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Digital Sales Pass £1 Billion in UK, But Concern Over Retail Remains
Overall sales continue to decline as physical media loses momentum.
As traditional physical media and brick-and-mortar retailers continue to lose momentum, digital media hit an important financial milestone in 2012, at least in the UK.
Revenue from digital sales topped £1 billion ($1.6 million) through sales of downloaded films, music and video games in 2012 -- an all-time high. The new record represents an 11.4 percent increase from 2011, making digital media a full quarter of the entertainment market in the UK.
According to an announcement made Wednesday from the UK's Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), digital sales in the country reached £1.033 billion in 2012.
A separate report from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) also noted an increase in digital music sales in 2012, finding a six percent jump in UK singles sales from the previous year.
"The final week of 2012 proved to be the year's record week for digital sales as consumers redeemed their Christmas music vouchers and downloaded more than 1.3m albums and 5.6m singles," BPI CEO Geoff Taylor said in a statement Wednesday.
While the new figures are no doubt impressive, the ERA acknowledged that the growth in revenue from digital sales did not compensate for the overall decline in retail activity over 2012. Physical sales, the report noted, took another turn for the worse over the same period.
Physical sales of the same types of digital media products "faced another tough year in 2012," the report said. Music sales fell 14.9 percent, sales of DVD and Blu-ray videos fell 11.4 percent and video games dropped by 26.4 percent, the latter's dive coming mostly from an aging current-generation console market.
In spite of the decline in physical sales, however, the ERA added that the old media "still retains a dominant share of the entertainment market."
"Despite digital's seemingly inexorable growth, the CD, the DVD and the physical games disc show incredible resilience," ERA's Director General Kim Bayley said in a statement. "It is nearly nine years since iTunes launched in the UK yet over 60% of music sales are still accounted for by physical formats. It is clearly way too soon to write off the CD and in video, digital barely gets a look in. Physical formats still account for three quarters of the entertainment market."
Bayley was quick to credit the "incredible achievement" of retailers across the UK in 2012. But the overall decline in sales hints at an imperfect transition from physical to digital media in the region that could impact the entertainment industry, and the retailers that support it, well into 2013.
The ERA cited factors such as the timing of the Olympics this past summer and the "format cycle" of the current video game console generation's life cycle in explaining the decline, adding that 2012 was "a lackluster year for releases in general." Rather than focus on digital media in and of itself, then, Bayley reasoned that better content could help brick-and-mortar retailers as well.
"The dearth of attractive releases during summer 2012 was clearly a significant factor," she said. "Suppliers need to do more to rebalance their release schedules and improve the quality of their releases. No retailer can afford to pay overheads on a store for 52 weeks of the year if all the key releases are going to be concentrated in the last quarter."
Entrepreneurs, meanwhile, "will think twice about investing in new digital services if releases fail to excite the public," Bayley added.
"Luckily the message appears to be getting through and we look forward to being able to offer the pubic a much better release slate in 2013."
© Copyright IBTimes 2023. All rights reserved.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Arbitrary listings of players never go the way they're supposed to. The NFL Network's Top 100 Players list, a now-annual feature during football's silly season that will reveal its top 10 players on Thursday night, is no exception. There's nothing particularly inspiring about poking holes in the vast majority of power rankings, but this list should be different for one notable reason: It's the players voting. It's their way to prove that "Players know best!" argument that pops up whenever anyone who isn't a player votes for an award or files a Hall of Fame ballot. It's the same argument that gets thrown against sabermetrics, that merely having played the sport at the highest level can be enough to contradict reams of evidence. Football's irreducible complexity only widens that divide. And even after they retire, players become people of influence through the media: How many of the things we come to accept about how football works come from ex-jocks on a pregame show or doing color commentary for a game?
Of course, players do have a lot of meaningful knowledge to impart that you can't get without having played the game at the highest level. It does matter. But that doesn't mean that they're especially good at evaluating the players around them. For every Ozzie Newsome, there's a Matt Millen. And while you might expect a list of the best players in football compiled by the players themselves to reflect a more nuanced, intelligent view of what actually wins football games, the reality is that the Top 100 Players list annually looks like something compiled by a casual fan of the game, by your buddy who watches a few Sundays a year and loses interest in his fantasy football team by Halloween. And the 2013 list is no exception.
Imagine the friend I just described actually making that list. Where would he go wrong? You can probably guess the three sort of biases he would lean toward, and amazingly, it's the same three biases the players show:
They criminally underrate players who don't accrue stats while simultaneously overvaluing players who touch the football. Only nerds and losers care about statistics, right? If anyone should know about the impact that the league's mauling guards and run-stuffing nose tackles have on the game, it's the guys who play alongside them in the trenches. You win from the lines out!
And yet, somehow, despite there being about three times as many offensive linemen on NFL rosters as there are running backs, there are 12 running backs against just six offensive linemen in the Top 100 Players list.1 Put it this way: 37.5 percent of the starting running backs in football are considered to be one of the top 100 players in football. That's better than one out of every three. Only 3.75 percent of the starting offensive linemen in football are considered to be one of the top 100 players in football.
Never mind that the league has continued to devalue running backs dramatically over the past few seasons while offensive linemen reap larger and larger salaries. Alfred Morris (no. 64) is a good football player who had a very productive season last year, but would anybody in their right mind really rather have him on their roster than Ryan Clady (unlisted)? Salary isn't everything, but if Clady and Morris were each free agents tomorrow, Clady would get three times as large of a contract, and it wouldn't be because the market was underrating Morris. In all, 38 of the 100 slots on the list belong to running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends.2 No specialists or fullbacks made the list after two blocking backs made it last year, Vonta Leach and (somehow) John Kuhn.
Other players made the list for a one-year statistical burst that's unlikely to recur and more indicative of a fluke than any real level of ability. Tim Jennings (no. 69) has worked his way into becoming an above-average cornerback for the Bears, but did he get more than a half-dozen votes on the 2012 ballot before intercepting a league-high nine passes last year? His case isn't much different than that of last year's 69th-ranked player: Carlos Rogers, who picked off six passes in a Pro Bowl season before retreating back to his career norms and managing a lone interception last season. Hell, Dwight Freeney somehow went from 89th last year to 80st this year, and he spent most of the spring looking for work. Fans, not players, are supposed to get blinded by numbers.
They suffer from recency bias. Despite leading his team to the playoffs in 2011, Matt Ryan's 29-touchdown campaign wasn't enough to work his way onto the Top 100 Players list. Do you know who made it onto the list ahead of him? Of course, it was the 95th-ranked Tim Tebow!3 It seems unfathomable that anyone would think Tebow was a better NFL player than Ryan, but that's exactly what the population of players who submitted ballots last offseason said with their votes. Ryan moved all the way up to 17th this year, while the ballots with Tebow's name must not have been counted properly.
The list perennially has a real focus on players who just had what are perceived to be "breakout" seasons before dropping them a year later when their performance isn't quite as spectacular. Take Jimmy Graham, who was rated as the 14th-best player in football last year after a 99-1,310-11 campaign. He was still an impact player this year, but since his numbers dropped to 85-982-9 in 15 games, Graham fell all the way into the unranked masses this year. Was he really that much different of a player? The likes of Dez Bryant (no. 35), Geno Atkins (no. 36), and Justin Houston (no. 49) could have above-average seasons in 2013 and still fail to make next year's list by not being as notable as they were this year.
Guys with minor injury issues also see their stock wildly fluctuate. It's one thing to knock Darrelle Revis (no. 5 to no. 67) well down the charts after a torn ACL, but what about guys like LaMarr Woodley (no. 63 last year) and Johnathan Joseph (no. 73)? They suffered nagging injuries last season that shouldn't bother them in 2013, but despite glowing records and their status as players in the prime of their careers, they didn't sniff this year's list. Players who missed time in 2011 like Mario Williams (no. 72) were suddenly good enough to make the rankings, too. The electorate is reacting to what just happened, not how a player has played over the past several seasons.
They're almost comically reactive to the Ravens winning the Super Bowl. You can forgive the players for being a little biased toward the squad that just won the Super Bowl. There are certainly at least a few Ravens and ex-Ravens who deserve spots on the list, and while you can quibble with their positioning, most of the guys you would expect are here. That includes Ray Rice (no. 13), Ed Reed (still no. 18), Joe Flacco (no. 19), and Haloti Ngata (no. 42), who strangely fell all the way from no. 9 last year. Terrell Suggs's drop from no. 11 to no. 56 makes more sense. You could also make a case for Corey Graham or Marshal Yanda, but neither player ended up in the Top 100.
Where it gets really weird is with the guys on the bottom of the list. Bernard Pollard (no. 87), Jacoby Jones (no. 88), Anquan Boldin (no. 93), and even Dennis Pitta (no. 100) managed to make the Top 100. Run that back for a second. Pollard was released this offseason before catching on with the Titans for a very moderate salary. Boldin was dealt for a sixth-round pick. In 2012, Jones was waived by the Texans and signed to return kicks. And Pitta — the receiving tight end in Baltimore's two–tight end sets — caught 61 passes for 669 yards in the regular season. That group of four combined to have an excellent postseason, but this isn't a list of the players who had the best playoffs or even the best 2012 season; it's a list of the top 100 players in football as of right now. And does anybody on earth believe that Boldin, Jones, Pitta, or Pollard would ever have come close to appearing on this list if they hadn't made a deep run in the playoffs and won the big game? You need a great team to win the Super Bowl, but winning the Super Bowl doesn't mean that every player in your starting lineup was great. For all the nice things said about those four guys during their blurbs on NFL Network these past few weeks, not a single one of them will be appearing on this list next year.
This speaks to a broader misunderstanding of football emanating from how players perceive the game. Players share their beliefs with and even become members of the media, who then vote on a Hall of Fame that woefully undervalues linemen at the expense of players who touch the ball. Single-season swings that are subject to dramatic amounts of variance — everything from a kicker's field goal percentage in a given season to a team's record in one-touchdown games — are treated as meaningful trends and not blind luck. Players are deified as "winners" independent of their actual contributions before being exposed in a new environment. (Hi, Tim.) Professional football players should be able to cut through those story lines and actually recognize pure talent and work ethic when they see it, but they fall for the same traps that many fans do.
Don't be angry at the players, because it's not really their fault. In fact, they might actually see less of the league than a fan with Sunday Ticket at his or her disposal across a given season. Think about it. If you spend the entire NFL season on one roster, you face 13 opponents across 16 game weeks. You spend that entire week studying film on that one team. You might catch a glance at a game or two out of the corner of your eye on Sunday, but it's far more likely that you're either playing a game yourself, preparing for one, or coming down from one. They might catch a Thursday or Monday night game, but in reality, your typical NFL player can go an entire regular season and only see about half of the league play. He undoubtedly knows more about those teams than the typical fan, but the guy with Sunday Ticket might get to see an entire half-league of action that the player does not. Enter that into the equation and you can understand why players make some of the voting decisions that they do. Picking twice as many running backs as offensive linemen, though? That's another story altogether.


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OysterFence Review, Recriminations Continue
Kevin L. Hoover & Bryn Robertson
Arcata Eye
ARCATA – If Arcata Main Street wanted to create the most talked-about Oyster Festival ever, it surely succeeded. But while the post-event discussion included many fond memories of family fun, music, beer and bivalve devourment, it was also marked by bitter stories of disappointment, lost business and broken communication.
For the first time, the Plaza event was enclosed by a chainlink fence, some segments of which were topped with barbed wire. The symbolism of a "Plaza gulag" was grossly offensive to some, as was the perception of privileged access to a public space or commons.
"Barbed-wire?" wrote former City Councilmember Julie Fulkerson in a Facebook post which showed a picture of the barbed-wire fence. "I hope this is Photoshopped. It is so not the Arcata I know and love."
Others found the fence comforting, in that it kept out those with no up-front investment in the event's success. The fence wasn't noticeable from the grassy area of the Plaza, and didn't seem to bother the hordes who lined up at each of the entry portals to pay the fee and get inside.
If the intention was to foster a more family-friendly festival free of panhandlers, predators, loose animals and excesses of behavior, those aspirations seemed to have been satisfied.
"Comments were overwhelmingly favorable," said co-organizer Bill Chino. "It seems to me that everyone loved more of the family atmosphere."
While event-related public drunkenness incidents occurred at about the usual rate, none of the seven arrests took place inside the fenced area.
Chino said attendance was down, as expected and intended. By the end of last week, Chino still hadn't tallied the ticket stubs and redeemed beer chips to get an accurate attendance count. But he said there were "10,000 solid" attendees at least, down from the 16,000 to 18,000 which had crammed the Plaza in recent years. Main Street's gross revenue from the event was estimated at about $70,000.
Arcata Main Street will analyze the OysterFest's consequences – intended and otherwise – in weeks to come. Possibly complicating any findings and decision about whether to use the fence again will be a lack of consensus as to the impacts on businesses, both those within the festival and the ones on the outside of the fence.
Main Street Vice President Nick Matthews, who also owns Pacific Paradise on H Street, which was outside the festival, said the event was a long-term business builder. "I'd rather have 10,000 people walk by my store, even if they don't buy anything that day," he said. He said the wait time at participating Oysterfest vendors was down from 45 minutes to 10 or 15 minutes maximum.
But Rebecca LaCasse, owner of Eden, located outside the fence on a severely depopulated segment of Ninth Street, was critical. "It made me sad," she said. "Fencing in a happening on the Plaza is very 'un-Arcata.'"
LaCasse noted that the OysterFest has never been a big day for surrounding businesses. "But normally you at least have the opportunity to have new folks stroll though, to connect with people who may not have been here before… The fence took away those opportunities."
She, like others, was critical of the lack of communication and coordination between Main Street and affected downtown businesses. "There were inherent problems with how the event was being organized," she said. "There was a major breakdown in communication between Main Street and the majority of businesses in our charming downtown area."
Portia Bramble, executive director of the North Coast Growers' Association, which operates the Farmers' Market, said the market suffered from being shouldered aside, relegated to an L-shaped segment of Eighth and I streets.
"It was terrible," she said. "Very, very slow for all our vendors. It didn't feel good to be on the outside."
Bramble said the Farmers' Market was "excluded" not just from the festival, but the planning for it. "We weren't at the table," she said. "We weren't asked whether we wanted to be included."
She said the NCGA board would discuss the matter and send Main Street a letter detailing its concerns. "I don't favor the fence," Bramble said. "I understand the need, but I don't think it's appropriate for the Plaza. It doesn't complement our Farmers' Market."
Last week, Arcata Eye reporter Bryn Robertson surveyed Plaza businesses as to their OysterFest fortunes. Her findings:
• Delilah's Hair Styling, closed for vacation, was inside fence, had a sign in the window reading, "Don't Fence Me In."
• Arcata Exchange, outside the fence, traffic was "a little down."
• Art Center, outside the fence, closed all day, knew they wouldn't be getting any business. Did not think the fence was the best problem-solving technique.
• Arcata Stationers, outside the fence, closed because of festival.
• Simply Macintosh, outside the fence, closed at 2 p.m., normally close at 4 p.m. Against the fence for future events.
• Rookery Books, outside the fence, did better than a normal Saturday, not as well as last Fest. Happy to support whatever people want next year with regard to the fence.
• North Soles, outside the fence, sales were not very good. Against the fence, even if they were included in it.
• Belle Starr, outside the fence, did poorly.
• Arcata Artisans, outside the fence, business was "very slow" and not a normal Saturday. Against having a fence next year.
• Caravan of Dreams, inside the fence, sales were down 25 to 30 percent compared to last festival. Against having a fence next year.
• The Garden Gate, inside of fence, did well.
• Arcata Liquors, outside the fence, did "horribly" and lost half on their biggest day of the year. Against fence next year
• Everett's, outside the fence, down $3,000 to $4,000. Against having a fence next year.
• Yi Fang Imports, outside the fence, lost half on what used to be their best day of the year. Against the fence next year.
• Alibi, outside the fence, lost half its business.
• Sidelines, outside the fence, but closest to entrance and exit. Did about the same as last year.
• Panache Hair Salon, outside the fence, did "horribly," normally booked on a Saturday and they had only a few clients, some of who canceled. Against a fence next year
• Hotel Arcata, outside the fence. The hotel was full, but guests did not like the fence. Would want a lot of discussion with the community before putting the fence up again.
• Natural Selection, outside the fence, down from last year. Totally against a fence next year.
• Jitterbean, outside the fence. Did slightly better than a normal business day. "Impartial" to the fence.
• Live From New York Pizza, outside the fence. Did terribly compared to past OysterFests. Against the fence: "Worst idea you could ever have."
• Sushi Spot, restaurant outside, booth inside the fence, did OK. Thought the fence was a little weird.
• Essence of Humboldt, outside the fence. Did poorly, were completely cut out of all potential foot traffic. Against fence.
• Back to the Rack, outside the fence, did not do well compared to last year. Against fence next year.
• Eden seeds, outside the fence, did poorly. Against a fence next year.
• Hot Knots, outside the fence, did poorly compared to OysterFest in past years. Against fence next year.
• Moore's Sleep World, inside the fence, closed. Closed for the past few years; didn't want to deal with drunk people.
• Solutions, inside the fence. Down 40 percent.
• Moonrise Herbs, inside the fence. Down by 60 percent, closed early. Against a fence next year.
• Plaza, inside the fence. Did well, had an ice cart outside for people to place their beer while they shopped. Closed two hours early to "end on a high note." Not sure about support of a fence next year but wouldn't want be outside of it.
• Café Brio, outside of fence, down substantially, Saturday normally busiest day of the week. Thought it was "weird that so many [businesses] were excluded."
• People's Records, outside the fence, down from previous years. Against a fence next year.
• All Under Heaven, outside the fence, did poorly.
• Willow and Rags, inside of fence, did half of normal sales. Against $10 charge/fence
• Libation Wine Bar, inside fence, had a booth inside for the first part of the day. Did slightly worse than a normal Saturday. In favor of the fence next year.
• Mazzotti's, inside of fence, did fine. The fence didn't affect them, would maybe be against the fence if they were on the outside.
OysterFest vendors reported mixed results as well. Pita Grill operator Izzy Elidrissi said he was "screwed" by Main Street. He'd first been directed to set up on the Plaza's northwest corner, then was relocated elsewhere. That may be why his entry in the Oyster Tasting Contest was ignored. Elidrissi faulted Main Street for poor communication. Nonetheless, he sold 1,300 oysters.
The Humboldt Crabs enjoyed normal attendance, experiencing none of the drunks who would normally be ejected from the festival and then wander over to the Arcata Ball Park and get into trouble.
Though fence opponent Luke Patterson closed Luke's Joint after just an hour and a half out of fear for the safety of his employees over the "powder keg" brewing on the Plaza, APD Lt. Ryan Peterson said the event was overall, successful from a public safety standpoint. Assistant Fire Chief Desmond Cowan said things went "swimmingly," as far as his department was concerned.
Mayor Shane Brinton, who was the sole council vote against the fence-and-fee concept, said the festival was a success. "For the way it was set up, it went very well in terms of public safety," he said. "I don't think there was a consensus" on the fence, he added.


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SAINT PETERSBURG - A well-known art collector buys a painting from a long-time acquaintance, who is also a publisher of books about Russian art. He displays it in an art exhibition, and an art expert happens to see it and recognize it as a fake that she had see before and identified as a forgery The original, it turns out, is in the collection of the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg. What happened?
Andrei Vasilev was an experienced art collector, and he had bought several works from Leonid Shumakov, a publisher of books on Russian art. Vasilev asked Shumakov to let him know if any works of art of famous collections or works that had been published in catalogues before the Russian revolution came up for sale.
Sure enough, soon afterwards, the publisher sent him an e-mail with photographs of a number of works, including the scanned pages of "My Journal for Some," a pre-revolution publication, with the Tsar's imperial stamp visible. The journal's pages had a reproduction of "In The Restaurant" by Boris Grigoriev, signed in 1913. Vasilev was interested.
According to what Shumakov said, the painting came from an old Leningrad collection, only the second-ever owners of the painting. Shumakov clarified that the authenticity of the painting was not in any way doubted by experts, citing one expert in particular, Julia Solonovich from the Russian Museum. After some negotiations Vasilev purchased the painting for $250,000. The transaction took place on July 10, 2009 in Vasilev's apartment, and was paid for in cash.
Different from the catalogue
When Vasilev got the painting, he noticed that there were some differences between the one in his hands and the one he had seen in the catalogue, but he attributed those differences to the catalogue's color retoucher. After restoring a small part of the painting, it was exhibited in a show dedicated to artists who, like Grigoriev, had fled Russia right after the establishment of the Soviet Union.
Coincidentally, Julia Ribakova, a former expert for an art restoration center, saw the painting and recognized it as a forgery that she had already been asked to give an expert opinion on. She had come to the conclusion that the painting in question was a fake because it was signed with a material that was not used until well after the artist's death. The Russian Museum had also determined that the painting was a fake. Ribakova informed Vasilev that his painting was a forgery.
Vasilev immediately demanded that the seller return his money. But Shumakov refused, saying he was only a middleman, and that the painting had really belonged to Elena Basner, a long-time employee of the Russian Museum. But Basner told Vasilev that the painting had never belonged to her, but instead to Mikhail Aronson, from Tallinn, Estonia. Incidentally, Aronson has a criminal history with convictions for theft, violent robbery and drug dealing. Vasilev filed a lawsuit, which is still ongoing, against Shumakov.
The Russian Museum
Already in possession of his forgery, Vasilev discovered that the original painting "In The Restaurant," is actually in the Russian Museum's collection. It entered the museum's collection in the 1980s, as part of a larger collection that had belonged to a professor. Elena Basner had handled the description and registry of the works in the professor's collection, including "In The Restaurant."
According to Vasilev, such a high quality copy of the painting could have been done in the Museum's storage area with the help of photographs taken in the Museum itself. That is why he has already contacted the Minister of Culture asking that the Russian Museum's security be verified. The Ministry of Culture told Kommersant that they planned a security test in the near future
The Russian Museum denies the art collector's accusations. One of the managers of the security department at the Museum, Grigori Goldovskii, told Kommersant that the scheme the Museum is suspected of is "completely and absolutely impossible, based on the system of security, lending and copying of works in the museum."
According to Goldovskii, the work in question is 50 centimeters by 70 centimeters, and it would have taken more than one day to complete a copy of the painting - right under the noses of Museum staff. And the copy would have been impossible to take out of the Museum, since all the exits are guarded by police.
Concerning Elena Basner, who worked at the Museum until 2003, Goldovskii says "I could only imagine that she could cook up such a scheme if I were in a complete delirium." Basner says that she is happy that the investigation will be starting shortly, because she is also interested in having the police find out what happened. "I know I am innocent," she said, affirming that she got the painting from Mikhail Aronson.
She also maintained that she had no knowledge of Aronson's criminal past. Shumakov, from whom Vasilev bought the painting, told Kommersant that he is confident in the painting's authenticity. "In any case, no one has proven the contrary yet," he said.


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McAfee has been showing off their stuff at RSA 2013 specifically the new heuristic malware detection capabilities which they will be using instead of their current malware signature database which has over 113 million core samples. That signifies a huge change for the antivirus company as it moves to real time monitoring of all the processes on your machine for suspicious activity instead of matching patterns directly. While this could lead to some interesting side effects for verification software such as you find in some games, McAfee claims 100% effectiveness against current rootkits on Intel hardware compatible with Deep Defender, though they did not give many specifics about that test to The Register.
That is not all they are up to, McAfee just purchased Validedge's sandboxing technology to allow them to watch malware as it arrives and infects a machine to allow them to study its patterns. Strangely, The Inquirer mentions that they will be recording the signature so it is possible that it is an exaggeration that they are completely abandoning their signature database altogether and will be using a hybrid database and heuristic monitoring. The first software using this new option will be available in the second half of this year. Also briefly mentioned in the story is a suggestion that McAfee will be able to repair infected computers automatically via the ePO Agent.
"Signature-based malware identification has been around since the dawn of the computer security industry, but McAfee has said it's dumping the system – or rather, adapting it – in an upgraded security suite which will (it claims) virtually eliminate susceptibility to botnets."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Altera signs up to use Intel's upcoming 14nm process node @ The Inquirer
- HP offloads WebOS to LG for use in televisions @ The Inquirer
- Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 @ [H]ard|OCP
- Samsung, Visa in pay-by-bonk tie up @ The Register
- Not so fast, BlackBerry. Now Samsung wants your tasty biz mobe pie @ The Register
- Hacking the International Space Station with a toothbrush @ Hack a Day
- Super single-photon source for quantum computers @ nanotechweb


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Recently, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and Yours Truly upgraded our lives with cell phones. Up to this time, I just assumed the cell phone was what a prisoner used..
My wife and I drug our feet for a long time until we finally took the plunge. Both of us finally went to the cell phone store and signed up for cell phone service. She picked out a phone for her and then picked up another phone and turned to me and said, "I think this will suit you."
I learned long ago that when my wife is "thinking," I should not interrupt the phenomenon.
I must say she did not hog the whole experience of purchasing cell phones. She rather graciously allowed me to pull out my checkbook and write a check for our cell phone service. I wrote that check and signed it with a smile not knowing what I was really doing.
I have found not knowing what I am doing really is a very peaceful part of my life. There is no stress when you do not know what you are doing. However, when you have some idea what you are doing, then comes the stress. I must admit, most of my life is stress free.
Now, that we have upgraded our lifestyle, life has become rather easy for us.
I really did not know how the simple act of signing up for cell phone service would so drastically change our life. There is something with our service called texting. I have heard of this of course, but I had no idea what it was all about. But I was shortly to discover the bliss of the world of texting.
Not long after we purchased our cell phone service we were at a restaurant celebrating our wedding anniversary. Yes sir, 40 years ago we tied the knot and we have had a wonderful time together. Oh sure, there have been those "knotty" situations, but overall everything has held together. That sure was a tight knot we tied back in the day.
We were celebrating at a certain restaurant and my wife needed to go to the lady's room for whatever ladies do in the lady's room. While she was gone, the waitress came to take our drink order. Even though I have been blissfully married for 40 years, I never take it on my own to make decisions for my better half. I have not had enough practice making decisions for my half. So, when the waitress asked for her drink order I did not quite know what she wanted.
Then it dawned on me. I will text her. After all, isn't that why we got this cell phone service in the first place? So I text her and ask her what she wanted me to order her for her drink.
Within a very short time, my cell phone buzzed and I looked at her text. "Coffee."
I looked at the waitress who was looking rather strangely at me, and said to her, "My wife will have coffee."
This was just the beginning of the textualization of our formal blissful relationship. We really do not have to talk anymore; we can just text each other, which cuts down on the shouting.
Just the other night I was sitting in my easy chair reading a book and a text message came on my cell phone. I picked it up and looked at the text message and it said, "Can you come to the bedroom immediately." Not knowing what opportunities awaited I rushed into the bedroom.
There my wife was on one side of the bed and said to me, "Help me turn this mattress over."
We were at the mall together and we usually go to different stores. My cell phone rang and a text message came, "Where are you?"
I immediately text back, "Right behind you."
A text message returned quickly saying, "Oh, I thought you were lost."
"No," I fast text back to her, "but it can be arranged."
I am neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist but I think my wife has become intexticated by this new technology.
I said to her once, "Lay down the cell phone and nobody will get hurt."
She quickly text me and said, "Touch my cell phone and you die."
I'm not sure if there is a rehab center for textaholics yet, but I know someone who should go there. Wait a minute… I have a text coming in.
"What do you want for supper? Meatloaf or fried chicken?"
"Fried chicken is fine with me," I text back.
Now, where was I? Ah yes, a rehab center for textaholics. Wait a minute… I have another text coming in.
"Can you pick up a quart of milk at the store?"
Yes, a rehab center for textaholics. If anybody knows one you can text me with the information.
But then again, maybe being addicted to texting isn't all that bad. After all, it facilitates keeping in touch with someone without actually having to talk to them. That can't be all bad.
It still does not trump God's ability to keep in touch with us. I like what the prophet says, "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24 KJV).
I think God has texting beat, thumbs down.
Dr. James L. Snyder, is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with his wife in Silver Springs Shores. James is an award winning author whose books are available at https://amzn.to/2SMOjwO.
Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail [email protected]. The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.Hello everyone!
Dr. James L. Snyder, is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with his wife in Silver Springs Shores. James is an award winning author whose books are available at https://amzn.to/2SMOjwO.
Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail [email protected]. The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.Hello everyone!


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Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere out in The Great Basin Desert you've certainly heard of social networking programs like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others. These have spread like wildfire over the last couple of years. Each one has quickly gained an advantage and standing over the other one. Last year, Facebook saw a tremendous slowdown in its users because of Twitter and changed their platform to be more "Twitter-like". MySpace has definitely slowed its expansion since the other two have come into play. In fact there is one website that even claims that MySpace is dead (Kirkpatrick, 2009) and while many of the commenter's disagree on this assumption, they all recognize that it has slowed its expansion while some vociferously defend their beloved media.
I haven't even looked at my MySpace account in the last 18 months!
But now there is another game in town that looks like it will outdo them all and it's called Ning. Ning uses something called "viral expansion loops" (Penenberg, 2008) as its basic platform. What this means is that anyone can in reality set up their own social network around any subject they wish. For example, let's say the group starts around the subject of Corvettes. Another group starts up because they hate Corvettes and like Ferraris or Camaro's instead. Then, another group breaks off because they can't stand anything Italian, and forms a German automobile group around Porsches and BMWs (Penenberg, 2008). Anyway, you get the idea. It's very specific and topic driven. I decided to take advantage of this and started my own Ning network called InternetMarketingAdvertising.Ning.com built around the obvious subject. It is extremely easy to do. I don't even have to buy a domain name or a hosting account to start my own social program!
Here is my Ning site: http://internetmarketingadvertising.ning.com/
Using a simple built-in template I can create the look and feel of my site and add just about everything necessary I could want to build it. From within Ning it is easy to invite other members who can then post comments, video, blogs and join a forum on any subject they want to discuss. This is the easiest thing I've ever seen and I believe the reason why Ning was able to start this website with virtually no staff. It's totally viral nature has made it so easy to share with others and expand its base. And the fact that there is Google Adsense on every single page guarantees some sort of revenue for either Ning the corporation or someone hosting a Ning site (which you can do for $20 a month) is bringing money in somewhere to somebody.
This viral nature is one of the single greatest advantages that it has over Facebook or MySpace. I have found that on my Facebook account, which I had originally set up to be specifically for business purposes, is now mostly friends and acquaintances that have found me. I don't even bother talking about business on my Facebook account anymore because it doesn't do any good. I also don't even like to get on there because someone will find me and take all my time wanting to chat. I don't mind chatting I just don't have the time to do so at the moment. I have even had to remove some people from my Facebook account because they were wholly inappropriate to the things I wanted to discuss or represent even though they were friends of mine. With Ning things are different-the name of my site clearly identifies what the subject is for anyone wishing to join.
In order to boost revenue Facebook is now offering the opportunity to advertise to those members of certain groups. For example I created an ad for those interested in the subject of "retirement" and sent it out to their group. My short-lived experiment resulted in not even a single click and therefore no revenue to Facebook or myself I might add. But without paying for an actual advertisement I don't see any way to make money on Facebook. I don't think there's any way to set up a Google Adsense account on my Facebook page unlike Ning. This one aspect alone makes Ning far more valuable and desirable than Facebook knowing that there is a way to earn income off of that topic of discussion. Because that topic is going to be fairly narrow in its focus this will allow extremely targeted advertising to be placed on that site through the Google Adsense program.
It is my opinion that Ning will overtake all of the existing social programs in terms or revenue because of its architecture, especially for those unwilling to make changes, which is certain death for anyone involved in Internet nowadays. Ning is almost exclusively topic driven, not people driven and therefore will have a much wider audience for any group that is formed. While there will certainly be people who want to be the center of the universe and will continue to use Facebook and others, there is a far greater chance of earning money when the subject of the group is around a specific topic and you are in charge of that topic. Unless you're a celebrity you will never make money on Facebook. In fact I'm not even sure how a celebrity would make money with Facebook!
Kirkpatrick, M. (2009, Apr 24). MySpace is dead – The internet is growing up. Retrieved Nov 12, 2009, from readwriteweb.com: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/myspace_is_dead_-_the_internet_is_growing_up.php
Penenberg, A. L. (2008, Apr 11). Ning's infinite ambition. Retrieved Nov 12, 2009, from Ning's Infinite Ambition- Viral Networks-Social Networking Startups | Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/nings-infinite-ambition.html?page=0%2C0
(This article was part of a project for Full Sail University's Internet Marketing Masters Degree class Oct 2009)


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Review Date:27 Jun 2013
Over 40 years ago, Robert Darnton proposed to evaluate the Enlightenment from its authors' perspectives. After all, he observed, they were 'men of flesh and blood, who wanted to fill their bellies, house their families, and make their way in the world'.(1) But with what did they fill their bellies, and when, and how much?


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Seniors are often the target of fraud. However, with some basic understanding of how scam artists work, you can avoid fraud and protect your hard-earned money. Learning how to invest safely can mean a huge difference in your retirement years.
Seniors are particularly vulnerable to tactics of scam artists who are "nice" or attempt to develop a false bond of friendship. Scam artists prey on seniors who are polite to others and have difficulty saying "no" or feel indebted to someone who has provided unsolicited investment advice.
Additional Information
Early Retirement Seminars 101: Smart Tips for Spotting Retirement Scams
Social Media and Investing - Tips for Seniors
Investor Alert: Social Media and Investing - Avoiding Fraud


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This replaces the top glass touchscreen digitiser on Nokia Lumia 520
What next?
Option 1: Have your device fixed in one of our workshops in Haywards Heath or Worthing, West Sussex. (payment made in store after device is fixed)
Option 2: Send your device to us, we'll repair it and return back to you for an extra £5.45 (added during checkout)


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Granny's prize
My Granny, Destie Bare McGuire, was born in a two-room log cabin on the New River of Ashe County in 1921. Granny has a great memory. She loves to tell stories about her long, interesting life, and I love to hear them. One of my favorites is the story of her New Testament Bible. On November 3, 1931, Granny won a spelling bee at her school in Jefferson. She admits that she benefited from reading her teacher's lips as she silently spoke the letters. Her prize for winning was a small, black New Testament Bible.
Years later, my late grandfather, H.R. McGuire, took the Bible with him when he went to serve our country in World War II. He carried the Bible over his heart in a shirt pocket for the duration of his time in the Navy. Thankfully, the Bible and my grandfather returned home safely after brave service.
Granny still has the Bible, and she loves to show it off and proudly tell the story.


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Consider some conclusions that have been arrived at by New Testament scholars:
Among the people who believe that Jesus existed, the consensus is that he was executed around 35 CE.
Mark, the Gospel that is now identified as the earliest, is thought to have been written about 30 years later in 65 CE, by Mark the Evangelist (not the apostle, not an eyewitness), based upon reports that he heard from others. We do not know how many people and how many retellings of the story separated Mark from any eyewitnesses there might have been to the events.
The oldest existing copies of Mark that we possess today are from 320 CE and 370 CE.
So between the time of the alleged events surrounding Jesus' death and the actual copies of reports of those events that we possess, 300 years passed.
We do not know how many people, or how many tellings and retellings, writings or rewritings of the story occurred between the events in the 30s and the copies from 320 CE and 370 CE. There could have been hundreds of people and hundreds of iterations of the story that transpired in that period.
Now consider some important questions that rarely get asked:
Were the people surrounding Jesus impartial, objective observers?
Were they well-equipped with the tools and cognitive abilities to detect fraud or identify self-deception?
Did they understand the value of having careful investigations into paranormal claims?
Did they understand how frequently people giving eyewitness testimony, particularly about matters that they are passionately and personally involved in, unconsciously distort evidence, sift for confirmation, and ignore counter-evidence?
Would they have been prepared to admit it if they had come to think that they were mistaken? (Would you?)
Do we have reasons to think that every single person involved in the telling and retelling of the story on its path from the events in 35 CE to their eventual recording in the manuscripts from 320 and 370 CE had the goal of preserving all the important details about those events, even the ones that, had they been present, would have suggested that the miracles were not authentic?
Would the dedicated Christians who transmitted the stories about Jesus down through the centuries have the goal of preserving all of the information about him, including evidence that would have undermined the authenticity of Christianity?
Pretty clearly the answer to all of these questions is no. And if that is right, then these questions show that it is unreasonable to believe that Jesus was a supernatural, divine being because our evidence concerning him is too weak or corrupted.


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Difference between revisions of "CS/EE/ME 75, 2006-07"
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=== Course Description ===
=== Course Description ===
Revision as of 01:57, 14 May 2006
|Richard Murray (CDS)
|Joel Burdick (ME)
|Mani Chandy (CS)
|Tony Fender (EAS)
|Pietro Perona (EE)
Urban Challenge Information Session
Sunday, 21 May 2005 @ 4 pm -- 102 Steele
Course Description
CS/EE/ME 75 presents the fundamentals of modern multi-disciplinary systems engineering in the context of a substantial design project. Students from a variety of disciplines will conceive, design, implement, and operate a system involving electrical, information, and mechanical engineering components. Specific tools will be provided for setting project goals and objectives, managing interfaces between component subsystems, working in design teams, and tracking progress against tasks. Students will be expected to apply knowledge from other courses at Caltech in designing and implementing specific subsystems. During the first two terms of the course, students will attend project meetings and learn some basic tools for project design, while taking courses in CS, EE, and ME that are related to the course project. During the third term, the entire team will build, document, and demonstrate the course design project, which will differ from year to year.
The third term of the course may be used to satisfy specific graduation requirements in the CS, EE, and ME options and may be taken for up to 18 units of total credit, with permission of the instructors. Freshman must receive permission from the instructor to enroll.
Course structure
CS/EE/ME 75 is designed to be integrated with the curriculum in the individual engineering disciplines. This is accomplished by linking the activities in the first two terms with regular classes in CS, EE and ME. These courses are used to design subsystems for the overall project, with the system integration occuring in the third term and the final implementation and operation occuring over the summer.
Fall Courses
Winter Courses
In the first two terms, the course grade will be equally weighted between course homework sets (one each for the first three weeks), course participation in project and team meetings, and the final project presentation. For the third term, the course grade will be based on the following factors:
- Homework (20%): Homework sets will be handed out weekly for the first five weeks of the class. Most sets will consist of some work that is done by the student's team, as well as a (short) individual portion
- Team project reviews (20%): Each team will be required to present a review to an outside review team the end of the term. Each student on the team should give a portion of at least one of the presentations.
- Project documentation (40%): All work performed as part of the class should be documented in an appropriate format (to be decided by the teams). Each individual will turn in the documentation for the items they are responsible by the end of the term.
- Participation (20%): Students are expected to attend project and team meetings and to participate in a constructive manner toward the over goals of the team. Team coordinators and instructors will provide assessments for each student based on the level and quality of participation in project activities.
2006-07 Project
This year's project is the development of an autonomous vehicle capable of participating in the 2007 Urban Challenge, scheduled for 3 November 2007. The Urban Challenge is an autonomous vehicle competition involving up to 60 miles of autonomous driving in urban-like environments, including moving traffic, intersections, parking lots and traffic circles. The vehicle that completes the route in the shortest time under 6 hours wins the $2M grand prize.
For 2007, students in CS/EE/ME 75 will design, build, and document an autonomous vehicle capable of winning the urban challenge. The vehicle must be capable of operating in dynamic environments for 6 hours, at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. This will require a level of sophistication in planning algorithms, sensor fusion and driving software substantially beyond current capabilities for autonomous vehicles.


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Hey friends! I'm a contributor over at Blog Hoppin' and several of the ladies have pitched in to host a MEGA giveaway. TWO lucky winners will be chosen on November 13th and they'll receive 17 fall themed packs and 5 graphic bundles! I've gifted my Thanksgiving unit that's full of work station activities and much more. Make sure you "hop" on over to Blog Hoppin' and enter today. Gobble Gobble!
Friday, November 9, 2012
Gobble Gobble Giveaway, ya'll!
Posted by Erin Eberhart at 3:50 AM 0 comments
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Pumpkins on Parade!
Posted by Erin Eberhart at 7:04 PM 1 comments
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ECE434 Project - ROS
Embedded Linux Class by Mark A. Yoder
Team members: Matt Hummel Garrett Hart
Grading Template
I'm using the following template to grade. Each slot is 10 points. 0 = Missing, 5=OK, 10=Wow!
09 Executive Summary 09 Packaging 09 Installation Instructions 09 User Instructions 09 Highlights 09 Theory of Operation 09 Work Breakdown 09 Future Work/Conclusions 09 Hackster.io 09 Demo/Poster 00 Not Late Score: 90/100
Executive Summary
The Robot Operating System(ROS) is a large group of open-source software libraries and tools designed for robotic applications. While ROS is called an operting system, it is more accurately described as middleware. ROS includes drivers and algorithms for nearly every possible desired robotics application, including but definitely not limited to:
Network Communication (ros_comm)
Control Systems (ros_control)
Robotic Kinematics (ros_moveit)
Data Structures (ros_msgs)
Logging (ros_logs)
Navigation (ros_navigation)
Data Recording (ros_bag)
Robot Visualization (rviz)
Robot Simulation (gazebo)
Data Visualization (rqt, plot_juggler)
Odometry (ros_odom)
Linear Algebra (eigen)
Geometric Transforms (tf, tf2)
Action Servers (ros_actionlib)
Standardized Launch (ros_launch)
Parameter Server (ros_param)
just to name a very limited selection. Because of it's variety of powerful tools, ROS is used a wide variety of industry applications for intelligent robotics.
The goal of our project is to demonstrate some basic capabilities of ROS on the BeagleBone Black (BBB). While the BBB is not officially a supported platform by ROS, ROS is universal enough to be adapted to most linux-based platforms. For the our purposes, we will be demonstrating motor control over a network and data logging+visualization using ros_comm, ros_log, rqt and ros_bag. We will be using a base operating station(Ubuntu 20.04 machine) with an Xbox gamepad controller as the user interface, while the motor control will be handled by the BBB.
For best use, the PWM outputs of the BBB should be attached to motor controllers to drive a robot. For our demonstration purposes, we used LEDs to show the PWM signals.
Installation Instructions
The first step in creating a ROS project is installing ROS onto your platform. Unfortunately, ROS does not officially support the BBB and therefore does not have available binaries for installation from a package manager. For this reason, ROS will need to be built from the source code. Instructions to complete this on the debian 10 (buster) installation we used for the BBB can be found at http://wiki.ros.org/noetic/Installation/Source. The version of ROS that will be compatible for compiling on Debian 10 is ros_noetic. Note: compiling ROS took approxiametely 15 hours on the BBB, so plan accordingly.
To set up base station machine, there are binaries available. Using an Ubuntu 20.04 machine, follow the directions at http://wiki.ros.org/noetic/Installation/Ubuntu. The base station can also operate off of Ubuntu 18.04 with ROS Melodic, if preferred.
To configure the ROS network for communication between the base station and the BBB, follow the intructions at http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Tutorials/MultipleMachines. Specifically, add the following lines to ~/.bashrc:
export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://192.168.7.2:11311 //Note: substitute 192.168.7.2 for "bone" if you have configured your /etc/hosts
export ROS_IP=192.168.7.1 //IP of the base station, the Bone should have 192.168.7.2 in it's bashrc
This way ROS on the base station will recognize the that the overarching management node for ROS, roscore, will be on the BBB and they will be able to link. Next, we will need to add create our workspace and add the project code. Repeat these steps on both the BBB and base station:
$: mkdir -p ~/ros_ws/src
$: cd ~/ros_ws
$: catkin_make
$: cd src
$: git clone https://github.com/mdhummel076/ECE434Project
$: cd ~/ros_ws
$: catkin_make
$: source devel/setup.bash //It is recommended to add this line to ~/.bashrc for ease of repeatability
User Instructions
To run the code, first start roscore on the BBB:
$: roscore //it is recommended to start this in a tmux session, and leave it detached
Then in a separate terminal session, start the BBB motor code:
$: rosrun Motors motors.py
Finally, on the base station with the Xbox controller attached, start the Driver's program:
$: rosrun Xbox xbox.py
Now you can control the motors using the Xbox controller on the base station. To simplify this startup process, checkout http://wiki.ros.org/roslaunch
On the BBB, you can view the recorded log files using:
$: roscd log
And finally, you can record and view the joystick data. To view live, on the base station:
$: rostopic echo /commands
Or if you prefer a graphical display,
$: rqt_plot /commands
To record and then play back a bag file:
$: rosbag record -o <bag-name>.bag /commands
$: rosbag play <bag-name>.bag
While there might be easier ways to control a motor over a network and log the data, the real point of this project is to demonstrate that the BeagleBone is capable of implementing all of the powerfull tools in ROS. This means that the BeagleBone could be used in projects of a similar scale as Boston Dynamic's Spot, or Amazon's package delivery robots.
Include a YouTube demo the audio description.
Theory of Operation
The main "core" of ros is the roscore node. This node acts as the center for all other nodes to connect to to integrate together. In this application, the roscore node is running on the BeagleBone.
The other two nodes, the Xbox parser and the motor controlling nodes, run on the base station and the beaglebone respectively. The Xbox parser node reads data from the USB Xbox controller, a publishes the data to the ros topic "commands". The motor controlling node then subscribes to the "commands" topic and reads the data published by the Xbox parser. That data is then used to control the speed a direction of the motors connected to the BeagleBone.
Both nodes are also logging data to their respective log files located at ~/.ros/log.
For the rqt and bag files, data is pulled from the /commands topic. RQT plots the data, while the bag file records the exact time of each published value on the topic. Therefore when the bag is replayed, it is able to repeat the topic's behavior exactly as it was.
Work Breakdown
1. Installing ROS on the BeagleBone - Matt
2. Installing ROS on the base station - Garrett
3. Configuring ROS - Matt
4. Writing the Xbox software - Matt
5. Writing the Motor software - Matt
6. Wiring the system - Garrett
Future Work
This project has nearly endless possibilities for continued work, as the ROS platform is immense in scale and capability and growing constantly. One common application of ROS which could be added to this project is to implement an autonomous vehicle with localization sensors and an active map to navigate terrain. For a list of projects that this could be expanded into, check out https://awesomeopensource.com/projects/ros
It is also very common for mobile robotic platforms to communicate wirelessly, since a physical connection becomes a constraint. Because of this, a logical next step for this project would be incorporating a WIFI connection.
ROS is an extremely powerful tool, and it used fairly universally in the world of robotics. The BeagleBone Black is not an officially supported platform for ROS due to being a 32-bit system, but we have been able to demonstrate that the BeagleBone is capable of running this software platform. This demonstrates that the BeagleBone is also capable of many more complicated tasks like robotic arms and autonomous vehicles.
Embedded Linux Class by Mark A. Yoder


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Choral director
Ragnar Bohlin
Chorus Director
Ragnar Bohlin began his tenure as Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony in 2007. Mr. Bohlin served as choirmaster of Stockholm's Maria Magdalena Church and holds degrees from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. He studied conducting with Eric Ericson and Jorma Panula, piano with Peter Feuchtwanger in London, singing with Nicolai Gedda, and through a Sweden-America Foundation scholarship he visited choruses throughout the US. With Stockholm's KFUM Chamber Choir, the Maria Magdalena Motet Choir, and the Maria Vocal Ensemble, Mr. Bohlin has won numerous prizes in international competitions. Currently teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he has also taught at the Royal Academy in Stockholm and been a visiting professor at Indiana University and Miami University. With the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, he has conducted J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio and B minor Mass, Handel's Messiah, Fauré's Requiem, and Orff's Carmina burana. Mr. Bohlin's guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the São Paulo Symphony in Brazil, Malmö Symphony in Sweden, Stavanger Symphony in Norway, the Edmonton Symphony in Canada, and the Ericson Chamber Choir in Mozart's C minor Mass. In 2018 he leads the BBC Singers and Swedish Radio Choir. Mr. Bohlin is the founding Artistic Director of the professional chamber choir Cappella SF; the group has released two recordings on the Delos label. In 2013, he was awarded the Cultural Achievement Award from the Swedish-America Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco.
(November 2017)


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Tender is the cabbage
I love the holidays as much as the next guy, but truth be told, I also love that they only come once a year. So much flitting around, feasting, and fun can leave a girl a little fatigued, both of spirit and of palate. Maybe I'm getting old, or Grinchly, or maybe just wise, but after Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, this Saturday eve all I wanted was a quiet apartment, a hot oven, and a homely head of cabbage.
Even more than the holidays, I love the limbo period that follows them, the calm after the proverbial storm, the moment of hesitation—of taking stock, of gathering my bearings—after stepping over the threshold of a new year. I find myself in the kitchen again, with a few open cookbooks and open space in the oven, now that the cookies, turkeys, and tarts are tucked away. And my hunger runs to the humble and the honest, the dependable stuff, the slow and steady. All of which means, dear reader, that the calendar spells cabbage.
He may be a small, portly fellow, green at the cheeks and balding, but last night I happily holed up with a head of green cabbage, and we braised. I've never been much for nightlife, anyway, and the love of a good crucifer will make a homebody out of anybody—or this body, at least. Nestled with onions and carrots under a light blanket of oil and broth, tender was the night, and the cabbage. With gentle attention and two hours in the oven, each wedge went musky and melting, easy under the knife. There is no denying that cabbage is sulfurous stuff, but cooked this way—slowly, and sealed under foil—its aroma softens from raw and bitter to sweet and nutty, skipping straight over sour. Earthy, soothing, and seasoned with flaky Maldon salt, it makes a soft bed for a poached egg,
and a soft landing into a new year.
Braised Green Cabbage with Onions, Carrots, and a Poached Egg
Adapted from All About Braising, by Molly Stevens
I've long been a fan of braising red cabbage—on the stovetop, usually, with caraway seeds, honey, and apples—but braised green cabbage may be my new regular. It couldn't be simpler—provided, of course, that you have two hours to spare—and its soft, subdued flavor makes it an easy pairing for many foods, from corned beef to sausage, roasted chicken, or, as I've shown here, a plain old poached egg. And perhaps best of all, it keeps beautifully in the fridge and, as with many braises, actually improves with rest. I like to cook it during the weekend and eat it over the busy days that follow, warmed in the microwave or a low oven.
1 medium head green cabbage, about 2 pounds
1 large yellow onion, sliced into rough 1/3-inch slices
1 large carrot, sliced into ¼-inch rounds
¼ cup good-quality chicken stock, or water
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 egg, poached according to the directions here
Maldon salt, or fleur de sel, to taste
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, and position a rack in the middle of the oven.
Peel off and discard from the cabbage any bruised or messy outer leaves. Give the cabbage a quick rinse under cool water, and dry it lightly. Cut it into 8 wedges, and trim away some of the woody core, leaving enough to hold each wedge intact. Arrange the wedges in a 9 x 13 baking dish. They may overlap a little, but you want them to lie in a single—if crowded—layer. If they don't fit nicely into the dish, remove one wedge and set it aside for later use in a quick sauté, salad, or soup.
Scatter the onion and carrot over the cabbage, and pour the stock and oil over the whole mess. Season with a couple pinches of coarse salt, a couple grinds of the pepper mill, and the red pepper flakes. Cover the dish tightly with foil, and slide it into the oven. Cook the vegetables for 1 hour; then remove the dish from the oven and gently turn the cabbage wedges. If the dish seems at all dry, add a couple tablespoons of water. Cover the dish, and return it to the oven to cook until the vegetables are very tender, about an hour more.
When the cabbage is completely tender, remove the foil over the baking dish, turn the oven up to 400 degrees, and continue cooking until the vegetables begin to brown lightly on their edges, another 15 or so minutes.
Serve warm, topped with a poached egg and sprinkled with plenty of good, flaky Maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Note: The cabbage keeps well in the fridge for a few days, sealed in an airtight container.
Yield: 1 serving, plus leftovers for another half-dozen meals


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An epic Passover mashup celebrating freedom throughout history.
Music video Written & Produced by Aish.com
Directed by Shoot East
Cover Track by Ido Zeleznik and Michael HarPaz
Vocals by Michael HarPaz
With thanks to Pharrell, Ed Sheeran and The Chainsmokers
Yearn to be free
Roots long ago
In captivity
Let my people go
Your first name is Free
Last name is Dom
Ten plagues you have seen, a nation is born
Feel soul power
It's in every human being
Time for liberation
Sea split your wings
Freedom! [x4]
The struggle for freedom Jews celebrate on Passover Is seen throughout history Fighting persecution so we can live as Jews want
From Moses to Natan Sharansky
Suffragettes, Rosa Parks, tank man in Tiananmen Square, Got the purple finger in Iraq now
Ring the bell, pull the Berlin Wall down
And then we start to dream, like Malala
God, you know I want your love
Your matzah's handmade for somebody like me
Come on now, follow God's lead
Pharaoh is finished, now you're free
Matzah, the bread of freedom
Put on your shoulder, go to the desert quickly
Come on now, follow God's lead
Come, come on now, follow God's lead
I'm in love with the taste of you
Knead and roll, eighteen minutes to
Although my stomach is falling too
I'm in love with my matzah
I'm in love with my matzah
I'm in love with my matzah
Hey, the struggle for freedom is all about you
Enslaved and beaten, that's an issue
You have a choice
Hey, challenges can make us stronger
Try and hold on a little longer
and then…
We have thanks in our heart
Bitterness makes you count your stars
All our pain, recalled
Throughout Jewish history You guided us far
And no-ow-ow-ow-ow, we're free
And no-ow-ow-ow-ow, we're free
So God pull us ever closer
Let us celebrate Passover
As we tell our story over
Bite that matzah on your shoulder
Jewish People getting older
So many miracles to share
Faith and family coming over
Have a meaningful Passover


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This article is more than 1 year old
Lindsay Lohan ditches her surname
Serious blow to El Reg space plane bureau
Bespeckled thespiatrix Lindsay Lohan has dealt a serious blow to the El Reg space paper plane bureau by announcing she's going to drop the "Lohan" and emerge as just "Lindsay".
According to her mum Dina, there are two reasons for the rebrand: first up, loads of megacelebs like Oprah and Beyonce thrive on a first-name-only basis; secondly, the family doesn't want anything to do with dad Michael Lohan.
Those of you who actually give a hoot about the Lohan family drama can get more info here. What concerns us, though, is just how this affects the proposed follow-up to our PARIS triumph – provisionally codenamed "LOHAN".
Let's face it, we're going to have a hell of a time trying to get a backronym out of "LINDSAY", so we hereby warn Ms Lohan that if she doesn't reconsider her rash decision, we'll look elsewhere for celebutard inspiration. ®


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Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica
Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, the official journal of the Veterinary Associations of the Nordic Countries, was founded in 1959 as a traditional print journal. In May 2006, Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica took the novel step of becoming 'open access', making its content freely available online.
Web Site: http://www.actavetscand.com
Journal of Equine Veterinary Science
Journal of Equine Veterinary Science (JEVS) is an international publication designed for the practicing equine veterinarian, equine researcher, and other equine health care specialist. Published monthly, each issue of JEVS includes original scientific research, case reports, and review articles from leaders in the equine veterinary field. The journal also includes regular features such as meeting and conference reports, news, and literature reviews to help equine practitioners stay current with the issues affecting their practice. Breeders, trainers, and others involved in horse production and management will also find the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science an invaluable resource.
Web Site: http://www.elsevier.com
Vlaams Diergeneeskundig Tijdschrift
The Vlaams Diergeneeskundig Tijdschrift is a bimonthly published scientific journal (six issues per year) which presents mainly clinical topics and addresses itself to two very different types of public: the local Dutch speaking veterinarians in Belgium and the Netherlands and the international veterinary, agricultural and biomedical research community. Each issue contains different scientific papers in English, and in Dutch with an English abstract. Reviews on clinical issues are normally published in Dutch only. The journal is covered by Current Contents, Web of Science, and other indexing services. Aart de Kruif, editor-in-chief.
Web Site: http://vdt.ugent.be
Veterinary Clinics of North America
Veterinary Clinics of North America: Equine Practiceoffers you the most current information on the treatment of horses; updates on the latest advances; and provides a sound basis for choosing treatment options. Each issue focuses on a single topic in equine practice and is presented under the direction of an experienced guest editor.
Web Site: http://www.elsevier.com
EVJ - Equine Veterinary Journal
This unrivalled international scientific journal was first published in 1968 when there were four issues each year. It now appears bi-monthly with around 96 pages per issue containing articles with original and potentially important findings. Contributions are received from sources worldwide, including North America, Europe and Australia.
Web Site: http://www.evj.co.uk
EVE - Equine Veterinary Education
First published in 1989, EVE is printed monthly and provides articles intended for veterinarians in practice who see cases and want to share treatment and diagnosis with others, as well as being of interest to veterinary students and others with an involvement in the equine veterinary world. This information is provided in Case Reports accompanied by Satellite Articles or Clinical Commentaries, which expand on the subject discussed in the report. EVE has always aimed to provide up-to-date continuing education and, in the years since its inception, has grown from four issues each year to twelve. EVJ is published bi-monthly.
Web Site: http://www.evj.co.uk
AJVR - American Journal of Veterinary Research
The mission of the American Journal of Veterinary Research is to publish, in a timely manner, peer-reviewed reports of the highest-quality research that has the clear potential to enhance the health, welfare, and performance of animals and humans. The journal will maintain the highest ethical standards of scientific journalism and promote such standards among its contributors. In addition, the journal will foster global interdisciplinary cooperation in veterinary medical research.
Web Site: http://avmajournals.avma.org/loi/ajvr
JAVMA - Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association began publication in 1915 and is the most widely distributed veterinary medical journal. The mission of the JAVMA is to promote the science and art of veterinary medicine and to provide a forum for discussion and dissemination of ideas important to the profession.
Web Site: http://avmajournals.avma.org/loi/javma
Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound
Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound is a bimonthly, international journal that maintains the highest feasible standard for publication of matters pertaining to veterinary imaging and allied discplines, sustaining its recognition as an established refereed journal and to serve as a source of continuing education. Published papers include results of original investigation, clinical reports, case-history reports and review articles.
Web Site: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com
Veterinary record
The Veterinary Record is the British Veterinary Association's official journal and has been published weekly since 1888. It contains news, comment, letters and clinical research papers on a wide range of veterinary topics. Its classified advertisement section includes an extensive list of veterinary and veterinary-related jobs.
Web Site: http://veterinaryrecord.bvapublications.com
VCOT - Veterinary and Comparative Orthopaedics and Traumatology
VCOT covers orthopaedics and traumatology in veterinary medicine as well as common approaches in human and veterinary medicine. By advancing traumatology through the documentation of practical experience, the journal aims at fulfilling scientists' need for new information in the field. International authors use VCOT as a platform for publishing the latest scientific research in the field. All articles conform to a high scientific standard and are written in English. Review articles, original papers and case reports strive to inform the reader about newer and gentler operating techniques, improved materials for implants and the latest in basic research. Congress reports and abstracts of the societies' annual meetings regularly help readers stay up-to-date and expand their knowledge. To top it off, VCOT also publishes book reviews and a preview of congresses.
Web Site: www.thieme.com/vcot
Veterinary Surgery
Veterinary Surgery is a source of up-to-date coverage of surgical and anesthetic management of animals, addressing significant problems in veterinary surgery with relevant case histories and observations. It contains original, peer-reviewed articles that cover developments in veterinary surgery, and presents the most current review of the field, with timely articles on surgical techniques, diagnostic aims, care of infections, and advances in knowledge of metabolism as it affects the surgical patient. The journal places new developments in perspective, encompassing new concepts and peer commentary to help better understand and evaluate the surgical patient.
Web Site: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com


text:
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text:
Filters: Author is Yanchun He [Clear All Filters]
Simulated Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in the 20th century with an ocean model forced by reanalysis-based atmospheric data sets. Ocean Modelling 100, 31 - 48 (2016). Download: 20cr_amoc_accepted.pdf (6.87 MB)
Transport of Nuclear Leakage from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in the North Pacific. Acta Oceanologica Sinica 34, (2012).
North Atlantic ventilation using chlorofluorocarbons and idealised-tracer simulations. Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology 64, (2012).
A model-based evaluation of the Inverse Gaussian transit-time distribution method for inferring anthropogenic carbon storage in the ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR): Oceans 123, (2018).


text:
anod to Somaliland, formerly a British protectorate, and the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Without naming them, the final communique "welcomed the success in some areas of Somalia in establishing local areas of stability, and agreed to increase support to build legitimate and peaceful authorities, and improve services to people living in these areas".
Neither region was named because of Somalia's political sensitivities. Somaliland has not been recognised internationally since it broke away in 1991 after the fall of Siad Barre, the Somali dictator, and Somalis strongly reject the idea of Somaliland's independence. It was a diplomatic breakthrough in itself to have Ahmed Mahamound Silanyo, the Somaliland president, present at last week's meeting.
As the London communique indicated, Britain plans to concentrate its aideffort on Somaliland. The Department for International Development (DfID) plans to spend an average of £63m annually on Somalia until 2015, devoting more than 40% of its aid on this north-west corner, home to 3.5 million people.
Somaliland will need the money. Its 2012-16 national development plan(pdf) published in December set out a capital investment proposal of $1.19bn. The government is expected to provide $74m, the private sector $132m, the diaspora $4m, but the overwhelming amount is expected to come from aid donors – $979m, 82% of the total investment plan.
"Given the meagre resources available to the government from its budget and the absence of credit facilities, the bulk of the investment required for the national development plan is expected to come from external sources," says a summary of the plan. The areas for investment are the economy, infrastructure, governance, social and the environment. Most of the investment for infrastructure is set to repair and upgrade Somaliland's dilapidated road network.
Somaliland's minister of planning, Dr Saad Shire, provided an overview of Somaliland's economic objectives before an enthusiastic crowd of supporters in the UK parliament on Wednesday at a session chaired by Alun Michael from the all-party parliamentary group for Somaliland. The message was that Somaliland was open for business.
Shire trumpeted Somaliland as ideally located for access to east African markets, particularly Ethiopia, markets in the Middle East and even Asia – and what must be one of the world's most favourable regimes for foreign investors.
Foreign direct investors will pay no tax for three years. After that they will have to pay only 10% on profits, which can be freely repatriated. There will be full compensation for any expropriations, which would be done only in the "public interest". There will also be no minimum wage. Shire listed a number of foreign investors already doing business in Somaliland, including Coca-Cola, Western Union and Nubian Gold.
In an idea that went down well with his audience, Shire said Somaliland suggested the Somali diaspora make a $1 voluntary contribution to the state when they send remittances, which would come to between $300m and $400m a year. Several people in the audience said they would be willing to contribute much more than $1, while Quman Jibril Akli, from Somaliland Focus UK, went so far as to say the $1 contribution should be made compulsory.
Others cautioned against relying too much on the diaspora, as future generations may not feel the same emotional tug. "Our grandchildren may not have the same commitment, we're just a stopgap," said one Somalilander.
As for aid, Somaliland's lack of international recognition – despite being independent to all extents and purposes for the last two decades – means most aid goes through UN agencies rather than directly to the government. The clearly frustrated Shire complained that the aid usually ends up "in the wrong place [at] the wrong time", despite consultations.
He also voiced a complaint that will sound familiar to relief agencies: aid does not arrive until starving people are shown on TV screens.
"Last year we appealed for development money to dig 10 to 12 huge reservoirs, each costing about $400,000, which would have taken care of the drought, or at least provided some water," he said. "But the international community was not willing to spend the money. It was really a mistake, that's what's wrong with aid."
To have more control over when and how to spend money, Somaliland is in the process of setting up a trust fund. The plan is to have it up and running by September, with the UK and Denmark providing an initial amount of $20m in the hope that others will follow.
"We only see 20p out of every £1 of aid," Shire said. "Donations go through long channels; it's like passing ice cream round, by the time it gets to the recipient it will have melted. What we get isn't that much. We hope the $979m will go into the right sectors."
Mark Tran
Thursday 1 March 2012 15.32 GMT The Guardian


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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Running back Ty Isaac is transferring from Southern California to Michigan.
Wolverines coach Brady Hoke says it was important for Isaac to move back to the Midwest to be closer to his mother and his family. Isaac is from Shorewood, Illinois. It is unclear if he will sit out this season to comply with NCAA transfer rules or seek a hardship waiver to be eligible immediately.
Isaac appeared in all 14 games for the Trojans in the 2013 season, rushing for 236 yards on 40 carries with two touchdowns. He finished his high school career at Joliet Catholic Academy in Illinois with a school-record 5,305 yards rushing.
Michigan's running game has been spotty the past two seasons. This season's returning rushing leader is quarterback Devin Gardner (483 yards). Among tailbacks, highly touted freshman Derrek Green had 270 yards and averaged 3.3 per carry in a disappointing season.
Isaac was a steady contributor in USC's backfield as a freshman, but emerged from spring football behind Javorius Allen and Tre Madden on new coach Steve Sarkisian's depth chart. Allen and Madden both have two years of eligibility remaining with the Trojans, and Isaac's hard-nosed running style might be better suited to Big Ten football than Sarkisian's up-tempo scheme.
Allen seized the starting job at Tailback U. in the second half of last season, rushing for 13 touchdowns and compiling four 100-yard performances in USC's final six games. Madden, a converted linebacker, got off to an outstanding start last season before hamstring injuries slowed him.
USC also has promising sophomore Justin Davis, who missed the second half of last season and spring ball while recovering from an ankle injury.


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Francesco Corvino
Art Director, Concept Artist, Matte Painter
Francesco Corvino is an Architect and Concept Artist who has worked extensively with architectural firms and for the film industry. His love for architecture, movies and storytelling is the main force behind his visionary style. After having earned his Master's Degree in Architecture in Italy, Francesco moved to Los Angeles to specialize in Visual Effects and Concept Design. Shortly after, he received an opportunity to work with Hollywood veteran Aaron Sims on some of the biggest blockbusters in the industry. His career subsequently took off, first bringing him up north to work on Game of Thrones in Montreal and ultimately landing in London as an Art Director for Framestore, an award-winning VFX company. Today Francesco enjoys working in house but keeps also busy as a remote freelance artist for clients located all around the world. Some of the films Francesco has worked on include: Thor Ragnarok, Fantastic Beasts, The Martian, Game of Thrones, Birdman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Edge of Tomorrow, Maleficent, Spiderman 2, 300 Rise of an Empire, Sin City: A dame to kill for, World War Z.
"Francesco is one of the most talented artists with whom I have had the pleasure of working. His ability to bring Concept Art to life in such original and inspiring ways - using 3D models, photographs, and painting - has always impressed me, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this talented young artist."- Aaron Sims
The Aaron Sims Company
"Francesco Corvino is not only a phenomenal Concept Designer and Matte Painter, but has also been an absolute joy to work with over the years. I've had the privilege of watching Francesco grow from his first few projects to becoming the super talent that he is today. I honestly cannot say enough good things about him. I'm so excited that he's come out with his own tutorial. I look forward to watching it and learning his process in depth."- Jerad S Marantz
Creature/ Character/Concept Artist
"Francesco has worked on huge blockbusters while doing amazing work in Environmental Design and Digital Matte Painting. It's always a pleasure seeing his new work for the industry."- David Luong
Senior Cinematic Artist II - Blizzard Entertainment