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Plan B and Double Effect
The most recent issue of The Hastings Center Report has a very interesting article on emergency contraception, so-called Plan B. The author, Rebecca Stangl, argues that even if opponents of Plan B are right that emergency contraception works, at least sometimes, by making the uterus inhospitable to a fertilized egg, it does not follow that there is no moral difference between Plan B and abortion. Her analysis of the case in relation to the principle of double effect is worth reading. Registration is required, by registered users can read the article here.
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Her difficulty is that, according to the principle of double effect, the intended good must be proportional to the foreseen-but-unintended negative consequence. She works hard to get around or overcome that objection, but I guess I'm just not convinced by her reasoning. Contracepting is not proportional to aborting - I'd think there would be widespread agreement on that.Also, at several points in the article, she seems to be assuming something - that the chance of Plan B acting as an abortifacient in a given situation is minuscule - that, as of our last discussion of this, hasn't been demonstrated. Istm the cautious position to take on that question is that we don't know with certainty the extent to which Plan B acts as an abortifacient. Also, she goes right to the extreme/hard cases - 'suppose a young girl becomes pregnant'.
It is known for certain that Plan B prevents ovulation as its primary mechanism as a contraceptive. It is unknown, according to the article, whether it prevents implantation, and apparently if it does, it is in a very small number of cases. It seems to me that -- assuming there is a morally good reason for preventing conception (as in the case of rape) -- the theoretically possible but unknown actions of taking Plan B are, if they even exist, unwanted side effects.If you listen to drug commercials on television, some of them have lists of side effects that are alarming and include death. Abilify and Advair are two (and that's just the A's!). It is not immoral to take them for their intended purpose even if there is a risk of death. This is a particularly interesting point:
The bodily changes brought about by hormonal forms of emergency contraception can be and are brought about in other ways. It appears, for example, that breastfeeding causes changes in the endometrium that are similar to the changes brought about by the use of emergency contraception. If such changes can have an abortifacient effect in the former case, then there is no reason to think they cannot also have an abortifacient effect in the latter. But no one takes this to be a reason not to breastfeed.
I am not 100% clear on this, but isn't it licit for a Catholic woman to breast feed for a reasonable time not merely to feed the baby but also to avoid a second pregnancy from following too quickly upon the first? It would seem to me that if Plan B is forbidden on the grounds that it might possibly result in prevention of implantation, then breast feeding would be forbidden, too, at least if used to delay another pregnancy.It seems to me that the opposition to Plan B in true emergency situations is another example of "sheer moral sentimentality which turns the fetus into a fetish." A drug may not be used to prevent a rape victim from conceiving on the unverified belief that there is a mere possibility that a fertilized egg may be prevented from implantation. The potential good is knowable, the possible harm is unknown and merely theoretical, and yet some want to go to any length to preserve a theoretically possible life and allow a rape victim to bear her rapist's child.
Istm the cautious position to take on that question is that we dont know with certainty the extent to which Plan B acts as an abortifacient.Jim,According to the article, it is unknown whether Plan B acts as an abortifacient at all. It seems to me in order to consider something morally impermissible, you have to have some idea if it occurs, and after that, you have to have some idea of how often it occurs. Would it be wrong to use Plan B if its likelihood of acting as an abortifacient was 1 in 10 million? Or 1 in a million? If the possibility is miniscule, then certainly it could be considered an unwanted side effect. Her difficulty is that, according to the principle of double effect, the intended good must be proportional to the foreseen-but-unintended negative consequence.The foreseen-but-unintended negative consequence here is the prevention of implantation. It is the small risk (or possibly theoretical risk) of the prevention of implantation. That would seem to make an enormous difference. I may go for a Sunday drive, for pure pleasure, even if there is a small (and even predictable) risk that I am going to kill a pedestrian. If the risk is 50-50, though, that makes a big difference.
If in doing the proportional analysis it was 'abortion' (that is, direct killing) vs. the other good then, yes, the other good could never be enough to outweigh the intentional direct killing of a person. However, this is not what Plan B (even theoretically) does. If it does have abortifacient qualities, then it is much more like a refusal to sustain someone with one's body (the embryo is refused implantation into the uterus)...which, because it is not the direct intentional killing of a person, could in theory be taken for a proportionate reason. I can think of virtually no case that did not involve non-consensual sex or health issues where this was the case,however. In an interesting overlap with social ethics (and proving yet again that the distinction between 'life' ethics and 'social' ethics is way overdetermined), in most cases one could and should point to the special duty one has to sustain a life for whose need one is responsible.
How interesting that only the "voices" of men are appearing here (so far)...
If the embryo before implantation is not an actual human person, but only a potential one, there would seem to be a difference, between preventing implantation and aborting after implantation.
How interesting that only the voices of men are appearing here (so far)Michael,It is true that men write much more frequently about these kinds of issues, and much more passionately (at least on Catholic blogs). But this seems to be a "technical" argument, so I am wondering if women would bring a different perspective. I am hoping to hear Cathy Kaveny's reaction,not because she is a woman, but because she is well versed in this type of argument. One of the most important issues, it seem to me, is how to determine if a particular action of a drug is a side effect. When you take the antihistamine Benadryl (which is diphenhydramine), the fact that it makes you sleepy is a side effect. When you take Sominex (which is also diphenhydramine) you are taking it because it makes you sleepy. So it seems that unwanted side effects are a matter of what your intent is in taking a drug, and not something inherent in the drug itself.
One more thought on this: I wonder if it would be more accurate, in the case of Plan B, to refer to a "Principle of Double Cause" rather than a "Principle of Double Effect". The intention of taking Plan B, presumably, is, "remain not-pregnant". And Plan B provides (allegedly) two means to that end: a contraceptive means, and (allegedly) an abortive means.
One more thought on this: I wonder if it would be more accurate, in the case of Plan B, to refer to a Principle of Double Cause rather than a Principle of Double Effect.Jim,The only problem is that there is no such thing as the Principle of Double Cause. Since the author bases her argument on the principle of double effect, if that principle cannot be applied to this situation, it means she has no argument. Her analogy to morphine seems a good one. If you are in terrible pain, you can take morphine at such doses that it can possibly hasten your death. If I understand your reasoning, you could say the intention in such a case was "to escape pain." Morphine can allow you to escape pain in one of two ways -- by affecting the nervous system in such a way that your pain is lessened, or by killing you. By defining the intention of using Plan B as "to remain not-pregnant," you are implying that whichever way the drug works, a woman is willing the death of a possible embryo, and therefore you think it is objectionable. In the case of morphine, by your reasoning, someone who takes high doses "to escape pain" is willing for the drug either to dull pain or to kill. It seems quite probable to me that someone in extreme pain might be quite willing to die rather than continue to suffer. People in such excruciating pain that they would prefer to die rather than keep on living in such pain, ironically (and cruelly), would have to limit morphine so as not to risk death.
Hi, David, yes, one of the most interesting things about the article is the author's analogies. The morphine, the nursing mom, the driver who strikes a pedestrian while driving to the grocery store - they're all food for thought, at least they were for me.I agree with you that the intention of taking morphine is "to escape pain". I expect that most patients would concatenate an implied "... while continuing to live", so that having the morphine kill them isn't really their intention. Perhaps a more likely outcome would be that they would become dependent on/addicted to morphine. That would seem to be a classic principle of double effect situation.You touch on the heart of what I've been thinking about when you write, "By defining the intention of using Plan B as to remain not-pregnant, you are implying that whichever way the drug works, a woman is willing the death of a possible embryo, and therefore you think it is objectionable."In reply, I guess I would say that (a) I don't claim to be able to read the hearts and minds of women who take Plan B, so I don't know what their intentions are, but I suspect that at least some of them (perhaps a significant %) are willing to bring about the destruction of a fertilized egg in order to remain not-pregnant (is there a word for the condition of not being pregnant?). (b) I admit I'm not entirely sure what to think of these Plan B scenarios. I've ended up in more or less the same place I was at the last time we discussed Plan B here: if the chances of aborting a fetus by taking Plan B really are 1 in a million, then maybe it is so close to zero as to be a reasonable risk. But that way of thinking about it isn't the same as applying the Principle of Double Effect. Because of the proportionate requirement, I think that the only way the PDE can be applicable would be if the contraceptive effect could be shown to be proportionate to the (alleged) abortive effect - which I don't believe the author has succeeded in showing. Perhaps if there are medical situations (and I don't know if such exist) where the very fact of being pregnant would pose a grave risk to the mother's life, that would be a proportionate risk. Then the mom could intend to preserve her own life by taking Plan B, and the unintended outcome would be the (possible?) desctruction of a fertilized egg.
Jim,It seems to me you are evaluating the Plan B situation as if it were a certainty that an egg will be fertilized and die. Sticking only with the situation of rape, you are weighing the good of preventing a pregnancy against the evil of killing an embryo as if the death of the embryo were certain. It seems to me the appropriate approach is to weigh the good of preventing the pregnancy against the risk (which we are not even sure exists) of an embryo being prevented from implanting.You are placing such an extremely high value on the life of a possible embryo that you want there to be no risk at all, or maybe a 1 in a million risk, but in everyday life we don't come anywhere near such a high standard. For example, we all have a 1 in 38 risk of dying from an infection acquired in a hospital. That does not mean that if you catch an infection in the hospital, you have a 1 in 38 risk of dying from it. It means that right now, 1 in 38 of us will catch an infection in the hospital and die of it. (It is a shocking statistic, and a lot more should be done about it.) You also seem to me to be dismissing all too easily the possibility that someone in severe pain might be willing to die if that's what it would take for relief. But you seem to be quite ready to believe that a woman taking Plan B actively wills a death.
Hi, David, we're really not connecting today ... I don't assume that it's a certainty that an egg will be fertilized and die - that is an uncertainty in any instance of sex between a fertile man and fertile woman. Nor do I see why we should stick with the situation of rape - the author of the article didn't stay within those constraints, and Plan B isn't limited to rape victims.I'm inviting us to think about things like 1 in a million vs. 1 in 38 vs. 1 in 3. Does the likelihood of something happening change the moral analysis? If so, what is the magic ratio that would switch "shouldn't" to "may"? Of course, it seems to be premature to engage in that kind of analysis in the case of Plan B, as I don't think anyone knows whether it is 1 in 38 or 1 in 3 for aborting human life.That 1 in 38 of us die from an infection caught in a hospital is a bad thing; but what is the alternative for a patient who requires hospitalization? Presumably, there are few or no other alternatives. Is that the case for Plan B - are there any alternatives?
Does the likelihood of something happening change the moral analysis?Jim,I would say absolutely it does. Virtually any activity at all comes with a small risk. As I said before, going for a Sunday drive purely for pleasure carries with it a small but finite risk of a fatal crash or the killing of a pedestrian. If the degree of risk doesn't matter, there could be no justification at all for taking a Sunday drive. I think you would agree that if the risk of death from a Sunday drive was 1 in 2, it would be foolish and immoral to take a Sunday drive. I would say the same if it were 1 in 10, 1 in 100, or even 1 in 1000. But if it's 1 in 10,000,000, certainly no one would say it was immoral to take a Sunday drive. Nor do I see why we should stick with the situation of rape the author of the article didnt stay within those constraints, and Plan B isnt limited to rape victims.I am sticking to rape cases because if Plan B works by all the mechanisms described but does not prevent implantation after fertilization, it is still a contraceptive, and Catholics are usually not permitted to use contraceptives. However, the use of a non-abortifacient contraceptive in the case of rape is not merely permitted, but (I hope we can all agree) a moral good. I think there is a problem with the way the author argued her case. She says,
According to the doctrine of double effect, it may be morally justifiable to perform an action that one foresees will result in some harm even if it would be unacceptable to aim at that very same harm, either as an end or as a means. Whether this is so in any particular case depends on whether the good to be achieved is proportional to the harm that is foreseen.
In the classic examples of the principle of double effect, such as the case of a pregnant woman having a cancerous uterus removed, what is foreseen but not intended is the death of the fetus, not the risk of its death. In the case of Plan B, what is foreseen (and, the author argues, unintended) is a risk that if the drug fails to prevent ovulation (or if it has already occurred), and if the drug then fails to work by some other mechanism, and if conception takes place, the drug will prevent implantation of the fertilized egg. What is foreseen in this case is not an unintended effect, but rather the risk of an unintended effect. I am not sure one even needs to invoke the principle of double effect to justify the use of Plan B in case of rape. I think all one needs to do is to determine if the positive result of preventing a woman from having to bear her rapist's baby is enough to justify the risk. And if the risk is hypothetical (as it currently seems to be) or if it is determined to be small, I think it is clearly justifiable to use Plan B.
Hi, Jim, to refocus your analysis: it isn't just the likelihood of the risk -- in this case, it is completely unknowable whether, if ever, that risk materializes. There is no way to verify the existence of a "just fertilized" conceptus prior to implantation. Thus, in order to find Plan B morally objectionable on those grounds, you would, in essence, be saying, "even the speculative possibility of the existence of a zygote trumps a woman's right to use this form of birth control."
Hi, Barbara, I suppose it is completely unknowable *given the current state of pregnancy tests*, yes? i.e. if pregnancy could be detected earlier, we would know.Staying focused on the article, it just seemed to me that the author more or less waved away the odds of an egg being fertilized as being exceedingly small. It's helpful for her analysis that it be exceedingly small, but afaik, we don't really know. Nobody knows.I'm not as interested in law and policy as I am in the moral analysis, and from that point of view, it's far from clear that a woman (or a man) has a moral right to take Plan B or any other form of birth control.Btw, I assume that opponents of Plan B didn't invent their objection out of thin air - there must be some clinical and/or theoretical basis for supposing that it acts as an abortifacient.
It's theoretical. As I said above, it's unknowable because, per the FDA, the existence of a pregnancy begins at implantation -- it's the only means of detecting whether a fertilized conceptus exists: at the time it implants it triggers the secretion of the hormone, HCG, the existence of which is what is measured by a pregnancy test. From women undergoing IVF, the earliest point at which this, in turn, occurs even with the most sensitive tests is 5-6 days after insertion of the embryo into the uterus, which is, in turn, no earlier than three days after the process by which the embryo has been fertilized. That means no earlier than 8 days after what would start a natural pregnancy (and often, later). Plan B works within 12-72 hours of intercourse -- the earlier it is taken, the more effective it is (which itself suggests that its main operative principle is preventing fertilization).
There's another technical point here, however. In classic double effect theory, in my understanding, there are 4 criteria, one of which is this:the good effect must not be brought about by means of the bad effect. Consider two scenarios in which pain relief is sought for a patient in terrible pain. Opiate drugs relieve pain and at the same causal remove from the initial action (giving the drug,) inhibit respiration in a way that might endanger the patient's life. Using a shotgun will also reliably relievethe patient's pain, but it does so by means of the anticipated evil effect, the deathof the patient, so it's illlicit. Here, it seems to me that the good effect, remaining non-pregnant, occurs by means of the evil effect, the death of the embryo. The analogy of breastfeeding (interesting in Stangl's piece!) doesn't hold, if the end is defined not as remaining non-pregnant, but nourishing the infant. The slipperiness of double effect reasoning, as can be seen from my disallowing of the breastfeeding parallel, was the impetus for the development of proportionalism as a modality for moral reasoning. Proportionalist thought that in the end, double effect boiled down to proportionality. I think this case, as folks have noted above, also devolves to proportionality, and here those who believe in the possible personhood of the early embryo will remain utterly opposed to those who do not. Too bad--I was rooting for Stangl to present a new way out of a vexing situation.
Hi Lisa. Quick question: how is the death of the embryo the means by which a woman who takes Plan B in order to get pregnant achieves her end? This is no more the case than the death of the person I could have saved with a 20 dollar donation to Catholic Relief Services is the means by which I instead buy myself dinner at Olive Garden tonight.This really is a way out...at least, in my view, for situations of non-consensual sex and serious health situations.
Hi Charles,Hmmm, perhaps I jotted too quickly. No, I think I definitely jotted too quickly. (Had just gotten off a red-eye from West coast to East...but still...) If you define her act as "Take Plan B," then it clearly passes Double-effect muster, granted proportionality. If her act is (and this is where I think I was going,) "to avoid becoming pregnant by taking Plan B," this is structually parallel to "control severe pain by using opiates." Two effects: ovulation is blocked, and endometrium is rendered inhospitable to any ambryo. The second is bad in Catholic thought, and is the mechanism of ac tion of the IUD. But I was still wrong--blocking ovulation is unrelated to the endometrial effects.Yup--I blew it. Thanks for the correction. I agree this holds unproblematically for cases of non-consensual sex. For serious health reasons, then I think we're back at the Humanae vitae drawing board, though. Unless, I suppose, for some reason (too much to drink at the office Christmas party?) a woman for whom pregnancy would be a big risk, who usually is a scrupulous practitioner of NFP, has sex at an unwise time of the month. So yes, non-consensual or otherwise "unintentional" sex. Why would this hold only for serious health reasons, though? Why not the list of reasons given (by, was it Pius XII addressing the midwives?,) for licitly spacing out births?
Hey Lisa...this is a good point...I think we are probably right back where we started with HV when talking about the health issue...but only with regard to the contraceptive aspect of Plan B and perhaps not its (possible) abortifacient aspect. This is where the fact that this aspect chances of happening are either zero or vanishingly small...and thus the good of not becoming pregnant (if one accepts it is a good at all, of course) could be chosen giving a proportional analysis. This thread looks to be buried sometime soon...so please feel free to continue this conversation via e-mail: [email protected].


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What is the best way to store stickers for future use? I have some unused LEGO sticker sets in plastic bags. The one on top in the bag has become brittle and is flaking.
Think about what causes the stickers to deteriorate:
With those points in mind, keep stickers in a cool, dry, place away from sunlight like in a cupboard or drawer. Zip lock/food bags are also helpful for organising stickers which is why they can also be used to store instructions and catalogues.
Stickers transferred from the sticker sheet onto other surfaces will also be affected by dust, oil and any other particles that will affect the lifespan of a sticker. Make sure the surface is clean and dry before applying stickers.
You can use a hairdryer to easily remove stickers from bricks.
Another option may to be store them inbetween the pages of a heavy book. This would have the advantage of keeping them flat, as well as cool and dry. The book would need to be kept dry as well, as if the pages got damp they could stick together and make it impossible to get the stickers out.
The downside is that you'll need to remember which book it's in...and that the book doesn't get lost or sold.
We always put them in a archive folder. The quality from LEGO stickers also varies quite a bit. I'm puzzled that LEGO doesn't always seem to go for that quality materials.

subset: commoncrawl


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Technical Assistance Teams (TAT) are required by Public Law 221 (P.L. 221) – Indiana's comprehensive accountability system for K-12 education. Passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1999 – prior to the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 – the law aimed to establish major educational reform and accountability statewide. To measure progress, P.L. 221 places Indiana schools into one of five categories based upon student pass rates on state ISTEP+ tests. Those in the lowest category are visited by TAT whose responsibilities include conducting a School Quality Review to: (1) assist the school in revising the schools' plan and (2) to recommend changes that will promote improvement.
Additional TAT Information
- Application Process for Community Members
- Memoranda of Agreement
- Parent Survey
- Principal and District Training
- P.L. 221 Fact Sheet
- Reports
- School Self Evaluation
- School Quality Review Rubric
- TAT Guidance Document
- TAT Member Responsibilities
- TAT Mission Statement
- TAT Reports 2012-2013
- Lincoln Elementary School (Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation)
- McGary Middle School (Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation)
- Dunbar-Pulaski Middle School (Gary Community School Corporation) – COMING SOON
- Lew Wallace STEM Academy (Gary Community School Corporation) – COMING SOON
- Longfellow Middle School (Indianapolis Public Schools) – COMING SOON


text: Introducing two innovative items for your next meal outdoors: Sea to Summit's X-Plate are collapsible hybrids comprised of a rigid, cut-resistant base made of high temperature, food-grade nylon and walls made of food-grade flexible silicone, so they fold flat for compact packing. Each are tough enough to handle chopping with their sturdy nylon base. The silicone sides can withstand temperatures of hot foods and nearby hot surfaces up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The sides are flexible, so pouring liquids is easy. When collapsed down flat, the X-Bowl fits snugly into the X-Plate for extra space savings when packed. Collapses flat for compact packing BPA – free Assorted colors Dishwasher and microwave safe Stable rigid base with flexible walls Spill resistant, versatile shape Cut resistant base for cutlery or chopping


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Why choose Gandi for your hosting service?
Gandi AI
Simple installation of tools that you need
- globally (an e-mail server or a backup server for example)
- in a detailed manner for a web server (Apache 2 with Python, MYSQL 5 and an e-mail server for example)
List of available services
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I'm aware that the Post Graph API object has a privacy attribute that can be specified when an app is allowing the user to create a post.
From that documentation, we can see that:
The description field may contain a comma-separated lists of valid country, city and language if a Page's post targeting by location/language is specified.
Fantastic. So where do we retrieve the current, valid country, cities and languages that are allowed to be used in that field? Guess work? An FQL table that isn't in the docs?
Anyone able to help?


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'Tis the season, right? No, not that season. At least not yet anyway.
This season.
Apple-picking season. Fall season. Harvest season. The perfect season for creamy soups and hard ciders.
Pumpkin spice lattes. OH YEAH. I'm on THAT train.
'Tis the season for moving away from the light, summery Pinot Grigios and Pinot Noirs and moving into the heartier Cab Sauvs.
For root vegetables, butternut squash, and heirloom tomatoes. Is fall not the absolute best time to eat?
Fall is my absolute favorite season, and I can't imagine a better time to have ventured a little ways northeast of Portland for a few days to eat, drink, and be very, very merry.
Wenatchee, Washington
Did you know that Wenatchee, Washington is the "apple capital of the world"? I knew they had some apples for sure, but rolling into town you'll be greeted by a giant sign that boasts just that – Apple Capital of the World.
And indeed it is. Chris and I spent a whirlwind few days meeting farmers, eating apples and pears and plums and pluots right off the tree, tasting wine made from local grapes, cheese-making with local farmers, and sipping hard cider (because what else are you going to do with ALL. THOSE. APPLES)? I could describe in great detail how each of these things went down, but instead, let me show you through some of my favorite photos from the week.
Farmhouse Table, Chef Richard Kitos, and the IvyWild Inn
The very first item on my itinerary for the trip was a stop in at Farmhouse Table where I met Chef Richard Kitos. I deferred to his expertise as he gathered ingredients for a fresh, local, seasonal farm-to-table lunch.
My eyes lit up when I saw him grab the okra. Born in Huntsville, Alabama and with family still scattered all over the south – I love me some okra. Except, I've only ever had it fried. So, imagine my intrigue when Chef Richard sliced it raw and topped our salad with those seedy little green slices.
Chef Richard also schooled me in the Art of the Omelet, regaling stories of having been known as "The Omelet Guy" at one of Southern California's farmers' markets at one time or another. The trick(s)?
1. Get the pan smokin' hot.
2. Add the eggs, and immediately sorta scramble them.
3. Spread 'em out around the pan.
4. Top with super fresh ingredients like pretty tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella.
4. Fold omelet in half, then serve hot — right alongside that fresh arugula salad topped with okra, corn, and apples.
At some point here, I should probably mention that Chef Richard Kitos served up brunch with a side of PBR. As someone who drank PBR in college in Minnesota because it was cheap waaaaaaay before it was ever cool… well, that just felt like home. PBR pairs really nicely with eggs and fresh veggies, I promise.
We did a lot of eating and drinking in Wenatchee, and that long list of delicious things we did while visiting included:
Wine-tasting at the Wenatchee Valley Visitors' Bureau
The visitors' bureau in downtown Wenatchee offers some sampling of some of the best local grapes. We had a great time, took some copious notes (at first… eventually it's just more like a bunch of smiley faces and "YES" written all over the page…), and even went home with that Jones of Washington Rosé.
Wine-tasting at Chateau Faire Le Pont
I did a more detailed write-up here on The Local Dish, but suffice it to say – the winery and tasting room are gorgeous, the owners (Doug and Debe Brazil) are so warm and hospitable, they make some truly great wines, and their restaurant is fantastic.
Tapas-style dinner at Caffé Mela
Caffé Mela is a coffee shop in downtown Wenatchee that recently introduced a dinner menu to their offerings. It's mostly small plates and is completely delicious. The veggie sliders were a highlight. As were the heirloom tomatoes served under the prawns and scallops. As was the sauce on the stuffed mushrooms. As was the live music. You get the picture.
Snowdrift Ciders
How do you like them apples? Sure, pies and fritters are fine, but how about some hard apple cider? The father-son team (Lars and Peter Ringsrud) at Snowdrift Cider has this down to an art — an award-winning art, in fact. Also, turns out hard apple cider pairs incredibly well with crostini and creamy Brie-style cheese. But I already knew that much.
Tiny's Organic Farm
We enjoyed a quick little tour of Tiny's Organic Farm in East Wenatchee where we met the chickens, ate fruits right off the tree/vine, and saw CSA boxes being wrapped up and ready to send out to CSA members. I got jealous. Think they'll deliver to Portland from Wenatchee?
Alpine Lakes Cheese
The Wenatchee-area also boasts some seriously amazing cheese. And it's no secret how I feel about cheese. I spent my Wednesday morning taking a cheese-making class with Catha of Alpine Lakes Cheese. I learned more about bacteria, milk, curds, whey, and exactly what an actual art cheese-making is than I ever thought possible.
I mean, you start with THIS:
And [what seems like, but really isn't because it's cooking and science and art all rolled up beautifully into one easier-than-you-think process] magically end up with THIS:
We stayed at the Coast Wenatchee Hotel located right down town, within walking distance of the riverfront park and all of downtown's local shops and restaurants. They're pet-friendly, so we got to bring Kona. THAT was awesome.
Road Trip
The drive between Portland and Wenatchee was also a really, really stellar one. Thanks to some really great customer service from our local Enterprise shop here in downtown Portland, we got a great deal on our car rental and drove to Wenatchee by going up to Tacoma and then headed east, and we returned home from Wenatchee by driving south through Yakima and coming back along the Columbia River.
This is [basically] what our loop looked like (we actually went around Seattle, not through it, but whatever):
And this is what some of our pretty little country looks like, right around the Columbia River Gorge:
Happy Trails!
Disclosure: Thanks to the fine folks at the Wenatchee Valley Visitors' Bureau and their partnering PR firm, Chris and I enjoyed the accommodations, activities, and dining part of this trip at no cost. We did handle our own transportation. All opinions are my own.


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I have read many books on Mechanics and Electrodynamics and the one thing that has confused me about electrostatic potential energy is its derivation .One of the classical derivations is :
$$\newcommand{\newln}{\\&\quad\quad{}} \begin{align}&\int^{r_b}_{r_a}\mathbf{\vec{F}}\cdot d\mathbf{\vec{r}}=-(U_a-U_b) \newln \Rightarrow \int^{r}_{\infty}\mathbf{\vec{F}}\cdot d\mathbf{\vec{r}}=-(U_r-U_\infty) \newln \Rightarrow \int^{r}_{\infty}\mathbf{\vec{F}}\cdot d\mathbf{\vec{r}} =-U_r ~~~~~~~ [U_\infty = 0]\newln \Rightarrow \int^{r}_{\infty}k\cdot\frac{q.q_o}{r^2}d\mathrm{\mathbf{r}}=-U_r ~~~~~~~ [\textrm{Coulomb's Law}]\newln \Rightarrow kq\cdot q_o\int^{r}_{\infty}\frac{1}{r^2}d\mathbf{r}=-U_r\newln \Rightarrow kq\cdot q_o\left[\frac{-1}{r} \right]^r_\infty=-Ur\newln\Rightarrow \frac{-kq.q_o}{r}=-U_r\newln \Rightarrow U_r=\frac{kq.q_o}{r} \end{align} $$
My problem is in the fourth line of the derivation. shouldn't there be a $Cos\theta$ term there as it is a dot product.But using it would change the resulting equation to have an extra $Cos \theta$ term being multiplied to it.Why is it not used ? . The direction of the forces have to be defined right?
One more thing - In the derivation it is finally said that the result is sign sensitive but isn't the equation of Coulombic force just for the magnitude?Then how come the result is sign sensitive.
Could Some One give me or direct me to a definition and a derivation that caters to these querrys?
[I saw the proof on Wikipedia it has some thing on my doubt but doesnt seen to use it.It uses cos theta but i cant seem to understand why they used only $\pi$ and not $2\pi$]
[I know that $Cos\theta$ can be either +1 or -1 depending on the polarity of the charges and that it will be a constant but doing that will change the result altogether : How? :]
- If in the original result you put similar charges you get a positive result .
- But in this case if you have similar signs then the cos theta would be -1 as the displacement and the force of repulsion would be anti-paralell.


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Consider the class of bounded sequences to which every Banach limit (non-negative shift-invariant continuous functional on $l^\infty$ taking convergent sequences in the usual sense to their limits) assigns the same limit value.
Does a sequence belong to this class if its Cesaro means have a limit?
Also, is the converse true?


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Stanley Kubrick Collection (6 DVDs) for $29.99 + free shipping
Five feature films from master director Stanley Kubrick feature on this collection. The titles included are 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, EYES WIDE SHUT, THE SHINING, FULL METAL JACKET, and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Please see individual titles for synopsis details. Also included is a documentary on Kubrick titled STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES.
13 Comments add a comment
Any idea if these are widescreen? My older kubrick collection (white cases) are all fullscreen (aka standard) and I can hardly stand watching them now.
@cleaner00: Looking at the specs from amazon..its states:
Format: Box set, Anamorphic, Widescreen, Color
hope that helps...
link at amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubrick-Directors-Clockwork-Pictures/dp/B000UJCAKO/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1311788701&sr=8-6
My favorite Kubrick film is "Dr. Strangelove" - wouldn't buy a collection without it.
@johnstodola: "Gentlemen! There will be no fighting in the War Room!"
I love Kubrick, but Eye's Wide Shut is just terrible. I watched it again about a year ago on cable and it is much more ridiculous now than when it came out in theaters. So much melodrama, bad lines, and over the top acting. They should repackage it as a comedy.
the newer blu-ray versions have commentaries
not sure if these do
If it were blueray or remastered or something I would probably be in. Are these just the regular versions in a set?
Also, for some reason I just don't like/trust buy.com yet. I've never bought anything there, and I have no real rationalization, but I just can't make my self buy from them. The site is so busy with pop-ups, integrations, color schemes and such... yet I love amazon, go figure.
@ncarris: I feel you...i had the same problem with buying from them but my last two purchases have been flawless...purchased a Belkin Power Console PF30 on Sunday late in the night and received it today. Plus the price was $60 cheaper...im biased towards amazon but haven't had a problem with buy.com ...my 2 cents...
@rockortreat: I think the only reason any one watched it was for the nudity.
No Barry Lyndon = no deal!
Where's my Lolita?
@matthalbig: Good to know, if I find the right deal, maybe I won't be so hesitant now.
Concur with both johnstodola and rockortreat. I'd definitely have gone for this if they'd swapped "Eyes Wide Shut" for "Dr. Strangelove".


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i'm trying to set up fstab to automatically connect to my office shared server. I'm undoubtedly doing something silly here as the username and password and server name work fine in the first code snippet below, just not the second - any help would be appreciated!
The following command works as expected...
tom@tom-desktop: sudo /usr/bin/smbclient -L Server.local -Uguest
Enter guest's password:
Domain=[WORKGROUP] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.10]
Sharename Type Comment
--------- ---- -------
Lacie Disk Disk macosx
Server Disk macosx
IPC$ IPC IPC Service (Server)
ADMIN$ IPC IPC Service (Server)
Domain=[WORKGROUP] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.10]
Server Comment
--------- -------
SERVER Server
Workgroup Master
--------- -------
But when i add the following line to /etc/fstab, i get this error: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -22
//Server.local/Server /media/maguires cifs username=guest,password=password 0 0


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Login | Checkout | My Account | Shopping Cart Now in your cart 0 items
Almond CRUNCH Rawmio Spread, 6oz
Rawmio Almond Crunch is a blend of organic coconut flakes, fresh almonds, coconut sugar, and cacao nibs, slowly stone-ground with a touch of real vanilla bean and Himalayan salt. We then fold in crushed almonds & more cacao nibs for a delicious, crunchy milk chocolate spread we know you will devour.
Rawmio Chocolate Almond Crunch Butter:
Lovely on: fruits, berries, crepes, ice cream, or right out of the jar.
Ingredients: Raw Coconut*, Raw Almonds*, Coconut Sugar*, Raw Cacao Nibs*, Raw Vanilla Bean Powder*, Raw Himalayan Pink Salt.
*Certified Organic
These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.


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As the possibility of a stricter gun control bill approaches, thousands across the nation appear to be buying assault rifles.
And the number of people looking to get their concealed carry permit seems to be following the same trend.
Stephen Harmon of the Warren County Sheriff's Office says they are constantly seeing more new applicants for the concealed carry permit every day.
"The big month where it actually exploded in the application process was this month. And from January 1st of '13 to today we've seen a 65 percent increase since January 1st of 2012," Harmon says.
Last year, the Warren County Sheriff's office had 73 applications in January.
This year, that number has sky-rocketed to 112 so far this month.


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Geometry Word Search
This printable will help your kids learn about geometry terms, while finding them in a word search.
Grade Levels: 0-12 months - 5
To view this printable you need Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click to download Acrobat Reader - it's free!
From The Everything Kids' Math Puzzles Book Copyright © 2003, F+W Publications, Inc. Used by permission of Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company. All rights reserved.
To order this book go to Amazon.


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- Graduate Students
Saint Louis University Graduate Education
Welcome to the Office of Student Financial Services' resource page for graduate students! Our mission is to assist you in identifying and providing resources to meet the costs associated with our graduate programs.
This page is designed to give you comprehensive information on the available programs and requirements to be eligible for funding. We encourage you to share this information with your family. While the primary responsibility for funding your education lies with you and your family, there are also a variety of financial aid programs available to assist with your educational costs.
There are several ways to finance a graduate education, the most common of which are assistantships, fellowships, and loans.
Assistantships are offered through individual academic and administrative departments. Acceptance into a program merits automatic consideration for an academic assistantship. Students should contact his or her department regarding available academic assistantship positions.
Fellowships are awarded based on nominations from departments. To be considered students must have all application materials in by February 1st.
To begin the application for government student aid, being Federal Direct and Graduate PLUS loans, please complete the FAFSA. Saint Louis University's FAFSA School Code is 002506. Financial aid packets are mailed beginning on March 1 of each year for new students and include useful information about accepting financial aid awards, available student loans and payment of your student account. To receive a financial aid packet, you must file the FAFSA.
Generally graduate students are eligible to receive the maximum Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan award of $20,500. The student may borrow additional aid through the Graduate PLUS loan program. The Graduate PLUS loan may be borrowed up to the cost of attendance, less any scholarship and Stafford loans awarded. We hope you find the information provided here to be helpful. If you have questions, feel free to call or stop by. No appointment is necessary.
The office phone number is (314) 977-2350 or feel free to e-mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com. The Office of Student Financial Services is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 5:00 p.m.


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Here at Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, we encourage your personal and professional development. Now you can achieve the work/life balance you desire with flexible scheduling options. Or take the time to earn an advanced degree with possible tuition reimbursement.
We also offer a variety of career growth opportunities—from enrolling in online HealthStream courses to signing up for onsite continuing education events, ample internal mobility options, mentoring programs, internships, clinical ladders, comprehensive training resources and more.
We invest in the satisfaction of our team. Ensuring that individuals throughout our network, in all positions and across various service areas, have opportunities to learn, grow and make progress. We believe the success of our employees today is essential to the success of our remarkable ministry tomorrow.


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Today in Tweet Beat, Lisa Rinna gets some thoughts on prison rape off her mind, Eric Roberts confesses that he loves menopause, and Justin Bieber is developing a fragrance for women.
U know I can tell it like it is.
I mean this in the best way,as a great compliment 2 my wife & othr women I'm sure.I luv menopause!The boobs r back in town!
...yes Im working on a real fragrance that will be in department stores next year....
u know I gotta take care of my girls out there. Treat a woman right fellas. It's about her not u.
http://twitpic.com/31332d - I'll never forget writing those "ra-rahs" on my tourbus hoping it would be a hit #BadRomance1Year
To gay for the wannabe str8 gays, too old, not cool enough, it's too tiring to give a shit!
I love people that go to gossip sites and type "WHO CARES?" in the comments. You do, you little cutie!
Omg tanning for the first time in 2 months!!! This is going to be exuberating ! (Hope I used that right lmao) #givemeprops
I used to think leads of stories were hard to write. Then I thought endings were hard. Now I realize middles are hard, too.
Daily Pic: Something else your not ready for.... My second book manuscript. It should be ready for under your Xmas http://twitpic.com/311yur


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The Lurker is located on Lost Mountain and works directly for the Enchantress. The creature prevents anyone from trying to escape the mountain, and keeps King Randor's father, King Miro, a captive for many years. It has the power to fly, and encapsulate any person in blocks of ice which it can fire from its mouth.
ALLEANZA : Evil Allies
SPECIE : Creatures (Mammals)
SESSO : Male


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What is the difference between antivirus, antimalware and antispyware software? If any clear distinction can be defined.
I don't think this is the definitive definition of them, however I would say the difference:
As you said though, not sure any clear distinction still exists, since most of the vendors are effectively packaging the different scanning engines in single product or suite.
Wanted to add this as comment, but it does not fit in.
Would like to add that both antivirus and antimalware use similar techniques because of, how @AviD said, there are no clear distinction in their work specifics. More important is that search by signature can be defeated by self-modifying code, or polymorphic code. That's why antimalware software uses smart heuristics, strange behavior detection. Also there are emulators added, that runs code and watches what it does. Another one technique is sandboxing. There is difference between code emulation and sandboxing. Usually, first one repeats code in safe manner, not allowing unsafe instructions to execute, second one hooks unsafe functions.


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New Berlin - The city has scheduled a Jan. 7 public hearing on the rezoning request tied to the recently announced plan for a new Walmart store near Greenfield Avenue and Moorland Road.
If approved by the city, the nearly 150,000-square-foot "Supercenter" - a combination general merchandise store and supermarket - would be built at 15205-15375 W. Greenfield Ave. on New Berlin's northern border with Brookfield. The existing 108,000-square-foot Walmart at 15333 W. National Ave., in the New Berlin City Center area, would close, according to a plan of operations filed with the city.
The proposed 16-acre site is mostly woodland about a block east of Moorland Road.
Re-using the land
Most of those wooded acres are zoned for single-family homes, although the Charcoal Grill restaurant on the site is zoned business. The eatery would be razed, as would a home set farther back from Greenfield Avenue.
The Jan. 7 hearing, which will begin at 6 p.m., before the Plan Commission will first focus on whether to change the city's future land-use map to accommodate business. That document must be changed before the zoning itself could be altered.
The land-use map currently envisions single-family homes and some multi-family residential elements for all but the Charcoal Grill site. (However, the land-use plan doesn't match up exactly with current zoning, which doesn't include multi-family, according to city officials.)
Walmart is asking to change to suburban commercial - the same designation as the neighboring large vacant tract of land that goes all the way to Moorland Road along Greenfield Avenue.
Planning a new store
If the rezoning is ultimately approved, Walmart will submit a refined site plan that may be slightly different than the plan now on file with the city, said Greg Kessler, director of community development.
At the very least, that plan would need a parking waiver because it's 117 spaces short of the required number of spaces of 740 spaces.
Walmart also would like to be open round-the-clock. Kessler said that is the first 24-hour request in memory.
The plan also calls for a traffic light at one of the two store entrances proposed on Greenfield Avenue. State officials will have to decide on that issue, given that Greenfield is a state road, Kessler said, but he doubted there would be a problem.
As for local officials position on the proposal, it is still too early to tell, though they are reasons it will find support.
"The city would like it. It would bring in a lot of tax base," said Alderman John Hopkins, whose district includes the area.
But a lot of questions have to be answered first, Hopkins emphasized.
Stormwater among concerns
For one, the city will have to make certain that stormwater issues are addressed, he said.
Walmart officials are aware of the need to adequately deal with storm water. They have promised in the documents on file to grade the site to make sure it doesn't cause flooding for neighbors. Although the site is just west of an area that has suffered repeated flooding Walmart would not make that any worse, Hopkins said.
"Walmart water would flow west, not east," Hopkins said. The area that suffers flooding is south of Greenfield Avenue.
The city will also need to do a traffic study, he noted. However, because there won't be an entrance on Moorland Road, residents to the west are not as concerned as originally, he said.
What of the old store?
Walmart leases the space at its current store, also located just off Moorland Road, but further south along National Avenue in what is known as the City Center neighborhood.
To those concerned about an empty big-box store in the City Center, Kessler said Walmart has promised to help the building owner find tenants, and the city will maintain a dialog with brokers about prospective uses. That's the only role the city can play, he added.
But he was hopeful, because the current store is smaller than today's much larger box stores and could attract a smaller tenant, he said.
Employees of the current store would be offered jobs at the proposed new Walmart and 50 to 100 new employees would be hired, according to documents submitted to the city.
More from News and Features
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- Campus News: July 28, 2016
- New emergency center open in New Berlin
- Ralph and Loretta Dolata: 60th wedding anniversary
- Conservation subdivisions help New Berlin keep rural atmophere
- New Berlin officials mull $4.3M utility shop expansion
- Suburban Milwaukee Now websites to get new look, realignment
- 'Aladdin Junior' to be presented one-day only at New Berlin West (1)
- For bravery, smart policing, New Berlin gives awards for 2015 actions
- In brief: Embezzlement charges sought


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Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has approved an executive program for privatizing the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC).
The King also approved a program for privatizing sewage treatment plants.
Minister of Water and Electricity Abdullah Al-Hussein announced the King's decision in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency. He said that the move is expected to attract investment in the water and electricity sectors.


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ST. CLAIRSVILLE A three-year case involving the rape of a child was closed Monday when Jared Luke Tittle, 40, 325 21st St., Bellaire, appeared before Belmont County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer L. Sargus.
He was given the mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole for 10 years. He was given credit for 906 days. He was designated a Tier 3 offender.
Two weeks prior Tittle had pleaded guilty to rape of a child younger than 13, but older than 10, a felony of the first degree occurring Sept. 10, 2010. In 2011 he was arraigned on two counts of rape of a child younger than 10.
Article Photos
T-L Photo/ ROBERT A. DEFRANK
Jared Luke Tittle receives a sentence of life for the rape of a child. He is pictured with Public Defender Frank Pierce.
Assistant Prosecutor Scott Lloyd acknowledged the seriousness of the offenses.
"They speak for themselves. They are despicable," he said, thanking law enforcement for their work in investigating the matter.
Prosecutor Chris Berhalter noted the three year process leading to the final day in court.
"(Tittle) has filed numerous motions including requests for evaluations to determine his competency and sanity," he said, adding that justice was served in this case. "Some may believe that a sentence of life in prison is too harsh, but I firmly believe that anyone who would rob a child of their innocence deserves such a sentence."
Berhalter said the case came to light when Tittle was discovered online discussing his activities. The Sexual Predator Internet Initiative Task Force was involved in the investigation.
Tittle's wife, Barbara, is charged with permitting child abuse, a felony of the third degree. The case is still pending.
DeFrank can be reached at email@example.com


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Home > Food > Recipes > Neptune Pasta Salad
Neptune Pasta Salad
Categories: Entertaining, Pasta Dishes, Quick to fix
Type: Salads
Type: Salads
This colorful salad calls for tricolor rotini, fresh broccoli, and crab meat.
Serves: 5 servings
- 8 ounces tricolor rotini pasta (about 3 cups)
- 1 1/3 cups fresh broccoli florets
- 2 cups cooked crab meat or shrimp (about 10 ounces)
- 2/3 cup matchstick-sized pieces red bell pepper
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup nonfat or reduced-fat mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup bottled nonfat or reduced-fat Italian salad dressing
- 2 1/4 teaspoons finely chopped fresh oregano, or 3/4 teaspoon dried
Save Recipe
Add to shopping list
- Cook the pasta al dente according to package directions. About 1 minute before the pasta is done, add the broccoli, and cook until the pasta is al dente and the broccoli is bright green and crisp-tender. Drain, rinse with cold water, and drain again.
- Place the pasta mixture in a large bowl. Add the crab meat or shrimp, red pepper, and scallions, and toss to mix.
- Place the dressing ingredients in a small bowl, and stir to mix. Pour the dressing over the pasta, and toss to mix well.
- Cover the salad, and chill for at least 2 hours before serving. Toss in a little more mayonnaise just before serving if the salad seems too dry.
- For variety, substitute fresh asparagus pieces for the broccoli.
excerpted from:
Excerpted from The Best-Kept Secrets of Healthy Cooking by Sandra Woodruff, R.D. Copyright � 2000 by Sandra Woodruff.
To order this book go to www.penguin.com. Get a 15% discount with the coupon code FENPARENT.
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I read at several places that "don't mention it" is equal to "you're welcome". But for me, the word means something like "don't go around talking about this to anyone". So what is the real meaning of the phrase and how does it fit in as a response to "thank you"?
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It doesn't at all mean "don't go around talking about this to anyone." It is in fact much closer to "you're welcome."
When you are telling someone "don't mention it", what you are telling them not to mention is the 'thank you' itself -- you are saying "Your thanks isn't necessary. I was glad to do it, so you didn't need to mention your thanks."
(Note: This is just an expression. It's definitely a good idea to express thanks when someone does something for you; "don't mention it" really just means "you're welcome; glad to do it.")
"Don't mention it", along with "please", "thank you", "you're welcome", "good morning", "how do you do", "lovely weather we're having", "we must have lunch some time" and many many more are phatic expressions. They don't mean anything, and are not meant to mean anything. They exist solely to oil the social wheels.
The fact they don't mean anything doesn't mean it is all right to omit them, however.
In this context, the phrase Don't mention it means "no need to say thank you."
In other words, "you don't need to mention 'thank you', I didn't do it so you would say 'thank you'."
This is meant in the nicest possible way.
Other phrases that carry similar meaning are "think nothing of it," "it's nothing," "not at all," and "no problem." Likewise, a common replacement for the French "merci bien" (thank you very much) is "de rien" (it's nothing).
The meaning behind all these phrases is that the thing done was so small or so little trouble that no gratitude is required.
The expression don't mention it is in the meaning as that's too little to mention.
There are similar thank you responses in other languages, like the German nights zu danken (too little to thank for) or Swedish det var så lite så (that was so little).
Common in these expressions is to belittle ones own deed, which should not really be taken literally as that would also belittle the gratitude, but rather in the sense of I'm glad that such little effort on my part could help you so much.
"Don't mention it" has the connotations of "not a big deal." It perhaps corresponds to the German "Es macht nichts," and its figurative meaning is "you're welcome."
This is what Sheldon Cooper would have said -
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Medical claims costs, the biggest driver of health insurance premiums, will jump an average 32 percent for Americans' individual policies under President Barack Obama's overhaul, according to a study by the nation's leading group of financial risk analysts.
The report could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act. The estimates were recently released by the Society of Actuaries to its members.
While some states will see medical claims costs per person decline, the report concluded the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.
The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland. Much of the reason for the higher claims costs is that sicker people are expected to join the pool, the report said.
The report did not make similar estimates for employer plans, the mainstay for workers and their families. That's because the primary impact of Obama's law is on people who don't have coverage through their jobs.
The administration questions the design of the study, saying it focused only on one piece of the puzzle and ignored cost relief strategies in the law such as tax credits to help people afford premiums and special payments to insurers who attract an outsize share of the sick. The study also doesn't take into account the potential price-cutting effect of competition in new state insurance markets that will go live on Oct. 1, administration officials said.
On the plus side, the report found the law will cover more than 32 million currently uninsured Americans when fully phased in. And some states, including New York and Massachusetts, will see double-digit declines in costs for claims in the individual market.
Uncertainty over costs has been a major issue since the law passed three years ago, and remains so just months before a big push to cover the uninsured gets rolling Oct. 1. Middle-class households will be able to purchase subsidized private insurance in new marketplaces, while low-income people will be steered to Medicaid and other safety net programs. States are free to accept or reject a Medicaid expansion also offered under the law.
Obama has promised that the new law will bring costs down. That seems a stretch now. While the nation has been enjoying a lull in health care inflation the past few years, even some former administration advisers say a new round of cost-curbing legislation will be needed.
Millions of now-uninsured people will be covered as the market for directly purchased insurance more than doubles with the help of government subsidies. The study found that market will grow to more than 25 million people. But costs will rise because spending on sicker people and other high-cost groups will overwhelm an influx of younger, healthier people into the program.
Some of the higher-cost cases will come from existing state high-risk insurance pools. Those people will now be able to get coverage in the individual insurance market, since insurance companies will no longer be able to turn them down. Other people will end up buying their own plans because their employers cancel coverage. While some of these individuals might save money for themselves, they will end up raising costs for others.
Part the reason for the wide disparities in the study is that states have different populations and insurance rules. In the relatively small number of states where insurers were already restricted from charging higher rates to older, sicker people, the cost impact is less.


text: By Elizabeth Ganley-Roper and Julia Fuller-Kling By now, most of us have heard all about the controversial TIME cover published earlier this month. Here on Adios Barbie, Sayantani DasGupta posted "The Breast Wars," in response to this troubling representation of breastfeeding. As two women passionate about natural parenting, … [Read more...]


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A family's 'culture' type trumps its parenting style
family photo
MADRAS, Ore. — 'Faith' and 'responsibility' are two of the words Lorna Carman uses when she's asked to describe how she and her husband Eric parent their three young sons: Sage, 8, Jude, 5, and Ezra, 2.
The Carmans believe strongly in God and are trying to pass their faith on.
"We highly value the importance of a parent at home, especially a mother," Lorna Carman said. "We do discipline and feel that's an important part of guiding our children to the best moral principles."
On the other hand, when the boys go astray, their parents don't spank.
"We're a little more hands off and try to allow our children some choices," she said. Politically, she noted, they're more conservative than some of their liberal friends and more liberal than some of their conservative friends.
Here, she pauses, because it's hard to summarize easily all the little differences and choices that go into how two people choose to rear their children.
Recent research says families fall into one of four "cultures" and those trump any individual parenting styles when it comes to the impact on kids. Forget helicopter moms or attachment parenting. The next generation is being molded by the "Faithful," the "Engaged Progressives," the "Detached" and the "American Dreamers," according to a University of Virginia study.
"Each type represents a complex configuration of moral beliefs, values and dispositions — often implicit and rarely articulated in daily life — largely independent of basic demographic factors such as race, ethnicity and social class," the researchers wrote after completing a three-year study of American families.
So Lorna Carman is listening to descriptions of families, trying to figure out where her little brood would fit in. And as with everything else involving humans, it seems there's some overlap and nuance.
The study
The project, funded by an $850,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation, tells "the complex story of parents' habits, dispositions, hopes, fears, assumptions and expectations for their children," said project co-director James Davison Hunter, professor of religion, culture and social theory and the executive director of UV's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.
"Though largely invisible, the family cultures are powerful, constituting the worlds that children are raised in, and may well be more consequential than parenting style," Hunter said in a written statement.
"It is a lens also being used recently by social psychologists to look at politics," noted an article in the Huffington Post, concluding that what ends as Red State/Blue State begins as two moral universes — one that revolves around values of faith and tradition, the other focused more on equality and tolerance. "That analysis goes a long way toward explaining why each election leaves so many voters feeling that they live in a different country, and, when applied to parenting, it hints at why other parents seem so clueless."
For the study, researchers conducted an hour-long online survey of a nationally representative sample of 3,000 parents of school-aged children, then followed up with in-person interviews of 101 of them, using open-ended questions "designed to elicit parents' implicit and explicit strategies and assumptions."
They concluded American parents fall into four categories:
The Faithful
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For QWERTY Android smartphone users, how do you like your model and what is it?
I'm getting to a point where I have a real need to replace my phone, so I'm starting to look around at what's available in terms of QWERTY Android handsets, and I figured I'd ask the wooterbase what they had and how they like them.
I'm not going to indulge "don't use QWERTY" type commentary, as I frequently am SSHing from my handset into things that respond badly to typos and even worse to auto-correct.
Also, I'm really curious about how many rows your keyboard has (4 and 5 both seem to exist) and whether it has "<", ">", and "|" keys directly available.
Ohhh ... also big bonuses for handsets with good notification lights.
EDIT/PS: Any potentially inside news on Samsung's as-yet-unreleased new QWERTY phones would be cool too.
9 Answers answer
I currently have a Droid 3 (till tomorrow). 5 rows with the numbers being the top row without need of 'shift'. This is a slide out keyboard, which is what I think you meant by a QWERTY keyboard, since you can have QWERTY on the touch screen, if you desire, on most (if not all) touch screen phones. This phone is BY FAR the best that I have used so far with the slide out. It has been replace by the Droid 4 in the Verizon lineup, but I can not speak of experience with that model.
5 rows, CAP is a shift key, but the device is intuitive enough to capitalize letters starting sentences. No auto-correct, but misspelled words are highlighted for you and alternatives ready to choose. ALT key hit before an entry will bring up the symbols you pointed out. Double click CAP and all letters stay capitalized till you hit it again (the same is true of ALT for symbols). Additional symbols can be brought up with the SYM key. There are BACK, OK, arrow, search, and voice input keys as well.
The keys are easy to find and use by touch as well.
i also have the droid3, and my keyboard went out after about a year of use (im locked into a 2 year contract). so i just have to use the touchscreen keyboard, i dont mind but now i have a bulkier phone with added weight of a keyboard i dont use because its unresponsive. also if you are interested in a front facing camera for skype or whatever, droid 3 is having some issues with that too
@drsilentg: Can you not get it replaced under warranty? Verizon will replace under-contract phones...at least they did for me 4X when I had the HTC Merge (TERRIBLE SLIDER PHONE).
@morriea: i've had it for more than a year so sadly no :(
@morriea: I'm not surprised it was a 4-times replacement. Most manufacturers will only replace defective units with refurbished ones, and in the cell phone game they usually get only a very cursory servicing and inspection. This means more nuanced problems will go unnoticed and you'll be shipped a replacement phone that will likely have to go back again, as with the next one, and the next, and the next, and so on.
@psaux: In this instance it ended up being the model having a poor antenna, I live WAY out in the middle of nowhere...as soon as the HTC was replaced with the Motorola I had no problems.
but you are right. refurbs ALL.
I have the Samsung Galaxy S 4g. Here's a link to what phone looks like. http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=2508&c=samsung_sph-d700_galaxy_s_epic_4g
It has been a great little phone. I got it specifically because of the slide out kybd, but I rarely use it.
I have the OG droid, "Motorola Milestone" "Motorola Droid" It was pretty cool when it first came out now its a slow pos. 4 rows
My boss just got a Motorola admiral, it seems like a nice phone, light, fast, all the bells and whistles. 4 rows


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On Friday I had the history department over for a reception to celebrate the impending birth of our department chair's second child. I decided that, rather than making it a pot-luck, I would make everything. I think this made some of the meat-dependent grad students a little wary, so I wanted to make sure that I could deliver a menu that would not disappoint. I think the trick is to keep the menu clean and simple by sticking to dishes that are more or less naturally veggie. It took some careful planning (i.e. a comprehensive chart of what had to be made and when) but the whole thing went off very well indeed. Here is what I did:
Since the reception was on Friday after a long week of work, and right after back-to-back departmental and grad faculty meetings, I wanted to make some food that offered protein and carbs to nourish and energize. To that end, I served Kung Pao Sliders from the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Vegetarian Times. I made my own buns (50g of dough makes the perfect slider bun) and grated the zucchini and carrot for the slaw rather than julienning them as per the recipe. These were far and away the most popular item, with 36 of the 40 I made eaten. I also served white and whole wheat pita (sub 50% of the white flour for whole wheat) with hummus. I also included a veggie tray with the hummus (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots).
In keeping with the Asian flavours of the sliders I also offered Spicy Fried Shitake Mushrooms. I tossed 1 lb of cleaned and stemmed shitake mushrooms with a large minced clove of garlic, 1 tsp minced ginger, a generous tsp of hot chili powder, 1 tsp black mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp tumeric, and some salt. I then fried the shrooms in a hot wok in some oil (adding more as needed), and when soft I poured in about 1/2 cup of coconut milk and heated through.
The other food was inspired by Italian flavours and dishes. I started with focaccia, which I cut into small squares and served with marinated veggies: I roasted 6 peppers (2 red, 2 yellow, 2 orange) and de-seeded, skinned, and thickly sliced them. I then tossed them with some olive oil, salt, 4 thinly sliced garlic cloves, some chopped fresh basil leaves, and salt and pepper and let marinate overnight in the fridge (let come back to room temperature before serving). I also thickly sliced 1 lb of washed and trimmed white mushrooms. I then sauteed 1 large minced clove of garlic in 1/4 cup of olive oil, added 1 tbsp minced fresh rosemary, and then 1 cup white white. I brought that to a boil, added the shrooms and let simmer for 1 min. I let them marinate in the fridge over night, then drained and served at room temperature. I also served Zucchini Pancakes with Tomato-Onion Relish. These were also very popular. Maybe not Italian per se, but the sage in the pancake and the tomato relish went well with everything else.
Of course we also had to have dessert. First up were Apple Turnovers. I used 1/2 block of puff pastry and rolled it into a 10 x 12 inch rectangle. I then cut out 2 inch squares, then filled them with a version of the filling here (1 tbsp margarine, 2 apples, 1 tbsp brandy, and white sugar instead of brown). I baked them as per this recipe, but for only 15 mins at each temperature. Next were Schnecken (filled with a strawberry/raspberry filling), as well as good old fashioned chocolate cupcakes.
Many apologies for not having a picture of the entire spread. Guests were arriving, I was making still firing food, and things just got too busy.
Guests: 20 adults, 8 kids
1. Make ahead and freeze: pita (I made a double recipe of white and a double of whole wheat. It was too much and I could have done a single of each); slider buns, schnecken (unfilled, as per the recipe linked above); puff pastry dough (make sure to put the dough in the fridge no later than the day before the party).
2. The night before: marinated veggies (I did a 1.5 recipe of the shrooms); schnecken filling; turnover filling; bake the tofu for the sliders; make and pan (and refrigerate) the focaccia; make tomato-onion relish; make hummus.
3. The day of: (several hours before) thaw previously baked and frozen goods; thaw and bake schnecken; bake focaccia; make and bake turnovers; make and bake cupcakes; make slaw for sliders; cut up veggies for veggie tray; mix wet and dry ingredients for pancakes in separate bowls; remove marinated veggies and hummus from fridge to get to room temperature; toss shitake shrooms in garlic, ginger, and spices.
4. 30 mins before (or so): Heat tofu in the oven in a covered dish at 250 degrees; make Fried Spicy Shitake mushrooms and keep warm; heat tomato-0nion relish; cut pita; warm pan for cooking the pancakes.
5. As guests arrive: assemble half of the sliders (keep tofu warm in the oven); start cooking some of the pancakes. Keep the pan warm and replenish the plate as needed. Make more sliders as needed.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
How to Throw a Vegan Party that Everyone Will Like
On Friday I had the history department over for a reception to celebrate the impending birth of our department chair's second child. I decided that, rather than making it a pot-luck, I would make everything. I think this made some of the meat-dependent grad students a little wary, so I wanted to make sure that I could deliver a menu that would not disappoint. I think the trick is to keep the menu clean and simple by sticking to dishes that are more or less naturally veggie. It took some careful planning (i.e. a comprehensive chart of what had to be made and when) but the whole thing went off very well indeed. Here is what I did:
Posted by Vegan Dad at 9:05 PM
Labels: entertaining
21 comments:
- Erin L. said...
Awesome! There's no feeling like that of throwing a successful vegan party for an omnivorous group!
- March 19, 2011 at 10:55 PM
- Mommy Taylor said...
holy smokes! how on earth did you pull all of this together? oh, right... i forgot... you're VeganDad! ;)
i saw that you prepared some things the night before and let them marinate overnight, but did you have anything else made beforehand - dough/pitas refrigerated or frozen... or the turnovers assembled and refrigerated?
it sounds like a wonderful spread. i'll forever be envious of your wife and kids! :P
- March 19, 2011 at 10:55 PM
- julie said...
i love you, vegan dad! wow... if only my university days were with such great taste.
- March 20, 2011 at 12:00 AM
- patricia said...
Wow! Excelent menu! Congratulations :-)
- March 20, 2011 at 7:08 AM
- Vegan Dad said...
Mommy Taylor: I just added a section on the logistics of it all.
- March 20, 2011 at 8:42 AM
- foodfeud said...
You're amazing. Awesome job on quite the undertaking.
- March 20, 2011 at 9:39 AM
- Debra said...
It all looks great. Thanks for the tips.. I usually just do spaghetti and salad. I need to branch out.
Blessings, Debra
Raw Vegan Diet
- March 20, 2011 at 11:18 AM
- Skinny Green Bitch said...
incredibly impressed
- March 20, 2011 at 12:02 PM
- VegWhoHatesTofu said...
This all sounds amazing! My daughters birthday is coming up and I'm planning to make it all vegan (with omnivore guests). I don't think my party will be as spectacular as yours but these are some great ideas!
- March 20, 2011 at 1:07 PM
- kmouse said...
Go Vegan Dad!! Very impressive!
- March 20, 2011 at 1:26 PM
- peggy said...
great menu. think i might write it down, for the next time i throw a party :)
- March 20, 2011 at 2:07 PM
- umbrellalady said...
I have frequently fed my omnivorous family vegan and vegetarian meals for weeks on end without them even noticing. It is simply a state of mind.lol
- March 20, 2011 at 2:12 PM
- tara a. said...
amazingly insane!!!! and impressive! sounds so tasty!
- March 20, 2011 at 11:25 PM
- Magdalena said...
All of this looks amazing!
Do you by any chance have a vegan and soy free recipe for bread? I only have a pizza dough recipe that is soy/milk free.
I'm a vegetarian and my 17 month old son has severe food allergies (milk, soy, eggs, peanuts) so buying bread is impossible. I love your recipes since most of the time i can replace soy milk with rice milk or other non soy products. But bread never comes out the same.
Thanks for all of your awesome recipes.. My son loves everything :)
- March 21, 2011 at 7:40 AM
- Nobel4Lit said...
Didya put all those "meat dependents" to shame? ;)
- March 21, 2011 at 2:42 PM
- Amanda said...
Lovely, as someone who loves to cook and used to do catering, nice job pulling it all together! The pics you got look really nice and definitely putting the Kung Poa Sliders on the menu. Great job, we love your recipes.
- March 21, 2011 at 9:17 PM
- Renee said...
Wow! I am impressed! Does Vegan Mom hire you out? :-)
- March 22, 2011 at 12:01 AM
- Emma said...
nice! that takes some work. gives me hope that i could through a party
- March 23, 2011 at 12:00 AM
- Abby M. Locke said...
I just came across this blog and I love it! I am a new vegetarian aspiring to be vegan, so your recipes are excellent...I am a visual learner, so thanks for the great photos:)
- March 23, 2011 at 9:43 AM
- Mihika said...
This is brilliant. I am awed. Thank you so much for posting this!
Bookmarked and I shall make those kung pao tofu sliders soon!
- April 12, 2011 at 8:48 PM
- Tomsmum said...
Well Done, I hope you got lots of appreciative remarks and persuaded people that vegans do eat yummy food.
- May 29, 2011 at 12:53 PM


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March 01, 2013
Co-op: Ben Plotner on NASA
Electrical Engineering major Ben Plotner tells us about his ongoing co-op at NASA in the first of a three-part series
About three months ago, I received quite a surprising phone call. I was told to pack my bags: I was moving to Florida to work for NASA. Home of the John F. Kennedy Space Center as well as the setting for decades of history of the U.S. space program, I have been proud to call Cape Canaveral, Florida, my home for the past two months.
As an intern in the Launch Control System project, I have been given the unique privilege and opportunity to work alongside the engineers and technicians whose hard work and dedication have made NASA's missions possible over the years. Their advice and guidance have been invaluable to me as I continue to work on and learn about my project and its various components.
When I first arrived, the environment of NASA was a lot to take in. All of the history and technological monuments that surrounded me were captivating to say the least. In addition to that, I have come to realize that NASA refers to nearly everything as acronyms, which can get a little confusing. It's almost as if they speak an entirely different language. In fact, I have an entire dictionary containing just NASA acronyms and their meanings. It took me a little while, but I can now confidently say that I can speak fluent NASA!
The project I am working on, the Launch Control System, is currently working to develop and upgrade the various hardware and software associated with the control and monitoring of the launch of next generation spacecraft. I aid in the installation and configuration of networking equipment and servers as well as implement and virtualize the software that will be utilized on them. Additionally, I am working on another project that aims to construct and program a satellite that will be used to transmit and record rocket telemetry data.
What I love most about my job is the work environment. All of my coworkers and supervisors are very welcoming and helpful. They are always more than willing to offer advice or answer a question. All of us are really one big family. I have learned so much over the past two months and I am continuing to learn every day. I absolutely love my job and am grateful for being presented with this opportunity.
Media Contact
- Dennis Nealon


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Think JSFiddle. LINQPad is pretty sweet for fast C# with similar options. Is there anything like LINQPad that runs in a browser?
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closed as not constructive by gnat, Dynamic, Walter, Glenn Nelson, MichaelT Mar 1 '13 at 12:58
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
You could try www.compilr.com. According to their website, Compilr is an online IDE, allowing you to write and compile code for a variety of platforms from any major web browser.
I've tried it out, it works fairly well. It supports C#, Ruby, C, Java and others.
Run Code is a very lightweight alternative that should work in any browser.
It does not require an account like compilr and the interface is even more slimmed down than ideone.
I don't know of anything like that, but the reason JSFiddle is practical is because the code is run natively on the browser, not the server. In order to do something similar for C# code, you would most likely need to do so on the server or use a browser plugin.
A plugin solution would defeat the purpose of even being browser-based because it would require an installation and limit the platforms it can run on. A server-based solution would have many inherent risks unless it were heavily sandboxed.


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9 Video Game Easter Eggs That Took Years to Find
Video game Easter eggs are fun extras for the fans and are usually even easier to find than the real thing--they might demand 10,000 coins, but you never need to stand up. But some of these little secrets, cheats or glitches are so well-hidden they stay out of sight for years, even with millions of gamers exploring every nook and cranny of the game world. For instance...
#9. Sarcastic Announcer (Wave Race Blue Storm, GameCube)
Right off the bat here's one that took nine years to find.
The jet ski racing game Wave Race: Blue Storm for the Nintendo Gamecube already had a secret password entry screen (accessed by pressing START+Z+X on the options menu) unlocking everything from dolphin riding to secret time attack competitions. The secret that no one managed to unlock, however, is the alternate voice track where the race announcer is replaced by a droll, bored dude who sarcastically derides your every move. Yes, this is real:
The cheat was based on messing around in the audio options and, sadly, the only three people who play with the audio options screen are the guy who programmed it, the guy testing it, and the guy who doesn't exist.
By entering a higher Scrabble score version of the Konami Code (L R L R UU DD AZX) after holding Z to change the sound displays waveform into a vertical rising fog, which isn't technobabble crossed with bad poetry but an actual description, you unlock the sarcastic announcer taking the piss out of you. This was presumably a placeholder track laid down before they could get the final one, but compared to the normal Captain Obvious Wave Race announcer ("YOU'RE IN FIRST PLACE") it's actually a huge improvement.
#8. Chris Houlihan Room (A Link to the Past, Super Nintendo)
In 1991, a guy named Chris Houlihan won a Nintendo Power competition to have his name included in an official Nintendo game, the absolute closest Nintendo Power could get to bringing someone to orgasm. That might sound like good fun if you were born in the 90s, if you didn't know that Nintendo of America's localization team hates fun. That's why we've got 40 different DS games ending in "Z" but it takes two years to convert one Professor Layton.
NoA thinks you prefer the right side. Unfortunately, the police know better.
But the NoA Grinch-based debugging team removed the entrance to Chris' room in the North American version. Fun fact: Chris' room only appears in the North American version.
So one team put it in, and their neighbors took it right back out. The two teams continued to put it in and out like it was a video game programming orgy, except passive-aggressive and aimed at making a child cry. So basically, exactly like what a video game programmer orgy would be like. Most entrance methods require insane combinations of explosions, superspeed and sudden falls. But it was all worth it, to find ... this.
It doesn't look like much, but in the 90s that blue text meant more to us than puberty
Well it at least would have been worth it to Houlihan if anyone had been able to find the damn thing. The room was basically unknown until the invention of the Internet, and it only became widely known around the year 2002--thereby turning the most awesome kid's present ever into a level of psychological horror unknown outside of an asylum for Japanese special effects. Instead of being the coolest kid ever in 1991, when people were playing the game, Chris Houlihan now knows that his child self is being pondered by the dark soul of the Internet.
#7. The Everything Passwords (Metroid, NES)
Metroid used a password system, an amazing step forward from other NES games which expected you to restart from Level 1--a video game satanic ritual in which you sacrificed your own life until you learned how to prevent your character from losing theirs, by which point it was far too late. One secret password unlocked all of Samus' weapons and powers, and one also unlocked her armor. Guess which was discovered first.
Hot stuff!
These passwords weren't just secret: They were impossible. The password system was crackable but had a parity check to reject faked entries, a check that these special passwords fail. They were an honest-to-God, hell-yes-we-get-to-use-this-phrase-at-last, security override built into the system. Even if you reverse-engineered the entire password system (and people have, because 8-bit exploration games are apparently much more important than curing cancer), you'd never know they were there.
That's why the NARPAS SWORD easter egg (unlocked by entering NARPAS SWORD0:000000 000000) which would unlock infinite health, the Ice Beam, and more, wasn't discovered until recently. The game makers never announced the code. They weren't intended for leaks or viral promotion, coming from a crazy ancient time where
a) people got excited about half-naked 8-bit characters, and
b) games contained things that weren't determined by marketing.
Only the wrong one of those is still true. Programmers just enjoyed the idea of children wasting their youth playing the same game over and over again in hopes of seeing less skin than the average postage stamp displays, knowing they'd get the exact same amount of nudity if they just entered this secret password. Or drew nipples on their own thumbs.
It definitely left an impression
#6. Play as Master Hand (Super Smash Bros Melee, GameCube)
The trick to getting this Super Smash Bros Melee glitch is so ridiculously precise that our generation was basically allowed to either discover it or to create free renewable energy, and our guys chose wrong. Thanks, gamers.
This took seven years to find because it's not actually an Easter egg--it's the result of a genuine glitch in the program that allows the user to get through to the game without ever selecting a character. Nintendo's normal strategy when they can't think of a character is "use Mario," but this time they chose to make the universe itself mock any player sad enough to find the glitch.
The glitch arises only if you erase all your friends' names from your game, and also unlocks a single-person melee mode. That is exactly as depressing as it sounds: You're stuck alone in an empty Nintendo-themed pit of loneliness.
We might believe Nintendo's claim that it was accidental if it weren't for the secret boss that this same glitch unlocks. The game rewards anyone willing to delete all his friends with an impossible boss modeled on the one thing that will have sex with him.
Not just a hand, but "Master Hand."
So it's either locking the player in a "this is no longer accidental, we're trying to make you think about your life" wasteland of meta loneliness, or a masturbation joke that spits electricity at you after you've admitted you don't have any friends.
#5. Wesker's Desk (Resident Evil 2, PlayStation)
We can't pinpoint how long it took gamers to find this one, and we're kind of hoping it took a really, really long time.
Every item you can pick up in Resident Evil 2, or any RE game for that matter, has only three possible outcomes: If you're lucky it's useful, if you're unlucky it wastes your time telling you it isn't, and if you're really unlucky it's a file. Anyone who'd examine a desk even twice only did it by accident.
So imagine how somebody discovered this bit of insanity: You can find the secret of Wesker's desk only by searching said desk 50 times. The first 49 times you get a message telling you nothing is there. But if you persist, and persist, long past the point any reasonable person would, you find the Easter egg. It's a small reward considering at that point of dedication, the game counts as your occupation, a chunk of your personality and a fairly serious mental problem. Your reward (well after you take it over to the Dark Room and develop it) is "Film D." Which is... a photoshop of Rebecca in a basketball outfit.
It's also a horrifyingly bad photoshop--you can tell because of the pixels,
and because of how your neck and skin hurt just from looking at it.
As cool as Easter eggs are, that had to have been a disappointment, particularly to the person who discovered it by, what, checking every desk 50 times? It's like finding El Dorado, only to realize the City of Gold is just a landfill of Ferrero Rocher wrappers.


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Is cloud computing mature enough to alleviate some of the pains of maintaining the IT infrastructure on site? If so, what are some of the drawbacks of adopting it? Is security and privacy a big concern?
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It's not just privacy and security. Those are big enough concerns, while we wait for Craig Gentry to hurry up and make homomorphic encryption practical.
There's also the matter of making your business dependent on something outside your control.
Example, and this doesn't even need cloud computing: I inherited a client who runs its business off a website. It's great... until the ISP has a routing loop, or the local exchange breaks, or the datacentre hosting the website breaks something local to it. (These have all happened in the last six months.)
If your business is entirely dependent on things on the far side of the network, you run the risk of your business coming to a standstill every time something in the network goes wrong. It's not only a single point of failure; it's like a string of single points of failure.
Yes, cloud computing's supposed to protect exactly against some of the problems I describe above. But if a backhoe goes through your exchange's cable, you're potentially in big trouble.
In my experience, there is still some code to be written to tie things together in some cases. Where I've worked we had a couple of different cases of using services from the cloud and in each case there are a few things to consider like how well do things connect in this as those cloud services may upgrade and break something or go down for a few minutes and cause all kinds of panic.
Security and availability are a couple of the big concerns but there are other issues as well. Does an upgrade break existing functionality? How far back does one go for backward compatibility? How well does this plug in with other systems as very few things run in isolation? For example, a content management system may have to interact with a customer relationship management system, a translation management system, an enterprise resource planning system among others. The cloud can be useful for some things but it is still maturing to my mind.


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so I am busy writing a TCP protocol in which I send a "packet header" with each packet of data. This packet header is a structure that contains information about the data that was sent. I want to verify whether the header was tampered with in some manner and I am thinking of using a hash of the header to ensure it was not tampered with. I want to know if it is possible to include this hash in the header itself. Here is what the packet header looks like.
struct PACKET_HEADER
DWORD dwMagic;
BYTE lpvChecksum[32];
... Rest of header follows
I am not sure if this method will work and I am open to any other suggestions on how to verify the header.


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Gingerbread Matcha MenInstead of playing the star, Matcha plays a supporting role in this healthier version of a traditional holiday treat!
[Makes about 12 six-inch cookies]
Aiya Cooking Grade Matcha........... 1 tbsp
Flour................................................... 3 cups
Baking Soda...................................... 1/2 tsp
Baking Powder.................................. 1/4 tsp
Butter (unsalted)................................ 1 stick
Dark Brown Sugar............................. 1/2 cup
Ground Ginger.................................... 2 tsps
Ground Cinnamon.............................. 2 tsps
Salt..................................................... 1/2 tsp
Egg..................................................... 1 egg
Molasses (unsulfered)........................ 1/2 cup
Note: This recipe uses Matcha as a functional ingredient so if you make it exactly as written, the cookies will come out indistinguishable from normal gingerbread cookies. Should you want a stronger tea flavor in the cookies, you can increase the amount of Matcha from one to two tablespoons.
- In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and Matcha. Set aside.
- Let the butter come to room temperature and in the bowl of your stand mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter and brown sugar together until smooth.
- Mix in the ginger, cinnamon, and salt into the butter and sugar until they are well incorporated.
- Add the eggs and molasses to the sugar, butter, and spice mixture.
- Add the sifted flour and other dry ingredients into the butter mixture little by little with your mixer on low until it comes together in a dough.
- Wrap the dough in some plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least one hour.
- When the dough is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator and place it on to a lightly floured work surface. Use a rolling pin to roll it to about 1/8" thickness.
- Using cookie cutters or templates, cut out ginger bread men and women and place the shapes onto a flat cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake the cookies in it until they are crisp but not darkened, approximately 15-20 minutes.
- Decorate with icing, white chocolate, and/or whatever candies you like.