text:
Following are excerpts from an address delivered by Egyptian cleric Hassan Abu Al-Ashbal, which aired on Al-Nas TV on November 27, 2008.
To view the clip visit: http://www.memri.org/legacy/clip/1934
Hassan Abu Al-Ashbal: "Let me take this opportunity to address the leader of Europe, and the leader of America, who is the leader of the world, the recently elected Obama, who is the leader of the Byzantines - he is like the Byzantine leaders in the days of Prophet Muhammad.
"My message to him is threefold. First, I invite him to convert to Islam. This is the call of the Prophet and of Allah. Oh Obama - convert to Islam, and you will be saved. I hope that Allah will reward you twice: once for converting to Islam, and another reward for all those who will convert in your footsteps. If you want glory - you will find it in Islam. If you want honor - you will find it in Islam. In religions other than Islam there is utter humiliation, even if you are the president of the entire world.
"You, Obama, are among those who have pledged before Allah - Allah who created you, sustained you, and brought you to this position - to be a Muslim who believes that Allah is the one God, especially since you have some kind of roots in Islam. Convert to Islam, and you will be saved. All glory and honor lie in following Allah and His messenger Muhammad. Know that the true religion is the religion of Islam, and all other religions are fabricated religions, which are null and void - religions that were abrogated by the shari'a of Muhammad.
"If you refuse to return to your [Islamic] origins, to the way Allah created you, withdraw your huge armies and military bases from the lands of the Muslims. Know that all your predecessors have ended up in the garbage bin of history, and that America's black and bleak history in the land of the Muslims and the Arabs constitutes an evil omen for you, your predecessors, and your successors.
"Know, Obama, that America, with all its size and might, will know no peace as long as a single Muslim child lacks food, drink, medicine, or housing.
"If you refuse, Obama, and insist on remaining in Muslim lands, know that Allah still plants in [Muslims] obedience to Him, and that they are willing to wait for Paradise, which is closer than their own shoelaces.
"Know, Obama, that in the lands of Islam, there are people who seek death, and are eager for it, even more than you and your people are eager for life - any kind of life, even a life of humiliation."


text:
Scrum is one of the most heavily used agile techniques. It's not about coding; instead, it focuses on organization and project management. If you have a few moments, let me tell you about the team I work with, and how we adopted Scrum techniques.
A Little History
Scrum's roots actually extend beyond the Agile era.
Scrum's roots actually extend beyond the Agile era. The first mention of this technique can be found in 1986, by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, for commercial product development. The first official paper defining Scrum, written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, was presented in 1995.
Scrum's popularity grew shortly after the 2001 publication of the Agile Manifesto, as well as the book Agile Software Development with Scrum, coauthored by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle.
A Few Facts
Scrum defines a set of recommendations, which teams are encouraged to follow. It also defines several actors - or roles, if you prefer that terminology - together with an iterative process of production and periodical planning. There are several tools, which accommodate the Scrum process. I will reference a few in this article, but the most powerful tools are the white board and sticky notes.
There is not, and never will be, a list of "Scrum Best Practices," because team and project context trumps all other considerations. -- Mike Cohn
The Roles
Everything starts with the pig and the chicken. The chicken asks the pig if he is interested in jointly opening a restaurant. The chicken says they could call it, "Ham-and-Eggs." The pig answers, "No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"
That's Scrum! It specifies a concrete set of roles, which are divided into two groups:
- Committed - those directly responsible for production and delivery of the final product. These roles include the team as a whole, its members, the scrum master, and the product owner.
- Involved - represents the other people interested in the project, but who aren't taking an active or direct part in the production and delivery processes. These roles are typically stakeholders and managers.
This is How We Started
Everything depends on dedication and good will. If you want your team to be efficient, productive, and deliver on time, you need someone to embrace some form of Agile techniques. Scrum may or may not be ideal for you, but it is surely one of the best places to start. Find that someone on your team who is willing to help the others, or you, yourself, can take on the responsibility of introducing Scrum.
You may ask why you should care how another team, like mine, does Scrum. You should care because we all learn how to do Scrum better by hearing stories of how it has been done by others - especially those who are doing it well. - Mike Cohn
The talented team I work with already knew a lot about Agile. We switched from Waterfall development to a more agile process, and released quite frequently. We successfully managed to release every three to six months, having a decently low number of bugs after each release.
But, still, we were far from what we can achieve today. We missed the process, or rules, that would force us to change our perspective on the product and process. That was the moment when our team manager introduced us to Scrum, a term we, at that time, had never heard of.
This person took the role of the Scrum Master.
The Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is easily one of the most important roles. This person is responsible for creating a bridge between the Product Owner (defined below) and the Team (also defined later). This person usually possesses a strong technical knowledge, and actively participates in the development process. He or she also communicates with the Product Owner about the User Stories, and how to organize the Backlog.
The Scrum Master coordinates development processes, but he does not micro-manage (the team is self-organized). At the beginning of the process, however, the Scrum Master might micro-manage part of the team, in order to improve their team interaction and self-organization techniques.
Scrum Masters have more responsibilities, and I'll cover them as we discuss this process.
Introducing the Term "Sprint"
Personally, we don't have any problem with three to six month releases, but I originally couldn't imagine such a frequent release schedule. I thought it was too fast, and didn't provide us with the necessary time to integrate and debug our products. But then, our Scrum Master introduced us to the term, sprint.
Sprint: a basic unit of development in Scrum. It can take between one week and one month, and the product is in a stable state after each sprint.
That sounds outrageous! Stable every week> Impossible! But, in actuality, it's quite possible. First, we reduced our production cycles from three months to one-and-a-half months, and, finally, to a single month. All of this was accomplished without changing our style. However, you'll need to introduce some rules for a sprint less than thirty days. There's no magic rule-set here; the rules must benefit your project.
If I recall correctly, the first significant change in our development process came by the introduction of sprint planning.
Sprint Planning
This is one of the several meetings that Scrum recommends. Before each new sprint, the team, product owner, and scrum master plan the next sprint. This meeting can take a whole day, but shorter sprints likely only need a couple hours or so.
Our process is mostly reviewing the product backlog, and deciding upon a subset of user stories that will be included in the next sprint. These decisions are made by direct negotiations between the team, represented by the scrum master, and the product owner.
The Product Owner
Setting the direction of a product by guessing which small feature will provide the most value may be the most difficult task.
This person is responsible for defining the User Stories and maintaining the Product Backlog. He or she is also a bridge between the team and higher management. The product owner evaluates the requests from stakeholders, higher management, users, and other feedback (like bug reports, user surveys, etc).
He or she prioritizes this backlog, providing the maximum value to the stakeholders in the shortest possible time. The product owner achieves this by planning the most valuable user stories that can be completed in a timely manner. This may sound sophisticated - it is! In fact, setting the direction of a product by guessing which small feature will provide the most value may be the most difficult task of the whole process. On the other hand, sometimes it's rather easy. You may have a thousand users asking for a specific feature. In these cases, the correct choice is obvious.
If those users represent a large portion of you user base, providing that specific feature increases loyalty.
But again, this is a difficult choice. What if you could increase your user base by 100% by implementing a different feature? So, you can either increase your current users' loyalty, or increase the user base. What is the correct choice? It all depends on the current direction of the business, and the product owner must decide where to take the product.
In the company I work for, these decisions propagate to the team. It's not a requirement of the Scrum process, but it is especially useful with new teams. Sharing information goes a long way in helping everyone understand why some decisions are made, and why seemingly obvious features may be delayed or dropped.
The Planning Board
I remember the morning it happened: I arrived at the office, only to find our scrum master preparing a makeshift planning board with A4 paper and transparent tape. I had no idea what he was doing. As with every morning, I prepared a pot of coffee, and waited to see.
When finished, a white board was placed on the wall. It had several columns, and morphed into a rectangular shape. Several colored sticky notes peppered the "board." That was two years ago.
The board now accommodates the Lean Development Process that we use today. Remember, Agile is all about change and adapting to change. Never blindly follow the rules.
So, what's on that board?
Columns for the Development Process
There are four main columns:
- Release Backlog - Where all the stories reside for the current release. Yes, the product is ready for release after each sprint, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we actually release it. We typically have five-day sprints.
- Sprint Backlog - When we plan, we negotiate what the product owner wants to complete in the sprint. How do we decide what we can and cannot complete? By estimating the difficulty of each story (see below - Estimating stories). The end result is a set of stories moved from the release backlog to the sprint backlog. The team concentrates on finishing those stories in the upcoming week.
- Working On - This one is simple. When team members take a story, they add it to this column, to show everyone what they are working on. This is meant for employee control, but rather for communicating with team members. Everyone should always know what their teammates are working on. In the above image, the small bookmarks stuck on the sticky notes contain my team members' names.
- Done - Complete all the things! Yes, this is where completed stories go. However, it's important to define "what is done." At the end of an ideal sprint, all stories and bugs from the sprint backlog should be contained within this column.
Tip: Many teams like to split the Working On column into several others to better define different stages of work. We split ours into Design, Development and Testing. Feel free to invent your own steps, according to your process.
The Definition of Done
What is done? When can you confidently state that a story is complete? How do you know?
"Done" must be clearly and precisely defined, so that everyone knows when a story is complete. The definition of "done" can differ from team to team, and even from project to project. There is no exact rule. I recommend that you raise this issue at a team meeting, and decide what determines a complete story. Here are some ideas that you might want to consider:
- Create a minimalistic design.
- Create a GUI mockup.
- Use TDD or ensure that there are unit tests.
- Write the code.
- Let another team member manually test your story.
- The whole system can be built and compiled with the new code.
- Functional or acceptance tests pass as expected, after the new code is integrated into the system.
There are multiple ideas that can be included in the definition of done. Take what you consider to be necessary for your team and use it. Also, don't forget to adapt this definition over time. If you notice that your definition is becoming outdated, you may consider removing some elements or adding necessary, but frequently forgotten, ideas.
In the picture above, the green sticky notes describe what we considered to be done, for each part of the process.
Populating the Board
That was the question we asked ourselves. Until this point, we did not use sticky notes for planning. We used software to keep track of user stories and bugs, but, other than that, we used nothing. After lunch, our scrum master presented us with a mountain of colored sticky notes. After preparing a dozen notes, he explained them to us.
The User Stories
A user story is a short, one sentence definition of a feature or functionality.
These represent the main features that we want to implement. A user story is a short, one sentence definition of a feature or functionality. It is referred to as a user story, because it is presented from the perspective of a user. Naturally, the term user is the person using our application. This person can be in one or more different categories: a system administrator, restricted user, manager, etc.
An example of such a story might sound something like, "As a user, I want to share a folder with my teammates."
At that point, we did not have a product owner defined, so our scrum master invented these stories. This is acceptable at the beginning, but I highly recommended that you separate these two roles. Otherwise, how can the scrum master negotiate the sprint backlog with the product owner?
You may think to yourself, "Why negotiate? Isn't it actually better for a single person to decide what to do and when?" Not quite. The two roles would be influenced by a single person's views of the system or project. Two people, on the other hand, have a better chance of providing a more objective path for the team, ensuring the end goal (better valuable software) is achieved.
The product owner should define user stories; the team should negotiate their execution, and the scrum master represents them.
User stories define everything new that needs to be done; they're represented by yellow sticky notes on our board.
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
Tracking your bugs is incredibly important.
We also list bugs on the board. Do you see those red sticky notes? Those are the bugs that we need to fix for the next release.
Different teams treat bugs in different ways. Our team mixes the bugs with the stories, but we always begin a sprint by fixing the bugs.
I know of other teams who pile up bugs for a period of three sprints, and spend every fourth sprint fixing them. Others split sprints into 25/75 for bugs/stories. Further, other teams may work on stories in the morning, and bugs after lunch; it simply depends on the company.
It's up to you to find the best solution for your team, and of course, keep track of your bugs. Write them on sticky notes so that you can track your system's issues and the fixes for those issues. Tracking your bugs is incredibly important.
Tasks or Sub-Stories
Tasks are written as simple sentences from the developer's point of view.
Ideally, each story should be short enough to be completed with relative ease, but splitting stories into other stories can prove difficult. Some projects simply don't afford this possibility. Still, you'll find large stories that several team members can work on. It's important to divide huge chunks of work into smaller, easier to manage pieces.
One approach splits big stories into Tasks. Tasks are written as simple sentences from the developer's point of view. For example, the previous folder sharing story might be divided into several tasks, such as: "Create UI for sharing", "Implement public sharing mechanism", "Implement access control functionality", "Add Access Control checkboxes to the UI", and so on. The point is that you have to think more about the story every time you break it into smaller tasks. Your team will have much greater control over a story, when you analyze each piece.
We use light-blue sticky notes for tasks on our board. Look in the last column (the "Done" column), and you'll find our tasks under the user story stickies. That particular story was broken into around four tasks.
Technical Tasks
Certain activities must be completed in order to finish a task, story, or the sprint as a whole. These tasks are usually infrastructure related, but you may find that the tasks require changes to the system. This process may or may not be part of a story. For example, you may find that a third party application must be installed, in order to implement your application's sharing capability. Is this part of our user story? Possibly, but maybe not.
We determined that these tasks should be separated from the actual story. This helped us to better track these extra tasks. On our board, you can find these tasks on green sticky notes. There is one on the sprint backlog, and about three in testing.
The Technical Backlog
For a young team with little experience with Agile and Scrum, it's helpful to highlight these tasks with a mini-backlog.
This backlog is for infrastructural tasks, such as updating the automated testing system, configuring a new server, and other things, which make our everyday development work easier. These are things that must be completed at some point, but are not directly related to development.
You don't have to put these items into a separate backlog. In fact, I know of teams who don't separate them. Our team dropped our technical backlog a few months ago; we decided that infrastructural tasks are as important as other tasks. However, for a young team with little experience in Agile and Scrum, it's helpful to highlight these tasks with a mini-backlog. So, I recommend that you should give it a try. It may work for you, and, if not, then just put Infrastructural Tasks on you planning board, possibly with a different color.
The Big Challenge: Estimation
During a planning meeting, we decide which user stories and bugs from the product backlog (or release backlog in our case) to include in the next sprint. This may sound simple, but, in reality, it's quite complicated.
The product owner comes forward with a set of stories to work on. This list typically contains more work than what can be accomplished in the sprint. The scrum master, together with the team, has to convince the product owner of what can be done during a sprint. Over time, this process becomes easier, as the product owner learns the approximate velocity of the team. Then again, the team may become more productive with each sprint, thus allowing more stories to be finished. The trick is to have a team who really wants to exceed expectations!
Now, the product owner wants to complete more stories than we can do in a sprint. We need to estimate the amount of work we can do in relation to the stories submitted by the product owner, and we can do this in a variety of ways.
Story Points
Story Points are one of the most common methods for estimating stories, bugs or tasks. They are not necessarily the best approach, but they still are a good way to start.
So what is a story point? At the beginning of the process, the team looks for the simplest story they can find on the board. It doesn't matter how difficult it is, or how long it takes to complete. When they find that story, they set it as the reference story of having one point. In some projects, such a story can be as simple as fixing UI elements in ten minutes; whereas, the simplest story for more complex systems may take two hours for three people to complete. Now that you have a baseline, evaluate the other stories and bugs and assign them points.
This can be more difficult than it seems, and there are several point techniques to better help estimate stories. Here are two of them:
- Use Fobinacci Numbers - 1,2,3,5,8 (and maybe 13, but a 13-sized story smells too big to me).
- Use Powers of 2 - 1,2,4,8 (and maybe 16, but this number should be avoided).
You are free to choose whatever you feel most comfortable with. Be agile! Maybe you want to use two points increments, because your tasks are best estimated that way. Bravo to you!
Numbers are great, and many technical people love them. You may find, however, that, at some point, programmers begin to associate story points with time. They will think, "It takes me two days to do this. Let's give it five points". This is wrong. Estimates go from bad to worse when this happens. Story points should never relate to time.
Using semaphore colors may help alleviate this problem. Instead of assigning numbers to stories, the team can associate those stories with colors. Our team made this change a few months ago, and it greatly helped change our point of view.
Naturally, each color has a different meaning.
- Green signifies an easy task that can be completed in the next sprint.
- Yellow refers to a more difficult task - one that requires more effort from several team members. It also has a high chance of completion in the next sprint.
- Red labels are assigned to stories, which are extremely difficult and may not be finished in a single sprint. There should be little to no such stories, but if you adopt one week sprints, five days is a short time.
T-Shirt Sizes
Numbers may be ugly to you, colors too artistic. It's time for t-shirt sizes! This technique suggests giving up on comparing story complexity with time of completion. Simply put, instead of numbers, you use sizes like S, M, L, XL, XXL for your stories.
I personally never felt attracted to this kind of estimation, but, hey, some feel that it's the best way to go. Try it out, if you feel comfortable with the idea.
The product owner, stake holders, and managers have to know what to expect from the end of a sprint. They must decide if the stories that were worked on should be released, and they have to know when features are ready. It's not a good solution to release every new feature at the end of a product's development cycle; releasing the most valuable features on a more frequent basis is a considerably better way to go. To achieve this, they must know what will be available in the short term, and their information should stem from the team. Therefore, the team should estimate, as best as possible, the work they can do in a sprint.
Measuring Speed of Development
So you want to see how well you perform in the current sprint? A frequently-used method is the burndown chart:
In this chart, we have a five day sprint, and we assumed that we could complete ten points in the sprint. Each value point represents the remaining story points at the end of each day. The green line reveals the ideal path: a steady two points per day. The red line shows our actual performance, or the true speed of development.
It's not on the planning board picture, but my team used to have an A4 paper sheet positioned above the planning board, with the burndown chart for each sprint. At the conclusion of each day, one of the team members was responsible for calculating the points completed for that day. It's simple: if programmers move the stories from column to column as they work, finding the remaining unfinished stories is easy.
There are no half-done stories. If a story is done, it is done. If it is not complete, then it is not counted on the burndown chart.
Of course, you will fail - BIG TIME - at estimating! This is especially true at the beginning. There is no way to avoid this, unfortunately. There is no way to know how many points you can to deliver. Your first chart may very well look like:
Our first chart surely looked similar to that. I think we did not even complete half of what we committed to. Why? Well, because estimation is hard. No matter what you do, or how good are you, when someone asks you how complicated something you have never done before is, you will have a hard time providing an accurate estimation. Don't panic! Try your best. With time, these things become easier. You may become able to estimate with a 70% accuracy at some point for short sprints. If the sprints are longer, your accuracy will likely be less, because there will be more stories to estimate and more variables that can go wrong.
When this happens, you adjust. For the next sprint, take four points. Like this:
This is bad again. You were too conservative, and finished early. It's a natural reaction for the team to adjust, based on the failure of the previous estimation. Still, this is a failure again, but on the other side of the road.
The problem? What do you do after you've finished what you were planning for? Another story? How do you put that on the chart? You can't redraw the original line.
When working with burndown charts, it's recommended to always make an average of the last 3-5 charts, in order to specify the points for the upcoming sprint. Of course, at the beginning, you don't have such information available, so you won't be as accurate as in the future. That's okay.
After some time, your charts will begin to resemble the first example more and more. You will, most of the time, finish all the stories and have a sustained velocity.
This term refers to your speed of development. It relates to how much you can do in a sprint. One of the most important concepts in Agile is to have a consistent velocity. Make the team deliver at a constant pace. With traditional project management, velocity decreases as a project ages. Complexity and rigidity forces the speed of development down.
Agile methodologies and techniques target to maintain a constant pace. Deliver fast now, and deliver faster later. How do they do it? Scrum is one of the elements of the puzzle. Other important pieces include the techniques that programmers can use to make their code and development process better. For example, XP (eXtreme Programming), Pair Programming, TDD (Test Driven Development), etc. All these, together, can make a team really great.
So we measure this velocity, but what do we actually do with it?
Tip: Measuring velocity is for making better predictions; not for judging a team or its members.
Use velocity to know what your team can do. Use velocity to know what to expect. Use velocity to make your team want more and be better. Never use velocity to judge your team or evaluate the productivity of your programmers.
Always Look Back and Improve
Following the first few sprints, our scrum master gathered the whole team. He began asking us about the good and bad things from the past week. This might be uncomfortable at the beginning, but it's still incredibly important. Describing what you felt went wrong in the past week will create awareness. And, of course, it is also helpful to highlight what went well!
These meetings are typically referred to as Retrospectives. They offer the scope to highlight what was good and what went wrong. Here are some examples from my own retrospectives.
Bad Things
- Team members were fighting too much
- Team member X or Y was not collaborative when pair programming
- We lost too much time with small things, like X or Y
- We did not pair program all the time
- We did not write unit tests for module M
When discussing problems, try to put aside your personal feelings; speak about what's bothering you. This is the only way for the team to resolve the issue. The most important thing is to immediately propose a solution for each problem. Don't simply let the list be written and forgotten; stay for a few minutes, and have the whole team think about what can be done to avoid them next week.
Good Things
- We finished on time
- We were able to talk without fighting
- Some of us became more receptive to suggestions and ideas
- We wrote all the code with TDD
Again, highlight as many good things as possible - especially at the beginning or with junior programmers. For example, having all the code written with TDD may be a big achievement for a junior team. Make them feel really good about it, make them want to do it more and more. The same is true for a senior team; they simply have other things to highlight (TDD is done by reflex).
I Want to See What You Did This Sprint
The demo is for showing stake holders (and the product owner) the progress of the project.
This heading comes from the words of my scrum master. At that point, he also was the product owner. Before the end of a sprint, he'd ask us to present him with what we accomplished. We prepared a Demo, or a working example in a controlled environment.
Scrum proposes these demos at the end of each sprint. These should be done before the retrospective meeting that we discussed above. The team should prepare a special environment, and ensure that the product is capable of showcasing the features done in this sprint. The demo is for showing stake holders (and the product owner) the progress of the project.
You may ask yourself why I mentioned a controlled environment, when our product should be production-ready at the end of each sprint. Yes, the product should be as close to production-ready as possible, but that does not mean that the feature, itself, is ready. Often, there will be features which are too big to fit within a single sprint. The product will remain stable, but the feature will not quite be ready. When stakeholder see the demo, they want to review the feature and what it can do. In many cases, to showcase some functionalities for unfinished features, special environments must first be prepared.
Additionally, based on these demos, the product owner may determine that a bigger feature is good enough, and a new version of the product should be published and sent to the users. Most of the time, even if a feature is not quite complete, a release will help the project gain valuable user feedback, and concentrate the completion of the feature in a way that will satisfy as many users as possible.
Well, this sounds quite simple. You're an agile team, you keep your tests always on green, and your product is in a stable state. How difficult can it be to prepare a quick demo? It's more difficult than you might think!
Our team needed, if I remember correctly, more than five attempts before we managed to correctly prepare the demo. Luckily for us, the stake holders were not included in these first failed demos!
Still, We Need More Guidance
In these meetings, each team member must answer three questions.
It was the moment when our scrum master proposed to make a meeting each day. Yes! Every day, every morning, at an exact hour!
I find this to be a very good thing for new teams - for people who are not yet comfortable with one another, or with the project. These daily meetings, called Daily Scrum, are kept with the team, at a specified time every day. This should be kept before any work is done for the respective day. In my team, we set the time to 10AM each morning, which was difficult to do. Nonetheless, it was the correct decision.
The daily scrum is a short and simple meeting (not more than fifteen minutes). The scope of it is to help team members see who is doing what, and determine where the problems and bottlenecks in the development project are.
In these meetings, each team member must answer three questions:
- What did you do yesterday? - A short answer is expected - max 2-3 sentences.
- What are you planning to do today? - Same type of short answer, things like "I will work on this story today."
- Are there any problems with your process? If yes, what? Can they be quickly solved? This should be an answer highlighting the problems and solutions, if known. No detailed discussions should be taken, while this meeting goes on. The scrum master should take note of the problem, and work toward solving it together with the team, after the meeting is adjourned.
Solving the problems and impediments in the way of developers should be high priority for the team, so that they can continue with their development as soon as possible. Often, the person who had the problem is capable of solving it in a timely manner. Other times, he or she requires the help of a teammate. And other times, the problem can be so serious that the team will have to stop development and concentrate exclusively on solving the one thing that prevents them from continuing their work.
I remember my team encountering these huge road-blocks on several different occasions. There were tasks and stories, which seemed to be quite obvious at first site, but, after a pair or a single programmer had the chance to dig into the problem, the obvious became confusing and wrong. We discovered several times that a third party library could not provide us with the necessary functionality, and ended up concentrating all of our efforts into finding another, more capable library - or even implementing a solution ourselves.
The majority of our project is written in PHP. At some point, we had to interface our project with VMWare. We reviewed the official libraries for VMWare API, and found out there are Java and Perl versions. There's also an unofficial Ruby option. We were sure that we could use one of them, and simply do some
exec() calls from PHP to capture the output as a string. As we thought, parsing from there should be piece of cake.
It turned out that this was next to impossible. Neither API library worked quite as we expected it to. Some were abandoned or incomplete, and they had nearly impossible to parse outputs. Ultimately, we were forced to do something that nobody had ever done before: implement a VMWare API library in PHP. Unfortunately, there was no other reasonably acceptable way to do it.
This problem was massive; it set back the initial plans by weeks! Of course, our product owner was immediately notified, and, together with him, we planned a new schedule, and developed new stories, which included the creation of this API library.
More often than not, your problems will be much smaller. People might get stuck with some more sophisticated logic, but, many times, by the following morning, they already have ideas and solutions. Other times, they will simply be going on the wrong road, and a teammate will need to help get them back on track. These represent your typical issues.
Here we are at the conclusion. At least, this is how my team got started with Scrum. Some rules were very useful; others less so. Further, some rules were only useful for a short time, while others are still respected religiously by our team.
I can only recommend that you embrace the agile process, try out Scrum, and form your own conclusions. I'm sure that you'll find bits and pieces to adopt for your team. Be agile, adapt it for your style of work, for you projects and your personalities, and don't be afraid of adding your own custom rules.
After all, Agile refers to adaptation, not blindly following a set of pre-determined rules!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Whitney Houston's Death Caused by Accidental Drowning
Whitney Houston drowned, with cocaine fresh in her system, following a possible heart attack, according to her newly-released initial autopsy report.
The Los Angeles County Coroner's Chief of Operations, Craig Harvey, stated that Houston appeared to have used cocaine "in the time period just immediately prior to her collapse in the bathtub at the hotel," though no traces of the drug were found in her room.
TMZ is claiming her supplier removed the evidence before authorities arrived.
Harvey added that the results of toxicology testing indicated Houston was a chronic cocaine user, and also that the Pope was Catholic. Or, anyway, one of those things.
Atherosclerotic heart disease, which can lead to blockages of blood flow to the heart, was listed as a contributing factor to the 48 -year-old's death.
Tests also revealed the presence of marijuana, Xanax, Benadryl, and a muscle relaxant called Flexerill in Houston's system, though this cocktail of drugs was not believed to have contributed directly to her demise.
Prior to the release of the initial autopsy report, Houston's manager and sister-in-law Patricia Houston claimed she was doubtful Whitney's death was drug-related. She told Oprah Winfrey earlier this month:
"I don't think drugs [were] an issue for her before her death. I don't know what happened that day."
In a statement today, Patricia Houston said that the singer's family was "saddened to learn of the toxicology results" but "glad to have closure."
On a related note: You can stop looking for the Whitney/Ray-J sextape you weren't looking for. A rep for Brandy's brother said it doesn't exist.
[Image via AP]


text:
Engineers India Limited Recruitment 2018
EIL Recruitment – Check the recent notification released for Engineers India Limited Recruitment 2018 to recruit Graduates ad Management Trainees.
Engineers India Limited Recruitment 2018
Engineers India Limited (EIL) has come up with a great opportunity for all the Graduates. EIL is recruiting interested and eligible graduates as Management Trainees for a total of 67 vacancies. EIL is a premier engineering consultancy organization with several projects in the fields of refineries, petrochemicals, pipelines, metallurgy etc. Candidates are advised not to miss this opportunity as it is a pioneer organization. Apply at the earliest by reading the following post on Engineers India Limited Recruitment 2018 with all details including important dates, eligibility criteria, application link, how to apply and much more.
Vacancy Details
Important Dates for Engineers India Limited Recruitment 2018
|Important Dates
|Online Application starts from
|11th April 2018
|Last Date to Apply Online
|2nd May 2018
Eligibility Criteria for EIL Recruitment
Educational Qualification
A candidate should have done a full-time B.E. / B.Tech./ B.Sc (Engineering) with a minimum of 65% from a recognized University.
Note – You should have passed the Bachelors Degree in the year 2017 or 2018 only.
Age Limit
Age Limit (as on 1st July 2018)
General – 25 years
OBC –28 years
SC/ST –30 years
PWD –10 years
Age Relaxation
SC/ST – 5 years
OBC –3 years
PwD –10 years
Engineers India Limited Recruitment Selection Process
The Engineers India Limited Recruitment Selection Process comprises of the following:
1.GATE Score – First and Foremost, your GATE score would be noticed.
2. Interview
- As mentioned earlier, the EIL Recruitment Board will shortlist you on the basis of your GATE 2018 score obtained.
- The Engineers India Limited Recruitment Board will intimate you the details regarding the Interview via Email.
- Once shortlisted, you will be called for the Interview.
- Once you have qualified the Interview, you will be appointed as the Management Trainee.
Application Fee
There is no application fee for EIL recruitment 2018.
During your Training Period – Rs. 35,000/- + Accommodation and Transport or Rs 5000/-
After Training – Rs. 60,000/- to Rs.1,80,000/- per month
How to Apply for Engineers India Limited Recruitment 2018?
- Click on the above-given Direct Link to apply online
- If you haven't registered earlier, as a new candidate, go to click to start the Registration Process and register yourself
- Note down your Registration Number.
- Login to EIL Recruitment portal and go to the recruitment of Management Trainees section.
- Select the post name you want to apply for.
- Mention your name and correct GATE 2018 Registration Number.
- Upload your scanned Photograph, Signature and prescribed Documents.
- Submit the Application Form and take the print out for future use.
- Alternatively, you can also apply from the Official Website of EIL.
- Follow step 2 to 8.


text:
Red Banarasi Silk Handwoven Tanchoi Kurta Fabric
Dupatta Shown is only for styling. Click here to view with dupatta.
Design your own outfits from Khinkhwab's exclusive fabrics range. This is an intricately designed Pure silk handwoven Fabric with Tanchui work done all over.
Tanchoi, brought to India through Chinese traders, is a traditional weaving technique, popular for intricate designs, involving single or double warp and different colors on the weft. It involves intensive labor and time thus making it an exclusive piece.
This fabric is apt for making any kind of kurtas, Lehangas, jackets, blouses or other outfits.
This fabric is sold by the meter. The price stated is for per meter.
Fabric- Pure handwoven Katan.
Weave- Banarasi Tanchui weaves
Length- Sold by the meter.
Note- There may be slight color variations due to photographic reasons.
This is a hand-woven product and any irregularities in the weaving or pattern should not be taken as a defect. These irregularities make every handloom piece unique.


text:
A London skyscraper that drew ire for having a glare so strong it melted nearby cars and shops will get a permanent fix.
The offending tower — known as the Walkie-Talkie for its curved, bulging shape — is to have a sunshade attached to its south-facing facade to stop the concave surface from reflecting sunlight and beaming concentrated rays to a nearby street, developers said Thursday.
The 37-story building made headlines in September when a Jaguar owner who parked his car at its foot complained that the solar glare melted part of the vehicle. Local shopkeepers also said the beams — dubbed "death rays" by the British press — blistered paintwork and burnt a hole in a floor mat during the hottest parts of the day.
Developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf had put up a dark netted screen as a temporary measure. They now say they have received permission to erect a permanent sunshade of horizontal aluminum fins, which they say will solve the problem by absorbing and diffusing sunlight.
The sunshade will cover much of the Walkie-Talkie's southern face, and will inevitably block the Thames views for the tower's occupants "to a limited extent," the developers said. But they added that "the extra texture, detail and reduction in reflectivity will make the building a better neighbor."
It wasn't the first time that the skyscraper, designed by architect Rafael Vinoly and officially known as 20 Fenchurch Street, attracted controversy. Even before it was built, UNESCO, the United Nations heritage body, complained that tall buildings like it would negatively impact the historic Tower of London nearby.
Categories: -News-
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.


text:
DSfin OKN: Difference between revisions
Computational Linguistics and Information Processing
No edit summary
No edit summary
|Line 9:
|Line 9:
* FEIII Challenge: [https://ir.nist.gov/dsfin]
* FEIII Challenge: [https://ir.nist.gov/dsfin]
* DSMM Workshop with ACM SIGMOD: [https://dsmmworkshop.org]
* DSMM Workshop with ACM SIGMOD: [https://dsmmworkshop.org]
* Multi-agency OKN Workshop: [http://ichs.ucsf.edu/open-knowledge-network/]
* Multi-agency OKN Workshop: [http://ichs.ucsf.edu/open-knowledge-network/][https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CwoopZzCFnnoLVRUme2P3F7loShBfcmcl_WT172SZCU/edit?usp=sharing]
Revision as of 22:05, 16 November 2017
DSfin will apply text extraction, named entity resolution, and NLP methods, combined with taxonomies and ontologies, to create financial Open Knowledge Networks (DSfin OKN). This project will build upon existing collaborations with IBM Watson using the System T platform.
Know Your Entity (KYE) is a task that occurs across multiple domains. For the financial domain, it revolves around financial entities. The goal is to develop an open knowledge network (OKN) to obtain business intelligence relevant to some industry sector. While there is knowledge specific to each industry sector (defined by SIC or NAICS codes), DSfin will create rich industry specific collections.
DSfin will explore all ownership, subsidiary, affiliate and partner relationships for some ego (central) financial entity, e.g., Bank of America in the figure. This will then be extended to all known relationships (financial, contractual, operational, legal, etc.) among pairs or groups of financial entities, e.g., Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
More information:


text:
Barry Manilow writes the songs, but his family would prefer he didn't write his own history. In particular they'd prefer he didn't tell people he's actually the son of an Irishman. That's right, Manilow is actually half Irish.
A born and raised New Yorker, most fans know Manilow was brought up by his mother Edna and his Russian immigrant Jewish grandparents. But few know he is actually half-Irish.
The truth is, Manilow's late father was a man called Harold Kelliher, an Irish truck driver. Being poor and not Jewish, Kelliher had two strikes against him and was a persona non grata in the Manilow family. Their objections to his lowly status was a bit rich, Manilow told the Irish Independent this week, as their own background was 'beneath humble.'
'The fact that Harold was an Irish truck-driver was hidden from the family,' Manilow told the Irish Independent. 'It was considered a terrible thing for my mother to have done. They wouldn't even allow my name to be Kelliher. They changed it immediately. When I was born, I was called Barry Pincus. They had to dig deep into my father's family to find one Jewish relative. They went back to the 1800s and they found one uncle, a Jewish guy called Pincus. My mother made my father change his name to Pincus.
'Right now it sounds stupid but back then they thought that having a Jewish son was the most important thing. To me, it means nothing. As a matter of fact, it would have been interesting if my name was Barry Kelliher and if I was raised half-Irish and half-Jewish, but I wasn't. The Irish part of me did not exist. It was gone and forgotten.'
Manilow's parents divorced when he was still a baby and he was known as Barry Pincus until his grandfather brought him to have his surname changed legally to their family name Manilow.
The grandparents played an instrumental role in rearing Barry, lavishing him with love and all the while telling him that his biological father was 'a monster father.'
'That's what I was told, and also that I shouldn't have anything to do with him,' he says. 'I don't think he was a monster father at all.' There is a touch of tenderness in his tone as he recalls him. 'I think he was a good guy. He tried to get in touch with me, but they wouldn't let him in my world.'
As a boy one day walking in Brooklyn he heard a man call his name. Something familiar about his looks made Manilow connect his face to the one stray photo of his father he had seen.
'It was my 11th birthday. He handed me a tape recorder and ran away and got back into his truck. I didn't see him for many, many years after that. They just would not allow me to have anything to do with him.'
They met only one time later.
'He came backstage after a show - a quick conversation. He kept trying to get into my life, but it was just too late, too late,' Manilow sighs.
Another Irish truck driver named Willie Murphy came into his mother's life and the pair spent a lot of their time drinking, but the relationship was not a destructive one.
Manilow says he listened to and was inspired by Murphy's Irish record collection and, later when he became his stepfather, both he and and his mother clubbed together to buy the boy a piano. It cost $800 and took five years to pay off but they loved him and they believed in his talent.
'They did a great thing,' he says.
Barry Manilow singing his world famous song "Mandy":


text:
This stunning mobius bracelet is inscribed with comforting words for mother's and their children. Because maternal love is unconditional and never-ending.
A mother holds her children's hands for a short while but their hearts forever
The Mobius band is a surface with only one side. As a bracelet it has been designed so that an inscription can flow all around, inside and out, without end. The unique properties of this design make the poetry, prayer or phrase, seem infinite.
This exquisite bracelet made in the USA measures 8 1/4 inches in circumference, ellipse: 2 13/16 x 2 ½ inches and width: 3/16 - 5/16 inches.
Available in Sterling Silver for immediate delivery and please allow 4 weeks for 14K Gold as these are made to order.
It arrives in a beautiful gift box with the history and care for the piece nestled in. This makes for a beautiful presentation especially when it is wrapped!
Tags: mobius, bracelet, jewelry, Inspiration


text:
If he had known what a complex undertaking it would be, Nainoa Thompson says now, he might not have asked Honolulu Community College to create a digital library of documents related to the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
But the man whose name is synonymous with rescuing traditional voyaging from the brink of extinction celebrated the public launch February 8 of hookele.org, a digital archive created through a partnership of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu Community College and the Hawaiian Digital Library Ulukau.
"The stuff you folks have done is on the level of a miracle," Thompson told the project staff and a supporting crew of contributors.
Creating an archive
It took six years and review and research and the digitizing and organizing of 65,000 documents to create the extensive record of the society and the voyages of Hōkūleʻa. The project began with the society's archive at Kamehameha Schools, where materials were preserved but not readily available for scholarly or public use, Thompson said. The effort expanded to include additional materials from crew members and sources.
"Voyaging by the ancient Polynesians was one of the most remarkable navigation feats in the world and we don't know anything about it," Thompson said. "This archive is a place to maintain the kuleana so we do not forget again."
Honolulu Community College Chancellor Michael Rota also recognized the work of important, if more recent, predecessors. State leadership 30- to 40-years ago resulted in legislation that set aside funds for Hawaiian-serving institutions that support Hawaiian language, culture and education, he said. It was former Chancellor Ramsey Pedersen who agreed to use those federal Title III funds to support the project.
"The unique assets of our Marine Education and Training Center and the unique undertaking of the Polynesian Voyaging Society have been major benefits to Honolulu Community College and to our place in the community," Rota said.
"What we're sharing is one of the most significant cultural events in Hawaiian history in the last 100 years," he added, touching on the importance placed on the Hawaiian cultural resurgence by his colleagues in the Pacific.
Forging a partnership
The Polynesian Voyaging Society came to the college's marine center as a place to tie up Hōkūleʻa, Thompson observed. But the partnership between the institutions since 2003 has created opportunities. "There are educational programs we could create together that we couldn't create apart."
Training for the society's World Wide Voyage started at the center, he added. The research to support a sailing plan that addressed weather systems around the globe, safety issues such as piracy and political unrest and accompanying educational programs took place within the center's walls.
Traditional knowledge has to be coupled with technology, he said, describing solar powered engines that will be installed on the canoe that will be the new child of Hōkūleʻa.
"The other canoe we launch today"—a website that will carry thousands, perhaps millions of people on voyages. "It is an enormous service to those who have gone before us and those generations not yet born who want to grow up believing their homeland is a place to believe in and a place that is sacred."
About the archive
A boon to academics, educators and students alike, the site allows users to search by year, individual, voyage, document title or topic.
Project coordinator Jonathan Wong calls it "one of the coolest things I ever did."
Visit the hookele.org.
Read more about Thompson's vision for voyaging and education in Mālamalama
Support Honolulu Community College through the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation or the Polynesian Voyaging Society.


text:
7200 Reach-Fork Truck Narrow Aisle Forklift
Right-Size Performance
The Raymond 7200 Reach-Fork truck is engineered to fit your narrow aisle application with multiple configurations and smaller battery compartment options to right-size your operation and reduce energy costs. Smaller battery compartments may allow for fewer aisles and more pallet positions than competing models.
- Battery: 24 volts
- Battery Compartment: Available with 14-inch or 16-inch battery compartment
- Capacity: 3,500 lbs. to 4,000 lbs.
- Elevated Height: 270" maximum
- Maximum load: 4,000 lbs., 2,500 lbs. deep reach
- Customized for Your Application: Hundreds of configurations available to meet your specific needs
Built to Perform
Battery Shift LifeLonger battery shift life means trucks run longer on a single charge, reducing energy costs and downtime for battery changes.
Performance Without CompromiseBy using less energy, you benefit from lower operational costs with reduced kWh usage and fewer carbon emissions.
Efficient by DesignFewer battery changes means more pallets moved over the course of a shift at a lower cost.
ACR SystemDelivers quicker acceleration and electronic breaking, faster lift and lower speeds, and smooth directional changes for more efficient load handling and movement in storage aisles.
Open View MastThe universal stance configuration allows greater visibility, leading to increased productivity and operator confidence, fewer errors and less product, rack and facility damage.
Exclusive Steered IdlerPrevents caster snap, reducing the time it takes an operator to back away from a rack with a load at high elevations—making the most of uptime.
Reduced Maintenance RequirementsReduce downtime with advanced, on-board diagnostics that provide self-checking capabilities for simplified troubleshooting, and scheduled maintenance intervals of 500 hours that are twice that of competitors.
Flex Circuit TechnologyEasy-to-remove control handle with only 35 parts—61% fewer parts than competing models—for less maintenance and lower costs.
Bolt-on Wheel PlatesWith floating articulation, allows for easy load-wheel replacement and improved ride quality.
Low Entry-step HeightEasier compartment entry helps operators avoid unnecessary climbing, minimizing fatigue over the course of a shift.
Single-axis Control HandleSimultaneous function with intuitive vehicle controls that are easy to learn, for greater operator confidence and productivity.
Spacious CompartmentDesigned for operator comfort with wraparound, contoured padding, multiple lean points and cushioned floors.
A-frame SuspensionDelivers smooth, precise handling with full-time traction and steering alignment.
Unique Inertial DampenerShocks and sways are reduced before they reach the operator compartment—enhancing stability and operator performance.
Steered Idler DesignAutomatically aligns with the drive wheel to prevent caster snap and provides rock-solid stability at high elevations, increasing operator confidence.
3-inch Underclearance
For small applications that want the versatility to work in trailers, the 3-inch underclearance option allows you to travel over a 21% grade, compared with a 14% grade on a standard 2-inch underclearance.
Fork-tip Laser Guide
Assists operators for faster loading and unloading of pallets at height by providing a clearly visible laser guide on the pallet.
Height-tilt Indicator
Digital readout shows height of forks and condition of tilt. Ideal for lift heights above 200 inches.
Vantage Point Camera
The color display monitor mounted in the operator's compartment helps the operator to identify, place and retrieve pallets at greater heights.
ThermaKit System
For cold storage warehouses, our padded, heated control handle and heated floor cushion keep your operators warm. By keeping hands and feet warmer for longer, ThermaKit enables improved productivity shift after shift.
Operator Compartment Sensor System
Designed as a training aid to encourage proper operating procedures. Two light sensors span the entry to the operator compartment, sounding a tone and displaying a message on the operator's display when the sensors are blocked. If stationary, the truck will not travel if the light sensor is blocked.
Cold Storage
Refrigerated warehouses, blast freezers, and other cold storage applications require robust control systems. Raymond maintains its own cold storage test facility to replicate the harshest conditions to test and prove our systems in extreme cycles of freezing and thawing.
Narrow Aisle
With more than 200 combinations of heights, features and capacities, Raymond Reach trucks for narrow aisle storage offer superior versatility and effective solutions to improve the utilization of your warehouse space.
Specialty Rack
The 7300 Reach-Fork truck can interface with every industry-standard warehouse rack. If you have selective, double deep, drive-in/drive-thru, cantilever, pallet flow or push-back racks, Raymond has a solution that will help maximize your storage capacity and productivity.
UL EE Applications
Raymond 7000 Series Reach-Fork trucks comply with Underwriters Laboratories (UL) 583. Raymond Type E and EE trucks are UL-tested and UL-certified and designed and manufactured to operate in classified locations as defined in the National Fire Protection Association's NFPA 505.
Celebrating 65 Years of the Raymond Reach Truck
Raymond pioneered narrow aisle with the invention of the first narrow aisle forklift in 1951. For 65 years, we've continuously innovated the reach forklift—from the introduction of AC technology into electric forklifts to the industry's first integrated operator display—to give our customers the best reach trucks in the industry.
7000 Series Reach-Fork Trucks Video
Raymond's 7000 Series Reach trucks have proven productivity and efficiency through the design of the truck; increased battery life with regenerative lowering which produces energy when the forks are lowered, and the ACR System™ which has fewer parts to service and replace decreasing downtime.
Vantage Point Camera System
With the Vantage Point option, a camera below the fork carriage delivers high-resolution images to a color monitor in the operator compartment. A clearly visible green reference line on the monitor shows the operator the position of the fork tips, enabling accurate retrieval.
Contact Us
Please complete the contact form below and a Johnston Equipment representative will contact you to discuss your request.


text:
Setting a minimum pledge the wrong approach
Q. At our congregation we are working at establishing a minimum annual financial commitment policy for a voting member. I am wondering what other UU congregations have been doing in that regard?
A. Asking friends and members for just a minimum contribution is not a good idea, says Dr. Wayne Clark, the UUA's Director of Congregational Stewardship Services. "Having a minimum financial commitment tends to lower the bar for congregants who might be able and willing to make larger commitments. It can lead them to expect that their congregation won't ask much of them in any area. If you ask little of people, that's usually what they will give. It's often much less than what they would give if they'd been asked differently."
Clark recommends giving people the UUA's Suggested Fair Share Giving Guide as soon as they join or become involved on a regular basis. "That lets them create their own definition of a fair share gift by placing themselves on the guide," he said. "Then it's the congregant who defines fair share, not the minister or other leader."


text:
Sculptra® is a safe, synthetic, and biocompatible material that is injected below the surface of the skin in the area of fat loss. It provides a gradual and significant increase in skin thickness, improving the appearance of folds and sunken areas. Sculptra® is used to help restore fullness, or volume to sunken cheeks, indentation, and hollow eyes.
Why do we need volume restoration?
As we age, our faces begin to show the effects of gravity, sun exposure and years of facial muscle movement, such as smiling and chewing. This aging process also leads to loss of fullness in the face seen as a loss of cheek fullness, the appearance of sagging lower cheeks and lips (nasolabial folds), the thinning of lips and the appearance of hollows in the temples. As the facial volume that keeps our skin looking youthful and plumped-up diminishes over time, laugh lines, smile lines, facial creases and hollowness remain. We are happy to discuss facial volume restoration with you at your next consultation with Dr. Callahan.


text:
Vol. LXIII, No. 44
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Schoemaker-Tester. Annemarie Frances Schoemaker, daughter of Erik and Kathleen Schoemaker of Princeton, to Michael William Tester, son of William and Linda Tester of Fort Washington, Pa., on July 18 at St. Pauls Roman Catholic Church in Princeton. The Rev. Monsignor Walter Nolan performed the ceremony.
A reception followed the wedding at the Tournament Players Club at Jasna Polana.
The bride was given in marriage by her father.
Serving as Maid of Honor was Natalia Romeszewski, friend of the bride. Serving as bridesmaids were Marissa and Kristen Tester, sisters of the groom; Tess Fernandez, a cousin of the bride; Joanna and Nicole Sieben, cousins of the groom; and Alexis Micale, Angela Moravek, Nina Okun, and Laura Walsh, all friends of the bride.
Serving as Best Man was Tyler Warren, a friend of the groom. Serving as groomsmen were Jeremy Schoemaker, brother of the bride; Robert Tester Jr., a cousin of the groom; Shawn McAleer, brother-in-law of the groom; and Brendan Dales, Christopher Finn, Adam Hyatt, David Ryan, Brad Segal, and Matthew Silverman, all friends of the groom.
The bride is a graduate of Princeton High School. She holds a bachelors degree from American University and a masters degree from Drexel University. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in psychology at LaSalle University.
The groom is a graduate of Upper Dublin High School. He holds a bachelors degree from Penn State and a masters degree from New York University. He is currently pursuing a degree in architecture at Drexel University and is employed by Hunter Roberts Construction Group in Philadelphia.
The couple spent their honeymoon in Hawaii and will reside in Blue Bell, Pa.
Town Topics® may be purchased on Wednesday mornings at the following locations: Princeton McCaffreys, Coxs, Kiosk (Palmer Square), Krauszers (State Road), Olives, Speedy Mart (State Road), Wawa (University Place); Hopewell Village Express; Rocky Hill Wawa (Route 518); Pennington Pennington Market.
Copyright© Town Topics®, Inc. 2011.
Contact Us | Masthead | Advertise | Submit | Last Week | Back Issues


text:
- Home
- City Services
- Administrative Services
- Utilities
- Sewers & Storm Drains
Free Flowing Sewers & Storm Drains Carry Costs
The economic and public health benefits associated with reliable municipal sewer and stormwater programs are numerous. Both systems require careful maintenance and fiscal oversight for sound operation. The City of Brea has provided this since 1925, when parts of the existing sewer system were first built.
As the city has developed over the past 80 plus years, the sewer system has become a self-sustaining enterprise. Given the rise in operational and maintenance costs and the need to repair deficiencies in the sewer system, an adjustment to the existing sewer rates are proposed. Plans also are complete to introduce a comprehensive stormwater management system under a separate self-sustaining program.
System Status
For the first time in 19 years, a fee increase was proposed (and approved) in October 2006 to cover rising expenses for providing services and to adequately fund a capital improvement program necessary to replace and rehabilitate some portions of the system. Throughout the state, agencies are challenged with significant increased costs to meet numerous requirements from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. Stricter mandates, backed by hefty fines for non-compliance, are prompting smart infrastructure upgrades to assure long-term cost control. Fines for sewer spills can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each incident.
Brea has been very diligent in upholding high standards for ongoing maintenance practices over these many years. Therefore, the system has been reliable despite infrastructure that is overdue for replacement. The council has determined it is now time to move ahead with key projects recommended in the Sewer Master Plan.
Rates & Fees
Fees derive from customer type and the meter size used, plus a usage charge reflecting wastewater flows that are generated. A qualified independent consultant developed these new rate charts after studying all cost components and doing highly detailed comparisons. The new fee structure directs future income into two distinct funds:
- The first fund pays for direct expenses related to operation, maintenance, and regulatory compliance
- The second fund is earmarked for capital improvements
Gradual increases will provide adequate resources to fund the program. After 15 years, the fee is expected to reach a maximum amount of about $12.60 a month. Within Orange County this bumps Brea, after enjoying many years as the lowest priced agency, into a moderate range compared to other current municipal charges. However, over the longer term Brea will continue to deliver an excellent value to its customers as many of these other agencies are just now beginning their upward adjustment processes.
Click here to view current Sewer & Urban Runoff Rates
In the Future
The Brea City Council considers proposed increases in sewer fees, as well as adoption of stormwater rates after accepting public comment during noticed public hearings within regular council meetings. Once approved, changes are incorporated into your monthly utility billing from the City of Brea.
Brea's staff develops all recommendations for both the sewer and stormwater programs using City Council direction to be fiscally responsible while still maintaining high customer service levels. For answers to specific questions, contact Brea water utility billing at 714-990-7687.
The photos below are actual images taken by Brea's vactor truck, which is routinely used by the Maintenance Services Department for troubleshooting repairs and determining future project areas. The sequence shows typical sewer line problems: cracks, offsets, and root obstructions.


text:
The bright blue sky and gentle clouds of Glacier National Park, Montana at the mouth of Bullhead Lake.
Standard Prints are printed on standard photo paper.
Premium Metal Prints are printed on a 1/16″ aluminum sheet.
Gallery Wraps are printed on fine art canvas material, then wrapped around a 1.5″ wooden stretcher frame with wire or saw tooth mounting attached.
All prints are made to order. Please allow time for processing and shipping.


text:
Explanation: This remarkable self-portrait of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover includes a sweeping panoramic view of its current location in the Yellowknife Bay region of the Red Planet's Gale Crater. The rover's flat, rocky perch, known as "John Klein", served as the site for Curiosity's first rock drilling activity. At the foot of the proud looking rover, a shallow drill test hole and a sample collection hole are 1.6 centimeters in diameter. The impressive mosaic was constructed using frames from the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and Mastcam. Used to take in the panoramic landscape frames, the Mastcam is standing high above the rover's deck. But MAHLI, intended for close-up work, is mounted at the end of the rover's robotic arm. The MAHLI frames used to create Curiosity's self-portrait exclude sections that show the arm itself and so MAHLI and the robotic arm are not seen. Check out this spectacular interactive version of Curiosity's self-portrait panorama.
|<< Previous APOD
|This Day in APOD
|Next APOD >>


text:
An enormous mirror will be cast inside a scorching-hot furnace Saturday (Aug. 24), marking a key milestone in the development of a future telescope that will collect more light than any instrument built to date.
The Giant Magellan Telescope mirror, the third of the seven primary mirrors planned for the observatory, will be 27 feet (8.4 meters) across and weigh 20 tons when complete. It will be forged from chunks of borosilicate glass subjected to temperatures of 2,140 degrees Fahrenheit (1,170 degrees Celsius) inside a rotating furnace Saturday at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab in Tucson.
Once cast and polished, these seven mirrors will be arranged to function as a single mirror 80 feet (24.5 m) in diameter, giving the $700 million GMT a resolving power 10 times greater than that of NASA's famous Hubble Space Telescope once the new instrument is up and running in northern Chile in 2020. [See more images of the Giant Magellan Telescope (Gallery)]
"Astronomical discovery has always been paced by the power of available telescopes and imaging technology," Peter Strittmatter, head of the Steward Observatory's astronomy department, said in a statement. "The GMT allows another major step forward in both sensitivity and image sharpness."
This sharpness will be achieved with the aid of seven smaller secondary mirrors, which will act as an adaptive optics system that cancels out the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere.
Astronomers will use the GMT to detect and characterize exoplanets, investigate the nature of mysterious dark matter and dark energy and study the physics of black holes, among other things, telescope officials said.
The GMT is one of several huge telescope projects under way around the world to usher in a new era of Earth-based astronomical research. Despite the immense size of the GMT, it is still not the largest telescope slated for construction.
The planned Thirty Meter Telescope, which is slated to be built atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, will be about 98 feet (30 m) across when it begins observations in 2025. The European Extremely Large Telescope project, meanwhile, will hold the record for the largest Earth-based optical telescope. It will have a main mirror 138 feet (42 m) across and be built in Chile, like GMT, but be overseen by the European Southern Observatory.
The GMT's first mirror has already been cast and polished to a surface accuracy within 25 nanometers — about 1,000 times thinner than a human hair — while the second mirror has been cast but is not yet completed. Construction of the GMT facility, at the Las Campanas Observatory in northern Chile's Atacama Desert, is slated to begin in 2014, with science operations starting six years later. The telescope's site was cleared in March 2012 with a massive explosion.
The GMT team and the University of Arizona are inviting reporters to attend Saturday's mirror casting, and SPACE.com's Mike Wall will make the trip. So check back soon for an account of this milestone event, along with lots of pretty pictures.
This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.
Live Science newsletter
Stay up to date on the latest science news by signing up for our Essentials newsletter.
Most Popular
By Ben Turner
By Emily Cooke
By Jon Copley
By Sascha Pare
By Laura Geggel
By Sascha Pare


text:
- Updated On:
- April 17, 2021
If you're looking for a family home with a large mature garden this home is sure to appeal! A spacious 4 bedroom home in Mangotsfield briefly comprises of, entrance porch, hallway, living room with bay window, dining room leading to a conservatory, kitchen and downstairs cloakroom. To the first floor can be found 3 bedrooms and a family bathroom, not to mention the second floor which has a further double bedroom!
Further benefits also include gas central heating, double glazing (where specified), a garage, driveway and gardens. Early viewing is highly recommended to appreciate all this home has to offer.
Property Id : 161855


text:
Get An Envy-Inducing Beard With This Comprehensive Style Guide
The AskMen Acquire team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. Beard styles 2016.
Fact of life: Chicks dig scuff. Research proves that women rate facial hair as one of the major physical attractions of men. And just because Movember is still months away, that shouldn't discourage you from sporting the fuzzy facial trend you desire — beard or moustache.
Quit being so self-conscious, staring at the glorious whiskers of other men, wondering if it's possible to grow your facial hair so resplendently (or whether or not your employer would approve). Time to aim — and aim high. Don't sweat patchy areas or whether your features only allow for a wispy bristle; you can work with whatever is present and still get acceptable, admirable results. After all, the only way to know how it will look is to grow it out, and experiment with options.
Read this guide for everything you need to know: How to get the coolest beard and mustache styles, how to complement your face shape with the most flattering beard, how to trim and fade your facial hair, and how to keep it all clean and scratch-free with some top-tier grooming products and tools. Your beard-envy days are soon over, but the excitement is only beginning.
1. 12 Beard Styles You Should Try
Good news for beard growers: There are dozens of ways you can shape yours, and at various lengths. Eric Bandholz, the founder and hirsute face of Beardbrand, shared his 12 favorite styles, for guys with all sorts of growing abilities and professional demands.
The shortest beard, often just distinguished stubble. It can be grown from one day to two weeks. Neckline and cheek line can be left natural or trimmed. Guys who would otherwise grow patchy beards will often stop at the stubble beard.
Says Bandholz: "The stubble beard is a hotly debated beard within the community. Many guys don't consider it a beard because it's so short. In my opinion, if it's intentional, it's a beard; if it's not, then it's just a dude who hasn't shaved for a while. The beauty with this beard is any guy, regardless of genetics, can pull this off. It doesn't matter if your beard comes in patchy or full and thick. Take James Franco, for instance: he's always rocking this look to give just a little bit more depth to his style than a complete shave would do."
This is the most common beard that guys wear; it's full and covers the skin completely. An office-friendly corporate beard is anywhere from two weeks to two months long before it evolves into something else.
Says Bandholz: "In a formal work setting, guys who want to grow a beard will need to trim their cheek line and neckline; this makes a great, more professional beard. You can dress it up or dress it down, which makes it the most transitional beard, too. The corporate beard is generally reserved for those who have the genetics to grow a fuller beard, as a patchy beard doesn't present fully as it gets longer. As it grows, you'll want to start using beard oil, and will need to keep it tidy with scissors or a trimmer."
A photo posted by Captain Jack Sparrow (@johnnydepp.oficial) on Apr 9, 2016 at 5:40am PDT
Hair is concentrated to the chin and mustache, not on the cheeks. A goatee is just a chin beard (no mustache; if it's connected it's called a "circle beard"). The Van Dyke has disconnected mustache and chin hair (and sometimes the soul patch).
Says Bandholz: "The late 90's and early 2000's were the peak for this style, but it's a classic go-to that guys can still rock. If your cheeks come in patchy, this may be the best option for you. Johnny Depp is a perfect example of a guy who's made the Van Dyke part of his style. Another iteration of these beards is the Balbo beard, which is rocked by both Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio. Essentially, that beard extends through the neck portion without connecting sideburns."
The beard is grown (anything corporate or longer), and the mustache is shaved entirely (no stubble). Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln had a whaler beard.
Says Bandholz: "You'll need to maintain this look just like any full beard. The length will require at least six months' growth. A spinoff of this beard is the Amish beard, which will also trim a little lower around the chin to expose more of the mouth. If you didn't know, the Amish shave off their mustache because the mustache was worn by many military leaders. Because they are pacifists, they didn't want to be associated with men of war."
This style is loud: It requires a full, bushy mustache that far outweighs the beard itself. The beard's length is usually short, like a stubble beard. If you want to get away with this look in a professional environment, you will likely need to dress up so that it feels like part of the ensemble. Otherwise, it can be too polarizing.
Says Bandholz: "This is my favorite styled beard. It's a very bold style that not a lot of guys have the gumption to pull off (myself included). Basically, it's the combination of a big styled mustache with a stubble beard."
This is the inverse of the Beardstache. The mustache is kept at stubble length, whereas the beard is worn full.
Says Bandholz: "Requires approximately six months' growth. If you are a white guy, this is a more conservative style beard and most likely won't be worn in more fashion-forward environments, but it is common with guys whose hands help them make a living — like bartenders, barbers, or musicians. For guys of color, the hair on the upper lip is often too curly and tedious to grow out, so this is a great option that still has the a contrast of hair between lip and chin, instead of shaving the mustache entirely."
Long bushy sideburns with a stubble beard…basically, it's Wolverine.
Popular goatee styles
Says Bandholz: "This one is very hard to pull off; it is a bold style that gets no love from general society. This is a great option for guys who can grow great sideburns but don't get the front part coming in too full. You'll need to keep your sideburns to about two months of growth or shorter. A disheveled, less groomed look is to be expected."
The inverse of scruffburns: short, stubbled sides, with a bushy, grown-out goatee, Van Dyke, or circle beard.
Says Bandholz: "This is a fresh, bold look on the more conservative circle beard. Like the scruffburns, this one will be harder to pull off in a professional setting, unless you are dressing up. With any beard style your best bet for getting away with it is to look dapper. Get yourself some trimmers to keep the cheek line at the stubble level and use scissors for your goatee and mustache."
A full beard with a styled mustache. The beard should be under one year of growth, and will be highly groomed. The mustache is usually not a handlebar mustache (although it can be), but instead has a sweeping style.
Says Bandholz: "This is my current beard style. It's a very dapper look that can be worn in a professional or casual setting. It's a little more maintenance than a corporate beard but with training (especially on the mustache), it can be tamed very shortly in the morning. Keep your neck line and cheek line neat, and consistently use a beard wash and beard softener."
A corporate beard on steroids. Depending on how fast your beard grows, it takes two months to one year.
Says Bandholz: "It's less common in a professional setting, but due to a societal shift in acceptance of larger beards, you may be able to get away with it. Because of the length, you aren't going to need to worry about trimming the neck line. However, I recommend trimming the cheek line for a more corporate look. Most guys will comb the mustache into the beard, but some will style them out to the sides. It's going to be less kempt than your Verdi beard."
As the names suggest, a yeard is a beard that exceeds one year's growth, and a tweard exceeds two. (For the record, a "forever beard" that is grown long past two years is called a terminal beard.)
Says Bandholz: "It takes a surprisingly large amount of maintenance to take care of a bigger beard. Blow-drying it will help it dry quicker, tame the curls, and give it the density you are looking for. Daily beard oil is a must for skin and hair, to keep both hydrated and soft. Be sure to apply it directly at the roots, too, so that the hair grows healthily. These beards can only be rocked in the most liberal of work settings, but it's something I recommend all guys try if they can. It's a wonderful journey."
A vintage look best associated with the Golden Era of Hollywood, it promotes the thickness of a full beard and the distinctive trimming of a boxed beard. Not a bad look for red carpet and social affairs.
Says Bandholz: "Ok, if you haven't followed Travis White you need to follow him. He's rocking one of the coolest beards out there right now. It's a combination of the chinstrap & circle beard, but with an entirely modern look to it. To get this look, you'll want to give your cheeks a straight line towards your earlobe then shave everything up to your sideburns. Depending on the look you're going for, you can trim right up to the chin by your neck, or let that grow out and do a standard neckline. For a lot of guys with patchy cheeks, this is an awesome beard to pull off."
2. And A Few Mustache Styles…
In the era of the beard, the 'stache really doesn't get the love it deserves. Still, the iconic facial look is adopted by a niche group of fellers out there, each one favoring a select style over another. Sascha Breuer, Braun grooming expert and celebrity stylist shares his professional insight on six of the most celebrated looks of the modern man.
A thick, full mustache that fills the space above the upper lip.
Says Sasha: "Popularly known as 'The Selleck,' the chevron is a cool classic. It's one of my favorites because it's elegant in its simplicity. And all you have to do is grow out a thick moustache and keep the lengths even and the ends neat and downward facing. The style works on most face types and you can play with extending the width farther or closer in against your mouth to see what suits you best.?
A "dandy" style that requires long (we're talking long) outer ends, which are curled upward with wax. Several variations of the handlebar exist, which is all dependent on the hair type you naturally grow.
Says Sasha: "Not for the fainthearted, the handlebar is for those who look for some flair and flamboyance in their facial hair. Buy some moustache wax and experiment with the telltale curled ends: softer for a more subdued look or really thin and pointy for max impact. If you're pairing the handlebar with a beard, I suggest keeping the latter well shaped and neatly trimmed to let the moustache shine. The style is best avoided by those with narrow faces: drowning in your own facial hair is never a good look."
The name is self-explanatory in terms of appearance. Think Chevron, plus sides that droop down on both sides of the lips.
Says Sasha: "Remember Hulk Hogan's trademark inverted-U moustache? The horseshoe rarely works outside of biker gangs and the ring, so I do recommend some caution before committing to the look. You can sport a whiskery stubble if you like, but the horseshoe is typically worn without a beard. The moustache is statement enough for one face!"
Thin and certainly a bit eerie, unless you're John Waters or Vincent Price, the style is found adjacent to, or slightly above the lip.
Says Sasha: "Fancy a devil-may-care vibe that works in the boardroom? The pencil is a thin, short and straight moustache made famous by the likes of Clark Gable. The style requires regular upkeep. It works best on square-shaped faces and should ideally be avoided by those with rounder faces."
Think of it as the bigger, badder version of the Chevron. It's just bushy enough to cover both lips entirely. Any guy capable of pulling this off would make Teddy Roosevelt (or Yosemite Sam) proud.
Says Sasha: "The walrus involves growing a moustache out over your upper lip. You can channel your 18th century playwright by growing a full-blown moustache if you like. Personally, I would advise keeping the moustache trimmed such that it barely skims the lip. Add a modern beard like the French beard and you just might find your way back to the 21st century."
Made popular by the last emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the look is meant to signify authority and royalty. Fit the profile?
Says Sasha: "Of all the bold, statement moustaches and beards that are so popular now, the imperial is the most unique: it connects hair from the upper lip and the cheeks to create an impressive form, which can then be styled to the individual. The imperial is imposing yet adaptable, and definitely a head turner. Pro tip: avoid the imperial if you can't devote the necessary time and effort to styling. Growing out enough facial hair for the look requires a ton of patience and you need to groom regularly to maintain the style."
3. How to Pick the Best Beard Style for Your Face Shape
No two men can wear a beard the same way; each style flatters differently, depending on the grower's face shape. Here's a quick guide to knowing which styles will look best on you.
First, you need to determine your face shape.
Look in the mirror. Is your face longer than it is wide? And how does your forehead connect to your cheekbones? Furthermore, how do your cheekbones graduate into your jawline and chin? Chances are, you fit one of the following face shapes: square, circle, rectangle/oblong, triangle, diamond, oval. It's fairly easy to figure out which one you've got, and even easier to know which standard beards will look best.
Second, try to make your face look as oval as possible. This is the most aesthetically pleasing shape, and will prevent you from elongating an already narrow face, or widening a characteristically shorter face.
If you have a square face: Your face is as long as it is wide, with sharp angles at the jaw and little graduation to and from the cheekbones. Pick a beard that adds length and is short on the sides.
If you have a circular face: Your face is as long as it is wide, except that your forehead and jaw graduate toward the cheeks at a soft angle, and your cheekbones are the widest point. Like square faces, pick a beard that is short on the sides but long on bottom.
If you have a rectangular/oblong face: Your face is longer than it is wide; it doesn't matter if you have a rounded jaw or square jaw, because the main objective here is to broaden the face. Grow a beard that is full on the sides, but short on the bottom. You don't want to add much additional length.
If you have a triangular face: Your face is as wide as it is long, but your cheeks graduate sharply toward your chin, with little prominence at the jaws. Your cheeks and forehead are relatively close in width. Pick a beard that is short on the sides, longer on the bottom, but wide on the graduated parts of your chin; fill in the space to create a full, oval beard.
If you have a diamond face: Your cheekbones are the widest part of your face, graduating toward the chin and forehead more sharply than a circular face. Jaw may or may not be prominent. Like triangular faces, diamonds are best complemented with a full beard that masks the sharp angles toward the chin. Keep it trim on the sides, and longer on the bottom.
If you have an oval face: Your face is slightly longer than it is wide, with soft angles toward the chin and forehead. Jaws are prominent, but not sharp. Most beard styles will look good on you, since your face shape is already the "most complementary" shape. However, try to keep it even on the sides and bottom for shorter styles, and grow a longer beard only if you want to break away from workplace molds.
4. Styling and Maintenance: The Essential Beard (And Mustache) Products
Growing facial hair is easy, but growing great facial hair takes patience and discipline. You need to maintain the neck and cheek lines, trim any strays, and clean and condition the hairs regularly — all in addition to any actual styling. Avoid amateur status by picking up a few of these products and tools.
Braun Multi-Grooming 8-in-1 Kit
Even when growing out a beard, one must keep it orderly. Braun's multi-purpose trimmer comes stocked with a variety of comb attachments to fashion the hair length you desire. Use it to fade the beard from the neckline, plus touch up cheek line. Taper edges using the bundled Gillette Fusion Proglide to contour easily across curved landscaping.
Beard designs
Beardbrand Tree Ranger Beard Oil
Most oils are packed with natural ingredients that soften hairs and protects the skin underneath, thus preventing dryness and promoting healthy growth. This lightweight serum comes loaded with essential oils and intoxicating notes of eucalyptus, cedar, and pine to keep the thigh tickler feeling so fresh and so clean. Apply this leave-in conditioner once daily (at a minimum).
Baxter of California Large Comb
Combs will, of course, coax all hairs into a presentable style, but they also evenly distribute the natural oils in your hair, as well as any conditioning oils that you apply. Baxter's hair styler comes with smoothly tapered teeth to gently stroke across the coarsest hair.
Billy Jealousy Hydrating Beard Wash
Always avoid using soap to wash your beard, for it will dry it out faster. The best shampoos are engineered for sturdy beard hairs and this one contains oils that condition while they clean. A combination of Aloe leaf juice and soy protein works to hydrate and shine facial fuzz, creating a silky-smooth finish that women will flock to place their fingers through.
Proraso Moustache Wax
A little twizzle makes all the difference for guys with stylable 'staches. Warm up this wax between your fingers and then swipe it across your mustache to keep hairs off your lip and in proper formation. Dampen with warm water to re-style, if necessary.
Zeus Boar Bristle Pocket Beard Brush
Before hitting the sack, brushing out your beard helps distribute any oils and straighten any tangled hairs. Zeus grooming tool will achieve just that, even massage and exfoliate skin beneath with gentle comfort.
Beard Balm From Detroit
Like oil, beard balm nourishes your hairs and the skin beneath. It's also doubles as a styler to keep longer hairs in check. Here is a facial salve to tames frizz and tangles, all while preventing split ends and fortifying strands to reduce patchiness. All ingredients come from the earth to help you maintain the most organic look possible.
Clubman 2-in-1 Beard Conditioner
Beard growth becomes uncomfortable due to dry skin that develops underneath. This dual-action solution features a concentrated hit of hydrating and fortifying oils to relieve your neck of itch and scaling. A light hint of cooling grapefruit leaves it feeling refreshed.
Tweezerman G.E.A.R. Moustache Scissors
Some hairs will stray; don't pluck them! Snip them away, then put these scissors aside for routine mustache trimming. Allow the G.E.A.R.'s sharp blades to sheer through unattractive threads and style those whiskers to your liking.
Kent 87T Folding Beard and Mustache Comb
No matter the length of your 'stache, straightening it is essential. Kent's pocketable comb is a sweet everyday carry item to keep around to disentangle and style your crumb catcher. High-quality construction ensure this sucker remains intact for long-term use.
5. How To Trim And Fade Your Beard
It might seem counterproductive, but you'll need to trim your beard as it grows. This will coach it into proper shape, though you may want to hold off until the hair is long enough to require such maintenance.
Before you trim anything, brush out your clean, dried beard to straighten the hairs as best as possible. Then, comb it into your desired style; you'll want to trim it from this state. Use an electric razor if you want to maintain an even length — you'll also need this to fade and trim the necklines, and to trim the cheek lines. Use beard scissors to manage any stray hairs that refuse direction, and to trim any mustache hairs that dangle over the upper lip. (Comb the hairs straight down over the lip to check.)
The neckline is where a lot of men mess up an otherwise great beard. You want the hairs of your beard to round the backside of your jaw. Imagine a "U" shaped line that connects the back of your ears to a point above your Adam's apple. (This point can be determined by placing two fingers above the Adam's apple. Draw the line from behind the ears to this spot above your fingers.) Everything below this line should be shaved entirely (with an electric razor, or with a blade). This is your official beard neckline — and should be universal law.
Some guys like to fade the neckline of shorter beard styles, the same way a barber might fade your shorter sides into longer hair on the top of your head. It's easy to fade your own neckline: Take your normal beard setting and trim your entire beard to this length. Then, go down two settings and trim up from the neckline approximately half an inch, particularly under the jaw. (It's harder to do on the sideburns behind the ear, since they aren't very deep.) Then, go back up one setting, and trim another half inch up from this first fade. You're simply graduating the length, very steadily, so that it doesn't cut off so sharply at the neckline. This becomes less of a necessity as your beard gets really long; in that case, just shave everything below the neckline since nobody will notice a subtle graduation against such long beards.
AskMen may receive a portion of revenue if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. The links are independently placed by our Commerce team and do not influence editorial content. To find out more, please read our complete terms of use.