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Top Definition
A culchee (Irish countryside resident i.e. anywhere outside Dublin in the 26 counties of the republic)term for Snogging.
"I was caught shifting your mans sister lastnight just before i got me langer out"
Dave1892 tarafından 11 Nisan 2006, Salı
Trending Now
The term for sticking ones tongue down ones throat aggressively
I shifted the face off her last night.Shifting
petermanhardman tarafından 27 Ocak 2012, Cuma
Selling items or narcotics
"What's up?"
"I'm shifting some mandy"
"I'm shifting some mandy"
carpetting tarafından 9 Nisan 2015, Perşembe
The act of violently thrusting one's pelvic area forward, usually in the direction of another person. Often used my Minecrafters as a form of "virtual humping".
"Dude shift party in the fountain, gonna be shifting them so hard"
Best action ever Minecraft Shift Shifter
Best action ever Minecraft Shift Shifter
me11/06 tarafından 4 Eylül 2013, Çarşamba
another word for stealing in a shop or jacking from a shop
michael says to the shopkeeper "what the rasclat bombaclat man fink me shifting for, me was just buying some bombaclating orange juice for bombaclats sake, you fuking bombaclating talibane"
Sonic (london bre tarafından 30 Temmuz 2005, Cumartesi


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I am studying elliptic curves problems, which also includes study of related protocols such as ECIES. A there is a problem I don't understand operation $||$. What this operation mean?
Some stuff is mentioned on Wikipedia's Integration Encryption Scheme article, but this algoritm is better explain in book Guide to Elliptic Curves. This operation is mentioned in Alice's 3rd step:
$$ k_E || k_M = \operatorname{KDF}(S || S_1) $$

subset: commoncrawl


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Nick Yonyon
YONYON, Nick, 94, of Bellaire, Ohio, died Tuesday December 4, 2012, in Country Club Retirement Campus, Bellaire, OH.
Nick was born May 5, 1918, in Bellaire, Ohio a son of the late Paul and Ilinka "Ida" Zatezalo Yonyon.
He was a retired Tipple Operator at North American Coal Corporation No. 3 Mine, Powhatan Point, OH; a 1936 graduate of Bellaire High School; a 72-year proud member of the United Mine Workers of America. He served as Army Captain during World War II stationed at Guadal Canal.
Preceding him in death was three brothers Theodore Yonyon, Joseph Yonyon and George Yonyon; four sisters Ann Olinski, Amelia Papola, Daisy Visnic and Sophia (Sally) Yonyon; and a nephew, Larry Yonyon.
Surviving are five nieces and a nephew; six greatnieces and a great-nephew; and eight great-great-nieces and nephews.
Family and friends will be received at the Bauknecht-Altmeyer Funeral Homes and Crematory 441 37th Street Bellaire, Ohio Friday December 7, 2012 from 11 a.m. until time of funeral service at 1 p.m. with Fr. Rade Merick as Celebrant.
Interment follows in Powhatan Cemetery Powhatan Point, Ohio.
Belmont County Council of the American Legion will conduct Military Honors at 12:45 p.m. Friday from the funeral home.
Memorial contributions may be made to: Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Church Steubenville, OH.
Condolences may be expressed to the family at www.altmeyer.com.


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I'm a TA for an honors calculus course and I've come upon a homework problem (for which I'm supposed to write solutions!) that has me stumped. This is problem 12, in Chapter 9.13 in volume 2 of Apostol's Calculus book.
Find the critical values of $f(x,y) = (5x+7y-25)e^{-(x^2 + xy + y^2)}$ and classify them as max/min/saddle points.
The back of the book gives the solution as absolute min at $(-\frac{1}{26}, -\frac{3}{26})$ and absolute max at $(1,3)$, so I'm not so interested in just knowing the points.
However, if one sets $f_x = 0 = f_y$ and solves simultaneously, one finds that, say, $y$ satisfies a quartic polynomial (and it's nothing simple like a quadratic polynomial in $y^2$). Now, I'm aware that we do know the quartic formula, but I'm thinking it shouldn't be necessary to use it.
In the paragraph before these exercises (this is problem 12), Apostol says (paraphrased) "When $f(x,y) = e^{1/g(x,y)}$ with $g(x,y) = x^2 + 2 + \cos^2 y -2\cos y$, we can find the critical points via the usual method, but if instead we write $g(x,y) = 1 + x^2 + (1-\cos y)^2$, we see that $f$ has a relative maxima at the points at which $x^2 = 0$ and $(1-\cos y)^2 = 0$".
I mention this because I think this particular exercise should be solved via a clever trick as in the previous paragraph, but I've not been able to come up with the trick on my own.
Is there a nice trick for finding the critical points?
Thank you!


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New post commander installed
Published: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 at 11:47 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 at 11:47 a.m.
Louisiana Department Junior Commander Herbie Petit Jr. passes the gavel to new Post 11 Commander Gene Richard on July 10. Post commanders were installed this month at the American Legion posts in Thibodaux.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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'The Voice' Season 3 Top 12 Party at House of Blues
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| November 9, 2012 - 1:44 pm
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Are you going to take your kids to get a free haircut @ JCPenney's?
Personally I don't have kids and also didn't know JC Penney's still existed, but this is an odd campaign. Evidently free haircuts all month of August. I didn't know they were known for haircuts.
7 Answers answer
oh cool...i'm gonna tell my friends with kids about this. thanks!
btw, i love the original tags: kidnplay fade do
There are a limited number of slots available. Appointments ahead of time are wise. I think it's great.
It's a smart move by Penny's. It points out that they have hair salons, and also helps to improve their damaged image from the "repricing" disaster that they're trying to fix.
My mom used to take us to Penny's for haircuts back in the day.
Hm. I knew they had a photo studio, but not a salon. Apparently ours has both, so I might as well see if they have any open free cut appointments for late August. Thanks for the heads up!
I used to go to Penny's to get my haircut in middle school. That was a step up from "the lady around the corner's kitchen". I got the upgrade after I left her house in tears once after a particularly bad shearing. And I mean shearing - my hair was so short I was frequently mistaken for a boy that summer. And I was 12.
No but only because my teenaged girls have a preferred stylist.
nope, my kids already get free cuts at a friend's salon.
By the way, if you do get your kids' hair cut for free at Penny's or some other salon, have the decency to at least leave a buck or two in tips per haircut.


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10 Issues of FamilyFun Magazine for $3.99 + free shipping
$3.99/year (10 Issues/Year) with Coupon Code: WOOT (Up to 3 Years)
Disney's Family Fun for your whole family! Targeted for families with children ages three to twelve, each issue is packed with exciting activities & games, party plans, recipes, travel guides, educational projects, and tips on adding creativity and fun to your life. This magazine subscription will show you how to bring your whole family together and have fun.


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Back to Previous Page | Curriculum Home
LAA101: Expanding Comm S1 (2011-2012)
CURRICULUM PROGRAM: English as a Second Language
COURSE TITLE: Expanding Communication S1
COURSE LENGTH: 18 weeks
Major Concepts/Content: The English as a Second Language course Expanding Communication is designed for students whose primary language is not English and who are at a level 3 English proficiency. The level 3 ELL is considered to be at an intermediate stage of English proficiency. The ELL demonstrates decrease in hesitancy and difficulty with academic language and is developing reading comprehension and writing skills. This course is designed to increase English language proficiency, enhance academic language through direct instruction, and develop learning strategies to meet the demands of learning English and learning academic content through English. Communication skills, i.e. listening, speaking, viewing, reading and writing, are strengthened through the integrated learning of language and academic content. Content includes, development of both social and academic listening and speaking skills through dialogues, conversations, chants, role-playing, and oral reporting; the development of reading strategies, in both fiction and nonfiction, through previewing, determining main idea and details, inferring, analyzing, and evaluating written material; and the development of writing, both factual and creative, at all stages of the writing process including prewriting, drafting, responding to peer writing, revising, editing, and publishing. Vocabulary, syntax, grammar, and verbal skills necessary for the world of work and/or mastering content curriculum standards are presented and developed in authentic situations.
Major Instructional Activities: Instructional activities will be provided in individual, small group and whole class settings. Student activities will include, but will not be limited to, improving speaking and listening skills through listening to material for information and response, following oral directions, participating in conversations and discussions, responding to information, oral reading and reporting, pronunciation practice, language games and Reader's Theater. Activities to develop and improve comprehension of written English, both fiction and nonfiction, include, previewing reading selections, decoding vocabulary from context, determining main idea and details, restating or summarizing materials, using reference materials, and recognizing plot elements. Writing activities include sentence, paragraph, essay, letter writing, note-taking and creative writing of dialogues, stories, plays, and poetry. Instructional activities to support the student in mastering general content standards include, pre-teaching the language or vocabulary, activating prior knowledge, building background content knowledge and developing learning strategies.
Major Evaluative Techniques: Students will be evaluated on skill growth in the comprehending and creating of written and spoken English. Evaluation instruments include both summative and formative assessments such as: interdisciplinary activities, projects, diagnostic testing, content-based tests, and both teacher- and textbook-created assessments.
Course Objectives: Upon completion of the English as a Second Language course, Developing Communication, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate confidence in social interactions.
- Use English in socially and culturally appropriate ways.
- Demonstrate oral skills necessary to communicate effectively in social and academic environments.
- Understand and verbalize concrete and abstract experiences.
- Speak with comprehensible English pronunciation.
- Generate and organize ideas using a variety of planning strategies, such as graphic organizers.
- Apply learning strategies to improve comprehension and fluency.
- Comprehend written material, and respond to and evaluate it orally and in writing.
- Write accurate English sentences and paragraphs in a variety of forms.
- Write both factually and creatively in English for both social and academic purposes.
- Actively participate in the general education content classroom.


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Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math
See also: Dave Ramsey is Good at Psychology
If you're familiar with Dave Ramsey, then you've no doubt heard of his 'snowball' approach to paying down your debt. In short, Ramsey suggests that you make minimum payments on all but the debt with the lowest balance. Once the low-balance debt is paid off, you add the dollars that had been going there to what you've been paying against the next lowest debt. And so on. The idea is to pick up steam in paying down your debts by knocking them out one by one, and piling up the payments that would have gone to each of the paid off debts in order to knock out the next one. Sounds enticing, but is it a good idea?
To my mind, what you should really be doing is paying down the debts with the highest interest rate, regardless of balance. It just makes intuitive sense to pay off the most costly debts first. Once the debt with the highest interest rate is paid off, add those dollars to what you've been paying on the debt with the next highest interest rate, and so on. So who's right?
I was actually inspired to look into this in greater detail by a recent post over at the Wealthy Blogger (Update: That site, and thus the post, have gone missing). In that post, Mike introduces yet another approach. As outlined in The Automatic Millionaire, this approach is based on the ratio of the outstanding balance to the minimum amount due. Divide the latter into the former, and concentrate your payments on the debt with the lowest resulting value. Once that's paid, add the dollars that had been going there to what you've been paying on the debt with the next lowest ratio. Lather, rinse, repeat. Again, sounds like it might be a good idea. So let's look deeper.
Consider a family with the following debts:
Visa ($7,500 @ 13%, minimum payment = $150/month)
MasterCard ($10,000 @ 19%, minimum payment = $250/month)
Car Loan ($5,000 @ 8%, minimum payment = $275/month)
Note that I essentially picked these values out of thin air.
Now, let's first consider what happens when you make only the minimum payments month after month:
Months to pay in full: 72
Total amount paid: $10,685.54
Total interest paid: $3,185.54
Months to pay in full: 63
Total amount paid: $15,544.23
Total interest paid: $5,544.23
Car Loan:
Months to pay in full: 20
Total amount paid: $5,310.14
Total interest paid: $310.14
So it would take a grand total of 72 months and $31,539.91 to pay off the initial $22,500 in debt. Not too good.
Now let's assume our hypothetical couple can actually afford to pay $1,000 per month toward their debts, rather than just making the minimum payments. What's the best way to allocate these dollars? According to Ramsey, they should attack the car loan first, since it has the lowest balance. In other words, they'll be paying $150/month toward their Visa bill, $250/month toward their MasterCard, and the balance ($600/month) toward the car loan. Using this approach, the car loan gets paid as follows:
Car Loan:
Months to pay in full: 9
Total amount paid: $5,126.70
Total interest paid: $126.70
At that point, the next highest balance is the Visa, so they add the $600/month from the car loan to the $150/month they already been paying, and they finish off the Visa.
Months to pay in full: 19
Total amount paid: $8,477.38
Total interest paid: $977.38
And from this point on, the entire $1,000 gets poured into the MasterCard until it's gone.
Months to pay in full: 27
Total amount paid: $13,013.74
Total interest paid: $3,013.74
So it's all done in 27 months at a cost of $26,617.82. That's a net savings of 45 months and $4,922.09 in interest payments. Not too shabby. But could they do better?
Let's look at what would happen if they hit the highest interest rate first. In this case, they'd attack the MasterCard, Visa, and car loan, in that order. The result? The MasterCard ends up as follows:
Months to pay in full: 20
Total amount paid: $11,572.27
Total interest paid: $1,572.27
Coincidentally, due to the lower initial balance, the car loan ends up getting paid off during that same month, even thought they've only been paying the minimum amount each month.
Car Loan:
Months to pay in full: 20
Total amount paid: $5,310.14
Total interest paid: $310.14
So now the whole ball of wax gets applied to the Visa, wiping it out as follows.
Months to pay in full: 26
Total amount paid: $9,093.73
Total interest paid: $1,593.73
So they're out of debt in 26 months at a total cost of $25,976.14. That's a month sooner, and they've saved an additional $641.68.
What about the approach advocated in The Automatic Millionaire? In this case, the car loan has the lowest initial ratio (and it turns out that it remains lower until it's paid in full). Thus, as with Ramsey's approach, our hypothetical couple starts out hitting the car loan the hardest, at $600/month.
Car Loan:
Months to pay in full: 9
Total amount paid: $5,126.70
Total interest paid: $126.70
At that point, the MasterCard has the lowest ratio (and it remains lower than the Visa until it's paid off). So they switch to paying $850/month on their MasterCard and continue paying the minimum on their Visa.
Months to pay in full: 21
Total amount paid: $12,052.55
Total interest paid: $2,052.55
And now it's time to kill off the Visa.
Months to pay in full: 27
Total amount paid: $9,114.65
Total interest paid: $1,614.65
Thus, in this case, the more convoluted, ratio-based approach takes the same length of time as Ramsey's approach, although the remaining payments in that final month are slightly lower, bringing the total to $26,293.90. This is a savings over Ramsey's approach of $323.92, owing to the fact that the vagaries of the numbers that I picked to start with resulted in the high-interest MasterCard getting attacked before the Visa.
The bottom line…
Snowball: 27 months; $26,617.82
High interest first: 26 months; $25,976.14
Automatic: 27 months; $26,293.90
If you work through the math, the best you can hope to do (in this specific case, as well as in any other) is to attack the highest interest rates first. In some cases, Ramsey's approach will equal this approach (if lowest balances are on highest rate debts then the two approaches are the same), but it will never exceed it. Similarly, the approach advocated in The Automatic Millionaire will, in some cases, equal the performance of the high-rate approach – but only if the ratios work out such that the highest rate debts get paid first. But, like the 'debt snowball,' this approach will never beat the high-rate strategy.
With regard to Ramsey's approach vs. the Automatic approach, the relative performance for any given scenario will depend on the numbers. In some cases, Ramsey's approach will do better, in others it won't.
I should note here that, although the numerical differences in this particular example aren't that huge, they can work out to be pretty sizable depending on the amount of debt involved and the structuring of the interest rates.
This isn't to say that an approach such as Ramsey's isn't worthwhile. For example, under Ramsey's scheme, the first debt gets knocked out very quickly, and some people may need that psychological boost to keep at it. In contrast, it took twenty months to knock out the first debt under the high-rate scenario, although two debts (MasterCard and car loan) ended up getting knocked out that same month.
But for people with sufficient self-control, you can do better by paying off debts from highest to lowest interest rate. Then again, maybe people with self control don't get into debt in the first place…
Modified on June 23rd, 2011 - 692 Comments
Filed under: Credit Cards, Debt Reduction
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
Related articles...» Q&A: Dave Ramsey and Debt Reduction
» Dave Ramsey's House: Living Like No One Else
» Money Madness: The Elite Eight
» 1,000,000 Visitors…
» Dave Ramsey's Electric Bill
» Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps
» Dave Ramsey is Good at Psychology
» Weekly Roundup – 02/16/07
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692 Responses to "Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math"
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 … 14 » Show All
1Michael Says:
May 9th, 2005 at 10:36 pm
Great analysis. Interesting to see 3 approaches compared.
I will say that the Dave Ramsey approach has one key point that does greatly differentiate it from any other method…
Ramsey advocates "small victories" to get someone started. To someone that has a great amount of debt, the thought of being debt-free can seem about as doable as winning the lottery. I can see how knocking out your smallest debts can give you that extra boost you need to continue the path to becoming debt-free. To only be receiving 7 bills in the mail every month instead of 10 keeps your mind on the optimistic side of the field.
However, if you are the type that is mathematically oriented and you are 100% committed to becoming debt-free, then Dave's approach could become irrevelant, as you don't need the small victories.
As for me, I have been dieting now for 6 weeks and I have lost 1-2 lbs per week. I wonder how I would have felt if nothing had happened in weeks 1 thru 5 and then one night a huge chunk of my butt just fell off! I bet thats what it's like to knock out that killer $20,000 credit card debt!
2nickel Says:
May 9th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
Yeah, I agree that the Ramsey method can help in the motivation department. And if that's what someone needs then, by all means, they should do it that way. It might actually be the case that the people that are the most capable of pulling of the 'high-rate first' approach (i.e., the math-oriented analytical types) are the least likely to find themselves in dire financial straits. After all, if you're anal enough to compare these three strategies down to the penny just to prove yourself right, then you're probably not going to be carrying massive amounts of revolving debt…
3Joshua Kersey Says:
May 10th, 2005 at 12:14 am
Fortunately for us, Quicken has a free online debt reduction planner that considers balances and interest rates and develops the same strategy. It's how I decided which credit card to pay off first, and I'll have to say, I'm happy I did with two successes under my belt! The only down side is that it doesn't take into consideration planned rate changes (like a card that will go from 0% to 9% or whatever).
4Brian Says:
May 10th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
A better overall approach would be to first call up customer service at your credit card with the lowest interst rate, in this case Visa, and simply ask them to lower it. Most times they will knock a few percent off with very little coaxing. Then call the customer service at your other credit card company and try to negotiate a better rate using your lower rate as leverage. If one rate is still significantly lower, as in the example above (13% compared to 19%), raise the limit on the card with the lower rate and transfer a portion of the balance from the other card leaving enough open credit to not hurt your credit score. Then start paying the minimum on the car loan and the lower rate card and pay the rest to the higher rate card. This will approach should have the balance paid off sooner with the least interest paid.
5Jeff K. Says:
May 17th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
While I was working on my MBA, I came across Dave Ramsey on the radio. Initially I listened because he is very entertaining to listen to. Secondarily, I was intrigued with the "debt snowball". I could not believe what he was saying (especially since I was in the middle of my final finance class). As a 30-year old who had been paying down credit card, school loan, and car debt for 10+ years, I was practically an expert to boot!
There is no doubt that, mathematically, paying down the highest interest rate debts saves money – on paper. The problem is human nature. You can't close an account with a balance (at least most of the time). By paying a debt to zero you have essentially "killed" that debt. Since my ten years of "expertise" didn't seem to work, I gave the snowball 18 months to see what it could do. That 18 months turned into 3 years and allowed me to get rid of $65,000 in consumer debt. Even being an analytical person, the emotional factor was the missing ingredient I needed.
For some, maybe going highest interest works, for me I just needed an emotional boost. We now only have the debt of our home and it feels oh so good.
It's good to see that there are people that are essentially on the same team trying to get rid of debt. Dave Ramsey condones such things – keep it up.
6Jose Anes Says:
June 7th, 2005 at 12:21 pm
Human psycology is interesting, and has to be factored into debt reduction plans.
Some people feel that they have made progress if they can close open credit card accounts.
Other people feel progress if they can reduce outstanding balance.
I can only feel progress if my networth number climbs month by month at a faster pace that it climbed the last month.
Whichever works for you, but keep owning more, and owing less
7Michael Says:
June 12th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
In his defense, I'll say that Dave makes no qualms about why he advises debt payoff in the manner he does:
"We are more concerned with modifying behavior than correct mathematics," he writes. "Being a certified nerd, I always used to start with making the math work. I have learned that the math does need to work, but sometimes motivation is more important than math. This is one of those times."
I didn't work my debt payoff Dave's way, but I understand entirely the motives behind it. The people who most need Dave's advice are probably those who are also most likely to need the psychological "umph" provided by lopping off their debts one by one, and having some quick successes.
Those of us who understand the intricacies of all this … well, we have spreadsheets to tell us what to do, rather than a Type-A personality on the radio.
It's not likely that we would give up so easily, either.
8Mike Hillyer Says:
June 16th, 2005 at 12:47 am
That umph means a lot. I know in my case killing off some low-hanging fruit really boosted morale with my wife and I.
9The Comedian Says:
June 29th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
You have a miscalculation in one of your scenarios.
In the one that contains
Thus, as with Ramsey's approach, our hypothetical couple starts out hitting the car loan the hardest, at $600/month.
Car Loan:
Months to pay in full: 20
If you paid 20 months on the car note you'd have paid it off at least twice.
Otherwise this is a great piece. I have a buy-side stock trading MBA friend who taught me this valuable lesson about 6 years and $50,000 in student loans ago. I used to attack the smallest balances first, enjoying the small victories of getting Paid-In-Full notes back from the banks, but he finally convinced me that it is always numerically better to pay off the highest interest rate first.
10nickel Says:
July 5th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Fixed it, thanks. The car loan should be paid off within 9 months under that scenario, not 20 months.
11thc Says:
July 19th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
Ramsey's approach certainly doesn't make the best financial sense. But as a CFP who has worked with individual clients for over 10 years, I know that lack of self-dicipline is the greatest factor in financial failure. The "small victory" plan Ramsey proposes can help many.
12Jonathan Says:
August 13th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
I think Dave Ramsey's advice works well for his target audience, like the commenter above suggests. For instance, he also says to not have any credit cards at all. For people who can't handle a credit card, this is good advice.
13The Aardvark Says:
September 26th, 2005 at 8:01 pm
We used Ramsey as a jumping-off place. Working from a place of emotional isolation, as many debt-heads do, it is helpful to hear a friendly voice telling you that you can conquer the beast, and then giving you a practical plan to get started.
In many ways, ANY plan is better than NO plan.
14DigitalMan Says:
October 7th, 2005 at 8:20 am
If you're really following Dave's plan and are intense about the interest won't hardly amount to much anyway. And if people were good at math they wouldn't be in debt in the first place.
15RLR Says:
October 7th, 2005 at 9:15 am
No, Ramsey isn't bad at math, since he has often said that, strictly mathematically, paying highest interest first makes more sense. But comparing the two methods assumes you complete both methods – which is not the case even close to 100% of the time for either. Based on Ramsey's 20 some years of counseling folks in debt, he's found that in using his method they actually complete the process much more often, thus on average getting out of debt faster than those who use the higher interest first method. Which means using Ramsey's method makes good mathematical sense.
Just curious, how many years of successfully counseling folks on getting out of debt do you have under your belt? Yeah, that's what I figured.
16nickel Says:
October 7th, 2005 at 9:35 am
I completely understand and recognize the wisdom of Ramsey's thinking. In fact, if you read closely, you'll even see the following:
"This isn't to say that an approach such as Ramsey's isn't worthwhile. For example, under Ramsey's scheme, the first debt gets knocked out very quickly, and some people may need that psychological boost to keep at it. In contrast, it took twenty months to knock out the first debt under the high-rate scenario, although two debts (MasterCard and car loan) ended up getting knocked out that same month."
The whole "Bad at Math" title is somewhat tongue in cheek. And you're right — I haven't spent much time counseling people on how to get out of debt. But I *have* spent the last 35 years staying out of debt.
17petehatesdebt Says:
October 7th, 2005 at 10:40 am
As others have pointed out in defence of Ramsey, he does not claim the snowball method is the best mathematically — only that in the real world IT WORKS. It works because people are no computers. People need positive reinforcement and the emotional boost given by getting bills paid off and starting with the smallest ones does just that. I can tell you from experience that I have tried and failed with other methods of getting out of debt but I am sticking to the debt snowball.
18mr_peanut Says:
October 7th, 2005 at 5:15 pm
"If we were doing math, we wouldn't be in debt in the first place."
– Dave Ramsey
19Yo Spiff Says:
October 7th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
I don't know if I can really add anything else to what has already been said by Dave's proponents. It's a plan that changes behavior, and poor behavior with money what gets most people into trouble. If someone has the self discipline to do it by interest first and keep with it, that's great. But smallest first has helped motivate me. All my annoying small debts are out of my way and I can concentrate on the big stuff now.
Dave frequently gives advice that is not mathematically optimum, and he admits this is so, but the objective is to change your behavior and attitudes.
20Guest Says:
October 13th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Actually, there is one more thing to consider. Which helps you pay off best at the lowest cost AND helps improve your credit score in the process.
I don't have time to do the analysis but if your objective was to increase your credit score (FICO) to purchase a home next year then your payback plan would likely benefit from a change.
For example, you get a big ding on your credit report for having large revolving credit and/or being close to the maximum. Let's say that the credit limit on the Visa was 7.5k and it's maxed out. This gives your a 100% ratio and perhaps knocks 50 points off your score. Are you better off paying at least half of it off first to increase your credit score by 25 – 40 points?
By improving your credit score, your interest rates on all other debts comes down (in theory).
So if this were the case which would you pay first to optimize your credit score AND reduce your debt?
Visa ($7,500 @ 13% AND 100% maxed, minimum payment = $150/month)
MasterCard ($10,000 @ 19% AND 50% maxed, minimum payment = $250/month)
Car Loan ($5,000 @ 8%, minimum payment = $275/month
Note that the car loan has the least negative effect on your credit score (provided you are not late) so perhaps this should be paid last?
21nickel Says:
October 13th, 2005 at 7:52 pm
Guest, thanks for the comment. One thing that I'm not sure about is whether or not your credit card usage is calculated on a per account basis, or if it is calculated based on the sum of your debts vs. the sum of your credit limits. Consider this scenario:
$7500 balance on $7,500 limit = 100% usage
$0 balance on a $30,000 limit = 0% usage
If we average the usages, you'd be at 50%. If you sum the balances and the limits and then figure usage, you'd come up with $7,500/$37,500 = 20%.
22Guest Says:
October 14th, 2005 at 9:56 am
According to various websites, the FICO credit/debt ratio is done per credit card vs. aggregate combination.
Here is an excerpt from http://homebuying.about.com/cs....._score.htm
Keep Debt to a Minimum
* Keep your credit card balances low. High debt-to-credit-limit ratios drive your scores down.
* Pay off debt, don't move it around. Owing the same amounts, but having fewer open accounts, can lower your score if you max out the accounts involved.
* Don't close unused accounts, because zero balance might help your score.
* Don't open new accounts that you don't need as a quickie approach to altering your debt-to-credit-limit ratios. That can lower your score.
23ramsey Fan Says:
October 14th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
As dave would say it,
Don't worship at the alter of FICO score!
24Michael Riley Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
I am the one who coined the phase "payment snowballing". Back in 1994 I created a free program call "Credit Card Math" available from http://www.creditcardmath.com.
I was in the US Marine Corps at the time. Since then many, many people have taken my idea and run with it.
Thanks for letting me toot my horn.
25JWM Says:
November 2nd, 2005 at 6:20 pm
Um, Michael, I'm not saying Dave Ramsey coined it, but it was in his book "Financial Peace" in 1992…so…
When exactly did you "coin" the phrase? Some time before then?
26Onree Says:
November 8th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
The mathematical in your example because you had only thre debts, each sizeable. I started out about three years ago when I went "on the wagon" and made a vow against new debt and to pay of all my debts. I had 22 debts, ranging from the $30 that I had owed the babysitter for a month, $68 to the plumber, $280 on my kid's trumpet, things like that, on up to almost $20,000 to Mastercard.
Of my 22 debts, 17 were under a thousand dollars. Using Ramsey's snowball system, I paid off all of those smaller debts in the first year. (Actually 14 months.) A lot of positive reinforcement, and much less finagling, juggling and keeping track with only five debts instead of 22. A lot of local small businesses were happy to see me walk in the door, money in hand. Under your model, the babysitter and plumber would still be waiting.
I don't think that having only 3 debts to juggle is realistic model to usein the real world. It does make the math easier, though.
27#1 Ramsey Fan Says:
January 20th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Many of you have some good points, however, as Dave says "if we were doing math, we would not be in credit card debt." Mathmatically, credit cards are not a good deal. Here is why banks have the tallest buildings in every major city. The bank borrows your money at 2%-4% (if your lucky) in the form of a savings account in the meantime they let us borrow their money at 10%-20% in the form of a credit card. You multiply this by however many millions of people and they make a very healthy spread and are able to afford the tallest buildings and nicest furniture off of the general public's lack of understanding of how money really works. Banks and credit card companies are a lot of things but "dumb" isn't in the equation. It is just like Las Vegas. I hear people all of the time say they win over time gambling on boats and betting football games. Ok, they are right, they as an individual are beating up on Vegas and the credit card companies. They have multi-million dollar businesses out-smarted. Give me a break. Las Vegas does not have those big hotels because they lose and bookies dont drive around in expensive Cadillacs because they lose either. Mathmatically, I guess a financial professor could calculate how paying the highest interest rate would save you money, but how many rich financial professors do you know. It is emotion that got you into the mess, and it is emotion, not math, that will get you out. I am not saying to totally ignore math, but you have to get quick wins to stay motivated. I guess when one of the bloggers has as much success in people out of debt with their method as opposed to his, then we can talk. As one of the bloggers said, the important thing is that many people on this site are trying to get out regardless of the method. I can tell you from experience though, Ramsey's method works and my life has never been better financially because of his common sense approach to personal finance. Good luck to all and get gazelle intense!!
28nickel Says:
January 22nd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
#1 Ramsey Fan asked "How many rich financial professors do you know?" I guess I'd be inclined to turn that around and ask how many poor (or debt-ridden) finance professors do you know?
29#1 Ramsey Fan Says:
January 27th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Nickel says,"How many poor or debt ridden finance professors do I know?" The answer is a lot along with many CPA's, Tax Advisors, Attorneys, Bankers, and even some Doctors. I guess it depends on your definition of poor. Many average income debt free people have more disposable income than a Doctor for example because most Doctors get out of school with huge student loans and they immediately live the "Doctor Lifestyle" (leasing a Mercedes/Lexus, buying an expensive home, boat, etc) all in an attempt to prove to people that they have "made it" when in fact all of the great income they are producing is funding the bank and going out in payments. The problem with finance professors and academia when it comes to finance is their justification for everything is leverage (using other people's money). The only problem is they always talk in terms of a "best case scenario" and forget sometimes to consider risk. In a "best case scenario" the math would work everytime, however that is not how life works. As the bumper sticker says —-happens. I dont think Donald Trump is wondering where his next meal is coming from, but he found out a little bit about how "leverage" can bite you when he declared bankruptcy because he had too much money tied up in leveraged real estate. This, by the way, is also what happened to Dave Ramsey, however he has learned his lesson and passed it on. If you always depend on the "best case scenario" a basketball coach would never have to make adjustments at halftime according to what the other team does. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of people who have made a fortune "leveraging" everything in sight. These people though are few and far between. You can win a lot of money in Las Vegas as well, but you will have to risk a lot to do it and not many people can win in the long run playing this game. It reminds me of these 3:00 am info-commercials saying that you can acquire real estate with no money and leverage your way to the bank in just 30 days. Some of this is fine, but for most people it is false hope and pipe dreams. If people have been successful with this type of thinking then thats great,more power to them. Being able to take risks and come out ahead is part of what makes our country great. As for me, I would rather take it a little slower and pay CASH for everything thereby lowering my risk and maybe my return, but so what if it takes a little longer, most people I know that have money have built wealth over time not with a $3.00 lottery ticket. The next time you are in a "rich neighborhood" look around and see how many "for sale" signs you see. Some of these people are so leveraged and have the desire to impress others so much that they cannot buy furniture for their castle or if they do they put it on another brilliant idea a home equity loan. Lets build up equity in our largest asset and then borrow on it so we can owe more almost then it is worth. Why do you think the banks push this stuff so hard. Why do you think every car commercial you see is trying to get you to LEASE or "FLEECE" as Dave would say. The reason is because we are losing and they are winning! We have to step out of our microwave "I want it now" attitude and think about the incentives companies have when they try to sell us these type of products. Put yourself in their shoes and ask the question "why" It is simple why companies spend millions of dollars on adverting because it works! As Dave says: "If you want to be rich, look aroung and see what rich people are doing." You will find that people that truly have money behave in a way that is much different than we see on TV or in the movies. Georgia State Professor and author Thomas Stanley proved this in his book "The Millionaire Next Door."
30#1 Ramsey Fan Says:
January 27th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
Jeff K, yo spiff, petehatesdebt, and RLR have the right idea! Modify BEHAVIOR and you will get out. Believe me, I am living proof that it works!!
31#1 Ramsey Fan Says:
February 7th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
comments anyone? How many of you agree/disagree?
32Gregg Hudak Says:
February 9th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Since buying my Sirius I've been listening to Dave Ramsey. As a financial counselor and CFP candidate myself, Dave is preaching some bad stuff, especially when it comes down to paying off your debt by paying off the "lowest balance" first. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Any financial person knows, as has been said here, that you conquer the highest interest rates first in order to pay less interest over time.
Secondly, Dave told one called to simply "work your PMI into your mortgage"!!! What?! Now you're paying PMI for life. C'mon Dave, be responsible and if you think folks should "pay off" their mortgages first before anything else (retirement savings, etc.), then you'll have a bunch of retirees with nothing to show but an illiquid asset and no cash for spending.
33#1 Ramsey Fan Says:
February 10th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
In response to Greg's analaysis of Dave Ramsey–It doesn't sound like you have been listening to Dave on Sirius for very long, or if you have you have not been listening closely enough. I have been listening to Dave for about 3 years, and not once have I ever heard him say to pay of your mortgage before you start saving for retirement. If you listen to him, he talks about the "Baby Steps." If you say you listen to him, you know what I am talking about because he says it everyday.
1) baby emergency fund of 1000.00
2) pay off all debts -debt snowball
3) finish the emergency fund 3-6 months expenses in the bank-Murphy Repellent
4) 15% of income into 401k and ROTH IRA
5) College funding (if it applies
6) Pay off mortgage early
7) Build wealth like crazy-Give a lot away
The last time I checked "4″ comes before "6″ so he does not suggest paying your mortgage off before you do retirement. What he does recomend is that when you pay off all of your debt and have no payments, it is easy to attack you largest debt (your mortgage) and fund your retirement vehicles 401k roths etc at the same time. IF it came down to paying off your mortgage and funding retirement but you could not do both. He would tell you to fund retirement first, and then pay off your house. His point is that if you are not funding the bank with payments it is easy to do both. Dave talks all the time about being "house poor" meaning you dont necessarily want to have a paid for house and no money. Almost everyday!!
As far as the intrest rate/lowest balance first argument, I will garauntee you that if we take 100 people and had 50 of them do it your way Highest interest to lowest–(regardless of the balance) and 50 people Dave's way lowest balance to highest balance(the debt snowball) I will garauntee that his way will win more often than yours. This is changing behavior, not math. I cant stress that enough. When you are dealing with something emotional whether it is losing weight or losing debt, you need some quick wins!! IF you pay off the debt as quickly as Dave suggest the math wont make any difference anyway. If you want to stay in debt longer, and save enough interest to buy a Big Mac when your done go ahead, but I along with thousands of others have done it Dave's way and IT WORKS–PERIOD. At the bottom I was making HUGE payments and I never would have done that paying off the highest intrest rate first. When you get as many people out of debt in your financial couseling business as Dave Ramsey has then maybe we will have an arguement
34Emma Says:
February 20th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
It's obvious those that only listen to what Dave teaches have an abundance of opinions. Good for you. But Dave has an abundance of practical solutions for practical people who don't care about math…they care about freeing themselves from debt. Dave also has an abundance of listeners and people who have done it his way and have gotten out of debt.
People can talk all they want about how the math doesn't work, but, when it comes down to it, people will make changes and progress when they decide to change. And motivation, which is what Dave's plan includes, is a huge part of it.
35Ben Says:
February 23rd, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Unfortunately, many people don't have the willpower to pay off the debt with the highest balance first.
Logically, it makes sense to pay off the balance on the highest interest rate first, but some people will feel that they're not making enough progress with that method.
If you can pay off your smallest debt and erase it completely, it will help give you the confidence and momentum you need to continue.
You just have to decide which method is best for you. You'll end up spending more with Dave's Snowball method, but you'll see the number of debts you owe shrink.
36Brivers Says:
March 13th, 2006 at 11:27 am
If the difference in savings was thousands instead of hundreds then I could see why the "highest interest" method would be the best bet every time. But since that's not the case, I think people need to do what works best for them. For my wife and I, grabbing the low-haging fruit was essential. Seeing 1, then 2, then 3 … less bills per month in the mailbox was an unreal motivational tool. In 6 mos., we managed to pay off $10,000+ in credit cards, student loans and car payments – and are now, excepting our mortgage, debt free! We are also very close to having our 6 months of expenses in the bank. That's a $25,000 turnaround in one year. In the end, use the method that works. In our case, the was the snowball.
37Emma Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Hah, I just looked your numbers and you completely missed the debt snowball theory. You have made assumptions that minimum payments will be made on ALL debts, which is inaccurate. Then, you make the case that should you have $1,000 to pay off debts, you'd still pay more in interest than paying off high interest debt. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
This is the debt snowball. List your debts from smallest to largest. After devising a budget, a plan, accounting for necessities only, no vacations, no luxuries, you can see how much money you have available to repay debt. It's amazing how much you have, really.
Once that is determined, you pay minimum payments on all your debts, with the exception of the little one. That's right. You attack the little one with more than the minimum payment.
So, with your numbers you provided, the smallest one would be the car at $5,000 with a minimum payment of $275.00. Let's say that you have $1,000 a month to pay off debt, and you should since you have a total of $675 in minimum payments, you would pay $150 on Visa, $250 on Mastercard and a whopping $600 on the car! In 9 months, that car payment will be gone.
Now, here's the trick. Take that $600 you were paying on that car, and roll it over to the next debt, which, in this case, is the Visa card with a $150 payment. Now, you are paying $750 per month! In those 9 months you managed to pay down the Visa card to $6150.00. With a $750 per month payment, that card will be paid off in another 9 months.
Your remaining debt will be Mastercard, now with a balance of $5,500, reduced from $10,000 with those $250.00 payments over 18 months. Rollover the $750 to this minimum payment of $250 and you are now paying $1,000 per month! In 5 and a half months that payment will be eliminated and in approximately 23 months, you will be debt free.
That is how the debt snowball works!
38nickel Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I understand exactly how the snowball works, and my example is perfectly in line with it. You have to, at a bare minimum, make the minimum payment on all debts, otherwise you will go into default. If you can make afford to make additional payments on the smallest one, then you can (and should) do so. But this only accelarates the process, it doesn't change the rank performance of the debt snowball vs. the other methods. No matter how much or how little extra you apply to the debt that you choose to knock out first, the debt snowball can never do better than to match the highest interest first method.
In your example, you upped the amount available for debt repayment, and applied the extra money to the smallest balance. To make a fair comparison, however, you have to make the same amount available for the other scenarios. And if you did so, you would see that, at the very worst, the highest interest first scenario would match the performance of the debt snowball, and in most cases, it would outperform the snowball. Because the time to total repayment would be accelarated across the board, the magnitude of the difference would shrink but, as I noted above, the rank order will remain the same.
I should also reiterate a point that I made in the original post that seems to have been lost on many commenters:
"This isn't to say that an approach such as Ramsey's isn't worthwhile. For example, under Ramsey's scheme, the first debt gets knocked out very quickly, and some people may need that psychological boost to keep at it. In contrast, it took twenty months to knock out the first debt under the high-rate scenario, although two debts (MasterCard and car loan) ended up getting knocked out that same month."
39Emma Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 11:16 am
nickel, yes, I did up the amount. Why? Because, most people in debt have that extra cash somewhere. Either in pizza money, cable/satellite money, cell phone money, or whatever expenditure that is not a necessity. This is the most crucial element of the Ramsey plan, if you have debt, your focus should be on eliminating it. That means no vacations or luxuries until it's gone.
I do remember that point in your original post. Although, I have to say that personal finance is not about the numbers, it's behavior. Face it, debt wouldn't be an issue if we were doing math to begin with.
40nickel Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Yeah, I have no problems with the idea that paying more will accelarate your appoach to debt freedom. My only point was that, even with a higher total payment amount, the snowball still won't win out (at least not mathematically). A very important point of what you wrote, however, is that the mathematical advantage of 'highest rate first' shrinks dramatically with increased total payments. Thus, the more you can point toward your debt, the less my argument holds water. And I do agree with the idea that those that do the math wouldn't be in trouble in the first place.
41Emma Says:
March 14th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Thanks nickel, that was my main argument. By the way, I enjoy your blog. I don't agree with everything or everyone that posts, but I do have an open mind and appreciate other views on personal finance. Keep up the good work!
42John Says:
April 1st, 2006 at 1:23 am
My wife and I are on Dave's plan.
The only thing in your example that I disagree with is that a person would have an extra $325 to put toward that first bill. We were lucky to scrape together an extra $40 to put toward our smallest debt. Today, 13 months into the program, we put about $1300 toward the next bill on our list. By the end of the year, we will have paid off a total of 34K in 21 months.
It is psychological. If I have to pay a little extra for that, so be it.
I found your site because I was trying to find something negative about Dave and his program. If this is it, then I am very happy.
Thanks for your input nickle.
43STEVEN FARRAR Says:
April 4th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
We had tried the mathematical approach, using info from an About.com financial guy. I guess we just lost focus, and we had at that time, probably 85k in debt (all non-mortgage). By the time we found Dave Ramsey, we had about $125,000 in student loans, car notes, credit cards & 401k loans. 2.5 years later, we have just $16,000 to go, and that will be gone in a few short months. This stuff worked for us, as we found out, it's not about math when you get that much in debt. NOW, as we begin to invest, save for our future, pay for college, et all, it WILL be about the math. The mathematical scenarios are so much more fun to look at when you are discussing returns, versus paid interest, that's for sure!
44Darin Says:
April 14th, 2006 at 8:43 am
You are using your head way too much. Personal finance is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. Yes, it would save a little bit of money to pay off the high interest rates first, but it's about a whole lot more than that. If you go on a diet and the first week you lose a few pounds, you think, great I can do this, this works. It's the same thing, you eliminate a payment and you start to see that you can do this stuff. Dave Ramsey will even tell you he said the same thing you are saying, but then he realized it made it easier for people when they saw some progress.
45Darin Says:
April 14th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Just to add one other thing. If we are all math wizards, then why are we in debt. If you can add and you know you have $500 to spend but you use a credit card and spend $800 then you are not very good at math. Once it again, it's not about the math.
46erik Says:
April 18th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
Okay, well everyone has pretty much expressed all of the different ideas surrounding this debate, so anything that I say will be highly repetitive!
I will admit that I am a strong proponent of Dave Ramsey. It is not because he is great with a financial calculator, it is because he is real and he knows how people should act, and how they REALLY act. Ramsey is brutally honest and he does not sugar coat anything.
If I had to guess, I would say that he is fully aware that the other methods save you about 3 – 4% more in a perfect situation. The problem is that life brings many changes and many monkey wrenches are thrown into the equation. Ramsey teaches the snowball method because he knows that most people do need the motivation.
Many of the personal financial bloggers that comment on each other's sites know the math AND the behavior that it takes to win with finances. However, credit card debt continues to soar in America. Until this slows down, too many people need to hear a plan that psychologically works, not one that looks good on paper.
47greg Says:
May 12th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
The reason Dave does not do the math, and instead says attack the smallest first is simple. He states that he wants you to have "success" as soon as possible. That way you will continue and not quit. He mentions you could do the math, but by knocking off the smaller ones first you will have the percieved effect of results, sooner. Like the old saw; What we percieve… we can achieve.
48tammy Says:
May 19th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
It's seems that alot of you just don't get it. I'm also one of these "nerds" who can do math. The math isn't the probably…it's the person in the mirror.
THAT is what Dave Ramsey is all about. If you still think Dave's way doesn't make since…ask yourself…is your way any better than what it was last year? Are you still in debt? Are you FURTHER in debt? If your car breaks down today, do you have the CASH to cover it or will you have to rely on your credit cards or borrow money from family? It's very simple:
Step 1:
Start an Emergency Fund of a $1,000! Place in a high interest SAVINGS ACCOUNT (HSBC is 4.65% at the time I'm writing this). This is NOT investment money! Do whatever you have to do to get this money in the bank…sell un-needed items, 2nd job, etc…
Step 2:
Start your written budget.
Step 3:
Afte paying off your debt (except house) you should have plenty of income to finish building your Emergency Fund of 3-6 months. Again, THIS IS NOT FOR INVESTING! Put it in savings and FORGET ABOUT IT!
Step 4:
The next step is to get your retirement in order. 401K, Roth IRA's, etc… Listen to Dave on suggestions.
Step 5:
Now that you got YOUR retirement in place, it's time to start saving for the kid's college.
Step 6:
After you have the above steps in play, start attacking your mortgage!
Step 7:
After you have paid all debt off, have a fully funded ER Fund, you are saving for retirement, you are saving for kid's college, and the house if paid off, you will have lots of CASH to build wealth and give to charitable organizations!
It's that simple! Just remember…it all starts with the person you see in the mirror every morning.
49jim Says:
May 24th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
I tried the highest interest first method and got nowhere quick. I tried Dave's method and paid off $7000 in 10 months. Like someone else said tell it to the doctor's that I counsel everyday. By the way nickel if you have been out of debt for 35 years you can't possibly be spending more money than you have.
50nickel Says:
May 24th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
"By the way nickel if you have been out of debt for 35 years you can't possibly be spending more money than you have."
You're right. We're not.
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text:
i asked this to my anatomy teacher and he said there is no difference but when it comes to specialy in body building when you say to flex their bicep they freeze their upper limb in order to do that but when you say contract your bicep they only isolate it an shortens it. am I right with my reason?
Flexion: the movement that decreases the angle between two parts [1]. Examples: clenching the hand into fist, sitting down.
Contraction: the property of muscle to generate tension when actin and myosin filaments are crossing. There are a few types of contractions. The isometric contraction is when the muscle generates tension but its length doesn't change (for example when you try to lift something that you can't). The isotonic contraction is when the muscle changes its length [2]. This kind of contraction leads to movements and can lead to flexion too.


text:
The Concrete Challenges of Abstraction
New York
The Museum of Modern Art's revelatory, expansive and exhilarating new exhibition, "Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925," makes a persuasive argument that, while we may believe that by now abstraction in art is kind of a no-brainer—something so familiar we can take it for granted—a review session is in order. Familiar artists such as Paul Klee and Georgia O'Keeffe show up here in a context that demands our considering them anew, alongside a number of artists, like David Bomberg and Duncan Grant of Britain, or Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini of Italy, too rarely on view.
But was abstract art really "invented," or was it "discovered"? We now organize so much of our vision around sensibilities of abstraction—as in our fascination with Cycladic and African sculpture, or in the way our eyes automatically organize formal composition in Old Master paintings—that it's difficult to work ourselves back to some kind of mental tabula rasa that conceives of abstraction as a radical idea. Leah Dickerman, a curator in MoMA's Department of Painting and Sculpture, who organized this stimulating exhibition, contends that, whereas the work of earlier artists appears abstract—the late watercolors of J.M.W. Turner or James McNeill Whistler's "Nocturnes," for example—they nonetheless "described things in a real or imagined world," as she writes in the catalog. On the other hand, this exhibition is developed around the concept that the artists included here wrought something completely new: "Shunning the depiction of objects in the world, they displayed works with no discernible subject matter. Indeed they abandoned the premise of making a picture of something."
Inventing Abstraction:1910-1925
The Museum of Modern Art
Through April 15
This is an intense, often emotional, journey through more than 350 works that tracks us through a decade and a half of 20th-century art history and its fertile interactions with music, dance and film. From the dizzying opening works by František Kupka that plunge us into vertiginous spaces, to the space-denying geometry of Piet Mondrian, we are led through galleries of paintings, drawings, photographs and prints that tend to overwhelm the other media, although strategically placed sculptures and videos accentuate the depth of this subject. Arnold Schoenberg and Edgar Varèse in music, along with Mary Wigman and Rudolf von Laban in dance, suggest the complexities and scope of the subject. The show is especially rich in works by Jean (Hans) Arp, Fernand Léger, Vasily Kandinsky, Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich. There are also lots of discoveries (for this viewer): overlaid photographic images by the Italian Anton Giulio Bragaglia, drawings of "constructions" by the Latvian Gustav Klutsis that call into question the exhibition's premise of abstraction not referring to images of anything, and Wacław Szpakowski's drawings that look as if the Polish artist had just designed them on his computer.
That deliberate flight from imagery turns out to have involved a significant struggle, which is evident almost everywhere in this exhibition. While "observers spoke of the exhilaration and terror of leaping into unknown territory, where comparison with the past was impossible," that plunge was manifestly difficult for many of these artists.
Léger and Marsden Hartley—two artists of very different temperaments—present their strongly articulated forms as indecipherable objects swimming in not-quite-readable space. Léger conveys this by somewhat traditionally centering his compositions, clearly asserting the periphery as less important. Hartley manages to fill the field of his canvases evenly, yet they seem tied to a kind of depiction of crosses, checkerboards and even actual numbers. Francis Picabia's "La Source (The Spring)" of 1912—several versions are shown in the catalog—epitomizes the effort involved in illustrating imagined forms while not actually representing anything specific at all. "Going abstract" isn't really all that easy, and the excitement and success of this exhibition comes from its ability to help us participate in the difficulties faced by many of these artists.
It's also energized by the extraordinary mélange of works that engage us in what was arguably a momentous revolution in the history of the arts. Unlike so many exhibitions that have dealt with individual (and famous) pioneers of abstraction, this exhibition is generally organized around groups of artists in different countries—an approach that appears to suggest identifiable, differentiated and perhaps even national aesthetic principles. But insofar as there is any stylistic unity that bonds the various clusters of works, it has little to do with geographic boundaries.
Sure, there are monikers, often country-based, for some of these movements: Blue Rider, Vorticism, Neo-Plasticism, De Stijl, Futurism, Synchromism; and let's not forget Cubism, since Picasso provides a familiar and elegant entrée into the exhibition. There's also the revelation that comes from standing in one place and being able to see, for example, Kupka, Robert Delaunay, Léger, Picabia and Morgan Russell creating visual harmonies that now feel considerably less radical than the atonal pre-1910 Arnold Schoenberg scores and sounds that are among the early works we encounter. Moving across borders physically and conceptually is a reflection of the age in which this transformation was taking place, and the changes in travel and communication that were among its enablers.
That's asserted on an introductory wall, where the curatorial team's own original abstract diagram demonstrates the complexity of artistic and geographic relationships better than any text can. It's a staggering aesthetic and intellectual cat's-cradle of lines that connect the various actors in this artistic drama across a span that moves from Russia across various European capitals to the U.S., while also describing the intensity of their networks. Among artists who had more than 20 connections within these networks are Alfred Stieglitz, Tristan Tzara, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Natalia Goncharova—whose origins were American, Romanian, Italian and Russian, respectively, yet who moved about freely, with bases often in Paris, but also in New York, Zurich and Munich.
A "sound room" attempts to give us the flavor of the era's musical issues, just as large videos of dance demonstrate the introduction of abstract visual approaches to the performing arts. That's a tough challenge for an art museum to master, as was evident at the recent Whitney Biennial, which introduced performances, inevitably time-limited, trying to demonstrate the importance of an artist not being limited to a specific medium. MoMA's various Atrium projects have themselves emphasized the differences between art that exists primarily in space and that which also exists in time. This exhibition tends to give short shrift to many of the players in music and dance (the audio and video segments are engaging but appear somewhat incidental), while barely suggesting how the so-called invention of abstraction worked its way into other aspects of the performing arts (theater, film), as well as into literature.
That's not so much a flaw of this exhibition as a confirmation of the limitations of a museum-gallery format to demonstrate fully the vast reach of these movements over this relatively brief period of time. Viewers have an opportunity to engage visually in the adventure that accompanies the struggle of so many of these artists as they work at what appear to be self-set tasks.
These guys (they are mostly men) want to redefine how we encounter space and perspective— Paul Cézanne's challenge!—and it's fun to watch László Moholy-Nagy and Gerrit Rietveld working to find new articulations of spatial concepts. Mondrian works his way from pictorial space to rhythmic color pattern; Kandinsky—in what are probably his most gorgeous works—tries to bring music and poetry to paint and canvas; Léopold Survage seeks the liberation of color and rhythm, yet is forced to give it structure; the Russians, Ivan Kliun and Malevich, may succeed best at releasing—or is it revealing?—pure geometric form, yet they are stuck with art's traditional modes of expression: oil paint on canvas or board.
In these days of CAD (computer-aided design) the structures of Constantin Brancusi, Georges Vantongerloo, El Lissitsky and Vladimir Tatlin may feel quaint. Tatlin's 1920 "Monument to the Third International" is here in a massive 1979 reconstruction and belongs to an older tradition of visionary architecture as much as it does to the innovations of abstraction. Nevertheless, it's a tribute to this extraordinary exhibition that we feel the thrill of both discovery and invention throughout, in what may well be a broader sweep of this subject than has heretofore been attempted. In its own departure from tradition, the huge accompanying catalog explores different aspects of abstraction with 36 unusually terse and readable essays that admirably expand the exhibition's reach.
Mr. Freudenheim, a former art-museum director, served as the assistant secretary for museums at the Smithsonian.


text: The bottom panel in the window holds the timeline. The timeline gives you a visual representation of your project, and shows when clips start, when they end, and in the case of overlapping clips, which one is actually being used. The timeline can contain multiple audio and video tracks, where you can add sound and video clips respectively and other fancy stuffs (transitions, titles, ...)


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If you're in a small car surrounded by big semi trucks, the interstate can sometimes be a scary place.
Just this week, Nashville Officer Christy Dedman was struck by a tractor trailer when she pulled over to help a stranded motorist on Highway 40. Police say the driver of the tractor trailer, James Fitzgerald, Jr., had more than 50 violations, and wouldn't have even had a license in most states.
Incidents like this give trucking a bad rap, but most drivers take their profession very seriously.
One local company, Kenway Trucking, checks their drivers out before they hire them, and then continues to re-check them on a yearly basis. It's just a small part of their strategy to make sure drivers drive safely. In fact, to be able to get insurance, their vice president says the driver's records have to be in top shape. While there are a few bad incidents across the nation each year, he says they are isolated, and don't represent the industry as a whole.
In the meantime, if you find yourself stranded on the side of the highway, we have a few tips to pass along from Kentucky State Police:
- Don't pull into medians and do pull off to the right of the roadway as far as you can.
- Keep an eye on mile markers as you're driving, and know your location.
- Stand to the right of your car if you have to get out.
- Keep a cell phone and contact numbers handy if at all possible.


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DMI Sports Blade 6' Goal Flex Hockey Table
Product Information:
The DMI Sports Power Play 6' Goal Flex Hockey Table offers hours of fun with 80 different game variations for players of all skill levels. Customize your goal sizes based on personal preference with Goal Flex technology, which uses motion-detecting LED light bars to determine when a player scores. Because the puck never enters a goal slot, you get continuous, fast pace play. This 71" x 35" air hockey table includes 2 pucks and 2 pushers.
- 6' Air hockey table
- Goal Flex™ technology with motion-detecting LED light bars determines goal
- No immovable goal slots
- Adjustable goal sizes for personal preference
- Convenient side scoring display
- 80 different game variations
- Includes 2 pucks, 2 pushers
- Table dimensions: 71" x 35"
- Style: HT25
- DMI Sports
Country of Origin: ChinaWeb ID: 15754336


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Buildbot cannot handle make -j.
incorporate Davez admb-apr26-13 pthread manager code
Add c++11 style threading...
add multisimple & nst to tests
add -pthread to CXX flags; change if on __cplusplus
Added geolocation test for buildbot.
Copy working threaded branch.
Add Dave's threaded test.
Initial threaded branch.
Added copy commands for .bat files (adlink,adcom,admb) for those of us compiling with MinGW/MSYS.
Copy VERSION .
[Issue #99] Add support for MinGW-w64(GNU g++).
Fix icpc broken build.
[Issue #99] Begin support of x86_64-w64-mingw-g++.
Should copy AND not delete sed utility to bin.
Should copy sed utility to bin.
Add quotes around PATH in case there are spaces.
Use .txt for windows users.
Simplify build folders. Sorry anders...another change.
Fix intel build.
Fix solaris studio build for istringstream.
Cleanup in linux.mak, no changes in functionality
Removed no-deprecated and permissive flags, then changed deprecated headers with recommended.
Delete remnants of 'stub' library from linux.mak and mingw.mak
Remove sed1.exe line from linux.mak
Fix whitespace etc in makefiles
Apply debian patches.
[Bug #22] Use Hugo Mildenbergers fixes that removed warnings.
[Bug #10] uses compiler defaults and clean up admb script.
Do not use svnversion in makefile because it may not be installed.
--version touch ups.
Add copyright to -version.
Add support for Oracle Solaris Studio 12.
Be able to verify with different ADMB_HOME paths.
Fix Intel build by adding another character type to adstring::operator+.
Remove old scripts.
Copied revision 1006 from shibi to nceas. Old version control will now be only read only. This will be the primary version control.


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St Christopher's Barcelona
In a city obsessed with football, sun, sand, sea and Sangria, a place to chill out and relax with friends is always welcome. That's what we offer at St Christopher's Inn Barcelona and we offer it in a prime location - with self catering facilities!
Located directly opposite the airport transfer drop off at Placa de Catalunya we couldn't be easier to find. Better yet, from this top backpacker hostel, La Rambla and the many attractions of Barcelona are only minutes away on foot!
At our St Christopher's Inn - Barcelona, you will find a beautiful mezzanine garden, in-house cinema screen, outdoor eating areas and environment protecting solar panels on the roof.
All our guests receive 25% discount on food at our on-site restaurant, plus great discount deals on drinks in our bar! It's a benchmark for a new generation of hostels - so when you stay with us, be prepared for the time of your life.
There's always something going on and great parties in our Belushi's Bar. We also have FREE WiFi in every floor in the building and in every one of the common areas and available computers to rent p/min, if you don't have your smart phone or your laptop. There is also a FREE breakfast for our hungry guests every morning.
There's also something a VERY special for the ladies, our female-only rooms where you can escape the boys, enjoy a few extra comforts and hit the streets of Barcelona looking fabulous again.
You can meet other like minded travellers by trying out our daily free walking tour and if you feel like, at night we can book you to a 'tapas' or a 'famenco' tour so you can live the real Spanish experience.
Please note that we do provide linen, but remember to bring your own towel. There are large free lockers in the rooms but you also need to remember to bring your own padlock for security. If you forget it, do not worry... we will have them for you at our reception desk. Breakfast is free of charge for all our guests.
You really won't have it any better in Barcelona than here!!!!
*Please note that we do not allow under-18s to stay in this hostel, unless if staying with a responsible adult in a private room
Availability & RatesTo view availability and prices please select dates and click 'Update Dates'
Hostel Facilities & Policies
- 24 Hour Reception
- 24 Hour Security
- Adaptors
- Air Conditioning
- Bar
- Bicycle hire
- Bicycle parking
- Board Games
- Book Exchange
- Free Breakfast
- Café
- Common Room
- Credit Cards Accepted
- Elevator
- Free City Maps
- Free WiFi
- Hair Dryers
- Hair Dryers For Hire
- Hot Showers
- Internet Access
- Key Card Access
- Linen Included
- Security Lockers
- Meals Available
- Nightclub
- No Curfew
- Non Smoking
- Outdoor Terrace
- Pool Table
- Postal Service
- Reading Light
- Restaurant
- Steam Room
- Taxes included
- Taxes not included
- Towels For Hire
- Vending Machines
- Wheelchair Friendly
Cancellation PolicyThis property has a 1 day cancellation policy. Failure to cancel within this time will result in a cancellation charge equal to the first night of your stay.
DirectionsShow MapHide Map
From Prat Airport:
1. From Terminal 1 take Bus A1 destination Plaa Catalunya.
- From Terminal 2 take Bus A2 destination Plaa Catalunya.
- Buses leave every 10-minutes between 06:00 and 01:00.
- Outside of this period night bus N17 connects the airport to Plaa Catalunya.
- A single fare will cost approximately 6.
- The journey takes approximately 40-minutes.
2. From the Plaa Catalunya bus stop, cross the plaza and walk along the Carrer de Bergara until you see St Christophers Inn on your right, just before Topshop.
From Girona Airport:
1. Take the Barcelona Bus operated by Sagales to the Barcelona Bus Station (Estacion del Norte). This bus journey will take approximately one-hour.
2. Enter the Metro outside of the bus station and take the L1 red line in the direction of Hospital de Bellvitage.
3. Get off the Metro at the Catalunya station and take the Ronda Universitat exit.
- After exiting turn back on yourself and walk down the Plaa Catalunya, with the plaza on your left.
- Take your first right onto Carrer de Bergara and walk until you see St Christophers Inn on your right, just before Topshop.
From Barcelona-Sants Station:
1. Take the Cercanias train to Plaa de Catalunya.
2. Exit the train at Plaa de Catalunya. This journey will take less than five-minutes.
- When you exit the station walk along the Carrer de Pelai.
- Take the first right and you will see St Christopher's Inn on Carrer de Bergara.
Located Near
Customer safety is our first and foremost concern at every St Christopher's Inn across Europe. Our hostel is in a safe and well-lit spot, easily accessed by public transport and within easy walking distance of the top attractions including La Rambla and the beach! The airport bus drops you around the corner and any shopaholics out there will be pleased to know that St Christopher's Inn, Barcelona is directly next-door to Top Shop, and a good run on retailers on and around La Rambla!


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Read the Koss Headphones Blog
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Ever since we invented the first SP/3 stereophone back in 1958, Koss Stereophones have been bringing back the excitement of a live performance. Music lovers around the world recognize that dedication to accuracy in sound reproduction as The Sound of Koss.


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Vehicle technology
Stay safe, work easily and save fuel. All in an iconic Scania cab.
At Scania, we take extreme care in every detail. This is especially true for the face and home of your business: the cab. As the only thing between you and the fast-moving world around you, Scania cabs are designed, first and foremost, for safety. On top of this, we add generations of testing in ergonomics, aerodynamics and reliability. All to ensure the best possible driving environment, inside and out.


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I have an old laptop which has some 3D graphics support, how do I know if this will be enough for Unity to run?
This isn't a full answer but a good place to start including the link at the bottom. http://www.inalogic.com/component/content/article/34-general/63-demystifying-unitys-graphics-hardware-requirements
So you can run
which should give you some detailed output about Unity's requirements and if they are met, e.g.:
(Note, this graphics card is six years old and I'm having no performance problems running Unity.)
Though as an anecdote I have tried unity-2d on an old laptop with a substandard graphics card (Dell D600) and to be honest I still like it. I'm not saying everyone will love the switch to Unity, but I have decided to give it a go in whatever form I can and see if I grow to like it, so far I really do.
Well you can go to unity.ubuntu.com and check the minimum requirements for unity. If you have an intel card, the minimum is the i945 and i965. Old ATi cards provide a much better performance than their Intel counterparts, Nvidia cards can pretty much handle unity 3d pretty well. Hope this works for you


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Is there a finite dimensional closed manifold $M$ which is a $K(\pi,1)$, whose fundamental group is not word-hyperbolic, but which has a positive simplicial volume (ie "Gromov norm")?
(Added:) The answers of Jim and Richard are both excellent; another example is any closed, irreducible locally symmetric manifold (of non-positive curvature). But these examples are all CAT(0); I wonder if there is an example which is not CAT(0)? (of course then it is hard to see the example is a $K(\pi,1)$ . . .)


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Reviewed By: A customer from Peru, NY on 8/4/11
Used them on the Adirondack Loop. 6 days of hills and forests. the Panniers were absolutely great. They held what I needed, were very stable in the manner that they attached to the rack, materials were accessable inside. And the price was right. I am very happy with my purchase. I plan on doing a more extended tour soon and have no reservations about using these.


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Learn more about your personal matchmakers in St Louis! We are the team behind St Louis Singles - a small, personal matchmaking service focused on matching you with local, verified singles in St Louis, MO!
We provide a Confidential and Local dating alternative to the large, impersonal online dating sites with fake profiles! We work with you one on one and arrange for you real dates with quality singles in St Louis, MO!
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Drew's Roofing And Home Repair
Drew's Roofing and Home Repair is a small, high quality roofing company providing the highest level of customer service to it's clients. We would like an opportunity to offer you the same level of service.
We offer residential roofing services roof replacement, and roof repair.
All of our work is completted without the use of sub contractors. This allows us to give you the highest oquality of services, and provide you with the best roofing solutions available.
If you or someone you know needs assistance with a roofing problem please give us a call at 910-845-2207 Ask For Drew.
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House Painting
We are your 1 call does it all Contractor.
Why is that "you say"
Brunswick County NC service areas
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Never call another contractor ever, If we can't fix it, we can get the contractor in that can.
Drew's Roofing and Home Repair has been doing Roofing and Home Repair for over 20 yrs in the same area.
If we don't do what you need done, we will call in 1 of our other local contractors for you.
Just a few of the Roofing and Home Repair Projects we do.
24 hr emergency service
Re-roofing and roof repairs.
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Non pressure roof and house wash.
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Any handyman labor.
Room remodaling
New decks and deck repair
Call us Today for your free estimate.
Check us out on youtube.
Category: Howto & Style
Tags: Roofing Shingles Contractor Siding Repairs Handyman Services Brunswick County NC House Painting Decking painting Southport
Duration : 0:7:26


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I have some pcap files, and i would like just to get a list of protocols that are present on that pcap file. I would like it in a batch mode, not using wireshark
I think tshark is able to do it, but i couldn't find how. any idea?
I think that
As it can be seen the information displayed will vary a bit depending on which protocol dissector gets to play. So you'll need to do some post-processing to cut the parts you don't need and/or dedup (for instance using @Mark's suggestion in the comment).
Have you tried
It will give you a hierarchical list of protocols, not sure if it will suite you needs.
To get just the list of protocols you could do some commandline KungFu.
which will give you
tcpdstat will do this for you. I believe it's mentioned in one of Richard Bejtlich's books.
Unlike most other tools, Bro detects application protocols in a port-agnostic fashion. For example, it detects HTTP not on just the standard ports (80, 8080, etc.), but in any TCP connection.
Extracting the number of connections (TCP and UDP) is straight-forward:
Example output from a small HTTP trace:


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Hello everybody,
I bought the Nodal Ninja 5 with RD16 rotator, and I need some advise about a couple qeustions because this is something new for me.
Software, PTgui and pano2VR
Hardware Sony A700 16-80 CZ
I want to make 360 degree pictures.
1) If I want to photograph room settings, is it the best to stand in the middle or doesn't it matter?
2) How many overlap do I need in each picture.
3) Does anybody know some good books I can buy.


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April 16, 2013
New York University's Spring 2013 Albert Gallatin Lecture will feature author Rob Sheffield (Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls about Duran Duran) on Tuesday, April 23, 6:30 p.m. at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study's Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts (1 Washington Place [at Broadway]).
These days, the music world evolves at a dizzy pace. Yet it's never been easier for pop songs to jump back and forth in time, thanks to the explosion of technologies. At any given moment, a song from anywhere in the past can jump out of nowhere to trigger your memories, ravage your emotions, and destroy your sense of history. Sheffield will consider how these changes affect pop music and how songs work as the soundtrack of our lives, calling into question viability of the space-time continuum—at least as it pertains to music.
A music journalist for more than 25 years, Sheffield is currently a columnist for Rolling Stone, where he has been writing about music, television, and pop culture since 1997.
The event is free and open to the public. An RSVP is required here. Space is limited. For more information, call 212.998.7342. Subways: N, R (8th St.); 6 (Astor Pl.).
Editor's Note:
The Albert Gallatin Lectures bring a series of notable figures from the worlds of politics, the arts, business, and academia to New York University to discuss contemporary issues with students, faculty, and members of the wider community. Presented by the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, the Albert Gallatin Lectures reflect the School's academic philosophy, which is firmly rooted in the idea that knowledge and understanding grow through conversation and collaboration.
This Press Release is in the following Topics:
Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Around the Square
Type: Press Release


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5 Must-Ask Questions
The Parent-Teacher Conference: 5 Must-Ask Questions
5 of 6
How are older students prepared for further learning after high school?
- Are children encouraged to think about a wide variety of career interests?
- Are all students encouraged to take algebra by the end of eighth grade?
Back to Your Custom Parent-Teacher Conference Kit.
Next: More popular galleries
More on: Relating to the Teacher


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The 6 Most Insane Ways Going Green Can Backfire
#3. Solar Panels Blind Airplane Pilots
Get used to seeing solar panels -- already we're planting the things on parking garages, churches, houses, even long stretches in the middle of the desert only inhabited by man-eating mutant cannibals. So what's the problem with turning sunlight into pollution-free electricity? Are we draining the sun?
No, but in our rush to point as many large mirrors at the sky as possible, we seem to have forgotten to consider the fact that sometimes people like to, you know, go up there for stuff. In Zurich, Switzerland, airport officials forced a church to adjust its solar panels because they feared the massive glare would blind pilots when they attempted to land. And this isn't the first time: One green home had to be redesigned because reflections from the solar panels were causing fighter pilots at the local military airport to make dazed landings while trying to blink the spots out of their eyes.
"Fuck it, I'm just gonna drop the nose and gun it."
As larger solar panel farms are built, the risks become even greater, to the point that the possible side effects read like the warning label from an ACME crate: Scientists have warned that a plan for 170,000 large solar panels in the Mojave Desert could "vaporize birds, blind drivers miles away, flip small airplanes or even attract Air Force heat-seeking missiles." That's right -- build a big enough solar panel, and you've basically created an enormous trampoline allowing Ra to jump down out of the sky, bounce back up and dick-slap small airplanes right out of the sky.
Of course, airplanes being airplanes, they could always just, oh, we don't know, maybe fly around the vast swath of nothingness that is the Mojave Desert. That still doesn't solve the whole vaporizing birds issue, but we see that one as more of a golden opportunity for people to achieve YouTube superstardom.
"Shit, where's my "Yakety Sax" MP3?"
#2. LED Light Bulbs Cause Car Crashes
Some of you have already upgraded to those swirly fluorescent light bulbs, but the real future is in LED.
LED light bulbs can use up to 80 percent less energy and last 25 times longer than traditional bulbs. Plus, unlike the traditional light bulb, they weren't "invented" by an unequivocal dick. If you want to see how much energy a standard incandescent bulb wastes, just feel how hot it gets -- in any system, heat = wasted energy. LED bulbs are just as bright, and stay cool. All the juice is going toward lighting the room, not warming it. Everybody wins!
Plus, they're small enough that if you're good enough at palming, you can steal like six at a time.
Well, there is the fact that LED light bulbs are wantonly murdering our drivers. OK, that might be a bit melodramatic, but it does turn out that, at least for a few months out of the year, LED traffic lights are making our roads less safe. Those few months are what we call "winter."
You see, when heavy snow and ice fall onto an old-fashioned traffic light, the heat from the old, inefficient incandescent bulbs melts it away. But LEDs generate so little heat that the snow and ice just build up and eventually crust over the light. With visibility already limited by bad weather and no way for drivers to see the traffic signal, car accidents have increased at intersections with LEDs and led to at least one death that police believe could have been otherwise avoided.
If they'd made them out of light saber stuff like we suggested, this wouldn't be an issue.
But cities aren't quite ready to give up on the potential of LED traffic lights just yet. One attempted solution has been to have workers drive around and blast air at the offending traffic signals -- which sort of negates that "reduced maintenance" selling point. But hey, if that whole global warming thing pans out, it might be a moot point anyway.
#1. Wind Turbines Turn the Sun into a Strobe Light
One megawatt of wind power can provide electricity to as many as 300 homes per year, and it can do all that without creating air, water or land pollution. Find a nice patch of land where the wind is always blowing, and let the wind do all the work. Yes, the occasional bird might get caught in the blades, but it's not like those same birds exactly enjoy breathing the smoke belched from coal-fired power plants.
So what's the problem? This:
Annoying, huh? It's called shadow flicker -- and yes, the world really has coined an official term for "wind turbines keep flicking the sun's light switch off and on like an asshole roommate." This is what you get when the turbine is sitting right between you and the setting or rising sun. Blinking, flickering sunlight, worsening your headache with each pulsing flash. Combine that with the constant low-frequency hum emitted by the turbines and you can imagine how it wouldn't take too long for even the mentally healthiest person to start developing a nervous tick. Experts are pretty divided on what the actual effects on the human body are, but scientists agree that having the sun blinking on and off is annoying as shit.
Community doctors have noted that after living up to a mile away from turbines, patients have developed headaches, sleep disorders and anxiety and depression symptoms that were previously nonexistent. However, government studies haven't acknowledged an official link between proximity to wind turbines and human health except to say that shadow flicker could cause annoyance.
"Scientists have determined that no one we know lives here, so it's fine."
Apparently the prisoners at the high-security Whitemoor prison in the U.K. agreed with this conclusion. Prison director Martin Adler negotiated with a nearby energy company, who eventually caved in and agreed to turn off their turbine during certain hours of the morning because the shadow flicker was making the deranged prisoners even deranged-er. Oh sure, annoying average homeowners is no big deal, but annoy a bunch of violent criminals, and ... actually, yeah, that makes total sense.
The closest anyone in the industry has come to acknowledging that the turbines might have adverse health effects is a study commissioned by the American Wind Energy Association, in which Dr. Geoff Leventhall and his colleagues argued that the effect of being in proximity to turbines is "similar to the effect of any other noise and will disturb people if they are listening to a noise they do not want to hear. One of the main effects is sleep disturbance, which can lead to other stress-related effects." But the problem is that they generally aren't erecting turbines in the middle of the city, where people are accustomed to noise pollution -- they're putting them out in the middle of nowhere, where the noisiest thing residents previously had to deal with was livestock flatulence. So pretty much any noise is "a noise they do not want to hear."
Again, it's not like these people will be happier with catastrophic climate change, so we kind of have to take the long view. But maybe put the turbines farther away from the houses next time.
For more "greening" attempts that made us shake our heads, check out The 6 Most Half-Assed Attempts at Corporate Green Washing and The 7 Most Retarded Ways Celebrities Have Tried to Go Green.


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L.A. Sensation Sqirl to Pop Up at El Rey Later This Month
Dreams come true.
Dreams come true.
The inventive chef's and bartender's tag-team approach is yielding strange and incredible things.
It may be days (or months) before the return of aloo gobi burritos.
Owners say a huge offer has been made on their real-estate.
Steve Edelson claims the city has intentionally been stalling his permit requests and targeting him.
Controversial owner Steve Edelson considers a less morose paint job and beefed-up security.
The bartender and chef have a most curious menu that begins on breakfast and ends on bone marrow, with mug wort, beer air, and fresh grass as ingredients.
There was crime, and even a little punishment, in the past-paced world of L.A.'s food scene this weekend.
The chef's seasonal approach embraces Mediterranean influences and California ingredients.
Nightlife kingpin Steve Edelson has been shot and stabbed in the past, so a roomful of angry neighbors doesn't really phase the guy.
An exploration of over 50 flavors from around the world.
Eric Park now has a beer and wine license in place and has made some changes to the room to accommodate.
The bar also loses its dance privileges until its papers get put in order.
The wine bar plans a night of circus performers and photos of unusual talents.
The former Angeleno critic returns to review L & E Oyster Bar.
Exotic seafood found at newly opened SQIRL Cafe
The chef is bringing his seasonal cooking to a "New York tavern concept."
LAUSD will phase out Styrofoam containers and lunch trays as a result.
The chain is out to show you just how crunchy it can be.
Increasingly, the Matsuhisa veteran is being praised for his produce more than his sashimi.


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Is there a tool in Ubuntu to automatically merge two images having a common strip? I need to scan a large image, which will not fit at once in the scanner. I was thinking about scanning it in two parts and hand-editing the result in Gimp to join them. But probably an automatic tool can do the same more quickly and better.
EDIT I think I may have not made my point clear. My difficulty is not aligning two images. My problem is that one has to compensate for the rotation or distortion introduced by the manual process of putting the sheet into the scanner, and an automatic tool should obtain more precise results at analyzing common patterns in the two images to rotate and align them seamlessly.