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EmberJS Tutorial
In this article, we'll show you how to create a neat little web app that runs on the EmberJS framework and uses an API built on Node.js. Read on for more!
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EmberJS was developed by Yehuda Katz. It was initially released in December 2011. EmberJS was also formerly known as SproutCore MVC framework. New applications now run on EmberJS 2 which was released in August 2015. EmberJS 2.0 introduced new APIs and removed deprecated ones from Ember 1. The goal of Ember 2 is to remove badly designed and unnecessarily complicated code from Ember 1. And apps that run on Ember 1.13 without any deprecation warnings should run without issues on Ember 2.0. Currently, many popular products use EmberJS to build their user interfaces. Such platforms include LinkedIn, Yahoo, Zendesk, Square, PlayStation Now, Apple Music, Heroku Dashboard, Twitch, Discourse, IndieHackers and more. There is a comprehensive list of projects using Emberjs on builtwithember.io. EmberJS documentation is very detailed, and there is a vibrant community of users.
Understanding Core Concepts in EmberJS
If you have experience with frameworks like VueJS, Angular, and React, then you'll understand how EmberJS works in a split second. Developers coming from the jQuery world might find it difficult to comprehend at first glance. But if you are familiar with frameworks like Laravel and Rails, then you'll discover a pattern that'll make fall in love with EmberJS.
I'll give a basic overview of these concepts to nourish your understanding of EmberJS. They are:
- Routing
- Templates
- Models
- Components
- Controllers
Let's take a good look at how a typical EmberJS app works. Our fictitious app is a Student Management System and the URL is
https://studember.ng. One of the URLs in this app is
https://studember.ng/students. This route simply returns the details of all the students registered on this app. Now, check out what happens when the user loads the app for the first time.
Ember router maps the URL to a route handler. The route handler then renders a template and loads a model that is available to the template.
import Ember from 'ember';
import config from './config/environment';
const Router = Ember.Router.extend({
location: config.locationType,
rootURL: config.rootURL
Router.map(function() {
export default Router;
import Ember from 'ember';
export default Ember.Route.extend({
model() {
return [
'David Ajimobi',
'Olorigbeske Ojuyobo',
'Orieja Michael'
Route Handler
You can easily create a route using the Ember CLI's
generate command like so:
ember generate route route-name
This creates a route file at
app/routes/route-name.js, a template for the route at
app/templates/route-name.hbs, and a unit test file at
tests/unit/routes/route-name-test.js. It also adds the route to the router.
Templates are used to organize the HTML layout of the application. By default, EmberJS uses Handlebars templates. Templates can display properties provided to them from a controller or a component. The screen rendered to the user is composed of handlebars templates. A typical example is this:

 {{title}}

{{#each people as |person| }}
The template extension is .hbs.
Models are objects that represent the underlying data that your application presents to the user. The structure and scope of your app will determine the types and number of models that will present in it.
A typical example is this:
Our student management app might have a
Student model to represent a particular student. Models are also used to persist data. Typically, most models fetch and persist data to a store. The store could be a database on a server or simply a JSON file.
import DS from 'ember-data';
export default DS.Model.extend({
first_name: DS.attr(),
last_name: DS.attr(),
city: DS.attr(),
age: DS.attr(),
Ember comes with a data management library called Ember Data to help deal with persistent application data. The library requires you to define the structure of the data you wish to provide to your application by extending
DS.Model. At first, using Ember Data may feel different than the way you're used to writing JavaScript applications. Many developers are familiar with using AJAX to fetch raw JSON data from an endpoint, which may appear easy at first. Over time, however, complexity leaks out into your application code, making it hard to maintain. Ember Data helps you manage your models in a simple way as your application grows.
Ember Data gives you a single store that is the central repository of models in your application. Components and routes can ask the store for models, and the store is responsible for knowing how to fetch them.
You can easily create a model using the Ember CLI's
generate command like so:
ember generate model student
This creates a model at
app/models/student.js file:
import DS from 'ember-data';
export default DS.Model.extend({
Ember Components consist basically of two parts: a Handlebars template, and a JavaScript file that defines the component's behavior.
Components must have at least one dash in their name, e.g
active-list. This helps Ember differentiate it from native HTML tags. Components control how the user interface behaves. Components are represented in the view with the curly brace rather than the angle tag like this:
Ember provides some methods that are triggered at various points from creating a component up until the component is destroyed. This is called the Component's Lifecycle. You can declare methods to hook into the component's lifecycle to control the behavior of components in your app.
On Initial Render, we have:
- init
- didReceiveAttrs
- willRender
- didInsertElement
- didRender
On Re-render, we have:
- didUpdateAttrs
- didReceiveAttrs
- willUpdate
- willRender
- didUpdate
- didRender
On Component Destroy, we have:
- willDestroyElement
- willClearRender
- didDestroyElement
A typical example of a component is this:
import Ember from 'ember';
export default Ember.Component.extend({
init() {
this.errors = [];
didUpdateAttrs() {
this.set('errors', []);
actions: {
required(event) {
if (!event.target.value) {
this.get('errors').pushObject({ message: `${event.target.name} is required`});
You can easily create a component using the Ember CLI's
generate command like so:
ember generate component student-list
This creates a component file at
app/components/student-list.js, a template for the component at
app/templates/components/student-list.hbs, and an integration test file at
Ember Controllers are routable objects meant to decorate a model with display logic. They sit between the template and model to deal with logic and properties that do not belong to the view or the model.
When you have a property that needs to be in the template but doesn't exist in the model, you can place it the controller:
import Ember from 'ember';
export default Ember.Controller.extend({
canDelete: true
This property can now be accessed in the template:
{{#if canDelete}}
// Go ahead and delete the student
The controller can also be used to make model data more readable to the user. An example is returning the full name of the user:
import Ember from 'ember';
export default Ember.Controller.extend({
getFullName() {
return `${this.get('model.firstName')} - ${this.get('model.lastName')}`
We can just call
getFullName in the template:
{{ getFullName }} is the senior prefect.
You can easily create a controller using the Ember CLI's
generate command like so:
ember generate controller students
This creates a controller file at
app/controllers/students.js, and a unit test file at
Next, let's build an application with Emberjs 2.
Our App: Whistle Blower
The app we will build today is called
Whistle Blower. A Whistle Blower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The Whistle Blower app does the following:
- It gives information about whistle blowing activities in your region.
- It's a small community of whistle blowers.
- A guest user on the Whistle Blower app will only have access to basic information about the whistle blowing activities on the landing page.
- An authenticated user will have access to whistle blowers and their profiles.
- An authenticated user will have access to whistle blower meetups/gatherings.
Build The Backend
Let's build an API for our app. We'll quickly build the API with Node.js. The API is simple. This is what we need:
- An endpoint to serve the latest whistle blowing activities around the world -
- An endpoint to serve whistle blowers and their profiles -
- An endpoint to serve whistle blower meetups -
- Securing the endpoint that serves whistle blowers profiles and meetups, so that it can only be accessed by registered users.
Go ahead and fetch the Node.js backend from GitHub.
server.js should look like this:
'use strict';
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const jwt = require('express-jwt');
const jwks = require('jwks-rsa');
const cors = require('cors');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
const authCheck = jwt({
secret: jwks.expressJwtSecret({
cache: true,
rateLimit: true,
jwksRequestsPerMinute: 5,
jwksUri: "https://{YOUR-AUTH0-DOMAIN}/.well-known/jwks.json"
// This is the identifier we set when we created the API
audience: '{YOUR-API-AUDIENCE-ATTRIBUTE}',
issuer: "{YOUR-AUTH0-DOMAIN}",
algorithms: ['RS256']
app.get('/api/activities', (req, res) => {
let whistleBlowerActivities = [
// An array of whistleblowing activities
app.get('/api/whistleblowers', (req,res) => {
let whistleBlowers = [
// An aray of whistle blowers
app.get('/api/meetups', (req,res) => {
let meetups = [
// An array of meetups
console.log('Listening on localhost:3333');
Check out the full server.js file here.
package.json file should look like this:
"name": "whistleblower",
"version": "0.0.1",
"description": "",
"main": "server.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
"start": "node server.js",
"dev": "nodemon server.js"
"author": "Auth0",
"license": "MIT",
"dependencies": {
"body-parser": "^1.15.2",
"cors": "^2.8.1",
"express": "^4.14.0",
"express-jwt": "^3.4.0",
"jwks-rsa": "^1.1.1"
Note: Make sure you have
nodemoninstalled globally.
Once you have cloned the project, run an
npm install, then use postman to serve your routes like so:
API serving meetups
API serving whistle blowers
API serving whistle blowing activities
The public whistle blowing activities endpoint should be
The private meet up endpoint should be
The private whistle blower endpoint should be
Don't worry about the middleware in charge of securing our endpoint for now. We'll deal with that later. Now, let's build our frontend with EmberJS 2.
Build the Front-End With Emberjs 2
EmberJS has a very nice tool for scaffolding your apps. It's called the ember-cli. It's being maintained by the Ember team.
Go ahead and install the ember-cli tool globally like so:
npm install -g ember-cli
After installing globally, go ahead and scaffold a new EmberJS 2 app like so:
ember new whistleblower
Move into the new directory,
whistleblower and run
ember serve to start up your app.
Let's check out the structure of our newly scaffolded app.
app/ - All the controllers, components, routes and templates reside here
config/ - All environment config files are here
node_modules/ - All the packages required for the emberjs app resides here
tests/ - All the tests file resides here
package.json - File that contains the names of all the packages residing in node_modules folder
Note: We are not writing any tests for this application. It's out of the scope of this tutorial.
We need to remove the default page content that Ember presents in our app. Open the
app/templates/application.hbs file and remove this:
{!-- The following component displays Ember's default welcome message. --}}
{{!-- Feel free to remove this! --}}
Now, our app will show a blank screen. Sweet! Let's get started.
Style With Bootstrap
Go ahead and open the
app/index.html file. Here, we will add the link to the bootstrap CSS and JS file:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="description" content="">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
{{content-for "head"}}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{rootURL}}assets/vendor.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{rootURL}}assets/whistleblower.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/bootstrap.min.css">
{{content-for "head-footer"}}
{{content-for "body"}}


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Tea Trivia - Green vs Black Tea #SuperBloggerChallenge
And yet, not many really know a lot about what makes these two popular subcategories so different. Or rather, are they really that different at all? You would be surprised.
Here are some fun facts that will not only help you make the right choice in selecting your tea but also leave you the smartest person in the room whenever someone (*cough cough* YOU *cough cough*) brings up the topic of India's most popular hot beverage.
Both green tea and black tea are made from THE SAME PLANT : Camellia sinensis.
- withering (blowing hot air over them),
- rolling,
- oxidation and
- drying before being sorted into whole leaf grade, broken leaf grade, fannings and dust.
Green tea avoids the oxidation process unlike black and oolong tea. With the latter two, the tea leaves undergo fermentation after being immediately exposed to oxygen. But with green tea, the leaves are steamed and roasted thus stopping any fermentation.
Black tea has a higher caffeine content than green tea which will increase your alertness temporarily but can be detrimental if you have too many cups a day.
The keyword you need to memorize? Epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG. Green tea has this catechin aplenty and it has been shown to promote the death of cancer cells in skin and colon, in addition to inactivating genes that cause the spread of colon cancer.
Tea and the Brain: The amino acid L-theanine in tea helps you relax and concentrate better. While green tea also lowers the risk of cognitive impairment, black tea reduces the effects of stress.
Tea and the Heart: EGCG shields the cells of your blood vessels from stress and controls cholesterol levels too. But black tea also helps maintain blood vessel function.
Tea and the 'Rest of My Body': It does not stop with just the heart and brain.
- Tea works as a digestive aid for your stomach.
- It strengthens your immune system and your teeth too.
- It increases your metabolism and helps in weight loss.
- Catechin in green tea is shown to kill the bacteria implicated in food poisoning.
- Implicated in reducing the risk of arthritis.
Adding Milk to Your Black Tea? Well, I am sure it enhances the flavours of certain teas but that comes at a cost, actually. Adding milk tends to reduce the fluoride content as well as affect the absorption of those healthy anti-oxidants that tea is so rich in, in addition to adding calories.
The RED TEA, Rooibos, from Africa, reduces inflammations and irritations on the body in addition to having calming effects.
Popular Green Teas -
Sencha - Japanese green tea. High Vitamin C content.
Gyokuro - more expensive than Sencha since the process of cultivation is more difficult. A more stronger, sweeter taste because it is hidden from sunlight 3 weeks before harvesting the tea leaves, keeping the strong amino acid flavours within.
Tencha - Avoiding the rolling process leaves this tea with high concentration of nutrients, minerals and vitamins.
Matcha - ground up Tencha.
Konacha - Served at sushi restaurants as 'agari', formed from the filtered out buds of Sencha and Gyokuro.
Popular Black Teas -
Assam tea - One of the most popular varieties in the world. The best option if you prefer your black tea with milk.
Darjeeling First flush - well rounded, complex flavour. Considered the choice for royalty.
Darjeeling Second flush.
Ceylon Tea.
Ideal Temperatures to prepare?
Black tea - 100 degrees, brewing or dipping for 4 minutes.
Authors note:
This article as a part of SuperBloggerChallenge2019 conducted by Healthwealthbridge.com, Alla
10 comments
Enjoyed the tea-trivia to the T ;)ReplyDelete
Good luck with the #superbloggingchallenge
You actually have a glass embossed with your name? :D So cool!ReplyDelete
I am not a tea person, at all, but it was amusing reading that black tea and green tea come from the same tea leaves! :P
Interesting and informative post on Tea. I am a big fan of Green Tea. Your glass with your name on it is a brilliant idea and loved it!ReplyDelete
I am not a Tea person but this post was quite informative and came to know so many new things.ReplyDelete
Where did you get that glass from with your name?
I am a tea person and can totally relate to this. Loved the entire article.ReplyDelete
Wonderful article Roshan. A very detailed comparison between Green Tea and Black Tea. I used to drink Kattan Chaya (Black Tea) in the canteens around my office in Kochi. But now I have completely switched over to Green tea. A very detailed and fluid description of the how Green Tea benefits a person health-wise.ReplyDelete
That name embossed glass is totally cool. Great post Roshan you briefed out making, difference with other types and benefits with ease and depth.ReplyDelete
It's truly a great post. The information that u have included is great n not easily available. Although I don't like green tea, but this will give me motivation.ReplyDelete
Very well researched. Enjoyed reading it.ReplyDelete
Very intresting and read worthy ArticleReplyDelete

subset: commoncrawl


text:
TaskSchedulerView displays a list of all the automated tasks that are currently configured in Windows Task Scheduler along with their details, including next run, last results, task triggers and more.
You can review the list sort the tasks by column and quickly enable or disable one or more tasks. [Read more...]
Search for software
Copyright 1997-2022 SnapFiles.com All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.


text:
Utility Preconstruction Planning
At AUC, we know, understand and have ample experience in construction. We tailor a detailed project plan for a smooth delivery with all stakeholders. Ensuring each project is delivered on time, every time.
Centralized Hot Water Plants
At AUC we design, supply, install, maintain and service centralized hot water plans of any size to suit your needs.
Utility Construction
We understand that the builder has to oversee many parts of the project not just utilities. At AUC we can assist with an industry experienced utility project manager, to ensure a smooth implementation of your utility solution.
Embedded Networks
At AUC we can;
1. Create embedded networks of any size.
2. Embedded network feasibility assessments.
3. Unique structuring of embedded networks.
4. Implement embedded network systems at existing sites.
Solar Systems
At AUC we can design, implement and install solar systems of any size.
Metering Solutions
Recommend main and sub metering solutions tailored to the customer's needs.
Energy Saving Solutions
At AUC we source sustainable and energy saving technologies such as solar panels and LEDS and home automation technologies.
Regulatory Compliance and Auditing
- Embedded Network Manager (ENM)
- Meter Data Provider (MDP)
- Meter Coordinator (MC)
Energy Procurement and Auditing
Energy procurement, contract negotiation and reviews.
Energy auditing to troubleshoot any problems in regards to energy efficiency.
Australian Utilities Company (AUC) is an Australian company which has grown from humble beginnings on the Gold Coast in Queensland, to operating on a national level.
We are a national leader in pre-paid and post-paid utility management and metering solutions, offering leading edge innovative solutions and consumer friendly technologies all tailored to our clients' requirements.
At AUC we pride ourselves on the quality of our products (hardware, software and billing management systems) which can be operated by pre and post-paid billing modes, boasting comprehensive analytical capabilities.
We are a team of professionals that hold a wealth of knowledge with a multitude of post-graduate and bachelor qualifications including Financial, Legal, Electrical Engineering, Sustainable Development, a Master of Philosophy in Research (Marketing) and MBA qualifications.
To complement this, our leadership team provides us with direction, agility and innovation to implement change. We also strive to develop and maintain exceptional customer relationships, ensuring seamless delivery of detailed and tailored solutions, to all of our clients.
At AUC, our priorities are innovation, environmental stewardship, corporate sustainability and creating tailored value adding solutions for our clients.
Year Established
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Further Projects Completed by 2023
We deal with projects of all sizes.
For any inquiries, questions or recommendations, please call 1300 844 258 or fill out the form below:
Head Office
16/492 Christine Avenue
Robina, QLD 4226
Tel: 1300 844 258
To apply for a job with AUC, please send a cover letter together with your C.V. to: email@example.com


text:
Donald Trump is spending most of his time in unscheduled "executive time," watching television, reading newspapers, and making unlogged phone calls, according to a report based on a leaked copy of his daily agenda.
The president spent about 60% of his time in the months after the 2018 midterm elections in what the White House calls "executive time," much of that in the mornings, Axios reports. His first public scheduled event is normally in late morning and he spends the hours beforehand in the executive residence, not the Oval Office. Trump spent just 15% of his working time in meetings, and less than 8% in public events, Axios reports. Previous presidents have not had "executive time" on their schedules.
Madeleine Westerhout, director of Oval Office operations, is among the officials who are defending Trump, tweeting that he had "hundreds of calls and meetings" every day that aren't part of his public schedule.
Her defense raises more questions than it answers. If Trump is, in fact, meeting or calling "hundreds" of people every day, who are they? What is he discussing? We do know he likes to tweet early in his day.
There's no way for anyone but Trump to know. He has dispensed with transparency measures put in place by previous presidents, ignored scheduling and organizational precedents, and shed staffers whose job it was to keep track of his movements. Here's what has changed during his term:
- Early in the Trump presidency, the White House reversed the Barack Obama-era practice of releasing White House visitor logs. The White House web page for "visitor access records" no longer exists.
- Last year, the White House stopped releasing "readouts" of the president's calls with foreign leaders. These "vital tools of public diplomacy in a democracy" allow Americans to know what sort of "diplomacy is being conducted on their behalf," instead of relying on anonymous leaks, or from statements made by leaders in another country, Government Executive explained.
- The White House has also stopped using stenographers on a regular basis to capture what the president says in public and behind closed doors, former staff say.
- Trump reportedly seized interpreters' notes after his closed-door meetings with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and there's no official record of their conversation.
- The White House has stopped holding regular press briefings for reporters to ask day-to-day questions about policy. The press office responds sporadically and unpredictably to questions.
- The Trump White House fired much of the team responsible for maintaining presidential records. Before they were dismissed, some members said their job was made even more difficult because of Trump's habit of tearing up official papers after he's read them.
- It had been normal protocol to make every work-related meeting and phone call part of a written schedule for federal government officials, but that's not happening under Trump.
These omissions may put the Trump administration in violation of the US Presidential Records Act, several lawsuits allege. The act states the White House must retain all the information "created or received by the President, the President's immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise or assist the President" that relates to presidential duties. That includes all:
books, correspondence, memoranda, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, and motion pictures, including, but not limited to, audio and visual records, or other electronic or mechanical recordations, whether in analog, digital, or any other form.
That information is the property of the US government, not the president's or his advisors', and an administration can only delete records after getting written permission from the archivist of the United States.


text:
Birth Flower bracelet - gold
Birth Flower bracelet - gold
Sale Sold out
Regular price $46.00 USD
Regular priceUnit price per
Sale price
The Birth Flower bracelets celebrate the tradition of each month of the year symbolised by a flower, with a flower design stamped on a gold disc, on a gold fill bracelet chain.
Each birth flower bracelet comes with an elegant card, featuring a vintage illustration and details about what the flower represents.
A subtle botanical piece of jewellery, inspired by a love of nature.
DIMENSIONS: 7" / 18cm unfastened, with 1" / 2cm extender chain (adjustable).
MATERIALS: 14k gold filled.


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Rock Steady
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
John Storkamp has battled addiction, finished some of the toughest races on the planet and received accolades as a race director. But he really excels at making those around him better.
After struggling with drug addiction as a teen, Minnesota's John Storkamp has found meaning through trail running and race directing. Photo by T.C. Worley
John Storkamp is nothing special. According to him, anyway.
"It's easy to make this shit sound cute," he says.
It's a tacit warning: don't make this yet another story about an addict who finds salvation through ultrarunning. There are too many of those. They don't paint the whole picture.
When Storkamp started running in the mid-1990s, he noticed a lot of addicts and alcoholics gravitated toward marathons; when he started training for ultras in 2003, he noticed that trend even more. Hardly anyone talked about it, though.
"Now, it seems like everyone is talking about this dark undercurrent these days, with depression, alcoholism, etc., and ultrarunning," he says. "Rob Krar, Tim Olson and so on. I think it is great, but it is easy to get into sound bites: 'I'm an addict and now I run and I'm a better person and on and on.'"
Storkamp is a Minnesota trail and ultrarunning institution. He directs arguably the most popular events in the state, at distances ranging from 5K to 100 miles, between the Zumbro, Afton and Superior (spring and fall) races and his Endless Summer Trail Series. He has notched wins and top-five finishes at classic trail races like the Voyageur 50 Mile, as well as at winter races so remote and brutal even many ultrarunners can't conceive finishing them. John knows everyone; everyone knows John. How he got to this point, from a youth fraught with addiction and mental illness, is on the one hand a classic story of beating the odds. But as Storkamp warns, it's not always that straightforward.
"If ultrarunning is all you've got keeping the fabric of your mental health and sobriety, those are pretty thin threads because some day your knee is going to be sore and you can't run," he says. "There's a deeper piece. It's just running. There's a lot more to being a man."
Photo by T.C. Worley
The Long Slog
Storkamp speaks gently, with the slightest northwoods accent (the kind featured exaggeratedly in the movie Fargo). It grows thicker when he starts goofing around or making fun of himself, which is often. His demeanor is small-town, laid-back, don't-take-yourself-too-seriously. The muscles in his back and arms reflect years of physical toil. His far-reaching eyes are that of a hardened survivor, while his garish ear gauges and always-present Buff land him squarely in the trail-running tribe.
In the 20 years since he got sober and started running, Storkamp's race resume grew quickly, eventually boasting PRs of 2:49 in the marathon and 6:05 over 50 miles. Many a lithe runner with a crisp team uniform and five-ounce racing flats has been surprised to see the tree-trunk-solid Storkamp, tattooed and shirtless, trucking past at Minnesota road-circuit races en route to a 1:31 25K or a 1:19 half-marathon.
But he doesn't really shine until you take away the crowds and the other runners. Replace the road with a trail. Make the race longer. In trail ultras up to (and over) 100 miles in and around Minnesota, Storkamp rarely misses the podium.
"He's tough as hell, but there's also a hopefulness and an optimism about him with all his races and running goals," says Kurt Decker, 44, of Minneapolis, who manages a local running store and has known Storkamp through the local trail-racing scene for almost a decade. "It's all so straightforward with him, to just grind forward. Those races where your mind really becomes your enemy, those are the ones where John excels, because that's never an issue for him."
Now cover the trail in snow. Make the course longer and slower, so it takes almost two days to finish—if you're one of the fast ones. That's where the mind becomes your enemy if you're not John Storkamp. Three wins at the Arrowhead 135, a snowbound slog through northern Minnesota in January that is even colder than it sounds, say all you need to know about his propensity to look past that otherworldly realm of suffering and simply move forward.
"I like winter races because you don't go fast," Storkamp says, leaning back in his chair at a diner in the tiny southeast Minnesota city of Afton, near his hometown of Hastings.
"You just go forward," he continues. "But it's still tough as hell."
Long winter races, he says, strip you down to the bare essentials. You can't start too fast and fake your way to a decent time. There is no show, no glitz. You are often alone. They are about moving forward. Surviving. Thriving only if you're lucky, and even then not for long.
Storkamp with his wife, Cheri, in 2011. Photo by Nancy Griffith
Falling In
Storkamp was five years old the first time he drank. His parents divorced when he was two, and three years later his mom remarried. During the wedding reception at their house in Hastings, his older brother and two older step brothers took empty soda cans and filled them with beer from the keg so they could imbibe without being detected.
"Naturally, I wanted to be like my older brothers," he says, "and I followed suit."
He didn't partake again for a few years, but by age nine he had made a hobby of crimes like theft and vandalism—not because he had a criminal inclination or a destructive streak, but because his friends did it, he says. At this time, his friends also drank, so he followed. It was easy to steal beer from his mom and step-dad's refrigerator, or the neighbors' garage in Hastings.
"Wherever I could find it," he says, he was downing booze. He didn't always get drunk at first, but by age 11, it was a regular thing. With the drinking came drugs—and not just the innocuous stuff, like pot.
"I was taking LSD and eventually moved on to harder drugs," he says. "I never eased into it. It was all or nothing from the word go. That has always been my personality."
Pre-teen Storkamp wasn't a skilled criminal; he spent those years breaking the law frequently and, almost as frequently, getting caught. He earned felonies for breaking and entering and drug possession. He was in and out of juvenile hall, rehab, halfway houses and, when his mom and stepdad decided they wouldn't take him back, foster care.
He wanted to quit. He knew it was dangerous. But it wasn't that simple. Addiction is nuanced, the result of a symbiotic pull between deep voids and quick earthly solutions that make those voids deeper and wider. And Storkamp's relationship with drugs and alcohol was even more complex—through several psychiatric evaluations, he was diagnosed as manic-depressive and borderline schizophrenic. He says he may have found life unbearable without the crutch of a chemically fueled euphoria.
"At that time, [drugs and alcohol] likely saved my life," he says.
"It was like they were a life preserver in an ocean that I did not know how to swim in," he continues. As he developed a tolerance, the figurative life preserver provided him less and less buoyancy, eventually running out of air and sinking under the waves.
"I didn't know how to swim, so I just clung to the motherfucker until my head was underwater and I was drowning."
Learning to Swim
In 1993, at age 14, Storkamp, on probation for felony breaking and entering and drug possession, took a bus to visit a friend in New York City. He discovered crank—known today as meth—and found himself in no hurry to book a return trip. For a brief period he was homeless on the streets of both New York and Hartford, Connecticut, snorting crank. Eventually, he tired of it. He didn't see home as a better option, but he didn't know where else to go. "Homeless, broke and strung out, I took a bus back to Minnesota with no real intention of getting clean," he says.
Having violated his probation by running away to the East Coast, he was quickly arrested when he arrived back in his home state. Too young to go to jail proper—and still unwelcome at his mom and step-dad's house—he was sent to a psych ward and, eventually, a halfway house in Stillwater, Minnesota.
That was when his uncle, Richard "Dick" Gruber, paid him a visit.
"I didn't see anything wrong with John other than his being a teenager who was just having more trouble with it than most," Gruber says. "He was going to become a ward of the state, so I appealed to the courts to let him come live with me, and they consented."
Storkamp moved in with Gruber and his wife on their five-and-a-half-acre property outside Stillwater. Gruber enrolled him in the local high school. Storkamp had been clean since he got off the bus and was attending AA meetings, but Gruber had no intention of coddling him. Booze was out there in the real world, and his nephew would have to learn to live alongside it.
"I told him, 'Here's my liquor cabinet,'" Gruber says. "'I'm not gonna lock it, but you and I have an agreement [that you'll not drink or take drugs] and you don't want to violate it, because you're going to land back in a place you don't want to be.'"
For Storkamp, it was excruciating. He couldn't simply flip a switch and stop craving drugs and alcohol. Something else had to change. Luckily for him, his uncle put him to work.
"The first day, he made me move boulders around all day," Storkamp says. "For dinner we had a raw-onion-and-mustard sandwich, and the next day we split wood all day."
It was so simple that it made him feel good: completing tasks, making discernible progress on the things that sustained life at the cabin.
"I remember the turning point for John," Gruber says. "We were cutting big trees, and I thought, 'Well, he's gotta learn how to use the chainsaw.'
"Well, he took that chainsaw, and when the tree came down, it was like he was a new person," Gruber continues. "I can't tell you why exactly, but I think it was because, for the first time, he saw that he was in control and that he made something happen."
But there was only so much wood to split, only so many boulders to move or trees to fell. As Storkamp's energy outgrew the small compound of his uncle's property, Gruber suggested he start running. Joining his new school's team didn't appeal to him—his one attempt at joining a team, in sixth grade, had ended quickly when he was busted for drug possession and kicked off the squad—so Gruber had another idea.
"I'd set a route with my car and say, 'See how fast you can run it,'" Gruber says. They went two or three times a week at first. Storkamp grew faster. He started running more. He started going farther.
Meanwhile, he made progress with AA, attending meetings every day and getting a sponsor. The void once filled by drugs and alcohol he filled by running, by daily chores, by taking control of his life. His head was above the surface and he was successfully treading water.
Storkamp with his daughter, Emma. Photo by Kevin Langton
Taking Control
Storkamp left his uncle's cabin clean and sober, taking odd jobs to make ends meet and satiate the need for control Gruber had identified that day in the woods. He worked in a cabinet shop, in coffee shops, in furniture repair and even as a flight attendant before he landed in commercial construction, working outside, with his hands, just as he had at the cabin.
When he was 19, Storkamp became involved with a woman, and, in 1999, his daughter Emma was born. He and Emma's mother did not stay together but they remain present in each other's lives.
"Emma means everything to me and she is my number-one priority," he says. "That being said, she is very self-sufficient, autonomous and only seems to need subtle guidance from me … being a good father is especially important to me as I did not have much contact with my own father when I was young."
In May 2002, Storkamp met Cheri Brabec, a friend of his brother's wife. As is his tendency, John hit the accelerator. They were married by June 2003. It was a good life—John would transition to an office role with the construction company, and Cheri was the general manager of a restaurant. With Emma, they had a family, and John reconciled with his mother and stepdad; he and Cheri would later move into his parents' Hastings home when the restaurant where Cheri worked went out of business.
Still pursuing a sub-2:50 marathon (he would run 2:49 at Grandma's Marathon in 2014) and feeling his way into the trail and ultra scene, John was making a swath of new friends in the running community.
Storkamp and fellow Minnesota race director Larry Pederson. Photo by Zach Pierce
One of them was Larry Pederson, a famously white-bearded trail guru of the northwoods who in 2005 took the reins as race director for the Superior Trail Races. Superior was a classic race, known for its rugged course on the jagged, technical ridges of Lake Superior's north shore; one of the original "dozen or so" 100-mile trail races in the United States by Storkamp's estimation, it had nearly fizzled in the early 2000s and Pederson was charged with revitalizing it.
He needed all the help he could get, so he turned to his friends, including Storkamp.
"I told Larry that I'll help for five years, but on the sixth year I'm going to actually run the 100," he says. But by the fifth year, in 2010, the Superior trail race was alive and well, and as popular as ever. So Larry decided to turn over the reins right then and there.
"He came to me and asked me to take it over," Storkamp says. "So of course, I said, 'Yeah.'"
He had no idea what was in store.
The Growth of Rocksteady
Fast forward to a muggy summer morning in early July 2014, when a crowd gathers in a field next to a parking lot at Minnesota's Afton State Park. Two trails leading out of the open space are the only real clues that this will serve as the start and finish area for one of Minnesota's biggest trail races, the Afton 50K and 25K, with a total field of 600 runners annually.
At the start—there is no marked line—sits a stepladder. Storkamp climbs to the top and the crowd goes quiet.
Sporting a utility belt and work gloves, he looks more the part of mechanic than race director. He gives out instructions and describes the course markings. As always, he tells an intentionally bad pre-race joke.
"Two cannibals are eating a clown," he says, the Fargo accent growing thicker. "One cannibal turns to the other and says, 'Hey, does this taste funny to you?'"
He thanks everyone who make his races work. He thanks Cheri.
"She's the most patient woman in the world," he says, mopily. "I mean, c'mon. Look at me."
In 2013, Storkamp had taken the leap, quitting his construction job of over 10 years and establishing Rocksteady Running (RSR) to put his full attention into directing and growing the races.
Afton is one of eight races—four multi-event ultras and a series of shorter summer trail races—Storkamp now directs. His events are at once well polished and rough around the edges, eschewing flash for an old-school aesthetic but retaining a few crucial modern amenities.
"When I see big fancy finish lines, all this presentation, I cringe a little," Storkamp says.
But don't mistake that attitude for a lackadaisical attention to details. The aid stations are well stocked and smoothly run by veteran volunteers. Professional chip-timing equipment records official results, and the social media channels of each race feature real-time updates with photos and results. The courses are impeccably marked.
"My favorite flavor of running is a John Storkamp race," says Charlie Murray, 34, of Minneapolis. "There's no pushy crowds or start line. John simply gathers a reasonable amount of runners, points to a crack in the pavement or drags his toe in the dirt, reminds you the flags are on the right and yells, 'Go!'"
Storkamp during the Iditarod Trail Invitational in Alaska. Photo by Matt Long
The Yetna River
If there is a race with even less flair than a Storkamp production, it might be the Arrowhead 135; starting in January in International Falls, Minnesota, near the Canadian border, it's too cold to stand around. It's too cold for spectators.
In 2014, it was even too cold for John Storkamp. He was entered in the race, alright, and planning to run it. More than that, Storkamp, then 34, was the man to beat. He had finished the brutally cold slogfest five times since 2006, winning it three of those years, and now he was relatively fresh off a 10th-place finish at Alaska's 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI) the previous March.
But as the competition left International Falls and started pulling their sleds down the snowmobile trail that comprises most of the course, Storkamp was sitting in a nearby McDonald's, eating an Egg McMuffin.
"I was just hanging out, staying warm," he says. "Then everyone left so I figured I should get out there."
He left the McDonald's, grabbed his sled and trudged in pursuit of the pack. By mile 30, he had towed his sled into second place, where he would eventually finish, in 46 hours 30 minutes.
"A few years ago, when I was new to this, I wouldn't have let that relaxed start happen," he says. "I would have been much more anxious, toeing the start line before the gun goes off. I'm a lot more patient now."
Years of trial and error had finally taught John to ease off the accelerator. Ten months prior to that edition of Arrowhead, that newfound patience was being tested as he slowly postholed through waist-deep snow down the wrong side of the Yetna River in Alaska. Only 16 miles into the ITI, he and another competitor had missed a course marking; now they were slogging along a body of water wider than the mammoth section of the Mississippi next to Storkamp's hometown of Hastings, wondering if they would need to cross it to get to the first aid station.
"Each step we took, it was like, 'Well, we're really committed now,'" he says. "But that was just our situation. We didn't give it too much thought."
Eventually the river narrowed and they crossed.
"We made it to that first aid station, and it was a completely different dynamic after that," Storkamp says. "I had never teamed up with someone before, but from then on, if one of us was down, the other one would go slower, and vice-versa."
The pressure of racing relieved—replaced by that simple yet mortally necessary task of moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other—Storkamp finished the course in 7 days 5 hours 15 minutes.
A Place For Everyone
So what has Storkamp been moving toward all this time?
For him, accomplishment was never going to take the form of making a lot of money, nor would he want that; he and Cheri are still living with his mother and stepfather, and race directing is hardly a for-profit business. And despite some fast PRs, his running will never take him to the Olympics, or to the top 10 at Western States.
But Storkamp is hardly an average person. Ask anyone who knows him. There's something else. For one thing, he is relatable, no matter your background.
In late 2013, Storkamp was a featured speaker at the Upper Midwest Trail Runners' annual banquet in Stillwater, Minnesota, where he spoke about his experience at that year's ITI. It caught the attention of then-44-year-old Julio C. Salazar, of South St. Paul, a new trail runner sitting in the audience. He introduced himself afterward and heard more of Storkamp's story.
"The thing I remember the most is John talking about being kicked out of school and not having a second chance with the running team," says Salazar. "[It was] that one thing that could have given him another opportunity at getting better."
It resonated because Salazar had previously struggled with depression, drinking and eating disorders, and was on the verge of creating the Break the Stigma Project (BSP), a campaign aimed at raising awareness of mental health issues that includes a plan by Salazar to traverse Minnesota on foot in May 2015.
"Once I explained to John what my idea was, he could not wait to offer to help," says Salazar, who notes all of BSP's logos and graphics were subsequently designed by Storkamp. Salazar has also become one of the most familiar entrants and volunteers at RSR events.
"Storkamp and his races offer a very family oriented feeling to it," he says. "His races are a sanctuary for me."
Another of Rocksteady Running's most familiar faces is that of Bob Marsh, 51, of Burnsville, Minnesota. In 2012 (before he was a volunteer at nearly every event of Storkamp's), Marsh ran a small summer RSR race and met Storkamp.
"I told him my history of injuries and that I wanted to try ultramarathons, and he gave me so much great advice," Marsh says. "From someone who I have never met, I thought it was remarkable."
Marsh has also battled depression much of his life. "Running is not the solution for depression or a mental illness," he says. "Having the right support system in place and taking your medication is what is important. Running is just an added blessing."
When that support system is in place long enough, and you go long enough without drinking a drop or taking a drug, Storkamp says life gets better, and relapsing looks less and less tempting.
"Maybe once every few years things get tough, I get in a bad place and for a fraction of a second it presents itself as an option, then as quick as it comes it's gone," he says. "I have tools now to combat that sort of thing."
For the runners and innumerable others he and RSR have reached, Storkamp provides more than an uplifting story of triumph over struggle. Indeed, Storkamp's races enable people from Marsh to Murray, lawyers to electricians, people with demons to people blissfully without, to challenge themselves in ways they'd never conceived, together.
At its head is Storkamp, whose darkest days never offered a shortcut out, or a way to fake it; his only option was to put one foot in front of the other, and so he did. At the start of each race he stands atop his stepladder, ready to send another batch of runners—veterans and rookies alike—on their own passage. And there is no better high for Storkamp.
"I have found a better way [than alcohol and drugs]," he says. "There just wouldn't be any reason to go back. Life is too good."
Alex Kurt once managed a wrong turn at the Superior 50 Mile despite Storkamp's excellent course markings. He lives in Minneapolis. This article originally appeared in our June 2015 issue.


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When To See Your Doctor
If you're wondering how to know when it's time to see your doctor, then the answer to that question is different for everyone. If you suffer from acid reflux (which is SEVERE heartburn accompanied by a wealth of additional problems), then you are one of 25 million Americans.
Acid reflux is commonly referred to as GERD (or gastroesophageal reflux disease). It is often mistaken as "heartburn" but it can be much more complicated than that.
First and foremost, it is important to listen to your body. You know it better than anyone. It is designed to tell you when something is out of balance so go with your instincts: they are almost always right.
If you live in the United States, where fast food and jam-packed schedules are becoming the rule rather than the exception, you've probably experienced acid reflux at least once in your lifetime. An occasional episode is nothing that should alarm you.
Conversely, the gravity of the situation for chronic acid reflux sufferers, lends itself to the need for immediate attention. It's time to see your doctor for an evaluation if you can relate to one or more of the following:
If, in fact, your doctor diagnoses you with acid reflux disease, there is a great deal that you can do to alleviate, or get rid of, your symptoms. Some of the solutions (like lifestyle changes and behavior modification techniques) are not easy to implement but they are important.
Making those changes are the quickest and most cost effective means by which you can get your symptoms under control, especially considering the rising costs of health care and prescription medications.
If gone untreated, acid reflux can cause serious and long-term complications. With that in mind, it is important that you implement the necessary changes right away.
When it comes time to see your doctor, he/she will work with you to chart an appropriate treatment plan that you can live with. It is important to make sure that your family is on board so they can act as the support network you'll need as you incorporate changes that will make the difference.
If those initial changes are found wanting, or if your acid reflux symptoms persist, it may be time to see a
This type of doctor is better trained to help you resolve your symptoms and treat any underlying
Diagnosing Acid Reflux


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Employment and Volunteer Opportunities
Thank you for your interest in working for and in the Town of Minto.
Accommodation for disabilities is available during all parts of the recruitment process for employment opportunities with the Town of Minto.
Applicants are asked to make their needs known in advance.
Jobs & Housing Portal
For employment opportunities available at the Town of Minto or at our local employers visit the Live And Work In Minto website via the link below.


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Celebrity News January 30, 2020
Kobe Bryant & Daughter Gianna's Cause of Death Revealed
Days after their sudden passing, more details have been released about the deaths of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna in a helicopter crash.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Coroner's Office identified four of the crash's nine victims —Kobe Bryant, John Altobelli, Sarah Chester and Ara Zobayan — from their fingerprints.
The other five victims — Gianna Bryant, Payton Chester, Alyssa Altobelli, Keri Altobelli and Christina Mauser — were identified through "round-the-clock testing and analysis of DNA."
After body examinations were performed on Tuesday, the cause of death for all nine victims was deemed to be "blunt trauma." The manner of death was ruled an "accident."
At the time of the accident on Sunday, Kobe, Gianna, and the rest of the victims were en route to the Mamba Academy when the helicopter crashed in Calabasas. It is believed that all victims died instantly.
All Bodies Recovered from Kobe Bryant Helicopter Crash, Plus: NTSB Releases Video of Horrific SiteView Story
Earlier this week, NTSB spokeswoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters that the chopper was descending at a rate of 2,000 feet per minute, causing a "high-energy impact."
She also noted that the Sikorsky S-76B helicopter did not have a "terrain awareness and warning system," or TAWS, which alerts pilots when they are too close to the ground. As of right now, the FAA only requires the system in air ambulances.
The NTSB is looking at weather and other factors, and has obtained maintenance and airworthiness records. Interviews with air traffic controllers and the helicopter's operators are underway.
The NTSB will likely issue a preliminary report with more details in the next 10 days. A still more detailed follow-up will be issued in 12 to 18 months.


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Hear How Sree Sreenivasan the Marshall R. Loeb Visiting Professor of Digital Innovation at Stony Brook University and Former Chief Digital Officer Of NYC As Well As The Met Uses The Power Of Social Media and Brings It Within Your Reach, Episode 11
In 2016, I attended Sree's Social Media Weekend #SMWKND in NYC. As a participant, I felt like I was guzzling water from a fire hydrant. Sree along with other powerful digital thought leaders were on fire. They were helping attendees uncover what was next and what should be ignored pertaining to social media and its otherwise overwhelming technologies. In a nutshell, I implemented several learnings from that memorable experience and was delighted when he agreed to be interviewed.
Sree taught for 20-years at Columbia Journalism School. He also worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the City of New York both as a Chief Digital Officer. He was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2015 as well as the world's most influential Chief Digital Officer by CDO Club in 2016. Today, Sree is back in the classroom at Stony Brook University in NY and has embraced the new era of consultancy work by co-founding Digitmentors a new kind of digital consultancy firm that operates worldwide. Meanwhile, you can find Sree every Sunday at 8:30 am ET for four years now, as the host of a #NYTReadalong, reading the print NYT out loud on FB Live. He often has guests from various fields, including occasional NYT reporters and editors.
Tune in to hear Sree's thoughts pertaining to:
- A memorable moment during Social Media Weekend 2016 when April Reign who created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite (Twitter @ReignOfApril) shared her 2020 Oscars hopes and dreams.
- How he personally managed through what could have been the worst moment of his life when he was let go from the Metropolitan Museum of Art – (Twitter #3MetYears)
- Why marketers in particular need to be better at telling their story than anyone else and why your story is the most important story of all.
- How to avoid being overwhelmed with so much information when it comes to the world of social media.
- A shift from "big sea" to "small sea" communications including thoughts on microcommunities.
- Why he translated his name into Mandarin on LinkedIn and how you can attract opportunities in other countries too.
- The "American Dream" especially when it comes to making sacrifices to live in the U.S.
- A formula anyone can apply to their own social media strategy.
- His beliefs on everyone having a story and what it may take to uncover yours.
Listen to hear how Sree thinks about this question which is certainly top of mind for both traditional as well as digital native companies these days around the world.
How can companies who currently have a mix of traditional experts, tradigitals, and native digitals create more opportunities where the best ideas can rise to the top and ultimately win the day?
Additional Links
- Connect with Sree: Instagram (@sreenet) | Twitter (@sree) | Email email@example.com
- PBS Newshour video: Lose Your Job? It May Pay to Announce It
- Sree's Advanced Social Media Group: Click to Join
- NYTReadalongs: Watch Now on YouTube
- Article: Why Don't Americans Use WhatsApp
- Article: USA Today On Media Overload in 2000
Listeners, I want to personally invite you if you are a marketing professional….one who works in a corporation or agency to schedule a 60-minute breakthrough session right here for free:
It is during that 60-minute session that we will focus on your career today (i.e. the challenges that you are solving), where you really want to go (i.e. the challenges that you rather solve) and precisely what it will take (i.e. your game plan) to close the gap and make your dream marketing career a reality. This conversation is absolutely free. Apply for the call today because life is now not later….


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Winging along at an altitude somewhere between the Bluebird of Happiness and the Chicken of Depression... random esoterica from writer Chad Love celebrating the joys of fishing, hunting, books, guns, gundogs, music, literature, travel, lonely places, wildness, history, art, misanthropy, scotch and the never-ending absurdity of life.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Rolling Stream?
One of the pipe dreams I've always had (along with opening up a used book and gun shop, living under a bridge in the Florida Keys, training a QAA field trial chessie, building a time machine so I can travel back in time to see the Pixies in concert, and spending an entire fall on the road, Jim Fergus-like, bird hunting across the country) is to publish my own little alternative hook-and-bullet magazine.
I've always been a big believer in the old adage "look at how everyone else is doing something, and then figure out a way to do it completely differently." And that's exactly how I'd like to create my 'zine.
You take some classic counter-culture weirdness; 70s-era Rolling Stone, a little Mother Jones, then mix it with some literary gravitas, maybe a dash of Paris Review, some early Gray's Sporting Journal and Sports Illustrated, and a little vintage 60s and 70s Playboy and/or Esquire, and then throw it all in a blender with an equal measure of the classic Big Three sporting mags from the same era, hit the puree button and what you end up with is my magazine, sort of a sporting New Yorker, but just a tad stoned, and minus the pretentious assholes.
You know, the kind of magazine that would publish the type of authors that sporting magazines used to publish. And no, I'm not talking about Corey Ford, Robert Ruark, Jack O'Conner, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Don't get me wrong, I love those guys. I have most of their books. But I'm talking about modern writers, edgier writers, as opposed to the more traditional outdoor writers we tend to wrap in standard-issue nostalgia.
Wouldn't it be great? No "how-to" for simpletons, no 200-word feature stories for the ADD demographic, no stupid graphics - in short, no abandoning of print's story-telling strength for the folly of trying to emulate the web. Just a weirdly eclectic blend of many different but equally wonderful styles, all hewing to the simple premise of great writing, great photography, and the primacy of the word as expression and art.
And it would, of course, be a colossal failure. It'd appeal to, oh, about 27 weirdos nationwide, while at the same time completely alienating virtually every traditional demographic from which it drew inspiration. Cool and unusual ideas often don't make good business models. Good business models don't often inspire and excite, which is why we're saddled with the choices we have. Ever it was thus.
But a dude can dream, right?
19 comments:
- Pete V.March 7, 2012 at 2:09 PM
Who needs paper? Do it online. 27 weirdos might be enough...ReplyDelete
Do it. Put the project up on Kickstarter, raise enough money to pay to print a couple of issues and pay for writing and art. Make it a quarterly or a yearly. I'd both pay for a subscription and chip in $25 or $50 for a Kickstarter campaign. Worst case scenario it doesn't fund and you realize the idea won't work. If it funds you've got a baked-in audience and some funds to make it happen.ReplyDelete
What they said. Sounds good.ReplyDelete
A dude should dream....May I make a suggestion to include a Spy v. Spy cartoon from Mad Magazine, or some National Lampoon mayhem?...I love it!...PhilReplyDelete
Definitely do an e-zine. I'll be subscriber/weirdo #1. I'd subscribe to a paper version too but why waste all that time and money dealing with printing and distribution? And viral exposure beats paying for advertising every day. Seriously, you threw this out there and now I'm gonna hound you until you do it.ReplyDelete
See they are out there! I'm not the only reader you'll haveReplyDelete
The kickstarter campaign is a great idea - I'll run ads for it on my blog, submit loads of awful story ideas, and possibly turn up on your doorstep to be your intern. Who gets to play Robert Anton Wilson?
PS Kilburn National Ballroom, London, 5 July 1989, but you wont recognise me i was a lot thinner then
Hmmm, Kickstarter. That's an idea. I can solicit donations for a bold, exciting new publication, and then skip town with the dough, buy that S03 I've always wanted and then simply disappear into the plains forever...ReplyDelete
Actually, for someone with a little ambition, that might not be a bad idea. I wonder how many literary projects get funded through Kickstarter? May have to do some looking around.
SBW, just as soon as I can scrounge up a flux capacitor and a DeLorean to put it in, I'm so there...
Do it online and it is a viable business model.ReplyDelete
Do it in print and the program will be bankrupt, but perhaps more satisfying.
Either way do it. I'll subscribe.
Saw the Pixies in the late '80s (we'll talk more next time in hunting camp), played ping-pong with Kim Deal and when you get a sec, check out the co-author of "Drivin' on 9" on the Last Splash (Breeders).ReplyDelete
Whoa, Steve! That's impressive! I love the Breeders, and whoda thunk I shared duck camp with a guy who wrote one of their songs...ReplyDelete
Good times,straight out of grad school. Cannonball made that album, eh, and a Rolling Stone reviewer (ironic, eh?) called our song "hokey" (it is, of course). Thing is it hit double-platinum so there's no accounting for taste, I guess. Listen, man, the 27 other weirdos and I are longtime Chad Love readers. You've got something nudging close to an online 'zine here in the blog. Build around it?ReplyDelete
- http://piscator-fontinalis.blogspot.com/March 8, 2012 at 11:27 PM
Count me in as one of the 27. I mean Geez, we already read all this incredibly wonderful wacky head barf of a blogosphere, ya ?! I'd vote for a hard copy, old style mag - not a zine. A glossy, feel and smell the ink, tattered to shreds after two months in the traveling gear kind of hunk of tangibility. A there's no colossal failure like a tangible one.ReplyDelete
There's a whole category on Kickstarter for publishing, and a sub-category for periodicals:
There are a ton of very successful campaigns there for quarterlies, yearly magazines, etc. People raised 17k, 42k, 45k, etc.
the pledge gifts can be small. a "founders" page in the first issue. preview of the first issue. digital subscription (if it's print+digital), etc. perhaps a hunting or fishing trip for the big spenders.
Bodio needs a memo on this. Steve B.: Seem to remember you talking about this back in the '90s? Confirm, or just my wishful thinking? Can't go wrong with Captain Love and you on the masthead.ReplyDelete
Late to the party but count me in... will recruit, edit, write (just no or few book reviews PLEASE!) I'd even do it free for one issue if I must. Steve H, you are not dreaming.ReplyDelete
I don't have money but I still seem to have energy & more ideas than I can follow up, and I get more reckless as I grow old-- nothing (or less) left to lose... Trouble is most regular mags these days think I am strange. Can't imagine why.
And guys-- email me if you want detailed stuff on the next (not the just- finished) book-- you two and at least 5 (27?) others will like it...
Go on Chad, dare ya, double dare ya!ReplyDelete
You had me until the last paragraph. Why would it be a colossal failure?ReplyDelete
There you go with all those negative vibes.
You've got to be positive. If it feels cool, run with it. It sounds cool to me and I am not even on my first spliff yet (although I have sunk a couple of medicinal scotches but, in my defence, it is already after eleven in the morning).
Brilliant!! Let me know how to help/hinder/bender...ReplyDelete
+$3,624 profit last week!ReplyDelete
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Four Seniors Lead Eagles to Two-Sport Success
June 7, 2019
For the first time in 52 years something unique happened in the Dobbs Ferry High School sports world. The Dobbs Ferry boys varsity basketball and football teams garnered sectional championships in the same year. Four Dobbs Ferry seniors were instrumental to the success of both teams.
The four seniors that ended their last year of high school with going to states in two of the sports they played were Jack Baglieri, Tevaun "Tev" Holness, Emilio Nolasco, and Patrick Straub.
In football, Nolasco played running back along with Baglieri while Tev played wide receiver and Straub was quarterback. All four of them have been playing for three years on the varsity team. "I had been playing football with my friends since pop warner and more of them joined in modified. It was great because we were working hard and having fun at the same time which is the most important part to high school sports." said Holness. "I made a brotherhood that will last forever."
These four provided good leadership, they had a good understanding of the playbook and got along well. However, their greatest impact was as role models for other players. "Overall, they all worked very hard in the offseason, they were very smart players, and easy to coach," said assistant football coach Keith Galante. "The biggest thing was how hard they worked in the offseason, whether it was the weight room, or practice in the spring. Next year there will be lots of returning players. A lot of players saw how hard the seniors worked and know what it takes to be a champion," said Galante.
Holness truly values his role as not only a valued member of a successful team, but also as one who is an integral part of a program. "I believe that the varsity teams next year can accomplish a lot if they all actually work hard and can come together as a team and show everyone that Dobbs Ferry doesn't rebuild they reload," said Holness.
Though Dobbs fell one game short of winning the state title, Coach Galante said that it was just about as close to a perfect season with the tough schedule they had.
In basketball the team DID achieve the goal of a perfect season as they went on to win the golden ball. "They had a great work ethic and were great to be around," said Head Coach Scott Patrillo. "You know when you have a special group of seniors and things fall into place. These seniors put in the work, they were committed and dedicated. "
Similar to the success in football, the seniors look to carry their legacy for future teams. "We are going to try and repeat next year. We have a lot of returning players," said Patrillo. "This group proved that it takes a team to win, not an individual. This group of seniors always passed to teammates. This was the most modest group I've ever had and it culminated in achieving the biggest thing; winning the gold ball."


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Scientist shows link between diet and onset of mental illness
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Changes in diet have been linked to a reduction of abnormal behaviors in mentally ill people or animals, but a Purdue University study shows that diet might also trigger the onset of mental illness in the first place.
Joseph Garner, an associate professor of animal sciences, fed mice a diet high in sugar and tryptophan that was expected to reduce abnormal hair-pulling. Instead, mice that were already ill worsened their hair-pulling behaviors or started a new self-injurious scratching behavior, and the seemingly healthy mice developed the same abnormal behaviors.
"This strain of mouse is predisposed to being either a scratcher or a hair-puller. Giving them this diet brought out those predispositions," said Garner, whose results were published in the December issue of the journal Nutritional Neuroscience. "They're like genetically at-risk people."
Garner studies trichotillomania, an impulse-control disorder in which people pull out their hair. The disorder, which disproportionately occurs in women, is thought to affect between 2 percent and 4 percent of the population.
Mice that barber, or pull their hair out, have been shown to have low levels of serotonin activity in the brain. That neurotransmitter is known to affect mood and impulses. Garner hypothesized that increasing serotonin activity in the brain might cure or reduce barbering and possibly trichotillomania.
Serotonin is manufactured in the brain from the amino acid tryptophan, which is consumed in diets. The problem is that tryptophan often doesn't make it across the barrier between blood and the brain because other amino acids can get through more easily and essentially block the door for tryptophan.
Garner modified a mouse diet to increase simple carbohydrates, or sugars, and tryptophan. The sugars trigger a release of insulin, which causes muscles to absorb those other amino acids and gives tryptophan a chance to make it to the brain.
Using eight times as much sugar and four times as much tryptophan, Garner observed a doubling of serotonin activity in the brain. But the mice that barbered did not get better.
"We put them on this diet, and it made them much, much worse," Garner said.
A second experiment divided the mice into three groups: those that were seemingly normal, others that had some hair loss due to barbering and a group that had severe hair loss. All the mice soon got worse, with conditions escalating over time.
"Three-quarters of the mice that were ostensibly healthy developed one of the behaviors after 12 weeks on the new diet," Garner said.
Some of the mice developed ulcerated dermatitis, a fatal skin condition thought to be caused by an unidentified pathogen or allergen. Garner saw that the only mice that contracted the condition were the scratchers.
"What if ulcerated dermatitis, like skin-picking, another common behavioral disorder, is not really a skin disease at all?" Garner said. "We now have evidence that it may be a behavioral disorder instead."
When taken off the new diet, the negative behaviors stopped developing in the mice. When control mice were switched to the new diet, they started scratching and barbering.
Garner's study raises questions of how diet might be affecting other behavioral or mental illnesses such as autism, Tourette syndrome, trichotillomania and skin-picking. He said that before now, a link between diet and the onset of mental disorders hadn't been shown.
"What if the increase of simple sugars in the American diet is contributing to the increase of these diseases?" Garner said. "Because we fed the mice more tryptophan than in the typical human diet, this experiment doesn't show that, but it certainly makes it a possibility."
Garner next wants to refine the experiments to better imitate human dietary habits, including the amount of tryptophan people consume. Internal Purdue funding paid for his work.
Writer: Brian Wallheimer, 765-496-2050, email@example.com
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Nutritional Up-Regulation of Serotonin Paradoxically
Induces Compulsive Behavior
Brett D. Dufour, Olayiwola Adeola, Heng-Wei Cheng, Shawn S. Donkin, Jon D. Klein, Edmond A. Pajor, Joseph P. Garner
Dietary etiologies or treatments for complex mental disorder are highly controversial in psychiatry. Nevertheless, diet affects brain chemistry (particularly serotonin), and can reduce abnormal behavior in humans and animals. We formulated a diet that elevated brain serotonin and tested whether it would reduce hair pulling in a mouse model of trichotillomania. In a double-blind cross-over trial, dietary elevation of brain serotonin unexpectedly increased hair pulling (P = 0.0006) and induced ulcerative dermatitis (UD; P = 0.001). The causative agent for UD is unknown. Therefore, we fed the treatment diet to a second group of mice to test whether UD is behavioral in origin. The diet increased scratching behavior (P < 0.0001). However, high scratching behavior (P = 0.027) and low barbering (P = 0.040) prior to treatment predicted the development of UD. Thus, diet can trigger the onset of a complex disorder in the absence of an underlying metabolic deficit. Furthermore, we propose UD as model of compulsive skin-picking.


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Power struggles: charging tomorrow's cars
Imagine driving across America using a fuel so new you have to carry your own supply wherever you go.
At the start of the 20th century, before the era of ubiquitous gas stations, drivers did just that as they tested the limits of cars like the Ford Model T, which ran on gasoline, kerosene or ethanol and could, if driven carefully, travel more than 150 miles on a full tank.
Now a new generation of drivers is set to embark on a similar kind of experiment. Until recently, most electric vehicles, or EVs as they are often known, have had a range of just a few dozen miles, limiting their usefulness and appeal. That's a big reason the long-talked-about era of electric vehicles has been, well, talked and talked about for so long with little real-world progress.
Over the next couple of years, though, tens of thousands of electric cars will hit the laneways of Europe, the streets of the United States and the gleaming highways of Asia. These new battery-powered vehicles have much longer ranges than their predecessors -- up to 250 miles in the case of the Tesla Roadster, but mostly about 100 miles -- and are likely to be the first to sell in large numbers.
By 2020, says J.D.Power Automotive Forecasting, annual sales of EVs will reach 2 million. Banking giant HSBC is even more optimistic and puts the figure at 9 million. That's still some way short of the 61 million petrol- and diesel-driven vehicles sold around the world in 2009 but a huge leap from the 5,000 or so EVs sold last year.
But even as these shiny new vehicles take to the road, serious questions remain about the infrastructure -- or rather, the lack of infrastructure -- to charge them. In an echo of last century's battle over the best fuel source, the way in which the coming fleet of electric vehicles will be recharged has yet to be settled -- and all the proposed models have flaws.
Some experts believe EVs should plug in at a driver's home or workplace. Others back a global network of roadside recharging stations. One prominent company is pushing the idea of petrol station-like outlets where you can zip in and quickly switch your almost-dead battery for a fully charged one. Another group advocates avoiding pure EVs and the problem of charging infrastructure altogether, focusing on cars which use both electricity and gasoline.
The stakes are huge: the pace of the shift to electric vehicles, progress in the fight against climate change, and a market which HSBC bullishly forecast this week would grow 20-fold by 2020 to $473 billion -- a fifth of the entire low-carbon economy.
Despite the hype, it's almost impossible to predict the format or formats most likely to win the great electric vehicle infrastructure battle. Model T owners adopted petrol as their fuel of choice for reasons both obvious -- the falling price of petrol -- and unpredictable: prohibition in 1919 forced ethanol off the market.
The variables today -- technology, political interference, the psychology of car-lovers -- are similarly hard to pin down. The introduction of electric vehicles is more than a financial matter, says U.S. analyst Sam Jaffe, research manager at IDC Energy Insights. It's a big anthropological experiment. There's no question that there are drawbacks, but there are also advantages. It requires a re-setting of mindsets and how that unfolds will decide who wins the race.
The starting grid for the coming EV race is filling up quickly. Mitsubishi Motors Corp's jelly bean-shaped i-MiEV has been on sale in Japan since April and will launch in the United States and Europe over the coming few months. The Japanese automaker is also making two versions of the car for French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen.
Nissan is set to roll out its edgy-looking Leaf in December, while corporate partner Renault will start selling its mid-sized Fluence ZE (for zero emissions) in the first half of next year.
Europe's biggest automaker Volkswagen, a late entrant in the competition, plans to launch all-electric vehicles in 2013, though it says zero-emission vehicles will account for 3 percent of sales by 2018.
These pure electric vehicles face competition from dual gasoline-electric cars. Sometimes called extended range cars, these vehicles can charge at a plug-in socket or switch over to gasoline, and include General Motors' Chevrolet Volt, which goes on sale in the United States from this year for $41,000, and in Britain a year later.
Will the charging infrastructure be able to keep up with all those new cars? The question is critical. If it's too difficult to charge an electric vehicle, too inconvenient, the customers will not buy them, says Christian Feisst, managing director of business development for smart grid at U.S. networking giant Cisco Systems. Today a lot of the work is around battery technology and the behavior of customers. There is not a lot of work done around the charging technology, or the charging process itself, nor how to manage charging.
One company that is sinking millions into technology is Better Place, a three-year-old California-based firm that has raised about $700 million from investors and imagines a vast global network of switch stations: gas station-like outlets where drivers can swap a spent battery with a fully charged one in a few minutes.
Led by soft-spoken Israeli-born founder Shai Agassi, a former executive at SAP, the company boasts of having built the largest cleantech investment in history. Last January, HSBC bought a 10 percent stake which valued Better Place at $1.25 billion.
Since earlier this year, the eco firm has been running a trial in Tokyo using three taxi cabs and will soon start testing a small network of stations in Israel, where it says it has deals with 92 corporate fleet owners. It expects a commercial launch in Israel and in Denmark in late 2011, and has plans in five other countries, including Australia, China and the United States.
The swap station model's main selling point is speed. Charging an EV battery can take up to eight hours. By switching batteries instead, that wait is reduced to three to four minutes. The company says its business model -- a subscription plan which covers the use of switch stations, the lease of a battery and the electricity used -- cuts a large cost item, the battery, out of the upfront price tag for the car.
The underlying assumption that we're working by is that this is too big a market to do half solutions, says Jason Wolf, head of Better Place North America. You're not going to get to mass adoption by people paying a premium because they want to be green or any other reason.
Early adopters, he says, will always buy cars like the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Roadster, which retail at about $33,000 and $109,000 respectively. Better Place will reach beyond that niche to the drivers -- commuters, salespeople, small business owners -- who put tens and even hundreds of thousands of miles a year on the clock. There's not a problem getting early adopters. That's great, we need them and we support those types of vehicles, but really where the heart of the market lies is the third of drivers who are burning two thirds of the gasoline.
But questions remain. In Israel, industry heavyweights including two of the country's biggest car fleets have adopted a wait-and-see approach to Better Place's trial. Eldan, a major leasing company whose cars are ubiquitous on Israeli roads, says it is in close contact with Better Place, but will not sign on until the electric-powered vehicles arrive and the technology is in place. At that time we can determine its quality and will positively consider a relationship with the company, Eldan said in a statement.
There's also little sign that major automakers are ready to start producing cars with switchable batteries. The Israel and Denmark schemes both benefit from generous local tax breaks for non-polluting cars, and will use Renault's Fluence ZE model. So far, Renault is the only carmaker to announce a switchable car. Renault's decision was helped by Better Place guaranteeing a production run of 100,000.
With 57,000 soft orders for the car by July -- most of them from fleet companies -- interest in the Fluence ZE has been greater than expected, insists Better Place. Still, prospective customers have paid no deposit nor made any financial commitment to buy.
Better Place was a catalyst for Renault to go mass market with the electric version of Fluence, says a Renault spokeswoman, adding that it was hard to say whether the model would have seen daylight without that guarantee.
Wolf concedes that Better Place will have problems if it can't convince other automakers to join the French carmaker in embracing switchable batteries. But given where we are in discussions (with automakers) and the logic behind it that all of them see, I don't see it as a major concern, he says.
Perhaps. But even if Better Place can convince other automakers of the logic of its model, there's still the question of what sort of batteries they would use. The electric vehicles on the road or in the works all use batteries of different types -- nickel sodium chloride, lithium-ion, lithium-metal-polymer -- and sizes.
Better Place says it expects to cater for about three different battery types -- more would impose greater warehousing demands at its switch stations -- and predicts other carmakers will eventually settle on one of those types.
You may hold an inventory of two, three types at first and over time what's going to happen is that pressures for OEMs (carmakers) to differentiate on batteries goes away, because you're manufacturer number three, four, five and you haven't already developed your own battery. At that point you're just going to take the least-cost, or best product for the overall vehicle, argues Wolf.
Automakers, though, say standardized batteries are far from inevitable. The world's biggest carmaker Toyota says it will continue to prioritize building cars for safety and performance, not to make it easy to get a battery in and out. There's also the fact that auto owners and manufacturers will be unable to track a battery -- where it's been, the conditions it faced -- which might make it difficult to diagnose problems in a car.
It is hard to imagine, says Toyota's Managing Director in Europe Graham Smith, of standardized batteries. What if a manufacturer feels like they can move faster?
For now, Toyota and General Motors have both chosen a dual, plug-in electric-gasoline approach which by-passes the need for charging away from home.
Even carmakers focused on pure EVs are hesitant to sign up. Every manufacturer has a different battery type, battery size, method for removing the battery, says Andy Wertheim, general manager of environmental affairs at Mitsubishi in Britain. Certainly at the moment we see that battery swapping is not relevant for us and for the foreseeable future.
Nissan, which shares a CEO in its alliance with Renault, also has doubts, citing its own research that shows that people prefer to own rather than lease a battery. There are different battery layouts, batteries are shaped differently. That means even between Nissan and Renault already there are two types of battery. So I just think: how do you store those? asks Jerry Hardcastle, vice president of vehicle design and development at Nissan Motor Co's technical center Europe. Nevertheless, he concedes the Better Place model might eventually work. We're watching very closely what's going on in Israel.
Better Place's main competition will come from extended range cars or the myriad companies building and promoting charge spots or stations: parking meter-like posts on a street, in a car park or elsewhere into which you plug your car to top up its battery.
One such is California-based ECOtality, which has won $130 million funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to install and trial charge spots across the United States. The company expects to install 20,000 stations by May next year.
Other big players in the fast-growing market are U.S.-based Coulomb Technologies, which has about 850 vehicle charge spots installed, Britain's Elektromotive, which has about 1,000, and AeroVironment, which has some 14,000 industrial chargers for the likes of fork lift trucks. Better Place also plans to install charge spots alongside its switch station hubs.
We view this as like cellphone coverage: the person with the largest network is ultimately going to win, says Jonathan Read, chief executive and president of ECOtality. Better Place is going to take a long time and a lot of money to roll it out. We're able to hit the ground and have a greater network distribution before they even start putting their first chargers in the ground.
The Better Place battery swap model, he says, is egregiously flawed -... the concept of vehicle manufacturers agreeing to any sort of common battery is like herding cats.
Office buildings, utilities, local governments and car park operators are all likely customers for EV charging stations. ECOtality will soon announce a deal to install charge points in gas stations, whose owners are keen to entice EV drivers into their convenience stores.
Other retailers see the logic in the schemes. Demand is not very high at the moment, says Jack Cunningham, environmental affairs manager at British retailer Sainsbury, which offers free charging to customers. We take a fairly long-term view that will increase.
But building the huge networks of charge posts that many envisage as the future will not be cheap -- and some experts question the economics of such schemes. In the UK, a single street-side charge post can cost up to 5,000 pounds ($7,700) to install. But with electricity providers making less than 2 pounds per charge, few see the business case for deploying them. We calculated that the payback was more than 50 years at the current electricity cost in Spain, says Jorge Sanchez Cifuentes, EV project manager at Endesa, a Spanish utility. British power providers voice similar concerns.
Getting the capex back is a bit of a stumbling block, concedes Calvey Taylor-Haw, founder of UK-based charge spot firm Elektromotive. You've got to have lots of money from central government.
Cisco's Feisst says state subsidies are the only way to get the infrastructure in place. If you want to make long-distance drives then you need a public charging infrastructure, he says. Utilities don't make a lot of money with public charging infrastructure so there must be government support to develop that, especially in the initial years when penetration of EVs is not high.
As governments cut spending in this age of austerity, though, such subsidies are likely to dry up, making a distant dream of plans for a network of systems that offer drivers universal charging with the cost billed back to a single provider.
Then there's the time factor. Recharging an EV can take up to eight hours, though that is coming down fast.
AeroVironment says it has devised a 50 kilowatt electric charger based on DC electricity which can power a Nissan Leaf in just 26 minutes, though each unit would cost $30-40,000. ECOtality says it can charge a Nissan Leaf to 80 percent full in 15 minutes using its 60 amp fast charger, which will cost $20-25,000 apiece. Better Place switch station hubs will cost about $500,000 to build.
In my opinion we're talking five to 10 years to have the right battery technology available that can make longer distances and allow faster charging, says Cisco's Feisst. It's critical to have a fast charging process at public charging stations, and then we don't need to replace the batteries.
Fast chargers have their own problems, according to IDC Energy Insights' Sam Jaffe, potentially damaging batteries and creating intolerable power surges on the grid. We are extremely skeptical about very-quick charge stations. It's technically feasible but on a large scale it would be very damaging for the grid.
ECOtotality calls that argument fallacious. But Better Place spokeswoman Julie Mullins agrees and says that's why the swappable battery model will win out: Our mission is to break dependence on oil and we can't wait 10 years for a better battery.
With all the uncertainty about battery-swap stations and recharging posts, it's not surprising that a growing number of EV backers see a minimalist approach -- charging at home or at the office -- as the best way ahead.
Because of safety concerns around the long, continuous load required to power an EV, carmakers are expected to mandate a home-charging device with every vehicle they sell. Little wonder that companies like Elektromotive, one of Britain's biggest manufacturers of public charging devices, have moved into home-charging stations.
Bethan Carver, Manager of Product Development at EDF Energy, the UK arm of French utility EDF, says the modest initial uptake of electric cars almost ensures most charging will be done at home. It's more important to develop charging solutions at home or at work. Our view is that only a small fraction of charging demand will take place on the street, a couple of percent ongoing.
Of course home-charging won't work for people who live in apartments and have no designated parking space. And there may be another, more curious reason why at least some roadside charge spots will be needed: to alleviate the range anxiety that many drivers of electric cars seem to suffer.
People were really apprehensive to drive because there was nowhere to charge, says Mitsubish's Andy Wertheim, of a pilot project in Kanagawa, Japan. But with the addition of a GPS system and even a single quick charging post it was amazing what happened with how much further people drove.
Nissan has found similar results. People who charged their cars at home at first go to the areas of Tokyo where there are quick charging points. But because we can track where they're going, as a research activity, bizarrely when they get there they don't charge their cars up. They go back home and recharge at home, says Nissan's Hardcastle.
In the end, it may be that the electric car market splits in two: urban drivers and fleet operators happy with limited range at low cost in one group, and motorists who want to go further and buy an extended range car in the other. For the next 20 years I think that will see us through, says Paul Nieuwenhuis from Cardiff's Center for Automotive Industry Research. I don't know if battery swap is the answer.
The fundamental problem of Better Place is it's going to cost so much. Can they raise that amount of capital? asks Jaffe, adding that he still sees a lot of intelligence in the model.
For me it's a question of timing, says EDF Energy's Bethan Carver. A lot of the debate so far is on future possibilities.
(With additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Tel Aviv and Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo; editing by Simon Robinson and Sara Ledwith)
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Active learning has been a trending topic in the e-discovery industry for some time, yet to many, the tech behind it is daunting. It's easy for technologists to jump into the nitty-gritty inner workings of active learning and AI, but many legal practitioners are left wondering what these innovations mean for their e-discovery projects.
For example, Relativity's new active learning Assisted Review workflow is based on a Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm, but how does it actually work? How is it different from Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)? And does the new active learning workflow mean LSI-based conceptual analytics is on its way out?
SVM vs. LSI
SVM is a tried and true approach to doing one thing particularly well: binary classification, which is really just a fancy way of saying "putting things into two buckets." It will break things down by "X" and "Not X." If you're a credit card company, you might need to know if a transaction is fraudulent or not fraudulent. A website needs to know if a user is a person or not a person (i.e., a "bot"). In e-discovery, of course, the canonical example is "responsive" and "not responsive." The SVM algorithm, inside an active learning Assisted Review workflow, will do this faster and more efficiently than ever before.
At its core, SVM—like LSI—operates on a spatial representation of your documents. With LSI, individual terms are synthesized into dimensions, which represent the relatedness of those terms. LSI lends itself to a conceptual view of the world which is quite human-like, and you can use diverse features, such as keyword expansion to see those term relationships, clustering to "automagically" organize your documents, and "find similar" to take a key document and find others like it.
SVM, on the other hand, doesn't invest in this conceptual synthesis. It seeks only to "split" the document space into two halves—corresponding to "X" and "Not X"—and then to rapidly classify any new documents by mapping them to one of the two sides. This approach is quick to stabilize, resilient, and performant—all valuable traits in the world of document review.
If you're not sure when to opt for SVM, think of it like a pickup truck—designed to do one thing extremely well. I've been able to get tremendous mileage out of my family sedan. I use it as a kid hauler, a daily commuter, and an occasional cargo transport. But when I want to move a sectional couch or bring a lawnmower to the dump, a pickup truck is what I need.
Incorporating Active Learning Assisted Review into Your Analytics Toolbox
When combined with the creativity of our user community, Relativity's flexibility yields innovative workflows. We're excited to see how users can leverage this increased breadth of analytics, bringing together very different algorithms to solve problems that any one of them could not solve alone.
For instance, when you think about email threading, concept clustering, and the SVM classifier, you have three completely independent capabilities, each with strengths and weaknesses. With this diversity of tools at your fingertips, you can bring the right, multi-faceted solution to each problem that you face.
The combined results from using both SVM and LSI—such as whether they corroborate or contradict one another—can yield different workflows, guiding your review project. For example, if you see the two algorithms in harmony, agreeing and complementing each other, it would imply a much higher confidence and you might fast-track a document downstream in your process.
On the flip side, you might apply SVM decisions as heat-maps onto your conceptual clusters and find a mostly (but not entirely) responsive cluster. The documents in that cluster tagged non-responsive might be placed into a QC workflow to figure out why the algorithms seem to disagree. For instance, LSI may have picked up on a nuanced term correlation during its index build, or perhaps SVM has determined a strong relationship between responsiveness and the presence of one particular term.
In a way, it's like the perfect meal that combines textures, flavors, and presentation. It appeals to multiple senses all at once, sometimes working together, sometimes catching our attention or curiosity with nuanced tension. With the new active learning Assisted Review workflow, there's a flavorful, fresh ingredient that's just come into season, allowing administrators to act as a master chef, coordinating the experience and using the ingredients in the right proportions. For short-order cooks—such as reviewers, newer users, or those who don't need to dive into the admin side of Relativity—this new ingredient can add plenty of flavor on its own, making it easy to get up and running quickly.


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Nigerian manufacturers have suffered in silence. No thanks to the cutthroat price of diesel and other petroleum products apart from petrol.
The astronomical rise in the price of diesel as it affects productive sectors is such that continuous silence and endurance would amount to a suicidal decision. Now is the time to cry out.
The unfortunate development is capable of killing many MSME businesses leading to massive job losses if not checked immediately. It is indeed common knowledge that increase in the price of petrol is usually greeted with public outcry and spontaneous reaction.
That appears to have informed the decision of the policymakers looking at the side of diesel and other petroleum products to increase price thus inflicting pain on already choked Nigerian manufacturers.
Because it is impossible for producers of goods and services to increase price proportional to the average cost of production, profit generated from business keeps slimming down.
By implication, the burden of resumed subsidy regime appears to be shifted on manufacturers through hidden and painful increase in the price of diesel.
Manufacturers' representatives and Labour union leaders should swing into action and sensitise government to the looming crisis if the trend is not curtailed immediately.
Source: Punch