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To the Editor,
The end of life is a period of complex emotions for the dying body and soul as well as the family and friends of the dying. Much time is spent second guessing care choices.
We are very grateful to have the services of the Tony Teramana Cancer Center here in Steubenville. The doctors and staff there are exceptionally caring and offer the best of Pittsburgh medicine without the travel hassles.
I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank the excellent caregivers of the Valley Hospice North inpatient care center. They provided over three weeks of inpatient care for my godmother, Barbara Ann Tokar Matey. Not only did they provide excellent palliative and nursing care for her, they offered kindness and compassion to her husband, Arthur and all of her extended family and friends. The sensitivity of their caregiving far exceeded that of textbook nursing.
Thank you also to the volunteers who bake cookies for the family kitchen. This allowed us to constantly have a semblance of home in being able to offer hospitality of coffee and treats at all times. The handmade quilt from the prayer group, Busy Needles of Bell Chapel United Methodist Church, was especially comforting. Patients also found special peace in the prayer bears that were made from the Toronto St. Francis and St. Joseph parishioners group.
These missions by our local churches provide support and the companionship of prayer to patients who may not receive many visitors. I was also told that some people volunteer their animals for additional comfort. Enormous effort is made to ensure the entire atmosphere is one of great security and comfort during a time of unknown.
Yes, it takes a village to raise our children. We have been blessed with a community that comes together for our youth. Know that we are also fortunate to have a community that assists our families with their needs in their last days also. The staff and supportive volunteers at Valley Hospice literally and figuratively held our hands through the entire process to know what to expect and provided all of the resources to be emotionally equipped to handle those final days.
My godmother, Barbara Matey, wanted her caregivers be to remembered and thanked for their service. Blessed are the caregivers who do this work daily - thank you for your devoted service.
Nicole Balakos


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Skye Grove
Skye is a spontaneous traveller, a citizen of the world and is passionate about unlocking the stories of inspiring destinations like Cape Town. She believes in the power of content, loves street photography, anthropology, urban neighbourhoods and counts London's Shoreditch and Cape Town's city bowl as the two favourite places she has lived and worked in.
Skye Grove's Latest Articles
Uthando South Africa wins at Indaba 2013At the heart of responsible tourism is a new generation of responsible travellers who are seeking real, meaningful and authentic experiences and are in tune with responsible lifestyle practices such as buying fair-trade products and experiences, and supporting community tourism. Cape Town has been working towards being a responsible and sustainable city and destination for many years and we have again seen an increase in responsible tourism awareness, products and practices at Indaba 2013.
Cape Town welcomes #MeetSouthAfrica travel bloggersBloggers love South Africa – we know this from our #LoveCapeTown campaign. This campaign saw us bringing four international travel bloggers (@traveldudes @velvetescape @landlopers and @wildjunket) to Cape Town in July 2012 during a social media drive in which Capetonians interacted with the bloggers and their followers, telling the stories of Cape Town and her people.
Ready, steady, go… World Design Capital 2014 in Cape TownThe first call for projects to highlight Cape Town during World Design Capital 2014 is out. The Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Alderman Patricia de Lille, officially opened the call for World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 submissions at the Design Indaba Expo on Thursday 28 February, 2013.
Discovering Langa – a photo essayLanga, South Africa's oldest township, was established in 1923 as part of the then Urban Areas Act. Similar to Nyanga, Gugulethu and Khayelitsha, Langa is one of the areas in South Africa that was designated for black Africans before the apartheid epoch. The name Langa means "sun" in Xhosa, but the name of the area is actually derived from the name Langalibalele – a famous chief who was imprisoned on Robben Island for rebelling against the government.
Gugulethu Wine Festival photosThe Gugulethu Wine Festival was held at Gugulethu Square Mall on Friday, May 27 and Saturday, May 28.
Design Indaba inspires Cape TownA comment from a visitor to the Design Indaba, on what makes Cape Town a great design city. Photo courtesy Ingrid Sinclair Hailed by thought leaders like Michael Wolff and Dana Arnett as the top international design conference in the world, Design Indaba has captured the city this week – the energy was palpable as delegates from all corners of the globe were welcomed into Cape Town's creative heart. Not only was the city's beauty and fabulous weather celebrated by speakers from abroad, but our people also clearly left an impression. Tim Beard of Bibliothèque, one of the UK's top design agencies, said, "The warm hospitality of Cape Town is unsurpassed"
Cape to Rio connectionsPhoto by Skye Grove The links between South Africa and Brazil can be drawn back a long way. The seas that supposedly divide these two countries in some sense unite them. Both ancient ships and hi-tech yachts have charted their course along these ocean lines. Pedro Cabral, the 15th century Portuguese explorer, was on his way to the Cape of Storms (named so by Bartolomeu Dias, another Portuguese explorer of the age, and one of Cabral's contemporaries) when he landed on the coast of Brazil.
World AIDS Day in Cape TownSince 1988, World AIDS Day has been about raising money for, heightening awareness of, combating prejudice through and improving education around AIDS-related efforts. In 2010, Cape Town will be part of global efforts to raise awareness around HIV/AIDS, as part of both the (RED) and the Lights for Rights campaigns, by illuminating Table Mountain with red lights from 19h00 until midnight tonight. The (RED) campaign raises money for the Global Fund, the biggest pot of money dedicated to overcoming AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, by co-branding products and releasing them in limited (RED) editions, donating up to 50% of the proceeds. One of the components of this campaign involves turning iconic landmarks around the world red. The initiative dovetails well with the Lights for Rights campaign, which places emphasis on "shining a light on human rights" in relation to HIV and AIDS, drawing global attention to the rights of those infected and affected by HIV.

subset: commoncrawl


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Off the Shelf: Cooking from the Pantry (Paperback)
In Off the Shelf, Australia's bestselling food writer Donna Hay shows you how to fill your pantry with convenient and basic ingredients. Save time with these easy to put together recipes -- for everyday meals or special occasions, and especially when unexpected guests arrive.
Off the Shelf is packed with the information and inspiration to create a great meal at short notice -- anything from a simple pasta dish or the slippery slurp of Asian-inspired noodles to a tempting berry tart. All you need is a well-stocked pantry and a handful of fresh ingredients.
An essential handbook for everyone who loves to cook and to eat.
About the Author
At the age of eight, Donna Hay skipped into a kitchen, picked up a mixing bowl and never looked back. She moved to the world of magazine test kitchens and publishing, where she established her trademark style of simple, smart and seasonal recipes all beautifully put together and photographed. It is food for every cook, every food lover, every day and every occasion. Her unique style turned her into an international food-publishing phenomenon as a bestselling author of 20 cookbooks, publisher of donna hay magazine, newspaper columnist, and creator of a homewares and food range.
Praise For…
"No need to spend hours at the store. Find gastronomic bliss with no fuss, no muss, no bother."
-New York Times


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I am more or less familiar with the classification of real forms of complex semisimple Lie algebras. But as soon as I wander off into the domain of very-non-algebraically closed fields, things seem to become considerably more complex.
Is there a classification of the rational forms of complex semisimple finite-dimensional Lie algebras?
Of course, there is such a classification, and one can in principle carry it out using standard ideas involving Galois cohomology &c. The question is, rather, has it been written down explicitly and with a nice parametrization?
In particular:
How many rational forms does the complex algebra of type $G_2$ have?


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I have never really understood the connotation of someone calling their domicile a condo over the word apartment. I have a vague feeling the former is fancier and more up-scale, but are there any real differences I'm not aware of?
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The question as asked assumes an established relationship between "condo" and apartment" that is faulty. This is partly the foundation for the confusion. Even after a lengthy discussion like that above still leaves people confused is because the "definitions" being offered are still unsatisfactory and not conforming to a reality people innately understand but can't articulate.
A condominium (or "condo") is an ownership structure along with "cooperative" and "fee simple". A condo tells you, among other things, how ownership of the unit (residential, retail, commercial, etc,) and common spaces are divided or held. It does not describe any occupancy or physical characteristic of a unit. Any occupancy type (housing, retail, office commercial, industrial, etc.) can be structured as any one of these ownership structures, including as a condominium.
Therefore, and contrary to common belief, a condominium is not a type of housing. In NYC , Chicago, and many large cities, there are buildings that contain condos but have no residential units. They are office buildings, retail malls, or some combination of the two. The reason why so many people falsely believe that a condominium is a type of housing is because residential condominiums are the only iteration of a condominium with which they are familiar.
An apartment is a descriptive term. It describes a physical characteristic of a residential unit- being that it is one dwelling unit contained in one building structure. Contrary to common belief, an apartment is not housing that is for rent. It may be but not necessarily. Most people come to associate apartments as strictly rental housing because this is the iteration with which they are most familiar. (If apartments were strictly housing for rent, then the phrase "apartment for rent" would be grammatically redundant. It is not.)
Therefore, an apartment (a residential unit, supposedly among many, in a structure) can itself be structured as a condominium or cooperative. A series of apartments contained in one structure (for example an apartment building) can be structured as fee simple (a building owned by a single entity). The same series of apartments can also be structured as individual condos/coops (owned by several or only one entity).
You can overlay any ownership structure with any housing description. This can be expanded to whole developments. For example Kinzie Park in Chicago is a 6.5-acre development that has a high-rise tower, a mid-rise building, and many townhouses. All 300 units are structured as condominiums. Even the parking spaces are deeded as condos. You can even have multiple ownership structures in one development with one or multiple occupancies. However most people are already confused enough so I won't add to it.
In the US, a condominium involves an investment of funds, and is similar to buying a house. A person actually owns a condominium and can sell it for a return on investment. Also, they can use it as collateral for borrowing money.
An apartment is rented/leased from a landlord/landlady. Rental payments go to the owner, and the tenant does not own the property, so cannot borrow against it. When a person moves out of an apartment, they may receive their security deposit back, but that's about it.
I think owning a condo probably is considered more high-class than renting an apartment. Many, many rich people in New York City own condos, for instance, and brag about it.
There is a big difference in the USA. In a condominium, the ownership of a building is divided into shares and ownership of some of those shares gives the right to live in a particular part of the building. In the event that you want to sell those shares, the other shareholders in the building must approve the transfer, so if they do not like the new purchaser they may block the transaction. Equally, some condominiums restrict letting the property.
In a Co-op, the apartment is owned by the individual and in many, while the management company of the building has the right to refuse transfer to a new purchaser, it instead must buy the property itself. Although usually cheaper, Condos are viewed as more 'snobby' because there is a degree of social acceptance that goes with them.
EDIT: Not sure I agree with all the answers following my first post. When I lived in NYC I owned an apartment in a co-op, a high-rise in NY10021. Some of my neighbours were renting, others were owner occupants. All were called apartments and labelled as such on the mail boxes in the lobby. The bank would not lend to me (resident alien) to buy a condo, because of resale/renting issues should something go wrong, which is why I bought (and could only borrow for) a co-op. It might be different outside NYC, I've no property-owning experience there. Some people bragged about 'condos' and saw a benefit in owning one. I thought this was rubbish, as I considered having to flaunt supposed 'social acceptance' as pathetic. I also believed that the big disadvantages inherent in that type of restrictive ownership outweighed the relatively minor advantage of lower acquisition price.
In Europe, a flat is an apartment, either owned or rented, and colloquially means either a student's rented accommodation, or a second, smaller residence of a temporary nature e.g. 'I keep a flat in the City for a convenience.' Sometimes the latter is called a pied-a-terre, literally (French) 'a foot in the ground.' A flat often is used to describe a unit in a sub-divided property, whereas an apartment usually is in a purpose-built block. The terms 'condo' and 'co-op' are not used for property in Ireland/UK/France. BTW, in Ireland and the UK a co-op is where a farmer buys cattle feed ;-)
A condominium does not describe housing. It is strictly a form of ownership and is a legally defined term. All states have acts that define what is a condominium. An office building, a mall, anything can be a condominium.
Moreover, a residential condominium can take any form: an apartment, a townhouse, a free-standing structure (among others), etc. I work on a development that had a highrise building, a mid-rise building, townhomes, and a small store, and all of them were legally structured as condominiums. Again, condominium only describes the structure of ownership.
The term apartment describes any unit, among many others contained in one structure; it is a unit "apart" from the others. It does not matter whether these units are rented, owned, or cooperatives, or a mix. Think of this, if apartments were dwellings for rent, then the phrase apartment for rent would be redundant, but it is not.
In conclusion, a condominium is a ownership structure (along with free-hold and cooperative) and an apartment is a descriptive term.
I'd say that an apartment is any single dwelling in a multi-unit building. I wouldn't consider the two halves of a duplex to be apartments, nor would a townhouse unit be considered an apartment. But if a house was divided up into units, they would each be considered apartments.
Condo, which is short for condominium, is mostly the subset of apartments where the individual living units are owned by different people. That isn't to say that the actual people living in each unit own the unit, because they may be renting from someone else that owns the individual unit. Also, townhouses can be condominiums.
Condominiums also have the concept of having shared facilities and maintenance costs, in which the individual unit owners also have an interest. Generally, the condominium complex has a corporation which owns it, and the individual owners are participants in it to some degree.
Something none of the answers have pointed out yet is that the meaning of apartment is different in New York City and in most of the rest of the U.S. In New York City, an apartment is a single unit in a multi-unit residential building, regardless of whether you rent or own it, and of whether the ownership is legally a condo or co-op arrangement (so apartment in NYC means the same thing that flat means in the U.K.). In most of the rest of the U.S., an apartment is a rented single unit in a multi-unit residential building.
This means that in most of the U.S., if you live in a multi-unit residential building, you either live in an apartment, a co-op, or a condo. In New York City, and in much of Canada, your apartment will either be a rental, a co-op, or a condo (or a sublet, if you lease it from somebody who in turn is renting it themself).
Condos tend to be in complexes rather than single buildings. Additionally, a condo is purchased and owned, whereas an apartment is rented.
This Link has some good info about condos.
I find this very interesting because I own a condominium and am curious if a similar scheme of ownership exists in the UK. I guess it does in Canada, called either "condominium" as here in the U-S, or "strata title," which is, I understand, what the same concept is called in Australia and New Zealand. The "strata," I'm told, refers to the individual units/flats/apartments because they are on different levels/floors or "strata."
I DO say "I live in a Condo" and not "I live in an apartment." This is because a condo owner in the U-S is considered a "fee simple" property owner. In legal benefits--and obligations--I am equal to any other property owner. Plus, those of us who live in our property holdings ("homesteading," it's called in America) have even greater rights; it's legally my "home", and U-S and state law goes a long way to protect one and their "home."
I am sure part of my pride is in the historic significance of property ownership in our shared traditions and what it has meant for one's situation. So, yeah, I'm pretty proud of having achieved home ownership!
In condominium ownership, there are two major real estate components: 1) the individual unit/flat (colloquially, unit/apartment/condo/flat) and 2) the multi-unit building and its common areas (which colloquially is also called "condo" or "condos.")
I purchased--and own outright--the unit/flat I live in. [There is a mortgage on it, but that's a contract between me and the bank that loaned me the money to buy it-it's the same type of mortgage you'd take out to buy a plot of real estate with a single dwelling home on it.]
I OWN my unit/flat--the four outer walls and everything between them--"fee simple" is the legal term. It is mine to do with as I wish, from decorating, or remodeling (I could knock down inner walls if I really wanted to), to selling to someone else, to choosing who inherits it from me.
I mentioned I have the same benefits--and obligations--as any other property owner. The best example of this is that I am, individually as the unit/flat owner, levied property taxes--not the multi-unit building in which the unit and I reside. The individual units/apartments/flats/condos and their owners must each pay their own taxes.
When I bought my condo/flat, I also bought a percentage of the shared, or "common" areas, including the building itself. The "percentage" of the building would be 100 divided by whatever number of units there are in the building. But, for all practical purposes, that percentage doesn't matter. What matters is that a condo owner automatically becomes a member of the Home Owner Association (HOA), also called the "Condominium (or Condo) Association." It's an obligation you take on as a condo owner.
The HOA is required by law to meet once a year (but can meet more often if it desires) and elects from among their ranks a Board of Directors, approves a yearly budget, the Association Dues for the upcoming year to pay for the Association's operations, and vote on any big decisions that the Board cannot make on its own (each HOA/Condo Association has a charter or by-laws, and rules and regulations, approved by the membership--the owners--which guides the association and its board day-to day.) The Board of Directors handles day-to-day operations for the owners/association. The Board meets at least monthly and hires and pays a property manager, sees that vendors are hired and paid to handle such things as snow removal, lawn maintenance, garbage removal, and regular building maintenance (all things OUTSIDE the individual units). They also enforce the rules and regs approved by the owners, including collecting association dues, fees, and fines, as required.
It is the monthly "association dues" which provide the funds for the Board to run the condominium association's day-to-day operations. The monthly dues paid by us owners almost always differs by unit/flat; in my case, we are each charged based on the square footage of our individual unit. Again, the dues and how they are computed are determined by the owners when we meet in that "Annual Condominium Homeowners Association Meeting." By the way, another state law is that those annual meetings don't count unless a quorum of owners assemblies, thus preventing a few from trying to hi-jack the Board or Association and run a building/condo without pa majority of owners consent. Indeed, most condo association by-laws also prohibit one individual from owning more than a certain percentage of units/flats in the building. As the time for the Annual Meeting comes around, we are notified a few months ahead, submit candidacy if one wishes to run, and all are asked to provide paper proxies and vote on the candidates and major questions if unable to attend the Annual Meeting. It's a big deal.
The biggest difference, as I can tell, between the condominium concept and the cooperative concept is the ownership of individual units/flats. In co-ops, the owners each "buy-in" to the company ("cooperative") which owns the land and building. Technically, they don't own their own units--they own a little bit of everything. Say, there are 10 units. I buy-in. Now, I own 10% stock in the cooperative, or 10% of land and building.
So, does the UK have anything in which one would buy a flat/unit/apartment and--aside the shared or common areas and outer shell of the building--would, under tax and other laws, have the rights and responsibilities concerning that unit as a fee simple property owner? That is, the right to modify the unit, to right to sell or bequeath it? Those property rights also belonging to someone who owns a plot of land with a single dwelling building?
Hope the above helped clarify the concept of condominiums. Perhaps it made it clear. Perhaps it made it clear as mud!
protected by tchrist Feb 22 '15 at 0:08
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Top 10 Tips for Paying for College
7 of 11
College Courses in High School
The Early College Initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, operates in over 20 states, and allows high school students to enroll in college courses at no charge. If your state offers the program, and your teen meets the minimum 3.0 GPA requirement, he can begin earning college credits before he finishes high school.
All courses are taught by college professors, and students earn college credits upon completion. Some students in the program have taken up to two years off their college education by participating.
Next: Three Year Plan


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Treat cockatiels to a premium daily diet without color or artificial fruit shapes. ZuPreem Natural Premium Daily Bird Food for Medium Birds delivers straight forward nutrition and delicious flavor birds love. Naturally tan, oval-shaped pellets are fortified with 21 vitamins and minerals birds need for good health. Birds will delight over the flavorful mélange of carrots, celery, beets, watercress and spinach ground from fresh vegetables.
ZuPreem pellet diets are trusted and recommended by bird veterinarians and fed by top breeders. Fixed formulations are made with high-quality ingredients to provide consistent, balanced nutrition in every bite. Pellets measure approximately 1/4". Made in USA.
ZuPreem Natural Premium Daily Bird Food for Medium Birds is ideal for Cockatiels, Quaker Parakeets, Ringneck Parakeets, Lovebirds, Meyer's Parrots and other medium-sized birds.
Shop all Foods & Diets for caged birds.
Please click "More Information" for feeding directions, ingredients, and guaranteed analysis.


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Our team has repeatedly tried to implement time-tracking tools to help us more realistically estimate the effort required for our development projects. Unfortunately, regardless of the tools we try, we find it very difficult to get the team to use them. As such, our estimates tend to be very bad, resulting in our team having to work even hard to meet our deliverables.
I'm curious what others have done to encourage their teams to more closely track their time. I don't want to be heavy-handed or draconian about it, we want our team to want to track their time.


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Login | Checkout | My Account | Shopping Cart Now in your cart 0 items
eBooks & Audio Downloads
Raw Emotions Study Group Access
Raw Emotions Study Group Access
Join Angela Stokes-Monarch as she reads aloud her entire "Raw Emotions" book, live, via weekly hour-long private Ustream broadcasts. Each weekly session will last an hour; Angela will read aloud from "Raw Emotions" for approximately 40 minutes, then we will enjoy a group discussion about the material just covered, via the live "chat" box in Ustream, for the remainder of the hour. The group will meet on Tuesday evenings at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific, beginning June the 7th 2011 and continuing for as many weeks as required until we finish reading the book. When you sign up for this group, you will be sent details on how to access the private channel for the weekly events.
If you happen to miss the live readings/discussions, or want to re-watch something, you will have access to all the playbacks to watch at will.
There are three ways to sign up for this study group:
You are currently on the order page for the $100 option - if you want to choose the $115 option, click HERE or for the $120 option, click HERE.
We look forward to connecting with like-minded people from all around the world for these readings and discussions :)
These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.


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Sean Muldoon is in his third season as a member of the 49ers strength and conditioning staff. Specifically, he serves as the strength and conditioning coach for the men's soccer, women's tennis, and both cross country programs.
From 2012 to 2013, Muldoon completed his Master's degree in Strength & Conditioning at the University of Miami. During this time, he was the Graduate Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach and then later promoted to Interim Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for the men's basketball and women's soccer programs. The 2012-13 basketball season resulted in an ACC Championship, a Sweet Sixteen finish in the NCAA Tournament, and a national ranking peaking at No. 2 in the country. In addition, Sean assisted with the women's basketball and women's swimming programs.
Before arriving at Miami, Muldoon worked for two years as a Personal Trainer out of one of New York City's most well established and high-end private training gyms in Mid-Town Manhattan.
In 2009, he graduated with his Bachelor's degree in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois. While at Illinois, he was a scholarship athlete on the men's track and field team, specializing in the 400m run.
Additionally, Muldoon holds certifications from the NSCA as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), the ACSM as a Health/Fitness Specialist (H/FS), and the NASM as a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT).He lives in Charlotte with his fiancé, Brooke, and spends his free time working on his allergen-friendly snck bar business called bruks bars.
|Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach
|Chicago, Ill.
|Alma Mater:
|Graduating Year:
|2 Years


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Southeast Nebraska Community Action held a poverty simulation Jan. 11 at the Nebraska City Middle School for eighth graders.
Students were challenged to cope with unemployment, illegal drug trafficking, insufficient wages, loss of a family breadwinner and other factors to survive a simulated four, 12-minute weeks.
Community volunteers acted as a bank, mortgage or rent collector, grocery store, child care worker, social services worker, police, pawn shop, school teacher, inter-faith ministries, general employers and utilities.
"The simulation experience is designed to help students begin to understand what it might be like to live in a typical low-income family trying to survive month-to-month," said Susan Phillips of the SENCA.
"The object is to sensitize participants to the realities faced by low-income people and families and to offer those who may be experiencing financial challenges the help and assistance needed to achieve financial independence," she said.
Location, ST | website.com


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(Houston) George Bush Intercontinental Airport
2800 North Terminal Road, Houston, Texas 77032, USA
Telefon: (281) 230 3100
Website: www.fly2houston.com
The airport is located 37km (23 miles) north of Houston.
How to get there
Convenient access to the airport is provided by I-45, Hwy-59, the Hardy Toll Road and the Sam Houston Tollway (Beltway 8). There are two main entrances to the airport terminal complex via JFK Boulevard from the Sam Houston Tollway (Beltway 8), Will Clayton Parkway from Hwy-59 and the Hardy Toll Road (Intercontinental exit). There is a toll for the Hardy Toll Road and the connector exits directly onto JFK Boulevard, northbound.
Information about parking possibilities at the (Houston) George Bush Intercontinental Airport
Access by public transport
Shuttle services are provided by Super Shuttle (tel: (713) 523 8888; www.supershuttle.com) to various locations throughout the Houston area. These companies also provide regular services to hotels within the Houston Metroplex, as well as to Galveston and College Station. Groundshuttle (tel: (979) 739 2836; www.groundshuttle.com) also provides services to College Station. Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority (METRO) offers public bus services from the south side of Terminal C. METRO bus route 102 is the Bush Intercontinental Airport Express which runs from the airport to/from Greenspoint Mall and the city centre. Specific route and schedule information is available (tel: (713) 635 4000; www.ridemetro.org). All buses depart from Terminal C.
Taxis are available outside each terminal and are hailed by airport ground transportation staff.
Information desk
Visitor/airport information is provided at the staffed visitor information centers, located on the baggage claim level of terminals A, B and C and outside US Customs in Terminal D. Multilingual special service representatives are available.
Further travel information
- Back to the overview


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We're currently going through a major upgrade of our
right now and it's going to take us some time.
The forums
are up now, but we're still working to get them to 100%.
Give it a week or two. This might take us a while as we drag Terra-Arcanum kicking and screaming into the 21st Century...
There is no poll.


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Miss TDP Handdrawn-Round Five!
Welcome to the first ever Miss TDP competition! Before continuing to the theme for round five, we ask that all members read the following rules and procedures if they are competing.
In a sad turn of events, our competitor antimaie had to drop out due to a real life issue. Congrats to her for working so hard! The following members are still competing in this competition and are the only ones allowed to post here:
THIS IS NOT A DISCUSSION THREAD NOR THE PLACE TO SUBMIT DOLLMAKER ENTRIES! Before you post here, I suggest you stop. All non-entry posts will be deleted. If you have questions, direct them to Silver_Wolf_Kitty. If you want to discuss the contest, the official Miss TDP clique(found here) is suggested.
1. Character. When entering Miss TDP, you need to enter with one character and stay with it the entire time. This means that your dolls hair, eye, and skin colour must remain the same throughout, unless otherwise stated in the round theme.
2. Base. You must use the same base set throughout, so pick one with a variety of poses. This base should also be medium in size for handdrawn dollers (comparable in size to the "Moe" bases here: DHF : Doll on the Hill Factory). Dollmaker users should use the shuni style base.
3. Theft. No stealing the work of another. This applies to both handdrawn and dollmaker participants, so do not submit a doll that someone else made or, for handdrawn dollers, mix and match pieces of completed dolls that are not your own. All work should be original and failure to comply will result in disqualification.
4. Props. Props and backgrounds are encouraged, but should not be massive. We will ask too large of entries to reduce their size, so be reasonable.
5. Transparency. We ask that all dolls have transparent background and is a GIF file. If you dont know how to do this, see the following thread: How to Make Backgrounds Transparent
6. Forbidden. Sexually explicit, nudity(artistic nudity must be okayed first by Silver_Wolf_Kitty), or overly bloody dolls are forbidden. Entering one could result in disqualification.
7. Theme. Every doll should relate to the theme. While we encourage creativity, failure to keep with the theme can get you eliminated automatically that round.
8. Judges. No one is allowed to use friendship or promises to sway a judges decision. Threats, bribery, and attempts to interfere or discover the judges decisions in anyway will result in disqualification. Arguing with the judges can result in an automatic elimination.
9. Competing. You can only submit one entry for each cometition, so choose wisely. The rules are being changed to allow crossover, but we ask that handdrawn dollers stick to the dollmakers if they are inclined to compete in that arena.
10. Animation. Animation is forbidden in the competition. We understand that many users like glitter, blinking, etc, but it takes away from the creativity and creates an unequal playing field for those who cant animate.
The audition round procedures are no longer in place, these are the procedures that will be followed in the future.
1. Participants enter a doll every two weeks in the set thread. They may enter it sooner, however further edits are not allowed after the doll is entered. No matter what, the two weeks are a guaranteed time slot(unless all entries are received before it).
2. Any participants who fail to meet this deadline will be eliminated. Deadlines are not being extended for anyone, so do not ask. Special extensions may be asked in the event of a long trip or medical/family emergency, but you must contact Silver_Wolf_Kitty immediately if this occurs.
3. After two weeks(or when all dolls are entered), the judges will then provide critique on each entry and select a bottom two for the round.
4. Several days are given for voting on who should stay. Voting will be a public affair, but you shouldnt worry about hurting feelings. All you have to do is post in the voting thread with the name of the participant who you think should stay in the competition. You may provide an explanation, but that is up to you.
5. Votes are counted and the bottom participant is eliminated, then the next round begins.
The theme for round five is "Seven Deadly Sins". You are to select one of the deadly sins (Lu.st, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Wrath, Pride, and Envy) and personify it. BELOW ARE INSTRUCTIONS FOR CLAIMING YOUR SIN; READ THEM CAREFULLY! Competitors are not allowed to change hair, skin, or eye color, but exceptions may be made upon request. Send all requests to Silver_Wolf_Kitty.
These are the currently claimed sins:
Now, sins will be claimed on a first come, first serve basis instead of being assigned. To make your claim, you must send a message to Silver_Wolf_Kitty stating your first AND second choices for sins. Please include both in the event your first choice is taken. Then, I will PM you back as soon as possible to confirm your choice. ONCE A SIN IS TAKEN, NO OTHER COMPETITORS MAY DO IT. Failure to claim a sin may result in placement in the bottom two for voting. This is because we do not want to see repeats and are certain that popular sins may have multiple competitors doing them otherwise.
When your doll is ready, we ask participants to post their handdrawn doll in this thread. Round five will close the evening of November 1st! After that, the judges will submit their critiques and then public voting of the bottom two for the round will begin.
Character: Saguna "Alvin" Nemo
Sin: Wrath
Base: http://ccg.portmanteaux,org/ , Medley
I tried to capture more the aftermath of Wrath. Let's face it, I can't really pixel somebody being murdered in a rage, right? :lol: And, er, can somebody pass me the stitches kit? I'm bleeding a lot out of my spleen here. O_o;
Judges' Critiques
Very well made and I love the pants but besides the blood on her arm and the puddle, it looks normal. A background might have helped a little more and maybe a bit more blood and guts if that was where you were going for. Otherwise, its a great looking doll.
I feel like this doll fell a bit short. It has a good premise and the techniques used were excellent, with definite improvement with your pixelling, but you left me wanting more. I believe a background could've helped pull this together better and bring it to the level you wanted while still remaining within the rules.
I do love the... contemptuous?/disgusted expression on her face, as though, even after killing a person, she still is disgusted with them. The messyness of her hair also indicates that she'd just been in a struggle, which is a detail I like. Again, I wish there was more blood, but limiting it for the competition's rues was probably a wise decision on your part part. ^^;
Character: Mandy
Sin: Gluttony
Base: nicolabear on deviantART - obviously edited. :P
Mandy has gained a bit of weight. xD She's fallen victim to the rich, fatty foods. The cream colour makes me think of yummy, sweetening foods, like cakes or ice cream. The circles in the background represent the idea of becoming more "round" shaped, and the icecream is just pixel icecream... yum. :P
Judges' Critiques
Another very well made doll and I like how you added the ice cream cone and the way that Gluttony was shaped. Overall, this was my favorite of the four.
I like the symbolism of the doll and how well you thought out each piece of it, helping it all come together to represent Gluttony. The one picky thing is I feel the ice cream or some form of a sweet could've been worked in better, right now it looks like your ice cream has an amazing ability of levitation that I am rather jealous of ;) I feel this came out the best though out of all four of the dolls.
You get the top with me, due to the amount of symbolism you put into your doll; the circles and the cream-color were well thought out, and not just slapped on there because it looked nice.
Deadly sin-L.ust
Base- Poupe-base by GigideMortimer by *GigideMortimer on deviantART
Gabriel is normally fairly innocent so when the seven deadly sins role came up she was very exited to dress up in her 'Lusty outfit', she loves most of her outfit but she is a little annoyed at the artist who drew those nickerbockers for her to wear, she doesn't like them at all!
Prince her Chocolate Point Siamese cat is also thrilled to be in the picture, he can be a little vain and spends most of his hours preening so he can look his best to charm the local felines.
Judges' Critiques
I see where your idea was going, I just don't think it was executed very well. She seems a little more like a poster than a doll. I think the black background hindered the view because it all seemed to blend together.
I think your story behind your doll helped to clarify it all a bit better. Its a cute idea, I really like it, but the black background definately interfered. I think if you made it transparent the doll would've looked much nicer and less "flat". Your work has definitely improved quite a bit during this competition and I liked seeing your pixel work, it helped bring your doll up to a different notch, though the curves of the couch needs some tidying up to make it smoother.
Character: Ashley
Sin: Greed
She's holding a wallet and clutching a few hundred-kroon bills to her heart to show an obsession with money. The heavy, chain-like gold jewelry is supposed to symbolise how she is essentially a slave to wealth.
Judges' Critiques
It was a very cool idea on how you made her look all 'business' woman looking and the idea with the gold chains was pretty clever. Very well thought out and put together.
I like the idea behind this(especiall the chains to represent a slavery to wealth), but the clothing chosen was a bit off-putting. It has a very rushed feeling to it, like if you had more time this outfit could've been more developed beyond the simple colours of coinage. I know you can do better than this.
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Testing Three Cams on a 347 Ford - Camshaft Three-WayWritten by on October 1, 2011 We dyno a trio of popular cams on a 347 Ford to find the best street/strip grind.
It's time for egghead theory and speculation to put up or shut up. Elsewhere in this issue, you'll find pages upon pages of scintillating tech theory explaining the fundamentals of camshaft dynamics. Even so, how factors like lift, duration, and lobe-separation angle should affect the power curve are often quite different from how they actually impact engine output in real life. Techno babble is fine for message board know-it-alls, but the ultimate truth serum for any camshaft is the liquid that flows through a dyno's water brake. As engine expert and PHR contributor David Vizard often says: "I don't have an opinion, I have a dyno." With the help of the School of Automotive Machinists (www.samracing.com), we tested three of COMP Cams' most popular small-block Ford hydraulic roller grinds on a street 347 stroker to gauge how different lobe profiles impact engine output and driveability characteristics in the real world.
Test Mule
To maximize the relevance of our quaint dyno thrash, we needed a test engine that represented what a large cross-section of the hot rodding public would build. As such, our test subject is about as mainstream as you can get, a 302-based small-block Ford stroked to 347 ci with a projected output of 450 hp. Living in magazineland for too long would lead you to believe that everyone is building 900hp big-blocks or twin-turbo LS1s, but that simply isn't the case. Not only is a more pedestrian small-block like our 347 much easier on the budget, it's also more representative of the kind of motor found in your typical street machine. Furthermore, since engines are merely glorified air pumps, the results gleaned from this cam test could just as well apply to a similarly spec'd 350 small-block Chevy.
The short-block specs on our test mule are rather ordinary, featuring a factory block bored to 4.030 inches, an Eagle 3.400-inch steel crankshaft and rods, and pump-gas–friendly 9.6:1 JE pistons. The 347's primary breathing apparatus, on the other hand, is quite a bit more impressive. Using this dyno session as a good excuse to test out the newest addition to the Brodix SBF cylinder head catalog, we ordered a set of its new LH-series 17-degree aluminum castings. With ports designed by famed Ford engine builder Keith Craft, the heads flow an advertised 300 cfm at .700-inch lift. Feeding the 195cc ports is an Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake manifold and a Holley 750-cfm carb.
A Tale of Three Cams
As no surprise, a quick call to COMP Cams' Trent Goodwin confirmed that the most popular grinds in the SBF catalog are relatively mild designs that offer a great balance between sub-6,500 rpm power and low-speed driveability. The challenge was picking three cams that were different enough to show a measurable difference on the dyno, yet similar enough to where variations in horsepower and torque output could be pinpointed to specific differences in their lobe profiles. The smallest of the lot, which we'll call Cam A for the sake of simplicity, is a 224/232-at-.050 unit with .555/.565-inch lift and a 112-degree lobe-separation angle. Cam B, the largest of the bunch, features 232/240 degrees of duration at .050, and .565/.574-inch lift, also with a 112-degree LSA. The wild card of the bunch is Cam C, which measures in at 227/241 degrees of duration at .050, with .531/.515-inch lift and a 107-degree LSA. As one of COMP's Thumpr grinds, Cam C was designed with a lopey, aggressive-sounding idle in mind, and as such, it has a tighter LSA and an earlier exhaust valve opening point.
Based on specs alone, Cam B would seem to have the advantage on paper since it packs the most duration and lift, but that's not how things played out on the dyno. Cam A was good for 437 hp at 6,000 rpm, and 409 lb-ft of torque at 4,900 rpm. As expected, Cam B improved upon those figures dramatically, kicking out 464 hp at 6,200 rpm and 426 lb-ft of torque at 5,100 rpm. Longer-duration cams typically sacrifice low-end torque for top end power, and predictably, Cam A held an advantage of 5 to 10 lb-ft of torque from 3,600 to 4,200 rpm. After that point, Cam B pulls ahead big time, holding a 15-25hp advantage throughout the rest of the power curve.
While the SAM crew slid Cam C into the block, since its duration specs fell in between Cams A and B, we expected horsepower output to fall somewhere in the middle as well. Boy, were we wrong. Cam C proved to be the most potent of them all despite giving up 5 degrees of intake duration to Cam B, and .034- and .059-inch of lift on the intake and exhaust valves, respectively. In fact, the Thumpr produced more torque down low than the smallest cam in the test, in addition to posting the highest peak output of 466 hp at 6,300 rpm. Peak output aside, the Thumpr trounced the 232/240-at-.050 grind by a large margin in the area-under-the-curve department, holding a 10-15 hp advantage throughout the majority of the power curve. The Thumpr proved to be the most rev-happy as well, pulling hard to 6,600 rpm, while Cam B was out of breath by 6,200 rpm.
Post Dyno Analysis
What started out as a simple cam test turned out to be a real head-scratcher, as the results were puzzling for a number of reasons. First off, the biggest cam didn't make the most power. Secondly, the Thumpr's specs suggest that it should run out of breath the earliest. Instead, it proved to be the most rev-happy cam of the bunch. The most obvious distinguishing factor between the Thumpr and its test mates is its tight LSA. Whereas Cam A and Cam B both shared 112-degree LSAs, the Thumpr was ground at 107 degrees. Tighter lobe-separation angles generally boost low-end torque at the expense of top end power. Furthermore, compared to Cam B, the Thumpr has an earlier intake valve closing point of 65 degrees after bottom dead center as opposed to 70 degrees ABDC. Intake valve closing is by far the most important of the four valve events in terms of power output, and a later IC generally improves top end power while sacrificing low-end torque. Again, neither of these scenarios held true during our test.
Seeking the expertise of someone much smarter than the typical journalist, we ran the results by SAM's Head Instructor Judson Massingill for a more educated opinion. As it turns out, it's all about cylinder pressure. "The intake duration of the Thumpr cam falls right in between Cam A and Cam B, so duration isn't what's accounting for the power difference. Plus, the Thumpr has the least amount of lift, so you can throw that out of the equation as well," he says. "What's going on in this motor is that the tighter LSA and increased overlap of the Thumpr is helping pull more air through the intake valve. The improvements in intake charge filling and cylinder pressure is what's bumping up both torque and horsepower. Tight LSA cams usually drop off at high rpm, but the reason that's not happening in this instance has to do with cylinder pressure. On a relatively low compression motor like this 347, you don't have much cylinder pressure to begin with, so having a wide LSA really hurts you. With a tighter 107 LSA, the increase in cylinder pressure helps make up for the low compression ratio of the motor. If this 347 had a higher compression ratio, the tighter LSA of the Thumpr would have made less of a difference on the dyno."
Judson says, what makes this best-of-both-worlds scenario possible, in which low-end torque doesn't come at the expense of top end power, are cylinder heads that flat-out get the job done. "When you have heads that move a lot of air, you can get by with a short-duration camshaft because tightening up the LSA increases cylinder pressure everywhere. You always want the best heads possible with the least amount of cam as possible," he says. "In an application like this 347, the only reason to run a wider LSA is to smooth out the idle quality. As long as you can get it to hook, the Thumpr would be at least two-tenths quicker at the track than the other cams in this test. Not only does it produce more midrange power, it also carries that power to a higher rpm."
Ultimately, no amount of speculating is an adequate substitute for good old-fashioned dyno testing. Since speculation doesn't always hold up on the dyno, it's not a bad idea to dyno test multiple cams in your engine combo of choice before deciding on the perfect grind for your application. Compared to what it costs to build a motor, cams are relatively inexpensive, so it's cheap experimentation.
More Photos From This Article View Slideshow
To ensure valvetrain stability and quick-and-easy timing changes, COMP set us up with a set of its Ultra Pro Magnum 1.6:1 roller rockers, and a Hi-Tech double-roller timing set. Built from chrome-moly steel, the rockers are about as good as you can get without stepping up to a shaft-mount setup. The double-roller timing set allows for up to 4 degrees of advance and retard, which made quick work of properly degreeing our three test cams.There is a lot to like about Brodix's new LH 17-degree small-block Ford cylinder heads (PN 1078100), which retail for $2,445 from Summit Racing. They feature CNC-ported 195cc ports, and compared to a standard SBF head, the valve angles have been flattened out by 3 degrees. According to Brodix, they flow 300 cfm at .700-inch lift, and based on our dyno results, we have no reason to doubt those figures. The price of admission includes heads that come fully assembled with COMP valvesprings, retainers, locks, guideplates, and rocker studs.The Brodix castings feature CNC-blended 60cc combustion chambers fitted with 2.020/1.600-inch valves. Brodix also offers a larger version of the same head with 210cc ports and 2.080-inch intake valves that flow 323 cfm.Although hot rodders are penny pinchers by nature, from a tuning perspective, the $500 or so it costs to dyno test an engine is often well worth the investment. A huge perk of engine dyno testing is that it allows quick and easy timing changes. Cam A and Cam B performed best with 2 degrees of advance, while the Thumpr preferred 1 degree of advance.Before pulling the handle, SAM students set the ignition timing to 34 degrees of advance. With a conservative compression ratio of 9.6:1, the 347 ran hard all day long on 93-octane pump gas.Fueling the 347 was a 4150-series Holley 750-cfm carb. Pulling the spark plugs after the first round of pulls revealed that the air/fuel ratio was so spot-on that it wasn't even necessary to re-jet the carb.While they probably hurt peak power numbers a bit, we dyno tested the 347 with the same 1⅝-inch headers that will be used in the car. The Brodix heads have two different sets of bolt patterns to fit a variety of headers.The first series of dyno pulls with the 224/232-at-.050 cam (the small Cam "A") sent the 347 into valve float at 5,900 rpm. SAM students busted out the valvespring pressure tester to discover just 110 pounds of seat pressure, and 240 pounds over the nose. To correct the situation, students shimmed the springs .120 inch, which effectively increased seat and open pressure to 150 and 340 pounds, respectively. This eliminated all vestiges of float for the rest of the test session.Granted, they didn't contribute to the horsepower tally one bit, but COMP's slick cast-aluminum valve covers (PN 282) added some badly needed eye candy to a rather pedestrian-looking motor. They provided plenty of clearance for the rockers and springs, and include a set of integrated breathers. At $160 a set, they're hard to pass up.


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Narrow your search
With a handful of subtle improvements, the updated 12-inch Apple MacBook is more of a mainstream machine, but remains a few tweaks away from being the best laptop on the market.
The tiny TarDisk Pear slips into your computer's SD card slot to add extra storage in just a few steps.
While the upcoming 12-inch MacBook has all the buzz, this 13-inch system gets a handful of updates to remain a top choice for combining power and portability.
Current 15-inch MacBook Pro owners won't feel the need to upgrade, but the handful of tweaks included here keep this expensive system at the top of the list for powerful midsize laptops.
While still a great all-around useful laptop, the 13-inch MacBook Air is stuck with a lower-res display and a design that's no longer cutting-edge.
If you can live with its limitations, the new 12-inch MacBook delivers a groundbreaking design that points the way to the next chapter in laptops.
While the small updates to the 2014 model aren't enough for most existing users to upgrade, Apple's excellent 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro is still our go-to laptop of choice for shoppers at the high end.
If you own a MacBook Air from the past couple of years there's really no need to upgrade, but a small spec bump and minor price cut make the most-current Air even more attractive.
Apple's 11-inch Air gets a CPU speed bump and a decent price cut over the already excellent 2013 version. If you have a recent model there's no need to upgrade, but for anyone else, it's now a better deal than ever.
Thickly padded, and handmade from premium materials, the Pad & Quill Sleeve for MacBook will fit your 13-inch Air or Pro and fills an important need if you don't want to use a dedicated, padded laptop bag.


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Podcast: Open Crossings, the Music of Andy Teirstein
- 26 August, 2009
- 1 Comment
Andy Teirstein is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in New York. His strong roots in classical music, folk music and dance have helped him create a musical language that crosses all boundaries. Most of the pieces on this CD are … Read More →


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5 Ways Your Brain Tricks You into Sticking With Bad Habits
Bad habits can ruin your life. Whether you're gorging on Haagen-Dazs or dressing up like a Power Ranger and flaying hobos every night, you know on some level that things have to change, or disaster will follow. But no matter how badly you want your life to be different, things just keep plowing on the way they are. Why?
Because your brain has a long list of diabolical mechanisms intended to keep your habits exactly as they are.
#5. Your Brain Thinks Your Future Self Is a Different Person
You knew you had to be up at 7 a.m. for a big exam. But there you were, at one in the morning, watching every minute of a double feature on cable including Timecop and a second showing of Timecop. On a conscious level, you knew you were screwing yourself. But on a subconscious level, you always think of the tomorrow version of you as a completely different person. That guy can deal with the consequences; the night version is watching some fucking Jean-Claude Van Damme.
"Can't miss the rest of this movie. Two hours of sleep will be fine."
Well, don't feel so bad. Science says that this feature is built into your brain.
Brain scans have shown that different parts of our brain light up when we're thinking of ourselves versus when we're thinking of other people. That part makes sense -- your brain is partitioned out into separate regions for yourself and for everyone else because you have to look out for yourself first. But where it gets weird is that in some people, when they're asked to think about their future selves, the region that lights up is the one reserved for other people.
"Future Bill can worry about AIDS tests. Now Bill has unprotected sex to attend to."
In other words, if someone asks you to think about what you'll look like in 20 years, your brain treats it as though you're trying to picture some bizarre stranger. Now think about what that means in terms of your ability to fix what's wrong in your life. What motivation do you have to abstain from your 14th peanut butter doughnut today just to help out some droopy manimal in the future? Logically, you understand that you're endangering the person you'll become, but subconsciously, your brain doesn't have the sympathy to spare for that poor slob, and just wants to enjoy the doughnut.
#4. It Takes 10 Weeks of Work to Build a Good Habit
Let's say you have a habit or two you need to break, and you decide to start by picking up some good habits, because as we all know, the surefire way to overcome an addiction is to replace it with another addiction. So, you waddle over to the local gym, sign up for a membership and plan to start working out three times a week to help control your cravings for pie or cocaine or cocaine pie.
So, how much uninterrupted effort would you say it takes to start to become a gym person? As in, how long until you begin to accept working out as an automatic part of your life, rather than a grievous tax on your muscles and time?
Well, according to one study, habits take 66 days to form. That's right; it takes the better part of 10 weeks before any sort of new behavior you're trying to adopt starts to feel automatic. That means you're looking at over two months before that treadmill at the gym becomes more "weekly routine" and less "Spanish Inquisition."
And that's more than two months during which any kind of change in your routine can disrupt the process. You have a week when you can't work out because you get the flu, or pull a muscle, or have to work a bunch of overtime at the slaughterhouse. Boom, habit broken. This is when you snap back into your old habits, because they, too, were formed by long stretches of repetition. Your nightly date with Jack Daniel's and Facebook is firmly etched into your brain thanks to years of practice.
It's not because your brain hates you; it's because your brain likes efficiency, and mindless habits are efficient. See, what your brain really wants is to shift into autopilot, to turn your life into repetitive patterns and create heuristics -- mental shortcuts that help you get through the day using the least amount of brain power necessary. Heuristics allow you to drive to work half asleep and hung over, and get there with no recollection of the trip you just made. They compel you to repeat the same little things over and over day after day, because these routines require way less energy.
"I've got, like, the Prius of brains."
But breaking out of one requires an enormous amount of energy. If you want to change your routine, your previously automatic, effortless choices now have to be made using a conscious, concerted effort. And it will be exhausting. We don't just mean physical effort -- obviously riding a bike to work is more tiring than hiring a rickshaw. We mean just making the decisions is tiring. Which brings us to the fact that ...
#3. Your Willpower Is a Finite Resource
Getty/John Lund
Of course, what is probably more likely to trip you up during your 10 weeks of learning to be the type of person who jogs every morning isn't some uncontrollable circumstance, but your own lack of motivation. Specifically, this shows up as the sense that, because you've been so good with the jogging, you owe it to yourself to take a break.
"Three miles! Time for smoking and cakes."
Once again, scientists can get this same result in the lab -- exercising your willpower in one instance simply makes it more difficult to exercise it in the next. There's even a term for it now: willpower depletion. It is every bit as depressing as it sounds.
For instance, in one study, scientists asked one group of students to memorize a two-digit number, and another group a seven-digit number. They then offered both groups a choice between cake and fruit salad. Amazingly, the students who memorized the longer number were twice as likely to choose the cake. It's as though the simple act of remembering five extra digits was enough to reduce their willpower to a trembling white flag.
"Five weeks sober. Then I memorized all the lyrics to American Pie."
Then you have this study, which tried it from the opposite direction: Volunteers were shown a plate of freshly baked cookies and a plate of radishes. Half of them were instructed to take a cookie, and the other half were instructed to take a radish. All were then asked to complete a difficult geometric puzzle. Bizarrely, those who had been told to take a radish gave up on the puzzle after only eight minutes, while those who were told to take a cookie stuck with it for a full 19 minutes.
Even though no physical effort was involved, simply being forced to resist cookies actually depleted the volunteers' will to solve a puzzle, because apparently we never really stop being toddlers.
"I can hold in my homicidal urges or do Weight Watchers. Not both."
This one has another way of sneaking up on you, too, because ...


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The American Legislative Exchange Council will push bills to protect failing charter schools, silence political speech and obstruct environmental protections.
William Rivers Pitt of Truthout: As far as actual policy substance goes, conventions carry as much weight as the party platform. They are television shows, period. Anyone can talk pretty; it's what you do that counts.
Jimmy Johnson is a Detroiter and thinks you're great.


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This webinar will provide a review of the relevant case law, and will explore how trial prosecutors can present a case involving forensic testing that involves a multitude of technicians and experts. It will also address Williams' impact on "cold cases," in which original experts who performed autopsies and other forensic examinations and testing are no longer available for trial. This webinar will provide practical suggestions to trial prosecutors who must balance limited resources against the need to secure convictions that will withstand confrontation challenges on appeal.Allied justice system professionals including but not limited to prosecutors, law enforcement officers, lab personnel, medical professionals, and judges are encouraged to view the recording.Register Now! [1]
Links:[1] http://www.aequitasresource.org/trainingDetail.cfm?id=103
[2] http://www.nsvrc.org/event-type/webinar


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THE PARTY Honolulu's go-to plastic surgeon, Dr. Shim Ching, partnered with Modern Luxury Hawai'i and Ferrari and Maserati of Hawai'i for the invitation-only party Beauty & Supercars at the offices of his Asia Pacific Plastic Surgery, Inc. THE PLAYERS Candace Naylor-Ching, Sergio De Oliveira, Kristen Chan, Hisae Kato, Mari Hayashi THE HIGHLIGHTS The chance to test-drive one of the hot rides got guests truly revved up, but beauty seekers were also thrilled to find out about the latest treatments available. At the end of the evening, guests entered a prize drawing for indulgences with Dr. Ching, as well as a luxury car rental. Photography by Travis Okimoto


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The 0.9.2 version of Kdenlive has been released, the source package is now available from the KDE servers.
This new release fixes the most important regressions found in the 0.9 version as well as a few other issues.
The crashes in the stop motion widget and composite transition are fixed, slideshows and firewire capture work again. For a full changelog, check our Kdenlive 0.9.2 info page.
All users are encouraged to upgrade and report problems, we will prepare another bugfix release in a few weeks.
Mon, 08/13/2012 - 10:29
Please keep them coming. Kdenlive is getting better and better.
Mon, 11/12/2012 - 20:58
I hope in Ubuntu 12.04-LTS H.264 export will be working. Without it is handicapped. The .mpg is thee other option I have fallen to. Good Luck. Looking forward to the new release.


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text:
My professor in class went a little over chaos theory, and basically said that Newtonian determinism no longer applies, since as time goes to infinity, no matter how close together two initial points are, the distance between them will increase greatly. But why isn't this merely a matter of the imprecision of our measuring instruments? If we can somehow know our initial conditions exactly, wouldn't we still be able to calculate what the system will be like at some time t in the future?
Well, yes. In a purely mathematical world where you can specify initial conditions exactly, chaotic systems are fully deterministic. It's not like a quantum system with wavefunction collapse, whose evolution can never be specified exactly by the initial conditions.
But in practice, we can never specify (or know) the initial conditions exactly. So there will always be some uncertainty in the initial conditions, and it makes sense to characterize the behavior of a system in terms of its response to this uncertainty. Basically, a chaotic system is one in which any uncertainty in the state at time $t=0$ leads to exponentially larger uncertainties in the state as time goes on, and a non-chaotic system is one in which any initial uncertainty in the state decays away or at least stays steady with time.
In the former (chaotic) case, given that we can't know the initial conditions to infinite precision, there will always be some time after which predictions of the behavior of the system become essentially meaningless - the uncertainty becomes so large that it fills up most of the state space. This is effectively similar to the behavior of a truly non-deterministic (e.g. quantum) system, in that our ability to make predictions about it is limited, so some people call chaotic systems non-deterministic.
Classical mechanics is perfectly integrable for two bodies as a closed or isolated system. However, early on it was found that problems existed, where Newton found he could not find a solution for the motion of the planets in a complete form. He made his famous statement that God had to readjust the solar system now and them. Poincare solved the Sweden prize for a solution to the stability of the solar system by demonstrating no such solution existed. This is what opened the door for chaos theory, where Poincare developed methods of separatrices and perturbations on them. For general systems it turns out that Newtonian mechanics is not integrable,
Classical mechanics for systems with three or more bodies can\rq t be solved in closed form. For any $N$ body problem there are 3 equations for the center of mass, $3$ for the momentum, $3$ for the angular momentum and one for the energy. These are $10$ constraints on the problem. An N-body problem has $6N$ degrees of freedom. For $N~=~2$ this means the solution is given by a first integral with degree $2.$ For a three body problem this first integral has degree $8$. This runs into the problem that Galois illustrated which is that any root system with degree $5$ or greater generally have no algebraic roots. First integrals for differential equations are functions which remain constant along a solution to that differential equation. So for $8$ solutions there is some eight order polynomial $p_8(x)~=~\prod_{n=1}^8(x~-~\lambda_n)$, with $8$ distinct roots$\lambda_n$ that are constant along the $8$ solutions. Since $p_8(x)~=~p_5(x)p_3(x)$, a branch of algebra called Galois theory tells us that fifth order polynomials have no general algebraic system for finding its roots, or a set of solutions that are algebraic. This means that any system of degree higher than four are not in general algebraic. At the root of the $N$-body problem Galois theory tells us there is no algebraic solution for $N~\ge~3$.
A problem in classical mechanics is the vanishing denominator problem for three bodies. This has a Hamiltonian $H( J,~\theta)~=~H_0(J,~\theta)~+~\epsilon H_1(J,~\theta)$ for $J~=~(J_1,~J_2)$ and $\theta~=~(\theta_1,~\theta_2)$. Here a generating function written according to the variable $J^\prime$
The number of resonance conditions that exist on the real line are dense. Within any $\epsilon$ neighborhood there will exist a countably infinite number of possible resonance conditions that correspond to rational numbers. As the orbit of a planet drifts it will pass through these resonance conditions and be chaotically perturbed. It is to be expected that for simple rational numbers, such as $1/12$ for Earth and Jupiter, rather than $1003/12000$ strong resonances occur. For more complex rational numbers it might be expected that the instability will be weaker. In other words if the ratio of frequencies are \lq\lq sufficiently irrational\rq\rq$~$so that $$ \Big|{{\omega_1}\over{\omega_2}}~-~{m\over s}\Big|~>~{{k(\epsilon)}\over{s^{2.5}}},~\lim_{\epsilon~\rightarrow~0}k(\epsilon)~\rightarrow~0 $$ the orbit is more stable. So an orbit that is removed from a "strong resonance"" condition near a simple rational number will be more stable than an orbit that is near an orbit with a simple rational ratio of frequencies.
This is the basis for Greenberg's Hamiltonian approach to chaos theory. This is called deterministic for the differential equations are time reverse invariant so the motion of a particle is absolutely determined. However. if you have a slight variation in the initial conditions of that particle is may in general end up arbitrarily far away from its starting point. The tiny variation $\delta z~=~(\delta q,~\delta p)$ becomes amplified by an exponential map $\delta z~\rightarrow~exp(\lambda t)\delta z$, for $\lambda$ the Lyapunov exponent. Any error in the specification of the initial conditions of a body results in the amplification of this error. From an algorithmic perspective a truncation results in numerical overflow errors which grow. So the dynamics of a particle can't be integrated by computer to arbitrary accuracy into the future, even though nature actually does determine its dynamics.
W. Zurek took this a bit further and considered how quantum fluctuations, where $\delta z$ is set by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
I think the following from the wikipedia entry clears up well the terminology:
Bold mine.
Note that chaos results in completely deterministic systems when small errors in initial conditions yield highly divergent solutions. It is the "exactly" in your question that is unattainable, that will be a tiny bit off in chaotic situations,(highly nonlinear response to input parameters) even in computer solutions, because one cannot be more accurate than the computer bits.
Note also that this does not mean that there are no mathematical methods to study the behavior of such systems. There are, and can be predictive in bulk. I would give as an example the study of Tsonis et al who have studied climate with a neural net chaotic model using as inputs bulk behavior of atmospheric and ocean currents.
I think there is some debate about this, at least according to Steven Strogatz. I paraphrase a part of his lecture that I'm watching: Even systems with perfectly known, perfectly deterministic laws, where all the positions of all the particles, and all the forces, are known, can still be unpredictable. It is such systems that are called chaotic.
This is his view of it. I wish I could provide a link to the video, but it's on my hard drive.
I think this is an important debate to have, if it is still up in the air, because it has a lot of implications for the notion of free will. It's a philosophically deep question.
From my point of view, which is that of a lay person, Strogatz's view seems a bit hard to imagine, but then again, he's the expert.
I am afraid that your professor is confusing determinismus and computability. Chaotic behaviour is a property of some solutions of a system of non linear ODE.
However any non linear ODE is strictly deterministic - e.g if you know the value of X at time t0, the ODE allows you to compute deterministically X at time t0+dt with an arbitrary accuracy. That's why it is often talked about deterministic chaos.
The difficulties begin when you want to know X at a time T which is no more infinitesimaly close to t0 or in other words when you want to integrate the ODE system for any t. This is only possible numerically for chaotic systems and it is here that the property of exponential divergence (sensibility to initial conditions) kicks in. Indeed the error made in the value of the initial conditions will increase exponentially with time and prevent you to compute accurately the value of the chaotic variable for all times. But this is merely a computability problem, not a determinismus problem.
From the physical point of view, the computability problem will never be solved because of the Heisenberg's uncertainty relation which imposes a non zero value for the uncertainty of the measure of initial conditions. If the uncertainty is equal to the minimum value allowed by QM, it is easy to compute for any chaotic system the time beyond which the uncertainty of the value of the dynamical variable will be of the same order of magnitude as the dynamical variable itself. Beyond this time no chaotic variable can be computed.
For instance the orbital parameters of the Earth which are chaotic cannot be known beyond some 10 millions years. Of course, but this is another question, the unknowability of the orbital parameters is not synonymous with the unknowability of the orbit itself which may be but must not be stable. In our case we were lucky because despite the chaos in the orbital parameters of the Earth, the orbit itself has been stable or quasi stable for at least 4 billions years.
As a caveat one should add that the exponential divergence of orbits is a necessary but non sufficient condition for a system to be chaotic. For instance a variable Y = exp(t) has the property of exponential divergence of nearby trajectories but is computable with an arbitrary accuracy and is not chaotic.
The most important thing to learn in Chaos Theory is perhaps the idea that deterministic equations lead to unpredictable dynamics. It is not always a matter of having been able to make the measurements practically accurate. Infinitesimal difference in Initial Conditions make the difference between the paths in the phase space diverge exponentially (jargon: Lyapunov Exponent being the order in which they get separated). And that's what makes it a matter of being unpredictable even in theory.


text: This is the last character from the new 2012 upcoming movie 'The Lorax' that I will be submitting today, and then I will be moving onto something else. Now, with this lesson you will be learning "how to draw Ted", step by step. Ted is the secondary main figure from The Lorax, and in the movie he is on a search to find The Lorax. Since I never really watched the cartoon or read the book, I don't know exactly who Ted is. I know he plays a role in the forty seven page book, but I don't know any of his characteristics or anything. One exciting thing about Ted's character is that he is going to be voiced by Zac Efron. I actually like Zac Efron's acting because he is subtle and has a sense of humor. I especially liked him in Charlie St. Cloud and 17 Again. As for Ted, he is going to be just as easy or even easier to replicate. I already have a few comments on the two other characters from The Lorax, and since they did so well, I have a feeling that you will also enjoy learning "how to draw Ted" as well. I guess that's about it for now, I will be back in a few with more drawing fun. Adios people and have fun!


text:
Poach an Egg (03:06)
Former CHOW.com associate food editor Aida Mollenkamp demonstrates how to achieve the perfect poach. Poached eggs can be kept refrigerated for a day or two; in the second segment, Aida shows how to reheat the cooled egg. Poached eggs are a lovely accent to many dishes—breakfast, lunch, or a light dinner. We like them in the almost-classic Salade Lyonnaisey and in this Roasted Asparagus with Poached Eggs and Miso Butter.
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text:
The house I'm renting has some 110v audio equipment that I'd like to use and the transformer that they have seems to be fried. I'm looking for a shop where I can buy a transformer at a reasonable price. If it's close to Subte Ministro Carranza that'd be a bonus, but I'm willing to travel.
I think many electric hardware stores have these items, walk a couple of streets in the center and I guess you find a couple. Otherwise the feria (market) might also have stands that sell that sort of stuff.
If all fails, here I have a link to MercadoLibre, the ebay of latin america, they have plenty of these items for sale in the capital: transformador 220v a 110v


text:
It's easy to compare how good you are at something by using a standard method, relative to poor, average, good and excelent concepts. The economy of nearly every country in the world can measure it's growth by feeding a GDP formula. Not only is it useful to have an idea of how efficient your current methods are but also tell if said methods are up-to-date, still delivering a decent growth compared to your own from previous years.
Some activities, however, are a bit harder to measure. Even though the Pomodoro Technique took a big step in quantifying any kind of activity, it doesn't help in terms of setting a context of what is an actual good performance. I'm looking for a method that teaches how to add a bit more of competition by setting common milestones to anyone who's interested in, for example, giving speeches.
It is part of GTD to always set the next task but given that so many people around the world share the desire to master an ability, it should be easier to research for common milestones, qualities that differ an amateur from an notable person in the field.
In summary, is there any method teaching how to find standard patterns in specific areas of expertise?


text:
I am in the process of creating an automated install disc for Ubuntu Server 10.10. Is it possible to setup package selection within the preseed file (what groups of packages to install etc.)? If so how can this be done.
At a high level, the key part of creating is a preseed file that can specify options that the installer asks you. An example preseed file can be found at the debian website. The example provides most of the options that you may want to modify.
When it gets down to implementation, there are a few more steps to be followed:
Don't remove existing values unless you know what you're doing
You need to add the
Your iso is at
This answer concern debian, but it is probable that will work for ubuntu also, and in any case can be a useful bit of information: create non-interactive installers
Ok, I spent WAY too much time figuring out how to get this to work. Shroff, your example, though close, isn't quite there.
At least the last part of it.
The last step, with the mkdir CD_root, and mkisofs is slightly off.
If you did the
The next steps get fuzzy in your example. The editing the text.cfg, and placement of pressed.txt (name I used) is right. So the following:
Next step:
I was lost when dealing with the isolinux/isoliunux.bin, and the CD_root. Appartnetly the copy-paste you stole from syslinux website doesn't apply to the ubuntu images.
Hope this helps everyone else!


text:
The National Weather Service has confirmed an EF-2 tornado tore through Smiths Grove early Wednesday morning.
An NWS survey team is currently investigating the damage along with local emergency management and media members.
The NWS says the track of this tornado likely extends farther northeast outside of Warren County, and details will be forthcoming as the survey team continues the investigation today and possibly again tomorrow.
An EF-2 tornado is categorized as having wind speeds of 120-125 mph.


text:
20 Nov 2012 1:34 PM #1
ST2.1 List does not work on Blackberry Playbook
Version tested:
- Sencha Touch 2.1
Devices tested against:
- Blackberry Playbook(18.104.22.1688)
- iOS (5.1.1)
- Android (2.3.5)
- List component does not function correctly on the Blackberry Playbook. The list appears, but there are no items populated in it.
Steps to reproduce the problem:
- See attached source code for skeleton app demonstrating issue.
The result that was expected:
- Should see list with items (as seen on iOS and Android)
The result that occurs instead:
- See white screen. Inspection of the DOM reveals that the list was created but is not populated with any elements.
See this URL for live test case: http://inotforprofit.com/bbtest/production
21 Nov 2012 7:45 AM #2
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- Gainesville, FL
- Posts
- 39,174
- Vote Rating
- 1258
Thanks for the report! I have opened a bug in our bug tracker.
23 Nov 2012 10:20 AM #3
Please update the bug. I have confirmed that it is the Dataview that does not work.
Test url: http://inotforprofit.com/bbtest/production2
3 Jan 2013 5:11 PM #4
This bug report is flagged as a duplicate, however I can't find the original. Could someone point me to the original bug report?
Also, is there any way to find out the status of a fix? This bug completely breaks our app on Playbooks, which are listed as supported device. I'm hoping a fix or workaround will be available soon.
4 Jan 2013 12:15 PM #5
Our workaround is to deploy a separate version of our app under the ST22.214.171.124 codeset. In all honesty it completely sucks having to maintain a second codeset to support the playbook, especially when we spent a lot of time migrating to using some of the enhancements in ST2.1, but it's all we have for now.
I've heard from some of my contacts in RIM that they MAY (fingers crossed) eventually migrate the Playbook to the BB10 OS, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I'm also not holding my breath that this bug is actually going to get fixed.
But I would love to have someone from Sencha weigh in!
29 Jan 2013 2:23 PM #6
Any word on a fix for this?
Spent quite a bit of time upgrading an app to find out lists do not work....


text:
21 Oct 2010 8:22 AM #1
Vertical Tab Panel - Updated to work w ExtJS 3.3
I created this extension called Vertical TabPanel since Ext 3.1.1. As ExtJS currently just supports Horizontal TabPanel.
Basically this extension works the same way as the regular horizontal TabPanel except I added some CSS tweaks to push the Tab strip to the left.
I think this is quite useful in many projects.
Extension v0.2 updated to work with ExtJS 3.3.
Tested working on IE6+, FF2+, Chrome 4+, Safari 4+, and Opera 10.x
Check out the live example here
Download the whole example ( put files in folder : ext-3.3.0\examples\tabs )
Download the extension code only
21 Oct 2010 5:35 PM #2
21 Oct 2010 6:30 PM #3
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- Gainesville, FL
- Posts
- 39,174
- Vote Rating
- 1258
Wonder if you could use CSS3 transforms to rotate the tab so it's actually vertical. CSS3 would rotate the text too. You could see if the browser supports it or not. If it does, rotate it. If not, then use what you have now.
Just a thought.Mitchell Simoens @LikelyMitch
Sencha Inc, Senior Software Engineer
Check out my GitHub, lots of nice things for Ext JS 4 and Sencha Touch 2
Think my support is good? Get more personalized support via a support subscription. https://www.sencha.com/store/
Need more help with your app? Hire Sencha Services email@example.com
Want to learn Sencha Touch 2? Check out Sencha Touch in Action that is in print!
When posting code, please use BBCode's CODE tags.
21 Oct 2010 10:57 PM #4
Good job!
and how it will behave when there are more tabs than the planned region? some paging?
and if you can set the region on the right side?
23 Oct 2010 1:47 AM #5
Thank you guys !
@mitchellsimoen: Yeah, nice idea. I think I could add that functionality to the extension.. but not sure if that's a bit too funky for majority of desktop-like web apps.
@demon222: yeah, usually the height of each tab title is fixed, so currently, I leave the tab strip cut off if its size is larger than the whole panel's height. I will add some scroller like that of Ext.TabPanel.
Putting the tab strip on the right would be straight forward..but I think we don't have that many use cases for that tab style, do we ?
31 Oct 2010 5:26 AM #6
good work !! thank to share
but It work on 3.2 ??
31 Oct 2010 8:03 AM #7
25 Feb 2011 1:42 AM #8
great plugin! This is exactly what I'm looking for, but I need the Tab-Strips on the right side. Otherwise I can't use it.
It seems that this is still not possible? Can this be done? I think this would be a very good improvement and makes this plugin much more useful in many cases.
27 Feb 2011 5:52 PM #9
28 Feb 2011 1:27 AM #10
great extension, thanks a lot for sharing tot2ivn.."People will never forget how you made them feel."
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text:
All done with a Nikon D300, Sigma 8mm, NN Ultimate R1, a monopod and bubble level. Enjoy.
All done with a Nikon D300, Sigma 8mm, NN Ultimate R1, a monopod and bubble level. Enjoy.
Hi Denniss,
Nice picture(s)!! I like to see more details, can you post the same picture with Zoomify?
My website: www.360p.nl
8,67 Gigapixels Panorama: http://www.360p.nl/portfolio/gigapixel/123-bataviahaven-lelystad-8-67-gigapixels
Zooming most often yields pixelated pictures. It does not add anything unless you caputred your images with zooming in mind. There are two panoramas where I enabeled zooming. You can zoom in on the map in one of the Glacier Point panoramas. Since these images were taken with a Sigma 8mm lens, 4 shots around, zooming does not add anything. Some day I might look into Gigapixel panoramas.
you are really the master of the monopod and handheld nadirs. Works internationally, no matter where you are. In or near the river, on stones, taken the equipment with your bike, at softball-games or at the Louvre in France.
It is already a very big and nice collection that you have.
May I ask what recorder you use for sounds?
BTW: Seacat is very busy in Gigas.
Thx for sharing.
Last edited by hindenhaag; 08-04-2010 at 07:34 AM.
Thanks Heinz.
As pointed out in a nother forum, the colors are all over the place. The weakest part of my workflow is post processing. I can make custom pano heads all day long. I have no problem capturing and stitching. When it comes to Photoshop, I have so very much to learn. Shooting RAW would also help.
I use a Zoom H2 to capture the sounds. $150 at Amazon.com. Don't bother with eBay. People selling the unit there cannot seem to do research. Prices are way too high. The H2 is just a little bigger than a deck of cards. Full 4 channel surround sound recordings from a unit that fits in your pocket.
I use 5 degrees of tilt. That is enough to get the Zenith covered.
When shooting, the rotational orientation is not too critical. I eye ball 90 degrees. I start with my back to the sun. I use the monopod shadow as my zero position. Very easy to guestimate 90 degrees.
It is absolutely critical that you hold your rig plumb to the ground. That is where the bubble level comes in.
As to the loss of quality at the Nadir and other shots boundry, that is going to happen. The far edges of the 10.5 are blurry while the center is clear. When you bring in the hand held Nadir shot, you will get a bad seam.
Three ways to handle this:
1)You can mask less of the Nadir shot and more of the others in order to force this edge further up the "round" shots. Changing the blend priority might help, but I have not tried that.
2) Use Photoshop and apply "blur" to the Nadir shot. It does not take much blur to make the seam invisible. This is what I do.
3) Change your focus setting for the Nadir shot so you do not need to blur in Photoshop. Just remember to set your focus back for the next panorama. I have tried this with limited results. I would rather blur a clear picture than start with a blurry one.
The Yosemite pictures are the result of taking literally hundreads of panoramas over the last year using a monopod. It has gotten to the point that I don't want to take still photos any more while traveling. A monopod is just way too portable and so easy to use, once you practice.
The only tutorial I have can be found at: http://www.dlsphoto.net/Tutorials/NadirShadow/index.htm
Thanks for the compliments.
No rotator. No way to secure it at zero degrees. It would just add extra weight to the rig. I simply rotate the entire monopod around a point on the ground. If I do everything absolutely correct and accurate, you can see the small indent in the ground at the very center of the Nadir shot where the monopod rotated around. Most times this small mark is off to one side. No big deal, just a very small detail. I do not try to control it, I just look for it.
several ways to go to rome/remove shadows from a picture : http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...w-picture.html Under search option you will find some more answers.