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Prior to Wednesday night's 7-5 Red Sox win over Baltimore (for recap click here), Kym Byrd had her concerns.
Some time after her family's decision in January that Paul Byrd, her husband, would stiff-arm legitimate offers to play major-league baseball to be with his family for the next six months, and well before the 38-year-old's five-inning, two-run performance against the Orioles, at Fenway Park, doubts had crept into Kym's psyche.
"On one hand there was so much fun, just to have the routine we had and be able to go to every single one of our sons' games and for Paul to be able to coach. And he got to plant a garden, and he has always wanted to do that," she said. "I told him, 'If you get picked up by a team and there is a harvest and I'm out there doing this harvest work, I'm going to kill you. It will be my luck that he finally gets this whole garden going and I'm the one stuck with it."
Sure enough…
"It was ready to go, but I planted like 50 pumpkins and I've only got four," Paul explained. "And all of my tomato bushes died. My corn died. My cucumbers grew but they're crooked. So what I discovered was -- soil is extremely important, so is following directions, and I'm a ballplayer, not a gardener. But I guess the positives are that I have four pumpkins."
And, as was evidenced by his third outing with the Red Sox this season, Byrd has so much more than just a few stray Jack-O-Laterns.
In the here-and-now, Byrd took another step toward answering his own question regarding whether or not he could still live the life of a viable big-league hurler. His focus is discovering what has left and then deciding if the 'plan' executed this time around can be duplicated next season.
That blueprint? Spend the season's first few months with his two young sons, helping coach their youth baseball teams, perhaps hook up a big league team as summer vacation is getting rolling, and give that club whatever he has for the season's second half.
And maybe, this time around, understand that Georgian red clay isn't conducive to vegetable growing.
"I'm going to do the same thing until I can't offer anybody anything, until I can't bring anything to the table," Byrd said. "So I think this year is really important to prove that."
Wednesday night's outing was certainly a step in the right direction for Byrd.
The performance wasn't dominating by any means, but it was certainly good enough. There were five innings, two runs, six hits, 83 pitches, and a fastball that touched 88 mph. The pumpkins might have offered discouragement, but Byrd's third start this season certainly didn't.
Add in the memories and experiences he got a chance to build with his two sons, Grayson and Colby, the likes of which hadn't been possible throughout Byrd's 14-year major league career, and it certainly looks like the pitcher's unorthodox approach to completing a baseball season has panned out.
"I would have just liked to have started a little sooner," Byrd said. "But given all my opportunities, I would have done the exact same thing."
Byrd had a family sitting back near Atlanta watching him hold off the Orioles, while thinking the exact same thing.
Coming back after taking nine months off and jumping into the middle of a pennant race was hard for Byrd, but it paled in comparison to his wife's struggles when it came to watching her husband go through one of the toughest decisions of his life earlier this year.
"It was so hard because I don't want to come across that I'm not grateful for baseball because baseball has opened up some amazing doors for us. People, friends, places to live, and financially it has been a gift," Kym said. "But I know, as a mom, I have two boys (13 and 11) and they need their dad, too. The last thing I would want to do is ask him to quit and two years from now he wishes he could play, but he can't and he turns that back on me. It's a really tough thing.
"It is hard. People have this image of a baseball wife of someone who sits at home, doing our nails, doing nothing, thinking, 'What's the big deal, we have all this money and we can shop?' But I'm raising two kids by myself and there are decisions with school and things that arise. I was teasing him that when one of our kids get in trouble he would always be like, 'Do this' or 'Do that,' and I told him it must be so nice to discipline from five states away and then have the kids be mad at me for two days. It's a challenge."
The Byrds – who have moved nearly 40 times – are living that life once again, but only for a few months, and after building up enough togetherness to make up for a brief run at what would be Paul's first World Series.
The coaching of the youth baseball team was great, as was a family trip to Cooperstown, and, of course, the garden. But just when Kym was convinced Paul had settled into his new life, glimpses of his old one would appear.
"He got in a little bit of a routine," she said. "There were times where he was like, 'I'm retired,' but then there was this part of him that … I was OK. I've got to go on this great adventure. I know he has told everybody I said a while ago that he needed to quit because (bouncing around the minors) was crazy and we couldn't keep living in debt. But on the other hand I know him and he's such a competitor.
"I was ready for him to be doing things like drinking in the closet, or not wanting to get out of bed for a month. But it was strange. There was none of that. But I do think as time went on there was that little spark in him that just loves to compete, and that took over."
Leading him to moments like Wednesday night.
"He is so excited to be back," Kym said. "But it is hard because he has been home so much and he misses the kids so much. You just can't have everything."
But, if the last nine months are any indication, Byrd has had plenty. And judging by his work thus far, there might be more to come.
There was, of course, more that we learned on the night the Red Sox remained two games ahead of the Rangers in the Wild Card standings…
Victor Martinez was undeniably the offensive hero of the game, launching a first-pitch, three-run double into left-center field with the bases loaded in the seventh inning, breaking a 4-4 tie.
The timing evidently was perfect for Martinez, who is now 11-for-27 (.407) for his career as a pinch-hitter, while notching six hits in 12 at-bats with 15 RBI in bases loaded situations this season.
For his career, Martinez was also hitting .385 when putting the first pitch in play, a situation in which he was performing at a .351 clip at this year.
So when Red Sox manager Terry Francona was presented with the opportunity to send up Martinez – whom he had given the day off to help temper the fact he had caught 21 times since coming to the Sox after manning the position 52 games for the Indians – it was too good to pass up.
"He's just a good hitter," Francona said. "I think he enjoys that situation, for sure. He'd rather have been starting, but it's nice that on nights he hasn't started, he's sitting there ready to hit."
(As a side note, Martinez' double was his 30th of the season, helping him join Joe Torre (36 in 1964) as the only two players to record 30 or more doubles in a season while playing at least 50 games at both catcher and first base.)
Jason Bay notched three hits and two RBI, leading the outfielder to his fourth 100 RBI season of his career. It was the latest example of the left fielder finding his level.
Since Aug. 1, when he had seen his average dip to a season-low .250, Bay has hit .306 with 11 homers and 26 RBI. Thus far this month, he has claimed a .344 batting average over nine games.
So now, with the bump in the road behind him, could a cause for the downturn be identified? Was the weight of a contract negotiation contributing to the woes?
"There's no story there," Bay said. "I wish I could tell you I was taking multi-vitamins or something, but I think it's just when you get on a roll it's easier to stay on it and when you're not on it you're out there making stuff up trying to find it.
"I think it's very, very coincidental. It never, ever consciously weighed on my mind. By no means did I ever give it a thought. But timing-wise it did run into an interesting parallel. This stuff happens all the time."
Billy Wagner came on for another seventh-inning appearance (the 12th time in his career he has pitched in the seventh, and third instance with the Red Sox), and threw yet another scoreless inning, this time striking out two.
The encouraging signs appear to keep on coming for the 38-year-old, with his slider appearing to jump to the forefront this time. Wagner threw the pitch on eight of his 16 pitches (13 strikes), getting Melvin Mora to ground out on the pitch, while it got Matt Wieters on a swinging strike three.
But, according to the lefty, it was not the case.
"It was terrible today," said Wagner of his slider. "They took so many flat sliders, it was awful. I only threw one that was halfway decent, striking out Wieters, but the other ones were really flat."
There was, however, something Wagner could highlight when looking back at his first win since Aug. 12, 2007.
"Control was good," said the reliever, who has struck out 13 of the 20 batters he has retired this season. "Control was good."
The reason for Wagner's continued solid command of the strike zone – which can often be one of the last aspects of pitching found by hurlers coming off Tommy John surgery – can be traced back to his work at the University of Virginia.
"That first day they told me I could throw from 45 feet, I had the pitching coach from UVA (Karl Kuhn) get down and I made sure I was throwing down to a catcher," Wagner said. "I wanted to start building that muscle memory as soon as I could. That made a big difference."
While Martinez' double was the most monumental offensive achievement, Ramon Ramirez' back-to-back strikeouts of Nolan Reimold and Nick Markakis with the bases loaded and the Orioles leading by a run in the sixth was the most monumental pitching performance of the night for the Red Sox.
Ramirez, who had followed up one of Manny Delcarmen's roughest outings of the season (2 hits, walk, one batter retired), was greeted by a first-pitch RBI single from Felix Pie. After that, the reliever did his job, and then some.
"That was huge," said Sox reliever Daniel Bard, who came on to pitch a scoreless 2/3 innings in the eighth. "Those were big outs right there. His thing is just keeping the ball down. When he's down with his change-up and that 94-95 mph fastball, when those two pitches are down he's unhittable. It's just when he gets up in the zone a little bit is when he gets touched up. But he was good today. I'm happy for him.
In other news, Mike Lowell stole his first base of the season when Jason Varitek swung and missed at an attempted hit-and-run. It marked the 10th straight season Lowell has had at least one stolen base.
Dusty Brown got his first major league at-bat, hitting what appeared to be a sure single to left off former Red Sox reliever Cla Meredith. But Baltimore shortstop Cesar Izturis leaped up and made a spectacular catch, which turned into a 6-4 double play, spoiling the young catcher's big moment.
"I knew I hit it well," Brown said. "I didn't really have time to think. Before I knew he had caught it. It didn't really work out the way I wanted. I was telling myself just not to ground into a double play. Swing hard. Either hit it hard or strikeout."
Dale, Michael and Jerry dig into the details of this draft for the Patriots with ESPN's Mike Reiss.
Giardi and Price discuss the Tom Brady appeal getting overturned and Roger Goodell's victory tour. The guys can't believe the victory lap and some of his behavior. The more you listen to him, the more frustrating his behavior becomes.
Giardi and Price break down how the teams in the AFC East altered their futures after the NFL Draft weekend.
Sam Packard is joined by Celtics 2nd Round draft pick Abdel Nader to discuss his path to the the NBA and how he plans to improve his game. Sam then talks to Player Development Coach Nick Friedman from Elite Skills Training, the pre-Draft camp Nader attended. Friedman also gives his opinion on the Celtics performance at summer league and the development of Jaylen Brown.
Isaiah Thomas talks to Glenn and Lou about why he loves Boston, the NBA Money Bump, oh, and some Durant guy
Danny Ainge joins Glenn and Christian to explain the Celtics draft process; and he also discusses the trade rumors that permeated the night.
Tim Neverett talks with Red Sox manager John Farrell before game 3 of their series with the Tigers. John talks about the struggles Steven Wright has had in inclement weather or days with high heat and humidity and how that might factor in to giving Wright the start on a particular day.
Drew Pomeranz looked stronger in his second Red Sox start but the offense wasn't there to back him up tonight. Mut recaps the 4-2 loss to the Tigers. Thoughts on the manager, the bullpen, and your Sox calls as well.
Joe Castiglione & Tim Neverett talked to the new Sox reliever, who got his first save for the team today against the Twins.
Joey Mac joins Ken Laird on his Saturday show to discuss the David Backes addition and Loui Eriksson departure in NHL free agency
DJ and Pete continue to assess the season that was for the Bruins and look toward the future for the franchise and how they can improve.
DJ and Pete are together for the final Sunday Skate of the season. They get into their overall thoughts on the season, the Bruins keeping Claude Julien on as head coach and the end-of-season press conferences last week. They discuss the rebuild process, what the Bruins need and how they can obtain it. Plenty of callers have their own theories and opinions on all of these topics as well.
Dino, Gerry and Tango discuss a few Patriots storylines as Pats camp is about to open.
The 8am hour with Dino, Gerry and Tanguay is a bit of a hodge-podge of discussion, starting with the Democratic Convention and moving on to marathon swimming and archery at the Olympics and ending with Tanguay's defense of Hillary during the Benghazi attacks.
Tanguay and Dino team up to read the day's 'Headlines', including gross reports of the water quality at the Olympic water locations in Rio.
The guys listen to Belichick's press conference and break down what he has to say. They also discuss what they think the Pats should do with their qb reps during camp
The OMFers are joined by Red Sox President Sam Kennedy to discuss the current state of the Red Sox.
Glenn, Lou, and Christian open the show discussing the latest Red Sox pitching implosion. They get into Steven Wright's struggles pitching in humidity, and David Price not living up to expectations.
Dale and Holley w/Thornton talk about some of the lingering issues about the Pats heading into training camp.
With the news that Tom Jackson is leaving ESPN we take a look back at some of Jackson's greatest hits.
Dale and Holley close out the show with the best sound of the day!
Kirk Minihane is joined by Boston comedy legend Lenny Clarke. If you are a fan of stand up comedy this is the podcast for you. Kirk and Lenny talk about Carlin, Pryor, Williams, Murphy and many more.
Kirk Minihane is joined by former ESPN ombudsman and New York Times writer Robert Lipsyte. Kirk and Robert discuss the current state of ESPN and how Robert feels he did in his role as ombudsman. They both criticize ESPN for the lack of journalism at ESPN and look at some of the curious decisions the world wide leader has made in the past few years.
Kirk Minihane is joined by Lenny Dykstra to talk about his book, his life pleasing older women, and Lenny tries to avoid his past issues with money. This is one explosive episode.
This week we preview the last major of the year, The PGA Championship.
John Dennis and Gerry Callahan bring Gary Tanguay in the podcenter to discuss Tango's bargaining position for Dino's job when it opens next year. The guys also discuss Kirk Minihane's latest podcast with Lenny Clarke.
Christian Fauria and Dr Gill talk about what you need to do to be in the best shape to help your golf game. What exercises you should and shouldn't be doing so you can impress on the course.
John, Gerry and Bradfo discuss a rare political stance by Michael Jordan, and the ensuing criticism he received from ESPN talking head Kevin Blackistone. A Black Lives Matter discussion ensues.More from this show
Dino, Gerry and Rob Bradford give their thoughts on the opening night of the Democratic Convention in Philly. Paul Simon, Al Franken, Sarah Silverman, Michelle Obama and Bernie are among those discussed.More from this show
Dino, Gerry and Tanguay discuss night two of the Democratic Convention, "highlighted" by Bill Clinton's attempt to humanize Hillary Clinton with tales of their courtship.More from this show
The 8am hour with Dino, Gerry and Tanguay is a bit of a hodge-podge of discussion, starting with the Democratic Convention and moving on to marathon swimming and archery at the Olympics and ending with Tanguay's defense of Hillary during the Benghazi attacks.More from this show
John Dennis and Gerry Callahan bring Gary Tanguay in the podcenter to discuss Tango's bargaining position for Dino's job when it opens next year. The guys also discuss Kirk Minihane's latest podcast with Lenny Clarke.More from this show


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Environment & Climate
The Organic Revolution: Change the System, Not the Climate
What if there were an organic technology that could cut greenhouse emissions in half and literally suck down and sequester carbon dioxide in living soil - bringing the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere down to 350 ppm - the level scientists warn us we must acheive in order to avert a climate catastrophe?
Cook Organic, Not the Planet. Boycott Factory-Farmed Foods.
Humans' appetite for gnawing away at the fabric of the Earth itself is growing prodigiously. According to a new UN report, the amount of the planet's natural resources extracted for human use has tripled in 40 years.
A report produced by the International Resource Panel (IRP), part of the UN Environment Programme, says rising consumption driven by a growing middle class has seen resources extraction increase from 22 billion tonnes in 1970 to 70 billon tonnes in 2010.Read more
GRAND RAPIDS – The University of Minnesota Extension Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP), along with the Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR) at the University of Minnesota College of Design will partner with Organic Consumers Association in Finland to test a prototype Deep Winter Greenhouse (DWG) that is designed to help farmers grow fresh produce throughout the winter months.Read more
There's a growing divide in organic food and agriculture. Consumers hungry for nutritionally superior food that has been ethically produced are the target of giant factory farms that have muscled into organic agriculture. Their emergence and rapid growth is challenging family farm operators who have traditionally helped nurture and grow the popular organic sector.
Nowhere is this divide more apparent than in certified organic egg production. Some industrial-scale operations manage as many as two million hens on a single factory where they confine up to 200,000 birds in separateRead more
Solar is already the cheapest available power across large swathes of the tropics, writes Chris Goodall - its cost down 99.7% since the early 70s. Soon it will be the cheapest electricity everywhere, providing clean, secure, affordable energy for all.
Towards the end of last year, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden made a little-noticed remark. He said that solar would become the "dominant backbone" of the world's energy system.
He didn't give a date for his prediction, or indeed define what 'dominant' means, but he accepted that the sun will eventually provide the cheapestRead more
Last September, urged on by Pope Francis, the United Nations and its 193 member states embraced the most sweeping quest yet to, basically, save the world and everyone in it — dubbed the Sustainable Development Goals. It's a global agenda to fix climate change, stop hunger, end poverty, extend health and access to jobs, and vastly more — all by 2030.
The goals comprise no less than 17 separate items and 169 "targets" within them. And this isn't just an airy exercise — the targets are quite specific ("By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per centRead more
Now that countries around the world have agreed on a global deal to tackle climate change, attention has shifted to how we're going to do it. If we're to meet the ambitious targets in the Paris climate agreement, we need to reduce our emissions and do it fast.Read more
Indigenous people are better than governments at preventing forests from being cut and should be seen as a solution, not a barrier to protecting them, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People said on Tuesday.Read more
We here at Butterworks Farm have long been interested in no grain dairy farming.
The same nutritional advantages that have made grass fed beef popular hold true for 100% grass fed milk products.Read more
Midwesterners sweltering in hot, muggy weather this summer are hearing that their agricultural mainstay—corn—is at least partly responsible for their discomfort. This is because the corn plants transpire, drawing moisture into the air, which adds to the humidity. One can think of transpiration as the crop "sweating"—the plant's means of staying cool. And high summer, when corn plants are tasseling, or setting silk, corresponds with peak sweat.
When hot, moisture-laden air hovers over an area, it's referred to as a "heat dome." Added humidity makes it feel even hotter. MoistureRead more
Trees are a valuable tool in the fight against climate change. It's the ultimate in carbon-capture technology — but all natural, and without the licensing fees.
On July 11th, volunteers in India took this old-school climate-fighting tool to a whole new level by planting a record number of trees in a single day, beating Pakistan's previous record of planting 847,275 trees in 2013.
It took 800,000 volunteers to plant just under 50 million tree saplings along India's roads, rail lines, and on public lands. This is all a part of India's commitment to reforest 12 percent of itsRead more

subset: commoncrawl


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Should You Have A Website?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Feb 5, 2015
There are a lot of people who have websites (or webpages) in this world. There are a lot more, however, who don't have websites. When it comes to business, a general question that has to be asked is whether it's viable for the owners of that business to have a website or not.
As a former internet marketing consultant, the overall answer is easily yes. The reality, however, isn't so cut and dry. Let's explore the positives first.
A website can be a great extension of your advertising, if done properly. If you have products, it's a great place to not only share information about them, but, if applicable, you could set your site up to sell your product at all times of the day. A website can highlight your expertise, tell everyone what you do, tell something about you, and allow you to share your expressiveness with a whole new audience of people. If marketed properly, your website can see a whole lot more people than you'd ever meet.
One great thing about having a website is that, even if you don't really do business online, it offers you many ways to accept credit card payments if your business doesn't presently accept them. For instance, for my businesses, I accept credit card payments by sending people online links that will direct them through Paypal so they can use their credit cards. Paypal takes 2.89%, but that's a small price to pay for having my money quickly, as it allows me to transfer funds to my bank account immediately and have them in my bank account within 3 days, sometimes sooner. There are other services out there that offer similar services.
Of course there's the other side.
A website can make you look bad if the site doesn't look good, or isn't uniform. If you write the copy yourself and you're a terrible writer, it can highlight shortcomings that you may not want others to see. If your product doesn't photograph well, or can't be easily explained, it could make marketing difficult. There's a dicey balance between trying to show yourself as an individual that people can trust as well as a professional who's open and inviting to strangers.
Then there's this thing about keeping your website fresh and interesting, not only to the people who visit but to the search engines. The best optimization in the world won't help your site out if, once it's completed, you let it go and never do anything else with it.
Search engines such as Google will send out what they call spiders, that will go through your site and rank its validity. If nothing changes after a long time, they stop coming by on a regular basis. When that happens, you could drop off the face of the search engine universe, which means that the only people who will find your product are the ones who know to look for you. If that's what you want, fine, but if you want more, that's not going to work.
Websites take one of two things; time or money. Either the owner has to learn at least a little bit of HTML to consistently make changes and alterations, as well as, hopefully, add content, or the owner has to have the money to pay someone to do that for them on a regular basis.
Also, a new owner has to make a decision how they want to spend their money, and what a website is worth to them. For instance, there are many hosts that offer the opportunity to create a free site, usually a one page site. If you're a business, it doesn't look good for you because your business name isn't highlighted as much as the host, such as Freewebs, Homestead, etc. You also can't optimize much because it's not really your site.
You could decide to use one of many programs to create your own site to upload, and I've seen a few people who have done a nice job with it, but formatting pages so they look uniform can take time, and also some knowledge, and if you're not the type for that then you probably shouldn't go there. These days there's a lot of people using WordPress software to create their own website; it is and isn't easy, depending on your skill level.
Depending on what you want, creating websites can take a lot of time, and might cost you some significant dollars. There are some companies that have templates you can use and then work on customizing, but they pretty much look like other sites.
Before you pay any money, talk with the person you're thinking of using to try to decide just what you might want. For instance, I had one client who, when we first talked, said she only wanted five pages, which wouldn't have cost that much or taken long to complete. By the time we were finished, we were over 15 pages, with research on top of the creation of the site, and the cost ended up in the thousands. This client was ready to pay it; are you ready to pay it?
Also, please have a vision for what you want your website to look like? I manage the website for one of the organizations I'm a part of and, while I was out of town, they decided they wanted to freshen up the website. The problem is what they put out there for proposals was generic and didn't say anything, and when I finally saw it I told them that. I asked why they wanted a website change and they said they wanted something new; that was it. If you're going to accept whatever the person who creates your website, no matter what it looks like then fine, but if you want something more specific you'd better mention that up front.
The same thinking has to come into play if you think you want to add a blog. I hate cruising blogs, only to see that many of them haven't had an entry in over six months, sometimes years. Blogs aren't for the uninspired; it takes some kind of discipline to continually write entries, and, if you're writing a business blog, the worst thing to have is a blog that has no recent activity. Some people try to write on a niche that's too tight, and they find that it's hard being confined to that one thing, so they just stop writing. If you don't really believe that you have enough in you to consistently keep updating it, then it's best not to start.
So, should you have a website? Time and money; if you have either, then yes. If not, then no… possibly. After all, if your competition has a website you're immediately at a disadvantage.
At least make an informed decision either way. For a quick, down and dirty list, click on this website outline of pros and cons (this was taken from a website I shut down so it looks odd; just look at the information in the middle), check out my webinar titled Social Media, SEO & Your Business (upper left corner), or just ask someone, even me. However, I've pretty much given you everything you should need. 🙂Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2015 Mitch Mitchell
Getting The Most Out Of Shutting Down A Business And A Blog Online
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 24, 2014
Back in July I wrote a post titled Are You Spreading Yourself Too Thin. In that post, I talked about how sometimes we all try to do too much and how I had way too many things going on, especially with all the travel I was doing at the time.
I listed some things to think about, but point #4 was especially telling, though most people seemed to have missed it:
Don't be afraid to let go of certain things, but make sure you look at it from all sides first before doing it.
For those who don't know me, I have a main business. With that main business, which is incorporated (which means, by law, that officially I'm both the president and CEO of my organization), I had basically 3 business divisions, two of which I market off one website.
First off, I'm a health care finance consultant. In essence, I help hospitals generate more revenue and bring in more cash while making sure they stay compliant, which means aren't doing things that are illegal. I'm very good at that, with my biggest success being that I helped one hospital increase their revenue by $730 million in one year; not many people can say that.
Second, I write about and talk about leadership issues, which includes diversity, communications, and all things that involve employees and, well, people in general. With that part I've spoken in 9 states and given presentations, and over there on the left, under the Twitter bird, you see the first book I wrote on leadership (I have people reading what will be the second book, coming out sometime early in 2015).
Third… I have a business called SEO Xcellence. The purpose of that business was building websites, doing SEO work and writing. Because of that business I presented in public 4 or 5 times locally and, well, y'all know that I have written for lots of folks other than myself, and still do on occasion.
Let's talk about this last one.
This business started kind of on a whim. I gave a presentation to a consulting group I belong to as a last minute replacement because our scheduled speaker notified us she couldn't make it. In one day I put together a presentation on social media marketing, and I gave that presentation the day after. It was such a hit that within a week 3 of the people in that room were clients of mine.
That was quite a rush! Over the course of the next few years I'd build some websites for people and organizations, optimize them, and write some of their content. It was a nice way to make some extra money when I wasn't traveling as much, which came as we changed presidents and the economy was in the tank. Hospitals weren't hiring consultants, companies weren't doing any leadership training, organizations weren't hiring speakers outside of their area to save on costs… but writing gigs were everywhere.
Over time, it got tiring building websites, and it also wasn't overly economical anymore. I'm not a designer; I build basic websites that tell the story of a business; in other words, SEO friendly sites. These days, websites are either templates or monsters, both extremes from what I do, and I just don't have the time to keep up with the technology.
I still know SEO, but marketing it to people who have no idea what it is and learn that it doesn't necessarily conform to ROI (return on investment) like other businesses do was very difficult. Frankly, it's hard enough marketing my health care talents without trying to figure out how to market for something that, based on a person's business, might not work for them.
So, I stopped marketing overall, but I kept up with blogging. Not as much as with this blog, but I was still putting out the articles on some kind of schedule.
Then I got my last gig in Memphis, and I was gone for basically 18 months. Some of my blogs started to suffer.
apple in central New York
My local central New York blog probably suffered the most, but that was okay because it's a personal blog. My finance blog started to suffer as the quality of guest posts seemed to get worse, and I didn't have the time to read and fix all that stuff and still, hopefully, write my own articles here and there.
The blog on SEO Xcellence? Truthfully, many of the articles I wrote there work just as well on this blog. The differences were twofold, but neither major. One, the audience for that blog was, hopefully, business people who might be looking to hire someone to do the services that I was writing about. Two, most of those articles were much shorter than things I'd put on this blog. I've mentioned on this blog in the past about how what you write changes depending on who you're writing for.
Anyway, during my week at home over Labor Day week I came to a decision that it was time to shut down SEO Xcellence for good. As an act of serendipity, while thinking about it that week I got the notice from GoDaddy telling me that the domain would expire in the middle of December.
That's pretty perfect timing if you ask me. What I did next was go to the blog and highlight articles I thought I could use on this blog. Then slowly, over time, I moved all those posts over to this blog and saved them as drafts. I also went and looked at any articles I thought I could use here and saved them as well.
Whenever I did that I immediately made those posts private on the SEO blog. I did that because I knew that after some time they'd drop off the search engine's record, meaning that when I re-posted them over here I'd be good, and there wouldn't be any question of duplicate content. Actually, since all my sites are on the same server and under the same account I might not have taken a hit anyway, but why take chances right?
How many articles did I move? Well, let me just say that many articles you've seen over the last few months started over there, and if I decided just to pop what I brought over here up twice a week until they were gone, I wouldn't have to write another post until the first week of May. Now that's valuable stuff!
Not only that, but with some help from Mitchell Allen I've marked many articles on that site to be used to help create an ebook about blogging. Yeah, I know, there are lots of them out there, and our buddy Adrienne Smith just created her new course on building a blogging community (by the way, that's not an affiliate link for me; anything you buy goes totally to her) but at least it would be another product for me; gotta keep making stuff. 🙂 Anyway, more proof that there is always a use for old content.
In about 40 minutes or so, the very last blog post on that site will appear. It's very short, telling anyone who's ever read it (very few people I might add) that it's all going away, and to come here to look at why. Truthfully, I probably should have consolidated these two sites a long time ago. It's so much easier having all my similar content in one place, don't you think? Also, I'm not linking to it because, since the link would go bad in less than a month anyway, I'd have to remember to come back here to remove it.
Shutting down the other site and the other business takes a great load off my mind. I will never build another website unless it's for myself or a friend. If I get writing gigs, I'll get them because of this blog. If I get asked to speak at another conference, it'll be because of this blog.
I'm not the first person to shut down a blog, but I've seen many people do it, go on to something else, and not think about the content they have on that site. I'm also not the first person to shut down a business, as my buddy Peter and his brother shut down a business a couple of years ago. It's not an easy thing to do but sometimes it's necessary.
By the way, this actually aligns with some of the goals I set for 2014, and I actually mentioned that other business. Nice to see I will accomplish at least one of the goals I set for myself.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll be thinking about more things as time moves on also. Focus needs to be my goal because my eventually wished-for outcome is to have $10 million in the bank in 10 years. Yeah, it's pretty audacious; but remember, every rich person who made it on their own started with a dream. 🙂
And I can resume trying to build the audience up for this blog again; yay!
Re-purposing Content
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 10, 2014
A couple of years ago on a different blog I wrote an article talking about re-purposing blog posts. That post was more about internal linking by making sure to take old blog posts and add those links to newer posts to help enhance the SEO benefits of new content.
In this instance the concept of re-purposing content is more than talking about blogging. Most people have something that they've written previously somewhere on their computers. What they forget is that much of what was already written would make great blog posts or articles to put on their websites. If you're looking for a lot of content and don't have the time to write something new, going back through old files could provide you with what you need.
Some of it might need to be updated or edited but that's no big deal. Writing for people in your office or your clients is a bit different than writing for publicity or advertising purposes. Your other content might be written more directly or contain information that's probably proprietary in some fashion; no sense taking any chances that you'll put something out there that wasn't totally meant for the general public. I often find outlines on Excel spreadsheets that I can turn into blog posts or articles.
Unless you're a financial advisor, you probably have a lot of files that don't have time limits on what's going on. Tax information and investing changes don't fare well over time. Talking about products or processes can be timeless.
Even if some of your previous content is already online in other places, you can get some benefit out of it by linking to it and then writing about it, talking about what was on your mind when you wrote it, what changes there might be to it now, or anything else you can think of. After all, it was original when you wrote it, and it still represents you in a positive light. I do that all the time since I have multiple blogs; I think it's interesting using your own stuff for ideas, and the links could get people to visit your other spaces.
Take some time to go through some of your old files for new web content; you might be amazed at what you'll find.


text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Apr 24, 2001
|Filing date
|Nov 12, 1998
|Priority date
|Nov 12, 1997
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Danilo Pau, Fabrizio Rovati, Anna Valsasna, Roberta Bruni
|Original Assignee
|Stmicroelectronics S.R.L.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (8), Referenced by (30), Classifications (22), Legal Events (4)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
The present invention relates to digital circuits and, in particular, to a circuit for processing coded pixels of a video image.
The video compression algorithm MPEG-2 requires the calculation of the variance of macroblocks of pixels of a digitized picture. FIG. 1 is a high level diagram of an MPEG-2 compression system, according to the prior art. A description of the MPEG-2 functional blocks (1-11) are provided below.
Block (1) Frame Ordering. This block includes one or more field memories outputting the fields (pictures) in the order required by the MPEG standard. For example, if the input sequence is I B B P B B P, etc., the ordered output sequence will be I P B B P B B, etc. I is a field and/or a semifield (Intra-picture) containing temporal redundancy. P is a field and/or a semifield (Predicted-picture). Referring to the preceding I or P (coded/decoded) picture, the temporal redundancy has been eliminated. B is a field and/or a semifield (Bidirectionally predicted-picture). Referring to the preceding I and successive P (or preceding P and successive P), the temporal redundancy has been eliminated. In either case, the I and P pictures must be considered already coded/decoded.
Each frame buffer in a 4:2:0 format occupies the following memory space:
standard PAL
720 � 576 � 8 for luminance (Y)
= 3,317,760
360 � 288 � 8 for chrominance (U)
= 829,440
360 � 288 � 8 for chrominance (V)
= 829.440
Total Y + U + V
= 4,976,640
standard NTSC
720 � 480 � 8 for luminance (Y)
= 2,764,800
360 � 240 � 8 for chrominance U
= 691,200
360 � 240 � 8 for chrominance V
= 691.200
Total Y + U + V
= 4,147,200
Block (2) Motion Estimator. This block removes the temporal redundancy from P and B pictures.
Block (3) Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). This block implements a discrete cosine transform according to the MPEG-2 standard. The I picture and the error pictures P and B are divided in macroblocks of 16 by 16 pixels. These pixels are in turn divided in four blocks of 8 by 8 pixels upon which the discrete cosine transform is performed.
Block (4) Quantizer (Q). An 8 by 8 block resulting from the DCT processing is divided by a quantizing matrix. This in general may change for the different macroblocks of a pictures reducing more or less the amplitude of the DCT coefficients. In such a case, the tendency is to lose the information associated to the highest frequencies less visible to human sight. The result is rearranged and sent to the successive block.
Block (5) Variable Length Coding (VLC). The coded words output by the quantizer tend to contain several null coefficients followed by non-null values. The null values preceding the first non-null value are counted and the result provides the first portion of a word, the second portion of which is the non-null coefficient. Some of these "pairs" tend to assume values more probable than others. The more probable values are coded with relatively short words (2-4 bits), while the less probable values are coded with longer words. Statistically, the number of output bits is reduced compared to the case in which such compressing methods are not implemented.
Block (6) Multiplexer and Buffer. The data generated by the variable length coder for each macroblock, the quantizing matrices, the motion vectors and other syntactic elements are assembled together to construct the final syntax according to the MPEG-2 standard. The stream produced is stored in a memory buffer whose limit dimension is set by the MPEG-2 standard and cannot be expanded. The quantizing block Q ensures that such a limit is followed. This is done by making more or less drastic the quantizing process of the 8 by 8 DCT blocks, depending on the degree of approach to the filling limit of the buffer.
Block (7) Inverse Variable Length Coder (I-VLC). The functions of the VLC block specified above are performed in a reverse order by this block.
Block (8) Inverse Quantizer (I-Q). The words output by the I-VLC block are reordered in 8 by 8 blocks, each being multiplied by the same quantizing matrix that was used for its coding.
Block (9) Inverse DCT (I-DCT). The DCT function is inverted and applied to each 8 by 8 block produced by the quantizing process.
Block (10) Motion Compensation and Frames Storing (Frames Store). At the output of the 8 by 8 I-DCT block the following may be obtained. The decoded I field (or semifield) that must be stored for removing the temporal redundancy from successive P and B pictures. The prediction error P and B field (or semifield) that must be added to the previously removed information during the motion estimation phase. For the case of a P picture, the resulting sum is used during the process of motion estimation of successive P pictures and B pictures. In both cases, the decoded I and/or P pictures are stored in field memories distinct from those (used for frame ordering) defined in the paragraph above.
Block (11) Display Unit. This unit converts the fields from the format 4:2:0 to the format 4:2:2, and generates the interlaced format for the subsequent display of the image.
The functional arrangement of the above-identified blocks according to the architecture implementing the coder is depicted in FIG. 2. The block (1) of frame ordering, the block (10) for storing the reconstructed P and I pictures, and the block (6) for storage of the bit stream produced by the MPEG-2 coding are commonly integrated into dedicated external memories. The integrated circuit accesses these dedicated external memories through a unique interface suitably controlled by an integrated memory controller.
The video core block comprises the pre-processing unit which converts the received pictures from the format 4:2:2 to the format 4:2:0 by filtering and subsampling the chrominance. The post-processing block implements the inverse function during the phase of decoding and displaying. The coding blocks (3, 4, 5) and the decoding blocks (7, 8, 9) are integrated within the Encoding & Decoding Core.
The system controller coordinates the processing that is performed within the device. The system controller also calculates the quantization matrix to be used in the block (4) as a function of the state of filling of the buffer described above for block (6), and of the variance of the source picture macroblock, upstream of the motion estimation processing. Such a system controller may be implemented, as depicted in FIG. 3, by a processor that executes via software its supervising functions. Such a block may integrate a 32 bit core CPU of the Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) type. Plus, the block may integrate the subsystems needed for communicating with the external memory and control buses. A block containing the code to be performed may also be integrated.
In general, the coding algorithm for a frame size of M rows by N columns decomposed in macroblocks of R rows and S columns requires that M/R and N/S be even integers different from each other. Also, the calculation of a T (positive integer number) variance per macroblock, each calculated by starting from a block of size H (a submultiple of R) by K (a submultiple of S), is extracted from the macroblock according to a preestablished scheme with the possibility that each pixel belongs to more than one block, and the condition: T=2* (R/H)*(S/K).
Overall, for each frame it is necessary to perform (M*N)/(R*S)*T variance calculations, each over H*K pixels. For example, for the MPEG-2 algorithm R=S=16, H=K=T=8, M=576, and N=720 (for PAL format pictures). Therefore, 12,960 distinct variances are required, each based on 64 pixels. Such processing is so burdensome that it would require almost the full power of the CPU. In contrast, if such processing is assigned to a hardware accelerator (the VEE block of FIG. 3), a significant saving in terms of the power of calculation requested from the CPU is possible at the expense of a limited silicon area requirement, for implementing a specifically optimized accelerator.
The Variance Concept. The variances to be calculated are derived according to the ensuing description. As described above, the luminance component of a digital picture represented as a matrix of M rows and N columns of pixels, divided in R by S macroblocks which in turn are divided in T subsets or blocks, each of H by K size, is assumed to be known. Each pixel may be coded with 8 bits. For each subset, the variance is defined as follows:
For PAL format images, M and N are 576 and 720, respectively, and R=S=16, H=K=T=8 according to the standard MPEG-2. Each frame is thereafter divided in macroblocks of 16 by 16 pixels, starting from the upper left corner, as depicted in FIG. 4. The macroblocks are further subdivided in four adjacent 8 by 8 blocks. For each macroblock, eight variances must be calculated. Each variance consisting of the variance of an 8 by 8 subset (block) is derived from the macroblocks according to the manner that will be described later. The above mathematical formula for calculating the variance reduces itself to the following simplified expression that is applied to each subset. The input order of the pixels being from left to right and from the upper row or line to the line below it, though irrelevant in the calculation. Variances are calculated as follows:
Referring to FIG. 5, the eight subsets (b0, b1, b2, b3, b4, b5, b6, b7) are obtained in the following manner: the first four subsets are the four blocks forming the macroblock; the other four subsets are obtained by separating the even numbered lines or rows of each macroblock from the odd numbered ones. These are the odd field and even field components of each macroblock. Once the variances of the blocks have been calculated, the so-called activity of the macroblock, defined as max(v0, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7)+1, is calculated, wherein v0, . . . , v7 are the eight calculated variances. The activity of each macroblock contributes to the calculation of the quantizing matrix used in the quantizer Q of FIG. 1.
Standard Implementation of the Variance Estimator. The known implementation of the variance estimator, depicted in FIG. 6, includes eight distinct calculation blocks. Each block has the function of calculating, in parallel to the other, a single variance. Each of the eight parallel branches includes a filter/demultiplexer for catching only the pixels belonging to the relative block the variance of which must be calculated, in addition to the variance calculating circuit itself. This architecture has the drawback of replicating, for each variance to be calculated, parts that are functionally identical to each other. For example, the variance calculator always implements the same computation formula. Also, the filter/demultiplexers all perform the same functions, though with different parameters (each catching a selected subset of pixels).
An object of the present invention is to provide an optimized hardware accelerator capable of calculating the variance of macroblocks of a digitized video image for real-time coding of the current image together with the preceding and successive images, according to the video algorithm MPEG-2. Such an accelerator must subtract from the operations performed by the CPU which supervises the coding. The above-noted calculation work thus permits the use of less powerful CPUs than the ones that would be necessary in the absence of the optimized hardware accelerator. The proposed architecture minimizes the silicon area needed for implementing the hardware accelerator as compared to prior art implementations thereof, thus reducing costs.
The algorithm implemented in the variance estimator of the present invention exploits properties of the input data and of the mathematical formula of the variance to optimize silicon area requirements necessary for its implementation. In particular, the conveying of the pixels to the respective input lines of eight distinct variance calculation paths is implemented in a way as to be able to recognize by the use of a simple counter, to which variance the particular line of pixels belongs using two demultiplexers. This permits elimination of the use of eight distinct filter/demultiplexers of prior art architectures.
The different aspects and advantages of the invention will become more evident through the following detailed description of an embodiment and by referring to the annexed drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a high level diagram of an MPEG-2 compression stem, according to the prior art;
FIG. 2 is a high level diagram of an MPEG-2 coder, according to the prior art;
FIG. 3 shows the diagram of a system controller comprising a hardware variance estimator to alleviate the workload of the system's CPU, according to the prior art;
FIG. 4 shows the division of a frame in a plurality of macroblocks of pixels, according to the prior art;
FIG. 5 shows the formation of eight subsets of data for each macroblock for the MPEG standard, according to the prior art;
FIG. 6 is a basic diagram of a variance estimator according to the prior art;
FIG. 7a is a high level block diagram of the variance estimator, according to the present invention.
FIG. 7b is an illustration of the format of the input bitstream, according to the present invention;
FIG. 8 shows the sum and store function implemented in the variance estimator, according to the present invention;
FIG. 9 is a further diagram of the architect re of the variance estimator, according to the present invention;
FIG. 10 shows the cascade of adders used by the hardware accelerator of variance estimation, according to the present invention;
FIG. 11 is a diagram of the block performing the demultiplexing of the pixel/pixel2 pairs of the two pertinent variances by adding and storing the data for all the eight variances, according to the present invention; and
FIG. 12 shows the functional diagram that follows in cascade the diagram of FIG. 11 to produce the activity value, according to the present invention.
With reference to the diagram of FIG. 7a, the algorithm implemented by the hardware accelerator for estimating a variance according to the invention includes conveying the input lines (rows) to the eight distinct variance processing paths. By using two demultiplexers and a simple counter (LC) connected to the end of the processing paths, it is possible to recognize which variance a certain input line of pixels belongs. Thus, it is not necessary to replicate the prior art architecture as illustrated in FIG. 6, which used up to eight filter/demultiplexer blocks.
In fact, each line belongs to only two of the blocks or subsets of pixels identified in FIG. 5. One only from the group of blocks {b0, b1, b2, b3}, and one only from the group of blocks {b4, b5, b6, b7}. The value of certain specific bits of the counter LC are used as controllers for the two demultiplexers. This permits redirection in real time of the input lines of pixels, according to the two variances to which they pertain, without having to reread the input data several times and without duplicating the select logic of the input lines of the pixels for all eight variances.
Moreover, it should be noted that according to the sample implementation for a scan path of the lines of the macroblock according to the scheme depicted in FIG. 5, the control bits are the bits 7 and 6 for the demultiplexer v0-v3 and the bits 6 and 3 are the control bits for the demultiplexer v4-v7. However, depending on how the input lines of the macroblock are scanned, different bit patterns of the counter LC may be defined for properly commanding the multiplexers. All are appropriate because the fundamental condition that each single line belongs to only one of the blocks from b0 to b3 and to only one of the blocks from b4 to b7 is fulfilled.
The general rule is that given a certain pattern of lines across which the macroblock is scanned, the bits of the counter LC that drive the multiplexers may be accordingly chosen to exactly calculate the various variances. The counter LC is reset at the start of each macroblock and incremented by the arrival of each pixel. In this way, each line is read only once, without the need to store it within the variance estimator system. There is no need of duplicating for eight times the selection logic circuitry, thus achieving a markedly reduced engagement of the available memory bandwidth, as well as a much simpler and compact structure.
Without the architecture of this invention, it would be necessary to integrate eight distinct filters, each for selecting its own lines, as illustrated in FIG. 6. The variance calculator itself, as depicted in the diagram of FIG. 8, performs a reprocessing of the formula of the variance to minimize the registers and the combined logic circuitry required for its implementation.
In particular, the splitting of the various components of the summation permits storing in parallel the sums for performing afterward to the last addition and division operations. This is done upon arrival of the last pixel of the macroblock without the need of repetitive reading phases. In this way, the two summations are calculated in parallel in the blocks 2 and 3 of the diagram of FIG. 8 instantaneously upon the arrival of the pixels. Once all the pixels have arrived, it is possible to feed the results of the distinct summations to the upstream blocks without the need to reread some of the pixels. Without this feature, the value of m should be calculated beforehand, and thereafter, reread from memory all the data to calculate the variance. In the alternative, it would be necessary to store the pixels in dedicated internal registers.
The accelerator of the invention is a Variance Estimator Engine (VEE), which comprises the functional blocks depicted in FIG. 9. The core of the variance estimator interacts with the external world through a normal Direct Memory Access (DMA) engine for the input of the pixels, and for writing in a memory the results of the processing carried out (the calculated variance values and activity). The DMA reads from the central memory of the encoder system, macroblock by macroblock, a picture and inputs it to the core of the variance estimator, according to an alignment as the one shown in FIG. 7b. Starting from line 1 at the top left corner, all the lines of the macroblock are scanned down to line 32 before restarting again with line 1 of the next macroblock. As far as the architecture of the core is concerned, a first block, squares pipeline, calculates the square of each pixel for use later for the calculation of the variance. This is performed in the block 1 of the diagram of FIG. 8.
The downstream block, macroblock partials estimator, determines instead the summations of the values that are output by the blocks 2 and 3 of FIG. 8. The macroblock partials estimator also determines the demultiplexing of the various pixels to the relative variance they pertain to, according to the scheme depicted in FIG. 7a. In such a block, all the registers containing the stored sums of all the eight variances are integrated. The third block, variance and activity estimator, calculates the square of the value output by the block 4, the algebraic summations, and the final divisions for obtaining the variance values, and the activity from the partial results.
In more detail, the first block calculates a square every cycle by exploiting a pipeline of eight summations. In fact, a square value may be seen as a product by the same number and a multiplication is just a series of additions. In an 8-bit binary case, this process is reduced to the summation of eight addendums. The addendum N (N=0, 1, . . . , 7) will correspond to the pixel value shifted by N if the Nth position bit of the pixel itself (in consideration of the fact that we are multiplying the pixel by itself) is equal to 1, or by 0 in all other cases (the process being similar to the one followed when carrying out mutiplications "in column" by hand).
Each stage of the pipeline depicted in FIG. 10 propagates through the registers in cascade the value of the pixel, the value of the macro_strobe and operate signals (used by downstream blocks), and the partial result of the calculation of the square of the pixel. The stage N (N=0, . . . , 7) will deal with the addendum N of the above noted addition. If the relative bit of the pixel is set, the partial of the square will be incremented by the value of the pixel shifted by N bits to the left. Such a value is contained in the register PX_N. On the contrary, it will be propagated unchanged.
This implementation permits minimization of the area while ensuring the required performance, which is the ability to generate a square value every cycle. By exploiting the continuity of the data stream, the pipeline structure minimizes the average time needed for calculating a square (on the average, it provides a square value each cycle), thus avoiding implementation of a bulky look-up table.
The squares pipeline block has a throughput of a pair pixel-square per each clock pulse. The pair of values of a pixel and of its square are fed, together with the operate and macro_strobe signals, to the second processing block. The diagram of which is depicted in FIG. 11. The second processing block demultiplexes each pair of pixel/square in the two variances to which it pertains and carries out the summations of these pixels and of their squares for all the eight variance values to be calculated, upon the streaming of the data of a whole macroblock.
The bits of the counter LC (reset at the beginning of each macroblock and incremented at the incoming of each pixel) are used for selecting the two decoders that convey the distinct lines of pixels to the addition-storing registers that contain the partial values of all the eight variances (v0 v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7). The addition and storing registers effect the addition and the storing of the input data only if so enabled by the decoder command.
There are two banks of registers. One bank for the addition-storing of the pixels, and a second bank for the addition-storing of the squares of the pixels. Each bank consists of eight registers, one for each variance value to be calculated. The macro_strobe signal is used for recognizing the beginning of each new macroblock and resets the counter LC and the two banks of registers. The operate signal is used for stalling the registers and the counter if the input datum to the block is not valid. For example, the DMA has not been able to timely access the memory for reading the pixel.
At the incoming of the pixels, the two summations are calculated in sequence in the blocks 2 and 3 of FIG. 8. These summations will be completed for all the eight variance values at the end of each macroblock. When this occurs, the counter will have assumed the value 255 and this will raise the output_strobe signal. Each incoming pixel at the input of this block is conveyed to the selected one of the partials v0, v1, v2, v3 (by way of the bits 7 and 6 of the counter LC) and to the selected one of the partials v4, v5, v6, v7 (by way of the bits 6 and 3 of the counter LC).
For the two selected partials, a cycle of addition-storage will occur. That is, the final value of the register will correspond to the initial value plus the new input pixel. The content of the deselected partials will remain unchanged. At the end of each macroblock, all the 16 sums thus obtained (pixels and squares of the pixels for each partial) are fed to the downstream block called variance and activity estimator, whose diagram is depicted in FIG. 12. The operation of this block is controlled by the counter MC. This counter is reset by the input_strobe signal and incremented by the controlled subblocks.
When the output_strobe signal is active, the partial sums of the pixels and of the squares thereof are saved in the sum_st and prod_st registers, to be processed later. During the first eight values of the counter MC, the square— 14_� —14 block is active and calculates, in sequence, the eight squares of the sums of the pixels and saving the results in the squared_sum registers. This implements the functional block 4 of the diagram of FIG. 8.
The division operated by the block 5 is implemented by shedding the six least significative bits of the result. Once the calculation of these eight squares is terminated, the counter MC enables for eight cycles the block variance compute. During this phase, starting from the sums of the squares in the prods_st registers and from the squares of the sums in the squared_sum registers, the eight variances are calculated sequentially by way of subtraction. This realizes the node of algebraic sum of the functional diagram of FIG. 8.
The division operated by the block 6 is also implemented by shedding the six least significative bits. The eight variances thus produced are saved in the registers variances. Thereafter, the counter MC enables the activity compute block, which during the next eight cycles reads the eight variances and calculates the activity as the maximum value of variance plus 1.
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|Microsoft Corporation
|Dynamically adaptive multimedia application program interface and related methods
|Mar 30, 2004
|Aug 11, 2005
|Atul Puri
|Rate and quality controller for H.264/AVC video coder and scene analyzer therefor
|Apr 16, 2013
|Oct 23, 2013
|ViXS Systems Inc.
|Detection of video feature based on variance metric
|U.S. Classification
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|Nov 12, 1998
Owner name: STMICROELECTRONICS S.R.L., ITALY
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:PAU, DANILO;ROVATI, FABRIZIO;VALSASNA, ANNA;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:009583/0850;SIGNING DATES FROM 19981023 TO 19981110
|Sep 29, 2004
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Alessandra Arza and Katherine Zhu of the Pepperdine women's golf team were both named to the Women's Golf Coaches Association's All-American Scholar list again this week.
W. Golf - 7/6/2016
Golfweek Release | Pepperdine senior women's golfer Marissa Chow became a three-time Golfweek All-American this week as the publication awarded her honorable mention status. Previously, the Women's Golf Coaches Association also gave her honorable mention recognition.
W. Golf - 6/24/2016
Results | The Pepperdine women's golf team flirted with a top-six finish for much of Saturday's final round at the NCAA Stanford Regional, but unfortunately the Waves saw their season come to an end with a 10th-place finish.
W. Golf - 5/7/2016
Results | After Friday's second round of the NCAA Stanford Regional, the Pepperdine women's golf team is within just a couple shots of a top-six finish and a berth in the NCAA Championships.
W. Golf - 5/6/2016
Results | Patricia Wong and Marissa Chow had strong starts at the NCAA Stanford Regional on Thursday, putting the Pepperdine women's golf team close to the cut line after the first round of the event.
W. Golf - 5/5/2016
Notes | The Pepperdine women's golf team will attempt to qualify for the NCAA Championships for the 12th time in program history when the Waves compete at an NCAA Regional being hosted by Stanford this week.
W. Golf - 5/2/2016


text: Rob Ford Made Friends At a Toronto Nightclub Last NightJordan Sargent1/12/14 1:16pmFiled to: rob fordcrack logiccracktoronto1098EditInvite manuallyPromoteDismissUndismissHideShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalinkIt looks like Rob Ford got hammered last night — but you probably could've guessed that. Toronto's crackhead mayor popped up at the club Muzik on Saturday night and he wasn't shy about posing for photos with his adoring constituency. But, then again, he's never really been shy about being on camera, has he? Advertisement Sponsored Reply109 repliesLeave a reply


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Friday, September 9, 2011
Nothing interesting today
8 comments:
Hi! I totally get what you mean about reviews, I have written any in a while although I have notes on 5 books. For me I have to be in the mood to write otherwise it comes out like my 7 year old wrote it. I love the Mortal Instruments as well although I haven't read COFA or Clockwork Angel, sad I know :(ReplyDelete
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Neri @ In The Name of Books
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My blog is now an award free zone. I really appreciate the thought, but stopping by is reward enough for me. Thank you so much!!
I have been getting a ridiculous amount of spam comments so I have disabled anonymous comments. If you are an anonymous user and a real person, I apologize.
I love comments! I will try to respond to as many as I can. I read every one of them, even if I do not respond to them all.


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Rajasthan polls: Congress releases second list
By IANS - JAIPUR
Published: 07th November 2013 01:14 AM
Last Updated: 07th November 2013 01:14 AM
The Congress on Wednesday released its second list of 42 candidates for the Rajasthan assembly elections to be held Dec 1.
The party Nov 3 had announced its first list of 63 candidates.
The second list includes the name of Virendra Beniwal, a minister in the Ashok Gehlot government from Lunkaransar constituency in Bikaner district. The list also mentions names of senior Congress leader Bhanwar Lal Sharma from Sardarsahar in Churu district and state party spokesperson Archana Sharma from the Malviya Nagar constituency in Jaipur.
The party has retained some MLAs like Gajendra Singh Shaktawat from Vallabh Nagar constituency in Udaipur district, Udailal Ajana from Nimbahera in Chittorgarh district and Surendra Singh from Chittorgarh among others in the list.
Disclaimer: We respect your thoughts and views! But we need to be judicious while moderating your comments. All the comments will be moderated by the NIE editorial. Abstain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks. Try to avoid outside hyperlinks inside the comment. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines.


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"I dream of a world where anyone from anywhere is able to travel and see the many wonders that this world has to offer"
Hi, my name is Raphael Alexander and my goal in life is to inspire the people of the world to unleash their full inner potential.
In 2012 I left my old life behind to start a new life of travel and I haven't looked back ever since.
Would you like to do the same?
Welcome to Journey Wonders and may all your dreams of travel come true!
You can read all about me here.
-Read the latest Articles of Wonders-
The Ink of Wonders: The day I got a Sak Yant Tattoo in Bangkok
Want to hear all about the magical Sak Yant Tattoos ? Here's all you need to know including where to get one in Bangkok.
Should you let terrorist attacks change your travel plans?
Is irrational fear stronger than logic? Read all about the fear of travel to places targeted by terrorist attacks here.
The free Tuk-Tuk scam of Bangkok: How to turn a scam artist into your ally
Interested in knowing how to turn the tables on the the Tuk-Tuk Scam? Here's how to score a Free Tuk-Tuk ride in Bangkok!
6 Unmissable Travel Experiences in South Thailand
South Thailand is the most visited region of the Land of Smiles and here's a guide to the best places to see!!
The Do's and Don'ts of Sponsored Travel
Thinking about being a Travel Blogger? Here's what you should know about getting paid to travel the world.
Angkor Wat: how to avoid the crowds and have it all for yourself
Wanna know how to avoid the crowds at Angkor Wat? Read all about the secret to having Angkor Wat all for yourself.


text:
Free personalized radio that
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Your Baby (Can't Stand The Rain)
Features of This Trackmellow rock instrumentation
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adidas 'Ultra Boost' Running Shoe (Men)
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Asymmetrical straps give visual interest to a handsome thong-style sandal crafted in Spain from pure, supple leather and fashioned with a cushy footbed. Color(s): navy/ white leather. Brand: WANT LES ESSENTIELS DE LA VIE. Style Name: WANT LES ESSENTIELS 'Mateos' Slide Sandal (Men). Style Number: 5081277. Learn More
Men's adidas 'Adilette' Slide Sandal, Size 15 M
Contrasting stripes pattern the textured strap of a sporty slide outfitted with a comfortable contoured footbed. Color(s): black/ white/ black, bluebird/ light flash yellow, espresso/ blue, light scarlet/ white/ scarlet, navy/ white/ navy, night sky/ red, surf petrol/ solar orange. Brand: ADIDAS. Style Name: adidas 'Adilette' Slide Sandal (Men). Style ... Learn More
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Red Letter Christians
Red Letter Christians
A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics
Regal, Hardcover, 9780830745296, 256pp.
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
In today's political environment, who speaks for whom is not always clear. Over the past couple of decades, evangelical Christians have tended to be associated with the religious right and the most conservative positions of the Republican Party. Rebelling against this designation are those who prefer to be called Red Letter Christians, desiring to live out the red letters of Jesus' words in the New Testament. Believing that Jesus is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Red Letter Christians want to jumpstart a religious movement that will transcend partisan politics and concentrate on issues such as fighting poverty, caring for the environment, advancing peace, promoting strong families, and supporting a consistent ethic of life, all viewed as critical moral and biblical values. Into this arena of thought steps Tony Campolo, the powerful evangelist known for his passionate and prophetic sharing of the radical message of Jesus. In this book, Campolo examines many of the hot-button issues facing evangelicals from the perspective of Jesus' red-letter words in the Bible. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, Campolo will make you think, pray and act.
TONY CAMPOLO is professor emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE), an organizations that develops schools and social programs in various third world countries and in cities across North America, Dr. Campolo is an ordained minister and is presently recognized as an associate pastor of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia. He is a media commentator on religious, social and political matters, having guested on television programs like Nightline, Crossfire, Politically Incorrect, The Charlie Rose Show and CNN News. He cohosted his own television series, Hashing It Out, on the Odyssey Network, and presently hosts From Across the Pond, a weekly program on the Premier Radio Network in England. Dr. Campolo is the author of 33 books, including Letters to a Young Evangelical and Everybody Wants to Change the World.


text:
In 1948, when Julia Childs was still a new arrival in Paris, an unannounced visitor arrived at her doorstep. It was a tiny French cat. The expatriate invited the orphan feline in, named her Minette, and made her part of her household. With that, Julia later said, "Our domestic circle was completed." With letters and original interviews, this incomparable book reconstructs the third of her three great loves in life: cooking, her husband, and cats. An intimate account of a much beloved icon.
Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Catsby Patricia Barey, Therese Burson
View All Available Formats & Editions
The world knows Julia Child as the charismatic woman who brought French cuisine to America and became a TV sensation, but there's one aspect of her life that's not so familiar. Soon after the Childs arrived in Paris in 1948, a French cat appeared on their doorstep, and Julia recalled, "Our domestic circle was completed." Minette captured
The world knows Julia Child as the charismatic woman who brought French cuisine to America and became a TV sensation, but there's one aspect of her life that's not so familiar. Soon after the Childs arrived in Paris in 1948, a French cat appeared on their doorstep, and Julia recalled, "Our domestic circle was completed." Minette captured Julia's heart, igniting a lifelong passion for cats equaled only by her love of food and her husband, Paul. All the cherished feline companions who shared Julia's life—in Paris, Provence, and finally California—reminded her of that magical time in Paris when her life changed forever.
From Julia's and Paul's letters and original interviews with those who knew her best, Patricia Barey and Therese Burson have gathered fresh stories and images that offer a delightfully intimate view of a beloved icon.
Praise for Julia's Cats:
"A cat-centric biography of Julia Child? Why not? The back book jacket quotes Child herself as saying, 'Really, the more I cook, the more I like to cook. To think that it has taken me 40 yrs. to find my true creative hobby and passion (cat and husb. excepted).' This book ably braids these three strands of Child's life. The many feline fanciers out there will surely enjoy the photographs of the cats, many taken by her husband, Paul Child." —Chicago Tribune
"It's clear that all the cats that passed through her life gave her joy and comfort, probably in ways that food and even Paul could not. Having that perspective of this grande dame makes her seem all the more human and wonderfully admirable to me." —Epicurious
"This compact, entertaining read is filled with personal photos and letters that document the role cats played in Julia's life as she moved from Paris to Provence, Cambridge to California." —Shelf Awareness
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
- 9781419702754
- Publisher:
- Abrams, Harry N., Inc.
- Publication date:
- 08/01/2012
- Pages:
- 144
- Sales rank:
- 181,509
- Product dimensions:
- 5.74(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.72(d)
Meet the Author
Patricia Barey and Therese Burson own a media production company and have written, produced, and directed award-winning programs on a range of subjects. Barey's program on Chicago as a food mecca won an Emmy. Burson, who holds a PhD in English, has taught creative writing to undergraduates and adults.
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Julia Child's 2 Volumes of mastering French cuisine are among my favorite cookbooks. Too, I have enjoyed a few books about her life. Couple my admiration of Julia with my love of all things cat and this book, "Julia's Cats," is an absolute delight to read. The story is a quick re-cap of her life, focusing on her kitt of the day throughout her adult life. This is a quick and pleasant read that would make a fun gift to that cat and food lover.
Having just recently been adopted by an abandoned cat but having been a Julia Child fan for several years, I totally enjoyed this book. The photos are small jewels tucked inside the chapters. While I have read books by Julia and others, I still learned more about her and her love of cats. There is a whimsical tone to the book that seems to mirror Julia's love of life in France and in all of her kitchens. Savor these stories and read them lightly and try the recipe at the end!