalent of a hazardous waste dump, this story about the EPA guy who resigned really rather leaps with hobnailed boots on my very last nerve.
The Brits have give everyone who doesn't work for a Fox News cover now. Nobody has to pay attention to what they say ever again because they are part of an organization unworthy of attention, let alone respect. Their little hobby-horses can be mocked, their little crusades ridiculed. And, certainly, the government of the United States can treat them like the half-assed crooks that they are.
But no.
Consider what happened here. This guy said these things two years ago. Nobody said anything, not even the local reporter covering the story. But a career whackaloon like James Inhofe opens his yap and lets the bats fly forth, Fox picks up the stupidity, and the guy resigns. My question is why did Lisa Jackson even care? Why couldn't she simply have said, "Look, goober, we don't have to pay attention every time you decide to gin up the rubes who watch your network, and we don't have to care what Inhofe says, either, because his brain was used as a placemat at Golden Corral 10 years ago. Go sit over there on the Group W bench with the birthers and the UFO guy. We'll get to you some time in 2017." What is the political price to be paid here? Nobody who gets his urethra in a knot over something like this ever is going to support the president anyway. I don't understand it and I never will.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/armendariz-resigns-8521588#ixzz1tn2FS2D5
Rupert Murdoch admitted there had been a "cover-up" of phone hacking at his flagship British tabloid newspaper and apologized Thursday for not paying more attention to a scandal that has convulsed his media empire and rocked the British political establishment.
And he admitted that he had shut down the best-selling News of the World out of "panic" in the face of public fury about the revelation that a murdered teenage girl had been a victim of phone hacking.
Murdoch, who owns the Sun and the Times in London, as well as controlling the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Fox News, said his News Corp. had been a victim of the cover-up, not the perpetrator.
Circle your calendar, or set the Tivo, because PBS' award-winningFrontline series has scheduled a documentary on the "News of the World" phone backing scandal that's been roiling Britain's ruling class for the past year. In "Murdoch's Scandal," scheduled for March 27th, "correspondent Lowell Bergman tells the story of the battle over the future of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's reputation and his family's fortunes." After James Murdoch resigned as CEO of News International, Bergman appeared on "The Takeaway" (Public Radio's morning show) and explained it is so important to get to the bottom of this scandal and why it could top Watergate in the Political Hall of Shame:
"We're talking about the involvement of every prime minister in Britain for the last quarter century," says Bergman. "Equivalent of the White House, the FBI and the largest press organization or media organization in the country, all colluding, money changing hands, cover-up and all kinds of black arts in between."
Using contentious barbs and comedic relief, Rupert Murdoch deflected attempts by angry investors to remove him as chairman of his News Corp empire at the company's annual meeting on Friday.
[…] The report alleges that the Koch brothers' companies routinely paid bribes to get contracts abroad, that they essentially usurped petroleum from federal lands, that they knowingly exposed consumers to benzene poisoning, and that they did business with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as recently as 2007. The Koches are perhaps the most far-right figures in American politics that do not actually wear white robes; their father was among the founders of the extremist John Birch Society.
But the cries of outrage won't likely do any good. Their companies do $100 billion a year in business and each of the bothers is worth $20 billion. In the United States, which is ruled by its business class the way medieval England was ruled by the Norman aristocracy, being a billionaire is most often a get out of jail free card. Some troglodyte from the Wall Street Journal that CNN kept serving up to us for economic analysis actually once said on air that there is no point in punishing financiers guilty of securities fraud legally, since they are being taken out of the game and won't be able to play the markets any more, and that is all the punishment anyone needs. It was like listening to a squire explain why his lord did not deserve to be drawn and quartered for his crimes because just not being able to visit the royal court was condign punishment in itself.
Those innocent of recent history are being overly breathless about this revelation. You want a billionaire trading illegally with Iran and a happy ending? How about numerous examples?
There is Iran-Contra, in which Ronald Reagan had his underlings steal T.O.W. missiles and missile launchers from the Pentagon warehouses, sell them illegally to Iran, take the black money paid by Ayatollah Khomeini to Reagan and launder it through Swiss accounts, and send it to right wing death squads in Nicaragua trying to overthrow the left leaning Sandinista government. The Right wing beatified Reagan and named an airport after him, and nobody ever brings up Iran-Contra any more. Rupert Murdoch made Oliver North, one of the conspirators who shredded the US constitution, a millionaire by putting him on television to tell us war fairy tales. read more
I love that Rupert still has to deal with this shit.
Last November, News Corp. dropped $360 million to buy Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn-based education technology company that provides software, assessment tools, and data services. "When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching," Murdoch said at the time.
News Corp.'s entrance into the education sector raises broader education policy questions, says University of Arizona education professor Kenneth Goodman. Having a multinational corporation in charge of assessing kids' reading skills, he notes, shows that "decision making in education is so far removed from people who have anything to do with kids." And like many educators, he is suspicious that Murdoch will bring his conservative ideology to his education ventures: "They'd like everything to be privatized."
Already, Murdoch's phone-hacking baggage is hurting his bottom line. In late August, New York rejected its plans to contract with Wireless Generation. The reason, according to the state's comptroller: "vendor responsibility issues involving the parent company of Wireless Generation."
Murdoch, Right Wing, Republican SHIT.
Rupert Murdoch
-Headline of the Day-
"News Corp. Ex-Employee Said Contacted in U.S."
Crikey! Things may get very bad for a certain Australian gazillionaire very quickly — or, as they say down under, "Rupert Murdoch could find himself in a tin of Alice's biscuits right spot Roger Winkly." Something like that anyway.
It seems the feds would like to have a word with "a former [News Corp.] employee of a U.S. unit who claims knowledge of illegal activity at the company." The said former employee, one Robert Emmel, a former account director at News America Marketing In-Store LLC, has firsthand knowledge of "hacking and possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act."
A News Corp. spokesperson is blowing this off as trivial, but keep in mind that distortion is what News Corp. employees do. (Bloomberg)
-Mad Tea Party-
The Tea Party came to shake this up in Washington!
Click to embiggen
Boy, did they ever… (McClatchy)
-Bonus HotD-
"Perry's Problem: Move To The Right On Social Security, Move To The Bottom In The General Election."
Rick Perry's numbers have been dropping like a stone since his Social Security views started getting coverage.
Seems people like socialism a lot more than Republicans think. (Talking Points Memo)
|Scott Russell Sanders (via azspot)
Roger Ailes, Fox News, Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, Dick Armey, Freedom Works, Tom Donohue, Chamber Of Commerce,Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Pat Robertson, Christian Coalition, Edwin Feulner, Heritage Foundation, Arthur Thompson, John Birch Society, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp, Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform, David Bossie,Citizens United,Tim LaHaye, Kenneth Cribb, Council for National Policy, James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly, Edwin Feulner, Steven J. Law, American Crossroads, Family Research Council,Family Talk Radio, Eagle Forum, David Keene, American Conservative Union, NRA,Tim Wildmon, American Family Association, David Barton, Wallbuilders, Noble Ellington, American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, Edward Crane, Cato Institute
All of these people and their organizations pose a serious threat to the American people. They target women, senior citizens, minorities, homosexuals, non-Christians, and American workers. So which person or organization is the most dangerous to democracy? The common thread throughout the list is the Koch brothers. They have ties to many of the people and organizations on the list and share many of the same goals. If one were to remove the Koch brothers from the equation an important source of funding and leadership would be eliminated from the conservative sphere. The Koch brothers are by far the biggest threat to American values and institutions. The truly evil thing about this group is that NONE of these monsters are elected by the people. Yet they have more power and influence over our elected officials and system of law and government, than we do.


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Sask. breast cancer research gets a $2.5 million boost
|Cancer researcher Deborah Anderson (centre) leads a tour of the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency's Research Department at the Saskatoon Cancer Centre in Saskatoon (photo credit: Liam Richards for the U of S).
Seven research projects from the University of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Cancer Agency have been awarded nearly $2.5 million from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation – Prairies Northwest Territories (CBCF-PNT) region.
The projects are among the 36 research and community projects supported by a record $10 million announced today by CBCF-PNT Board Chair Martin Kratz at the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon. About $8.3 million of this is earmarked for 24 research grants. The funding will support initiatives in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
"Every donor, volunteer, individual and community or corporate partner who chooses to support the Region in the search for a brighter future free of breast cancer is responsible for this record funding success," says Trish Bronsch, CEO Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation – Prairies/NWT Region.
The successful Saskatchewan grant recipients are: Deborah Anderson, Keith Bonham, Ron Geyer, Troy Harkness, David Sanders, Rajendra Sharma and Jim Xiang.
For more information, including a profile of every funded project, visit http://www.cbcf.org/en-US/Prairies%20NWT/Funding/Research%20Funding%20(1)/2011%20Announcement.aspx.
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The Creole Tomato Glaze gets its name mainly from its Creole origins. It is a sweet, spicy and tomato glaze used to coat the Creole Tomato Glazed Turkey Wings.
Extra virgin olive oils, balsamic vinegars, and pastas, lots to choose from.
Catch Emeril as he travels throughout Florida. Thursdays at 9:30 AM ET


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Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour. Read more at Bake or Break.
Preheat oven to 375°. Place paper liners in 36 mini muffin cups.
In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter, salt, and vanilla until well blended. Add baking powder and egg, beating until fluffy. Mix in flour.
Scoop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls into prepared pan. Bake 8-10 minutes, or until edges have browned.
Remove pan from oven. Place caramel pieces on top. (If you're using caramel bits, place 4-5 on each cookie and gently press down to secure them.) Bake until caramel melts (about 2-3 minutes).
While cookies are still warm, sprinkle chopped almonds over each. Top with a tiny pinch of salt.
Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Then, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.


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The Energy Market Authority (EMA), in partnership with Singapore Power, has launched the "Intelligent Energy System" (IES) Pilot. The Pilot will bring the capabilities of our power grid to the next level and ensure that our electricity infrastructure is ready for the future.
Why have an IES Pilot?
Across the world, governments and companies are looking at ways to modernise their electricity transmission and distribution networks with new information, communication and sensor technologies. Singapore already has a high-quality power system, which is amongst the most reliable in the world. Nevertheless, there is scope to leverage on new technologies to further improve the capabilities of our power grid. This would also encourage the development of applications that are enabled by a smart grid such as dynamic pricing plans and advanced energy management systems, which could help consumers to better manage their energy consumption and lower their energy costs.
What we want to achieve?
The IES Pilot seeks to test and evaluate new applications and technologies around a smart grid. The success of the IES Pilot will enable EMA to adopt and roll out workable solutions for Singapore's power system, thereby enhancing its resilience, reducing wastage and shaving peak loads to optimise system efficiency. This can also lead to lower energy costs and reduced carbon emissions.
The IES Pilot is structured into two phases. Phase 1 involves the development of the enabling infrastructure made up of the advanced metering infrastructure (commonly referred to as 'smart meters') and the wireless communications network. This began in 2010 and has been completed.
Phase 2 of the IES Pilot, which will take place from 2012 to 2013, rides on the IES infrastructure to test different applications for consumers and households.
For households, the IES Pilot will be conducted at selected residential estates in Punggol in mid-2012 These trials will evaluate the effectiveness of smart meters, in-home display units, and related applications.
A smart meter records electricity consumption at 30 – minute intervals and automatically sends this information to the grid operator. Conventional meters only record cumulative electricity consumption and have to be manually read.
An In Home Display unit provides households with real-time information on their electricity consumption.