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Disorder of Worship – An interview with Xulon author Drew Fryar
There are plenty of overwhelmingly scholarly theological volumes in which one can read about the minutiae of doctrinal differences—about hermeneutics and pneumatology and soteriology—and certainly there's a place for such study. Drew Fryar is more concerned with what happens in the trenches, with the (not so) little things that usually don't come up at church board meetings:
- When first time visitors come to your church, are there signs clearly directing them to the corral for their children?
- Does your church bulletin contain only a little about your charitable work? Ratchet it up: Where can food be donated? When does this church donate blood or volunteer at the battered woman's shelter? Include emotional pleas and clear details.
- Got rooms sitting empty for 90-percent of the week? [T]here is always one of these: A book club, basketball pick-up game, Bible class, Meals on Wheels stocking, after school tutoring, day care, luncheon, Kiwanis meeting, community education classes, English as a second language classes, free movie night, CPR training, cooking class, community theater rehearsal, knitting, quilting, first aid, benevolence (food, clothes, over the counter drugs, tools, utensils, bus passes, coupons, gift cards).
When I reviewed Disorder of Worship last year, I was struck by both Drew's conversational, self-effacing voice and his very pragmatic approach to addressing some of the problems he sees in today's church.
Drew, why did you write Disorder of Worship?
When you're a person of strong opinions, as I am, you're only going to feel comfortable at church if you're intimately involved. I wanted to tell every church I've ever gone to what it was doing wrong. When I couldn't hold it in any longer, I decided to write it all down. This isn't a hate book. I love the church. We need some tweaks because we're dying. Commonly, I think our churches that are leaking people have a tendency to think it was because they asked too much. I think we've been asking too little. We need more faith and more deeds.
Disorder of Worship concerns itself with practical guidance for greater spiritual engagement. What sort of reception to such a perspective—as opposed to one focusing solely on prayer meetings and such necessary, though ethereal, pursuits—have you noticed?
None. We can't all be bestsellers (Ha ha). But I think it will be difficult for some 95-year-old caricature to act like we're forgetting God's work. All of my ideas—most of my ideas—are about facilitating more faith. I want more prayer meetings, and potlucks, and signings, and…everything.
You wrote, "a church should be about the Lord's business." This seems so clear, and soundly biblical, so why do so many churches seem to miss the point?
Life gets in the way of Eternal life. You know when someone famously nuts guesses when the rapture will be and is always wrong? That still increases church attendance across all denominations. People are pretty sure that the guy is wrong, and all mainline churches say he's wrong, but people are that superstitious. But that's our nature. People want to work towards one moment; but that long, cold, slow walk towards forever causes us to forget that the GATES of hell will not stand up to our storming. Christians haven't stormed anything in…forever. Obviously, I'm not literally talking about storming the Bastille or Congress; but these days we'd like to think "not backing down" is our version of courageous.
It's still that simple statement that resonates with me most: A church should be about the Lord's business. One could do worse than to keep that thought firmly in mind in all things. Drew Fryar has crafted a very readable work—insightful, timely, honest, humorous yet filled with depth—that would not be out of place at the top of every church leader's Body of Believers Spring Cleaning Checklist.
Drew invites all to connect with him on Facebook. Or to email him at email@example.com. Or even to send a physical letter to him at 6411 Pacer Trail, San Antonio, Texas 78240. (It is not for me to say whether all are also welcome to show up at this address with casseroles.) "If you're in South Texas," Drew says, "I'd love to substitute preach for your congregation. Anywhere else and you'll have to fly me to you; but I'd still love to." Disorder of Worship is available through the Xulon Press Bookstore, Amazon.com and bn.com.
Tags: Spring Cleaning


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Fachbereich Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik
- Dissertation (39)
- Konferenzveröffentlichung (13)
- Preprint (6)
- Wissenschaftlicher Artikel (3)
- Bericht (3)
- Lehrmaterial (1)
- Sonstiges (1)
- Englisch (66) (entfernen)
- Thermal Modeling and Management of Multi-Core Processors (2014)
- The work presented in this thesis discusses the thermal and power management of multi-core processors (MCPs) with both two dimensional (2D) package and there dimensional (3D) package chips. The power and thermal management/balancing is of increasing concern and is a technological challenge to the MCP development and will be a main performance bottleneck for the development of MCPs. This thesis develops optimal thermal and power management policies for MCPs. The system thermal behavior for both 2D package and 3D package chips is analyzed and mathematical models are developed. Thereafter, the optimal thermal and power management methods are introduced. Nowadays, the chips are generally packed in 2D technique, which means that there is only one layer of dies in the chip. The chip thermal behavior can be described by a 3D heat conduction partial differential equation (PDE). As the target is to balance the thermal behavior and power consumption among the cores, a group of one dimensional (1D) PDEs, which is derived from the developed 3D PDE heat conduction equation, is proposed to describe the thermal behavior of each core. Therefore, the thermal behavior of the MCP is described by a group of 1D PDEs. An optimal controller is designed to manage the power consumption and balance the temperature among the cores based on the proposed 1D model. 3D package is an advanced package technology, which contains at least 2 layers of dies stacked in one chip. Different from 2D package, the cooling system should be installed among the layers to reduce the internal temperature of the chip. In this thesis, the micro-channel liquid cooling system is considered, and the heat transfer character of the micro-channel is analyzed and modeled as an ordinary differential equation (ODE). The dies are discretized to blocks based on the chip layout with each block modeled as a thermal resistance and capacitance (R-C) circuit. Thereafter, the micro-channels are discretized. The thermal behavior of the whole system is modeled as an ODE system. The micro-channel liquid velocity is set according to the workload and the temperature of the dies. Under each velocity, the system can be described as a linear ODE model system and the whole system is a switched linear system. An H-infinity observer is designed to estimate the states. The model predictive control (MPC) method is employed to design the thermal and power management/balancing controller for each submodel. The models and controllers developed in this thesis are verified by simulation experiments via MATLAB. The IBM cell 8 cores processor and water micro-channel cooling system developed by IBM Research in collaboration with EPFL and ETHZ are employed as the experiment objects.
- Investigate the hardware description language Chisel - A case study implementing the Heston model (2013)
- This paper presents a case study comparing the hardware description language "Constructing Hardware in a Scala Embedded Language"(Chisel) to VHDL. For a thorough comparison the Heston Model was implemented, a stochastic model used in financial mathematics to calculate option prices. Metrics like hardware utilization and maximum clock rate were extracted from both resulting designs and compared to each other. The results showed a 30% reduction in code size compared to VHDL, while the resulting circuits had about the same hardware utilization. Using Chisel however proofed to be difficult because of a few features that were not available for this case study.
- Investigate the high-level HDL Chisel (2013)
- Chisel (Constructing Hardware in a Scala embedded language) is a new programming language, which embedded in Scala, used for hardware synthesis. It aims to increase productivity when creating hardware by enabling designers to use features present in higher level programming languages to build complex hardware blocks. In this paper, the most advertised features of Chisel are investigated and compared to their VHDL counterparts, if present. Afterwards, the authors' opinion if a switch to Chisel is worth considering is presented. Additionally, results from a related case study on Chisel are briefly summarized. The author concludes that, while Chisel has promising features, it is not yet ready for use in the industry.
- Model-Based Cross-Design for Wireless Networked Control Systems (2013)
- This work shall provide a foundation for the cross-design of wireless networked control systems with limited resources. A cross-design methodology is devised, which includes principles for the modeling, analysis, design, and realization of low cost but high performance and intelligent wireless networked control systems. To this end, a framework is developed in which control algorithms and communication protocols are jointly designed, implemented, and optimized taking into consideration the limited communication, computing, memory, and energy resources of the low performance, low power, and low cost wireless nodes used. A special focus of the proposed methodology is on the prediction and minimization of the total energy consumption of the wireless network (i.e. maximization of the lifetime of wireless nodes) under control performance constraints (e.g. stability and robustness) in dynamic environments with uncertainty in resource availability, through the joint (offline/online) adaptation of communication protocol parameters and control algorithm parameters according to the traffic and channel conditions. Appropriate optimization approaches that exploit the structure of the optimization problems to be solved (e.g. linearity, affinity, convexity) and which are based on Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs), Dynamic Programming (DP), and Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are investigated. The proposed cross-design approach is evaluated on a testbed consisting of a real lab plant equipped with wireless nodes. Obtained results show the advantages of the proposed cross-design approach compared to standard approaches which are less flexible.
- AXI4-Stream Upsizing/Downsizing Data Width Converters for Hardware-In-the-Loop Simulations (2013)
- Hardware prototyping is an essential part in the hardware design flow. Furthermore, hardware prototyping usually relies on system-level design and hardware-in-the-loop simulations in order to develop, test and evaluate intellectual property cores. One common task in this process consist on interfacing cores with different port specifications. Data width conversion is used to overcome this issue. This work presents two open source hardware cores compliant with AXI4-Stream bus protocol, where each core performs upsizing/downsizing data width conversion.
- 100% Green Computing At The Wrong Location? (2012)
- Modern society relies on convenience services and mobile communication. Cloud computing is the current trend to make data and applications available at any time on every device. Data centers concentrate computation and storage at central locations, while they claim themselves green due to their optimized maintenance and increased energy efficiency. The key enabler for this evolution is the microelectronics industry. The trend to power efficient mobile devices has forced this industry to change its design dogma to: "keep data locally and reduce data communication whenever possible". Therefore we ask: is cloud computing repeating the aberrations of its enabling industry?
- New Solving Techniques for Property Checking of Arithmetic Data Paths (2012)
- The increasing complexity of modern SoC designs makes tasks of SoC formal verification a lot more complex and challenging. This motivates the research community to develop more robust approaches that enable efficient formal verification for such designs. It is a common scenario to apply a correctness by integration strategy while a SoC design is being verified. This strategy assumes formal verification to be implemented in two major steps. First of all, each module of a SoC is considered and verified separately from the other blocks of the system. At the second step – when the functional correctness is successfully proved for every individual module – the communicational behavior has to be verified between all the modules of the SoC. In industrial applications, SAT/SMT-based interval property checking(IPC) has become widely adopted for SoC verification. Using IPC approaches, a verification engineer is able to afford solving a wide range of important verification problems and proving functional correctness of diverse complex components in a modern SoC design. However, there exist critical parts of a design where formal methods often lack their robustness. State-of-the-art property checkers fail in proving correctness for a data path of an industrial central processing unit (CPU). In particular, arithmetic circuits of a realistic size (32 bits or 64 bits) – especially implementing multiplication algorithms – are well-known examples when SAT/SMT-based formal verification may reach its capacity very fast. In cases like this, formal verification is replaced with simulation-based approaches in practice. Simulation is a good methodology that may assure a high rate of discovered bugs hidden in a SoC design. However, in contrast to formal methods, a simulation-based technique cannot guarantee the absence of errors in a design. Thus, simulation may still miss some so-called corner-case bugs in the design. This may potentially lead to additional and very expensive costs in terms of time, effort, and investments spent for redesigns, refabrications, and reshipments of new chips. The work of this thesis concentrates on studying and developing robust algorithms for solving hard arithmetic decision problems. Such decision problems often originate from a task of RTL property checking for data-path designs. Proving properties of those designs can efficiently be performed by solving SMT decision problems formulated with the quantifier-free logic over fixed-sized bit vectors (QF-BV). This thesis, firstly, proposes an effective algebraic approach based on a Gröbner basis theory that allows to efficiently decide arithmetic problems. Secondly, for the case of custom-designed components, this thesis describes a sophisticated modeling technique which is required to restore all the necessary arithmetic description from these components. Further, this thesis, also, explains how methods from computer algebra and the modeling techniques can be integrated into a common SMT solver. Finally, a new QF-BV SMT solver is introduced.
- AmICA - Design and implementation of a flexible, compact, and low-power node platform (2010)
- Wireless sensor networks are the driving force behind many popular and interdisciplinary research areas, such as environmental monitoring, building automation, healthcare and assisted living applications. Requirements like compactness, high integration of sensors, flexibility, and power efficiency are often very different and cannot be fulfilled by state-of-the-art node platforms at once. In this paper, we present and analyze AmICA: a flexible, compact, easy-to-program, and low-power node platform. Developed from scratch and including a node, a basic communication protocol, and a debugging toolkit, it assists in an user-friendly rapid application development. The general purpose nature of AmICA was evaluated in two practical applications with diametric requirements. Our analysis shows that AmICA nodes are 67% smaller than BTnodes, have five times more sensors than Mica2Dot and consume 72% less energy than the state-of-the-art TelosB mote in sleep mode.
- A Gravitational Task Model for Target Sensitive Real-Time Applications (2011)
- For many years real-time task models have focused the timing constraints on execution windows defined by earliest start times and deadlines for feasibility. However, the utility of some application may vary among scenarios which yield correct behavior, and maximizing this utility improves the resource utilization. For example, target sensitive applications have a target point where execution results in maximized utility, and an execution window for feasibility. Execution around this point and within the execution window is allowed, albeit at lower utility. The intensity of the utility decay accounts for the importance of the application. Examples of such applications include multimedia and control; multimedia application are very popular nowadays and control applications are present in every automated system. In this thesis, we present a novel real-time task model which provides for easy abstractions to express the timing constraints of target sensitive RT applications: the gravitational task model. This model uses a simple gravity pendulum (or bob pendulum) system as a visualization model for trade-offs among target sensitive RT applications. We consider jobs as objects in a pendulum system, and the target points as the central point. Then, the equilibrium state of the physical problem is equivalent to the best compromise among jobs with conflicting targets. Analogies with well-known systems are helpful to fill in the gap between application requirements and theoretical abstractions used in task models. For instance, the so-called nature algorithms use key elements of physical processes to form the basis of an optimization algorithm. Examples include the knapsack problem, traveling salesman problem, ant colony optimization, and simulated annealing. We also present a few scheduling algorithms designed for the gravitational task model which fulfill the requirements for on-line adaptivity. The scheduling of target sensitive RT applications must account for timing constraints, and the trade-off among tasks with conflicting targets. Our proposed scheduling algorithms use the equilibrium state concept to order the execution sequence of jobs, and compute the deviation of jobs from their target points for increased system utility. The execution sequence of jobs in the schedule has a significant impact on the equilibrium of jobs, and dominates the complexity of the problem --- the optimum solution is NP-hard. We show the efficacy of our approach through simulations results and 3 target sensitive RT applications enhanced with the gravitational task model.
- Contributions to increase the power efficiency of OFDM communications (2011)
- This thesis has the goal to propose measures which allow an increase of the power efficiency of OFDM transmission systems. As compared to OFDM transmission over AWGN channels, OFDM transmission over frequency selective radio channels requires a significantly larger transmit power in order to achieve a certain transmission quality. It is well known that this detrimental impact of frequency selectivity can be combated by frequency diversity. We revisit and further investigate an approach to frequency diversity based on the spreading of subsets of the data elements over corresponding subsets of the OFDM subcarriers and term this approach Partial Data Spreading (PDS). The size of said subsets, which we designate as spreading factor, is a design parameter of PDS, and by properly choosing , depending on the system designer's requirements, an adequate compromise between a good system performance and a low complexity can be found. We show how PDS can be combined with ML, MMSE and ZF data detection, and it is recognized that MMSE data detection offers a good compromise between performance and complexity. After having presented the utilization of PDS in OFDM transmission without FEC encoding, we also show that PDS readily lends itself for FEC encoded OFDM transmission. We display that in this case the system performance can be significantly enhanced by specific schemes of interleaving and utilization of reliabiliy information developed in the thesis. A severe problem of OFDM transmission is the large Peak-to-Average-Power Ratio (PAPR) of the OFDM symbols, which hampers the application of power efficient transmit amplifiers. Our investigations reveal that PDS inherently reduces the PAPR. Another approch to PAPR reduction is the well known scheme Selective Data Mapping (SDM). In the thesis it is shown that PDS can be beneficially combined with SDM to the scheme PDS-SDM with a view to jointly exploit the PAPR reduction potentials of both schemes. However, even when such a PAPR reduction is achieved, the amplitude maximum of the resulting OFDM symbols is not constant, but depends on the data content. This entails the disadvantage that the power amplifier cannot be designed, with a view to achieve a high power efficiency, for a fixed amplitude maximum, what would be desirable. In order to overcome this problem, we propose the scheme Optimum Clipping (OC), in which we obtain the desired fixed amplitude maximum by a specific combination of the measures clipping, filtering and rescaling. In OFDM transmission a certain number of OFDM subcarriers have to be sacrificed for pilot transmission in order to enable channel estimation in the receiver. For a given energy of the OFDM symbols, the question arises in which way this energy should be subdivided among the pilots and the data carrying OFDM subcarriers. If a large portion of the available transmit energy goes to the pilots, then the quality of channel estimation is good, however, the data detection performs poor. Data detection also performs poor if the energy provided for the pilots is too small, because then the channel estimate indispensable for data detection is not accurate enough. We present a scheme how to assign the energy to pilot and data OFDM subcarriers in an optimum way which minimizes the symbol error probability as the ultimate quality measure of the transmission. The major part of the thesis is dedicated to point-to-point OFDM transmission systems. Towards the end of the thesis we show that the PDS can be also applied to multipoint-to-point OFDM transmission systems encountered for instance in the uplinks of mobile radio systems.

subset: commoncrawl


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Referendum signatures forged
OLYMPIA -- State officials doing the check on petitions submitted for the same-sex marriage referendum say they found what they suspect are about 1,000 forged signatures. . .
To read the rest of this post, or to comment, click here to go inside the blog.
About 50 petitions for Referendum 74 with possibly forged names were submitted by one person, who was a paid signature gatherer, David Ammons, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office, said in a press release. They are names of registered voters, but the signatures don't match the ones on file.
The Washington State Patrol is investigating the case, which will eventually be turned over to a county prosecutor. Forging signatures on an initiative or referendum is a felony in Washington, with a possible penalty of five years in prison or a $10,000 fine. Or both.
It would be the third time in as many years that a signature gatherer has been charge with forgery.
The forgeries were pulled out of the stacks of petitions before counting started and aren't expected to derail the efforts of opponents of same-sex marriage to put the law on the ballot for voters to approve or reject. Sponsors of Ref. 74 submitted almost twice as many signatures as needed, and of the 1,248 signatures checked Sunday, 1,130 or 90 percent, were good.
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Maurice Chevalier, (born September 12, 1888, Paris, France—died January 1, 1972, Paris), debonair French musical-comedy star best known for witty and sophisticated films that contributed greatly to the establishment of the musical as a film genre during the early 1930s. Characterized by a suave manner and using a cane and tilted straw hat and an exaggerated French accent as his trademarks, he also gained international fame as a stage personality.
Chevalier made his debut as a Parisian café singer in 1901. By the 1920s he was a famous entertainer in French musical revues and was appearing in French films. His first Hollywood film, The Innocents of Paris (1929), was the prototype of the popular gay and charming musicals that followed, in which he often costarred with Jeanette MacDonald—e.g., The Love Parade (1930), One Hour with You (1932), Love Me Tonight (1932), and The Merry Widow (1934). During World War II his popularity suffered because he continued to entertain in German-occupied France and on tour, but after the war he was cleared of suspected collaborationist activities. His later motion pictures included Love in the Afternoon (1957), Gigi (1958), Can-Can (1960), and Fanny (1961). In 1958 Chevalier received an honorary Academy Award for his more than 50 years of contributions to the entertainment field.


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tINDIE: an "Etsy for electronics" July 20
Buy, sell, and request DIY electronics projects
Tindie is a site for buying and selling homemade gadgets, kits and parts that's being described as "Etsy for electronics". The site is a one-man operation that came out of a post on the reddit board r/Arduino. The store has only been open for three weeks and already it is full of cool projects, from the practical (like the laser cut BeagleBone enclosure seen above) to the fanciful, like this CNC cut steel Iron Man Arc Reactor below:


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At Selective Asia we specialise in just nine countries, meaning that our knowledge and understanding of each is second to none. This focus, and our experience in tailor-made travel ensures we have all the tools required to create a truly unforgettable holiday experience.
Please take a look at the destinations we specialise in and the style of holiday, and honeymoons, that we create. We suggest you pay particular attention to the recommended holiday itineraries. Ultimately however, please get in touch to discuss your plans with one of our travel specialists. This will allow us to do what we do best - namely creating exceptional, tailor-made holiday experiences.
Call us: +44 (0)1273 670 001 Monday - Friday: 9am - 6pm Saturday: 10am - 2pm
Email us: [email protected]
Selective Asia 6th Floor, Tower Point 44 North Road Brighton BN1 1YR United Kingdom
Throughout January high rainfall can be expected across Sabah and fine days can quickly turn wet (and vice versa). Less rain is expected in the south of Sabah although road conditions to remote jungle regions such as Danum Valley and Tabin may be poor...Both the coastal and inland areas of Sarawak receive their highest rainfall of the year during January, courtesy of the north-east monsoon... more
The dry season continues throughout the month of January, with excellent conditions expected throughout Burma. January is peak season, as temperatures begin to rise and the entire country expects premium travelling conditions. In the south and along the west coast the beaches will be basking in sunshine, whilst the chill in the foothills and Shan region starts to lessen (although a jumper or fleece is still very advisable at night and in the early morning). The central plains will also be dry and hot although more manageable than in the months to come... more
Throughout January you can expect good weather conditions throughout the country, with blue skies, little or no rain and relatively cool temperatures (avg temp: 26 °C). This is amongst the most popular months to travel in Cambodia thanks to the temperate climate making longs days at the Angkor temples far more manageable.The beaches on the south coast are in full bloom... more
The dry season continues throughout the month of January, promising premium travelling conditions throughout Laos. Whilst little or no rain is expected across the country, temperatures remain moderate with Vientiane and Luang Prabang averaging 24°C whilst further to the south temperatures are higher, averaging 29°C or just tipping into the 30's°C in some parts... more
Whilst much of Malaysia will be enjoying sunshine and blue skies, the east coast destinations such as Tioman Island, Perhentian Islands, Terengganu and Redang Island will still be gripped by heavy rains and strong winds... more
A great month to travel in Sri Lanka, with the beaches along the southern and western coast all expecting plenty of sunshine and minimal rainfall throughout the month.To the east, the north-eastern monsoon should be starting to wind down, meaning that the National Parks of Yala and Wilpattu will also be hot and dry. The centre, Kandy and the hills of the central Tea Country, and to a lesser extent the Cultural Triangle, are likely to be receiving a little rainfall. Whilst the usual warm weathern is expected in the Cultural Triangle, temperatures in the Tea Country, especially around Nuwara Eliya, remain cooler due to the higher altitude (avg temp: 20 °C)... more
North Thailand is likely to be cool and dry, enjoying a refreshing breeze, perfect conditions for visitors in need of a break from the heat further south. Bangkok is also dry although warmer due in part to its lower altitude. In the south, conditions on the beaches are similar from one coast to the other, however whilst on the west you can expect little if any rain, the east will most likely be feeling the tail end of its rainy season and therefore the odd short shower is to be expected, especially early in the month. On both coasts you can expect a cooling breeze... more
Vietnam returns to its best with dry conditions expected throughout much of the country. Both the north and south enjoy sunshine whilst the central region steps out of its wet season, meaning the beaches of Hoi An, Danang and Nha Trang are back on the menu (joining the in season Phu Quoc, Phan Thiet & Mui Ne). There is a variation in the temperature from one end of the country to the other with the south being close to its hottest and the north experiencing cooler weather... more


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If you and your loved one are looking down the road toward living out your golden years together, be prepared to have a pile of cash stashed away to cover your medical bills.
Fidelity Investments has released its annual projection on health care costs for retirees and calculated that a couple retiring now will need $240,000 to get through their remaining decades. That's an increase from last year's projection of $230,000.
The bank had cut the number for the 2011 report, citing portions of the Affordable Care Act that should reduce seniors' out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs. But Fidelity says medical costs are still going up, thus the rebound from last year's unprecedented dip.
"As long as health care cost trends exceed personal income growth and economic growth, health care will still be a growing burden for the country as a whole and for individuals," says Sunit Patel, a senior vice president for benefits consulting at Fidelity.
A bit of a silver lining: The 4% year-over-year increase is less than the average 6% yearly increase the Fidelity reports have shown since 2002.


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FREE! The Counselor's New Service Announcement Kit
When you purchase Christian Counselor Rx, you also receive The Counselor's New Service Announcement Kit – FREE of charge. This 16-piece assortment announces to hurting people in your church & community, a new form of help through the new Biblical counseling Christian meditation tools you provide with your Christian Counselor Rx library.
Your New Service Announcement Kit is free to you and it includes the files to print any selection, combination, and any amount of:
four, full-sheet 8.5″ x 11″ flyers
four statement size announcements (function as church bulletin insert, handout, or postcard)
four bookmark announcements
four business card size announcements


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Give us a call to get our secret deals 1-800-468-3578
Property Location
Located in Hualien, Meci Hotel is minutes from Tianhuitang and Tzu Chi Cultural Park. This hotel is within close proximity of Meilunshanshengtai Park and Ziqiang Night Market.
Make yourself at home in one of the 42 air-conditioned rooms featuring refrigerators and LED televisions. Complimentary wireless Internet access keeps you connected, and cable programming is available for your entertainment. Private bathrooms with showers feature complimentary toiletries and hair dryers. Conveniences include desks and complimentary bottled water, and housekeeping is provided daily.
Don't miss out on recreational opportunities including karaoke and bicycles to rent. Additional features at this hotel include complimentary wireless Internet access and tour/ticket assistance.
Satisfy your appetite at a coffee shop/café serving guests of Meci Hotel.
Business, Other Amenities
Featured amenities include complimentary newspapers in the lobby and luggage storage. Free self parking is available onsite.
You must present a photo ID when checking in. Your credit card is charged at the time you book. Bed type and smoking preferences are not guaranteed.Your reservation is prepaid and is guaranteed for late arrival. The total charge includes all room charges and taxes, as well as fees for access and booking. Any incidental charges such as parking, phone calls, and room service will be handled directly between you and the property.


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Variety Insight premium subscribers can access phone, email and more.
Melissa Fallon-Miller
SVP, TV, Film & Digital, Davie Brown Entertainment
: Davie Brown Entertainment/The Marketing Arm, The Marketing Arm
Access the industry's most accurate development and production listings,credits,contact info, org charts, box office, TV ratings and more.
Want to see projects Melissa Fallon-Miller is developing? Visit Variety Insight .
Latest Headlines: Melissa Fallon-Miller


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I'm not a Pokemon person. My computer / console gaming history started in the late '70's and early '80's, and completely missed Nintendo. And to be honest, none of the Nintendo games really appeal to me- they are just a bit too 'twee'
Continue reading Pokemon Go- not totally stupid


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How To Keep The Idea Pot Bubbling
byCORPORATE CREATIVITY
How Innovation and
Improvement Actually Happen
By Alan G. Robinson and Sam Stern
Berrett-Koehler 277pp $29.95
A Fundamentally New Approach
To Management
By Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett
HarperBusiness 353pp $26
It was the kind of miscue that gets people fired. In 1980, a scientist at Snow Brands Milk Products, a Japanese dairy company, was fooling around with hot wires, testing the conductivity of milk--an experiment that had nothing to do with his job. One day, he forgot to turn off the electricity. Hours later he returned to it and found the milk had curdled.
Many workers in this situation would clean up the mess in a hurry, maybe flush the curds down the toilet, and thank heaven the supervisor hadn't noticed. But Tomoshige Hori studied the temperature graph and noticed an abrupt variation--one that apparently coincided with the curdling. This led Hori, over the next several years, to develop a technology to automate cheese production. The process was adopted by his company, and it spread around the world.
Was Hori's breakthrough simply a matter of luck for Snow Brands? Or was there something about the company, perhaps a sense of freedom and an openness to exploration, that led to the discovery? This is the question that Alan G. Robinson, a management professor at the University of Massachusetts, and Sam Stern, who teaches education at Oregon State University, grapple with in Corporate Creativity. Another book, The Individualized Corporation, by London Business School professor Sumantra Ghoshal and Harvard business school professor Christopher A. Bartlett, plows much of the same ground.
In Corporate Creativity, Robinson and Stern argue persuasively that great ideas, more than anything else, fuel corporate growth. Of course, it would be no trouble to harvest such ideas if they surfaced at executive meetings. But most of them, the authors note, crop up far from headquarters. The book brims with anecdotes about baggage handlers and part-time accountants whose ideas save companies millions, even hundreds of millions of dollars. So here's the twin challenge facing executives: Fire up your companywide brainpower to hatch ideas and make sure the ideas reach the people who can implement them.
Trouble is, to summon forth this gusher of brainwaves, most companies must undergo a cultural revolution. They need workers who go home at night pondering how to do their jobs better and managers who are all too happy to accept ideas challenging the status quo. This is the vision CEOs often preach to yawning underlings at corporate retreats. But neither these CEOs nor Corporate Creativity's authors have come up with a formula for turning companies into prodigious idea factories.
Still, Corporate Creativity is worth reading for its fascinating trek through the history of idea-hunting. For example, it takes us back to the imperious John Patterson, founder of National Cash Register Corp., who in 1894 moved his desk down to the dingy and dangerous shop floor and soon understood why his workers were so dispirited. Patterson quickly had the factory cleaned and painted, and many of the walls replaced with glass. Then he instituted a reward program to pay workers for their ideas. He would turn the company, he vowed, into a "hundred-headed brain." Backed by this idea system, NCR catapulted briefly to the forefront of Corporate America. However, Patterson's system, like the many imitators it spawned, merely worked to perfect the status quo. It did little to launch NCR toward bold changes and new businesses. In time, the ideas petered out.
No such slippage would be tolerated in the authoritarian idea mills of the Soviet Union, site of "the most ambitious effort in history to promote creativity," the authors say. There, central planners dating back to Lenin's day established rigid idea quotas. And, as Robinson and Stern show, responses were comical, tragic, and sometimes both. The authors describe an interview in the early 1990s, during which a worker explained how he and his colleagues came up with dozens of ideas every day. Holding aloft a piece of paper, which he said represented one idea, he folded it in half. "Two ideas, da?" Then, he folded it again. "Four ideas, da?" His point as he kept folding the paper was that they simply duplicated the same suggestions over and over. Another Russian worker suggested disabling the cumbersome safety device on a stamping machine he operated. The management enthusiastically agreed. And a few months later, the revamped machine chopped off that same worker's hand.
Moving on to consider the results at modern American corporations, the authors level shots at a few demigods in the idea pantheon. They describe the great successes at American Airlines Inc., where CEO Robert L. Crandall's suggestion program, IdeAAs in Action, has saved tens of millions of dollars. But Crandall's scheme, like NCR's, is focused on improving current practices, not on creating new ones. The danger is that the more a company refines its current system, the less likely it is to consider sweeping changes. The authors call it "creativity through the rearview mirror." Nor do they approve of 3M's rigid numerical targets for new-product development. This focus, they say, discourages researchers from improving existing products--a process that can also lead to breakthroughs. They note that 3M, recognizing this, has recently relaxed its quotas.
So what's the answer? There needs to be an excitement about work that produces all kinds of ideas, independent of rewards and quotas. These conditions, the authors stress, can exist in all sorts of workplaces, even in government. In another example, Corporate Creativity's authors tell the story of a bureaucrat working part-time for the Massachusetts state government. This was not someone who ordinarily would be invited to join a governor's blue-ribbon panel on medical-insurance reform. Yet she happened to know the Medicaid process inside out, and she came up with an idea--which, it should be noted, shifted costs from the state to Uncle Sam--and eventually saved Massachusetts some $1.4 billion. The savings greatly helped to balance the state budget. To produce insights like this, the authors note, employees must not only be given free rein to think and plenty of information. They also require managers who'll push the ideas to the top.
In The Individualized Corporation, authors Ghoshal and Bartlett detail a classic case of corporate sclerosis at Westinghouse Electric Corp. and contrast it with more successful approaches at such places as ABB Asea Brown Boveri, Intel, and General Electric. Like scores of other business books, including Corporate Creativity, The Individualized Corporation argues that top managers should break down the hierarchy and free their troops to make their own decisions. No surprise there. The book features loads of business jargon--"As important as the various informal structural overlays were in creating new integrative channels and forums, [CEO John F.] Welch recognized that unless he could change GE's slow-moving bureaucratic culture, the cross-unit processes he had framed would never become effective," we're told. This, along with incomprehensible flow charts, make it a very rough read.
Both these books are likely to wind up on reading lists for various corporate retreats in the coming year. Corporate Creativity is by far the better choice. But a warning to executives considering assigning the book: Robinson and Stern paint a beguiling picture of what an open-minded, creative workplace could be. Some employees, unmoved by the usual exhortations, may be tempted to pick up and search for a place where their ideas can make a difference.


text: Patrick Kane: A Portrait In InebriationDavid Matthews6/11/10 4:00pmFiled to: Stanley CupChicago BlackhawksChicago blackhawks victory paradePatrick KanePatrick kane drunk at victory paradeDrunksTwenny cent30EditPromoteShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalink Via NBC Chicago, here's a compilation of Kaner during the Blackhawks' victory parade today in Chicago. Watch him chug champagne, catch crowd beers, drink from the Cup, and slur his speech with the moxie of a 10-year veteran. Video inside.Reply30 repliesLeave a reply


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I have been involved with electronics for most of my life. Computers. Transistors. Integrated Circuits. Radios.
But the realm of high voltage has always been a different universe to me. Things that are well-behaved at battery power are chaotic at high tension. Construction techniques that are conservative at household voltages are brazenly sloppy when introduced to ten thousand volts. Everything needs to be rethought.
Why is this arcing? Where is that purple glow coming from? What was that green flash? Why is that steel thing melted? Will these burns heal themselves or should I go to the hospital? Speak louder, I can barely hear you after the explosion.
Unless you're working during a thunderstorm, you don't say these things. Metal doesn't melt when you're programming an Arduino microcontroller.
People who build Tesla coils say these things all the time.
I want to explain Tesla Coils to you. I want you to know why they are not magic and how they work. I want you to know why there are almost no female Tesla Coilers and why guys who spend a lot of time making lightning with Tesla coils have a very difficult time getting dates and maintaining relationships. I want to try to explain to you why in the 21st century anyone would go to the trouble of fabricating a device that can kill or otherwise seriously injure its creator and innocent bystanders, and which after over a century of effort has been proven to have no actual value other than to render the builder less attractive to others.
I want to explain to people what I have done and why I'm so interested in this weird, dangerous, useless device.
I'm not sure I can. It may take me several essays. I'll try my best, then, to tell you what it is.
First, I need to explain resonance.
As this is the internet, we don't need a history lesson. You can click on Nikola Tesla and find out all about him and the inventions that bear his name. But because I don't want you to stop loving me, I want to explain the coil to you in iceowl terms. I want you to know the concepts and pictures that are rolling around my brain. I hope it works.
Ok, darling. Let's think about frequency.
The natural frequency of an object is the way it vibrates when it is "pinged" by something. Think of a bell. You ping a bell and it rings at its natural frequency. The note or tone of a bell has to do with its size. Big heavy bells make low sounds. Tiny bells make high sounds. The size of something and what it's made of determine its natural frequency, and just about everything has a natural frequency.
If you go around pinging something at its natural frequency, you are said to be in resonance with it. When you ping something at its resonant frequency, you cause the vibrations to build up, and reinforce each other, exactly in the way you push someone who is on a swing in a park. You keep adding small pushes at exact the right time, and the person on the swing goes higher and higher.
In a Mythbusters episode they reproduced one of Tesla's experiments with resonance by determining the natural frequency of an unused truss bridge, and then created a device which would "ping" the bridge with a pneumatically actuated rod that struck the bridge at exactly that same frequency, thereby causing the bridge to resonate. The tiny vibrations caused by the air-powered pinger were timed at exactly the right frequency to cause the pings to add up. Eventually they got the whole bridge to shake just by hitting it with a tiny metal rod, over and over, at exactly the right time.
Electronic devices resonate too and are filled with all sorts of resonant circuits. Every radio transmitter, be it WiFi, or GPS, or 4G telephone, or AM radio, has a circuit to spit out electromagnetic waves that is "tuned" to a specific central frequency. Similarly, the receiver of such radio waves has an input which is "tuned" to a frequency. That thing that does "tuning" is a circuit which is resonant to the chosen frequency. It vibrates well at the frequency you desire, and not so well, or not at all, at other frequencies.
Think of a tiny bell. Could you get a tiny bell to sound like a gong? No way. No matter how hard you hit it, it's just going to make its tiny bell "ting". It vibrates at its natural frequency, and no matter how much you try to get it to resonate at a different frequency, you're going to fail. You're going to get nothing out of it, till you hit the frequency it's happy with. That's the bells "tuning", and there are electronic circuits that work exactly the same way.
There are lots of ways in electronics to tune something or to resonate at a particular frequency. But a common simple way is to use devices called capacitors and inductors and connect them together. Capacitors are devices that store energy in electric fields. Inductors are devices that store energy in magnetic fields. Magnetism and electricity are two aspects of the same thing (light, actually) and are related by all sorts of physics. Suffice to say that when you put these two items together in a circuit in your iPhone, they shuttle energy back and forth between each other at a certain frequency, converting magnetic fields to electric fields and back again. They do this reliably at a frequency determined by their size, and so they're said to be resonant at that frequency, just like a bell is when you strike it.
I would tell you the equation of resonant frequency given the value of the capacitor in farads and the inductor in henrys, but they say you lose half your readers as soon as you introduce math. Therefore I'll just say that the number pi is involved, and whenever pi is involved the natural world is all tangled up in your invention.
Which is to say that nature is involved in resonance.
Tesla made his coil to transmit power without wires. He was going to do it by electrically vibrating the earth. The idea he had was that if you could knock down a building by tapping it gently at its resonant frequency (he nearly did that for real) perhaps you could tap the earth at its resonant frequency and build up enough "pressure" in the form of electricity that anyone anywhere could just hang a sort of antenna off of something and power would flow into that thing.
Forget about the fact that resonating the earth, if it was even possible, might have other serious consequences - perhaps shattering the earth into tiny fragments. And then, of course, we can worry - what about things that are sort of accidentally connected to wires of the right length and power flows into them? But nobody was concerned about that. They were too busy trying to fly.
And in fact, it is possible. It's just really expensive and hard to do. Tesla kept building bigger and bigger resonators, but he never got to the dream of global wireless power distribution. Nowadays Tesla coils are relegated to museums and people's garages. Some guys, like Greg Leyh, actually still aspire to a version of Tesla's original idea. Lightning on Demand is such an effort going on today in the Nevada desert. www.lod.org
By the way, all radio works, more or less, by vibrating the earth. So this is no kind of unusual magic nor has it been for nearly 100 years.
The Tesla Coil is a remarkably simple device as electronics go. And there are people who will still say, "Nobody knows how they work," but really, that's just to maintain the aura of mystery. If there's anything as of yet unknown about Tesla coils it's only because they have such little practical use that there has been no industrial or governmental effort of enough size to produce a detailed analysis. As such, it's left to enthusiasts to provide the data for the physics. Though detailed knowledge of the physics is not necessary to build a successful coil.
It doesn't make it any less amazing to see one running.
A Tesla coil is two magnetically linked resonant circuits. That's it.
Oh, woah. What the hell does that mean? We love you but we can't understand you. Do you want a cookie?
Yes, cookie, please. Here's an explanation:
A resonant circuit, as I mentioned above, is a connection of circuit elements that vibrate at a certain frequency when electrically "pinged". In this case, we're talking about an inductor and a capacitor, which shift energy back and forth between electric and magnetic fields. The sloshing of energy back and forth happens at the "resonant frequency". In fact, a Tesla coil has two such circuits. One is an input circuit, and one is (surprise) an output circuit. Each one has one inductor and one capacitor, and energy sloshes back and forth in each one of them at a particular resonant frequency.
So you have these two circuits, each of which has one inductor and one capacitor, and energy sloshes around in each of them at a certain frequency. Now, what is an inductor - actually - and what is a capacitor?
An inductor is a coil of wire. That's pretty much it. You take some wire, coil it up, voila, inductor. Another word for inductor is "electromagnet," and perhaps you have some intuition about that. Put electricity into a wire coil, and you can pick up nails with it. They use electromagnets to lift ferrous garbage at the junk yard. Another thing about wire coils is you can wave a magnet around them and they generate electric potential and current. Inductors are just typically very weak electromagnets.
A capacitor is two flat plates of something that conducts electricity, like aluminum foil, for instance, that arranged to face each other with some kind of gap between them. Imagine a piece of aluminum foil. Now cover it with your teflon cutting board. Now put another piece of aluminum foil on top of the cutting board. Now connect a wire to the top foil piece and another wire to the bottom foil piece. Voila, capacitor. If you were to connect that to a battery, it would actually store a little (very little) electricity that would come out when you took the battery away and connected the wires to something like a meter.
In fact, the input circuit of a Tesla coil has a coil of wire and so does the output circuit, but they're made up of wire of different thicknesses and length - but they're still recognizable as wires. The capacitors are very different in structure between the input and output circuits, and it might be hard to tell what they even are by looking at them. The capacitors on the input circuit are frequently store-bought cylinders with wires coming from them. The output capacitor is a big metal donut that sits atop the tall coil of wire that is the output inductor.
Now there is another circuit element in electronics called a transformer. You have seen transformers. They're on the power poles near your house and in those little black power supply thingies you plug into the wall that charge your cell phone and run your laptop. Transformers all function by the same principle, and they're everywhere thanks to Tesla.
A transformer works on alternating current. A transformer is two coils of wire placed close together. When AC electricity is run through one of the coils, it sets up an alternating magnetic field. That magnetic field is "felt" by the second coil, which produces electricity (remember the electromagnet thing?) One coil is the input, and one coil acts as the output. If the size of the wire is exactly the same in both input and output, and if there are the same number of loops of wire in the input as the output - the voltage and current are the same in the output as the input (ok not exactly, but for the sake of argument...). But the output and input are not connected directly by wires, only by the magnetic field. So you get electricity from the output coil just because it's picking up the magnetism spit out by the input coil.
Now - what if the input coil has a different number of loops of wire than the output coil? Well, say the output coil has 10 times more loops than the input coil, you can get 10 times more voltage at the output as you put on the input. Similarly, if the output coil has 10 times less loops than the input, you get 10 times less voltage. Thus, when you plug in one of those black wall warts to charge your cell phone, and you present the input coil with 110V (if you live in the U.S. - 220V if you're in Europe) if the output coil has 10 times less loops than the input, so you only get 11V at the output. Thus you have transformed 110v into 11v, which makes it safe to plug in you cell phone.
There are other circuit thingies in the wall wart which change AC to DC - but let's not get wrapped up in that. And secondly, just because the voltage has gone from 110V to 11V doesn't mean you have necessarily thrown away all the other volts. And just because you can create higher voltages with more loops on the output doesn't mean you're getting something for nothing. It's not magic. It actually costs energy to make those extra volts.
The important thing to note is that transformers can make smaller voltages out of bigger voltages, but they can also make even bigger voltages out of smaller voltages by putting two coils of wire close together and allowing them to connect magnetically. Transformers that make small voltages from big voltages are called "step down" transformers, and transformers that make higher voltages from smaller ones are called "step up" transformers.
Tesla coils are step up transformers. They step up the voltage between their input and output by many times.
So now you have two resonant circuits, bouncing along at their natural frequency, and you connect them magnetically and you step up the input voltage by a whole lot.
The result is absolutely gorgeous and undeniably attractive to most males of the species.
This is called plasma. As much as boys love sex and sports and beer and rock and roll, boys love plasma fireballs.
More about Tesla coil structure: The input circuit of a Tesla coil, as with all transformers, is called the "primary". The output is called the "secondary". The primary circuit is driven by high voltage. We're not just going to give it 110V house current - oh no. That's wimpy stuff and wouldn't make lightning.
What we do is use a step-up device to increase house current to high voltage before we put it in the Tesla coil to get stepped up some more. There are various techniques to do this. I use one of the old styles in my Tesla coil. My primary is driven by a neon sign transformer. Neon signs are everywhere, and they require between 5000 volts and 15,000 volts to light up, depending on the size of the sign. Neon sign transformers take 110V house current (in US) and step it up to 5000 volts or more. My NST (neon sign transformer) has an output voltage of 15,000 volts and you only have to plug it into 110 volt house current to get the 15,000 volts. I connect the 15,000 volts of my NST to the input of my Tesla coil.
My Tesla coil primary has 17 loops (called "turns") of "wire". In my case the wire is copper refrigeration tubing, 1/4" in diameter. My secondary coil has a couple thousand turns of 30-gauge magnet wire. Thus my voltage step up is in the range of 50 times or maybe 100 times. (It's not a simple multiplication of 17:2000 because of something to do with the magnetic coupling - but it's a lot.)
My input is 15,000 volts, and I'm stepping that up by about 50 or 100 times. That means my secondary can have over a million volts on it when the coil is running.
Excuse me, but merely typing those numbers gives me orgasmic goose bumps of glee.
There's one other interesting piece of the Tesla coil. Simply presenting 15,000 volts of alternating current to the Tesla coil primary doesn't do very much for a couple reasons. Most interesting reason is that the frequency of the electricity coming out of your wall socket is 60hz (50hz in UK), which is very low indeed. That means the electricity sloshes back and forth out of your socket 60 times per second. Most radio transmission occurs above 1,000 hz. FM radio is in the realm of 100,000,000 hz. Satellites are in the realm of 2,000,000,000 hz. And your typical Tesla coil is tuned to somewhere between 90,000 hz and 250,000 hz.
So how to do you get lots of hertz out of so few hertz coming from your wall? Even the NST with all its 15,000 volts is just vibrating at the same frequency of the wall - 60hz. Well, the input to the coil is a tuned circuit, so if you "ping" it electrically, it will ring like a bell at its resonant frequency. In the case of my Tesla coil, I make the "pings" by connecting the 15,000 volts to a spark gap.
A spark gap is simply two bare wires that are reasonably close together but not touching. There's nothing but air between them. If you raise the voltage between the wires high enough, the air between the wires ionizes, and an electric current flows through the ionic path between the wires making a great snapping sound and a bright flash of white light. It's pretty much the same as an electric arc welder, or a brilliant searchlight arc lamp.
The spark gap in a Tesla coil acts as a switch that opens and closes as the arc forms and then extinguishes several times per second, thereby making electric pulses that act like "pings" to a bell. The inductor and capacitor on the primary circuit slosh the energy from the neon sign transformer back and forth between electric fields and magnetic fields at the resonant frequency which is thousands of times per second. This sloshing creates a magnetic field which is "felt" by the secondary coil and sets up a voltage there, which in turn creates a sloshing between the inductor and capacitor on the secondary at many thousands of times per second.
Now you have very high voltage, very high frequency things happening in the secondary of your Tesla coil. And the way you wire up a Tesla coil secondary is you connect one end of the long coil of many loops to the ground - the earth itself. And you put a metal donut on top. That acts as the capacitor, but also becomes an electrode connected to the sky. So the Tesla secondary is connected to the ground, and the sky. It's not connected to the primary circuit by anything but air and magnetism.
The result is that you're actually vibrating the electric stuff of the planet with very high voltage at high frequencies, and the air surrounding the coil can't take it. It explodes into a plasma of purple lightning around the high intensity electric field.
Then you have your own private lightning storm.
Lightning is loud - and arcs of purple plasma are very loud. They shatter the air with resounding cracks many times per second, so it sounds like the buzzing of a billion unhappy bee ghosts. If you do this indoors, it will leave your ears ringing.
The arcs snake sinuously through the ether, reaching out and grabbing for reality itself, then disappearing just as quickly as if drawn back into the coil like a genie into a bottle.
At first you wonder: will it implode the neighborhood into a black hole? Will it destroy our way of life? Then you wonder if it will burn down your house. And then when the neighborhood is still intact and the house is still standing, you do the classic Tesla coil experiment, which is to hold out a fluorescent bulb and watch it burst to light in your hand as if it is plugged in.
Power is being transmitted through the space between you and the coil to light the bulb in your hand. It happens invisibly. The arcs of lightning never touch you - and you'd be very badly burned if they did. In fact, you are being caressed by the less powerful fingers of electricity that are invisible. All the while purple and white arcs of plasma writhe and roil near the toroid atop your secondary.
Then, if your mind is still clear, you wonder: "if power is shooting out and lighting this bulb in my hand, and lots of invisible electricity is going all over the place, I wonder if power is getting into all my household electronic devices - and I wonder if random shooting power will blow them up?"
If you are smart you now shut off your private lightning storm. You go and check your stuff.
If you are lucky - very very lucky, then everything still works.
More likely, something electronic that you own and love has been touched by the invisible fingers of lightning and is now officially junk.
"It's my creation.Is it real?" - Weird Science, Oingo Boingo
People have asked me, "Iceowl, why build a Tesla coil? What are they good for?"
The answer to those questions are: One - "Because I must." Two - "See answer number one."
Tesla coils are potentially lethal devices. Yet there are no recorded deaths via coil. Though it could be that when the morgue receives a steaming electrically fried human carcass, the cause of death is simply listed as electrocution.
So nobody knows exactly how many deaths have occurred due to exposure to coil arcs because the last thing the EMTs are going to suspect is that some enterprising household engineer has zapped himself to death trying to resonate the planet.
Building a Tesla coil takes some ingenuity. A coil project will take you anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. It's kind of like trying to build a bicycle from scratch - it's a simple electronic device, yet devilishly complex to tweak to get to function well. If you're used to fixing electronic things you're used to sticking your hands and probes into various circuits while they're running to perform tests. Try that with your coil and you fry.
Coils take a lot of tuning. The primary and secondary have to be tuned to transfer magnetic energy. This requires tweaking of various wires and clips. Touch those clips while the coil is running and you fry. Turn your coil off and approach it before the capacitors discharge and you fry. Approach the toroid thinking - "all the sparks are coming from the front I'll go to the other side."
You get what you get. A bolt hits you - and you burn from the inside out. Skin unbroken and fair, burned mass inside. Just like getting hit by lightning.
And you have no one to blame but yourself.
There are numerous resources for the budding coiler. www.pupman.com is the TCML, or the Tesla Coil Mailing List. Lots of info and experience there. www.4hv.org has a lot of hard-core coilers.
Coilers are a helpful lot. But coilers are not like the rest of civilization. Think of the Society of Creative Anachronism where the jousters use sharpened magnesium-tipped lances. Think of Civil War reenactments with real cannonballs. Coilers exhibit a form of geekyness beyond that suffered peacefully by most geeks. www.geekgroup.com will give you an idea that the mania extends beyond just coiling. I wish it were not - but it's true.
In nearly a year of coiling I've run into exactly zero woman coilers. I can only guess that it's too much *much* for women. We coilers must be so instinctually foul we repel mates. Speaking in evolutionary terms - nature is pissed we weren't eradicated in the 19th century and prevents us from generating spawn.
Coilers may be ostracized and repellent but we are a helpful lot when it comes to assisting our bretheren.
Coilers have offered to come to my home to assist in coating my secondary with polyurethane. They have offered to teach me how to tap bars of steel. They have given me e-mail explanations running into tens of pages on subjects like: asynchronous spark gaps versus synchronous spark gaps. The correct MOVs for your Terry filter. The virtues of DRSSTCs (Dual Resonant Solid State Tesla Coils). How to spin aluminum to make topload toroids. Where to get your own pole pig. (A pole pig is the kind of transformer you see mounted on the sides of power poles. They're owned by the power company. If you can get your hands on one, it's a coiler's Valhalla. With a pole pig you can make a mightily powerful coil with lightning bolts that span entire backyards.)
It took me about two months to get my coil from concept to first light - that is, my first purple sparks.
Coiling is an obsession that links us to the guy who first conceived the earth could be resonated by human kind. It's strange and off-putting to the family and friends of the coiler. I show my coil to everyone. I've had reactions ranging from revulsion and fear, to sheer ecstasy from friends.
In the twenty-first century the Tesla coil does nothing. Serves no purpose. Tesla himself kept building bigger ones, sure that sooner or later he'd break through. But break through to what? What the hell was he really thinking when he felt his dead mother was being channeled through white doves with radiant red eyes?
We don't know. But we're with him. There's a zen electrical engineering spirit connection across the decades.
We keep coiling, and not one of us quite knows why.
One day, when I was well into tuning my first big coil I asked the pupman mailing list - "Ok, so tell me. Once you've got your coil tweaked and power maxed, and the purple lightning is 10' long and dangerous to all your neighbors, what do you do with the thing?"
Came the reply: "Put it in the corner of your garage and get a pole pig and build a bigger one."
Latest video of my coil is at http://yfrog.com/2opropellerrunz
It's a lot more threatening in real life.
He who created me filled me with sparks and lightning.
And therein lies my dialog with God.
Update: Upon conference with experts and doing the math, it turns out the max voltage in my secondary is actually closer to 630kV, than a megavolt, as I postulated in the text above. Still pretty high voltage, but not quite the million volts I thought. Well, back to the drawing board for more power. Also, if you want to get really technical about it, my poetic statement about radio vibrating the earth is not as true as Tesla would have liked it to be. If one NEEDED to vibrate the earth (or any other planet, for that matter) to make radio work, there would be no such thing as radio astronomy or satellite communication. However, as a young man building my own radios, and as a ham today who still transmits over wires, I am still amazed how we simply neglect the fact that we (nearly) always include an earth ground in our antenna system to make it work well. Yes yes yes. We include the ground because it provides a zero-volt reference and stable point. But durn. It still makes earth part of the antenna system. Gee wiz, guys.
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text: Send Text Messages From Your Email AccountJason Fitzpatrick11/28/08 11:00amFiled to: SMSEmailText MessagingTextingCell Phones37EditPromoteShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalink Three years ago we showed you how to send a text message via email to the six major carriers in the US. At the tips and tricks blog MakeUseOf, they've compiled a list of over sixty domestic and international carriers and the corresponding email address formats used for each. In the screenshot to the left, you can see the format for sending a plain text message to a user on the Sprint network: ##########@messaging.sprintpcs.com. Place your friend's phone number in front of the proper provider domain and you're on your way. Remember if you get carried away typing, that your poor friend will be reading it on a tiny phone screen and that some services truncate the length of text messages. For more texting tricks, check out how to be a power texter.


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Step into Springfield and join the The Simpsons at home, you can recreate hilarious scenes from the classic animated TV series with LEGO. Straight from Evergren Terrace this amazing model is crammed with tons of detail, including Homer and Marges bedroom, Maggies crib, Barts room with his Krusty the Clown poster as well as Lisas room filled with books and her jazz poster. Lift the top to reveal all the rooms complete with a fully-fitted kitchen and their living room with the iconic brown sofa. The detachable garage is complete with a workbench, tool rack, and the family car, dents and all! Including accessories like a broom, toolbox andradioactive bar from the nuclear power plant. Take a wander outside to the terrace to find loads of cool items, including a grill, wheelbarrow and air conditioning unit that even has a Property of Ned Flanders decoration. Can you spot all the items Homer has borrowed from Ned Flanders? Features: 6 minifigures: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Ned Flanders First floor includes yellow and light-blue tiled floor, sink, oven and stove, drawers, cups, pot, pan, bowl, mixer, plates, cake tins, cutlery, dining table and 4 chairs. Living room includes TV playing Itchy and Scratchy, couch, boat painting, telephone, carpet, purple piano and staircase to the second floor with family photos. Barts room includes a bed, night lamp, desk with pin board, chair, Krusty the Clown poster, skateboard, shelves with books, radio and a cap. Marge and Homers bedroom includes a bed, 2 side tables, Maggies crib and Marges bag/ Lisas room includes a vanity mirror with hairbrush, stool, bed, table with lamp and cup, shelves with books, magnifying glass, backpack and a jazz poster on the wall. Bathroom features a shower, toilet, sink and a mirror Detachable garage features the family car, tools, workbench, tool rack, vacuum cleaner, toolbox and a broom. Family car with space for 4 minifigures. Outside area includes a grill, wheelbarrow and air conditioning unit, sausages, 2 garden loungers, flowerpots, a shovel, 2 fruit cocktail glasses, Lisas camera, Barts skateboard ramp with El Barto graffiti and an antenna on the roof. House is hinged in the middle for easy access. The Simpsons House measures over 9 (23cm) high, 16 (42cm) wide and 9 (24cm) deep.
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Special Offer:
Havoc® Bottom Hopper™
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- Pro designed - Larry Nixon
- Uniquely designed tail for improved action
- Ideal for jig heads, Carolina rigs, and wacky worming
Havoc® baits combine professional bass angler experience with Berkley's legendary innovation. The result is the best shapes, actions and colors ever created. Make Havoc your go-to bait when bragging rights are on the line…
Havoc® Bottom Hopper™
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MODEL # HVMBH6-BEM$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorBlack EmeraldPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-GP$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorGreen PumpkinPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-GPRD$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorGreen Pumpkin RedPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-JB$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorJune BugPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-PLM$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorPlumPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-RDB$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorRedbugPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-SWC$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorShady Watermelon CandyPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-SMKP$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorSmoke PurplePackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-WM$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorWatermelonPackage Count12PackagingBag
MODEL # HVMBH6-WMR$3.49View model specificationsView LargerBait Length6 1/4in | 16cmColorWatermelon RedPackage Count12PackagingBag
Product Reviews
Havoc® Bottom Hopper™ is rated
out of
5 by
Rated 5 out of
Skeeter pro Toledo from
Havoc Bottom Hoppers my go to bait
I am a guide on Toledo and Sam Rayburn. I fish very clear water and the many color options of Bottom Hoppers works for me. I mostly use the BH on a Texas rig and it's slim profile allows me to fish it in submerged grass. The BH is a straight tail worm that comes in. 6.25 and. 4.75 inches. A cool thing about the BH is the tail floats up. On tough days I dead stick it allowing it to sit still and the natural look of the tail's rising triggers strikes. My favorite colors are Shady Watermelon Candy and Red bug.
Date published: 2015-09-19
Rated 5 out of
Bunky from
Excellent worm
Bought the bottom hopper in the cherryseed color and the first time I used them the bass would not leave the worm alone. First fish 5lbs that was caught after bringing worm over a tree. Try these worms they are great just like all the Berkley products.
Date published: 2013-06-29
Rated 5 out of
Express17 from
Go to bait
Nothing beats a plastic worm for catching bass. I don't really know what is so different about these worms, but I catch bass on them consistently. I'm an old guy and all that I need to know is that they work trip after trip.
Date published: 2015-01-01
Rated 5 out of
timsizzle from
catching titans
Bought these a little over a week ago, they're all gone now. The fish swallow em.
Date published: 2014-05-26
Rated 5 out of
OKCRhoads from
Bottoms Hopper
This item is great to say the least. I have caught a lot of Bass with this worm, preferably watermelon candy and smoke purple. On one day alone, I caught 20 lbs total of bass, my largest weighing 6lb. 5ozs. and 27" long. I highky recommend these baits, the bass love them!!
Date published: 2016-01-10
Rated 5 out of
Randyc2 from
Awesome Baits
Used these on a major fishing lake and landed a 6.5lb bass
Date published: 2015-08-20


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The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.
The crystalline waters lap against the dock and up to the (completely deserted) seagrape fringed, white sandy beach. You take the croissants, cheeses, and just squeezed orange juice left for you by the managers and spread them out on a table on the deck, then sit back to watch the sailboats glide by.
So begins the day at Seagrape Cottage on Little Thatch Island, one of the private islands in the BVI, a few minutes launch ride across the channel from Tortola with views of the islands Great Thatch and Jost Van Dyke. An English lord owns the island and he and his family are sometimes in residence in their house at the top of the hill but you may never see them. (Or if you do, they might invite you up for a cocktail at sunset.) Mostly, the island is yours.
Down here near the water, there are only two cottages--one a beach bar, one residential in whitewashed, West Indian gingerbread style, with an open plan bedroom/sitting room/kitchen furnished with a fourposter bed, rattan furniture and terra cotta floors. It's handsome but simple. You're not going to spend much time indoors.
For meals, the managers, Katy and Jon Morley, will shop for you and deposit items in the refrigerator (including marinated fish for grilling on the barbecue on the deck.) You can also shop for yourself on Tortola. Or go over to the island for meals—they'll bring you back and forth all day. They'll also arrange boats or diving or other excursions. But with these views, this clear water for snorkeling and absolute privacy and quiet, there's very little reason to leave. (High season: $8300 per week.)


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Luciano Sandrone Dolcetto 2007
Dolcetto from Piedmont, Italy
Winemaker's Notes
Dolcetto d'Alba is produced using 100% Dolcetto grapes from different vineyards. There are four production areas, two in Barolo, one in Novello and one in Monforte d'Alba. These areas are particularly suited for the production of Dolcetto d'Alba as the soil and the microclimate create a perfect environment in which the grapes can grow. The altitude varies from 250 to 500 metres above sea level and the average age of the vineyards is around 20 years. The most important factor that distinguishes each area is the exposure to the sun. The grapes are vinified according to the classic methods that have always been used but with the aid of modern equipment.
Critical Acclaim
The Wine Advocate - "A gorgeous, layered wine loaded with perfumed dark fruit."
Luciano Sandrone Winery
The story of Luciano Sandrone can be told in just a few words. Years of hard work as a cellarman, the purchase of his first vineyard on Cannubi hill, the first acknowledgements and then excellence. The first harvest took place in 1978: since then the attention of Luciano and his brother Luca has been devoted entirely to the vineyards, fully aware that only perfectly selected grapes can be used to create a wine which lives up to the well-deserved fame that Sandrone enjoys all over the world. The new premises, built in 1998 at the feet of Cannubi hill, in the heart of the Barolo district, are characterised by attention to detail and rationality. The vinification process, while respecting tradition, reflects the desire for innovation that has always distinguished Luciano's work. View all Luciano Sandrone Wines
About Piedmont
View a map of Piedmont wineries (PEED-mont) Piedmont is located in the Northwest area of Italy, hugging the Mediterranean coast. The regional capital, Turin, is situated smack in the middle of the province. Being close to the alps, the area enjoys a high altitude, with the best vineyards benefiting from the hills and elevation. Known for its famous sub-districts, Piedmont delivers some of the most distinctive, high-quality, ageable wine of Italy. Most popular are the DOCG districts Barolo and Barbaresco, producing Nebbiolo-based wine of the same name. Two other DOCGs of note are Gattinara and Gheme – both make wine from Nebbiolo and are typically earlier to drink but more rustic than their Barolo and Barberesco partners. City-districts in the DOC category include Alba and Asti, where wine like Dolcetto d'Alba and Barbera d'Asti is made, putting the grape name before the town.
Notable Facts
Not just regulated to red wine, Piedmont also produces some notable whites, particularly those near the district of Gavi and Asti. Gavi produces still white wine from the Cortese grape. The wine is dry with a crisp, citrus-like acidity – fairly neutral but pleasant. Arneis is another grape/wine made in the area, creating a fuller wine that displays some nuttiness in the aroma and taste. Asti is well known for its sparkling wine – in particular Asti Spumante and Moscato d'Asti. Asti Spumante is typically higher in alcohol, sweetness & fizziness, while its higher-class cousin, Mostcato d'Asti, contains lower alcohol levels, a few less bubbles, and a more restrained and delicate representation of Moscato fruit.About Italy
A little ditty about Italy...
This country has about as many wines as its had governments. With 20 different regions, hundreds of DOCs and even more indigenous varieties, the amount of wine made in Italy is mind-boggling. Most of the juice, however, remains in the country for thirsty Italians. Wine is food in Italy and its rare that a meal is consumed without a glass of vino. That said, it's not common to find many folks drinking wine without food either. In turn, it's a match, and a mighty good one at that. In fact, it's safe to say that Italian wine is a foodie wine – one that goes on the table for a myraid of meals.For regions, the most popular are Tuscany (home of Chianti), Piedmont and the Tre-Venezie, which includes Veneto, Trentino Alto-Adige and Friuli. Other communes of note are in Southern Italy, and a few good wines are made elsewhere in the country. The islands of Sardinia and Sicily are members of the Italian winemaking community as well.


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Schumacher 2.0mm "Trix Tools" Hex Driver
Schumacher Trix Tools feature precision CNC machined hardened steel tips
with oversize knurled aluminum handles. The large diameter handles will
help to remove stubborn screws and also help to reduce hand fatigue
during serious wrenching sessions. The handles have milled flats to
prevent the tools from rolling off your pit table and also feature color
coded end buttons for quick identification of the tool's size.
This product was added to our catalog on May 17, 2010.


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If you like J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy legendarium, you can put one ring on it. But why even bother introducing The Hobbit? This is Laser Orgy. You read the books before there were movies, you watched the movies before the newest movie, and, by the beard of Tom Bombadil, you bow to no one. (Unless it's Viggo Mortensen in a towel.)
What you might not know, however, is that there's a Hobbit Day. And it's awesome. "What's Hobbit Day?" you ask. "Isn't every day a celebration of Middle-earth?" Well, yes. But September 22 is even more of a celebration. First of all, both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born on that day: Bilbo in 2890 and Frodo in 2968 in the Third Age. (This is debated. The date can change depending on a variety of factors, not the least being the nerd ability to ruin anything.) Secondly, Hobbit Day is the day after The Hobbit was first published 75 years ago today. Thirdly, of course, there are the badass new trailers for the upcoming movie.
How can you celebrate? MyMiddleEarth is hosting an online Hobbit Day festival. And true SMOFs like Jan Howard Finder will walk around barefoot. But let's face it. Boston ain't the verdant greens of The Shire. And if you try and dig a hobbit hole in the Commons like those Redditors did, you'll probably get arrested.
So take my advice. Get a dozen of your closest friends and screen the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Extended editions, please!) And use this excellent collection of Middle-earth recipes to cook up a meal worthy of Gandalf. Our favorites: Frogmorton Flapjacks, Cheddar Soup, Fruit Fool a la Sackville-Baggins, and Elven Lembas bread, athough we suspect that last one is just stale ciabatta.
And if you're too lazy to do any of that, you can always tell hobbit jokes. Here's one.
Q: What kind of air pollution do you find in hobbit cities?
A: Smaug.
Arafat Kazi loves his kitty. Follow him on Twitter @arafatkazi.
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Decimal Degrees: Latitude: 39.6434102 Longitude: -80.8656552
Share your comments and photos of First United Methodist Church, a Church in Wetzel County, WV
(Optional) Upload a photo taken at this location:
Airport: P W Johnson Memorial Airport
Building: War Memorial Building , Wetzel County Courthouse , New Martinsville Public Library
Cemetery: Shriver Cemetery
Church: Church of the Nazarene , Saint Johns United Methodist Church , First Christian Church , First United Methodist Church , Saint Anns Episcopal Church , First Presbyterian Church
Civil: City of New Martinsville
Cliff: Glenn Rocks
Dam: Hannibal Locks and Dam , Hannoal Locks and Dam
Locale: New Martinsville Marina , Fishing Creek Lift Station
Park: Brooklyn Park , New Martinsville Downtown Historic District , North Street Historic District , Hydro Park
Populated Place: Brooklyn
Post Office: New Martinsville Post Office
Reservoir: Hannibal Pool
School: Magnolia High School , Central Public School (historical) , West Virginia Northern Community College - New Martinsburg , Wetzel County School District Office , Brooklyn Public School (historical)
Stream: Fishing Creek , Doolin Run , Williams Run
32 Places found nearby
New! Tell others about this location or share a photo!
Time to build: 0.0630 Secs | Cached: 27-Mar-17 10:31 PM


text: Electrolux's Silent Vacuum Concept Means You Can Play Music From Your Docked iPod and Actually Hear ItKat Hannaford12/10/09 6:14amFiled to: ConceptsElectroluxConceptSilence amplifiedUltrasilencerVacuumCleanervacuum cleaner12EditPromoteShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalink We're big fans of Electrolux's concepts, which include vacuum shoes, a flatshare fridge and waterless washing machines. Thanks to Electrolux's brilliant robot cleaner I haven't vacuumed properly for a year now, but could be cajoled into using this iPod-packing model. This 'Silence Amplified' concept follows the UltraSilencer model which is on sale now, but I think we all know which model we'd spring for. As it's a completely silent vacuum cleaner, you'd be able to hear the music played via the inbuilt iPod dock (guess that's a concept iPod in the dock, too?) and integrated speakers, with Electrolux claiming: Advertisement Advertisement "One of the results is that vacuuming to music gets the job done faster, with less stress, and it can even result in some more calories burned."Sure, we'll take what exercise we can get, especially if it picks up all that cat hair from the tiles. [Electrolux]Reply12 repliesLeave a reply


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Doug's offers financing through Wells Fargo. Financing is subject to credit approval.


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by H.E. Mr. Le Hoai Trung
Permanent Representative of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam to the United Nations
on behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at the Open Debate of the United Nations Security Council on "Cooperation between the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations in maintaining international peace and security"
New York, 6 August 2013
Madame President,
I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.
At the outset, allow me to congratulate Argentina on assuming the Presidency of the Security Council for the month of August and wish you success in this important endeavour. We thank you, Madame President, for organizing today's important debate.
The last few years have witnessed enormous changes and emerging paradigms in international peace and security, putting to the test the established framework for global governance. In the face of these challenges, it is critical to strengthen a regional-global cooperation and coordination.
Indeed, from Europe to Asia, Africa to the Americas, regional organizations have displayed a more active role in the maintenance of peace and security together with the promotion of social and economic development. Recognizing this and in accordance with provisions of the Charter, the UN member states have consolidated their respective regional collaboration and have fostered regional-global cooperation with the UN, in particular the Security Council.
In our region, the ten Southeast Asian countries are building an ASEAN Community as envisioned in the ASEAN Charter. Over the years, ASEAN has increasingly become a central component of the regional architecture. Important regional arrangements, with ASEAN at the core, in particular the East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM+), have proven to be effective fora for dialogue and consultation on regional security and beyond.
In its efforts to promote peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, ASEAN attaches great importance to the cooperation with the United Nations. Since the last Council debate on this topic in January 2010, this cooperation has been improved in a comprehensive manner.
First, ASEAN–UN cooperation has been institutionalised with the adoption of a Comprehensive Partnership. Under this framework, periodic ASEAN–UN interactions at the highest levels have been established, including ASEAN–UN Summits and annual meetings between ASEAN Foreign Ministers and the President of the General Assembly and the UN Secretary General. The Comprehensive Partnership has also laid out priority areas of cooperation which include mediation and good offices, non-traditional security issues, counter-terrorism, peaceful settlement of disputes, conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping, peace-building, food and energy security, climate change, ASEAN connectivity and integration, culture and education. Additionally, a GA resolution on ASEAN–UN cooperation has been adopted biennially by consensus, stressing the need for continued and increased coordination for the materialization of elements of cooperation contained therein.
Second, ASEAN member states have actively and constructively contributed to the work of the UN in the field of peace and security. Individually or collectively, ASEAN states have been authoring or taking part in negotiations of important GA resolutions on peace and security; becoming members and chairing groups within the framework of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. As of June 2013, ASEAN member states has contributed nearly 4,000 peacekeepers in 13 out of 16 United Nations Peacekeeping missions, and more are expected with the recent announcement by Viet Nam to participate in UN PKOs in early 2014.
Third, ASEAN and UN Secretariats are crucial in the implementation of the Comprehensive Partnership. The UN Secretariat and other UN bodies have provided expertise, cooperated closely with ASEAN and other partners in organizing workshops, training courses and in bilateral exchanges on peace- and security-related issues. Notable instances include the workshops held in 2011 and 2012 on joint investigation and cash courier border controls facilitated by the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED); the 2013 workshop on "Lessons learned and best practices in conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy" organised by the ASEAN Secretariat, the Department of Political Affairs and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. UN experts have also contributed to developing regional approaches to counter-terrorism, preventive diplomacy, disaster relief, nuclear non-proliferation, small arms and light weapons.
The growing ASEAN-UN cooperation has been beneficial to international and regional peace and security, and the building of the ASEAN Political-Security Community. Through increased interaction, the expertise and niche capacity of each side is explored and utilized to complement each other, contributing to regional capacity building.
On its part, ASEAN continues to be a net contributor to international peace and security. The "ASEAN way" of incremental interaction, consultation and dialogue could be part of the solution to conflicts and crises elsewhere. Most importantly, such dialogue is crucial for cultivating a culture of peace that promotes restraint, preventive diplomacy and mutual respect, as well as a strong commitment to international law, the UN Charter, including the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes.
As experience has shown, regional particularities and ownership are vital to stronger cooperation between the UN and regional organizations. Indeed, regional organizations are better positioned to forge regional understanding of emerging issues, match the need from the receiving end and the expertise and resources from the supply side, and foster legitimacy and feasibility of any solution. Hence, enhanced dialogue with and increased assistance to regional organizations will help better inform the debate and build the capacity needed for the most effective solutions. In this connection, it is our hope to benefit from continued UN support and facilitation for the central role of ASEAN in addressing regional peace and security issues as well as ASEAN's contribution to the work of the UN. Emerging issues such as climate change, energy security, and maritime security would be better grasped and dealt with by increased and diversified cooperation between ASEAN and the UN, including UN specialised agencies.
I would like to take this opportunity to express the sincere thanks from ASEAN countries toward the Secretary General, the UN bodies and specialized agencies and their leaders for their valuable support and assistance extended to ASEAN over the years.
Let me conclude by reiterating the strong commitment of ASEAN to further broaden and deepen the cooperation between ASEAN and the UN, especially in maintaining international and regional peace and security. That commitment stems from our common understanding that in the face of unprecedented complexities of today's world, partnership is of paramount importance. The global, the regional and the national are now inextricably linked and only by fully exploring the interrelationship will we be able to prosper.
In so doing, we should also bear in mind that cooperation between the UN and regional organizations may not bring about results as visible as expected, but over the long run, when being faced with abrupt crises and conflict, a better grasp of regional intricacies would be of great importance to any solution. To that end, ASEAN stands ready to work closely with the UN and other member states to rid the world of the scourges of war and conflict.
I thank you, Madame President./.