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Many women find massage helpful in labor to induce relaxation, bring about a sense of well-being, and alleviate pain. Your birth partner may find it relaxing and therapeutic too. Ideally, he or she will have had a chance to see massage techniques demonstrated in prenatal classes and to practice before labor. Massaging the lower back helps relieve pain in this area; head, neck, and shoulder massage is beneficial for relieving tension and fatigue.
The touch therapies shiatsu and acupressure can also help relieve pain and tension. They involve application of pressure to specific points to increase endorphin levels. You or your partner will need to learn the techniques from a trained practitioner. Ask your doctor if she can put you in touch with a practitioner.
Excerpted from Pregnancy Day by Day.
Copyright © 2008 Dorling Kindersley Limited.
Buy this book now!
© 2000-2016 Sandbox Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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HUNTSVILLE (February 21, 2013)—Carl Henry Blue, 48, who was convicted of capital murder in the fiery 1994 death of his ex-girlfriend, was executed Thursday evening in Huntsville.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Blue's final appeal shortly before the execution, which was the first this year in Texas.
In the final appeals, Blue's attorneys argued that it was an improper conflict of interest for one of Blue's trial lawyers to have represented Blue, as well, in the earlier stages of his appeals.
Blue was convicted of dousing Carmen Richards-Sanders, 38, whom he once dated, with a drink cup full of gasoline and then igniting her clothing with a cigarette lighter on Aug. 19, 1994 at the victim's apartment on George Bush Drive in College Station.
Larence Williams, who was also in the apartment, tried to come to the woman's aid, but as he did, Blue tossed the remaining gasoline on him and ignited his clothing, as well, prosecutors said.
Williams survived, but Richards-Sanders died of her burns on Sept. 7, 1994 at Herman Hospital in Houston.
Williams later testified against Blue.
Blue surrendered to police, claimed the incident was a prank, and that the woman's death was accidental.

subset: commoncrawl


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5 Bizarre Ways You Can Brainwash a Courtroom
#2. Talk Fast
So you're on trial for something awful, and your lawyer thinks it would be a good idea if you testify in your own defense. He's probably going to give you lots of pointers, like don't be a creep and try not to say "OK, you got me!" before extending your arms for the handcuffs. What you might not expect is for him to coach you into speaking faster than you normally would.
If the stenographer's hands are on fire, you're doing it right.
Which is nuts, because those of us raised on television know that the first thing a sleazy salesman does to pull one over on us is talk fast. How many of us have been cajoled into buying cars, regular or micro, because of slick, fast-talking ad men?
Studies have shown that someone who speaks rapidly is viewed as more persuasive and more intelligent than someone who speaks at a slower pace. If a person speaks slowly, they're seen as less truthful and less competent, aka a moron. So how fast should you speak? In one study, people were most persuasive when they talked about 30 percent faster than normal talking speed. However, you can go up to 195 words a minute. That's about as fast as the guys who race through a list of horrible drug side effects, like "sudden bowel implosion," while the commercial shows women running through a field of flowers.
And dry mouth.
And if you think about it, it makes sense. If you're listening to someone you don't agree with, fast talking is more persuasive because your brain can't come up with counterarguments. You're so busy drowning in a verbal flood that you're not thinking of reasons you don't agree with the guy. Yes, it's something sleazy salesmen do. But remember, sleazy salesmen do it for a reason.
#1. Say You're Sorry (Even if You Previously Insisted You Were Innocent)
So your day in court has come, and the jury has found you as guilty as a fox in a whorehouse. There's nothing left to do but begin researching your prison workout routine and figure out which gang you're going to join, right? Not quite. There's still some sentencing to do, and that means the game isn't over. What happens next might mean the difference between sleeping in your own bed at night and sleeping with your back glued to a cinder block wall. And if there's one thing that might get the judge and jury on your side, it's saying you're sorry.
"You'll never murder again? Perfect! Here's a tissue."
Yep, the same thing that got you out of a grounding when you were 10 can shave years off your sentence when standing trial for murdering a dude. Despite what the law says, despite all the evidence, you can get off easy if you just say you're sorry. It's true even if you were found guilty after pleading innocent; even though you just spent the last few months insisting you didn't do the crime at all, they still go easier on you if you apologize.
Why? Because that apology is your last chance to do a few things: one, start the process of closure for whoever you screwed over; two, give the judge a chance to see you as a normal person who gets the difference between right and wrong (meaning it's safe to put you back on the street, regardless of what you did); and three, practice your puppy-dog eyes, which you're going to need once you get to jail.
"I didn't mean to steal millions of dollars and offload them into an overseas bank account!"
The trick is that now that you're found guilty, everyone expects you to do whatever it takes to get a lenient sentence. So how do you convey that you're really sorry? For one, "act uncomfortable or ill at ease." There's something primal about seeing someone squirm when they've done wrong. That awkward body language tells everyone in the room that you know you're a screw-up. Next, the second that guilty verdict comes down, change your attitude. Look sad. Look defeated.
And no matter what, don't look bored. This is isn't an SAT prep class; this is your life on the line! Literally, if you've done murder. In one study, "if jurors believed that the defendant was sorry for what he had done, they tended to sentence him to life imprisonment, not death." Not. Death.
In fact, if you don't apologize, some judges might think you're just an unrepentant prick and throw any chance of leniency out the window. And really, if you can't even manage to fake some remorse in that situation, you probably deserve it.
Don't worry, Cracked will always have your back. Just check out 6 Completely Legal Ways The Cops Can Screw You and 6 Laws You've Broken Without Even Realizing It.
And stop by LinkSTORM to learn what Cracked and N.W.A. have in common.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed.
Do you have an idea in mind that would make a great article? Then sign up for our writers workshop! Do you possess expert skills in image creation and manipulation? Mediocre? Even rudimentary? Are you frightened by MS Paint and simply have a funny idea? You can create an infographic and you could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow!


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On-Board Diagnostics (OBD)
Vehicle Service Information
Regulatory and Technical Resources
This section provides valuable regulatory and technical information for the automotive industry, including archives of past documents.
Regulations: Service Information Rule
Primary Contact:
Holly Pugliese
Phone: 734 214-4288
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
NOTE: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, available as a free download, to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more about PDF, and for a link to the free Acrobat Reader.
2003 Final Rule
- June 27, 2003 Final Rulemaking (FRM) as published in the Federal Register (PDF) (35 pp, 234K)
- Regulatory Announcement: Final Rule for Service Information Availability (PDF) (3 pp, 16K, EPA420-F-03-003, February, 2003)
- Summary and Analysis of Comments: Service Information Availability Document (PDF) (160 pp, 371K, EPA420-R-03-007, April 2003)
Proposed Amendments to 1995 Final Rule
- June 8, 2001 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) as published in the Federal Register (PDF) (24 pp, 131K)
- Regulatory Announcement Fact Sheet: Proposed Amendments to the Service Information Rule (EPA420-F-01-018, May 2001) (also available as a PDF file, 3 pp, 10K)
1995 Final Rule
- Original final rule (PDF) (25 pp, 174K, August 9, 1995)
Technical Documents
On-Board Diagnostic Hand-Held Scan Tool Technology: Adherence to the Society of Automotive Engineers Requirements for Scan Tools and an Evaluation of Overall Scan Tool Capability (PDF) (27 pp, 69K, EPA420-R-00-017, October 2000)
Arvon Mitcham
Phone: 734 214-4522
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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I recently received this rather amusing message while reviewing a user's first post:
This was only a test, designed to make sure you were paying attention. This post has already been removed, but thanks for taking time to leave feedback for the author.
- What is the purpose of this test?
- How does it work?
- What happens if I fail?
- Do test reviews count toward the reviewer badges?
- Do robo-reviewers dream of electric sheep?


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Obama's Nuclear Proffer Gets Russian Rebuff
In Berlin Speech, President Says U.S. Could Cut Deployed Arsenal by One-Third; a Call for 'Peace With Justice'
BERLIN—Standing before a towering emblem of the Cold War, President Barack Obama called for steep reductions in nuclear weapons through negotiations with the Russians, as a step toward what he conceded was the "distant" goal of eliminating global arsenals.
"We may no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not safe," Mr. Obama said Wednesday in an address in front of the Brandenburg Gate in his first visit to the German capital as president. "I intend to seek negotiated cuts with Russia to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures."
His public invitation—which included his assessment that the U.S. can cut the number of deployed nuclear weapons by one-third without compromising American security—received a cool reception from Moscow.
Mr. Obama's speech came five years after he visited Berlin and drew a crowd of 200,000 people who wanted a glimpse of the rising young candidate, and 50 years after former President John F. Kennedy showed solidarity with residents of the divided city, declaring "Ich bin ein Berliner."
He sought to link his moral and policy agenda to that of the 35th president. Reciting a less-known phrase from Kennedy's speech in Berlin that day, Mr. Obama said he, too, wants to achieve "peace with justice"—by doing away with nuclear arms, ensuring women have the same opportunities as men and reversing the effects of climate change. He pledged, without offering details, to take new measures to protect the environment.
"Peace with justice means refusing to condemn our children to a harsher, less hospitable planet," he said. "The effort to slow climate change requires bold action. … Our dangerous carbon emissions have come down. But we know we have to do more. And we will do more."
It remains unclear how a move to reduce nuclear arms could affect U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in Europe, particularly those delivered by aircraft. Mr. Obama raised his planned initiative in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week at a summit meeting in Northern Ireland, said Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin's top foreign-policy official.
Mr. Putin, speaking to arms industry officials in St. Petersburg at about the same time Mr. Obama spoke in Berlin, didn't directly mention Mr. Obama's initiative. But he warned that Russia needs to preserve its deterrent and strategic stability in the face of threats from U.S. missile-defense plans as well as from increasingly powerful nonnuclear weapons that he said "are approaching the level of strategic nuclear arms in their strike capability."
Nuclear weapons play a larger role in Russia's defense posture than they do for the U.S., according to analysts and diplomats, because of the Kremlin's dramatically smaller conventional forces. That has rendered Russia much more skeptical about further cuts, according to analysts.
"The Obama initiative is a continuation of the consistent U.S. course toward drawing Russia into the process of further and quite dramatic nuclear disarmament, which for our country is of course absolutely unacceptable," the official RIA-Novosti news agency quotedIgor Korotchenko, a member of a Defense Ministry advisory panel, as saying.
Moscow also believes that talks on any further cuts in strategic-nuclear forces should include all major nuclear powers, Mr. Ushakov said, according to official Russian news agencies, in an apparent reference to China's growing arsenal.
"Today the situation is far from what it was in the 1960s and 1970s, when only the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had talks on reducing nuclear arsenals," Mr. Ushakov said, saying the parties needed to "enlarge the circle of participants."
Mr. Obama, in his speech, raised the importance of containing the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea and pledged to secure U.S. ratification of a comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty. He appealed to all nations to begin talks to establish a treaty that ends the production of fissile materials used to make nuclear weapons. "These are steps we can take to create a world of peace with justice," he said.
Mr. Obama ran into a rare logistical hurdle in the course of the address—his teleprompter broke down, a White House official said, forcing him to look down at the pages of text in front of him.
One of the biggest bursts of applause during the speech came when Mr. Obama again pledged to close Guantanamo.
Earlier in the day, at a news conference, a German reporter asked Mr. Obama about the prison, saying that "there were a number of hopes in the world that were in a way shattered" because of his record.
The president acknowledged that closing Guantanamo hasn't been as easy as he had hoped. Citing congressional resistance, he said: "One of the things you discover as a politician is that people don't always do exactly what you want. It's shocking. And then you have to keep on working at it."
Mr. Obama also said the U.S. wasn't preparing to go to war in Syria and welcomed support from world leaders this week to pursue a political transition in the country and end the civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The White House said last week that it would provide arms to moderate camps of Syrian rebels. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama said reports that Washington was laying the groundwork for a military intervention to oust Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad were "a little overcranked" and emphasized that the U.S. is determined to find a political solution to the civil war in Syria. He stressed that a peaceful solution could come only with a new government.
Full Speech
Mr. Obama arrived in Berlin on Tuesday night from Northern Ireland, where he had attended a meeting of the Group of Eight large industrialized nations. He spoke privately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday morning. Later, at a joint news conference, Ms. Merkel said the two had discussed recent disclosures that U.S. intelligence agencies are examining Internet and phone records. German officials have voiced qualms about such intrusions on privacy. For her part, Ms. Merkel didn't seem entirely reassured by the president's explanations.
"People have concerns, precisely concerns that there may be some kind of blanket, across-the-board gathering of information," she said, speaking through a translator. "We talked about this. The questions that we have not yet perhaps satisfactorily addressed we will address later on."
About 4,500 people then turned out later at a sunny, 90 degree afternoon to hear Mr. Obama. At a dinner hosted by Ms. Merkel, the president made reference to the heat and cited a newspaper report that 1,000 people had fainted during the Kennedy speech, many because of their emotional response to the U.S. president's words.
"We did not have 1,000 people faint today," Mr. Obama said. "The few who did, did so because of the weather and not because of my speech."
—Marcus Walker and Gregory L. White contributed to this article
Write to Peter Nicholas at email@example.com and William Boston at email@example.com


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The Heritage Scholarship competition is designed to find students who will make an academic, spiritual, and personal impact on our campus from orientation through graduation and beyond. This "invitation only" event brings together the top students from all over the globe to LeTourneau University's Longview campus for a time of fun and competition.
The requirements to be invited to Heritage vary by the school at LeTourneau, but we are looking in the range of a 3.6+ GPA, and a score of 28+ composite on the ACT or 1260+ (critical reading plus math) on the SAT. Every year students come and compete for one of these prestigious Heritage Scholarships. The value of a Heritage Scholarship is more than $100,000 (over four years).
The 2016 Heritage Competition will be held January 22-23, 2016 in Longview, TX. Students must be present to compete.
Carl Arnold
Executive Director for Enrollment Services,
Heritage Coordinator


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Once in a blue moon, a group of people come together and change the very foundation of sketch comedy as we know it. And when we find out who those people are, we can't wait to murder them in secret and then take credit for their achievement.
Until then, we are Pineapple-Shaped Lamps, a ridiculawesome Wilmington-based sketch comedy troupe, and we are here to deliver our own unique brand of silliness upon an unsuspecting and frankly terrified public.


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Parsons Display Shelf
# 08045
Product Description
Add a display shelf to the other pieces you own from the Parsons Collection. It's the ultimate display shelf for all your storing and shelving needs. Expertly crafted of wood in your choice of finish, the shelves sit at different heights to allow display of a variety of sizes of items, like books, accessories, photo frames and more. Order a display shelf for your home office today.
Product Details


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I'm working on a data migration task, where I have to export a somewhat large Lotus Notes application into a blogging platform. My first task was to export the articles from Lotus Notes into CSV files.
I created a Agent in LotusScript to export the data into CSV files. I use a modified version of this IBM DeveloperWorks forum post. And it basically does the job. But the contents of the Rich Text field is stripped of any formatting. And this is not what I want, I want the Rich Text field rendered as HTML.
The documentation for the GetItemValue method explicitly states that the text is rendered into plain text. So I began to research for something that would retrieve the HTML. I found the NotesMIMEEntity class and some sample code in the IBM article How To Access HTML in a Rich Text Field Using LotusScript.
But for the technique described in the above article to work, the Rich Text field need to have the property "Store Contents as HTML and MIME". And this is not the case with my Lotus Notes database. I tried to set the property on the fields in question, but it didn't do the trick.
Is it possible to use the NotesMIMEEntity and set the "Store Contents as HTML and MIME" property after the content has been added, to export the field rendered as HTML?
Or what are my options for exporting the Notes database Rich Text fields as HTML?
Bonus information: I'm using IBM Lotus Domino Designer version 8.5


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The Road to a Clean Energy Future?
For a leading environmentalist, natural gas can be a solution only if industry does its part to allay concerns
America's abundance of natural gas is often described as a boon to national security and a "bridge" to a clean, low-carbon energy economy. It is an exciting future, but we are not there yet.
The rush to develop the nation's abundant natural-gas reserves is trampling the environment and needlessly risking the health of communities in which gas development occurs. More needs to be done to ensure that the carbon benefits ascribed to natural gas are real and sustained.
It is long past time to require energy producers to fully disclose the chemicals used in the fluids for fracturing shale. Citizens are justifiably concerned about these industrial materials, which are being used in proximity to their homes and water supplies. Producers insist that their chemical cocktails are safe, but their claims cannot be verified because the industry withholds that information. People get the distinct impression that the industry has something to hide.
Read More
Building trust is crucial, and it begins with transparency. Tapping our nation's plentiful natural-gas reserves requires drilling wells in rural communities and suburban neighborhoods previously untouched by energy production. People are anxious about having a large, new industrial activity right next door. They expect natural gas producers to do the right thing. Requiring producers to disclose the chemicals in hydraulic fracturing fluid should be a no-brainer.
For all the attention given to technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, some of the greatest gains to be made in reducing the environmental risks of natural-gas production come from simple things like the proper pouring of cement well casings and the proper handling of chemicals and wastewater, so that they do not spill or seep into streams or water supplies.
Avoiding spills is not rocket science. Properly constructing and operating wells is a highly technical enterprise, but most natural-gas producers know how to do it. Too many are simply failing to achieve consistently good performance.
'Requiring producers to disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing should be a no-brainer. '
Better regulations are needed on things like well construction and wastewater management, particularly in states without a recent history of natural gas production. With that in mind, the Environmental Defense Fund, Southwestern Energy and other progressive gas producers and environmental groups are working to develop a model regulatory framework for safe drilling that can serve as the foundation for better operations. Equally important, regulatory agencies will need greater resources for the timely and thorough review of permit applications, as well as for robust enforcement.
Still, environmentally sound natural gas production will never exist until producers themselves get serious about environmental management. Natural-gas production takes place at thousands of wells spread over many hundreds of miles in a given state. Even under the best of circumstances, there will not be enough inspectors to oversee them all. Each company must operate with the understanding that its reputation, and the reputation of the industry as a whole, is only as good as the last well completed.
If natural gas is to be a near-term solution for a clean energy future, the industry also must be much more rigorous in measuring, publicly reporting and fixing leaks in the production and distribution process. Natural gas is a potent greenhouse gas, so leaks can undermine much of the low-carbon benefits that come from using it to replace fuels like coal and oil. Preventing leaks also cuts back on other air pollutants associated with gas production and use, including such volatile organic compounds as ethane and butane.
Cost-effective solutions for minimizing leaks exist. Many of these technologies have relatively quick paybacks. And the benefits work both ways: They can both reduce emissions and increase the bottom line of producers.
—Mr. Brownstein is chief counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund's Energy Program.


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I am using ping command to know whether remote machine is on or not. But problem is that ping command (ICMP Packect) is not accepted at remote machine if firewall is on and it assumed that remote machine is off because ping status returns false. Is there any alternative way to know that remote machine is on or not assuming firewall is on.
Depending on the firewall configuration you may be able to use a TCP SYN ping.
Effectively you will either get an ACK back if it's listening on the port, or a RST if it's not.
Various tools exist that do this, notably NMAP
If the firewall is any good, there is no way to check for this. The whole point of a firewall is that, if the packet you send is rejected, you don't get any clues at all as to the state of the receiving server: the core idea is that you don't get to tell between the case of
1) the server isn't there, and
2) the firewall blocked you.
In order to tell if the remote server is on, you have to decide on some port on which the server will respond, and make an appropriate hole in the firewall.
If the other computer is on the same local area network, it should still answer to ARP requests even though it's blocking
Over a larger network, I can't think of a reliable way of telling whether a host is on or not without its cooperation.
(not enough reputation yet to comment so I'm adding this as an answer)
This is a reason that I usually encourage allowing at least a few icmp types (echo request, echo reply and time exceeded come to mind) on all machines, because dropping ICMP is not really hiding the existence of the machine anyway (it might for machines behind it, though), but mostly hinders monitoring and network debugging.
If you're really paranoid about pingflood attacks, some sort of rate limiting might do (or filters only on the border side of the network).
Take note that not answering to an echo request is not a sign of the machine not being there, that is usually signalled by the last router replying with an ICMP packet type 3, code 1 (host unreachable), so making a machine really invisible is more complicated than it appears.
As for the original question, one of the nmap scans usually does the job (more than often a so-called "tcp ping" scan).
The way that I do this is to initiate a TCP connection to a known open port. If it's a web server, it will respond on port 80 (or 443). A positive response indicates that the machine is alive. A negative response indicates one of many possible problems, such as connectivity through the network, incorrect firewall configuration, service outage, or the machine being down.
If you're setting up monitoring and just want to know when to pay attention to the machine, just rely on a known-open port. At least if it stops responding, you'll know something is up.
Most modern firewalls may also intercept the initial SYN-SYN/ACK-ACK to hep prevent resource exhaustion type attacks (i.e. send a lot of SYNs forcing the server to put a entry in its connection table and then never continue the connection -- to make this type of attack more aggressive, these connections can be from spoofed IP addresses).
You may need to open a connection and actually request data to have more assurance that the server is actually up (of course caching servers and other things could foil even this).
What type of server is it? The connection type can be geared to the service offered by the server. Tools like nmap (http://nmap.org/) can request the http header for instance.
Isn't this a Windows question? Windows is the only OS that's retarded enough to block ping by default.
I really hate this. I wonder how many man-years have been wasted by people troubleshooting the network just because ping didn't work.
You can do an ARP Ping. Even if the firewall is preventing ICMP pings from occurring, ARP Ping basically asks if anyone is using the specific IP. ARP is used to make sure there's not IP collisions, so the machine has to respond. Once such tool is here.


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Mooneyes X-mas PartyWritten by on March 12, 2012 A holiday tradition for traditional hot rods
Getting battered and abused in the mobbed aisles of a mega-mall or big-box store isn't our favorite way to get in the holiday spirit. Not when we could be out in the Southern California sunshine at the Mooneyes X-mas Party Show & Drag.
This annual event has been an L.A. area holiday tradition for years but has outgrown several venues. Since 2006, it's been taking place at Irwindale Speedway. Besides the advantages of plenty of space for car show parking and a vendor midway, a live music stage, and spectator parking, the Speedway has the benefit of an eighth-mile dragstrip. The racing includes vintage front-engine dragsters and old-time Gassers but is open to any show participants who want to make a few passes (and can pass tech).
As always, the latest Mooneyes Party drew talented pinstripers eager to show off their talent—and plenty of lovely ladies to compete in the pin-up girl contest.
The Party's overall flavor is traditional—as in retro-style rods, customs, trucks, and bikes. Tuck 'n' roll interiors, suede paint, wide whites, pinstripes, and old-time powerplants are prominent—but the variety is wide, as you can see. Naturally, our attention gravitated to trucks. Lots of variety there, too. Here are just a few of our favorites. CCT
More Photos From This Article View Slideshow
George Tantardini's chopped and dropped '53 GMC is reminiscent of the customs of the early '60s. It's finished with all kinds of wild paint, including metalflake, pearl, and candies—with scallops and flame graphics.This '64 C10, suitably accessorized for the season, makes an equally good tow vehicle or push truck for the historic Antique Doll flathead dragster.The semi-gloss gray on Dusty Kennedy's '53 Chevy is complemented by the burgundy metalflake on the chopped top. This was the first show for the truck, which was just finished by Mike Bello at Bello's Rods & Customs.Back in the staging lanes, Brian Pearson's '34 Chevy waits for the chance to make a pass down the dragstrip. With a destroked Hendrick small-block Chevy, the pickup runs 12.70s in the quarter-mile. Brian was eager to see what it would do in the eighth.Steve Gibbs' drag racing career has touched every corner of the sport, including assistant manager of Irwindale Raceway almost 50 years ago. He was back, this time behind the Hemi in the Mastercar front engine dragster. Lucky for this story, the push vehicle is an eye-catching Christmas-orange '65 C10.This tail-dragging pinstriped '60 Chevy is a daily driver for Lench Casas, a member of the ShowLows car club. It used to be his grandfather's work truck before Lench got it. He added bags to the stock suspension and Fenton headers to the stock straight-six engine. Grandpa Manuel is gone, but Lench says it's still his truck.
The once-trashed '60 Suburban has been brought back by Dago Luviano. The 20x10 one-off rims, Mazda seats, TVs, and custom paint are just the beginning of the modifications to this regularly-driven hauler.Take a look at that paint. Eleven years ago, George San Martin was driving this beautiful '54 Chevy to high school. He's modified the stock suspension, frenched the '54 passenger car headlights and converted to suicide doors. The interior includes a cut-down Chrysler Imperial steering wheel.Here's another one with loads of custom components, from the wide whitewalls to the scallops, spot lights, and '54 Buick headlights. The low '55 Ford is powered by a Ford 302 and owned by Andy Heintzelman.The door graphics are the only change made to the exterior of this '46 Dodge. Nick "Lurch" Herring's Chevy-powered pickup used to belong to his grandfather. Nick refuses to paint it.Hot rod photographer Tony Huntimer showed up with his well-patina'd '59 Ford panel truck and a box of his latest Bonneville Salt Flats calendar, featuring photos from Speed Week.


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Top Definition
1 extra large and extra greasy Egg Roll from South China that Production supervisors wrap their lips around at lunch.
Wow, that sumo cock was so big I could not get my lips around it and the juices drippled down my chin and stained the floor.
Bob tarafından 4 Şubat 2005, Cuma
Trending Now


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WLP568 Belgian Style Saison Ale Yeast Blend
This blend melds Belgian style ale and saison strains. The strains work in harmony to create complex, fruity aromas and flavors. The blend of yeast strains encourages complete fermentation in a timely manner. Phenolic, spicy, earthy, and clove like flavors are also created.
Style Performance Listing
A listing of how this style ranks amongst different brew styles, on a scale from 0 to 4.
|Spiced Ales
|Grand Cru
|Other High Gravity
|Christmas Beers
|Specialty Beers
Feedback and experiences from previous customers. Want to leave a review of your own?
"basil saison"
Perfect yeast for this, the spice of the yeast and the basil is fantastic. Cleared out, dropped from 1.058 to 1.008 in a little over a week at 18 to 26c in the end. I'll sure again.
"Whoa, what an awesome yeast"
So this yeast did wonders for a saison I brewed. Some great spice and funk at the end and finished with virtually no residual sugars. I think I may have gotten a little brett in there from a previous brew, which may account for the 1.000 gravity reading but the yeast itself performed marvelously and the end result was super clear and pretty!
"Perfect choice!"
I used this in a Belgian pale kit from MoreBeer that I brewed a week ago. Just took a gravity reading and it's down to my estimated final gravity, and most of all is flat out delicious. Not carbed, cold or cleared, yeast charecter is there but not overpowering. I ended up using this blend purely because my LHBS was out of all other belgian yeast varietys, at the time I was bummed but now I'm glad it worked out this way. I will be using this more often in the future.
"Outstanding as Belgian pale ale"
I brewed a "Belgian pale ale" with this yeast. It was an experiment and greatly exceeded expectations. In fact it was probably the best beer I have brewed, and my friends who don't generally drink Belgian beer all love this one. I call it Belgian pale ale because I used significant hops, and no sugars. (Ingredients included dextrine malt, Belgian biscuit, Weyermann Carafa malt, and Briess light DME.) Like other Belgian yeasts from White Labs, this fermented quickly and thoroughly at about 80 F.
"I'll use it again ... "
I pitched a starter of this into 1.056 wort at sixty-six degrees Fahrenheit and held it for three days, then moved it up to eighty degrees over a course of days. It performed admirably from the start and wrapped up promptly as well, finishing at a low 1.008. The finished beer has a mellow "Belgian" character with an emphasis on the malts. Very clean, with no hints of fusels and a very mild fruitiness. Clove flavors are present, but mild and seem to dissipate with aging. Hop flavor and aroma are present, but muted in general. It was a good performer and I think it would work well for almost anything you want a pleasant Belgian character in. I'll use it again I'm sure.
"... a second batch has already been brewed"
I brewed an experimental beer with the WPL568 Saison Blend and it performed like a champ! I used the Saison recipe from Brewing Classic Styles as a base and added a bit of chocolate malt and some dark candi syrup. The yeast finished the beer at 1.009 with an ABV of 7.5%. Amazing spicey flavors and aromas and just a hint of chocolate flavor...Perfect! A friend liked the beer so much it was requested to be brewed as a Birthday batch, so a second batch has already been brewed...Cheers White Labs!
"I ramped up the temperature ..."
This yeast blend appears to have similar challenges to the Dupont strain (WLP565) that must be the main part of this blend. I ramped up the temperature during fermentation, starting at 68F and ending at 80F for 3 weeks. Fermentation sort of "quit" at 1.018 from 1.071, which is typical of the Dupont strain. The taste is too sweet but otherwise great, so I will have to finish up with another strain. Making a starter with a blend may have led to the issues as I could have emphasized the saison strain too much. Also, the Dupont strain prefers temperatures much over 80F, but since the other components of this blend are unknown it's risky to take it that high.
"Will use again"
I basically used JZ's recipes. Added .5 lb cane sugar late in primary and got 78% ADF with Saison. Added 1 lb to boil with Dubbel and pitched on top of slurry from first brew; got 77% ADF. I loved the taste in the Saison especially. Will use again.
"As advertised"
This yeast was pretty much as advertised. I kept fermentation to about a 76F average and the end product was surprisingly clean with strong yeast flavors kept to a minimum. In retrospect I probably should have pushed it up hotter in the beginning to catch more phenols and byproducts. It really let the malt come through which was also surprising. I was kind of expecting a bomb of yeasty flavor but it proved docile in the end. I also did a longer than usual secondary (50 days) so maybe that is the source of some of the mellowness. After my first batch I am going with a bit more caramel grain and gonna let the temp run closer to 80F if I can manage it. All in all it produced an exceptional beer. Subtle yeast flavors on top of a surprisingly clear brew. I highly recommend you give it a try.
Optimum Ferment Temp.70-80°F (21-27°C)
Alcohol ToleranceMedium


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I have employment data which are huge - about 500 data for each category, like agriculture field, fishing field etc. Now I want to categorise this data in to 7 ranges. Suppose <50=1, >50-100=2, etc. for producing an agriculture map of a country by showing these categories as a legend. I don't want to change my main GIS data. I only want to show this data into small categories in Map. How can I do it?
I suppose you want to do this in ArcMap.
Right click -> Properties -> Symbology
You will need to select the
For more info check the ESRI help file
If I got you right, you might use grouping techniques in Layer Properties dialog box > Symbology tab > Categories. Here you would specify the classifications (0>50, 50>100 etc) and labels (1,2,3 etc). The legend in the layout view will use the labels you've specified, so you don't have to change anything in the underlying data.


text:
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High School Musical 101
Disney's High School Musical is a certified pop-cultural sensation. You've probably seen it, heard about it, or even bought one of its many branded products. But how much do you really know about this teenybopper phenomenon? Read on to find out.
1 of 8
The Story
Following in the musical footsteps of Grease and West Side Story, High School Musical is a loose retelling of Romeo and Juliet, set in a modern-day high school. Troy (Zac Efron) is the popular captain of the basketball team. Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) is the brainy new kid. Both face peer pressure in their own way, but trouble starts when they decide to try out for the lead roles in the school play - and in each other's hearts. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, High School Musical ends not with a tragic double-suicide, but with the student body realizing that cliques are, like, totally lame.
Next: The Hoopla


text:
West Campus
Located in West Haven, CT, Yale's West Campus is home to a number of research institutes, laboratories, and the School of Nursing.
Scott Allan Strobel is the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and a Professor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
He completed his graduate studies at Caltech and postdoctoral research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He joined the Yale faculty in 1995 and served as Department Chair from 2006-09. In January 2011 he began serving as the Vice President for West Campus Planning and Program Development with responsibility for implementing scientific, arts and educational efforts on the Yale West Campus. In 2004 he was awarded the Dylan Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the Natural Sciences by Yale College and in 2007 he received the Graduate Mentoring award from the Yale Graduate School. In 2008 he received the Schering Plough Research Institute award from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2009 he was named a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow by the Office of Naval Research. In 2006 and again in 2010 he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor to promote efforts in undergraduate science education. With this award he instituted a program to explore microbial and chemical diversity in the world's rainforests as a means to inspire undergraduate students in the sciences. Scott's own research focuses on RNA catalysis in systems ranging from group I intron splicing to the peptidyl transferase center of the ribosome. He also studies the structural basis of riboswitch function and he has a program to study biofuel production from novel organisms isolated as part of the rainforest program.


text:
Imagine I have a computer where all the trafic is being sent through the MitM. How would it be possible to have a secure connection through this setup?
In this case it would be OK to design a new protocol just for this. I just want to know if there is a way to do this. If there is a new protocol we need to make it unbruteforceable for the next 10 years.
EDIT: Assume you didn't exchange any keys before you got MitM'd. Absolutely every communication from/to you to/from the server is being MitM'd.


text:
What is the market standard for pricing quanto CDS (i.e. CDS which pays the contingent leg in different currency than the pricing leg)?
there is no standard approach to model quanto CDS. In practice, people look at the dynamic hedging costs over time as well as the expected loss from an fx gap in the event of a default of the ref entity. the former is modelled by some correlated brownian (for FX) and mean-reverting processes (for credit - could be Ornstein Uhlenbeck for example). In addition, you need some event correlation of the FX gapping when the reference entity defaults. You see, all a little messy. Don't get me started on the calibration.....
CDS on sovereigns in the country's own currency trade at roughly 50%-60% of their liquid spot contract while Eur-countries trade between 5% (perepherial) and 30% (core)
Here is a link to a very interesting paper about the subject. The model assumes
The author gives some examples of how each of these parameters affect the ratio quantoCDS/CDS (which seems to be the quotation convention for some emerging market quanto CDS).
The consensus seems to be is using jump diffusion process (affine), and then using copula's and/or correlated brownian motions to handle the correlation structure.
Here's a link to a recent paper that discusses these models in great detail, and includes application of these models for modeling quanto cds:
This take into account three components:
All these parameters are important for the pricing of quanto cds:
Calibration of the model parameters. The model is calibrated to two components:
I think that those are the main risks embedded in quanto CDS trades. We could add to that stochastic interest rates if the trades are long dated.
When I said that this paper is very interesting, it is because it answers exactly the initial question posted here. I hope this will help answering the original question.


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HOUSTON (January 25, 2013)--A second man was arrested early Friday in a shooting at a Houston-area community college that left three people wounded.
Trey Foster, 22, was captured early Friday in the Dallas suburb of Plano, 250 miles north of Houston, Harris County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Christina Garza said.
Garza said officers escorted Foster back to Houston where he's held in the Harris County Jail.
Foster faces two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Tuesday's shooting on the Lone Star College campus 20 miles north of downtown Houston.
Carlton Berry, who was wounded in the incident, has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Berry faces a court hearing Wednesday.
Authorities say they are trying to determine his role in the shooting.
According to a probable cause affidavit, one of the three people who were wounded, Jody Neal, told investigators that a man later identified as Foster shot him Tuesday after the two bumped into each other and argued on the campus of Lonestar College 20 miles north of downtown Houston.
The third person wounded in the shooting was a maintenance man who got caught in the crossfire.
Authorities say at least 10 shots were fired.


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Both the General & Special Relativity discarded Newtonian mechanics of absoluteness. According to Einstein's view, Time, Mass, Length and Space are interdependent. So, Did Relativity discarded only absoluteness in space and mentioned that all motions are relative... What else suffocated in Physics due to Relativity..?
closed as too broad by centralcharge, Emilio Pisanty, akhmeteli, Manishearth♦ Sep 29 '13 at 7:17
There are either too many possible answers, or good answers would be too long for this format. Please add details to narrow the answer set or to isolate an issue that can be answered in a few paragraphs.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
With SR, the absoluteness of simultaneity was discarded, i.e., two events may have the same time coordinate in one inertial frame but not in relatively moving others.
In GR, where the geometry of a general spacetime evolves, the very notion of simultaneous is arbitrary. From "Gravitation" by MTW:
In short Newtonian mechanics with Galilean relativity allowed that all observer could agree on both
Special relativity holds that neither of these differences are invariant, but that all inertial observers can agree on the interval $\mathrm{d}s^2 = c^2\mathrm{d}t^2 -\mathrm{d}x^2 - \mathrm{d}y^2 - \mathrm{d}z^2$ between two events.
General relativity complicates the matter more by inserting a possibly non-flat metric intro the calculation of the interval.
The assumption of absolute spacial references was easily disprovable even in Newton's time, from the fact that his laws of motion were preserved in inertial frames, making it impossible to state that something is objectively not moving. However, this pseudo-religious standpoint of Newton's fit in well with the then generally held belief of an absolute time reference, which was surely a more forgivable mistake due to the nearly imperceptible effect of time dilation in normal life. Another of Newton's prejudices was handed down to him through centuries of teachings in geometry, namely that the universe was entirely Euclidean. That this idea was inevitably to give way to general relativity echoes what relativity did to the idea of absolute space/time.


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Hats, Gloves and Scarves
Discover our collection of unique girls hats, gloves and scarves that are the perfect accessory for her winter coats and sweaters. Sophias Style has many styles, colors and sizes that will delight your newborn, infant, toddler and little girl.
Our girls hats, scarves and gloves are stylish and affordable.


text:
- Affording Graduate Education
Affording a Saint Louis University Graduate Education
There are several ways to finance a graduate education, the most common of which are assistantships, fellowships, and loans.
Assistantships are offered through individual academic and administrative departments. Acceptance into a program merits automatic consideration for an academic assistantship. Students should contact his or her department regarding available academic assistantship positions.
Fellowships are awarded based on nominations from departments. Check with the departments for application deadlines.
If you have already received an assistantship or fellowship, and have questions, please contact:
Student Financial Services at Saint Louis University offers guidance to all SLU graduate students in finding and securing financial assistance for their graduate education expenses. Representatives and counselors can be found on their Contact Us page. Also review the Frequently Asked Questions page to learn more about the numerous financing opportunities available.
The Yellow Ribbon Program is a Veteran's Benefit that SLU is participating in conjunction with Veterans Affairs. The award is available to students in all degree programs offered at Saint Louis University excluding the School of Medicine.
- The Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) offers College Scholarships, including graduate students. Consult their FAQ section for application guidelines
The RFP (Request For Proposals) Bulletin, compiled by Philanthropy News Digest, is updated every Friday afternoon and published online as a service to the Foundation Center.
Educational Testing Service (ETS) updates their Fellowship and Internship Programs in Research & Development page with the latest programs offered to those with a doctoral degree or in a doctoral program.


text:
Assault-rifle ban looks foolish based on recent events
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Hybrid View
3 Jun 2010 4:50 AM #1
[CLOSED-24] 'swipe' event called on doubetap of element. (0.82)
3 Jun 2010 11:02 AM #2
Could you post a quick code snippet that I can use to confirm / debug this? Can't seem to reproduce this atm.
4 Jun 2010 3:14 AM #3
Okay, you can close this. I have tried reproducing it again but can't - should have taken a copy of the code sorry. Will let you know if I run into it again.
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Lawrence is a traditional residence hall located on the Brattle Campus which houses 90 first-year, upper-class, and transfer residents.
Lawrence Hall at the Brattle Campus is home to first-year students and upperclassmen alike. The first floor is designated for first year students. Lawrence Hall is a historic stone building within short walking distance of the Doble Campus. This hall features single to triple occupancy rooms. Along with three Community Advisors and the Brattle Campus Resident Director lives in Lawrence Hall. Approximately 90 residents live within this three-story co-ed residence hall. Each floor has designated bathroom facilities, and each room offers Internet and cable access. There is a large lounge area located on the first floor with couches and cable television. A large kitchen area with two stoves, two microwaves and a refrigerator is also on the first floor. The second and third floors of the building have a small area that contains additional full size refrigerators for the students to use. Special Interest: Recreational/Wellness
< Previous | Next >
Residence Life
Residence Halls
What to Bring
Frequently Asked Questions
Off-Campus Housing
Summer Housing
Residence Life Policies


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I've searched high and low for the answer - the codex on
wp_enqueue_script seems pretty simple.
The problem is when I add my custom excerpt script to my functions file, register and then enqueue it (set to place in header), the source is displayed in the header as:
<script src="http://www.olliedaw.co.uk/wp-content/themes/DawRefrigerationMilkTanks/js/excerpt.js" type="text/javascript">
Which looks correct in firebug, but it still comes up with a 404 error when I look at the script in firebug as if it can't find the file!
File name is right, and is in the right place but still cant get it to load???
themes/Daw Refrigeration Milk Tanks/js/excerpt.js


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Rules on how to behave in the theatre
Posted 13 August 2009 - 02:54 AM
Shouldn't 'no peeing against the proscenium arch' be included? After all this is an English list.
Posted 13 August 2009 - 06:13 AM
Posted 13 August 2009 - 07:53 AM
13 If the child you're bringing is chatty, gag it. If it's fidgety, handcuff and shackle it. And if you're altruistic enough to bring a school party to a Shakespeare matinée, threaten potential wrongdoers with tickets to the next revival of Timon of Athens, to be followed by a ten-page essay on the ethics of Apemantus.
Out of curiosity, I rechecked the character of Apemantus, who appears to be the inventor of Insult Comedy:
To the extent that he cannot deprive himself of the last (invariably negative) word, Apemanthus sounds like a familiar figure in today's angry world.
Timon: Wither art thou going?
Apemantus: To knock out an honest Athenian's brains.
Timon: That's a deed thou'lt die for.
Apemanthus: Right, if doing nothing be death by the law.
Timon: How dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus?
Apemantus: Not so well as plain-dealing which will not cost a man a doit.
Timon: What does thou think 'tis worth?
Apemanthus. Not worth my thinking.
Painter: You're a dog.
Apemantus: Thy mother's of my generation: what's she, if I be a dog?
[etc. etc.]
A plague on thee! thou art too bad to curse.
Posted 13 August 2009 - 10:11 AM
Posted 13 August 2009 - 10:28 AM
Posted 13 August 2009 - 12:59 PM
at the Met last month. http://www.ballet.co...0709.htm#bigpic
The following incident shows what happens when Golden Rules 1 & 2 are ignored. *(Bold emphases are mine).
Like any type of theatre, Ballet is a contract between performer and audience. Often when we hear a comic refer to a good crowd, it usually means the audience is supplying a sufficient amount of attention and energy from which he can draw upon to bolster his performance. Theatre (not just ballet) is like a waltz where the artists on stage lead the audience around the floor a few times. If it was a good performance, we (the audience) leave the dance floor slightly dizzy but exhilarated. This is also true for ballet, where the emotion and excitement of an audience responding collectively to great artistic and acrobatic feats can create a sort of electrical current between performer and spectator. And since a lack of energy from the crowd can often sap the energy of artists on stage, a review of a performance is, implicitly, a review of the audience. Which is why I'm sorry to have to begin by saying how incredible it is that anyone, whether they're watching a comic perform in a bar or sitting in the orchestra section of the Metropolitan Opera, would ever answer their cell phone during a performance.
This is what happened during the first act of ABT's Romeo and Juliet. Actually it happened twice. And it was the same woman. I suppose it can happen. I myself, a card carrying Wagnerian, once received a call during those heart-stopping climatic moments of "Die Walkure." I should mention that my ringtone at the time, Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl, meshed surprisingly well with Wagner's Magic Fire Music - though not everyone thought so. Needless to say, I was mortified. So I take it for granted, whenever someone's phone rings, that it simply must have slipped that person's mind, and wait patiently for them to fish out their mobile device and shut it off. I don't, however, expect the next thing I hear to be: "Hello?" Even after a blitzkrieg of some of the most violent shushing I've ever heard in my life, I swear I thought I heard the lady-in-question continue by saying: "Sure, I can talk. I'm just at the ballet." Joking aside, the culprit looked well past the age of knowing better and even seemed unapologetic when approached by an usher. I wish I could say that this was the only incident of inappropriate audience noise at the ballet.
Posted 13 August 2009 - 01:58 PM
Is there a permanent BAM (Bad Audience Member) thread? If not, maybe there should be.
The following incident shows what happens when Golden Rules 1 & 2 are ignored...
I've been told to sit down, in the middle of a standing ovation... chewed out, when I poked awake a snoring patron... swatted, when I tapped somebody's tinkling wrist bracelets...
And nah, I'm not perfect either
Posted 13 August 2009 - 08:02 PM
Times have changed, I guess.
Posted 19 August 2009 - 09:34 PM
I don't recommend that level of strictness when taking children to the ballet, but following the article's suggestion, I am all for shackling children who can't remotely keep still -- I don't mean children who occasionally fidget or move their head to see the dancers or even whisper one or two questions, I mean jump up and down out of their seats, crawl along the floor, get on their mom's lap, get off their mom's lap, stand up, sit down, turn around to face away from the stage and do all of the above repeatedly and non-stop. I am in fact describing almost all I can now remember of a Part/Halberg Swan Lake I attended last year: I finally whisper-pleaded politely to the mother during breaks in the dancing and the person I was with eventually spoke to her rather more forcefully. The mother said nothing, but during intermission, found an usher willing to find them different -- better! -- seats. In fairness it was a children's matinee, so I'm sure she felt we were the ogres, but I note that everywhere else around me were very well behaved children just one of whom got understandably distracted when looking over curiously at this overactive and quite young child who...uh...should not have been there. Again, all for shackling or, at any rate, taking them home at intermission.
Incidentally I was myself taken to see the Bolshoi when I was about the same age or younger than this particular child -- that is, I was around four or five years of age. An older family member could not attend and I was permitted to use the ticket but here, too, only after extended instructions on theater behavior. It makes my family sound unrealistically strict -- but I never experienced it that way, especially when the ballet was in question; I felt I was being given this extraordinary privilege and even as what most would consider a too-young-to-be-at-the-ballet child, I thought the whole experience was just thrilling. I still remember a fragment of that performance...
Actually, it's only pretty extreme cases of poor behavior that I feel comfortable complaining about, since I want ballet to be popular and I'm not always perfect myself--despite all the early lecturing...I often say that the next best thing to having no-one in front of you at a performance is having no one in back of you: you can raise yourself up as much as you like, scratch your itches, cock your head to the side, and shift when you have a cramp -- all without qualms of conscience or fear of being sniffed at!
Posted 19 August 2009 - 10:09 PM
What's most shocking is that some of my friends have been quite willing to do this, despite my lack of sympathy.
Posted 20 August 2009 - 03:23 AM
... only after extended instructions on theater behavior.
I remember this kind of preparation, both as a child and as a younger adult taking children to the theater from time to time. Unfortunately, one needs to understand the problem and to know and VALUE the rules before you can teach them to your own children. That is what seems to be missing today.
... [not]unless they have voluntarily shared their exit strategy with me and the kid(s) who are old enough to understand, there are enough adults to remove any given child who acts up without destroying the day for the well-behaved children, and the designated adult is willing to eat the $X tickets after 10 minutes if s/he has to, the odds for which are quite high if the child is under 4 or 5.
Drew raises the matter of achieving balance: how do you encourage or even require behavior that respects your neighbors without giving the impression that you are trying to turn everyone into stiff and motionless worshipers at Bayreuth?
Posted 20 August 2009 - 12:37 PM
Posted 27 August 2009 - 08:52 PM
Posted 18 April 2010 - 06:32 PM
Yes, it had been the sound of a cell phone-(not sure if in a texting situation or a ring, but I'm inclined to think it was the first one, because I did not hear any ringing...).
I had NEVER seen something like that before...the whole place was dead silence-(a packed house)-and after the offender had done what ordered, Mr. Tilson slowly turned around and proceeded to start the Adagio all over again.
Even if I wasn't the owner of the cell phone, I felt very embarrassed...
Posted 18 April 2010 - 07:09 PM
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Maker Faire 2011
(→Noisebridge booth)
(→Event Saturday May 21st)
|Line 48:
|Line 48:
* Ken & Max Available in the afternoon
* Ken & Max Available in the afternoon
* [[User:Lizzard|Liz]] & [[User:malaclyps|Danny]]
* [[User:Lizzard|Liz]] & [[User:malaclyps|Danny]]
====Event Sunday May 22nd====
====Event Sunday May 22nd====
Revision as of 13:51, 22 April 2011
Noisebridge booth
[1] is May 21 and 22 at the San Mateo County Expo Center. If you'd like to help set up/run the booth this year, please add your contact info below.
Mitch will be setting up a huge Hardware Hacking Area again this year.
Planned Transport Cars
Stef has offered a truck to transport people and materials. Sean C can bring the focus. Its not too huge, but it holds a lot :).
Projects/Items Displayed in the Booth
"If you'd like to bring something to show in the Noisebridge booth, please list it here and contact emprameen at gmail.com
Other Items to Bring
- NB flyers
- NB stickers
- NB t-shirts?
- easel
- whiteboard
- trashbags
- snacks for booth
- 1 or 2 camp chairs that can be folded up when booth is crowded
If you want to help out at the NB booth this year, please sign up on dates you are available. Include contact info so we can coordinate schedules.
Folks who want to help staff the booth: Elise, Adit, Al, Rikke, Stefano, Rameen, Danny Ken & Max, Sean C
Setup Friday May 20th
If you have a car that can transport projects please state so.
Stafano can help with transportation... Rachel McConell can help with a car if necessary. Ken & Max can help with a car if necessary
Event Saturday May 21st
Event Sunday May 22nd
Ken & MaxAvailable all day
Take down Sunday May 22ndd
If you have a car that can transport projects, please state so
Ken & Max can help with a car if necessary
Members with Booths at Maker Faire
"Going to Maker Faire with another group? Let us know where you'll be!"


text:
I use Google Docs for typing up a lot of work, and I like to type it up in Garamond. However when I add line-breaks sometimes Google Docs decides to revert to Arial 11pt (the default style for a new document, but not used anywhere in mine). Is there a way to stop it doing this?
migrated from superuser.com Jan 25 '11 at 16:43
This question came from our site for computer enthusiasts and power users.
Seems to be possible now (4th September 2012, 13:50 GMT-6):
Future new documents should then default to your settings for 'Normal Text'. Note you may also have to update the style settings for 'Title', 'Subtitle', and headings one through six, if you want them to match.
You may also be able to change default styling from the toolbar, by selecting some text, clicking where it says the name of the current style (usually 'Normal Text'), pointing at "Options", then clicking "Save as my default styles".
Not currently possible in the new Google Docs interface.
You can still, however, use the old Google Docs interface, where you can set a default font.
I don't know for sure if this will carry over to the new Google Docs interface. This feature is something they're apparently looking to re-add (relatively) soon.
(I gleaned most of this information from here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?tid=66b1d736e3e323ad&hl=en)


text:
I have a motorbike with a wet battery. I use its electric starter to start the engine.
Is there any research done by others before to prove which one of the following makes the durability of the wet battery shorter?
Assume the motorbike is well-maintained and still in factory default settings.
Case 1: The lights are turned on before pressing the electric starter button until the engine starts.
Case 2: The lights are turned on after pressing the electric starter button and the engine starts.
Note: I am only interested in the scientific data because without it, I can say nothing to my debate partner.
I said to my debate partner that both methods are fine. However, my debate partner said the first case makes the battery life time shorter. He cannot give me the proof as well. :-)


text:
A Tour of New Orleans
2 of 11
Doullut Steamboat House
Captain Milton Doullut was a riverboat pilot who built the first steamboat house in 1875. Steamboats were a major source of cargo and passenger transportation on the Mississippi river in the 19th century. The Doullut steamboat house resembles traditional water-going steamboats with porthole-style windows, upper and lower galleries, and ironwork trim.
Fun Fact: Doullut's son built a twin steamboat house on the same street.
Photo source: Carol M. Highsmith
Next: Mardi Gras
Provided by Infoplease—an authoritative, comprehensive reference website that offers an encyclopedia, a dictionary, an atlas, and several almanacs. Visit Infoplease.com to find more resources endorsed by teachers and librarians.


text:
Power Player: SNL's Lorne Michaels Add to ...
Last updated
On the 37th birthday of Saturday Night Live, we feature Lorne Michaels, the show's creator and executive producer.
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The Central Kansas League recently announced the All-League honorees for volleyball and football.
Those selected from Pratt High School include the following:
Volleyball- senior Andi Gripe, Honorable Mention; junior Jaci Kolm, 2nd team; junior Jenson Maydew unanimous 1st team.
Football- senior Jarod Gilmore, 1st team offensive line and 1st team linebacker; junior Taylor White 1st team offensive line; junior Brett Forshee honorable mention offensive line; senior Anthony Cannata honorable mention running back; senior Skylar Dean 1st team quarterback and 1st team defensive back; junior Shawn Ramos 1st team receiver; senior Austin Gates 1st team defensive line; Robby Eggleston 1st team punter and honorable mention defensive line; Mitchell Baird honorable mention defensive back.
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Don't be surprised if you don't feel as romantic as ever following the birth of your baby. An array of physical, emotional, and logistical factors may have dulled your sexual appetites somewhat. These are just some of the obstacles you're up against:
If you have any of these problems or concerns, don't leave them unspoken. Talk to your partner openly about the obstacles that stand in the way of resuming sexual intercourse. Don't let your partner think it's him (or her). If your partner doesn't know the reasons for your reticence, he or she may end up feeling unattractive, abandoned, and resentful.
So talk about sex even if you're not doing anything about it. You may find out that your partner shares your concerns or has worries of his or her own. Bringing them out into the open may not solve all of these problems, but it will allow you to decide together when you want to try to pick up where you left off.
If you notice any vaginal spotting, regardless of whether you've resumed making love, report it to your doctor.
If necessary, you can always seek counseling. Professional sex therapists and/or marriage counselors can often get to the root of communication problems or sexual relationship difficulties in just a few intense sessions.
Some of the factors inhibiting your sexual relationship-stabilizing hormone levels, the effect of nursing, your body image, and postpartum depression and healing-should improve on their own with the passage of time. When you are both ready, you also can take steps to overcome most of the other obstacles to renewed lovemaking (although exhaustion may be something you'll have to learn to live with). You can get past a lack of natural lubrication, for instance, by using an artificial lubricant until vaginal secretions resume.
If pain is the problem, then try different positions until you find one (or more) that are more comfortable for you. For example, women have more control over the depth of penetration and so feel less pressure on the perineum if they are on top or side to side rather than on the bottom. If you can't find any sexual position that's comfortable, talk to your doctor. A topical estrogen cream (available by prescription only) may alleviate some of your soreness and pain.
If you are finding it difficult to relax enough to make love, try your favorite relaxation techniques before you get into bed:
Try to expand your sexual horizons, too. Just because one or both of you doesn't feel like intercourse, you can still find many other ways to express your love for each other: talking, wining (not too much) and dining, hand-holding, lying in bed together, cuddling, and a wide variety of sexual foreplay.
Don't resume having sexual intercourse until your doctor gives you the okay. If you and your partner are feeling romantic before your doctor has said it's okay, find some other way to satisfy each other. Because only intercourse is inadvisable during the first postpartum weeks, the range of possibilities extends all the way from hand-holding to oral sex.
Take your time. Don't force yourself to fake sexual feelings or have sexual intercourse before both of you are ready for it. After all, the normal balance of maternal hormones may not return for months after delivery. What's more, you may do more long-term damage to your sexual relationship by rushing into postpartum sex and having bad sexual experiences than you would by waiting until you both feel good about it. So try not to obsess about sex; give yourself and your partner time.
Whenever you resume your lovemaking, you may need to lower your expectations somewhat. It may be weeks or even months, for example, before you (or your partner) have an orgasm again. In the meantime, both of you need to remain as patient, loving, and understanding as you can. You need time to recapture both the mutual ardor and the gratification that marked your sexual relations before your baby arrived.
Sexual spontaneity does become more difficult once you have a baby, but it's not impossible. If you and your partner find yourselves alone at last, entertain the possibility of mutual seduction. If you're both feeling in the mood, for example, schedule a "date" for baby's next naptime. Or if your baby has a fairly regular nighttime sleep schedule, pencil your partner in for the slot right after bedtime. Whether you drop everything at the spur of the moment or schedule time for each other, try to make the most of your opportunities. They may be short-lived.
Almost every new parent has a story about the baby's bad sense of timing. Your baby may wake up just before you achieve sexual climax. She may pull herself up to standing for the first time while you and your partner are having intercourse. Or she may find some other creative way to interrupt or inhibit the sexual act. Try to hold on to your sense of humor if and when it happens to you.
How important is sex to you? Only you and your partner can answer that. Establish your priorities with your partner and arrange your schedule accordingly. If something else is lower on your list of priorities than making love, then let it go and devote that time to each other. But if something else is higher, by all means do the other thing first.
Most importantly, talk-and listen-to your partner. Talk about your emotions, the new sources of stress in your life, and anything else that might be affecting your sexuality. Work at seeing things from your partner's point of view, too. Do whatever you can to keep your sexual relationship going despite the lack of sexual relations. Until you're both ready to resume sexual intercourse, work on maintaining trust, patience, understanding, open lines of communication, and loving feelings.
Even after you have resumed sexual relations, continue talking honestly to your partner about sex. If you don't feel like making love because you're exhausted (or for any other reason), let your partner know. If sexual intercourse feels uncomfortable or painful, don't just grit your teeth. Let your partner know so that you can both try something different. If something new (or old) feels particularly good, share this information, too. If you let your partner know what feels best to you, then you won't have to wait for another happy accident to feel that good again.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Bringing Up Baby © 1997 by Kevin Osborn. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit the Idiot's Guide web site or call 1-800-253-6476.
© 2000-2016 Sandbox Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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For�Thursday's�big�Welcome to Sweden�season�finale, star�Greg Poehler�once again enlisted his sister,�Parks and Rec's�Amy Poehler, to play a douched-up version of herself. In this exclusive sneak preview of the first of two back-to-back episodes, Amy berates Bruce for wanting to return to his fianc� in Sweden. (Imagine if the passion and tenacity of Leslie Knope were used for evil instead of good.)
Emmys fashion hits and misses
While�Sweden�flew rather under the radar this summer, the international comedy is a huge hit in Sweden and has already been renewed�by�NBC — and for good reason. Check out the clip below to see why�Sweden�has stolen our hearts and check out the one-hour finale — which also features�Parks'�Aubrey Plaza�—�Thursday�at 9/8c on NBC.
View original Welcome to Sweden Exclusive Sneak Peek: Amy Poehler Is A Real Douche at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com
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If you look at a map of China through the ages, you will usually find (from about the Han up) a huge mass representing China. On the other hand, you look at a map of Europe, and you'll usually see a huge number of states. Why was China able to unify and not Europe?
China (or at least its core) had a central, unifying culture built around philosophers such as Confucius and Lao-tse that was attractive to people over a wide land area. Also, the Chinese written language was developed from pictograms that represented "words," which although pronounced differently in different locations, could have the same meaning over wide land areas.
This core culture was widely admired, which is to say that people on the "edges" of "China" were often open to assimilation. And the country was fortunate that when conquered, it was by more "backward" (but fiercer) people such as the Mongols and Manchus who were glad to adopt Chinese culture, and also impose it on conquered people.
In Europe (at the risk of oversimplifying), there were three main cultural linguistic groups, Latin, Germanic and Slav, of roughly equal power and influence. While the balance of power shifted back and forth over the centuries, no one group became dominant. And often, they could not impose their culture over smaller subgroups that got in their way. In theory, Latin might have fulfilled the function of a common language like Chinese, but (apart from modified forms such as French, Spanish or Italian, in most of the former Roman territories), it never took hold over the common people in the rest of Europe. Nor was there a common culture in most of Europe, at least until the time of the Enlightenment.
In Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, the first chapter by Walter Scheidel, From the "Great Convergence" to the "First Great Divergence", makes the case that the Chinese style of government focussed on centralising power while the Roman style allowed for a great deal of autonomy for appointed officials.
The Warring States era pitted states of similar size against each other for centuries, necessitating governmental reforms that strengthened the power of the central government. Qin implemented various measures that weakened the power of nobles, established standards across the kingdom (everything from language and currency to the size of axles) and allowed the central government to reach into all areas of society, with ultimate power being in the hands of the king. When Qin conquered its rival states, it sought to impose this same system throughout China, and despite its rhetoric, Han actually adopted most of Qin's institutions. Rome had comparatively brief periods in which it was matched against opponents of similar strength. Thus, its war efforts did not require the same level of internal reform and centralisation. Scheidel writes also that:
Scheidel notes that Chinese cities were typically governed by officials who came from outside the region. Thus, they were viewed as government appointed administrators rather than the community leaders who formed city councils in the cities of the Roman Empire. In times of disunity, Chinese warlords were more likely to be acting as pretenders to the throne than as representatives of regional interests.
In terms of philosophy and religion, China was founded on a combination of legalism and Confucianism. Both of these stressed the importance of centralised control and an ordered society. Rome was founded upon first paganism, then Christianity. Scheidel does not mention the former, but Edward Gibbon makes the case that paganism allowed for greater tolerance of the local customs of conquered areas, and it makes sense that this also allows for greater acceptance of autonomous government. When Rome turned to Christianity, it was to "churches that had evolved outside and in some sense in opposition to the imperial state" and therefore "could not offer comparable services" in terms of governance to Confucian scholars.
It is a wrong assumption that Europe was never unified politically.
First, in the ancient times the cultural development of different European peoples was very diverse. The most advanced peoples of Europe adopted the Greek culture, alphabet and gods. You can see this on the example of Etruscans who used the Greek alphabet and worshiped the Greek gods. The same can be said about the Balkan peoples, Spanish peoples and to a certain degree about Italians. Germanic and Celtic peoples of the time also used Greek alphabet for their languages.
At the height the Greek civilization included not only most civilized parts of Europe but also portions of Middle East and Africa.
The North Europe was not included mostly because it was not that much developed at the time.
Later the civilization of Rome followed which also included the the most civilized parts of Europe and Mediterranean with some other areas as client states.
In the Middle ages, the Catholic Church and the Holy See took the role.
It was only starting with high middle ages the European nations began to assert sovereignty, partly because of the falling authority and prestige of the church.
I think that stems from both geographic and cultural factors. At first it is almost like Jim Thio said. Only that it may not exactly be mountains.
If you look at the early agricultural societies in the West, those would be 1) along the Nile river (Egypt) 2) Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Mesopotamia). Those are two places divided not only by mountains, but by sea and desert. Later there were also agricultural societies on the Crete island and in the Greek peninsula (which are also cut off from both Mesopotamia and Egypt by the sea). If you look at the early agricultural societies in the East Asia, those would be located primarily between the Yellow river and the Yangtze river, mostly on the plain.
In the West, the diverse landscape prevented early cultures from directly 'meeting' each other and by the time they had actually 'met' they had already become very distinct. And by the time the subcontinent known as 'Europe' had risen to prominence (that happened late because Europe is located north of China; Europe is approximately the same latitude as Japan or Korea, both of which were not agricultural until at least 1000 BC, given that agriculture began earlier than 5000 BC in Mesopotamia, Egypt and China) a certain culture had already been established in the region by the Roman Empire and largely Christianity. It would be long to describe the kind of culture it was, but to make long short, it was an individualistic culture that did not really care about the government and state. It was a kind of culture that tried to distance itself from the Roman rule and Empire as that rule was in fact pretty dirty and senselessly violent.
In China, on the other hand, there were no geographical obstacles that powerful at the early stages of civilization. Therefore different states constantly warred with each other from early times (consequently merging differing cultures of the China proper). Legalist and Confucian morals and political ethics, that were mentioned here, were in fact a response to those constant feuds. As that, Confucianism in turn did not really care about religious beliefs and local customs, concentrating more on the social order and politics.
Therefore we have in the West 1) very little fertile land for early agriculture (for early agriculture the land must be very fertile, so that agriculture is advantageous compared to hunter-gathering) 2) major religions/philosophies (platonism, zoroastrianism, manichaeism, judaism->christianity) that began in around 5 century BC concentrating on uniting cultures that were very much diverse.
On the other hand, in China we have 1) a lot of fertile land comprising the 'China proper' that does have little natural boundaries, most of which are not as significant as a sea or a desert. (For argument's sake, historically there were places in China that were hard to reach - parts of Vietnam and Thailand in the south and Korea in the north. At certain times China did control those lands, but for short periods of time, and those nations certainly do not claim themselves Chinese - just as the British do not claim themselves Roman.) 2) major religions/philosophies (confucianism, legalism, taoism) did not try to unite the common cultures, but rather are about an 'order of things' that is above those cultures.
To begin with, the statistics shows China 44% of its time was under a unified rule. The number for Europe is 18%. So we want to know why (and hope this question makes sense). So it is a comparative history question. In order to establish a comparative history, much efforts have to be put before the blind comparison is made. On this topic, a very good introduction is Rome and China, Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, edited by Walter Scheidel etc. In Chapter 1, Walter Scheidel's thesis " From the 'Great Convergence' to the 'First Great Divergence' Roman and Qin-Han State Formation and Its Aftermath" gives a taste of the recent scholarly work on this issue.
One should note that the notion of "reunification" does not lie in the foundation of Rome or Qin-Han empire, as they didn't have the concept of reunification. "Reunification" is merely a political vision (Europe) or reality (China) created during the chaos after the collapse of empires. Indeed, Scheidel argues, "Trajectories of state formation signally diverged from the sixth century c.e. onward", when "Justinian's attempted reunification of the original Roman Empire was only partially successful" and Europe eventually resulted "in a cluster of polities in which balancing mechanisms prevented the creation of a core-wide empire" whereas "in 6 c.e. China, by contrast, imperial reunification restored the bureaucratic state that largely succeeded" (pp. 5-6).
To explore the deeper reason of such a outcome, if there is any, the author suggested that "a whole variety of factors may have been relevant." In fact, not all factors favor the reunification of China and against that of Europe. One example is the geography. The Mediterranean provided must faster and safer transportation connecting the provinces of the Roman empire whereas the rivers and mountains in China make it more costly to to the empire. Another example is religion. After Rome, Christianity spread across Europe. In contrast in China, several religions, notably Buddhism and Taoism competed for power and resources which extended to the time after the reunification of China under Tang.
Among the many factors that favors the reunification of China, one is capitalized in the paper, the state capacity. "it is true that Confucian scholars provided a suitable instrument of state management, whereas the absence of an equivalent group in the Christian West may have made it more difficult for post-Roman regimes to maintain or restore a 'strong' state" (p. 21). China eventually overcame the foreign challenges and restored the unified empire (Sui-Tang) again. Similar challenges were not successfully contained in Europe.
There was always somebody around Europe applying the Divide and Conquer strategy. When the Roman empire was at it's peak they consistently attacked, or supported the enemies of, the strongest of the Germanic tribes to make sure none of them would become too strong. Even those desperately trying to make friends with the Romans... if they were too strong.. peace was impossible. As Augustus, emperor of Rome so memorably put it "We will make sure we always support the weaker side, so they can keep fighting the stronger ones, and we're sitting pretty and the Germanic tribes are no longer a trouble for us" Augustus, Rome, 9.ad. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAQqIcBamhs&feature=player_detailpage#t=2343s
The same has been true later on except then it was the British making sure no one would become too strong. Most of the African nations they created were nations the locals didn't really want to make, and they were made specifically with civil war in mind. Sudan for instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj4hWU3VNr0.
When the French became all powerfull in 1812 the British did all they could to weaken them. And then Germany started rising in 1880 and by 1910 the British were onto them this time.
Also at the rape at Versaille in 1919 the divide and conquer strategy was thoroughly applied to central europe. Czechaslovakia and Poland were created out of thin air and Germany was shrunk and made to pay enormous fines etc. Also Austria-Hungary, Germany's main ally was completely dissolved. Map of Europe in 1900: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist151/maps/big1900_files/1900big.jpg
So this division within Europe is not a coincidense but a design. The same goes for the middle East and Africa.
But why wasn't somebody maintaining division within China in the same way.. well, the west did try to break China up in the 19th century, the country was split up into provinces each under the jurisdiction of a given western nation. The problem was that the Chinese were much more populous than the entire western world combined, plus traveling this distance was still quite expensive. So maintaining a large army that far away was logistically difficult. Also anti western sentiment in China grew with time and eventually became such that life for westerners there became bad. Also, the United States was against any trade restrictions with China.
Look at internet. No barrier of entry. So google grab all the niche. It's things like that. Now look at your local store. Why they don't expand all the way to Arab?
The answer is something called barrier of entry. It's just as costly for google to expand to your neighbor than to Arab. So they expand everywhere. Your local coffee shop doesn't have that luxury.
The same goes in China. No mountains means there is no barrier of entry for the most disciplined, smart, meritocratic king to expand everywhere else (it's really a bad thing but does sound positive).
In Europe, they got mountains forcing kings to maintain niches.
China contains plenty of land. In business term, there is no barrier of entry for those with lower marginal cost to expand to new territory.
Europe is mountainous.
Say I am winning. I may have the best army. People may fear me more. It costs less for me to screw others than for you to fight against me. But alas, all these mountains is hard to travel. The peasants don't talk my language.
In other word, in Europe, defender got more "home territory" advantage. In china attackers have about equal advantage with defenders.
Note: Well, the case of three kingdom period in China where China is NOT united, actually supports my point. Cao Cao cannot conquer Sun Quan precisely because there is a river that gets in the way (or so simplistically said). So natural state boundary often coincide with hard to pass terain. Europe has more of it than China.
The great civilizations of Eurasia has mostly risen up around rivers that go through big fertile plains. This is true for the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese civilizations.
Europe's only candidate, the Eastern European plains, with Volga, was too cold and had too harsh winters to allow a big Neolithic/Bronze age civilization. As such, Europe was not a candidate of unification at this time, and the ability to keep a European empire together without one big river as the heart of the communication probably didn't arise until the Renaissance.
That Europe therefore has not become united until the last few decades (and even then it's rather split in two: Russia and EU) is hardly surprising from a purely geographic perspective. Europe is a "peninsula of peninsulas" and there are no geographic features to grow a civilization around.
A harder question is why only Rome succeeded in unifying the Mediterranean.
Chinese rulers put in place an extensive education and annual examination system to allow everyone in the country to serve the government and rise in society. This deliberately designed system for upward mobility was not seen in any other country of the time, and may have served as a catalyst for all people to assimilate and become loyal citizens. In fact these philosophies and values (mainly Confucius) were part of their studies, and were tested in the national exams.
I believe it's partly to do with coastal access. Countries and city states particularly in older times needed shipping lanes to trade and prosper. Regions further inland were highly dependent on coastal regions to provide them with access to these trade routes. Thus these regions on the coast grew wealthy and powerful, while those inland were somewhat disadvantaged. For those reasons it was easy for the coastal areas to exert power and influence, and it made sense for those further inland to cooperate.
If you look at Europe, no part is a long distance from the coastline, so the playing field was much more level and they could be more self sufficient due to easy sea access. Whereas in China the Eastern areas had a clear trade advantage, which is why the great cities like Beijing and Shanghai developed on the East coast.
Of course, there were inland trade routes as well like the silk route, so it's not completely one sided. Therefore it makes sense that both inland and coastal regions cooperated to get the most out of international trade.
The foundation of the ideal of being Chinese for different Sinitic peoples (northern Han, Wu, Cantonese, Min etc) might have been stronger than Christianity in Europe and prestige of Roman empire. Besides (and related) nationalism and individualism in Europe might have been factors while Chinese are more social community.
I don't think it is simply a matter of "Chinese culture was superior to all others in the region while European cultures were equal to each other" as the accepted answer says.
Instead, I think it has to do simply with history.
In Europe, there was an era of powerful city-states. The notion was that a group of people who banded together to live in a massive city would control and use the resources of their land for themselves and not have to share (forced or not) with others. They felt that each city should be able to care for itself.
This notion remained with Europeans throughout the centuries and there were always groups who preferred to keep borders small and were not interested in expansion, all they wanted was to look after their own community.
Even when things like the Roman Empire came along, it eventually dissolved because of a desire people had to be part of smaller, more intimate groups, rather than large nations and empires. This has repeated itself throughout history - as any time a nation tries to take over large amounts of land in Europe, it eventually dissolves back into much smaller groups. Because that's how the people WANT it to be.
This did not happen in China. There was no major "city-state" era in which people got attached to the notion of keeping things local. Even among the smaller states that did exist in the beginning, the theme seems to be that they were more interested in conquering their neighbors rather than looking after themselves.
That is what remains today. China is one of the largest countries in the world and Europe is full of much smaller countries who are STILL breaking apart to get as small as possible (Montenegro just separated from Serbia just a few years ago). When is the last time a group in China separated from the country? How about separated peacefully? Not for a long time!
This is also why concepts like communism are popular in China, where there is no sense of localization. Throughout their history they have always shared land and resources with as many people as possible (everyone in the vast kingdom). Meanwhile, in Europe, from the time of the city-states until now, there has always been a sense of locality with everything. People only want to share resources with their family and close neighbors, they don't want to share them with people hundreds of miles away. This is why concepts like communism failed in Europe, there has never been a history of "sharing" on a large scale there.
One of the factors that holds china together is a man called Qin, who was chief of one of the small nations who were allocated to raise the horses for the federation. At that time, his tribe rose up and unified all those little states under a federation with a strong hierarchy system, significantly the written format, length units, weight units, money, and other standards among those little states. Under Qin, law reform occurred allowing greater commerce and agriculture via redistribution of wealth.
The advantages of these reforms gave china the power to grow from, nevertheless the Qin dynasty were overthrown very shortly, but the system hs been mantained for over 2,000 years.
Let me throw my two cents into this debate. The other reasons that China was able to unify because of race and religion.
China has one pre-dominant ethnic group, Han, sharing a common written language ('hanzi') and common familial bonds (millions of Li, Zhang, Chen, etc).
Chinese are generally religion-agnostic. That's why Buddhism and Taoism have coexisted in China for millennia. Chinese people believe more in "good fortune", ie. karma, than any particular religion.
protected by Pieter Geerkens Jul 12 at 1:52
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