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This year I'm travelling to Romania and I would like to visit Sulina city in Danube Delta. Google maps doesn't find any direction to travel there by a car. Is it possible to get there by car or the only way is to use ship (according to the map)?
Bing Maps shows a route to Sulina by car. However, you shouldn't trust it, because...
There's a contact page on that site, with a telephone number and an e-mail address. English is widely taught in Romania, so you're very likely to find someone at least by e-mail who speaks English and can assist in your queries.
Some more web searches will help you find information on travel and accommodations. For instance, here's a page that describes a visit to Sulina: Travel Impressions (1): Sulina - Delta. It's in Romanian, but Google Chrome's automatic translate will give you a pretty good idea of what it says. It looks like you can take a boat from Tulcea to Sulina for 35 RON/person, and it takes about an hour and a half.
No, you can't, not really. There are some threads on 4x4 enthusiasts' discussion forums on how to get closer to Sulina, but even that depends on the water level.
What's certain is that there's no official road to Sulina, everybody gets there by boat. There are a few cars in Sulina but just for moving things around, from the docks to the shops or getting from the town to the beach.
There's a dirt road between Sulina and Sfantu Gheorghe, but again, you can't reach Sfantu Gheorghe by car, they are both at the ends of channels of the swampy Danube Delta.
Sulina, like other small cities like Sfantu Gheorghe, is at the end of the delta, on the other side of the natural reserve, so there probably won't be a road anytime soon, because of the nature preservation laws.
But the boat trip is very nice, and you won't need your car there anyway. You can leave it in Tulcea without worries – I did 3 years ago for a few days and it was perfectly fine. You have the choice between the slow boat (more scenic and not very long actually) to watch the flora and fauna (birds!) of the delta or the fast hovercraft to get there faster (around half the time needed by the slow boat). Availability of the boats depend on season and bookings.


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Originally Posted by &everI am getting sick of people who know nothing of PHP, CSS and anything HTML coming on here and looking for hacks. (sorry for that troll move but I had too say something.)
Now for the comment,
I enjoyed your sediment but it can be blocked as easily as 1,2,3 I suggest going through the internet looking for simple CMD commands and creating something on your own, helps a lot with new coders (assuming you are new at this.) And if the CMD is blocked try uploading a (custom script) onto a USB or CD Good luck.
Keep using G4E

subset: commoncrawl


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Want to watch the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference soccer semifinals this Saturday?
You'll have the chance even if you can't make it to Wheeling Island Stadium as the OVAC and Play On! Sports partnership officially begins with this weekend's tournament.
The partnership, which was announced in August, becomes a reality as championship season for the OVAC kicks into full gear this weekend with soccer playing on Saturday and then the championship games on Monday.
"We re thrilled to be working with the largest functioning high school conference in the country," said Jason Rine, who serves as a territory manager for PlayOn! Sports. "We're looking forward to bringing this type of technology to sports fans and schools of the OVAC."
Throughout the school year, OVAC championships in soccer, volleyball, swimming, wrestling, cheering, dual wrestling, basketball, baseball, softball and track and field.
PlayOn! Sports has signed deals with numerous state associations throughout the nation and actually, according to Rine, the OVAC's 50-school membership is bigger than some of those associations.
"This is the first conference relationship of this kind for us," Rine said.
Those wishing to watch the games can log onto nfhsnetwork.com and follow the prompts to find the OVAC's events.
There is a fee to watch the events live. There are different types of passes available on the site, including 24 hours, 30 days, sports specific and full access for an entire school year.
"People often complain the conference is too big, but the nice part, you can pay a fee to come to the game or you can buy a pass and watch this live at home," said OVAC Executive Secretary Tom Rataiczak. "This can really accommodate a lot of people if it's inclement weather or they don't want to drive or if there's family all over the country."
The games are also archived on the site and available in their entirety via an on-demand for free three days later.
"Another really nice thing for us is all of our materials will be archived and we'll have them down the road historically," Rataiczak said. "It's going to be nice to have these for future generations."
The games will be broadcast by professional on-air talent and done by full broadcast and production teams, according to Rine.
"When we do games and events for the state associations or, in this case, a conference, we use professional producers, camera people and broadcasters," Rine said. "There will be a full graphics package like you're watching any game on television."


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6 Books Everyone (Including Your English Teacher) Got Wrong
#3. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Anybody who grew up in the 1960s (and still remembers anything about it) can tell you what Lewis Carroll's classic children's book was really all about: A girl takes a "trip" down the rabbit hole and finds herself in a surreal world where animals start talking to her. After she eats some "mushrooms," everything starts to change sizes before her eyes. She meets an over-stimulated "white rabbit" and a stoned caterpillar smoking a "shitload of drugs."
We didn't really need Jefferson Airplane to clarify it; Alice in Wonderland is the Fear and Loathing of fairy tales. It became one of the most important allegories of the 60s counterculture, with scenes that accurately correspond to the sensation of every mind-altering substance known to man. The Beatles drew heavily from Carroll's work during their fucked-up phase (1962-1971, according to historians), and acid still comes in tabs with the Cheshire Cat printed on them.
What it's really about:
Lewis Carroll was the pen name of the very conservative Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Anglican deacon and professor of mathematics. He wrote Alice in the 1860s, a time when the most radical thing taking place on college campuses was complex math. While that sounds innocent enough, Carroll thought it would lead straight to Satan. Yes, the book that launched a million acid trips was written by the biggest square in the universe for the nerdiest reason imaginable.
All the weird drug-trippy stuff that's been misinterpreted since Woodstock is, we're sorry to say, really just an elaborate satire of modern mathematics. Dodgson was old school when it came to math, because right up until his time, math professors still taught from a 2,000-year-old textbook. That all began to change in the mid-1800s, when a bunch of irritating young people invaded academia and started bringing new concepts to math. Weird new concepts. Like "imaginary numbers" and other crazy stuff.
What incensed Dodgson was that math no longer had any real-world grounding. He knew that you could add two apples to three apples to get five apples, but once you start thinking about the square root of -1 apples, you're living on the moon. The Rev. Dodgson thought the new mathematics was completely absurd, like something you'd dream up if you were on drugs.
Dodgson to new mathematics: "Get the hell off my lawn."
So he decided to write a book about a world that followed the laws of abstract mathematics, purely to point out the batshit lunacy of it. Things keep changing size and proportion before Alice's eyes, not because she's tripping on bad acid, but because the world is based on stupid postmodern algebra with shit like imaginary numbers that don't even make any sense god dammit. "Alice" was the sensible Euclidian mathematician trying desperately to keep herself sane and tempered, while "Wonderland" was really Christ Church College at Oxford, where Dodgson worked, and its inhabitants were just as barking mad as he thought his colleagues really were.
#2. Jack Kerouac's On the Road
Before there were hippies, there were beatniks: the goateed hipsters in berets and black turtlenecks, playing the bongos and writing shitty poetry. During the late 50s, these pseudo-intellectuals crowded every coffee house and jazz club with an open mic night.
Jack Kerouac is responsible for every last one of them. His semiautobiographical novel, On the Road, made being a nonconformist trendy and inspired an entire movement he coined "The Beat Generation."
Crazy, baby.
The book is about Kerouac's bromance with a former car thief with a knack for free verse, and chronicles their adventures across America, as they abandon square social expectations for a more hedonistic lifestyle filled with sex, drugs and jazz. It wasn't just a beatnik bible, either. Major counterculture icons of the 60s, like Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan, were said to have "dug it." In fact, it's generally believed that hippies are really just beatniks with worse hygiene.
And worse taste in fashion.
What it's really about:
First of all, Kerouac hated beatniks; he thought they were a bunch of posers. Anyone who wanted to be a part of "The Beat Generation" completely missed the point. In his mind, those who were "Beat" were beaten down by society's demands and struggled to find their place in the world. It was not something you chose to be because it would help you meet chicks.
As far as his time On the Road, he hated that too. Kerouac spent roughly seven years roaming the countryside looking for answers. He never found any, and it's pretty clear in the book. Yes, there were some wild times that seemed like a blast, but it got old after awhile. Nevertheless, it was that side of his character everyone celebrated even though he tried to put it behind him.
Kerouac was a Catholic who grew to have pretty conservative politics, so he was always resentful of inspiring what would become a cultural revolution. And keep in mind, Kerouac wasn't even describing events that took place during that time. Since the novel came out in the late 50s, everyone assumed he was describing the thought and feelings of that era, but the events of the novel took place almost a decade before. He wasn't even writing about the era he supposedly defined.
#1. Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche is probably the most-recognized name in philosophy behind Socrates and Aristotle. But his notoriety with the layman is mainly due to the people he inspired -- Ted Bundy, Mussolini and Hitler. His seminal work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is about as cheery as anything Nietzsche ever penned. It popularized the quote "God is dead" and illustrates Nietzsche's disdain for the concept of traditional morality and his prediction that some kind of master race would soon drag itself out of the slime and rule the world.
He refers to the rightful owner of the world as the "superman" and the "splendid blond beast," and anyone with a passing interest in modern history knows exactly where that line of thinking is going.
Hitler, who might otherwise have faded out of history as just another square-mustached college dropout, picked up a copy of Zarathustra and was inspired to do a little more with his life. Some years later he distributed copies to his soldiers and went about arranging a big-budget live stage adaptation known as "the Holocaust."
What it's really about:
If Nietzsche wasn't too busy being dead, he would probably have had a few words with Hitler about the fuehrer's liberal interpretation of his work, due mainly to the fact that Nietzsche hung around with entirely the wrong crowd. His sister, Elisabeth, and good friend, composer Richard Wagner, were both as Nazi as the goose-step.
This portrait of Wagner comes courtesy of a dockside caricature artist.
After Nietzsche died, Elisabeth inherited the rights to his works and went about diligently re-editing them with a "kill all the Jews" subtext. It didn't help that Nietzsche's thought-baton was then picked up by the philosopher Martin Heidegger -- you guessed it: Nazi.
Nietzsche actually hated anti-Semites, having refused to attend his sister's wedding because she was marrying a Nazi, and even wrote that "anti-Semites should be shot." We have his sister to thank for the "blond beast" confusion. She, Hitler and decades of disapproving philosophy students interpret this as an allusion to the Aryan race. In fact, Nietzsche was just describing lions.
After all, does this look like the mustache of a racist?
And as for the "superman" thing, rather than referring to some genetically pure German dictator, Nietzsche was just making a generic statement about people who believe in the subjectivity of morals and seek to find their own values in the world -- a concept wholly incompatible with just following the whim of some guy with a hate-boner for some specific race. Interpreting Zarathustra's message as a call to raise an army and purge the world of undesirables is something akin to believing that Animal Farm was really a warning about farm animals taking over the world.
Wait, it isn't?
S Peter Davis writes for OxygenThieves and takes on 3,000 years of thought at Three Minute Philosophy.
For more regretful pioneers, check out 6 Geniuses Who Saw Their Inventions Go Terribly Wrong. Or learn about some masterpieces that the world loathed, in 6 Great Novels that Were Hated in Their Time.
And stop by Linkstorm to see some more misunderstood geniuses.
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Long on Lament, Short on Solutions? Dealing with Economic Inequality
Increasing inequality in the United States is a big problem. One recent analysis shows a disturbing graph, which displays not only that, in 2012, the top 1% captured 20% of income, but that the top 10% captured over 50% of income, a number that is higher than at any time in the last century, surpassing even the 1920's. The graphs show this is not merely a matter of all the rewards of the recent recovery going to the top. As Eduardo Porter outlines it in brief, we are enduring a 30-plus-year stagnation of the middle-class. Bishops are speaking out on this. For many, a long lament on our "new Gilded Age" leads to a hope for a revival of Catholic social teaching. Even Catholic conservatives are taking note that "trickle-down" theories of dealing with poverty are failing. Michael Peppard and Michael Sean Winters have both recently commented that taking this problem seriously is both urgent and yet very difficult. (It is being made much more difficult by our absurd politics. But that would be a different post.)
It's a difficult problem because we are long on lament, but really short on solutions that pay attention to the specific dynamics of our economy as it exists now. It is a truism that military leaders often "fight the last war" rather than the present one – so too, Catholics and their allies in fighting poverty can fall into talking about solutions that sound like "fighting the last economic war" – namely, that of the early 20th century.
Ever since World War II, Americans have wanted to believe in an economy where growth would lift everyone, so long as certain structures of government and unions existed. The drastic reduction in poverty in this era had a great deal to do with the emergence of a social security and pension system in which the elderly went from being the most to the least impoverishment group – and of course it had a lot to do with America's unchallenged dominance in the world economy, the use of a lot of cheap and plentiful fossil fuel, and a cultural ethos of solidarity inherited from the struggles of the Depression and the war.
Our problem now is that "more of the same solution" won't work… and we are very reluctant to understand and acknowledge this. Why won't it work? The best explanation of this problem still lies in a prescient book from the mid-1970's by economist Fred Hirsch, called The Social Limits to Growth. As opposed to the rising popularity of what became "Reaganomics," Hirsch's book provides a different and very sophisticated two-pronged critique of the possibility of sustaining the "economic growth for all" Keynesian model that predominated in the post-WW2 situation. These two prongs are the "social limits to growth" – that is, limits on the extent to which economic growth powered by individual self-interest produces collective well-being.
The first prong is purely structural: as economies develop, a larger and larger proportion of spending is devoted to what Hirsch calls "positional goods" – goods or aspects of goods that are sought simply for the position they provide relative to others. By definition, "more" of these goods cannot be produced, because at least part of what is being consumed is the relation of the good to others' goods. If everyone spends for better interview suits, no one actually is better off, since everyone merely holds position – but resources are diverted uselessly to this "expenditure arms race." The most obvious example is housing markets, where location and (especially) schools drive prices up disproportionately, and therefore force people to divert larger portions of their income to keep up. Note that this phenomenon need not be attributed to envy or superficial status – it is a rational response to the fact that, as we surpass a basic level, more people have more resources to spend in achieving the things related to position.
In such a novel situation, collective solutions to problems become more pressing. The problems increasingly become "smart-for-one, dumb-for-all" problems, or problems of securing reasonable social equity by restraining useless and wasteful relative competition. However, here is the second prong: the very pursuit of individualistic self-interest that drives the earlier growth depletes what Hirsch calls the "moral legacy" which functions internally to restrain all-out destructive competition. As he puts it, "Management of the system has become more necessary but the entrenchment of the individualist ethos makes it more difficult." Indeed, since social scarcity of relative goods increases pressures on even relatively successful individuals, they do not see it as in their self-interest to restrain their pursuit, since others will not do so. So the proportional shift to positional goods exacerbates the tendency to pursue private self-interest, at the very moment when what is needed is collective action to restrain the competition.
Once one grasps this two-pronged problem, it is amazing how many social issues can be seen in this light. Environmental issues evidently require collective restraint, lest individuals (or individual companies) who try to restarin themselves "fall behind" their competitors. Adequate health care for all is threatened by constantly-rising costs as people seek the "best" care, oblivious to costs from which they are shielded by insurance. Education costs for college rise exponentially, because the better the school, the better the position coming out – and the competition is then pushed "downward" into rising housing prices and property tax rates for the "best" primary and secondary schools. Unionized workers demand promised pension benefits that cities can no longer afford, undermining the viability of current services. Perhaps even more strikingly, large companies must become ever-more dominant in their own markets, even if they face only one or two other competitors who will take advantage of any non-self-interested behavior. Paying CEO's a huge premium makes sense (presuming they are actually good CEO's), because if your business has a revenue of tens of billions of dollars, paying the CEO an extra $10 million will keep him/her from going to a competitor. In all these areas, collective restraint would make sense overall – since these changes simply funnel money to the top – but individual restraint is risky at best, and potentially fatal at worst.
Hirsch criticizes the Keynesian solution, because its supposed advantage – that altruistic "motivation could be subordinated to results," meaning the results of aggregate economic increase lifting all – only holds for a short period, and unfortunately fosters the illusion that if we simply push the self-interest strategy and then "fine-tune" the overall economy, we will all be better off. Hence, once that strategy reaches its limits (which it does gradually as consumption shifts toward positional goods), the social ideals of collective restraint have been lost amidst a heightened sense of overall entitlement.
In light of Hirsch's critique, the tendency of progressive liberals to advocate for essentially redistributive solutions to inequality thus have two effects. One, they produce a vigorous social backlash (already true with Reagan, and only more so now), and two, they can't be sustained insofar as the redistribution is aimed at getting people goods that are at least partially positional. This is why liberals face problems on health care and can't seem to find a way to meet environmental issues on any sufficient scale. The Affordable Care Act, while it has elements of genuine collective management, such as mandates to limit insurers' profits, force pooling, and the like, is largely an attempt to bring health insurance to many more people by providing large subsidies for coverage. No one quite knows what will happen in this situation, but everyone agrees that there had better be cost containment, or else the whole thing is going to become very expensive. A fully-managed system would almost certainly reduce costs (as is evidenced in virtually every other developed country), and it would do so specifically by eliminating the many "expenditure arms races" that are present in the existing system. On environmental issues, the problem is (ironically) that vigorous redistribution would almost certainly result in MORE environmental problems, not fewer, since at present there are considerable restraints placed on many carbon-intensive expenditures simply because people don't have the money. The easiest solution to environmental problems – a carbon tax and stiff regulation – would almost certainly fall disproportionately on those who already spend more of their income on fuel, transportation, home heat, and the like. Here again, the solution is collective action to manage the key issues of transportation, home size and efficiency, and business operation – but these are resisted as fiercely as the idea that you might not be able to choose your own doctor.
Perhaps the gravest example of these limits to growth is seen in the ongoing loss of smaller, local and regional enterprises, at the expense of large, centralized operations. There is nothing inherently virtuous about small banks or small hardware stores or small coffee shops – it can be argued, for example, that larger businesses can often pay employees more and provide access to cheaper, higher-quality goods. But what they certainly do is eliminate a lot of mid-level jobs – because that's how their prices are lower. They invest in machines and in high-level management, and they hire the cheapest unskilled labor – and leave out a lot of the higher-paying mid-level jobs. (Even large universities are like this, with a few star faculty and a lot of adjuncts!) Indeed, many of the surviving mid-skill jobs have done quite well – teachers and nurses, who require education and cannot be replaced easily by machines or unskilled labor, now command genuinely solid incomes in the 60-80K range, far better than 1970's pay, and exactly the range in the present economy that would support the kind of lifestyle once promised to the industrial assembly-line worker. Yet the stall in public-sector hiring in the recent recovery has meant that even these jobs aren't expanding.
There is tragically little conversation about structural changes that would work against the problems with a McDonald's/Walmart/Google/Amazon economy. Some of it – such as a $15/hour wage for fast food workers – verges on defying economic gravity. Other pieces – such as "getting health care costs under control" – would seem to endanger one of the few sectors creating jobs. And other pieces – such as the aforementioned Porter article – sing the praises of the very technological developments and expectations that kill mid-skill jobs. (Think about all those "meter maids" who no longer go around to parking meters because of smartphones.) For a long time – perhaps since the dawn of industrialization – it has been an axiom that technological advance displaces workers through production efficiency, but that they find work elsewhere, in new, even more creative areas. But perhaps it is time to face the fact that such a process is not indefinite, is not a law of gravity, but applies under specific sets of circumstances. This makes the problem of inequality more difficult. But it pushes us beyond mere lament.
About the Author
David Cloutier is associate professor of theology at Mount St. Mary's University and editor of catholicmoraltheology.com. He is the author of The Vice of Luxury (2015), Walking God's Earth: The Environment and Christian Ethics (2014), and Love, Reason, and God's Story: An Introduction to Catholic Sexual Ethics (2008). In fall 2016, he is starting a position at the Catholic University of America.
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David - extremely thought-provoking. I couldn't agree more that liberals (and conservatives) are fighting the last war.
If I may toss another idea into the mix: another reason for at least some of the pain you describe is that the 'market', whether it is a consumer market for final goods and services, or a labor market, or the 'market' of contributors to environmental degradation, has become the planet. For workers in particular, the effects are profound. The labor supply market for US employers for many types of jobs and professions, both skilled and unskilled, now encompasses huge numbers of workers in places such as the Indian subcontinent, the Pacific Rim, Central America, North Africa and Eastern Europe - a large multiple of the workers who reside within the borders of the US. A 'loss' for workers in the US, such as the closure of a manufacturing plant, may be a 'win' for workers in India or China, to where the manufacturing is moved. The impact on wages is significant - both for the US worker, who faces downward pressure that may be without precedent, and for workers in these other geographies, who are enjoying prosperous times, perhaps also without precedent - and is likely to take decades to sort out.
Inasmuch as Hirsch points to a collective action/cooperation imperative for solving these difficult problems, the transnational (and transcultural, translingual, transhistorical etc.) aspect of them seems to pose obstacles that we haven't done a very good job of overcoming. As hard as it is to get everyone rowing in the same direction in the US, it's harder still to get many nations to agree (and to comply with what they've agreed to). The US can enact fair wage laws and environmental protection laws, but because US laws aren't in effect outside the borders of the US, in neither example will the underlying causes be addressed, or will be addressed only very partially (the part that is within the US).
And how Catholic social teaching, whose concern spans both the local community and the human race, balances these developments, also is not clear to me.
"For a long time – perhaps since the dawn of industrialization – it has been an axiom that technological advance displaces workers through production efficiency, but that they find work elsewhere, in new, even more creative areas."
We have come into a new era. People and planet are desperately in need of restoration. We have nearly run out of planetary resources. We recycle and remake what we have used and used up. Restoring habitat for animals and animals, land, waterways, oceans, air quality, the atmosphere, and planetary infrastructure, as best we can, -- this is the new task for the twenty-first century. People are organizing but many more workers are needed. Voting responsible people into office will facilitate the process. Rapid, effective, rational organization needs to be implemented more and more. It's happening but needs to be compounded.
One possible solution to some of the structural problems David describes: a guaranteed minimum income. Milton Friedman was for it. So are some on the far left—for reasons this article explains:
Entitlement to a substantial universal grant will simultaneously push up the wage rate for unattractive, unrewarding work (which no one is now forced to accept in order to survive) and bring down the average wage rate for attractive, intrinsically rewarding work (because fundamental needs are covered anyway, people can now accept a high-quality job paid far below the guaranteed income level). Consequently, the capitalist logic of profit will, much more than previously, foster technical innovation and organizational change that improve the quality of work and thereby reduce the drudgery required per unit of product.
But David's at least right to question the prevailing wisdom among policy-makers, according to which new technologies create as many jobs as they destroy and the jobs they create are always better (better paid, more challenging and enjoyable) than the ones they destroy. As Peter Frase has pointed out in this piece I keep linking to, technological change could lead to more than one kind of future, depending on how we respond to the change politically.
Thanks, Matthew, for the reference to the Frase article. However difficult it is to find an alternative to the apparently unsustainable and morally repugnant pracitces of today's version of global capitalism, it is important for some thinkers to try to think through possible alternatives. I myself don't see any plausible alternative yet, but that's not a good reason to encourage ongoing searches for alternatives. And it is also important to keep making the point that any economic system and its practices ought to be subject to some meaningful political control that gives weight to the common good and the dignity of every human being. It is not absurd to continue to hunt for some econoomically viable socialism that is consistent with Christian social justice principles.
Humans need to work, not just for financial support but for the good of their souls. And the human creative spirit will generate ideas for business that will generate jobs. And human nature, inasmuch as the economy of salvation allows the vicissitudes of our fallenness to continue to exist alongside our being saved (or at least some of us being saved), will prevent any utopias from being realized.
Capitalism is still the least bad way to proceed. Cooperation of the sort envisioned by Hirsch (as described by David in this post) may be possible under a capitalist system, but it requires a massive alignment of self-interests. There are times when this happens. Governments can help this alignment to happen through their policies. One way to think about the political failure of Obamacare, so far, is that its authors and supporters haven't convinced all of the various segments and blocs in the polity that its self interests are aligned.
An example of this policy failure on the part of Obamacare - essentially, a central-planning failure - is the unintended consequence of employers shifting full-time workers to part-time status. Here is another example: earlier this evening, I watched a Jon Stewart rant (not funny, and quite angry) directed toward Republican governors and state legislatures that have refused federal funds under Obamacare to expand Medicaid (26 states, a majority, fall into this category), even though the federal funds would cover 100% of the states' share of the expansion for the first three years. At face value, this particular Obamacare policy seems to be a well-planned policy, but as an example of the sort of coordination advocated in David's post, it fails, and the reason fails is that the Republican state officials, for whatever reasons (not all of which were surveyed by Stewart) don't perceive that their interests run with this policy. The policy aligns many interests, but fails to align the interest of a critical and powerful constituency, and so as policy it fails.
In the grand scheme of things, and despite conservative rhetoric, Obamacare is a relatively modest social entitlement, in that it provides health care coverage only to a small set of Americans, and leaves most of the health care structure in place and intact, and its cost, as a percentage of GDP, is quite small (and even as a percentage of the federal government budget, it is not large). Yet already, while still in its infancy, it is illustrating the limits and risks of centralized planning.
Matthew -this heading, from Frase's article, tickled me:
Egalitarianism and abundance: communism
George Orwell imagined a possible socialist future in 1984. Kurt Vonnegut imagined a possible future of capitalism with excess labor - a sort of enclave society - in Player Piano. I'd like to find a path that doesn't go in either of those directions.
George Orwell was a socialist, even when he wrote 1984. What he imagined in that book was a totalitarian future.
As for humans needing work in order to flourish, this is true if we define work as productive activity. It is not true if we define it the way it is defined in our economy: as the surrender of a certain amount of one's time in exchange for a wage. Many human beings have flourished without that, and many still do. Notice that according to that second definition, what the traditional "homemaker" does—cooking, cleaning, sewing—is not work because it is not compensated, while standing in a line as a proxy for some rich person who has more profitable things to do with his time counts as work if the rich person pays you for it.
George Orwell was a socialist, even when he wrote 1984.
1984 is devastating specifically because Orwell held no Utopian delusions about socialism, or his experience and observation of the 20th century stripped away whatever delusions he may have had earlier in his life. The Brotherhood evolved into Big Brother. Art reflects life.
And yet he remained a socialist. Why? Because, unlike you, he did not equate socialism with "Utopian delusions."
what a the traditional "homemaker" does—cooking, cleaning, sewing—is not work because it is not compensated, while standing in a line as a proxy for some rich person who thinks he has better things to do with his time is work if the rich person pays you for it.
Housecleaning, child care, lawn care - these are all things we can do ourselves, or, if we have the requisite disposable income, we can hire others to do them. It's work either way, and from an economic point of view, it is compensated in some way, even if the 'wages' aren't in hard currency if we do it ourselves (there are opportunity costs and cost savings if we do them ourselves rather than pay others to do them, and there are considerations of utility that motivates our choosing to do some or all of these things ourselves). From a social justice point of view, these types of jobs are among those that are available to workers who are unskilled and uneducated. I'd define it as "productive activity" regardless of who does it and regardless of what form the compensation takes.
In the world of commerce, many managers and executives (mostly men) used to have, and some still do have, assistants and secretaries (mostly women) who did work - typing, filing, answering phones, making appointments and so on - that the execs could have done themselves but for reasons of time and relationship management and/or social convention chose not to. (Even though my entire career has been a string of jobs which, had I held them 50 years earlier, would have meant having a secretary, I've never had one - except at church :-).) Being an assistant or secretary is the equivalent of "standing in line as a proxy for a rich person who thinks he has something better to do." Some assistant jobs actually pay pretty well, and while many didn't and don't, they were and still are considered gainful employment, they contributed to the well-being of the enterprise, and they helped support a person and/or her family. Many women and men find the work enjoyable, challenging and fulfilling. By any reasonable measure, it constitutes productive work (as confirmation that this really is work, I encourage you to ask some secretaries :-)).
At any rate, I admit I've completely lost track of what any of this has to do with Hirsch and social cooperation to solve social problems, but it's fun to think about these things.
Orwell was and is a puzzle. But I doubt anyone with his powers of observation he would have characterized communism as "Egalitarianism and abundance".
Jim and Matthew, Orwell knew that all ideologies, including the one that holds that socialism is Utopian delusions, are swindles. He knew that before he went to Catalonia, which is why he ended up fighting "as" an anarchist. He remained a socialist -- despite George F. Will and the cadre on the right who have adopted him now that he can't answer back -- because he was a decent person with a respect for other decent people and he couldn't buy into salvation through education.
It might have been nice if he had run into the right kind of Cathoolics, but the ones he knew were mostly of the apologetisc-writing variety, and the only one of those he had any use at all for was GKC. I sometimes wonder what a meeting would have been like. I doubt they would have connected.
But I doubt anyone with his powers of observation he would have characterized communism as "Egalitarianism and abundance".
Right, because for Orwell communism meant Communism—as in the Soviet Union. For Peter Frase it evidently means something else. Insofar as "egalitarianism and abundance" is a pretty good description of what Marx himself meant by communism, I don't think you should dismiss Frase's formulation so breezily.
Of course, Orwell wasn't a Marxist. (He and his first wife named their dog Marx.) But this just goes to show that the geneology of socialism is much more complicated than many people think. There was socialism before Marx; there were non-Marxist socialists after Marx (Orwell, for example); and today, more than twenty years after the fall of Soviet Communism, there are still socialists who reject some or all of Marx's theories.
So if Orwell hated Stalin and had no time for Marx, what kind of socialist was he? When Jim introduced Orwell's name into this discussion, I happened to be reading Coming Up for Air, whose narrator is a lower- middle-class insurance salesman living in the suburbs of London. Here he is on real-estate developers and the false consciousness of people like himself.
Of course, the basic trouble with people like us, I said to myself, is that we all imagine we've got something to lose. To begin with, nine-tenths of the people in Ellesmere Road are under the impression that they own their houses. Ellesmere Road, and the whole quarter surrounding it, until you get to the High Street, is part of a huge racket called the Hesperides Estate, the property of the Cheerful Credit Building Society. Building societies are probably the cleverest racket of modern times. My own line, insurance, is a swindle, I admit, but it's an open swindle with the cards on the table. But the beauty of the building society swindles is that your victims think you're doing them a kindness. You wallop them, and they lick your hand. I sometimes think I'd like to have the Hesperides Estate surmounted by an enormous statue to the god of building societies. It would be a queer sort of god. Among other things it would be bisexual. The top half would be a managing director and the bottom half would be a wife in the family way. In one hand it would carry an enormous key—the key of the workhouse, of course—and in the other—what do they call those things like French horns with presents coming out of them?—a cornucopia, out of which would be pouring portable radios, life- insurance policies, false teeth, aspirins, French letters, and concrete garden rollers.
As a matter of fact, in Ellesmere Road we don't own our houses, even when we've finished paying for them. They're not freehold, only leasehold. They're priced at five-fifty, payable over a period of sixteen years, and they're a class of house, which, if you bought them for cash down, would cost round about three-eighty. That represents a profit of a hundred and seventy for the Cheerful Credit, but needless to say that Cheerful Credit makes a lot more out of it than that. Three-eighty includes the builder's profit, but the Cheerful Credit, under the name of Wilson & Bloom, builds the houses itself and scoops the builder's profit. All it has to pay for is the materials. But it also scoops the profit on the materials, because under the name of Brookes & Scatterby it sells itself the bricks, tiles, doors, window-frames, sand, cement, and, I think, glass. And it wouldn't altogether surprise me to learn that under yet another alias it sells itself the timber to make the doors and window-frames. Also—and this was something which we really might have foreseen, though it gave us all a knock when we discovered it—the Cheerful Credit doesn't always keep to its end of the bargain. When Ellesmere Road was built it gave on some open fields—nothing very wonderful, but good for the kids to play in— known as Platt's Meadows. There was nothing in black and white, but it had always been understood that Platt's Meadows weren't to be built on. However, West Bletchley was a growing suburb, Rothwell's jam factory had opened in '28 and the Anglo-American All-Steel Bicycle factory started in '33, and the population was increasing and rents were going up. I've never seen Sir Herbert Crum or any other of the big noises of the Cheerful Credit in the flesh, but in my mind's eye I could see their mouths watering. Suddenly the builders arrived and houses began to go up on Platt's Meadows. There was a howl of agony from the Hesperides, and a tenants' defence association was set up. No use! Crum's lawyers had knocked the stuffing out of us in five minutes, and Platt's Meadows were built over. But the really subtle swindle, the one that makes me feel old Crum deserved his baronetcy, is the mental one. Merely because of the illusion that we own our houses and have what's called 'a stake in the country', we poor saps in the Hesperides, and in all such places, are turned into Crum's devoted slaves for ever. We're all respectable householders—that's to say Tories, yes-men, and bumsuckers. Daren't kill the goose that lays the gilded eggs! And the fact that actually we aren't householders, that we're all in the middle of paying for our houses and eaten up with the ghastly fear that something might happen before we've made the last payment, merely increases the effect. We're all bought, and what's more we're bought with our own money. Every one of those poor downtrodden bastards, sweating his guts out to pay twice the proper price for a brick doll's house that's called Belle Vue because there's no view and the bell doesn't ring—every one of those poor suckers would die on the field of battle to save his country from Bolshevism.
So Orwell was impatient with those who imagined that the only alternative to Bolshevism was capitalism—or at least the capitalism of prewar Britian. And I think it's fair to say he would have been impatient with those who urge us to tolerate capitalism, if not to embrace it, on the grounds that it's "the least bad way to proceed."
If I am not mistaken, Orwell's first published article appeared in G.K.'s Weekly.
Matthew, Thanks for the reminder. I had completely forgotten that. "A Farthing Newspaper" from GK's Weekly (while he was still signing as Eric Blair) is the first published entry in the collected essays. That might help explain why he cut Chesterton some slack while foaming at the mouth over Ronald Knox in his later columns.
Too bad this discussion has become an argument about what Orwell said or did not say. Children starving and people left homeless and unemployed without any societal effort to alleviate their pain and suffering is simply morally wrong. Various practical solutions, mostly temporary aid of some sort, have been available since the 1930's. Socialism, communism, capitalism, and other -isms are just straw man arguments fogging up our view of how to respond to human misfortune and pain. Let us bring our Catholic social teachings and values of the dignity of work and human rights to bear on these problems and put aside all the political rhetoric. In the end when the Lord asks us, He will be very unimpressed with our Republican, Independent or Democrat heresies. Reread Matthew 25 - What excuse can we make?
Mr. Evans,
Straw men don't fog anything; and capitalism, communism, and socialism are not straw-man arguments. They are historical facts. There have been flesh-and-blood Communists and capitalists, just as there are flesh-and-blood Christians. Orwell, a socialist, took a bullet in the neck to fight fascism. Nor are political parties heresies, any more than vegetarianism is a heresy. Not everything that isn't spelt out in sacred scripture is a heresy. On the other hand, anything that anyone believes in, including Catholic social teachings, can be dismissed as an "-ism": one man's CTS is another's paternalism. Nothing is preventing you from doing whatever you can to help the poor personally. But if you want a "societal effort," as you say you do, you will have to muster some political ideas, whatever you choose to call them. Personal charity and social justice are not incompatible, but they are different, and neither replaces the other.
for Orwell communism meant Communism—as in the Soviet Union. For Peter Frase it evidently means something else. Insofar as "egalitarianism and abundance" is a pretty good description of what Marx himself meant by communism, I don't think you should dismiss Frase's formulation so breezily.
Citing the authority of Marx doesn't cause me to award the citer an imprimatur of non-dismissibiity. But I took Frase to mean, not necessarily that communism would cause egalitarianism and abundance (although it seems he may think so), but that communism would be a humane system if we could somehow bring about, simultaneously, a situation in which our society is both egalitarian and abundant in resources and necessities. My own view is that bringing about states of egalitarianism and non-scarcity is neither possible nor desirable. Fairness and prosperity seem more within reach. Let's shoot for those.
When Jim introduced Orwell's name into this discussion, I happened to be reading Coming Up for Air,
Thanks for that passage. Not necessarily his best, but even when he was being didactic and tiresome, he was a wonderful writer.
For what it's worth, let me recall Karl Mannheim's classic "Ideology and Utopia." Very roughly speaking, idelolgies draw on memories of the PAST and make stronger claims for the policies and practices their adherents endorse than the evidence supports. Utopians develop imaginative alternatives to present policies and practices and make stronger claims for the preeferability of their imaginative alternatives than therre is good evidence for.
In any even mildly vibrant institution there will be some reasons that encourage ideological thinking and others that encourage utopian thinking. If tempered by an admission that the available evidence never warrants the complete rejection of either of these tendencies, then there can be healthy, productive reeform. Otherwise, therre is delusional thinking about the adequacy of one's position is quite likely.
Balancing in oneself and one's associates these two tendencies is an ongoing task of practical wisdom and the humility to acknowledge the ineliminable fallibility of all claims about the worth of one's reflections on practical matters.
Very interesting discussion - and thanks for the link to the Frase article, which certainly stimulates thought. It seems unlikely to me that there will be any "one" solution on the level Frase posits. The "socialism" that he describes (egalitarianism plus material limits) is the most obviously attractive choice, and indeed looks a great deal like the most advanced European states. But (as Jim P pointed out initially) these achievements are constantly threatened by external global factors - how much does Europe depend on Russia for energy? On the United States for defense? On hotly-contested immigration for labor in the wake of declining birth rates and aging populations? And how secure can any "socialist" state be when corporations are so mobile... and the retirement savings of significant swaths of the population are tied up in their profitability? Matt is right to say that the solution here is ultimately political. But part of Hirsch's point is that the very strategy of growth we pursued eroded the possibility of any real politics of shared restraint and sacrifice - as is evidenced by the unseriousness of BOTH parties in addressing the inequality program with anything like the medicine that would be needed.


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That is to say, are there cells that, between infancy and adulthood, get larger? Or is all growth done entirely via cell division? I'm wondering if it is safe to assume that the approximate number of cells per unit mass in a mammal will remain fairly constant throughout its lifespan.
Not exactly. When a tissue is put under stress, it can respond in four main ways:
The first three responses to stress can change both cell size (auxetic response) and number (multiplicative response), meaning you can't really say that cells per unit mass stays constant throughout life.
Muscle tissue grows predominantly by hypertrophy, meaning that the muscle gains during puberty are likely to be more as a result of cells getting larger than the development of new ones.
Both auxetic and multiplicative growth occurs as the body develops. In addition to this, accretionary growth also occurs - where connective tissues such as bone and cartilage increase in size.
This is not my field so I am sure there are other examples, but certain neurons will definitely be larger in adulthood than in infancy. There are motor neurons that connect the spine to, for example, the toes. These will grow in length as an animal grows. So, in a human infant they will be a few centimeters long and can reach lengths of over a meter in an adult.


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Does anyone have experience in showing search results in a treeview (thus filtering the treeview)? I know it's not best UX practice, but I am designing a program in which I may have to implement this solution.
Visual Studio 11 has a function to search for symbols in the Solution Explorer tree view:
I don't think you fill find a example or at least a good one. The thing is that when u show results in a treeview (map structured) people still need to search (open and close levels).
A solution cloud be to categorize the results by type or in your case maps (so you still got the levels). Keep in mind that a good interface design is very important to still give a clear overview. One of the most simple examples is the mac spotlight:
If you decide to stick with the treeview it's maybe a option to highlight your results. You show all of your data and just point out where they can find what they're looking form. This only works if the data is limited, loads of data in a long list won't work. A example is the search at the system preferences on mac:
Unfortunately, i am currently working for a project manager that insists on displaying the search results in the systems` entities treeview...
I cannot seem to persuade him differently (guess most of us have been there, right?) So i moved on to UX damage control mode.
I recognized 3 things that are important in the UI:
I am still looking for a system that implemented this kind of solution...
I'm confused. You say:
If it's poor UX practice, how is it a good solution? I presume that your application is designed for people to use, so anything that makes it good but at the same time bad for people to use, is a bad solution.
Take some effort and think about what information you are trying to show and how it would make the most sense for people to see it. What would help the interface get out of the way so that people can work?


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I'm specifically looking to design a custom action for LaunchBar so that I can initiate a tweet from that utility. Since Notification Center has a "Click to tweet" button, I wondered if Notification Center has any hooks that would allow me to script this without waiting for the developer of the program add a function to perform this action.
Apps can hook into the sharing options with the new NSSharingService API. It sounds like custom LaunchBar actions can be made with any UNIX executable file, so you could probably write a small command line tool (or you may need to build an actual app — you'll have to test it out) which activates this API (using
Update: to initiate a tweet from AppleScript, you can do the following:
Furthermore, you can toggle the "Show Alerts and Banners" / do not disturb mode:
(This is all very specific to the current window layout of Notification Center and is likely to break with future OS X updates — but there will probably be easy fixes.)
None that I know of (and in fact I think that having a Twitter/Facebook quick post area inside the notifications area is actually dumb (should be a widget really), and I have turned it off) but you can use the command line to both send a read tweets, as mentioned in this webpage, extracts below:
To display a list of tweets (replace osxdaily with a twitter username of your choice):
To update your twitter status:
Taking this all one step further and putting together what we've learned so far, here's a fully programatic tweet:
Of course this is fragile, but for now, it works. I'd love to find a real hook, but UI Scripting is a workaround.
Brilliant command shift D.
I wrote another script that fixes some issues in the script posted by Ewwis:
It doesn't work when the Notification Center sidebar is open though.
It would be easier to just use the API.
Fantastic! Thanks for showing the world another way.
My solution worked for ME, but so does yours.
I'm not an Applescript expert by FAR, but I do love fiddling with it.
Using what I've learned from you, here is another way that works for me. This doesn't address some of your concerns about alternate keyboards or errors, but maybe it will shed a light for someone dabbling in AS.


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YAGP Gala 2007
Posted 29 December 2006 - 02:22 PM
I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the YAGP Gala 2007. I know that last year, Polina Semionova was scheduled to perform, but was unable to due to a leg injury. I would love the opportunity to see her perform this year, but I do not know if she is going to come. When do you expect to know the international performers attending this performace? Thank you so much!!!
Posted 29 December 2006 - 02:34 PM
Due to popular demand, we have been able to change the date of the YAGP 2007 Gala to Monday, April 30th in order to follow our traditional format of the Awards and Gala evening taking place on the Monday following the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the competition. We believe it will make for an easier NYC Finals schedule for our participants, parents and teachers.
We would like to wish all YAGP participants happy holidays and look forward to seeing you in the new year!
Posted 29 December 2006 - 06:26 PM
City Center lists the date as May 1, but YAGP announced the change to April 30:
Due to popular demand, we have been able to change the date of the YAGP 2007 Gala to Monday, April 30th in order to follow our traditional format of the Awards and Gala evening taking place on the Monday following the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the competition. We believe it will make for an easier NYC Finals schedule for our participants, parents and teachers.
We would like to wish all YAGP participants happy holidays and look forward to seeing you in the new year!
but you aren't sure when a list of performers will be released to the public?
Posted 29 December 2006 - 06:53 PM
And, as you noted, the cast is subject to change.
Posted 29 December 2006 - 09:44 PM
Ah, whatever ...
Posted 03 January 2007 - 11:19 PM
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and wish you all a wonderful New Year ahead.
I have some information in regard to the questions you raise. First, regarding the moving of the date - we have, indeed, moved it to April 30th from May 1st. Originally, we tried our hardest to make it possible to have our Gala on a Monday, as is our usual preferred format (competition on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the Gala on Monday). However, because of a very tight schedule following the load-out of Eifman Ballet (which finishes late Sunday night on April 29th), City Center was telling us that it was impossible to do Monday, so we were stuck with Tuesday, May 1.
However, when NYCB moved its Gala date to May 1, it created a serious conflict for the NYCB dancers we have invited to perform at the Gala, as well as for our audiences, donors, and Board members who wanted to attend both Galas. So we revisited the issue and, after a lot of team work and creative thinking, were able to find a way to hold the Gala on Monday, April 30th. This will require a much higher financial commitment from YAGP, but we decided to do it because we really did not want to ask New York City audiences to choose between the NYCB Gala and the YAGP Gala - and we did not want to exclude the NYCB dancers from dancing in the Gala.
Regarding the artist line-up for the Gala, we will announce it very soon. At this time, we are finalizing our agreements with artists from Paris Opera Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Ballet, Monte Carlo Ballet, ABT, NYCB, MOMIX, and some others. All we can say at this time is that, like in the past 7 years, the audiences will not be disappointed.
Happy New Year!
Sergey Gordeev
Posted 03 January 2007 - 11:26 PM
Posted 03 January 2007 - 11:28 PM
Posted 13 January 2007 - 11:38 PM
Posted 16 March 2007 - 08:08 AM
Just checked City Center and tix are getting scarce. Top priced seats left are way to the side and mid Mezzanine Center only has singles left. Rear Mezzanine does still have good centered seats remaining.
... The YAGP 2007 Gala starts at 7 PM, Monday April 30 and a ticket is also valid for the Awards Ceremony that begins at 5 PM.
The stars, from YAGP's site:
Aurelie Dupont and Manuel Legris
(Paris Opera Ballet)
Marianela Nunez and Thiago Soares
(Royal Ballet, England) - NY Debut
Alicia Amatriain and Jason Reilly
(Stuttgart Ballet) - NY Debut
Cecilia Kerche and Vitor Luis
(Ballet of the Teatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro) - NY Debut
Sang-Yi Han (Monte Carlo Ballet, YAGP Alumna)
Isabella Boylston (American Ballet Theatre, YAGP alumna)
and David Hallberg (American Ballet Theatre)
Stella Abrera and Sascha Radetsky (ABT)
Paloma Herrera (American Ballet Theatre)
Ashley Bouder (New York City Ballet)
and Joseph Phillips (San Francisco Ballet, YAGP
Rubinald Pronk and Clifford Williams
(Complexions Contemporary Ballet)
International ballet super-stars Manuel Legris and Aurelie Dupont (Paris Opera Ballet) will lead the international all-star cast in "Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow," Youth America Grand Prix's annually sold-out Closing Night Gala. These leading ballet dancers will join the finalists of YAGP ballet and contemporary dance competition in one spectacular Gala evening.
Posted 17 March 2007 - 12:20 AM
Posted 10 April 2007 - 06:57 PM
Philip Neal (partnering Bouder), in.
Desmond Richardson, M.C.
Finalists will also dance.
Posted 20 April 2007 - 09:02 AM
Posted 20 April 2007 - 02:10 PM
For your information, we would like to post the lastest program information as of April 20th. We are very excited, and we hope to see you all at the Gala.
Winners of Youth America Grand Prix 2007 international student ballet and contemporary dance competition
Grand Defilé
(piece d'occasion, featuring all YAGP participants)
Choreography: Carlos dos Santos,Jr
Music:Anatol Liadov
Aurelie Dupont,
Manuel Legris (Paris Opera Ballet)
Petite Mort"
Choreography: Jiri Kylian
Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Cecilia Kerche,
Vitor Luiz (Ballet Teatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro)
La Esmeralda Pas De Deux"
Choreography: Jules Perrot
Music: Cesare Pugni
Sascha Radetsky,
Stella Abrera (ABT)
Jabula Pas de Deux
Choreography: Natalie Weir
Music: Hans Zimmer
Xiomara Reyes, Gennadi Saveliev (ABT)
Spring Waters
Choreography: Asaf Messerer
Music: Sergei Rachmaninoff
"Moonbeams" (from Lunar Sea)
Choreography: Moses Pendleton
Music: Kevin Dooley, The Star Seeds
Complexions Contemporary Ballet
Choke - WORLD PREMIERE
Choreography: Dwight Rhoden
Music: Sergey Gordeev
Paloma Herrera (ABT) and Nicolaj Hübbe (NYCB)
Rubies (from Jewels)
Choreography: George Balanchine
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Isabella Boylston (ABT, YAGP Alumna) and David Hallberg (ABT)
"Quiet Music" - WORLD PREMIERE
Choreography: Benjamin Millepied
Music by: Nico Muhly
Ashley Bouder (NYCB) and Joseph Phillips (San Francisco Ballet, YAGP alumnus)
Stars and Stripes
Choreography: George Balanchine
Music: John Philip Sousa
Alicia Amatriain,
Jason Reilly (Stuttgart Ballet)
Mono Lisa NEW YORK PREMIERE
Choreography: Itzik Galili
Music: Thomas Höfs
Aurelie Dupont,
Manuel Legris (Paris Opera Ballet)
La Dame aux Camelias" - Black Pas De Deux
Choreography: John Neumeier
Music: Frederic Chopin
Marianela Nuñez,
Thiago Soares (The Royal Ballet)
Le Corsaire - Pas De Deux
Choreography: Marius Petipa
Music: Adolphe Adam
Posted 20 April 2007 - 03:27 PM
Dear friends,
For your information, we would like to post the lastest program information as of April 20th. We are very excited, and we hope to see you all at the Gala.
Thanks for posting the program. It looks great. I can't wait.
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Preprofessionalism among graduate students in English has been a hotly debated topic for some time. Prominent onlookers argue that it—especially early publication and conference presentation—keeps students from "developing long-term intellectual projects and thus propagates intellectual shallowness" (Guillory 4; see Spacks). Others point out that there is nothing inherently wrong with such activity, as long as it does not amount to "inferior professionalization" (Nelson 162). Understandably, graduate students are caught in the middle, wondering what to do and when to do it.
Something is obviously wrong when new PhDs believe that before they can even enter the job market they must acquire the credentials that once earned tenure. To investigate the phenomenon, the Modern Language Association last year created the Ad Hoc Committee on the Professionalization of PhDs, whose task, in part, is to "study the growing pressure on the productivity of graduate students and the practices of hiring departments, [and] assess the educational and professional value of the publishing and conference activities graduate students pursue" (Ad Hoc Committee). In its deliberations, the committee must address an important question: Is the drive among graduate students to amass professional accomplishments matched by the expectations of the search committees that seek to hire them?
Though graduate students have been getting much advice about how to prepare for the job market, they have received little hard information about what search committees want from candidates (Showalter; Curren, "No Openings" 59). To shed some light on the demand side of the hiring process, we offer the results of a survey that sought answers to the following questions: How do English departments conduct a typical search? What kinds of professional qualifications do committees expect from candidates? Is a publication record really more important than teaching experience? How significant are interpersonal skills? What egregious errors kill a candidacy?
We began putting the questionnaire together in April 2000. During the summer, we reviewed issues of the Job Information List (JIL) and identified a total of 671 English departments that had conducted searches in 1998–99 and 1999–2000. We ignored departments that listed only postdoctoral and other fellowships, and we excluded interdisciplinary programs, unless it was clear from the ad that the program was housed in an English department. In mid-October, we mailed our anonymous survey to these 671 departments; sent out two follow-up letters and one e-mail message in the following months; handled dozens of phone calls, letters, and e-mail messages; and resolved several minicrises before receiving the last return on 27 April 2001. In all, we received back 368 completed surveys, for a response rate of 55%.
To show the representativeness of our sample, table 1 compares our returns' percentages regarding rank and specialty with those of the positions advertised in the October 1998 and 1999 JILs (given in Franklin 4–5). Note the relatively high proportion of assistant professorships reported by our respondents, a bias that also shows up in an earlier and similar survey done by the Association of Departments of English (Huber, Pinney, and Laurence 40). Our data regarding the specialties sought by search committees are consistent with the MLA's. Rhetoric and composition constitutes 25% of vacancies in our survey and 27% of definite positions in the October 1998 and 1999 JILs. Our results are heavy in British literature positions (28%) compared with those of the JILs (21%), though this difference may be because our sample overrepresents assistant professorships, which are more likely to be advertised and filled as British literature positions (Huber, Pinney, and Laurence 46). Our American literature percentage is identical to the JILs' (11%), as is our creative writing percentage (8%). African American and other minority literatures are underrepresented in our sample (6%) compared with the JILs (11%).
To catch more small departments at small institutions—they hire less frequently than do large departments—we chose to use two years of JIL listings rather than one. At the same time, because we consulted only the JIL, our results underrepresent searches in community colleges and four-year institutions, since both are less likely than doctoral programs to advertise vacancies with the MLA.1
When reviewing the results of surveys such as ours, it is important to remember that the population of departments recruiting at any given time is quite different from the universe of all English departments. Departments in doctoral institutions, because they are typically big, recruit more often, hire more faculty members, and command a larger share of the labor market. For example, though departments in research universities constitute only 11% of all departments in the United States (Laurence, "Data"), they constitute 26% of our sample. Moreover, in the two years we study, doctoral departments are responsible for 48% of the listings in the October JILs (Laurence, "Request"). However, their actual market share is substantially less. In the best estimate available to date, Kurt Müller and R. Douglas LeMaster project that roughly 30% of all English positions filled in any given year are in that Carnegie sector (52).2
Assistant professor positions make up 84% of searches in our sample (table 1). Sixty-three percent of search committees accept applications from ABDs, and the vast majority of openings in our sample are tenure-track (93%). The last percentage may be high, because departments that advertised multiple openings were able to answer our questionnaire only on the basis of one search. We surmise that respondents were more likely to report on successful tenure-track searches than on unsuccessful ones.
More than half of all search committees (58%) handle fewer than 100 applications. A significant minority (16%), however, receive more than 200. The mean number of applicants is 99. In the ADE study, the mean is 91 (Huber, Pinney, and Laurence 43). The competition for jobs is obviously stiff, but these numbers should put to rest the misconception that hundreds of applications flood every department that advertises an opening (Curren, "Response" 45; Musser 11).
A significant number of committees do not interview candidates at the MLA convention (38%). Over half (54%), however, do interview eight or more people there. Doctoral institutions are the most intensive convention users; 71% of committees at these institutions interview eight or more candidates. Nearly 60% of committees do not use remote interviews—that is, telephone or compressed video. Of those that do, the average number of interviews is five. Nearly half of all search committees (47%) bring three applicants to campus for interviews, a number consistent with psychology searches (Sheehan, McDevitt, and Ross 9).
Our survey affirms that English faculty members take active roles in the screening and hiring of new colleagues. Less than 1% of respondents reported that their academic administration conducted searches with little or no faculty participation. Committees conducted 82% of the searches in our sample; in only one case did a department chair handle a search alone. A significant minority of respondents—typically those in small departments—reported that their entire department acted as the search committee (15%).
Of the committees surveyed, 12% had a serious disagreement with the institution's administration. Of those, the most frequent disagreements centered on the committee's choice of candidates, its evaluation of candidates, the job description, and the position's funding.
In the vast majority of searches, the committee's first choice was accepted by the university's administration (97%). Weak scholarship and the perception that the candidate would make a poor institutional fit were cited as the most frequent reasons for the rejection of a first choice. The numbers here are very small, however. Only ten respondents noted that their committee's first choice was rejected; the two main reasons were each cited by only four respondents.
A significant minority of all searches ended with the position unfilled (12%). Our study and the ADE study both found that positions go unfilled primarily due to an "inadequate candidate pool" (Huber, Pinney, and Laurence 43). Among all searches in our sample, 6% were unable to fill their vacancy because candidates refused the institution's offer; in 4% of cases, the position went unfilled because no suitable candidate was found.
Candidate evaluation begins with a review of application materials submitted in answer to an advertised vacancy. Table 2 records the importance respondents accorded twenty-one elements at this initial stage. Most of these items come from a study of hiring in psychology (Sheehan, McDevitt, and Ross 9), but we included others of interest to us. Scores ran from 1, "extremely unimportant," to 6, "extremely important." Values above 3.5 indicate that the item is important to recruiters; items below 3.5 are unimportant. In addition to the average (mean) ranking, table 2 also records standard deviations, which indicate how far from the mean a typical respondent rated an item. The greater the standard deviation, the greater the disagreement among respondents.
In evaluating candidates, the English faculty members in our sample judged the candidate's "potential for making a positive contribution to the institution as a whole" to be more important than any other consideration. It and the letter of application were ranked highest, and both enjoyed substantial agreement—standard deviations for each are less than 1.0. Letters of recommendation were ranked fourth. General teaching experience and experience teaching the advertised specialties were both ranked highly, more highly than research specialties and the potential for future research. Farther down the list the same pattern holds: evidence of teaching ability outranks evidence of research ability. Specifically, course evaluations and teaching awards were cited as more important than the number and quality of the candidate's publications. The numbers of papers presented and authoring a book were both deemed unimportant, although authoring a book has a large standard deviation, indicating that some respondents rated it much more highly than others. Finally, service, one of the three traditional areas of faculty responsibility, was consistently declared unimportant. Evidently, this aspect of professionalization is not generally a factor in recruitment.
Table 3 records the ranking accorded twenty items likely to be important at the on-campus interview stage. At this point, interpersonal skills and performances can be—and are—judged. Our sample's recruiters rank highest the candidate's performance at the interview with the search committee; the job seeker's performance at the interview with the department chair, although deemed important, is ranked much lower. Performance at a colloquium and while teaching a class are very important, but note that the standard deviation of each is quite high. Indeed, the greatest disagreement in the survey is over the significance of performance while teaching a class. The ability to relate to students and to faculty members and the candidate's personality all emerge, in that order, as important during the on-campus visit. Respondents agree on the significance of these considerations; each has a standard deviation less than 1.0.
At the on-campus stage, the candidate's potential for making a contribution to the institution as a whole is once again rated very highly. Teaching and research abilities remain important, although their values are now slightly lower than at the initial screening. Likewise, letters of reference remain important, but their value drops slightly compared with that in the first stage. Once again, service is thought to be unimportant.
Screening applications appears to be a more uncertain and contentious process than is screening candidates during the on-campus visit. Our data suggest that there is less agreement among search committees about what is important in a candidate's dossier than there is in assessing the candidate in person. Note that only four items at the application stage (table 2) have a standard deviation less than 1.0. In addition, only nine criteria have a mean greater than 4. In table 3, however, six items have a standard deviation less than 1.0, and thirteen criteria have a mean greater than 4.
Once candidates come to campus, search committees clearly direct their attention to the interpersonal skills that manifest themselves in teaching and in student and collegial interactions. Are candidates' interpersonal skills then deciding factors in who gets the job? Several respondents volunteered observations that suggest that this is so. For example, a department chair with over fifteen years of experience at a baccalaureate institution comments:
The importance of personality, etc., vs. qualifications in hiring is difficult to [determine]. The process starts by screening out unqualified candidates; then in narrowing[,] qualifications are extremely important. So when the final decision is made among the top two or three candidates, in almost every circumstance, all of them are highly and relatively equally qualified. So in the final decision, personality usually plays a big part. But it wouldn't if qualifications weren't so important at all the earlier stages of the process.
Several attitude items that we asked lend support to these assertions. Over one-quarter of respondents (27%) think that personality and appearance often have more influence than credentials in the selection of candidates; nonetheless, in answer to another question, 56% agree that academic qualifications are the most important consideration. Although most believe that credentials are of paramount importance in hiring a new colleague, respondents acknowledge that a mix of factors informs a committee's decision making.
Much more than English search committees, those in psychology expect job candidates to have a track record in research presentation and publication. Table 2 and table 3 record in parentheses how psychologists rank each hiring criterion. Though the two disciplines generally agree in their ratings, psychologists tend to screen applications according to teaching and research specialization and publication. Placing less emphasis on a candidate's potential for research, they instead focus on the candidate's number of publications and the quality of the journals in which those publications appear. During the on-campus visit, psychologists put more weight than English faculty members do on the interview with the chair and less on the interview with the committee. Psychologists look closely at a candidate's performance during a colloquium and during the teaching of a class; they also continue to value specialization in teaching and research more highly than do their colleagues in English. Psychologists more often want "preprofessionalized" candidates.
English departments in doctoral institutions, however, resemble psychology departments in the emphasis they place on specialization and scholarly accomplishment. Twenty-three percent of search committees in doctoral institutions believe that a candidate's number of publications is "extremely important" when screening applications. In contrast, only 1% of committees in baccalaureate institutions rank publication as extremely important at this stage. Interestingly, departments in doctoral institutions also attribute greater importance than other departments to the number of presentations, but only in screening. Presentations are considered unimportant at the interview stage, no matter what the institution's Carnegie classification. Even among doctoral institutions, presentations are less important during screening than the number of publications and the prestige of the journals in which they appear.
An institution's Carnegie classification also predicts how much its English department emphasizes teaching in its evaluation of candidates. Table 3 shows that respondents disagree about the importance of a candidate's on-campus teaching performance. Specifically, teaching a class is extremely important for 60% of respondents in baccalaureate institutions; likewise, 52% of respondents in comprehensive institutions rate it as extremely important. When one turns to doctoral institutions, however, the percentage drops precipitously: only 28% rate teaching a class as extremely important; 32% rate this criterion as extremely unimportant. Finally departments in doctoral institutions rank the candidate's ability to contribute to the institution as a whole less highly than do those in any other Carnegie classification. New PhDs in English are entering a segmented labor market.
We asked respondents to list the top three factors used to determine the committee's first choice. We divided the responses into four categories: teaching, research, service, and interpersonal skills. Nearly two-thirds (63%) cited teaching ability, performance, or experience as a deciding factor. Forty-four percent cited research accomplishments or potential. Twenty-eight percent volunteered that the candidate's interpersonal skills were decisive. Service was hardly mentioned (6%). These results underscore what the survey as a whole reveals: the model candidate is first a good teacher.
We also asked respondents to cite errors that "negatively affected [candidates'] chances of being hired." Half of those surveyed noted at least one error. The error most frequently cited was poor or indifferent teaching. Poor presentation of research was a close second, followed by poor interpersonal skills, ignorance of the institution, and a lack of breadth of knowledge. Here are examples of the responses that this question elicited:
Poor Teaching
"One never talked about teaching."
"Focus on release time/money—questions about ways to avoid classroom teaching."
"One taught one of the most boring classes I've ever seen. Another talked about how lazy, uninformed, and so forth our students are—of course, they're not."
"One candidate appeared to consider himself superior to the teaching required at our college. (He seemed to think that nurturing basic writers would be beneath him.)"
Poor Presentation of Research
"Reluctance to engage in discussion of research area."
"Presentations which are too technical or too insubstantial."
"Did a lousy presentation. Was churlish during dinner."
"Presented a paper in an area that she was working on but [that] did not reveal range of research experience in the field."
Poor Interpersonal Skills
"Behavior perceived as insulting, dismissive."
"During one of the interview questions, she threw up her arms and said, 'Jesus.'"
"One candidate was overly argumentative, even belligerent, during the interview with the search committee."
"One campus visitor ignored many important people and failed to thank those who helped him."
Ignorance of the Hiring Institution
"Not knowing enough about the institution."
"Emphasizing research over teaching. We are a teaching institution."
"Failure to demonstrate interest in our college or a general knowledge of who we are."
Narrow Focus
"Some were unable to demonstrate an ability to move beyond a rather narrowly focused research agenda—this lack of range and flexibility hurt a few otherwise very strong candidates."
"She came with her hair in an outlandish coif and seemed incapable of assessing the world outside her dissertation topic."
"Some could not talk beyond/outside of their own dissertations. They exhibited a deathly nervousness."
These criticisms are not unique to English; the psychology survey cites similar criticisms of candidates in that field (Sheehan, McDevitt, and Ross 10). When strangers with divergent interests negotiate for high stakes, misunderstanding and injured pride can skew people's judgment. What was happening in the interview in which the candidate threw up her arms and said, "Jesus"? Did she overreact, or was the question outrageous? Why the attention to a candidate's hair? When does the defense of one's position cross the line into belligerency? Do nervous candidates sometimes overstate their positions? Or do some committee members perceive it to be arrogant when heavily credentialed applicants cite their accomplishments? Certainly, both sides run the risk—and know the costs—of making a mistake. Is this why many committee members turn to instinct? When asked if gut-level reactions are important in the hiring process, 73% of respondents agreed that they are. Without empathy and tolerance, however, misinterpretation, selective observation, and rationalization can rule the moment.
According to our findings, the typical English department search committee seeks a tenure-track assistant professor with a PhD in literature, most commonly British. These committees are entrusted with the task and experience little conflict with the academic administration. After sifting through nearly a hundred applications, a committee interviews eight or more candidates at the MLA convention and then invites its top three choices to campus. Afterward, the committee forwards its first choice to the administration, and the search ends successfully and—for the committee—happily. Over half of all respondents (57%) to our questionnaire agreed that participating in a faculty search is a highly satisfying experience.
When screening applications and on-campus candidates, English departments generally look for evidence of good teaching first and research potential second. Only in doctoral institutions does research rival teaching. Across the board, the candidate with the best interpersonal skills—all else being equal—is offered the job.
What do search committees want? Our data indicate that the vast majority seek a candidate who can effectively teach specific courses to the students the English department serves. The committees want a colleague who will work collaboratively with their department's faculty members and who will fit in well with their institution. Only a minority of committees seek a candidate with a book or publications. Committees that do, of course, work in the same departments that are preparing candidates to work in the entire spectrum of English departments. It is perhaps mainly because this minority trains everyone that so many believe that "preprofessionalism" is required to get a job.
Walter Broughton is Associate Professor of Sociology at Marywood University. William Conlogue is Associate Professor of English at Marywood University.
The authors are indebted to Linda Hutcheon for her moral support and to the Marywood Office of Academic Affairs for its financial support. We are grateful also to David Laurence, who provided supplementary data from the records of the MLA, and to Lois Santarsiero and Meghan McCrea for their indispensable clerical work.
1In their 1982–83 survey of English departments, Müller and LeMaster found that 14% of community colleges and 67% of those institutions granting BA or BA and MA degrees (compared with 85% of the doctoral programs) advertised vacancies in the JIL (54 [reconstructed from table 4]).
2The 48% of JIL listings cited above is close to the proportion of the market commanded by doctoral institutions as reported in the surveys of Müller and LeMaster, 40% (52) and of Huber, Pinney, and Laurence, 46% (45). These surveys, however, overestimate this market share, because the response rate of doctoral programs was higher than those of all other Carnegie classifications. Moreover, doctoral programs are most likely to advertise in the JIL. When Müller and LeMaster project the number of hires per year, however, they apply the hiring rate of each Carnegie type in their survey to the total number of all departments of that type, thereby reducing the overestimation.
Ad Hoc Committee on the Professionalization of PhDs. MLA. 11 May 2001. 15 May 2001 http://www.mla.org/, click on "Committees and Commissions."
Curren, Erik D. "No Openings at This Time: Job Market Collapse and Graduate Education." Profession 94. New York: MLA, 1994. 57–61.
———. "Response to John T. Day." ADE Bulletin 111 (1995): 45–46.
Franklin, Phyllis. "October 2000 Employment Trends." MLA Newsletter 33.1 (2001): 4–7.
Guillory, John. "Preprofessionalism: What Graduate Students Want." ADE Bulletin 113 (1996): 4–8.
Huber, Bettina J., Denise Pinney, and David Laurence. "Patterns of Faculty Hiring in Four-Year English Programs: Findings from a 1987—88 Survey of Job Information List Advertisers." ADE Bulletin 99 (1991): 39–48.
Laurence, David. "Re: Fwd: Data Request for David Laurence." E-mail message to Walter Broughton. 19 May 2001.
———. "Re: Request for David Laurence." E-mail message to Walter Broughton. 22 May 2001.
Müller, Kurt, and R. Douglas LeMaster. "Criteria Used in Selecting English Faculty in American Colleges and Universities." ADE Bulletin 77 (1984): 51–57.
Musser, Joseph. "The On-Campus Interview." ADE Bulletin 111 (1995): 11–13.
Nelson, Cary. "No Wine before Its Time: The Panic over Early Professionalization." Profession 2000. New York: MLA, 2000. 157–63.
"Positions Listed, by Rank." Table obtained from MLA 26 Apr. 2001.
Sheehan, Eugene P., Teresa M. McDevitt, and Heather C. Ross. "Looking for a Job as a Psychology Professor? Factors Affecting Applicant Success." Teaching of Psychology 25.1 (1998): 8–11.
Showalter, English. "The Academic Job Search." The MLA Guide to the Job Search. Ed. Showalter et al. New York: MLA, 1996. 16–56.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. "The Academic Marketplace: Who Pays Its Costs?" MLA Newsletter 26.2 (1994): 3.
Table 1
Vacancy Characteristics in the October 1998 and 1999 JILs and As Reported by Survey Respondents (Percentage)
Table 2
Screening Criteria: Means and Standard Deviations
Table 3
On-Campus Interview Criteria: Means and Standard Deviations


text:
Ted : Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet Pre Order for $19.99
Will be released Tuesday12/11/12
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• Gag Reel
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• Teddy Bear Scuffle
• Feature Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Seth MacFarlane, Co-Writer Alec Sulkin and Star Mark Wahlberg (Theatrical Version Only)
• My Scenes
• BD-Live
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3 Comments add a comment
In the voice of Patrick Stewart: "No matter how big a splash you make in this world whether you're Corey Feldman, Frankie Muniz, Justin Bieber or a talking teddy bear, eventually, nobody gives a (profanity)"
I thought this movie was awesome in theaters and I will buy this but I just can't bring myself to pay $20 bucks for a Blu-ray. I guess I have been spoiled.
Amazon is offering $5 off $25 purchase if you go on Amazon's Facebook page; Valid thru tonight only.


text:
Official, Semi-Official, one-off and other events at the NoiseBridge space.
Event Calendar
Not all events make it onto this calendar. Many events only make it to the Discussion or Announcements mailing lists, IRC or in person at. Best of all, Noisebridge is about people getting together at the space in San Francisco to do stuff... like in person. Some events just happen. Pay attention!
Event posters are encouraged to crosspost to the Google Calendar. View the Google Calendar, view the Google Calendar in XML, or the Google Calendar in ical format.
To post Google Calendar entries for your event, contact a Noisebridge member for access.
(Wouldn't it be great if there were a gCal mediawiki plugin so crossposting wasn't needed? Do you know of a good one? Help us!)
Upcoming Events edit
- October 1, 18:00 - Mesh wireless meetup
- October 1, 19:00 - Bay Area Categories and Types
- October 1-4 - Arse Elektronika: Of Intercourse and Intracourse
- October 2nd, 18:00-23:00 Year 1 Open Hacker House - Showing off cool hacked up stuff from the first year.
- October 26, 20:00 French book club meeting to discuss Une Si Longue Lettre.
Recurring Events edit
- Monday
- 18:30 PyClass - Learn how to program using the Python programming language.
- 20:00 Circuit Hacking Mondays - Learn to solder! Mitch will bring kits to make cool, hackable things that you can bring home after you make them. Bring your own projects to hack!
- Tuesday
- 18:00 Mandarin Corner - Weekly study group to practice Chinese language.
- 20:00 Noisebridge Weekly Meeting - Introducing new people and events to the space, general discussion, and decision making.
- Wednesday
- 20:00 Machine Learning - Teach computers to learn stuff using artificial intelligence and other techniques. (We're meeting at 2169 Mission, enduring the dust and noise!)
- 20:00 Games - Play games with geeks.
- 20:00 ASL Group - Learn how to talk without using your voice (or just come chat in ASL). click to reschedule
- Thursday
- 20:00 Five Minutes of Fame - Monthly set of lightning talks on diverse topics (third Thursday of each month, next event is October 15th)
- Friday
- 19:00 Science, Engineering & Design Huddle - Weekly group to discuss design approach, share techniques, and solve any problem you may be having with your project(s).
- 20:00 2169 Buildout planning - Discussion & execution of how to renovate our new space
- Sunday
- 11:00 Cyborg Group - Work on projects like artificial senses (e.g. an anklet that lets you feel which way is north)
- 14:00 Formal methods reading group - Learn about computer science theory
- 15:00 Go Playing of the Go boardgame. On nice days we often take the boards to Dolores Park and play there.
- 15:00 Locks! (every other sunday)
Planned Events edit
Past Events
- Friday: CrazyCryptoNight - Discussion of cryptography for beginners through experts. 6-???
- Sunday : OpenEEG Hacking Sundays, at 3-5pm.
- Tuesday: Haskell/Haschool - Learn Haskell with Jason Dusek. 6PM - 7:30PM, from May until we're all experts.
- Wednesday: Adobe Lightroom - Become a more organized photographer. Weekly class (mostly held off site).
- Thursday: Professional VFX Compositing With Adobe After Effects - Taught by Aaron Muszalski. 7:30PM - 10PM, most Thursdays in May & June & ? (click through dammit)
- 2009-09-17: Five Minutes of Fame 3D Edition
- 2009-09-17: Mesh wireless meetup
- 2009-08-20: Five Minutes of Fame One Dee Edition
- 2009-07-16: Five Minutes of Fame Zero Dee
- 2009-07-02 - 2009-07-05: Toorcamp
- 2009-07-01: Noisedroid meeting to discuss location logging on Android platform (and other stuff too, I'm sure)
- 2009-06-30: Powerbocking class
- 2009-06-30: "Suing Telemarketers for Fun and Profit" (Toorcamp talk preview)
- 2009-06-28: "Meditation for Hackers" (Toorcamp workshop preview)
- 2009-06-18: Five Minutes of Fame
- 2009-06-15: Eagle Workshop Session two of the Eagle CAD workshop.
- 2009-06-13: RoboGames 2009 Noisebridge had a booth staffed by vounteers, great fun!
- 2009-05-21: Five Minutes of Fame
- 2009-04-27: EagleCAD workshop -- learn to use this CAD tool for printed circuit board design
- 2009-04-16: Five Minutes of Fame April showers & flowers edition
- 2009-04-11: RFID Hacking weekend workshop (this event moved from the original March date)
- 2009-04-05: First aid and CPR class Learning how to not only not die, but also reduce scarring!
- 2009-04-03: Sudo pop 2PM and on. Making the first batch of a Noisebridge label yerba mate-niated rootbrew, gratis and DIY
- 2009-03-26: OpenEEG Hacking first meet up for this new group: 8 pm
- 2009-03-19: Five Minutes of Fame
- 2009-03-12: OpenBTS and GSM talk by David Burgess
- 2009-02-14: Open Heart Workshop Valentine's Day blinkyheart soldering party!
- 2009-02-13: time_t Party to celebrate 1,234,567,890 since the Unix epoch.
- 2009-02-09: Spanish learning at 8:30
- 2009-02-05: PGP Key Workshop
- 2009-01-31: Locksport and Lockpicking
- 2008-12-27: 25C3 Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin
- 2008-12-20 & 21: Creme Brulee Workshop on creating a french dessert, with bonus propane torch.
- 2008-12-17 20:00: Machine Learning Birds-of-a-feather
- 2008-11-24: Circuit Hacking Monday circuit design workshop
- 2008-11-21, 7pm:Milk and Cookies -- David Molnar hosts Milk and Cookies at 83C. Bring a short 5-7minute thing to read to others. Bring a potluck cookie/snack/drink if you like. David will bring milk and cookies.
- 2008-11-17, 7:30pm: Basic Bicycle Maintain - Rubin and rigel hate it when we see a bike that isn't maintained. Screechy chains and clacking derailleur can go to hell. Basic bike tune up, sharing the smarts on simple things you can do at home to make your ride suck a whole lot less.
- 2008-11-16, 5:00pm: RepRap Soldering Party - help assemble RepRap! RSVPs required on wiki! adi
- 2008-11-16, 3:00pm: Oscilloscopes - Learn how to use this versatile tool to test electronic circuits. Maximum 6 slots, please sign up ahead of time! dstaff
- 2008-10-31: Halloween Open House - NoiseBridge's own PPPC threw an awesome open house/halloween gala. Post pictures if you got 'em!
- 2008-10-25: Soldering Workshop and Pumpkin Hackin' - Learn to solder for total newbies (or learn to solder better!), including surface mount. Additionally, carve your halloween pumpkins and enjoy some experimental pumpkin pie and/or soup.
- 2008-10-07: (tuesday before meeting) - Etch a circuit board. I'll be trying a photo resist etching and a basic printed mask etching. This is step 1/3 for a project called "annoying USB thingie" which will execute pre-defined keystrokes by sneaking a tiny USB dongle onto a victim^h^h^h^h^h buddy's computer.
- 2008-09-13: Processing Workshop — Learn this very easy-to-use programming language! - Processing Workshop Report
- 2008-02-16: Brain Machine Making Workshop: Our first hardware sprint!
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text: Secrets for Getting a Good Night's Sleep By LoAndra Berg January 15, 2014 Are you tired despite adequate sleep time? Do you feel worse when you wake up than you did before you went to sleep? Most people spend one-third of their life sleeping, which helps renew mental and physical health each night. However, many factors can affect the quality of your sleep. Read More