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|Home Page
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Children's Short Stories (Book 1) by Sheila Helliwell
Our Books Now on Kindle click here
Our books are specialy created to give enjoyment and help children develop, they are the best books available in their class.
Enjoyment stimulates the desire to read and by capturing children's imagination their creative abilities develop.
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Sheila Helliwell has been writing children's stories for many years, her first book "Hoonraki Moon" is one of the "Murphy Story" series which depicts the adventures of Steven, Susan and Mark and a nine-inch Leprechaun (Murphy) who lives in a magic world at the bottom of their garden click here for info.
Following the success of the Murphy stories, Sheila has focused on writing shorter stories aimed at younger children in her new book "Children's Short Stories (1)"
The exciting and playful characters within her stories and Sheila's partnership with leading illustrator Maciej Zajac click here provides an outstanding stimulus for developing children's imagination.
Sheila believes introducing young children to the enjoyment of reading at an early age is crucial in their emotional and cognitive development.
Sheila is involved in the public access website Childrens-Stories.net click here which enables other writers, including amateur, to submit stories for sharing with parents, children and schools.
As Sheila says: "There is no better reward than seeing the spellbound look on a child's face when telling them a story".
Contact Us
UK Tel: 0845 475 3625 (UK office hours)
Email: click here
Post: Children's Story Publishers, Tipyn o Gymru, Northway Lane, Tewkesbury GL20 8HA, United Kingdom
Leading children's story illustrator Maciej Zajac
Children's Author Sheila Helliwell with her character Magic Murphy


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25 Feb 2013 2:31 PM #1
What is the best pattern/practice for saving nested data in ExtJs 4?
This question is related to my other posts:
I am going to use a simple example: Order & Line Items defined as two models, with Order having one or more Line Items.
The main requirement is this: when I save the Order and its Line Items, they have to be saved as one transaction.
In ExtJs 3 I would define two stores, one for the Order and one for Line Items, I would do an ajax call passing the data from both to a server controller method, and then, on the server side (I use Ext.Net), I would save them in the db using one transaction. This pattern works in ExtJs 4 as well.
Now, in ExtJs 4 we have models that are capable of having relationships :-) so, instead of two stores, I have one store with a HasMany relationship, an Order has many Line Items.
I sort of expected that I can save an Order, and when I save the order, the data from its Line Items models is included as well. That is not what happens from what I've seen debugging store.sync() calls.
One of the things that is not clear to me is how the proxy api calls work as individual http requests in the context where the requirement is that all the row changes (including changes in their associated data) have to be saved as one unit. I guess one could implement the server request handlers to temporarily store the data on the server side, and then when the batch completes, one more call has to be made to persist the data as one unit in a database.
Another idea I tried is to get all the data from the store (including child data) and resolve all the changes on the server side (it is better to do it there anyway just because the data on the client could become stale sooner). There seems to be no extjs method that extracts the store data and follows the HasMany relationships. Something like Writer.getRecordData() that would follow the nested data.
And, as I said, another problem that I see is that, when the child changes, the parent is not marked as dirty, and even if it did, the Writer doesn't seem to include the children in the request that is sent to the server.
Any ideas, comments?
Update: Ext.Net has implemented an nice Store API method, getChangedData, that extracts all the changes from a store (not including the nested data though). This allows saving all the row changes in a store (again, not including the children) in one server call.
26 Feb 2013 3:45 PM #2
The writer does not support nested data. You will have to override this yourself or send the data object yourself and update at the server.
26 Feb 2013 3:52 PM #3
11 Apr 2013 10:47 PM #4
sample code
hi bogc
Can you paste some sample code
26 Apr 2013 6:27 AM #5
A simple workaround
The workaround I eventually settled on is simpler (with all the good and bad that implies) than the other solutions I've seen to this problem on the forums. Simply put: the parent model has an unused field of type 'auto' with the same name as its associationKey, and there's a beforesync listener on the store that assigns the data from all its dependent records to that field. I also overrode the set() method on the child model to set the parent model dirty if appropriate.
If my data had more than one level of nesting I'd probably scrap this approach in favor of extending Writer, but this was faster for this project.
Ext.define('ClientTestDetail', { extend: 'Ext.data.Model', idProperty: 'client_test_details_id', fields: [ { name: 'client_test_details_id', type: 'int' }, /* ... */ { name: 'year_info' } // Unused field to hold dependent record data. ], hasMany: [{ model: 'ClientTestYearInfo', name: 'yearInfo', associationKey: 'year_info' }] }); Ext.define('ClientTestYearInfo', { extend: 'Ext.data.Model', idProperty: 'end_year_int', fields: [ { name: 'end_year_int', type: 'int' }, /* ... */ ], set: function(fieldName, newValue) { this.callParent(arguments); if (this.dirty && this.ClientTestDetailBelongsToInstance) this.ClientTestDetailBelongsToInstance.setDirty(); }, belongsTo: 'ClientTestDetail' }); Ext.create('Ext.data.Store', { model: 'ClientTestDetail', pageSize: 50, listeners: { beforesync: function(syncCandidates) { var writerBound = Ext.Array.merge(syncCandidates.update || [], syncCandidates.create || []); Ext.each(writerBound, function(rec) { rec.data.year_info = Ext.Array.pluck(rec.yearInfo().data.items, 'data'); }); } }, proxy: { type: 'ajax', api: { create: '../api/client_details/test_details/insert', read: '../api/client_details/test_details/view', update: '../api/client_details/test_details/update', destroy: '../api/client_details/test_details/delete' }, reader: { type: 'json', root: 'rows' }, writer: { type: 'json', root: 'records', allowSingle: false, encode: true } } });
9 May 2013 2:54 PM #6
Thumbs Down
This is a surprising oversight for an 'Enterprise' level JavaScript library. Wouldn't it be standard practice to send the whole object to the back end and let the database handle the update in a transaction safe manner?
10 May 2013 9:33 AM #7
The reason I am saying this, is that saving data highly depends on the server technology. For instance, I am using Ext.Net which is .Net based. The Ext.Net folks have added server extensions that can serialize/deserialize data between json stores (including hierarchical data) and c# objects, which pretty much allows you to save the data in a transaction safe manner (I've done it).
I would also like to add that often it is better to resolve the data changes on the server side (i.e. what has to be updated/deleted/inserted). That's what I always do.

subset: commoncrawl


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Is there any scholarly consensus about the origins of organized crime historically? Do movements such as the Ndrangheta have analogues in the pre-Christian or Medieval world? Or is it a relatively new, post-Industrial kind of thing?
I'm not sure about consensus, but there are books on the topic. Example:
Further east, Yakuza originated in 1600s.
More controversially, you could view pretty much any feudal lord as an organized criminal (since your question wasn't terribly specific on how you define organized crime). You have a boss with violent enforcers who collects taxes from people in his area.
There's no good cut-and-dried answer to what 'the origins of organized crime' are, as it is a phenomenon that sprang up in many places independently. I'm not aware of any consensus as to the very first example of an organized criminal group either, although, as DVK points out, you would have to define what you think would qualify as organized crime.
Certainly many criminal organizations that are still functioning today, such as the Ndrangheta you mention, Cosa Nostra, the Yakuza, the Triads, etc. arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries at least partially in response to the upheaval brought on by modernization/foreign expansion into their home country. Many of these kinds of groups began as rebellions or citizens' vigilante organizations that slowly transformed into protection rackets once whatever threat that prompted their formation had faded. Most of these organizations distinguished themselves (and still do to some extent) by adhering to a strict system of patronage and hierarchy that is based around traditional customs that were falling by the wayside in regular society.
However, groups that operate along similar lines to what we would call organized crime have been commented on as early as 50 BCE [1]. If you're interested in organized crime in the ancient world, the book DVK mentioned, Organised Crime in Antiquity, might be a good place to start.
[1] https://docs.google.com/open?id=15DtzfoccdKb7u0MffVuCQfL22f-DuQRuttFKOQ3rXfDN3BLXWjND_Qf52751


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AARP and AARP Foundation's nationwide campaign to address the problem of older adult hunger through the Drive to End Hunger program will return with 11-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champions Hendrick Motorsports in 2015 as a primary sponsor of driver Jeff Gordon and his No. 24 Chevrolet SS team.
Brendan Gaughan (#62 U.S. Cellular Chevrolet Camaro) had the best 10-lap consecutive average speed in the first practice for the XFINITY Series U.S. Cellular 250 at Iowa Speedway.
Sam Hornish Jr. (#2 Rheem Chevrolet Camaro) led the first practice session for the XFINITY Series U.S. Cellular 250 at Iowa Speedway.
Martin Truex Jr. will lead the Pennsylvania 400 field to green Sunday at Pocono Raceway. His lap of 179.244 mph was good enough to outpace Carl Edwards' 178.873. This is Truex's 10th career pole.
Kevin Harvick posted the 17th fastest time in the second round of qualification and failed to advance to the final session. He will be forced to advance through the pack once the green flag waves.
Jimmie Johnson was one of several notable drivers who failed to advance to the final round of qualification for the Pennsylvania 400. His speed of 176.094 mph was only good enough for 21st on the grid.
Kyle and Kurt Busch both failed to advance to the third and final round of qualification. Kyle posted a lap of 177.054 mph while Kurt was marginally better with a 177.183. Kyle starts the Pennsylvania 400 16th; Kurt will line up 15th.
As time ran out on the first practice session, Jeff Gordon jumped from 24th to 22nd, moving the Greg Biffle to the bubble (24th). Biffle's crew thought he was safe, but Chris Buescher was on track and logged a lap of 175.987 mph—jumping to 18th in the process, and bumping Biffle from round two. Biffle's speed was 175.603 mph.
Kyle Busch was the last driver to pass inspection for qualification at Pocono Raceway. He was not cleared to get onto the track because of a camber issue until half of the session was over and did not get onto the track until only six minutes remains.
Austin Theriault (#1 Toyota College/Yazaki Toyota) is at the top of the speed chart in the final practice leading to the NASCAR K&NPS combined East and West Series Casey's General Store 150 at Iowa Speedway in Newton, IA.
John Hunter Nemechek (#8 Chevrolet Silverado) led the final NASCAR Camping World Truck Series practice session at Pocono Raceway.
Just when you thought you were going to hand off another pole award to rookie sensation Chase Briscoe, here comes Kyle Weatherman.


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Event Information
As part of GVS(You) Week, stop by the Future Alumni Association (FAA) and Laker for a Lifetime table in the DeVos Center from 11:30am-2:00pm to write a quick thank you note to a University donor. There will be more information about how to be a Laker for a Lifetime, as well as GVSU swag for those that stop to thank a donor.
Liz Kolberg (email@example.com)


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Has anyone tried Teeth Whitening Pens?
I posted this deal today
Then before I bought some I started researching and now I am trying to decide if I should buy them or try something else like the trays or go to the dentist and get the laser treatment.
Any advice would be great.
4 Answers answer
Didn't even know this existed.
I feel like unless you have a problematic tooth/ mouth set up, such as if your teeth are crooked in such a way that whitening trays don't get that particular tooth, a whitening pen is useless. If you've got relatively normal dentistry, this probably wont give you any benefit you wouldn't get from trays.
Trays would probably be a lot easier too.
@thedogma: These are 1.99 and trays seem to be way more expensive. As a deal lover I was thinking I might get more bang for the buck with these.
@tmontgom: I guess that would depend on how many pens you need to get the same effect.
I go with the off-brand (Target) trays when I need them. They're considerably less expensive than brand name and work just as well. I think they range from 15 to 25 bucks for a one or two week regiment? Target wont tell me the price online. But it works and is fairly priced for how often I need them (once or twice a year).
Even if the pens are a bit cheaper, I feel like I'd still like the trays...requires considerably less coordination haha
EDIT: reading the reviews, they're good for between the teeth. Didn't even think of that. A combination could be a good bet.
@thedogma: Thanks a combination of the 2 does sound like a good plan


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Brenda and Rodney Jackson of Sunfield announce the engagement of their daughter Andrea Renee Jackson to Mark James Kasper, son of Pauline and Kevin Kasper of Ionia.
Andrea is a 2009 graduate of Portland High School, and attended Montcalm Community College and Michigan State University. She is employed at Herbruck
Mark is a 2006 graduate of Ionia High School and is employed at Boulder Ridge Park in Alto as an animal care taker.
A Sept. 21 wedding is being planned.
Location, ST | website.com


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Subject: Re: [OMPI devel] Question about hanging mpirun
From: Colon, Joseanibal (joseanibal.colon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-07-01 16:37:40
I got the LD_LIBRARY_PATH correct and I don't have other installations on the target machine, but it doesn't fix it. I had the suspicion about "./configure" building support for stuff on my machine that is not available on the target machine. Unfortunately the machines are not exactly identical, definitely in terms of hardware. The only similarities are the OS and the x86_64 architecture (this is OpenSUSE 11, SP1).
As you correctly guessed I want to run this on a single machine, and all processes are local. There is some intercommunication going on as well, but all using MPI API. I am guessing that my problem has to do with intercommunications (since strace shows infinite calls to 'poll()'), probably because mpirun is trying to use features that were configured on my machine but not present on the target. Does that make sense?
I figured I don't need any fancy support to just run a couple of processes in parallel locally. What would be the most basic configuration I can use to ensure that this will run on my target machine? (a machine that probably doesn't have support for a lot of the components - no IB devices found). I want openmpi to use the simplest form available. Thanks!
From: devel-bounces_at_[hidden] [mailto:devel-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Ralph Castain
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 3:50 PM
To: Open MPI Developers
Subject: Re: [OMPI devel] Question about hanging mpirun
Make sure your LD_LIBRARY_PATH will pickup this installation before anything else - it's possible it is picking up an old one.
I take it that you are running this on a single machine? So all the procs are local?
Only other issue is that OMPI's configure does a lot of testing to detect the local environment. So you might be building support for things that aren't on your target machine, and vice versa. If you have to do it this way, you need to ensure that the two machines are absolutely identical, both in hardware and software (watch for those installed packages!).
On Jul 1, 2011, at 10:42 AM, Colon, Joseanibal wrote:
My mpi application is hanging forever when called with mpirun -np >1 (that is 2 or more... not actually typing the '>').
So I built openmpi 1.4.3 with default options except I used -prefix=/usr/local/openmpi. I compiled an application against it but I need to run this application elsewhere. So brought in my entire installation directory /usr/local/openmpi to this new machine along with my binary to test it. Ran the following command... (If i did't use the -mca options it would print out messages about missing OpenFrabric):
/usr/local/openmpi/bin/mpirun --mca btl tcp,self -np 2 ./my_application
This actually works for -np 1. But requesting another process makes the call hang forever. 'strace' of the above call shows an never ending calls to "poll" resulting in (timeout) every time.
Executing /usr/local/openmpi/bin/ompi_info still shows the configure and build host as the machine I built on, but I don't know if this may cause a problem. I also see "Thread support: posix (mpi: no, progress: no)"
Unfortunately I need to do it this way.. I cannot build openmpi on the target machine, so I need to make it portable. This other machine should be the same architecture and OS and everything.
I should have solved this yesterday, please help, and thanks!
devel mailing list


text:
Candidates mix it up in first debate
Obama, Romney agree on little
By JULIE PACE and DAVID ESPO Associated Press
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There are two concepts in the Halacha of Bittul (nullification). One says that if there is an item that is Unkosher that falls into another item that is Kosher, and it is a mixture, and the Unkosher is one-sixtieth, it is nullified and you can eat the mixture even though it has the Unkosher in it. However, there is another Halacha along the same premise that says if Roiv (a majority) of the food is Kosher, then the Unkosher food is nullified. Wouldn't you know that from the fact that it is more than SIXTY?
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There are really two types of Bittul (nullification):
(There are way too many sources, but see the Taz YD 98:3 for a similar, succinct, and good enough summary.)
Please make sure to CYLOR before relying on these principles yourself, as there are many small details that can make a difference.
Sometimes rov is enough and other times we require shishim. See this chart for details but basically the only case l'halacha we will rely on rov is if no taste is transferred (yavesh byavesh) and taste the same (min bmino).
To quote myself:
The point of having 60:1 is generally just to guarantee there isn't any significant, discernible flavor, as is clear in YD 98:1 and other places.


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SOUTH CHARLESTON - How can the West Virginia Legislature and state Department of Education implement meaningful education reform in the Mountain State?
That question topped the list of issues discussed at the Associated Press' Legislative Lookahead on Thursday. West Virginia State Superintendent of Schools James Phares, West Virginia Education Association Executive Director David Haney and Terry Wallace, a senior fellow at the Institute for Innovation in Education at West Liberty University, discussed how to improve learning outcomes during the first panel of the day: "New Directions for Public Education."
Phares pointed to the balanced calendar model, or year-round learning, as one possible cure for the state's ailing education system.
Article Photos
A panel of state education officials and experts discussed Education in West Virginia Thursday morning as part of the Associated Press' Legislative Lookahead – a legislative preview the Associated Press sponsors for members of West Virginia's media. Participating were, at left, Terry Wallace, a senior fellow at the Institute for Innovation in Education at West Liberty University, Jim Phares, new state department of education superintendent, and David Haney, executive director of the West Virginia Education Association, John McCabe, managing editor of The Intelligencer of Wheeling, moderated the discussion. -- Courtesy of the West Virginia Press Association
"The policymakers at the department level and at the legislative level need to understand that you can no longer say that learning starts in August and ends in June," Phares said.
Phares also said he favors mastery learning, wherein students would advance grade levels based on their mastery of material.
Haney said the WVEA teachers' union isn't opposed to the balanced calendar model. But he said it would be "wrong" for the Legislature to mandate a year-round calendar for every school system in the state.
Phares said he wasn't suggesting a state-mandated balanced calendar model. Instead, communities would be urged to consider the possibility.
Wallace said creating a culture of year-round learning, rather than instituting year-round school, is key.
"Adding days to the calendar in and of itself, if you don't change anything else, is not a solution," Wallace remarked. "We need to make sure that we are getting the most out of what we already have before we look at a balanced calendar and year-round school."
Wallace called the state department of education's curriculum "too broad and too shallow."
"No student should be able to get out of the fourth grade without being able to read well enough to learn," he said.
A couple hours later, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said one of the goals of his educational agenda is to ensure that every child masters reading by the end of third grade.
Wallace agreed with Phares on the concept of mastery learning, saying he disagreed with making "young Einsteins sit in high school until they're 18 years old." The state education system should move students based on competency and achievement, rather than age and "seat time," he said.
"That means kids are going to be leaving high school at 15 or 16 years old, and we've got other kids who need to stay in the oven longer before they're baked all the way through," Wallace added.
All three panelists told moderator John McCabe, managing editor of The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register, they believe the stigma surrounding vocational education needs to be broken down - and that more collaboration between high school and college instructors could bolster the success of students who go on to earn four-year degrees.
McCabe said 40 percent of high school graduates in the state are required to take remedial math or English courses once they reach college.
"We need to look at education as an integrated entity," Wallace said. "In West Virginia, we tend to see pre-K through 12th grade - then stop - college - then stop. One of the reasons that students aren't prepared is because we don't work hard at making sure everyone knows what's expected at the next step, next step, next step."
Phares agreed that college professors and high school instructors need to amp up their communication.
Haney said two problems stunting the state's education system are a lack of respect for teachers and rampant absenteeism. He said the reason West Virginia is experiencing a shortage of certified teachers is because it's ranked 49th in the nation when it comes to teachers' salaries.
And Phares introduced a concept he dubbed "ABT-squared."
"I call (the truancy problem) 'ain't been taught because they ain't been there,'" the superintendent said. "You can apply it to truancy, and you can also apply it to calendars."


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The 2012 Southeastern Nebraska Baseball Conference (SENBC) Seniors Tournament will begin Wednesday with Seniors teams playing games at two sites.
Northern Division games will be at Syracuse with action beginning at 5:30 p.m. The No. 6 Wilmar Electric will play the No. 5 seed Elmwood-Murdock/Nehawka. No. 4 Plattsmouth will play No. 8 Syracuse in the 7:30 p.m. game.
Southern Division games will be at Nebraska City with action beginning at 5:30 p.m. No. 3 Falls City will play No. 2 Tecumseh. No. 1 Nebraska City will play No. 7 Auburn in the 7:30 p.m. game.
Division action continues with second round games and consolation round games on Friday at the same sites.
Wednesday losers will play at 5:30 p.m. and Wednesday winners will play at 7:30 p.m.
The two divisions will play the final round of the tournament on Saturday at Plattsmouth.
Action begins with the seventh place game at 11 a.m., followed by the fifth place game at 1:30 p.m., the third place game at 4 p.m. and the championship game at 6:30 p.m.
Comments are currently unavailable on this article
Location, ST | website.com


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to Biological Processes
Let's begin with an introduction
to the basic qualities of life itself, including its origin. The
basic structures of living organisms form the building blocks for
all subsequent biological processes. Once life appeared on the early
Earth, the challenges presented by the physical environment immediately
began driving the process of evolution, which continues unceasingly
today. Evolution is a multifaceted process and is, perhaps, the
most important process in the history of life. Extinction also plays
an important role in shaping the history of life, eliminating even
dominant species and reshaping the nature of the biological world.
Both evolution and extinction occur in the context of ecology—the
study of the relationships between organisms and the environment.


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BELTON (January 24, 2013)-- Clifton Montague, 27, who's held in the Bell County Jail charged with murder, has been indicted for assault on a public servant after a jail guard was punched in the face.
An affidavit says the incident happened on Nov. 27, 2012 in the Bell County Jail in Belton.
The jail guard involved told officers that inmates were being escorted from one area of the jail to a recreation area when Montague and other inmates became irate that some inmates might be left behind, the affidavit said.
The affidavit says Montague threatened the guard and then punched the guard in the face.
Montague is charged with murder in the Oct. 11, 2012 shooting death of Latternace Deshawn Newsome, 24.
He's held in lieu of $1 million bond.
He was arrested in the 400 block of South 2nd Street in Killeen, a day after police issued a public appeal for information about his whereabouts.
Newsome was found shot to death just after 11 p.m. on Oct. 11 at an apartment in the 3200 block of Hereford Lane in Killeen.
Investigators determined he was visiting the apartment when he and another man began to argue.
The argument turned physical and the other man pulled a handgun and shot Newsome to death.


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Vivid 'Dredd 3D' Makes Rival Thrillers Look Flat
'Plague' is a striking true tale of AIDS activists; Eastwood is in trouble with 'the Curve'
"Dredd 3D" is the iPhone of recent action thrillers. The movie doesn't do apps, or, for that matter, drop calls, but this particularly violent thriller is distinguished by elegant design. What's familiar about the film is the grunge concatenation of firepower, body count and gross-out abuse of all-too-tender flesh. What's exceptional is the orchestration of color, form, light and dark (lots of dark), 3-D technology and digital effects into a look that amounts to a vision.
The director was Pete Travis, working from a shrewd, terse screenplay by Alex Garland; the production designer was Mark Digby, and the cinematographer was Anthony Dod Mantle. (The latter two collaborated similarly on "Slumdog Millionaire.") The opening shot is a variation on the theme of "WALL•E"—a slow flyby over a vast garbage dump of a megalopolis in a blighted future, except that this sprawl, Mega City One, is fully inhabited. The city is a battleground between free-range criminals and so-called Judges, the Robocop-ish descendants of Rambo who function as judges, juries and executioners, not to mention noisemakers, what with their flatulent motorcycles and end-of-days weaponry. Chief among them is, yes, you guessed it, Judge Dredd, who was played by a glum Sylvester Stallone in the fairly dreadful 1995 film "Judge Dredd," and who is played this time around by Karl Urban.
'Played' is a big word for what the helmeted actor is able to do with his husky voice, slyly laconic dialogue and the visible parts of his face, i.e. his scowl and stubble. Dredd's partner, an anxious rookie named Cassandra, doesn't wear a helmet, since it would scramble her psychic powers, so she is played visibly, as well as audibly, by Olivia Thirlby, who succeeds in investing an action figure with affecting fear, impressive courage and a commitment to justice that serves as Cassandra's compass.
The story has been assembled from repurposed genre elements: a vertical ghetto, 200 stories high, controlled by a scar-faced prostitute turned drug lord—or drug lady—named Ma-Ma; she's played to a lurid fare-thee-well by Lena Headey. And Ma-Ma's product comes out of a shop that looks a lot like an industrial-scale meth lab. But it's the nature of the drug that dictates much of the production's visual distinction. The compound in question, Slo-Mo, makes its addicts feel as if time is passing at 1% of its normal speed.
The effects of Slo-Mo are visualized by super-slo-mo cinematography in sequences of dreamy sumptuousness: iridescent soap bubbles afloat over Ma-Ma's bathtub (and, thanks to the 3-D, over the first few rows of theater seats); bodies falling ever so slo-moly onto public spaces; one body drifting down an elevator shaft in the company of glass shards that flutter and swirl like clouds of what used to be called, in a more innocent time, Disney Dust.
Occasionally, "Dredd 3D" bogs down in passages that aren't supposed to be slow; the movie will almost stop, every now and then, to admire its own physical beauty. And there's no way of elevating those exploding heads and sliced-off limbs into dramatic art. All the same, the juxtaposition of brutality and improbable chivalry, in a dystopia built on the foundations of "Blade Runner," "Brazil" and even "Naked City," is a vision that's hard to dismiss.
'How to Survive a Plague'
If you watched "How to Survive a Plague" with the sound turned off, you would readily see it as a history of the struggle to make a city, and then a nation, aware of AIDS, that disease of fearful virulence for which there was no treatment when it first emerged in this country in the early 1980s. The archival footage, most of it shot by the participants, tells the tale vividly: demonstrations in New York, confrontations in Washington, acts of civil disobedience, street theater performed by activists determined to accelerate the laggardly pace of research by the government and the pharmaceutical industry. That's a stirring tale, but an incomplete one. Turn up the sound, tune in to the passionate voices in David France's brilliant documentary and you learn how some members of the activist group Act Up—members who, in many cases, were HIV positive—became instrumental in developing and testing the protease inhibitors that have finally proved equal to the plague.
They did so out of desperation, of course, feeling themselves doomed to the fate that was decimating the gay community. What's so remarkable about their decadeslong campaign, though, is how desperation led to inspiration—to the inspired notion that they, as nonscientists, could still take their fate in their own hands. By applying sufficient logic and mastering sufficient science—by wielding brain power as well as street power, as one man puts it—they were able to join forces with Big Pharma, FDA officials and National Institutes of Health doctors, not only in focusing on promising drugs but in designing drug trials that were both responsible and expeditious.
Susan Ellenberg, a former chief biostatistician at the NIH's division of AIDS, recalls being excited and impressed by Act Up's strategy. "They were not against drug trials," she tells Mr. France's camera. "They wanted to get the right answers, but they wanted humane trials." A similar tribute comes from Dr. Anthony Fauci, then as now the NIH's director of AIDS research: "They elevated themselves with their self-education." And one of the leaders of Act Up's campaign, Peter Staley, closes the film with a stirring postscript: "The way we did it, the way we took care of ourselves and each other…is just mind-boggling. Just incredible." It's an upbeat ending subject to a stark reservation. Millions of people around the world are still dying of AIDS every year, an end-title card notes, because they can't afford the drugs that could keep them alive.
'End of Watch'
David Ayer's "End of Watch" derives huge energy, most of it false, from Roman Vasyanov's cinematography, as well as from genuinely impressive performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña. It's not too much to say that, like "Dredd 3D," this pounding saga of street-cop partners in Los Angeles is often about cinematography, since everyone is either shooting video—Mr. Gyllenhaal's Officer Brian Taylor is a would-be filmmaker—or being shot (by dashboard cameras, hidden cameras and surveillance cameras), not to mention being shot at by a bloodthirsty succession of really, really bad guys and girls who are involved with the closest thing to al Qaeda that the movies can come up with on domestic soil, the Sinaloa cartel.
Shallow down inside, "End of Watch" is a music-video Frappuccino of quick cuts, sparkling banter, serial crises, grisly violence and tongue-jerk profanity. (The f*****g quotient is astronomical. So is the producer quotient; 16 of them listed in the credits.) But the film is exciting, in its manipulative way, and exhausting, and occasionally relieved by the humanity of Brian's love for Janet, a bright, lively woman played by the always appealing Anna Kendrick. What's more, it's a great recruiting tool for the LAPD. Unencumbered by nuance, these cops are as pure as they are brave.
'Trouble With the Curve'
This antediluvian baseball drama stars Clint Eastwood as a washed-up scout, Gus, and Amy Adams as Mickey, the daughter who reluctantly teams up with him. The director was Robert Lorenz, who has worked with Mr. Eastwood since the mid-1990s as a producer, an assistant director or both. It's his debut feature, and bush league almost all the way, a lifeless rendering of an amateurish script (by Randy Brown) that covers some of the same ground as "Moneyball"—old-fashioned intuition versus newfangled number-crunching—but covers it from some time warp where audiences still enjoy declamatory acting, mawkish sentiments and wheezy editing.
The movie's most glaring problem is Mr. Eastwood's decision to play, not very well, pretty much the same character he portrayed most recently in "Gran Torino"—an old geezer who has an enlarged prostate, macular degeneration and a misanthropic demeanor that's supposed to be lovable, except that it isn't; Gus is mostly a tiresome grump. Ms. Adams does her endearing best to lighten things up. Along with Mickey's touching efforts at reconciliation with her father, she has some enjoyable encounters with Justin Timberlake's Johnny, a charming ex-pitcher who's trying to reinvent himself as a play-by-play announcer. "Trouble With the Curve" finally finds its zone when Gus and Mickey find the young baseball prodigy they've been looking for. That doesn't happen until the narrative's last inning, though, too late to save the movie. I'd call it "Neanderthalball."
DVD Focus
'Zabriskie Point' (1970)
The Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni used slow-motion cinematography as it had never been used before, to evoke a vision of America and its consumer goods blowing up in a spectacular apocalypse. At this late date that's the only reason to watch the film, an ignominious lapse by a cinema master that deplores all things American, except for our nation's supposedly innocent youth. (The fatuous iconography came out of the 1960s, reinforced by European condescension.) The young hero, Mark (Mark Frechette) and young heroine, Daria (Daria Halprin), meet in Death Valley, where the heat is searing and the dialogue is dead.
'Milk' (2008)
Gus Van Sant's film, with Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, opens on the gay activist and San Francisco supervisor dictating into a tape recorder. The year is 1978, and the words are taken from a tape, full of foreboding, that Milk dictated shortly before he, and the city's mayor, George Moscone, were shot to death by a former supervisor, Dan White. Mr. Penn won an Oscar for his performance; so did Dustin Lance Black for his screenplay. Milk's life had previously been celebrated in Rob Epstein's 1984 documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk," which won the Oscar it deserved.
'The Good Girl' (2002)
Jake Gyllenhaal is an amorous adolescent who calls himself Holden—he thinks he's an embodiment of J.D. Salinger's literary hero—in this singularly interesting and often misunderstood film that Miguel Arteta directed from an original script by Mike White. The misunderstanding centers on Jennifer Aniston as Justine, an unhappy wife who's disconnected from her feelings, and from the consequences of her behavior. Detractors have called her performance dull. I've called it impeccable, and austere. The fine cast includes Mr. White, John C. Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson and Zooey Deschanel.
Write to Joe Morgenstern at email@example.com


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It's like Wheaties for your love life! There's a new cereal on the market that claims to boost your libido.
According to the Daily Mail, it's called "Sex Cereal" and the granola is said to balance your hormone levels the natural way, therefore increasing your sexual performance.
Ingredients like bee pollen, black sesame, blueberries and pumpkin seeds are meant to help men's performance.
For the ladies, ginger sunflower seeds, almonds and flax seeds apparently have the same effect.
Both varieties of the cereal cost around $13, and are currently available online and in Canada.
The maker of the product says he hopes to expand his distribution.
You can read the full article here .


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Quality Damper Installation - Shock AbsorberWritten by on August 20, 2012 Wait, this is not what you think... A harmonic damper is more than just a place to point your timing light. A quality damper installed correctly will protect your expensive racing engine (and make you faster).
Any engine, even the most power-deficient four-cylinder puttering away in your grandmother's grocery getter sedan is little more than controlled mayhem.
Well, that may be overstating things a bit, but when you think about it, that's not too far off. The point of any gasoline fueled piston engine is to convert the raw energy created from a controlled burn of highly flammable fuel--that's so fast it might as well be called an explosion--into useful work. And things only get worse when you talk about a circle track racing application. Now we're adding compression, increasing the amount of air and fuel crammed into the combustion chambers before the spark is fired and speeding up the rpm, which means more explosions every second. Add the fact that race engines use the lightest components possible to increase efficiency, and you can see how the forces of combustion can create twisting and bending forces that can rob the engine of its power and cause component failures. A race engine turns the energy from combustion into a spinning crankshaft by using a piston, which is pushed down the cylinder bore from the dramatic spike in pressure which comes from rapidly burning the air/fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. Attached to the underside of the piston is the connecting rod, which in turn connects to the crankshaft's rod journal. Because it is offset from the crankshaft's centerline, the rod journal acts as a lever, which rotates the crank.
The problem is that the pressure buildup from combustion isn't exactly gentle--not by a long shot. When the air/fuel mixture in one chamber fires off, the pressure quickly spikes and that pressure is resisted by the inertia of the mass of engine components and even the traction of the tires on the racetrack. Meanwhile, other pistons and connecting rods on other areas of the crank are meeting resistance as they are trying to compress the air/fuel mixture in preparation for firing in other combustion chambers. The result from all these different forces is that the crank--even though it may seem stiff and immovable--actually twists and flexes because of the extreme forces acting along its length. The crank journal can actually twist a bit during the power stroke. Then, when the force is reduced enough for the crank to spring back, it doesn't just return to its original shape right away. Instead, it acts like a spring, twisting back and forth until it settles down. But in a running engine that's continually firing off fresh charges of air and fuel, getting time to settle down simply isn't possible.
In fact, as the engine moves through its rpm range, it can reach a point where the power pulses from ignition of the air/fuel mixture will eventually match the natural frequency of the crankshaft. When this happens the vibrations moving through the crank can build upon each other and gain strength to the point that it has damaging results. Racing an engine without protection from these vibrations can cause damage to the bearings, flexplate or flywheel failure, loosened bolts, a broken timing chain, and erratic timing and valvetrain problems. And over time the crankshaft will weaken and fail, normally at the snout. The solution is to use a harmonic damper to absorb the vibrations, or small shocks, running up and down the length of the crankshaft. Many people also refer to harmonic dampers as balancers, but since almost all race engines are internally balanced that's a bit of a misnomer. A quality race damper has a zero balance so that it won't affect a properly balanced rotating assembly.
Most dampers use a weighted steel ring bonded to the outer shell with rubber rings. The rubber allows the steel ring to move slightly which helps dampen vibrations. But Fluidampr has recently released a new damper designed specifically for oval track racers. The new damper, which Fluidampr calls the CT Gold, is based on the company's signature fluid-filled dampers--but with a twist. "With all of our dampers we use our viscous technology," explains Fluidampr's Ivan Snyder. "The basic construction is we have a housing with an internal inertia ring--some people call it a flywheel. And then between the housing shell and the inertia ring or 'flywheel ring' is our own viscous silicone which is 45,000 times thicker than 30-weight motor oil. "But with the CT Gold we have a material in there between the housing and the inertia ring in addition to the silicone that causes that internal inertia ring to be centered at all times. So with our conventional damper if the engine sits the internal inertia ring will tend to settle. But with the CT Gold that can't happen."
Snyder declined to explain exactly how the centering system works, saying that it is a patent pending technology that Fluidampr has worked on specifically for its racing dampers, but the idea is certainly worthwhile. If the inertia ring is allowed to settle, the entire engine can become unbalanced during the first few seconds after startup which can, potentially, lead to bearing damage. "With the changes to the CT Gold," Snyder adds, "we also noticed that above 6,000 rpm--which is where most racers are most of the time--that the damper exhibited slight improvements in torsional vibration control. So it is also a little bit better at racing rpm than our standard damper."
In addition, there are a couple other potential advantages to the viscous damper construction. Primarily, elastomeric dampers using a rubber ring should always be tuned to the engine package. Different engines, particularly race engines with different peak power levels, create different harmonics. So engineers must configure the damper to the application. This is one reason a stock damper very rarely works well on a racing engine. Because it is tuned for a much milder engine normally operating not far above idle, a stock damper will struggle at high rpm on a powerful racing engine. Not only does the damper do a poor job of absorbing vibrations and harmonics, but the excessive movement of the inertia ring against the elastomeric rubber it is bound within creates heat that will cause premature failure of the elastomeric component. "When you are racing an elastomeric damper, the builder has to know the details of the engine so that they can choose the right durometer of the elastomer rings in order to tune to the frequency of the harmonics the engine produces," Snyder explains. "Whereas, with the viscous fluid damper it doesn't matter what your engine package is. We only sell one version of the CT Gold because it works equally well with any engine package or power level. "Plus, in a gasoline performance application (Fluidampr also sells a lot to the diesel truck market), these dampers don't wear out. So they don't need to be returned to us and be rebuilt. I've had guys send these dampers back to me after 20 years in drag racing applications, and the silicone inside still looks brand-new. As long as the damper isn't damaged in a wreck--say the housing gets dented or something--the damper doesn't wear out."
Of course, what we really wanted to find out is if Fluidampr's new CT Gold damper will help you win races. So when we were dyno testing a recent Chevy Super Street class racing engine which we finished up in last month's issue of Circle Track, we decided to put the damper to the test. As a baseline, we used a standard Chevrolet damper off the 602 crate engine we were using as the foundation for the Super Street build. We figured we'd see some improvement simply based on the smaller size of the Fluidampr (6.25 inches versus 8 for the Chevy piece) and reduced weight (8.6 pounds versus 14), but the actual difference on the dyno surprised us. For the results, check out the dyno graph included in this article. A harmonic damper is more than just a place to point your timing light. A quality damper installed correctly will protect your expensive racing engine (and make you faster).
More Photos From This Article View Slideshow
There are few components of any type that work equally well on any engine package. Because it cases the inertia ring inside a thick, viscous silicone instead of rubber rings, Fluidampr says that as long as the crank snout diameter doesn't change its CT Gold damper can do exactly that.1 Notice that there are no bolts or fasteners on Fluidampr's CT Gold harmonic damper. That's because it isn't rebuildable. Fluidampr says the CT Gold won't wear out like an elastomer damper; as long as it isn't damaged in a wreck it will not need to be replaced.2 Fluidampr's Ivan Snyder says that you should only consider the crank key as a mechanism for making sure the timing marks on damper are lined up properly. It's actually the press fit between the id of the damper and the crank snout that's important. Ideally, you want 0.0005- to 0.0015-inch of press fit. Before installing the damper, measure the diameter of the crank snout; a Chevrolet small-block should measure between 1.246 to 1.2465 inches. Although no damper manufacturer will recommend it, if you find the press fit is too tight you can have your machinist hone the id of the damper a few thousandths to get you out of a jam.3 Avoid the temptation to install your damper on the snout of the crank by wailing on the crank bolt with an impact wrench. That's practically begging to damage the threads inside your expensive crank. Instead, use a dedicated damper installer like you see here.4 To eliminate the chance of galling, apply a thin film of assembly lube to either the outside of the crank snout or the id of the damper to help it slide into place smoothly without damaging either metal surface.5 Settle the damper onto the snout by hand until it gets tight, thread the installer into the snout and fit the rest of the components like you see here.6 By using two wrenches, you can spin the large nut down the installer to press the damper onto the crank snout. A large bearing between the damper and the nut allows the damper to be pressed on without scrubbing the nut directly against—and damaging—the damper.7 This is one tip that doesn't have anything directly to do with the damper, but can improve how well you can set the timing is to squeeze a large dollop of silicone on the back of your timing pointer before installing it. The silicone will help secure the timing pointer to the timing cover to keep it from vibrating. This will help you set your timing more precisely.8 Never trust your timing pointer to be correct. Whenever you can, it's always a good idea to install both the damper and pointer before before the cylinder heads so that you can confirm that when the timing pointer points to "0" on the damper that the number one piston is really at top dead center.
9 Here's a useful tip we got from KT Engine Development during the dyno test. If you are using a stamped steel pointer like this, once you've confirmed the zero mark trim the pointer back like you see here so that it is very obvious which part of your pointer you are aiming against. This can help eliminate a mistake if you are making a last-minute timing adjustment at the racetrack in a hurry.10 The timing marks aren't the only thing to find on the outside of the damper. This CT Gold is SFI compliant, and this etching on the outside of the damper proves it.11 Here's a comparison of the stock Chevy damper (left) like you will find on many Street Stock engines as well as Chevy's 602 and 604 crate engines. The Chevy damper is 8 inches in diameter and weighs in at 14 pounds. The Fluidampr CT Gold unit on the right, however, weighs just 8.6 pounds. But that's not all. The advantage of the reduced weight is multiplied because the reduced 8.6-inch diameter of the Fluidampr means that the weight that remains is closer to the crankshaft centerline and easier to spin up.12 First up on the dyno is the standard damper. It did its job well, but we didn't see anything unexpected.13 We thought the CT Gold damper would help the engine accelerate faster on the racetrack thanks to its reduced weight, but we weren't sure if that would correlate to power numbers on the engine dyno, which works differently. But we were impressed by the Fluidampr unit, which produced more horsepower all the way through the pull.


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A friend mentioned last night that a friend of theirs was trying to find out about some sort of North American air pass - they believed with Star Alliance.
Are there air passes like this - that offer either unlimited or multiple hops for reduced prices? Not just with Star Alliance, but anyone? And if so, what are the basic terms?


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Coupon codes are not working?
I'm trying to make a purchase today and use a @Jumbowoot coupon that expires on 5/30 and I keep getting an error message "Whoops! That coupon code didn't work" after about 30 seconds of the website "thinking" (spinning circle). Are there bugs in the checkout with the coupons working?
17 Answers answer
Okay, I just tried a different coupon code and that one's not working either.
Can you make the purchase and contact support to have them deduct the coupon? It seems like I have heard of that being done before when a user forgot while checking out.
@jsimsace: I may have to try that, since I'm on 20+ minutes of trying to checkout and I still can't get any coupons to work. :-(
Screw it. I completed my purchase without the coupon and sent an email to email@example.com requesting that they apply my coupon to my purchase. Boo, woot, boo.
@90mcg112: I forget all the time and the Staff quickly manually applies it for me.
Coupon codes are working for me, but I had the same "waiting 30 seconds" thing. That is weird. Hopefully a staff member sees this thread.
Sorry to be so late answering this. We have identified a problem with using coupons and the developers are working on it. In the meantime, if you want to use a coupon, just email firstname.lastname@example.com with your order number and coupon code. They'll be glad to help you.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thank you to all that jumped in to answer the question!
@thunderthighs: Well, not only was my $5 coupon NOT applied to my order yesterday, but Woot overcharged me an additional $5 on shipping, too! I've received an email that I was refunded the overcharged shipping, but I want to make sure that I'm refunded both the overcharged shipping AND my coupon. Jeez, guys.
@90mcg112: Sorry for the issues. You were refunded a total of $10 for the coupon and for the overcharged shipping.
Please feel free to email us if you need further assistance.
Coupon Codes aren't working for me either. Tried to order a Dyson using a code. The thinking circle appears, then disappears. There is no message, and no discount applied.
@denniswkam: I have not received a refund for my coupon. Can you please look into this?
@denniswkam @jumbowoot @thunderthighs: Sorry to keep insisting on this, but email@example.com keeps telling me I received a $10 refund ($5 overcharge for shipping + $5 coupon) but this is not true. I received only a $5 refund. When I send back a reply to the response from email@example.com I get back the same story. No one appears to be paying attention to what I am saying.
@90mcg112: Sorry you're not seeing the refunds, but I assure you that both were issued. It's possible that the second refund hasn't posted to your account yet.
Sometimes it can take a few days to a week for the refund to show on your statement.
@denniswkam: If it's the case that I was issued two (2) $5 refunds, then I agree that the second $5 refund may not have shown up yet. But, the email responses I have been receiving from email@example.com are telling me that I was issued a $10 refund. Which is not the case, since I am only seeing one (1) $5 refund. Not one (1) $10 refund.
@denniswkam: Still no second $5 refund and still no response from email@example.com. I may have to go to my credit card company next. This is NOT the service I expect from woot.
@denniswkam @jumbowoot @thunderthighs: It has now been a full 7 business days and still no second $5 refund. As I've been saying all along. Can you look into this now that I've waited for the end of the 7 days that you asked?
@90mcg112: did you ever get the full refunds? i got a woot coupon adjustment once and it took a while but eventually applied. i just kept checking my bank account everyday


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ALTER BRIDGE are thrilled to announce they will be returning to the UK for a six-date arena tour this October. The upcoming tour marks the band's first time back in the UK since November 2011. In the interim, guitarist Mark Tremonti released his debut solo record All I Was, singer/guitarist Myles Kennedy returned fronting Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, and drummer Scott Phillips teamed up with friends in Sevendust to form Projected. Alter Bridge toured extensively in support of their last album ABIII, released in 2010. That tour was immortalized in the band's now legendary sold-out performance at London's Wembley Arena in November 2011 and released as the Alter Bridge: Live At Wembley DVD. Currently, the band - completed by bassist Brian Marshall - are hard at work writing/recording their new album, set for release via Roadrunner Records this September.
Frontman Myles Kennedy exclaims, "Thrilled to be returning to the UK with Shinedown and Halestorm later this year! I'm looking forward to reconnecting with the part of the world that embraced Alter Bridge from the start."
Dates are as follows:
Wed 16th Oct - NOTTINGHAM Arena
Thu 17th Oct - BIRMINGHAM NIA
Fri 18th Oct - LONDON Wembley Arena
Sun 20th Oct - CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena
Mon 21st Oct - GLASGOW Hydro
Tue 22nd Oct - MANCHESTER Arena
Rounding out the bill are SHINEDOWN and recent Grammy Award winners, HALESTORM.
Hailing from Jacksonville, FL, Shinedown has been touring in support of their fourth studio album, 'Amaryllis'. Charismatic frontman Brent Smith comments: "We are truly honoured to be playing with Alter Bridge in the UK this year. We are such big fans of the band, and admire them greatly. Rock n' roll is a way of life for all of us in SHINEDOWN, and we are so excited to be apart of such an amazing tour!"
Fresh off their own recent UK dates, HALESTORM already can't wait to get back to these shores this Autumn. The are still celebrating their recent Grammy win for 'Best Metal/Hard Rock Performance' for single 'Love Bites (And So Do I)', taken from their current album 'The Strange Case Of...'. Guitar-wielding banshee Lzzy Hale had this to say, "I'm so excited to be sharing the stage with our friends in Shinedown and Alter Bridge! I am so lucky to be the little sis of Rock on this tour. All of these men have been so influential to my life, and are tremendous performers. Anyone attending one of these shows better be prepared to leave the building barefoot, cuz the lot of us are gonna rock your socks off!"
General tickets go on sale 9am Friday 5th April, priced at £25 regionally / £26.50 London and are available from www.ticketmaster.co.uk or www.livenation.co.uk.
Want to get your tickets two days earlier? Record label Roadrunner have a limited amount of presale tickets available for the tour. To order tickets 48 hours before they go on general sale, visit alterbridge.seetickets.com. This special presale starts Wednesday 3rd April at 9am.


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Activity for the individual child
Age group: 18-40 months
Duration of activity: 10 minutes
This activity is best when your child has lots of room to move.
- Chant the following rhyme, and teach your toddler the movements to go along with the words:
(arms outstretched)
Its propeller spins around and sings
(spin arms)
The airplane goes up
(arms up)
The airplane goes down
(arms down)
The airplane goes through clouds all over town.
("fly" around)
More on: Activities for Toddlers
From The Everything Toddler Activities Book Copyright © 2006, 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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If your child suddenly grows weak, tired, and nauseated, your youngster probably has the flu or some other virus. But the symptoms could also be warning signs of type 1 diabetes.
Although there's no cure for type 1 diabetes, the disease can be managed.
Parents need to know that they have done nothing wrong and that there is nothing they could have done that could have prevented type 1 diabetes from occurring. Genetics may play a role in the development of this disease, but viral or other factors contribute to its onset.
Learn about the disease and its management. After a diagnosis, work closely with your health care provider to learn about the disease and create an effective management plan.
Treatment involves insulin injections up to several times a day and monitoring blood sugar levels during the day and occasionally overnight. The levels are checked by pricking an approved area of skin and placing a drop of blood on a chemical strip that is then inserted into a sugar meter, called a glucometer. The glucuometer detects a signal to calculate the blood sugar level. The level is displayed on the meter's screen.
Create an effective diet and exercise regimen. Monitoring and managing blood sugar levels is vital to the treatment of type 1 diabetes. In addition to insulin, proper food and regular exercise are key elements of diabetes control. Daily blood sugar monitoring will tell you if your child is experiencing low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) or high blood sugar (hyperglycemia).
To maintain steady sugar levels, a child with type 1 diabetes should eat a well-balanced diet with enough calories to prevent hypoglycemia, but not enough calories to cause an excessive and abnormal increase in blood glucose.
Children with diabetes should engage in normal childhood activities. Exercise improves insulin's action, which can make sugar levels fall. To prevent significantly low blood sugar levels (called hypoglycemia), follow a regular meal schedule, and keep in mind that your child may need an extra snack before exercising. A child with type 1 diabetes may also require snacks throughout the day to maintain balanced sugar levels. If sugar levels do dip, the child may need to drink fruit juice or soda immediately.
Involve your child in the treatment process. Allowing your child to participate as much as he or she can helps build your youngster's self-confidence.
Some school-age children with diabetes may need special accommodations during the school day. If you need help working with the school system, local parent support groups, through organizations, such as the American Diabetes Association, can refer you to resources that can assist you. Depending on the severity of your child's diabetes, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Civil Rights Act may justify additional support for your child's educational needs.
Ask your doctor about new treatment options. Insulin injections can now be given with a pen or wand-like instrument, making the process easier and quicker.
Newer glucose monitors require a smaller blood sample, are easier to use, and store data that can be downloaded to a computer for evaluation or presentation to your doctor. With some newer machines, blood may be obtained from areas other than the fingertips. All meters are different, so be certain to check the owner's manual before using it.


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Since Jews don't believe in hell for unbelievers, what will happen to Satan? Will he be punished for eternity?
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Jews don't believe in eternal hell - hell is time limited to 1 year (or 11 months).
But hell is not just a place of punishment, it's a place for a soul to be "cleaned" and prepared for it's next reincarnation. It is said the "fire" of hell is really the feeling of shame a person feels for his actions.
So placing Satan in hell would not make any sense in that light, since Satan is not a person (or soul) who needs punishment.
Additionally Satan is an angel of God who was commanded to act as he does. Unlike the Christian belief, Satan is not rebelling against God.
In Christianity evil comes from Satan and good from God. In Judaism evil is simply the absence of good - it does not come from any entity. God is the sole power, there are no other supernal powers.
In Bava Basra 16a it says that Satan is the yetzer hara. According to Sukah 52a, the yetzer hara will be slaughtered in the future.
"Satan" isn't an individual being opposed to God the way he is in Christianity. "The satan" is a job description; it's basically the angel who will act as prosecuting attorney when you come to be judged, and is the one God sends to test/prove people like Job. You see ha-satan in the midrash; for example, there is one about how when Avraham is on his way to offer Yitzchak up as a burnt offering, ha-satan keeps interfering -- by becoming a river and blocking the way, by placing doubts in Avraham's mind, by trying to turn Yitzchak against him, and so on. But the key point is that ha-satan acts at God's direction.


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Victor Mora is probably the most important Spanish comics writer of the twentieth century. He started his career at age twenty, translating for a publisher in Barcelona. Mora's first and probably only attempt to draw his own comic, was 'Capitan Kerr' in 1950. Afterwards, he turned to journalism and writing novels. In 1956 he started his career in writing comics with the 'Capitan Trueno' series for the artist Ambros, under the pseudonym of Victor Alcazar. Soon, Mora expanded his activities with new series for important Spanish artists like Francisco Hidalgo ('Doctor Niebla'), Carlos Giménez ('Delta 99') and Victor de la Fuente (the western 'Sunday').
Keyn (El Globo)
Again with Giménez, he started the science fiction series 'Dani Futuro' in 1969, published in Spain in Gaceta Junior, but also in France in Tintin. Afterwards, Mora wrote 'Supernova' for José Bielsa and 'El Corsario de Hierro' for Ambros. From 1973, he worked for the French market. He started out with several comics for Pilote, like 'Arcane' with Brocal Remohi, 'Les Chroniques de l'Innommé' with Luis Garcia and stories with Aldoma Puig and Longaron.
Artwork by Carlos Giménez
For Pif magazine, Mora wrote 'Amicalement Vôtre', after the television series and illustrated by Raphaël Marcello. In 1979 he wrote 'Félina' for Annie Goetzinger, published in magazines like Circus, Pilote and Charlie Mensuel. That same year Victor Mora wrote the first 'Gigantik' story for José Maria Cardona.
Throughout the 1980s, Mora wrote new series for Alfonso Font ('Sylvestre', 'Tequila Bang'), Antonio Parras ('Inoxydables') and Victor de la Fuente ('Les Anges d'Acier'). Since 1986 he took up his first comic series again, 'El Capitán Trueno', this time illustrated by J. Blasco, L. Bermejo, J. Redondo and later J.M. Burns.
Artwork by Victor de la Fuente
(in spanish)


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Ford 351 Boss Engine Build - Late Model Boss, Part ThreeWritten by on April 5, 2010 Charlie's Automotive Finishes Up Circle Track's Nascar Late Model Stock Race Engine Based On Ford's New Boss Block And N351 Cylinder Heads
In the last installment of our NASCAR Late Model Stock engine build, brothers Charlie and Robert Long of Charlie's Automotive completed filling out the Ford 351 Boss block with a Crower crank and rods along with a set of Wiseco pistons. And in case your dog ate the last issue of Circle Track before you got a chance to read it, we courted a little heresy with the build by using Chevrolet-spec LS rods and pistons. Charlie Long has found this works because he likes Wiseco's excellent LS piston forging with its boxed design, and the rods are the maximum 6.250 length and have shown excellent durabil-ity. This works, however, but does require a bit of machine work on the underside of the pistons because Chevrolets use an offset on the rods while Fords do not. This means when you bolt Chevy-spec rods to a Ford-style crankshaft, there may be contact between the small end of the rod and the side of the piston pin boss.
This month, Charlie and Robert finish the motor and prepare to go racing. Next month, for the final installment, we'll be done turning wrenches and will take our Boss-based motor racing in a NASCAR Late Model Stock big money race. So check out the rest of this build and stay tuned to see if it all pays off.
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Before installing the heads, Robert Long double checks piston clearance to the top of the block. He wants each piston to be between 0.008 and 0.010 below the deck at TDC to maximize squish, which promotes good fuel burn. Also, since most Late Model Stock rulebooks only have a minimum cc rule for the combustion chambers and no compression rule, you can sometimes gain a bit with Fords because the 10-degree valve angle means valve pockets aren't required in the top of the pistons like Chevrolets.After checking, Charlie Long found the valve guides to be dead on. The expense of adding bushed guides with Ford's new N351 heads are not necessary, and all that needed to be done was to hit each of the guide bores with a hone to open up the clearance slightly and add a crosshatch pattern which helps keep oil around the valve stems.Charlie's uses a Drake water pump from Van Dyne Engineering on practically all of its Ford engines because it is efficient and engineered with an integral backing plate. One odd feature, though, is this pump only comes with a 2-inch diameter hose inlet when almost all racing radiators are made for 1.75-inch hoses. To fix this Charlie's has to cut down the o.d. on a mill.After extensive testing, the Long brothers have settled on PSI valvesprings distributed through CV Products. These springs are chamfered on the i.d. to keep them from rubbing on the steps of the retainers, which significantly helps with longevity.The valvesprings will be on the cylinder heads at a 1.810-inch installed height. That will give them 180 pounds of pressure on the seat and 425 open.The valves are stainless steel units from Ferrea. The sizes are maxed out to the rulebook limits: 2.020 inches for the intakes and 1.600 for the exhausts. The stems are all 11/32-inch in diameter.Precision Products & Performance Center produces these solid flat tappet lifters. They are high end, but Charlie says they are necessary if you expect your lifters to live in a very high rpm application with an aggressive camshaft. The tool steel lifters are exceptionally hard, and PPPC holds the outside diameter to extremely tight tolerances to reduce the chances of sticking a lifter. They are also rebuildable, which includes regrinding and polishing the tappets, which makes the lifters more affordable if you reuse them after a rebuild. Finally, notice the pressurized oiling hole in the tappet face which injects oil between the lifter and the cam lobe to prevent lobe wear.
With aggressive flat tappet race cams, killing a lobe during break-in is a very real possibility if everything isn't done correctly. This includes coating the tappet faces with special lube developed for flat tappet camshafts.This is the guts of the custom oil pan from C-Line engineering. As you can see, it's extensively baffled to maintain oil control and keep it around the pickup at all times.For NASCAR LMS racing, Edelbrock's dual plane intake (PN 2782 for Fords) is the only thing allowed. We got ours-as well as the two-barrel carb adaptor sitting on top-from CV Products.The sump of this pan is quite large at 14-by-14 inches across the bottom. This means Charlie's can get nine quarts in the pan without any windage problems. The extra oil means there is less chance for starving the bearings, plus it stays cooler during extra distance races.The intake gaskets are provided by CV Products. The Longs prefer to glue them in place on the heads before installing the intake manifold. This also gives you the chance to inspect the gasket to make sure none of it is extending into any of the intake ports. If it is, you can trim the offending material away with a razor blade.
Charlie's went with Crower's full roller aluminum rocker arms to finish off the valvetrain. The ratios are 1.70:1 for the intakes and 1.60 for the exhausts.We went to CV products and had it spec out the racing alternator, power steering pump, fuel pump, and the accessory drive system to run it all. Everything works as a system, and besides being lightweight and low drag (so that more horsepower goes out the end of the crankshaft), it all bolts right up. No more late night runs to the auto parts store hunting for just the right belt.Charlie says that a stud girdle significantly helps maintain valve control, so we will also be installing this girdle from Crower as well. Unfortunately, we didn't have the extra long locks on hand when finishing the engine build (as you can see from the previous picture), but Charlie had them on for the dyno testing and later when racing this motor.Extra tall fabricated valve covers from Moroso provide plenty of clearance for the rockers, which can sometimes be a troubling fit on Fords. Here, you can also see the thick, low resistance plug wires we're using, which are also from Mel's.Although the rules are specific that a Holley two-barrel carb must be run, there is a lot to gain by having your racing carb built by a quality carb tuner. The Long brothers prefer to have their racing carburetors tuned by VDL Fuel Systems (and they prefer to keep that to themselves by removing all identifying stickers.) but we're giving away their secret.


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Although the new Congress still has work ahead on fiscal issues, the tax landscape has been well-defined by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
We held a special call on January 10 to provide an overview of the current tax landscape and to discuss the implications for planning. If you were not able to attend, listen to an audio replay.
Suzanne L. Shier
Suzanne L. Shier is the Wealth Planning Practice Executive and Chief Tax Strategist/Tax Counsel for Wealth Management at Northern Trust and serves on the Wealth Management Operating Group. She is responsible for leading Wealth Planning Advisory Services and for providing thought leadership on wealth planning and tax issues of interest to clients and their advisors, with a special emphasis on wealth planning and tax policy, legislation, strategies, trends and developments.
Prior to joining Northern Trust, Suzanne spent 26 years as a partner at Chapman and Cutler LLP in Chicago, ultimately leading the firm's Trusts and Estates practice, representing individuals, charitable organizations, and corporate fiduciaries in a full range of wealth planning and fiduciary matters, including philanthropy, domestic and international wealth planning, and fiduciary administration.
Suzanne is an adjunct professor in the Master of Laws in Taxation Program at Northwestern University Law School and also a frequent speaker and author. She has been quoted in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg and has received numerous professional honors and recognitions, including selection for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America in Trusts and Estates.
Suzanne earned her bachelor's degree with distinction in economics and sociology from the University of Michigan in 1982. She received her law degree, cum laude, from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1985 and a master of laws in taxation from the DePaul University College of Law in 1997.
In the civic community, Suzanne supports diversity and education initiatives. She has been involved with the Executive Committees and Boards of Directors of Gads Hill Center and the Chicago Coalition of Women's Initiatives in Law. Suzanne is Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Chicago Scholars, a college access program for high potential urban students, and a Trustee of Hope College.
Suzanne is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and a member of the Chicago Bar Association, Chicago Estate Planning Council, American Bar Association, International Bar Association and the International Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.
R. Hugh Magill
R. Hugh Magill is an Executive Vice President of Northern Trust Corporation, Chicago, where he serves as Chief Fiduciary Officer and Global Director of Trust Services. In this capacity he is responsible for Northern's fiduciary services to clients nationally and internationally.
Prior to joining Northern Trust in September, 1989, Hugh practiced law privately in Chicago, and worked in the Trust Department at The First National Bank of Chicago where he served as Assistant to the Chief Investment Officer. Magill received a B.A. degree, cum laude, from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and a J.D. degree from the University of Minnesota Law School, where he was named a distinguished alumnus in 2005.
Hugh is a member of the Chicago, Illinois and American Bar Associations, the Chicago Estate Planning Council, and the Christian Legal Society. He is licensed to practice law in Illinois and Minnesota and admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court. He is a faculty member of the American Banker's Association National Trust School and has lectured for the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, The Heckerling Institute, The Notre Dame Institute, the Northwestern University Center for Family Enterprise, regional bar associations and estate planning councils, and Northern Trust on estate and charitable planning, trust management, family governance, and fiduciary risk management.
He is a trustee of the Covenant Board of Pensions and Benefits, and he serves on the Boards of the Block Museum of Art, Ministry Mentors, The Chicago Sunday Evening Club, several foundations, and serves as a member of the Dean's Cabinet for the Generations Capital Campaign for the University of Minnesota Law School. He serves on the Editorial Board of Trusts & Estates magazine, the executive council of the Trust Management Association, and has authored articles for Trust & Estates, Trust & Investments, and Wealth magazines.


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I'm attempting to switch from a Win7 system to Ubuntu 11.10 running Unity. My current two gfx cards + two monitors setup is not going to work as I want (multiple x servers), so I want to buy a new single gfx card with two DVI outputs that I hope will simplify things.
I'm a bit overwhelmed by choice though! It seems nVidia is a good option - but which one? I want to spend the least that I need to. I use the machine for development not gaming. And there's plenty of space - I have a tower case.
many thanks


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I have a gas water heater. Starting yesterday, when the flame is on, the unit makes a squealing noise of moderate volume. The noise stops immediately when the flame turns off. This means it is not caused by water pressure in the tank, which would take at least a moment to stop after the flame switched off. What causes this sound?
My guess is that something in the gas supply line of the heater is whistling (a vibration is being induced from the flow of gas). This could indicate a blockage or deformation of one or more of the gas jets. It's unlikely to be any problem with the exhaust flue or with the water in the tank, as you say.
The other thing it might be, depending on the tank's proximity to your gas meter, is that the gas reg on the meter (which steps down pressure from the gas main to a level suitable for your home's appliances) is starting to fail, and the heater, being closest to the gas reg, is picking up a vibration through the gas line that is induced by the failing reg. This is less likely especially if no other appliance makes the slightest noise, and the reg itself isn't making any noise when gas is flowing.
As far as fixing it, this is something I'd leave to a pro, but that's just because I know enough about gas to know I can seriously screw it up. The fix would likely be to replace any obviously crushed or deteriorated gas pipes and fittings in the HWH installation, and possibly disassemble the line back to the wall to make sure there aren't any nicks or dents in the pipe ends from where the installer dropped and damaged one, then installed it anyway.
I experienced the same bad squeal when running a Rinnai 200e instant hot water heater. It was explained to me as "kettling". The water was boiling in the heat exchanger. A bit like the noise the bottom of a kettle makes when it is on a gas stove. The water pipes transmitted it loudly around the house as a squealing moan. We tried descaling the heat exchanger first then Rinnai thankfully replaced the heat exchanger no charge.
I just bought a Sears water heater and it was making a loud whining-droning noise. (the Sears store told me it was the flue that the non Sears plumber installed- this was baloney) I called Sears tech and the repairmen said it was a known problem in a gas valve- took him 10 minutes to fix it. I couldn't see exactly what he tweaked next to the burner. But until the maker of these units posts a consumer doable fix, I suggest you call the manufacturers tech support.
Have you checked your inlet pressure and compare with the manufacturer's specified manifold pressure? If the inlet pressure is too high, you may need to install an appliance regulator and adjust it to the manufacture's specified pressure.


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On this free 45-minute call, several national organizations, governmental agencies, local domestic violence programs, advocates, allies, survivors and their family and friends gather together to connect and refocus our efforts to end domestic violence and sexual assault. Each year, callers dial in to join the call and listen together in counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, meeting rooms, at school, at home, and at many other gatherings.Learn more [1].
Links:[1] http://www.nrcdv.org/dvam/node/187
[2] http://www.nsvrc.org/event-location/national


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I am reading an article "Differential Equations: Not just a bag of tricks" in the mathematics magazine. The author has given elementary examples of symmetry ($y=x^2$ symmetric about $y$ axis, $y=x^3$ symmetric about origin, $y=\sin x$ symmetric in translation by $2\pi$) and then proceeds to define:
These transformations are symmetries of $f$ because they map the graph of $f$ to itself. In general, for a function $f : \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ , a symmetry of $f$ is a continuous map from $\mathbb{R}^2$ to $\mathbb{R}^2$ that maps the graph of $f$ to itself and has a continuous inverse.
I do not understand why the introduction of $\mathbb{R}^2$ was needed and why the inverse was mentioned. Moreover, what is the importance of stressing continuous. Thank you.


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OSAP Applications and the Laurier Tuition Bursary Program
In order to be considered for general bursary assistance at Wilfrid Laurier University, all full time students are required to complete an OSAP application (full time as per the OSAP program requirements, therefore registered in a minimum 60% course, or 1.5 credits per term).
* Complete an OSAP application online
* SUBMIT ALL REQUIRED SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION TO THE STUDENT AWARDS OFFICE FOR PROCESSING. Note that an OSAP application is NOT complete until all of the required documentation has been processed by the Student Awards Office. If you are not sure of the required documentation, please log in to your OSAP account, as this will provide you with your list of supporting documentation.
* Submit the online application form for the general tuition bursary program, including the online student budget form component, for the applicable terms. If you have completed the student budget component of the online student profile(s), you are not required to complete this again for this program. Only one student budget form is required per academic year, for all programs that have a financial need component.
* An OSAP application, as well as the required supporting documentation must be submitted to the Student Awards Office by the bursary deadline in order to be considered for bursary assistance. Applications submitted without the completed documentation by the deadline will be considered "incomplete" and will not be assessed.
* If you are restricted from applying for OSAP, you are still eligible to apply for bursary assistance
* You must be officially restricted by OSAP, by the program requirements/guidelines of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
* If you are not a resident of the Province of Ontario, and are eligible through another province, you are not required to apply for provincial loan assistance from your home province in order to be eligible for bursary assistance.
* Students who are registered part time as per the OSAP program requirements (NOT part time as per the Registrar's Office at WLU), and are not eligible for OSAP assistance due to their course load (below 60%, or 1.5 credits per term) are not required to complete the OSAP application for part time students. Bursary applications will be accepted for students who are deemed to be part time as per the OSAP program regulations, without the OSAP application requirement.
* If you are eligible for OSAP loans, and decline the loan portion of your funding, you may be ineligible for assistance through the Laurier Tuition Bursary program.


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Category page
40,795pages on
this wiki
this wiki
A category designed to list all lists and reference tables on Memory Alpha.
The real world equivalent is at Category:Production lists.
Pages in category "Lists"
The following 45 pages are in this category, out of 99 total.(previous 200) (next 200)
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Several people have talked about having single edge knife so that you can cut down small trees. What is the proper way to cut or carve wood with a knife?
You really want a saw or camp axe for this purpose, but if using a knife you want one without serrations. Serrations are not a replacement for a saw. A saw cuts a kerf wider than the blade itself so it (with skill) doesn't jam. Serrations are usually placed near the handle which is exactly where you don't want them because this is where you have the most leverage for a push cut.
Getting onto technique itself, here are a couple of videos that show how to use a small knife (not a chopper) better than I could in words. If you have a proper fixed-bade you can use batoning which is a very powerful technique, but don't try it with a folder. (If you do have to use it with a folder, such as splitting wood in an emergency, unlock the handle a small angle so that each hit is not destroying the lock. This is dangerous and should not normally be attempted.)
Ray Mears - using a knife part 1 (knife skill starts 5 minutes in)
Ray Mears - using a knife part 2 (continues a minute or two into this video)
LearnBushcraft.co.uk knife skills
The start of this second video shows transverse batoning, the method that one would use to cut thicker or hard limbs with a small but sturdy fixed-blade knife.
Thinner and softer shoots and saplings can often be cut by bending the limb to pretension it, then cutting at an angle into the convex side. Be careful because you are cutting into what is effectively a spring.
What you want to do is find a good knife, that is partially serrated, so that you can have the choice of cutting things with the serrations or without...
I personally recommend the CRKT M16-10KZ (EDC) or another knife of the M16 line, as they cut small trees/shrubs quite easily. I've used the M16-10KZ (3" blade) to cut stuff like this before and it does it easily.
note: I am not affiliated with CRKT in any way, shape, or form.


text: Since I have been uploading people from public, I figured I should at least fill a request and show you "how to draw Olly Murs", step by step. Like with every performer whether they be actors, singers, writers, comedians or what have you, this lesson is just as fun to tackle as to listening to his music. Olly's full name is Oliver Murs, and he is as you know an English musician, singer and songwriter. He was a contender on the X-Factor back in 2009. He is best known for his performance when he sang Stevie Wonder's hits song 'Superstition'. As of right now he is being recognized for his 'Troublemaker' single that he did with Flo Rider. He also has hits; 'Please Don't Let Me Go', Heart Skips a Beat', and 'Thinking of Me'. Even though I don't listen to his style of music, I still wanted to fill the request on drawing Olly Murs. I know if you are a fan you will have fun. I shall return people so stay tuned I.


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6 Insane Stories of a Magician Who Helped Win WWII
How's this for a disclaimer: Much of what follows might be complete bullshit.
No one knows for sure.
Every now and then, we come across a man so epic, so larger-than-life, so PIMPTACULAR, that our sense of admiration compels us to tell his story. Jasper Maskelyne -- the magician who used his skills to fight Hitler -- was such a man, and then some. Or at least that's what the stories claim. Some of what's below has been confirmed as true; some of it is just too insane to be real. All of it was top secret.
That means that the world has to rely on Maskelyne's own retelling of his exploits and, you know, the guy was a goddamned magician. Illusion and self-promotion were his business. For that reason, his legend has grown over the decades. But if even half of this is real ... holy shit.
It all supposedly started with ...
#6. The Balloon Battleship Illusion
Here's the part we know is true:
Jasper Maskelyne was a third-generation magician who volunteered his services to the Royal Engineers when World War II broke out. He hated Hitler as much as the next guy, so why shouldn't he get to employ his unique illusionist skills in taking the Nazis down? OK, so it's hard to imagine what a magician would have to offer -- pulling a rabbit out of a top hat while wearing a flamboyant sequined jumpsuit only makes the enemy want to kill you more. Hell, there wasn't even a "magician soldier" in the G.I. Joe universe, and they had a guy who did nothing but throw crocodiles at people.
But, despite the idea being seemingly too silly for even a Saturday-morning cartoon, the Allies agreed. Not only did Maskelyne get his fancy ass promoted to major, he got an entire unit made up of handpicked artists, magicians, carpenters, electricians and criminals called the A-Force, aka The Magic Gang.
Yes, this really happened.
The A-Force's mission was to use magic to trick Axis forces. Correction: to use illusions to trick Axis forces.
As exciting as it must sound to have a real-life magician working on your behalf, the brass in charge weren't exactly keen on employing Maskelyne's unusual skill set. When he first enlisted, he was used as a freakin' troop entertainer, like some kind of Bob Hope. Somehow, being a glorified carny was not what Maskelyne had in mind when he enlisted. Just look at him. Clearly, this was a man who didn't have time for malarkey.
Via Maskelyne Magic
"This is bullshit."
The solution, as the story goes, was simple. And by "simple," we mean "cartoonish and insane." To convince the higher-ups that they could use an illusionist on the battlefield, he would float a fake but realistic version of the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee down the Thames. Just so we're clear, this wasn't a little tugboat that Maskelyne whipped together in his backyard. The Graf Spee was a 610-foot long juggernaut ...
... that had been scuttled the year before. So when Maskelyne created the illusion of the floating ship using a small balloon model and mirrors, his superiors were duly impressed. Because as much as the Allied forces wanted to defeat Hitler with their massive armament, what they really wanted to do was not have to fight Hitler because of their massive armament. A guy like Jasper Maskelyne could probably do some damage in that department.
Now, here is where we have to note that there are no surviving photographs of this balloon battleship (to be fair, there wouldn't necessarily be any even if it were true), so there are people who doubt that the illusion was actually pulled off. If not, whatever he did do persuaded the higher-ups to let him take his act to the battlefield. In other words, the man either showed them some mind-blowing magic or gave them an equally impressive line of bullshit.
"For my next trick, I'll turn her ass into a battleship."
That will be a running theme in this account.
#5. James Bond Gadgets for POWs
Regardless, everyone seems to agree that this part is true:
In 1939, the British military established MI9, a unit of intelligence agents devoted to aiding resistance fighters and freeing captured POWs. Getting key equipment inside hostile prison camps took some high-end trickery, and Jasper Maskelyne was one of the key advisers in that department.
Via Maskelyne Magic
Above: Maskelyne, showing off his combination cigarette/entrenching tool.
Nazi prison camps, it turned out, had to obey a few rules of the Geneva Conventions to maintain their good standing in the "Fair and Humanitarian Nations (Except for the One Part About the Holocaust) Club." And one of those rules was allowing care packages for prisoners from humanitarian groups, a fact that MI9 exploited mightily.
Even the Nazis from Hogan's Heroes would get suspicious if they started mailing saw-shaped packages to prisoners, so Maskelyne and his buddies created a number of clever, James Bond-esque contraptions such as playing cards that contained maps of the surrounding area and cricket bats where the handle contained a concealed saw, while the blade of the bat could be used as a shovel.
This baseball glove was actually an ingeniously concealed jackhammer.
Other trickery included shoelaces embedded with wire that could saw through bars, and they supposedly even embedded a map inside a gramophone record that the prisoners would never have found if somebody hadn't accidentally broken it. Another nifty plan was to send board games that contained real local currency, ensuring probably the most impassioned games of Monopoly in human history.
"Go directly to the firing squad. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 reichsmarks."
The MI9 team wound up getting more than 1,600 spy gadget care packages into German POW camps, slipping them right by the guards thanks to Maskelyne's trickery. But Maskelyne was thinking bigger.
#4. The Alexandria Harbor Deception
Although Egypt was technically an independent country at the outbreak of the war, its habit of hosting British troops made it a ripe target for Axis forces, especially since the Suez Canal was just a boat ride away from the Alexandria harbor. Speaking of the Alexandria harbor, wouldn't it be crazy if a magician and his ragtag gang of magical misfits hid an entire harbor from aerial bombers there?
Via German Federal Archive
"Repeat: The entire target area has vanished in a puff of blue smoke. Please advise."
If you said, "Yes!" you win at reading Cracked articles. The mission was simple. The harbor at Alexandria was critical to the Allies; it housed the royal fleet and served as the avenue to deploy reinforcements. Naturally, the Axis powers wanted to destroy it. Jasper Maskelyne was supposedly charged with the task of not letting that happen.
To set up his trick, Maskelyne first needed to move the entire harbor. About a mile away from Alexandria was another body of water called Lake Mariout. The port and the lake were separated only by a narrow isthmus of land:
So at night, and from 8,000 feet in the air, a bomber might have a hard time distinguishing one from the other. But it wasn't just a matter of setting up full-scale dummy harbor. Maskelyne had to make the Germans believe they were actually engaged in battle and that they had won. Otherwise, they'd just hit the right target the next day. So Maskelyne not only had to build a fake Alexandria harbor but also had to fake a war zone for the next day's reconnaissance pictures.
In the weeks leading up to the bombing (that intelligence assured them was totally going to happen), Maskelyne and his team created a 1:1 scale model of the Alexandria harbor using canvas ships and plywood buildings. More importantly, he duplicated the light grid and harbor lighthouse. But that was only half of the illusion. The other half was painting bomb craters on huge sheets of canvas and creating papier-mache bricks by the truckload.
German Federal Archive
"Of course it's the right harbor, Fritz. What do you think the British did, build a giant fake harbor replica in an adjacent lake?"
When the night of the attack arrived, the lights at Alexandria went off, the lights at Mariout went on and the Luftwaffe totally fell for the switcharoo. Maskelyne had anti-aircraft batteries on the ground fake-fighting back with fake shells, as well as a whole team over at the real Alexandria, setting up the rubble show for the next day. The craziest part of the story wasn't just that it worked, but that it worked for eight more nights.
Or not.
While the story has been reported in publications as reputable as The Boston Globe, some skeptics say the massive trick would have been impossible or ineffective, or that the actual stunt was much smaller or was the work of someone else and that Maskelyne just took credit like the asshole he was.
Via iCollector
"Bastogne? Stalingrad? That shit was all Maskelyne, baby."
If you're about to take to Google to try to find out the truth, good luck. Maskelyne's Wikipedia entry repeats these stories as historical fact, citing a 1983 book about Maskelyne which itself seems to rely on a 1949 book about Maskelyne called Magic: Top Secret, whose main source was, uh, Jasper Maskelyne.
Above: A totally objective account of absolute truth.
Again: Either the man was the greatest illusionist in history or was one of its biggest bullshit artists. Because the stories only get bigger and stranger from here ...


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I want to learn the C# language and I was wondering if prior knowledge of C++ would make it easier to learn? I have a large background in Java and am currently programming in (and therefore constantly improving on) C++. Would knowledge about the C++ syntax and structure help me understand C# more quickly, or is C# more akin to Java?
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closed as primarily opinion-based by Ixrec, Snowman, GlenH7, durron597, MichaelT May 17 '15 at 2:34
Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
If you want to learn C#, start developing in C#.
A lot of the useful effort will go to learning the .NET framework rather than the syntax, which will seem familiar with your knowledge from Java.
Have a look at C# in Depth which should keep you entertained and educated for a few years while you're learning.
No. If your intention is to only learn C# and you think of C++ as a beginners guide to C# you are wrong. C# is a lot more simpler than C++ in terms of refrences and (absense of)pointers. You will first learn C++ and its associated dangers and then learn how to "solve them" in C#.You will first learn what a "friend" is in C++ and then learn that it isnt present in c#. Then you will want to wonder why it wasnt included in C# . Save yourself the trouble and learn C# directly
With respect to learning C#, C++ will hardly add anything to Java (without adding junk, like low level pointy stuff, with it). Beyond the superficial syntactic similarities , C# and C++ models are worlds apart.