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Those of us who love our pens know that they can be more than just a writing instrument that we toss out and replace with a new one—they can be great tools that help us work and feel more creative. That said, most of us don't want to drop hundreds of dollars on a pen if we don't have to, so this week we asked you which budget pens were the ones you make sure never to let someone borrow and walk away with. Let's take a look at the top five, based on your nominations.
As with many Hives of this type, we're grouping together some popular models into brands, mostly because many of the brands here have so many varied models (and you voted for them all) that we think it's better to cover more territory than less. Still, you offered up way more great pen nominations than we can feature here, but we only have room for the top five.
The poll is closed and the votes are counted! To see which of the top five made the final cut, head over to our weekly Hive Five followup post to see and discuss the results!
Pilot Pens (G2, V5/V7, Varsity, G-Tech/Hi-Tec)
Pilot pens were some of the first to show many of us that a writing implement could be more than just a utilitarian device. Whether you were introduced to your first Pilot pen in school or at work, you probably still remember your favorite, and many of you called out your faves—specifically the Pilot G2—for its affordability, its broad availability, and it's smooth, clean writing. Many of you also pointed out how great the V5 and V7 models, which have been around for ages, still are, and others noted that when you wanted a fountain pen, you can't go wrong with the Varsity disposable model. Excellent taste. Photo by hades2k.
Zebra Pens (Sarasa, F/G-301, F-701, F-402)
Many of Zebra's most popular models are known for their trademark all-steel, metallic design, and you may remember the first time you encountered one—if it was like the first time I picked one up, they were unlike any other pen you'd seen in a world of disposable plastic pens. They just look sharp and elegant, and using them is just as much fun. Not all of their models are that trademarked steel body though: the Zebra Sarasa, for example, is fantastic gel pen with a transparent body and soft grip for smooth, comfortable writing. Many of you also praised Zebra for its portability and attractive design—most of their pens are unibody, and can slide into a pocket or bag without worrying you'll lose a cap in the process. Besides, they really do look and feel good to use. Photo by J Wynia.
Uniball Pens (Jetstream, Signo, Onyx, Vision)
Uniball pens come in multiple shapes, sizes, and form factors, but one thing is certain: you reall love them. Whether it's the quick-drying Jetstream series, designed for speedy writers who don't want their ink to smudge, or the rich, smooth black ink of the Signo and Gel lines, or the utility but smooth, free-flowing rollerball feel of the Vision and Onyx lines, Uniball has a pen engineered for whatever writing style you prefer, that's comfortable enough to use for long periods, and at a price point that makes sure you can pick up more than a few and keep them around your home or office. You could write with different Uniball models for weeks and still fall in love with each new one you tried. Photo by Brett Jordan.
Lamy Pens (Safari, Al-Star, Vista)
Lamy's line of modern, stainless steel, and brushed aluminum pens earned high praise from those of you who don't want to break the bank on your writing instruments, but don't want to sacrifice good-looking style and comfort either. Whether it's the minimal, solid-color-and-clip design of the Safari line of fountains, gels, and rollerballs, or it's the more metallic tones of the Al-Stars, or even the transparant Vistas, many of you approved of Lamy's affordability and smooth, elegant writing. Even the shapely, designer Accent line earned nominations, and we have to agree—they all look good, and write better. Photo by vinyleraser.
Sharpie Pens
Sharpie's best known for their permanent markers, but their new pens offer the same quality non-toxic, smear-proof ink that—at least in this case—won't bleed through the paper as you use it. Sharpie's medium and fine point pens come with soft tips for smooth, consistent writing, and the best part is that they're available virtually anywhere. No refills or fancy designs on these, but those of you who nominated them love them to the point where at least one of you said that if you used one, you'd never vote for anything else. Sharpie's had a rough road with some of their pens, but we have to say: Sharpie's newer pens are great, and well worth a shot, especially considering the price point. Photo by redspotted.
That's it! Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to an all out vote to determine the winner.
We have plenty of honorable mentions this week, mostly because the voting was so ridiculously close that there were multiple ties. First, one goes to The Fischer Space Pen, which many of you nominated for its clean, metallic designs that range from utilitarian to bullet-shaped, and the fact that they can write at all angles. The price doesn't hurt, ranging around $20-$50 for most models, and hey-they work in space!
Also worth mentioning are Bic Pens, including the Atlantis, Cristal, and Round Stic, all of which many of you praised for their affordability, multiple varieties, colors, styles, and writing thicknesses depending on your preference, their super-broad availability, and their smooth feel while writing.
FInally, we want to give a shoutout to Pentel Pens, including the Energel and R.S.V.P, which both offer great style, bang for your buck, and smooth, clean writing when used. Again, they fell just shy of the votes required to make the top five, which should show you how large the volume of nominees this week really was.
We got a ton of great nominees this week—way more than we could feature, even though we wanted to. Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Make your case for your favorite—or alternative—in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at [email protected]!
Title photo by Bill Bradford.


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Develop Your Leadership Potential: Stop Doing, Start Leading
Give your emerging leaders and your high potential employees the skills to transition from a high performer or a good supervisor into an effective and engaging leader.
Mit fog elsajátítani
Develop Your Leadership Potential: Stop Doing, Start Leading goes beyond traditional leadership training programs because it focuses on the foundational interpersonal communication skills that are needed to build strong teams and equip new leaders with the right attitudes to step up and take charge.
Miért érdemes megtanulni
We assume that high a performance employee can immediately translate to a high-performance leader. The fact is that the skill set and mind set are completely different and the transition can be hard. It's hard on new leaders because they have to shift from relying on themselves to relying on others for results. It's hard on the organization because you lose their work output in their prior role and gain a leader who is learning on the job.
Miben fog ez Önnek segíteni
This program is specifically designed to address the challenges that new leaders face, to help them change their mindset, and give them confidence with proven strategies and tools that are used by the most successful leaders.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
UFC Store
"I like to always keep improving and trying new things, and putting on good performances. I think that is what keeps me motivated and wanting more." - Anderson Silva
The oddsmakers may have counted Stephan Bonnar out of Saturday's UFC 153 main event against Anderson Silva in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but one man hasn't.
"There are always challenges at any weight, and a fight is always a fight, especially at 205 pounds," said the longtime middleweight king, who will dip his toes into the light heavyweight pool for the third time as a UFC fighter when he meets Bonnar. "These guys are big and strong, and anything can happen at any time."
Or as the old adage goes, "that's why they fight the fights." So for all the talk of this being a walk through for a man many consider to be the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, when the four ounce gloves are on and a 205-pound man is swinging them at your head, all it takes is one punch to turn a walk through into the biggest upset of all-time.
And that's just with any fighter. With Bonnar, Silva will be facing a well-rounded tough guy whose only stoppage losses have been via cuts. He's big, he's strong, he's got heart for days, and he can fight a bit too. Silva knows all about it.
"He is part of the history of the UFC, one of the guys responsible for helping our sport get to where he is at," said the Brazilian superstar of Bonnar. "He is a very dangerous guy. He is good on his feet, he is good on the ground, he is a good wrestler, has great takedown defense, and he is a complete fighter all-around."
If Silva sounds relaxed these days and ultra-complimentary of his opponent, consider a few factors: he's fighting at home in Brazil, he doesn't have to cut to 185 pounds, and he's fighting someone not named Chael Sonnen. The last point may be the biggest, as what was a seemingly routine title defense back in 2010 against the self-proclaimed "Gangster from West Linn" turned into a bad blood rivalry that only was truly settled when Silva stopped Sonnen in their UFC 148 rematch in July. Is it nice now for Silva to deal with a respectful opponent and not have such an emotionally charged camp and fight?
He simply smiles.
"It's an honor to fight a guy like Stephan Bonnar."
That pretty much says it all. And with Sonnen out of the way, Silva has been free to enjoy the fruits of his labors in the time following the bout. A recent trip to New York City included a visit to the US Open and to Manhattan's Nike store, and everywhere he went, people far from his country knew just who "The Spider" was, an example of how big he and the sport have gotten.
"It's great to see where our sport has come and to get the support and the caring of all the fans from all over the world," he said. "All of the fighters have worked hard to bring our sport to where it is today."
Perhaps none more than Silva, who has been in the spotlight for much of the last six years, ever since he won the UFC middleweight title from Rich Franklin in October of 2006. Since that night, Silva's profile has risen both in Brazil and internationally, while he has been the target of every fighter at 185 pounds (and sometimes 205) for longer than any other champion in organization history. That's a tough gig for anyone, but Silva has handled it well, taking out challenger after challenger while keeping his own motivation to get better high.
"I like to always keep improving and trying new things, and putting on good performances," he said. "I think that is what keeps me motivated and wanting more."
That run of unprecedented excellence should be enough, but when injuries threatened this Saturday's event, Silva went a step further, offering to fight on short notice in his home country to save the show.
"I see it as a responsibility as part of the UFC family to be there to help when needed," he said. "This event could have been cancelled and I did what was right for me to do. I also wanted to give back to all my fans in Brazil and thank them for all their support in the past fights; I owed them a fight at home."
They'll get one, as Bonnar, who was semi-retired before getting the short notice call, knows that this is the one fight that could define his career should he win. And even if it didn't, the one thing you can always say about "The American Psycho" is that when the bell rings, no matter who's standing across from him, he'll fight.
Then again, so will Silva, and whether he baffles opponents with his speed and movement, devastates them with his accurate and dynamic striking, or submits them with his underrated and overlooked ground game, he's expected to deliver the type of crowd-pleasing performance that will leave his fans slack jawed once again.
And if he pulls off the win, the talk will immediately shift, not to a middleweight title defense against a Chris Weidman, Michael Bisping, or Tim Boetsch, but to a superfight with welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, assuming the Canadian wins his November bout with Carlos Condit. It's a fight Silva is addressing these days, making it clear that the time may finally be right for it.
"That's a fight that the fans have wanted to see for some time," said Silva. "He (St-Pierre) is a great champion; let's see what happens."
Could this be the exit strategy for the 37-year-old great: a fight with GSP followed perhaps by a battle with light heavyweight boss Jon Jones? Only Silva knows, but maybe the ultimate fight for him is the one he's talked about for years, the one with his clone.
"The fans really want to see both of those fights (St-Pierre and Jones), but fighting my clone would still be interesting," he laughs.
Power Slap


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A development blog of what Con Kolivas is doing with code at the moment with the emphasis on linux kernel, MuQSS, BFS and -ck.
Saturday 15 December 2012
3.7-ck1, BFS 426 for linux-3.7
Apply to 3.7.x:
Broken out tarball:
Discrete patches:
Latest BFS by itself:
People often ask me why I don't maintain a git tree of my patches or at least BFS and make it easier on myself and those who download it. As it turns out, it is actually less work only for those who download it to have a git tree and would actually be more work for me to maintain a git tree.
While I'm sure most people are shaking their head and thinking I'm just some kind of git-phobe, I'll try to explain (Note that I maintain git trees for lrzip https://github.com/ckolivas/lrzip and cgminer https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer).
I do NOT keep track of the linux kernel patches as they come in during the development phase prior to the latest stable release. Unfortunately I simply do not have the time nor the inclination to care on that level any more about linux kernel. However I still do believe quite a lot in what BFS has to offer. If I watched each patch as it came into git, I could simply keep my fork with BFS and merge the linux kernel patches as they came in, resyncing and modifying as it went along with the changes. When new patches go into the kernel, there is a common pattern of many changes occurring shortly after they're merged, with a few fixes going in, some files being moved around a few times, and occasionally the patch backed out when it's found the patch introduces some nasty regression that proves a showstopper to it being released. Each one of these changes - fixes, moves, renames, removal, require a resync if you are maintaining a fork.
The way I've coded up the actual BFS patch itself is to be as unobtrusive as possible - it does not actually replace large chunks of code en bloc, just adding files and redirecting builds to use those new files instead of the mainline files. This is done to minimise how much effort it is to resync when new changes come. The vast majority of the time, only trivial changes need to be made for the patch to even apply. Thus applying an old patch to a new kernel just needs fixes to apply (even if it doesn't build). This is usually the first step I do in syncing BFS, and I end up with something like this after fixing the rejects:
This patch is only the 3.6 patch fixing any chunks that don't apply.
After that, I go through the incremental changes from mainline 3.6 to 3.7 to see any scheduler related changes that should be applied to BFS to 1. make it build with API changes in mainline and 2. benefit from any new features going into mainline that are relevant to the scheduler in general. I manually add the changes and end up with an incremental patch like this:
This patch is only merging 3.6->3.7 changes into BFS itself
Finally I actually apply any new changes to BFS since the last major release, bugfixes or improvements as the case may be, as per this patch here:
Git is an excellent source control tool, but provides me with almost nothing for this sort of process where a patch is synced up after 3 months of development. If I were to have my fork and then start merging all patches between 3.6 and 3.7, it would fail to merge new changes probably dozens and potentially hundreds of times along the way, each requiring manual correction. While merge conflicts are just as easy to resolve with git as they are with patch, they aren't actually easier, and instead of there being conflicts precisely once in the development process, there are likely many with this approach.
However git also does not provide me with any way to port new changes from mainline to the BFS patch itself. They still need to be applied manually, and if changes occur along the way between 3.6 stable through 3.7-rc unstable to 3.7 stable, each time a change occurs to mainline, the change needs to be done to BFS. Thus I end up reproducing all the bugfixes, moves, renames and back-outs that mainline does along the way, instead of just doing it once.
Hopefully this gives some insight into the process and why git is actually counter-productive to BFS syncing.
Enjoy 3.7 BFS.
74 comments:
- Anonymous16 December 2012 at 00:17
Thank you Con.
Btw, broken links: the "3.71" in the URLs should be "3.7-ck1" instead. The full address is http://ck.kolivas.org/patches/3.0/3.7/3.7-ck1/ Thanks as usual CK. For those interested readers, here are the tests confirming the performance of bfs v0.425 to bfs v0.426 as I usually provide. A reminder that these are my `make bzImage` test on my workstation comparing 4 kernels: 3.6.9, 3.6.9-bfs, 3.7.0, and 3.7.0-bfs. The script is on my github linked below.
Data: http://s19.postimage.org/clypopxpv/bfs_v_cfs.png
Script: https://github.com/graysky2/bin/blob/master/make_bench- Anonymous16 December 2012 at 17:42
Thanks for your benchmark, graysky. For those of us (e.g. me) who can't read graphs and don't know what a quantile is, could you please sum it up in plain english? ;-) Bfs vs cfs, who wins this round?
ReplyDelete That graphic is overly complicated for people who don't do statistics. But since CK has a background in stats, I included them. In plain English, both version of the BFS gave statistically significant DECREASES in compile time compared to the CFS. Less time = faster compile.
Look at the median for each group. BFS v0.426 (the current one that patches into the linux 3.7 series) was around 350 ms faster than the corresponding mainline scheduler (CFS).- Anonymous17 December 2012 at 12:56
actually using git is *much easier*
all you need to do is git rebase v3.7 and resolve little conflects.RepliesI thought I just explained why, so I guess you didn't even read the article and just assumed I'm trolling against git... Feel free to grab a 3.6-bfs425 patched kernel and then git rebase v3.7 for yourself and see if you end up with anything like bfs426.
Delete- Anonymous29 December 2012 at 08:58
If git is much easier, please explain why a project such as bcache [1] doesn't provide patches for recent kernels.
[1] http://atlas.evilpiepirate.org/git/linux-bcache.git
- Anonymous17 December 2012 at 13:26
Con Kolivas please look at what this is doing.
I do not mean to be mean here. But this person is at long last addressing the faults that were raised against BFS you did not want to hear a while back when you stormed away for the Linux kernel main developers and made an ass out of yourself.
As the maintainer of CFS said at the time BFS was not scaling properly and you response was that those system were more complex than desktop. We are now getting desktops 8 cores and more.
It would be good to get you back in the main-line development Con Kolivas. Hopefully big enough lesson not to be pig headed even if the other person appears to be. If it does not work on large machines sooner or latter those large machines will be the general desktop/mobile phone machines. Yes there is a 8 core mobile phone due out as well. The sub 4 core gains are over.
So scaling well as number of cores increases has become critical.
The one thing CFS has had always over BFS is better handling on large systems by avoiding cpus having to lock to access data as much.
"BFS takes a diferent approach than both the O(1) scheduler and CFS. BFS uses runqueues like O(1); however, unlike O(1), which has both an active and an expired runqueue per CPU, BFS has only one system-wide runqueue containing all non-running tasks."
Yes the place BFS broke from a O(1) scheduler. Comes back and hurts you as you get more and more cores needing to talk to the 1 single system-wide runqueue.
Now a wise person would have investigated why. Worst locking is memory controller to memory controller for performance cost. So a run-queue per memory controller. Possible in a cgroup of processes assigned to that physical cores connected to that memory control the cost would be min. And you would avoid having to perform load balancing.
Now you also have stated your hate for cgroups around processes. This now forces you down the path of runqueue per core that now leads back to costly load balancing.
Basically the problem you put off along time ago Con is back with for revenge.RepliesClearly you do not understand me at all then. If regaining my life makes me an ass then so be it - I shall remain an ass. As an amateur hacker it is absolutely impossible to maintain that degree of interaction with the linux kernel in my spare time without it affecting my personal life and health. So as it stands, I don't actually want to engage them again at that price. There is no "problem I put off long ago" as far as I can see. You make it sound like I'm obliged to do something. I never once pretended BFS was a fix for everything, nor was I trying to make it so. I was the one who pointed out all its faults long before that paper came out.
As for the actual code, I shall respond in time to the email as appropriate.Furthermore... BFS didn't exist when I "stormed off" by the way. And it was nothing to do with scalability of the Staircase Deadline scheduler that were considered the problem at the time. But time muddies the story and people mix up the new and old so it's understandable.
Delete- Anonymous17 December 2012 at 17:14
"...stormed away... and made an ass out of yourself". Smells like an uninformed troll. I for one thank CK for continuing his work DESPITE what the "Linux kernel main developers" said and wanted, it's thanks to him that my Linux-based laptop is responsive.
Delete Anonymous - Feel free to improve upon BFS as Matthias is attempting to do... otherwise, shut up.
The limited scale argument to which you refer needs data to support it AFAIK. Look back a few posts to see that on a dual quad (hyperthreaded) machine, a `make -j16` endpoint clearly establishes that BFS outperforms CFS. I would be interesting to see the numbers on a larger machine. What is the point at which it breaks down, etc. I don't think that we will see 16 core desktop/laptops in the near future :p++ graysky !
I find it amazing to consider how quick some individuals are in deducing strong moral lessons (to the intention of others) from some purely technical works.
At the end of the day, it appears that they just do not care about the (in)correctness of facts. They just want to say : Hurray ! The author is right ! or Booo ! The author is wrong !I have posted a response to Matthias, as promised.
I read your post but I'm confused - why don't you just clone kernel.org's repository and create your own branch in your repo (call it "ck")?
Then when you want to merge with a new kernel from kernel.org, just do a pull on the master branch followed by a single "git merge" into your "ck" branch.
Commit the merge to "ck" and repeat as needed.Thanks for the detailed explanation. I always wondered why you don't use git for this. I didn't consider how different it would be to do countless smaller changes throughout the process of a kernel release instead of one larger rebase of your code.
Time to put your new ck patch to work on my shiny new (to me) core 2 duo. It always helped dramatically on my old pentium 4 boxes- Anonymous19 December 2012 at 19:04
Hey Con,
Just wanted to say thank you, my machine feels so much snappier with the CK patch I actually thought I left it on the performance governor instead of ondemand :)
Gabor - Anonymous24 December 2012 at 23:49
I've compiled (x86_64) 3.7.1 based on Ubuntu's kernel git repo both with CK1 and BFQ: http://narod.ru/disk/64736436001.f1d7509f20fd047f0c3be8d64190cdc9/linux-image-3.7.1-ck1s1_3.7.1-ck1s1-10.00.Custom_amd64.deb.html
-poige - Anonymous30 December 2012 at 02:13
Thanks for bfs for kernel 3.7. Hope you'll resume your work on it soon, hacking and improving bfs' features for even better desktop responsivity :)
ReplyDelete - Anonymous30 December 2012 at 07:37
ck patches I dont know - they are pointless or even harmful if you are using newer kernel features ...
3.7-sched-bfs-426.patch applies cleanly with linux-3.7.1
Yours isn't any different ...
Ciao from Hamburg, Ralph Ulrich - Anonymous1 January 2013 at 00:20
Unfortunately the new BFS does make accounts the process times wrong again :(
- I had this issue with linux-3.4.x-bfs
- came around with higher RCU boost with linux-3.5.x-bfs
- I had no thus issues with linux-3.6.x-bfs
- now manipulating RCU .config doesn't help with linux-3.7.1-bfs
As a simple user I feel dependend observing htop -ordering by time- for controlling functioning of my system(d). Also I feel very unsecure observing some 50 million hours on some tasks :(
Ciao from Hamburg, Ralph Ulrich - Anonymous2 January 2013 at 07:07
At this point I want to add some experiences I've made with the 3.6.x series + ck/bfs + bfq. At some time suspend-to-disk broke. I tried to investigate further and came to the conclusion that my switch from pure bfs+bfq to ck+bfq made the difference. So... long story short...
On my old machine with 1.4 GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 3GB shm, 4 GB swap my normal operations AND suspend-to-disk+resume worked again, when
leaving swappiness = 60 (openSUSE kernel-source default; ck = 10 always distorted my desktop latency),
setting dirty_ratio = 6 (default = 20; ck = 1),
setting dirty_background_ratio = 2 (default = 10; ck = 1),
[the last both settings are the lowest known working with suspend +1 to be on the safe side].
I haven't retested this on 3.7.1 as with 3.6.x so far, but it's working fine for 5 days of uptime with 3.7.1 and regular nightly suspends!
Is this difference due to my outdated computer?
Greets and my very best wishes for your 2013 to all of you,
Manuel KrauseReplies- Anonymous4 January 2013 at 17:53
Since I'm not using a swap file (I have enough RAM), I assume these settings would not affect me?
Delete - Anonymous6 January 2013 at 11:07
Then, swappiness would not affect you. (Sic swap<->swappiniess)
And YOU're not able to suspend to disk.
You can read (...)/linux/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt for yourself to find into the topic I wrote about.
dirty_ratio & dirty_background_ratio
determine when old things in Memory get written to disk or are trashed. So, that can affect you, too.
Manuel Krause - Anonymous6 January 2013 at 17:32
Thanks, I'll try dirty_ratio = 6 and dirty_background_ratio = 2 then.
Looks like there's lots of contradicting opinions on the net on what these values should be set to. In 2007 Linus decreased the ratios to 10/5 but people complained about poor DB performance.
Hi ck, just want to report back that the following issue still existed in 3.7 bfs, I have reported it in 3.5&3.6
[ 0.126666] kernel/sched/bfs.c:7171 suspicious rcu_dereference_check() usage!
It's not impact bfs functionality, you said you would fix it in next release but may forget to mark it down.
Thanks again for the effect in ck patch, it is running well in 3.7.1.Replies- Anonymous10 January 2013 at 02:15
CK's reply at the time was: "That does indeed look wrong, but the way the data is locked in bfs it won't lead to a problem". I hope he can find some time to fix it anyway.
Delete - Anonymous13 January 2013 at 20:11
But it looks untrustworthy for someone like me, who uses htop to get some glimpse of his system performance, if there is constant overflow of times :(
I can provoke earlier or later occurences of these overflows by different RCU .config options and priorities.
Ralph Ulrich Line 7171 is for_each_domain(cpu, sd)
which is done under grq_lock_irq();
and this only happens once on startup.
It is definitely a false positive and the code is not hit again after startup. The accounting bug is a totally different issue.
- Anonymous10 January 2013 at 00:39
PS: I have perfected the low-jitter config on linux, for mainline kernel. Please see the jitter links on my blog. www.paradoxuncreated.com
I also tested BFS during this. It seems general experience of jitter, (lost frames, poor frametiming) is worse with BFS.). So if I was you, I´d drop it. Get an Intel E5 workstation on top of this, and even windows won´t stutter.
Unless ofcourse you have some idea you want to realize. But then somne measure of fairness seems quite good.
Peace Be With You.Replies- Anonymous10 January 2013 at 02:13
I was looking for actual numbers on your blog. It seems the only thing I've found is your conclusion that with BFS native games run almost as low jitter as CFS, while games under wine perform as good as under a real Windows OS. Which is a good thing :)
Delete - Anonymous14 January 2013 at 15:36
@Paradox Knows:
Can you, please, elaborate what the poster above indirectly asked for: numbers! And perhaps post them on here as link in your answer?
Thank you, Manuel Krause - Anonymous14 January 2013 at 16:36
@Paradox Knows:
Is it an Islamic/Muslim/halal kernel, that you provide? ->After reading your BLOG while keeping up all my "western" tolerance, I'm severely in doubt that this could serve our needs in general.<-
Please, also provide a quick download link for your low-jitter .config (as your BLOG doesn't provide a senseful quick search for the download).
Thank You,
Manuel Krause - Anonymous14 January 2013 at 17:51
@Manuel you can download the deb from http://paradoxuncreated.com/Blog/wordpress/?p=2268 and then unpack it using "dpkg -x nameofpackage /tmp/" if you want to analyze his .config file
Delete - Anonymous15 January 2013 at 20:02
That's not the version of "quick" that I meant...
Manuel @Manuel
still need a quick link to the config?
http://tvall43.no-ip.org/stuffs/config-3.5.4-lowjitter- Anonymous18 January 2013 at 13:24
@tvall: Thank you for the uploaded .config file.
I also managed to read to some of Paradox Knows' low-jitter related articles and links (and found some newer config for his local kernel as of 3.6.6).
There are ~ 440 different lines comparing his with my .config. Some things only for SMP & x64 that I don't use. And, of course, WITHOUT BFS (or CK) & WITHOUT BFQ.
Without an outline, about what magic setting makes that kernel "lower-jitter" than BFS/CK + BFQ I feel left in the dark. Sorry, for not checking each of the ~440 diff. lines for now.
BTW, 3.7.3 is working fine on here with BFS + some CK-patches + BFQ.
So again, many thanks and my very best wishes go to Con,
Manuel Krause - Anonymous19 January 2013 at 12:36
After reading some more & testing...
I can say that Paradox Uncreated's approach of adjusting priorities via schedtool (as in his ljtune script) can still help to achieve better==lower latencies effectively. This at least applies to my low performance system. (Many months ago I asked Con about adjustments of this kind and he said he didn't use it. O.k. ... ^^) And, remember, Paradox Uncreated doesn't use BFS or BFQ. I do and will use both.
My most prominent settings to work fine against "jitter" in audio&video are (leaving all other and kernel related processes @ -20 or 0 as they appear originally):
/usr/bin/schedtool -v -N -n -19 `pgrep "X"`
/usr/bin/schedtool -v -N -n -18 `pgrep "kwin"`
/usr/bin/schedtool -v -N -n -17 `pgrep "pulseaudio"`
I've now put them into a script to be executed during KDE-Startup.
What I additionally want is to limit any mount.ntfs-3g to be started @ nicelevel +10 systemwide.
Does someone of you know how and in which startup-script I need to add *what* ?
Thanks in advance,
Manuel Krause
- Anonymous23 January 2013 at 07:56
bad performance on video encoding with bfs (i have never converted a video before on linux)
(data0001.ts = 487,2MB)
time HandBrakeCLI -i "data0001.ts" -o "data0001.ts.mp4" -E copy:ac3 -e x264 -m -4 -f mp4 -q 20.0 -r 25 --decomb --loose-anamorphic -x ref=4:bframes=4:b-adapt=2:rc-lookahead=60:analyse=all
with bfs
real 9m20.533s
user 35m22.633s
sys 0m3.776s
without bfs
real 8m10.895s
user 30m47.550s
sys 0m13.350s
the cpu usage is higher and the cpu gets ~2°C warmer without bfs
can anybody confirm this? (sorry, bad english....)
regards - Anonymous24 January 2013 at 01:35
I'm testing multithreading behavoir of BFS especially the Hyperthreading awareness.
Here is a sample with the Whetstone MP Benchmark
normal run 4 4 threads:
with taskset -c 0,1,2,3:
As you can see the taskset variant is ~17% percent faster.
My question is now is there any way to let BFS prioritize the physical cores until we have more than 4 active threads and then for each new thread use virtual core 4,5,6,7.
So basically handle my processor as quad core until we have more than 4 active threads. A behavoir like this would be nice cause most of the time we don't use more than 4 cores and the normal BFS behavoir diminishes performance.Replies- Anonymous24 January 2013 at 02:26
I also found a blog entry to this topic:
http://blog.stuffedcow.net/2011/08/linux-smt-aware-process-scheduling/ - Anonymous24 January 2013 at 02:55
"BFS bounces the tasks around different thread contexts and often gets the scheduling wrong, leading to lower performance between 2 and 6 instances" ... ouch! :(
Delete It's a very interesting topic. CK should have a look at it. As I remember, BFS now is kind of HT awared, in task switching, it will stick to the cache-hot core/virtual core.
I have seen this benchmark a long time ago (note he calls CFS CFQ by mistake) and it is a one off test for one particular workload. "Wrong" is too strong a word to describe this behaviour, because it depends largely on what endpoint you're measuring. BFS prioritises latency over throughput and in the relatively unloaded CPU case, BFS shines at its ability to find the earliest available CPU to minimise latency. Doing this sacrifices throughput -slightly- of cache bound throughput intensive workloads. BFS is a scheduler designed to optimise interactivity and responsiveness primarily and to maintain good throughput secondarily. The fact that BFS does better at any throughput benchmark compared to the mainline scheduler is a bonus.
ReplyDeleteReplies- Anonymous24 January 2013 at 18:50
My hole point is to first use the "real" cores and than the siblings. Is there any way to get this behavior to test latencys etc.
Delete There is no such thing as "real" cores versus siblings. Siblings only become SMT siblings when something is bound to the other thread unit on a core. Yes, BFS already does bind to unused "cores" before trying siblings of busy units. However, if they're all in use, it will then find a sibling in the interests of latency rather than hold off and wait to get back on the same core.
- Anonymous26 January 2013 at 03:19
Here is a lengthy article of what I actually meant with "real" cores.
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/performance-insights-to-intel-hyper-threading-technology I am having in the last versions, from 3.6.x upwards i think, problems making backups with rsnapshot (a rsync based backup solution) to my mdadm software raid 5 xfs filesystem, here you can see a thread where i reported the problem to xfs mailing list, but seems to be related to the kernel, could this be a bfs problem?
http://oss.sgi.com/archives/xfs/2013-01/msg00081.htmlRepliesThat could well be. There is a bug striking in weird and wonderful places and this might be the same bug. I'm investigating, thanks.
DeleteThank you for make my desktop usable :), i can test any patch you send me or any update you do in bfs if needed, it's very easy to me to trigger this bug.
DeleteWould be interesting to see if BFS 427 has any effect on this bug of yours.
DeleteI have tried two consecutive backups and the problem didn't show up, i will be testing the next few days but seems to be fixed or more difficult to trigger.
On the other side i have a new kernel problem but i don't know if maybe can be a VirtualBox driver problem, i pasted here http://pastebin.com/yAKVWk9Fit seems to be failing still, here you have the last error http://pastebin.com/Axb62q0Z
Deleteyes, confirmed, i have other one today and have been with the normal desktop use, no using rsnapshot. http://pastebin.com/dQMyHp3e
- Anonymous28 January 2013 at 03:34
normaly i can choose between TICK_CPU_ACCOUNTING or IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING
With bfs, both! will be enabled in .config
CONFIG_IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING=yRepliesThat could be a very relevant finding with respect to bugs, thanks for pointing it out!
Delete- Anonymous28 January 2013 at 20:50
I have to say thanks, for bfs and all the work and effort you invest in it.
All the best for you and your beloved.
Goldfield - Anonymous29 January 2013 at 12:14
This was introduced with BFS 426 for linux-3.7 (the hunk @ line 754) and is not present in the previous versions.
Is there a reason to prefer IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING over TICK_CPU_ACCOUNTING? ( @ck: do I read the patch correctly that this is what you intended? ) The config help says, "... so there can be a
small performance impact" with it. And, ck, do you know what takes precedence when wrongly having both set to y or if this has side effects?
Thank you, Manuel Krause The CPU accounting in BFS by default is already using high resolution just like the mainline "IRQ TIME ACCOUNTING" so it actually doesn't change anything. It's just the new visible kernel option in mainline. I've investigated and enabling both does nothing harmful to BFS.
Delete- Anonymous29 January 2013 at 15:22
Thank you for the quick reply! :-)
Just to be sure: Does _not_ setting IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING but TICK_CPU_ACCOUNTING = y manually do something harmful or anything better? The accounting for interrupt time becomes less accurate. The code overhead is less but I've been unable to demonstrate a performance difference.
- kjpetrie17 May 2013 at 21:45
I tend to find BFS doesn't play nice with nice. When I run a processor-intensive task such as a backup or compile in the background niced so I can keep working on a responsive machine, BFS seems to thrash, pushing the load up, grinding the desktop to a halt, and taking around 3 times as long to complete the task as the normal kernel scheduler.
For this reason I have always avoided BFS-enabled kernels, but the distro I use (PCLinuxOS) has now removed the non-BFS kernels from its repository, so it looks as if I will be faced with a choice between BFS kernels or compiling my own in future.
One of the kernel packagers has suggested I report the problem here.


text:
My trip to Zweisimmen continued...
After our wonderful picnic in the cemetery, we thought that it would be a good idea to go for a walk around the place. So, we went back down into the village and headed toward the two Simme (Little Simme & Simme) rivers (hence the name Zweisimmen = two Simme).
Walking through Zweisimmen, one discovers many beautiful old (sometimes 150 years old or more) traditional Bernese Oberland chalets. With their imposing size, harmonious lines, dark weatherworn timber wood, pretty paintings (not all of them have paintings) and gorgeous carvings, they are real eye-catchers. Such awesome houses situated in a dreamlike environment offer an even more picture perfect vision!
As a child, I have spent many many summers and autums in Zweisimmen. We always stayed in an rustic chalet owned by two cattle farmers. We lived in the very minimalist yet cosy 3 room appartment on the second floor (see third picture/the chalet on the side of the hill). I really loved the veranda with the unobstucted view on the Rinderberg mountain, the atmospheric dimlit rooms, the creaking floors, the soothing sound of cowbells and of the fountain as well as the exhalirating smell of the fresh mountain air. Great memories.


text:
The American women's water polo team will again chase an elusive gold medal, this time at the London Olympics. The team qualified for the gold medal match by defeating longtime Olympic rival Australia.
Tied after regular time expired, the Americans scored two goals in overtime to beat the Australian water polo women, 11-9. Now the U.S. team moves on to the gold medal match Thursday.
With two four-time Olympians and a medal in every Olympics that has featured the sport, Team USA is desperate for gold. It's the one medal yet to hang around the players' necks. The team lost the gold medal match to the Netherlands four years ago in the final 30 seconds.
The U.S. team will play Spain in the gold medal match Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
Auberge On The Park Condos is a New Condo development by Tridel located at Leslie St & Eglinton Ave E, Toronto.
Suite sizes:1 bedroom from 538 sf to 645 sf1 bedroom plus den from 592 sf to 719 sf2 bedroom from 890 sf to 1352 sfSignature suites from 1550 sf to 2070 sfTerraces from 1333 sf to 2079 sf2 storey suites from 1300 sf to 1930 sf Auberge On the Park Condos will be a glorious development that reflects the organic nature around it while incorporating geometric shapes. This is the first of three luxurious condos by Tridel with Graziani Corraza Architects creating beautiful designs. On the Park CommunityAuberge On the Park is a pre-construction master planned community of 3 condo towers and 20 townhomes. There will also be 943 sq.m. of retail space. Tridel always creates top of the line developments with the homeowners in mind. Expect functional layouts and gorgeous indoor and outdoor amenitiesTransit Options near On the Park CondosCurrently Auberge On the Park Condos has a Transit Score of 77/100 but this score is going to increase once the Eglinton Crosstown LRT project is within walking distance! The closest stop will be right at Leslie and Eglinton. The Crosstown will connect you to the whole city once it is completed in 2021.TTC bus stops are also along Eglinton Ave E & Leslie St. The DVP is also nearby. Enjoy Endless GreenspaceIt's named Auberge On The Park for the amazing amount of parks, trails, and forestry around this condo. Enjoy hiking, biking, and so much more in these public spaces nearby Auberge On The Park Condos Tridel. Serena Gundy Park TrailE.T. Seton ParkSeton Park Archery RangeWilket Creek ParkSunnybrook Park& the gorgeous Edwards GardenEat, Shop, & ExploreFlemingdon Park is home to the very special attraction Ontario Science Centre. Perfect for people of all ages with exciting exhibits and membership options. CF Shops at Don Mills is just a quick drive away. Bringing you close to the latest styles and fashion trends, delicious eateries, neighbourhood activities.Auberge On The Park Condos 2 | Plans, Prices, ReviewsAuberge On The Park Condos 3 | Plans, Prices, Reviews
Leslie St & Eglinton Ave E, Toronto


text:
VorbisComment is a base-level Metadata format initially created for use with Ogg Vorbis. It has since been adopted in the specifications of Ogg encapsulations for other Xiph.Org codecs including Theora, Speex and FLAC.
The use case for VorbisComment is given as:
... much like someone jotting a quick note on the bottom of a CDR. It should be a little information to remember the disc by and explain it to others; a short, to-the-point text note that need not only be a couple words, but isn't going to be more than a short paragraph.[1]
VorbisComments are typically used to provide basic information like the title and copyright holder of a work. As such the scope is similar to that of ID3 tags used with MP3 files. VorbisComment is widely supported on portable Ogg Vorbis players as well as streaming, editing and playback software.
Although the syntax of VorbisComment is well-specified, various conventions exist for the field names in use. The goal for this page is to codify best practices and collect proposals for standardization of VorbisComment field names.
VorbisComments are typically encoded as the second packet in a codec stream. When VorbisComments are included in the first (ie. Theora) stream of an Ogg Theora file, they are assumed to cover all streams in the multiplexed group. [2]
VorbisComment is the simplest and most widely-supported mechanism for storing metadata with Xiph.Org codecs. For other existing and proposed mechanisms, see Metadata.
Recommended field names
The current VorbisComment recommendation contains a recommended set of field names for comments.
Proposed field names
Some proposals for extra field names:
Comments are intended to be free-form, but for the purposes of interoperability, it is helpful to define tag sets for particular applications, and provide some guidelines for machine parsing. Note that some field names have to be non-free-form to achieve machine parsing.
Cover art
The binary FLAC picture structure is base64 encoded and placed within a VorbisComment with the tag name "METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE". This is the preferred and recommended way of embedding cover art within VorbisComments. It has the following benefits:
- Easy to use for developers since the identical (or similar) structure is also used by FLAC and MP3.
- The cover art can either be linked or embedded within the stream.
- Common picture file formats are supported (jpg and png).
- A description may be included and the picture type (front cover, back cover...) and image mime type are provided.
- Base64 encoded data is invariant under UTF-8 and a valid UTF-8 string, so obeys the rules for comment data.
Implementations interpreting or writing picture blocks should note the following details:
General encoding/decoding
- Failure to decode a picture block should not prevent playback of the file (failure to deal with the particularly large packet required by the comment header is a separate problem with the player implementation).
- Base64 encoding is used as in section 4 of RFC4648. We note that line feeds are not allowed and padding characters ('=') are required.
- Applications adding picture blocks should inform users that some applications or hardware may not support them and should provide a method to remove the blocks (this is expected to be trivial for applications capable of adding them).
Block handling
- The unencoded format is that of the FLAC picture block. The fields are stored in big endian order as in FLAC, picture data is stored according to the relevant standard.
- Picture data should be stored in PNG or JPEG formats or linked separately. It is recommended readers support both PNG and JPEG
- Allowed values for the MIME string are "image/", "image/png", "image/jpeg" and "-->" (the link indicator) and "" (length 0). An empty MIME string indicates type "image/"
- Fields present in the ID3V2.4.0 Attached Picture Frame (APIC Frame) take the same interpretation as in the ID3V2.4.0 format with the following exceptions (following the FLAC format):
- The description field is UTF-8 (encoded without ID3V2's initial 'encoding byte')
- String fields are not null terminated: their preceding length fields are used instead.
Linked images
Support for linked images is optional for applications handling picture blocks. When a linked picture is indicated the following rules are observed:
- The picture data is a complete URL indicating the picture to be used, relative URLs are allowed (note relative URLs do not start with a protocol specifier and are retrieved with the same protocol as the file being processed).
- Links are ISO-8859-1 encoded
- Applications MAY retrieve linked images via the file:// protocol.
- Applications MUST obtain user approval if they wish to retrieve images via remote protocols.
- Link targets may become unavailable: applications supporting linked images SHOULD recover gracefully from this and MAY report the absence to the user.
- The type of the linked file is not restricted to JPEG and JFIF and applications MAY support other formats
- If the application does not support linked images, the target is unavailable, not permitted or an unknown format the picture block should be skipped.
- Applications may make links available to users, this is of particular use when links are unsupported or of unsupported type
Image dimension fields
- The height, width, colour depth and 'number of colours' fields are for purely informational purposes. Applications MUST NOT use them for decoding purposes, but MAY display them to the user and MAY use them to make a decision whether to skip the block (for example if selecting the most appropriate among multiple blocks).
- Applications writing picture blocks MUST set these fields correctly OR set them all to zero.
Multiple blocks
- Multiple image blocks MAY be included as separate METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE comments.
- There may only be one each of picture type (APIC type) 1 and 2 in a Vorbis stream.
- Block order is significant for some types and applications should preserve the comment order when reading or writing VorbisComment headers. The block order may be used to determine the order pictures are presented to the user.
Playback tests
Embedding a picture into the file might break playback of existing players (especially hardware players, software players could be updated easily). A workaround would be to link the picture within the tag. Furthermore users should become informed in some way that embedding a picture COULD cause problems (as stated above).
In order to test if there are playback problems, there are test files available here and here. You're invited to download one of these test files (or both), test playback on your software and hardware players, and report the results here on the wiki.
Tested software players
- Audacious 1.5.1: no problem
- foobar2000: no problems
- Gnome: built-in preview playback: no problem
- MediaMonkey: no problems
- Media Player Classic (unicode build) 220.127.116.11: no problem
- MPlayer 1.1: no problem
- RoarAudio: no problems (server and client side)
- Rythmbox 0.11.6: no problem
- Totem 2.24.3: no problem
- VLC 0.9.4/0.9.6: doesn't play
- Patch send to VLC to fix this - should get in 1.0.0
- WinAmp: no problems
- Windows Media Player 11: no problem
- XMMS 1.2.11: no problem
- XMPlay 3.4.2: no problem
- Nero ShowTime: no problem
- Songbird 1.8.0: no problem, able to show and edit embedded pictures
Tested hardware players
- Logitech Squeezebox: Supported as of January 2009 (server version 7.3.3)
- Sandisk Sansa Fuze (Firmware 01.01.22): Hangs up when trying to playback the demo file - had to reset the player
- Note: The "Fuze" can play ogg vorbis files which have embedded pictures from "Easytag"
- Cowon iAudio U3 (Firmware 1.29, 4 GB): works
- Cowon D2: no problem (latest Firmware: 2.59, 8GB Version)
- iRiver E100: no problem (latest Firmware: 1.16 G_U, 8GB Version)
- iRiver T20: doesn't play (firmware: 1.71, 1GB)
- Samsung YP-R1: no problem (latest Firmware: 3.07, 16GB Version)
Tested tag editors
- Easytag 2.1.6: can open the file to edit the normal tag fields
- MP3Tag 2.42e: can open the file to edit the normal tag fields
- MP3Tag 2.47b: is able to show and edit embedded pictures
Tested other software
- Total Recorder: capable to work with artwork according to the specification.
Unofficial COVERART field (deprecated)
There also exists an unofficial, not well supported comment field named "COVERART". It includes a base64-encoded string of the binary picture data (usually a JPEG file, but this could be a different file format too). The disadvantages are that
- no additional information like a description about the cover art or its type (front cover, back cover etc.) is provided,
- the cover art can't be linked
- the base64 string is displayed within many tag editors as plain text because of their missing support for this "COVERART" field
- it may breaks the playback on hardware players because of a large VorbisComment header
The unofficial "COVERART" field is supported for example by such software as AudioShell (http://www.softpointer.com/AudioShell.htm) - read/write, and Total Recorder (http://www.totalrecorder.com/)- only read.
Conversion to METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE
Old "COVERART" tags should be converted to the new METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE tag (see above for its specification). This conversion is straightforward and is suggested to be done the following way:
- Decode the COVERART tag. A program MAY check the signature of the embedded picture in order to determine whether it is an allowed type. Lossless conversion from disallowed types to allowed types MAY be carried out.
- Fill out the FLAC block with the binary picture data. If the MIME type of the picture is unknown or can't be determined, the MIME type "image/" MAY be used instead. Supplying image dimensions, color depth etc. is optional (see specification above).
- In the absence of other information the picture type 'Other' should be used. Applications may want to allow users to select a default type or specify the type to use.
- Encode the new picture block, remove the COVERART tag from the comments and add the METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE entry.
- If multiple tags are being converted the order of the METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE tags should be the same as that of the COVERART tags they are replacing.
Chapter Extension
These are used to include navigation points, for example:
CHAPTER001=00:00:00.000 CHAPTER001NAME=Chapter 1 CHAPTER001URL=http://...
See the Chapter Extension page for more details.
Date and time
The goal is to specify one standard format for describing date and/or time.
ISO proposal
The date format for any field describing a date must follow the ISO 8601 standard: YYYY-MM-DD, shortened to just YYYY-MM or simply YYYY.
We have been recommending this usage with the DATE tag for some time. It is proposed that the spec be amended to include this information for machinability.
The time format for any field except track duration must be specified with leading T and ending with a time zone. Schemas with and without dates:
The goal is to attribute encoder software. This value can be used in the future to determine which files can be improved by being re encoded with a newer version.
- Comment: What is lacking from the vendor string present in the spec from the start? All libvorbis and encoder tunings I'm aware of have recorded the encoder version here.
Rationale for not using the vendor string:
- The vendor string is usually used to store the name and version of the underlying codec library
- The idea of ENCODER is to store the name of the user-visible application, for example ffmpeg2theora.
- It can be useful for debugging to store the name and version of the calling application.
- The libvorbis API does not let applications override the vendor string.
Proposal: Inclusion of URL in ENCODER value
The encoder field name must be a unique URL providing both encoder software name and version. If no unique URL address is available were both name and version is available; then the version number can be specified by separating with a space character. For example:
ENCODER=http://flac.sourceforge.net/ 1.2.1
- Note that ffmpeg2theora uses ENCODER, but does not include a url. Added by Rillian on September 17, 2007
Proposal: ENCODED_BY
I've also seen ENCODED_BY. Added by Rillian on September 17, 2007
- ENCODED_BY is usually the person who did the encoding. This should not be part of the recommendation due to legal problems around deliberate and accidental distribution to third parties. Basically the name of the encoder should not be included to protect encoders from their own egos and possible legal prosecution. Added by Aleksandersen on September 20, 2007
Improving license data
The goal is to provide a method for proclaiming license and copyright information (basically clarifying 'distribution rights (if any) and ownership').
The specification document describes LICENSE and COPYRIGHT fields. But is not clear enough about whether these should be machine-readable.
We should consider working together with Creative Commons to have complementary and interlinked information on the Creative Commons and Xiph wikis. Refer to the Ogg page in the Creative Commons wiki.
New RIGHTS field name proposal
One proposal is to replace the COPYRIGHT and LICENSE field names with RIGHTS. RIGHTS must be a human-readable copyright statement. Basic example:
RIGHTS=Copyright © Recording Company Inc. All distribution rights reserved.
But this is not machine-readable. Adding two complementary field names should do the trick: RIGHTS-DATE, describing the date of copyright; and RIGHTS-URI, providing a method for linking to a license. Software agents can assume that multiple songs uses the sameURIs, such as in the case for Creative Commons. Full example:
RIGHTS=Copyright © 2019 Recording Company Inc. All distribution rights reserved.
Software such as for multimedia management and playback are encouraged to display the RIGHTS statement as a linked phrase using RIGHTS-URI.
RIGHTS-DATE does not need to be displayed as it is required in the human readable version by international copyright agreements. RIGHTS-DATE can be used to determine when a copyrighted work falls under the public domain and related matters. (The Beatles' copyright on their original studio recordings (not the remixes) are soon expiering. So mechanisms such as the RIGHTS-DATE are indeed required in music management and filesharing software!)
To remain machine-readable it would be required to have at most one instance of each RIGHTS field name. All fields would of course remain optional.
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative recommends the use of 'rights' to describe license and copyright matters. The web feed format Atom 1.0 has implemented a rights element in their specification.
- Comment: The triplet RIGHTS, RIGHTS-DATE, RIGHTS-URI is an example of structured metadata. VorbisComments are inherently unstructured, and this should be respected. Structured metadata belongs in a different stream, such as XML (using XMLEmbedding).
Improving existing fields proposal
Similar to the DATE tag above, we have generally recommended that a URL uniquely identifying the license be included in the LICENSE field to allow machine identification of the license. This is in agreement with the proposal in the Creative Commons wiki. Since the COPYRIGHT field is a human-readable statement of the copyright, like the proposed RIGHTS tag above, some people include a license url there. Therefore if a url can't be found in a LICENSE tag if any, applications should use one from the COPYRIGHT tag, if any. Contact information for verification, attribution, relicensing, etc. can be obtained from the COPYRIGHT field, but Creative Commons also recommend a separate CONTACT tag for this information. This is reasonable, so we propose it be included.
Geo Location fields
The existing LOCATION field is meant to carry a human readable location for the recording/creation of the media file.
Having geographical coordinates according to WGS84 can be useful as well, especially in a form that can be machine parsed. The agreed format is similar to this geo microformat:
GEO_LOCATION= latitude ; longitude [; elevation ]
where each value is a fixed point decimal number formatted in the C locale with a period (.) for the radix. Values are separated with a ';' and white space is not significant. The elevation is optional.
latitude is the geo latitude location of where the media has been recorded or produced in decimal degrees according to WGS84 (zero at the equator, negative values for southern latitudes) (C double).
longitude is the geo longitude location of where the media has been recorded or produced in decimal degrees according to WGS84 (zero at the prime meridian in Greenwich/UK, negative values for western longitudes). (C double).
elevation is the geo elevation of where the media has been recorded or produced in meters according to WGS84 (zero is average sea level) (C double).
Replay Gain
The REPLAYGAIN_* fields implement the Replay Gain proposal for storing a track relative volume adjustment, which can be used to "fix" quiet or loud sounding Vorbis or FLAC streams. The set of tags is intended to be machine parsed, and has the following form:
REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN=-7.03 dB REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK=1.21822226 REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN=-6.37 dB REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK=1.21822226
See http://www.replaygain.org/ for detailed information about Replay Gain and how the different values are calculated.
Tantalos resource ID
Tantalos is a protocol to auto locate and access content in a network scope (normally 'LAN' but can also be bigger like 'company network'). It uses UUIDs to identify resources. There are two groups of those UUIDs: IDs generated using the meta data of the track and IDs generated in some other way (for example random IDs, see UUID specs). The later group may need to be passed with the track. The VCLT Playlist format (see below) uses 'HASH={UUID}id...' with hex-dash format for this (HASH={UUID}e278173d-4d6d-4c66-95ec-4ec85eedc7d1). --Ph3-der-loewe 02:05, 13 December 2011 (PST)
Other (non-proposed field names)
VCLT playlist format
The VCLT playlist format uses some keys which look like VorbisComments but they aren't nor they are proposed to become (expect for HASH). This includes the keys STREAMURL, FILENAME, FILEURL, LENGTH, HASH (see above for this one), SIGNALINFO, AUDIOINFO and OFFSET. You can find more infos about those at https://bts.keep-cool.org/wiki/Specs/VCLT.
- OggImporter – imports Ogg Vorbis and Ogg FLAC files to Spotlight.
- vorbiscomment – a commandline tool, part of VorbisTools.
- oggz-comment – a commandline tool, part of Oggz tool. It can add comments to multitrack and video files.


text:
Rodarte by David Armstrong, Logan White, 1978, Now and Then, Lick the Star, Petra Collins, Natalia Vodianova by Paolo Roversi, Glynnis McDaris, Mitch Epstein, John Sloan, The Virgin Suicides (as a moody teenage girl with an Internet connection, how could I not include something from this movie? I wouldn't be fulfilling my duties as a Tumblr cliche otherwise!), 70's bedroom, Erica Segovia, Elspeth Thompson, unknown, Autumn de Wilde, The Slits, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, 1980 Playboy bunnies, the Runaways, Logan White, Now and Then, Lina Scheynius, and Rodarte by Beau Grealy.
Music: At Seventeen by Janis Ian, Trouble by Cat Stevens, A Case of You by Joni Mitchell, Tiny Dancer by Elton John, and So Far Away by Carole King.


text:
(800) 772-1065
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change in prices paid by consumers for a fixed market basket of goods and services.
The CPI divides consumer expenditures into seven major groups of goods and services. You can estimate your personal inflation rate using the table below.
How much do you spend on the following items each month?
Based on the dollar amounts you entered, the percentage of your total expenditures in each category is shown below. Those percentages, as compared to the CPI average percentages, determine your personal inflation rate.
Your experience is determined by how you actually spend your money. In the CPI, each good or service is "weighted" relative to others in the market basket. If you do not drive an automobile, your transportation costs may be significantly different than someone who does. If your medical expenses are above the expenditure weight used in the relevant CPI, you may be forced to spend less on other goods and services.
This is a hypothetical illustration intended for educational purposes only. Personal inflation rates are based on national CPI averages (for the period 12/2016 to 12/2017) and do not account for regional differences in prices. Your actual results may vary based on region.
This hypothetical example is used for illustrative purposes only. Actual results will vary.
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This material was written and prepared by Broadridge Advisor Solutions. © 2024 Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.
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Valery Gergiev | Biography
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Valery Gergiev
Valery Gergiev's inspired leadership as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre since 1988 has taken Mariinsky ensembles to 45 countries (presenting the best of Russian opera and ballets as well as the complete Shostakovich and Prokofiev symphonies and Wagner's Ring cycle) and has brought universal acclaim to this legendary institution, now in its 226th season.
In November 2006, the new and superb Mariinsky Concert Hall opened, in 2009 the Mariinsky Label was launched and in 2011 the new Mariinsky Opera House is scheduled to open. The Mariinsky Label releases in the first year include Shostakovich
"The Nose"
and Symphonies Nos. 1 & 15, a Tchaikovsky disc of short pieces, Shchedrin
"The Enchanted Wanderer"
, and Rachmaninoff Piano Concerti No. 3 and "Paganini Variations." The label's first two recordings received five
Nominations including Best Opera Recording (The Nose), Best Classical Album (The Nose), Best Orchestral Performance (Symphonies 1 & 15) as well as nominations for engineering and producer.
Presently Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev is also founder and Artistic Director of the
Stars of the White Nights Festival
New Horizons Festival
in St. Petersburg, the
Moscow Easter Festival
, the
Gergiev Rotterdam Festival
, the
Mikkeli International Festival
, and the
Red Sea Festival
in Eilat, Israel.
Valery Gergiev succeeded Sir Georg Solti as conductor of the World Orchestra for Peace in 1998. Solti himself had recognized Gergiev as his natural successor when they met two years before Solti died. Solti sensed that Gergiev was "…a man of the theatre," and likened their meeting to the occasion when Solti met Bruno Walter, who had encouraged him to take the position at Covent Garden. Feeling the need for a new, young, dynamic opera conductor, Solti wrote "… I welcome the arrival of Valery Gergiev…"
Born in Moscow, Valery Gergiev studied conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory. At age 24 he was the winner of the Herbert von Karajan Conductors' Competition in Berlin and made his Mariinsky Opera debut one year later in 1978 conducting Prokofiev's War and Peace. In 2003 he led St Petersburg's 300th anniversary celebrations, and opened the Carnegie Hall season with the Mariinsky Orchestra, the first Russian conductor to do so since Tchaikovsky conducted the hall's inaugural concert in 1891.
He was the subject of Carnegie Hall's 2007–08 Perspectives: Valery Gergiev, in which he gave concerts with the Mariinsky, Vienna Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera orchestras and conducted productions of Prokofiev's
War and Peace
The Gambler
at the Metropolitan Opera.
Highlights of the 2008–09 season included a Prokofiev cycle at Lincoln Center in New York: staged works (Mariinsky Orchestra) and the complete symphonies (LSO), a cycle of Prokofiev symphonies and concertos with the LSO in Paris and Tokyo, and the Mariinsky Theatre's production of Richard Wagner's "Ring" at Royal Covent Garden, London.
In the 2009–10 season Maestro Gergiev conducts Berlioz
Les Troyens
in St. Petersburg, Valencia, and New York's Carnegie Hall. He also conducts the New York Philharmonic in a three-week Stravinsky Festival, presents a Mariinsky Shostakovich Cycle in Vienna, leads works of Henri Dutilleux with the London Symphony and conducts Shostakovich's
The Nose
at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In the 2010–11 season he offers a Mahler Cycle in London, New York, Paris and Japan.
Maestro Gergiev is the recipient of a
Award, the
Dmitri Shostakovich Award
Golden Mask Award
People's Artist of Russia Award
, the
World Economic Forum's Crystal Award
Sweden's Polar Music Prize
, Netherlands's
Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion
, Japan's
Order of the Rising Sun
, Valencia's
Silver Medal
, the
Herbert von Karajan prize
and France's
Royal Order of the Legion of Honor
Although now recording for the Mariinsky and LSO Live Labels, he has recorded extensively for Decca (Universal Classics), and appears on the Philips and Deutsche Grammophon labels. His vast discography includes many Russian operas, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky Symphonies among many others.
His Mahler Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7, 8 are released on LSO Live, the first releases of a complete Mahler cycle with the LSO. Future LSO Live recordings will include Bartok's
Bluebeard's Castle
and Prokofiev's
Romeo & Juliet
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Internet woes today! I had this 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" card ready earlier but Photobucket did not want to let these photos upload! So, onto plan b...
This super cute giraffe and the shape he is sitting on is from the new Creative Memories Stork's Delivery cartridge. I love some of the layered background shapes on this cartridge!
Then, using the thinner pop dots from Stampin Up! I created a multi-layered giraffe.
Here's the background image (key 42), which I cut at 2-1/4" and used the Sugar and Spice font feature key. All I had to do was turn it 90 degrees and it was perfect! See handbook page below:
The giraffe's eyes cut out small at this size so I thought some wiggle eyes would be fun; he kind of reminded me of that giraffe from that movie Madagascar...
OK, maybe not....ha ha!
Finally, a strip of coordinating paper inside finishes the card off. Paper was by October Afternoon and Stampin Up!, ribbon by Michaels, sentiment ("baby") by Papertrey Ink. Fiskars scalloped border punch was also used.
Check back for more projects coming soon!
Subscribe to Obsessed with Scrapbooking to learn more about ways to use the Cricut in your scrapbooking!


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