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9:01 a.m.
The public's last chance – potentially – to weigh in on the controversial waterfront plan is set to get underway soon and we'll be live blogging throughout the day. If you couldn't get a seat in City Hall or planned on spending a cold, grey Saturday doing something else, check back periodically for our updates.
9:07 a.m.
A little background for those of you coming new to the debate (Times' reporter Derrick Perkins met at least one resident trying to get caught up outside City Hall this morning). This is likely not the first nor the last time city leaders have debated the future of the waterfront. The work that's gone into the most recent vision for the Potomac shoreline began in earnest about two years ago. After months of community meetings, debate and brainstorming, planning department staff unveiled the rough draft plan in February of 2010.
Without getting lost in the weeds (and boy, are there some weeds on this one), the plan leverages developer interest for public amenities. In return for increased density at the Cummings/Turner properties as well as Robinson Terminal North and Robinson Terminal South, officials hope to expand parkland, add a continuous walkway along the river and actually you should just check this nifty graphic to figure it out.
Now what's angered plan opponents is the city's apparent interest in luring hotels to one or more of the above mentioned sites. That's not the only issue they take with the plan, but it's the big one.
To get back to our narrative, after a little more editing, the city's blueprint went before the planning commission shortly before the start of summer. Commission members approved it, setting the stage for a city council vote. About this time opponents got organized and founded Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan (CAAWP), led by former Vice Mayor Andrew Macdonald and community activist Boyd Walker.
With tensions heating up, city council unexpectedly shelved the plan in June. Instead of voting on the proposal, they moved to form a waterfront plan work group comprised of residents handpicked by Mayor Bill Euille. The group worked from August until December with the goal highlighting areas of disagreement or agreement and narrowing differences where possible.
To further muddy the water, CAAWP released a dueling plan in late October, calling for the city to – and we're being general here – craft a parks and museums-type proposal.
Though the city's waterfront work group released a 142-page report, flush with many recommendations, not long ago they largely punted on the density question (see: Robinson Terminals). Still, the group suggested the city put less emphasis on hotels at those sites.
And that's how we got to where we are today.
9:30 a.m.
Before we get started, remember to follow @DerrickTPerkins on Twitter for updates. Feel free to pitch questions to him or leave them in the comment section. We'll get around to answering them if possible.
9:37 a.m.
For more background reading on the waterfront debate click here. You can check out CAAWP's plan here. Want a little history on the waterfront? Get it here. If you're looking for the city's proposal head here. We'll post the important documents on our site when time avails itself in the day.
10:02 a.m.
"We want to have an Alexandria discussion in the Alexandria way… this your opportunity and we're ready to listen to you." – Mayor Bill Euille to officially open the waterfront portion of today's agenda. He also indicated city council is ready to "take action" on the plan.
The mayor went on to express his disappointment in the "discourse." It's not the first time city officials have leveled that charge at plan opponents. Back in June, Vice Mayor Kerry Donley and City Councilman Paul Smedberg both decried what they saw as vitriol in the debate.
"We've made some very tough decisions, but this is one that has probably had the, well, the discourse hasn't been appropriate and that's just not right, particularly how the facts have been presented," Euille said. "The time has come for us to make a decision and the decision that will be made will not please every single person in this city."
10:14 a.m.
A protest petition filed by waterfront plan opponents does not apply to the proposed density changes and is therefore not valid, said Farol Hamer, the city's planning director.
CAAWP presented their petition to city officials on Thursday. By their logic, the petition forces a city council supermajority vote on the plan for approval.
We're not going to get into the nitty-gritty legal aspects of this, but the "waterfront plan" is actually two separate proposals: a map amendment and a text amendment. The text amendment, not the map amendment, covers the density changes. According to City Attorney Jim Banks, CAAWP used a mechanism by which residents can challenge "map amendments" to instead challenge a "text amendment."
There is no way by which residents can force a supermajority vote for a text amendment, he told the Times on Thursday.
10:32 a.m.
City staff recommends against holding up the waterfront plan for the GenOn site, said Farol Hamer, planning director.
The GenOn site has become another flashpoint in the waterfront debate. Residents have agitated against the polluting power plant for years – a completely separate issue from the waterfront discussion until GenOn announced plans to close the facility by October 2012 in the fall.
Waterfront plan critics say it's foolish to try and craft a comprehensive vision for the Potomac shoreline and leave out the parcel, even though no one – except maybe GenOn – knew the plant would close when the process began. The Old Town Civic Association weighed in earlier in January, calling on city council to include the site, nestled along the banks of the Potomac, in the plan.
Hamer told city council the GenOn site will be planned out in a separate process and involve significant community input, specifically from neighbors and nearby civic associations.
10:55 a.m.
"What you're proposing is a far, far cry from what exists across the river at National Harbor." – Vice Mayor Kerry Donley.
The vice mayor made the remark as city staff continue to brief the council on the waterfront proposal. It's not the first time Donley has made the point. Indeed, it's one city staff has made for months now, albeit less directly. The gleaming hotel, convention center and residential complex across the Potomac from Alexandria has loomed large over the waterfront debate.
When plan opponents aren't comparing the city's waterfront proposal to BRAC-133 (the Washington Headquarters Services buildings in Mark Center), they're drawing comparisons to the Gaylord creation in Maryland. It's important to note that while the city's most recent reiteration of the waterfront plan allows hotels at the three sites slated for redevelopment, they would be capped at 150 rooms each.
And at least one site, the Cummings/Turner property, doesn't appear to be headed that way anyway.
11:15 a.m.
The first several speakers, as the public hearing portion of the day gets under way, have come out against the waterfront proposal. Of course, the first three speakers were Townsend Van Fleet, CAAWP co-founder Andrew Macdonald and CAAWP member Bert Ely, all noted plan opponents.
Macdonald blasted city staff for making revenue a priority in the plan. The focus should have been on what's best for Alexandria, not what's most economical, he said.
It's not the first time he or other plan opponents have made that case. One of the key selling points – or at least that's what city staff seemed to think at the time – was that the proposed amenities would be paid for with increased tax revenue and developer dollars. The plan would pay for itself over time, officials said.
"There is a place for money in this vision, but it's not the starting point and it should never have been the starting point," Macdonald told city council.
11:36 a.m.
We have our first waterfront supporter speaking, though as with the opponents, it's no surprise. Val Hawkins, of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership and a 35 year resident of Old Town, threw his weight behind the plan.
"Since April 2009, the waterfront plan has been exhaustively studied, debated and commented on," he said. "In my view, this plan will not change the historic nature of the waterfront – if done right."
He's previously spoken in favor of the city's proposal at other public venues.
11:45 a.m.
A quick, dirty and blatantly unscientific poll taken on Twitter (follow us at @AlexTimesNews) shows residents currently not sitting in the pews inside city council chambers are looking for some kind of closure.
@KaySellsVA says: "Just DO something! This is wearing me out"
Other's simply wrote "yes." But reader @Knerq had an interesting take: "[W]ith so much contention, would voting now represent the will of the people or just those in power??
Got a different opinion? Let us know in the comments section or on twitter. You can bug our "waterfront" reporter Derrick Perkins directly at @DerrickTPerkins.
12:14 p.m.
Mayor Bill Euille reminded the packed chamber audience to be respectful after shouts and applause followed the words of resident Bill Reagan, who took the day's first real shots at CAAWP. He described them as using tactics directly out of the "Michele Bachmann playbook."
"They've run a brilliant propaganda campaign," he said. "Just keep looking for any facts you can discredit and distort to ruin your opponents."
Again, this is something that's been said before, though much, much, much less bombastically. It clearly struck a nerve with some residents.
Reagan is, of course, in favor of the plan. The current waterfront is an " embarrassment," he said.
12:31 p.m.
Boyd Walker, previously mentioned in this live blog as one of CAAWP's founders, made the case to city council that Alexandria's waterfront is at a crucial turning point.
"If you vote today you will double the price of Robinson Terminal North and put any other option out of reach," he said.
By "any other option" Walker means a museum. He's pushed for a museum or two on the waterfront since the spring and believes the Robinson Terminal sites would make perfect homes for such an endeavor. City officials, on the other hand, point out museums are expensive and cost taxpayer dollars.
Under CAAWP's plan, the city would buy one or more of the three sites (except Cummings/Turner, since that's now off the table) and convert them into parkland and a museum. The idea isn't the problem, no, the difficulty is how to pay for it. CAAWP members say a mix of tax dollars, municipal bonds (taking on debt, essentially), donations and state or federal grants will cover the cost.
City staff point to the economy and Alexandria's outstanding debt and say, "we don't think so."
12:47 p.m.
"[The waterfront plan] is not ready for the prime time," said former state Sen. Patsy Ticer, to applause, just a few minutes ago.
The former mayor and longtime member of the General Assembly, Ticer shared concerns about what plan implementation would do to parking, congestion and the quality of life in Old Town. City officials should step back and take more time to consider the implications, she said.
Ticer had not previously spoken on the topic.
1:22 p.m.
As we head into city council's lunch break, let's take a look at the days developments thus far. Perhaps most importantly, if expected, Alexandria Planning Director Farol Hamer tossed out CAAWP's protest petition. Had she validated it, the petition would have forced a supermajority city council vote to approve the plan.
The mayor has indicated he expects city council to make a decision, one way or the other, at the day's end. We've gone through this once before and that time city council delayed the vote by more than six months. However, it's not possible to say with 100 percent confidence the plan will come to a vote. Mayor Bill Euille has previously thrown out the option of holding off until council's next legislative meeting, though he has not raised the idea today.
With the exception of former state Sen. Patsy Ticer (D), we haven't seen too many new faces at the speaker's podiums. Andrew Macdonald, Boyd Walker, Bert Ely, et al oppose the plan while Val Hawkins, 'Mango' Mike Anderson and the chamber of commerce support it.
2:11 p.m.
And we're back in session. About 100 speakers left on the day.
2:17 p.m.
David Olinger, a former member of the now defunct waterfront plan work group, comes out against the proposal in its current form before city council.
"My concerns are two-fold: The impact on the surrounding neighborhood… and the quality of the plan, which in fact isn't much of a plan at all, but merely a bunch of loosely stitched together concepts and ideas," he said.
On one hand, his opposition is surprising. Olinger was one of seven residents on the mayor's work group with the job of reconciling some of the problems within the blueprint and some of the WPWG's recommended changes now written into the plan undoubtably come from him.
And on the other hand, Olinger was appointed to the group as a representative of the Old Town Civic Association, which has come out against the waterfront plan. He's not the first member of the group to turn a back on the blueprint. Member Bert Ely, who has also spoken out against the proposal today, wrote a minority report skewering the zoning and density changes.
"What is it about this plan that will make the waterfront an attractive, exciting and different place?" Olinger asked. "We talk about a vibrant waterfront, but do we really believe it will be achieved by giving developers the maximum flexibility?"
2:50 p.m.
Christopher Ballard, another member of the defunct waterfront plan work group, has urged Alexandria City Council to adopt the blueprint.
But more interestingly, he speculated that many plan opponents aren't against public amenities, but would prefer to see residential, rather than commercial, development. Early on in this process, city staff – ostensibly at the behest of resident suggestions – decided to steer toward a more active, vibrant waterfront. Private residences, like Ford's Landing, won't translate into that kind of an atmosphere, city officials have argued throughout the debate.
Ballard suggested many critics of the plan disagree with that fundamental decision.
"This plan is really making a decision on [commercial rather than residential development] in my mind," he said.
He also took a moment to wag a finger at CAAWP's claims residents were left out the planning process: "I think there is a difference from citizen input and getting what you want," he said. "There has been plenty of citizen input."
3:01 p.m.
In what must be some welcome news to the folks crammed into City Hall, Mayor Bill Euille said he was "reprimanded" during city council's lunch break for letting speakers run on after their three alloted minutes. He pledged to be much stricter about the time limit going forward.
In practical terms, even if every speaker kept to their three minute window, this debate would be headed into the evening hours anyway.
Both his colleagues and several residents admonished him, Euille said.
3:11 p.m.
We're getting some Twitter reactions to the still ongoing waterfront public hearing at City Hall.
@SatirclAlx says: "I predict 4 of 6 vote yes. Hughes & Pepper go down in Nov."
@KaySellsVA says: "Sadly, too often human nature shows a knee-jerk tendency to reject progress due to wariness of the unknown."
And then we have @PatPend, who is pushing for adoption sometime before midnight: "Hope they pass it. I was convinced by lunch break."
That last comment is particularly interesting, from our perspective, because @PatPend had called for city council to delay their vote earlier in the day. Some of the arguments being made are apparently changing minds.
Want to weigh in? Let us know. We'll give you more than three minutes.
3:42 p.m.
Short update here folks, Lt. Gen. Bob Wood (Ret.), another member of the waterfront plan work group, has come out against the version before city council.
Mayor Bill Euille, riffing on accusations he and other members of city council have conflicts of interest in the plan, jokingly accused Wood of having a conflict of interest of his own: "You went to high school with me," the mayor said.
4:22 p.m.
If you're reading this live blog then you're probably not inside City Council chambers at City Hall right now. We stopped by briefly to grab a couple of snapshots to let the rest of the city know what it looks like several hours into what has become a marathon public hearing.
4:47 p.m.
Interesting exchange between a speaker, city council and the city attorney on the protest petition city Planning Director Farol Hamer tossed out earlier in the day. A quick refresher, plan opponents filed a petition Thursday in hopes of forcing a supermajority vote to approve the plan. If you'll recall, they used a mechanism available to residents trying to challenge a "map amendment" but applied it toward a "text amendment," which is where the zoning and density changes in the waterfront plan are located. There is no way to force a supermajority vote regarding atext amendment.
The sticking point seems to be a line in the ordinance referring to map amendments that includes the words "text amendment." Continued confusion seems to have convinced the mayor to ask Jim Banks, city attorney, for clarification.
After explaining the aforementioned logic, Banks went on to outline the path ahead for waterfront plan critics. If city council votes to approve the plan, then opponents can move to file with the board of zoning appeals, Banks said. If the BZA ruling doesn't satisfy them, they can go to circuit court.
As for that pesky "text amendment" mention, it refers to text in a map amendment, Banks said.
"It's not even a close call," he said.
But City Councilwoman Alicia Hughes questioned Banks's interpretation.
"The strict letter of the law is one thing, the intent, spirit behind the law may be something different," she said.
5:30 p.m.
To piggyback off of that last post, several readers have questioned City Attorney Jim Banks's reading of the ordinance that refers to map amendments and how residents might go about requiring a supermajority vote.
@DukeBlu85 tweets: "Banks is wrong. The code says "map or text." Good luck in court explaining that one away"
And that's pretty close to the truth. What we're looking at, if you want to do your own research, is 11-808 "Protest of zoning map amendment by landowners." Head on down to clause 'D' "Effect of protest."
"If a protest to a proposed text or map amendment is filed, the city council may not approve the proposed amendment except by an affirmative vote of three-fourths [a supermajority] of its members."
Banks's logic is that since the overall code refers to map amendments, then that clause is limited to protesting map amendments. "General to specific" is how he put it. How a judge might see it, we don't know. There certainly seems to be room for a debate and if that clause were amended to be more specific in the coming weeks and months, it wouldn't come as a surprise.
A caveat though: It would be hard to understand why City Hall would throw out the protest petition unless they were 99.9 percent sure a court would see it the same way. It seems like an awfully high risk to run given the plan's importance.
Agree, disagree? Let us know on Twitter (@AlexTimesNews or @DerrickTPerkins) or in the comments section below.
5:47 p.m.
Something we didn't get into when it happened (ended up blogging about the map amendment ordinance instead) was local restauranteur Cathal Armstrong speaking out in favor of the plan.
His presence is noteworthy for several reasons. The foremost is that his newest restaurant, Virtue Feed and Grain, has been sucked into the middle of the waterfront plan debate. When plan opponents called on Vice Mayor Kerry Donley to recuse himself from voting, it was because he works for the bank that backed Armstrong's restaurant. It's an obvious conflict of interest, critics said.
(Virginia law, however, disagrees)
And the restaurant is involved in a dispute involving City Hall and the Old Dominion Boat Club over ownership and control of Wales Alley, which is headed before the state supreme court.
That Armstrong is in support of the waterfront plan is unsurprising. His restaurant – one of many around Old Town – hosted a Waterfront For All public meeting earlier this month.
We should note that while the Wales Alley disagreement is connected to the waterfront plan – it involves the flood mitigation proposal – the restaurant and the property it sits on are not discussed in the blueprint. It's clear Virtue would benefit from a vibrant, active and commercialized waterfront, but it's a very distant link.
6:20 p.m.
The public hearing officially ends and council discussion will continue. City Councilman Paul Smedberg proposes initially motion to approve the waterfront plan.
6:26 p.m.
Mayor Bill Euille thanks all of the speakers for their thoughts and opinions today. He reiterated that there will be further opportunities for discussion as the city moves ahead.
"Whatever decision made today, it is not cast in concrete," Euille said. "There are other steps which staff will go through that will take place."
6:52 p.m.
And the debate – on the city council level – begins. City Councilwoman Del Pepper proposes limited the number of hotels on the waterfront to two, 150 rooms each at most, for a total of 300 rooms. The plan, as it has gone before council, calls for a maximum of three hotels, 150 rooms each.
It's an interesting and unexpected proposal, given the lengthy debate that went into defining exactly what was a "boutique" hotel last spring. It took the planning commission quite some time to narrow that down to a 150 room hotel or less.
City officials say capping the total number of hotel rooms at less than 150 will deter developers. Vice Mayor Kerry Donley and City Councilman Rob Krupicka both object to the suggestion. Krupicka doesn't believe there's a market for more than one hotel on the Potomac shoreline.
"I'm not that confident that we're going to get any more than one hotel [on the waterfront] anyway," Krupicka said.
7:22 p.m.
Vice Mayor Kerry Donley questions the importance of creating a plan that pays for itself – eventually – as the waterfront debate continues at the city council level and hits upon an important point to remember. There's no way of knowing exactly what will happen at sites slated for redevelopment, he said. It might be a hotel, it might not.
It's a point that is in danger of getting lost in the current debate. While the waterfront plan allows for hotels, and at times called for them, at the Robinson Terminals and the Cummings and Turner properties, the final decision is up to the property owner and/or developer. The plan could pave the wave for waterfront hotels, but since it's not city owned property and the city isn't in the hotel building business anyway, officials can do little more than plan and hope.
What we could end up seeing is just more office space along the waterfront.
8:01 p.m.
Quick update as city council heads into home stretch. City Councilman Rob Krupicka (D) embraces the plan despite opposition; Frank Fannon (R) expresses misgivings, but stays neutral; Alicia Hughes (R) comes out against the plan. Regardless of the tossed out protest petition, plan supports are looking for a supermajority vote tonight to lock this thing down.
8:33 p.m.
It's winding down now. City Councilmen Rob Krupicka, Paul Smedberg and City Councilwoman Del Pepper are either for or leaning toward the waterfront plan as are Mayor Bill Euille and Vice Mayor Kerry Donley. City Councilwoman Alicia Hughes is against it and Councilman Frank Fannon seems undecided.
8:35 p.m.
We have reached something akin to closure. After more than 2 years, the controversial waterfront plan has been approved by city council in a 5-2 vote.
Mayor Bill Euille, Vice Mayor Kerry Donley, city councilmen Rob Krupicka and Paul Smedberg voted for the plan along with City Councilwoman Del Pepper. City Councilman Frank Fannon and City Councilwoman Alicia Hughes voted against the plan. Interestingly, the vote broke down among party lines. Fannon and Hughes are both Republicans.


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Coca-Cola keeps the recipe for its 127-year-old soda inside an imposing steel vault that's bathed in red security lights. Several cameras monitor the area to make sure the fizzy formula stays a secret.
But in one of the many signs that the surveillance is as much about theater as reality, the images that pop up on video screens are of smiling tourists waving at themselves.
"It's a little bit for show," concedes a guard at the World of Coca-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta, where the vault is revealed at the end of an exhibit in a puff of smoke.
The ability to push a quaint narrative about a product's origins and fuel a sense of nostalgia can help drive billions of dollars in sales. That's invaluable at a time when food makers face greater competition from smaller players and cheaper supermarket store brands that appeal to cash-strapped Americans.
It's why companies such as Coca-Cola and Twinkies' owner Hostess play up the notion that their recipes are sacred, unchanging documents that need to be closely guarded. As it turns out, some recipes have changed over time, while others may not have. Either way, they all stick to the same script that their formulas have remained the same.
John Ruff, who formerly headed research & development at Kraft Foods, said companies often recalibrate ingredients for various reasons, including new regulations, fluctuations in commodity costs and other issues that impact mass food production.
"It's almost this mythological thing, the secret formula," said the president of the Institute of Food Technologists, which studies the science of food. "I would be amazed if formulas (for big brands) haven't changed."
"It's almost this mythological thing, the secret formula," said the president of the Institute of Food Technologists, which studies the science of food. "I would be amazed if formulas (for big brands) haven't changed."
This summer, the Twinkies cream-filled cakes many Americans grew up snacking on made a comeback after being off shelves for about nine months following the bankruptcy of Hostess Brands. At the time, the new owners promised the spongy yellow cakes would taste just like people remember.
A representative for Hostess, Hannah Arnold, said in an email that Twinkies today are "remarkably close to the original recipe," noting that the first three ingredients are still enriched flour, water and sugar.
Yet a box of Twinkies now lists more than 25 ingredients and has a shelf-life of 45 days, almost three weeks longer than the 26 days from just a year ago. That suggests the ingredients have been tinkered with, to say the least, since they were created in 1930.
"When Twinkies first came out they were largely made from fresh ingredients," notes Steve Ettlinger, author of "Twinkie, Deconstructed," which traced the roots of the cake's many modern-day industrial ingredients.
For its part, KFC says it still strictly follows the recipe created in 1940 by its famously bearded founder, Colonel Harland Sanders. The chain understood the power of marketing early on, with Sanders originally dying his beard white to achieve a more grandfatherly look.
Fast forward to 2009, when KFC decided the security for the handwritten copy of the recipe needed a flashy upgrade. It installed a 770-pound safe that is under constant video and motion-detection surveillance and surrounded by two feet of concrete on every side — just in case any would-be thieves try to dig a tunnel to get it.
"Like something out of a Hollywood movie," a press release from KFC trumpeted at the time.
KFC may very well be following the basic instructions of the recipe encased in the vault. But the fanfare around its founder's instructions is despite his disapproval of the new owners of the chain after he sold his stake in the company in 1964. In his book, for example, Wendy's founder Dave Thomas, a friend of Sanders', recounts how the colonel was annoyed because they came up with a simpler way to drain grease off the chicken by dumping it onto wire racks, rather than ladling the grease off by hand. Sanders apparently hated the new system because it bruised the chicken.
According to the book, Sanders was afraid the new owners would ruin the chicken because he said they "didn't know a drumstick from a pig's ear."
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, the nation's No. 1 and 2 soda makers, respectively, also are known for touting the roots of their recipes.
In the book "Secret Formula," which was published in 1994 and drew from interviews with former executives and access to Coca-Cola's corporate archives, reporter Frederick Allen noted that multiple changes were made to the formula over the years. For instance, Allen noted that that the soda once contained trace amounts of cocaine as a result of the coca leaves in the ingredients, as well as four times the amount of caffeine.
In an emailed statement, Coca-Cola said its secret formula has remained the same since it was invented in 1886 and that cocaine has "never been an added ingredient" in its soda.
It's a line that's familiar to Terry Parham, a retired special agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency. After the agency opened its museum in Arlington, Va. in the late 1990s, Parham, who was working in the press office at the time, recalled in a recent interview with the Associated Press that a Coca-Cola representative called to complain about an exhibit that noted the soda once contained cocaine. The exhibit stayed and Parham said the DEA didn't hear back from the company.
PepsiCo also celebrates its origins and in the past two years held its annual shareholders meeting in New Bern, N.C., where Caleb Bradham is said to have created the company's flagship soda in the late 1890s. But the formula for Pepsi was changed to make it sweeter in 1931 by the company's new owner, who didn't like the taste.
In the 1980s, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo both switched from sugar to high-fructose corn syrup, a cheaper sweetener. The companies last year also said they'd change the way they make the caramel coloring used in their sodas to avoid having to put a cancer warning label on their drinks in California, where a new law required such labels for foods containing a certain level of carcinogens.
This past spring, for example, Coca-Cola welcomed the widespread news coverage of a Georgia man who claimed to have found a copy of the soda's formula and tried to sell it on eBay. The company saw the fanfare as evidence of the public's fascination with its formula, and eagerly offered to make its corporate historian available for interviews to fuel the media attention.
Likewise, the company is happy to reminisce about the backlash provoked by the introduction of New Coke in 1985. The sweeter formula was a marketed as an improved replacement for the flagship soda, and the company points to the outrage that ensued as proof of how much people love the original. According to the emailed statement from Coca-Cola, that's the only time the company ever tried changing its formula.
The loyalty to that narrative is on full display at the World of Coca-Cola, where visitors mill about in a darkened exhibit devoted to myths surrounding the soda's formula. Tabloid-style headlines are splashed across the walls and whispers play on a recorded loop:
"Even if you could see the formula, you wouldn't understand it!" a voice says. "It's the greatest mystery of all time!" says another.
The museum gets about a million visitors a year, with a plaque at the end of one exhibit stating "Keeping the Secret Ensures That the Magic Lives On." But on a recent summer afternoon, at least one of them wasn't impressed.
"This part's boring," a small boy declared.

subset: commoncrawl


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in Barcelona, the best way to get around to tourist attractions, is by Hop on/off bus. ni takde ek system "ON TOUR" and sms ke 32111 untuk mendapatkan perkhidmatan tour. hahhaaha!! ok lawak tak kelakar. sorry. =p
memang awesome la the place!
especially the buildings!! if you're into architecture & art, you'll definitely love Barcelona!
i tell you, every building is different than the other! UNIQUE GILAAAAAA!!! sila sediakan tissue sebab anda (mungkin) akan nangis selepas melihat gambar gambar awesome di bawah:


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Online Betting Sites & Bookmakers
So you want to enjoy some Online Betting, but how do you find the best online betting sites? The goal is, of course, to get the best experience and the best value out of sports betting on the internet, but getting started can be a little daunting, simply because there is so much variety on offer. Like trying to decide which bet is going to be right for you by reading stats, by looking at advice and information about the best bookmakers available, you can make the right choice that will suit your personal style of betting.
Here are the top five points to look for when considering an online betting site:
- Market Value
- Customer Service
- Quality Sportsbook
- Promotional Value
- Trusted Branding
Market Value
Let's explore some of these areas a bit further. Market value is a big factor and customers can actually benefit from all of the competition out there between bookmakers. This is because the many betting sites out there have to be competitive in order to attract bettors. The bigger a price you can get on a market selection that you want to have a wager on, is what you are going to be looking for. Imagine Liverpool playing at home in the Premier League and they are trading at Even money to win their game at one bookmaker, while they are at 8/11 to win the same match at another bookmaker. You will obviously want to take the better value because your money will go further in terms of taking extra winnings from the bet. So value is important, especially over the long term of placing a lot of wagers, as small differences can add up to a lot over time in online sports betting prices. Fortunately, major bookmakers all trade their market options at great value.
Trusted Brand
Some of the best betting sites are simply those who have the biggest reputations. Look at the likes of William Hill, Coral, Stan James, Ladbrokes, Betfred, Bet Victor and others who had a long established High Street reputation before the online betting explosion. Because names like these are familiar to many punters, they are able to attract a lot of customers through their online services too. But that doesn't mean that you should overlook the online companies born to fill a need. Along with the trusted brand name itself, don't overlook the importance of customer service. You need a great back end to the website through which you are betting, so take into consideration account management and how accessible they are when it comes to answering any questions that you may have as a user.
Naturally, the best online betting sites are going to live by the quality of their sportsbook. This is where all the action happens. How much variety is on offer in terms of different sports? Can you get the full gamut of North American betting coverage as well as English Premier League football? How well are the minor sports and niche markets covered for your betting? If there is a sport that you enjoy, then you want to ensure that you have good coverage of it so that you can get the most of your online betting experience. Also, what is the variety of bets inside a particular market like? Is Asian Handicap betting available? Other things to consider is how navigable the sportsbook is, and what features complement it. Are there live streams? Is there good quality live in play betting available through the sportsbook? Is the bet slip itself easy to handle? The more questions you can answer positively, then the better the sportsbook you are operating with, will be! Don't be afraid to visit the best betting sites and give them a test drive to get a good feel of the ones you like.
Promotional Value
The best betting sites know the value of offering promotions to their customers. The most obvious form of this is through their welcome bonuses on offer. Bookmakers will usually hand out free bets on conditionals being met when a new player signs up with them. This is a great way to try and grab some extra profit, but look for offers inside the website like enhanced odds and Money Back Specials to add extra value to your day to day betting.
At the end of the day, the bettor has options. There is nothing wrong with opening accounts with several different bookmakers (but remembering you can only have one account at one particular bookmaker). Because this is how you are always going to be able to shop around and get the best value for your money. You can check the bookmakers with whom you are signed up with and see who is offering the better odds on the market selection that you want. Usually, you are going to be talking about small margins, but again, it is value which can add up over time.


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Situated in Huayin City, 120 kilometers (about 75 miles) east from Xi'an City of Shaanxi Province, Mt. Huashan is known as 'The Number One Precipitous Mountain under Heaven'. It is one of the five sacred mountains in China. The other four mountains are Mt. Taishan in Shandong, Mt. Hengshan in Hunan, Mt. Hengshan in Shanxi, and Mt. Songshan in Henan.
Usually tourists climb up the mountain assisted by the iron chains along the way and start their tour from Yuquan Yuan (Jade Spring Temple)(玉泉院), one of the main Taoist temples in China located at the foot of Mt. Huashan. It has the architectural style of the classical gardens in south China. There is a pond in the center and several pavilions around it. Walking through the Wuyou Pavilion, the Long Corridor of Seventy-two Windows comes into view, and afterwards Qingke Ping where a big rock called Huixin Rock(回心石) can be seen. It is said that Huixin Rock is a reminder for those who wish to stop their tour at this point. Beside the rock are the precipitous 370 rock steps called 'Qianchi Zhuang (千尺幢)' considered to be the primary breath-taking path of Mt. Huashan. When climbing, only a gleam of sky above can be seen, making climbers feel as if they were at the bottom of a well. Across the Qianchi Zhuang (千尺幢) are two similar precipitous paths-respectively called 'Baichi Xia (百丈崖)' and Laojun Li (老君犁沟) above which climbers reach Mt. Huashan's North Peak.
The panorama was taken above Qianchi Zhuang
360-degree panorama photography by yunzeng liu
Shanxi, Shaanxi, or referred to Qin, also known as Shaanxi, China's northwest region, a province, the provincial capital Xi'an, located in the hinterland of China, the Yellow River and Yangtze River, located in east longitude 105 ° 29 '~ 111 ° 15', Latitude 31 ° 42 '~ 39 ° 35' between. East of Shanxi, Henan, west of Ningxia, Gansu, south of Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Inner Mongolia, north, connecting China living in east and central region and the northwest and southwest of the important position. Because of the Shan Zhou (now Shan County in Henan Province) west of the, so called Shaanxi. Long history and profound culture. Longer period in the history of Shaanxi Province has been referred to as "Qin. "


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This project is currently orphaned. Creating a decent IDE is still an active research topic and many problems are yet to be resolved (see, say, the Proxima thesis). It has to be noted, however, that no conceptual problem was encountered with the GHC API. The plugin system -- which was based on GHC API -- remained at the prototype stage though.
A later note by AndrewUFrank (July 2009): Leksah is fulfilling many of the requirements mentioned here and in version 0.4.4.1 is at a stage where it can be used for productive work. It would be interesting to compare the actual realization with the requirements listed here.
I'd like to start a discussion on the development of an IDE for Haskell which for the moment we will call hIDE 2.x.
There is another wiki page (HaskellIde) on Haskell IDEs in general, however here I'd like to focus the discussion on more specific proposals for the development of an IDE.
There is also a hIDE page at haskell.org where developers may blog, comment on blogs, executables will be available for Windows users, tarballs for geeks, etc...
If you're looking for specific low-level details of hIDE itself, try the HIDE/Design page.
So let me (DuncanCoutts) start with my own personal views.
A Manifesto for hIDE 2.x
- Free Software, not based off proprietary IDEs
- Written in Haskell
- Extensable plugin-based design using hs-plugins (like lambdabot)
- Distributed development using darcs (again like lambdabot)
- Attractive UI using Gtk+ 2.x and the Glade visual GUI builder)
- Internal editor also written and extensible in Haskell, based on Yi
- Build system based on Cabal
- Integration with other tools, haddock, analysis and refactoring etc. through plugins
- Use the new GHC internal interface to provide tight integration with the editor and other parts of the IDE
BulatZiganshin: how about targeting competition with Emacs, VIM and other wide-spread IDEs/editors? i think now it's the right time to roll up Haskell-based killer app :) DonStewart: I think we are doing this, yes, since Yi already attempts to provide emacs/vim/... interfaces
Development style
Now you may notice that I'm mixing features with implementation choices (eg using Gtk+). To justify this I would appeal to the open source idea to release early and the importance of getting a base platform working to gain momentum and mindshare. Therefore we should not necessarily try to generalise too much too early but to get the basics working quickly.
However the other thing to avoid is going all out for features and neglecting the structure and organisation of the code necessary to allow sustained growth. This is one of the main lessons we must take from hIDE 1.x. So the modular development by plugins is important to allow distributed and parallel development. So for example it needs to be possible to develop components and then swap them out later for improved versions. For example suppose we start by using an editor component based on the GtkSourceView widget, it should be possible to develop another editor component based on Yi while the default remains as GtkSourceView and to have them both plugins loaded at the same time. Then when the new component is deemed to be better then the default implementatin can be changed over. That way we do not need to hold up immediate practicalty by waiting for more advanced implementations.
Why now?
Because we have the technology and there is demand for tools to make writing and maintining Haskell code easier.
- We now have distributed development with darcs.
- We now have hs-plugins and the techniques for building fully dynamic modular applications. http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/papers/SC05.html
- We now have the GHC interface so we can get really good integration with the compiler.
- We now have mature GUI libraries.
- We now have an editor written in Haskell being developed.
- There is a VisualStudio plugin being written and we don't want Free software for Haskell development to be left behind.
- The Haste developers demonstrated that it's possible to build an IDE shell in a couple months with inexperienced Haskell developers.
Why in Haskell?
- Because Haskell developers know Haskell and not elisp/Java/C++/COM/C#. Therefore we are only likely to be able to get Haskell developers to help out by writing extensions if they can do so in Haskell.
- It means we do not have to live with the requirements and limitations of IDEs that are primarily aimed at other languages or written in other languages.
- Let me repeat a point: The Haste developers demonstrated that it's possible to build an IDE shell in a couple months with inexperienced Haskell developers.
Potential contributors
Since this is supposed to be a distributed development thing I thought it'd be nice if we start a list of people who have expressed any interest in contributing in any fashion.
So the list of potential contributers. Use you name and/or irc nick. If you have any specific ideas for what you might be interested in constibution then feel free to mention them. Or perhaps any skills you think would be useful.
- DuncanCoutts (dcoutts): I work on Gtk2Hs so I know a bit about Gtk+ programing in Haskell. I think I know a little abut GUI design (but maybe I'm just opinionated and igonrant). I used to work on hIDE 1.x. I would be interested in looking at GUI issues and general design and management issues.
- DavidHimmelstrup (Lemmih): I've written parts of hs-plugins and I'm fairly familiar with GHC's internal interface.
- NeilMitchell (ndm): I like IDE's. I also like Windows so will keep it compiling on that.
- DonStewart (dons): I hacked up hs-plugins and Yi, developed the dynamic architecture stuff, and am interested in pushing Haskell as a dynamic extension language.
- SamGoldman (Speck): I'm a relative newbie with Haskell, but I could test for OS X. I am also good with web apps and aesthetics/ergonomics stuff.
- Gour (gour): I'm also Haskell newbie, but can help test on amd64, web stuff...more after acquiring some Haskell-related skills.
- LyndonTremblay (humasect): Into realtime use for completely synthetic and dynamic audio and graphics processing, sometimes synaesthetically, so anywhere between general advisory to overt hack contributioning related to concurrent development, in place editing slash modifying of code and/or data link up slash external tool integration.
- DominicFox (poetix): Would like to build and test periodically on Linux, maybe assist with documentation.
- DavidWaern (davve): Was a member of the Haste project. Interested in the general design and most coding parts of the project. You can read about my experiences when developing Haste.
- LennartKolmodin (kolmodin): Member of the Haste project (developer log) when it was active. Would like to look into general design and "code aware" features along with overall hacking.
- JeanPhilippeBernardy: I hacked the emacs keybindings of Yi. I'm looking forward to perfect those.
- ImamTashdidulAlam: I have ideas :-)
- Yogesh Mali : I am newbie to haskell..i have extensive experience of standard ML and silver function programmings which i use for my research. I would like to start with something concrete in haskell to hone my skills in it.I have ideas based on my using IDE for standard ML..so i can help in testing and coding in haskell.
- Tim Watson (lambdonut): also a haskell newbie, from mixed background including ocaml, lisp and erlang (I work for a telco - sue me). Interested in decent code awareness features (navigation, stats, etc), HaRe integration, etc. Will probably start with testing on GNU Linux and Win32, move on to documentation and get into code once I'm up to speed.
Useful contributions may be in many forms, not just coding:
- Coding (well obviously we need some coding!)
- Ideas requriements and design
- GUI design - yes this is important
- Web stuff
- Graphics - eg logos maybe other stuff
- Documentation
- Cheerleading!
Development issues
Feel free to extend any of these with your own opinions.
There is now a hIDE/Design page for documenting the internal design.
The Windows question
ie "will it run on Windows?"
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't. All the basic parts we are using are cross-platform. Gtk2hs and hs-plugins run on Unix, Windows and Mac OS X.
That's not to say that every plugin will necessarily build on every platform. In fact we can use the plugin architecture to our advantage here to use different technologies to implement components on different platforms and to get better platform integration. For example consider the configuration subsystem; we might want to use GConf when using the Gnome platform but the Windows registery on Windows (or a simple file based implementaion on Windows and non-Gnome Unix platforms if people hate those sort of technologies).
However I don't expect that the plugability would extend to the basic graphical toolkit that is used. Though I do expect that many plugins would not need to be directly linked to a GUI toolkit if they do not need complicated user interaction.
BulatZiganshin: if using GTK will lead to need of installing additional software for Windows users of IDE, then it will be better to use wxWindows?
Piotr Kalinowski: I don't expect IDE to be such sort of software that you would frown at a single additional install of GTK libs. Would you?
Jeremy O'Donoghue: Agree that look and feel is not primary for IDE. However, wide acceptance will require that a Windows/Mac Installer be created, and this really needs to include all necessary libs to run.
For wxHaskell this is easy (2 DLLs in same directory as application, totalling ~4MB, and no registry entries needed). I've created several applications this way using Inno Setup - it's very easy to do.
For GTK it is harder - my Windows GTK directory contains 1850 files and 47MB (I assume similar problem for native Mac port - but I've never even tried: GTK was just too painful (and ugly) on Windows). You'll also need to create a few registry entries (HKLM/SOFTWARE/GTK/2.0/DllPath, Path and Version last time I looked).
It took me a week of part-time hacking to get a GTK+ developer install which worked, and I've never succeeded in packaging it into a single installer with a Windows app which reliably works. While GUI lib used for an IDE doesn't necessarily matter, packaging is a very big deal for a 'killer app' - it really does need to have a simple installation mechanism, so someone should look into this right from the start.
For me personally, I'd much prefer native look and feel on all platforms, but I'd live without it if HIDE was really a 'killer app'. However, failing to create a simple installation mechanism and/or hundreds of library dependencies mean that I'd probably never even try it to find out (life's too short).
Piotr Kalinowski: I suppose it is possible to use a separate installer for GTK+. How about the one from http://gladewin32.sourceforge.net ? There's runtime environment and development version. Personally I never had problems with GTK under windows at looks very well for me.
The GHC question
ie "how much GHC integration?"
The concern here is about a potential tradeoff between advantages of integration well with GHC (eg using it's API to get lots of info) and the disadvantage that it might become too hard to use anything other than GHC for the build.
It think that its clear that hIDE itself will require GHC to build because at the moment hs-plugins and Gtk2Hs do not support any other Haskell system. However if we can use different build systems or Cabal then it should be quite possible to target other Haskell systems like hugs,nhc,jhc etc. It may well be that we rely on GHC for some of the IDE features like error reporting and jump to definition etc.
Yhc is in the process of defining a Yhc API, if the list of features required was specified somewhere, perhaps with some abstract API that meets HIDE's needs, I'm sure Yhc could support it too (in time).
BulatZiganshin: there must be standard interface to compilers with one implementation using GHC, another - HUGS and so on
The license question
ie "What license? GPL? LGPL? Other?"
Personally I would normally pick GPL for applications, however this would not be a normal application.
In this instance I would suggest LGPL for the core components since we want people to contribute extensions for their favourite tools. This may necessitate linking against existing code under other licenses. Authors may be reluctant to effectively relicense any code they include as GPL. IANAL but I believe LGPL would allow combining plugins with different licenses.
However of course we can only accept plugins in the official collection/distribution that are Free Software (since otherwise of course we cannot legally distribute them).
BulatZiganshin: are BSD license not appropriate?
Jeremy O'Donoghue: I don't see how HIDE can be anything except LGPL or GPL, given GTK licensing (it is would be hard to argue that it is not a derived work of GTK). This is another (big) difference of wxHaskell where license is more liberal, and would allow open or closed source plug-ins etc (whether this is an advantage depends on point of view).
Without getting into 'license' war, BSD or MIT license should be OK for a plug-in to LGPL/GPL licensed application. Release a closed source plug-in at your own risk (I wouldn't do it, for example, based on the legal advice I have received, but your legal advice may vary).
Piotr Kalinowski: Actually it is just an application linked against GTK+ and not a GUI library based on it. Since GTK+ is licensed under LGPL, that should impose no restrictions on HIDE license. Personally, I don't care as long as it is open source.
Record of a stuff from #haskell. TODO: Format this better as issues get worked out.
<Lemmih> dcoutts: Do we need to handle editor plugins differently from non-editor plugins or can we device some universal plugin API which handles both? Can plugins depend on each other? Can two editor plugins be loaded at the same time? <dcoutts> Lemmih, I don't think there is single plugin API, there is a set of plugin interfaces. Some plugins will provide interfaces that other plugins can use. Yi would be one such example. The IDE shell would be another <dcoutts> plugins must be able to depend on each other <dcoutts> wether more than one plugin of the same variety can be loaded at once depends on the provider of the interface <dcoutts> eg how does an editor plugin hoist itself in? probably by registering itself with the IDE shell. So if the IDE shell allows more than one they yes. <dcoutts> I expect that for some kinds of plugins it'll make perfect sense to have multiple ones loaded at once, others it might be only one at once with a user preference to select which and others might be fixed (eg core plugins, or platform support plugins) <dcoutts> Lemmih, so the whole thing is a bunch of modules, there's no base app with a single unified plugin interface. The whole thing is plugin modules. <dcoutts> plugins can be linked against each other so they canprovide interfaces to each other <dcoutts> each plugin gets an initialisation function. That allows it to register with any interfaces it intends to implement <dcoutts> eg the core IDE shell plugin will provide interfaces for adding menu items and such like other plugins will linkagainst the IDE shell plugin and use it's public interface to register hooks like menu items
BulatZiganshin: see FreeRIDE below, they already developed powerful and flexible plugin architecture
UI ideas
Most IDE user interfaces look pretty similar these days. That's no bad thing particularly. It certainly gives us a good place to start and plenty of suggestions to think about. Here's a breif list of other IDEs that it would be worth gathering ideas from:
* Eclipse - a highly extendable IDE for Java and other language. There is a detailed and interesting UI design document available. * Anjuta - a Gtk/Gnome IDE for C/C++ * KDevelop - a KDE IDE for C/C++ * Haste - a Haskell IDE developed for a university student project. (Dead link) * MS VisualStudio - many people swear by it. Can't find many screenshots however. * SlickEdit - apparently is quite good * LEO [1] - User definable outlines and views to code. Not mainstream but good for ideas. See below for a mockup. * PIDA - Python Integrated Development Application - this one looks interesting sharing some of our hIDE ideas
Feel free to add more to this list.
* FreeRIDE - Ruby IDE, useful because of similar architecture and motivation, reasonably well designed plugin architecture. * [Leksah] - Early stage haskell ide built in haskell. The "source candy" feature (giving nice symbols for lambdas, etc) is very nice. * Smalltalk - Different from all other IDEs as it does not work with files at all. Instead the IDE works with the languange primitives - classes and methods. Why do we need files anyway? In Haskell IDE, where files would (or could) be abstracted, the developer could focus on functions, types and type-classes. Such IDE would be superior to all current technology.
The Eclipse example is particularly interesting because it is also a highly plugable IDE. They can't fix upon a single static UI design because it mught be extensable by many plugins. So it has to pick UI concepts and abstractions that many plugins can fit into. At least the first part of the eclipse UI design document is well worth a read.
Let me (DuncanCoutts) now note down some of my UI ideas:
First of all, here is a little UI mockup.
Yep is looks much like many other IDEs.
So we have 3 pannels and a menu and toolbar. The main focus is of course the editor pane. The other two can be hidden away to get the maximum screen space for the editor (which is a common IDe problem, that they take up too much screen space).
The left hand pane is a collection of views of pages, or rather a way of navigating between pages. So they are lists or trees of pages. Selecting a page opens that page in the main editor pane. The reason for having several tabs of these views is that sometimes we need different views. For exaple, in the UI mockup above we've got a modules and files view. The files view would list all files in the project directory tree, selecting any of the would allow you to edit the file. The modules view on the other hand lists just the Haskell modules rather than all files. This is probably more useful when doing ordinary coding. The modules view would list all files that are the primary source, so for example when using a module that needs pre-processing, eg a .hsc .chs. .y or .x file, then the modules view would show only that file and not the generated .hs file - the generated file would be visible through the files view.
The intention is that plugins could register their own views. What I am describing is an example of a possible default configuration. To make the vies/pages system quite flexable one idea is that all pages should exist in a singe rooted tree and that the tab are multiple views into that tree. For example the configuration in the mockup could be described as having four views, rooted at /files, /modules, /open, /tools respecvely. That would allow the user to configure it with one single tree view rather than having multiple tabs. It would also allow a view to show only a subtree, which might be useful perhaps in a very large code base. So in that scheme, plugins could register pages or whole subtrees of pages and setup views to look into them.
The third pannel is for tools to display a UI to interact with the user. Examples of these tools could include things like search, interactive window, error messages etc. anything which you might want to have open at the same time as an editor page.
Another vision for hIDE is . (how do I get a link instead of picture?)
On the left there is user editable treeview which can contain different types of nodes. Some nodes will become modules and others are there for documentation. Some nodes can contain interpreters that have other modules loaded or other dynamic output. Nodes can be cloned so same node can appear at multiple places in the tree.
Point is that the whole tree is user built. (Though you can provide templates for lazy.)
Right side is normal splittable editing panel.
The point is that everything is in the outline. You (user) can make different nodes for different things and organize your workflow as you like. You could build different views, for say, bugs. Just collect all things related to a bug (tests, code, documentation) into single outline for easy manipulation and reference.
Different types of nodes is the main extension direction of this plan (besides editor interface with type checking etc). You could even make nodes that contain extension code that dynamically produces the node contents so as to make extending easy.
You could start with simple @module node that reflects a haskell module. Then Ordinary node that will be just documentation. Then perhaps ghci node, build log node, timetable node, project management node.. (see pivotal for great inspiration)
darcs get http://darcs.haskell.org/hIDE darcs get http://darcs.haskell.org/yi
You'll also need fps and unless you are using >=GHC 6.5 also ghc-api.
So far it has the basics of plugin loading ability and we've passed the first milestone of getting it to boot, load plugins, intialsise them and transfer control to the UI. It now is also hosting the yi/hIDE integration work which is comming along nicely.
Name contest
Please put your suggestion for the official name of hIDE here...
- hs as Haskell Studio :-) (Gour)
- yiDE - since it uses yi and is an IDE (aleator)
- gYi - ditto :) (BulatZiganshin)
- A name prefixed with "Free" or "Open", i.e. FreeIDE, FreeCode(?), FreeHS, FreeStudio, OpenStudio etc. (to emphasise that we are free!) (dons)
- On the 'Studio' theme, the obvious one is "HaskellStudio". But the MS haters might object :-) (dcoutts)
- well, the full name of Anjuta is "Anjuta DevStudio" :-) (gour)
- why not hIDE? -- Could we make a clever pun with a companion tool named "Jekyll" or something like it? (mwc)
- Hive: Haskell Integrated Visual Editor (Environment), or somesuch. "The hive is a symbol of industriousness and teamwork." http://www.google.be/search?q=define%3Ahive
- Hades: HAskell DEvelopment System (or Studio)
- Since the greek word "hades" denotes the place where the dead reside, it seems not like a good name for a Haskell IDE to me. -- Wolfgang Jeltsch 00:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
- "Hades" actually stands for the god of the underworld. HenkJanVanTuyl 10:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- NeilMitchell/WinHaskell - some thoughts from NeilMitchell about a lightweight GUI interface to a Haskell editor/interpreter.
- HaskellIde - an older page discussing some ideas for a Haskell IDE
- The Yi and lambdabot source code - useful for understanding the dynamic plugin architecture.
- The Yi wiki also has some documentation


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The year of 2011 was the year of red-light cameras, a failed private school endeavor and city employees embezzling taxpayer dollars. A vicious murderer was brought to justice; a new town crier was christened; the business community beat a proposed tax on their livelihoods; an industrial dinosaur, the GenOn power plant, agreed to shut off and leave town.
This year brought Alexandria an earthquake, a new brewery and a Civil War sesquicentennial commemorating — not celebrating — the four-year occupation of the city. Some battles, like the clash over the waterfront's future, will rage into 2012.
It's been a dynamic year. As the city's most dynamic newspaper, the Alexandria Times holds public officials accountable day after day, week after week, so we would be remiss not to likewise hold ourselves accountable.
In last year's Visions of Alexandria edition, the Times made a New Year's resolution — a sort of checklist of what we wanted to achieve. "This new year will be the year the Times focuses diligently on its web presence without abandoning the romantic yet necessary medium of print journalism," we told readers. "Your publication, the Times, will delve further into the city over the next year, become more diverse in its coverage and our presentation, and continue to improve as an advertising vehicle for local, regional and national businesses."
Check. After months of preparation the Times launched a new website (www.alextimes.com) in November. Along with it came a new strategy that keeps up with the changing times of journalism — more news updates, more often. We have become an online and print publication, rather than simply a print publication with a website.
In 2011, the Times' in-depth reporting informed and entertained a city of 140,000 people. Our columnists offered expertise on pets, health, senior living and the law. All of our coverage was locally relevant, including human-interest stories and features. Editorials on local issues promoted civic engagement and helped affect change, like the elimination of the add-on tax that would have otherwise suffocated small businesses.
We revamped our layout to present all of this in an attractive and easy-to-read manner, with color on every page, adding to the paper's aesthetics while providing a punch for advertisers. As a result, our advertising revenue jumped more than 31 percent.
The Times was happy to give back to the community in other ways, too, by donating a portion of our advertising proceeds to various non-profits in Alexandria through our Cause of the Month.
While we've achieved our goals from last year, the old cliché rings true: There's always room for improvement. In 2012, we resolve to increase our circulation of 18,000 and cast a wider net for our readers and advertisers. The paper depends on advertising to remain a free publication. And more ad revenue means bigger papers, more resources and more local content.
On the coverage side of things, the Times resolves to further enhance its web presence and online interaction with readers with more video and social media. And as Alexandria becomes more urban and culturally significant, we will enhance our arts and entertainment coverage, tapping into a community of creative locals. Finally, we hope to further affect change with original insight and your ideas on the opinion pages.
Without readers, though, the Alexandria Times — and our yearly resolutions — would be impossible. So as you thumb through this year's Visions of Alexandria retrospective, know that it's your interest and engagement that drives our commitment to local news. Thank you. This is your Times.
Patrice Culligan, Publisher & David Sachs, Editor-in-Chief
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Kahne holds off Kenseth to win Atlanta shootout
Published 12:00 am Monday, September 1, 2014
HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) — Kasey Kahne grabbed the lead on the restart following a caution with 23 laps remaining and held off Matt Kenseth in a two-lap shootout to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night.
Kahne's first win of the season earned him a spot in the Chase for the Sprint cup. Kenseth also qualified for the Chase on points.
Denny Hamlin was third, followed by Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Danica Patrick.
Meanwhile, Tony Stewart's much-anticipated return to racing ended a little more than halfway through the race.
Stewart hit the wall for the second time after his right front tire blew out on Lap 172, ending his night with a 41st-place finish.
It was Stewart's first race since the sprint car he was driving struck and killed 20-year-old Kevin Ward Jr. in an Aug. 9 race at a dirt track in upstate New York. The fatal wreck is still under investigation.
With only two laps remaining and Kahne holding a solid lead over Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch collided, forcing a caution flag and the first shootout. Harvick, who led 195 laps, had contact with Joey Logano in heavy traffic and hit the wall on the restart, bringing another caution flag and a second shootout.
Kahne, who had four fresh tires, started behind Kenseth and Hamlin on the final restart.
Harvick, who also won the Nationwide Series race on Saturday night, started from the pole and led the first 80 laps.
Logano, who won last week at Bristol, finished 14th.
Stewart's problems started when he went into the wall earlier in the race following a collision with Kyle Busch.
Kenseth began the night fifth in the points race, but not yet locked into the Chase because he had no wins. Kenseth needed to finish seventh or better to secure his place in the playoffs.
After leading the final 159 laps of his dominant Nationwide series win on Saturday night, Harvick resumed his mastery of the Atlanta Motor Speedway track. Starting from his series-leading sixth pole of the season, Harvick led the first 80 laps, giving him a combined 239 consecutive laps led at the track over two races.
Hamlin passed Harvick for the lead after Jeff Gordon, who had been second, blew a tire and slid into the wall on turn 3 on the 78th lap, forcing a yellow flag.
Stewart started 12th and opened strong, moving up to sixth in the first five laps. Driving high on the track, three-wide at times, he made two more passes to move to fourth a few laps later. He fell back to 12th before his first big setback. Busch, attempting to move to the top of the track, cut in front of Stewart, forcing Stewart into the wall.
After two visits to pit row for repairs, Stewart didn't last long. Only 50 laps later, he hit the wall on turn 2 after his right front tire blew. This time he drove his more heavily damaged car to the garage, and his race was over.
Brad Keselowski was fourth when a collision with Josh Wise ended his night with 28 laps remaining.
Ty Dillon, making his Sprint Cup debut, finished 25th.
Harvick had a scare early in the race when a small animal ran across the track in front of his car. He told his crew a cat ran across the track, but later it was discovered to be a squirrel, which was found hiding near turn 3.


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For last year's words belong to last year's languageMay peace, health, love, harmony and happiness follow you through 2014.
And next year's words await another voice.
- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Thank you for your interest in my blog and for your support.
Hoping to see you around next year!


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Because the full exchange was very long, and my breakdowns are also long, I've done my best to pare down the following content to the vital bits. It's possible I will later regret not including particular parts, but that's the price I pay in order to avoid making an over-long post even longer. While the exchange was between Russell and a theist viewer, I wanted to provide my thoughts about this particular theist and what I observed in his responses that I found particularly unbearable. Kudos to Russell for keeping it civil to the end. I'd have been fed up with this very early on.
The two things I loathe most in a correspondence are dishonesty and hypocrisy. Recently Russell engaged a theist, Caleb, who wrote to us to assert the following:
"I am a christian and believe the Bible is the inspired word of God."
He then went on to cherry pick verses in order to claim that there is no hell and there is no afterlife according to the Bible. Clearly Caleb is in the minority with regard to Christian orthodox reading of the text. In his own words:
"Another truth about the Bible is the teaching of the immortality of the soul, the bible clearly teaches that when we die we simply die."
Russell replied by pointing out that atheists aren't particularly concerned about what the Bible teaches, because, to the atheist, it's just another book.
Caleb replied with "No True Scotsman," that the majority of Christians don't understand the Bible correctly—"correctly" being how Caleb understands it.
"I don't assume that you care about the Bible. However I truly feel that a lot of your assumptions and conclusions have been based solely on stories out of the bible that have been twisted and defaced by false religion."
And he then accused us of of using twisted interpretations of the Bible to make it say horrible things that it doesn't. In reality, we're simply going with an orthodox Christian view that has been orthodox for centuries.
"…when you have a story such as hellfire and eternal torment that makes your side of the argument appear to lean to your side, you use the bible against itself and it sounds credible"
He seems less interested in the reality that it's Christians—Bible defenders—who promote hell fire and afterlife, not detractors. Like so many others, Caleb has written to us to complain, when, in fact, his real issue is with other Christians. If he thinks the orthodox Christian view is maligning the real Bible message, an atheist program isn't going to be able to help him out with that problem. We respond to what Christians actually believe and promote, we don't dictate it.
And Caleb understands that we're presenting orthodoxy, he just doesn't understand that Christian orthodox views aren't under our control:
"What the Bible really teaches is credible, but it will never be credible as long as you have the twisted stories that are presented to you on your show by these traditional Christians."
All I can say is that while this is the traditional Christian view, it's the view we're going to critique when we talk about Christianity. If we presented Christianity using minority views, such as Caleb's, we'd surely (and rightly) be accused of misrepresenting Christianity. Caleb has taken his "fight" to the wrong arena. If he wants us to address his views when we discuss what Christianity is about, then he'll need to work to make his view the orthodox view with his fellow Christians.
Caleb then stated something we need to pay special attention to:
"Also there are many Bible prophesies in the Bible that Show its credibility."
What do you think is meant by Caleb when he says that the content demonstrates the Bible's "credibility"? I don't think it is very confusing. He means that it's credible evidence of divine authorship—as he indicated previously (quoted above) as his view. What other sort of "credibility" would Caleb think ancient prophecies in the Bible demonstrate?
Then he says something we're all used to, the Bible is supported by, and does not conflict with, science. Note especially the spherical Earth claim, as this is going to come back as well.
"In Isaiah 40:22 we see the Bible writer refers to the Earth as being circle, globe, or round, so the Bible has referred to the Earth being round more than 2000 years before those voyages. Was the writer a great guesser? Also the Bible goes hand in hand with science as far as science goes take for instance the Genesis account, and this goes back to what I was talking about earlier most Christians believe the Earth was created in 6 literal days about 6-10,000 years ago. Again this is crazy that simply does not match up with science. However a further examination will reveal that the Bible does not specify the amount of time it took to create the Earth."
Russell's reply was quite brief but hit several points:
1. That Russell has read the Bible himself and isn't just assuming what's in it based on stories he's been told.Of all the points above the ONLY point Caleb responded to was the question of the "sphere" vs. the "circle":
"OK I have done some research on the Hebrew word at Is 40:22, the Hebrew word chugh, translated circle, can also mean sphere…"
And he didn't touch Russell's point that other passages clearly indicate a flat Earth. Again, if the word means either "sphere" or "circle," and we have several other verses indicating you can see all areas of the Earth from a sufficiently high point, what is most likely the model of the Earth to ancient Hebrews? In fact, the idea of seeing all points on Earth from a single, sufficiently high area, isn't even restricted to Old Testament texts. Such descriptions are also found within the New Testament books (see the link further below for further examples). But Caleb ignores this, and upon realizing the word means either "circle" or "sphere," he then just ignores "circle" (the predominant usage) from that point onward and sticks with "sphere"—the position that supports his view of miraculous knowledge. We know he's not interested in honestly examining what the word most likely meant to the people writing at that time—otherwise he'd have addressed the larger context, the question of the "high vantage point" problem, that he, instead, chose to completely ignore.
But what we see is Russell agreeing it can mean "circle" or "sphere," but simply saying (to paraphrase) "based on who is writing and what else they say about their model of the Earth, what is most likely meant here?" Russell takes the full range of meaning, looks at the most likely scenario, and concludes it's likely intended to be a flat circle. Caleb ignores the larger context, sees that it can mean either a "sphere" or a "circle" and then latches onto the meaning that suits him, while dismissing the definition that does not.
Then Caleb says something else interesting. And this reminds me of the apologist Josh McDowell. McDowell specializes in presenting data that supports his view, and holding back any data that conflicts or would undermine his assertions. McDowell does what is normally called "a lie of omission." In other words, you say only what needs to be said to make you sound credible, and you don't provide the information that calls your claims into question, and you hope the party you're talking to is none the wiser, so you can "win" even if you're "win" is based on dishonest survey of the evidence and data, rather than an honest one. So, here is what we have:
"The point is the book of Isaiah was penned in the 8th century B.C.E(778-732 B.C.E) which was centuries before Greek philosophers theorized that the Earth likely was spherical, and thousands of years before humans saw the earth as a globe from space."
And again, Russell comes back to point out to Caleb that he's not considering all data, just data that suits him:
"Initially you were claiming that the Bible absolutely makes some kind of scientific claim that could only be interpreted as imparting knowledge which was not in any way available to people of the time it was written. Now you're clinging to this explanation that if you take an alternative meaning of a word which primarily means 'circle,' as filtered through modern translators who are trying to prove the Bible correct, then the authors might conceivably have been obliquely referring to knowledge which already existed in other cultures around the same time.
"(Incidentally, your note about the authorship of Isaiah is incomplete. Parts of it were written in the 8th century BCE, but parts of the book, including chapter 40 onward, are dated to the 6th."
Moving the date to the 6th century means that the idea of a spherical Earth would have been broadly understood. And it undermines the idea that the Hebrews—even if they used the term to mean "sphere"—were working from divine knowledge. Although figuring out something before someone else, really isn't evidence of divine knowledge anyway—someone is always the first to figure a thing out.
Russell then shared a link to an article full of Bible support for Flat Earth ideology. It's written by a skeptic who is examining what the Flat Earth society believes, what they promote, and upon what Bible verses they base their Biblical interpretation:
Again, this is the doctrine of other Christians. Other believers. Others who hold the Bible to be the true and unerring word of the divine creator. And they don't agree with Caleb. What is their ulterior motive to misrepresent the god and the book they are devoted to? Who could be more honestly devoted to a religion than a group that could deny the tremendous body of evidence for a spherical Earth? That's actually quite a commitment to your holy book, in my view. As Caleb demonstrates, most people, even most believers, couldn't hold to that level of devotion to the concepts promoted within the Bible. Most Christians, like Caleb, are willing to cherry pick in order to make the Bible fit better into reality as we learn more and more about the universe around us. It's ironic that Caleb will try to make a text from several thousand years back fit into the paradigms of today, while claiming those who do not do this are the ones "twisting" the meaning. But here we are, right?
True to form, Caleb writes back with his myopic view of evidence. Sure, parts of Isaiah could have been written in the 6th century—but that doesn't mean they were…therefore Caleb concludes, against the obvious, they weren't. He then goes on to do some wild thrashing to quickly change the subject and get out of the frying pan:
"The fact that that Isaiah was incomplete can be refuted, but the fact remains that there are plenty of holes in the evidence that points to life being traced to previous organisms, the bible is not a science book but what is in there is in line with the scientific discoveries today. The bible does not contradict itself…"
Caleb is confusing "refute" with the idea that there is often a range of scholarly opinions concerning dating something from thousands of years ago. The idea that parts of Isaiah were produced in later centuries isn't "refuted." The fact there are a range of opinions is not "refutation." What Caleb really means is that since the scholarship asserting that parts of Isaiah were written at a later date can only be expert opinion—even if that's a majority opinion—he has all he needs to assert (as he absolutely did earlier, above) that it was, in fact, written in the 8th century BCE. This is dishonest. Caleb didn't say earlier that it could have been written anywhere between the 8th and 6th century BCE, he said, "the book of Isaiah was penned in the 8th century B.C.E"—and that's "Josh McDowell"-level dishonesty right there.
Russell's reply was short and concise—and fair:
"Way to change the subject. Can you please acknowledge that your first argument didn't work as a proof of god before trying to sneak into another one?
"After you've done that, then you'll be free to explain why you're trying to claim simultaneously that the Bible agrees completely with modern science, and the Bible is completely incompatible with the core principles of modern biology."
Caleb's final response drove me to this blog post. My desire, if I'm honest, was to reply directly to Caleb. However, there were four things that made me hold back:
1. It was Russell's dialog.
2. Caleb dismisses anything that conflicts with his ideology.
3. Caleb ignores any points he can't address, as though they were never made (and bear in mind, although I didn't include Russell's full replies, they were quite brief. This wasn't a case of pages of rebuttal where it was only human to choose which areas to respond. Ignoring points in a note that only contains three or four clear points is simply dodging.
4. Caleb takes things that require interpretation (sphere/circle, 6th/8th century origins) and lays them out as fact. He doesn't get that it's not sufficient to say "it can mean this," to demonstrate your point. You actually have to show it does mean it. Russell actually pointed this out using an illustration to make it crystal clear:
"This kind of reminds me of how James 'The Amazing' Randi speaks about Uri Geller, a parlor magician who claims to be able to bend spoons with the power of his mind. After proving that this can easily be done through sleight of hand, Randi said 'He might be doing it through telekinesis, but if so, he's doing it the hard way.'"
Caleb is "doing it the hard way." We have a book that presents a pervasive theme of a flat Earth, but Caleb will do all he can to just ignore context and alternate (common) meanings, in order to cling to the "sphere" ideology. He does this as a means to try and bolster his original claim that it must have been a god that produced this book. And even if Isaiah does present a sphere, and we have a range of possible dates for the text from 8th to 6th century (and it would have been mundane to know this in the 6th century), trying to cling to the 8th century in order to bolster your divine authorship claim, is, at best irrational, and at worst, dishonest. The most likely scenario, if it was a sphere described, is that this, along with the other points that make scholarship lean toward 6th century authorship, would probably be a result of the later chapters having been written or revised in later centuries. Revisions, updates, and additions to Bible manuscripts are commonly recorded. Would it be more likely that a later update referenced a then-common model of a spherical Earth, or that a spirit being imparted magical knowledge to ancient herders to prove to people, thousands of years later, that it was a god that wrote it—especially considering that the methods to discern a spherical Earth existed as much in the 8th century as the 6th. Again, even if some clever Hebrew had figured it out 200 years earlier, is that evidence of the divine?
So, upon weighing the odds of my success in getting Caleb to grasp the level of his own hypocrisy and dishonesty, I ultimately concluded that contacting him directly would be nothing short of an exercise in futility. So, this seemed like one of those times when my ideas would do more good shared publicly than privately with a correspondent who would not likely be able to actually internalize them. At any rate, here is the final response from Caleb, that left me incredulous:
"No I will not acknowledge that, that was not an argument of proof of god."
Caleb started out asserting that god wrote the Bible, and then tried to claim it had valid prophecies and also that it had miraculous scientific knowledge. This statement, above, is simply less than honest.
"I was trying to convey that the bible does not contradict science or itself, I was conveying the authenticity of the bible."
Why is it important the Bible doesn't contradict itself? The Bible is "authentically" what, Caleb? If it's authentically the product of goat herders and not a god, what is your goal in trying to claim internal consistency and valid prophecies and miraculous scientific knowledge? Remember where you asked if the Hebrews knew the world was spherical due to a "lucky guess"? What do you mean to imply in this quote below?
"In Isaiah 40:22 we see the Bible writer refers to the Earth as being circle, globe, or round, so the Bible has referred to the Earth being round more than 2000 years before those voyages. Was the writer a great guesser?"
And now we're supposed to believe none of this is about using the Bible to demonstrate a god exists?
You then audaciously put forward this bit of clear projection:
"But you have made it clear that you have no vested interest in even understanding what the bible really teaches. Therefore if you are only willing to look at one side of the evidence then you are making a conclusion that is incomplete and unjust."
Russell pointed out repeatedly we have a range of data we must consider in making assessments. If part of that range offers a reasonable and mundane explanation, reason dictates we should go with the most likely answer—not try to force-fit "the hard way." Caleb, however, insists on "the hard way," and denies the existence of any reasonable and easy way. He works quite hard to make the data seem miraculous and incredible, ignoring every piece of evidence that points to far more rational and simple explanations. And for asking Caleb to stop ignoring the data that doesn't suit his ideology, Russell is accused of being myopic.
Then we have what I can only label a real bit of insanity from Caleb:
"I have to ask, have you never wandered why there is so much suffering? Why there is so much injustice? Why isn't there a human government that can solve even the little problems? Such as the national debt, the greed that prevails in politics, or corruption. None of these things have never touched your heart?"
For the record, the Problem of Evil is not a problem at all in a realm where the beings at the helm are not all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving. There is nothing miraculous about organically evolved beings in a realm being unable to produce a Utopia. I'm amazed that Caleb sees the Problem of Evil as a problem for nonbelievers rather than for believers. What, one has to ask, is Caleb's model of god? Is it malevolent, ignorant, ineffective—or all three? What sort of god is Caleb promoting that has produced such a mucked up world and allowed it to continue on with all the "problems" Caleb is crying about? This is a problem that has plagued believers for centuries—not nonbelievers.
"Do you feel you have a purpose? Why do we grow old and die?"
Again, this is really a problem for believers, not nonbelievers. When a believer tells me the universe is designed, one of my first questions is "what exactly do you see as a purpose of the universe when you look at cosmic events? What exactly have you demonstrated this universe is doing?" And as far as why do organisms die, it's a natural progression. Matter and energy are extremely durable, but the organized set of chemical reactions we fuzzily label "life," don't maintain that organization forever. They wear down, the same as all chemical reactions. How, again, is this evidence of a god? It appears to be a natural occurrence that aligns quite well with natural laws that govern the universe. I surely don't see any miracle evident in this process. How does "people die" demonstrate the existence of a spirit realm? We might as well ask "Why do ants die?" Is that evidence of The Great Ant God? How do we verify that if a god created people he would create people that die? How did Caleb come to that conclusion?
"I hope in our discussions I have not offended you or anyone else on your program."
Caleb's presentation was polite enough. But his dishonesty and hypocrisy is what galled me. I wouldn't say it offended me, though. I'd say it more disgusted me. And while Caleb surely wouldn't see any of this in his own dialog, I'm hoping that, just like callers on the show, others who see this might learn from Caleb's mistakes here, and recognize that if they're doing it the hard way, they're not being reasonable nor are they being honest.


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A new furry face on the farm
Many of you know that last June our magnificent New Cat died suddenly, most likely from a snake bite. And then a week later we lost Gretel, a sweetheart of a tabby cat who was my beloved companion for 20 years. What you don't know is that early last November we lost yet another cat, one you'd never met (she was very private). Twin was a beautiful Siamese mix who was Molly Doodlebug's half sister.
Their mother, an incredibly smart calico cat named Ollie, was one of the seven semi-feral felines that came with Windridge Farm. There were several litters of kittens born before I was finally able to get everyone caught up and spayed and neutered.
Twin was an outdoor cat who came to live in the house after she'd had her leg badly torn apart, probably by a coyote. I didn't think she would ever walk again, but with the help of Dr. Susan's Cat Repair Kit, I nursed her back to health (hydrogen peroxide is an amazing thing!), her leg healed up just fine, and she spent ten happy years amusing us in her own quiet way.
She didn't meow, she couldn't purr, and she pretty much stopped moving around once she realized that inaction was the best way to lose The Doodle Monster's constant interest in attacking her.
With both Twin and Gretel gone, only 12-year-old Molly was left in The Shack. The thought of being the 4-1/2 pound Doodle Monster's only potential indoor victim terrified Joe so much that, despite the fact that he happens to be extremely allergic to cats, he suggested we rescue a couple of cats from the always struggling, always overcrowded, and always underfunded no-kill shelter that we've been donating money to for years. Then he let me go there alone.
On December 1st, I visited the shelter and adopted the three adult cats who had been there the longest—because really, three cats is only one more than two. (My dear friend Beth kindly pointed out that three is actually a full 50% more than two, but I told her we weren't doing the math that way and to please keep that fact to herself.)
Topaz, who is pictured above, had been living at the shelter for 15 months. There was a big 'QUARANTINE' stamped on her paperwork because she had bitten a small boy and a teenage girl, and nobody wanted to risk adopting her.
She was curled up on the bed within an hour, and when I crawled in next to her later that night she ever-so-subtly shifted her body so that it was pressed against mine, gave my hand a lick, and began to purr. I started to cry. She's a total foodie, and her favorite place to be is on Joe's lap.
Panther-like Whiskers (who now goes by Mr. Midnight) and frisky little Sarah Kate had both been at the shelter for 8 months. These two are the best of friends, and if they ever stop chasing each other around the house I'll snap some pictures of them and introduce you.
It's been a long time since I've lived with young cats, and adopting this instant family has been way too much fun. I forgot how much energy two-year-old cats have! It's been quite a change going from animals that lay still for so long you have to check to make sure they're still breathing to crazy critters who start their day by doing top-speed laps around the bedroom and bouncing across the bed to wake you up.
Settling Into Life On The Farm
Adopting a pet from a shelter is a win-win situation for everyone. As shelters go, ours is very nice and the animals are treated well. But it isn't home. I'm so glad we could finally give these wonderful, loving cats a real one.
February 2011 update: Topaz is doing great and (for three seasons a year) has turned into quite the farm cat. You'll find lots more photos of her here. You can meet Mr. Midnight here and Sarah Kit Kat Kate here. They're both doing really well, too.
© 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the fur covered foodie farm blog where life is full of laughs and there's always plenty of fresh cream for the cats.