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I can not see how a software project can make any meaningful progress under a waterfall methodology if the requirements cannot be clearly stated from the outset. Am I missing anything?
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Is there any circumstance in which a strict waterfall project can succeed when requirements are not clearly defined?
We use waterfall and have completed lots of projects with changing requirements. Waterfall isn't as bad as it's been made out to be and Agile isn't the silver bullet that fixes everything (as many badly done agile projects as waterfall projects as far as I can see.) Neither methodology has a particularly high success rate, in part because users don't know how to define what they want and in part because there are alot of incompetents in our field.
Comment by "Andrew" above is valid. Also, which part of the requirements is missing. The waterfall methodology is not as rigid as some thinks it is. Waterfall focuses on moving between major stages after enough information and facts have been collected. There is nothing stopping you from refining your analysis as long as you are not re-doing major parts of it.
For example, you can start design without knowing all the required reports and you can start design without knowing all the validation rules. All of that can always be added later.
However, you don't want to start the design with only 1/3rd of the columns in the database identified. Water fall is a great methodology and is quite suitable for most applications where the business is not being invented from scratch and where users know the business.
You can make progress in your database design, screen design, system architecture, use cases and more without knowing all the details up front.
The art here is dividing the problem to pieces that can start and progress with least dependency on other grey areas. This is a generally good approach regardless of the employed methodology.
It depends on how good the coders are.
If the coders have a good understanding of the business they are working on and if they are clever enough to write the code in a loosely coupled way, then towards the end of the waterfall when the customers see the product they should :
a) not have too much to complain about
b) what they complain about can be easily altered and fixed
You have to be good to make it work though!
I have never heard of a project using a waterfall methodology that did not incorporate change orders. So in practice, if the initial requirements are wrong (they are always wrong to some degree except perhaps on a tiny project - I've never seen them be 100% perfect) you just have change orders, and redo whatever you have to. Does that mean it's not really waterfall? It's really a philosophical question.
Can it succeed? It can, but the methodology isn't as focused on dealing with changing requirements, so it may not cope with it as well.
Actually, what I've seen a lot is that when requirements are not accurate then waterfall succeeds pretty well for the software developers , not as well for the clients. The reason is that most of the time a waterfall methodology was adopted in the first place because the client, quite reasonably, wanted to know up front exactly what the project would cost. Unfortunately nobody knows how much a software project will cost. Sometimes clients never figure that out and refuse to hire anyone that won't give them a fixed price. Since at that point developers trying to get the client's business are competing primarily on the basis of quoting a low price, they underbid and hope to profit on the change orders, which cover anything beyond the initial requirements and usually carry a high hourly rate.
Therefore, when the requirements are bad that means the developers get more of the profitable part of the contract (change orders) and less of the unprofitable part (the list of requirements the client thought he wanted back when this all started).
But eventually the true requirements are uncovered and the changes made, so for the client it "succeeds" in the sense of getting done, though at higher cost in time and money than if the requirements were right initially.
So I like Agile personally for two main reasons - first it aligns the interests of the client and the developer better than the "is this a change order?" battles waterfall can lead to, and second because frequent deliverables help mitigate the risks. But "pay us and we'll try to write you some software, but we don't yet know how much you'll get for your money" is a tough sell sometimes, even if it's really only admitting the underlying reality of the situation.
The requirements not being clearly defined doesn't automatically doom the project, IMO. The probability of failure is high I'll concede though there can be cases where it still succeeds.
It can. You just have to build contingency into your initial estimates and explain that if the requirements are uncertain, so are your estimates. If requirements are coming in at the same pace that development is progressing, it will work just fine.
Remember that Waterfall is not the opposite of Agile. All you are saying is that you will not deliver components incrementally. It's just "give us your requirements as soon as you can and we'll code, delivering you a product at the end. But if you don't bring us requirements quickly enough, your product will be delayed."
However, Scrum is designed to manage uncertainty and change and I still think that's the best way to go. I'm just saying that if the client isn't interested then that doesn't mean you're certain to fail.
Allow me to recommend that you read "Death March" by Ed Yourdon. Once you realize that you aren't the ONLY one working under less than ideal conditions, it really is helpful and motivating. That said, it also has not dissuaded me from asking uncomfortable questions--like why are we coding without clearly defined requirements?
The circumstance for success when answering the question of how long it will take to build something neither you nor the client understand is to say it will take way way longer than you think it will. Put in months, or years of slack if you have to.


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I wish to know how the lego instruction manuals are made. What is the process currently used?
How lego does it today.
I found little information about Autodesk Maya being the 3D modeling software being used. Here`s a blurb about their current design process :
source : wikipedia
How lego used to do it
do you know?
How people do it themselves
Lego provide software that does just that. Check for "Lego digital designer" which allows to create a model, save a building manuals and buy the lego parts online.
Also check up this related question :"Do any programs exist that allow you to build own LEGO plans?"
For more information on how to create high quality computer images of lego models, check this question : "How can I create synthetic imagery (rendering) of lego models?"

subset: commoncrawl


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Single for life? The social costs of fewer families
Alan Gibby, Deseret News
From his 26th floor window overlooking the East River and downtown Manhattan last summer, Seth Toedter enjoyed stunning vistas of the UN, Chrysler and Empire State buildings. Changing clouds brought swirling clouds and lightning storms. On the river, barges, tugboats, kayaks and floatplanes scurried, while the waterfront swarmed with humanity. There was even a Jewish wedding party, complete with ritual crunching glass.
While working on other projects in his apartment, the 38-year-old filmmaker plugged these high-rise perspectives into two short but captivating time-lapse films.
Toedter was in New York on a brief sabbatical from his day job in Los Angeles, where he edits a television series. His lofty East River perch was sublet from a high school friend, who, like Toedter, remains single at 38.
Pulling up stakes like this would not have been possible with a family, Toedter knows. "I see my friends who are locked down and don't have that anymore, and they tell me they miss that," Toedter said.
Toedter is part of a growing demographic of singles worldwide now aging into their middle years without forming families. Across the globe, birth rates are dropping, in part because couples are having fewer children, but also because fewer young adults are even living together — married or otherwise.
In the U.S., those living alone are now "tied with childless couples as the most prominent residential type," according to Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University.
About 22 percent of American adults were single in 1950. Today, more than 50 percent of adults are single, notes Klinenberg in "Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone," published in 2012. In 1950, he tells us, 4 million Americans lived alone, or 10 percent of households. Today, more than 32 million live alone, or 28 percent of households.
The dramatic shift has caught the attention of scholars and social commentators. Some, like Klinenberg, see the new way of living as inevitable, arguably healthy for the individuals involved, and something the state should support with more favorable public policies that make single living more convenient and ease the complications, including the difficulties of aging alone.
Others, like demographer Joel Kotkin and a number of his colleagues, see shattering implications for societies that fail to adequately replace one generation with another. The difficulty, they argue, is that modern societies place the burden of each retired generation on those currently working.
When the next generation is smaller than the last, a skewed "dependency ratio" results, squeezing ever fewer active workers to support more retirees, while still investing in roads and schools and saving for their own retirement.
A professor at Chapman University, Kotkin is the lead author of a new report on "The Rise of Post-Familialism," which he defines as a society in which "the family no longer serves as the central organizing feature of society," which Kotkin fears will result in falling birthrates and an inverted pyramid of aging retirees supported by dwindling youth.
While perspectives differ on social impacts and policy implications, all sides agree that a dramatic change is underway, challenging historic understandings of what it means to be human and calling into question public policies and social norms surrounding child bearing and aging.
OK alone?
Back in LA after his summer in New York, Seth Toedter lives in a beachfront enclave populated largely by single professionals who have a close-knit social scene, including frequent cookouts and ball games on the sand.
"My last four girlfriends all wanted to get married and have children," Toedter said. Ten years ago, he had a serious conversation with a girlfriend. "But she and I agreed that I wasn't ready for that kind of thing. It was pretty clear."
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Hellboy: The Archangels - 11-25-2010, 02:02 PM
The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense was begun by Theodore Roosevelt in response to Hitler's interest in the occult. Headed by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm (later known simply as Professor Broom), the BPRD truly received its start when it was discovered that Rasputin was still alive and well and was seeking to build a portal to another world to summon the Orgdu Jahad - the Seven Gods of Chaos.
This, thanks to the small militia Professor Bruttenholm had taken with him to investigate, was a failure in no small part thanks to a grenade thrown into the portal. Rasputin was sucked through it as it closed, Kroenen (Rasputin's right-hand man) was impaled by shrapnel to a pillar, and it seemed all would be well. But the portal had been open for too long - indeed, it should have never been opened to start with, but the short two minutes it had been opened could have let something through.
That something was a small demon child; with two cloven hooves for feet, a right hand made of stone, two sharp horns and skin red as blood, Anung un Rama had been brought into the world from the other side. However, his infant appearance - for truly, he was just a child indeed - threw the small gathering for a loop, and they decided to bring him back and raise him. He was given a name - an unfortunate name, perhaps, given the circumstances of his arrival - and it simply stuck.
He was raised as a regular human child; he was fully aware of his differences to people, but Professor Bruttenholm raised him well. While rebellious to excess as an adult, he always deferred to his father and became the best investigator in the BPRD.
He is but one of many people living in the BPRD's special level. There is also Liz Sherman, the pyrokinetic; Abe Sapien, the psychic icthyosapien (human fish); Johann Kraus, the ghost; Roger, the homunculus; and dozens of others.
Who are you? Are you a new member of the BPRD? Are you a human or something else? Are you just one of the humans in suits running around to make sure everything's in order or are you on the side of those who are essentially trapped by modern-day ignorance?
The choice is yours - but along the way, you will have to stand and fight alongside them against the army of angels brainwashed by the Na'zis.
Their leader, Razael, is hellbent on destroying anything and everything that stands in the way of him stealing the Right Hand of God - Hellboy's stone hand - even if it means killing every human and nonhuman on Earth to get it.
1. No immortal characters. None. Hellboy (and a character of mine) may have longevity on their side, but this is due to their demonic nature and they are NOT by any means invulnerable. They can be hurt by guns, knives, holy items (crosses, Stars of David, holy water, the works) and while they age slower than humans, this is again because they are demons. They will one day die - but not before somebody steals Hellboy's hand to bring the Orgdu Jahad back.
2. No Mary Sues. Do I even need to say this? I mean, it's in the rules, for crying out loud.
3. If it's in mythology of any kind, it exists. If you can't find weaknesses for a certain type of critter you might want to be, make some possibly legitimate ones up! For example, leprechauns. Supernatural tweaked with this one a bit and made leprechauns a sub-type of fairies (which annoyed several fairy folklorists) and they have the exact same weaknesses.
4. Please don't make your character constantly at odds with or fighting with others. You can't fight with people all the time. Even Hellboy has his good days and he's pretty antagonistic.
6. Please give me more than words. Give me more than a description of actions. Let's stretch our brains people! STREEETCH!
7. I'm giving some leeway on names this time; for example, Fae-folk can have names relating to plants and nature, a golem can be named after its gemstone, et cetera.
Character Sheets:
Name: Codename/Alias: (Must be related to powers or appearance) Age: Species: Occupation: (If regular human, what do they do at the BPRD; if a member of the BPRD response group, what's their role?) Abilities: Bio: Appearance: Personality: Weaknesses: Other:
Name: Fern Broom
Codename/Alias: Nyx, Hellgirl, Hellchild, "Violet" (as her location tracker is purple)
Age: 23
Species: Half-demon
Occupation: Gun specialist and fire-stopper
Abilities: Super strength (up to 2 tons, only at this mark due to a competitive streak with her father), fireproof and heat-proof up to 1,500 degrees (Though a fever over 108 degrees will affect her like it would any regular human), pyrokinetic through emotional stimuli and hormone control
Bio: Fern was born and raised in the BPRD and wouldn't dream of leaving; it's a life she loves to the fullest and she doesn't slack in her duties. Her parents, Hellboy and Liz Sherman, allow her to go with them on most trips, but after a recent incident with a hellhound, Fern is grounded to the facility until the pins are taken out of her back. This irritates her more than anything else and she longs to go back outside, as she finds it horribly unfair that her twin brother, who's blind, is allowed to go with them. As a result, she's begun to be just as rebellious as her father was and sneaks out frequently. She loves guns and Baby Ruths, just like her father.
Appearance: Red skin, horn stumps that she files down (while her horns aren't as large as her father's and don't impede her ability to walk through doors, she finds that it gives your opponent something to grab onto. Her eyes are catlike and yellow, her hair is long and black, she has a tail with a flat, tapered end (unlike her father's) but regular feet like her mother's. Her right hand and forearm have a tattoo of markings similar to the ones her father's stone hand has, and she's also left-handed due to musculature issues in her right arm.
Personality: Fern's strong willed but knows when to give up, and she spent much of her teen years harnessing and controlling her power to an extent that would give a saint pause. She very rarely loses control and when she does, she has little trouble reining it back in - unless the reason it goes out of control is because she's unconscious. She loathes being bossed around and sitting idly and spends much of her time doing research.
Weaknesses: Holy items and blessed water burn; for example, she can hold the beads of a rosary but not the cross on it. The same goes for any other religion's holy symbols. She's also just as susceptible to wounds as any normal human - her back was nearly broken in two when a hellhound threw her like a ragdoll into a wall that was doubly reinforced by steel pillars. She also shares her father's weakness for kittens and cats and Baby Ruth bars.
Other: Fern eats half of what her father can eat, which is still a considerable amount; the only reason she never gains weight is due to a high metabolism and extremely active lifestyle.
Name: Jonny Sherman
Codename/Alias: Batty
Age: 23
Species: Human enough, psychic to some degree
Occupation: Sonic radar
Abilities: Can emit a sonic wave that is inaudible to most other humans and allows him to echolocate. Is rather useless in most situations but a recent wave of gorgon attacks has made him invaluable.
Bio: Jonny was coddled growing up, being a bit spoilt due to his born disability. He's never failed to try and shove it in his sister's face that he's the useful one now that her back has her out of the action, but it's more a cover for his own insecurities.
Appearance: His eyes are a pale brown with no pupil (the source of his blindness), his skin is pale and he has short black hair that's apparently permanently spiked no matter what he does with it. For some reason, he's the one with cloven hooves and wears special shoes like his father, though for him it's due to the lack of a tail and therefore decreased balance.
Personality: Spoilt, spoilt, bratty and rude. However, he's quite intelligent - just expresses it in the snottiest way possible. He's even annoyed Abe Sapien. However, he's a genuinely altruistic man, just doesn't know how to express it properly.
Weaknesses: His hearing is more refined than most humans, and loud noises can temporarily deafen him and leave him entirely "blind" to his location. He also has the unfortunate tendency to fall over often, leaving him vulnerable to attack, and he constantly walks into walls, doors, and other objects and people.
Other: Is allergic to the nuts used in Baby Ruths, and loathes them. Fern often teases him over it.
Opening post in next post.
I stare at the girl in the mirror: T-shirt, torn up jeans, no beauty queen.
But the way that you see me, you get underneath me, and all my defenses just fall away, fall away.
I am beautiful with you, even in the darkest part of me. I am beautiful with you;
Make it feel the way it's supposed to be!
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This question already has an answer here:
- Some menus are in Chinese/Japanese! 3 answers
My newly installed Ubuntu 12.04 gnome-classic just turned into chinese locale after reboot, how do I change it back to English?
I can't find any language menus, and the ones I opened are, well, in chinese...
When I open a terminal and execute
gnome-language-selector, I get lots of this in the prompt:
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_COLLATE to default locale: No such file or directory
Any ideas?
If I go to the Language section in Users, I only get the options in the picture.


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Storm leaves up to foot of snow in New England
By the Associated Press
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I have solved the first two subsections of an assignment, but I can't solve the last subsection.
We have a Huffman code with probabilities $p_1,p_2,\ldots, p_n$ and we know that $p_1>p_2>\cdots>p_n>0$.
$y_1$ - the code for the character whose probability is $p_1$? And $|y1|$ is the length of $y_1$.
I proved that:
- if $|y_1| = 1$ then $p_1 \geq 1/3$.
- if $p_1 < 1/3$ then $|y_1| \geq 2$ (it is not the same as above).
I can't prove:
- if $p_1 > 2/5$ then $|y_1| = 1$.
Thanks for all kind of help.


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I am trying to understand what the obstructions are to orienting moduli spaces of pseudoholomorphic curves with totally real boundary condition.
I believe that Fukaya-Oh-Ohta-Ono have shown that if a Lagrangian is relatively spin, the moduli spaces of disks with boundary in it can be oriented.
My question has 3 related parts:
is there any sense in which the FOOO relative spin condition is also necessary?
if I consider curves of higher genus and/or more boundary components, do I need to impose additional conditions on the Lagrangian to guarantee orientability of the moduli spaces?
There has been a fair bit of recent work in the case in which the Lagrangian is the fixed point set of an anti-symplectic involution (Crétois, Georgieva-Zinger). Are the orientation difficulties in this case the same as in the general case, or do some special features appear here?
EDIT: Penka Georgieva pointed out that I was mistaken. Her paper (arxiv/1207.5471) deals with the general case of curves with boundary on a Lagrangian.


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Why don't we say Avinu Malcanu on Tisha B' Av?
The Artscroll Siddur says "on fast days that tachanun is omitted...", is there any other reason?
The main reason that I recall is because of the pasuk in Eichah (1:15) that refers to the day as "moed"
קָרָא עָלַי מוֹעֵד לִשְׁבֹּר בַּחוּרָי
I don't remember why that forces a connection.
My rav explained that Tachanun (which, is part of your question, per se, not necessarily the direct reason why Avinu Malkeinu) is omitted on occasions of either "extreme" - extreme joy or extreme sadness.
Yom Tov is "extreme joy" so Tachanun is omitted.
In a house of mourning during the week of shiva, Tachanun is also omitted. This is a location & time of extreme sadness.
If Tachanun is omitted in a house of mourning where one person is mourning, kal vachomer it should be omitted when all of B'nei Yisra'el is mourning!
Edited to change my answer. Here is a link that explains why we don't say Avinu Malkeinu on Tisha B'Av.


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TACO BELL: HELP I'M BEING SUEDPosted in Business Crises We Create, Crisis Communication Response, Liability Communications, Litigation Communications, RETAIL FOOD CHAINS, Taco Bell, What to do when you are sued on February 16th, 2011 by mnayor
Ouch! On January 25th it was reported that Taco Bell had been hit with a class action suit asserting that the company's claim that it uses seasoned beef or seasoned ground beef in its products is false. Plaintiffs allege that the Company's beef mixture is only 35% beef with the rest a mixture of oats, soy, maltodrextrin and soy lecithin and water. Monetary damages are not claimed. The plaintiffs want to compel Taco Bell to be honest in its advertising.
After a couple of weeks we have not heard from Taco Bell other than it will "vigorously defend the suit". No damage control here.
Perhaps the Company feels the public will soon forget all about the suit. And maybe it will. After all, not too many people expect ground fillet mignon in their $1.00 wraps. But then again, not too many people expect adulterated food either. Time will tell whether sales are negatively impacted. So what's a company to do?
Honesty. It's a difficult concept to play with sometimes. The public likes your product the way you make it. You actually disclose some information on your website (how many people research product ingredients on a website before purchasing?). No harm has apparently been done (although some of the additives are common allergens).
How about some real facts. Instead of ducking down and waiting for the shots to subside (along with the jokes), why not deal with the issue head on. Research carefully. Analyze your products and make full disclosure. Publicize the nutrition value of each product as well.
Most companies and their attorneys play it very close to the chest when they are being sued. But it is not always necessary to be 100% tight-lipped. The goal of any company in this type of circumstance should be to be as up-front as possible without exposing itself to greater liability. In this instance Taco Bell isn't even being sued for monetary damages. And as for potential suits in the future, any good laboratory can discover the ingredients in Taco Bell products. There are no secret formulas.
After analysis, the Company should make a determination whether it wants to change its recipes or not. It is conceivable that TB may announce that it is retaining its recipes because of their good nutritional values. It may change the wording of its "beef" content. It may upgrade its recipes (with great fanfare). Or it may just let the marketplace decide and let the chips fall where they may. If it chooses the latter it takes a risk (that may be justified in its mind) but it has not taken advantage of the opportunity to sell itself and burnish its image if it can inform the public about some positive information.


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Possible Duplicate:
How do I find out what version of Linux I'm running?
I purchased a web server recently and have got access to shell on it. I dont know the linux version on the server. I am not used to running linux commands, so can anybody help me in determining the linux version using the shell commands.


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I have a person table. I also have a car table and books table. The car and book table both have a foreign key back person. I am trying to count the number of books and cars each person has: I try:
COUNT(BooK.bookid) books,
COUNT(Car.CarId) cars
FROM Person, Book, Car
WHERE Person.ID = Book.PersonID = Car.PersonID
and I get:
Incorrect syntax near '='


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What is the probability of getting yahtzee using N dices with X sides in Y throws in a single round?
Which side of the dice one gets yahtzee with doesn't matter (e.g. it doesn't matter if it is ones or twos etc.). I also assume perfect strategy is used, that is, after each throw one saves the number it is the most of (and if equal, just pick one at random).


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The 6 Most Mind-Blowing Ways Your Brain Can Malfunction
There is nothing we take for granted as much as sanity. No matter what "crazy" unexpected thing might happen at the office tomorrow, you still know that you're not going to show up and find, say, your boss replaced by a talking guitar.
But as we have explored before, there are mental disorders that can mess with your perception of reality in unimaginable ways, while often leaving the rest of your mind untouched.
Disorders like ...
#6. Fregoli Syndrome
Imagine you get into an argument with your asshole roommate about the unpaid rent. You need to let off some steam, so you call your girlfriend to see if she wants to go for a nice burrito somewhere, but for some reason it's your asshole roommate on the end of the line and he's calling you "honey." So you hang up and go outside, but your asshole roommate is waving at you from the neighbor's yard.
Apparently Mr. Moneybags has enough cash for two rents.
Furious, you go to the local bar, only to find that your asshole roommate is the one pouring the drinks. Ten minutes and two black eyes later, you find yourself getting arrested by your asshole roommate.
The Condition:
Fregoli syndrome is the delusion that some or all of the people you meet during the course of a day are actually the same person. It's named after a famous actor who was able to change costumes rapidly onstage. As you would expect, Fregoli sufferers are frequently paranoid, as they reasonably assume that some master of disguise is fucking with them. Or maybe some kind of shape-shifting wizard.
Keep practicing, buddy. You can be James Hetfield, but you can't be all of Metallica.
The disorder comes with different degrees of severity, though. Sometimes, sufferers don't know exactly who is stalking them, but everybody looks really familiar somehow. It's like waking up to find your town populated entirely by people who went to your high school that you never spoke to much. One guy was known to just walk up to everybody and ask where they'd met before.
Fregoli syndrome also makes for an interesting insanity stew when it tag-teams with other disorders. For instance, a woman who was diagnosed with the condition also suffered from schizophrenia and something called erotomania, the belief that someone is in love with you when they aren't. She believed that actor Erik Estrada was in love with her, communicated with her telepathically and disguised himself to show up in her daily life in the form of her acquaintances and current boyfriend.
This is someone's fantasy.
It's such a sad story that we're hoping someday it will turn out she was right all along, and Mr. Estrada will be arrested.
#5. Mirrored-Self Misidentification
You wake up in the middle of the night and shuffle down the hall to the bathroom. You stumble in and flick on the light, and look up at the mirror on the medicine cabinet over your sink.
A stranger is standing there. He's staring right at you, as surprised to see you as you are to see him. You scream, "Get the hell out of my bathroom, you pervert! Go look at someone else's dick!" but the man only screams your own words back at you.
"Bring it on, buddy, I can do this all day."
The Condition:
People suffering from a disorder called mirrored-self misidentification have a breakdown with the part of their brain that understands how reflections work, so when they look at a mirror, their brain tells them they're looking at a stranger through a window. On a rational level, they understand what mirrors are and what they do, but they maintain the strong impression that their reflection is some nefarious doppelganger. It shows up mostly in Alzheimer's patients, but even then it's rare.
Scientists study the disorder by presenting subjects with a mirror, then holding up an object behind them and asking them to grab it. People without the disorder will turn around and reach for the object behind them, but someone who suffers from the condition tries to reach through the mirror, providing hours of quality entertainment for the researchers.
"You guys are DICKS!
One patient known as TH described the man in his mirror as "a dead ringer" for himself. He would even try to talk to his reflection, though their conversations were a little one-sided. TH did not particularly dislike this person, saying he had no reason to be suspicious of him. He believed that this man lived in the apartment adjoining his own. (There was no apartment adjoining his own.)
And they liked to look at each other while masturbating.
#4. Visual Agnosia
You go to the grocery store to pick up your weekly supply of Red Bull and Febreze, but you quickly realize that something is a little off. Specifically, all of the products you pick up scream and fight back when you try to shove them into your cart. Worse, when you finally get to the register, a potted fern asks if you're paying by cash or charge.
"Hey, asshole, my fronds are up here."
The Condition:
Visual agnosia is caused by a dysfunction in some of the brain's visual processing areas, the result of which is that you're unable to correctly identify things for what they are. And we're not talking about confusing a dog with a cat from a distance; we're talking about looking at your brother and trying to cram bread into his hair because you think he's the toaster.
If you think we made up that example to be funny, the neurologist Oliver Sacks described a patient in the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat who, at the end of an interview, grabbed his wife's head and tried to put it on his own head. According to the wife, this was the kind of bullshit she had to put up with every day.
"Sick bastard just walked up and started dry-humpin' my head."
People suffering from visual agnosia are stuck seeing the world kind of the way a space rover on Mars does. When a person with a normally functioning brain looks at something familiar, like a rose, she sees a bunch of shapes and colors and her brain automatically tells her what that thing is. The process is so lightning fast that you aren't even aware of it.
But it is a process and it can break down. Agnosia sufferers are permanently trapped in the shapes-and-colors stage. Sacks' patient looked at a rose and described it literally as "a convoluted red form with a linear green attachment." It's kind of like being blind, except you have some jackass following you around describing things to you and making you figure out what those things are on your own. For the rest of your life.
"Convoluted red form with a linear green attachment ... Rose McGowan?"
Mercifully, visual agnosia is just that -- a visual disorder. Sufferers retain the ability to identify things by using their other senses. Sacks' patient was able to recognize the rose when he smelled it.
Pause here and take a moment to thank your brain for all of the shit it does in the background just so you can get around every day.
"I sure hope none of those convoluted gray shapes are people!"


text:
The frigid temperatures had a grip on our area again Tuesday night. Unfortunately, under a bridge is a place where many area homeless slept.
HOTEL INC hopes to change that with its homeless outreach.
"The River Walk Park is a central location. It's also a central location to where a lot of our homeless live. Whether that is literally here near the bridge in tents or other types of encampments," says Executive Director Rhondell Miller.
Families are offered hot meals, clothing and medical services. Those seeking assistance come from all walks of life.
"We also have two women who are expecting children that we have met on the street as well," says Miller.
With temperatures at night dropping fast, HOTEL INC says so have the number of families. Cold nights have called for desperate measures.
"If you're out and you have gotten somewhere where you are warm, you don't want to leave that to come out. Even if it is for a hot meal," says Miller.
But those who have ventured out in the cold may have found a warm place to stay, at the Salvation Army.
"Our shelter is actually full on the mens side. We have actually pulled out the cots, the reserve cots and we actually have people sleeping in our living corridors," says Director of Social Services Heather Gordon.
Although full, Gordon says they will never turn away those who need help.
"When the temperature drops, it's your health at stake and you know with it being 17 or 16 degrees outside this is the only place they have a warm place to lay their head and have food to eat," says Gordon.
With the temperature beginning to increase this week, some have decided it's time to pack up their things and leave.
To learn more about HOTEL INC, visit their website Here.


text:
Community Information Database
You are browsing the Subject Heading Marriage Counseling which contains 7 record(s)
- Family Service Agency of the Central Coast
We offer a variety of clinical, crisis, educational, outreach and supportive services designed to maintain and strengthen family and community life. FSA Watsonville Office 11 Alexander Street, Su... [Full Record] [Add to Personal List]
- New Life Community Services of Santa Cruz
New Life Community Services is a private, non-profit, 12-Step, (12 step) social model program licensed by the California State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. Residential and outpatient servi... [Full Record] [Add to Personal List]
- Nonviolent Communication Santa Cruz
Office (Mailing Address): 157 Van Ness Ave. #5, Santa Cruz, Ca. 95060 Nonviolent Communication Santa Cruz provides opportunities to learn lifelong skills for communicating with compassion, foste... [Full Record] [Add to Personal List]
- Parents Center
Professional counseling in a confidential atmosphere for parents and children. Parenting skill classes according to a court approved curriculum. Education and counseling for prevention of child abuse ... [Full Record] [Add to Personal List]
- Renaissance
Services are also available at 11D Alexander St., Watsonville 728-9970. In Soquel/Aptos, please call: 831-346-6767 Renaissance Program provides professional individual out-patient therapy which is... [Full Record] [Add to Personal List]
- Scotts Valley Counseling Center
Scotts Valley Counseling Center is a non-profit agency dedicated to bringing high-quality therapy to the communities of Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Counties. We offer compassionate, judgment-free couns... [Full Record] [Add to Personal List]
- Shine a Light Counseling Center, Inc.
We are a non-profit counseling center in Santa Cruz, California. Our goal is to provide high quality yet affordable psychotherapy and counseling services to individuals, couples, families, and groups.... [Full Record] [Add to Personal List]


text:
Through curiosity, hard work and encouragement from her hometown of Waukesha, including the Waukesha Civic Theatre, Carmen De La Paz has made a dream come true on her way to becoming an international TV personality.
Carmen will return to Waukesha for a very special night of song and story telling about her Waukesha roots, beginning at 8 p.m. on Nov. 17 at the Waukesha Civic Theatre.
Carmen grew up one block away from the old Waukesha Civic Theatre located at 506 N Washington Ave. As a seventh-grader at Butler Middle School, she heard that the theater was looking for young kids to play in "Christmas on Angel Street" and was chosen for the cast. From that point on, Carmen and the stage were inseparable.
"Once I knew there was a possibility of the dream, I had to do everything I could to find out what that is and get ready."
She spent the following years learning everything she could about theater - from acting to how the lights and sound worked.
"I really took it seriously, even as a kid."
Her love for the stage was encouraged by Larry Nelson, a former Butler Middle School language arts teacher, former City of Waukesha Mayor and current Waukesha Civic Theatre board member. It was over coffee last year that Nelson and Carmen discussed the idea to bring Carmen's show to Waukesha.
"I can remember that Carmen, as a teenager, was already self confident, self assured," said Nelson, adding that she is very enthusiastic and charismatic. "I can't think of too many people that are a talented singer, a talented actor, as well as an artisan."
One woman show
The one woman show, written and performed by Carmen, will feature a mix of story and song recalling her life and crazy adventures as a Puerto Rican growing up in Waukesha.
She recalls checking the TV section of the newspaper for musicals when she was a kid growing up in Waukesha. "I would sit there and highlight it with red and yellow markers which musicals were on that week. I would plan my schedule to watch (those programs)."
Carmen's parents were fine with her watching the late night musicals, just as long as she got up to go to school the next morning. "My life is reflected in that." Carmen can tell you about a period of her life based on the songs and musicals she liked at the time. For example, her memories of seventh and eighth grade are filled with the music of "West Side Story."
Carmen will sing a variety of musical numbers including hits from "West Side Story," "A Chorus Line" and "Les Miserables," as well as disco, Spanish and romantic songs during her Waukesha Civic Theatre show. She has promised a little surprise for audience members at the end of the show as well.
"It's amazing to come back home and do this," said Carmen. She said it is wonderful to be able to share her voice since her popularity is focused on TV shows and power tools.
"People forget that I started (with) singing and dancing." Carmen's musical talent has taken her all the way to Broadway. She made her Broadway debut at New York City Lincoln Center's production of "In the Summer House" starring Dianne Wiest, Liev Schreiber and Frances Conroy.
"My parents are a huge driving force for me. My dad passed but still is very much part of who I am today," said Carmen. Her mom - also named Carmen - is Carmen's biggest fan and often travels with her.
"I'm just so grateful to have had the parents I have. I'm so thankful to Waukesha and to my parents for who I am today." She always remembers her dad's only rule: don't quit.
Carmen plans to take the show she performs in Waukesha on an international tour, allowing her to tell her story and honor the influences of the community that she calls home.
Celebrity status
Carmen is perhaps best known for her carpentry and design skills on six seasons of "Hammer Heads." In "All American Handyman with Mike Holmes, Showdown," Carmen was featured for two seasons as the only female carpenter to compete in the show. She was also featured in "250K Challenge," "25 Worst Landscaping Techniques," "25 Worst Renovation Mistakes," and "Home for the Holidays." Last fall, Carmen made a special appearance as a celebrity carpenter on "Design Star," where she helped the cast win their challenge in the semifinal round. "Design Star" is Carmen's 10th production with HGTV.
Carmen has just finished production for several new television projects - including her own show - "Be Handy con Carmen." As creator, producer and host, Carmen brings a female perspective to home improvement, power tools, design and do-it-yourself projects. The show premiered November 2011 on FOX International's new Spanish language channel UTILISIMA!
"Be Handy con Carmen" airs in 17 countries. Carmen can also be seen in the second season of the highly successful Spanish language talk show "Hola Martin - Estilo de Vida," also on UTILISIMA!
She will be the first Latina woman to be featured on the cover of Country Woman Magazine next February/March.
Carmen was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is a Waukesha North graduate and an alumnus of Syracuse University and has a BFA in music theater. In addition to singing, she plays nine instruments and loves to dance. For more information about the show, visit www.waukeshacivictheatre.org or call (262) 547-0708. For more information on Carmen, visit www.carmendelapaz.com.
If you go
What: An Evening of Song with Carmen De La Paz
Where: Waukesha Civic Theatre, 264 Main St. in Waukesha
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17
Cost: $50 per person. Proceeds will benefit the theater
More from News and Features
- Waukesha Plan Commission OKs charter school expansion plans for La Casa de Esperanza
- Waukesha Community Briefs: Night Out info, food drive and more
- Now You Know: Where were Waukesha's movie theaters?
- New Latin American restaurant Arepanitas opens near downtown Waukesha
- Waukesha newspaper website is changing
- Waukesha police report: July 28, 2016 issue
- 2016 Waukesha County Fair coverage
- Our Fair Ladies Blog: Video: Animal races, 4-H and a geese champion at the Waukesha County Fair
- Unpaid fees could keep Waukesha students from graduation ceremonies
- Waukesha South open art studio gives students opportunity to create


text:
Click to purchase this product or shop BabySuperMall.com
Click to purchase this product or shop BabySuperMall.com
Measures 32 inches x 56 inches.
Made of 100% cotton.
Each fabric in this rug is hand dyed to achieve color and texture.
The fabric is then hand weaved.
Care instructions: Professional rug cleaning recommeded. Do NOT dry clean. If stray loops apear, do NOT pull, trim them with a scissors. The use of a rug pad will prevent possible color transfer. Gentle vacuum use with light suction. Do Not use vacuum brush.
© Baby SuperMall, LLC 1997-2016
Return to
Ribbons & Roses Crib Bedding


text:
And now, page 2
By bonwick on Sep 27, 2010
To my team:
After 20 incredible years at Sun/Oracle, I have decided to try something new.
This was a very hard decision, and not one made lightly. I have always enjoyed my work, and still do -- everything from MTS-2 to Sun Fellow to Oracle VP. I love the people I work with and the technology we've created together, which is why I've been doing it for so long. But I have always wanted to try doing a startup, and recently identified an opportunity that I just can't resist. (We are in stealth mode, so that's all I can say for now.)
This team will always have a special place in my heart. Being part of the Solaris team means doing the Right Thing, innovating, changing the rules, and being thought leaders -- creating the ideas that everyone else wants to copy. Add to that Oracle's unmatched market reach and ability to execute, and you have a combination that I believe will succeed in ways we couldn't have imagined two years ago. I hope that Solaris and ZFS Storage are wildly successful, and that you have fun making it happen.
To the ZFS community:
Thank you for being behind us from Day One. After a decade in the making, ZFS is now an adult. Of course there's always more to do, and from this point forward, I look forward to watching you all do it. There is a great quote whose origin I have never found: "Your ideas will go further if you don't insist on going with them." That has proven correct many times in my life, and I am confident that it will prove true again.
For me, it's time to try the Next Big Thing. Something I haven't fully fleshed out yet. Something I don't fully understand yet. Something way outside my comfort zone. Something I might fail at. Everything worth doing begins that way. I'll let you know how it goes.
My last day at Oracle will be this Thursday, September 30, 2010. After that you can reach me at my personal mac.com e-mail, with the usual first-dot-last construction.
It has truly been a wonderful couple of decades. To everyone who taught me, worked with me, learned from me, and supported my efforts in countless ways large and small: Thank you.


text:
6 Insane True Stories Behind The Stage Names of Celebrities
Probably half of the celebrities you know are using fake names, and we can't blame them since we're on the Internet, where the most popular male name is BoobGuurl69. But because famous people's careers live and die by how memorable their names are, there is often a convoluted and high-stakes game behind every well-known moniker.
And sometimes, the stories just get downright ridiculous.
#6. Francis Ford Coppola + Marvel Comics = Nic Cage and... Mortal Kombat?
As a teenager, Nicolas Coppola changed his name to stop other actors from teasing him. No, they didn't tease him because his last name was Italian, or because it sounded like "copulation." Some people claimed he only had an acting career because he was related to Francis Ford Coppola. Considering that Nicolas says he would have joined the Merchant Marines if he hadn't been cast in his uncle's film Rumble Fish, perhaps those people weren't completely wrong. Or even a little wrong.
Nicolas, of course, looks nothing like a sailor. He looks like a horse. He also looks like a giant nerd, and in fact, he is such a huge nerd that he borrowed his new name from an obscure Marvel Comics character he liked:
We told you he was obscure.
Since "Nick Powerman" was clearly more awesome than he could handle, he had to settle for "Nicolas Cage." Cage would go on to play a few characters published by Marvel Comics (in Ghost Rider and Kick-Ass), but oddly enough nobody has cast him as Luke Cage yet.Wait, it Gets Weirder:
In the early 90s two game designers were working on a fighting game centered around Jean-Claude Van Damme. When the project fell through, they reworked the concept into what became known as Mortal Kombat. They kept the Van Damme character (and some of his signature moves, like doing a split on the floor and punching the other guy's balls), but obviously they had to change his name. So they called him Johnny Cage.
Since the character was a martial arts actor and they needed his name to sound as Hollywood as possible, it's very likely that they borrowed "Cage" from Nicolas. You know, the same name he chose a decade earlier to AVOID reminding people of someone famous.
This is just speculation, but keep in mind that before Nicolas became a celebrity, the name Cage was most commonly associated with an avant garde composer. We seriously doubt the creators of Mortal Kombat were trying to be evocative of a guy playing the piano with a pineapple. Also, according to Wikipedia Johnny Cage's real name is Carlton, which means that, like Nicolas, he was definitely teased as a teenager.There's More:
As we've mentioned before, Nicolas Cage is a ginormous nerd. He is such an inconceivably colossal nerd, that he named his son Kal-El after Superman, one of his two favorite comic characters. The other one is Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, of whom Cage even has a tattoo (which had to be covered up when he played Blaze in the Ghost Rider film, because what kind of douchebag has a tattoo of their own face?).
But of course Nicolas couldn't name his son after Johnny Blaze, even though Kal-El is much more likely to make the boy the focus of the ridicule Nic was trying to save himself from years ago. After all, going with Blaze for his naming inspiration would have given his son the most stereotypically Hollywood name of all time: Johnny Cage.
#5. 1955's Michael Fox Inadvertently Changes Own Name, Decades in the Future
If you ask Michael J. Fox what the "J" in his name stands for, most of the time he'll tell you it's for "Jenius" (which we know is a joke because our spellchecker just drew a squiggly line under the word).
The truth is even more dyslexic--it stands for Andrew. That is the least stupid part of this story.
You know what else doesn't have a "J" in it, Doc Brown? The word "Gigawatts."
When young Michael Andrew Fox tried to register at the Screen Actor's Guild as Michael Fox, he found out someone had beaten him to it by about 30 years. There was a prolific veteran actor of the same name, with hundreds of film and TV roles under his belt. The Guild doesn't allow duplicates, to avoid confusion between actors.
Because someone could have thought this guy played Teen Wolf.
So, the future Marty McFly stuck the letter "J" in there. But the other Michael Fox guy? He debuted in the mid-50s, in the same era Back to the Future is set. In other words, if there hadn't been a Michael Fox in the 50s, Michael J. Fox wouldn't exist--which is exactly like the plot of the first movie.
Wait, it Gets Weirder:
Mike watches as a "J" eerily fades into his printed name.
When Marty travels to 1955, his father George McFly mentions being a huge fan of a show called Science Fiction Theatre, a knowledge his son uses to manipulate him into porking his mother. The show was most likely chosen because they needed to establish George as a huge nerd who had no chance of ever sleeping with anyone, and Star Trek wasn't around at the time.
But get this: the original Michael Fox played several roles in that same show, on the exact same year. Another episode, aired in 1955, featured a suburban couple finding out that their neighbors are time travelers from the future, hiding in the present of 1955--which is sort of like the plot of Back to the Future only seen from the opposite perspective.
Holy shit!
#4. A CBS Saturday Morning Show is Responsible for Katy Perry
For many, Katy Perry is famous mainly for looking exactly like a Photoshop of Zooey Deschanel's face on a porn actress's body:
Therefore it's a little ironic that Katy has gone to great lengths to prevent being confused with a completely different famous actress.
Before she started singing about making out with other girls (and liking it), Katy used to sing about praising the lord Jesus Christ (and feeling satisfied with abiding it). At age 16, she released a Christian music album under her real name: Katy Hudson.
In the context of Christian entertainment Katy's name was unique, but when she made the jump to pop music (and the morally bankrupt world of mainstream media), she adopted the surname Perry to avoid confusion with Hollywood actress Kate Hudson.
Kate Hudson, whose main contribution to society is nothing. Nothing at all.
Katy has become pretty defensive of her fake name: In 2009, her lawyers tried to stop an Australian fashion designer called Katie Perry from opening a clothing store under her own name. You know, the name she was born with, which the other Katy only adopted a few years ago. And after Australian Katie had already started her business.
Aussies called shenanigans, and Katy was kind enough to drop the case at the last minute and allow the designer to continue using her birth name.Wait, it Gets Weirder:
Katy Perry changed her name because of Kate Hudson, but Kate Hudson shouldn't even be named Kate Hudson. Why? Well, she's the daughter of Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson--a performer from a 70s pop band/variety act called The Hudson Brothers. Between 1974 and 1975, at the absolute height of their fame, The Hudson Brothers starred in a Saturday morning show at CBS.
Even if that's not a euphemism, we would rather not.
But before becoming a band, the members of The Hudson Brothers were known as the Salerno brothers since, you know, that's what they were really called. At some point after turning famous, Bill, Brett and Mark Salerno had their name legally changed to Hudson, so when one of them married Goldie Hawn and had a daughter, she inherited the fake name, causing another girl to have to change hers a couple of decades into the future.There's More:
All this fuss, and Kate Hudson doesn't even like her surname. Bill Hudson may be her biological father, but to her and her brother, their real dad is the man who raised them: Kurt Russell. In fact, when she had a son with Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes, she named him Ryder Russell Robinson.
Yeah, we'd pick Jack Burton over our real dads too.


text:
Event date
Full Address
306 South Main Street, Kernersville, NC 27284
Main Street UMC in Kernersville
Contact Phone Number
Sherri (336) 992-2134 or email@example.com
We provide support to people struggling with multiple sclerosis. We hold self help meetings once a month. Our concern is that people who may need us will not know how to find us. Will you please publish our contact information as follows?
Multiple Sclerosis Be Strong (MSBS)
Newly Diagnosed and Minimally Affected
4th Wednesday of each month, 6 – 7:30pm
Kernersville Main Street United Methodist Church (parlor)
Sherri (336-992-2134


text:
Many people install Linux-based distros on USB drives to use for, largely, basic PC troubleshooting. Has anyone tried installing such a thing on their Android phone's SD card? That way instead of carrying about both a USB drive and a phone, one could simply plug their phone in, boot the PC from USB, and set about performing whatever actions are necessary. Does anyone have any recommendations for particular flavors of Linux which are best suited to this task?
As far as I know, there is no Android device that can be put into a USB-mass-storage-thumbdrive-compliant mode (to use the nontechnical term). The phone would need to have a special mode where it emulated a USB drive and handled reads/writes to the SD card and that sort of thing. I can't imagine any manufacturer modifying the hardware and writing the software necessary to support this when the expected return on investment would probably be 0.
Amon Ra's recovery (Here for Dream/G1, see that post for links to other supported phones) allows mounting the SD card as USB Mass Storage.
ClockworkMod Recovery may also allow this, but I'm more familiar with Amon Ra's patches.
You could boot the phone into recovery, turn on USB-MS, and boot from your phone.
NOTE OF CAUTION: My Dream(G1) and Magic (MyTouch 3G) do NOT charge when booted into recovery. I don't know if I'd recommend this for that reason alone.


text:
Is the fastest gun in the west problem solved? Is it really a problem?
What is meta?
- Any Stack Exchange user can ask a question
- The community provides support, votes on ideas, and reports bugs
- Your voice helps shape the way Stack Exchange operates
I had an idea for this that I submitted to uservoice a while ago, but I can't seem to find it now so I'll recreate it:
When casting a vote, the effect of that vote would be delayed for all other users for five minutes or something. You would be able to see the vote effect, so that you could easily confirm that your vote was actually cast. But everybody else would see the effect of that vote five minutes later.
This would allow each answer to be voted on its own merit, at least for the first few minutes. From the point of view of a user, the site would appear to work exactly the way it does now except it would look like everybody else was off having a coffee break whenever you cast a vote.
I guess the question is really: is it a problem?
There are several different aims to the site:
Getting a quick answer in serves two purposes:
The main problem I see is that of positive feedback - an earlier answer will often get more votes (and keep getting more votes) than a better, later answer. That's not always the case, but it does happen. (And I'm fully aware that I'm usually the beneficiary of that.)
Let's look at whether it's really a problem. To find out, we need to focus on questions that:
Other answers haven't included these criteria, and I think that's a big problem. For example, if you don't filter out questions with only one answer, well then of course the first answer is going to be much more likely to be accepted - because duh, it's the ONLY answer.
If you're playing along at home with SQL Server, the query to find the questions I'm focusing on is:
Out of those 88,975 (Oct 19, 2014: 2,379,173) questions, how many of them had the first answer accepted? The query I used was:
Turns out 49,989 (Oct 19, 2014: 1,013,791) of the first answers were accepted, or about 56% (Oct 19, 2014: 42.6%) of the time.
The next question would be, "How often was a later answer scored higher by the viewers?" The query I used was:
Turns out 3,167 (Oct 19, 2014: 128,257) times, a later answer has a higher score than the accepted (earlier) answer.
That's 6.34% of the first answer accepted had a later answer with a higher score in June 2009 and now, in October 2014, it's 12.65%.
With the June 2009 "first answer accepted" statistic suspect, comparing a later answer with higher score as a percentage of multiple answer questions: it was 3.56% in 2009 and 5.39% in 2014.
The SEDE queries.
The premise of the question is invalid: it is based on an assumption that the "fastest gun in the west" phenomenon is a problem, which I believe to be incorrect. One of the problems with forums is noone posts there because it takes a day or two (minimum) to get an answer. The fact that the system here encourages quick answers is a good thing. Usually if you have a programming related problem you need an answer now.
I'm brand new to Stack Overflow and think the speed thing is a problem. I'm enjoying answering questions and love the feedback from reputation. What I hate is writing a detailed, reasoned answer and suddenly getting an Ajax notification "there are 2 answers; reload to see them". I feel like I have to beat the timer. I'm already answering questions more quickly or leaving a short answer to go back and edit later.
I think the solution is to somehow delay votes and randomize the order for a few minutes until several answers come in. Then let the best answer win.
Here's some other data that Sam Saffron put together
Looking only at questions with 5 answers:
Answer # # of Qs Percentage of total 0 2524 26.196 1 1982 20.571 2 1918 19.907 3 1715 17.800 4 1496 15.527
Looking only at questions that received 2 answers within the first 5 minutes
Answer # # of Qs Percentage of total 0 8069 35.073 1 6508 28.288 2 3972 17.265 3 2094 9.102 4 1054 4.581 5 558 2.425
Personally, I think that looks totally reasonable
I don't really think it's a problem. I'm rarely the first to answer, which means I have to write better (or at least longer ;)) answers in order to catch up. I'll never catch up with Jon Skeet rep-wise, but I've got 22k so far, and almost all of it has been earned on questions where I was not the first to answer.
It doesn't really bother me. The questions where "first answer wins" are usually the ones where only a few upvotes are going to be given anyway. In the longer-running questions, where all the real upvotes are given, there's plenty of time to jockey for position.
Two-minute initial no-voting period?
Three-minute prohibition on edits for answers posted very quickly; say, within a minute of question posting?
Here's a metrics question:
Of the questions that have the first 2 answers within 10 minutes, what's the upvote difference between the first and second answers, and is that upvote difference statistically significant?
I've had several occasions where I've submitted a nearly-identical answer within 60 seconds of the first one, and there were a huge difference in votes. Weird... first because I would have expected this forum to be more merit based (as long as answers come in quickly, who cares whether one arrives in 4 minutes and the other 4 minutes 30 seconds), and secondly because why should I care about votes anyway? I have this strange urge to be less rigorous, go ahead and post my quick answer first, then go back and edit it to have the right links & stuff, especially since there seems to be a time period after the initial post when corrections/additions are accepted without it being called an "edit".
I'd suggest deciding what qualities of answers you want first (correct & complete answers that are reasonably quick) and coming up with social rules to encourage those qualities. SO's pretty good but issues like this make me wonder.
My suggestion
is similar to Greg's. But instead of delaying every vote for 5 minutes, I would:
The part of my old answer
for which I got some down-votes and the bashing comments below:
I really feel this being a big problem. That's why I try to commit my answers quickly, only with the main aspects. Afterwards, I'm re-editing it to fill in details (like source code examples) to improve its quality. But this process is:
I'll answer from my personal point of view, which is not upvotes, downvotes, selection of the best answer or even reputation. My main concern is: wasting my time, or if you prefer, not being collectivelly more efficient. How many times I have spent 5 or more minutes writing an answer only to discover that another person was producing / had produced a very similar if not exact same one?
Some strategies that I have tried:
None of them has worked very well so far.
My proposition is to have the site informing the user that other people is already working on answers as soon as they enter the first character, and not as late as when they press "submit" (way too late, for everybody). Indication of the number of other people, names, reputation, maximum reputation (within the group), response length, etc. could also be very useful to me in deciding if to continue answering or not. Using the language of economics: make it a perfect market, where everything is a personal choice, but as well informed as possible.
Also useful: the ability to queue questions that I have chosen not to answer for later review.
Another alternative is to lock the question for a while. And/or after certain number of answers have started to be produced. However, somehow I'm more inclined for what you could call the liberal model, which also seems consistent with both the philosophy of the site and many opinions expressed here.
If this information is already available, please let me know how to access it.
Maybe it has been suggested before, and it may not be popular, but why not set the timestamp of the answer to the last edit, and sort the answers with equal votes accordingly?
I would argue that there are still plenty of examples where the first or second to answer are not the answers that end up getting selected or with the most votes...


text: How could I go about my day without making a tutorial on the very face that we all recognize and see a lot of during Christmas time. Here is "how to draw the Grinch easy", step by step. This green colored face has a sniveling grin and devious eyes. He starts out as rotten to the core, but in time Grinch develops a soft spot which makes his heart grow big enough to actually have feelings. Drawing Grinch easy is going to be fun and simple. You will have a blast without a doubt in my mind. Adios people and enjoy!


text:
12 Apr 2007 11:40 PM #1
NestedLayoutPanel/Splitbar CSS Inconsistencies
Been meaning to post a snap of this for a while -- I've noticed that in a NestedLayoutPanel, the border edges on the splitbars east/west/north/south are partially lost
13 Apr 2007 3:33 AM #2
Give this forum (bugs) a search, I just replied to this same thing.
In a nutshell, there is no way for it to know what borders to use with NestedLayouts. It tries to guess - but ultimately, like I do in the examples, you will need to correct the borders with nested layouts.
The only exception is ReaderLayout, which fixes all borders and margins for you automatically since it knows exactly what will be there.Jack Slocum
Sencha Co-Founder, Ext JS Founder
Original author of Ext JS 1, 2 & 3.
Twitter: @jackslocum


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Greg Stump's 1987 ski film "The Blizzard of Ahhh's" is arguably one of the most influential ski films to ever hit the scene.
The film's second installment, "The Legend of Ahhh's," will be showing at the Winter Park Pub at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 27, and Thursday, Feb. 28.
Stump is anticipated to be present at the showing of the movie for both nights.
Stump's first film forever changed the way ski films were created when he cut the soundtrack for the film and then edited the film around the music.
His second film follows many of the same techniques used in his first film while paying homage to the history of ski movies. He also conducts intense interviews with some of the ski film industry's top and upcoming movie-makers.
Come check out the film and don't miss your chance to meet one of the ski film industry's most influential people. There might even be an opportunity to pick up some sweet merchandise from the movie and its creator.


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Can Francis Cure the Curia?
"His quips and one liners won't get Pope Francis far in changing the Roman Curia," a veteran Vatican official told me. "There are certain procedures which worked well in the past. Things have gone downhill recently, but the Vatican is too big to function without procedures, and introducing new ones is not easy."
Following the theft and publication of documents from Pope Benedict's study, reports of financial shenanigans and a gay lobby, the cardinals at the conclave elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio in large part to clean up the mess.
"We wanted someone with good managerial and leadership skills," Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York told the National Catholic Reporter's John Allen in July. "But so far that hasn't been as obvious." That may become clearer soon. In October, Francis is supposed to hear from an international group of eight cardinals he appointed with a mandate to advise him on nearly all aspects of church governance.
The basic form of the Roman Curia was established late in the sixteenth century to help the pope apply the Council of Trent. It has been reformed several times since, the most important being the reform of Paul VI, a Vatican insider whose top adviser, Msgr. Giovanni Benelli, was a savvy, energetic Curialist. They reshaped the Curia by creating offices for areas of concern such as ecumenism and the laity, which had acquired a new importance at Vatican II.
Francis lacks Paul VI's Curial expertise, and there is no Benelli in sight. He could need outside help. In a similar situation, John XXIII surprised the Curia by convening the Second Vatican Council in 1962. It was the first time since 1870 that the world's Catholic bishops were summoned to deliberate church policies, and only the second time since the Council of Trent. The bishops immediately rejected the position papers prepared by the Curia, and, with John XXIII's support, prepared their own. It was an insult to the men who had decided policies for so long. They evoked the specter of the conciliarism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the claim that councils had greater authority than popes split the church. The bishops at Vatican II, however, saw themselves as heirs of the apostles governing together with the heir of Peter. This resulted in part in the establishment of periodic synods of bishops, which some hoped would govern the church along with the pope. The Curia would be at the bishops' service.
It didn't happen that way. Synods produce recommendations the pope may or may not accept. Some bishops say synods are useful for sharing experiences, but many wish they were something more. Still, collegiality has advanced since Vatican II because more diocesan bishops have been included in Vatican congregations (offices) that decide policies.
The Curia has never been well loved. But it has enjoyed a reputation as a cohesive body that dealt effectively with complex global problems. "What I most admire about the Curia," a French ambassador to the Holy See told me a decade ago, "is that it allows expression of many opinions but then is unified behind the decisions once they are made."
"It's remarkable how well the Roman Curia of some three thousand members has served a worldwide church of 1.2 billion believers although it has limited means," said Norman Tanner, an English Jesuit professor of church history at the Gregorian University in Rome. "In comparison with the vast civil services of the central governments of the United States or Russia or India, this is a small number. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to turn a blind eye to sinfulness and mismanagement; good reforms are always welcome."
How did such a well-regarded bureaucracy come to reproduce the murkiest aspects of Italian politics? The Curia suffered financial scandals and other blunders in the past but they received less media attention. The sexual-abuse scandal changed that. What's more, many Curialists are demoralized because the past two popes largely ignored them. Before Vatican II, the Curia had real powers. The heads of the five major Curial offices, known as the "Pentagon," were like feudal lords whose collective power counterbalanced that of the monarch. John XXIII changed the game when he brought the world's bishops to Rome and then backed them against the Curia's agenda.
From the beginning of his pontificate, John Paul II made it clear that he would not be managed by the Curia. One of his first acts was to visit a sick friend in a Roman hospital. As the papal party was leaving, he talked at length with one of the nurses. Eventually a papal aide intervened: "The Holy Father has to leave for another engagement," he said. "The Holy Father will decide himself when he leaves," John Paul replied.
Soon Curialists would learn of John Paul's decisions when he announced them from his study window at the Angelus. To a large extent, he left the Curia to its own devices while he acted on the world stage. And so the Curia did as it pleased during his long decline from Parkinson's disease.
Before he was elected pope, Joseph Ratzinger served in the Curia for a quarter of a century, but was never of it. He ran his own show, as if the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was the "Supreme Congregation," as in the past. He was elected pope in part because some cardinals wanted an insider to clean up the Curia. To some extent he tried. For example, he instituted external controls on the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR)—the so-called Vatican Bank. But his reforms failed to go far enough, and his successor has inherited the mess. He also strengthened Vatican policies on sexually abusive priests.
But for Benedict the church is the search for beauty and truth. He never saw the relevance of the Vatican diplomatic corps, with its inevitable compromises. He refused to grant Vatican ambassadors (nuncios) their traditional audiences when they visited Rome. He further upset them by appointing his collaborator Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as secretary of state, rather than a nuncio. Bertone lacked diplomatic experience—and English. Bertone had been promoted beyond his competence, yet he threw his weight around as if Benedict had decided to concentrate on intellectual issues while leaving Bertone a free hand with administrative matters. Many Curialists were disgruntled—Bertone's appointment was more proof that popes no longer deemed them important.
Benedict XVI spent his pontificate campaigning against relativism, but then he relativized the papacy by stepping down because he lacked the energy to reform the Curia. He left the task to his successor.
Francis's decision to live in the Santa Marta hostel rather than the papal apartments is significant because he shares the hostel with lower-grade Curial employees and visiting clergy. In the papal apartments one grants audiences, in Santa Marta one meets people. In the papal apartments others would have controlled who had access to him. At the Santa Marta he handles his own schedule—he doesn't even leave it to a secretary.
Some Curialists are unenthusiastic about Francis, but console themselves with the conviction that popes come and go but the Curia lasts forever. They cast a cold eye on Francis's habit of kissing babies like a politician. They have little patience for his "low church" liturgical style. They think Francis was rude to call Benedict—less than ten years his senior—"nonno," grandfather. Why couldn't Francis show up for a concert in his honor, instead of leaving Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the office for Evangelization, to make an embarrassed apology while standing near the empty papal chair? And why has Francis been so evasive about contentious issues? When he spoke to a group of French Catholics, he failed to mention France's pro-gay-marriage legislation, even though their coreligionists are leading the campaign against it. For these critics, the Jesus Christ Superstar-style of swaying, arm-waving bishops at a World Youth Day liturgy was a last straw.
Bishops are supposed to offer their best men for service in the Curia, but not all are willing to do so. Sometimes it serves as a dumping ground for those not wanted in their diocese. The most dedicated Curialists make a religion of work, but without engaging in pastoral work, their jobs can prove soul-destroying. They can get lonely. There is no Curialists' club: Italians can avoid the problem by bringing family members with them to Rome, but foreign priests don't have that luxury. The American Cardinal John Wright was surprised by the formality. He tried pantomiming some mock-solemn gestures with the doormen of his office, but a playful cardinal was outside their ken.
When it comes to the Curia, Francis has played his cards close to his vest. It's not clear whether he wants to enact a large-scale reform, or nibble around the edges. On Saturday he made what could be a decisive appointment: Archbishop Pietro Parolin will replace Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as secretary of state in October. Parolin was a Vatican representative in Nigeria and Mexico before his current post as the nuncio in Venezuela. He has also been a negotiator with Vietnam and China. Born in the Italian region of Veneto, with a degree in canon law from the Jesuit Gregorian University in Rome, he has a reputation as a skilled diplomat able to mediate with both governments and local churches. At fifty-eight, he is the youngest secretary of state since Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius XII), who was appointed at the age of fifty-four.
Benedict XVI gave top priority to financial reform, and so has Francis. After the Italian authorities accused the IOR of being involved in money-laundering, the Vatican replaced key staff. It even accepted outside checks by the European anti-money-laundering agency Moneyvals. Eventually the IOR director and his deputy resigned, and another key figure at IOR, Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, was imprisoned before trial. Asked about Scarano on the return flight from World Youth Day in Brazil, Francs referred to Imelda, a fourteenth- century Italian child who died in ecstasy after receiving the Eucharist. "Do you think he ended up in prison because he was like the Blessed Imelda?" said Francis ironically. "It's a scandal. It hurts."
At present the secretary of state is handling routine work, but Francis has his own secretariat, composed mainly of Argentinians and Italians, who work on the second floor of the Santa Marta hostel. They have been responsible for two key decisions designed to achieve greater transparency at IOR. Francis liked the manager of the hostel where he stayed before his election, the Italian Msgr, Battista Ricca. He made Ricca his personal representative at the Vatican Bank. Then the journalist Sandro Magister of the Roman weekly L'Espresso reported that Ricca had engaged in outrageous homosexual behavior while serving in Uruguay. Magister supplied the name of Ricca's alleged lover, described his cruising for men in Buenos Aires, and claimed that the Vatican had received complaints about Ricca from Montevideo. As far as I know, no action has been taken against Magister for libel.
This embarrassed Francis. He must have looked at Ricca's file before he appointed him to the IOR. Had the alleged reports from Montevideo been removed beforehand? As of this writing, Ricca remains at the IOR. Asked about Ricca on the return flight from Rio, Francis said he had investigated the case and found none of the accusations true. Talking more generally, he said that often people commit sins that are later held against them, which is unfair if they repent. He added that he wasn't talking about matters such as child abuse. Perhaps he had Ricca in mind when, answering a question about a gay lobby in the Vatican, he said, "If a gay person is in eager search for God, who am I to judge them?… Being gay is not the problem, lobbying is."
On July 18, Francis's mini-Curia took another step to reform the Vatican Bank. They appointed eight people to a new commission to reorganize the Vatican's economic-administrative offices. Sandro Magister, while maintaining his accusations about Ricca, struck again, claiming that the commission's thirty-year-old communications expert, the Calabrian-Maroccan Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, has close connections with Gianfranco Nuzzi, who wrote the best-seller about the documents stolen from Benedict XVI. Magister also claimed she is an informant of a scandal-mongering Italian website. Before shutting down her Twitter account, Chaouqui allegedly called Cardinal Bertone "corrupt." Magister sometimes varies his weekly column on the Vatican with reports from an anonymous insider. Is an insider feeding him information to embarrass Francis?
Of course, finding the right staff is but one of the many problems Francis faces in reforming the Curia. Some have suggested declericalizing the Curia. At present, bishops must hold the top positions in Curial offices—even if more competent laypeople work below them. And only bishops are allowed to lead Vatican congregations. Why not end that practice? What's more, Francis could begin making short-term appointments to prevent Curial ossification.
Francis's conception of his office may be another challenge. He emphasizes that he is the bishop of Rome rather than the pope, perhaps to diminish papolatry. Theologically, the bishop of Rome is pope, not the other way around. But being bishop of Rome is not quite the same as being bishop of Buenos Aires. For one thing, the bishop of Rome has a vicar for the Diocese of Rome who has his own staff at the cathedral, St. John Lateran. Moreover, all the world's bishops are unified by being in communion with the bishop of Rome, who is called pope. He has a universal dimension.
A key aspect of that universality is the Vatican diplomatic corps. For a long time, diplomats headed many Curial offices. But Francis began giving priority to the pastoral, telling nuncios they must find the best men to recommend as bishops. But nuncios have other important tasks. Vatican diplomats keep Rome informed about the world around it. Without their intelligence, how will the Vatican know how to deal with other governments, especially in places where the church is constrained, such as China? The appointment of Pietro Parolin as secretary of state should do much to correct the balance and serve as a reminder that, at its best, diplomacy holds pastoral significance.
Francis is shrewd, energetic, skilled at reducing tensions, and unafraid of making decisions. But it seems Cardinal Dolan will have to be patient while the church waits to see whether the Curia is one of the problems Francis can solve.
About the Author
Desmond O'Grady, an author and journalist, has been Vatican correspondent for the Washington Post, the National Catholic Reporter, and the (London) Tablet.
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"The Curia has never been well loved. But it has enjoyed a reputation as a cohesive body that dealt effectively with complex global problems."
I guess it depends on which problems you consider. It certainly didn't deal effectively with the complex global problem of the sex abuse scandals in the Church.
And in the area of Liturgy it has become a conduit for complaint that takes sides in complex disputes often without really understanding what is going on in the local churches, leading to more problems on the ground. One of the complex global issues happens to be the relationship of periphery to the center, and the Curia sides with the center every time. Is this effective? Well, it depends on what outcomes one desires. The fathers of Vatican II wanted to strengthen the periphery, a development the Curia has always resisted.
Another humongous problem that the Curia -- and the Popes -- have not dealt with effectively is the problem of the loss of allegiance (if not of the basic faith) of millions upon millions of Catholicas since Vatican II. Dissent is rife, yet the Curia is unwilling and/or unable to even discuss the burning issues. Further, there doesn't seem to be any coherent teaching about when dissent is permitted or even necessary. There is no consistent teaching about the magisterium. The very word "magisterium" is quite ambiguous. And the Vatican doesn't even seem to realize the depths of these problems.
Evangelization is bound to fail if these problems are not addressed. New technological methods of communication could help spread the Word, but new fashioned technology and old fashioned enthusiasm will not compensate for the frustrations of the questioning faithful, especially the questioning young. The Vatican must learn to answer "Why?" with real evidence, not with lip-service to natural law theory or irrelevant texts from the Fathers of the Church..
How much Curial influence is secured by certain financial incentives to certain curial officials from certain interest groups?
We have been disgusted in the not-too-distant past to learn of one of the most blatant examples of this at THE hightest level of church governance: http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/money-paved-way-maciels-influence-vatican
Even for a pope, reforming the Curia seems to be like a flea steering a dog. The article notes that most f the members of the Curia have no pastoral experience, and it results in loneliness. It doesn't just result in loneliness; it results in blindness.
This is a good analysis, however one can write the same article and say as conclusion, Where are the People of God in all of this Clergy LOBBY. The so called Magisterium obviously has no place for them?? Or where are the women in this over the top MALE LOBBY. No place for them either. Then for the Gay LOBBY! I think Francis is staying away from Bebedict, and (George G) because they, with Bertone, and a few others, are the Gay Lobby. There is something weird about Benedict and Bertone. I cannot help feeling they are old lovers!
Too bad homosexuality has such a strong pull for the Vatican. If they could just be open and accepting of sexual orientation, in themselves as well as others, and see it as natural they might be able to come out and then begin to focus on the real issues in the Vatican and IN THE WORLD. PERHAPS EVEN THEY WILL BEGIN TO FOCUS ON PEACE AND JUSTICE INSTEAD OF PERSECUTING THE SISTERS FOR IT!
It would be interesting for the pope to have long meetings with groups of papal nuncios. Whatever their faults might be, they must know something about the countries they are in. I would mix the group from various continenst so that the meetings do not get stuck on provincial viewpoints. On the other hand sometimes a meeeting with nucios from the same continent would be appropriate


text: spoiler:That she actually killed Bill and ended up with her daughter! The ends of his movies aren't generally that happy and the outcomes aren't easy to predict. I never actually thought she'd kill Bill. Go figure. Oh, and the score disappointed me too. Not to mention, why didn't she get a flashback when she saw Budd and Elle, but did when she saw O-Ren and Vernita?


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Home > Jaguar > Jaguar XF Sportbrake 2013
Below you will find the high resolution car pictures for Jaguar XF Sportbrake 2013. You may use the car pictures for any of the following widescreen screen resolutions:
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Published On : Mar 05, 2012
Published On : Mar 05, 2012
Image Copyright : JaguarJaguar XF Sportbrake 2013 - Car Pictures at Dieselstation
Jaguar XF Sportbrake 2013
The much awaited 2013 Jaguar XF Sportbrake is out and it is just as sexy and sporty as we had expected it to be. The XF Sportbrake looks fresh and new, with many new design and performance features incorporated into it. B-pillar backwards, the XF Sportbrake is entirely new and at places looks even better than the sultry sedan it is based on.


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Ready to roll from car to stroller! Convert your stroller into a travel system.
*This adapter will NOT work with the Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4/35 model
This car seat adapter will attach a Peg Perego Primo Viaggio car seat to your Mountain Buggy, creating a travel system for your baby. Car seat clip 3 is compatible with the following stroller models:
*Please note that this travel system fits pre-2010 urban or urban elite stroller models but has not been safety tested.
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The next release in our 20th anniversary series is live
Little Dragon's self titled debut album is now re mastered, repressed and available in stunning translucent grey vinyl.
As with all the 20th Anniversary releases the vinyl is limited to 300 copies worldwide. However the band have taken a quantity to sell on tour, so we only have around 150 available on the site!
Catch them while you can!


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I'm a young graphic and volume designer from paris.
Of course if I'm here it's because I'm a lover of Whisky.
I created a special edition of the Glenlivet, a whisky of 30 years of age, here is the description :
The design of this special edition redesign the shapes of the original bottle by play up some lines. The bottle is smaller and larger, it incorporates the codes of the cognac with a special cap made in precious wood and metals.
The graphic design play on the letters roman XXX, which refers to the 30 years of age of the whisky, these elements are found on the outer packaging with extrusions on the wood, so the age of the bottle is immediately known as the letters XO for the cognac.
I want to know what do you think of it, because you are experts, or kind of
Hope you like though
Here is a preview :
And the other images (too many to post here sorry) :
http://www.behance.net/gallery/The-Glen ... ge/9342357
Best regards,