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I have had two encounters with customer service departments this week as a result of online shopping experiences. Both had happy endings against my expectations.
Mobile phone company
The first was with my mobile phone company, Vodafone. My mobile phone, a Nokia E65, is over 3 years old, which doesn't sound old by normal standards. A lot has changed with mobile phones since then, and I decided that since it was my birthday I would upgrade to a smartphone. My E65 was able to connect to the internet but with the small screen and the need to scroll the mouse up and down and across internet access was slow and tedious and I tended not to use it.
I shopped around and checked reviews and decided on a HTC Legend. My current mobile phone company has this phone, and for that and other reasons I decided to stay with them. I had a play with it in the store and made my decision. I would replace my $20 per month sim-only plan with a $29 per month contract and pay an extra $10 per month for the phone of my choice – $39 per month. This was equivalent to me buying the phone outright somewhere else and staying on my $20 plan, with the added convenience of spreading the payment for the phone over 24 months.
I ordered it online. Part of the process was to tell them my existing phone number so I could transfer my number across to the new plan. By ordering online I could get a $100 credit and surely it would arrive in a reasonable time. I had ordered the Nokia online and had had to spend time on the phone with Customer Service to sort out the account, so I was prepared to have to do this, and decided it was worth the $100 credit I would receive.
After a week the phone hadn't arrived so I phoned Vodafone. The nice man with the accent assured me that the phone had been picked up by the courier company and gave me the consignment number. When I asked about swapping my accounts to the new phone he assured me that all I had to do was move my sim card to the new phone. The courier company did not have the consignment number on record and said it would take another couple of days, so I was disappointed when I went out the next day, thinking I was safe, and there was a card saying my phone had been left with the post office.
No matter. I picked up the phone, swapped my sim card over, gave the old phone to my husband, and away I went. I've had a lot of fun learning how to use it and playing with Facebook and Twitter and searching for information. I reminded myself to check my account online to make sure I wasn't paying for all this extra internet usage.
I did, and I was. I had racked up $55 worth of downloads in a couple of weeks. I was still on the old sim-only plan. I was furious. I rang Vodafone and spoke to a nice lady with an accent. She put me on hold, looked into it, and promised to ring me back after she'd spoken with her supervisor.
She did ring me back, the same afternoon. She hadn't been able to find a $39 plan so had put me on a $49 plan. I exploded. She asked me to allow her to finish. She had put a recurring $10 credit on my account, and had refunded the $55 extra charges. So I now get more free calls and a much higher data limit for the life of the contract.
I'm happy! I just wanted to be put on the contract I'd signed up for. I didn't expect anything extra. Because Vodafone went to the next level to keep me happy, they have made me a satisfied and loyal customer. At least for the 24 months of the contract.
The second experience was with a printing service. A company called ?Vistaprint has been marketing very aggressively lately. They were offering 140 free address labels that you could design on their website, with only postage to pay. I played around on the website and ordered some labels for my business, Heritage Genealogy, with the picture that I use on my website to appear on the labels.
They arrived, and I was happy with them. There was a mistake on the website but that was my fault, not theirs. I rarely forget to put the .au on the end of the website address, but this time I did. No matter, I thought, I can write it in.
I have received, since then, numerous emails offering bargains, and on one of them they were again offering free labels. Since they were free I figured I could correct my mistake and improve the picture, which I did. Once you have completed the configuring of the labels they offer other products and show you pictures of them with your picture and address inserted. There were pads and post-it notes at very low prices, so I ordered one of each. My order came to about $10, plus postage.
When I was checking out, the website offered me an additional pad and post-it notes with free postage. Since the amount of the postage came to about the same total as adding these items I agreed, thinking I was getting free postage for ordering more items. When I realised that it just meant no further postage would be charged I tried to go back but the order had been placed.
I was furious. I am reasonably savvy when it comes to computers and websites, and I felt I had been tricked into ordering more at the last minute with no opportunity to change my mind.
I think that if this had happened a few years ago I would have chalked it up to experience and left it at that. It was only about $15 more. No. I found the Contact Us page and told them what I thought of their website and their marketing practises.
That was a few days ago. This morning I received an email to say that they had given me a refund on the extra items I'd ordered and an apology for any inconvenience. The extra items have not been cancelled and so they are sending them with their compliments. I have already received notification from PayPal that the refund has been received.
So I'm less furious than I was, and happy that I will be getting what I thought I was ordering in the first place. I still think their website is misleading and I imagine most people who get tricked this way just let it go. I will probably use them again and be more wary, although I now have enough labels, post-its and pads to last me a good long while.
Lessons learned
- Times are getting tougher for businesses, mine as well as the bigger ones. Repeat business is important, and for customers to keep coming back they need to be happy and think well of your business. It pays to give a little something to keep them onside.
- Don't be afraid to complain when something isn't right, even if it's only $15 worth. If they are a business worth sticking with they will fix your problem and go out of their way to offer you more than you expected. They don't know about problems unless we customers tell them.
Free images courtesy of Ekaterina Gorelova on Dreamstime


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A popular feature of The Milwaukee Journal from 1963 through 1994 prepared by library staff to highlight Milwaukee's past as preserved in the Historic Photo Collection
The most extensive collection EBSCO has available, designed especially for public libraries. It includes a broad range of newspaper and magazine articles, academic journals, biographical information and images. Provided as part of Wisconsin's BadgerLink program.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Emmerich, Walter (1929-2007) | Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections
Walter Emmerich was born in Bronxville, N.Y., he spent most of his formative years in Washington, D.C., and Chicago. After attending Reed College for two years, he enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1951 and a doctorate in psychology in 1956. He was subsequently a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado and later in the Department of Child Development at Purdue University, where he taught graduate courses.
He served as visiting professor at Princeton and Stanford Universities. In 1966, he spent a year as NIMH Visiting Scholar at Educational Testing Service before joining the staff as Senior Research Psychologist. He retired from ETS as Principal Measurement Specialist, Emeritus, in 1997, but remained until July 2007 as an active researcher and developer of new assessments.
Mr. Emmerich was author of more than 50 theoretical papers, research articles, monographs, and book chapters. His major theory-based research was on children's social and personality development. He also developed new ways to measure reasoning among college students as well as the personality factors influencing occupational selection, particularly teachers' choices of their specialties. Most recently, he developed new procedures for assessing and strengthening the academic interests and motivation of community college students.
He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Association, and Association for Psychological Science. He was a member of Sigma Xi and a long-standing member of the Society for Research in Child Development, serving as an invited participant in its oral history project.
Active as the treasurer of Community Without Walls, he became a vocal advocate for senior housing in Princeton.
He enthusiastically shared his passions for the outdoors, travel, politics, classical music, and the arts with his family and friends.
Emmerich died September 25, 2007 of pancreatic cancer.


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Welcome to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy's Online Store. We offer a variety of materials, including postcards, posters, and pamphlets, as well as DVDs, research reports, and practical manuals.
If you have questions about our publications or the ordering process, please visit our frequently asked questions (FAQs) section of the store or send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Proto JH4-10MB Tw Int Head 425 10mm Be
List Price: $93.60
You Save: $50.15 (54%)
Part Number: JH4-10MB UPC: 662679004422 Weight: 0.08
• The Proto TorquePlus Design, a high performance drive configuration which allows for quick and easy wrench engagement with the fastener flats, not the corners.
• 12 point box end allows for fine indexing, helping to improve speed and access.
• Fits 4, 6 and 12 point fasteners.
• Indexed to 7.5º to help keep shank clear of obstructions by allowing the user to flip the wrench over to continue turning the fastener.
• Countersunk on both sides to allow for easy application to the fastener.
• Finish: Black Oxide
• Overall Length [in]: 3-5/32
• Size [mm]: 14


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For the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 3 (8-inch) round cake pans and line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper. Spray the paper and pans with baking spray. Set the pans aside until ready to use.
In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the oil and sugars together until combined. Mix in the vanilla and add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the carrots and pineapple and mix until combined.
In a large bowl sift together the 2 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamom and cinnamon. With the mixer speed on low, add the flour mixture to the carrot mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix until just combined. In a small bowl, toss the pecans with the remaining 1 tablespoon of flour. Fold the pecans into the batter.
Pour the batter evenly into the prepared cake pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 35 to 45 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks for 15 minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and cool completely on the racks.
While the cakes are cooling, prepare the icing. In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter and cream cheese together until well combined. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the confectioners' sugar. Mix until combined. Add the vanilla and white chocolate. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until smooth, about 1 to 2 minutes. Set aside 1 cup of icing for decoration. Add the heavy cream and beat until combined.
To frost the cake, arrange 1 cake layer on a cake plate. Spread the top with the cream cheese icing and top with a second and third cake layer, spreading the icing between each layer. Spread the icing on top and around the sides of the cake. Apply the almonds to the sides of the frosted cake. Fill a pastry bag, fitted with a star tip, with the reserved icing and pipe a border around the top of the cake. Cut the cake and serve.
A viewer or guest of the show, who may not be a professional cook, provided this recipe. It has not been tested for home use.
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Get a sneak-peek of the new Food Network recipe page and give us your feedback.See it Now!


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Dorm plans
Saint Anselm College plans new on-campus dormitoryBy SUSAN CLARK
Union Leader Correspondent
July 22. 2013 6:36PM
GOFFSTOWN — Saint Anselm College is proposing a new 47,860-square-foot on-campus dormitory to house 150 students.
The proposal calls for a three-story dormitory with a basement to be built at the lower entrance to the campus behind Brady Hall, and on the corner of St. Anselm's Drive and Rundlett Hill Road. The building would be set back about 115 feet from St. Anselm's Drive and 80 feet from Rundlett Hill Road. The building would be located in Goffstown's residential zone.
The Planning Board will review the plan and application for a conditional-use permit at its meeting on Thursday at 7 p.m.
The college initially received approval to build the dormitory in October 2008, but because of the market downturn the college decided to put the plan on hold, said Brian Rose, Goffstown planning director.
Since 2008, the town's zoning laws have changed and the college now needs a conditional use permit allowing for a building of more than 5,000 square feet in a residential zone.
"It doesn't make sense to hold them to the 5,000-square-foot requirement," Rose said. "The Planning Board can grant more square footage for a conditional use permit. The building will have a 13,000 footprint."
According to Rose, the dormitory plan is not considered to have regional impact because it will not generate traffic, and the college is not looking to increase enrollment.
"I'm recommending there is no regional impact. They're assuming it will not bring in additional vehicles to the campus. They want to add seven parking spaces at the building, two for handicap and the others for drop off, and people to run in to do errands," Rose said.
The college's enrollment stands at about 2,000 students, and the campus provides about 2,000 parking spaces; about 1,750 spaces are needed to service the college.
Jeff Kevan of TF Moran said parking will not be an issue.
"The way I look at it, the more people living on campus, the less traffic on the road," Kevan said.
Kevan said the proposed three-story brick building would blend in with the existing campus.
"Their architecture is pretty consistent on campus. It's top notch," he said.
The college held a ground-breaking ceremony for the new dormitory on July 10. According to the college's website, the new residence hall is expected to be ready for occupancy in fall 2014 and "will be an innovative living-learning community that extends the college's efforts to integrate academic and residential life." It will be organized into neighborhood suites, with single-, double-, and triple-bed rooms, common areas and additional study space.
College officials could not be reached for comment.
The Planning Board meets at 7 p.m. in the Mildred Stark Room at Goffstown Town Hall, 16 Main St.


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Increasing Joy and Employee Engagement
By: Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, coauthors of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011.)
No doubt about it -- there is a disengagement crisis at work -- a trend that's impacted employee engagement.
If you're an employer, this is probably not news to you.
Studies from the APA, Aon and others have found that a high percentage of people are stressed, unhappy, and disengaged from the work they do. In fact, in a recent article, Gallup reported that a majority of US employees do not feel engaged at work.
Much of the blame undoubtedly falls on changing work environments. Since the economic downturn, cost-cutting measures have required many people to carry a greater burden of the work with fewer resources, a topic that we've written about more than once in our Harvard Business Review blog.
Improving Employee Performance
The question becomes what managers can do to improve employee engagement and the well-being of their employees -- which, incidentally, improves employee performance.
In our research, we analyzed nearly 12,000 daily diaries from professionals in several different companies, in order to determine what makes for good inner work life: joy, engagement, and positive views of the job.
Our research made a surprising discovery. Of all the things that can boost inner work life, the single most prominent factor for employee engagement is simply making progress in meaningful work. We call this the progress principle.
Here are seven ways you can use our discovery to sustain your employees' engagement in their work:
1. Help employees find meaning in the work they do. This doesn't have to be some higher purpose such as curing cancer. It can simply be contributing to a quality product or service for their customers. It can even be supporting their teammates. It is critical that you communicate the value of the organization's mission and how their daily efforts contribute to those goals.
2. Support progress each day. Providing meaningful work is only the first step. People must also have the opportunity to succeed at that work. Give them the resources and help they need to do great work. Even when resources are tight, there is much you can do to support progress. Be sure that people's skills are well-matched to their work. Make sure that their goals are clear and that they have sufficient autonomy to use their own skills and talents to meet those goals. And make yourself available to help out when needed. These and many other things you can do are not costly, but they can make a huge difference in the success or failure of a project.
3. Ensure that employees find time each day for the work that they find most meaningful. Too often, even when people work hard all day, they find themselves unable to get to the work that they think is most important. They are interrupted by unexpected demands or smothered under a mountain of necessary but tedious "grunt work." Try to protect some "sacred" time each day that people can use to focus on critical work, and eliminate extraneous tasks as much as possible.
4. Make note of employees' progress and celebrate it. When workers complete one task, there is invariably another one to take its place. It's natural for people to just move on, without having a moment to savor their own accomplishment. We discovered that the progress principle operates even when people make a small step forward toward some meaningful goal -- a small win. So take a moment to recognize even small steps forward.
5. Encourage employees to celebrate the successes of their teammates. Because so much of modern work requires teamwork, one person's accomplishment is really the team's accomplishment. Create a climate where employees routinely support, recognize and celebrate each other's progress. Even when a worker is having setbacks, his or her inner work life can still be nourished by the accomplishments of others. And because team members will be recognizing each other's progress, some of the burden will be lifted from your shoulders.
6. Value setbacks. There is a dark side to the progress principle: of all the events that contribute to poor inner work life, having setbacks (being blocked or stalled in the work) is by far the most prominent. Even worse, the negative effect of setbacks is two to three times stronger than the positive effect of progress. Yet setbacks are inevitable in complex and difficult work. When someone does have a setback, don't view it as a failure and, above all, don't punish it. Rather, view it as a natural part of doing hard work. Then help people extract value from it; ask what was learned that can help the team move forward.
7. Encourage friendship. OK, this tip isn't about progress, but it is about inner work life. Gallup researchers have long found that having a best friend at work can turn a moderately engaged employee into a highly engaged one. So, create opportunities for people to develop friendships and bond. These can be team lunches, other get-togethers, or activities outside of work. As stronger friendships develop, you'll find that employee will likely be happier and more engaged at work. As a bonus, they'll become more collaborative and helpful.
These techniques are not costly, they don't take much time, and they aren't very difficult. But they do require your attention. Keep them on your mental agenda in the coming year. You might even consider making them your New Year's Work Resolutions.
Author Bio:
Teresa Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration and a Director of Research at Harvard Business School. She has written extensively on creativity, motivation, and everyday work life. Steven Kramer is a developmental psychologist, writer, and researcher on inner work life and performance. Amabile and Kramer are the coauthors of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011.)
Read more:
- Employee Engagement Surveys: The Secret Sauce of Successful Businesses
- How to Curb Clock Watching and Increase Employee Engagement
- A Fresh Approach to Recruitment and Employee Engagement at CLEARLINK


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Beaumont/Port Arthur
I have seldom gone to an athletic contest where the home team was losing when I did not hear comments all around me from those who believe they could have done better than the coach—They should have called a pass instead of a run; they should have punted instead of trying on fourth down, etc. etc. Criticism such as this always carries the implication the critic could have done better had he or she been in the shoes of the person being criticized. Being a Monday-morning quarterback is not only large in athletic endeavors, it is also extremely large in politics and government.
On a recent visit to watch my granddaughter graduate from high school, I had occasion to spend a few days in Michigan. In some ways, I discovered Michigan resembles Texas as far as state governance is concerned. Both houses of the legislature are Republican, as is each state's governor.
As a student of government, educated by experience, I have long held the belief that public education is among the most important functions of state government. Unfortunately, more and more it appears my belief in education being the future of Texas is not shared by the leadership of state government today.
A recent edition of the New York Times revealed the results of an investigation. It showed that lobbyists in Washington are spending more than $3 billion per year lobbying Congress. A recent analysis conducted by former Agriculture Ctommissioner Jim Hightower identified amounts of money spent on lobbying in campaign contributions by category. His report was broken down by financial institutions, pro sports, radio, television and publishing companies.
In looking over recently introduced measures in the current session of the State Legislature, I discovered H.B. 1819. The bill was offered by Bryan's state representative, Kyle Kacal. The bill provides a cause of action if a homeowner harms or kills a goat. Although that seems appropriate for the representative from the area of Texas A&M, I am given to wonder why the Legislature appears to have more concern for animals than it does many of the people of Texas.
While we harbor no disrespect for the Wall Street Journal who called us "that scrappy little paper from Southeast Texas," we prefer to think of ourselves as simple seekers of the truth. We're of the opinion that headlines and sound bites never tell the whole story. Our readers demand all the facts, facets and flavors of every story or event. And, they expect to be informed, educated and stirred to action.
For this week's New York Times crossword puzzle, pick up a copy of this week's The Examiner on newsstands now.


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Specifications: Ignition protected to SAE J1171 Pull-in voltage: 7.8V maximum at 12V DC, 15.6V at 24V DC. Release voltage: 1.2V minimum at 12V DC, 2.4V at 24V DC. Temperature range: -40°C to 85°C. Operational life: Electrical to 100,000 cycles; Mechanical to 10 million cycles. Contact Material: Silver alloy. dielectric : 500V rms between coil and contact. Insulation resistance: 100M? minimum (500V DC). Vibration resistance: 10-40Hz double amplitude 1.5mm. Ignition protected to SAE J1171, Section 5.
Additional Information
|Product Condition


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The BYU Corpora consist of nine English language corpora (including the Wikipedia Corpus, the TIME Magazine Corpus, and the Corpus of American Soap Operas), one corpus in Spanish, one in Portuguese, and a Google Books (Advanced) interface. The corpora can be used by researchers for several purposes, including: finding the frequency of words and phrases, tracking changes in language over time, and gaining insight into how people write and think about cultural concepts in different contexts. In addition to the corpora themselves, the database offers different corpora-based resources. These allow you to enter and analyze your own text, download large amounts of corpus-based data (e.g.Expand
word frequency, collocates, and n-grams), and see detailed entries for the top 60,000 words in English.Please note that users will need to create an individual account to access the corpora: it is free and takes about 30 seconds to create. Students can run up to 200 queries per day and faculty can run up to 400, so long as they are connected from campus or via proxy IP access. Most importantly, there is no limit to the number of queries run by a given class or department.
Subjects: English and American Literature, Government Information, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Linguistics, Sociology, Spanish, Film and Media Studies


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See Ron Hock of Hock Tools in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Ron Hock, owner of Hock Tools and author of "The Perfect Edge," and his wife, Linda Rosengarten are off to Brooklyn, N.Y., for vacation, but they'll be spending the afternoon of October 25 at a woodworking event co-sponsored by Tools for Working Wood and Makeville Studios – and you're invited.
There are three sessions available:
• Make a Spokeshave using the Hock kit – and with Ron's help (the kit for the build is available at a discount).
• Handplane Clinic – Ron delves into identifying and fixing problems – including how to make a vintage tool perform like new – handplane rehab!
• A Meet and Greet with Ron and Linda – and he'll have signed copies of "The Perfect Edge" available – or sign the copy you already own.
Registration is free, but you must sign up in advance. For more information, visit Joel Moskowitz's blog at Tools for Working Wood.
p.s. Can't make the event to meet Ron in person? You should still have "The Perfect Edge" in your woodworking library – as it says on the cover, it's "The Ultimate Guide to Sharpening for Woodworkers." But the books goes beyond how to sharpen (though that's covered in great detail for all your edge tools) – Ron also teaches what sharp really is, and how different steels and abrasives work.


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42 U.S. Code § 1962b–1 - Membership of commissions; appointment of chairman
prev | next
Each river basin commission shall be composed of members appointed as follows:
(a) A chairman appointed by the President who shall also serve as chairman and coordinating officer of the Federal members of the commission and who shall represent the Federal Government in Federal-State relations on the commission and who shall not, during the period of his service on the commission, hold any other position as an officer or employee of the United States, except as a retired officer or retired civilian employee of the Federal Government;
(b) One member from each Federal department or independent agency determined by the President to have a substantial interest in the work to be undertaken by the commission, such member to be appointed by the head of such department or independent agency and to serve as the representative of such department or independent agency;
(c) One member from each State which lies wholly or partially within the area, river basin, or group of river basins for which the commission is established, and the appointment of each such member shall be made in accordance with the laws of the State which he represents. In the absence of governing provisions of State law, such State members shall be appointed and serve at the pleasure of the Governor;
(d) One member appointed by any interstate agency created by an interstate compact to which the consent of Congress has been given, and whose jurisdiction extends to the waters of the area, river basin, or group of river basins for which the river basin commission is created;
(e) When deemed appropriate by the President, one member, who shall be appointed by the President, from the United States section of any international commission created by a treaty to which the consent of the Senate has been given, and whose jurisdiction extends to the waters of the area, river basin, or group of river basins for which the river basin commission is established.
Source(Pub. L. 89–80, title II, § 202,July 22, 1965, 79 Stat. 247.)
LII has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references LII.


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The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
From the bleak isolation of a provincial elite, young Edmund Wilson drove himself to escape by way of cosmopolitan society, sexual freedom, and high culture. A dreary chronicle of alcoholic camaraderie now reveals that his personality had set too deeply and too soon for indirect methods to transform it. In middle age he would come to terms with his fate, realizing that the humanistic tradition gave meaning to his life even if it could not expel his demons.
Wilson was the only child of a melancholy lawyer who thought gambling in stock shares was immoral, and of an ardent gardener who loved spectator sports. Both parents belonged to rich, distinguished families; both were hard to talk to. The father was self-absorbed and hypochondriacal; the mother was deaf. Mr. Wilson senior began having breakdowns when his son was an infant, and he spent his later years in and out of sanatoriums. Mrs. Wilson would have liked Edmund junior to be an athlete; she did not read his work.
When Wilson was growing up, the family relations constituted his social circle. He collaborated on literary projects with a favorite cousin Sandy Kimball, who became his only "really close companion" before Wilson went away to prep school. They read Studies in the Psychology of Sex together, and Sandy disturbed him with tales of homosexual experiences at St. Paul's School. When Wilson returned from military service in 1919, he discovered that Sandy was now schizophrenic, living in a sanatorium.
At this point, where an earlier and mercifully thinner volume left off, Wilson's fat new gathering of autobiographical materials takes up. Some hint of its limitations may be conveyed by his treatment of the month of May 1923. About the beginning of that month he married the actress Mary Blair. Mrs. Wilson senior disapproved of the bride, and Mr. Wilson had discussed the matter with—of all people—Frank Crowninshield, his son's epicene boss at Vanity Fair. But Dean Gauss of Princeton, Wilson's surrogate father, at once invited the young couple for a visit and politely wondered whether the new wife would take her husband's name.
On May 8 Wilson had his twenty-eighth birthday. The following week, he and his mother visited his father in the hospital where he was dying of pneumonia. Just before the end, the sick man asked them for the doctor's opinion, and his wife gave a little cry. But as soon as she came downstairs with her son, she declared what was really on her mind: "Now I'm going to have a new house." The only entries in The Twenties under May 1923 are descriptions of landscapes—although Wilson mentions the talk with Crowninshield in an editorial commentary.
It looks as if he would have liked to furnish his audience with a panoramic view of American civilization through the eyes of an acute observer. He supplies lists of popular songs and current slang, like…
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Science Friday® is produced by the Science Friday Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Science Friday® and SciFri® are registered service marks of Science Friday, Inc. Site design by Pentagram; engineering by Mediapolis.
In his new book The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, former vice president Al Gore takes a sweeping census of the variables affecting the future of life on Earth, including everything from robosourced labor and millisecond stock trading to genetic engineering and water shortages, and of course, climate change.


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Simon Poulter of the always excellent – What Would David Bowie Do? blog on the human riff.
Britain's Daily Mail, a newspaper you can regard with varying degrees of editorial pointlessness, surmised in June that Keith Richards – the Human Riff, the Human Lab, and a dozen other nicknames reflecting both guitar prowess and indestructibility – was now so broken, so ravaged by arthritic hands and addled memory that he was finding it hard to perform.
Almost in unison, a section of the paper's permanently seething readership waded in with a barrage of reaction, some berating Keef for even being alive, others suggesting the Rolling Stones had ended their relevance a long time before and should now just give up.
This may go some way to explain why, when the band announced their four 50th anniversary shows, a nuclear mushroom cloud appeared above Middle England as concerned representatives of the Mail's readership turned apoplectic at news Richards, Jagger, Watts and Wood – with a combined age of 273 – were to roll once more.
Well, today we can make that 274, as Richards chalks up his 69th birthday. It's an unlikely milestone, even he'll admit. This apparent freak of nature, who only gave up hard drugs eight years ago, has, for the best part of adulthood, tested human pharmaceutical endurance to its limits while seeing so many contemporaries succumb to rock's lethal distractions. He is at a loss to explain how he has survived and others didn't. Perhaps he should just say "pleased to meet you – hope you guessed my name".
The brilliant autobiography
Much of Richards' homespun philosophy can be found in his brilliant book Life. A stupendously refreshingly read, Life tells Keef's story with well managed honesty and little obvious attempt at embellishment, either of the hard truths or the apocryphal tales. It is an engagingly rich story of a boy emerging from London's bombsite-ridden suburbs to embrace the music of America's impoverished south, turning such an unlikely affection into the spiritual heart of the most famous – some maintain greatest – rock and roll band of the last 50 years.
That's an accolade that welcomes challenge: bands have come and bands have gone. "Every generation throws another hero up the pop charts", sang Paul Simon, and the Stones have faced plenty of competition. They've also faced plenty of challenges of their own, not least of which the sibling fractures between Richards and Jagger that have seen them fight, tussle and, seemingly, fall apart irreparably on regular occasions.
Something, however, has always brought them back together again. Richards has always maintained that he and Jagger share a true brotherly love, a bond that occasionally breaks. In his words, Richards has, though, tended to paint Jagger as the more nefarious Glimmer Twin, the posher of the two middle-class Dartford boys, the Stone with the business sense and, now, the knighthood.
Richards, on the other hand, has frequently played up his image as the Stones' pirate captain, the rock'and'roll rogue: unpredictable and possibly dangerous, like John Belushi's character Bluto in Animal House, but beneath it all, fundamentally a good guy.
For a while – particularly in the wake of John Lennon's murder – Richards regularly carried either a knife or a gun, or both. He's not the Stone to be messed with by any order. Just go to YouTube and find the memorable clip from their 1981 tour, when Keith sees a fan jump on stage and starts charging towards him and Jagger (who deftly takes a swerve), removes his Telecaster by the neck and hacks the fan to the ground before strapping the guitar back on to continue playing. "The cat was in my space," said Richards, matter-of-factly, "so I chopped the mother down". That's why you've got to love Keith. Liam Gallagher may have looked like he could do something like that, but you suspect only Keith Richards would.
Immersing myself in Richardsville
Over the last few months I have been immersed in the Rolling Stones. Whatever commercial voodoo they performed around their 50th anniversary has clearly worked. I've bought their book and visited the Somerset House exhibition of the book's photographs; I've acquired Blu-ray Discs and DVDs of them in concert in the 70s, 80s and 90s, of them jamming with their great hero Muddy Waters, in the brilliant Stones In Exile documentary, and setting new records on the Bigger Bang tour. And I've spent a frustrating 30 minutes attempting to blow what's left of my life savings on a ticket to one of – any of – their London and New Jersey shows. Somewhere there is a bulldozer with a tongue logo on it shovelling cash into four or five large piles.
While this accumulation will be due in part to Sir Mick Jagger's assumed stewardship of Rolling Stones Inc. (actually, a Dutch-registered public limited company called Promotone BV which holds its annual company meetings in the curious-to-say-the-least location of Amsterdam), the company's Chief Riff Officer and CEO Jagger's fellow Wentworth Primary School, Dartford, alumnus, Richards, might be comfortable with his rewards, but remains at his happiest strumming a blues in an open D tuning.
These last few weeks, the more Stones material I've been exposed to, the more I've come to appreciate their music, especially its subtlety. That is not a word you associate with the Stones, who've often been regarded by music snobs as a Premier League Status Quo for the chugging, thumbs-in-belt-loops-ahoy boogie of Honky Tonk Woman, or the cringeworthy street patois of Miss You, and it's equally abhorrent disco beat.
But then listen carefully to Sympathy For The Devil, Paint It Black or Gimme Shelter, or some of the live standards like Monkey Man or Tumbling Dice or Midnight Rambler, along with lesser known gems hidden away on their 26-odd studio albums. Why, even more recent fare like Love Is Strong and Doom And Gloom – knocked out in a Paris studio over a couple of days – still deliver the goods as far as Rolling Stones songs go.
You could say that for half their careers, the Rolling Stones have faced calls to quit on the grounds that they're too old. Keith Richards, at 69, may be today a more avuncular version of his former self, with his clean living and throaty, bronchial laugh (not to mention his parodic turn as Captain Jack Sparrow's father in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise – with Johnny Depp happy to admit Sparrow was based on Richards), but he and his ageing band have endured.
That endurance has come from tampering little with the brand: The Beatles started out as rock and rollers before discovering psychedelia and inventing progressive rock; The Who applied a rock edge to Tamla Motown; Led Zeppelin deconstructed and then reconstructed the blues; but the Stones are and have always been the Coca-Cola of rock.
Classic Stones
Sure, like Coke (Classic anyone?) they've taken a few ill-advised diversions, but today the Stones remain, pretty much, the same thing enjoyed by each generation that has come across them. Snobs blame this absence of variety on a fairly limited musical spectrum, but much of this is down to Keith. It is, mostly, his songs and riffs that have dictated the Rolling Stones musically.
Richards might have willingly – and at times, to his patent regret – left the running of the band to Jagger, but the spirit of the Stones, the heart and soul of the Stones belongs to him. It was Keith, not Brian Jones who found the triangulation point between the Mississippi Delta, Chicago and London. It was Jagger who then took the concoction and turned it into something more exotic, more 5th Avenue than Dartford High Street, like Levi-Strauss turning workwear into the most enduring fashion item of modern history.
But that's why we love Keith. If he has pretensions and delusions of grandeur, he keeps them well hidden. He has amassed a fortune, and his properties display copious evidence of his wealth, but unlike the apparent airs and graces of his writing partner, Richards doesn't overplay the finer things in his life.
To see him on stage today, earnestly toiling away on his collection of Telecasters and other luthiered exotica, is to see a master craftsman at work. He may never be a virtuoso in the manner of a Clapton, a Beck or a Page, but I don't think he particularly cares. And nor should you. Happy Birthday Keith.
Images PA
Article originally published here.


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This is going to be a very nerdy post: Three reviews of things, the first of…
Saw Les Misérables yesterday.
Honestly, a musical is not my cup of tea, but the movie was just fine. I have familiarity and appreciation for the story, and the musical, from my youth, so I was curious to see how it would be adapted, and like everyone else, I had heard good things about the performances of Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. I suspect they'll both get Oscar nominations, but Anne Hathway is the one with the real shot here. She does a lot of heavy lifting with the relatively limited role of Fantine and even in her short time here no one hits the strides and the heights and depths that she can plumbs so easily. Jackman is good, but not as good as her. Plus, he's got the unfortunate timing of potentially being nominated for Best Actor in the same award season as Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln.
Tom Hooper, however, is as boring in his direction as he was in The King's Speech, and possibly less so. Somehow that film was both nominated and managed to win the big awards, but I don't think that will be the case here. Especially not in a year that produced a Lincoln, a Zero Dark Thirty, and a Life Of Pi.
Anyway, minor flaws of the film that aren't so minor: Way too fucking long and not interesting enough to sustain that length. The stuff towards the end with the June Rebellion was dreadfully boring, and anytime Jackman, Hathaway, or even Russell Crowe as Javert weren't on screen, you found yourself checking your watch. I did enjoy Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter (she's just doomed to always play the gothic clown now, isn't she?) as the Thénardiers, and they did provide some much needed comic relief to the film, but their rendition of the film's second most memorable song was pretty boring.
Anyway, my second review is of…
Gun Machine, the new novel by Warren Ellis.
This is a fun, slightly nuts book, which is the usual from Ellis. His first novel, Crooked Little Vein, was a silly but interesting little pulp travelogue through America, and Gun Machine comes from a similar place, but it's more of a harder crime novel. This is Warren Ellis sodomizing writers like James Patterson and Ed McBain with his ideas, sort of.
The premise is simple: A cop stumbles upon an apartment filled with guns, hundreds of them and nothing else, and each crime can be traced to a different unsolved crime. Somebody has been keeping these guns all this time as trophies.
I believe I read somewhere the book has already been optioned to be developed into a TV show, which is… exciting, I guess. Granted, they'll take the premise, and they'll tone it down. They'll have to. This book is a little nuts, and filled with a lot of little minutiae that's probably closer to the harsh reality of crime in a big insane urban cityscape, but not the kind of thing that the flyover states are ready to tune into from their local affiliate. The first scene of the book, for example, involves the main character's partner getting half of his face blown off by a shotgun blast delivered by a ranting naked man.
That said, there are lots of little ideas and the basic premise that could easily translate into a very interesting serial procedural. That, and I would like to see the type of characters that Ellis writes on either the small screen or the big screen, as they're usually broken, mouthy creatures who are incorruptibly brave (a nice way of putting it from the Wired review quoted as a blurb on the cover) and very good at what they do.
Half of this book is written in the parlance of the internet, almost as if Ellis got tired of scanning the internet landscape and fueled some of that excitement and anger into a writing frenzy. At the same time, as a fan of his comic books and ideas shared in various places online, I am excited to see him evolving in a new medium, but I can't say that it feels like he's challenging himself here. But I have to say that I would secretly like to see Ellis tackle one of his nonfiction books that have more than one foot inside music theory and hauntological futures (which he is working on, thankfully), or maybe some kind of insane sci fi novel – I would love to see Warren Ellis become the new Harlan Ellison – or really get into TV, writing for Doctor Who or resurrecting Quatermass, something like that.
The second review being of…
"The Snowmen," the recent Doctor Who Christmas special.
I miss talking about Doctor Who, here or anywhere else. I really need to develop a venue for that, but as far as this episode goes, in short: This was a merely so so episode with great characters in it. Matt Smith is always good and shining with the Doctor, and only improves as he continues to play the character, and Vastra, Jenny, and Strax are welcome ongoing returns to the series, and I can't say enough nice things about Jenna-Louise Coleman's Clara, who is mysterious and a serious breath of fresh air. If I'm being honest, I may be doing this post solely to post pictures of her.
That said, this episode was not great. The webisode prequels were more interesting than a good deal of the regular plot of the episode, and I thought it was brave that the threat that the characters were facing down was given an extreme back seat to the character moments.
Steven Moffat's writing is always great, but if I had one major criticism of his tenure on Doctor Who as the showrunner it would be that everything feels too rushed. I assume that the fickle nature of television and the constant need to up the ante is what causes that, but as much as I enjoyed season 5 as the shakedown cruise for a new Doctor, companion, and way of looking at the show, season 6 seemed very rushed, big on set up and small on payoff, possibly because the payoff had to be pushed forward, forward, forward. Part of me wonders if a lot of that was necessitated by the upcoming 50th anniversary special.
That special lead to a lot of new additions in the Christmas special, including the introduction of Smith's face in the main credit sequence (which I'm positive they've been threatening since he took over the role) and a redesigned TARDIS console room that brought back a lot of the blandness of the poorly executed production design from the show's earlier regenerations in video with rubber monsters back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
And I'm as curious as the next person about some of the big things to come, like the presumed payoff of the First Question, but eventually it could get tiring to constantly finding situations for characters to say, "Doctor… Who?"
Anyway. That said, I'm looking forward to the second half of the current season and the (re)introduction of Clara, Mark 3. I suspect that she'll be everything that we had assumed and hoped that Amy Pond will be, and I'm really looking forward it. The show regenerates each time a new Doctor steps out of the ashes of the previous one, but as they keep rightfully so telling us, the show is about the companions and the view they provide, and it really feels like the show could come to life again with the addition of Clara. I'm excited.


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Raleigh, Charlotte to host NCAA tournament games in '14, '15
Raleigh, Charlotte to host NCAA tournament games in '14, '15
Some early-round games in the NCAA men's basketball tournament will take place in North Carolina in 2014 and 2015.
Raleigh's PNC Arena will host games in the second and third rounds in 2014, NCAA officials announced Monday.
Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena will host games in the rounds of 64 and 32 in 2015.
Raleigh last hosted an NCAA tournament round in 2008, while Charlotte last hosted in 2011. The Greensboro Coliseum hosted the same rounds earlier this year.
Madison Square Garden will host the 2014 East Regional, marking the first time in 53 years that the famous arena will host a tournament game.


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Delivery and pick-up details
Get it how and when you want it. Preferred scheduling and delivery costs available at checkout.
Delivery Includes
- Prep and assembly of your furniture. Except on "Ready to Assemble" merchandise.
- Professional set-up and placement in your home.
- In-home service for repair or replacement of defective items for one year.
Pick-up Includes
- Free shipping to local stores. Option selected at checkout.
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Dimensions: Width: 34'' Height: 37'' Depth: 37''
Dimensions: Width: 34'' Height: 37'' Depth: 37''
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Totally Elegant. You'll appreciate the style and comfort of the Tracy accent chair. Its dense and durable seat cushion is reversible for easy cleaning ... see more
Dimensions: Width: 34'' Height: 37'' Depth: 37''
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text: Pretty sure Ill be placed in the Wicked Stepfather category as a result of this action. Yesterday afternoon was the straw that broke the camels back. After listening to a few minutes of vulgar language coming out of his room, I decided to exchange work stations with ZG and began clearing my desk. My plan was, she goes to the office (which abuts his bedroom) and Ill relocate to the area off the kitchen. She didnt want to do that because this area has a nice view of the outdoors. So she decided to make this move to increase the ability to monitor his computer use. Maybe he'll actually become social again. We hope its effective.


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A long-time faculty member at UMass Amherst, Dean Albertson was an historian of the twentieth century United States with a specialty in oral history. A veteran of the Second World War, Albertson received his BA from University of California Berkeley (1942) and doctorate from Columbia (1955), joining the Department of History at UMass in 1965 after several years at Brooklyn College. The author of books on Dwight Eisenhower, Claude Wickard (Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture), and the student movements of the 1960s, Albertson was interested throughout his career in new methods in research and teaching history. He died at his home in Longmeadow, Mass., on March 31, 1989, at the age of 68.
Dean Albertson's History 384 class at UMass Amherst, required students to conduct oral histories relating to a theme in contemporary U.S. history chosen each year. Between 1975 and 1977, Albertson's students interviewed social activists of the 1960s and early 1970s, participants and observers in the North End riots of 1975 in Springfield, Massachusetts, and war and nuclear power resisters. The collection includes transcripts of 15 interviews conducted during this period, as well as the students' papers, which put the transcripts into context.
- Antinuclear movement--Massachusetts
- Civil rights--Massachusetts--Hampden County
- Demonstrations--Massachusetts--Chicopee
- History--Study and teaching (Higher)--Massachusetts-- Amherst
- Police shootings--Massachusetts--Springfield
- Political activists--Massachusetts--Interviews
- Prison riots--New York (State)--attica
- Puerto Ricans--Massachusetts--Springfield
- Riots--Massachusetts--Springfield
- Selma-Montgomery rights March, 1965.
- Springfield (Mass.)--Race relations
- Springfield (Mass.)--Social conditions
- Venceremos Brigade
- Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Protest movements -- Massachusetts--Springfield
- Welfare rights movement--Massachusetts--Springfield
- Westover Air Force Base (Mass.)
Types of material
- Oral histories


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Are you considering mobile marketing? Wondering how mobile opt-ins differ from social opt-ins?
Keep reading to discover how mobile opt-in marketing is unique from social media marketing.
In a previous post discussing how to combine QR Codes with Facebook, I received a lot of questions about opt-ins. Given the importance consumers place on spam management across all media, and brands place on tracking digital marketing's effectiveness, understanding social and mobile marketing opt-ins is imperative.
Opt-in Marketing Defined
Traditional opt-in marketing, often called "permission marketing," requires marketers to get explicit permission from consumers before they can deliver marketing collateral to them. This approach contrasts with "interruption marketing" where consumers receive messaging from a brand without giving consent (which, when done badly, reminds us of a certain meat product).


text:
I have two questions, first some background info:
We are running SQL 2000 on a Windows 2003 server for out aircraft parts database software.
There are 7 workstations (windows 2000 and XP) that run the parts database.
4 of those workstations run really fast, the database calls are near instant. but the other 3 identical workstations are incredibly slow. Taking over a minute to load what takes the other workstations less then 2seconds, etc...
Since each workstation is identical (all XP are the same, all 2K are the same) my first thought was that we didn't have enough SQL CAL licenses for the 7 workstations, thus the 4 licenses we had were allowing some to run fast, but the other 3 were qued up until space became free, or something like that.
We purchased an additional 3 CAL licenses, but I'm not sure how to install them...
My first question:
How do you actually go about installing SQL CAL licenses?
I went on the MS website, and it says to simply open up the control panel, go into the SQL license Manager, and turn the spinner up to the # of licenses you have.
Which I did.
Is that all there is to it?
I can't imagine you would simply be on your honor to put that spinner to the correct number of licenses.
Question # 2
If that IS the correct way to install your licenses...
It made no difference in the 3 workstations SQL speed.
Yes I restarted the SQL service after upping the license amount.
These workstation are the same speed on the network as the "fast" workstations in every other application and when sending files, etc...
Any help greatly appreciated!
Take care


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District 20 enrollment hits 31-year high
The 939 students who reported to Gothenburg Public Schools last Thursday can be counted as a record high in the past 31 years.
Records show enrollment peaking at 900 in 2008 for the first time in 26 years.
This year's figure is a 26-student jump compared to first-day enrollment figures in 2012.
Since then the number has remained fairly constant.
On Tuesday, superintendent Dr. Mike Teahon said enrollment, which is the highest in his 13 years as superintendent, had dropped to 937 which still looks promising for more state aid which is based partly on enrollment.
"It didn't surprise us too much," Teahon said. "We kept track of it during the summer."
The lion's share of growth occurred in the junior-senior high with an addition of 21 students.
Teahon said the increase created some scheduling issues and class sizes are larger.
Although enrollment can change dramatically when rosters are finalized, Teahon said the 937 number is probably "pretty close."
The number of students on Friday, Sept. 27, will help determine the next state aid allocation as well as average daily membership throughout the year.
Topping the list as the biggest class this year, K-12, is the eighth grade which has 83 students.
Making up the second largest class is this year's sixth graders who number 78.
The kindergarten class, which typically has 70-plus students, is the smallest with 59 students.
Interestingly, Teahon said 59 students graduated in May.
"Yet with the junior-senior high, enrollment is up," he said.
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The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced no changes to its easy-money policies, instead using its July statement to clarify and reaffirm that bond purchases will continue and interest rates will remain low for the foreseeable future.
Continue Reading Below
As was widely expected, the Federal Open Markets Committee, the 12-member board that sets most Fed policy, kept interest rates at near zero percent and maintained the Fed's $85 billion monthly bond purchase program known as quantitative easing.
Analysts had predicted as much.
"At the end of the day, we're still in a slow growth economy with high unemployment and low inflation. And with that backdrop the Fed has no reason to start scaling back the $85 billion in monthly bond purchases," Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said ahead of the release of the Fed's statement.
Stock markets added to gains after the statement's release, apparently pleased that the stimulus programs will continue.
In subtle a shift in wording, the FOMC statement said the economy is growing at a "modest" pace. Previous Fed statements have said the economy is growing at a "moderate" pace. The Fed also reiterated that fiscal policy, which has included a tax increase and cutbacks in government spending, is "restraining" economic growth.
The July statement took a stronger position on inflation than recent statements, saying the low rate of inflation – currently about 1%, well below the Fed's target rate of 2% -- could pose risks but that the long-term inflation picture isn't cause for immediate concern. The short-term concern is over deflation, which occurs when prices fall because demand is weak and can lead to a long-term stagnant economy.
Rising mortgage rates were also singled out as a concern.
The FOMC voted 11-1 in favor of maintaining its current policies, with Kansas City Fed President Esther George casting the lone dissenting vote. George has voted in dissent of easy-money policies at every Fed meeting this year.
The Fed has said for months that the key Fed funds interest rate, or the rate banks charge one another for short-term loans, will remain near zero at least until the unemployment range falls to 6.5%.
The only recent change in Fed policy regarding the funds rate is that Bernanke has taken pains to make it clear that the 6.5% unemployment rate is a "threshold" rather than a firm target. In other words, the unemployment rate could hit 6.5% but the Fed may see other economic indicators – housing, manufacturing, whatever -- that requires the Fed to keep interest rates low.
After weeks of market speculation and Fed clarification on when and how the central bank will begin phasing out bond purchases, Fed policy makers evidently want to make it clear to investors that the timing of bond purchase tapering is not connected to the timing for raising interest rates from their historic lows.
The Fed said in its statement Wednesday that low interest rates will remain in place "for a considerable time" after bond purchases are phased out.
The Fed lowered the funds rate to an historically low range of 0%-0.25% in December 2008 during the peak of the financial crisis. The Fed has also nearly tripled its balance sheet to $3.6 trillion through bond purchases since 2008. Both efforts are aimed at spurring economic activity by lowering long-term interest rates.
The Fed statement reiterated the central bank's often-stated message of recent months that bond purchases will only begin to be phased out once economic data shows that the program is no longer needed. Specifically, the Fed is looking for a stronger U.S. labor market.
Economists are predicting that the U.S. added 184,000 jobs in July, fewer than the 195,000 added in June but enough to reduce the unemployment rate to 7.5% from 7.6% in June. The Labor Department will release its July jobs report on Friday.
Meanwhile, a government report on Wednesday showed GDP expanded at a faster-than-expected 1.7 percent annual rate in the second quarter, but the figure for the first quarter was revised down to 1.1 percent from 1.8 percent.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has said the unemployment rate is too high and overall workforce participation too low for the Fed to end its easy money policies any time soon.
Bernanke spooked markets last month when he suggested a hypothetical time frame for when bond purchases might be tapered, saying the process could begin as early as September and end by mid-2014. His comments sent stock markets plunging and bond yields surging.
Many investors mistakenly tied the phasing out of bond purchases to raising interest rates. The thought was that if bond purchases were ending sooner rather than later, interest rates will also be raised sooner than later as well.
Bernanke and his colleagues have spent the past six weeks vigorously attempting to clarify their message.
"The market is addicted to Fed stimulus and investors shudder at the mere mention that eventually that stimulus is going to have to be scaled back," said McBride.


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Simply Wrought Iron offers this ornate, yet practical horse design GFCI metal switch plate covers in single gang wall plate to 4 gang wall plate configurations. Measurements begin with our 1 gang switch cover plates - 2.75 inches wide to a 4 gang outlet cover - 8.25 inches wide. Wrought iron decorative switch plates cover both GFCI outlets or various rocker-style switch designs. Factory powder coated.
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GFCI and Rocker Decorative Switch Plates Specifications:


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Internet forums have been buzzing with the news lately that the top versions of NVIDIA's flagship GeForce GTX 680 have had an important overclocking feature removed: voltage control in either software or hardware. Specific examples include EVGA's Classified missing the EVBot plug and MSI's Lightning or Power Editions missing voltage control. This was due to NVIDIA asking their hardware partners to remove all forms of user voltage control.
As disappointing as this seems, NVIDIA have explained to us in an email the reason for this restriction which ultimately benefits enthusiasts. NVIDIA, of course, understand how their GPUs work at the deepest level and have determined that the GTX 680's Kepler GK104 GPU will die an early death due to electromigration if the voltage is allowed to be increased beyond NVIDIA's specified limits. It boils down to the card either lasting a normal lifetime of several years or going like a rocket and burning out quickly. NVIDIA doesn't feel that this is worth it, as nice as it is to set benchmark records.
But what about Kepler's GPU Boost, doesn't this lead to premature wear on the GPU? No, it doesn't. NVIDIA also explained that GPU Boost only increases the voltage and clock speed applied to the GPU within the safe, recommended limits, thus maximising GPU performance while maintaining its longevity.
"In contrast, GPU Boost always keeps the voltage below our max spec, even as it is raising and lowering the voltage dynamically. That way you get great performance and a guaranteed lifetime.
So our policy is pretty simple:
1. We encourage users to go have fun with our GPUs. They are completely guaranteed and will perform great within the predefined limits.
2. We also recommend that our board partners don't build in mechanisms that raise voltages beyond our max spec. We set it as high as possible within long term reliability limits."
So, ultimately, preventing overvolting allows NVIDIA enthusiasts to enjoy their product for its full lifetime rather than having it die suddenly, or show strange anomalies over time before it dies, both highly frustrating and unwanted situations for enthusiasts.
From personal experience I can attest to this sort of thing happening with components that have been overclocked hard using overvolting, whether they be the GPU or CPU and it isn't nice.
The reason we have a limit on max voltage is very simply to prevent damage to the GPU chips. At NVIDIA we know that our customers want to push their GPUs to the limit. We are all for it, and as a matter of fact NVIDIA has always prioritized support for hardware enthusiasts by providing tools to access hardware settings and by supporting our board partners in creating overclocked enthusiast products. Leading up to the GeForce GTX 680 release for example, we worked closely with developers of 3rd party overclocking utilities to make sure they fully supported GeForce GTX 680 and GPU Boost on the day of launch.
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Dan Tencer had a nice interview with Oilers assistant coach Charlie Huddy (the man in charge of the defense) the other day, one that I actually missed and only went back and listened to after David Staples pointed it out on his blog. There were a couple of comments that stood out to me. On further trades/signings: "That's in Kevin's court, but I guess you're always looking when you're going through the summer, if there's improvements you can make." While it may seem like a no-brainer that Lowe is always looking for ways to improve the team, I found it interesting that Huddy didn't preface his comment with some kind of "oh, we're really happy with what we have right now" statement. Could there be something in the works? On Joni Pitkanen: "Joni did a lot of good things for us… sometimes guys have their own reads on how they should play and things like that, and at some point you have to be able to follow a game plan…" That's pretty harsh criticism, although it was mixed in with "well, you have to give Joni credit…" and statements of that ilk. That comment tells me that Pitkanen was, in all likelihood, unresponsive to coaching, a player who did what he felt was best at the time, regardless of what the staff wanted him to do in certain situations. It doesn't surprise me at all that he was dealt. It also doesn't surprise me that his teammates wouldn't embrace that sort of attitude. On Ladislav Smid's tendency to turn into a wild dog after the whistle: "It can't be after every whistle." He also chuckled and said something to the effect of how it was difficult not to like his exuberance. I imagine this season that they'll work and controlling Smid's aggression, and getting more of it out during the play rather than after. On defense pairings: "It's MacT's choice" I hadn't realized that MacTavish made the decision on who was paired with who; I'd always assumed that was Huddy's department. As for the actual pairings, Huddy indicated that the thinking was to start the year with these pairings: Souray – Staios Visnovsky – Gilbert Grebeshkov – Smid Strudwick Looking at those groups, I can't help but think that the Oilers plan to use Souray/Staios as a shutdown pairing. Despite David Staples error rankings, I really don't think that it's a role Souray can fill over an entire season. For that matter, I'm fairly confident that Staios won't be able to handle that duty over the entire season. 20 games in, if these pairings stay together, I expect that Gilbert and Visnovsky will be taking over that duty. I suppose it was somewhat obvious as a choice, but I really like the third pairing. Grebeshkov should have no difficulty at all excelling in that role and I rather think Ladislav Smid should also be able to outmatch his opposition.. I'm expecting something of a breakthrough season from Smid. As a final note, for those of us who hadn't already given up on Mathieu Roy, in a 16-minute interview about the defense, Huddy didn't mention him once. —Jonathan Willis is the owner of Copper & Blue, a blog dedicated to all things Oil, and a frequent contributor to OilersNation.com.
Interview with the Minister of Defense
Somewhere in that D line-up within the next couple of seasons, you will have a chance of seeing Chorney, Peckham and Petrie. I have to say things are looking positive for the D. Huddy should have more tools to work with this year. Maybe more than any time since he started coaching.
On Eric Cole, it seems he has a sincere interest in making the best of his time with the Oilers. For some more cynical and jaded reporter types maybe everyone is suspect. This guy sounds like he may be for real. Looking for a new and presumably much more lucrative contract sometime in the next year should help the motivation for sure. The love affair would be complete if all the players had a real heart for the fans and the city. Cole is the first guy I can recall acknowledging the ownersiip on arrival in E town. I think Katz has got the attention of a lot of people around the league and I hope it continues. The jury is still out of course, but I think things are going in the right direction.
I like Souray, but shutdown man he ain't. The Oil need a defensive defenceman and STAT
I don't think Souray is the answer as the shut down guy all year long either because his chances of remaining healthy all year long are slim to none.
As for Gilbert, he was bleeding goals playing tough minutes at the end of last year. Can he step up? Maybe, maybe not. I'd say Grebs is a good a bet to step up, though, as Gilbert is. He really took a bit leap forward towards the end of last year, I thought.
Smid will be really solid on defence this year and may have a break out offensive season, meaning 2 goals, 10 assists. Only after five or six years in the league would Smid have any chance of becoming a point-every-second-game guy, if the history of similar defencemen means anything (and it does).
I don't think Souray is the answer as the shut down guy all year long either because his chances of remaining healthy all year long are slim to none.
As for Gilbert, he was bleeding goals playing tough minutes at the end of last year. Can he step up? Maybe, maybe not. I'd say Grebs is a good a bet to step up, though, as Gilbert is. He really took a bit leap forward towards the end of last year, I thought.
So who do we bet on as a shut-down defenseman?
Staios – nope
Souray – nope
Gilbert – maybe not
Grebeshkov – maybe not
Visnovsky – probably not
Smid – nope
you don't need a shut down defenseman per-se if you can effectively move the puck out of your own zone, while maintaining offensive pressure like a Detroit(although im aware the oilers d and team does not match up). Also if you can role three pairings without concern you'll win the match ups more often than not. too much is being made of this, the defence will be fine.
I don't agree that because Staios is listed with Souray that they become the shut down pair. I've always viewed Steve as the "rock" they use to get guys back on their game or develop them. That pairing will only last as long as it needs to and then they will rotate Steve to someone else. I am surprised that Gilbert and Greb are not going to start together but we are a long way from October!
I've always viewed Steve as the "rock" they use to get guys back on their game or develop them.
Yeah, Staios is the on-ice mentor of this group, and has been for a few years, especially hile MacT was using Smith as the first option against the quality opponents.
Staios does a lot of nice things and has a well-rounded game, but I think he's at the point where he's in over his head against really tough opposition. Nothing wrong with sheltering him a little bit while he trains the youngsters.
I'm a big fan of Staples error statistic and that tells me that 44 should be able to anchor a tough min tandem.


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|A World-Record Cover-Up?
|Photos: D&DH Examines Antlers
|More Photos
|King Buck In-Depth Q&A
|BTR Score Sheet of the Rack
|Reneau's View
|Schmidt: King Buck Deserves Another Look
|Contact B&C
The King Buck Scores More than the Famous Hanson Buck, but Boone & Crockett Won't Acknowledge It. Here, for the First Time, is a Look into the Truth, Lies and Intimidation Tactics that Have Prevented this Buck from Claiming the Title of "World's No. 1 Typical of All Time."
by Duncan Dobie
On Nov. 18, 2006, avid whitetail hunter Johnny King of Mt. Horeb, Wis., shot a massive 12-point buck the likes of which were almost unparalleled in the annals of deer and deer hunting. As a straight 6-by-6 typical with no additional abnormal points, the great rack grossed more than 220 inches, a milestone few typical whitetail racks in history have attained.
Yet, some 4 1/2 years later, the rack remains in relative obscurity. In a time where antler scores and giant racks are the Holy Grail to most avid whitetail fanatics, how could this happen to a buck of this magnitude? How could Wisconsin, rich in whitetail history and proud producer of the former world-record James Jordan Buck, let a deer like this slip through the cracks?
The answer is perplexing and, in a way, maddening. For King, life will never be the same. Here, in a Deer & Deer Hunting exclusive, is his untold story.
A Stunning Revelation
Soon after recovering the buck, King and his cousin Brad Heisz realized — to their shock — that the left main beam had been hit by one of the .30-30 Win. bullets from King's Savage bolt-action. The bullet damaged the beam just below the left brow tine. As soon as the cousins began to examine the rack, the beam broke off in Heisz's hand. Yet, for days, friends urged King to have the massive rack officially scored.
King contacted official Boone-and-Crockett Club measurer John Ramsey, who green-scored the antlers before the required 60-day drying period had elapsed.
Ramsey measured the rack as a clean 12-point typical. As soon as he tallied up the numbers, he was stunned. The antlers grossed in the low 220s and netted more than 215 typical B&C points. Ramsey told King that depending on how the broken beam might be interpreted by B&C, he could be the owner of a new Wisconsin record and possibly the new world-record typical!
(Note: The current typical world record scored 213 5/8 and was taken by Milo Hanson in Biggar, Saskatchewan, in 1993. Ironically, the long-standing former world record before 1993 was taken in Wisconsin. In 1914, James Jordan shot a massive 10-pointer near Danbury on the Yellow River in Burnett County. The buck was later scored 206 1/8 typical B&C points. The Jordan Buck wasn't officially declared a world-record typical until the 1950s. It held the top spot, however, until Hanson killed his buck.)
According to King, Ramsey was reluctant to officially score the head until a determination could be made by B&C about whether the broken beam could be accepted into the record book. Steve Ashley, an official measurer of the prestigious Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club, contacted King and made arrangements to inspect the rack. According to King, after Ashley examined the massive rack, he apparently concurred with Ramsey's score.
"He insinuated that he thought I might have a new world record," King said. "He asked me if I realized what I had. And then he told me not to let anybody see it."
King was a little bewildered.
"Why shouldn't I let anyone see the rack?" he wondered. "If it's a new world record, everyone will want to see it."
King said he was informed that his rack would need to be panel-scored by B&C if the issue regarding the break could be resolved. (A recent rule change by B&C makes it possible for bucks with broken beams like King's to be entered in the record book under certain conditions.)
Click here to discuss this article on the forum.
More on King Buck
• Videos: Deer & Deer Hunting One-on-One with Johnny King and Jay Fish
• Photos: Deer & Deer Hunting Examines King Buck Antlers
• See a Buckmasters Score Sheet of the Rack
• Dan Schmidt: King Buck Deserves Another Look
• Get Jack Reneau's Point of View


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Sweden's Maverick Princess Marries American, Wears Italian
Madeleine's life reads like the narrative of the young royal longing for independence. Breaking off her engagement to a Swedish attorney in 2010, she skipped town for a life in Manhattan where she works for the World Childhood Foundation, a charity co-founded by the Swedish Queen. She's stated no plans to return to the frigid confines of Scandinavia.
Her choice of a husband underscores the maverick image. Christoper O'Neill, a 38-year-old British-born American working in private equity, won't take on a the ducal title he would have been given as a Swede. Madeline's decision to marry a U.S. citizen represents the rare occasion an American has married into a European royal family since Grace Kelly married Rainier III of Monaco in 1956.


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As projected U.S. wheat ending stocks and Australian wheat production both plunge lower, U.S. wheat prices appear poised to test old highs approaching $10 a bushel, according to market analysts speaking at Midwest press briefings on USDA's Oct. 12 U.S. crop production report and world supply and demand estimates.
"USDA finally cut the Australian wheat production number to about 13.5 million tons (from 21 million tons last month)," noted Brian Hoops, market analyst with Midwest Market Solutions, speaking at a Minneapolis Grain Exchange press briefing.
"That's a very aggressive cut from USDA and it is in line with expectations of a total crop of 10 million tons to 15 million tons. We should know more about their crop as they began harvesting over the next 30 days."
Drought and heat continued to plague the Aussie crop through early October, leaving crops with little moisture through the critical reproductive stages. Global wheat production for 2007-08 was projected 5.8 million tons lower than last month, primarily on USDA's assessment of reductions in Australia.
USDA estimated U.S. wheat ending stocks for 2007-08 at 307 million bushels, which is down 55 million bushels from last month, and the lowest since 1948-49.
USDA also lowered its estimated U.S. wheat production by 47 million bushels from last month and raised exports by 50 million bushels, reflecting tighter world supplies and the strong pace of U.S. shipments and sales to date.
With continuing strong demand for wheat, "We're going to see some more rationing and maybe another run at the old highs, depending on how good or bad this Australian wheat crop is," Hoops said.
At a press briefing hosted by the CME Group held at the Chicago Board of Trade, Jack Scoville, an analyst for the Price Futures Group, noted, "Having wheat ending stocks projections at close to 300 million bushels implies we're still in a very tight situation here in the United States and the world numbers are also pretty tight.
"It underscores the fact that we need to get our wheat crop planted, and hopefully in the next year, we'll grow a lot more wheat to start rebuilding some of these supplies. For now, it implies wheat prices should continue to hold the highs."
USDA lowered its projection of world wheat consumption for 2007-08 by 2.7 million tons from last month. At the same time, world ending wheat stocks were projected at the lowest level in 30 years.
The U.S. corn crop is forecast at a record 13.318 billion bushels, up 10 million bushels from the September report, while ending stocks of corn for 2007-08 were raised 322 million bushels, to 1.19 billion bushels, the highest since 2005.
Feed and residual use was lowered 150 million bushels, and corn use for ethanol in 2007-08 was lowered 100 million bushels, reflecting lower production and lower returns for ethanol producers. Hoops added a word of encouragement, however. "Over time, the trade would expect ethanol use to continue to expand rather than contract."
Average estimated corn yields were lower than last month — 154.7 bushels to 155.8 bushels, Hoops noted. "However, while yield went down, USDA did find more harvested acres than what we anticipated."
Corn exports are projected 100 million bushels higher. At a projected 2.35 billion bushels for 2007-08, exports would be the highest in 18 years. Sorghum ending stocks for 2007-08 are also down from last month. Exports were raised 40 million bushels, but projected domestic sorghum use is down.
USDA lowered forecast Brazil corn production by 1 million tons, and corn production in China was projected 4 million tons lower due to drought in the western parts of the northeastern growing region.
U.S. soybean production was forecast 21 million bushels lower to 2.598 billion bushels. Soybean ending stocks are projected at 215 million bushels, the tightest since 2003. "We also had lower harvested acres from last month by about 500,000 acres, likely due to abandonment in the South due to poor yields," Hoops said.
There will be "a big fight for acres in 2008, according to James Barnett, grain and soybean analyst for MF Global, speaking at the CME briefing.
"First, in South America, we need to get that planting in in Brazil and Argentina. USDA did raise the size of the Brazilian crop by 1 million tons, so it implies that they think there will be a slight increase in acres; that this rally has bought few acres down in Brazil. We're looking for a 5 percent to 8 percent increase ourselves."
Soybean cash prices reported in Brazil are 40 percent above year-earlier levels after adjusting for stronger currency values.
China soybean production was reduced 600,000 tons to 14.6 million tons due to dry conditions in the principal growing region. This would be China's smallest soybean crop in eight years.
World soybean ending stocks, fell to 50.75 million tons, "which puts a lot of emphasis on the South American growing season, now that we know the supply of soybeans in the United States is going to be tight. We need a big crop from Brazil to meet the growing demand," Hoops said.
Estimated U.S. cotton production was raised 2 percent to 18.2 million bales, due mainly to higher estimated production in Texas.
World cotton production in 2007-08 was raised nearly 3 percent, including increases for China, the United States, and Brazil. Forecast world consumption is 1.3 percent higher, as China's consumption for 2007-08 was raised 1.5 million bales to 55 million bales based on the revisions from China's National Development and Reform Commission.
The commission also changed its estimate of China's 2006 crop, raising production to about 35.5 million bales, which is 9 percent above USDA's September estimate. World ending stocks were raised nearly 7 percent from last month.
U.S. rice production in 2007-08 was forecast 3 percent higher than last month, at 197.1 million hundredweight, due to an increase in yield, now estimated at a record 7,215 pounds per acre. The figure is up 191 pounds from last month. Rice exports are projected at 106 million hundredweight, up 6 million hundredweight from a month earlier. Ending stocks are projected at 26.2 million hundredweight, down 3 percent from last month.
World production was raised slightly because of increases for the United States and Brazil. Projected ending stocks were lowered slightly from last month to 70.9 million tons.
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Sean and Lezlie Allison
- Ministry:
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- CanIL, French, Linguist, Professor, Translator
As the Word of God breaks through, relationships—with God and man—are restored and hearts are healed.
"When I first heard the Word of God in Chrambo (a Cameroonian language) I was amazed . . . it was like a dream," explains one member of a village that was decimated in a tribal conflict. "I learned that I . . . can't hate them (those that burned her village to the ground) and not forgive them, because I would want people to forgive me." What a testimony! God's word magnificently transforms the heart.
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OKCupid mismatched users on purpose. Let's get over it.
Jaws dropped across the internet last week when online dating giant, OkCupid revealed that they've been deliberately mismatching users to test their technology.
When I heard this, my first thought was: "Well, that does explain some of the dates I've been on lately."
As co-founder Christian Rudder recently shared in a blog post, OkCupid took pairs of bad matches (actual 30% match) and told them they were exceptionally good for each other (displaying a 90% match.) "Not surprisingly, the users sent more first messages when we said they were compatible. After all, that's what the site teaches you to do," says Rudder. As he explains, "When we tell people they are a good match, they act as if they are. Even when they should be wrong for each other."
It all comes down to power of suggestion. Although we like to think we're immune to it, the power of suggestion plays a huge part in our daily lives. It's widely known that deliberate suggestion can influence what medicines work for us, what products we buy – and as OkCupid has shown, who we choose to date.
A recent psychological study conducted by Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, along with Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School, showed that the power of suggestion can be explained by "response expectancies," or the ways in which we anticipate our responses in various situations. These expectancies set us up for automatic responses that actively influence how we get to the outcome we expect. Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition. In other words, if we're told that someone is perfect for us, we'll go into the interaction with a set idea of what the outcome of that relationship should be.
Although I naively like to think that the power of suggestion has no effect on me whatsoever, I know that is not true – especially when it comes to my dating life. As an avid OkCupid user, I have a rule that I won't even look at potential dates that have a match rating of less than 70%. However, without any knowledge of what OkCupid was up to, I decided to conduct a social experiment of my own. I decided to message and go on a date with someone who was a 50% match, with the mindset that at the very least it would result in a good story. The shocking result: We got along great – much better than some of the 75% matches I had dated before. My social experiment lead to a string of really great dates full of wine, good conversation and some solid physical chemistry.
The reason everyone is so up in arms about OkCupid's recent "testing on humans" is because we put a lot of trust in technology. Because online dating is based in science and math, it's marketed to us a much more reliable, accurate way of meeting someone than say, approaching a stranger in a bar. Maybe it is – or maybe it isn't. As Christian Renner notes, "If you use the Internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That's how websites work." The internet is one big experiment and the only way to avoid being a human guinea pig is to completely disconnect from it – something that I think very few of us would see as a viable option.