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I have an installer program which runs in a default Ubuntu 12.04 Linux VT console and uses the "dialog" program to display simple graphical input boxes. After the user selects either Chinese or Japanese and my installer sets the LANG=zh_CN.utf8 and LANG=ja_JP.utf8, the output characters turn all to diamonds.
I figured that I needed to run setfont to one of the fonts in /usr/share/consolefonts but examining the fonts there, I do not find one that looks chinese or japanese. A few google searches have let me to pages which indicate the Linux's console does not support these languages and that I would need another console program to gain that capability.
1) Is it true that the default Linux console does not provide support for japanese or chinese?
2) If it does have support, what do I need to do in order to enable it? If fonts are required, what would their names be or where can they be obtained as an ubuntu package?
3) If it does not have support, does another console (zhcon or chdrv) provide such support? Will they work in VT mode (I have up to 8 virtual terminals running)? What is the process for installing and using such a console?
4) Can a replacement console be used for all my other languages? That is, do console replacements like chrdrv support the ability to display the characters for all the other languages?
Thanks in advance. Roger R. Cruz


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I've seen black garlic--fermented garlic with a complex flavor--used a number of times on TV cooking shows, but I've never tried it. The description of the flavor is intriguing. Is it possible to ferment garlic and make your own black garlic? What is the process?
You can absolutely make your own black garlic. All that is required is to have the garlic in a vaguely air-tight container (preferably individual wrapped or contained) for 30 days at 140°-155°F. My method, covered at my blog, is to put the garlic in mason jars in my light bulb heated black garlic oven, which can be made for about $30 and can ferment 12 bulbs easily for about $4 of electricity over 40 days. With the cost of garlic, glue, aluminum foil and the mason jars, the oven with one recipe is less expensive than an equivalent order would be online.
The first 30 days, the jars are kept sealed in the mason jars, to allow the garlic to ferment properly. After 30 days, the lids are removed and the heat in the box dehydrates the garlic, leaving a dried out head with shriveled black cloves inside of it. The flavor is reminiscent of balsamic vinegar and soy sauce, but without the sourness of vinegar or the saltiness of soy sauce. The oven design is easily doable for anyone of any DIY skill level with access to a hardware store and an Academy (where they sell the Huskee cooler I use for $25).
As a chef who has studied black garlic for several years, including visiting China and a manufacturer in Austin to see how large factories make it...the answer is yes you can make it, but it will be nothing like true fine black garlic in any way.
Which is why even chefs in restaurants, such as myself, order their black garlic rather than making it. It's like saying you can make caviar just by cutting up any old fish who has eggs. It may look the same but the taste in texture is nothing like the good stuff.
Why? the steps that can't be done at home. The first day of making black garlic requires it to be steamed all day. This is the only way to release the bitterness of regular garlic, a prime component in good black garlic. Then you canNOT simply cook black garlic on low heat for 30 days as some believe. It must be alternated in temperature, humidity and more steam and ideally for 40 days straight.
I have come close to making fine black garlic in a process of actually creating my own machinery to mimic the huge batch processes I've seen in China and in one black garlic manufacturer in Austin but I still order my black garlic because really fine black garlic is exceptional and really fine homemade black garlic is always average to bad
You can make black garlic by putting garlic 10 days in a rice cooker, on low, and leaving them hanging in a cotton bag for 10 days. My grandmother is Korean, and this is the way she makes black garlic.
I want to share how to make this wonderful fermented black garlic at home.
Thee is a propensity to get better results at fermenting black garlic using hardneck garlic rather than softneck. Yes I know, what in the world is a neck.well it is the stem sprouting from the vented of the bulb. Garlic grown in the Namhae region In Korea seems to be one of the better suited, or at least the one showing the best results.
A rice cooker on a low setting would be feasible way to ferment garlic at home. I don't think it would be necessary to ferment the garlic for the full 40 days, but I'm also not finding any information how the garlic changes day to day.
Looks like you might have to experiment a little.
My wife is Korean and just made a batch of Black Garlic. She peeled 10 bulbs, put them in a rice cooker, and cooked them on warm for nine (9) days. Without opening the cooker, unplug it and leave for 11 days. Then open, drain and peel ASAP. They're as sweet as you can get.
I've never tried this, but here's one internet reference: http://www.ehow.com/how_5902625_make-black-garlic.html
If that's accurate, it doesn't seem practical to make at home. You have to keep it at 140F for 40 days.
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November 19, 2012
3 wedding tabletops we love!
11 comments:
- Ms. Dainty Doll said...
I'd have a hard time choosing, I quite like them all :)
- November 19, 2012
These are all so lovely. I like the yarn balls and the gray and yellow best, I think. Hard choice though.
- November 19, 2012
- Cocroft And Delbridge said...
Loving the balls of yarn...such a clever idea!
- November 19, 2012
- Stephanie Elizabeth {Fab You Bliss} said...
So pretty! I love the faded one :-)
- November 19, 2012
- Grace said...
Wow! I didn't even notice the balls of yarn upon first glance! I love that idea. It adds visual intrest and texture to the table. Faded is my favorite.
- November 19, 2012
Gorgeous ideas! Love the colors!
- November 19, 2012
- Wedding Splendor said...
What I like most is the rustic category, probably for the purple preference I have
- November 20, 2012
- Sandra (Simply Peachy) said...
Gorgeous. Love the sparkly one!
- November 20, 2012
- Martin Price said...
Loved the faded one!
- November 20, 2012
- LDD said...
I love the faded one. It's so rustic with just a pop of color; just perfect for a spring wedding.
- November 22, 2012
- Ruth said...
These table settings are gorgeous! I'm a little obsessed with colors and making unique color pairings. Though all three of these are fantastic, I think the "rustic" setting is my favorite. I like sparkly except for the green: I think it's a little too yellow-based for my taste. Thanks for posting these!
- December 15, 2012


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ESA staff requires current determination paperwork throughout the application process and requires parents to maintain that paperwork to renew their ESA agreement in subsequent years.
Please keep in mind that an IEP is valid for one year from the date of determination, and an MET is good for three years from the date of determination.
Posted in: Eligibilty & Application Information


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The horror of The Evil Within will be unleashed in AugustWritten by: / / 2 Comments
Horror fans and thrill-seekers alike will be delighted to know that Shinji Mikami's next survival horror action game, The Evil Within, will be out at the end of August around the world.
Releasing on August 26th in North America and August 29th in Europe and related territories across PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, The Evil Within is directed by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and developed at Tango Gameworks, a studio so promising that Bethesda Softworks owner Zenimax Media acquired the company years before we even learned about what it had in the pipeline.
According to Zenimax and Tango, The Evil Within "embodies the meaning of pure survival horror" and thanks to the high attention to detail in creating the game's environments and monsters, you're in for an anxiety-filled experience that will "bring you to the height of tension. With limited resources at your disposal, you'll fight for survival and experience profound fear in this perfect blend of horror and action."
What do you think of The Evil Within from what you've seen so far?
We saw The Evil Within at E3 2013 with Shinji Mikami himself providing an explanation while acting out the action to make his point – read our preview over here and flip through El33tonline's previous coverage of The Evil Within for more details, videos and screenshots.
Tags: bethesdasoftworks, dated, shinjimikami, tangogameworks, theevilwithin, zenimaxmedia


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Is there any scientific evidence that the human brain can read and understand fully written variable names better/faster than abbreviated ones?
PersistenceManager persistenceManager;
in contrast to
PersistenceManager pm;
I have the impression that I get a better grasp of code that does not use abbreviations, even if the abbreviations would have been commonly used throughout the codebase. Can this individual feeling be backed up by any studies?


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Anna Boot Lace Up
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DetailsWhether you want to look more rugged in the city or more stylish in the woods, the Anna Collection adds immense versatility to your wardrobe. Beneath the breathable full-grain leather is comfort-engineered technology to keep you moving with less fatigue. adiPRENE by adidas absorbs shock in these mid-heeled boots while adiPRENE + by adidas helps you push off with power. Within the collection, Hydro-Shield waterproofing substances are tanned into leathers to keep the foot dry in wet weather in the city, park, or anywhere in between. Heel Height: 55mm (2.17in).
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Hydro-Shield™ Waterproof construction repels water with a proprietary combination of seam sealing, waterproof materials, and a specially formulated waterproof insole. Keep comfort in and water out.
Anna Boot Lace Up is rated out of 5 by 5.
Rated 5 out of 5 by kpearlf from Thrilled I ordered these boots!!!!! I was having a really difficult time finding any reviews on these boots, so I wanted to make sure I wrote one. I am not a huge fan of Rockport shoes for women, but I love the Anna style of boot. I own two pair now, and I wear them all the time. I am usually a 6, but I get a 6 1/2 for boots for the extra room for socks. I fit in a 6 very comfortably with these boots, and I still have plenty of room for heavier socks. Thats why I felt they are about a 1/2 size larger. They are very comfortable, but the arch support could be better. I have flat feet, so I put in my own inserts. I was very happy the inserts that come with the boots come right out. The quality of the boot is excellent. Well worth the money!
Date published: 2011-12-31
Rated 4 out of 5 by NYker from Wonderful boots! The leather is just fantastic and the boots are wonderful! A great addition to my collection of Rockports!
Date published: 2012-12-12
Rated 5 out of 5 by Nixi from Great fit, love the look. They fit under boot cut jeans, which is hard to come by in boots recently.
Date published: 2012-05-03
Rated 5 out of 5 by newtorockport from Love these boots! Wear them almost everyday. They are very comfortable and stylish.
Date published: 2013-04-22
Rated 3 out of 5 by Minmin from a little tight I bought this pair for rainy day. well, not bad, cool to wear, but a little tight.
Date published: 2014-05-05


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Norwich midfielder Elliott Bennett suffered a reaction after the Everton match and has had knee surgery. He will be out for several months.
Bournemouth has completed the signing of yet another Liverpool player this summer in defender Brad Smith.
Harry Maguire is being pursued by Middlesbrough, who have made a £4m bid.
Virgil Van Dijk played well and scored in Southampton's 2-1 win over FC Twente.
Swansea have inquired about Leicester City striker Leonardo Ulloa.
New Chelsea boss Antonio Conte has stated that Nemanja Matic is not for sale.
Middlesbrough are in talks to acquire American goalkeeper Brad Guzan.
Amid rumors of a transfer, Marko Arnautovic has tied himself to Stoke City for another four years after signing on renewed terms at the Britannia.
Arsenal are hoping to bring in some defensive cover after Arsene Wenger confirmed Per Mertesacker will be side-lined for "a few months" due to injury.
Ashley Barnes is set for an extended period on the sidelines after tests revealed his hamstring injury was more serious than originally thought.
Fantasy owners will have to look elsewhere for an attack-oriented left-back after defender Aaron Cresswell suffered a knee injury.
The Argentina Football Federation [AFA] have confirmed that West Ham playmaker Manuel Lanzini has been ruled out of this summer's Olympic Games after suffering a knee injury during last week's warm-up game against Colombia.


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Most parents know it's important to grab children out of the car before running errands, but some parents don't think about the consequences of leaving a child in a car during hot weather most of the time those consequences are deadly.
The sun is beaming on the wiregrass and along with the sun we are experiencing sweltering temperatures.
Every time wiregrass mom Jennie burns takes her children out she doubles checks her car before she locks the doors.
"You wanna make sure you that you do everything you can even if it takes an extra couple of minutes, were busy but we should never be too busy to go back and check and re-check," says Jennie Burns.
Leaving a child in a hot car could be fatal in only a few minutes.
"Within minutes because the car heats up rapidly," says Dr. Lee Scott.
Take a look at this animation it tells you how quickly a car can heat up in ten minute increments with an outside temperature of eighty degrees.
At 10 minutes the temperature inside the car is already 99 degrees, after 20 minutes 109 degrees, fast forward an hour, the car is a whopping one hundred and twenty three degrees.
"So I decided to put this theory to the test, I have a thermometer and right now it reads at about 92 degrees, once I get inside the car, we'll see how hot the temperatures will rise after ten minutes."
"So now I've stepped back into the car after ten minutes and the thermometer reads 113 degrees, now not only can a child not survive in those temperatures, but adults can't either."
"Children do not thermo regulate their temperatures, efficiently as grownups do," says Dr. Lee Scott.
All the more reason Jennie burns says parents have to be cautious and remember to remove their child from the car.
"Children are our most precious gifts, and it's up to us as parents to be responsible for them especially with infants and younger children," says Jennie Burns.
One simple rule to remember is
"Beat the heat; don't forget to check the back seat," says Dr. Lee Scott.
Another word of advice pediatricians' offer is if you see a child in a car, call 9-1-1 immediately and stay with the car until help arrives.
Every second counts in saving a child's life.


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I'm sure that many would advise against doing so at all, but knowing that I will likely try to do so anyway, what are the factors I should consider when creating a time travel adventure? Specifically, what spells might accomplish this feat, what effects might time travel have on memory or spellcasting, and what paradoxes would I have to take steps to avoid (ie characters killing themselves), and what resources might already be out there to help me with this attempt? I am working in a Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 setting, but any other systems with elegant solutions/resources/mechanics that you could point out would be appreciated...
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I have been DMing a Time Travel campaign since quite some time, with characters having the power to travel in time more or less at will (but only as a group), and here is what you should be careful about.
Timeline Alteration
My players are surprisingly responsible and are trying to avoid to change the timeline as much as possible, even when I encourage it. Basically you can allow it, warn them beforehand of the possible consequences, and allow only one in every "era" they are in.
So if they travel to medieval Japan, they might accidentally (or willingly) do something that would shame the image of katanas, and no one would ever dare use a katana again in Japan. If later they accidentally kill the Emperor, I would use the "Well, someone else take his place, and that's who History remembered" trick.
The only kind of alteration you need to be careful about is:
One way of handling it is the "Time protects itself" trick. Alterations are allowed, but if you do something that would cause a paradox regarding the previous events, Time prevents it. You shoot a bullet at your father before you were born, the bullet disappears. You try to stab him, the knife disappears. You try to strangle him... Well...
It's also a good way of leading the PCs. Sometimes in a fight, they realize that they can't kill their opponents because of Time Self-Preservation, but they don't have any idea of who those opponents are exactly, or why it would cause a paradox if they died. One of the PCs also got hunted by one of his ancestors who was disappointed in him, and tried to murder him repeatedly. That PC was unable to fight back, as it would have caused a paradox. Fun times :)
As said above, you can also use the "Rubber band History" method. They can do changes, but whatever change they make ends up being smoothed over by History. They could kill their grand-father, but their grand-mother actually found someone else, who is who they remembered as their grand-father. Or a character kills himself when he was a baby, only to realize that he was actually a clone from the beginning. You can get more options here, but for a RPG game "Enforced Immutability" and "Rubber Band History" are your best bets.
This is the easiest one: there is no way to do it in RAW. Done. So, invent what you want! A trip to the Astral plane gone wrong, two "Time Stop" spells interacting.. The parameters you have to consider are:
Final Advice
DMing Time Travelling is awesome and very rewarding, but you will have to plan a lot and be very flexible in your scenarios. Take advantage of it and plan relations and links between different characters and places:
...but keep it open and vague, and be ready to have to change it at the very last moment, and to adapt seamlessly:
There are two ways you can handle this.
The Resilient Traveller Theory
The Doctor is a resilient traveller. Everything that has happened in the series has happened to him in his almost 1000 years of life. Doesn't mean it's all happened to anyone else. For instance, the Battle of Canary Wharf had never happened by the time the 11th Doctor met Amy Pond. This is why we are constantly surprised by the aliens, despite them destroying London since the 60s.
To make this work, keep the frame of reference on the players at all times. Play up the difference between what they know and what actually happened. When someone leaves the players frame of reference, there is no guarantee that they will exist next time the players go looking in that time period.
In actual play, playing up that difference would include scenes like:
These should only apply when people revisit a particular time and area; they have more impact when they have a home base they keep coming back to.
There is a Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space system put out by Cubicle 7 that may work well for you as a game. It's a light rule system which has a great combat resolution order for the source material. In any round the talkers get to go, then the runners, then the people who want to fight.
Fate, Heal Thyself
This comes from a description of Suzerain that I've been given. It sounds like an awesome, yet almost unplayable, game.
First a quick description of the setting. You are avatars of powers that have found themselves one moment before the end of existence. To keep existence going just a little bit longer, these powers figure they have to send you back to fiddle with elements of the past. Imagine Quantum Leap if Beckett was an avatar.
The simplest example is "make sure that this person in New York dies at a particular moment". Easy, right? Just push him in front of a car.
Fate doesn't like this and something happens. The car swerves at the last moment and causes a major pile up, but your target gets up and walks away. Then you get sent back to do it again, but this time, not only do you have to kill this person but there's a major pile up going on at the same time.
To actually achieve your goal, you have to create a major distraction for Fate and on your second or later run, actually do what needs doing.
That's not too bad. But just imagine the situation if you have to help Samuel Coleridge to write all of Kubla Khan without distraction.
You can use this to help protect "key" events from being disturbed. Hitler moves at the last second to avoid a sniper bullet. An extra seed falls to grow a tree in a slightly different place. Somebody has a slightly different surge of electricity in their brain that causes them to think of a different pop song. And so on.
The two most important considerations in my experience are Player Knowledge of the Setting's Timeline, and Change resolution.
Several minor considerations as well exist - Paradoxes, Languages, Mana Levels, Social system changes... but those are secondary.
Player Knowledge of the Timeline
Time Travel in fiction is axiomatically about changing events in the past. The question is, whose past? In a D&D game, players may have only the vaguest sense that the world even has a past, let alone what it is. In a near-future Earth setting, players should have at least some concepts of the timeline. In a Traveller 3rd Imperium game, players can look up key elements easily, but there is little support for actually running back in the early days. (Milieux Zero was badly flawed - and one of the most cited reasons for the ultimate failure of T4, as it was set in the "past" of the OTU... and had the same maps and populations as the 1000 year later main setting from earlier editions.)
When players become unstuck in the timeline, it's very easy to get lost in differences between GM knowledge and player knowledge. Lack of knowledge even figured into the plot lines of some of the non-game time-travel fiction: Voyagers!
If some event in a fantasy timeline is to be changed, it needs to be both iconic and tied to character motivations.
Change Resolution
If players are mucking about in the timeline, they've got several potential reasons to do so... to undo some error in their own actions, to see what might have been, to escape a timeline that either bores or oppresses them... or because it's simply the conceit of the game, such as games based upon Voyagers!, Quantum Leap or Sliders, where not everyone along is intentionally so.
For those who are looking for changes, figuring out what changes happen because of the PC actions is a strong point of argument for many players. It touches on both "Elastic Time" and "Thread-hopping Traveller" elements, as well as "If I can go, so can they." It also can be the "Nail Mission From Hell," and the more commonly known "Butterfly Effect." (See Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" for the origin of the term.)
Elastic Time
No matter what you do, the timeline adapts to minimize your changes. You go kill JFK in 1958 to prevent the Bay of Pigs, RFK becomes president and gets assassinated at Dealy Plaza, having authorized the Bay of Pigs. You kill John Wilks Booth, and a drunken prostitute assaults President Lincoln, fatally wounding him, right after the play. Or just before.
In an Elastic Time game, it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference what the PC's do - when they get home, it's status quo.
Thread-hopping Traveller
The Thread-hopping Traveller is an odd phenomenon - Dr. Who is the archetypical example. The Time Traveller who knows lots, but is never certain what he's going to find after any time jump, because wherever he is, he wasn't, and he might never hit the same strand of time again.
It's a core element of both Sliders and Dr. Who that the Time Traveller is constant, and the universe is not... but the two have different means and understandings. Each jump is, essentially, to a different pocket universe, and so the effects of mucking about are pretty immaterial... unless you have some means of getting back.
Butterfly Effect
When they get back, nothing is the same. Even the tiniest changes have massive and far reaching consequences. That smoke Joe lit up in 63 AD caused an Italian hurricane in July of 64 AD, preventing the fire of Rome... the heat from it disturbed the chaotic system and that grew over 18 months to cause a strange and unseasonable storm that left rome wet-but-standing. That butterfly Jill stopped from feeding in 152 BC didn't make it, and so there are now almost no ravens in 1960. And because of the lack of ravens, lots of bears and thus people starved, making the western conquest of North America a pushover, forcing the Mormons to flee the US to Siberia, rather than Salt Lake City...
Or, killing one guard in Babylon results in all the jews being put to death, rather than enslaved, in the Babylonian Exile... No Jews, no Christians, No Christians, and almost all post AD500 history is null and void. Islam also is fundamentally changed, if it even comes to exist.
Butterfly Effect is also at the heart of many time travel stories, but it is, most fundamentally, a reason to never return from the past - because anything you do ruins your timeline so badly that it's essentially a different place.
Nail Mission from Hell
A nasty variation on either elastic or butterfly effect timelines is that accomplishing something can be extremely hard, and/or require multiple precise changes with many return trips.
In some such stories, the return isn't a return - merely an info-dump into the past from a future where the protagonist is about to die. A Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode used information-only time looping; Data had to break the time loop by sending messages back to himself. Great as fiction, lame as a game mechanic.
In others, one has to go back, and make a single precise change. Talk to no-one, just whack the needed guy, and get out.
In still others, on might be stuck until some element of the timeline is fixed - the whole premise of Quantum Leap is that he becomes unstuck the moment he fixes the timeline.
In the Nail Mission from Hell, one has not only the issue of player knowledge of the timeline, but also getting the clues on how to succeed into the players' hands.
Paradox is when you do something that makes it impossible for you to have done that same something. The classic example is the Grandfather Paradox: You go back in time and kill your Grandfather before your parent was born, and you immediately cease to exist, and thus haven't killed your Grandfather. Another is snagging an A-Bomb an blowing up the Manhattan Project while it's still in Chicago.
In Elastic Time, the Grandfather Paradox resolves by simply having your grandfather have been cuckolded... the man you thought was your grandfather never was, but the milkman knocked up your Grandma. The A-bomb gets developed by someone else and due to bad placement, most of the city survives.
In Butterfly Effect, your arrival alone alters things drastically, so you might cease to exist upon return, or even fade out like Marty in Back to the Future.
Even in middle of the road settings, many time travel theorists posit that you can't create a paradox - fate will prevent you from doing anything that would cause a paradox - the A-Bomb fizzles, You merely wound grandpa who miraculously recovers and sires mom.
In Thread-hopping, go ahead and kill Grandpa - it doesn't affect you, because you don't affect your own past, but some other timeline, where you may yet exist, or not, and so in a literal sense, tho' you have the same genes, he's not actually your grandfather, just the man with the potential to sire another you.
We don't actually know for certain how most pre-modern languages sounded. We can guess, but guessing wrong can be fatal for a time traveller. If I go back even to 1960 and ask for a cell phone, I'll be presumed to be either a monastic or criminal wanting a phone in their cell. In 1700, I'll be considered a madman speaking gibberish. In 1700, a computer is a person rather than a machine. At best, people from 1700 would think my accent strange, even were I to be in an area speaking English - many words have changed a lot in 300 years. The best examples are old rhymes that no longer are.
This is the single-most overlooked time travel stumbling block overlooked in fiction, and it's also frequently overlooked in gaming.
If making accidental time travel, or one-way, it's occasionally fun to have the players have to learn the local langage the hard way.
If Time Travel was planned, it's best to either have some variant on the babelfish or a universal translator as an implant, or to otherwise render it null, because usually, it's not that much fun, especially not every new jump.
Final Advice
Make certain your players are on board with time travel as a game conceit. Especially since you're looking at D&D. Make certain they know when they're going, why, and what the historic matter is that they are going to change.
And pick a semi-resilient timeline - one that ignores minor changes, but major items can be readily done as simpler nail missions. Have paradox prevention be part of the timeline - anything that would result in paradox simply fails. And when it doesn't fail, it rebounds. Kill enough Grandpas, and turn granny into a roundheel... but you still exist. Kill both granny and grandpa, and mom was adopted anyway.
The question did ask for resources and I have to say that GURPS Time Travel is essential reading here. There are some game stats but most of the book covers the kinds of things all GMs need to know (and there's also a condensed timeline of human history, which might not matter much for D&D).
I would lean towards creating an alternate timeline. The party goes back in time, changes the past, returns to the "present", only to find things they love and care about are not as they remember. The characters themselves are unchanged and know a different history to the people inhabiting the timeline they're in.
Depending on their actions in the past, there could be permanent changes in the way magic works. Magical items may have a side-effect that wasn't present in their own timeline.
Now that they've joined a new timeline, they are dopplegangers of their selves who were born in the new timeline. This prevents autohomicidal paradoxes.
This allows the time travel element to entirely boil down to story telling and does not require any new mechanics, making it suitable for any system.
I have little to offer in terms of actual game mechanics - even if I read a couple of fairly old-school games based on time travel.
I just want to urge you to keep in mind what "time travel" really is at least at the narrative level. It's the chance to redeem some past error, or at least to use hindsight.
A second chance - assassinate Hitler, do not drink too much that fateful night, save your loved one from the fire... or die trying.
Having said this, it works best with just one character (especially because he will often have to meet a future or past version of himself) - so traditional group playing will not work very well, I am afraid. Unless time travel is just a gimmick to go visit some sort of "alternate place".
In any case, if you don't know this already, I suggest you read The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang which is an extremely well written short story about what Time Travel is, and in a fantasy setting, to boot.
Extremely recommended.
With regards to spells to accomplish the feat, I would suggest against making them player available. If they can scoot back-and-forth through time at will, then they will play merry hell with your game planning. Given them specific means of time travel, limited as dictated by your adventure. For example in my game, they had access to a tower that would allow them to travel through time, but was only available to them after certain events had taken place, didn't exist in the time they travelled back to (they had to build it themselves) and then became dormant after they returned.
With regards to memory and/or spell casting, I don't think it's wise playing with these things; if you change character memory as a result of time travel, then you will have endless problems trying to reconcile player and character knowledge, and you'll also have significiant problems coming to terms with exactly who knows what, and when. Keep it simple. Players always know their historiers. NPCs might not always remember then same things the players do.
With regards to paradoxes and similar, it depends on the constraints of your world. In my game it was relatively simple, since they travelled back to a period none of them had much familiarity with, and sufficiently far in the past that any major changes they made could have been smoothed over with the passage of time. Per another answer above, my players were actually very cautious about the time line, and did only what they were supposed to do in the past.
In a game where they travel back to somewhere nearer the "current" time, then you have to be very careful; I think the best solution is to ask (yourself) what it is that they're trying to achieve, and make sure that they have reasons to stick to the plot.
I suggest that, unless they are trying to undo something they did, that you explicitely state that they can't undo anything any PC did. This rule alone gives you a lot of leeway in restricting actions, and most players are willing to accept that they shouldn't be able to change the actions of another player (clearly going back in time to correct a mistake needs to be an exception to this).
Finally, I think you should consider carefully what you will allow them to change, and work within this to allow for them to affect the world they return to. Players love to see that their actions have had an impact, and things as simple as changing the name of a major city in the "present" can be a huge reward for them.
One way it could be:
The characters' existence and past is the result of many observations and reported observations. Not all of those reports have to be true.
Part 1
Part 2
Those two result in the same actions and observations and so it is possible for you to go back in time and be the cause of my broken arm.
The catch is that if your actions don't result in me saying the same thing at the hospital (the next point I am observed), then the universe will start erasing you from existence at the point of the change. If I see you come out of the shadows to hurt me but then you disappear, I am likely to say something about it so your existence at that point must be erased too. The logical conclusion is that if you can't force me to say the right thing at the hospital you will fade from existence at the moment you step into my view.
Since the outcome of your actions isn't known until they occur, you perceive your existence beginning to fade the moment you make a real change (get close enough for me to know you intend to interact with me) and it lasts until the results become fixed. Either your intimidation succeeds at which case you were wholly solid all along, or I'm stubborn and don't go along with it at which point your attack never happened and I did actually trip.
This approach preserves history as the players know it but also gives them some ability to accomplish things in the past if they can figure out how to keep the future aligned. It is essentially a "puzzle" scenario and so your players must enjoy that type of thing. I would also rule that their personal history is untouchable, because they have already observed everything that has thus far happened to them and would already know if they will have intervened in their own timeline.


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Business 2 Community has a great article rounding up successful seasonal campaigns that have great Valentine's Day successful. Key marketing strategies:
1. Nostalgia wins
2. Don't forget the singles on this holiday
3. A heartwarming message wins if done right
4. Changing your product, packages, etc. for the holiday works.
I love seeing specific holiday displays in stores as well. Take a look at this Pepsi display in a Wal-mart in Upstate New York. image via Derrell Smith
What other seasonal displays have you seen?
Leave a Comment


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The 5 Most Horrific Ways People Have Tried to Discourage Sex
About 95 percent of everything males have ever done has been with one goal in mind: to impress the ladies and hopefully get one of them to touch their wiener. But parallel to that runs an alternate universe of people whose entire goal is to stop themselves or others from having sex.
How far would they go? Horribly, disgustingly far. No, some of this is not for the faint of heart.
#5. Infibulations
Male infibulation is the technical term for a procedure that basically wires your dick shut to prevent sex or masturbation. It was usually done by pulling the foreskin over the head of the penis and clamping it to the other side using a metal ring or stitches. Wait, was this something they did on purpose, or was it like a fraternity prank they pulled on passed-out dudes?
And... how do you take a leak?
Who Did It (and What in God's Name was Wrong with Them)?
In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the last thing a slave owner wanted was to have his slaves fornicating and masturbating when they could be out picking grapes or being killed by lions for entertainment. Thanks to infibulations their penises were rendered useless as it kept them from even thinking about sex since just getting a semi chub would have hurt like hell.
The practice branched beyond the slave trade towards the fine arts as well. Greeks and Romans enjoyed their live shows but hated big, floppy cock head. This was an issue since most public performances were done in the nude. The solution? Rather than something sensible like tiny hats or a fig leaf; musicians, athletes and comedians opted to do the least logical thing possible and infibulated themselves. Thus the head was obscured allowing for the modesty of these ancient cultures to not be tarnished as they made their way to the state-run orgy.
A tradition that lives on today.
Then in the 1870s, masturbation became a popular scapegoat for most forms of physical and mental anguish such as insanity and epilepsy--which makes sense if you think about all the times you jerk yourself into a fit of seizures. A Welsh physician named David Yellowlees thought he would set up shop as a male infibulator in an effort to stop these masturbators.
While this sounds like almost as bad of a business venture as pets.com, Yellowlees actually found himself with a number of volunteers for the procedure. We're going to guess they were responding to some ads with very unclear wording.
#4. Chastity Belts
A chastity belt is a harness that is made to fit around the waist, blocking access to the naughty parts, thus preventing sex. Kinda like wearing a Star Trek belt.
Who Did It (and What in God's Name was Wrong with Them)?
The chastity belt is by far the most romanticized and exaggerated of all the sexual suppressing devices, and romanticizing a rusty crotch locker is harder than you'd think.
They have often been portrayed as elegant devices voluntarily worn by a devoted if insatiably horny and untrustworthy wife waiting for her husband to return from the crusades. In reality they tend to look pretty horrifying.
Jesus. Are those teeth?
Outside of a few rare cases, chastity belts were typically used as a measure of self-defense against medieval crotch warfare rather than as a means to subjugate women. The term "chastity belt" has been used since the Crusades in a metaphorical way to mean the chaste vows between a man and wife, but the literal metal cooch barrier is much rarer.
The first recorded usage of an actual chastity belt was in Florence in 1405 on what we assume was a slow news day.
The use of chastity belts to prevent consensual sex did not exist until the 1700s and lasted until about 1930. They were typically fitted on teen girls in order to keep them virgins until marriage. It was also handy to keep them from masturbating, which of course was a leading cause of infertility and demonic possession of the vulva.
The only other area that chastity belts have found a sex-preventative use was in England, in the 19th century, as a way to avoid sexual harassment in the workplace. From this we can assume that 150 years ago, men were a lot more direct with their sexual harassment, apparently opting to forgo a "your tits look great in that sweater" morning greeting for some surprise coitus by the water cooler.
#3. Proof of Virginity (Or Else)
History teaches us that virgins are valuable, if for no other reason than angry volcano gods all seem to find them delicious.
The perceived benefits to a prospective husband would lead to larger dowries and the chance to marry a wealthier man. Hell, the British Royal Family blatantly came out and said that the "virginal status" of Diana Spencer was a huge factor in their selection of her to marry Prince Charles. But all of this amounts to nothing if we have fake virgins running about all willy nilly. Someone needed to devise a test to make sure.
We'll check. With our dongs.
Who Did It (and What in God's Name was Wrong with Them)?
The basic virginity test was proof of a hymen. Old timey people used to prove a bride's status as a virgin by displaying the bloodied wedding sheets the day after the marriage (though that also seems like it could be the sign of a chastity belt penis mauling). Yes, nothing shows your husband that you love him more than flying your hymen sheets at his in-laws house for a few weeks.
Another type of virginity test used in some parts of Africa involved a group of women deemed "virginity testers," who would examine girls of marital age and determine if they were virginal or not. Brides-to-be that were declared certified, grade A virgins were not only worth the extra dowry, but came with the bonus knowledge that they'd been groped by a group of creepy old ladies. Sometimes the exam consisted of a search for a hymen, sort of a vaginated Where's Waldo, but other times it would be determined by the sound of the woman's urine stream, as it's well known that brazen hussies have very splashy pee.
"Mom, Cynthia pees just like a whore."
Speaking of urine, another type of virginity test was put forth in Pliny the Elder's History of the World, in which he claimed to have invented a virgin potion. All a woman had to do was drink it and then not whiz. He believed that the more sex a woman had, the shorter amount of time she could hold her pee. Remember this next time you are at the bar and see a girl going to the restroom every 10 minutes.


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SQL Injection is always a hot topic particularly when it comes to web security. In this regard I am interested in what are the steps that should always be taken to prevent SQL Injection within any web application? Also in addition to these normal steps is there anything else people do beyond the normal to prevent it?
Already very good answers on this question, however I would like to mention some more:
This is only for prevention and I have not taken sql server hardening into account. There is however many similarities.
Additional defenses in case you are already vulnerable to injection would be:
Prepared statements, parameterized queries, escaping all user input, for a good starter see http://www.owasp.org/index.php/SQL_Injection_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet.
The key defence is to only use API's that securely escape database queries - these are generally referred to as parameterised or prepared statements. These can't be used in all cases (for example where a SQL identifier such as the table or column name is supplied at runtime), but is the best approach where possible (the majority of cases).
Note - this can lead to harmful data being put into the database, so be aware of that when using this data elsewhere in the application
The second defence is to take an escaping approach. This is the "replace a single quote with two quotes" approach. If you need to go this way, you must escape every potentially harmful character, which means more than single quotes in some cases. I'd advise using a higher level library such as OWASP ESAPI if possible to do this for you, or read the OWASP SQL Injection Cheat Sheet (referenced above) closely.
The main step to protect web application against SQL injection is to properly sanitize any user input (especially input used in SQL queries). In some languages/frameworks, there are standard ways how to deal with these values - for example using parameterized queries instead of composing the query by joining string values.
From the side of web developer attention should be pointed to what Weber already has mentioned.
Additionally, database firewall could be set up, like GreenSQL: http://www.greensql.net/. It works like a proxy between you application and user input, watches what should be passed through and etc. However, this comes in cost of increased response time.
I am teaching IT security in polytechnics. Often for students they have some confusion over the terms used for SQL injection so let me try to clarify.
In the context of a web application like Facebook,
SQL injection is when the normal web user enters SQL code into data fields Eg
The best person to prevent SQL injection is the web developer aka the person in charge of writing code for the web application to read/write data to the database.
The easiest way to prevent SQL injection by the web developer is to use parameterized queries.
Prepared statements and parameterized queries mean the same thing.
I shall use parameterized queries from this point onwards.
Parameterized queries refer to the way SQL code are first defined and then the data is placed inside the appropriate parameters.
Eg in .Net
the parameters @name and @id are the data. The rest are the SQL code.
Bear in mind the parameterized queries are usually but not always done at the web application code.
There are 2 common ways to write out parameterized queries.
So in some sense, yes, stored procedures are a form of parameterized queries.
There are other ways to prevent SQL injection that is by escaping special characters like single quotes. For eg, in PHP, you can use mysql_real_escape_string which basically just puts slashes before the single quotes.
This is not ideal because of issues with % and underscore for LIKE operator in certain database like MySQL. see this pdf for more details.
Long story short, all options suggested have to do with sanitizing (clean up) user input to clean away the SQL code.
Best way is to use parameterized queries depending on the programming language used.
End of story.
Use decent data-access APIs which make it easy to do the right thing, safely.
Here's ActiveRecord v3:


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EA Store 50% off on more than 100 games
Thru 1/3/13
5 Comments add a comment
Just to clarify, this looks like 50% off of most of the direct download PC games. Nothing on xbox / PS3 / anything you need mailed to your house, in case you were hoping for those. Good alternative to the Steam sales for games that Steam doesn't carry.
For comparison, Dead Island is $9.99 on EA store and $6.79 on today's Steam sale.
Booooo origin! Hurraaaaaay BEER!
Never in a million years with EA's drm
Remember that, when Steam prices are better, even if you want to play on Origin for some reason you should be able to get a CD key for your steam copy and activate that on Origin to get access through EA without having to buy through them.
It's also often worth checking in with Amazon on their prices, since some of their downloadable stuff is really just them giving you Steam or Origin keys.
pass until they put up console games


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This morning its all about veggies (and tofu too!) on Ontario Morning with Mike Ewing (Filling in for Wei Chen) here are a couple of the recipes I talked about
Grilled Brussel Sprouts
- 1 lb Brussel sprouts cleaned and trimmed
- ¼ cup butter melted
- Salt
- Pepper
- Granulated garlic
- Fresh thyme sprigs
- 1 BBQ buddy™ pan
On a charcoal grill with a medium heat (300F) place bbq buddy ™ pan.
Fill with brussel sprouts and sprinkle on granulated garlic, salt & pepper.
Brush with butter. Turn after 5-10 minutes then brush with butter again.
Remove when brussel sprouts are just starting to turn soft (approx 15-20 minutes)
Garnish with sprigs of thyme.
Optional : drizzle with a very good quality Balsamic vinegar or truffle oil just prior to serving.
BBQ Spaghetti Squash
- 1 large spaghetti squash halved
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 2 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Brush cut sides of spaghetti squash with canola oil and pierce multiple times with a fork. Sprinkle on thyme, salt and pepper. Grill indirect on medium high heat for 3/4- 1 hour until squash is softened. Using tines of fork scrape the squash to create strands. Top each half with 1 tablespoon butter and Parmesan cheese. Serve warm
Diva Q Sweet Potato Casserole
- 5 lg. sweet potatoes
- 1/2 c. butter, soft
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1/3 c. milk
- 1/3 c. Butter
- • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- • 3 tablespoons butter, softened
- • 1 cup chopped pecans
Heat grill to medium high heat. Poke washed sweet potatoes with a fork multiples of times. Wrap in foil and place on grill.
When potatoes are fork tender (depending on size anywhere from 30-45 minutes) remove and set aside to cool a bit.
When cool enough to handle use a paring knife and remove skins. Mash 1/2 cup butter with sweet potatoes.
Add brown sugar, vanilla, milk and butter mash well. Pour all of this into a well greased oven proof 9×12 dish
In a bowl mix together the sugar, flour and cut in butter till a coarse crumble. Add the pecans and sprinkle this mixture over the sweet potatoes.
Place back on the grill indirect at 350 degrees for approx 30 minutes. Serves 8.
Portobello Veggie Heaven Cheddar Burger
- 12 Medium Portobello Mushroom Caps
- ¾ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- ¼ cup Balsamic vinegar
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp oregano
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 12 Ciabatta buns
- 1/2 cup butter melted
- 4 large ripe avocados mashed
- 6 roma tomatoes seeded and finely chopped
- 1 cup minced red onion
- 3 limes zested & juiced
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro
- ½ tsp chipotle powder
- 12 slices Bothwell Red Hot Chili Pepper Jack
- 12 pieces roasted red pepper
- Thin slices of red radish
- Curly leaf lettuce
- Preheat grill to medium-high, 450–550°F
- In a large bowl, whisk ingredients for vinaigrette. Brush vinaigrette on gill side of mushrooms and set aside.
- Assemble ingredients for guacamole in a medium bowl. Chill until ready.
- Grill the mushroom caps 6-7 minutes per side or until softened.
- Brush buns with melted butter and grill, turning often until golden.
- Top each of the mushroom caps with slice of Thornloe Sundried Tomato & Basil Cheddar return to the grill for 1- 2 minutes & close lid until the cheese has melted.
- Assemble each burger with toppings of curly leaf lettuce, thin slices of red radish and roasted red pepper.
*Always ensure prior to grilling burgers that your grill is well cleaned and oiled.
Grilled Tofu with Tamarind Glaze
- 1 block extra firm tofu
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
- 1 tsp ketchup
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
Cheeses that can be grilled:
Halloumi – Halloumi is the traditional white cheese of Cyprus . It is delicious when grilled .
Guernsey Girl – Upper Canada Cheese Company Delicious and fun to grill.
Great products to use with grilling veggies- Alcan BBQ Buddy available all over Canada at major retail chains and supermarkets.
Weber Veggie Basket available from Ontario Gas BBQ
Frogmats – Great for indirect cooking


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Many of my wordpress posts have images in them for my personal blog. I have been searching for a good way to display all of the images from all of the posts in a grid layout on a page. Similar to the twitter grid layout seen here.
I have seen Next Gen Gallery, and was wondering if there is a way not just images from the current post, but ALL of the images from all posts into a collecting on one page.


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TierraCast Antique Pewter 12 Hole End Bar
Create a bold multi-strand design with the help of this TierraCast antique pewter 12 hole end bar. This finding is shaped like a long, thin bar with one large open hole protruding from one side. The middle of the bar is filled with twelve open holes for creating multi-strand designs. This piece is perfect for attaching multi-strand designs to clasps or switching from twelve strands to one. One side of the end bar features a textured surface, while the other side is smooth. This end bar features a versatile silver polish, perfect for pairing with any combination of colors.
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We were thinking ,when the kennels open Alfs will have to have the vacine all the time,because of the situation.Do you think this is ok...
We were thinking ,when the kennels open Alfs will have to have the vacine all the time,because of the situation.Do you think this is ok...
Lots of dogs kept in kennel situations have this vaccine all the time. The alternative is he will always be at high risk for kennel cough and its complications because you will be exposing him constantly to lots of dogs. Be strict on admitting dogs too -- I know a kennel where all the unvaccinated dogs ended up getting KC and the kennel owner had to pay for all to be treated by the vet. Mine were amongst the only ones that didn't get KC (and had up to date KC vax) -- the rest were really ill. They changed their policy on the KC vax after that costly incident.
Cavaliers: Jaspar Tansy Libby Mindy Connie
In memory: Lucy Leo Lily
Cavalier SM Information site:www.smcavaliers.com
So its ok to keep him vacinated,oh and dont worry all the dogs owners will have to have up to date vet cards.I will be asking for these when the booking is being made.I will not be taking in any dogs without the correct paper work.They will be refused point blank....
We've always had all of our dogs vaccinated against kennel cough and (touch wood) never had a bad reaction. Though our dogs don't go to kennels they are exposed to other dogs on occassion and I've always had it in the back of my mind that if in an emergency we did have to board the dogs at least they would be covered.
~ Sam, Sonny & Beau ~


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Doesn't Google Violate the same origin policy when it tries to access the KML files from a globally accessible server? The condition for Google maps to display the KML is that it should be globally accessible. Now their are 2 problems with this:
- Security of the KML files. (This can be avoided by using geoXML3)
- Violating the Same-Origin Policy.
Is their a way around to the same-origin policy? How does google parse the KML file?


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KDD Competition 2010
We're interested in working on the KDD Competition, as a way to focus our machine learning exploration -- and maybe even finding some interesting aspects to the data! If you're interested, drop us a note, show up at a weekly Machine Learning meeting, and we'll use this space to keep track of our ideas.
- KDD Rules and Data Format
- R language
- libsvm
- Weka
- List of other competitions in which we could engage
- Hadoop
- Mahout -- machine learning libraries for Hadoop
- So-so intro to Pig Video
- An AWESOME intro to Pig on Elastic Map Reduce!
- Pig language
- Pig Latin Manual
- Cloudera -- see videos for Hadoop intro
- Vikram's awesome Hadoop/EC2 scripts
- Our mailing list
- S3Fox
- Importing data into Sqlite for SQL'ing the data
- Visualizing Sqlite data in Omniscope for understanding the data
Following our decisions: For orthogonalized bridge and algebra sets: Replace step name with unique step name; remove given features; add features: step success chance, student IQ, complexity, and perhaps frequency of skills (least important). These should be fairly straightforward computations, but on big datasets. We will call the resulting datasets "master raw 1 bridge/algebra" In parallel we can start clustering superskills: given the normalized skills, cluster groups of skills (=super skills) to replace the too-detailed skills; the resulting datasets will be called "master clustered 1 bridge/algebra". This will be our base datasets for the machine learning algorithms.
- Vikram -- will create a guide for Mahout setup
- Thomas -- Attempt clustering skills (subskills, traced skills and rules) using Mahout
- put together a perl script which will take random samples from the data, for working on smaller instances
- put together a simple R script for loading the data
- Andy -- define features for sub-problems (student iq, step difficulty); Do remaining feature transforms: Replace step name with unique step name; remove given features; add features: step success chance, student IQ, complexity, and perhaps frequency of skills (least important)
- Erin --
- Paul -- Create overview of the data: histograms, notable features etc. Visualization?
- For KDD submission: to zip the submission file on OSX: use command line, otherwise will complain about __MACOSX file: e.g.: zip asdf.zip algebra_2008_2009_submission.txt
- We will need to make sure we don't get disqualified for people belonging to multiple teams! Do not sign up anybody else for the competition without asking first.
- Add new features by computing their values from existing columns -- e.g. correlation between skills based on their co-occurence within problems. Could use Decision tree to define boundaries between e.g. new "good student, medium student, bad student" feature
- Dimensionality reduction -- transform into numerical values appropriate for consumption by SVM
Who we are
- Andy; Machine Learning
- Thomas; Statistics
- Erin; Maths
- Vikram; Hadoop
(insert your name/contact info/expertise here)
How to run Weka (quick 'n very dirty tutorial)
- Download and install Weka
- Get your KDD data & preprocess your data:
this command takes 1000 lines from the given training data set and converts it into .csv file attention, in the last sed command you need to replace the long whitespace with a tab. In OSX terminal, you do that by pressing CONTROL+V and then tab. (Copying and pasting the command below won't work, since it interprets the whitespace as spaces)
head -n 1000 algebra_2006_2007_train.txt | sed -e 's/[",]/ /g' | sed 's/ /,/g' > algebra_2006_2007_train_1kFormatted.csv
- The following screencast shows you how to do these steps:
- In Weka's Explorer, remove some unwanted attributes (I leave this up to your judgment), inspect the dataset.
- Then you can run a ML algorithm over it, e.g. Neural Networks to predict the student performance.
- Screencast1
- Screencast2
How to run libSVM
- See the notes at Machine Learning/SVM


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6 Spectacularly Failed Attempts to Be Politically Correct
In theory, being politically correct is pretty straightforward: treat people the way they want to be treated, do your best to not be a dick, use a convoluted system of needlessly cromulent terminology, and bam! You get a little badge that says you completed the hardest challenge of all: being a decent human being.
Here are a few very public entities still working on unlocking that achievement ...
#6. Xbox User Suspended for Being from a Place
Juergen Schwarz/Getty Images News/Getty Images
In 2010, 26-year-old Xbox user Josh Moore signed up for Xbox Live, entered his contact information, and was immediately banned. Why? Because he listed his hometown as Fort Gay, West Virginia.
Tim Kiser
In historic Wayne County, along the rivers Tug Fork and Big Sandy.
Now, to be perfectly clear, Fort Gay is a real place, and there is likely no more or less than the usual amount of homosexual activity occurring there. Microsoft just had some automatic filter in place to prevent homophobic bullshit, and Moore's hometown accidentally triggered it. Easy problem, simple fix, right?
Not quite: When Moore contacted Microsoft customer service and attempted to explain that Fort Gay was a real town and not a biting criticism of his little brother's sofa cushion hideout, they straight-up called him a liar and adamantly refused to look it up. They wouldn't so much as Google the zip code. They told him that, if he stuck to his story, his account would be cancelled and he'd forfeit the two years of service he'd already paid for. No refunds, obviously -- because homophobe money spends just as nice as any other.
Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images
Besides, Josh would probably just spend the refund on more hate speech.
Microsoft wouldn't even budge after Moore got the mayor of Fort Gay (again, a real official position, not what you call the guy camping the spawn point with an MP-40) to back him up. The company insisted that the word "gay" isn't appropriate under "any circumstances," which apparently means that MS had never actually spoken to a gay person, since it's considered a completely acceptable term in most contexts, in addition to the entire other meaning of the word.
Microsoft eventually recanted, gave Moore his account, and apologized, saying that "In this very, very specific case, a mistake was made" and "We're going to make it right."
Reportedly, Moore felt positively gay after hearing the news.
#5. Life Cereal Says: "Because They're Brown!"
Christopher Robbins/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Quaker Oats, like most companies, just wants to appeal to as broad a demographic as possible, so they make an effort to keep the models on their packages diverse, like so:
They both cost three bucks, so at least they're equal.
Did you spot the problem? Congratulations! You're more observant than literally every single employee of a massive multinational corporation. Maybe the box designers were really OCD about color coordination and wanted to match skin tone to background, maybe only African-American kids showed up on shoot day for the new product ... or maybe the folks in charge just saw the word "brown" on there and thought "I know some brown folks!" Regardless of intention, the implications are a bit disconcerting: Are those kids supposed to be "sweet as brown sugar"? Because we've got to say, Mick Jagger pretty much ruined any innocent connotations of that phrase. Why is "normal" Life represented by white folks? Also -- and maybe we're reading too much into this -- but doesn't anybody find it a little odd that the black kids have absentee parents?
Clearly, it wasn't just us: After the inevitable controversy, Quaker Oats decided that depicting people at all was just too risky, and they mercilessly culled all humans from the covers of their boxes. Well, all but the cold, calculating, psychotic visage of Mr. Quaker, anyway.
Chad Baker/Jason Reed/Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images
Oats are skin shavings from his victims.
#4. The First Black RNC Chair Goes "Urban"
In 2009, the Republican Party was feeling a bit insecure about their shaky record on race relations. So, in an attempt to lighten the mood, one of their members released a feel-good parody song titled "Barack the Magic Negro." Shockingly, that didn't help at all. Clearly, the RNC were in need of some rebranding, so they elected Michael Steele as the first black chair, hoping to wash away a bit of the "racist old white guy" stink (think Ricola and stale farts filtered through expensive leather).
Andrew Burton/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Or he got the job automatically for inventing "Drill, baby, drill."
But it wasn't enough to just elevate a black man to a position of power -- Steele had an entire campaign mapped out in which he planned to apply Republican principles to an "urban-suburban hip-hop setting" in a way that was both "off the hook" and "avant-garde, technically." Because he felt this would appeal to "everyone, including one-armed midgets."
Those are not terrible parody quotes. Those are actual, from his mouth quotes. The first black man in the premier position of power within the RNC, and they immediately started in with the rapping-grandma routine.
Miroslav Zivkovic/Photos.com
He should have done the "rapping little white girl" shtick. That's still funny.
Then, in 2009, it got worse. Here are some publicity stills of the esteemed chair "chilling down" with his "homebound boys" in the "neighboring hoods." (See, those were terrible parody quotes.)
Mark Odell/Gawker
"Is this what your crowd refers to as 'sassiness,' chairman?"


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As we've rolled into fruit season this year I've started canning up some jams using a traditional boiling process in my big stock pot (though I'm getting pretty close to investing in a pressure canner at this point) and I'm running into a problem: I wind up with too much jam to process in a single batch (which comfortably handles about 7 4-ounce jars or 4 8-ounce jars), so I'm forced to do one batch, then sterilize a new set of jars before I can process another batch — and in the meantime, my jam is continuing to cook down, pushing past 220F/105C and taking on a much thicker, taffy-like consistency. Is there any way of keeping my texture consistent across batches, or should I just be making smaller loads or accepting the difference in results?
If it's getting cooked too much, well, stop cooking it. You can cover it to prevent water loss. If it's too hot sitting on the same burner (on an electric stove), move the pot. It sounds like your cast-iron pot might be part of the problem, too - if it's still staying too hot, you could pour it into something else. Finally, if you do still have significant water loss, I believe you should be able to add a little water (careful not to add too much) and stir and reheat.
P.S. you could also just get a lighter pot. (I know that's not ideal.)
You could avoid the problems by having more jars ready. Here's what I do to get my jars ready.
*When you want to clean jars up for canning, the sterilizing process is between you and yours, not the health authorities.
Here is what I do to clean up my jars quickly. I save jars where the lid acts as a button indicator - if the button is popped up, you don't use it when you bought it in a shop.
First, you wash the jar immediately you empty it in the normal way. Then you put about 2cm to 3cm of water into the jar and microwave it for around a minute, so that the water boils.
Take the jar out carefully - use a cloth or oven glove, it is HOT, and be aware that it may spontaneously "bump" - moving it could cause the boiling water to jump out of the jar, do not point it at your face. Prod it with something long, like a wooden spoon, before you pick it up.
Screw the cap back on. Turn it upside down so that the hot water contacts the inside of the lid. If the water leaks out at this point, don't use that jar - the seal would be OK in an industrial process, but it will not be useful for this trick.
Stand the jar on one side until it cools, add it to your collection.
When the time comes that you want to use the jars, pick out enough to do the job and repeat the boiling out process once again, being sure to only use jars that have properly sealed - the button pops up again to tell you the seal was effective, something will grow in the water if the job was not done right.
Then you make the jam or chutney to put into the jars.
This way you never become short of jars. If you do not pick out enough, it is the work of a couple of minutes to make another jar ready. If you pick out too many, you can put the surplus back into your stockpile.*
If it makes you feel more secure, you can use the solution for sterilizing baby feed bottles to immerse the jar lids during the process, but you must rinse off that solution before you re-fit the lids on the jars.
Wet heat kills more bugs than dry heat ... this way, it is a matter of moments to have extra jars ready - or more than you really need, you don't waste any sterilized jars.
I've taken to using this trick so I can use portions from a jar of, say, pasta sauce. When I use half the jar, I microwave it for a minute and put the lid back, then stand it to cool before I put it in the fridge.
Not properly and fully tested as a method, but I've been doing this for a year now without ill effects.


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I wonder if this feature is available in TeX system? For example, given a formula within a table, it can apply the formula and display data after the calculation.
There is the package
Here's a simple example of using R, knitr and xtable to produce a LaTeX table.
Assume you have the following document called
In short, the code between
To convert the file into latex and then to pdf you could just open the rnw file in the open source R IDE called RStudio and click "Compile PDF". Or you could issue commands like this from the command line.
It would produce output like this:
To run the above example, you would need to install:
For more information check out the knitr website: http://yihui.name/knitr/
If you use LuaTeX you can extend TeX with any C math library and create Lua bindings.
To create the necessary bindings the program SWIG can be used. Here is a ConTeXt example which uses the PARI/GP algebra system to do the calculations.
Generate the binding
Generate the binding with
then compile the module
Now the module is available in LuaTeX with
Using the library
The result of this code:
Since this approach does not make use of any ConTeXt features this code should work in LaTeX as well with only minor modifications. However, it only works with LuaTeX.
This description is based on a talk by Luigi Scarso at BachoTeX 2011. All credits go to him.


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The 13 Most Baffling Book Titles
#6. "Bombproof Your Horse" by Rick Pellicano
If Bombproof Your Horse could actually deliver on the promise of the title, it would be one of the most bad-ass things ever made by the hands of men.
Sadly, this book cannot teach you how to ride a horse through a torrent of flame and the hail of machine gun-fire. If it could, the horses would have gotten ahold of it and taken over the world by now.
#5. "Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them" by Roger Welsch
Oh, so we're back to this again? Is there no sexual perversion you aren't willing to explore, Poorly-Worded Book Title Innuendo?
Look at it. You can try to convince us that this isn't a book about Southern men having unprotected sex with rusty farm equipment, but the face of that guy on the cover just implies a broken marriage and a series of tetanus shots.
#4. "The Great Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories" by Alisa Surkis and Monical Nolan
Now we're sure about this one. It's clearly catering to at least one sexual fetish (unless it's just Old West stories that take place on the island of Lesbos) but we aren't sure exactly which one.
We'd look into it a little deeper but we don't really want to know what sounds lesbian horses make during sex and what kind of apparatus they use.
#3. "Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Mind Power: How to Use the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts " by Donald Wilson
We're going to come out right now and say that the power of positive thinking is not enough to increase anyone's bust size. If it was, guys would have been abusing this sexy yet potentially hilarious flaw in God's design well before this book was published in 1979.
#2. "Celtic Sex Magic" by John G. Hughes
We aren't entirely sure what sex magic entails, let alone Celtic sex magic. But if this book teaches you to pull a rabbit out from anywhere other than your hat--especially if it requires you have Larry Bird nearby--please keep that trick to yourself.
Still, it's nice to have a book that's actually about weird-ass sex practices, instead of some kind of crude misunderstanding based on a poorly thought-out title.
#1. "Cooking with Pooh"
Oh, come on!
Do yourself a favor and check out Michael Swaim's look at The 10 Most Devastating Insults of All Time. And if you took a Thanksgiving holiday from Cracked over the long weekend (we'll let it slide THIS TIME) don't miss The 7 Most Ingenious (And Insane) Smuggling Techniques, our look at 6 Ways World of Warcraft is Worse Than Real Life and the latest from around the web and The Mirth Canal in our new Top Picks Section.


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Brennan: Kingsley fills the air as Woodland overwhelms Naugy
NAUGATUCK -- Usually we try to come up with something creative to draw interest in reading stories like these. Creativity is not necessary today. Strength in numbers is better.
We will allow Woodland quarterback Tanner Kingsley's numbers in the Hawks' 56-30 win Friday over Naugatuck to pique your interest, drop your jaw and widen your eyes.
Kingsley was 27-of-40 passing for 502 yards and eight touchdowns. Twenty-seven completions are the second-most in Naugatuck Valley League history.
Five hundred and two yards are the most in NVL history, besting 457 yards by Sacred Heart's Rohan Ifill in 2009, and seventh-most in state history.
Eight touchdowns are the most in NVL history, one more than David Gondek's six with Crosby in 2008, and second-most in state history.
What a night it was. But apparently Kingsley simply lived up to expectations.
"Tanner does what we ask him to do," Woodland coach Tim Shea said.
To say the least.
"He's coming into his own," Shea said. "He's getting better every week. As we go along in the season, he's going to be playing longer. Doing what we do on offense, he's going to get plenty of opportunities to throw the ball."
Brian Zaccagnini, a tight end who took six short passes a total of 150 yards for two touchdowns, was mystified.
"It's amazing," Zaccagnini said. "I've never seen a quarterback who can throw eight touchdowns in a game and play with as much intensity as he did. He has the fire to keep us going. Driving down the field, there's no doubt."
Indeed, the destiny of each Woodland drive seemed assured.
Kingsley hit Anthony Scirpo on a 5-yard fade to start the game. Later in the first, he shoveled a pass to Zaccagnini for a 45-yard touchdown before finishing the quarter on a 71-yard fly to Scirpo, giving the Hawks an 18-7 lead after one.
"We just want to control the ball and make good drives," Kingsley said. "We want to keep picking up first downs and score every time."
Rahmi Rountree scored on a 14-yard fade midway through the second quarter to make it a 24-15 Woodland lead before Naugy's Jerome Love broke through six tackles for a 35-yard touchdown run.
The only punt of the night for the Hawks (5-1, 5-0 Copper) gave Naugatuck (4-3, 3-2) its first chance to take the lead but Rountree picked off Jason Bradley in the two-minute drill to stop the threat. Two plays later, Rountree grabbed a 42-yard fly from Kingsley to make it 30-22 at the half.
"Tanner destroyed us," Naugatuck coach Shawn Kuczenski said. "He just ripped our secondary apart. We tried zone, man, zone blitzes, and he just picked us apart. Our line didn't get any pressure. We dropped guys into coverage and he picked us apart."
For all the offense, the game's outcome relied heavily on a defensive stand to end the second half's first drive. Naugy earned a second-and-goal at the Woodland 1, but the Hawks held on the final three tries, including a fourth-down plug by nose tackle Will Flormann, to stop the momentum.
"Every single defensive player did his job," Flormann said. "We acted like a unit and when you act like a unit you get uniformity. It was a huge turning point. When you get a big stop like that in the end zone, it just makes you happy. It really puts a smile on your face."
"That was a big fourth-and goal," Kuczenski said. "If you can't get a foot, that's not good. That killed us because we could have tied it up. We just didn't come out with fire in the second half."
Woodland started the ensuing drive from its own 2 and proceeded to chew up 98 yards over the next 6:13, including third-and-7 and fourth-and-13 conversions from Kingsley to Rountree, before Joe Masulli's 1-yard touchdown run made it a 38-22 lead.
It was all Hawks the rest of the way as Kingsley tacked on fourth-quarter touchdown passes to Brian Reis, Scirpo and Zaccagnini.
"(Zaccagnini) stepped up a lot," Kingsley said. "With (Levi) Fancher going down as our tight end, Brian has come in and we have so much confidence in him."
Kingsley, who on the season has 26 touchdowns to just one interception, has led his team to the brink of its first NVL Copper Division title since 2007, which it can earn with a win over Holy Cross next week.
But he still won't say whether he's the best quarterback in the league.
"I don't worry about that," Kingsley said. "I want to win. I think tonight proved to a lot of people what I can do."
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The SeaSense Telescopic Stowable LED Stern Light demonstrates the next generation in user friendly boating products. Our LED light consumes much less power, is waterproof, and generates far less heat than conventional 12V bulbs. Can be stored in less space than conventional stern lights. Aluminum pole, 360-degree light that can be seen for up to 2 NM. Includes removable Sure-Fit collar which ensures a good fit in a wide range of bases.
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Stainless Steel Offset Gas Spring Mounting Bracket, 2 Hole, Forward Pem Ball - Attwood
This item is found in the following Product Families
Gas Spring Mounting Hardware (Attwood Marine)
Mounting Brackets 23-SL3HBP37, 23-SL50BP37, 23-SL58BP37, and 23-SL65BP37 Pem type-10mm Ball. 2-3 mounting holes. Black painted finish. Lifts, holds …
Attwood Gas Spring Mounting Bracket
The Attwood Gas Spring Mounting Bracket acts as an attachment point for gas springs. It is ideally used on mounting surfaces that cannot handle …
Mounting brackets are used as attachment points for gas springs on hatches and other mounting surfaces where the mounting surface is not strong enough to support the direct attachment of a gas spring using a threaded stud or the angle and position of the attachment point requires the need for a mounting bracket.
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text:
- BSO Case Number:
- PIO Number: 01-9-10
- Date: 8/29/01 and others
- Time: varies
- Place of Occurrence: Deerfield Beach, Hollywood, Miramar, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, West Palm Beach, Miami Springs, Coral Gables, Orlando, Tampa
- Numerous hotels throughout Florida
- 2 unknown white males, 30s – see attached photos
Description of Incident:
The Broward Sheriff's Office is releasing video tape of two phony phone men who have plagued hotels throughout Florida, stealing thousands of dollars worth of telephone circuit boards.
Detectives from several agencies have viewed the video, some recorded last Wednesday, and have confirmed that the same two suspects have committed all the thefts. The suspects wear "A,T&T" polo shirts, enter the hotel and go to the utility room, where they remove the telephone circuit boards. The boards look like computer memory cards, about 18 inches long, and costing about $1500 each. On August 29th, the thieves stole 18 boards worth $25,000 from the Deerfield Quality Suites. Investigators believe the hot phone boards are being resold to unscrupulous installers and contractors.
When the circuit boards are stolen the telephones in all the guest rooms go dead. Inevitably, hotel guests start walking into the lobby to complain and the "problem" is discovered, but by that time the thieves are miles away.
The crooks were captured on tape in the lobby of the Quality Suites at 1050 E. Newport Center Dr. in Deerfield Beach. They were also photographed at the nearby Extended Stay America hotel at 1200 SW 11 Way in Deerfield. The pair fled there empty-handed after a clerk said she was going to call the corporate office because no telephone system work had been authorized. Additional photos of the suspects walking down a hotel hallway in Miami Springs are also being released.
Anyone with information regarding the identity of the phony phone men are asked to call CrimeStoppers at (954) 493-TIPS or Detective Jeremy Hansen at BSO's Deerfield Beach station at (954) 480-4300.
- THIS REPORT BY: Det. J. Hansen, Dist. 10 Jim Leljedal / PIO 9/7/01 1030
Posted At: 09/07/2001 11:27 AM
- Suspect Photos - Phony Phone Thieves
- Suspect Photos - Phony Phone Thieves
- Suspect Photos - Phony Phone Thieves
- Suspect Photos - Phoney Phone Thieves
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11 Jul 2012 7:12 AM #1
Unanswered: Image resize with two fingers
Hi everybody! I have a problem and I can't resolve it!
I have a dataview with some images, this is my code:
var imageView = new Ext.DataView({ id: 'imageView', store: catalogoStore, itemSelector: 'div.thumb-wrap', multiSelect: false, tpl: '
' + '' + '<tpl for=".">' + '

' + '</tpl>' + '' + '
' }); var imageForm = new Ext.form.FormPanel({ id: 'imageForm', fullscreen: true, layout: 'fit', cardAnimation: 'slide', scroll: 'vertical', dockedItems: [ { xtype: 'toolbar', title: 'Material' }], items: [imageView] }); catalogoView = Ext.extend(Ext.Panel, { id: 'catalogoView', fullscreen: true, layout: 'card', cardAnimation: 'slide', items: [imageForm] }); Ext.reg('catalogoView', catalogoView);
It works fine but when I try to expand the image with my two fingers, nothing happens, the image just move but nothing more, what do I have to do? Please!
Thanks in advance
13 Jul 2012 5:05 AM #2
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Are you handling the event?Mitchell Simoens @LikelyMitch
Sencha Inc, Senior Software Engineer
Check out my GitHub, lots of nice things for Ext JS 4 and Sencha Touch 2
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Proven to work. Guaranteed.
You'd like to speak another language. You can, with a Rosetta Stone program that's so learner-friendly, we guarantee results. You'll immerse yourself in your new language from the moment you start up, so learning happens quickly. You'll enjoy a guiding hand that gives you feedback when you need it, the freedom to learn whenever and whenever, and connections to learners and teachers who will help put your new language into practice naturally.


text:
Could you please explain me the reason why they are isomorphic? Thanks, bye!
This isn't quite true: $SO(3) \times SO(3)$ is isomorphic to $SO(4) / \mathbb{Z}_2$, where $\mathbb{Z}_2 = \{1,-1\}$. (Topologically speaking, $SO(4)$ is a double cover of $SO(3)\times SO(3)$.)
The simple explanation for this is the following:
One consequence of this is that the spin group $\text{Spin}(3)$ is isomorphic to $U(\mathbb{H})$, while $\text{Spin}(4)$ is isomorphic to $U(\mathbb{H}) \times U(\mathbb{H})$. Thus, $$ \text{Spin}(4) \;\cong\; \text{Spin}(3) \times \text{Spin}(3). $$ The statement you gave is also true on the level of Lie algebras, i.e. $$ \mathfrak{so}(4) \;\cong\; \mathfrak{so}(3) \times \mathfrak{so}(3). $$
On the level of Lie algebras we have that ${\mathfrak {so}}(n)$ are just antisymmetric matrices $n \times n$. It turns out that the six-dimensional space of such $4\times 4$ matrices decomposes into two three-dimensional subspaces that are each closed under taking commutators and each of them satisfies precisely the commutation relations of $\mathfrak{so}(3)$.
Because exponentiation defines an isomorphism between a neighborhood of the identity and a Lie algebra, we have that the two groups are locally isomorphic. It only remains to check global properties, like simple-connectedness, number of components, etc., to be sure the groups are really isomorphic (and not just an universal cover of each other, say, as in the case of $SO(n)$ and $Spin(n)$.)


text: Hello folks, here is a pretty cute lesson on a poodle that I really enjoyed drawing last night. I actually don't know why I made this tut because I do have other lessons on poodles. I wanted to make a tutorial on "how to draw a toy poodle", but what I ended up with is a drawing that looks like a French poodle. Anyways, I can totally see this dog in a cartoon series as being the feisty pooch of the bunch. Poodles are known for being brats any way so I think you can assume the personality for this white, cotton looking dog. have fun nonetheless. As you can see in the title I went ahead and named the lesson a toy poodle. Peace out and enjoy folks.


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Beyoncé Launches Her First Fragrance: Beyoncé Heat
Courtesy of Coty
Beyoncé's first fragrance, Beyoncé Heat, doesn't arrive in stores until February, but the singer says her fans already love it — and she loves it, too! "I'm so happy with it," the singer tells WWD. "I've been working on it for a while now. I was on tour for a year, and I have meet-and-greets with fans. I've never in my life gotten so many compliments. Coty has their own testing, but that was my testing! The fans loved it. They were like, 'I love that, I'm getting that, why isn't it out right now? I need it!" The singer took inspiration for the fragrance's name from previous tours, explaining, "A lot of my performances have had fire involved, so we thought 'Heat.' Also, red is one of my favorite colors, as is gold." The singer looked to the past for the bottle's design. "I wanted something with an antique yet modern feeling," she said. "Even with my wardrobe, I always try to find things that have a little bit of something vintage, yet still timeless and classic." Beyoncé, who has been the face of Tommy Hilfiger's True Star and Giorgio Armani's Emporio Diamonds fragrances, said it was the first time she started from scratch on a project. "Everything, from the bottle design to the name and the ideas for the commercials–that's me. When I commit to something, I do it 100 percent," she said. Beyoncé Heat, with top notes of red vanilla orchid, magnolia, neroli and blush peach, will include eaux de parfum in three sizes, as well as a sparkling body lotion, priced between $39-$59. Look for it in department and specialty stores, like Macy's. Read more about Beyoncé at WWD.com. Tell us: Will you buy Beyoncé's first scent? –Kristin Larson
courtesy of Coty