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Provincetown Information
The Town of Provincetown was incorporated in 1727, but its history begins much earlier since its well protected harbor offered excellent protection from storms. The European explorer Gosnold recorded a stop in Provincetown as early as 1602 and the harbor was the site of the first landing of the Mayflower. The Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact in the harbor, to codify the way in which they were going to administer the new colony they intended to establish. Although rich fishing grounds resulted in the seasonal leasing of fisheries with licenses granted for bass, mackerel and cod fishing, the first permanent settlement didn't take place until 1700. Provincetown grew very slowly during the 18th century and its population fluctuated with the price of fish. Farming was of secondary importance and aside from the fishing industry, there were only some salt works and one mill. After the Revolution, the town boomed and its population rose 276.6% between 1790 and 1830. Despite its relative lack of good farm land, by the middle of the 19th century, Provincetown had developed as the prime maritime, fishing and commercial center of the Cape. The Civil War, which destroyed so much New England business, only provided more markets for Provincetown's fish. Portuguese sailors, picked up by American ships in the Azores and Cape Verde Islands to fill out their crews, came to Provincetown to live, and additional Portuguese immigrants had moved to town by the 19th century to work on the whaling boats and coastal fishing vessels. In 1875, there were 25 coast-wise and 36 ocean vessels operating in town, more than any community in the state including Boston. Provincetown was a bustling place with all the ancillary maritime businesses operating, such as ship chandlers, shipwrights, sail makers, caulkers, riggers, and blacksmiths. The picturesque setting and salt air also began attracting artists and writers by the end of the 19th century. This contingent grew and poets, novelists, journalists, socialists, radicals and dilettantes formed a colony which in 1915 opened the Provincetown Players in a converted fish house on the wharf. Among the writers whose works were performed there was Eugene O'Neill. When the fishing industry faltered from competition with cheaper Nova Scotia cod, and the Portland Gale of 1898 swept away half of the town's wharves, the resort population of the town provided jobs to take the place of those lost. In the 1920's the artistic and literary productions of the town were of international repute and the abandoned sites of maritime businesses became the new homes of the seasonal visitor as sail lofts, warehouses and barns became studios, galleries and shops. Today, the wealth of preserved historic buildings combines with the lure of the sea to support a huge tourist and summer home industry.
- Town Location
Situated on the northern tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown is bordered by Truro on the east and surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean on all other sides. It is 49 miles north of Hyannis, 78 miles east of Plymouth, 114 miles southeast of Boston, and 290 miles from New York City. Town offices are located at 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657. The main number is 508-487-7000.
|Google Map Directions
|Gale Force Bikes
|144 Bradford Street Extension
|Bicycle rentals, sales and service
|Movement Arts of Provincetown
|306 Commercial St.
|dance, yoga & movement studies for all ages
|Now Voyager Bookstore
|357 Commercial St
|Independent bookseller, specializing in Lesbian and Gay Men's literature
|Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum
|1 High Pole Road
|built to commemorate the "first landing" of the Mayflower Pilgrims in Provincetown on November 21, 1620, and their signing of the Mayflower Compact here.
|Provincetown Art Association and Museum
|460 Commercial Street
|No Description Available
|Provincetown Artist Registry
|74 Shank Painter Road
|Provincetown Bookshop
|246 Commercial St.
|Provincetown Heritage Museum
|356 Commercial Street
|No Description Available
|Provincetown Jazz Festival
|501 Commercial Street #2C
|The Provincetown Jazz FestivalT is the only three-day Jazz Festival on Cape Cod and is held in the Oldest Continuous Arts Colony in the United States (USA). Jazz musicians from the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) have performed for jazz lovers from the USA, Canada, UK and Europe. The Festival also donates a portion of the proceeds to worthy causes in Provincetown.
|Provincetown Olde Cemetery
|No Description Available


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2019 Florida Statutes
Driving under the influence; penalties.
The portion of a fine imposed in excess of $500 pursuant to sub-subparagraph 1.a. and the portion of a fine imposed in excess of $1,000 pursuant to sub-subparagraph 1.b., shall be remitted by the clerk to the Department of Revenue for deposit into the General Revenue Fund.
For purposes of this subsection, the term "unborn child" has the same meaning as provided in s. 775.021(5). A person who is convicted of DUI manslaughter shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 4 years.
For the purposes of this subsection, only the instant offense is required to be a violation of subsection (1) by a person who has a blood-alcohol level or breath-alcohol level of 0.15 or higher. The portion of a fine imposed in excess of $1,000 pursuant to subparagraph (a)1. and the portion of a fine imposed in excess of $2,000 pursuant to subparagraph (a)2. or subparagraph (a)3., shall be remitted by the clerk to the Department of Revenue for deposit into the General Revenue Fund.
For the purposes of this section, any conviction for a violation of s. 327.35; a previous conviction for the violation of former s. 316.1931, former s. 860.01, or former s. 316.028; or a previous conviction outside this state for driving under the influence, driving while intoxicated, driving with an unlawful blood-alcohol level, driving with an unlawful breath-alcohol level, or any other similar alcohol-related or drug-related traffic offense, is also considered a previous conviction for violation of this section. However, in satisfaction of the fine imposed pursuant to this section, the court may, upon a finding that the defendant is financially unable to pay either all or part of the fine, order that the defendant participate for a specified additional period of time in public service or a community work project in lieu of payment of that portion of the fine which the court determines the defendant is unable to pay. In determining such additional sentence, the court shall consider the amount of the unpaid portion of the fine and the reasonable value of the services to be ordered; however, the court may not compute the reasonable value of services at a rate less than the federal minimum wage at the time of sentencing.
A. Section 15, ch. 2019-58, amended subsections (2) and (4) "[e]ffective upon this act becoming a law and retroactive to July 1, 2008."
B. Section 30, ch. 2019-58, provides that "[t]he amendments made by this act to ss. 27.52, 28.24, 28.2401, 28.241, 34.041, 45.035, 55.505, 61.14, 316.193, 318.14, 318.15, 318.18, 322.245, 327.35, 327.73, 379.401, 713.24, 721.83, 744.365, 744.3678, 766.104, and 938.05, Florida Statutes, are remedial and clarifying in nature and apply retroactively to July 1, 2008."
C. Section 31, ch. 2019-58, provides that "[t]he amendments to the jurisdiction of a court made by this act shall apply with respect to the date of filing the cause of action, regardless of when the cause of action accrued."

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The semi-state-owned company said it will lodge applications for construction consent for the first 1GW by 2015, with a view to bringing the projects online by 2020.
The so-called Clean Energy Hub will involve the development of a number of separate wind farms that will be principally centred on the company's 200 square kilometres of peat lands in East Offaly and West Kildare in the centre of the country.
Some of the energy is intended for export to the UK in line with a memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries in January. Bord na Mona said it anticipates that the new wind farms will create an export business with an annual revenue of around €1billion.
While the UK still has a long way to go to hit its 2020 renewable energy targets, Ireland is much further progressed, with less than 5GW of new capacity needed to hit its quota.
Under the memorandum, electricity would be transferred to the UK grid via an electricity connection between Dublin and north Wales.
Speaking at the launch of the project, minister for communications, energy and natural resources Pat Rabbitte said: "I have been working hard with my colleagues in the British government to develop a framework to allow for exports of green energy to Britain and beyond."
On announcing the plans Bord na Mona also issued an invitation for partners to join them in preparing a single construction consent application.
Bord na Mona also provides energy through the harvesting and burning of peat. These wind projects will be situated on bogs that have reached the end of their productive lives.


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JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame will induct a seven-member class in 2014, including former NFL standouts Deuce McAllister and the late Steve McNair.
The group, which was announced on Monday, also includes women's basketball standout Ruthie Bolton, Ole Miss and NFL standout Doug Cunningham, award-winning broadcaster Robin Roberts, track star Calvin Smith and former Mississippi State basketball coach Richard Williams.
McAllister played at Ole Miss before becoming the New Orleans Saints' all-time leading rusher with 6,096 yards and 49 touchdowns. McNair, who died in 2009, played at Alcorn State before a 13-year NFL career with the Tennessee Titans. He threw for more than 30,000 career yards and was the NFL's MVP in 2003.
Bolton, a McLain native, won two gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics with the U.S. women's national team. Williams led Mississippi State to its only Final Four appearance in 1996.
Roberts was originally selected for the 2013 class, but was unable to attend because of health issues.
"In my mind, this is as accomplished and as diverse a group of Hall of Famers as I have ever seen," Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame director Rick Cleveland said in a statement. "My congratulations to them and to the statewide selection committee who chose them. I think it's important to note that all seven are from small-town Mississippi. They should serve as inspiration to youngsters — boys and girls no matter their background — across the Magnolia State."
The class will be officially inducted in July during a banquet at the Jackson Hilton.


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Indiana's lottery commission voted Wednesday to hire a private company to run the lottery's marketing, sales and distribution services in the hopes that it will boost the game's profits by about $100 million a year.
The commission voted 3-0, with two members absent, to approve a 15-year contract with Rhode Island-based GTECH that is expected to make $1.7 billion in profit over five years — a $500 million increase over state projections. GTECH already provides and maintains vending machines for the Hoosier Lottery.
In exchange for running the lottery's marketing and other services, GTECH will be paid a management fee that hasn't yet been determined as well as a share of the lottery profits. The state received $188 million in lottery proceeds last year.
Officials expect profits to increase by about $500 million above what they otherwise would have been over the first five years of the contract, said Karl Browning, the Hoosier Lottery's executive director. Over the 15-year life of the contract, the amount of money the lottery nets the state is expected to increase by 50 percent over projections, he said.
"I can't find a scenario in which no matter what, the taxpayer isn't better off," Browning said.
Browning said part of the increased revenue would come from a plan to "broaden the player base," which would likely be done by expanding sales to grocery stores, big box stores and discount stores.
GTECH could earn a $1 bonus for every dollar over a revenue threshold set by the state, but it would have to pay the state if the threshold isn't met, Browning said.
GTECH's bid was selected over a proposal from New York-based Scientific Games, which currently provides the central online lottery system, terminals and instant tickets for the Hoosier Lottery.
Two foreign companies dropped out of the bidding last month. One of them, Camelot Global Services, which runs the national lottery in the United Kingdom, claimed the agreement proposed by the state encouraged bidders to set expected revenue levels artificially high.
Browning said Wednesday that he believed the use of revenue thresholds would motivate the contractor to make accurate forecasts to maximize its profits.
"The idea was to create a risk-sharing arrangement," Browning said.
Gov. Mitch Daniels, who has championed corporate involvement in government services, praised the commission's decision.
"In eight years, this may be the easiest and most obvious decision the state has had to make," Daniels said in a statement. "With this contract, the only question is how much more money Indiana will receive than under the current system."
But a similar outsourcing deal in neighboring Illinois hasn't turned out the way officials expected.
In its first year, Northstar Lottery Group, a partnership between GTECH and Scientific Games, brought in record revenue but fell nearly $100 million short of the $825 million it had promised to Illinois officials. The company and the state are in arbitration over the issue.
Illinois Lottery Superintendent Michael Jones criticized Indiana's search for a private lottery manager in August, saying Indiana officials didn't seem to have learned from Illinois' problem-plagued lottery outsourcing effort.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania also are researching whether to outsource their lotteries.
Daniels' privatization efforts have drawn both praise and criticism. A 75-year lease of the Indiana Toll Road to a private Spanish-Australian consortium in 2006 garnered the state $3.8 billion for a massive 10-year highway construction plan, but most of that money has been spent. Meanwhile, a 2006 decision to outsource the processing of welfare recipients to a team of private contractors led to widespread complaints and a protracted lawsuit.
Hoosier Lottery officials have been careful not to refer to the outsourcing as "privatization" due to a 2008 U.S. Justice Department opinion that states could not legally lease their lotteries.
Private companies already handle 88 percent of Indiana's lottery operations and the outsourcing proposal would increase that to 95 percent, Browning said. The state would retain executive management and ownership of the lottery, he said.
Lottery profits pale compared with those from Indiana's 13 privately owned casinos, which generated $829 million in wagering and admissions taxes for the state last year. Those casinos are regulated by the Indiana Gaming Commission.


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A timely piece by the NYTimes on the electoral campaigns in Pompeii.
Friday, 31 August 2012
Sunday, 26 August 2012
Getty exhibition: The Last Days of Pompeii
I'm posting on behalf of Kenneth Lapin of the J. Paul Getty Museum. He's sent some interesting links that offer more information on the forthcoming exhibition at the Getty Villa called "The Last Days of Pompeii". The exhibition is exploring how Pompeii has been a source of inspiration to the modern world, also allowing exploration of modern themes. More content will be added to this website once the exhibition starts on 12 September, so make sure you return to it next month.
There is also an entry on the Getty's blog on Bulwer-Lytton that might be of interest, and you can read it here.
There is also an entry on the Getty's blog on Bulwer-Lytton that might be of interest, and you can read it here.
Posted by Sarah at 13:15
1 comments
1 comments
Monday, 20 August 2012
Searching CIL by Pompeii addresses?
A friend recently asked if there is a way or resource to search by the Region/Insula/Civico address system. within the CIL texts covering Pompeii and the surrounding areas.
I am not aware of a such a system and thought to check with the Blogging Pompeii community. As I understand it, one requires a reference to a specific CIL number as they are not catalogued according to address. We'd be happy to know the thoughts of others!
I am not aware of a such a system and thought to check with the Blogging Pompeii community. As I understand it, one requires a reference to a specific CIL number as they are not catalogued according to address. We'd be happy to know the thoughts of others!
Posted by Sera Baker at 13:05
7 comments
7 comments
Saturday, 4 August 2012
Herculaneum's roof
A very short update on the research on the roof of the House of the Telephus Relief (Herculaneum) can be found here.
Posted by Sarah at 06:30
0 comments
0 comments
Friday, 3 August 2012
Fieldwork opportunity in September
The ApollineProject is a multi-disciplinary research project which seeks to bring to light the hitherto neglected past of the area to the north of Mt. Vesuvius. The project has several components but major excavation work focuses upon two sites; a well preserved post-79 AD Roman baths at PollenaTrocchia and an early Medieval church at Roccarainola. Those interested in adding to their experience of archaeological fieldwork and post-excavation practice will find our September programme of great interest. It involves two weeks of major excavations at the church at Roccarainola and a further two of lab work at Pollena Trocchia. The programme is ideal for students who may have limited archaeological experience but wish to gain more while working in a range of different environments. Classes will be given on working with pottery finds and there will be plenty of opportunity to work with freshly discovered material. Opportunities to engage with the archaeology of death and burial also exist as the result of a number of finds already made at Roccarainola.
Subsequently, the baths at Pollena give participants the opportunity to study the artefacts of a well preserved and large scale Roman site. What makes this opportunity different is the time-span offered to students (Roman and Medieval) and the chance to work on two very different sites in a single month long programme. However, those wishing to stay only for one of the excavations may do so. The excavations at 'Rocca' (the church) takes place from September 3rd until the 16th while the work at Pollena (bath-house) take place from the 17th until the 30th. Good accommodation is provided (with an internet connection) and included within the price along with all tuition. It should be noted that while food is not included, living costs in the area are very modest.
The deadline for applications is 26th August 2012, but earlier applications will be considered and processed within two days.If you wish to know more, you will find additional information on our website along with the application form which is submitted electronically.
Posted by Unknown at 08:59
0 comments
0 comments
Labels: Field School, fieldwork, North Slope, Pollena Trocchia, Pottery, Roccarainola, vesuvius
Thursday, 2 August 2012
New Archaeological and Volcanological Park in San Paolo Belsito (near Nola)
Sorry for the late notice, I've just received and I'm glad to forward the invitation for the opening of the new archaeological and volcanological park in San Paolo Belsito, near Nola.
The event will take place tomorrow, the 3rd of August. Further details are available in the image attached to this message.
The event will take place tomorrow, the 3rd of August. Further details are available in the image attached to this message.
Posted by Unknown at 19:30
0 comments
0 comments
Labels: Nola, North Slope, San Paolo Belsito
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|[This is a MPIWG MPDL language technology service]
Work (n.) Exertion of strength or faculties; physical or intellectual effort directed to an end; industrial activity; toil; employment; sometimes, specifically, physically labor.
Work (n.) The matter on which one is at work; that upon which one spends labor; material for working upon; subject of exertion; the thing occupying one; business; duty; as, to take up one's work; to drop one's work.
Work (n.) That which is produced as the result of labor; anything accomplished by exertion or toil; product; performance; fabric; manufacture; in a more general sense, act, deed, service, effect, result, achievement, feat.
Work (n.) Specifically: (a) That which is produced by mental labor; a composition; a book; as, a work, or the works, of Addison. (b) Flowers, figures, or the like, wrought with the needle; embroidery.
Work (n.) Structures in civil, military, or naval engineering, as docks, bridges, embankments, trenches, fortifications, and the like; also, the structures and grounds of a manufacturing establishment; as, iron works; locomotive works; gas works.
Work (n.) The moving parts of a mechanism; as, the works of a watch.
Work (n.) Manner of working; management; treatment; as, unskillful work spoiled the effect.
Work (n.) The causing of motion against a resisting force. The amount of work is proportioned to, and is measured by, the product of the force into the amount of motion along the direction of the force. See Conservation of energy, under Conservation, Unit of work, under Unit, also Foot pound, Horse power, Poundal, and Erg.
Work (n.) Ore before it is dressed.
Work (n.) Performance of moral duties; righteous conduct.
Work (n.) To exert one's self for a purpose; to put forth effort for the attainment of an object; to labor; to be engaged in the performance of a task, a duty, or the like.
Work (n.) Hence, in a general sense, to operate; to act; to perform; as, a machine works well.
Work (n.) Hence, figuratively, to be effective; to have effect or influence; to conduce.
Work (n.) To carry on business; to be engaged or employed customarily; to perform the part of a laborer; to labor; to toil.
Work (n.) To be in a state of severe exertion, or as if in such a state; to be tossed or agitated; to move heavily; to strain; to labor; as, a ship works in a heavy sea.
Work (n.) To make one's way slowly and with difficulty; to move or penetrate laboriously; to proceed with effort; -- with a following preposition, as down, out, into, up, through, and the like; as, scheme works out by degrees; to work into the earth.
Work (n.) To ferment, as a liquid.
Work (n.) To act or operate on the stomach and bowels, as a cathartic.
Work (v. t.) To labor or operate upon; to give exertion and effort to; to prepare for use, or to utilize, by labor.
Work (v. t.) To produce or form by labor; to bring forth by exertion or toil; to accomplish; to originate; to effect; as, to work wood or iron into a form desired, or into a utensil; to work cotton or wool into cloth.
Work (v. t.) To produce by slow degrees, or as if laboriously; to bring gradually into any state by action or motion.
Work (v. t.) To influence by acting upon; to prevail upon; to manage; to lead.
Work (v. t.) To form with a needle and thread or yarn; especially, to embroider; as, to work muslin.
Work (v. t.) To set in motion or action; to direct the action of; to keep at work; to govern; to manage; as, to work a machine.
Work (v. t.) To cause to ferment, as liquor.


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Igniting the Controversial Fiery Origins23 Apr, 2008 By: Kenneth Wong
Boston architect redefines modernism with ArchiCAD.
Charlestown architect Bob Augustine likes to cite Daniel Libeskind, an architect who said, "Tradition is veiling of fiery origins." In his own work, Augustine seeks to examine those origins and "infuse them with modern sensibilities, functional design, and smart technology." He said he was "looking for the spark of insight embedded in the tradition, not its bonds of authority and heavy-handed dogma."
Recently, he found out just how controversial it was to remove the traditional architectural facades people have grown accustomed to over the years. He recalled an anonymous phone call he received.
"Is this Bob Augustine? Are you the architect for that house on Grove Street in Cambridge?" asked the caller. Once he answered in the affirmative, she unleashed a torrent of emotion, beginning with, "Hideous — it's hideous!"
Recounting the incident on his Web site, he wrote, "I knew the house was modern and possibly controversial, but I was not quite prepared for the extremes of reaction it has drawn out."
Augustine has practiced architecture for more than 30 years and taught it for nearly 10 years at the Boston Architecture College as director of the Architectural and Interior Design Thesis Programs. His introduction to BIM (building information modeling), a decidedly modern approach, didn't come until he'd left academia. But now that he'd discovered a smart technology, Graphisoft's ArchiCAD, he wasn't about to go back to the way he used to work 30 years ago.
A Colonial Rehabilitation
Asked to explain modern architecture, Bob Augustine told the Boston Globe, "It's about putting a fresh eye to things. Looking at what materials are out there now and how we live, and not trying to go back and live like it was 150 years ago" ("Modern Love," April 23, 2006).
The project that had prompted the unforgettable phone call was formerly a Colonial-style house, built circa 1950, overlooking Cambridge's Fresh Pond and downtown Boston. He envisioned completely transforming it with copper panels, glass windows, red cedar side walls, and a flat roof. In doing so, he would be updating the place with sunlit spaces, open balconies, and a warm exterior.
Boston Architect Bob Augustine didn't anticipate the controversy he'd generate with the house on Grove Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, representing his approach to modernism.
At its inception, the Cambridge House (as the project is come to be known) was to be built on spec for Duncan MacArthur, a creative builder/developer, who was willing to take a chance on some new design and not rely on any formulaic builder's style. Nevertheless, Augustine said, "He and his family ended up liking the house so much, they moved in."
He said, "Sometimes the only way I can get a client to buy into the design is to sit down with them and interactively reshape, resize, and move things around with the ArchiCAD BIM model so that they can see all the possibilities."
The configuration of the third story — a new addition to the existing structure — took quite a bit of give and take. "We wanted to find out just how it would look and what would be visible from the ground level," Augustine said.
As Augustine and his client engaged in negotiation, ideas flew back and forth between them in the form of JPEG images. "I love to work with ArchiCAD's [LightWorks] rendering program," said Augustine. "I usually attach [rendered images] to my plans and construction documents to show the client and the builders what the perspectives are supposed to look like."
To share his ideas for the Grove Street house with the client, he took photographs of the red cedar planks and copper panels from a preexisting house, and then loaded the images into the software as textures. When applied to the 3D model, the rendering gave an accurate representation of how the finished house would look.
"I'm an artist at heart," he said, "so the ability to create three-dimensionally and experiment with different materials is the best design format for me."
Augustine selected copper for its recyclable properties. According to the Copper Development Association, "Each year in the U.S.A, nearly as much copper is recovered from recycled material as is derived from newly mined ore. When you exclude wire production, which mainly uses new refined copper, the amount of copper used by copper and brass mills, ingot makers, foundries, powder plants, and other industries shows that nearly three-fourths comes from recycled copper scrap."
Double-Sided Sun Block
Using ArchiCAD's sun-angle animation feature, Augustine was able to determine the volume of sunlight the new design would be exposed to. The ability to define the transparency of the materials made it possible for him to see that, especially in the morning hours, one side of the home could warm up significantly.
The exercise, he said, "led us to respond more aggressively. We came up with specialized window treatment. We decided on a two-sided window blind that you can roll up or down. It has a light color on one side, darker on the other. The light color reflects the sunlight outward" to mitigate heat gain.
The result of the sun-angle study on the house revealed the rear of the house was exposed to potential heat gain in the morning hours.
He had recently been experimenting with ArchiCAD's terrain modeling tools. "I find that the software has a quick, intuitive way to pick up [landscape elevations], so I'm not just working on a flat surface all the time.
"ArchiCAD has its own land/elevation model," Augustine pointed out. "I was applying only a rudimentary use of its terrain modeling feature in the Cambridge House as it was only the first project I had done using ArchiCAD. I'm better at it now, and have used a plug-in called ArchiTerra, which lets you import roads, etc."
Augustine recently discovered a terrain-modeling plug-in called ArchiTerra. He began using it in the design for a solar home, intended for the desert landscape of Phoenix, Arizona.
Modern Redefined
"The Boston Architectural College, where I taught and worked, is renowned as perhaps the chief advocate in the country for a concurrent curriculum that seeks to integrate practice and academic curricula," Augustine remarked. "Steeped in this perspective, it was very natural, when I started to develop my own practice, to look for ways to inform the practice of building with the inquiry into why we build."
After a decade of teaching, Augustine is once again practicing the craft he loves. He simply calls his firm ARCHITECTURE. He felt somewhat vindicated when he received another random call from someone who saw his work. Coming home one Labor Day weekend, he found a voicemail that said, "Is this Bob Augustine, the architect for that house on Grove Street? I was out walking my dog and went by that house. I thought it was the coolest house I've ever seen."
About the Author: Kenneth Wong
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For Architects! Cadalyst has an area of our site focused on technologies and resources specific to the building design professional. Sponsored by HP. Visit the Equipped Architect here!


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M. Night Shyamalan is back, with a new post-apocalyptic film called After Earth, starring Will Smith and Jaden Smith. And it sounds like Shyamalan and Smith have joined forces to concoct their most fiendishly complicated mythos yet — judging from the tidbits of worldbuilding we gleaned from the film's Comic Con panel.
In After Earth, Will Smith plays a battle worn general attempting to reconnect with his son. During a journey with his son, an asteroid storm destroys the craft Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and Katai Raige (Jaden Smith) are traveling in, leaving Cypher near dead and Kitai scavenging a hostile and primordal Earth. Cypher talks his son Katai through a 100-click journey, with the hope of finding a rescue beacon that could save their lives. Earth, however, is not as we know it, because the planet has been left abandoned for a one thousand years, following a mass evacuation.
Leaving Earth
By the end of the 21st Century, global warming has affected the core of the Earth — and the core then affected the magnetic fields that protect humanity from solar radiation. This is the scientific reasoning as to why humanity performs a mass exodus around 2060 A.D. — embarking on a century long journey to Nova Prime. Earth is a shell of itself, with the colonists of Nova Prime living their lives on the colony for 900 years and placing perimeter beacons in orbit of Earth to warn those who might come across the abandoned planet. In the movie, the history of humanity on Nova Prime will be told through the eyes of Kitai Raige as the boy tries to live up to the image of his warrior father.
Building the Raige Family Mythology
While After Earth will feature Will guiding Jaden Smith through an altogether unknown and toxic Earth, the back story begins in 1908 with one of Cyper and Kitai Raige's distant ancestors. The patriarch of the Raige family is a Polish scientist by the name of Radoslav who witnessed the Tunguska event.
Radoslav and the Raige family harnessed lightstream technology over the course of the 20th and 21st Century, making the Raiges the most prominent family in human history. In addition to the Raige family, Peter David and other writers helming the expanded universe created a second family to butt heads with the Raiges over the millennium.
Along the way, the Raiges take on several different incarnations as the nations of humanity break apart. The 20th and 21st Century Raiges are of European descent — while their descendants in the comic series, After Earth: Innocence, are Asian colonists of Nova Prime who come across the first evidence of dangerous alien life on the planet, the Skrells. The decision to make the family multiple races over time is intentional — to show the natural blending that would occur over the centuries within a family as nation states degrade and humanity evolves.
Too much Smith?
After Earth definitely has the hands of Will Smith all over it, as the panelists told us they deferred to Smith's judgment and decision-making at every step of the way. Can Will Smith successfully pull off the trifecta conversion from rapper to actor to world-builder? Or could this be a very costly problem? We'll have to wait until the Summer of 2013 to find out.
After Earth also marks the first time director M. Night Shyamalan is shooting from a script he did not conceive, with the director working from a revised draft of an original script by Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli). When asked whether there was an example of the usual Shyamalan plot-twist in the final act, the panelists did not deny its presence in After Earth.


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NFPA Launches Firefighter Health and Safety Video Contest
April 2, 2012
Videos to be used as resource in reducing fireground injuries
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), and National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) are co-sponsoring NFPA's first Fire Service Video Contest. Career firefighters, volunteer firefighters, fire department employees, and fire service members are invited to submit an informative video which highlights their fire company operationally demonstrating firefighter health and safety. For more information and a list of official rules, visit www.nfpa.org/fireservicecontest.
According to NFPA, there were 73 firefighter deaths in 2010. This same year, 71,875 firefighter injuries occurred, 32,675 of which occurred during fireground operations. Firefighter health and safety are key principles of NFPA, and these educational videos will provide training tips and information that will help promote firefighter safety and well-being.
The contest will utilize the theme of International Fire/EMS Safety and Health Week (June 17-23), which is "Rules You Can Live By." The weeklong observance of safety and health is a joint initiative of NVFC and IAFC which is run in collaboration with more than 20 national and international fire and emergency organizations, including NFPA.
Members of the fire service can submit their company-level videos demonstrating the safe practices of any of the IAFC's Rules of Engagement for Firefighter Survival and Incident Commanders and the NVFC's Rules of Engagement for Firefighter Health. While any of the Rules may be used as the subject of each video, the following are a focus for NFPA due to their ability to help in promoting an increased awareness of safety and health. These rules are:
- Determine the occupant survival profile.
- Maintain continuous awareness of your air supply, situation, location, and fire conditions.
- Ensure accurate accountability of every firefighter's location and status.
- Take steps towards meeting NFPA health standards, such as NFPA 1500.
- Set S.M.A.R.T. goals for your health action plan – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
- Rehab after all physical activity – stay hydrated.
These videos will serve as a resource to the fire service that NFPA will share with fire departments to assist them in reducing fireground injuries as part of local training efforts. NFPA, IAFC, and NVFC will select finalists based on the best safety and health video content, as well as the creativity and enthusiasm they show in making the video.
The deadline for video submissions is May 11, 2012. NFPA, IAFC, and NVFC will choose four finalists and voting will be open to the public. The contest winner will be announced on June 12, 2012 during the Fire Service Section Reception at the 2012 NFPA Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. The department with the winning video will receive a set of NFPA public fire protection standards, an Apple iPad, and a $250 iTunes gift card to be used for training purposes and access to NFPA mobile applications.
About the International Association of Fire Chiefs
The IAFC represents the leadership of firefighters and emergency responders worldwide. IAFC members are the world's leading experts in firefighting, emergency medical services, terrorism response, hazardous materials spills, natural disasters, search and rescue, and public safety legislation. Since 1873, the IAFC has provided a forum for its members to exchange ideas, develop professionally, and uncover the latest products and services available to first responders.
About the National Volunteer Fire Council
The NVFC is the leading nonprofit membership association representing the interests of the volunteer fire, EMS, and rescue services. The NVFC serves as the voice of the volunteer in the national arena and provides invaluable tools, resources, programs, and advocacy for first responders across the nation.
About the National Fire Protection Association
NFPA is a worldwide leader in fire, electrical, building, and life safety. The mission of the international nonprofit organization founded in 1896 is to reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by providing and advocating consensus codes and standards, research, training, and education.


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The Casper Collar
Fabric #120 - simple stripe halloween stars orange black white
This listing is for an adjustable* dog collar in your width, hardware, style, and size of choice. We are happy to customize any of these, or come up with something new, just shoot us an e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.com!
*All collars are as adjustable as possible (Smaller collars adjust less, bigger adjust more). We try to size collars so your dogs neck is in the middle of the adjustments (unless you specify your dog is a puppy). Every collar is custom sized!
Please don't forget to include your dog's neck size, your hardware color choice (if applicable), and any other special requests you may have. Also feel free to mention if your dog is a puppy and still growing and I will make the collar start at their current neck size and only adjust up.
Make sure you specify what color hardware you want if you select plastic classic (breakaway tag collar and leash friendly breakaway buckles are always a black plastic buckle paired with your choice of silver or brass/gold hardware), 3/4" and 1" plastic come in all the colors pictured below and 1.5" plastic comes in black, white, pink, red, brown, & navy. 2" plastic only comes in black.
To read all about the different collar check out our Collar Styles Info page by going to our menu OR follow this link here: https://thesilverhound.net/pages/about-the-different-collar-styles-faq
Due to the amount of options we have we had to move our martingale + buckle option, if you'd like to add a buckle to your martingale or limited slip collar please add this listing to your cart along with your martingale: https://thesilverhound.net/products/add-a-buckle
*Please note the black metal option is a black powder coated metal, the adjuster/slides are a lighter weight than our normal slides and we don't recommend it for really strong/large/heavy pulling dogs.
• • • • ★★Other Products from us!★★ • • • •
• • • ★★Learn more about your collar!★★ • • •


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Start-up Vaxess Technologies was founded by four Harvard University students from different corners of the school's vast campus who met only when each checked out a class at the university's new Innovation Lab.
The fall 2011 course was on commercializing science, and the four principals joined forces to build a business around a new technology to stabilize vaccines so they don't need to be refrigerated during delivery. Since then, they have regularly used the i-lab to develop the business, taking in workshops and talks from visiting entrepreneurs, even using it as a base from which to raise money.
"This is also a good place to meet prospective investors. It has a lot more credibility than a Starbucks," said Vaxess cofounder Patrick Ho, a Harvard Law School graduate. His Vaxess colleagues hail from the business school, the Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard's department of chemistry and chemical biology.
"There's no way the four of us would have met if we didn't meet here," Ho said.
Far from happenstance, Vaxess Technologies is exactly the kind of result Harvard officials had in mind when they created the i-lab, which is celebrating its first anniversary this month as a place that offers all the university's students an opportunity to tap into the entrepreneurial boom sweeping Boston.
To that end, the i-lab offers a range of activities, including established courses taught by university professors, intensive weekend workshops, and regular office hours from entrepreneurial advisers.
"We are an extension of the classroom," said Gordon Jones, the i-lab's managing director. "Our mission is to get students to grow and learn. We're in the same airspace as the incubators and accelerators, but we're flying on a different trajectory."
Located on the Allston side of the campus not far from the Harvard Business School, the i-lab is off to a torrid start: It has received more than 14,000 student visits over its first year, and 131 teams of students have hatched initiatives here.
"I've always viewed this as a start-up," Jones added, "but it's one that hit scale much quicker than we imagined it would. We thought we were opening a hardware store, but it turned out to be more like a Walmart."
Indeed, on most afternoons the 30,000-square-foot space can seem as busy as a big-box store, as students scurry between long work tables and small conference rooms. Diagrams and doodles on walls and columns here and there add to the feeling of a perpetual brainstorming session.
Everything is in a state of flux. All the furniture seems to come on wheels: from tables, to whiteboards, to the bright yellow team lockers that students roll around to create instant workspaces.
"The only two locking doors are the bathroom, and the food- storage closet," quipped Neal Doyle, the lab's manager of operations.
The i-lab hosts 65 businesses started by students and seven started by Harvard alumni, from ActivePepper, a mobile application that helps individuals find sports partners, to Nucleik, a system to help police better collect and manage criminal intelligence. The i-lab's tenants also include start-ups focused on the arts and social entrepreneurship,two areas that typically don't receive much interest or support from venture capitalists.
Over the past year, the i-lab has become more involved with its start-ups, instead of just providing a location and a menu of resources.
"When we opened a year ago, we were pursuing a model that resembled a farmer's market of products," said Jones. "We put a lot of stuff out there and made it available. Now we've realized that we can walk alongside the teams a little bit, and add more value. Instead of just offering options, we want to take the teams further."
Another reason for the popularity of Harvard's innovation laboratory is that it is open to the entire university, including undergraduates as well as law students and medical school students — a population of more than 21,000.
"Most university innovation programs are based in a very specific department or school," Jones said. "It's in the computer science department, or the business school. The i-lab's mission is much broader: We're here to serve the entire university, to bring everyone together in one place and encourage collaboration."
Wendy Torrance, director of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, said the i-lab is part of a surging trend in higher education. The Kansas City foundation, which promotes entrepreneurial projects around the United States, most recently surveyed the phenomenon in 2008 and found the trend was well underway: Formal programs in entrepreneurship at US universities had nearly quintupled in the previous quarter-century, from 104 to more than 500.
The Harvard i-lab is similar in practice to more established and successful university-based innovation centers, Torrance said, including those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Arizona State.
"The i-lab provides exposure to innovation at many different levels, including workshops, mentorships, and classes," Torrance said. "It is also focused on a broad set of outcomes: A student who is focused on start-ups can learn about launching a company, sure, but an engineering student who is going to work at a large company can also learn to think more creatively."
It's also a good place to get money, as Ho and the other cofounders of Vaxess Technologies discovered. Working out of the i-lab, the Vaxess team polished its business to the point where it won a total of $75,000 from the President's Challenge, a competition sponsored by Drew Faust, Harvard president. The competition encouraged students to develop business solutions to major social problems, such as Vaxess's solution for getting vaccines to parts of the world that don't have reliable electricity for refrigerating medicines. The Vaxess team also got $25,000 for winning the Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest.
Ho said his experience at the i-lab persuaded him to drop his plan to become a lawyer at a big firm after graduating last spring.
"Entrepreneurship was something that I was definitely interested in," Ho said. "I thought I was heading down a conventional track, working at a law firm. A start-up was something I thought I might get to around midcareer."
Now the young team is working on raising capital, developing its technology, and exploring partnerships with companies that can manufacture and distribute vaccines with their Vaxess technology. The company will soon move out of the i-lab into its own lab space.
In the coming year, the i-lab is hoping to launch more health and science initiatives. In its first year, ventures started at the i-lab were heavily weighted toward "consumer and technology" and "social and cultural entrepreneurship," perhaps because those types of start-ups need less development time and require less capital.
"Health-related innovation hasn't really taken off yet," Jones said. "The medical school already has a very rich ecosystem in the Longwood Medical Area around innovation. The development time is also much longer for health start-ups than for Internet and social entrepreneurship companies. As a result, we're just getting going with the medical school, the dental school, and the School of Public Health."


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Away In A Manger - #1408
A contemporary arrangement featuring guitar and piano. The country swing feel gives energy to this lovely melody.
00:30 Version
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More Royalty Free Music like this
A traditional, fully orchestrated arrangement of this festive theme. Happy and majestic.
This contemporary arrangement features Latin percussion and guitar lead with a Hawaiian feel. A modern setting for this beautiful melody.
This lovely old melody is played in a modern swing arrangement, with traditional instrumentation. Features acoustic guitar and hand drums.
A contemporary arrangement of an old favorite. Very upbeat and energetic, featuring synth, rock percussion. and orchestral chimes.
This more modern tune is done in an easy swing jazz style. The warm lead guitar has a great Wes Montgomery" feel."
The traditional melody in a modern jazz setting. This very relaxed arrangement features piano, cello, and orchestral bells.
This bright exuberant favorite is fully orchestrated. Strings, reeds, and orchestral chimes create a warm and festive mood.
A contemporary arrangement featuring guitar and piano. The country swing feel gives energy to this lovely melody.
This traditional arrangement features bells and church organ. Has the charm and beauty of a snowy Christmas Eve.
A modern arrangement with a country-swing feel. Features bluesy electric guitar lead, and crisp brush-kit percussion.
This beautifully textured arrangement features harpsichord, brass, and strings. It evokes the warmth and charm of the Yule season.
A modern arrangement with a jazz feel. Features acoustic guitar. brush kit, and celeste. Playful and inviting.
Traditional English folk song played on harp. Has an old country" flavor."


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The Eastside View will probably be silent for a few weeks. I'm in the French Alps with a friend, walking to Nice, and have just posted the first three days of the adventure to my blog Alpwalk:
I'll try to maintain a running account there. Things will come to mind from time to time, of course: language, terrain, history, cultural differences and all that. But for a while no reading but schedules and maps, no music but marmots and songbirds, no art but what Nature provides, and why won't they suffice?


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Many of the domain names used by a cybercriminal gang to control computers infected with the Virut malware were disabled last week in a coordinated takedown effort, Spamhaus, an organization dedicated to fighting spam, announced Saturday.
The Virut malware spreads by inserting malicious code into clean executable files and by copying itself to fixed, attached and shared network drives. Some variants also infects HTML, ASP and PHP files with rogue code that distributes the threat.
Once installed on a computer, the Virut malware connects to an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server using an encrypted connection and awaits for instructions. This allows attackers to control Virut infected computers as a botnet.
Virut is primarily used as a malware distribution platform -- other cybercriminals pay the Virut botmasters to deploy their own malware on the already compromised computers.
In the past, Virut has been used to distribute the ZeuS banking malware and the Kehlios spambot. However, last week, security researchers from Symantec warned that Virut started distributing the Waledac malware, potentially leading to the resurrection of the Waledac botnet that was originally shut down by Microsoft in 2010.
The Virut botnet masters are using several dozen domain names in the .pl (Poland), .ru (Russia) and .at (Austria) top-level domains as part of their command and control (C&C) infrastructure, Spamhaus team member Thomas Morrison said Saturday in an announcement on the organization's website.
Spamhaus collaborated with the Polish Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT.pl) and the home.pl domain registrar to ensure that no traffic was received by the .pl domains used by the Virut botnet, a process known as sinkholing, Morrison said.
"A number of domains in .pl, most notably zief.pl and ircgalaxy.pl, have been used to host Virut, its command & control IRC servers, as well as to host other malware including Palevo and Zeus," CERT Poland said Friday on its website. "NASK, the operator of the Polish domain registry, took over 23 of these domains yesterday (Jan 17, 2013) in an effort to protect Internet users from Virut-related threats. Name servers for those domains were changed to sinkhole.cert.pl, controlled by CERT Polska [CERT Poland] -- an incident response team operated by NASK."
Spamhaus also worked with Group-IB, a Russian information security and computer forensics company, which was able to get the .ru domains used by Virut shut down in a matter of hours.
Although currently crippled, the Virut C&C infrastructure is not completely out of the hands of attackers. Their last remaining strongholds are the remaining .at domain names, Morrison said.
Spamhaus alerted the .at domain registry and the Austrian CERT multiple times about this issue and hopes that they will follow the example of their Polish and Russian counterparts in suspending the C&C domain names.
"The Virut takedown effort clearly illustrates the important and meaningful role [domain] registries and registrars can play in the fight against cybercrime in general," Morrison said. Such organizations should be proactive and add clauses in their contracts that will allow them to quickly take action against domain names used for malicious purposes, he said.
Based on information gathered during a recent sinkholing operation, Symantec estimates the size of the Virut botnet at over 300,000 infected computers.


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The acquisition has been brought onboard in order to expand Mita-Teknik's offering into load simulation and turbine optimisation.
Wind Nordic is a specialist in using software to simulate the behaviour of turbine components under different wind conditions and using that data to optimise designs accordingly.
Mika-Teknik CEO Jesper Andersen said: "We have been looking to develop in this direction, and it is something that is at the edge of what we've been doing, so this will compliment our work well and improve the services we can offer to out clients."
He added: "Their competencies are things we don't cover so far, so it's a unique area that they have know-how in that can feed into Mita-Teknik."
Wind Nordic also designs control algorithms to enable maximum efficiency of turbines — a service that is also offered by its new parent company.
Although the companies will be working together to develop technology, Wind Nordik will continue to serve its current customers, and seek new ones, as a separate team.


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Editor's Note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "Governing America."
Story highlights
Julian Zelizer: Washington's budget fight will grab public's attention if no deal reached
He says painful cuts will lead the public to blame Republicans for Washington's dysfunction
Americans don't like government spending in general but like specific programs, he says
Zelizer: GOP needs to rethink its reliance on deficit reduction as a prime strategy
Until now "sequestration" has been a word that only means something to people living inside the Beltway or to political junkies who depend on their daily dose of Politico and The Hill. But if Congress and the president do not reach a deal by March 1, which appears likely, Americans will quickly learn what it means – namely deep spending cuts.
The spending cuts pose a significant political threat to Republicans, more so than to Democrats. Although many Republicans are standing firm, insisting that their party will be fine if the cuts go through, there are many reasons for the GOP, through a sober eye, to see the dangers that lay ahead.
The cuts could push congressional politics in a liberal direction and establish the foundation for solid Democratic gains in 2014.
Last week Bob Woodward argued that President Obama was responsible for the sequester idea, not the Republicans. But while people are squabbling over who owns the sequester, the GOP will take the hit regardless.
The danger for Republicans is that the budget cuts will severely weaken public support for the austerity theme that the party has been promoting since 2010. The cuts will make "deficit reduction" something very real to average American citizens and business and something that is often quite painful rather than an abstract debate over numbers.
Opinion: One cuts, Washington throws a tantrum
While Americans have historically been hostile to government, they tend to support specific government services when asked by pollsters. So Washington's overall spending might not be popular as a concept, but Social Security and Medicare are.
The spending cuts will shift the debate toward the specifics. Americans will watch as government services are retrenched. The last time this happened, things didn't go well for the GOP.
Stay up to date on the latest opinion, analysis and conversations through social media. Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion and follow us @CNNOpinion on Twitter. We welcome your ideas and comments.
When the federal government shut down in 1995-1996 because of a budget standoff between Republicans and President Clinton, the GOP faced a huge backlash when Americans were unable to access basic government services, such as obtaining a passport or visiting the national zoo.
Opinion: The spending cut fairy tale
President Obama has already been using the bully pulpit to make this case, appearing with first responders and warning of how the cuts will impact police, hospitals, teachers, airline workers and more. Standing in front of a group of police officers, Obama said, "Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go." While these speeches are a form of political theater, they are based on very real possibilities.
The budget cuts that result from sequestration would just be the first of the threats the GOP faces. If the government has to shut down as a result of a standoff when the government's general operating budget expires in late March or the debt ceiling is not raised this spring, Republicans will continue to lose the public's confidence in their ability to govern and the reduction in services will highlight to Americans what the government actually does.
If the economy sputters as a result of the spending cuts, as some economists predict, deficit reduction will look even worse. An already frustrated workforce will become even more angry, and likely take out their frustration on a Republican Party that has been insisting deficit reduction should be the nation's short-term goal, rather than stimulating the economy.
Conservatives will suffer as the focus of congressional debate will quickly shift from the issue of spending cuts, where the emphasis has been since 2011, to the issue of spending more.
Once the cuts go through, frustration and anger with the impact on government services will certainly produce increased pressure on legislators in both parties to offer a fix, namely to restore spending to key areas.
Borger: Obama can't kick his legacy down the road
With legislators already thinking about the 2014 elections, this will be tempting. If this shift occurs, Republicans, who have invested so much in making fiscal discipline their top issue, will be operating in a congressional environment where the debates center around areas where the government needs to devote more government resources rather than less.
The automatic spending cuts are the ultimate symbol of a dysfunctional government. The reason the cuts were put into place was that President Obama and Congress were unable to reach an agreement on taxes and spending. Government leaders agreed to put a gun to their own head by threatening unpalatable cuts if they were unable to reach a deal. Now the trigger is about to be pulled.
The problem for Republicans is that the polls show that the approval rating of the GOP is in the tank while President Obama is doing relatively well. According to Quinnipiac University, only 19% of Americans approve of how Republicans are handling their job.
Obama is enjoying his highest favorability ratings since 2009, with 60% having a favorable rating of him in a Washington Post-ABC poll. The likelihood, as in 1995-1996, is that the public will blame the dysfunction on the GOP rather than Democrats and the party will suffer a further erosion of its standing as a result.
According to a recent poll by the Pew Foundation and USA Today, Republicans would be blamed for the cuts by almost half of Americans, while only 31% would blame Obama.
News: Top Senate Republican doubts damage from defense cuts
Sequestration will soon become a dirty word in the American political lexicon. While it is impossible to predict which way the political winds will blow, there is good reason for Republicans to see how they can suffer politically if some kind of deal is not reached.
Republicans, who have now struggled through two presidential elections and are facing a demographic shift that does not work in their favor, might want to start thinking harder about their strategy on spending. Deficit reduction is no longer a winning issue for the GOP.
Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.
Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Julian Zelizer


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In your desire to improve you financial position in the year ahead, you might be inclined to take a number of gambles. Even though most of them will not live up to your expectations, there is a chance that one might deliver and then some.
Trying to patch up a broken romance? The Astro-Graph Matchmaker can help you understand what to do to make the relationship work. Send for your Matchmaker set by mailing $3 to Astro-Graph, P.O. Box 167, Wickliffe, OH 44092-0167.
ARIES (March 21-April 19) -- Although you'll expect others to live up to their words, you might not feel the necessity for you to do the same. Life should be a give-and-take situation, not a lopsided arrangement.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) -- It is more important than usual to keep pace with your duties and responsibilities. If you should fall behind, you'll quickly discover how extremely difficult it is to catch up.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20) -- The very people you don't count on will be the ones who are likely to step forward and support you in your endeavors. Those upon whom you usually rely might not lift a finger.
CANCER (June 21-July 22) -- It isn't advisable for you to seek advice from too many different people. Unfortunately, all that might do is make it difficult to discern the good counsel from the bad.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) -- If you are hawking something that requires a sales pitch, it's imperative that you know when to call a halt to your presentation. There's a possibility that you could talk yourself out of a deal.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- Don't ignore your better judgment and common sense when you are trying to make a bargain. If you pay more for something than you should, it's apt to be your, not the salesperson's, fault.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) -- Your financial aspects are exceptionally good, making it a juicy time to do something profitable, even if you unconsciously strew your path with unnecessary obstacles.
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) -- Although you might be the recipient of an interesting proposal, in order to take advantage of it, you might have to disengage yourself from a previous commitment.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) -- Even though your compassionate nature urges you to make a loan to a friend who is a poor prospect, it would be better for you to follow your less generous, more pragmatic instincts.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- Try not to get impatient with some friends who are not living up to your expectations. Things will get better eventually, so bite the bullet and hang on until they do.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) -- You could find yourself in a ticklish position where you'll be eager to reveal something that was told to you in strict confidence. Others will respect you more if you keep your trap shut.
PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) -- If you want to do something that is a trifle expensive and you have the money to do it, that's well and good. Just don't borrow what you don't have to bankroll your fun.


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First Drive: 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor 6.2
Raptor Attack in the Desert: Is Ford's New 411-Horsepower V-8 Worth an Extra $3000? Oh, Yes...
Related Video
We're sideways at maybe 70 mph and I see the washout looming on the right. It's only two feet wide, but from where I'm sitting, it looks like the Grand Canyon rushing toward us-dark and deep, with jagged edges carved by recent heavy rain. This is going to get ugly.
Gene Martindale deftly flicks the truck back to the right at the last second, roostertails of sand spitting from the rear tires as he kicks the beast in the belly and unleashes 411 angry horses. I see what he's doing: The washout abruptly peters out on the left, and now he's trying to unload the suspension on the right hand side. Even so, this is going to be a big hit. I brace myself, and...there's a muted thud, a sharp but not uncomfortable vertical movement, then...that's it. The sparkling-blue Ford F-150 SVT Raptor barely breaks stride as SVT development engineer-and Baja racer-Martindale races for the far horizon.
Ford's F-150 Raptor is the Porsche 911 GT3 of pickup trucks. Like a 911 GT3, the Raptor is a racebred piece of machinery you can drive every day on the street. Okay, the GT3's reflexes were honed in the green hell of the legendary Nurburgring Nordschliefe road course in Germany. The Raptor, meanwhile, was developed on the stony desert tracks, powdery sand washes, and bone-jarring whoopdies of Baja California. Point the Raptor down a rough desert track, and this thing will go as fast as you dare, without turning into a dribbling mess, out of breath and out of brakes, after a dozen miles or so. And it'll make you feel like a born racer.
Just like a 911 GT3.
The Raptors are built using the biggest brakes and strongest half-shafts in the F-150 parts bin, along with the heavy-duty rear axle. Engineers at SVT, Ford's in-house hot-shop, made hundreds of other detail mechanical changes, ranging from stiffening the engine and transmission mounts 45 percent to developing trick new forged-aluminum front wishbones.
Expensive Fox Racing Shox internal bypass dampers peeking out from behind the special 35-inch BFGoodrich tires are the Raptor's secret sauce, however (and they are expensive-SVT boss Hermann Salenbauch, an ebullient German whose résumé includes stints at BMW and Rover, says when he presented the Raptor program to Ford product development brass, one of them saw the piece cost for the dampers and exclaimed: "I could get half a V-8 for that!"). Boasting 11.4 inches of travel up front, and 12.2 at the rear, the Fox Racing Shox help the Raptor shrug off monstrous high-speed off-road impacts that would pop the springs through the fenders of a regular truck, yet deliver such sublime body control it rides like a Range Rover on the blacktop. It's that good.
But there's one thing the Raptor's been missing -- power. Though massaged to deliver 310 horsepower and 365 pound-feet of torque, even an SVT-tuned 5.4-liter Ford Triton V-8 is not the world's most scintillating powerplant. Throttle response is a touch languid, and by the time you reach the 5000-rpm power peak it's gasping as hard as Danny DeVito running a marathon. The Raptor needed more grunt. The good news is, it's got it.
Ford's new 6.2-liter V-8 is the engine the Raptor was always meant to have; the decision to launch with a tuned Triton was made when the engine and truck development programs got six months out of phase. Built at Ford's Romeo engine plant, the new 6.2 is a conventional iron-block, aluminum-head V-8 with single overhead camshafts, variable camshaft timing, and two valves-and two spark plugs-per cylinder. The crank is secured by four bolt main bearing caps, cross-bolted for extra durability. Forged-steel connecting rods are standard, as are lightweight magnesium cam covers and a composite intake manifold.
The base engine made its debut in the 2011 Ford Super Duty with 385 horsepower and 405 pound-feet of torque. A unique cam profile means the engine pumps out 411 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 434 pound-feet at 4500 rpm in Raptor trim. That's a useful 26-horse bump in power and a 29-pound-foot increase in torque, not to mention an extra 101 horsepower and 69 pound-feet over the old 5.4-liter engine. But the raw numbers don't tell the whole story.
The bigger engine adds 150 pounds over the Raptor's front axle, necessitating changes to front and rear spring rates and some of the damper valving to better manage what SVT engineers call "pitch inertia." That's important because one of the keys to the Raptor's unbelievable high-speed stability in the rough stuff is eliminating the tendency of the lightly loaded rear suspension to kick the truck's tail in the air over bumps. The other big change has been to the transmission calibration for the six-speed automatic, which will now hold a lower gear on the entry to corners if you're driving hard.
We drove 5.4 and 6.2 Raptors back to back along the same desert track, a challenging mixture of soft sand and scattered rocks and stomach-churning bumps, linked by a constant string of fast and slow-speed turns. The 6.2's crisper throttle response, how it punches harder out of the turns, and how it blows through deep sanddrifts that leave the 5.4 struggling, are all instantly noticeable. The revised transmission calibration delivers faster, more authoritative upshifts, yet holds a lower gear when you lift off the gas and pitch the truck sideways into a corner. The over-square configuration (bore is 4.02 inches and stroke 3.74 inches) means the 6.2 revs harder than the long-stroke Triton, spinning readily to 6200 rpm with a leaner, harder-edged snarl, thanks, in part, to the new engine's different firing order.
The extra power and torque make the Raptor more adjustable, more fun to drive in the rough stuff. You're more able to change the truck's attitude mid-turn; lift off the gas to get the nose to tuck into the apex, or punch it to kick the tail wide. It might weigh more than the 5.4, but the 6.2 Raptor feels lighter and nimbler. We tried it in 4x2 with the diff locked, and 4x4 with the rear diff open (you can run in four-wheel drive with the diff locked, but the front end then wants to push too much). In two-wheel drive, the Raptor is spectacular, sideways and spitting sand everywhere, but it requires pro-racer reflexes to keep the momentum up through the desert. Four-wheel drive is the hot ticket for most drivers in most conditions, the extra power and torque helping the front wheels pull you out of the turns, particularly in soft sand.
The 6.2 engine is a $3000 option. Worth the money? You betcha. In fact, it's such a no-brainer that, of the 7000 orders that have been placed for the Raptor at this time, 3000 or so were for the 6.2, even though no one outside of Ford engineers and execs, plus a handful of media, have actually driven it. Once the Raptor 6.2 starts to hit the streets, we wouldn't be surprised if demand for the 5.4 slowly dries up.
And what will SVT do for an encore then? Well, with a bump in the compression ratio, a revised cam profile, new headers, and remapped engine-management system, the new 6.2-liter V-8 is good for a reliable 500 horsepower and 500 pound-feet. The engine's already been race proven in the Baja 1000, installed in the Raptor R. The SVT engineers know better than most the truth in the old saying that racing improves the breed-more than a few are racers themselves. A Raptor R for the street? Now that would be one helluva truck. And the line starts right here.
The Racer's Edge
The true stroke of genius in the Raptor is this time SVT hasn't tried to make a truck do what it really can't do: drive like a sports car. Sure, the slammed, fat-tired SVT F-150 Lightning was fun (as was the outrageous Dodge Ram SRT10), but it was a pretty one-dimensional vehicle. And no matter how good you were behind the wheel, you'd still get your doors blown off by a Porsche.
Turning a truck into a desert racer you can drive on the street makes a lot more sense. Desert racers are built tough and built to go off-road; there's a big slice of truck DNA right there. The Raptor might not have the payload and towing capability of a regular F-150, but it will still haul stuff. And it will take you off-road in-below racing speeds-real comfort. For that reason, the Raptor is apparently proving popular among Texas ranchers who regularly drive across rough tracks to the farthest corners of their property.
But if the Raptor is the Porsche 911 GT3 of pickup trucks, it's perhaps not too much of a stretch to suggest that, as Porsche does with the GT3, Ford might support a desert-racing class for near-stock Raptors. Mention the idea to the folks at SVT, and you'll get a knowing smile. Stay tuned...
|2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor 6.2
|Drivetrain layout
|Front engine, 4WD
|Engine type
|90-deg V-8, iron block/alum heads
|Bore x stroke
|4.02 x 3.74 in
|379.8 ci/6.2L
|Compression ratio
|Valve gear
|SOHC, 2 valves/cyl
|SAE horsepower
|411 hp @ 5500 rpm
|SAE torque
|434 lb-ft @ 4500 rpm
|Transmission type
|6-speed automatic
|Axle ratio
|Final drive ratio
|Low-range ratio
|Crawl ratio (1st x axle gears x low range)
|133.0 in
|Length x width x height
|220.9 x 86.3 x 78.4 in
|Track, f/r
|73.6/73.6 in
|Turning circle
|44.6 ft
|Approach/departure angle
|31.1/24.9 deg
|Ground clearance
|10.0 in
|Curb weight
|6006 lb (mfr)
|Max payload capacity
|930 lb
|7000 lb
|12,400 lb
|Max towing capacity
|6000 lb
|Seating capacity
|Headroom, f/r
|41.0/39.7 in
|Legroom, f/r
|41.4/33.4 in
|Shoulder room, f/r
|65.9/65.7 in
|Bed LxWxH
|67.0 x ??? x 22.4 in
|Width bet wheelhousings
|50.0 in
|Ladder frame
|Suspension, f/r
|Control arms, coil springs, anti-roll bar/live axle, leaf springs
|Steering type
|Power rack-and-pinion
|Brakes, f/r
|13.8-in vented disc/13.7-in vented disc, ABS
|8.5x17-in alloy
|315/70R17 121R BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO
|Acceleration, 0-60
|7.9 sec (est)
|Base price
|Front, front side, f/r curtain
|Fuel capacity
|26.0 gal
|EPA fuel economy, city/hwy
|CO2 emissions
|Recommended fuel
|Premium unleaded


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Software module achieves fast, reliable audio routing control for Eclipse networks
ALAMEDA, CALIFORNIA, APRIL 14, 2009 ─ Clear-Com® Communication Systems, a Vitec Group brand, is debuting at NAB 2009 (Booth C6521) the new Production Maestro™ add-on module for its Eclipse Version 5.1 digital matrix intercom system. This flexible, intuitive software lets operators interact directly with the Eclipse to quickly set up and manage live dynamic voice communications for small or large networked intercom systems.
Introducing unprecedented levels of visibility and interactivity with the Eclipse system, Production Maestro takes the stress out of monitoring and controlling multiple simultaneous communications paths during live events. Operators working in master control for live news and sports, International Broadcast Centers (IBC) at multi-venue sports events and other demanding broadcast environments can simply and reliably set up lines, assign them to operators and track down faults, among other actions, using a tool that works transparently across matrix boundaries and allows for extensive collaboration between multiple operators.
Production Maestro lets operators manage the number of conferences and ports handled through their facility's intercom network by simple drag-and-drop actions. Screen functions can be tailored to suit an individual daily workflow, while the GUI can display up to 64 ports and more than 80 conferences simultaneously, as well as scale to show a desired number of elements. Large conference systems may be supported by using multiple screens connected to each assignment PC.
"Having the ability to simply and reliably control intercom audio routing, especially for multiple intercom systems, plays a crucial role in successfully managing communications in a broadcast environment," says Simon Browne, Senior Product Manager, Clear-Com Communication Systems. "Clear-Com designed and developed the Production Maestro module with this in mind, crafting such features as drag-and-drop operations and screen scalability to make the module as intuitive and 'hands-free' for the operator as possible."
Other key Production Maestro functions include the ability to add ports to conferences, move ports from one conference to another or route 4-wires to 4-wires. Users can view all member activities for a conference on each client screen, along with assignments made by other Production Maestro clients. All assignment actions are stored in a command log, providing a visual record of recent activity at each client workstation.
Production Maestro will be available as an add-on module for Eclipse Version 5.1, the latest evolution of Clear-Com's flagship digital matrix intercom system. Both products will be demonstrated live at NAB this year.
Clear-Com®, a brand of the Vitec Group plc, is the global leader of professional communication solutions for broadcast, live performance, military, government and commercial markets. For more than 40 years, Clear-Com's signature products such as Encore Party-line, Eclipse Digital Matrix, CellCom®/FreeSpeak® Wireless and IP Communications systems have revolutionized broadcast stations, production trucks, houses of worship and performance venues. Recognizing Clear-Com for its history of intercom innovation, production teams around the world achieve ubiquitous communication with products to promote easy interoperability and global connectivity. More information can be found at www.clearcom.com.
The Vitec Group plc is acknowledged as a global leader in the supply of equipment and services to the broadcasting, entertainment and photographic industries and has established a reputation for technical excellence and superior engineering along with an astute business strategy which has seen it grow by acquisition. Innovation is a cornerstone of the Group's activities and the organization is committed to a policy of continuous product development. With revenues (2007) of £274m and over 2,200 employees world-wide, its products are distributed in almost 100 countries, through a strong, fully-resourced distribution network or direct to the end user or corporate customer. More information can be found at www.vitecgroup.com.
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Designer Collaboration II: Respecting the HTML
Yesterday I wrote about how developers owe it to designers to respect the PSD, or in other words to implement their original designs in HTML with pixel-perfect fidelity. Today I want to turn the tables a little and explore how a design can be particularly good or particularly bad for implementation in HTML.
A designer who knows the gotchas of HTML implementation can make it drastically easier for a developer, and usually with little compromise of their artistic liberties. Here now is a laundry list of the themes I've seen come up over and over. With a clear understanding of these, a designer can make minor alterations that lets the developer sidestep all kinds of complications and tedious work.
Non-web standard fonts – Most browsers can't render them and must fall back to a more generic stand in. Ok, granted this first one does impose on artistic liberties. Unfortunately support for embedding arbitrary fonts with the super cool @font-face tag is not quite ready yet for prime time. (That, and to embed downloadable fonts in your site one must be certain all the legal i's are dotted and t's are crossed with respect to licensing.) Bits of text that need to be that special font can be sliced out of the PSD and rendered in HTML as images. It's a little more work, the text isn't searchable, there's more to download, and can't be changed as easily, but it can be done. For some things this is entirely appropriate: a big shiny title for the site, for example. It's not great for menu items if you expect lay users to be able to update them (think content management system were non-technical folks can add pages to their heart's content and their titles are automagically added to the site's nav menu).
Fits-like-a-glove text – Sometimes text looks so good in a PSD: it fits right in the space it's given, nestled up as one tidy line in it's column on the side. So long as it doesn't wrap, all will be well. If the text will never change, it can be sized to fit just right in HTML. But if the PSD portion is a mock up of, say, the name of the most recent blog post? There's no telling how long a given name might get, so the design there should gracefully accommodate a lines of text of any length. In general a designer must be aware of which text elements are fixed and which are subject to change, and beware of rigid assumptions about the bounding size when it's the latter.
Finite background images – Similar to the above, the web, unlike traditional print media, offers up pages or blocks of text of varying and unpredictable length/size/height/width (not to mention a given user's browser window can be much larger than designed for). Background images need to be designed with awareness of this kind of variability:
In a picture-perfect PSD, the background image supplied by the designer might perfectly fit the content of the design mock up.
No shortcomings here.
But when translated into a live site with dynamic content that changes from page to page, all bets are off as to how tall the content might get that needs to fit into the design.
For example, consider this page: here we have a bit more content that the previous one. We can anchor the background image to align with the bottom of the page, but as soon as we run out of image at the top the best we can do is provide a flat color as a fallback. See the sharp edge above and to the right? Ouch!
The trick around this is for the designer to craft a background image that comes to a "fixed point" at at least one of the edges: that way the page can expand indefinitely, the background can be matted against a flat color, and there is no discontinuity.
It's a simple matter, but having a designer recognize that background images need to be crafted such that they can be nicely matted against a flat color for regions of unpredictable size makes a big difference for a developer to execute a design that looks good in all situations.
This page could go on forever, but thanks to how the images is built, when we mat its top edge against the flat color there is no problem. Nice!
That's about it for the consistent gotchas that the HTML medium offers over, say, print media: they pretty much stem from how ultimate control of the end product is, in two vital ways, not in the control of the designer. To wit: while a designer can count on whatever font they use to print successfully by a printer, on the web fonts are limited to whatever an end user's browser supports. And while a designer can usually perfectly typeset whatever copy is to go in a brochure, they often must design for variable and often unknown text in a web setting.
This list is shorter than it used to be. A number of design elements that used to be headaches (or impossible) to realize in HTML have recently become rather simple with the rise of support for CSS3, namely rounded corners, drop shadows, gradient backgrounds, and image-based buttons of variable size. It's probably only a matter of time before the use of non-standard web fonts is perfectly acceptable, leaving only the notion of designing for variable or unknown content the only real novel constraint a designer needs to specially accommodate for.
Next: Designer Collaboration I: Respecting the PSD
This is Programmer for Hire, a series of essays and explorations on the art of being a great programmer doing on-demand custom software development.