text:
Suppose there's a communal meal in a secular workplace, at which some of the food is reliably kosher. Now suppose that right before anyone takes any food, one of the participants, to general assent, says grace, including a line like "We consecrate this food to Jesus Christ." Is there any problem with consuming any of the food after that?
Sign up
- Anybody can ask a question
- Anybody can answer
- The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
There's a rule that "you can't prohibit that which does not belong to you." A pagan can go deify my cow and bow down to it all he wants; he can even slaughter it to his idol; if it's my cow, he did nothing and you can derive benefit from the cow. So the first and major question is, who owned the food in this situation, and who consecrated it? Moreover, what does "consecration" mean? Is that the act of sacrifice, or merely designating it for sacrifice? (The latter wouldn't prohibit it.)
From Rambam's Laws of Foreign Worship and Heathen Practices, Chapter 8:
The next question would be how to approach Christianity vis-a-vis the prohibitions related to the accoutrements of idolatry, which is addressed elsewhere.
The third question is whether a declaration of consecration alone (even by an absolute pagan on his own food) is enough to prohibit it. If I recall correctly from the whole mess about wig hair coming from Hindu temples, there are different opinions in Tosfos whether any item used in pagan worship becomes prohibited, or does it have to be specifically the object of pagan libations, bowing, incense, or animal sacrifice. I don't see a verbal consecration in any of those.


text:
I am interested in solving the following equations:
$f(x) + \int_{\alpha(x)}^{\beta(x)}K(x,t)u(t)dt = 0$
$f(x) + \int_{\alpha(x)}^{\beta(x)}K(x,t)u(t)dt = u(x)$
when $u(x)$ is the unknown function defined on $[0^+,\infty)$ and all other functions are known and are assumed to have convenient differentiability and other reasonable properties. In particular, both lower and upper bounds $\alpha(x)$ and $\beta(x)$ are not constants.
I know that when both bounds are constant they belong to Fredholm equations, and when only one bound is constant they belong to Volterra equations, where plenty of literature work exists.
However I am not clear about the case when both bounds are variables. Can the equations defined above be conveniently translated into Fredholm or Volterra theory? If they cannot, what is the theory for these type of equations?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
How's this for a marketing ploy?
So today here at the office we get a box in the mail, the size of what you would expect flowers to come in by one of those through the mail flower services, yet it's from Amex. We open it and it has quite a nice sized RC helicopter in it, along with a note that says "Call me and I'll bring the remote control to your helicopter to our meeting." Boy, how disappointing it was to not be able to play with this thing. But disappointing enough to meet with them and get the remote? Not sure yet, I'll have to take it home tonight and check it out more. Being it's February and we're right in the middle of year end work here in accounting, it's not the right time of the year to be meeting people, now if it was June, I'd be getting a remote!
Does your office get things like this and do you meet with the people?
10 Answers answer
I remember getting a rather large box from HP that a network switch would come in; inside it was a large stack of fake money. We had no idea what it was about, as there were no flyers or explanations with it. Turns out that one of our vendors was trying to sell us network switches from HP, and it was a promotion of sorts.
@subether: That would have been cool if you could have used the fake money towards the purchase of the switches. But since you couldn't, what a waste. It probably had everyone at the office talking about it though, and that was probably one of their goals. It just amazes me how much money these companies will spend on stuff like this.
I would go out of my way to find one on eBay just for the gratification at this point.
What brand Helicopter? You might be able to find a remote for it elsewhere.
haha if you do buy a remote, you should send the box back with the receipt for the remote in it
Yeah, you can absolutely get a remote for it elsewhere.
that sounds like someone is really trying to get a foot in the door. I don't know if this is a new technique or not, but it is an interesting attempt. In my office that thing would have disappeared in a second, and no one would have ever known....
I have seen this, keep the car perhaps they will send you the remote by accident. So far I have seen this twice, the first no one did anything for the remote but we already tossed the car. The second time we stored the box and marked the box "throw away after a date (the date was 1 year after we received the copter)
They can't know much about accounting if they sent it in Feb.
Call them and set up a meeting in April.
@coondogg97: Thanks for the link!
@baqui63: I kept forgetting to bring the thing home, finally remembered and I can't find a brand name on it anywhere.
After going to @coondogg97's ebay link, it made me decide to search for amex heli's on ebay and there's actually 2 different sellers listing them right now, for ridiculous prices IMO, with no remotes!
I will probably just give it to my FIL at this point, he's really in to RC toys and I'm sure he'll figure out how to work it. I'm too busy with work right now to play with it anyway :(


text:
Specs and Tester's Tester Comments
Go to Slide Show of Tested Tools
Detailed Tool Features -I [Download PDF]
Detailed Tool Features - II [Download PDF]
By Gary Striegler
Jobsite table saws have changed a lot since I started working for my dad in 1972. Back then, we did almost all the millwork on-site using a huge, 12-inch contractor's saw that might have stayed set up for months. I started my own company in 1981, and as the business grew, table saws shrunk. I took on a partner, and we started building custom homes. At one point, the average house I worked on was 6,000 square feet. Today, those jobs are harder to find, and smaller remodeling projects make up most of our work. We have to take our tools with us at night or at least store them out of the way, so at the end of a hard day, portability is a big deal with these little saws.
Credit: Photo: dotfordot.com
During our test of these new jobsite table saws, we completely re-trimmed several houses, built a patio cover, did a small room addition, built several decks, rebuilt a bay window, and completely outfitted a garage with storage cabinets. Every site was different; we set up in living rooms, garages, even in yards, and we really gained an appreciation for the saws that were easiest to set up and move around.
On my jobsites, a table saw's job is ripping, so along with a strong motor, a good fence makes the most difference in a day's work. We always have a sliding miter saw on the job for crosscuts, so miter gauges and sliding tables don't get any use.
While testing these saws, we cut framing lumber, synthetic deck boards, oak and poplar boards, and all kinds of sheet goods from birch plywood to MDF and even some pegboard. It takes a 24 1/2-inch cut to rip a sheet of MDF in half, and that's the widest cut I would ever make with a jobsite table saw. These saws are too light and their tables are too small to safely make a cut wider than that, in my opinion.
Today, safety is more important than ever. One bad accident can cripple an entire company, so I applaud new industry standards on guard systems that manufacturers have endorsed. The new guards work smoothly and stay out of the way for most cuts, but they're easy to remove and replace when necessary. (For more on these new guard systems, click here.)
The Winner
Although the jobs have changed, the quality of my work can't, so I need a small saw with big performance. Since a jobsite table saw is like a piece of communal property, it must be safe and simple enough for a rookie to use, but still have the accuracy and power my most skilled craftsman demands. For all this and more, the DeWalt DW744 is my top choice.
To me, the single most important part of a saw is the fence, and DeWalt's unique rack and pinion fence system seems completely unaffected by jobsite rigors. It adjusted out to 25 inches with ease, and remained dead-on accurate. I found I could rip all the parts for a cabinet from a cut-list without ever pulling out my tape measure. The fence doesn't operate like those on a contractor saw, but all my carpenters figured it out right away. The blade height and bevel adjustments are straightforward and solid, and the motor has plenty of power.
The DeWalt stand's wide footprint makes it very stable, and its wheels are large enough to negotiate jobsite obstacles. And since the saw disconnects from the stand quickly, loading it into my truck was easy. As for safety, the improved blade guard is about the best a contractor could hope for.
The Bosch and Ridgid came in a very close second and third, respectively. Both saws have good fences, but you must reposition their tops to make wide cuts. The Bosch was the only other brand in the test with the new guard design.
Makita and Hitachi were next; they both worked very well but were not the all-around best performers. And finally, the Ryobi and Craftsman saws seem to offer gadgets instead of pro-oriented features valuable on the job.
Gary Striegler is a custom home builder and writer in Springdale, Ark.
Cordless Tools
Coring and Cutting
Bullet Tools redesigned its blades made for dust-free cutting of rigid foam.
It looks like a weapon, and it could probably be used as one, but it is much more...
Stationary Tools
We get press releases often, so it's tough to get the word out to you in a useful...
Table Saws
Few tools are as dangerous, and few tools garner more opinions on proper technique. In...
For such a small and light tool, this 12V max barrel grip model has a surprising number...
These newly designed mechanics tools come in clever modular cases that work well in the...
A tool company and big box store agree to become exclusive—sort of.
Twice the batteries, twice the voltage, and more than twice the speed of the...
25 favorites from the outgoing editor.
Tool Test
Please read our Content Guidelines before posting.
Check out Tool Videos from our Editors and Contributors
Copyright ©
2016 Hanley Wood Media, Inc. All rights reserved.


text:
Some much needed rain visited the area over the weekend. It was nice to see mud puddles and water running down the ditches. After a somewhat mild start to the day with highs topping out near 45 degrees, temperatures will gradually climb to the gorgeous category for Thursday and Friday!
If you haven't brought your smoker or grill out of hibernation or got your potatoes ready to plant on St. Patrick's Day, you might think about that very soon!
By Thursday, forecasters are calling for temperatures in the upper 60s and on Friday, we should see highs in the low 70s. They should fall back into the 60s for Saturday and Sunday. Spring is just around the corner (March 20th to be exact)!
Location, ST | website.com


text:
Charles C. Johnson: 'Why Coolidge Matters'
Imagine a country in which strikes by public-sector unions occupied the public square; where foreign policy wandered aimlessly as America disentangled itself from wars abroad and a potential civil war on its southern border; where racial and ethnic groups jostled for political influence; where a war on illicit substances led to violence in its cities; where technology was dramatically changing how mankind communicated and moved about — and where the educated harbored increasing contempt for the philosophic underpinnings of our republic.
That country, the America of the 1920s, looked a lot like America today. One would think, then, that the President who successfully navigated these challenges, Calvin Coolidge, might be esteemed today. Instead, Coolidge's record is little known, the result of efforts by both the left and right to distort his legacy.
Charles C. Johnson's Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America's Most Underrated President, revisits the record of our 30th president, examining Coolidge's views on governance, public sector unions, education, race, immigration, and foriegn policy. Most importantly, Why Coolidge Matters explains what lessons Coolidge — the last president to pay down the national debt — can offer the limited government movement in the post industrial age.
What They Are Saying About Why Coolidge Matters
"Why Coolidge Matters could not appear at a better time. In it, Charles Johnson shatters the myth that Calvin Coolidge was a president of little influence and brings to life a man of deep convictions, courage, and incredible talent for clearly communicating economic struggles in moral terms. In our era of economic malaise, we should learn from the president whose tax cuts helped ignite one of America's greatest economic booms. Anyone interested in the cause of free markets and liberty would do well to read this book."
— U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
"This is a very energetic and engaging amplification of the strong points of Coolidge's presidency and administrative techniques. It is a welcome addition to the growing literature on whether Coolidge was, as Charles Johnson claims, an underrated and commendable leader, and not, as majority historical opinion has long held, a simplistic and dangerously detached president. It is a lively and imaginative case presented by a very promising young historian and commentator."
— Conrad Black, author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom,
Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, and the recently published A Matter of Principle.
"It turns out that our Cal wasn't as silent as we thought. Coolidge's life speaks volumes about the sad state of contemporary politics, and may offer a map for the way out. Charles Johnson's smart and entertaining book about our witty, wise, and humane 30th president is a must-read for anyone who cares about the history of the presidency, or its future."
— Tucker Carlson, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller
"In a time when we suffer from the follies of a celebrity president, Charles Johnson's short sparkling account of Calvin Coolidge, the citizen president who valued experience over theory and individual accountability rather than social salvation, is a welcome occasion."
— Fred Siegel, scholar in residence at St. Francis College
and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
"To preserve our freedom, we must recover both our principles and our past. Calvin Coolidge is a figure from the past who possessed profound knowledge of our principles and the eloquence to explain them. Charles Johnson — precocious, energetic, and knowledgeable himself — brings real ability to the work of recovering Coolidge, and so he helps us to better know our country and ourselves."
— Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College and author of The Founders' Key
"Johnson's book is essential reading for those interested in presidential leadership. He shines the spotlight on one of America's most successful, yet unappreciated, chief executives. Knowing full well the proper use of executive power, Silent Cal had a steady hand on the ship of state. Johnson makes the case that Coolidge should enter the pantheon of America's great Presidents."
—John Yoo, law professor at the University of California, Berkeley,
and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
"Charles Johnson's Why Coolidge Matters is a timely, riveting profile of one of America's most unsung presidents. We all have much to learn from Calvin Coolidge's adherence to thrift; devotion to his Christian faith; emphasis on character and civic virtue; and demonstrated commitment to public service and first principles. Myths on both the Left and Right abound about 'Silent Cal.' Johnson's vibrant scholarship clears the air and sheds new light on a commander-in-chief who modeled long-forgotten, but desperately needed, leadership traits of restraint, discipline, and prudence. As the conservative movement ponders its future, Why Coolidge Matters provides a compelling reason to look to its forgotten past for inspiration."
— Michelle Malkin, author, blogger, and syndicated columnist
"According to Mr. Johnson, Coolidge was 'great' because he was 'modest, moderate, and thoroughly republican in an immodest time.' By embracing common-sense policies derived from a shrewd observation of human nature, Coolidge presided over a period of economic growth, governmental restraint and American idealism. America would be wise to learn from him, and Mr. Johnson's book is a good starting place."
— David Wilezol, The Washington Times
About the Author
Charles C. Johnson is an independent writer. His work has appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, City Journal, The New Criterion, Reason, Tablet Magazine, and The Claremont Review of Books.
He has been the recipient of both the Robert L. Bartley Fellowship and Eric Breindel Award at the WSJ, the Robert Novak Award at the Philips Foundation, and the Publius Fellowship at the Claremont Institute. He lives in the San Gabriel Valley with his fiancée and is presently writing a political biography of Barack Obama.
Watch Charles C. Johnson talk about Why Coolidge Matters on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" program. Follow Charles C. Johnson on Twitter.
Watch Charles C. Johnson's talk on Coolidge below, and listen to his appearance on the Heartland Daily Podcast.


text: Boost Your Body's Energy By Locke Ettinger June 25, 2014 Do you sometimes struggle with a lack of energy that keeps you from doing all the things you want to do? If you wonder what your life would be like with more energy, there are steps you can take to achieve it. Read More


text:
Superfund Redevelopment
Superfund Redevelopment in Region 5 Links
Superfund Redevelopment Coordinator
Thomas Bloom (email@example.com)
National Information
Superfund Redevelopment in Region 5 helps local communities return contaminated Superfund sites to safe and productive uses. EPA is working with these communities and other stakeholders - prospective purchasers, local governments - to consider reuse opportunities and to integrate appropriate reuse options into the cleanup process. To date, Superfund sites have already been developed into parks, commercial buildings, warehouses, and residential areas.
- Basic Information
- Getting Started with Superfund Redevelopment - key steps to undertake while considering redevelopment of a Superfund site.
- Reuse Planning community-based planning can integrate future land use information with site information and remedy considerations.
- Success stories
Superfund Redevelopment Highlights
- Superfund Site Reuse Fact Sheets
Region 5 has developed a number of fact sheets about Superfund sites in the Region. These fact sheets describe when and how a site is (or will be) ready for reuse. The fact sheets detail reuse activities at the site, the site's planning and development process, geographic location, past cleanup activities, and contacts for more information. Browse Region 5 Site Reuse Fact Sheets.


text:
Report: Greenhouse Gas Pact Created $500 Million For Massachusetts Economy And Added Nearly 3,800 Jobs
A new report from the Analysis Group reveals that the multi-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) — created to "reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade system" — contributed nearly $500 million to Massachusetts' economy and created nearly 3,800 jobs over the past three years. RGGI led to regional economic gains of $1.6 billion, including the $498 million is Massachusetts while investments in clean energy sector will save consumers $1.1 billion on electricity and $174 million on natural gas and home heating oil by 2021 — an average savings of $25 for residential consumers, $181 for commercial consumers, and $2,493 for industrial consumers. While power plants have lost about $1.4 billion in revenue over the past three years due to "reduced demand and the costs of purchasing carbon allowances," the consumer savings and clean energy investments "more than offset the economic losses." The program, which Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) approved in 2007, holds 10 mid-Atlantic and Northeast states in a pact to cap and reduce carbon dioxide emissions and sell power sector emission allowances through auctions while investing the proceeds in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other clean energy technologies. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) pulled his state out of the program this year, calling it a "failure" and a "gimmick."


text:
The following items are similar to Pixadex v 1.5.2:
Pixadex 1.5.5 released
Pixadex 1.2 released
Pixadex 2.0.1 released
Pixadex 1.5.1 released
Pixdex 2.0 released
Pixadex 1.5 released
Pixadex 2.0.2 released
Pixadex 1.5.4 released
Pixadex 1.1 released
Pixadex 1.5.3 released
The Iconfactory search engine is a great tool to help you find whatever you are looking for. We have associated keywords with all of the content available on the site. These keywords span icon sets, desktop pictures, iPulse Jackets, software products, support items, design services projects and even news page postings.
In order to make it easy for you to find what you are looking for, we have built some features into our search engine that allow you to customize your search:


text:
5 Great Men Who Built Their Careers on Plagiarism
#2. Dr. Richard Owen
What'd He Do?
He was the man who invented dinosaurs. Or, at least, the word dinosaur. Owen was one of the first paleontologists in history, as well as a renowned anatomatician and biologist. He was also one of the men most responsible for the founding of the British Museum of Natural History. Also, he looked kind of like a pedophile.
And sort of like Steve Buscemi.
Dick was highly regarded in his day. He churned out three volumes of the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates and was in charge of the creation of the first life-size model recreations of ancient dinosaurs, which goes down in history as the first big PR break for dinosaurs in popular culture. In a way, he was like the great grandfather of Jurassic Park.
What's the Problem?
As it turns out, important British scientists are actually almost exactly like pubescent, small-minded high schoolers. Like any self-respecting popular kid, Dr. Owen used his clout and fame within the scientific community to further his obsessive efforts to destroy another, better scientist named Gideon Mantell.
Seen here, pointing furiously at a rock.
Owen stole credit for the discovery of the Iguanadon, (as well as several others) from Mantell (one of the discoveries for which he was most famous) and then proceeded to ignore all of Mantell's research, which showed that the creature had been bipedal. By portraying the Iguanadon, and all of the other dinosaurs of the time, as the lumbering, imbecilic man-children of the ancient world, Owen set modern paleontology back centuries. Owen's slow and stupid dinos have only started to fade out of academic consciousness over the last 20 or so years.
Is That All?
Nope. For most men, stealing close to the entirety of a better scientist's accomplishments would have been enough douchebaggery. But Richard Owen was just too great a cockbite to succumb to such plebeian levels of asshattery. When poor Gideon died (an agonizing, lingering death), Owen somehow managed to worm his way into writing the obituary. He gave his deceased colleague no byline, and spent the whole body of the obit calling Gideon (basically) a failure of a man and a scientist.
Did He Pay?
Sort of. The Royal Society's Zoological Council fired him for plagiarism, and by the waning years of his life most of academia realized what a hack Richard really was. This realization didn't come soon enough to deny Owen a long life of comfort and wealth, or stop him from attaining a lofty place in the annals of history.
Apparently, being an unbelievable bastard works.
#1. H.G. Wells
What'd He Do?
We couldn't believe it either. H.G. Wells, probably most famous for his radio drama War of the Worlds, is one of the most influential figures in popular science-fiction.
In addition to writing some of the greatest stories in modern history, Wells was also a modern historian. The Outline of History and A Short History of the World were his best known works of non-fiction, and garnered him a reputation as a thorough and inhumanly productive scholar. Outline, a 400,000 word masterpiece, was written in a mere six months. It was the novel that made Wells wealthy, and allowed him to dedicate the rest of his life to writing.
It was also a work of shameless, bald-faced plagiarism.
"Thank God the Internet doesn't exist yet, or I'd be fucked."
What's the Problem?
In 1918, an unknown, unwed Canadian scholar named Florence Deeks presented her meticulously researched manuscript to the McMillan and Company publishing group. Her book, The Web of the World's Romance, spent more than a year in their hands. It was never picked up.
By an interesting coincidence, McMillan and Company was the same publisher that handled Wells's books. We only bring this up because, in 1920, they published H.G.'s Outline of History, a work with some striking similarities to Web. That's a polite way of saying H.G. Wells stole his bestselling book from a poor old spinster.
Wells had followed the outline of Deeks' book almost exactly, and he'd stolen several phrases and stylistic choices from her as well. Most damning of all, several mistakes from Deeks' book also showed up in Wells' masterwork. It's a miracle Wells remembered to write his own name on the book.
Is That All?
It's not enough for Wells to just profit of off the stolen property; the original author needed to be crushed.
Which she was. Deeks sued of course, but, this being 1920 and Wells being a man with a glorious mustache, her suit failed and H.G. was exonerated.
He has a penis. Acquitted!
Did He Pay?
Of course not. No one even believed he was guilty for decades. Wells continued to write bestselling novels and change the face of both radio and literature forever. Deeks died poor, unloved and bitter.
Then, years after both of their deaths, A.B. McKillop of Carleton University published a study on the allegations against Wells. "The Spinster and the Prophet: H.G. Wells, Florence Deeks, and the Case of the Plagiarized Text" made a compelling case against Wells. By which we mean it proved he was a plagiarizing fuck.
War On Plagiarism.org sums the whole situation up well: "H.G. Wells' plagiarism stands as one of the 20th Century's most blatant instances of personal economic gain as a result of unacknowledged derivation and usurpation of another author's text."
In our own words, we'd just like to say that the plagiarism committed by H.G. Wells stands as one of last century's blatantest instances of personal money gain as a result of unacknowledged derivation and usurpation of another author's text, and we think it's shameful.
For movies that are depressing for a whole other reason check out Rick's look at 5 Awesome Movies Ruined By Last-Minute Changes. Or find out about some action stars whose careers had a less than happy ending in 5 Movie Martial Artists That Lost a Deathmatch to Dignity.
To see more totally original works of literature and boobs from Cracked, check out our Top Picks.


text:
MaleSurvivor, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to overcoming sexual victimization of boys and men through its membership program and weekend workshops has recently announced the launch of Dare to Dream Toronto. This program was developed in response to the Emmy-nominated Oprah Winfrey Show segment highlighting male sexual abuse and will focus on bringing a message of hope and healing while offering support for abuse survivors in several local markets. The free event will feature a screening of the Oprah Winfrey Show segment, "Two Hundred Adult Men Who Were Molested Come Forward", a facilitated panel discussion, and an opportunity to learn about local resources and support groups with a goal of providing male survivors with a safe and comfortable environment to join others in lifting the veil of secrecy and shame from their experience.
There is no fee to attend this event but space is limited. To reserve a spot, contact Jacqueline Coombs at 416-729-4403. For more information about male sexual victimization, or to learn more about MaleSurvivor's Dare to Dream program, contact Trisha Massa at email@example.com/800-738-4181 [2].
Links:[1] http://www.malesurvivor.org/dare-to-dream.html
[2] mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com/800-738-4181
[3] http://www.nsvrc.org/states-territories/outside-us-and-territories


text:
What are the laws concerning developing WordPress sites using other developers' plugins and then selling the sites?
Please read through the following:
Anyway, you should at least donate to the plugin developers, if you make money with their work somehow.
EDIT I'm am sorry for my previous lines: I have to admit that GPL code can be sold, even if it's not your code, althought I still recommend donating.
Under GPL you CAN resell the software.
The main restriction is if you do sell (or give away) you must:
Note that although WordPress.org requires all plugins in the WordPress.org repo to be GPL that doesn't mean it's true for plugins found outside of WordPress.org. It is YOUR responsibility to know the license. The biggest example is a lot of themes will license there PHP template files as GPL but not the CSS, JS, or Image files. Also some plugins will be GPL compatible but not GPL
WordPress.com uses plugins made by others to enhance the site and make a profit. Nothing says you can't make money just that if you distribute the code at all you have to allow others to do the same. Part of CNN.com runs WordPress has made and modified code that will never see because they don't redistribute it. Because the plugin authors have redistribute their code that changes everything.
Really it also comes down to ethics. In most cases credit/donations are nice. I also think it depends if you block the end-user from the source or allow them to see that it's WordPress and which plugins are used or are trying to create a closed source system.
I'm not a lawyer I suggest that you talk to one before starting a business reselling GPL Code. My advice is purely from my own knowledge and understanding.
I also encourage you to read the links that @cadeyrn posted although they link to GPLv3 and WordPress is under GPLv2


text:
The 6 Most Badass Weapons Ever Improvised in Battle
#3. The Stinger
Before America entered the Second World War, Tony Stein was a Machinist, a Golden Gloves Boxer and a Navy Reservist. So he was kind of hardcore to begin with, and then a good ol' man-makin' war came around, and it was like tempering steel in Grizzly blood. At some point during Stein's conquest of half a dozen Pacific islands, he came upon a downed Douglas Dauntless Dive-Bomber (alliteration is always fun, even in the face of genocide!) with its tail gun still intact. Stein took the gun, added the stock (the back side) from an M1 Garand, the bi pod and sights from a standard machine gun, and a box to hold the chains of .30 caliber bullets.
Via Securityarms.com
There's just so... much... gun.
Jesus! Look at that thing: It's like every gun in the world had sex with every other gun in the world, and then neglected the resulting love-child until it became psychotic and vowed revenge on everything.
Remember: This was a gun designed to be mounted on a plane in order to kill other planes. And Stein figured that was as good a thing as any to heave up on his shoulder and go Nazi destroying. The Stinger had a Rate of Fire in the region of 1,500 rounds a minute, which is well within Mini-Gun territory. To put that into perspective, here's a video clip of a gun with a rate of fire of 1,200/minute.
Which is enough to easily saw off the top of a building.
When the US launched its assault on Iwo Jima in February 1945, Stein was there with his ad-hoc bastardized God-worrier. The power of the bullets would tear fortified emplacements apart and suppress the occupants enough to allow demolition charges to be hurled in to finish the job. The Axis was probably grateful to see that charge, actually, after a few minutes of having all the air around them replaced by bullets.
Via Militaryphotos.net
It might as well have shot other guns instead of bullets.
#2. SAS Battle Jeeps
In 1940, a man named David Stirling came up with a plan to fight the Nazis in North Africa: Drive American Willys Jeeps hundreds of miles across uncharted desert while evading Axis patrols, sneak up on a Luftwaffe Airfield in the middle of the night, and wreck the place on foot.
Via blindkat.hegewisch.net
And then melt them with our minds.
Nobody said it was a good plan. It's like somebody went through an actual strategy and replaced every instance of the word "tactical" with "balls out."
But astoundingly, it worked fine, for a bit. Eventually, though, the Germans upped the security on their airfields. So the SAS took a cue from Compton, and incorporated the mother of all drive-bys. They'd take up to half a dozen heavy machineguns pilfered from Allied aircraft, and strap them to their jeeps, resulting in these wildly over-powered, cartoonish gun platforms:
Via HD2
"Ehh... Needs more guns" - David "More Guns" Stirling.
That is a vehicle comprised entirely of guns, ammo, gas, water and poor impulse control. Not even radiator grills survived the strip down. Using these old-timey Twisted Metal characters, Stirling and company would tear ass past an Axis airbase in the dead of night, all guns blazing with tracer rounds, and presumably high-five as the world exploded around them. After that it was just a matter of getting as far away as possible before the remaining ground attack aircraft could get airborne. Hopefully they saved their turbo power-ups, instead of making the rookie mistake and just grabbing all the fireballs.
Via miliblog.co.uk
#1. The Polish Home Army's Everything
Poland is Europe's Afghanistan. Every superpower that tried to swallow it up has been subjected to unrelenting and extremely violent resistance. The Poles rose up against the Russians in the 1870s with giant medieval scythes, and they defeated an army wielding modern muskets and cannons. As to be expected, they didn't exactly welcome the Nazi war machine with open arms (nobody really did; the Nazis were notoriously discourteous house-guests.)
And they all wore stupid looking socks.
Britain was too far away to supply arms effectively, and the Soviet Union mostly didn't give a damn, so the Poles were very much on their own. What else was left to do but surreptitiously build all the weapons they needed themselves and fight the bastards anyway. Factories were set up in basements, auto repair shops and strongholds hidden deep in forests and swamps. From there, they supplied arms of astonishingly high quality to the resistance.
The Poles in their underground, impromptu factories managed to design, test and produce Filipinka and Sidolowka grenades, the Blyskawica, Bechowiec and KIS submachineguns, and satchel charges made from stolen munitions and dud German artillery shells. While these things are very impressive (or at least really good at puttin' holes in dudes,) that wasn't the end of the Pole's murderous ingenuity. Take, for example, the K-Pattern Flamethrower:
It consisted of one tank of compressed air, one larger tank full of a gas-diesel mixture, a rubber hose, a valve, a pipe and a short length of rope on the end of the barrel that would be kept constantly alight.
They used them to destroy Tiger Tanks.
Or how about the steampunk catapults they made from the leaf-springs of a truck, which they used to fling Molotov Cocktails over fortified walls?
Via Halibutt
But the biggest, craziest Polish MacGyverism of Death was the Kubus armored car:
Via Halibutt
People who were alive during the 80s should have the horn section from the A-Team theme blaring in their head right about now.
The whole thing was based on a Chevy truck platform, and was churned out in only 13 days in the back of an auto-repair shop in Warsaw. For reference, modern mechanics take 13 days to replace a headlight, and that's not counting the week spent waiting for the spring-clips to arrive from Korea.
There was no design or testing stage here, no written plan or blueprint: The manufacturer, Cyprian Odorkiewicz (O'Dorkowitz? Really?) just threw it all together and then drove it out the front door, straight into the Warsaw Uprising. It was armed with a Russian machinegun up top, and armored slots all around, from which the dozen Poles inside could fire their guns, tank-killing flame-throwers, or just swing their crazy-ass scythes around, depending on their ingenuity, resources, and how little of a fuck they wanted to give that day.
Check out more of Tony Pilgram's stuff at Bad Metaphors.
For more acts of badassery it's worth drinking a beer to this Memorial Day, check out 5 Real Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a Pussy and 6 Soldiers Who Survived Shit That Would Kill a Terminator.


text:
11 Oct 2013 11:21 AM #1
How to reference image translate3D values?
I am slowly finding my way around the Animator.
I can replace an image in a running animation via javascript, and position the new image where the original image was located with this:
target_node.style.webkitTransform = "translate3d(335px,54px,0px)";But I got those magic numbers from the IDE. Next i would like to get them via javascript.
The original image has an ID. Inspecting the DOM for the exported animation, I see that the ID identifies a DIV (DIV1). DIV1 has a child DIV (DIV2). DIV2 has a child IMG … the target for image replacement.
But inspecting 'style' for those three (DIV1, DIV2, IMG) provides no translate3d values. I don't see them either with Firebug or javascript (target_node.style.webkitTransform).
How do I reference an image translate3d location via javascript? Where are the translate3d values in the DOM?
Note that the image to be replaced does not move around in the animation … it's position remains constant throughout.
FWIW, here is the dot-anim:
{"name":"New Image","type":"image","value":"","uid":"NfjYeEgC","properties":{"object-image":{"enabled":true,"src":"asset://sym14.jpg","inline":0,"width":107,"height":109},"width":{"enabled":true,"value":107},"height":{"enabled":true,"value":109},"translate3d":{"enabled":true,"x":335,"y":54,"z":0},"anchor":{"enabled":true,"value":"tl"},"object-name":{"enabled":true,"value":"plum"},"object-text":{"enabled":true,"value":""},"object-cssid":{"value":"sym-plum","enabled":true},
#PFX-sym-plum{-moz-transform:translate(335px, 54px);transform:translate3d(335px, 54px, 0px);-webkit-transform:translate3d(335px, 54px, 0px);width:107px;height:109px;top:0;left:0;}
15 Oct 2013 4:55 AM #2
Hi pfenerty,
Just to summarize (and correct me if I got this wrong), you want to query the webkitTransform css property of a static object in your project.
First, you should use controller to access all the objects that you place on your canvas. In order to make your life easier, you should give an ID to the object you want to access under Base Object->General->ID. For this example let's call the object 'myObject'. Next, you can retrieve the reference to the object by script using
var myObjectElement = controller.getElementById('myObject');
//output to console current webkitTransform property console.log(myObjectElement.style.webkitTransform);
myObjectElement.style.backgroundImage = 'url(path_to_my_image)';
Hope it helps.
15 Oct 2013 3:26 PM #3
How to reference image translate3D values?
Thank you very much for all of that.
I have been having a great time with the Animator, and hope someday to know what i'm doing in there.
My current theory about the not-found translate3D values is that even though the block (in the dot-anim) that begins... contains this key-value pair
{"name":"New Image",
"translate3d":{"enabled":true,"x":45,"y":227,"z":0},... that is not to say that those values will appear in the DOM. Like they say ... "it's a process, not a product".
That is admittedly not much of an explanation, more like a re-wording of my original question into a statement.
Is there a summary somewhere of the Animator "Theory of Operation"? I'd love to read it.
Regarding the recommendation to use a background-image instead of IMG, something i would not have considered, I just now researched a few Stack Overflow threads that address this in order to better understand the issue.
It seems that the general consensus goes something like "unless there is a functional concern that supports using one or the other, go with the choice that is the most semantic".
Among the functional concerns were:
Use background-image if you need to improve download times, as with CSS sprites.And then these two:
Using img instead of background-image can dramatically improve performance of animations over a background.
There are also some usage considerations - for example, you can scale IMG elements easily by setting them at a percentage width of their parent container element, which is important in responsive design.
If you have a responsive design and want to split usage of low, medium, and high-res images for devices through media queries, you should use backgrounds as well.
Responsive design is very important for the project. So is small footprint, short load time. Now that i've looked into this, i'm not sure i'm convinced one way or the other, and would appreciate hearing your thoughts about this.
Thanks again,
16 Oct 2013 6:25 AM #4
The .anim files are Animator project files, and are intended to be read only by the software - they were not designed to be human readable. These files are not deployed when you export your final animation. The export is an html file, that contains the objects, scenes, timelines, CSS3 keyframes and necessary JS to link this into a coherent whole. That is, a property with one name in .anim might be exported to multiple properties into html for browser compatibility.
As such, DOM objects don't have a translate3d property. Translate3d is not a css property. You will need to retrieve the string in css transform (or webkitTransform) property and then parse the string to get the translate3d parameters.
On how to use JS inside Animator to access and manipulate objects, please take a look at the documentation and API: http://docs.sencha.com/animator/1.5/#!/api
Regarding 'theory of operation' - all animations created with Animator are CSS3 keyframe based. The animations are not JS, and JS is only used to tie timelines, scene transitions and triggers. Other than this, all the properties that you are setting inside Animator are CSS properties, and all the transforms and changes that are set for keyframes, are CSS keyframe properties. The transformations between the keyframes are calculated by the browser when running the animation, as by W3C specifications: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-animations
Other questions:
- replacing img src instead of background image src performance: I was under impression that you were asking about a static object that does not have any keyframe animation applied to it. As such, using a spritesheet and changing the background position is a quicker and easier method, that will have higher performance than changing the img src.
- setting img elements as percentage of the container - this is valid for all DOM elements. Difference is that img will stretch the image, while an image set as background-image will maintain the aspect ratio and will be clipped instead.
Regarding responsive design, consider that it is not just a question of stretching or contracting the interface, but using the available space in a smart way. To help you with responsive design, you can use flexible layout inside Animator to better match the available screen space. Please take a look at this thread for more info: http://www.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?267558
16 Oct 2013 2:56 PM #5
> I was under the impression that you were asking about a static object that does not have any keyframe animation applied to it.
That was true of my simple image-swap test. Ultimately the image-to-be-replaced will translate a little, but always return to a starting point. Some time later that stops, and javascript swaps in a new IMG -- at the starting point. So it does work to use the x & y IMG position values from the IDE, hokey though that may be, because they persist throughout.
> Translate3d is not a css property. You will need to retrieve the string in css transform (or webkitTransform) property and then parse the string to get the translate3d parameters.
Yes, i was prepared to extract the IMG x & y position from translate3d values in the DOM because it works when i put them there.
If i replace the image like this:
var target_div = controller.getElementById('id');
// traverse to IMG node// parentNode.removeChild(found_img);// parentNode.appendChild(new_img);
target_node.style.webkitTransform = "translate3d(335px,54px,0px)";
… then the new image is positioned correctly. If I skip that last line, the image is positioned at browser top left.
And given translate3d() positioning, you can find it in the DOM:
outerHTML""
style. cssText"-webkit-transform: translate3d(335px, 54px, 0px);"
style.webkitTransform"translate3d(335px, 54px, 0px)"
I thought you guys were doing much the same, in which case the translate3d values ought to be in there somewhere.
Thanks again for all your help and insight. The flexible layout information looks to be particularly valuable, although I'm not quite there yet. In fact my little image swap test was done on Animator 1.3.
But I'm looking forward to the adventure.
16 Oct 2013 3:13 PM #6
Please note that i do not plan to use IDE x & y IMG position values for production code. I'm told that
element.getBoundingClientRect()... is the standard approach for this if they cannot be found wired-in somewhere. That's next.
17 Nov 2013 4:06 PM #7
the last word
just in case anyone was interested in this besides moi, remember that the ID assigned to an image object in the IDE points at a
. The image itself is contained within another
, inside that one.
so if you replace the top-level div, the one with the ID, then you must position it yourself.
but if you replace the image itself, two
s deep, it knows where to go.


text:
Calvin, among his other points includes the point that we are Unconditionally Elected and chosen by God alone and nothing we can do can help or hurt this fact. What is the Biblical basis for this?
Sign up
- Anybody can ask a question
- Anybody can answer
- The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
Unconditional Election refers to
There are a couple of versus specifically that are associated with this.
and 1 Peter 1:1-2
The idea is that God knew these people beforehand and chose these people to be saved. It's a similar concept to predestination.
The Calvinist argument can be found here
Richard's answer doesn't address the primary issue of Unconditional Election, which is that God's election of people to salvation is based entirely on himself, not on any criteria about the person.
e.g. Many people ask me if God didn't simply elect the people that he knew would accept salvation.
The Doctrine of Total Depravity implies that there is no merit to base any criteria or condition on.
More directly, in Romans 3:27-30 Paul makes it very clear that there can be no boasting in our salvation. If God had any preference for one type of person over another, then we could use our salvation to boast as evidence of that. But since there can be no boasting, then God must not prefer one type of person over another.
Similarly, in Romans 9:10-18, Paul argues that God makes his decision with no dependence on the man or woman, but entirely on himself. He references God's choosing Jacob over Esau in verse 11, "though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue". This makes it clear that God's reasons for choosing Jacob were for "God's purpose of election", not in Jacob's worth or actions.
Unconditional election is elegantly and concisely defined in the Belgic Confession, article 16:
You can read fuller definitions and defenses of the doctrine in the first section of the Canons of Dort and in chapter 3 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, but the essentials can be identified pretty clearly:
Romans 8, 9, and 11 spell out the doctrine possibly more clearly than anywhere else. Romans 8:28-30 lays out what is often called the "golden chain of salvation":
Arminians believe that "foreknew" means that God first foresaw who would love God, and then predestined them to salvation. But Calvinists believe that this is absurd: to love God, one first has to "be conformed to the image of his Son." So they believe that foreknowledge refers to God "knowing" or loving his people from eternity. This sense of "know" can be seen in Jeremiah 1:5:
The inseparability of the links in the "golden chain" can be demonstrated by 1 John 2:19:
The eternality of the election decree can also be seen in these verses:
Romans 9 has a lot to say on the subject of election:
So not all members of national Israel are part of the true Israel, and those of the true Israel are chosen before they are even born. Paul continues:
So according to God's good pleasure he has mercy on some and leaves others in their wickedness. This is confirmed in other verses:
This comports well with how Paul continues his argument in Romans 9:
In Romans 11, Paul begins by speaking of the "remnant" that God preserved during the time of Elijah:
As we've already seen, the idea of God's salvation not being based on any good that he foresees goes back to the Old Testament. God says of Israel:
It's all over the New Testament as well. Faith is seen as a gift:
We've already seen verses that speak of "hardening" the reprobate. God actively hides knowledge from some, just as he actively reveals it to others, all for his glory:


text:
Entries in 'gem' (5)
Exertis Gem scores Turtle Beach distribution deal
Hit headset gaming brand Turtle Beach has signed a fresh distribution deal with Exertis Gem.
Xbox pledges 'urgent' support to angry indie retailers
Microsoft says it's urgently looking to help independent retailers who have been left in the dark over their Xbox One stock allocation.
Discover the 30 under 30 in the latest MCV
In the the latest edition of MCV, we reveal the rising superstars in the UK games industry.
Gem unveils new name - Exertis Gem
The parent company of distributor Gem has rebranded itself and its subsidiaries.
Gem offers extra The Bureau: Xcom stock: buy eight, get one free
Retailers can get free copies of 2K Games' The Bureau: Xcom Declassified when they pre-order stock from Gem Distribution.


text:
More Articles...
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
|Page 1 of 73
Comfort Dogs
Partners in Comfort
The Comfort Dog Ministry is made possible through the generous support of the following:
Veterinary Services provided by:
Dr. Michelle T. Cahill, DVM of Academy Animal Hospital, Joplin, MO
Drs. Glen Redeker and Erin Redeker-Goelitz of Spring Hill Veterinary Clinic, Carpentersville, Illinois
Lake Station Pet Clinic, Portage, Indiana
Dr Jacqueline Vernot of Veterinary Vision, Glendale Heights, Illinois
Dr. Paul A. Navin, DVM of All Pets Hospital in Lockport, IL
Dr. Mark Hughes, DVM of Stolley Park Veterinary Hospital , Grand Island, Nebraska
Dr. Ron Mitchell, DVM of Westport Animal Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky
Dr. John DeVries, DVM of The DeVries Animal Hospital, Elmhurst, Illinois
Dr. Julie Mattson of Terry Animal Hospital, Wilmette, Illinois
Drs. Stapleton and Ford of Barrington Animal Hospital, Barrington, Illinois
Dr. Bohdan Rudawski of Fox Lake Animal Hospital, Fox Lake, Illinois
Dr. Brian Rooney of Burr Ridge Veterinary Clinic, Darien, Illinois
Dr. Kurt E. Klepitsch of Gateway Veterinary Clinic, St. Charles, Illinois
Veterinarians of Care Animal Hospital, Arlington Heights, Illinois
Dr. Dana Resetarits, DVM of Buckwalter Veterinary Clinic, Bluffton, South Carolina
Dr. Mark Hughes, DVM of Stolley Park Veterinary Hospital, Grand Island, Nebraska
Dr. Kurt Bedow, DVM of Webster Groves Animal Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri
Grooming Services provided FREE by:Debbie Szwandrok of Eclipse Dog Grooming, Elmhurst, Illinois
Denise Goelitz of Kitten KaPoodle Mobile Pet Grooming, Elgin, Illinois
Ana Ristic of Two Paws Up in Itasca, Illinois
Jeannie's Pet Boutique, Portage, Indiana
Lisa Racine of Grooming Lodge, South Elgin, Illinois
Paw-metto Pooches Pet Salon, Bluffton, South Carolina
Support these businesses so they will continue to support the dogs!


text:
Hillary's reading, reading Hillary
Why do we care what political figures are reading? Do the books on their nightstands say something about them that the ones on ours can't, or won't? Maybe it's reasonable to believe that one can draw general inferences about a politician who cites the Bible as his or favorite, different from those drawn when someone mentions Aurelius's Meditations, Kagan's The World America Made or Morrison's The Song of Solomon (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Jeb Bush, respectively). But that could just as easily suggest we've internalized all the cultural signifiers and can pick up on the dog whistles: the titles are meant less to tell us about those figures as real people than to present them as packagable, electable brands to a core constituency or group of donors. Or perhaps I'm being cynical.
A little over a week ago the New York Times Book Review asked Hillary Clinton about the books she's reading, likes to read, remembers reading, and wants to read. How you view her responses, both individually and in sum total, may depend on your feelings about Hillary Clinton in the first place. Some might see intellectual voracity, others a general and generous capaciousness; some might sense a lack of discrimination, and still others (and they're out there) a carefully considered, maybe even market-tested, cataloging of titles meant to tickle the vanities and excite the particular interests of a range of existing and emerging constituencies—even if as far as I can tell no one's actually called it triangulation.
Rarely content to provide one answer or a single example when several (or more) will do, she also exhibits the Clinton penchant for surfeiting the audience. The one book she wishes all students would read? Pride and Prejudice, Out of Africa, and Schindler's List. The last truly great book she's read? The Hare With Amber Eyes, The Signature of All Things, Citizens of London, and A Suitable Boy. Favorite genre? Cooking, decorating, diet/self-help and gardening books. Her roster of favorite contemporary authors runs to twenty, from the literary to the less-so, from Mantel and Morrison to Grafton and Grisham. She mentions poets and pundits and politicians, from Neruda to Dionne to Sen. John McCain. Kids' books? You got 'em: Winnie-the-Pooh and Nancy Drew and Little Women, and, from her time reading to daughter Chelsea, Goodnight Moon and Curious George.
And then comes… the Bible.
That's her uncharacteristically contained answer to the question, "What is the one book that made you who you are today?" "At the risk of appearing predictable," she says, "the Bible was and remains the biggest influence on my thinking. I was raised reading it, memorizing passages from it and being guided by it. I still find it a source of wisdom, comfort and encouragement."
I'll have to give her the benefit of the doubt. And I may have to reconsider my criteria for the inferences I tend to draw when certain public figures mention certain authors and works. On the other hand, maybe it really does prove the pointlessness of seeking anything meaningful from a public figure's list of reading materials; as a method for gaining actual insights, can it really be trusted?
Maybe it's more worthwhile to listen to what Hillary Clinton says than to follow what she reads. In an interview with The Guardian she tried to explain why her considerable wealth may not be the political downside for her that, say, Mitt Romney's was for on the issue of economic inequality: "[T]hey don't see me as part of the problem because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we've done it through dint of hard work." Not the most elegant of constructions, and maybe even a gaffe—at least according to Republicans. But according to Brian Beutler in The New Republic, that mention of "ordinary income tax" means something:
The next GOP nominee might not be quite as cartoonish a plutocrat as Romney, but he will almost certainly be wealthy, and, crucially, will almost certainly promote an agenda that would exacerbate economic inequality. When Clinton said "we pay ordinary income tax" she wasn't just taking a gratuitous jab backwards at Romney for paying taxes at a sub-15 percent rate. She was presaging an agenda that will almost certainly call for eliminating or reducing tax preferences that allow an entire class of people of great wealth to reduce their effective tax rates. I don't know if she'll propose jacking up the capital gains tax, or closing the carried-interest loophole. I don't know if she'll target individual tax loopholes, or advocate for capping tax expenditure benefits or anything about what her economic agenda will look like. But I am 100 percent confident it will include some measures along these lines…
Better to be gleaning signals in this way rather than by seeking hints in a book list. Reading Hillary, in other words, is probably more worthwhile than following what Hillary reads, and the same should be said in regard to politicians generally.
About the Author
Dominic Preziosi is Commonweal's digital editor.
54 comments
- All
- Editor Featured
At least she didn't say she'd just read "three Shakespeares."
I don't see Amos and Boris on the list. How well read could she be?
It seems America has awakened as to what not to read. Magaziness which have traditionally led the way in prevailing thinking are now failed or slipping rapidly as the country gets its news online and not filtered by those who would be policy makers. Reviewing Michael Hasting's "The Last Magazine.", David Carr provides a pithy analysis of how magazines and newspapers have been in bed with governments so that they do not report but manage the news in cooperation with spin doctors. Thus the deception on the Iraq wars, where we were not allowed to see bodies returned. Carr writes: "The public is less prone to the allure of Great Men pontificating from inside a magazine, the television or behind a lectern at a news conference. The jig is up."
Hillary really hurt herself when she caved in and supported the war in Iraq. She rightly paid the price for that. So reading Hillary will be a constant theme in the next two years. Hastings warns us that we really have to read well those who report on her. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/business/media/a-novel-lays-bare-media...
Why is it surprising that she mentioned the bible? She;s a church-going Merhodist ... http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/26/clinton-talks-faith-fami...
What's crazy is that I still recall what books John McCain talked about when he was asked this 6 years ago. I even remember that Bob Dole saw Babe instead of Braveheart in the theatre. Meanwhile, I have no clue what Stephen Harper reads. I do not even know the name of Stephen Harper's wife. An interest being taken in the life of the politician in charge of the government is a pretty American thing, I think.
Not to state the obvious, but this sort of conversation is never about what a politcian's favorite books are, but rather what they say they are. There's a difference.
Eisenhower read westerns, Louis L'Amour and the like. So, allegedly, did Reagan, but I am not sure I believe that. JFK read Ian Fleming. Jules Feiffer made quite a bit out of all of that, but I can't find the article at the moment.
JFK also read Michael Harrington, or at least Dwight McDonald;s review of Harrington in New Yorker. Or maybe Bobby read it and told Jack about it. That seems more likely to me. Jimmy Carter read Christopher Lasch and then fired half of his Cabinet. What politicians read can have consequences.
Crystal is right about Hillary and the Bible. It is "predictable" if you grew up with midwestern Methodists. One thing is definitely for certain: All the really good presidential ghost writers have been familiar with the Bible.
Maybe 30 years ago, before Hillary was herself being thought of as a presidential candidate, I saw an extensive interview of her in which she discussed her religious beliefs. When those questions started I was struck by her change in demeanor. Suddenly she seemed totally serious. She even had a weird, fluttery look in her eyes as if she were concentrating on what truly is most important about a human life, i.e., its relationship to God. I must say I was impressed by her apparent sincerity. I don't think you can fake such seriousness. My conclusion was that, Yes, this really is a good little Protestant girl who wants to do the will of God.
But that didn't stop me from concluding that she was extremely ambitious in her Christian ambitions. Sort of like Jimmy Carter, actually, with all his great religious intentions. I still think of both of them that way. She is ambitious in the extreme. Not necessarily a bad thing, but . . .
Despite Mr. Blackburn's snideness towards JFK - he actually had his advisers read Barbara Tuchman's *The Guns of August* and even passed out copies of relevant chapters to his advisers during the Cuban Missle Crisis.
Obama read Doris Kearns Goodwin's *Team of Rivals - Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln* during and after his election.
I think that writers column in the New York Times Book Review is dumb, and if Hillary is building her image with book titles, she's not the only one. Most of those columns strike me as being carefully manicured. The questions are always pretty much the same and in the same order. So if the NYT calls you up and says they want to feature you in its author spotlight, you can can say sure, but you'll have to call me back tomorrow. Then look at the questions from past issues,and carefully tailor your answers for the return call. Or tell your staff to compile a list that positions you so that you'll appear cool to whatever demographic.
Yes, it matters what people read or say they do. I spent hours pretending to read "Lord of the Rings" in the student union to attract guys when I was in college. It worked. It's just that the guys I attracted made me listen to their encyclopedic knowledge of Elven genealogies and how they wished Arwen was real.
I'm not as impressed with that Guardian quote as Brian Beutler seems to be. I don't think it signals a progressive policy agenda; I think it signals complacency, of a kind we have learned to expect from the Clintons. The upper marginal tax rate is under 40 percent; during the Eisenhower administration it was 70 percent. The Clintons may be paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes than, say, Mitt Romney does, but they and other top earners aren't paying enough. As for Hillary Clinton's confidence that American voters understand that she and her husband got rich "through dint of hard work," it should be pointed out that the Clintons have made a lot of their money from speaking fees. In 2011 alone, Bill Clinton received $13.4 million in such fees, "earning" $750,000 for a single speech to a Swedish telecom company in November of that year. I doubt the speech was worth three quarters of a million dollars, but, to be fair, I didn't hear it, so I'll withhold judgment (is any speech worth that much money?). In any case, I wouldn't call that "hard work," and I doubt most American voters would.
It seems de rigeur to knock the Clintons. As if one is automatically right by bashing them. Hillary is an extraordinary person by any standard. She was an exemplary Senator who paid attention to small people . She was an excellent Secretary of State. She did her homework and took other people seriously. She was not a coctail hour Secretary. I though she was a bit glib in her answers to the book questions. But it was a masterful performance
As far as Willie C is concerned there is hardly anyone on the planet who works harder. He could have easily earned hundreds of millions. But he chose service and his post presidency is quite impressive. Maybe some people here can't read. So suggestions are in order.
Well, Matthew, Bill Clinton does jack his jaws, so people would probably get their money's worth if you measure worth by word count. Raber and I were watching the 1988 Democratic convention on TV when Bill gave something like a 90-minute nomination speech. (No, wait, I just looked it up and it was only 33 minutes, it just seemed like 90.) When he finally got to "in conclusion," people cheered. Because he'd hogged the stage twice as long as he was supposed to.
But I think your comment about taxation is on target. Romney paid his fair share of taxes as well as the Clintons. It's just that what's a fair share was fairer during the Eisenhower administration. I'm not sure that rich people understand how much they disassociate themselves from "real" people when they try to make themselves look virtuous re taxes.
It does seem pathetic, as well as clasically Clintonesque, that she couldn't pick just one title even when the question specifically asked her to. Pride & Prejudice is a solid choice! Why throw in two more? I'm sure it was because she (or whoever put this list together on her behalf) was trying to signal as diverse a range of interests and priorities as possible, so as to maximize appeal and limit any potential missteps. And what's really sad is that I think she's probably right: if she had said just one book, someone, and maybe many someones on a slow day, would have found a reason to object or mock her choice. (E.g., So Hillary Clinton thinks every student should read Pride & Prejudice -- so safe, so "domestic" in its concerns, so not-even-American, so white-people-problems-focused...)
I can't explain the decision to keep her literary dinner party guest list down to one, though. That's a missed opportunity right there. Maybe she's just weary of formal dinners?
Her list of authors she loves is very heavy on women. But is that because her favorite authors are mostly women, or because she knows she'll be criticized if she doesn't name enough of them (especially in the pages of the NYTBR, where counting women authors mentioned has become a Thing)? These purported glimpses of the private lives of our political leaders lose most of their appeal, for me at least, when it becomes impossible not to see the crowd of image advisors and focus-group pollers between the subject and the final results. I understand why she felt she should say Pride & Prejudice AND Out of Africa AND Schindler's List. But a sentence explaining any one of those choices would have been far more interesting, and would have made me feel like I'd gained some small insight into her priorities. I can't blame her, though, for wanting to keep interesting insights to a minimum.
Meanwhile, pace Hillary, it's not at all surprising to learn that she has Bush and McCain's memoirs on her shelves. She probably has a whole shelf of inscribed Beltway memoirs. Occupational hazard.
Molly, Could you fill a blank as stupid as the ONE book you want EVERY student to read? Every student of what? Everything from civil engineering to art history? I can't do one, single book for everybody in the family at Christmas. What kind of question is one for everyone? It's a question that encourages -- nay, it calls for -- a fey response.
Or as Jean boiled it down to essentials:
I think that writers column in the New York Times Book Review is dumb,
Bill Clinton *is* a good speaker. The speech he gave at the 2012 DNC was an example ... http://youtu.be/i5knEXDsrL4 ... "The Clinton Speech" by Joe Klein in TIME ... http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/06/the-clinton-speech/
A politically brilliant, religiously failsafe repsonse.
Crystal, I agree that Bill's a good speaker. But good enough to be paid $75 a word (which is roughly what he gets if he talks for an hour at $750,000)?
I don't know much about paid public speaking. To put what he's paid into perspective we should probably see what toher people get paid too. This article mentions how much different politicians get paid for speaking ... http://www.neontommy.com/news/2013/11/price-political-speakers ... George W. Bush: $110,000 ... Colin Powell: $100,000-$150,000
Oh, I didn't realize it but people get paid a lot for college commencement speeches too ... http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31192270/ns/business-us_business/t/lucrative-b...
I repeat: not hard work.
Is there some metaphysical connection between suffering for your paycheck and moral worthiness that I have missed?
Crystal, Hillary seems to be making the distinction between those who actually provide goods and services for which they are paid a negotiated wage (i.e., books and speeches) and those who have a bunch of money and put it out at interest to make more while they sit around on their golden fannies. Not sure that she meant that they actually suffered for their money, just that they actually produced something from their own effort.
But the more I think about it, the less sense her statement makes. Somebody who lets his money out at interest also contributes to the production of something, whether it's a product or service. Moreover, My guess is that the Clintons probably have a staff who grind out the books and speeches for them (not to say they're dumb and incapable of writing their own). So are they actually producing something? Or are they merely vetting and tweaking something someone else wrote? And if it's more the latter, than are they really "working hard"?
FWIW, here's a recent NPR piece about ghostwriters and how hard they work.
Jean, I guess what I'm asking is why having a difficult job is thought to mean someone is a morally better person. It's like a kind of ascricism worship. Howard Gray SJ used to say "Harder isn't better, it's just harder."
Crystal, your question would be more to the point if someone had faulted Hillary Clinton for not getting rich off hard work. I'm faulting her for saying she (and Bill) got rich from hard work when in fact they got rich from cashing in on their political celebrity. People are not paying them for extraordinarily good speeches. If they were, then, as Jean Raber suggests, their speechwriters should get the money. People are paying them to show up and be Bill and Hillary Clinton.
But even if your question isn't to the point, it's an interesting one. It seems to me that if we guaranteed everyone a mininum income, we would have to pay people quite a bit more to do "hard work." Otherwise no one would be willing to do it. People don't scrub airport toilets for the love of the job; they do it because they need the money and have no better options. On the other hand, people do write books and give speeches for the love of it, and sometimes for free. I can think of no justification for the speaking fees the Clintons (and the Bushes and many other retired politicians) receive apart from the fact that, obviously, someone is willing to pay them that much.
In any case, I don't think it's so bizarre to insist on some kind of correlation between effort and desert. If tomorrow I woke up to discover that there was someone willing to pay me a million dollars for every hair that fell from my head, I hope I'd have the decency not to suggest that my wealth was as well deserved as that of Thomas Edison or Mark Twain.
Matthew ... Yes, I can see that one could take exception to Hillary saying their money was the consequence of hard work. I always wondered how this hard work thing would work in Utopia, where everyone had enough and no one wanted to do the icky jobs ;) I wonder though about the connection between suffering, luck, hard work, and moral goodness. One interesting commencement speech I heard was by a writer who was pretty wealthy - his speech was all about how much luck, rather than hard work or moral worth, has to do with success ... http://youtu.be/CiQ_T5C3hIM .... Are the Clintons "bad" because they've basically been lucky enough to make a lot of maoney from being who they are? If we hold that against people who run for president, we won't have many candidates to choose from.
PS - I would probably feel differently if Hillary was a Republican or a Libertarian whose policies would doom the poor, but the opposite is true.
" I can think of no justification for the speaking fees the Clintons (and the Bushes and many other retired politicians) receive apart from the fact that, obviously, someone is willing to pay them that much. "
Why pick on the Clintons? Notoriety always sells. We are in a celebrity culture. Julia Roberts doesn't deserve 20 million a movie. But the movie makes plenty of money because she sells. Same with celebrities and other famous people.
Bill Clinton is bigger than most celebrities.W is not in his class. In intelligence nor concern for people. My point is the Clinton bashers are more sickening than the Clintons ever were.
When I give a homily, I don't talk for 33 minutes, but on a long-winded day I might talk for a third of that time, much to the consternation of my wife, children and everyone else in church. So far, nobody has paid me a red cent, but it seems socially just that we apply the Clinton Time-To-Money Ratio to my effort, which I'm willing to wager is probably greater than Bill Clinton's: I imagine he is standing up there extemporizing for the better part of an hour. A quarter of a mill per long homily? I can work with that. BRB, I need to send an email to the cardinal ...
Jim, let us know how that works out for you. :-)
Why don't Catholics (and Episcopalians, and perhaps others), who feel that the liturgy is long enough, so the priest should "keep it short" on Sundays especially if there's a ball game on in the afternoon and dinner's in the oven, devote one weeknight to a longer homily separate from the Mass. Perhaps the priest or deacon could talk about the readings coming up on Sunday and offer historical or theological perspectives on them. There could even be (gasp!) a question and answer time.
I know no one in my parish would attend such a thing, even if it was timed on Wednesday nights to coincide with CCD, when people already have to tote their kids up to the church. (You'd be surprised at how many parents sit in their cars playing on their phones while the kids are inside--or maybe you wouldn't.)
But I'd attend a parish that did. I'd even throw a few bucks in the plate if they wanted to pass the hat.
Jean, My Baptist friends do that on Wednesday nights and call it Bible study, and don't even think of trying to book them for something else that night.
I have been promoting (futilely) the practice of painting our Mass faces, donning our parish paraphernalia and going into church for a 2 1/2 hour Mass, followed by tailgating in the parking lot. Then we'd get home just about in time to catch the last half-hour of a football game, which would put our priorities in order.
For the year of faith, our parish had biweekly sessions consisting of an hour of presentation (mostly videos) followed by an hour of decaf, cookies and discussion. That started out with about one-fifth of our usual Sunday Mass attendance, but it slowly petered down to a handful. My personal impression was that we should have done it weekly, instead of every other week, and we should have held it down to an hour. We made it too easy on the calendar and too hard on a weekday night. In practice, though, the program was slowly undercut by other parish activities and the fact that an awful lot of us were already in the building two or three other nights of the week. I still think there is a lot in the idea, once the lessons from our experience are digested, especially for parishes which are trying to find ways to start the kind of involvement we have.
So I returned to the original By the Book Q & A with Mrs. Clinton and had a revelation: on second reading it sounded like honest answers to simple questions and not as strung out and longwinded as Mr. Preziosi would have us believe:
Rarely content to provide one answer or a single example when several (or more) will do, she also exhibits the Clinton penchant for surfeiting the audience.
Sorry to deflate the columnist's attempted zinger, but it is normal for the weekly respondees to give a laundry list of authors or titles squeezed within the confines of the Q & A structure. This past Sunday's guest, Colum McCann, mentioned 12 novelists when asked to name his one favorite novelist. Or perhaps we would overlook his penchant for surfeiting the audience, as the (more positive) cliched Irish gift of gab? Mrs. Clinton's other responses were pithy and to the point.
This piece by Mr. Preziosi reminds me of the story of the two psychiatrists walking down the hallway and being greeted by one of their fellow doctors with a hearty, "Good morning". The two nod in acknowledgement of the greeting. Once out of earshot of their colleague, one turns to the other and asks, "What do you think she meant by that?"
But it's a safe bet that the editors who find something "Clintonesque" in Hillary's answer and who compare balding to writing memoirs will continue their assaults on her until (and long after) her election.
Bill et al, I'm not exactly a Clinton basher; I voted for Bill twice. And I don't think you have to be a Clinton basher to have reservations about Hillary's possible bid for the presidency. She's undoubtedly a hard worker (and the fact that she can read all those books and do everything else she does is impressive). But she's a hawk and she screwed up health insurance reform when Bill was president. She's also a lightning rod for the GOP because (rightly or wrongly) of lingering questions about Benghazi.
I feel much more in tune with Elizabeth Warren. Sadly, she recently denied higher political aspirations in a recent issue of The Nation. Bernie Sanders is a possibility. I still think Jerry Brown is a think-outside-the-box type of guy, but he's got prostate cancer and is 78.
Jean, Prostate cancer isn't necessarily debilitating. I believe both Bob Dole and Colin Powell during the peaks of their careers. I read that in a copy of Esquire in the waiting room of my urologist on my first visit to him, 20 years at least before I got prostate cancer of my own. It is treatable. The article said -- and my urologist confirms -- that more men die with it than of it. In other words, something else will get you while you are waiting for it to do its worst. I have recently discovered, after all these years, that I have sinuses. Florida is harsh on sinuses. I'd say having sinuses in Florida is worse than prostate cancer.
Bottom line: Jerry Brown is not excluded. (But unlikely.)
Warren is too new. I am tired of electing people who have never been to Washington (Reagan, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and W. claimed it although he was stretching) or have been there just long enough to make a speech (Obama). I want the next president to be someone who knows where every blooming body is buried and who really runs things. That could be Hillary Clinton, but if I vote for her it will be because her win would drive the Benghazi crowd even crazier.
This is a serious question: why is Joe Biden never even mentioned? Tom, I think he'd fulfill your criterion. What's wrong with a Catholic moderate Democrat with many relationships across the executive and legislative branches?
I do think Hillary has the best chance to win and I think she will do the best job. And come on, when are we ever going to finally have a woman president?
This is a serious question: why is Joe Biden never even mentioned? Tom, I think he'd fulfill your criterion. What's wrong with a Catholic moderate Democrat with many relationships across the executive and legislative branches?
Plus the presidential limo would get traded out for a Trans AM, which would be totally sick.
Tom, you and I know the facts about prostate cancer (and I'm guessing so do most people and Republicans), but it's a potential negative. Sounds like who you really want is LBJ. People like that are all gone now.
Jim, Biden tried to run once and plagiarized a bunch of speeches from some Welsh MP and got caught embellishing things to make a good story. On that criteria, you'd have to disqualify every member of Congress, but he's had the reputation of being unreliable since then. (I personally love Joe Biden; he used to be on NPR with Chuck Grassley sometimes. Biden would hog the mike while Grassley sputtered, "Now, now, my friend Joe Biden's been sayin' a lot of things, and I wanna get in here." Then Biden would say, "Sure, Chuck, but let me get this last point in ..." Then they'd have to cut to a break. The interview couldn't seem to control it, and I'm sure Biden did it on purpose.)
I liked Howard Dean, but since he screamed he's out.
I also like Robert Reich, he's smart but not too egg-heady, but he doesn't have the visibility that other people have. He's also short, and if you think that's not a liability, you don't live in the upper Midwest where every time people see Reich on TV they say, "Is that guy a midget or what?"
And come on, when are we ever going to finally have a woman president?
Crystal, to me that smacks of tokenism. Women have been much better represented in Congress in the last couple of decades. Ditto on the Supreme Court. There have also been more women governors. It's only a matter of time that a woman will be elected president. I want that woman to represent me and my interests, and I won't vote for her because of her plumbing.
No I wouldn't vote for a candidate just necause of their gender. If I could have anyone run, I'd choose Al Gore, but that's pretty hopeless. Why overlook Hillary when she has the best chance to win and is going to be so much better than any Republican candidate on the issues? And having a woman be president for the first time does matter somehow, just as having women be priests does matter, just as Obama being the first non-white president matters.
He's also short, and if you think that's not a liability, you don't live in the upper Midwest
I do live in the Upper Midwest, and I can't get past Rand Paul's hair. Too much Dippity Do. Whatever I think about whatever he happens to be talking about, he can't overcome the Hair Problem.
And come on, when are we ever going to finally have a woman president?
Be careful what you wish for. When Britain finally got a woman prime minister, who did they get? The oldest old boy of them all, a/k/a TINA (for "There is no alternative.") Hillary Clinton does meet my major qualification -- having been there and found out how it works. And yeah, Jean, I do kinda miss ole LBJ, since he was the last candidate I voted for before going into a long, apparently unending era of voting against the totally unacceptable. I think you and I could caucus and come up with a candidate we both could support. But if I were betting right now, I'd say we are going to have to vote for Hillary because can you believe what the other guy said about (fill in the blank)?
Tom, I will be surprised if I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton as the lesser of two evils. The New York Times Mag had a piece about Rick Perry thinking about running again. Oops. That's going to dog him no matter what books he says he's read.
Jim, as a former Dippity Do user, I can tell you that Rand Paul's problem is that he globs it on and lets it dry without brushing it. Clearly, the Rand Paul look was not intended by the product's manufacturers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtKzTv9Opzo
Speaking of hair, I was really bothered by Joh Edward's hair and his zillion dollr hair cuts back in 2008 ;)
Here is the problem. If Hilary Clifton wins the presidency in 2016, and the Republicans control Congress, nothing of significance will be done. If Republicans control the House, nothing will be done. If Democrats take the House, the Senate and the Presidency in 2016, we will have more of the same, something that Americans will not tolerate.
If the Republicans win the Senate this year, Obama will be inundated with bill after bill that he will likely veto. Nothing of significance will be done. During the 2016 Presidental election process, what will Hilary do to convince Americans that she can compromise and get things done? Hilary is not Bill.
If Democrats take the House, the Senate and the Presidency in 2016, we will have more of the same, something that Americans will not tolerate.
I don't get this statement. If the Democrats sweep the executive and legislative branches, won't it be because Americans put them there? Why would they do something they will not tolerate?
I think hair tells a lot about a person, even if only that the person doesn' care much about his/her appearance. Hillary's hair bothers me. She's an old woman, but her hair-style is that of a 25-year-old, it's not becoming, and sometimes it's quite disheveled. What that says to me is that she's someone who can't look honestly at herself. Not good. It's improved since she retired from the State Dept.,and maybe she was just too overworked to care about it. But if the State Dept. extended her energy past her limit, then she shouldn't be running for President at her age.
Ann, I am not sure being Secretary of State isn't physically harder than being president. Even Henry Kissinger, who started all this running around, spent a few days at home once in awhile. But Clinton and Kerry (speaking of hair) and their recent predecessors seem to be landing in a new country every day, talking through translators to people who seem to have a lot of ch-es at the end and kh-es at the beginning of their words, sitting too long at dinner tables and getting back on the airplane for briefing on a completely different country with a completely different set of problems. That has to take a toll.
Tom B. ==
No doubt Sec'ty of State is a gruelling job, especially these days. And I think Hillary did it well. We didn't go to war again, and though people say she's a hawk, I'm no so sure how true that is.
And what's wrong with Kerry's hair? I wish he'd run for President, but Americans just can't stand people who lose.
By the way, do you or does anybody else know of a good article online about Elizabeth Warren? I really like what I know of her, but I don't really know much about her views except on financial reform. (I'm not so sure Hillary is going to run. I'm sure she desperately *wants* to run, but there is the underlying question about her health. She hasn't been entirely above-board about her health problems, and sometimes I think she looks awful.)
Ann, re: Elizabeth Warren and 2016, you might check out this piece by Noam Scheiber in the New Republic from a few months ago.
Ann, this appeared in The Nation re Elizabeth Warren: http://www.thenation.com/article/179714/elizabeth-warren-explains-why-sh...
She also appeared on Stephen Colbert. She actually got him to shut up in the nicest possible way: http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/79q9bs/elizabeth-warren
Jim P. and Jean -- Thanks for the aricles. She's starting to look too good to be true.
I still want to know more about what does she think about other matters. I did find this in a New Yorker article -- about two incom families. Very surprising.
"Warren's counterintuitive argument is that, for all the public and private good that has come from gains made by women in education and employment, earning money has made women who are mothers more economically vulnerable, not less.
"Warren believes that the two-income family has contributed to the bankruptcy rate. "For middle-class families, the most important part of the safety net for generations has been the stay-at-home mother,""
She argues that in hard times the stay-at-home Mom can get a job to make up the difference. A working mother is already atwork, so there's nothing more she can do.
Jill Lepore: Reading Elizabeth Warren : The New Yorker
I'm sure some feminists will object to that. But maybe the bishops will love it. I particularly like the fact that she takes a wider view of the problem, that she's willing to take an unpopular stance, and she'swilling to say so publicly. She doesn't sound much like Hillary at all. To me Hillary is an exceptionally cnventional thinker, and times call for broader outlooks, creative solutions and political courage.
My sense is that the choice of "Schindler's List" was quite intentinally calculated to enhance Hillary Clinton's status with the American Jewish block, whose support of her predicted presidential candidacy in 2016 is absolutely critical.
Although Clinton ("Hard Choices") admitted what we all know - that the Palestinians have been living under occupation since 1967, she earlier and vocally rebuked the UN General Assembly for their historic vote awarding observer status to Palestine.
A dear priest friend of mine once observed that "Christianity is all about the one." This echoes the Talmudi precept courageously lived out by Schindler, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."
Clinton is too much the politician to internalize such deep spiritual insights. I wish Chris Hedges could recommend a few books to her.
Thank you.
A book all students should read: What age are the students?
For high school+ , my husband thinks all American students should read Grapes of Wrath.


text:
The "Cursed" flaw allows for a wide variety of traditional weaknesses to be simulated in Vampire. Under the guidelines for this flaw (VRev, 301), how many points would you give for the inability to enter a building without the invitation or express permission of the owner? Upvotes for "showing your work" — that is, explaining why you believe your version to be correctly priced.
Sign up
- Anybody can ask a question
- Anybody can answer
- The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
A version of this flaw already exists in one of the sourcebooks. In clanbook Tzimisce on pg. 43 there is a 3-Point flaw named "Privacy Obsession" with two effects:
If you're not interested in having that second effect, but wanted to make it impossible to enter a home uninvited, rather than simply requiring a Willpower check, it would probably be balanced to have that as a 3-Point flaw as well. You're losing one specific hindrance and making one a bit more strict.
Assuming the vampire has to be invited in by someone with the authority to do so (i.e. not houseguests of the residents and certainly not one of the vampire's own cohorts) I'd place it at a 2-point flaw... A bit weaker than "Can't Cross Running Water" and "Repelled by Crosses."
When restricted to dwellings it becomes a powerful but situational weakness. There are times (or entire campaigns) where it can be a true thorn in the vampire's side. But in most cases it will be irrelevant (a lot of play takes place in public and semi-public spaces, such as city streets or Elysium).
It loses a point from the other two "vampiric" drawbacks because it is easily circumventable by many disciplines. Both dominate ("Invite me in." "I will invite you in.") and presence ("Hey buddy, why don't you let me in?") have easy routes around this.
Bump the value of the flaw down to one point if ANYONE inside the building can invite the vampiare inside. Bump it back up to three if the invitation has to be particularly explicit/formal, or if the restrictions are particularly strict (i.e. no breaking into public spaces that are closed, or storage lockers).
Of course, as with any custom merit/flaw, you may want to tilt it a bit if the particular campaign you're in is particularly unusual in some way.
There is a flaw on Time of Thin Blood, Flaws of Superstition, on page 79. This flaw is a catch-all for the various myths and legends about vampires, that the inflicted believe so much that the embrace has enforced them as a flaw.
As for the value of such a flaw, it would be advisable to look at the other superstition based flaws, as pointed out by others, 2 points 'feels' appropriate.


text:
Mondini dysplasia
Other Names for this Disease
- Familial nonsyndromal Mondini dysplasia (subtype)
See Disclaimer regarding information on this site. Some links on this page may take you to organizations outside of the National Institutes of Health.
inner ear malformation that is present at birth (congenital). Individuals with Mondini dysplasia have one and a half coils of the cochlea instead of the normal two coils.[1] It may occur in one ear (unilateral) or both ears (bilateral) and can cause varying degrees of sensorineural hearing loss, although most individuals have profound hearing loss.[1] The condition can also predispose affected individuals to recurrent meningitis.[2] It is caused by disruption in the embryonic development of the inner ear during the seventh week of gestation.[3] The condition may be isolated (occurring with no other conditions or malformations) or may occur with other ear malformations or a number of syndromes.[4] Treatment options may include surgical repair of the defect to prevent recurrent meningitis; amplification aids for those with residual hearing; and cochlear implantation.[5]Mondini dysplasia is a type of
Last updated: 2/24/2012
- Masri A. et al. Mondini malformation associated with diastematomyelia and presenting with recurrent meningitis. J Child Neurol. May 2011; 26(5):622-624.
- Kamata A, Obinata K, Kon N, Suganuma H, Niizuma T, Kinoshita K. Recurrent meningitis with Mondini dysplasia after the operation and vaccination. Pediatr Int. April 2010;
- Liu FC, Chen PY, Huang FL, Lee CY, Lin CF. Recurrent bacterial meningitis in a child with mondini dysplasia. Clin Pediatr (Phila). November 2009; 48(9):975-977.
- Huang S. et al. Extremely discrepant mutation spectrum of SLC26A4 between Chinese patients with isolated Mondini deformity and enlarged vestibular aqueduct. J Transl Med. September 2011; 9:167.
- Tullu MS, Khanna SS, Kamat JR, Kirtane MV. Mondini dysplasia and pyogenic meningitis. Indian J Pediatr. July 2004; 71(7):655-657.
GARD Video TutorialsLearn how to find information on treatment, research, specialists, and more.
Your Questions AnsweredView questions about this condition answered by GARD Information Specialists. You can also submit a new question.
On this page
In Depth Information
- PubMed is a searchable database of medical literature and lists journal articles that discuss Mondini dysplasia. Click on the link to view a sample search on this topic.
Other Names for this Disease
- Familial nonsyndromal Mondini dysplasia (subtype)
See Disclaimer regarding information on this site. Some links on this page may take you to organizations outside of the National Institutes of Health.


text:
(From CNN) -- The first of 500 Marines have begun deploying to Spain as part of a new rapid reaction force to respond to threats against U.S. citizens, government personnel or installations in Africa.
The new task force is based at Moron Air Base in southern Spain, which provides quick access especially to northern Africa, where security concerns have grown since the September 2012 attack on a U.S. government facility in Benghazi, Libya, a Pentagon official told CNN.
When fully operational, the unit will be required to be airborne within six hours of receiving orders, providing the type of rapid response that the Pentagon says was not possible during the Benghazi attack. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died during the assault at the U.S. mission and CIA annex.
The Marine unit will have the job of providing protection for embassies and diplomatic compounds under attack or receiving threats; protecting U.S. citizens; rescuing downed pilots; and assisting other elements of the U.S. military in the event of a need to evacuate American citizens, the official said. He declined to be identified because much of the group's work has not yet been publicly discussed by the Marine Corps.
Spain provided final approval for the unit's presence Friday. The full 500-strong team, which is to be in place within 30 days, will include 225 Marines equipped for ground combat along with intelligence and communications specialists, plus another 225 personnel to man and maintain the six V-22 Osprey aircraft and two C-130 refueling aircraft that make up the aviation component of the unit.
The refueling aircraft will allow the Osprey to fly greater distances without landing.
The unit is equipped to go into areas under combat conditions, and can be deployed without the permission of a local government if ordered to do so, the official said. The Marines will be equipped with machines guns, mortars and grenade launchers. Having specific aircraft assigned to the team at all times is seen within the Marine Corps as a key assurance that they can get airborne in the time required.
As part of the Marine Corps' efforts to beef up embassy security in particular, it also is adding 1,000 Marines to the embassy guard force, nearly doubling the size of the effort by increasing the size of individual embassy teams in high-threat areas, and establishing a special team of 100 Marines based in the United States that could quickly fly to an area to back up embassy guards if an embassy is under threat.


text:
My disk is very slow after I installed ubuntu 10.04 over my old 9.04. Doing some tinkering helped a little:
sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda1 /dev/sda1: Timing cached reads: 3668 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1834.11 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 292 MB in 3.02 seconds = 96.83 MB/sec sudo hdparm -c1 -d1 -X 66 /dev/sda1 /dev/sda1: setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 1 HDIO_SET_32BIT failed: Invalid argument setting using_dma to 1 (on) HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device setting xfermode to 66 (UltraDMA mode2) HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(setxfermode) failed: Invalid exchange IO_support = 0 (default) HDIO_GET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda1 /dev/sda1: Timing cached reads: 4006 MB in 2.00 seconds = 2003.29 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 312 MB in 3.02 seconds = 103.41 MB/sec
But it is still far too slow. On the other version, I had a custom partition setup, with the home partition with 100GB, and ext3 (and other partitions for swap, boot, root folder and space for a windows partition I never cared to install ).
This time I am using a standard Lynx setup (2 partitions, the swap and the main one with almost 250Gb, using ext4).
Some applications I develop, that use disk for some unit tests, are now very slow to work with. Is there a way to making it faster? Going back to 9.04? Waiting for 10,10? Gparting and making partitions smaller on ext3? I don't know if any of these will work....