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Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers
Paul John Ward has not received any gifts yet
Paul, top of the milky way to you, and welcome to authors.com …from The Chuck-master of Science Fiction Fantasy and fun…
I write sci-fi fantasy novels filled with adventure, mystery, romance, drama, horror, and plenty of comedy… Sci-fi for every adult human to enjoy. I'm also a well-known published poet. When you have a few free moments to spare, please check out my Authors page and a few of my videos and blogs I have recently added. Many of my blogs consist of free to read enjoyable sci-fi stories that I reedited and united these twenty-two stories within an eBook titled: 'Epic Marvels'. One of my recent sci-fi novels is titled: 'They!', which is somewhat related to the 1954 sci-fi classic movie, 'Them!' I've just completed my next sci-fi mystery, titled: 'The Mysteries of Fuller Park'. A fun story based on the eerie satanic urban legends of Fuller Park, Athens, Texas. My next novel title is: 'It's Not A Lovable Pet Story!' LOL... It sure isn't another lovable pet story. Its Sci-fi horror at its best for delighting my many thousands of reading fans. Also, check out my famous 'Apollo Trilogy Novels'™… Thanks…
Please let me know if you'd like to become friends.
The Chuck!
So nice to meet you. Thank you for the friendship.
Hi Paul,
Nice to meet you. I am a relatively newcomer myself so Just finding my way bit by bit but you do learn some useful information about self publishing from the old hands.
Good luck, Fred
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Robotic platforms now deliver vast amounts of sensor data from large unstructured environments. In attempting to process and interpret this data there are many unique challenges in bridging the gap between prerecorded datasets and the field. This talk will present recent work addressing the application of deep learning techniques to robotic perception. Deep learning has pushed successes in many computer vision tasks through the use of standardized datasets. We focus on solutions to several novel problems that arise when attempting to deploy such techniques on fielded robotic systems. The themes of the talk are twofold: 1) How can we integrate such learning techniques into the traditional probabilistic tools that are well known in robotics? and 2) Are there ways of avoiding the labor-intensive human labeling required for supervised learning? These questions give rise to several lines of research based around dimensionality reduction, adversarial learning, and simulation. We will show this work applied to three domains: self-driving cars, acoustic localization, and optical underwater reconstruction. This talk will show results on field data from the monitoring of Australia's Coral Reefs, the archeological mapping of a 5,000-year-old submerged city, and the operation of a level-4 self-driving car in urban environments.
Matthew Johnson-Roberson is Assistant Professor of Engineering in the Department of Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He received a PhD from the University of Sydney in 2010. There he worked on Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for long-term environment monitoring. Upon joining the University of Michigan faculty in 2013, he created the DROP (Deep Robot Optical Perception) Lab, which researches a wide variety of perception problems in robotics including SLAM, 3D reconstruction, scene understanding, data mining, and visualization. He has held prior postdoctoral appointments with the Centre for Autonomous Systems – CAS at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award (2015).
Deep Networks are very successful for many visual task but their performance still fall far short of human visual abilities. Humans can learn from a few examples, with very weak supervision, can adapt to unknown factors like occlusion, can generalize from objects we know to objects which we do not. This talk will describe some state of the art work on deep networks but also discuss some of their limitations.
Alan Yuille received his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 1976, and completed his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at Cambridge in 1980. He then held a postdoctoral position with the Physics Department, University of Texas at Austin, and the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara. He then became a research scientists at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT (1982-1986) and followed this with a faculty position in the Division of Applied Sciences at Harvard (1986-1995), rising to the position of associate professor. From 1995-2002 he worked as a senior scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco. From 2002-2016 he was a full professor in the Department of Statistics at UCLA with joint appointments in Psychology, Computer Science, and Psychiatry. In 2016 he became a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. He has won a Marr prize, a Helmholtz prize, and is a Fellow of IEEE.
The sophistication of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), otherwise known as drones, is increasing while their cost is decreasing and is quickly approaching consumer prices. This technology, like most others, adds tremendous value to humanity but also challenges. This dichotomy has motivated our research from the early 90's to develop more capable platforms and more recently to explore technologies that can mitigate the risks associated with drone proliferation. We will present examples of our work on both sides of this spectrum. One particular area with tremendous potential impact is on the sensor and processing (payload) side. We have been the thought leaders on computational sensors and are on a path to reaching size, weight, and power constraints commensurate or exceeding biological equivalents. This revolution in integrated sensing and computing is likely to enable a new class of autonomous and very capable systems. In particular, we are exploring the interface between biological and engineered systems. Biological creatures are highly efficient, autonomous, and mobile with minimal sensory requirements. Their endurance and mobility remain far unmatched especially as the size decreases and that is the subject of intense research. We believe that solutions that build on the best of both worlds may produce better performance than either on its own and our focus is on the optimal integration of engineered payloads with natural hosts. Another complementary area of our research is small robotics with our recent focus for endoscopic medical procedures. In particular, we are developing a self-propelled aiding endoscope based on biomimetic peristaltic locomotion, and potential solutions may reside in what is becomingly known as soft robotics.
Dr. Rizk is currently an Associate Research Professor for JHU ECE, a lecturer for JHU ME, a Science and Technology (S&T) and Innovation consultant for JHU APL, local industries, and government leadership, and an entrepreneur. Prior to Nov 2016, he was a Principal Staff, Systems/Lead Engineer, S&T Advisor, Innovation Lead, member of the S&T committee, and member of the Innovation Steering Group for the Air and Missile Defense Sector at APL. He has had 15 intellectual property filings since 2014 and received 9 internal and external achievement awards. He has been recognized as a top innovator, thought leader, and successful Principal Investigator, and has demonstrated an effective model for R&D that yielded multiple innovative and far-reaching concepts and technologies. He was a pioneer in UAV technology and led a small team that developed and demonstrated the first four-rotor (quad copter) UAV system in the early 90's. More recently, he has been the forerunner in developing a new multi-mode / multi-mission sensor architecture that is low C-SWaP and likely to revolutionize the associated missions/applications space and platforms. In addition, he is currently developing a new vision for future unmanned systems. Dr. Rizk has been teaching the Mechatronics courses at JHU since Spring of 2015 and is developing a new design course to be offered in Fall 2017 for which he was awarded a teaching innovation grant. During his APL tenure, he also provided systems engineering and S&T support to senior DOD leadership and large acquisition programs. In addition to providing effective technical, innovative, and mentoring leadership and management, Dr. Rizk has demonstrated a collaborative spirit, successfully working with various FFRDC's, government labs, academia, and industry of various sizes. He also made key contributions during his time at Rockwell Aerospace, McDonald Douglas, and Boeing. He is a senior member of IEEE, AIAA, and a member of AUVSI.
Image-guided therapy is a clinical procedure under 2-D or 3-D image guidance such as MRI and CT images to accurately deliver surgical devices to diseased or cancerous tissue. This emerging field is interdisciplinary, combining the technology of robotics, computer science, engineering and medicine. Image-guided therapy allows faster, safer and more accurate minimally invasive surgery and diagnosis. In this talk, Dr. Tse will present the technological challenges in the field, followed by his research in MRI-guided therapy for brachytherapy, ablation and stem cell treatment in the prostate, the heart and the spine. These procedures consist of the latest imaging and robotic technology in minimally invasive therapy.
Dr. Zion Tse is an Assistant Professor in the College of Engineering and the Principal Investigator of the Medical Robotics Lab at the University of Georgia. Formerly, he was a visiting scientist in the Center for Interventional Oncology at National Institutes of Health, and a research fellow in the Radiology Department at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital. He received his PhD in Medical Robotics from Imperial College London, UK. His academic and professional experience has related to mechatronics, medical devices and surgical robotics. Dr. Tse has designed and prototyped a broad range of novel clinical devices, most of which have been tested in animal and human trials.
Human-controlled robotic systems can greatly improve healthcare by synthesizing information, sharing knowledge with the human operator, and assisting with the delivery of care. This talk will highlight projects related to new technology for surgical simulation and training, as well as a more in depth discussion of a novel teleoperated robotic system that enables complex needle-based medical procedures, currently not possible. The central element to this work is understanding how to integrate the human with the physical system in an intuitive and natural way, and how to leverage the relative strengths between the human and mechatronic system to improve outcomes.
Ann Majewicz completed B.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at the University of St. Thomas, the M.S.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Dr. Majewicz joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor in August 2014, where she directs the Human-Enabled Robotic Technology Laboratory. She holds at courtesy appointment in the Department of Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Her research interests focus on the interface between humans and robotic systems, with an emphasis on improving the delivery of surgical and interventional care, both for the patient and the provider.
The ability to manufacture micro-scale sensors and actuators has inspired the robotics community for over 30 years. There have been huge success stories; MEMS inertial sensors have enabled an entire market of low-cost, small UAVs. However, the promise of ant-scale robots has largely failed. Ants can move high speeds on surfaces from picnic tables to front lawns, but the few legged microrobots that have walked have done so at slow speeds (< 1 body length/sec) on smooth silicon wafers. In addition, the vision of large numbers of microfabricated sensors interacting directly with the environment has suffered in part due to the brittle materials used in microfabrication. This talk will present our progress in the design of sensors, mechanisms, and actuators that utilize new microfabrication processes to incorporate materials with widely varying moduli and functionality to achieve more robustness, dynamic range, and complexity in smaller packages. Results include skins of soft tactile or strain sensors with high dynamic range, new models of bio-inspired jumping mechanisms, and magnetically actuated legged microrobots from 1 gram down to 1 milligram that provide insights into simple design and control for high speed locomotion in small-scale mobile robots.
Sarah Bergbreiter joined the University of Maryland, College Park in 2008 and is currently an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, with a joint appointment in the Institute for Systems Research. She received her B.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 1999, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and 2007 with a focus on microrobotics. Her research uses inspiration from microsystems and biology to improve robotics performance at all scales. She has been awarded several honors including the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2008, the NSF CAREER Award in 2011, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2013 for her research on engineering robotic systems down to sub-millimeter size scales. She also received the Best Conference Paper Award at IEEE ICRA 2010 on her work incorporating new materials into microrobotics and the NTF Award at IEEE IROS 2011 for early demonstrations of jumping microrobots. She currently serves on DARPA's Microsystems Exploratory Council and as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Robotics and ASME Journal on Mechanisms and Robotics.
SimpleITK is a simplified, open source, multi-language interface to the National Library of Medicine's Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK), a C++ open source image analysis toolkit which is widely used in academia and industry. SimpleITK is available in multiple programing languages including: Python, R, Java, C#, C++, Lua, Ruby, and TCL. Binary versions of the toolkit are available for the GNU Linux, Apple OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. For researchers, the toolkit facilitates rapid prototyping and evaluation of image-analysis workflows with minimal effort using their programming language of choice. For educators and students, the toolkit's concise interface and support of scripting languages facilitates experimentation with well-known algorithms, allowing them to focus on algorithmic understanding rather than low level programming skills.
The toolkit development process follows best software engineering practices including code reviews and continuous integration testing, with results displayed online allowing everyone to gauge the status of the current code and any code that is under consideration for incorporation into the toolkit. User support is available through a dedicated mailing list, the project's Wiki, and on GitHub. The source code is freely available on GitHub under an Apache-2.0 license (github.com/SimpleITK/SimpleITK). In addition, we provide a development environment which supports collaborative research and educational activities in the Python and R programming languages using the Jupyter notebook web application. It too is freely available on GitHub under an Apache-2.0 license (github.com/InsightSoftwareConsortium/SimpleITK-Notebooks).
The first part of the presentation will describe the motivation underlying the development of SimpleITK, its development process and its current state. The second part of the presentation will be a live demonstration illustrating the capabilities of SimpleITK as a tool for reproducible research.
Dr. Ziv Yaniv is a senior computer scientist with the Office of High Performance Computing and Communications, at the National Library of Medicine, and at TAJ Technologies Inc. He obtained his Ph.D. in computer science from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem Israel. Previously he was an assistant professor in the department of radiology, Georgetown university, and a principal investigator at Children's National Hospital in Washington DC. He was chair of SPIE Medical Imaging: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling (2013-2016) and program chair for the Information Processing in Computer Assisted Interventions (IPCAI) 2016 conference.
He believes in the curative power of open research, and has been actively involved in development of several free open source toolkits, including the Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK), the Insight Registration and Segmentation toolkit (ITK) and SimpleITK.
This talk will show that attitude Kalman filters can be simple in design while also being robust and accurate despite the highly nonlinear nature of attitude (i. e., orientation) estimation. Three different filters are discussed, all using quaternions and small-angle approximations of attitude errors: an Extended Kalman filter as well as an Unscented Kalman filter for a gyro-based situation, and an Extended Kalman filter for a gyro-less one. In additon to the three-axis attitude, all of the filters also estimate corrections to the angular velocity – random walk modeled biases in the gyro measured case, and first-order Markov modeled corrections in the gyro-less case, which involves angular velocity computed from mass properties and control data.
The filters are evaluated using extensive real and simulated data from low-Earth orbiting NASA satellites such as Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission, Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer, Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, Wide Field Infrared Explorer, and Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer. The evaluations predominantly involve stressing "magnetometer-only" scenarios, i. e., using only a three-axis magnetometer to sense the attitude. Comparisons are made with attitude and rate knowledge obtained using coarse sensors and single-frame algorithms, and also with results from an Unscented Kalman filter with a more complicated attitude pameterization.
Dr. Murty Challa received a B.Sc. in physics from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, India, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. His professional interests and actvities include: estimation and data fusion algorithms such as Kalman filters, batch estimators, and simultaneous localization and mapping; track correlation/ association; guidance, navigation, and control for spacecraft and unmanned vehicles; missile defense; quantum computing; statistical mechanics; computational physics; solid state physics/ materials science. He is currently a member of the Senior Professional Staff of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), Maryland, USA. Prior to JHU/APL, he was senior staff at Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, VA, and at Computer Sciences Corporation supporting NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. Dr. Challa's academic positions include post-doctoral appointments in physics at Michigan State University and Virginia Commonwealth University, and an adjunct position in physics at George Washington University. He has also served as a consultant to Iridium Satellite, LLC.

subset: commoncrawl


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We believe Strength, Speed and Conditioning is the key to a successful athletic career at Clemson University. We are always researching, developing and implementing strategies to give us the cutting edge to achieve peak performance.
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In October last year, the Bicycle Design blog hosted a competition called "Commuter Bike For The Masses". The theme of the competition was centered around designing a 'transportation-oriented' bicycle to try and reel in (or attract) the vast "blue ocean" of people out there who don't ride at all, and have zero prior interest in cycling. Design and form factors were entirely up to the designers. The idea sounded fun, and Cannondale sponsored the competition. Winners would get a grand prize equaling a free Cannondale Bad Boy Bike, valued at 1000 US dollars.
The 7 jurors were :
- James Thomas - Industrial Designer and the blogger at Bicycle Design
- Torgny Fjeldskaar- Director of Industrial Design & Advanced Products Division at Cannondale Bicycle Corporation
- Mark Sanders- Principal of MAS Design Products Ltd and designer of the Strida and IF Bikes
- Steve Zwonitzer- Principal/Founder of Propane Creative; a strategic brand + product design consultancy
- Agnete Enga- Senior Industrial Designer, Smart Design/ Femme Den, NYC
- Michael Illukiewicz -Automotive designer
- Carlton Reid- Editor at BikeBiz, Quickrelease.tv, Bikeforall.net, and BiketoWorkBook.com
Out of 65 total entries, it was announced that 6 made it as finalists. They had some interesting, and creative concepts from a bike that would become a lock when folded, to bikes that had a car like feel to them, both from a design standpoint and other specific elements such as the idea of using 'keys' to get something unlocked.
Yesterday, the winner was announced and it was the "This Way" commuter bike concept from designer Torkel Dohmer. Congratulations!! Man, I fail to see how you can't enjoy that grand prize!
Here are my thoughts on the design, and you can think about them too :
1. ALL CAR DRIVERS? : It appears it was taken for granted in the competition that all non-cyclists drive cars. How about those who take the public transport system in cities (many are happy with public transport) ? What about the many others who're much satisfied with walking? How about those who don't want anything to do with cars at all? Will a design that looks and feels like a car answer all the questions?
2. JURY : Close to 60% of the jury I mentioned before consisted of people who ride bikes or are in the bicycle business. How can you avoid a selection bias or be able to get information from people who don't ride, like through a survey?
3. SOLAR PANELS? : In the design rendering, there are no solar panels depicted at all on the roof. Just a mere glass like structure. That doesn't say much, does it? Moreover, while solar power isn't necessarily bad, it could be expensive. In 2005, the price of solar panels averaged about $3-$4 USD per watt of installed power. The designer of the bike has to calculate how much power all his electrical equipment in the bike would need and justify the costs of buying, and installing solar panels to run the calculated watts and amperage. Then compare those costs with batteries. Whats a better option?
4. WEATHER PROTECTION : By weather, I take it that this bike can be ridden in the rain. The bike has a roof, so it is supposed to have that weather protection. But does rain only fall directly vertical?
The bike also has solar cells on the roof, which, according to the designer must power the bike's built in LED lights. How do you protect all that equipment when it rains? Attention must be also put on the fact that the sun isn't directly overhead all the time. Solar panels in the real world are able to tilt and position themselves correctly relative to the sun.
5. SNOW : Conventional bikes can be ridden on the snow using different tires and many commuters ride to work in the cold. Due to This Way's low rider position and small wheels, I highly doubt whether it'll be possible to achieve this.
6. DRIVE TRAIN : The bike has a "belt drive". Belt drives don't work with multiple gear sprockets. You could, however, pair them with an internal geared rear hub but you probably won't be able to enjoy some things. That may also cost more than simple sprockets.
7. SAFETY : Will a rider be really safe with a low center of gravity? What if consumers think aerodynamics is not as important as safely getting somewhere. Will he or she be visible to the traffic? When its time to brake and stop, how do you get out without tumbing either way due to a loss of balance? And finally, a few things about the windshield :
1) I'm not sure how the designer aims to make the windshield. If it is some plastic or polymer, then the issue of scratches on it comes up.
2) If its going to be made of glass, there's no telling when the rider can impact his head on it in case of an impact or accident. My next question would be : Should a seat belt be provided to the rider? What would be the industry standards that have to be followed for vehicles with windshields?
3) The viewing range of the windshield can be restrictive to observation. Notice how its not only narrow, but the windshield frame itself can block the rider's view ahead. This may or may not be an issue, but still something to consider.
8. RIDING POSITION & COMFORT : I like the concept of a recumbent riding position for a commuter's bike for the masses, but it seems to me as if in this winner's concept, the rider's arms will be outstretched at the handlebars. How comfortable will turning and maneuvering the bike be in corners and in climbing on hills? In conventional bicycles, a rider can stand and pedal to generate more power on hills. However, no such provisions are on the This Way bike.
Also note that from the rendering, the design of the handlebars makes it possible for them to strike the windshield frame on turning.
9. PARKING : Without a stand or a stable support point, how do you park a two wheeler such as this? And what facilities are there on the bike itself to use with existing public bike racks?
10. BIKE TRANSPORTATION : Will this bike fit into a bike bag or an aftermarket vehicle rack for transportation? I don't see that happening knowing what exists in the market today. in high density urban areas, cyclists are seen placing their bikes onto trains or buses. Given the big dimensions of the This Way bike, I hardly think that's possible.
11. MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION : The concept is to be made out of carbon fiber or flax fiber, and hydroformed aluminum. We all know that bicycles and velomobiles made out of carbon fiber are not cheap.
12. PRICE POINT AND LIFECYCLE COST : The judges think that to keep costs down, this concept could borrow ideas from toy and boat manufacturers and be made to sell under 500 dollars if volume took off. Pay attention. "IF VOLUME took off". Otherwise, they think selling point will be around a 1000 dollars. Now, none of the judges have talked about a certain element called 'Risk Assessment'. By using composite materials and having solar panels on your roof, is it guaranteed to attract consumers? This isn't simple to answer in a day or two. Its all too simple to sit somewhere and say, 'My idea is going to be great. Lots of people are going to buy it. My competitors will be dum as well. They won't figure out a cheaper, easier or more innovative way to do things.'
Keep in mind that the materials of construction, solar panel and electrical transducer equipment, wiring and the extra cargo attachement that goes with the bike can all bump up costs. To rely on manufacturing methods for toys and boats can also have its own set of agendas to follow, such as having to follow different sets of standards or testing. Considering all this, if it can still be sold for 1000 dollars, great. But is 1000 dollars what everyone wants to pay for a commuter bike? And over a period of its life, how costly will it get for the average Joe to maintain, replace and buy new parts due to damage, wear and tear?
13. COPY, NO COPY OR JUST DESIGN IMPROVEMENT? : In the summer of last year, I saw a concept very similar to This Way. It was a solar powered bicycle designed by Miroslav Milijevic based at Z & Co. Design in London. It was called Cycle Sol (Sol may be short for Solar). The only differences I see are that Cyclesol has an electric assist motor, the handlebars are positioned at the sides, the seats look a little less comfortable and wheels look more solid. Even though such a design was shown months earlier, even it seems like it didn't transform into reality till now. Yet, the design renderings have substantial detail in them, which is how I think a proposal should be submitted.
14. WILL IT TAKE OFF? : For all the publicity that surrounded this competition, what I'm really interested in is will the concept see the light of day? Congratulations to the winner, but there appears to be a need to have a reality check put on the design. I hope you can work and build upon the apparent practical disadvantages I and many others see in this concept.
At the end of the day, ask yourself the question : Is poor bicycle design really the culprit in keeping people away from cycling, as opposed to safety problems, poor infrastructure, poor riding facilities and poor advocacy programs by governments and other authorities? If it indeed is, by how much (like a %) ? What amount of role does it play in discouraging cycling? Because if it is indeed a tiny % compared to other factors, then maybe the best efforts to get people on bikes can be achieved through strategies trying to improve those other factors.


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Has Bigfoot Actually Been Captured?
After that hoax out of Russia, we swore we'd never be duped by a faked Bigfoot capture again. But a recent report, which comes from an organization called the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center, could be the news that Yeti believers have been waiting for.
According to the MABRC, a group called Quantra claims to have captured a living, breathing Sasquatch. After being captured at an undisclosed site, the creature, which the group calls "Daisy," was supposedly sedated and moved to an examination area 12 miles away.
No further information has been made available regarding the animal's weight, height, hair color, gender or overall health, but an official press release could be issued in the next few days after the examination is complete, said Ed Smith, a Bigfoot hunter with ties to Quantra.
What do you think? Is this Bigfoot capture legit or just another fake?


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Large-scale pageantry opened the Sochi Olympics on Friday, in a symbolically rich Opening Ceremony that was marred by an early and highly visible mistake — one of five massive Olympic rings failed to fully appear.
There were many other elements of the program to distract the estimated 3 billion people worldwide who watched the ceremony at Sochi's Fisht Stadium, with striking visuals that celebrated Russia's history and culture. But the ring failure will surely remain a subject of conversation.
The Opening Ceremony is virtually the only Olympic event that NBC isn't streaming online, a decision made to bolster its prime-time broadcast. While we track Friday's event here, NPR's pop-culture blogger Linda Holmes will give us her take on the ceremonies later tonight over at Monkey See.
Now that the ceremony is over and the torch is lit, we've updated some of the text of this post and added a few more images of the Olympic spectacle. You can keep following NPR's team in Sochi on our On The Road Tumblr.
Update at 3:55 p.m. ET: More About The Ceremony's Music
Two pieces of music made lasting impressions in Friday's ceremony – Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," which preceded the main show, and a mashup of several songs by tATu, which played as the Russian entourage marched.
The use of tATu could turn heads because, in an Olympics that has already been marked by controversy over gay rights in Russia, the two-woman group whose music was featured is "known for lesbian imagery," as Jeremy Hobson said on Here & Now today.
Jeremy asked NPR's Sam Sanders, who is in Sochi, what to make of the tATU song.
"Just keep in mind that tATu is the biggest pop act from Russia in the last 20 years or so – and that's not saying much," Sam tells Jeremy. "I'm not sure that they were trying to send a message, more than just send their most popular export" into the arena.
"One of the producers of the show acknowledged Friday that they're not London," Sam adds. "They don't have One Direction, they don't have the Spice Girls. They've got Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy. So, this was as pop as they could do."
Of course, the producers didn't ignore the giants of Russian culture — the show included part of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, for instance. Rachmaninoff was also used in the program.
As for the Daft Punk song, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Choir (commonly called the Russian Police Choir, with around 50 members) did a cover of "Get Lucky" during the lead-in to the ceremony.
Dressed in full dress uniforms and singing over recorded music, they gamely attacked the song's high notes. We're hoping NBC includes that tidbit in their coverage tonight; it's a performance the policemen have been working on since late last year (their YouTube video has racked up nearly 4 million views).
Update at 3:30 p.m. ET: U.S. Olympians Excited After Ceremony
The U.S. Olympic Committee has released quotes from American athletes. A sampling:
"I don't think the excitement of walking into the stadium during the Opening Ceremony has changed after my third Olympics," says Lanny Barnes of Durango, Colo., who competes in the biathlon. "There is something truly special about putting on the Team USA gear and walking in behind the flag. It gives me goose bumps every time I think about it. I can think of no greater honor in sports."
"There is nothing more exciting than walking hand-in-hand with my teammates in the Olympic Opening Ceremony," says Debbie McCormick of Madison, Wis., who competes in curling. "My heart is filled with stars and stripes, joy and excitement."
Update at 2 p.m. ET: Olympic Flame Is Lit
Legendary Russian hockey goalie Vladislav Tretiak has lit the Olympic flame, along with Russian figure skater Irina Rodnina, winner of three Olympic gold medals and 10 world championships.
That means people who had bet Putin would light the flame — perhaps shirtless, and from horseback — will lose some money.
The flame shot upward on a long kind of fuel ramp, in a display that prompted the BBC's Hazel Irvine to say, "Well, that's a virile statement from a strong nation" (via Twitter).
Just before they lit the cauldron, figures made of light leaped into the stadium, passing through the air high above the floor.
Update at 1:55 p.m. ET: About The Fireworks
"Outdoor fireworks kind of scary from inside the enclosed stadium," NPR's Tamara Keith tells us, as the huge display builds to a finale for the Opening Ceremony.
Update at 1:35 p.m. ET: Opera At The Fisht
They're singing beautifully in the stadium, providing a bit of a breather after a whirlwind spectacle of Russia's history and symbolism. The Olympic and Russian flags are flying above the ice podium.
Update at 1:15 p.m. ET: The Pageantry Continues
With sounds of building and machinery in the background, Russia's organizers evoke the middle 20th century. Buildings begin to rise.
Before long, guys in black suits are driving red motorcycles across the ice – with people dressed in white standing astride their sidecars. The floor of the arena becomes a tapestry of newspaper headlines and messages in English and Cyrillic letters that (to this viewer, at least) echo constructivist art — clean lines, powerful imagery, message-driven.
Traditional music is playing — and a giant head moves across the stadium floor, along with a giant sickle held by a (disembodied) hand. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Then things settle down a bit, with a kind of ice island/podium riser put out onto the stadium floor, along with a flagpole carrying the Russian flag.
Below that area, people arrayed on the stadium floor are illuminated in the colors of the flag.
Update at 12:55 p.m. ET: Ballet At The Fisht
Dozens (hundreds?) of dancers have spread around the stadium floor, dressed in gowns and formal military uniforms that evoke Russia's past.
We don't know the classical music playing, but there's a lot of ballet talent on the floor of the stadium right now. A couple takes the spotlight, in what could also be a nod to the country's excellent history in ice dance events (Russia's top contenders for gold wear similar costumes).
Update at 12:45 p.m. ET: Sochi's Gaffe: Not An Olympic First
The "ring fail" at Sochi is taking over conversations online about the Opening Ceremony, especially as it comes at a time when organizers had hoped a rousing event would do away with the negative press the games have gotten over preparations and rights issues.
That was not to be. But from "peace doves burned alive" at the opener of the Seoul 1988 Olympics to the wrong flag being displayed during introductions at the London 2012 games, Sochi isn't alone in enduring embarrassing moments at the Olympics. A recent Yahoo! story compiled a few of them.
Update at 12:40 p.m. ET: Three Horses Gallop In The Sky
In the darkened stadium, three horses gallop across the interior, with a red/yellow disc representing the sun (?) trailing behind them.
Then, people in colorful costumes and giant beings begin to dance around on the stadium floor.
In a beautiful moment, a group of Russia's signature "onion dome" towers ascends high above the stadium floor.
Update at 12:30 p.m. ET: Too Cute Alert; Video Starts
Large and cute animals — a bear, a rabbit, a cat — are skiing and skating around, waving to the crowd. They're the official mascots, but they're also like huge, graceful, friendly robots. Which, maybe they are.
Now a video presentation begins, a film called "The Russian Odyssey," opening with stirring strings and a zoom-in from space to the Earth's surface. Then, guys on the planet's surface start to cut down trees. Before long, tough guys wearing heavy clothes are building things.
Update at 12:25 p.m. ET: Russians Are In The House
The Russian entourage has entered the stadium, and there are screams of joy. They wave, and the music shifts to a higher pitch, with loud stomping sounds.
Their entrance means we're about to embark on more pageantry. If you're still curious about the Cyrillic alphabet, PBS can help.
Update at 12:15 p.m. ET: About That Ring Fail
NPR's Tamara Keith, who's in the stadium, writes for our On the Road Tumblr:
"This could well become the symbol of these Olympic Games. It was supposed to be a breathtaking moment. Snow was falling from the ceiling (it was an incredible effect) and the giant glowing snowflakes at the center of the stadium were transforming into the five Olympic Rings.
"One of the snowflakes failed to open and suddenly it was breathtaking in an entirely different way, as if everyone realized at the same moment that something had gone wrong. It is already trending on Twitter. This isn't the kind of display Russian organizers had in mind."
NPR's Robert Smith says: "Totally sad. It was designed as the defining moment. And then it was."
Update at 12:05 p.m. ET: Who Goes First?
As many have noted, the national teams are entering the Olympic stadium in an order that can be confusing to Western audiences. The order in Sochi, as always, is alphabetical — in the language of the host country. There are two traditional exceptions: Greece goes first, and the host goes last.
Right now, for instance, Portugal is entering, followed by South Korea.
Update at 11:50 a.m. ET: The Athletes March
The mood in the stadium is buoyant as athletes begin to march out from a tunnel and around the stadium's floor. There is music playing that we must describe as poppy techno. But we warn you: We're experts in neither music nor horticulture.
The athletes are marching around the outskirts of the ice, which is bisected by a stripe in the center, from which they emerge to wave to the crowds.
Update at 11:40 a.m. ET: Everyone Gets A Medal
Everyone in the stadium will wear these nifty LED medals around our necks, which we're told will light up at key ... pic.twitter.com/1BbckJkw0s
— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) February 7, 2014
The ceremony will take on a bit of a Logan's Run feel for some of us (especially the science fiction nerds), when colored discs glow on the chests of the tens of thousands of people in attendance.
From NPR's Tamara Keith:
"Robert Smith and I are here inside Fisht Stadium. We've been given a 180-page media guide (half is in Russian) explaining the meaning behind the various elements of the ceremony. Everyone in the stadium will wear these nifty LED medals around our necks, which we're told will light up at different points in the ceremony."
Update at 11:30 a.m. ET: Putin, Dignitaries Introduced; Russia's Anthem
The big "reveal" of the Olympic rings has failed, at least in part. But the show moves on. Russian President Vladimir Putin is introduced, along with International Olympics Committee chief Thomas Bach.
The Russian national anthem is sung by a large choir. A montage of the Olympic flame traveling to Sochi is played. This is a teaser — the flame won't arrive til later.
Update at 11:25 a.m. ET: The Rings Appear — Four Of Them, At Least
Ice islands are floating around, and masses of people dressed in traditional winter outfits are walking across the ice and singing. Above them, the little girl sings.
The stadium's floor is covered by rolling puffs of artificial smoke — a very effective look. Snow, or something like it, is now falling in the arena.
Large snowflakes that had been suspended above them are morphing and resolving themselves into the five intertwined Olympic rings. But there's a misfire — one of the rings has not opened from its crystalline state into a smooth ring.
Update at 11:20 a.m. ET: Fly A Kite
A little girl in a white dress is standing alone on the ice, in the character of "Love"; she flies a kite. It then takes her into the air above the stadium's floor. The crowd oohs and aahs. She rises into a floating village landscape, as rock islands drift around and ethereal choral music plays.
Update at 11:15 a.m. ET: The Olympics Are Open
The first video montage is playing in the stadium, where 40,000 people are watching scenes of Russian culture and history matched with letters of the alphabet. This promises a steady pace, we think.
Our original post continues:
The Where's Waldo chaos pic. Staging before the big show. @PaulPabst pic.twitter.com/QOlL3Imbne
— Curtis Tomasevicz (@ctomasevicz) February 7, 2014
While security concerns have led to tens of thousands of police and military being positioned around the venues, and reporters have complained about conditions in Sochi, the epic spectacle that is the opening ceremony could wash away many of those worries. And it will also bring the athletes closer to competing in events they've been training for since the 2010 Vancouver Games.
As the games begin, many observers believe three countries will vie for the most medals in Sochi: the United States, Norway and Germany. But Canada also has an imposing team, and host Russia is intent on making its mark.
Here's some more background on these Winter Games:
Sochi By The Numbers
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the Oscar-winning screenwriter and Booker Prize-winning novelist, has died at her home in New York. She was 85.
NPR's Bob Mondello reported on her career for NPR's Newscast Desk:
"With the films of Merchant/Ivory, you tend to think first of period-perfect costumes and settings, but it was Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's scripts that gave them substance. She was witty, cultivated and could be wonderfully precise about class and propriety in her adaptations of, say, E.M. Forster.
"A Room With A Viewwon Jhabvala her first screenwriting Oscar in 1985. Another Forster novel, Howard's End, won her her second, by which time she'd become central to the Merchant/Ivory brand, bringing wit and sophistication to The Bostonians, Shakespeare Wallah, Heat And Dust, Jefferson In Paris — 22 films in all, across four decades."
The cause was complications of a pulmonary condition, The New York Times reported.
Jhabvala won the Booker Prize in 1975 for her eighth novel, Heat and Dust. The Guardian has more on her literary career:
"She was a brilliant storyteller. Her work darkened towards the end of her life: she wrote of deception and self-deception and of time's revenges, the twists and turns of an implacable fate that her worst charlatans could manipulate to their advantage. Her vision was bleak; her tone austere. But her supply of complex characters and subtle, vivid scenes was inexhaustible and she caught the ambiguities of human behaviour and the pleasures of the senses in precise, perfect words."
Jhabvala was born into a Jewish family in Germany in 1927. The family moved to Britain when she was 12. She graduated in English literature from Queen Mary College and married Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala in 1951. She later moved with him to the newly independent country. As India's Outlook magazine put it:
"Unlike Naipaul, she wasn't drawn to India by ancestry or, as in Forster's case, by a desire to move beyond a complacent Western liberalism. She was in Delhi, as she wrote, only because her husband was there, and she was interested not in India but in herself in India."
In 1975, with the money she made from Heat and Dust, Jhabvala moved to New York.
"In New York she found a sense of homecoming. Here were the overheated high-ceilinged, furniture-stuffed apartments of her European childhood, with corner delis selling the same pickled cucumbers and potato salads she had loved then," The Guardian wrote in its obituary of the novelist and screenwriter.
In New York she continued her collaboration with the filmmaking duo of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory.
Jhabvala is survived by her husband, her daughters, Renana Jhabvala, Firoza Jhabvala and Ava Jhabvala Wood; and six grandchildren.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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There are many reasons why you would want to read this book. One of the questions many people raise is, "why go through all the hassle of manually building a Linux system from scratch when you can just download and install an existing one?"
One important reason for this project's existence is to help you learn how a Linux system works from the inside out. Building an LFS system helps demonstrate what makes Linux tick, and how things work together and depend on each other. One of the best things that this learning experience can provide is the ability to customize a Linux system to suit your own unique needs.
Another key benefit of LFS is that it allows you to have more control over the system without relying on someone else's Linux implementation. With LFS, you are in the driver's seat and dictate every aspect of the system.
LFS allows you to create very compact Linux systems. When installing regular distributions, you are often forced to install a great many programs which are probably never used or understood. These programs waste resources. You may argue that with today's hard drive and CPUs, such resources are no longer a consideration. Sometimes, however, you are still constrained by size considerations if nothing else. Think about bootable CDs, USB sticks, and embedded systems. Those are areas where LFS can be beneficial.
Another advantage of a custom built Linux system is security. By compiling the entire system from source code, you are empowered to audit everything and apply all the security patches desired. It is no longer necessary to wait for somebody else to compile binary packages that fix a security hole. Unless you examine the patch and implement it yourself, you have no guarantee that the new binary package was built correctly and adequately fixes the problem.
The goal of Linux From Scratch is to build a complete and usable foundation-level system. If you do not wish to build your own Linux system from scratch, you may nevertheless benefit from the information in this book.
There are too many other good reasons to build your own LFS system to list them all here. In the end, education is by far the most powerful of reasons. As you continue in your LFS experience, you will discover the power that information and knowledge truly bring.


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It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
And I'm David Greene. Good morning. President Obama is set to take the oath of office for a second time. He has promised an ambitious agenda for the next four years. NPR's Mara Liasson tackles the question of whether it's ambitious enough.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: President Obama is in very good political shape. He won decisively in November; his approval ratings are the highest since his first months in office; and he's fresh off a year-end political victory on the fiscal cliff. So now what?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I hope, and intend, to be an even better president in the second term than I was in the first.
LIASSON: That will mean achieving his goals, which White House communications director Dan Pfieffer defines as completing the project Mr. Obama started when he first ran for president.
DAN PFEIFFER: At the end of his term, if America's more competitive in the world; if the middle-class worker has a chance to save for retirement, save for college, own a home; then that will be a tremendous success.
LIASSON: As the second term begins, the building blocks of that vision include comprehensive immigration reform, new gun laws, and a deficit and tax deal with the Republicans. There will be high-pitched conflict with Congress over all three. But unlike the first term, where the White House saw only two modes of existence in Washington - gridlock or genuine compromise - in the second term, says Brookings analyst Bill Galston, the White House envisions a new way.
BILL GALSTON: The administration has now adopted a third strategy, which rests on the proposition that the House Republican majority can be broken; and the unity of that majority can be destroyed and that legislation will move with a strong Democratic vote, plus a minority of the majority.
LIASSON: John Podesta, who was Bill Clinton's second-term chief of staff, says President Obama came to this conclusion the hard way.
JOHN PODESTA: President Obama's the guy who comes to the conversation thinking that we can all be rational, we can all find honorable compromise. But the lesson he learned is that his opposition is not likely to operate in what used to be the normal political mode of give and take; that you're going to have to show that you're willing to be as tough as they are.
LIASSON: The other part of the president's second-term approach is to engage the public. Senior adviser to the president Valerie Jarrett says that what the Obama team learned during the December fight over the fiscal cliff.
VALERIE JARRETT: At the end of the year, when finally, at the 11th hour, at the 12th hour, we were able to get Congress to approve averting the fiscal cliff, that happened because of people just saying, come on, we want you to work together. That's what the election was really about. And we will be doing that much more aggressively, in a second term.
LIASSON: That's certainly what the White House thinks helped them win the lame duck standoff over the fiscal cliff. But, says Bill Galston...
GALSTON: The question facing the White House is whether that model of how to get business done, is going to turn out to be viable on a broader front of issues. And if it is, they're going to do very well. And if it isn't, they're going to be butting their heads against a wall.
LIASSON: What worked for the fiscal cliff may or may not work as well on immigration; guns; or the upcoming fiscal crises of the debt ceiling, sequester and government shutdown. Immigration just might be the easiest to achieve, especially since the Republicans' landslide defeat with Hispanic voters has caused them to rethink their opposition to an eventual path to citizenship for undocumented workers.
And on guns, while the president has laid out a sweeping set of policies, he's also signaled that he'll settle for what he can get. That leaves the fiscal battles - the most difficult fights of the second term, and as John Podesta explains, the key to the president's legacy.
PODESTA: He's got to get more growth in the economy. And I think that he's laid out an economic program for the American people that emphasizes investments in infrastructure, in innovation, in education. That's what people are looking to him to do.
LIASSON: Resolving the fiscal crises is the president's only hope of getting the revenue he needs, to make the investments he wants. And here's where Bill Galston sees some shortcomings in President Obama's second-term plan.
GALSTON: If you look at the focus - particularly of year one of the second term - it doesn't correspond all that closely to what the country most needs to get done.
LIASSON: What the country needs, says Galston, is long-term economic growth; and a fiscally sustainable course that would come from a truly big deal on entitlements and taxes. Both are key to the president's holy grail - a prosperous, secure middle class.
GALSTON: He doesn't get that unless he can overcome the fiscal roadblock. And he's not going to be able to do that unless he goes bigger than the debate of the first year is likely to be.
LIASSON: So it's possible that President Obama's second-term agenda, as big and ambitious as it looks, might not be ambitious enough.
Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Much of politics is about symbols and gestures. And there were plenty of them at the historic Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C., Tuesday.
Under Chairman Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee vows to be much more serious about outreach to African-Americans than ever before.
So, to mark Black History Month, the RNC held its second annual Trailblazer Awards lunch at the renovated theater where the likes of Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald once performed in a gentrifying neighborhood that not long ago was solidly "the hood." And there was the berobed Patrick Lundy and the Ministers of Music rocking the house with a black-church sound not typically associated with the GOP.
It matters that this was the second annual awards lunch — a symbol of the slow and steady attentiveness Priebus intends to show black voters and other minorities. It's part of the GOP's "growth and opportunity" push designed to attract to Republican candidates more than the 6 percent of the black vote Mitt Romney garnered in 2012.
The RNC has also sprinkled outreach personnel throughout the organization, put directors in the field and has bought Black History Month radio ads.
"I believe the old idea of bringing people [like campaign staff and surrogates] in five months before an election isn't workable," Priebus told a few reporters before the lunch. "The only way to influence communities across the country is to identify respected leaders within those communities who are willing to advocate for you in that particular community. ... We have many times moved people around and across the country at the end [of a campaign] making a scrambled case for our candidates, which I don't think is effective."
Something else that might make the RNC outreach efforts ineffective, a reporter suggested to Priebus: the voter ID issue. The chair pointed to Georgia's voter ID experience as proof that voter ID laws aren't about voter suppression.
"Look at Georgia. In the black community, their turnout was higher after the voter ID law. And in fact, by percentage, African-American voters voted at a higher percentage than white voters did in 2012. So it's just not true" that the laws are intended to turn away minority voters, he said.
Then it was off to the lunch, where he assured an integrated audience that included Republican party officials, community leaders, former Florida GOP Rep. Allen West and two Washington Redskins players, that the GOP is in it for the long haul in terms of wooing black voters.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Today's Names to Know:
MLB Playoff Races: We've got a one-game playoff!
Jake Peavy vs. Josh Fogg, and there's an intriguing side-show that Matt Holliday could lose the NL batting title if he goes 0-for-5, because the game counts as a regular-season game.
Pick: Rockies. Wow. Peavy is the best pitcher in the NL, if not all of baseball. The
Phillies win NL East/Mets choke away NL East: Philly coming back from 7 games down on September 12 matches the biggest standings comeback in MLB history. (This isn't very "Instant History," but I'd say this exorcises Philly's Ghosts of 1964.)
The Phillies are playing with a lot of mojo right now, but I'm waiting until seeing the results of the Wild Card playoff to make my World Series pick. (Stud: NL MVP contender Jimmy Rollins, for calling this back in February, then leading his team to back it up.)
Complete MLB playoff preview coming tomorrow: D-backs/Cubs, Phillies/Wild Card, Angels/Red Sox, Yankees/Indians. I won't make any picks right now...
...But I will say that the best-case scenario for MLB is that it's Cubs-Phillies in the NLCS and Red Sox-Yankees in the ALCS, with the Cubs ideally making the World Series against whoever survives the Boston-NY series.
NFL Weekend Wrap: The story of the year in the NFL has got to be the resurgence of the Green Bay Packers behind the ageless Brett Favre, who set the all-time TD record in a win over the Vikings that ran the Packers' record to 4-0. TD pass No. 421 came in the first quarter; he added No. 422 in the 4th. Unbreakable record? (Unbreakable? Hardly. As Commenters pointed out: Ummm...PEYTON MANNING?!)
But the offensive story of the day had to be the Lions' 34 4th-quarter points, an NFL record, en route to beating the now-hapless Bears. Maybe there's something to that offseason Jon Kitna season-win-total guarantee.
Griese, Grossman: It just doesn't seem to matter. At this rate, the Bears (1-3) will have their choice of the particularly loaded 2008 QB Draft class.
Fantasy Stud 1: Giants D, which tied an NFL record with 12 sacks in holding last week's explosive Eagles offense to a measly 3 points. (Osi Umenyiora had six sacks by himself.) Apparently, it's harder for McNabb to throw for a gajillion yards and tons of TDs without Brian Westbrook there to balance the offense.
Fantasy Stud 2: Daunte Culpepper, who had 3 TDs -- rushing! -- and another 2 passing. Sure, he didn't throw for many yards, but with that many TDs, who cares?
Tony Romo ain't bad either: 339 yards, 3 TDs in another Cowboys romp. If you drafted Romo in the middle of your fantasy league, you're sitting so pretty right now.
Rams the NFL's worst: Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, yes, confirming Friday's speculation, the Rams are in fact the worst team in the NFL.
Things have hit rock-bottom for the Chargers. Not only are they 1-3, but they lost to the hapless Chiefs. I mean, yikes, the Chargers crowd was openly cheering for Marty Schottenheimer! It's a full-on revolt.
(Maybe if the Chargers fire Norv Turner – as they should today – he can return to San Francisco and save what's left of Alex Smith's battered young career.)
Fantasy Dud: Cadillac Williams, who could be done for the season.
Broken Colts top broken Denver: Wow,
OK, so given the grief that the Falcons have taken for letting Matt Schaub go, it must have been particularly sweet to beat him, especially because it was
Eliminator/Suicide Picks: Anyone have their season ruined by
This week's Adrian Peterson Memorial Rookie of the Week: Dwayne Bowe, who caught 8 passes for 164 yards and a TD, showing up every other skill-position player on the field, including Tomlinson.
(Honorable Mention: Trent Edwards. It's hard enough to be a rookie in the NFL, let alone a rookie QB, let alone starting for a winless team. Edwards got the win.)
MNF: Pats at Bengals. Here's another chance for the Pats to show how dominant they are. Not only will they slice up a Bengals D that allowed
CFB Saturday Recap: Cripes, has the dust settled yet? It was a multi-upset parlay that NO ONE could have predicted. Maybe one or two games, sure, but ALL those upset results? (Not to mention the close finishes for other top teams like USC and
In addition to South Florida, the weekend's big winner is
CFB Top 25 This Week: There was one thing to watch for this week: Where would voters rank the six previously unbeaten contenders who lost – and which team would have the inside track at climbing back up?
The other thing to note is that LSU vaulted USC for No. 1 in the AP poll. Why is this notable? Because usually the voters are slaves to their own inertia; they rarely displaced a No. 1 team if that team wins, even if it's a tough or sloppy game. In this case, they did the right thing: LSU has consistently looked better than USC, and apparently USC's near-miss at
Here's my BlogPoll ballot: Note that I rank
The other thing to note is that I have both
Notre Dame SuckWatch: QB controversy! Hey, if the team is 0-5, at least they can provide a little QB controversy to spice things up. It turns out that Golden Boy Jimmy Clausen ain't all that, and backup Evan Sharpley did more (and better) things in his fill-in time against Purdue than Clausen has done all season combined.
Michigan forfeiting Penn State win?! If last week's off-field CFB intrigue was Mike Gundy's freak-out, then this week's is the emerging news that
Boxing: I don't follow boxing, but Kelly Pavlik upsetting undisputed middleweight champ Jermain Taylor by KO appears to rank up there among the most incredible boxing results of the last two decades.
Women's World Cup:
NBA: If rookie PG Jared Jordan of Marist makes the Knicks, who just traded for him, he will be the most popular player on the team. Just a prediction. I think he'll end up in the D-League.
More: Will Leitch got an interview with Gilbert Arenas for Deadspin while Gil was in NYC. Needless to say, I'm so jealous. (But I don't think I would have gotten Gil to talk about his online surfing habits, which was the highlight of the interview.)
World Sports: It's worth noting that Haile Gebrselassie shattered the world record in the marathon by 29 seconds. That's insane.


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House Cleaning in Glendale, AZ 85310, 3 Ways To Clean Your Oven without Chemicals, Maid Services
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3 ways to clean your oven without chemicals
The best agent for cleaning baked on food spills in your oven is probably already in your pantry. Try it and you may be pleasantly surprised.
Related Topics:
Green Cleaning
Unless you always diligently line the oven with aluminum foil, every home cook will occasionally need to clean the oven. Even a self-cleaning oven isn't a self-sweeping oven. It just burns off spilled food at extreme temperatures. The charred remains (and typically some of the stuck spilled food) will still be in the oven.
According to the supermarket cleaning aisle, you will need an expensive special product just for cleaning the oven, and it likely contains harsh chemicals that may even linger in the oven and ruin the flavor of your food. Instead of buying an oven cleaner, we tried three do-it-yourself oven cleaners. All three worked, to varying degrees. For a fair comparison, we split the bottom of the same oven into three sections and cleaned up several months' worth of drips and spills from pies, casseroles and more. Starting with the most effective method, here are our results.
1. Baking soda paste:
Martha Stewart suggested cleaning the oven with baking soda and water. We were pleasantly surprised to find it was both the simplest (you don't need to make a macramé cleaning elf or anything like that) and most effective way to clean the oven. You simply coat all the oven surfaces with a paste of baking soda and water, then let it work overnight. Presumably to keep your hands spotless for serving hors d'oeuvres, Martha recommends donning gloves and scraping off the resulting grime with a plastic spatula. This takes some muscle, and fails to remove the baking soda residue, so we found an old sponge easier and more effective (albeit messier).
2. Salt, vinegar and heat:
The Organic Authority didn't quite live up to its name with its oven cleaning method. The ingredients are certainly organic, but they don't provide an authoritative solution. OA Writer Jill Ettinger suggests turning on the oven to just 125 degrees (she doesn't specify Fahrenheit, but even if she meant Celsius, it would only equal 257 degrees Fahrenheit, which is still a relatively low oven temperature). Then spray water or vinegar on the oven surface, and salt onto any spills and grime. Turn off oven. Once the oven is cool, wipe out the salt and grime. We used vinegar, and tested the OA method on the right side of the oven floor, which had fewer total spills, but sported a couple of challenging, thick, caked-on spills. It failed to completely clean the worst spots, and the rest of the area required more elbow grease to clear up than did the baking soda method. To be fair, the Organic Authority did suggest a vinegar and baking soda solution for more serious messes, but it is pretty similar to Martha's method.
3. Soap and baking soda:
Surprisingly, the most complex DIY oven cleaner also was the least effective. Tipnut, a clearinghouse for homemaking and craft ideas, suggested sprinkling dry baking soda directly onto the oven floor. Then mix three teaspoons of Borax, 1/4 cup vinegar and 1/8 cup liquid dish soap with two cups of hot water in a spray bottle, and spray on the baking soda. Leave the mixture overnight, and wipe away. While this seems like it would be at least as useful as the simple baking soda paste, the soapy solution took more effort to scrub away, and left more residue.
We should probably clarify that Network is in no way sponsored by or affiliated with Arm & Hammer, but we have proven once again that baking soda can clean or deodorize almost anything. In fact, we used generic baking soda for this test — to great effect. Next time you need to clean the oven, save some money and spare the chemicals. Follow Martha's lead and use a baking soda paste.
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What's that tell you?
Now, tell me what the mystery blob with the vaguely butterfly-like thing on it is supposed to be, and we'll call it even.
The bakers wielding the pastry bags aren't the only culprits, though:
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This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.
Terrorists are still targeting the U.S. homeland. We were reminded of that with news this past week that al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen plotted to blow up a plane headed to the United States.
What's now also clear, the U.S. is now aggressively targeting the terrorists in Yemen. Consider the recent tally: A foreign agent penetrated the group and gave its newest bomb design to the CIA. Drone strikes killed the group's chief of operations against the West and three other key leaders, all part of the West's stepped-up efforts to go after al-Qaida's top affiliate.
NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Until about 2009, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, was an also-ran. Counterterrorism officials didn't think it had the ability to target the West. They miscalculated. Several Christmases ago, an AQAP operative boarded a U.S.-bound flight with explosives hidden in his underwear.
If the bomb hadn't malfunctioned, U.S. officials say, it would have brought the plane down before it reached Detroit. The attack got everyone's attention.
PETER NEUMANN: I think U.S. government has reacted quite, quite swiftly to this development and is shifting resources and quite rightly so.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Peter Neumann is a professor of security studies at Kings College, London, and he says the Christmas Day plot might well have been a one-off event, had it not been for a jail break in Yemen last year. The escape meant that 60 of the country's most experienced al-Qaida operatives were suddenly free. The men joined AQAP, flooding the group with operational commanders and organizers and fighters with battlefield experience. And, as the group's profile grew, jihadis from all over the world arrived in Yemen to join their ranks.
That newfound stature, Peter Neumann says, introduced a vulnerability.
NEUMANN: If you are expanding your staff, so to speak, very rapidly, you can not be very careful, ultimately, about who you take on.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Which could explain how British intelligence managed to get their agent inside. But rather than being an end to the operation, last week's chain of events are really a beginning. They make clear that intelligence officials see AQAP as their new top priority. Foreign intelligence services, including the Saudis, claim they have more operatives inside the group waiting for instructions.
Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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