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Rebel Angel
We have a discipline problem in our house, by which I mean to say: discipline, we have none.
We try, we really do. We bargain, we barter, we cajole, we threaten. We will bake cookies, Emilia, if you will just please listen to Mommy! We will bake cookies and have hot chocolate with marshmallows if you will please, please listen to Mommy! Mommy will take cookies away if you do not listen to Mommy! There will be no more cookies, ever, in this house, if you do not this instant start listening to Mommy! Mommy will destroy all the cookies in the world and angels will cry if you DO. NOT. LISTEN. TO. MOMMY. NOW!
But we never prevail. She is stronger than are we, and she knows it. She is patient: she knows that even if she does not get cookies today, there is always tomorrow. And she knows that if she does not get cookies tomorrow, there will be cookies some other day. And she knows that even if Mommy did try to destroy all the cookies and candy and treats in the world - which Mommy would not, because Mommy loves these things too, and she knows it - she would still have a stash, somewhere, to tide her over until the next solicitous neighbor or little old lady or shopping mall Santa slips her a gingerbread man or a candy cane or some other non-holiday-specific confection. Or she will just get the cookies herself, when we're not looking. She knows how the world works. And she knows that it works in her favor.
She is only just - just - three years old.
She is three years old, and a near-perfect angel when in the care of other authority figures (with the notable exception of my mother, whom she identified early on as possessing a spirit akin to her own and therefore as a potentially dangerous antagonist. Their relationship is loving, but fiery) and, for the most part, when in public. We spent three days at Disney World and Sea World and I - alone in charge of the girl and the infant boy - had very little trouble keeping care: he remained strapped to my chest, and she dutifully (if boisterously) remained within a shout's reach. But at home, when the only authority is my own and that of her father, and no witnesses are present, all hell regularly breaks loose, and we are helpless to stop it.
Every evening is the same: a battle over the when, where, how and why of dinner, and over the why, how, where and when of bedtime. I won't bore you with details; suffice to say that she uses her wits, her charm, sheer force of will and, sometimes, fists, to forestall sitting still, consuming food, bathing, changing for bed, and getting into and staying in bed. The morning is a variation of this struggle (reverse the order of obstacles), and afternoons, after preschool, are another. The weekends sometime erupt into epic battles, wherein she charges, naked, from room to room, cackling madly, slamming doors and diving under tables, evading our reach and our calls and our pleas for compliance. Please, sweetie, we must get dressed! We must eat lunch! We cannot see Santa/build a snowman/bake cookies unless we are dressed/have had lunch/have stopped pummeling our mother. Sometimes, it is not her physical will that she imposes upon us, it is her will-to-independence, her psychic will-to-power - her willingness to simply ignore whatever it is that we're saying and go, find a piece of furniture, push it into the kitchen and up next to the cupboards and go in search of cookies on her own, ignoring us as we stand, hands on hips, voices straining, hissing no, Emilia, we said NO. NO. Did you hear me? NO! Emilia, if you DO NOT CLIMB DOWN from that stool THIS INSTANT you are going into your buckle chair (the Stokke knock-off that functions as a naughty seat - which, yes, we strap her into because not even a team of SuperNannies could keep her in there with just a glare) and you will not have ANY cookies today, none at all, and WHERE ON EARTH ARE YOU GOING YOUNG LADY? and in the time that it takes to ask her to get down she's snatched her contraband and has done a base-slide under the dining room table to make fast work of it.
And we are left, scrambling, pursuing her into corners, sweating and shouting and stumbling gracelessly, two Yosemite Sams to her Bugs Bunny, helpless and ridiculous.
Children, Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued, are tyrants from the first. Struggling against their natural helplessness, their natural, almost slavish, dependence upon us, they strain to exert their will. Thrust into our world, entirely dependent upon us, they must either dominate us or serve us; according to Rousseau, they invariably - they naturally - choose to dominate. Their every impulse, from their very first wail, is to dominate, and by dominating, compel us to become their servants in turn. Which in so many respects we do. This is why, for Rousseau, mothers are always and necessarily imperfect authoritarians - that is, at least, if they are what he understood to be good mothers, which is to say, unconditionally loving mothers - because they are always, in some important way, subservient to their love for their children, and so less capable of imposing the harshest boundaries and teaching the most difficult lessons.
I love Emilia's domineering spirit; I truly do. But it frightens and intimidates me and - in some strange, confusing respect - shames me. She is powerful. She is fearless. She looks at the world around her and, for the most part, sees a world that can and should and will be conquered. That is a wonderful and terrible thing. It is wonderful (and this is the part that shames me) because it it is a remarkable, empowering thing, to regard the world as conquerable. It is something that I struggle to recognize for myself - that most of the obstacles that I see, or imagine I see, before me are conquerable. How extraordinary, to view the world through a lens that remains very nearly entirely unfogged by fear! But it is terrible, because - as Rousseau well knew, as we all well know - our children cannot advance into the world in that way, convinced of their utter entitlement to whatever it is that they desire, convinced of their ability to obtain it for themselves, convinced of their invincibility. They need to understand limits, boundaries. They need to understand that they must bend, give way, let go, listen, obey.
Emilia knows these things, at least as they pertain to the public spaces of her world - the spaces of school and neighborhood and friends and family. She is a remarkably polite and courteous and considerate little girl in spaces where authority emanates from some broader sphere or principle or institution, where everybody is expected to bend and give way equally, where everybody gets cookies if they say please (such are the cafes in our town, full of cookies for small children) and where everybody must wait their turn and where everybody must obey the traffic lights regardless of whether they are three feet tall or six. But in the private space of her home, where her parents loom over her like dictators - loving dictators, but still - where rules are issued that it seems only she must follow (no candy before bedtime no cookies before bedtime no playing after bedtime bedtime bedtime bedtime turn out the light put down your toys time for bed time for school time for dinner are you listening?) (she does not see that we deny ourselves - usually - cookies at bedtime. She sees only that we stay up later, and can and do reach the forbidden cupboards whenever we please) she resists. She resists, like (sometimes literally) a tiny little sans-culottes, or a tiny little Robespierre, or some explosive revolutionary hybrid of the two. She resists, and we cave to her resistance, and like France of the late 18C, we go down in flames.
It is, I don't have to tell you, exhausting. I have, in recent weeks, invoked the coal-delivering incarnation of Santa too many times (a topic for another post, another time: Santa here replaces God, watching us all to see if we are bad or good so be good for goodness sakes) and in so doing broke one of my writ-pre-parenthood Rules Of Parenting (thou shalt not threaten thy children with retribution from Higher Powers, seasonal or otherwise); I also, just yesterday evening - OH THE SHAME - slapped her tiny hand - I did, I did - not at all hard, but still - after taking one too many punches from her wee flying fists (thereby breaking my hardest and fastest rules: thou shalt always endeavor to not react in anger, and thou shalt not ever, EVER hit thine children.)
I feel like the worst shit. But I also feel like a helpless shit, one who is fighting a losing battle.
What do I do? What do you do?
For what it's worth, and because some of you have asked - we do enforce our threats. Time-out in her buckle chair is time-out in her buckle-chair - no negotiations. But she almost invariably, after time-out is over, bounds out of the chair and back into whatever she was doing that warranted the buckle-chair in the first place. We do physically stop her when, for example, she is stealing cookies (after giving her the opportunity to cease theft on her own), and our bargaining efforts escalate because she always raises the stakes - no cookies? She doesn't care. No cookies tomorrow? Doesn't care. NO COOKIES EVER? Whatever. She knows that there's no such thing as a world devoid of cookies.
Labels: ask the internets, bad mother, Being Bad, Her Bad Christmas, WonderBaby


text: Eigerdals is a pleasant and visually warm sans-serif type family. Eigerdahl is a soft and amiable face, perfect for when you want to convey a relaxed and pleasant feeling. Eigerdals features a smooth, brushed impression and a tall x-height. The characters are slightly top heavy in the heavier weights to give it a friendly feel.The Eigerdals family contains seven weights and their complementary italics. It contains some unique character traits that give the face a unique look, and the type family is incredibly versatile. The face is highly readable in extended text settings, and the bolder weights are perfect for display work. Eigerdals can be used in a variety of graphic settings.Eigerdals includes many useful OpenType features, including a set of upright italic swash alternates, ligatures and unicase alternates.OpenType-capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. This family also includes the glyphs to support a wide range of languages.

subset: commoncrawl


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Why You Need A Next-Generation Firewall
Next-generation (NG) firewalls, with features such as deep packet inspection, intrusion detection, application identification, and granular control, are important weapons in the battle against hacking and malware. Mobile applications have taken the overall scheme of corporate IT, and NG firewalls enable organizations to incorporate full-stack inspection to support intrusion prevention.
This white paper explores the reasons for implementing NG firewalls and lays out a path to success for overburdened IT organizations.


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Aaron Harang (3-2, 3.83) vs. Trevor Cahill (2-4, 4.01).
5: The number of consecutive games the Dodgers have won (for the third time this season, per @truebluela).
4: The number of consecutive games in which the Dodgers have scored exactly six runs (6-5, 6-0, 6-5 against the Cardinals — game set match! — and 6-1 against the Snakes last night).
3: The number of consecutive starts in which D'backs starter Cahill has not earned a win.
2: The number of series the Dodgers have to complete (including this one against Arizona) before Matt Kemp is scheduled to return (on May 29, which is Game 2 of a four-game series against the Brewers).
1: The number of games the Kings have to win to move on to the Stanley Cup Finals. This will serve as your Kings Playoff Game Thread as well. Go Kings!


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WASHINGTON —U.S. Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) and Dick Lugar (R-IN), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, commended today the parliament of the United Kingdom for introduction of an Early Day Motion which urges the United Kingdom to consider legislation similar to the Energy Security Through Transparency Act (S.1700).
S.1700 strengthens international disclosure efforts, expresses the sense of Congress that the Administration should undertake to become an implementing country of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (we are currently a supporting country); and commits the Department of Interior to disclosing extractive payments received for resources derived from federal lands.
"Greater transparency leads to greater stability in countries that benefit from their natural resources and lessens volatility in the global energy market. With Great Britain following our lead on energy transparency legislation, we are rightly putting human rights up front and empowering people to fight corruption and hold their governments accountable," Cardin said.
"Transparency should be the global norm because it combats corruption, strengthens energy security, and encourages economic development in natural resource producing nations," Lugar said.
The Early Day Motion states:
That this House notes that corruption in the oil, gas and mining industries has caused great human misery in Africa and other developing regions; considers that corruption would be curbed by full disclosure of revenue payments to governments by oil, gas and mining companies; further notes that the United States Congress is considering a law to require all such companies regulated in the US to fully disclose such payments; and urges the Government to consider similar legislation.
Learn more about the "resource curse" by reading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Minority Staff report here.
Watch a video from the U.S. Helsinki Commission on the need for energy transparency and energy security here.


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(Updated August 2017)
There are many concerns today over how education technology companies protect data and whether they profit from the sale of that data or advertising. From its launch in 2004, School Loop has never and will never sell any student or parent data (or any system data for that matter). We don't sell ads or carry advertising. And we regularly review and update our industry-standard security practices and systems.
This document discusses data security in general, FERPA compliance, and the requirements of AB1584, SB177 SOPIPA Compliance.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (415) 952-5667
Password Security. All passwords are treated securely and one-way encrypted. We cannot decrypt the passwords and do not provide information concerning Admin accounts (ROOT Admin, container Admin, local administrator or domain administrator) or their equivalent to any persons. We encourage our districts to use LDAP integration so that they have complete control over user access and passwords.
Security of District Systems. We never gain or try to gain unauthorized access to or modify district systems including file servers, routers, switches, NdS and Internet services.
Privacy. We adhere to all provisions of the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 123g), California Education Code and district policies regarding the protection and confidentiality of data. We consider all data collected in the course of our duties to be protected and confidential. Release of this data can only be authorized by district leadership and by appropriate state and federal officials.
With regards to FERPA and the use of School Loop, in general, districts are guided by the U.S. Department of Education's ruling on Edline and the Clark County School District (Las Vegas, Nevada). Edline was competitor offering similar services. The Department of Education conclusion is as follows:
Based on the information provided, it appears that the arrangement schools within the District have with Edline meets these requirements for disclosing specified information from education records to Edline as a "school official" under this FERPA exception. In particular, 1) Edline provides online hosting services that permit parents to view some of their children's education records, and Edline uses the information from education records to perform those services that would otherwise be provided by school employees; 2) Edline's online access services provide it with "legitimate educational interests" in the information disclosed to Edline by each school; and 3) Edline's use and maintenance of personally identifiable information from education records is subject to the direct control of each school within the District. Each school or the District must ensure that Edline does not redisclose or permit the redisclosure of any personally identifiable information from education records except as specifically authorized by the school or District that is responsible for the contract. The school (or District), in turn, remains responsible for any FERPA violations committed by its service provider. In that regard, we note that Edline takes reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure that information from education records is not disclosed or made available to other parties and does not use the information for any other purpose.
Based on this guidance, districts in California and across the country use systems like School Loop and stay within the law.
As noted, School Loop offers a variety of account types and settings that help districts enforce their policies. These accounts have access to different types of content. Access to those accounts can be controlled in various ways.
School Loop offers roles for certificated employees (teachers, principals, and certificated staff), classified employees (we call those accounts Associates), parents, students, and a class of account we label Afterschool Professional (ASP). ASP accounts are optional for districts and allow districts and parents to approve accounts for tutors, social workers, people who run after school programs, and others they deem fit.
Parents and students can only see their own grades and attendance information, and other such information published specifically to them as members of classes and schools. Parents and students self-register, and districts are given the choice of approving each account before any access is granted (approval being whatever process they set up to verify that the registrant is legit), or allowing limited access to parents and requiring verification for grades and attendance. Additionally, all parents and students have a tool that allows them to challenge the membership of any other person who registers as a parent. This Challenge tool sends an alert to administrators, and admins can then suspend or delete the account, ignore the challenge, or ask for more information.
School Loop has account types for administrators, certificated staff, classified staff, other non-staff members, students, and parents. Each type of account is designed to align with privacy regulations. Districts assign these roles, so it is the district's responsibility to ensure that individuals are assigned the correct type of account.
The combination of account types, access rights, control over account registration, and control over access to content has proved successful at helping hundreds of districts enforce their privacy policies in different ways. In addition, there are a variety of fine-tuning settings that allow you to further limit access, mask the identity of a student, and restrict parent accounts for students.
Over our history, we have repeatedly refined these tools to help districts use School Loop safely and within their policy guidelines. We are quite concerned over privacy and protecting students, and take our responsibilities to do so seriously.
Reuse: We do not copy, duplicate, sell, repackage or use for demonstration purposes any district data.
Transport: We provide a secure channel encrypted via SFTP or SMTP for the district to send us data. We do not have direct access to district systems.
External Security: We secure our system against external hacking and attacks. We use CloudFlare to protect our services against various denial of service attacks. Our servers are protected behind Juniper and Cisco firewalls and are hardened to restrict access to only those services required for operation. All administrative access occurs over an SSL encrypted connection with dual-factor authentication.
Internal Security: We secure our system against internal hacking and attacks. District data is protected by segmenting the data into databases that can only be accessed through district portals. When a district uploads encrypted data, the import server determines the appropriate portal and sends the encrypted data to that portal. A process on the portal decrypts and processes the data, importing it into the database where it can be accessed only by that particular portal. The data is never decrypted by the import server and any transitory copy of the data is deleted upon transmission to the portal.
Database backups are performed on a daily basis and are encrypted in memory using 256-bit AES before they are ever written to disk. Encrypted backups are retained on the backup server for three days, on a local archive server for 45 days, and on an off-site archive server for 90 days. One monthly encrypted backup is retained perpetually while the district is under contract. Access to all backup and archive servers is restricted exclusively to School Loop administrative staff via the aforementioned VPN.
District Access to District Data: During the term of our contract with a district, the district has complete access to all District Data.
Handling Data at Contract Termination: Upon termination of an executed contract we will depersonalize all personally identifiable data within 60 days. We will also destroy the data.
Data Ownership. In all cases, the district retains ownership and control of all student data.
Students Access to Student Created Content. Students can download content they create via link available in their DropBox.
Third-party use of Data. We do not allow third-parties use of student information beyond those purposes defined in the executed contract with the district.
School Loop receives personally identifiable information directly from parents, legal guardians and students and as exported from the district and imported into School Loop. Parents, legal guardians and students can view any personally identifiable information they enter or that we import from the district. Parents, legal guardians and students can correct any information they enter. Corrections to information from the district must be made by the district.
Data Security. We take the following steps to ensure that student data is kept secure. Confidential Student data is stored in a database that can only be accessed via user login at the school portal or mobile app. The portal application allows access to the student data only by (1) the student (2) the student's parents, (3) certificated members of the school staff (4) After-School Professional who have been approved by approved parents. Districts can set the approval process for parent access to require that parent's establish their identity to a staff member. See the FERPA discussion above for more detail.
Notification of Breach. The following is our procedure to communicate with affected parents, legal guardians and eligible students if there is an unauthorized disclosure of student records:
School Loop implements industry-standard security procedures for storing and accessing information to avoid the loss or theft of any data, with an emphasis on protecting personal data, defined as login credentials, permanent student IDs, addresses, phone numbers. If we detect a breach involving the loss or theft of personal data our notification plan is as follows:
School Loop CEO, CTO, IT Lead, and Support Lead will meet to discuss what is known about the breach and identify the steps necessary to resolve the issue.
The Support Team will notify affected districts and explain the actions we have taken, our plan moving forward, and the timeline for resolution. Our goal is resolution within 72 hours.
The breach will be reported to local law enforcement in conjunction with the district, if required.
We will notify affected users, explain the impact of the breach, our plan moving forward, and the timeline for resolution, in conjunction with the district. District may elect to notify users independently and directly.
If more than 500 users are affected, a notice of breach will be posted on our corporate website, unless such notification is restricted by legal authorities.
We will notify the district, provide details of the resolution, and outline safeguards to prevent a recurrence.
We will notify affected users, provide details of the resolution, outline safeguards to prevent a recurrence, and define steps they can take to safeguard their information, all in conjunction with the district, unless such notification is restricted by legal authorities.
In California, by law, if more than 500 residents are affected, the Attorney General will be notified.
Data and Third-Parties Post Contract. We certify that student records will not be available to a third party once the district contract has expired or is canceled.
No Target Advertising. We do not use personally identifiable information from student records to target advertising to students.
No Target Advertising. We do not sell or carry advertising, and we do not target advertising on our website or any other website using information acquired from students.
No Student Profile. We do not create a profile for a student except for school purposes as defined in an executed contract with the District.
No Selling Student Information. We do not sell student information.
Information Disclosure. We do not disclose student information unless for legal, regulatory, judicial, or safety reasons, and then only to authorized parties and with the approval of the district.
Reasonable Security Practices. Student information is protected through reasonable security procedures and practices. Student information is stored in a database that is accessible only via the portal that hosts the student's school. And student information transmitted from the district is encrypted before leaving the district computers and not decrypted until it is processed by the portal itself. Any backups of the portal database are encrypted before they are ever stored on disk.
Deletion of Student Data. Upon termination of an executed contract we will dispose of all personally identifiable data and transfer that data to the district within 60 days of the end of the contract.
Information Disclosure when Required by Law. We will disclose student information when required by law, and to authorized educational agencies when requested.


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Theodoros II (Choreftakis) of Alexandria
His Beatitude Theodoros II of Alexandria, is the current Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa. He was elected following the untimely accidental death of Patriarch Petros VII.
The future patriarch was born Nikolaos Choreftakis on the island of Crete in 1954. Nikolaos completed his early education in schools on Crete. Continuing his education, he graduated from the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School in Athens and earned a degree from the Theological Faculty of the Aristotelian University of Thessalonica. He also studied the history of art, literature, and philosophy in Odessa.
Having taken monastic vows and receiving the name Theodoros, he was ordained a deacon. From 1975 to 1985, Dn. Theodoros served as archdeacon and chancellor of the holy Metropolis of Lambis and Sfakion in Crete. Here he developed significant preaching and philanthropic activities, such as at hostels for needy youth. From 1985 to 1990, during the tenure of Patriarchs Nicholas VI and Parthenios as Patriarchs of Alexandria, he served as Patriarchal Exarch in Russia, based in Odessa, Ukraine. There he established the Institution of Hellenic Culture and the Philiki Eteria Museum where 600 children were taught a thorough knowledge of Greek.
In 1990, he was consecrated bishop with the title of the formerly distinguished Diocese of Cyrene with the added appointment as representative of Patr. Parthenios in Athens. In this position he always accompanied Patr. Parthenios on his travels throughout Africa and to many international, interfaith, and Theological conferences.
In 1997, he was appointed Patriarchal Vicar by Patriarch Petros VII, to assist the new patriarch at the outset of his patriarchate. Ten months later Bp. Theodoros was elected Metropolitan of Cameroon. As the leader of this missionary diocese, Metr. Theodoros greatly expanded the missionary activity in the diocese. He encouraged the building of churches, schools, and hospitals, as well as helping many Africans and Hellenes.
In 2002, Metr. Theodoros was transferred to the holy Metropolis of Zimbabwe, where he established four missionary centers in Harare, a Hellenic Cultural Center that could hold 400 delegates, two large missionary centers in Malawi, with a hospital, technical schools, and nursery schools. Aided by the Greek Parliament he renovated the Hellenic Square (School-Church-Vicarage) in Beira, Mozambique. He founded churches and contributed to the establishment of the Hellenic Communities of Botswana and Angola.
On October 9, 2004, Metr. Theodoros was unanimously elected by the Synod of the Alexandrian Throne as Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, succeeding Patriarch Petros VII who was tragically killed in a helicopter accident. The enthronement ceremony took place at the Cathedral of Annunciation in Alexandria, on October 24, 2004. Present were distinguished ecclesiastical and civilian representatives and great number of faithful. His general missionary activity, as well as his affable character, are the reason behind the love felt towards him by all Africans, as well as by the communities of the Hellenes and Arabs of Egypt and All Africa.
Theodoros II (Choreftakis) of Alexandria | ||
Preceded by: unknown |
Bishop of Cyrene 1990–1997 |
Succeeded by: Athanasios (Kykkotis) |
Preceded by: Petros (Papapetrou) |
Archbishop of Cameroon 1997–2002 |
Succeeded by: Dimitrios (Zaharengas) |
Preceded by: Kyrillos (Economopoulos) |
Archbishop of Zimbabwe 2002–2004 |
Succeeded by: George (Vladimirou) |
Preceded by: Petros VII |
Patriarch of Alexandria 2004–Present |
Succeeded by: — |
External links
- Listing at the Orthodox Research Institute
- His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa: Biography
- Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria at Wikipedia
- His Beatitude Theodoros II: A Greek primer by Gamal Nkrumah
- Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa


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Brewers - 000 000 201 - 3 9 1Dice was strong (6.2-7-2-2-6, 103, both runs unearned) and David Ortiz belted a three-run home run to left-center in the second inning. The pen saw some nice work from Manny Delcarmen (1.1 IP, ending the 7th and taking the 8th, allowing only a one-out single).
Red Sox - 130 000 01x - 5 11 1
Ortiz also scored in the first, on a bases-loaded walk to J.D. Drew. Doubles from Jason Varitek and Jacoby Ellsbury brought in the fifth run in the eighth.
Matsuzaka worked quickly through the first 4.2 innings, throwing only 58 pitches to 16 batters. But with two outs in the fifth, he allowed a single to Bill Hall, hit Jason Kendall and walked Rickie Weeks to load the bases before getting the final out.
A two-out error at third from Kevin Youkilis kept the seventh inning alive for Milwaukee and Mike Cameron followed with a two-run dong to left. Papelbon allowed a solo shot to Ryan Braun in the ninth.
The Red Sox had plenty of chances to add to their run total.
None of those runners scored. In fact, only one of those seven runners advanced even one base; the man on first in the 6th ended up at second.4th - runner on second, no outs
5th - runners on first and second, no outs
6th - runners on first and third, no outs
7th - runners on first and second, no outs
Jeff Suppan (4.63, 92 ERA+) / Daisuke Matsuzaka (2.45, 174 ERA+)
Game 1 of today's afternoon-night doubleheader.


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Home » ReR Label » DOCKSTADER, TOD and MYERS, DAVID: Pond
DOCKSTADER, TOD and MYERS, DAVID: Pond
Life meets art. Born of a long written correspondence and a mutual affection for frogs between David Myers (the artist formerly known as Arcane Device) and Tod Dockstader which eventually spawned this programme of electronic/concrete pieces derived almost entirely from field (and swamp) recordings of frogs - choral and solo - processed, manipulated and organised in a million ways. This release also marks the welcome return of Tod Dockstader to the lists; it's his first large-scale new published work for decades.
Only available at this price as part of the ReR Sale Offer (minimum) 4 titles)
Code: ReRTDDM1
Price: £5.00


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Children's Castle is a baby boy clothes boutique that has created an extensive array of unique baby boy clothes and toddler boy clothes. We offer custom made designer baby clothes. Our specialty is Baby Boy Baptism Outfits that are superior in style and quality to any other. Smocked baby clothes are featured with matching sibling outfits. Boys Christening gowns are heirloom quality. We specialize in Baby Boy First Birthday Outfits, Christening Outfits for Boys, Baby Boy Baptism Outfits, Thanksgiving Outfits, Christmas Outfits, Easter Outfits, Baby Girl Dresses, Baby Boy Romper and smocked baby clothes.
Boys Short Sets


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WASHINGTON -- A study of a dozen of 2012's wildest weather events found that man-made global warming increased the likelihood of about half of them, including Superstorm Sandy's devastating surge and shrinking Arctic sea ice.
The other half -- including a record wet British summer and the U.S. drought last year -- simply reflected the random freakiness of weather, researchers with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the British meteorological office concluded in a report issued Thursday.
The scientists conducted thousands of runs of different computer simulations that looked at various factors, such as moisture in the air, atmospheric flow, and sea temperature and level.
The approach represents an evolution in the field. Scientists used to say that individual weather events -- a specific hurricane or flood, for example -- cannot be attributed to climate change. But recently, researchers have used computer simulations to look at extreme events in a more nuanced way and measure the influence of climate change on their likelihood and magnitude.
This is the second year that NOAA and the British meteorology office have teamed up to look at the greenhouse gas connection to the previous year's unusual events.
"We've got some new evidence that human influence has changed the risk and has changed it enough that we can detect it," study lead author Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution for the British meteorological office, said at a news conference.
The researchers said climate change had made these 2012 events more likely: U.S. heat waves, Superstorm Sandy flooding, the changing Arctic sea ice, drought in Europe's Iberian peninsula, and extreme rainfall in Australia and New Zealand.
The 78 international researchers, however, found no global warming connection for the U.S. drought, Europe's summer extremes, a cold spell in the Netherlands, drought in eastern Kenya and Somalia, floods in northern China and heavy rain in southwestern Japan.
That does not mean that there weren't climate change factors involved, just that researchers couldn't find or prove them, said the authors of the 84-page study, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
All 12 events -- chosen in part because of their location and the effect they had on society -- would have happened anyway, but their magnitude and likelihood were boosted in some cases by global warming, the researchers said.
The two events where scientists found the biggest climate change connection both hit the United States.
The likelihood of the record July U.S. heat wave that hit the Northeast and north-central region is four times greater now than in preindustrial times because of greenhouse gases, Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh found in his analysis.
The kind of surge-related flooding that Superstorm Sandy brought to parts of New York City is about 50 per cent more likely than it was in 1950, said study co-author William Sweet, a NOAA oceanographer.
Stott said one of the hardest connections to make is for rainfall. The researchers were able to connect three of the eight instances of too much or too little rain to climate change; the five other instances were attributed to natural variability.
The different authors of the 21 chapters used differing techniques to look at climate change connections, and in some instances came to conflicting and confusing conclusions.
Georgia Institute of Technology professor Judith Curry, who often disagrees with mainstream scientists, said connecting shrinking sea ice to human activity was obvious, but as for Sandy and the rest: "I'm not buying it at all."
Thomas Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, said the study provides "compelling evidence that human-caused change was a factor contributing to the extreme events."


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As a self-professed film addict and lover of all things fantasy and science fiction, summer tends to be my favorite time of the year at the box office. 🙂 This is when Hollywood tends to roll out the best of its big-budget films, and this summer, we have quite a selection: from superheroes, to giant fighting robots to the return of the USS Enterprise. Although the reception to the 2013 films released so far has been a bit lukewarm, quite a few hotly-anticipated films will come out in the next few months. Here are some of the most buzzed-about movies this summer:
Iron Man 3 (May 3)
"Iron Man 3" is the first individual Marvel superhero film to be released after the success of last summer's mash-up "The Avengers," and I'm curious to see where Marvel plans to take the franchise. With a goal of building anticipation back up for the second Avengers film in 2015, Marvel's challenge will be to maintain the tone that has worked in the past for these films — a blend of humor, heart and action — but also prevent that formula from becoming stale.
That's why I'm excited for "Iron Man 3." Arguably the most popular member of "The Avengers" cinematic universe, Tony Stark is known for his trademark snarky wit and devil-may-care attitude, and the belief that he can handle anything that's thrown at him. However, this new film seems to challenge the character and expose his vulnerabilities in ways we haven't seen before. While I hope the film makers haven't cut out too much of Stark's humor, I think it's a smart strategy to take the story in a new and slightly darker direction.
Trailers aren't always a perfect indicator of how good a film will actually be, but the trailers released so far for "Iron Man 3" look pretty epic. It wouldn't surprise me if this film turned out to be the biggest money-maker of the summer.
The Great Gatsby (May 10)
I finally read "The Great Gatsby" for the first time last fall, and after I finished it, I was left with two thoughts: first, that I loved the book, and second, that it might be difficult to adapt the book for film.
Taking place in the Roaring Twenties, "The Great Gatsby" is the story of Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), a wealthy man who throws lavish parties and buys anything he wants, yet has an empty existence. He's haunted by his love for the capricious Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), and their doomed romance ends up destroying more lives that just their own.
The plot itself is fairly simple, but the real power of the novel lies in author F. Scott Fitzgerald's rich descriptions and the beautiful way he strings words together: "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars." Unfortunately, prose doesn't transfer to a visual medium (you don't want too many voice-overs with a character describing what's going on), so I'm curious to see how the film makers will capture the spirit of Fitzgerald's novel.
The world depicted in the trailers is colorful and stylized, and presenting it in 3D is an interesting choice. The film was originally slated for release in December last year, which perhaps seemed like a better fit than summertime. It will be interesting to see how well this film does at the box office, especially since it's sandwiched between two of the summer's most buzzed-about blockbusters: "Iron Man 3" and "Star Trek: Into Darkness."
Star Trek: Into Darkness (May 17)
Out of all the films slated for release in 2013, this is the one I'm most looking forward to, and I'm both excited and nervous about it. I loved J.J. Abrams' first "Star Trek" film, which was a surprise hit and successfully rebooted a previously struggling franchise. Because of Abrams' earlier success, there's perhaps even more pressure this time around.
True to form, Abrams hasn't let many details slip about the film's plot. We know Benedict Cumberbatch is playing a vengeful terrorist named "John Harrison," who may or may not actually be a famous villain from classic "Star Trek" lore (theories about Cumberbatch actually playing Khan or Gary Mitchell have been floating around). As the newly minted captain of the Enterprise, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is forced to confront Cumberbatch's villain and prove that he's worthy of his post.
Since Abrams will be directing the upcoming "Star Wars" film set for release in 2015, this will probably be the last "Trek" film we see from him. I'm hoping he leaves us with a cinematic thrill ride that will be as fun and exhilarating as his first.
After Earth (June 7)
Once one of Hollywood's most promising new directors, M. Night Shyalaman has had a rough ride at the box office lately, with several high-profile flops on his résumé (including 2010's "The Last Airbender," which is, I must admit, one of the worst fantasy movies I've ever seen). However, "After Earth" could be his comeback.
Set (apparently) in the future, after the planet Earth has become an untamed, uninhabitable wasteland, the film follows an interplanetary ranger (Will Smith) and his son (played by his real-life son Jaden Smith) who crash-land on Earth and are forced to fight for their survival in the wild and dangerous environment.
The trailer for the movie didn't pique my interest quite as much as I was hoping it would, but I'm a fan of Will Smith, and I'm intrigued by the film's premise. Hollywood has actually been releasing quite a few science fiction films lately, which is a trend I'm definitely excited about. I hope these films end up doing well at the box office, so we'll be likely to see more of these types of films in the future.
Man of Steel (June 14)
Although Superman is arguably the best-known American superhero, he hasn't been as popular of late. In an age of flawed, conflicted superheroes (see Robert Downey Jr.'s sarcastic Iron Man, Christian Bale's brooding Batman, etc.), Superman almost seems too "perfect." He can fly, he has x-ray vision, and aside from "Kryptonite," he doesn't really have many vulnerabilities. He seems too distant, too aloof, and audiences have had trouble relating to him.
Director Zack Snyder is hoping to change that. His "Man of Steel" film seeks to find a new way to tell Superman's story, and — even though the character isn't from this planet — to make him seem more "human."
"Man of Steel" is probably the riskiest film this summer. If DC Comics wants to pursue a "Justice League" film, then they really need this new Superman film to be a success. So far, the trailers seem promising, and Superman actor Henry Cavill certainly looks the part. The fact Batman director Christopher Nolan is producing the film also is a good sign, though I hope "Man of Steel" will be able to find its own voice and won't seem too much like the Superman version of "Batman Begins."
World War Z (June 21)
Zombies seems to be everywhere in the media these days. AMC's zombie drama "The Walking Dead" is one of the most popular TV shows currently on air, and the zombie romantic comedy "Warm Bodies" was a surprise hit earlier this year. Brad Pitt is bringing zombies to the big screen again this summer with "World War Z."
Pitt stars as a U.N. specialist who is tasked with traveling around the world to find the origins of a deadly virus that is turning people into zombies. While most people think of zombies as slow-moving stumblers, the zombies in this film move with an eerie amount of speed and pile on top of each other to reach a target.
I'm curious to see what the reviews will say and what the audience response to this film will be. Although zombies are a poplar subject for films and TV shows right now, there's always a risk of audience fatigue if there are too many zombie stories in too short of a time period. "World War Z" will need to demonstrate it can bring something new to the genre.
The Lone Ranger (July 3)
"The Lone Ranger," a popular TV show in the 1950s, is getting a big-screen update this summer. The action/adventure western stars Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp as the masked hero and his friend Tonto, and is directed by Gore Verbinski, the director of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films.
With a budget that's reportedly north of $200 million, there's a lot of pressure for this film to do well. I think it will be one of those "go big or go home" movies — it will either be a runaway hit, or a major flop. There probably won't be a lot of middle ground.
I'm hoping this is a fun, quirky action/adventure comedy in the same spirit as Verbinski's "Pirates" films. Johnny Depp is a master at creating eccentric, memorable characters, and he and Hammer have a chance of playing well off each other here. Though I wasn't a fan of last year's Snow White film "Mirror Mirror," which Hammer also starred in, I thought Hammer's character was still likable and funny and a stand-out amongst the cast in an otherwise "so-so" film.
Pacific Rim (July 12)
Robots, monsters and aliens — honestly, it doesn't get much cooler than this. 😉 "Pacific Rim" is director Guillermo del Toro's first major venture into Hollywood's summer tentpole season, and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. With a solid cast that includes Idris Elba (BBC's "Luther") and Charlie Hunnam ("Sons of Anarchy"), the sci-fi movie is about humanity's last efforts to fend off an alien invasion.
I'm hoping "Pacific Rim" will fulfill the hopes I originally had for the "Transformers" franchise. If the trailer is any indication, the movie will have plenty of over-the-top action sequences with giant fighting robots. However, I'm hoping del Toro will be able to balance all these special effects with a carefully-crafted story and interesting characters (and he's proven he's very capable of this in the past).
"Pacific Rim" could be a break-out hit this summer, and it's one of the films I'm most looking forward to this year.
The Wolverine (July 26)
Wolverine is the most popular character to come out of the "X-Men" films, and he's getting his second stand-alone movie this summer. This time around, he's heading to Japan, where he'll battle both ninjas and personal demons.
I have to admit, I do have mixed feelings about this one. I love Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the character, and I believe he was the absolute perfect choice for the role. However, while I did enjoy the previous Wolverine spin-off in 2009, titled "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," it didn't have the same energy as 2011's excellent prequel "First Class," which featured a young Magneto and Professor Charles Xavier. I'm very excited about the "First Class" sequel in 2014 but haven't sensed as much buzz about the new Wolverine film.
Still, I think the idea of setting this movie in Japan was a good choice and could bring a much-needed fresh perspective to the spin-off franchise.
Elysium (Aug. 9)
Directed by Neill Blomkamp ("District 9"), "Elysium" is a dystopian sci-fi drama that takes place in 2159, when the world has been divided into two distinct classes: the wealthy, who live in a lavish orbital space station, and the poor, who have been abandoned on the planet's dying surface. Matt Damon plays a lower-class character named Max who is exposed to radiation at his factory job and has to break into the space station to find treatment.
Of all the science fiction films scheduled for release this summer, "Elysium" is likely to be the grittiest and perhaps the most thought-provoking. Blomkamp filmed part of the movie in a garbage dump in Mexico City and isn't presenting a white-washed version of our future.
I'm excited about this film, and again, it's great to see so many sci-fi projects in theaters this summer. Matt Damon has proven himself to be a versatile actor — equally at home in smaller dramas and big-budget action franchises — and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with this role.
So, what films are you most looking forward to this summer? Which ones do you think will be hits? Which ones could be flops?


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Obama Set For News Conference Friday Afternoon
President Obama is set to hold a news conference at the White House on Friday at 3 p.m. ET — his first such formal give-and-take with the press corps since "NSA leaker" Edward Snowden starting spilling secrets about National Security Agency surveillance programs in June.
So we should expect questions about Snowden, spying and civil liberties, as well as strained relations with Russia, the economy and other subjects.
We're planning to follow along and live blog during the news conference. Check back with us as the time draws closer. Also, NPR.org will be streaming the audio and many member stations will broadcast NPR's coverage. Of course, it will also be broadcast on the cable news channels and webcast by the White House.
The president's last "full" news conference was on April 30. Our coverage of it is here.
The president and his family are due to leave the White House on Saturday for a 9-day vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Mass.


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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Authorities in North Carolina are searching for whoever made a massive, unauthorized withdrawal from a diaper bank.
The Diaper Bank of North Carolina says 13,000 diapers were stolen last weekend. The Durham-based nonprofit provides diapers to struggling families.
Founder and executive director Michelle Old said she went Monday to pick up an order to be distributed to a homeless shelter. She found the order had been strewn across the floor, and various sizes of diapers were missing.
Old said losing the sizes 4 and 5 diapers was especially difficult because babies can stay in them for up to a year and they are hard to keep in stock.
"We already struggle and usually are low on those, but they completely took every diaper," Old said.
In addition, Old said thieves stole all the diapers from a reserve room that holds extra diapers and that no one outside the organization knows about.
A group of volunteers from a church had been in the building last Saturday helping to re-wrap 6,000 packaged diapers for distribution in the community, Old said, adding that the shelves were full on Saturday.
Old said some people told her the diapers have turned up at local yard sales, and were being sold on the street.
"A couple of people, since hearing about this, have contacted us and say they have been approached in the downtown area with people selling our diapers. Our tags are still on them," she said, adding that one woman told her they were going for $4 a package.
The diaper bank was formed one year ago. Old said the goal was to distribute 50,000 diapers in a year, but the organization has handed out 139,000 in 11 months. She said the mission will go on despite the theft.
"The best that we can do is to hope we get the word out and try to fill our shelves again," Old said. "We're not in a position where we have any kind of long-running budget. Every penny goes toward buying diapers. This is not going to stop us. We are determined to keep moving forward and keep covering bottoms. That's what we're going to do."


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Here's a fun recipe for margarita cupcakes that can be made super quickly thanks to the help of a box of cake mix. The addition of margarita mix, lime zest and a fantastic cream cheese frosting makes them special. These are perfect for a Cinco de Mayo party, a great dessert for a Mexican themed dinner party, or fun for an adult party like a couple's shower or summer barbeque.
Margarita Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from Confections of a Foodie Bride
1 box white cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)
7 1/2 ounces margarita mix
2 ounces tequila
1/2 ounce orange juice
3 large egg whites
2 T vegetable oil
Zest of 1 lime
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 24 muffin tins with paper liners or spray with baking spray. Mix together margarita mix, tequila and orange juice in a large measuring cup. Add cake mix to mixing bowl and add egge whites, oil, lime zest and tequila mix. Beat on low speed for about 30 seconds until dry ingredients are incorporated and then beat on medium high speed for 2 minutes. Spoon batter evenly into muffin cups, filling about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center cupcake comes out clean. Cool about 5 minutes in the pan and then cool completely on wire racks.
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2-3 T lime juice
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp lime zest
3-4 drops green food coloring
Beat cream cheese and butter on medium high speed until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add 2 T lime juice and lime zest and beat until combined. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating on low speed until incorporated. Add more lime juice if necessary. Add food coloring a couple drops at a time and beat on medium high speed until desired color is reached and icing is smooth. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes as desired.
Lime wedges, straws, and sprinkles all make festive garnishes. Refrigerate cupcakes in an airtight container if not serving immediately and bring to room temperature a couple hours prior to serving.


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Notice: This Wiki is now read only and edits are no longer possible. Please see: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk/-/wikis/Wiki-shutdown-plan for the plan.
Whats New in STEM
- 1 (new) status and plan for STEM5 on Cloud
- 2 (new) 2019 novel Corona Virus Model
- 3 The STEM community is pleased to announce the 2018 STEM Contributor of the Year Awards.
- 4 New features, features coming soon, and a historical list of some major STEM features
- 5 V4.0.0 is now available !!
- 6 V3.0.0 M3 now available for testing
- 7 V2.0.3 is now Available
- 8 V2.0.2 is now Available
- 9 V2.0.1 is now Available
- 10 V2.0.0 is now Available
- 15 12/10/2011 Improved Graphical Editor
- 16 11/21/2011 STEM release 1.2.3 is available for download
- 17 Improved Error Handling
- 18 See the new Chickenpox demo scenario
- 19 STEM now has demographic populations models with Aging
- 20 Time Series Reports now support graphs of Populations and Related properties
- 21 STEM V1.2.0 RC5 is up
- 22 Running STEM Headless
- 23 Global model for Anopheles Mosquito Risk is now available
- 24 Import your own Graphs using the Pajek standard format
- 25 Multi-Population Disease Model for Download
- 26 The classic Macdonald-Ross (Malaria) disease model is now available
- 27 Release 1.1.1 Offers New Features
- 28 New Integration tests and framework now available
- 29 Automated Experiment Tutorial
- 30 Hypothetical Zombie Pandemic: New (And Whimsical)
- 31 Earth Science Data
- 32 New Graph Wizard
- 33 Infectors, Inoculators, and Population Initializers Now Support UIDs for Arbitrary Graphs
- 34 External Files Implemented for Creating New Infectors and Inoculators
- 35 News Archives
(new) status and plan for STEM5 on Cloud
Please see the following pdf presentation by Ahmad Swaid File:STEM5.pdf
(new) 2019 novel Corona Virus Model
The STEM community is pleased to announce the 2018 STEM Contributor of the Year Awards.
New features, features coming soon, and a historical list of some major STEM features
V4.0.0 is now available !!
- See the STEM 4.0.0 Release Review Slides here File:STEMReleaseReview4 0.pdf
- Full Eclipse 4 and (J2SE) 8.0 JVM Compatibility
- Graphical Model Design (GUI for code generation, Visual Editor )
- Bug fixes from V3.0.0 M1,2,3 milestones
- Stochastic Solver now runs in batch mode
- New disease models and downloadable scenarios
V3.0.0 M3 now available for testing
- V3.0.0 M3 now available for testing
V2.0.3 is now Available
- Bug fixes from 2.0.2
- Admin 0 borders added
- New models
- Updated Google Earth(tm) Interface
V2.0.2 is now Available
V2.0.1 is now Available
V2.0.0 is now Available
- Bug Fixes
- Performance improvements
- New Stochastic model solver
- Draggable solver objects
- Visual Editor (Integrated UI for creating new models of disease including domain specific language for epi modeling)
- New Measles model
- Directionally biased mixing model
- New Model Generator makes it easy for domain experts to create new STEM Models (no programming required) !!
- New Apache library
"Completed" 12/14/2012
- STEM Model Generator for Developers
Release 1.4.1
"Completed" 9/25/2012
- Performance improvements
- Simplified creation of new Disease and Population models (Tools for generating new disease plugins)
- Pajek-file Importer:
- Enable import of discrete transportation events
- Enable integration between user graphs and existing STEM graphs
- New improved MapView
- Enable visualization of discrete transportation events
- Enable multiple views of the same simulation
- Stochastic Modeling Framework
- Deep copy drag and drop for models
- Refactor
- Create new mixing edges (edges back in, generator created)
- Improved UI for decorators view
- Time adaptive external data source models
- New preferences
Completed Date 4/15/2012
Plan Features: (Tentative Date 4/15/2012)
- Bug Fixes to 1.3.0
- STEM EMF update to version 2.7.2
- Generalized model replay mechanism
- Modifiable Modifiers (batch mode)
- Shape File Importer: Improvements to GUI
- Population Transformer: food mediated disease
- Graph Editor: improved features
- NEW Population re-scaler
- NEW framework and examples for modeling food borne disease including transformation of populations to food, and mapping of disease in populations to diseases of food.
Completed Date 2/7/2012 Features
- Bug Fixes from 1.2.2
- Ten years of Earth Science Data (2000-2010) available as STEM Features
- Malaria Disease Model (Anopheles calibrated)
- Dengue Fever Disease Model (Aedes not yet calibrated)
- New Differential Equation solver(s) from commons.math library
- Additional NLS + User ability to switch languages
- Logger Framework with new loggers
- New feature: "Population Transformer" - enabling transformation of population members to allow modeling of e.g. food mediated disease transmission
- Improvements to the graphical editor
12/10/2011 Improved Graphical Editor
Overlaying edges are now displayed by having them bent when more than one edge connects two nodes. Migration edges can be edited (population id and migration rate), Common Border Edges can be edited (border length). Two nodes (when selected) can be connected with edges (select type in context-menu opened with a right-click).
11/21/2011 STEM release 1.2.3 is available for download
The release includes many bug fixes as well as improved error handling. You can download it here
Improved Error Handling
We have improved the error handling code in STEM to make it easier for users to detect when they have composed an invalid scenario.
See the new Chickenpox demo scenario
Available on the STEM home page (downloadable scenarios)
STEM now has demographic populations models with Aging
initial documentation may be found on the wiki page Using Aging Populations in STEM
Time Series Reports now support graphs of Populations and Related properties
STEM V1.2.0 RC5 is up
Running STEM Headless
See the new documentation on how to run STEM in Headless mode. This is the way you can remotely run massive numbers of simulations!!
Global model for Anopheles Mosquito Risk is now available
This model uses earth science data and was calibrated based on an Anopheles survey in Thailand . In an attempt to identify environmental conditions favoring malaria transmission, a mathematical risk index prediction model for Anopheles was created using four primary factors: rainfall, temperature, elevation, and vegetation. To assess the performance of our model, we compared the predicted risk generated by our model to data from four separate regions around the globe. (a preprint is available on request). Mosquito risk models like this are often used to asses Malaria risk. We hope to use this model as input to a more sophisticated mathematical model for Malaria and as an example of how to use STEM to study Zoonotic disease. click here for downloadable scenario
Import your own Graphs using the Pajek standard format
A new example project is available that demonstrates the new feature Importing a Pajek Graph. To see the example, go to the Downloadable Scenario (New) Pajek Import Example. Please also see the documentation on how to use Pajek with STEM. The PajekNetGraphGenerator was created and developed by the Department of Biological Safety of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Germany.
Multi-Population Disease Model for Download
A new scenario for multi-population disease spreading between anopheles mosquitoes and humans on a square lattice is now available on STEM for downloading. Please also see the documentation Multi-Population Example
The classic Macdonald-Ross (Malaria) disease model is now available
For developers who want to check out the code directly from the STEM SVN branch, there are two new new plugins available:
org.eclipse.stem.diseasemodels.vector org.eclipse.stem.ui.diseasemodels.vector
If you add them to your STEM launch configuration, you'll have a new "Macdonald Ross" disease model available to you. Currently, the model is the most basic possible, an SI model that does not take into account the latent period (both human and vector) as well as immunity. The model comes directly out of the standard Anderson & May textbook, chapter 14.3 (basic model for malaria), the differential equations on page 394. In the future we will add more advanced vector models to this plugin.
Release 1.1.1 Offers New Features
January 27, 2011. In addition to many bug fixes, the 1.1.1 release of STEM contains new global earth science data, including elevation and monthly rainfall, vegetation and temperature. To see an example of how the earth science data can be used to model mosquito densities in Asia, you can download an example scenario here (requires the global earth science models as well as the global geography models):
New Integration tests and framework now available
The plugin org.eclipse.stem.tests.core now contains a test suite called "ScenarioIntegrationTests". Running the suite as a JUnit plugin test does the following:
1. It reads each project stored under the resources folder in the plugin (right now there's only one, "BasicTests") 2. It runs each scenario in the project and checks to make sure the models generate "valid" results. By valid we mean: 1. That the compartment states (e.g. S+I+R) adds up to the total population. 2. That no compartment ever goes negative. 3. That the log files generated by the scenarios agrees with a reference stored under the "Recorded Simulations/IntegrationTest" folder.
The scenarios tested right now includes basic single location SI, SIR SEIR scenarios, scenarios with mixing between two nodes, scenarios with mixing/migration between two nodes, scenarios having air transportation and scenarios including a percentage of the population being inoculated. More tests will be added soon (e.g. multi-population disease models, population model tests) to test all aspects of STEM end-to-end. For developers, please make sure you test your code by running (at least) the integration tests to avoid breaking things.
Automated Experiment Tutorial
September 2010. A tutorial for the Automated Experiment function is now available at http://wiki.eclipse.org/Running_an_Automated_Experiment. The tutorial explains how this function allows the user to sweep through a range of parameter values for a disease model, running and logging the results for every possible combination of parameter values.
This tutorial will be of special interest to those who have downloaded the sample project using this feature at http://www.eclipse.org/stem/download_sample.php?file=AutomatedExperimentExample.zip and read the documentation for that sample project at http://wiki.eclipse.org/Sample_Projects_available_for_Download#Automated_Experiment_Example.
Hypothetical Zombie Pandemic: New (And Whimsical)
August 2010. In a fun test of STEM's ability to rapidly prototype new disease models, T. Parviainen used STEM to enter a 48 hour programming competition. He created a visualization for a hypothetical zombie pandemic: http://teropa.no.de/. To read more about the epidemiology of zombies see also this paper by Philip Munz et al. (http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf) Follow the zombie thread on the news group. Read comments about Parviainan's entry at http://nodeknockout.com/teams/teropa.
Earth Science Data
August 2010. STEM now includes earth science datasets for global surface elevation, total rainfall, land surface temperature, and vegetation. Inclusion of these earth science data sets provides the foundation for simulation of mosquito-borne and other zoonotic diseases. Monthly data is provided for total rainfall, land surface temperature, and vegetation. Calculations provided within the earth science data sets include surface roughness calculations such as average, standard deviation, maximum, minimum, range, skewness, kurtosis, and root mean square.
- Surface Elevation.
Data for surface elevation (in meters) were obtained from the NOAA Global Land One-Kilometer Base Elevation Project (GLOBE).
The highest possible elevation was 8,752 meters and the lowest possible global surface elevation was -407 meters.
Bathymetric elevation data is not included in the global surface elevation data.
- Total Rainfall.
Data for total rainfall (in millimeters) were obtained for each month from the NASA Earth Observatory (NEO).
The NEO data is derived from the The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).
The highest possible value was 2000.0 millimeters of rainfall and the smallest 1.0 millimeter of total rainfall for each month.
Total rainfall data are not available for countries and regions that are located above 35 degrees North
and below 35 degrees South Latitude (as evidenced in the image, places without data are in black).
- Land Surface Temperature.
Data for land surface temperature (in degrees Celsius) were obtained for each month from the NASA Earth Observatory (NEO).
The source of the land surface temperature data is the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Terra/MODIS.
The highest possible temperature is 45.0 degrees Celsius and the lowest is -25.0 degrees Celsius.
- Vegetation. Data for vegetation were obtained from the NASA Earth Observatory (NEO).
The data source for the normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI] (250m) is Terra/MODIS.
NDVI provides continuity with NOAA's AVHRR NDVI time series record for historical and climate applications.
Values for vegetation based on NDVI are also described in wikipedia Normalized Difference Vegetation Index.
The highest possible index for global vegetation is an NDVI index of 0.9 and the lowest an NDVI index of -0.1.
- Acknowledgments
1. Elevation data: GLOBE Task Team and others (Hastings, David A., Paula K. Dunbar, Gerald M. Elphingstone, Mark Bootz, Hiroshi Murakami, Hiroshi Maruyama, Hiroshi Masaharu, Peter Holland, John Payne, Nevin A. Bryant, Thomas L. Logan, J.-P. Muller, Gunter Schreier, and John S. MacDonald), eds., 1999. The Global Land One-kilometer Base Elevation (GLOBE) Digital Elevation Model, Version 1.0. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Geophysical Data Center, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80305-3328, U.S.A. Digital data base on the World Wide Web (URL: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/topo/globe.html) and CD-ROMs.
2. Rainfall, Temperature, and Vegetation: Data is derived from NASA's Earth Observatory. Thank you NASA!!
Currently, only earth science data for 2009 is built into STEM for total rainfall, land surface temperature, and vegetation. Provided in the thumbnails are animations of these earth science data sets over the year.
New Graph Wizard
June 2010. STEM now supports user creation of custom lattices via the New Graph wizard. The wizard makes use of "Graph Generators," a new concept. A graph generator is a pluggable component that is able to generate a graph (a collection of nodes and edges) either algorithmically or from an external file. Currently, we have implemented an abstract Lattice Graph Generator with a Square Lattice Implementation. A user can specify the size of the lattice as well as several options for how the nearest neighbor (Common Border) are organized. In the future we plan to also support creating a New Graph From File.
Infectors, Inoculators, and Population Initializers Now Support UIDs for Arbitrary Graphs
June 2010. Several wizards (Infector/Inoculator, Population Model, Population Initializer) now use a consolidated location picker dialog that gives users the option of selecting any location within the currently selected project. This allows the user to pick for instance one of the automatically generated grids on the lattice graph. Whatever UIDs exist in the user's graph can be applied. The dialog also filters down the number of possible locations dramatically from all regions in the world to only the ones that are applicable in the current project.
External Files Implemented for Creating New Infectors and Inoculators
June 2010. There are now several new options available when a new infector or inoculator is created. First, it is possible to create an infector or inoculator by importing data from external files in the form of the comma separated files used by the STEM logger. A collection of infectors/inoculators can either be created from the first, last or any manually specified row from such files. We have found this feature extremely valuable when "boot-strapping" the initial state of a disease from a steady state (e.g., the seasonal flu state of the population in the summer time for northern hemisphere).
News Archives
For past news items, go to the STEM Archives at Older News


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The latest? KG to the Suns, with Amare ending up in...Atlanta? Huge win for the Hawks (finally, and even if they have to give up their 3/11 picks). Amare in the East makes them much tougher, just like Dwight Howard in the East makes the Magic a legit future contender.
MORE: Warriors dangling Monta Ellis for the chance to draft Yi? Why would GSW give up their most valuable player (given talent + cost + youth/upside) for an unproven mystery guy? Yes, Yi is THAT valuable to Golden State. It's not crazy to say that he's more valuable to Golden State than almost any other player in the NBA right now, rookie or vet. As I tried to explain yesterday (inelegantly): If you're not winning a title, marketing rules.
MORE: Allow me to be overwhelmed by today's NBA Draft/trading frenzy. The three-move combo of Amare to the Hawks, KG to the Suns and the 3, 5 and 11 picks being in the hands of the T'wolves (who use them to draft Horford, Brewer and Noah) could combine to save the NBA. /hyperbole
First of all, I want to thank everyone for their spirited disagreement with my post about Oden vs. Durant yesterday, which was really about whether it's more important as a fan to be part of a multiple-time champion or to maximize your entertainment value.
(As one emailer pointed out, it's worth noting that the most entertaining, exciting, pulse-quickening team of the NBA Playoffs wasn't the champs or even the runner-up, but the Warriors. And I probably should have clarified that NEVER winning a title isn't optimal, but if neither Oden nor Durant is going to win one, I'd rather have the more entertaining player.)
If some of your sensibilities were offended, well, that's why there's a Comments section. And, as much as it like seem like I enjoy being right, I like nothing more than to be proven wrong.
Speaking of which, Part 2 of my NBA Draft Preview will be going up around noonish. I'm saving my mock draft for tomorrow morning, so it's a little of this (Gator Mania), a little of that (why Yi is a good pick) and a little of the other (handful of drafty sleepers).
Must-read: Hollinger's analysis of the NBA Draft field. If you didn't read it yesterday. It's awesome.
KG-to-Lakers trade update: So, sipping the multi-team convolution, will the T'wolves simply get Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum for KG? Let's hope they get the Lakers to throw in their first-round pick this year, too.
Or is that Lakers rumor dead? The Mavs one sounds like a complete non-starter from the get-go, but – hey – you're crazy if you're a top West team and you DON'T float your name out there: Mavs, Suns, Lakers.
The most depressing result, of course, for all fans -- including in
Not coincidentally, the only team you never hear about in the KG Sweepstakes is... the champs. (Yes, it's because they have
Your daily Gilbert Arenas post, courtesy of Dan Steinberg. (If you haven't seen his EA ads with Kevin Durant, they're terrific. Oh, and Gil is signing an endorsement deal with Spalding, along with Greg Oden. Nike, Spalding: Who said Oden isn't marketable?)
Was it the right thing to put "RIP" next to Chris Benoit yesterday, before I knew all the facts? No. At least I didn't put on a publicly televised homage to a guy who might turn out to be a murderer. What a tragedy toward his wife and son.
(Here's an interesting related blog post.)
UPDATE: This story is so much more horrifying than you ever thought it was.
MLB Old-Age: Seven pitchers in their 40s will pitch today, an MLB record: Clemens, Moyer, Rogers, Maddux, Glavine, Williams and Smoltz. It's a testament to durability, new-fangled training methods, luck and, y'know, PEDs.
MLB Stud: Carlos Ruiz, the Phillies catcher, who drove in four runs and stole home in a Philly win over Cincy. (Does stealing home count as an RBI?)
Dice-K to release an album: I'm late on this, but it only adds to Matsuzaka's awesomeness. Can you imagine Roger Clemens putting out an album? (You just KNOW Schilling wants his own record deal, too.)
Raise your hand if you thought that Troy Percival would be on the Cardinals lineup before Rick Ankiel, then consider how strange it is that either of them is even in the conversation.
Do you think Barry Bonds should be on the NL roster for the All-Star Game? I do, and Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn agree with me. MLB (and Bonds-loathing fans) can't possibly like that these two poster-guys for wholesome baseball goodness are backing Bonds on this one.
NFL: If nothing else, those retired players testifying to Congress about the NFL's draconian disability plan were far more emotionally gripping than any defense the NFL (or Gene Upshaw) might offer.
LeBron will play for Team
College Hoops: Most of you know that, despite my loathing for almost all things Duke-related, I am a sucker for Jon Scheyer, if for no other reason than that he's the best Jewish player in college hoops. Anyway, he stars in a student-created parody video that should make him just a little less hateable to the rest of you.
Random question: If you could own a portrait of any player drafted in the NBA Draft's Top 11 since 1985, who would it be? Which player has the most cachet or humor value or ironic value or meaning to you?


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On Monday morning, fighting for her life at a Delhi hospital, a 23-year-old victim of a brutal gang rape in New Delhi last week was unaware that at the heart of New Delhi in Jantar Mantar, a protest ground, a crowd massed in her defense, demanding justice. A week earlier, the 23-year-old, whose name has been withheld by authorities, had been gang-raped and beaten mercilessly with an iron rod and then thrown from a moving bus. The police arrested four suspects, and a trial is set to begin soon.
The horrific rape, which has dominated Indian newspapers, airwaves and television sets, has united the youth of the country in an unprecedented manner. A wave of protests and subsequent violence in the past week disrupted Parliament and brought New Delhi to a standstill for almost three days. While some of India's more well-known agent provocateurs are in on the act, including anticorruption crusader (and now chief of the Aam Aadmi political party) Arvind Kejriwal, the unrest remains largely an expression of popular anger and exasperation. The young protesters are demanding the death penalty for the rapists and are furious at a government that is seen to have failed its women. "If a woman wants to go out at 2 or 3 a.m. in the night for whatever reason, her security has to be guaranteed," says Sucheta Dey, a protester at Jantar Mantar on Monday afternoon. "There is insecurity at every level. Women are even harassed when they go to police stations to report sexual-violence reports."
(PHOTOS: In India, a Rape Sparks Violent Protests and Demands for Justice)
The spiraling protests had started a week back at New Delhi's India Gate — a high-security area that abuts the Indian Parliament, the President's palace and the Prime Minister's residence. On Sunday, the protests — which had till then been peaceful — turned violent; some 3,000 protesters fought a pitched battle with the police, who tear-gassed and water-cannoned the crowd. They uprooted wooden poles that had been erected for Republic Day celebrations Jan. 26 and set them on fire, trashed vehicles and pelted the police with stones and water bottles. About 143 people were injured, including 78 policemen, one of whom, a police constable named Subhas Tomar, died in the hospital later. Home Minister Sushil Shinde told an Indian news channel that hooligans had joined genuine protesters and had damaged public property, forcing the police to take action.
The protests held the capital hostage for almost a week, drawing the otherwise elusive Prime Minister Manmohan Singh out of his quiet seclusion to address the nation on Monday. He said there was "genuine and justified anger and anguish at this ghastly incident" but appealed for calm and assured that "all possible efforts" would be taken to ensure security and safety of women in the country. "We will examine without delay not only the responses to this terrible crime but also all aspects concerning the safety of women and children and punishment to those who commit these monstrous crimes," Prime Minister Singh said in a statement on Sunday. "I appeal to all sections of society to maintain peace and help us in our efforts."
(MORE: Brutal New Delhi Gang Rape Outrages Indians, Spurs Calls for Action)
Part of the anger directed toward the government is a consequence of the nation's declining conviction rate in rape cases (down from 44% in 1973 to 26% in 2010). This increased impunity, critics say, points to a systemic failing of the police forces, who do not treat rape as a serious crime. A sting carried out by the Indian magazine Tehelka in April interviewed 30 policemen, out of whom 17 had insisted that a majority of rape claims are either false or consensual. "In case after case, I have seen apathy and insensitivity," says Rajat Mitra, director of Swanchetan, a New Delhi–based nonprofit that works with victims of abuse, violence and trauma. "The administration and lawmakers mostly see [rape] as a political issue where the event sullies the reputation of those in power."
Meanwhile, the protests shut down the capital at the beginning of this week and turned it into a maze of diverted traffic and closed roads. Nine major metro stations were closed to deter demonstrators from reaching protest venues. The entry to India Gate and Raisina Hill — where the protests had turned violent on Sunday — was closed to traffic, and activists were asked to shift to the grounds of Jantar Mantar, long the designated spot for dissent. The streets were lined with young people making their way to the venue. At Jantar Mantar, hundreds of young people sat in a neat, ever expanding circle. As the protests got louder, the unequivocal demand seemed to be the hanging of the rapists, a call that has become a politicized talking point in India for the past week. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party led the demand for capital punishment in the Parliament two days after the incident. "What is the government doing to curb rape cases in the capital?" opposition leader Sushma Swaraj had asked. "The rapists should be hanged; we need tougher laws to stop rapes." Others have called for chemical castration for the rapists, claiming death or life imprisonment would be too easy a punishment for the heinous crime.
(MORE: New Delhi's Women Problem: What Does It Take to Make a Society Safe?)
In India, rape is as yet not punishable by the death penalty. Public fury and political pressure has led the government to consider an amendment to the rape law, which could see "rarest of rare" cases of rape being punished by death. However, a statement released by women's groups on Christmas Eve says there is scant evidence that the death penalty can act as a deterrent and in fact the death penalty might lower the conviction rate even further as it will be given out only under the "rarest of rare" circumstances. The most important deterrent is the certainty of punishment, rather than the severity of its form, activists say. "People want the rapists to be hanged because of anger and because of the impunity enjoyed by rapists in our country," says Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association. "Out of 100 cases only 26 are punished, and that is shocking. Laws are archaic. There is need for overhauling the system and ending the impunity."
And while the government waits for the report of the commission it appointed to review India's sexual-assault laws, the clock ticks away. The 23-year-old victim is in critical but stable condition, with reports on Wednesday saying she was being relocated to a hospital in Singapore for further treatment. The days and months to come will no doubt witness some enhanced safety protocols to protect women, particularly at night — but whether that translates into long-term change in a country where a rape takes place every 20 minutes is far from certain. After all, safety, as Krishnan says, is a loaded word. "What women [in India] need is freedom without fear, and that can only come when they feel that the government and its institutions are with them all the way."


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Lavender And Espresso Truffles
Christmas is right around the corner isn't it?! I am fully in the holiday spirit, at least I think I am. No, I know I am once I get home, close the door and start baking and filling boxes with goodies to be shipped off to friends and given to the family on Christmas day. Indeed, it's been a little strange looking at snowmen and pine trees while we were in shorts today…no kidding. Well, B. was because I am a "frileuse" as we say back home; always chilly. I am currently living winter vicariously through my pal Jen in Colorado who keeps filling my head with pictures of snow, ice, skiing and delicious holiday treats while I am rolling truffles.
We all have our traditions comes Christmas and there are a couple that my family never miss. My grandmother was famous for her marzipan stuffed dates and walnuts while since I was old enough to hold a spatula, I have been the one making truffles. I flew home the first Christmas after my grandma died and without exchanging a word one night my mom went to the pantry, pulled out the dates, nuts and marzipan and we made the stuffed fruits. There was quite a bit of reminiscing, a lot of crying and raw feelings shared. It was one of the best moments of my life. Through my grandma's passing I discovered what it meant for my mom to continue with certain things just the way they were. It brings people together, it gives you a breakthrough or a headache but your heart is full and your soul growing.
While grandma was playing with marzipan, I was never more than a couple of feet away, strirring and scooping and rolling ganache for truffles. You can safely assume that once I moved here, this is the one thing I never miss doing during the holidays. The truffle batter I use is a basic ganache that I flavor differently depending on my mood or what people ask for. Depending on the time available I might hand dip them in tempered chocolate (Go Jen!) and decorate them but this year it is so not happening so I made them the way we do in my family, rolled in cocoa or nuts, etc…
I have only made two kinds so far, lavender infused truffles and espresso truffles. Once the ganache was made, I let it harden in the fridge for a couple of hours and then scooped out little balls that I rolled and place on a parchment baking sheet and place them "naked" back in the fridge. The reason behind this little "curing" it is to help them develop a natural skin so that the cocoa powder won't seep in the truffles as they stand waiting for their delicious (for you!) fate. On the other hand I find it a lot easier to have the nuts adhere to the chocolate right after you have rolled them in between your hands and your body heat has softened the ganache a bit.
I made a firm ganache with semisweet chocolate (Callebaut) and since all chocolate vary, your ganache may set up differently so if it turns out too soft, add more chocolate in your next batch or if it was too firm add a little more cream. I used a ratio of 8 oz of chocolate for 1/2 cup of cream but if you want to use milk or white chocolate increase the ratio to 12 oz for the same amount of cream. Adding alcohol will soften the ganache unless you add the same amount of chocolate so for every ounce of liqueur (about 2 tablespoons) that you use, increase the chocolate by one ounce also. For milk or white ganaches, add 2 ounces of chocolate for every ounce of liqueur. If you want to know more about chocolate, I strongly recommend this wonderful book "The Art Of Chocolate" by Elaine Gonzales.
Lavender Truffles
Makes 30 to 35 truffles
1/2 cup (125ml) heavy cream
1 tablespoon (1gr) edible lavender buds
8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
cocoa powder for rolling
In a small heavy saucepan placed over low heat, bring the cream to a simmer. Remove from the heat and let stand 30 minutes. Strain the lavender and bring the cream back to a simmer. Once hot, add the chocolate and let stand for a couple of minutes then stir until the ganache is completely smooth. Let cool to room temperature then refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours. With a spoon or a melon baller, scoop out balls of ganache, roll them in between your palms fairly quickly and set them on a baking sheet. Refrigerate overnight. Roll them in the cocoa powder and keep refrigerated until ready to use.
Espresso Truffles:
Makes 30-35
1/2 cup (125ml) heavy cream
2 teaspoons espresso powder
2 tablespoons (1 oz) coffee liqueur
9 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups finely chopped pistachios
In a small heavy saucepan, bring the cream and espresso powder to a simmer over low heat. Add the liqueur and remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and let stand a couple of minutes then stir the ganache until completely smooth.Let cool to room temperature then refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours. With a spoon or a melon baller, scoop out balls of ganache, roll them in between your palms fairly quickly and roll them in the pistachios and keep refrigerated until ready to use.
For more cookies and sweet treat ideas, check Susan's Eat Christmas Cookies, Season 2!


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From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Oregonians love hazelnuts. The nuts, also known as filberts, are a major crop in Oregon and, while they are expensive in other areas, that is not a problem for those of us who live here. We are close to the orchards where they are grown and manage to avoid the transportation cost that are factored into their market price. I've come to love hazelnuts and use them a great deal in my cooking. Their flavor is more subtle than that of a walnut or pecan and that makes them wonderful to use in desserts and sweet breads. I am always open to new recipes that use them and the one for this cake grabbed my attention when I stumbled on it. I found the recipe in an dog-eared copy of Food Editors' Hometown Favorites Cookbook and decided to give it a try. Before I get into particulars, I must tell you that while I think the cake is lovely, I found the frosting in this recipe to be cloyingly sweet. If you have a sweet tooth, I suspect you'll love it. If your tastes are more like mine, I think you'll find a less sweet icing more to your liking. The cake is light and fragrant and has a lovely crumb. The hazelnuts give it remarkable flavor that is heightened by using hazelnut, rather than vanilla, extract. This is not an easy cake to make and I would not attempt it without the assistance of a heavy-duty stand mixer. Is it worth the time and effort? The cake is nice, but I would take a pass on the icing. Speaking of which, the base recipe produces a cream colored frosting. I added some cocoa powder to it to make it more photogenic. When I first began this blog, I posted a recipe for a much simpler hazelnut cake that was finished with a nutella glaze. You can find that cake, here. I actually prefer it to the one I'm featuring tonight, but I'll let you be the judge. Here's how the cake is made.
Hazelnut Cake...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Food Editor's Hometown Favorites Cookbook
2 cups sifted flour (sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 eggs, separated
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup regular or butter flavored shortening
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon hazelnut or vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup coconut (more if desired)
1 cup finely chopped toasted hazelnuts
Cream Cheese Icing
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
6 ounces butter, room temperature
6 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons hazelnut or vanilla extract
1) Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Spray three 9-inch round cake pans with flour-added cooking spray. If using dark cake pans, preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2) Combine already-sifted flour with baking soda and sift again. Stir in salt and set aside.
3) Beat egg whites in a mixing bowl until stiff. Set aside.
4) Cream butter and shortening in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar and beat for 3 to 5 minutes. Add hazelnut or vanilla extract, then add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5) Turn mixer speed to low. Add flour and buttermilk alternately, starting and ending with flour. When batter is uniform, fold in the egg whites in three parts (this helps keep the batter airy). Stir in the coconut and hazelnuts.
6) Divide batter among all three pans and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in cakes comes out clean. Cakes will not dome. That is not a problem.
7) Prepare icing. Stir cream cheese, butter and some of the sugar together, then beat until smooth. Slowly add remaining sugar. Beat until smooth and creamy. Beat in vanilla. Spread icing between cake layers and on top of cake. Yield: 10 servings.
One Year Ago Today: Lemon Glazed Walnut Bars
Two Years Ago Today: Corn Soup a la Patricia Wells
Three Years Ago Today: Indian Dosas


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C 50 U MT | C 30 U | C 40 U | Axis Tech
Czech company AXIS TECH s. r. o. is riding on a wave of sustained success thanks to its firm focus on the possibilities of five-axis/five-side complete/simultaneous machining using high-performance CNC machining centres from Hermle.
Established in 2010, and having progressed in just a few years from a standard supplier of mechanical parts to a widely respected high-end machining outsourcer for complex precision components, the Czech company AXIS TECH s. r. o., based in Opava-Katerinky, has a short yet highly successful history behind it. CTO Petr Michalek and CEO Petr Stencel turned their training into their when they incorporated their over 15 years' experience in NC and CNC machining into their own business, AXIS TECH s. r. o. Despite some teething problems, mainly due to the company's often inadequate machinery, switching to "the right high-performance CNC machining centres" proved the key to the success they were seeking. Petr Michalek explains how that happened: "We have lots of expertise in production, assembly and measurement jigs and fixtures and in component supply to the automotive, aircraft building and machinery manufacturing industries. We had the idea of utilising that expertise to make complex workpieces from a wide variety of different materials. So we procured some machines, but soon discovered that they were only of limited use in fulfilling our needs and in meeting the growing demands of our customers. As we had already had very good experience with Hermle machining centres, it seemed obvious to look to them for replacements of the machinery we had initially procured." It was during that phase that Martin Skukalek, one of the two field sales executives of Hermle Ceska Republika, got involved. He devoted lots of time to identify and understand the two start-up founders' philosophy and strategy, and ultimately came up with concrete proposals for a future-proof machinery portfolio.
A ground-breaking investment in five-axis high tech
The proposals he made were gradually translated into machining reality, so that the business currently operates nine Hermle high-performance CNC machining centres, with another to follow by the end of this year. In keeping with the strategy – and of course in line with customer demands for high-precision complete machining of complex, increasingly functionally integrated, components – the milling and complete machining machinery portfolio today comprises a mix of C-series machining centres: C 40 U, C 30 U, C 42 U, C 50 U MT, C 400 and C 22 U. There are already three medium-sized C 30 U machining centres in operation, providing adequate capacity to serve that segment. With its mix incorporating almost all sizes and capacities of the C-series, AXIS TECH s. r. o. covers a wide range of potential component sizes, and with the C 50 U MT (with turning functionality) it is also able to manufacture components in specific sizes and weights in a single fixing by milling and turning. Starting from the smallest machine, the C 22 U high-performance five-axis CNC machining centre featuring an working range of 450 x 600 x 330 mm (X, Y, Z), and including the biggest, the C 50 U MT high-performance five-axis CNC machining centre featuring an working range of 1000 x 1100 x 750 mm (X, Y, Z), with maximum loading weights of their respective NC swivelling rotary tables (320 mm diameter on the C 22 U up to 1000 mm diameter on the C 50 U MT) and interchangeable pallets from 300 to 2000 kg, AXIS TECH offers its customers complete precision machining ranging from miniature mechatronics to large-scale integral components for aircraft or components and base plates for jigs and fixtures.
Machining centre mix optimally meeting customers' needs
The practical experts Petr Michalek and Petr Stencel took a similarly adept approach with regard to the configuration of their machinery. The machines all in principle feature the same specification levels, though the spindle speeds (e.g. C 50 U MT 12000 rpm; C 400 15000 rpm; C 30 U/C 40 U/C 42 U/C 22 U 18000 rpm) are configured to machine any materials occurring in practice (aluminium, steel, tool steel, difficult to machine steels, titanium). Hermle's Martin Skukalek comments: "Implementing the same machine design and operator control concept across all sizes, together with unified control systems, offers the major advantage that all staff trained on the machines can work very flexibly on any machine. The staff often don't even know which machine they are going to be operating when they come to work at the start of a shift. This means, depending on capacity requirements and the scope of complete machining work, it is possible to run a single order on one or more machines, thereby greatly reducing throughput times and so enabling very fast delivery to the customer. All AXIS TECH machines run in three-shift operation under operator control. In some cases, and depending on the complexity of the machining task and the workpiece runtimes, individual operators also control multiple machines, with up to five operators then being responsible for the nine machining centres." The reason why AXIS TECH is not intending to upgrade to a higher level of automation, such as for workpiece loading and unloading, in the foreseeable future is quite apparent when one considers the structure of the company's individual orders in more detail. Firstly, it specialises in machining a range of lot sizes from single components to small to medium-sized lots of a few hundred pieces. Secondly, the business sees itself as a technology leader in five-axis/five-side complete/simultaneous machining of highly demanding workpieces, and does not get involved in mass production.
Precision component manufacture 24/7
Petr Stencel concludes: "The scale of our business with a staff of 45 skilled personnel, our machinery portfolio and our measuring equipment means we are ideally set up to handle the fabrication and machining of technically demanding components. They include in particular components for aircraft building and the aerospace industry, as well as prototypes, sample series and jigs and fixtures for the automotive industry and its suppliers. We are able to produce in a highly flexible way, in line with specific needs, round the clock, seven days a week. Machining times range from maybe five minutes to five hours, so we are able to operate faster in operator-controlled mode than in automated mode – not least with regard to set-up and handling. We are not about volume production, but rather about utilising our expertise and knowledge. With our current portfolio of nine Hermle high-performance five-axis CNC machining centres – shortly to be joined by an additional C 22 U model to boost our capacity – we are the state-wide market leader in five-axis machining, and are committed to high tech from Hermle as a means of safeguarding our future competitiveness."