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Verizon to Add Almost 600 Hybrid Pickups to its Fleet
GoodCleanTech, June 4, 2010 — Verizon has purchased 576 Chevrolet Silverado Two-Mode Hybrid full-size pickups in an effort to further green its truck fleet.
The two-mode Silverados, equipped with Vortec 6.0-liter V-8 engines, achieve an EPA estimated 21 MPG city and 22 MPG highway, which represents about a 40 percent reduction in fuel use compared with similarly sized and powered pickup.
The trucks can accelerate up to about 30 miles per hour on electricity alone, assuming a very light foot on the gas pedal. In this mode, the Silverados are acting as if V-4s are under the hood.


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Last-Minute Holiday Gift Ideas For Women
10 Last-Minute Gift Ideas From Our Readers
10 Last-Minute Gift Ideas From Our Readers
If you're looking for a great last-minute gift to give to someone you love, you've come to the right place. And it's all thanks to our lovely OnSugar bloggers, as this gift guide features 10 great beauty gifts recommended within the Bella Community. From the trendy and cool to some modern classics, here are some more ways to check off that shopping list.
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BERKELEY — Justin Cobbs hit a step-back jumper with 0.9 seconds left, and Cal stunned No. 1 Arizona 60-58 on Saturday night to hand the Wildcats their first loss of the season.
Cobbs dribbled to his left and beat Nick Johnson, then pulled up in front of a defender to sink the winning shot that sent a raucous, gold-shirt wearing crowd at Haas Pavilion spilling onto the court. Cal coach Mike Montgomery and security had to usher fans away before the final play.
Gabe York's full-court pass was knocked down after the timeout to give the Golden Bears (15-7, 6-3 Pac-12) their first victory over a top-ranked opponent since Jan. 30, 1994, when they beat UCLA 85-70 at the Oakland Coliseum.
Arizona (21-1, 8-1), which had won a school-record 21 straight games, was one of just three unbeaten teams left in Division I. Now only second-ranked Syracuse (21-0), which outlasted No. 17 Duke 91-89 in overtime Saturday, and No. 4 Wichita State (23-0) remain.
Cobbs finished with 19 points and seven assists, David Kravish had 14 points and 11 rebounds and Richard Solomon scored 12 points to propel Cal to one of the biggest wins in school history. The Bears improved to 3-24 against teams ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll, and they had never beaten a top-ranked team in Berkeley.
Kaleb Tarczewski scored a career-high 18 points and grabbed six rebounds, and T.J. McConnell scored 13 points for the Wildcats, who shot just 32.3 percent from the floor. Cal shot 44.6 percent.
Cal attracted quite an audience for this one, too.
There were 21 scouts from 14 different NBA teams in attendance. Former Wildcats coach Lute Olson sat in the stands behind Arizona's bench, and Oakland Athletics manager Bob Melvin — a Cal alum — also supported his Bears.
The Wildcats rallied from nine points down in the first half and eight in the second to set up a furious finish.
Arizona took the lead twice in the final minutes, and twice Cobbs came back with a tying score — first on a runner in the lane and then on a pair of free throws.
On the final sequence, Johnson missed a short jumper in the lane and Cal corralled the rebound. Cobbs let the clock tick down, then beat Johnson for a shot that will long be remembered in Berkeley.
Fans had to be pushed back off the court in a weird and wild scene, with the public address announcer screaming for them to get back. The Bears soon gave them reason to celebrate, keeping Arizona's big front line at bay — just as it had from the start.
Kravish found Solomon for an alley-oop on Cal's first possession. The pair took advantage even more on the inside after Arizona forward Brandon Ashley turned his right ankle going for a rebound and sat out on the bench the remainder of the game with a walking boot on his foot.
Solomon made his first six shots, including a short jumper that put the Bears ahead 28-19 late with 5:18 remaining in the first half. Arizona answered back by converting steals into easy baskets, closing the half on a 10-2 run to cut Cal's lead to 30-29.
It was the seventh time Arizona has trailed at the half this season.
Both teams had to overcome adversity after the break. Johnson seemed to be bothered by an injury to his left hand — repeatedly shaking his wrist after shots and grimacing — and Solomon was stuck in foul trouble.
The Bears began to pull away, taking a 50-42 lead on a pair of free throws by Cobbs with 11 minutes to play. But Arizona, just like it did all game, came back and tied the game at 54 with 6 minutes left to set up a wild sequence down the stretch.


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03 February 2014 - 07 February 2014
Abbotsford Campus
Laura Saito graduated from UFV in 2000 with a Diploma in Fine Arts. In 2003, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr. Her area of practice included sculpture, photography, painting, drawing and multi-media. Much of her work is rooted in the experience of history and memory and their relationship to the future's inherent uncertainty.David Saito is also an alumna of UFV (1999) and finished his BFA at Simon Fraser University in 2002. Like Laura, David utilizes diverse media of artistic production in his work, with a focus on image and text. His work centers on capitalism/consumerism and the ability, or inability, to foster an identity within these paradigms.
This will be the first time that David and Laura have exhibited together.
Fine Arts


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I'm not very good at programming, despite having been working on it for more than a year. I was reading through the tutorials on this site, and tried copying and pasting a bit of code from the pointers tutorial (which I don't understand as well as I would like). I tried to compile it and got no errors, but Dev C++ refused to run the program. I noticed that the linker tab was highlighted, so I clicked on it, and it gave me this:
It did this with another program I wrote today to test if a Random Number Generator could be seeded by adding 1 to the seed and still produce random results. The idea behind this was to reseed the RNG faster than the 1 second intervals using the system clock, because I've made several programs that have problems with repeating the same number because the clock hasn't changed yet.dlltool: Unable to open object file: C:\documents and settings\user\desktop\programs\Pointer Program\Pointer Program1.o
Warning: No export definition file provided
dllwrap will create one, but may not be what you want
C:\DEV-C_~1\Bin\dllwrap: dlltool exited with status 1
Anyways, can anyone explain why I get this error and how to fix it? Help on pointers would be welcome too.


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Pepperkakebyen (Gingerbread City) - Bergen, Norway
Pepperkakebyen (Gingerbread City) - Bergen, Norway
My husband and I visited Bergen's annual gingerbread city yesterday. Every year during Christmas time, children, adults, and local businesses donate homemade gingerbread houses to create what is supposedly the largest gingerbread city in the world. It is hosted in a huge tent in the city center of Bergen during the holidays.
It almost didn't happen this year. Some young guy broke in one night and destroyed the entire exhibit just a few days before its opening date. The citizens of Bergen were very mad to see someone mess with their beloved tradition and an incredible amount of donations were made to resurrect the gingerbread city just in time for Christmas.
I took some pictures to share with you. Hope you enjoy. Happy Holidays!
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text: You Will Fail wrote You and alot of other people think character development in Voyager is completely non-existent. The series began with the premise that the characters were already developed. A bunch of people out of the academy has alot to do but not in the way of personnal development. Janeway never elected Tom to get a second chance if she didn't know he was mature. She trusted and relied on all of her officers. What I like about Voyager is every episode started a completely different story, following new tactics and exploring new scientific endeavors. This was less important in DS9.


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Telescopic Back Scratchers, 10 Piece Value Bundle
Product Description
Buy ten of our small telescopic back scratchers and save money at the same time! Great for gift shopping! Get all of the back scratchers with the same handle style or mix and match the handle styles any way you want. (You select each back scratcher from our Pocket Clip, plastic with blue, pink, black, white or red handle or wood handle styles - using a drop down menu in the shopping cart.)
Important Note: Because of state and local health department regulations in the State of Washington, back scratchers are considered personal hygiene items and may only be returned for credit if in the original unopened packaging materials. Please contact BackScratcherWorld.com for authorization prior to returning this product.
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All prices, specifications and availability information are provided for informational purposes only and are subject to change without notice.


text: When the Enterprise was in the Delphic Expanse, Archer encountered a civilian ship and stripped them of a critical engine part, leaving them unable to travel to their home world, in order to fix the Enterprise and continue on their mission.In the Delphic Expanse, this was acknowledged as a death warrant to the civilians. Did Archer make the right decision? Does the fact that his mission (with low chance of success) succeeded play into this?


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Coal and Coke took a significant hit, down 16.5% compared with one year ago, in line with other rail carriers (including Class I railroads) so far this year. Farm & Food Products also decline substantially, down 12.4%.
GWI's biggest gainer among commodity groups was Metallic Ores, up 40.2% over one year ago. The company noted, "Effective January 1, 2012, a portion of GWI's metallic ores commodity group includes intermodal containers as a result of a change in rail logistics and equipment for a customer in GWI's Australia Region. The impact of this change increased traffic by 460 carloads in June 2012 and 1,715 carloads in the second quarter of 2012.


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When I answer questions of a personal nature, Coldplay.com readers often get in touch with their own thoughts. So, we have a weekly feature, Team Oracle, whereby each Friday (with the question asker's permission) we open up a question to all of you to answer too. Then, the following Friday, I'll post a selection of the best answers, alongside my own reply.
ANYONE can join in so, if you'd like to, please email your response to the following question in no more than 250 words, to email@example.com before midnight Thursday 13th June.
I'm sixteen, and like most people at sixteen, I have a lot on my mind (and at other times I have nothing on my mind, which is a different problem altogether) I've been feeling rather small in this big big world and I see there's a lot of evil in it. I want to change the world in a big big way, yet I find myself not knowing where to start. I really want to see the world get along with itself, and I need you, almighty oracle, to tell me how I, a sixteen year old kid, can change the world for good. Sam, USA.
Look forward to seeing your replies.
The Oracle
Please email your replies to firstname.lastname@example.com with TEAM ORACLE in the subject line.


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Norma,I have not tried Nancy Silverton's recipe but I have a few questions and some comments.First, did you follow Ms. Silverton's recipe exactly as given? For example, I looked at the recipe as given at http://www.foodgal.com/2011/09/pure-pizza-dough-heaven-the-recipe-from-pizzeria-mozza/ and I calculated that once the dough is made as part of the final mix, it is subjected to several periods at room temperature. I calculated a total time of 155 minutes (45/45/5/60). You indicated that you let your dough warm up for the better part of the day that you made the dough. It is hard to say, but if your warmup time was excessive, there might have been more acids formed and a lower pH as a result, and you may have had reduced residual sugar levels, which can affect the oven spring, much as Professor Calvel discusses in his book The Taste of Bread (see the quote in Reply 136 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5851.msg86732/topicseen.html#msg86732).Second, when I looked at the recipe as cited above, I counted 8 places where flour outside of the formula flour can be used, either in the mixer bowl, on the bench or on the hands or on the dough balls, from a fair amount (like a small handful) to dusting amounts. I also counted two places where semolina might be used, but as a release agent on the peel. If you avoided the use of flour or semolina, or only used small amounts, then your final dough could have had a hydration that perhaps was too high to get the desired results when baked, even in your deck oven at market. In my personal experience, very high hydration doughs do not bake up particularly well in my standard home electric oven. It is like trying to force the water out of a very damp kitchen sponge. If the water isn't forced out fast enough, quite possibly because the oven temperature is not high enough, you may well end up with a sub-par oven spring. It would be interesting to know how much all of the flour outside of the formula flour in Ms. Silverton's recipe lowers the stated formula hydration of about 84.6%. In this vein, did you follow Ms. Silverton's regimen for stretch and folds?By any chance, did you have any leftover slices and, if so, how did they reheat? For example, were they soggy or limp after reheating? That is what I usually experience with reheating slices that are based on very high hydration values. Peter
There has been some talk on this forum about Nancy Silverton's pizza recipe and the fact that it has been modified for the home oven. One commentator mentioned that it would be unlikely that Nancy would provide the actual recipe used in a brick oven. I suggest that members of this forum suggest and experiment with changes that would necessary for its use in a brick oven. My brick oven in New England is closed for the season but will open up again in spring when I share my own results. bakerbill
Tin Roof,What are your thoughts about using cake yeast as Silverton suggests with your slow rise. Also, I can't find barley malt. Is the honey an acceptable substitute.
Wow! That crumb looks fabulous. Nice job, Norma. I think the reduction in moisture really doesn't hurt a bit. Still a really beautiful crumb and great spring. Maybe the cake yeast helps a bit too, who knows? You probably have been reading fazzari's experiment with bulk fermentation and reballing. I gather from that thread that reballing is a lot more important than most people realize. I am going to try doing that more often in the future. Regards, TinRoof


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News & Events
For the Media
North Country Savings Bank Supports Clarkson University
[A photograph for media use is available at http://www.clarkson.edu/news/photos/ncsb2009.jpg ]
Photo caption: North Country Savings Bank recently presented a $2,200 contribution to the Clarkson Fund at Clarkson University. Gifts to the Clarkson Fund directly support critical investments in technology, laboratory supplies and equipment, library acquisitions, athletics, and financial aid and student scholarships. Left to right: North Country Savings Bank Potsdam Branch Manager Catherine L. Jenne and Clarkson Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations Jennifer E. Clarke.


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Moore: Dez Bryant not a lost cause, but odds are he's not going to be 'elite'
Cowboys beat writer David Moore answered questions in a chat Tuesday. Here are some highlights.
Comment From Ted ... Is Dez Bryant a lost cause? Yeah he got 100 yards but WOW. How many mistakes can a third year player make and get a free pass for it?
David Moore: I wouldn't say he's a lost cause. I believe he'll continue to get better. Now, will he ever become an elite receiver? Will he ever be able to pay the attention to detail and display the consistency that requires? The early line on that is no. It's still relatively early in his career, but it appears to me that Dez Bryant is shaping up to be a big play/big disappointment receiver from one game to the next with little in between.
Comment From Peter ... Does DeMarco Murray's attitude/demeanor worry you and should it worry Cowboys fans?
David Moore: I don't see why it would. He has an edge to him. He works hard. He doesn't point fingers at his offensive line and takes responsibility for his current struggles on the ground.
Comment From Angela ... Who is your most pleasant surprise so far this year?
David Moore: It would have to be someone on the defensive side of the ball. I would have said safety Barry Church before he went down with a season-ending injury. At the moment I'd go with inside linebacker Bruce Carter.
Comment From Mike ... Doug Free wasn't an LT. He doesn't seem to be an RT, either. Is he even an NFL caliber player?
David Moore: He is an NFL caliber player. At the moment, he's average at best. I realize that's not a ringing endorsement, but I can assure you there are worse tackles around the league. The other problem: he's not being paid to be average. The Cowboys expect more out of him.


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We're in the holiday spirit here at Cult of Mac, and it's with that spirit in mind that we are offering a great freebie to our valued readers. With MacX Video Converter Pro, you can convert various videos for playback on all your Apple devices.
And you'll be able to do it for free.


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If you have a soft pg the team follows suit Calderon has to go, even more than Bargnani for the Raps to truly enjoy long term success.
It's got to be inclusive of Boston for now, but I'm thinking a much larger trade centred around the acquisition of Rudy Gay and Brandon Jennings, book it http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=aqt7org
i honestly cant tell if this is a serious thread or not
boston will def not sign another pg
1. Take back a solid player with an awful contract (Eg Gay), or an injury prone player like Granger;
2. Package them with say either Jose or Lowry to a team that needs a PG (and prob again take back a shitty contract).
Adding Green to the mix without unloading one of Field or Kleiza would be as you stated "utterly terrible roster management".
Also: Lets keep in mind Ross prob needs some minutes at 3 (at least if we hope to see improvement -playing 12-15 mins behind Demar is not enough).
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Ringo reveals his rainbow madness
FORMER Beatle Ringo Starr drummed up lots of interest at Silver K Gallery in Armadale yesterday when he dropped by to greet fans of his lesser-known creative handiwork.
While he is in town to perform with his All Starr Band, his artistry is also on display in the form of around 40 rainbow-coloured pictures, in a show titled Painting is My Madness.
Billed as ''a collection of whimsical pop art images presented as fine art limited editions on paper and canvas'', each image is drawn by Starr, with help from his computer.
The 72-year-old says he started creating artwork to stave off boredom on tour in the 1990s, but his pieces - mostly of flat faces and peace symbols - have also held pop culture curiosity for fans familiar with the Microsoft Paint program.
Starr, who will play two Melbourne concerts at Festival Hall on Saturday and Sunday night, donates his earnings to his Lotus Foundation charity.
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According to Paonia Police Chief Neil Ferguson, at 8:46 p.m. Friday, Jan. 12, three Paonia police officers responded to the 300 block of Poplar Avenue on a report of a gunshot incident involving injuries.
Paonia man airlifted after being shot 2214 views
Thursday, January 18, 2018 8:13 am
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Trash pickup prices increase in Hotchkiss 876 views
Thursday, January 18, 2018 8:09 am
As a result of a price increase at the county-operated landfill, trash rates are going up in Hotchkiss.
Trash service is provided by Double J Disposal, which is in its third year of its current five-year contract with the town.
Read More
Officers assaulted while making arrest 592 views
Thursday, January 18, 2018 9:17 am
Donald C. Abeyta, 26, of Delta was arrested and jailed Jan. 5.
At the time of the arrest Abeyta was removed from a closet in the residence where he had been hiding.
Read More


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Available to U.S. and Foreign subscribers.
No more waiting for the Postman to deliver your copy of T&FN. T&FN Digital will be emailed directly to your inbox as soon as editorial completes the issue and sends it off to the printers. You'll be able to view all the pages in color, save and print - weeks before you receive it in the mail.
With subscribers in more than 60 countries, T&FN is the standard of accuracy and completeness for reporting of U.S. and worldwide track and field athletics. Each issue is packed with meet stories, performer lists and other useful stats, interview and profiles of your favorite athletes, action photos galore, feature articles and more. 12 issues per year.
T&FN subscribers also receive eTrack, results newsletter sent to you by email. Note the email address you would like to receive eTrack in the "Special Instructions or Comments" box when you go through the checkout process. What you get with eTrack is:
Currently, there is no app available for either tablets or smartphones.
This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 21 September, 2011.


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Remember when I said I was going to upload more lessons one characters from The Last Airbender? Well, today I will be doing just that, starting with a new version of the main character himself. I will show you "how to draw Aang", step by step. With the old tutorial on Aang, I wrote out a full bio on him, and that is when I was only watching the series every once in a while. What I know now, makes more sense to me than it did back in 2008. What I really like is the incredible action that is in the new movie, and I think they chose the perfect kid to play Aang. Although, he doesn't seem to be as playful as the animated character in the series. As most of you know, Aang is what you call an Air Nomad, but he is also the Avatar that so many villages and people have been waiting for. They have been waiting for the new Avatar because the Fire Lord has been invading tribes left and right. The armies of the Fire Nation, just go where they please, and invade or raid villages and tribes for their own pleasure. Aang didn't always know he was the next Avatar. It was discovered what his fate was when he chose to play with Avatar Relics one day instead of regular things that a normal twelve year old boy would play with. Once it was determined who Aang was, he immediately started his Airbending training. One day, Aang was told that he was being moved to the Eastern Air Temple where he could finish his training, and because of that, he tried to run away with his flying bison named Appa. While in the process of running away, the two where caught in a storm, and to shelter Appa and himself once they plummeted in the water, he entered the Avatar state, which formed a humongous ice block. There he stayed frozen with his flying bison for one hundred years until two kids named Sokka, and Katara freed Aang from the ice block. From then on, he started his journey with his two new friends to learn the three other bending techniques which are Firebending, Waterbending, and Earthbending. The rest of the story can be told by watching the books, and chapters of the series. Or you can wait until the release of the movie on July 2nd. I hope you guys like this new tutorial on "how to draw Aang", step by step. I will be back with a lot more lessons on the way, so stay tuned in to see what they are. Peace out people, and have a happy drawing day!
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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Moderators: bac, cullengirl, una
Granuaile wrote:They are going to get very rutted soon if they don't branch out a bit. I mean, I love the twilight stuff, but you hafta kinda go beyond the literal to get the true beauty of the story. And they could totally sing about the emotions in the book for yeaaaaaaars and years.
DanielleCullen wrote:i mean no offense but it sounds like a 7 year old wrote those songs. I mean there singing basics. It's just dull....its like a a story overveiw.. i dont lke it...and i dont think there voices are that nice either.
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Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, it is a pleasure to appear before you today to present the President's fiscal year 2007 budget for the Federal Maritime Commission. With me today are Bruce Dombrowski, Director of the Office of Administration and Rebecca Fenneman, an Attorney in the Office of the General Counsel.
The President's budget for the Commission provides for $21,474,000 for fiscal year 2007. This represents an increase of 5.8%, or $1,180,000, over our fiscal year 2006 appropriation. This budget provides for 132 workyears of employment.
Our fiscal year 2007 budget request contains $15,691,000 for salaries and benefits to support the Commission's programs. This is an increase of $1,178,000 over our fiscal year 2006 appropriation. This includes all salaries, including those for employees hired in fiscal year 2006, promotions, within-grade increases, and an anticipated cost of living adjustment. The funding includes annualization of the fiscal year 2006 cost of living adjustment increase, and an anticipated 2.2 percent fiscal year 2007 cost of living adjustment. Further, it includes funds to hire two critical staff: a Commissioner's Counsel and an attorney for our Office of Consumer Affairs and Dispute Resolution Services.
Official travel has been straight-lined at our fiscal year 2006 level. Travel remains an essential aspect of our effort to provide better service to the ocean transportation industry and to accomplish our oversight duties more effectively. Administrative expenses will have increased $2,000 net over fiscal year 2006. The Commission is planning for a small increase in rent to accommodate GSA rental rate increases, as well as an increase to fund Homeland Security charges. Other administrative expenses will be incurred in fiscal year 2007 to support increases in our customary business expenses, such as maintaining government and commercial contracts, and for items such as telephones, postage, and supplies.
Just like in previous years, the Commission's budget contains primarily non-discretionary spending. These items represent the basic expenses any organization faces in order to conduct its day-to-day operations, and are crucial to allow us to meet the responsibilities Congress has entrusted to the agency.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Commission is responsible for the regulation of oceanborne transportation in the foreign commerce of the United States. Since 1916, the Commission and its predecessor agencies have effectively administered Congress' directives for the ocean transportation industry, and its long-standing expertise and experience have been recognized by Congress, as well as by the industry the Commission oversees, courts, and other Nations. Working with the industry, we have developed a regulatory system that allows for necessary oversight with minimal disruption to the efficient flow of U.S. imports and exports. I would like to highlight for you some of the significant activities in which the Commission is involved.
Last year I told you about the Commission's rulemaking proceeding to allow non-vessel-operating common carriers to enter into confidential service arrangements with their shipper-customers. As you will recall, NVOCCs otherwise in compliance with the licensing, financial responsibility, and tariff publication requirements of the Shipping Act are now permitted to enter into confidential NVOCC Service Arrangements, or NSAs, with their shipper customers in lieu of publishing their rates in a publicly-available tariff, provided that the NSA is filed confidentially with the Commission and the essential terms are published in the NVOCC's tariff. This new regulatory scheme is consistent with the regulations governing service contracts between ocean common carriers and their shipper customers, and we anticipate that it will result in greater competition in the shipping industry.
Originally the exemption rule did not allow NVOCCs or shippers associations with NVOCC members to participate in NSAs as shippers. We were concerned about the potential antitrust implications of such arrangements. Some of those concerns were ameliorated after issuance of a judicial decision last fall, and the Commission determined that it could remove these limitations. Two or more NVOCCs are still prohibited from jointly offering a single NSA, as we believe this might run counter to recent judicial interpretations which construe the antitrust provisions of the Shipping Act in a manner we believe to be much broader than what was envisioned by Congress, this Commission, and indeed even the industry. I indicated last year that we would continue to work with the industry to address this issue. In fulfillment of this obligation, the Commission requested the comments of industry participants on potential ways to authorize joint NSAs by multiple NVOCCs. The Commission received numerous comments in late 2005, and is presently evaluating them.
As of January of this year, 207 original NSAs and 122 NSA amendments had been filed. A total of 330 NVOCCs have registered to file NSAs. We are encouraged by these numbers, and are certain they will continue to rise as the industry becomes more familiar with these agreements.
As part of the Commission's enforcement and ocean transportation intermediary ("OTI") oversight functions, as well as the ombudsman services provided by the Office of Consumer Affairs and Dispute Resolution Services, the Commission recently commenced a formal investigation against nine household goods moving companies operating in violation of the Shipping Act. The Commission's preliminary investigation indicated that these companies were unlawfully doing business as unlicensed NVOCCs without proof of financial responsibility or published tariffs, and were engaging in conduct that created risks of significant financial harm to the public. On January 17, 2006, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted the Commission's motion for a preliminary injunction against four of the companies and three of the individuals named as respondents in the proceeding. The injunction, which prohibits these respondents from operating in violation of the Shipping Act, will remain in effect pending the completion of the Commission's investigation.
The Court injunction and the Commission's formal investigation are based on more than 250 consumer complaints. Some examples of those complaints include failure to deliver cargo and refusal to return the pre-paid ocean freight; loss of the shipper's cargo; charging the shipper for marine insurance never obtained; withholding cargo until the shipper pays a higher rate than the one originally quoted; misleading the shipper as to the cargo's whereabouts; and finally, making the release of cargo dependent upon the shipper paying a second carrier or warehouse for transportation and warehousing already pre-paid to respondents. As most of the injuries of which we are aware involve shippers' personal household possessions, the Commission considers it especially important that every effort be made to prevent the respondents from injuring anyone else. At the moment, the proceeding is before the Commission's administrative law judge and we will seek additional injunctions as warranted.
Last year I advised you about the agency's public outreach initiative involving a series of informational seminars hosted by the Commission's Area Representatives and other Commission personnel at various locations around the country. These seminars continue to be successful in creating a forum for enhanced dialogue between the industry and the Commission. As you may recall, we also started a program where we have invited representatives from various segments of the industry to brief our staff on current issues and concerns affecting the ocean transportation industry. Thus far, we have met with representatives from the ocean transportation intermediary, passenger vessel and vessel operator communities, as well as shippers, marine terminal operators, and port authorities. We are in the process of planning more informational briefings for 2007 with other segments of the maritime industry, including federal agencies. I am confident that these briefings will provide the Commission and its staff with a greater awareness and understanding of the most current issues facing the maritime community.
The Commission continues to address restrictive or unfair foreign shipping practices under section 19 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1920 ("Section 19"); the Foreign Shipping Practices Act of 1988 ("FSPA"); and the Controlled Carrier Act of 1978. Section 19 empowers the Commission to make rules and regulations to address conditions unfavorable to shipping in our foreign trades; FSPA allows the Commission to address adverse conditions affecting U.S. carriers in our foreign trades that do not exist for foreign carriers in the United States. Under the Controlled Carrier Act, the Commission can review the rates of government-controlled carriers to ensure that they are not below a level that is just and reasonable.
When I was here last, I advised you of several pending proceedings related to shipping conditions in China. In particular, the Commission was investigating whether Chinese laws and regulations might discriminate against and disadvantage U.S. vessel operators and NVOCCs with regard to a variety of maritime-related services. As you know, in December of 2003, the United States, through the Secretary of Transportation, and his Chinese counterpart, the Minister of Communications, signed a bilateral maritime agreement which appeared to address many of the concerns raised by the Commission, including issues affecting vessel operators, NVOCCs, and other industry interests. That agreement became effective with the exchange of diplomatic notes in April of 2004.
Subsequently, the Commission requested comment from the industry on whether the commitments made in the bilateral agreement, which would have relieved the impediments to U.S. companies identified by the FMC, were being honored.
I am pleased to report to you that the issues we raised have been adequately addressed, and the Commission terminated the formal proceeding investigating these Chinese practices on April 21, 2005. Informally, we continue to receive positive feedback from the U.S. industry in this regard. I note that since I last addressed you, another U.S.-flag carrier has entered the U.S.-China trade and has opened offices in two cities in China. Matson's first vessel in the Ningbo-Shanghai-Long Beach express service called in Ningbo on February 21, 2006.
We will continue to monitor practices in China and elsewhere to determine whether formal action is warranted.
Lastly, the Commission recognizes that its oversight of ocean common carriers, ocean transportation intermediaries, including ocean freight forwarders and NVOCCs, and marine terminal operators, is an important element in the effort to protect our Nation's seaports. We are continuing our efforts to combat unlawful participation in the U.S. ocean transportation system by ensuring that all entities engaged in the U.S. foreign commerce are in compliance with the requirements of the statutes we administer. The Commission has met with the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation to discuss information sharing and other possible FMC contributions to maintaining a safe and efficient maritime transportation system. The Commission regulates the commercial practices of the operators of U.S. marine terminals. This oversight ensures that marine terminal operators follow just and reasonable practices, and that they do not unreasonably prefer or prejudice any person or unreasonably discriminate against carriers using their facilities. While our oversight is limited to the regulation of such commercial practices, we make every effort to work closely with other agencies to share information in this area. Moreover, the Commission is a member of the Committee on the Marine Transportation System, the inter-agency group created by the Bush Administration to carry out a joint strategic plan that ensures that the U.S. marine transportation system achieves the expansion goals necessary to support the level of traffic anticipated in the 21st Century in a secure, environmentally sound and coordinated manner for all stakeholders. We also continue to exchange information with the U.S. Customs Service through a Memorandum of Understanding. As the Commission continues to refine its role in the safeguarding of our national security, we stand ready to provide our technical expertise and assistance to all groups that are on the front lines of securing our ports and vessels.
Mr. Chairman, I hope that my comments have served to give you a clear indication of the important work to be accomplished by the Federal Maritime Commission. I respectfully request favorable consideration of the President's budget for the Commission so that we may continue to perform our vital statutory functions in fiscal year 2007.
This site is an official U.S. Government Website


text:
21, 2010
of The Attorney General
Paula T. Dow, Attorney General
of Consumer Affairs
- Sharon Joyce, Acting Director
Jeff Lamm
Citizen Inquiries-
Auto Dealerships Agree to Pay $175,000
and Revise Their Business Practices to
Settle State Lawsuit
– Attorney General Paula T. Dow and
Sharon Joyce, Acting Director of the Division
of Consumer Affairs, today announced that
four dealerships within the "Sansone
Auto Network" have agreed to settle
a state lawsuit by paying $175,000 and revising
their business practices.
The state alleged that the four Sansone
dealerships, located in Middlesex and Monmouth
counties, violated the state's Consumer
Fraud Act and Motor Vehicle Advertising
Regulations by failing to disclose to consumers
prior damage to used vehicles, prior rental
or fleet use of used vehicles, and that
the price posted or advertised for a used
motor vehicle did not include licensing
costs, registration fees and taxes.
"Our laws and regulations require
disclosure of material facts to consumers
prior to their purchase of a motor vehicle.
We expect full compliance, so consumers
can make informed decisions before spending
their hard-earned money," Attorney
General Dow said.
The four dealerships included in the Consent
Judgment are Fords National Auto Mart, Inc.,
which does business as Sansone Ford Lincoln
Mercury in Ocean Township; Paladin Chevrolet,
which does business as Sansone Chevrolet
in Avenel; Sansone Plaza Dodge, Inc., which
does business as Sansone Dodge in Ocean
Township; and Sansone Management Corp.,
which does business as Sansone's Route 1
Auto Mall in Avenel.
Two of these dealerships – Sansone
Chevrolet and Sansone Dodge -- entered into
a Consent Order with the Division of Consumer
Affairs in 2004 to resolve allegations similar
to the ones contained in the 2009 lawsuit.
Without admission of liability or any wrongdoing,
the defendants agreed to the following business
practices to settle the state's lawsuit:
defendants face imposition of an additional
maximum $200,000 in civil penalties if the
terms of the Consent Judgment are violated
during the next 12 months.
"We expect compliance
with this settlement, and we will again
act to protect consumers, if any violations
occur," Acting Director Joyce said.
The $175,000 payment required
under the Consent Judgment includes $83,232.58
in civil penalties and $91,767.42 in reimbursement
to the state for its attorneys' fees
and investigative costs.
Deputy Attorneys General
Alina Wells and Patricia Schiripo of the
Consumer Fraud Prosecution Section represented
the state in this action. Investigator Murat
Botas in the Office of Consumer Protection
led the investigation.
PDF plugin


text:
What is it?
A Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) is a special type of echocardiogram, or ultrasound of the heart, that allows us to obtain very detailed images of the structures of the heart. We pass a small ultrasound probe down the esophagus (swallowing tube) and take pictures of the heart from inside your body.
What are the indications?
This test is performed to evaluate the valves of the heart, the pumping function of your heart, and to look for any blood clots or birth defects of the heart. We would recommend a TEE if we suspect valve leakage or narrowing, infection in the heart, or if you have a stroke without a clear cause. We sometimes perform this test prior to a cardioversion, or electrical shock of the heart, to look for blood clots in your heart that could lead to a stroke.
How is it done?
We admit you to the hospital as an outpatient and a nurse will prepare you for the test by asking you questions, having you change into a gown and starting an IV. We'll ask you to remove any dentures or partial plates in your mouth. We will give you light sedation but you will be awake for the TEE. We numb the back of your throat with an anesthetic spray and pass the ultrasound probe into your swallowing tube with you lying on your side or sitting in the upright position. Once the probe is in position we quickly take the pictures we need and generally finish within 10-15 minutes. We pull out the probe and monitor you for 1-2 hours. The numbing spray inhibits your ability to swallow normally for a short while and we can let you eat once sensation returns. We can generally give you the results of the study before you leave the hospital.
How do you prepare for it?
We ask that you have nothing to eat or drink after midnight the night before your TEE. We do not want you to vomit on any food or drink which could cause you to choke and possibly develop pneumonia. You may take your usual morning medications with a sip of water when you wake up in the morning; however, we ask that you not take any insulin or diabetic medications as you will not have anything to eat for several hours. We do not want your blood sugar to drop and make you sick. You must have someone drive you home after the procedure since you will receive sedation medication. It is not safe for you to drive or operate machinery until the next day.
What are the risks?
Risks involved are vomiting, choking, aspiration pneumonia, breathing problems, abnormal or slow heart rhythm, reaction to the conscious sedation and minor bleeding. A rare but serious risk is perforation or tear of the esophagus.


text:
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2008 Rittenhouse WNBA Basketball
The WNBA season has begun, and I'm pleased to announce the upcoming release of our 2008 WNBA Trading Cards, which will have the following key features:
2 Autograph Cards Per Box!
2 Game-used Relic Cards Per Box!
1 Rookie Card (numbered) Per Box!
We're also pleased to announce that #1 overall draft pick and superstar rookie CANDACE PARKER (who set a new WNBA record with 34 points in her rookie debut!) has agreed to sign cards for us!!! In the past, we had never gotten rookies to sign cards for us, but this year is a special year, with Parker, Sylvia Fowles, Candice Wiggins and many more rookies poised to make a bigger impact than any other rookie class in WNBA history. Fowles, Wiggins and other top rookies will be signing cards for us and will be appearing on their very first rookie cards in this set!
5 Cards Per Pack
24 Packs Per Box
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2 Autograph Cards, 2 Relic Cards and 1 Numbered Rookie Card Per Box!
Superstar rookies CANDACE PARKER (Los Angeles), SYLVIA FOWLES (Chicago) and CANDICE WIGGINS (Minnesota) head the list of autograph card signers in this incredible new collection! Other signers 2007 WNBA MVP LAUREN JACKSON (Seattle), 2007 WNBA Champions DIANA TAURASI (Phoenix) and CAPPIE PONDEXTER (Phoenix), 2007 WNBA Rookie of the Year ARMINTIE PRICE (Chicago), perennial All-Star BECKY HAMMON (San Antonio) and more!
Case topper: Game-used 2006 WNBA All-Star basketball relic card
Bonus Sets:
Exclusive U.S. Womens National Team Cards (numbered to 667), including Candace Parker, Sylvia Fowles and Candice Wiggins on a special triple card!
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2007 WNBA Finals Uniform Relics from the entire championship Phoenix team (numbered to 444 each)!
2008 Draft Picks/Rookies Cards (18 cards, 1 per box, numbered to 444 each), including CANDACE PARKERs ROOKIE CARD!
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text:
Imagine being a champion surfer and one day having a shark bite off your arm. Not only will you have to live through the rest of your life with one arm, your surfing career might well be at an end. Is there a bright side to this story?
We wrote about Bethany Hamilton in the Spring 2006 issue of World Vision magazine. And her extraordinary story is now the subject of the major motion picture "Soul Surfer," due for release on April 8 and starring AnnaSophia Robb, Helen Hunt, and Dennis Quaid.
At the World Vision transitional housing center, Bethany talks with 13-year-old Ketsara who lost her mother and home to the tsunami, comparing the lessons they learned on how to handle tragedy and loss. (Jon Warren/WV)
Bethany did indeed lose her arm to a tiger shark when she was just 13, but within a month she was back in the water, trying to find the next great wave. That spirit gave World Vision an idea. Following the Asian tsunami, fishing communities we were working with in Thailand had become petrified of the ocean from which they derived their living. Could Bethany help?
Bethany traveled to Phuket, where she talked with villagers about her own devastating ocean experience. One of her key points: Shark attacks and tsunamis are rare events; we ought not allow them to dictate the way we live the rest of our lives. Bethany persuaded some village youngsters to head into the ocean with her, where—much to their delight—she gave them their first-ever surfing lesson.
With the movie coming out soon, I got in touch with Bethany who's now 21. She's delighted with the way the film has turned out. She had a hand in picking AnnaSophia to play her, assisted with the script, and acted as a technical consultant on the surfing scenes. Her biggest buzz, though, has been audience reaction to the previews—including a girl about 7 years old who was born without an arm and was thrilled to see another single-armed person succeed. She had even written a book, A Dog Without a Paw, which she proudly presented to Bethany. In return, Bethany gave her signed poster of the movie.
"She was really sweet," Bethany says, "and it was cool to show her that you can make the best of out life with one arm."
Bethany's own life proves that point. She still spends about six months of the year on the women's professional surfing circuit, and last year she placed 25th on the women's world rankings. I ask her if she ever fears another shark attack, and she just laughs: "I try not to focus on that. I just try to focus on having fun."
Her message to others who have faced a terrible blow: "Things happen for a reason, and good can come out of it. In my experience, so much beauty has come out of a terrible thing."
Bethany introduces surfing to children from villages devastated by the tsunami. (Jon Warren/WV)
This post originally appeared on the World Vision Magazine Blog.


text:
Apr. 11, 2014
Source: CoBank news release
Record-high animal protein and dairy prices, volatile grain and oilseed prices, and steady-to-lower cropland values reflect agricultural markets in transition, according to CoBank's new quarterly economic report.
The U.S. grain markets continue to anticipate record crops in the coming year, leading to higher inventories and lower prices. While the large 2013-14 grain harvest pushed prices moderately lower, grain stocks remain low by historical standards, according to the CoBank report titled "Cautious Optimism Prevails."
Lower expectations for South American corn and soybean production contributed to an early-year price rally, but final harvest estimates will continue to sway markets.
In the coming weeks, markets will increasingly look to U.S. spring weather for direction. The winter wheat crop is entering key development phases with a lack of moisture in the Southern Plains, and the final mix of corn and soybean acres is still to be decided.
If USDA's initial 2014 acreage estimates prove accurate, and if yields return to trend, inventories will build for all three crops in 2014-15. However, spring planting has been delayed by continuing cold weather, and the markets are jittery.
"Despite the recent rally, lower corn prices this year have bolstered the animal protein and dairy sectors," said Leonard Sahling, director of CoBank's Knowledge Exchange division, which produced the report.
"These industries are already enjoying major improvements in their profit margins and are aggressively rebuilding balance sheets after the stress of record high feed costs over the past several years. The consensus view for these sectors is that the best is yet to come."
For now, however, Sahling noted that the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) continues to cast a cloud of uncertainty across the animal protein industries. Constrained supplies in the beef and pork sectors have driven prices up to near record highs, yet demand for beef and pork has remained surprisingly resilient in the face of these high prices.
The U.S. dairy industry is transitioning from one of shortage to one of surplus. Milk production has begun to increase, exports are taking a breather along with domestic sales, and dairy product prices appear to have topped out and begun to recede. Still, dairy producers and processors remain upbeat about their prospects for the coming year.
CoBank's Knowledge Exchange Division is a knowledge-sharing practice that provides strategic insights regarding the key industries served by CoBank. Knowledge Exchange draws upon the internal expertise of CoBank, deep knowledge within the Farm Credit System and boots-on-the-ground intelligence from customers and other stakeholders to enhance the collective understanding of emerging business opportunities and risks.


text:
Music Spaces
The Sounds and Music of Open Space
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Blog written by Jairo Geronymo, pianist, Berlin, Germany
Last month a former student of mine at Ithaca College, Justine Popik, visited me for a weekend in Nuremberg. She told me that her classmates would take note of my (in) famous catchy phrases about music. I have been known to use any means possible to get students to remember certain...


text:
Sibley Gazette Tribune, Sept 26, 1940
Richardson Rites To be Held Today; Funeral services for Mrs Katherine Richardson will be held this afternoon at 2:30 o'clock from the Methodist church with the Rev. L D Havighurst in charge. Burial will be in the Sibley cemetery. Mrs. Katherine Richardson passed away at her home early Monday morning, following a lingering illness which confined her to her bed since December, at which time she suffered a stroke. Katherine Bremmer-Richardson was born in Hanover, Germany September 12, 1853. She came to America with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Bremmer, and settled in Loganville, Wis. where she lived for four years. In 1872, she moved to Sibley and resided there continually.
In 1873, she was married to Robert Richardson who preceded her in death 10 years ago. A son and daughter also preceded her in death. Surviving are two sons, Edward of Sibley and George of Santa Ana, California, two daughters Mae of Sibley and Mrs Allan Knapp of Graden Grove, California, four grandchildren and a sister, Mrs Dora Graves of Ocheyedan.
Mrs. Richardson united with the Methodist church soon after coming to Sibley and was a regular attendant until her health began to fail. She was a member of the W. R. C. and Rebekah Lodge.


text:
It's Apple, it's cool, my wallet is already half out of my pocket.
IMPORTANT: Hey, how about watching the video before commenting? It's not what you think. Damn kneejerk Apple haters.
It's Apple, it's cool, my wallet is already half out of my pocket.
IMPORTANT: Hey, how about watching the video before commenting? It's not what you think. Damn kneejerk Apple haters.
New England Bob says
Buy 2 for twice the fun!
Woo_Monster, Sniffer of Starfarts says
Wow, very impressive! Those eye-fones just keep getting better and better! Thanks for the tip, PZ!
deee says
Well sure, if you want to pay for an overpriced toy, and support a patent troll company who thinks they know what you should be able to do with your hardware better than you… then go for iphone. Those of us who appreciate our freedom more than being "fashionable" are using android.
Really, being a mac user is in many regards similar to religion…
madtom1999 says
Wow it one of those things that can do what a computer can do! For 3 times the price!
carlie says
Um, deee and madtom1999, did you watch the video?
Loved it.
=8)-DX says
Finally! Apple has reinvented the digital camera! Guess that's lightsout to people like Olympus and Canon.
NelC says
I can't wait for the iPhone 5, because then I'll be able to get hold of a cheap iPhone 4.
Eric O says
Ugh, why did I have to read the comments on YouTube?
Someone is actually blaming feminism for the shallow culture that this skit is joking about.
ChasCPeterson says
hee hee hee
TonyJ says
Loved it. Especially this: "within minutes, people were telling me how much fun I was having!"
Rev. BigDumbChimp says
newfie says
What about those of us who only use their iPhones for playing Words With Friends on the terlit?
ogremeister says
So does it do video, too? And can you stream that video live? And what would happen if you pointed one at a monitor showing that stream?
usingreason says
Shut up and take my money!!!!!!
sqlrob says
So buy Android and support a different patent troll. Wheeee.
timberwoof says
It's a rebadged and simplified Canon EOS 5D! At least they have good taste in who they partner with.
roland says
Ew, is this a cult or something?
andyo says
So buy Android and support a different patent troll. Wheeee.
Not so, at least as of late: http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/20/google-we-are-so-over-patents-especially-in-their-current-form/
andyo says
It's a rebadged and simplified Canon EOS 5D!
Except Apple clearly will have invented it.
andyo says
Let me correct that. Steve Jobs will have invented it.
vexorian says
"LEAKED" har har lol. It is so disappointed that everyone falls for this stupid viral marketing.
Yes sure, Android is as much of a patent troll as apple. Also, atheism is as much of a religion as Mormonism.
But hey, this thing clearly has rounded corners and we all know that no one would ever, ever think of that before apple did. We owe them to this unnovation.
carlie says
Except Apple clearly will have invented it.
And will sue the bejeezus out of Canon for violating their patent.
sqlrob says
Not so, at least as of late: http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/20/google-we-are-so-over-patents-especially-in-their-current-form/
/Have an Android Phone and tablet
//Wouldn't touch an iPhone if you paid me.
///Lesser of two evils is still evil
Woo_Monster, Sniffer of Starfarts says
"LEAKED" har har lol. It is so disappointed that everyone falls for this stupid viral marketing.
Bullshit. That ad was real.
Really, being a mac user is in many regards similar to religion…
Knee-jerk regurgitation of tired talking points and promoting one's own subjective preference to universal truth, of course, isn't.
skeptifem says
wow that was awesome.
Beatrice says
I read the comments before watching the video -> confused.
Now that I've seen it….
Rip Steakface says
Devoted Apple hater here – watch the damn video, people. Look past the title. They're mocking Apple, in case you didn't notice.
TonyJ says
It's a rebadged and simplified Canon EOS 5D! At least they have good taste in who they partner with.
If I could get a Canon 5D for the price of an iPhone, I'd be all over that. I want 64,000 ISO!
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort says
This is pretty hilarious, just let me offer one little bit of warning.
If you see anything else about leaked iPhone 5 information. Like an e-mail or a Facebook message or anything else like that: DO NOT CLICK ON IT.
There is a spam campaign going around that takes advantage of a Flash vulnerability, and can infect your computer with malware. So be careful what you click on!
a3kr0n says
It's Apple, it's closed, and if you try to do anything with it we'll sue you.
It's Linux, it's open, and we encourage you to modify and improve it.
So what? I'm an open source dude!
Rev. BigDumbChimp says
IMPORTANT: Hey, how about watching the video before commenting? It's not what you think. Damn kneejerk Apple haters.
And here I was enjoying them making an ass out of themselves.
Way to ruin it squid boy.
eliasfox says
People talk about creepy Mac cultists that wont shut up about their platform of choice, but yet whenever Apple is mentioned anywhere, there's a 10-1 ratio of haters spouting off before even paying attention to the post in question. Madness.
insipidmoniker says
I like my iPad. I also like my Galaxy S3. Does this make me an accomadationist?
logicpriest says
I like my macbook pro, my android phone, my linux server and I want the Microsoft Surface. I personally cannot wait for the Canon 5D… um iPhone 6/5. Good video :)
All the tech companies are borderline evil, so I refuse to give any brand loyalty. Give an entity built around making money with no accountability and give them a broken legal system to abuse what do you think happens?
BrianX says
Spoken like one of the mouthbreathing racist assholes at ESR's blog. How about you go to folklore.org and look up roundrects?
Loqi says
Damn you, Poe's Law! Why must you prevent me from determining whether this is serious or not?!
AlanMac says
All I want is a phone that doesn't make people sound like they are phoning from the Andromeda Galaxy in a 1950s sci-fi movie.
shockna says
Soon enough, Apple will be suing Canon and Polaroid for violating apples patent on "a circular lens", and claiming that other camera manufacturers "slavishly copied" Apple's Original™ idea for a digital camera.
Also: FFS fellow apple haters, can we stop using the "Apple is a religion" line on everything Apple? Save that for actual instances of cultish behavior, like iPhone campouts. >_>
BrianX says
Indeed. I think it's actually endemic to a certain sector of the open source community, and the utterly deranged Android fanbois are part of it. Typical case of turning a moral stand into a superiority complex.
BCat70 says
Funny- ROFL
flyv65 says
Funny bit-but I still look forward to the iPhone release September 12th. I fail to get the raging Android fanboi animosity toward Apple-is it because there are people out there who don't care what your opinion is? It sure seems like there are a lot more knee-jerk haters these days than there are knee-jerk buyers…
andrewcampbell says
I'm a Blackberry user. Awesome phone and RIM isn't nearly profitable enough to be evil. I win, Muhahahahahaha.
BrianX says
It's easier to understand than you'd think. Android is based on Linux. (Yes, there's a lot more to it — the Harmony library and the Dalvik VM — but the Linux part is important.) There was a .sig I saw when Mac OS X first came out on Usenet: "Apple has finally separated Unix users into people who use it because they like the technology and people who use it because it lets them feel superior." The sector of embarrassingly rabid Android fanbois that we're talking about are part of the latter category, doubly so because there's an explicit moral imperative in the free/open source software movement. When you get moral imperatives involved, you get all kinds of fanatics along with it, and that's what's going on here. (Interestingly, you'd be surprised how many people are utterly ignorant of the technical details of the Mac platform — the one-button mouse thing hasn't been strictly true since about 1998, for example, and wasn't actually as big a deal as people made it out to be to begin with, especially compared with the ways Smalltalk and X/Athena did things.)
Also, I might want to explain the Eric Raymond swipe above. The rounded rectangle thing was something he actually brought up a couple of weeks ago, which struck be as being ignorant even by his standards, since Steve Jobs was among the first people in the computer industry to emphasize the ubiquity of rounded rectangles in design. And Raymond is actually the epitome of insane Android fanbois — he's accused Apple on several occasions of outright coverups and knowingly selling poor-quality product. That sort of thinking is par for the course with him though — to those who mostly just know him for software and gun advocacy, the fact that he's a full-blown tinfoil hatter with a nasty racist streak who's almost into Alex Jones territory sometimes comes as a bit of a shock.
ravenred says
This thread is emblematic of DEEP RIFTS.
Muz says
Damn. If things are so grim, does this mean even the Friend Bar has stopped talking to Apple cultists?
andyo says
People talk about creepy Mac cultists that wont shut up about their platform of choice, but yet whenever Apple is mentioned anywhere, there's a 10-1 ratio of haters spouting off before even paying attention to the post in question. Madness.
That's obviously not true. Most arguments spur from responses to one of the comments, which might or might not have been OT.
Indeed. I think it's actually endemic to a certain sector of the open source community, and the utterly deranged Android fanbois are part of it. Typical case of turning a moral stand into a superiority complex.
Superiority complex? Have you even seen Apple marketing? Stop projecting.
LykeX says
Really, being a mac user is in many regards similar to religion…
What an enlightened and rational view. After all, it's completely impossible that other people might have different preferences and uses for their devices than you do.
Clearly, you're the standard for humans everywhere, so if someone differs from you, there must be something wrong with them.
rorschach says
When I was in Beijing in May, the IPhone 5 was already being advertised everywhere.
Also, I have to admit that I'm quite fond of my recently purchased Macbook Air. Such a nice little machine…
eliasfox says
Rubbish. The hyperbolic bashing and stupidity starts at post 3, and isn't in response to any comment.
tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderach says
Over a long parade of years I've used, developed for and in quite a few cases developed, everything from IBM 370's, CP/M, DOS, RISC OS, Windows, Mac OS, Linux, various other unix flavours, and a couple of custom nightmares. I grew to dislike pretty much all of them since they're all horribly flawed, outrageously buggy and poorly thought out. After so much pain I just want the least awful experience for my dotage and Macs are less pain to own in my opinion. Your opinion is frankly speaking irrelevant, pointless, stupid, lacking in any sound basis, ridiculous, bigoted, biased and smells like Limburger cheese a year past it's sell-by date. S'there.
thebookofdave says
I hate Apple. And food. But I need to share pictures of my cats with friends. If Apple will help me turn my housecats into lolcats, I'll turn around and buy the iPhone 6.
BrianX says
Apple marketing has fuck-all to do with my point. This is about the ridiculous behavior of a subset of the open source community, and isn't that different from some of the same snottiness responsible for the sexist bullshit and libertarian garbage in the skeptical community. (You might also want to look under Stop Having Fun Guys on TVTropes for a similar mentality with even lower stakes.)
Truth is, most Mac and/or iOS users like their systems for one of a couple of different reasons — 1) they prefer the technology, 2) they like the aesthetics, or 3) it's what they're used to and they see no reason to switch. The deranged Mac fanboyism you mock hasn't existed in any great amount in over a decade, in part because it came from a position of being an underdog platform. Apple's been a trendsetter in hardware design for so long that I don't think that attitude even exists anymore, at least not in any significant number. News for you: Apple users use Apple products because they like Apple products.
Incidentally, I have both Mac and Linux on my desk, and both iOS and Android devices. Both work well, but the Apple products are still substantially more polished.
BrianX says
You know, if you want, you can run MVS on a Mac…
jerryh says
You people are insane. Seriously.
andyo says
This is about the ridiculous behavior of a subset of the open source community, and isn't that different from some of the same snottiness responsible for the sexist bullshit and libertarian garbage in the skeptical community.
Wha? So you're reacting to people who compare Mac users to religious folks, by comparing them to sexists and libertarians?
Rubbish. The hyperbolic bashing and stupidity starts at post 3, and isn't in response to any comment.
I'll give you post #4 as well, but that's still not a 10-to-1 ratio. Oh, wait. You were being hyperbolic?
andyo says
News for you: Apple users use Apple products because they like Apple products.
Hmm I wonder if even the most vicious of Apple haters even doubt this.
The deranged Mac fanboyism you mock hasn't existed in any great amount in over a decade
I don't think I have mocked it, at least not on this thread, and not that I can remember either. But are you sure it doesn't exist "in any great amount"? I guess we have different definitions of fanboyism, which mine includes "making lines for any amount of time over 15 minutes on launch day before the store opens". Not that there's much wrong with that in my book. Happens with many other brands.
Incidentally, I have both Mac and Linux on my desk, and both iOS and Android devices. Both work well, but the Apple products are still substantially more polished.
Hey, I have an iPod Touch, iPod Classic, a Nexus 7, two Android phones, had two older iPods, run Windows 7 computers, and planning on getting a retina iPad. I'm not a racist either!
eliasfox says
Did you seriously just compare an off-hand remark illustrating ballpark numbers with stupid shit like "ROUNDED RECTANGLES LOL"?
BrianX says
To the extent that the mentality resembles the sexists (mainly the evo psych crowd, but quite a few others) and libertarians infesting the skeptical movement, fuck yeah I am. The mentality is the same wanky ego-tripping with a dose of "I'll show them". Rather convenient elision on your part, no?
As for your amusing attempt to compare my statement to a racist saying they're not racist (fuck you very much for that by the way), I am speaking as someone who uses both platforms and has developed opinions about both the culture and the technology.
timberwoof says
"It's Apple, it's closed, and if you try to do anything with it we'll sue you."
The developer tools ship with the OS; you can read the developer documentation on Apple's web site; you can write apps for your Mac for free. Much of the underlying OS stuff is open; the rest is documented and Apple even gives you sample apps so you can learn how to write apps.
Okay, iOS is regulated. You have to pay a hundred bucks to get a certificate that lets you put your developed apps on a limited number of iOS devices. That's less than Microsoft's price for the Windows developer tools … and that's the price for user security on phones. It's a trade-off and you're free to live with it or not.
The recent MacBook with no memory sockets is pissing a lot of people off. Well, okay. Every recent Mac of mine, I upgraded to huge amounts of RAM soon after I bought it. I never used the sockets again. If they can make the thing lighter without them, fine; I'll order the moby from the start.
Upgrading? Really!? I've never upgraded the CPU in a PC … if a CPU is worth upgrading to, then you also need new bridge chips, memory, and GPU. Toss the whole motherboard … and then you need a new power supply and hard drive while you're at it. Don't just replace the engine, transmission, and brakes; get a whole new car.
I guess that screed makes me an Apple fanboy and apologist. I can do Linux, too: It's a permissions problem. RTFM.
BrianX says
There's actually a little more to the iOS thing than most people make out. The point behind that is embedded in the very early history of the Macintosh — Steve Jobs wanted a system that wasn't going to have problems with people shooting themselves in the foot. iOS is pretty much the fulfillment of that vision, and to that end, unsigned apps are locked out so they can't stomp all over the OS. (The fact that Apple takes a 30% cut is just gravy really.) IMHO the issues with Apple's editorial policies are legit — I don't think the plan was or is perfect — but the technical logic behind it is sound. The point is that someone can look at an iOS device and make an informed decision in favor of the platform, and legal steps have been taken to ensure the device can be jailbroken if the user wishes to. Apple doesn't support it? Apple doesn't have to. IMHO giving up your warranty for a jailbreak is a fair trade. Android is a more open platform. That's fine too, and it's a legitimate reason to choose Android over iOS. The problem is the people who take the moral imperative to an extreme — the whole thing just runs out of control and you get an insane fanboi.
As for the hardware issue… funny about that. I have been getting the distinct sense that Apple has been largely ignoring the Hackintosh community. They know very well that people want hardware flexibility, but because of the philosophy behind the platform, they're not going to support it. So if my suspicion is correct, they've basically decided to give people what they want on condition that they don't have anything to do with any of it. Want an upgradeable Mac laptop? Go buy a Dell or HP or whatever and do it yourself, don't bother Apple about it.
andyo says
Did you seriously just compare an off-hand remark illustrating ballpark numbers with stupid shit like "ROUNDED RECTANGLES LOL"?
Not comparing, just pointing out the irony of your complaint.
But "10-1 ratio" is "ballpark", and not simple hyperbole? OK then.
tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderach says
Brian @54; yeh, I know. Scary thought isn't it? I did actually have an IBM PC/370 a looking time ago. Very strange thing.
Akira MacKenzie says
Oh look! A "computers/Internet is dehumanizing" video made by one of those pretentious, luddite-wannabe jerk-offs who pride themselves for not owning a television. Like I haven't seen that bullshit a hundred times before since… oh… 1995. I hate to break it to you moonbeam, but we'd be just as shallow and and unfulfilled without iPhones or social media. If anything, dealing with flesh-and-blood people makes humanity all the more disgusting and worthy of extinction. At least with the Internet, I can filter out the worst of it.
BrianX says
While considering the possibility of running Hercules on my Pogoplug (couldn't come up with much of anything to do with it honestly, but a mainframe the size of a Rubik's Cube is pretty cool) I ran across a Herc user's quote along the lines of "My son was complaining to me about setting up MVS and I knew he'd learned all there was to know about the mainframe world". I'm not sure if that makes the difficulty of finding a copy of z/OS better or worse :-)
shockna says
It's a trade-off and you're free to live with it or not.
Given Apple's recent attempts to ban competition (If the jury agrees with Apple's absurd claims on Samsung devices, they're sure to go after Android itself next), I'm not so sure that "trade off" will be available much longer.
The "moral imperative" crowd is irritating as hell, given Apple's completely distasteful philosophy for Mac/iOS, I almost (read: almost) can't blame them for it.
esmith4102 says
Funny! Finally, I can not only demonstrate I have a life, but also revel in brief moments of happiness. Apple outdoes itself once again! Sign me up!
KillJoy says
Oh dear.
All this animosity over platform choice.
Silly monkies. Your whacky antics make me laugh.
Seriously. I can't think of anything less important.
Some folks need to grow up and gain a little perspective.
Condescendingly yours, I remain,
tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderach says
Brian @ 65 – you can apparently run that on a $35 RaspberryPi as well. The world is going insane, mad I tell you. They'll be giving the vote to ordinary people next!
grumpypathdoc says
tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderach @ 51
Thank you for putting your thoughts in.
My first computer was a Mac. Then I switched to a Dell PC, then a HP PC, then I bought a Toshiba labtop. They all slowed down to a snails pace in months. Same thing at work where we all live in a PC world. Between software conflicts (not the PC's fault) to the slow boot up time it sometimes it is pain in you know where.
My wife's MacBook Pro, meh, no problems.
And we both have iPhones and love them. And they work in Europe.
All is personal preference.
Old At Heart says
All corporations and individuals have faults. Some more than others, but there are no faultless groups.
So Apple is more about Marketing than about Development? Oh well, it works out well for them.
Buying out nearly every compatible microchip from nearly every production company possible the year the iPod came out to ensure low competition despite those chips just going into a landfill? A bit wasteful, but an amazing business gambit.
So PC likes to rip off Apple? Business studies show that emulators of the original tend to do more poorly unless their price competition is powerful, Apple proponents shouldn't complain but cheer.
I like Windows. I do not like the route it has taken and run a modded form of XP that lets me multitask more efficiently instead of using 7 or 8 because I dislike the "Mac-like" route they've taken, in essence costing them business. But old Windows was excellent and no-nonsense, intuitive, clear, and easy to use and modify. The best for the "know-nothing" and "high-knowledge" users both.
I like Macintosh. Their products are simple, accessible to the lowest common denominator at their 75% level (jailbreaking to get 100% functionality is beyond LCD level). Their marketing and R&D are fantastic. And their viruses are hilarious (the one that keeps opening the CD tray and making farting noises at the user? Classy.). The best for the "mid-range" users, with enough knowledge to get the most out of the inherently crippled product by jailbreaking it.
I like Ubuntu. Like Mac, it turns a Linux kernel into something actually quite elegant and usable. Unlike Mac, you'll never get a virus on it, neither funny nor dangerous. However the learning curve is vertical, and you wind up relying on their community a lot to figure things out (dunno if that's a good or bad thing). And hey, it's free. The best for those with the time and energy to learn it, easily the strongest of the systems for the highest level of tech-savvy people, but everyone else will find it wanting.
The companies? Same as any: Amoral and scuzzy. The leaders? All three figureheads are no longer involved. But hey, at least they aren't EA or Sony. A company or a product, all have ups and downs.
…And I enjoyed the video, though I saw it somewhere else first.
colonelzen says
Emacs, because vi is at the middle of all evil.
Seriously I love linux and anticipate *never* using a closed platform for my personal boxen, Linux is now thoroughly screwed up too. A little problem called Gnome … which shows that when anything gets too popular (and we're talking low single digits percentage wise of users here) network effects will give moieties too much power, almost as bad as commercial aggregates. The Gnome people have screwed up Linux so effectively last year and for at least the next year that I couldn't possibly recommend it to a non-techie. Earlier I would have enthusiastically have recommended Ubuntu but Canonical have turned their spinoff of Gnome into an abortion on its own, while the commisariat of the Gnome Foundation proper has committed an act of self love spectacular and ludicrous leaving their product unusably sticky with a definite foul odor.
Android, of course, is Linux based but fortunately doesn't directly suffer the ignominy of Gnome, but google has intentionally released parts of their plattorm under different licenses allowing vendors to coopt it with custom configuration and "sytsem" apps that range from merely unstable to yes I want that dry pinapple lovin with a lemon juice enema chaser.
Apple often does provide a better experience than *any* other choices … but can do so *because* it is a locked down, no technical choices, tigthly controlled platform. This should not be a surprise.
Yes Apple has become not just evil but loathsome of late (while Microsoft was always evil and loathsome, even so they were so big we geenrally *had* to deal with them for some things) but while slow, the water is definitely beginning to circle the bowl now).
But Apple was closed source and transparently evil from the beginning. While the patent stuff is worth commenting upon, it's not really surprising.
But why should we freesofters worry about Apple when there's *real* evil, in a big way afoot. Look at what Oracle's doing to Java and especially and predictably to MySQL. (yo Feds', you've f'n heard of anti-trust? I know George was having his hair done that day or some such but when the biggest commercial DB company buys up the biggest open source DB company, you should take your thumbs out of your butts, then ease your heads out and take a look at it. Hey, George is retired, it's a new pres, lamer though he is on such, but you probably won't get fired for at least making a bit of noise!
Oh. Yes I watched the video. The caricature of Mac users was quite funny… but my kids don't fit the caricature and they both have Macs and anticipate buying again soon even at two to three times a similarly spec'd regular laptop. They're not techies, and the consistency and control makes them able to do their work, listen to their music and do their surfing with minimal tech hassle. And yes the younger is salivating for an I5 …bacause it works seamlessly with her Mac.
BrianX says
Old At Heart:
Um… your technical information may be a tad out of date there. Jailbreaking is done on iOS. It's not necessary on a Mac and the only thing it would accomplish is running everything as root, which, as you should know, is usually a bad idea in Unix. (Well, shutting off the quarantine bit lockout in Mountain Lion might qualify as a jailbreak, but that's not much of a jail to begin with…)
BrianX says
And let's be honest, on most modern Unixy systems, pretty much anything that has to be done as root (as opposed to using sudo) is an indication of something having gone horribly wrong…
Crissa says
Actually, an SLR with an iPhone as its processor and screen wouldn't actually be a bad thing.
…It would just cost several thousand dollars.
Crissa says
Tad out of date?
What was the last Mac with a tray? 2002? Mirrored doors didn't have them stock, nor did the cube, but some of the Emacs did. Last farting noise virus was I think System 7, which was umm… last release 1997.


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COURSE: 15-396 Metaphysics and Epistemology (3)
This course explores viewpoints concerning the fundamental nature of reality and the process and limitations of human knowledge. Among the positions covered are idealism, realism, empiricism, rationalism, phenomenology and relativism. Topics include appearance and reality, mind and matter, space and time, and objectivity and subjectivity. Prerequisite: 15-100 Introduction to Philosophy or the consent of the instructor.


text:
Ice Cores may yield 1.5 million year climate record
How far into the past can ice-core records go? Scientists have now identified regions in Antarctica they say could store information about Earth's climate and greenhouse gases extending as far back as 1.5 million years, almost twice as old as the oldest ice core drilled to date.
The results are published this week in Climate of the Past, an open-access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).
By studying the past climate, scientists can understand better how temperature responds to changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere. This, in turn, allows them to make better predictions about how climate will change in the future.
"Ice cores contain little air bubbles and, thus, represent the only direct archive of the composition of the past atmosphere," says Hubertus Fischer, an experimental climate physics professor at the University of Bern in Switzerland and lead author of the study. A 3.2-km-long ice core drilled almost a decade ago at Dome Concordia (Dome C) in Antarctica revealed 800,000 years of climate history, showing that greenhouse gases and temperature have mostly moved in lockstep. Now, an international team of scientists wants to know what happened before that.
At the root of their quest is a climate transition that marine-sediment studies reveal happened some 1.2 million years to 900,000 years ago. "The Mid Pleistocene Transition is a most important and enigmatic time interval in the more recent climate history of our planet," says Fischer. Earth's climate naturally varies between times of warming and periods of extreme cooling (ice ages) over thousands of years. Before the transition, the period of variation was about 41 thousand years while afterwards it became 100 thousand years. "The reason for this change is not known."
3D Earth image via Shutterstock.
Read more at ScienceDaily.


text:
Your fairy is called Hex Reedwand.
She is a panpipe player and enchantment singer.
She lives in places hexed and tainted by black magic.
She is only seen when the seer holds a four-leafed clover.
She wears black feathers and rose petals. She has gentle green butterfly wings.
How ironic that I happen to be wearing a t-shirt with a giant four-leafed clover on it right now. It says 'Rub me for luck'.