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[Avalanche] - Playtesting with BW for the first time
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Topic: [Avalanche] - Playtesting with BW for the first time (Read 9120 times)
Eero Tuovinen
Acts of Evil Playtesters
Posts: 2591
Re: [Avalanche] - Playtesting with BW for the first time
Reply #15 on:
April 05, 2010, 03:17:24 PM »
Isn't Avalanche going to be an Internet pay-site? Where's the problem in focusing on development for your own system and publishing the campaign essentially with one system? Then you can take your time finangling with potential BW-associated material, which you'll publish a year later, thus creating publicity and keeping the product in the minds of potential customers.
In other words: I'm not quite seeing the benefit to compromising your primary development work (whatever you consider that to be, note) for the sake of developing something that can easily be added at leisure later.
Blogging at
Game Design is about Structure
Zombie Cinema
Solar System
Arkenstone Publishing
Posts: 192
Re: [Avalanche] - Playtesting with BW for the first time
Reply #16 on:
April 05, 2010, 05:17:44 PM »
A little reminder : in my working life, I'm a project manager, which means managing three things delay (time), perimeter (the stuff you do) and cost (see here money and effort).
Yes, Avalanche is
meant to be
a website. That's the plan. That said, doing the website is really a mess. I've been stuck with this for over two years. For almost ten years, I've been telling myself : I'm selling a website. It turns out I can sell something
the website : pdf. I won't go into details, as this is the purpose of an upcoming publishing thread, but we're going to sell a pdf on the basis of recurring income, thus preparing the ground for the website. Think magazine.
Now, about the systems. You might remember my coming to the forge in 2004, with a systemless campaign, turning it into a multi systems campaign. And now, we are turning it into an
multi systems campaign. But, as is it of today, Avalanche will be released as a systemless campaign ; only with guidelines for d20 (the OGL is a mess, I can talk about this later) and TSOY, knowing an upcoming system is on the way.
About effort. I'll just give you an example : maps. I've contracted a "master mapper" to "redo" the maps for Avalanche. This is a little money out of my pocket, but it turns out to be a lot of time (contract, introduction to the project, commenting ; you might know the drill). Is it worth it ? The hell yes !!!
About the open systems campaign : what does that mean ? I provide the campaign, and anyone (and I really mean it) can come up with a system and "attach" it to Avalanche (informative pages, characters sheet). What's the advantage ? People can contribute to my project and still own their IP and even make money out of it. Good way to build up a community. And a fair trade, or so I think.
About BW : compromising is not an option. But, hey, what can I say ? I bought the books, read them, played the game. I liked it. Now, maybe this is enough and I should be glad with it and address the issue later (which wouldn't be bad at all, remember the magazine ?). But, yeah, I've invested time already. Maybe, just maybe, I could do some little stuff that could help me. For instance, I could go on the BW forum and look out for playtesters, thus "having others work for the project" (remember the open project). I mean there is already a community there, no ? That would mean some efforts, but maybe it would be worth it.
But still, is this AP enough ? Are my conclusions right ? Going to the BW forum to get turned down is not the best communication plan I've come across.
And of course, doing this (buy, read, play, write AP) for another system wouldn't be a good idea for now. But BW ...
Eero Tuovinen
Acts of Evil Playtesters
Posts: 2591
Re: [Avalanche] - Playtesting with BW for the first time
Reply #17 on:
April 06, 2010, 01:15:40 PM »
Ah, yes, now I see. You're considering BW because BW players might be a good audience for your material, and you want to tap them early?
It seems to me that you're likely to get a pretty good response among BW players if you go into it in a dialogue mode, asking for feedback, playtest help and ideas. Instead of saying that your product will be great for Burning Wheel you might ask the people whether it is any good and how it could be made better - phrase your approach as questions, and you'll not only lessen your own burden of proof, but also engage people into considering your project together with you. Basically I think that the way you communicate with us here at the Forge would be fruitful on the Burning Wheel forums as well, assuming Luke's in favour of your continuing exploration of BW-Avalanche.
Selling periodicals is not a bad idea while you're getting the website up, by the by. Just be clear about your business plan in your marketing so that the audience knows what they're getting; roleplayers can be touchy about "having to pay more to keep up to date".
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Arkenstone Publishing
Posts: 192
Re: [Avalanche] - Playtesting with BW for the first time
Reply #18 on:
April 11, 2010, 05:15:47 AM »
Thanks for your advices Eero. Okay, I'll contact Luke and see what can be done. After all, letting a community decides for itself might seem like a good idea.
That said, I would like to ask some questions about handling out alpha testers. After some thoughts, I think it is best suited for another thread in publishing. I've got some ideas of my own, but I'm not sure this would work out. Anyway, this seems to me like prerequisites to beginning alpha and I need to wait a little ; I'll be receiving some new material (maps, and over fifty illustrations) that I'd like to incorporate into the alpha version.
As for selling periodical, I agree with you that this is a little "touchy". Good news : we have thought a lot about this and the plan seems to hold. Just remember two things about Avalanche :
- It is a very different product, thus I consider it could be sold very differently. Remember the notion of "add-on" ? Here is some parts of our answer.
- After all, Avalanche is pure fluff, some kind of illustrated novel. So far we only have the first part done (which is 400 pages and have 450 illustrations), if it's good enough there shouldn't be much problems selling out the continuing part as periodical.
Anyway, this won't be a pure periodical model, as we will throw in some bounty aspect. I do consider our strategy as a new publishing model (well suited for our product) and, as this is not the purpose of this thread, I'll stop talking about it. But I shall discuss it later on, when we're ready (just so much stuff to do at the moment).
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The news is official this morning: I've accepted the appointment to be the first "visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy" at the University of Colorado, Boulder for the academic year starting next fall. It was a long and arduous process with lots of uncertainty along the way about how such a project would work best. There has been a lot of criticism of CU for years for lacking any conservative presence on the faculty or in the classroom—a phenomenon that is endemic to large public research universities but less so at smaller private liberal arts colleges for reasons I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago. Matters at CU really came to a head after the Ward Churchill debacle, when critics argued that there was something incongruous about a major university tolerating a radical like Churchill while seemingly having no room for any conservatives. Well now they've made room.
I'll teach a regular course load like any other faculty member, and no doubt get into other shades of mischief along the way. Maybe if I do a good enough job, I can somehow sneak onto my own Power Line 100 Best Professors list. And I'm sure I'll be sharing highlights regularly here on Power Line.
I do recall that Rush Limbaugh has a very successful "bake sale" event in Fort Collins, Colorado. Maybe we'll have to try for a Power Line Pow-Wow (wait—can I say "pow-wow" on a college campus today?) at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs or something.
Meanwhile, does anyone know where the Whole Foods market in Boulder is? I'm sure it's mandatory to shop there.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Vistula River, Polish Wisła, largest river of Poland and of the drainage basin of the Baltic Sea. With a length of 651 miles (1,047 kilometres) and a drainage basin of some 75,100 square miles (194,500 square kilometres), it is a waterway of great importance to the nations of eastern Europe; more than 85 percent of the river's drainage basin, however, lies in Polish territory. The Vistula is connected with the Oder drainage area by the Bydgoszcz Canal. Eastward the Narew and Bug rivers and the Dnieper–Bug Canal link it with the vast inland waterway systems of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
The source of the Vistula is found about 15 miles south of Bielsko-Biała on the northern slopes of the western Beskid range, in southern Poland, at an altitude of 3,629 feet (1,106 metres). It flows generally from south to north through the mountains and foothills of southern Poland and across the lowland areas of the great North European Plain, ending in a delta estuary that enters the Baltic Sea near the port of Gdańsk. The average elevation of the Vistula basin is 590 feet above sea level; the mean river gradient is 0.10 percent, and the mean velocity in the river channel amounts to 2.6 feet per second. In addition to Poland's capital city, Warsaw, a number of large towns and industrial centres lie on the banks of the Vistula. These include Kraków, which was Poland's capital from the 11th century to the close of the 16th, Nowa Huta, Sandomierz, Płock, Toruń, Malbork, and Gdańsk. Numerous centres of tourism and recreation as well as many health resorts flank the Vistula valley. Here and there along the river rise the ruins of medieval strongholds, some of which have been restored.
Physical features
The present spatial pattern of the Vistula's tributary system and delta is the result of the changes in relief that occurred beginning about 30 million years ago. In the mountains the Vistula valley assumed its present shape much earlier and still reveals the way in which it has adapted itself to the geologic structure; in the lowland, on the other hand, the valley evolution was contingent on the history of the successive glaciations and, in particular, on changes during the interglacial period in which the Vistula abandoned its previous west–east valley and established its present northward course. The terminal part of the lower Vistula was finally stabilized in postglacial times, after the formation of the Baltic Sea.
A characteristic feature of the Vistula drainage basin is its asymmetry, with a predominance of right-bank over left-bank tributaries. This is the result of the general slant of the North European Plain in a northwesterly direction, which enabled the more powerful rivers of the Baltic drainage area to intercept the glacial streams flowing farther east.
The course of the Vistula consists of three principal sections delineated by the San and Narew rivers, the two most prominent tributaries. The upper reach extends from the source to where the San joins its parent river near Sandomierz; its length is about 240 miles. The middle reach, from the mouth of the San to that of the Narew, northwest of Warsaw, is about 170 miles long. Finally, the lower reach, extending to the Baltic, covers 240 miles from the mouth of the Narew to the mouth of the estuary into the Gulf of Gdańsk.
In its upper course the Vistula is a mountain stream with a steep gradient of up to 5 percent. Its main sources are the Czarna Wisełka and the Biała Wisełka, two brooks that meet to form the Mała Wisła ("Small Vistula"), which then flows northward. Some 25 miles farther on, the river gradient decreases suddenly to some 0.04 percent; from there, after turning eastward, the Vistula enters Lake Goczałkowice, an artificial storage basin built in 1955. Upon exiting the lake, the Vistula assumes the character of a lowland stream, with its gradient decreasing to 0.03–0.02 percent in the middle reaches and to 0.02–0.002 percent in its final stages. At a distance of 65 miles from the source, the Vistula is joined by the Przemsza River, a left-bank tributary, after which—for 585 miles—it is navigable. After the Soła and Skawa—two right-bank tributaries—join the river, the Vistula forces its way through a gap carved through a range of hills just before the city of Kraków. Channel improvements to this section have deprived the Vistula of much of its original character: several spillway steps have been constructed, creating a channel navigable by 300-ton barges. After passing through Kraków the Vistula turns to the east and, later, northeastward, crossing the wide Sandomierz Basin, where the valley is entered successively by the left-bank tributaries Szreniawa, Nida, Czarna, and Koprzywianka and from the right by the rivers Raba, Dunajec, Wisłoka, and San.
The inflow of the San River marks the beginning of the middle reaches of the Vistula, which then turns northward, breaching another gap through an upland area. In the course of its middle reaches the Vistula absorbs, from the left, the Radomka and Pilica and, from the right, the rivers Wieprz, Wilga, Świder, and Narew. Below the confluence with the Narew, where the lower reach of the river starts, the Vistula turns first to the west and then, after receiving the Bzura, a left-bank tributary, in a northwesterly direction; meanwhile from the right, the Skrwa and Drwęca join the river. In part of the valley, from the mouth of the Wieprz River to Toruń, the natural, untamed character of the Vistula predominates.
There the river runs in a channel 2,000 to 4,000 feet wide, practically devoid of controlling structures; in parts the valley reaches widths up to six to nine miles, with the banks often 200 to 330 feet high. The low gradient of the river channel and abundant sandbanks render navigation difficult; in spring, when the ice cover breaks up and floats downstream, dangerous ice dams may form, causing the flooding of surrounding areas and often destroying embankments and bridges. A spillway step constructed at Włoclawek in 1968 initiated a series of improvements that continued through the 1980s.
From Toruń to its entry into the Baltic, the Vistula has been turned into a fully improved waterway. The 19th-century Bydgoszcz Canal, following an ancient glacial valley, links the Vistula with the Oder, the second largest of Polish rivers. Also near Bydgoszcz the Vistula, having received a left-bank tributary in the Brda, turns northeastward in its third gap section, cut through the Pomeranian highlands. Above Grudziądz the river finally turns northward to approach the Baltic. After receiving three further tributaries—the Osa from the right and the Wda and the Wierzyca from the left—the Vistula enters Żuławy Wiślane, its delta area, renowned for its splendidly fertile soils. Żuławy is a forestless plain, partly below sea level, threaded by the Vistula and its branches, together with a great number of canals and drainage ditches. Some of the local embankments and dikes date to the 13th century. During World War II a great part of Żuławy was flooded, but improvements were made in the postwar years.
In the past the Vistula crossed its delta and entered the sea by two or more branch channels, notably the Nogat, which issued into the Vistula Lagoon, and the Leniwka (now called the Martwa Wisła), which followed the true Vistula channel to the Gulf of Gdańsk. Improvements, the ultimate aim of which was to control the Vistula's outlet to the sea and make the entire delta region economically productive, were initiated at the end of the 19th century: first, a cut toward the open sea was excavated near Świbno to facilitate floodwater runoff and the removal of debris and ice carried by the river; later, all lateral watercourses were separated by locks, rendering them navigable, with controlled flows; the Świbno cut was extended into the open sea by lengthening the controlling embankments. This last change was intended to prevent the accumulation at the river mouth of the more than two million tons of sediment carried down annually by the Vistula.
Climatic variations in the Vistula basin cause a diversity in runoff and hence marked oscillations in the water level of the river, which averages 12 feet in the upper, 25 feet in the middle, and up to 33 feet in the lower reaches. Protracted low-water periods, lasting from late summer well into spring, are frequent. These hamper or entirely interrupt navigation. Spring floods caused by melting snow and ice in the whole drainage basin and summer floods resulting from heavy rains in the foothill and mountain regions are common features. During the period 1951–80 the mean flow of the upper course of the Vistula averaged about 2,200 cubic feet (62 cubic metres) per second, with extremes of 410 and 52,620 feet per second; the average for the middle course was about 20,900 feet per second, with extremes of 3,810 and 199,530; and the average for the lower course was 38,500 feet per second, with extremes of 8,940 and 276,870. Exceptionally heavy floods occurred in 1924, 1934, 1947, 1960, 1962, 1970, 1997, and 2010. There are a number of storage reservoirs in the valleys of the mountain tributaries that are intended to counteract excessive floods. Some newer, larger storage basins have been built.
Usually ice forms on the surface of the Vistula in the first half of January, breaking up toward the end of February. In the upper and lower reaches the duration of the ice sheet is from 20 to 40 days, in the middle reach 40 to 60 days, and in the estuary section up to 20 days.
The quality of the Vistula's waters is affected by water-management structures such as dams and hydroelectric plants, by the discharge of municipal and industrial wastewater, and by agricultural and storm runoff. Although the upper reaches of the river remain relatively pure, the lower portions of the Vistula, in common with similar stretches of many of the great rivers of the world, exhibit a high degree of pollution.
The mean annual temperature of the Vistula water is 46 °F (8 °C) in the upper reaches and 49 °F (9 °C) in the middle and lower reaches; in the middle and lower parts of the river the water is some 4 °F (2 °C) warmer than the mean annual air temperature of Poland. In winter the water temperature is 36 to 37 °F (2 to 3 °C), and in summer it varies from 54 to 59 °F (12 to 15 °C). In river sections that are thermally affected by nearby industries, however, as in the regions of Kraków, Warsaw, and Włocławek, the water temperature is apt to be as much as 11 to 18 °F (6 to 10 °C) higher.
Plant and animal life
Higher-growth aquatic plant species most often encountered in the Vistula valley are, among plants submerged in the water, arrowhead (Sagittaria sagittifolia, variety vallisinfolia); among plants with floating leaves, the water lily (Nuphar luteum); and, among air-growing plants, sweet flag (Acorus calamus).
More than 40 kinds of fish exist in the Vistula. In the upper reach, turbot is the most common, with bream in the middle and lower reaches, and, in the waters of the estuary, salmon trout and vimba vimba. Species penetrating the river from the Baltic are found only sporadically.
The economy
The Vistula is connected with the Oder River by the Brda River, the Bydgoszcz Canal, and the Notec and Warta rivers; and in 1960 the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Poland agreed to establish permanent shipping lines along this route. In 1963 a canal was opened to avoid the natural hazards at the confluence of the Vistula and the Narew, improving the links between the Vistula and the waterways system to the east.
Despite the Vistula's potential role as a transport link between the heavy industrial centres of southern Poland and the Baltic ports, navigational hazards have restricted its traffic. Nevertheless, attracted by water supply and by the possibilities of cheap transport rates for bulk materials, a number of large industrial projects have sprung up along the Vistula.
The Vistula played a prominent part in the ancient history of Poland. Since early Stone Age times the river served both as a trade route and as a means of expansion, from both north and south, for various peoples and cultures. Initially, raw materials and flint tools journeyed northward, while amber was sent to the south. By the time of the Roman Empire, the Vistula was one of the principal trade routes leading into central Europe, and from that period date the first historical references—by the Classical geographers Pliny, Tacitus, and Ptolemy—to the Vistula and the Slav tribes living along its banks.
Much later, in the early period of the Polish state (10th–13th century), the most important goods shipped over the Vistula route were salt, timber, grain, and building stone. The most intensive development of the Vistula as a trade route came from the 15th to the 18th century, during which period a variety of hydraulic structures were put up, as well as embankments to provide flood protection. Many granaries and storehouses, built in the 14th century, line the banks of the Vistula.
At the end of the 18th century, the partition of Poland between Prussia, Austria, and Russia put an end to the economic importance of the Vistula. Minor navigation improvements were undertaken only locally, in Prussia and in Austria. The major 19th-century improvements in the region of the delta and the construction of the Bydgoszcz Canal have been mentioned above. From 1920 to 1939 very little was done to improve the river channel. It was only after World War II that concerted efforts were undertaken to restore the Vistula to its historic function as a navigable waterway. This was done by the construction of a number of storage reservoirs and spillway dams in the river and its tributaries: the purpose was to take advantage of the river's hydroelectric potential and, at the same time, to adapt the channel to the travel of freight barges of 600- to 1,000-ton capacity.
A number of institutions are concerned with research on the Vistula and with keeping the waterway in operation. The highest authority coordinating activities in the field of research and deciding on technical expenditures and on navigational improvements is the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources. In addition, hydrologic measurements and investigations as well as engineering studies are carried out by the Institute for Meteorology and Water Management.Władysław Parczewski Jerzy Pruchnicki
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
Poland: The coastal plain…the Gulf of Gdańsk, the Vistula (Wisła) River forms a large delta. Sandbars, on which the winds have created large dunes, line much of the coast, separating the coastal lakes and lagoons from the sea.…
Prussia…the west of the lower Vistula River, together with the Kulmerland (or Chełmno district) and Ermland (Warmia) to the east; and that part of Prussia east of the Vistula River (i.e., East Prussia) was left to the order only on condition that the grand, or high, master should hold it…
Warsaw: City siteWarsaw lies on the Vistula (Wisła) River, about 240 miles (386 km) southeast of the Baltic coast city of Gdańsk. It is situated in the middle of the Warsaw Plain, a glacier-formed basin that ranges from 250 to 380 feet (76 to 116 metres) above sea level. Divided into…
Baltic Sea: HydrologyIts longest rivers, the Vistula and the Oder, drain regions that have a temperate continental climate; they have low evaporation rates and become swollen by spring snowmelt, thus further reducing the salinity of the Baltic. The highest salinity is recorded in the western Baltic, where it is about 10…
European Plain: Drainage…Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula, which rise in the uplands of central Europe and flow in a general northwesterly direction across the lowlands to the North or Baltic Sea. Each of these rivers reveals distinct right-angle bends, the result of the Pleistocene ice sheets, the margins and terminal moraines…
More About Vistula River6 references found in Britannica articles
Assorted References
- Baltic Sea
- European Plain
- Oder River
- In Oder River
- Prussia
- In Prussia
- Warsaw


text:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Spring City Electrical is pleased to announce its selection as the supplier of LED luminaires for New York City's Central Park re-lighting project. Spring City will supply the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) with 1,588 LED luminaires starting this summer. The City of New York required a stringent evaluation process as well as a performance specification.
From August 2009 through January 2011, NYC DOT, Climate Group, a nonprofit focused on studying and promoting cities to adopt clean energy technologies worldwide, and the US DOE conducted studies on the performance of LED luminaires on the FDR Drive and a pedestrian path in Central Park. The tests measured illumination, color, energy consumption and other factors. The Climate Group worked with NYC DOT to collect data on the Spring City LED luminaire against five other LED luminaire manufacturers as well as a baseline metal halide baseline system. The Central Park LED luminaire by Spring City outperformed the four other luminaires and met the City's specifications for lighting. "The Central Park LED luminaire has been put through the most rigorous LED testing procedure the industry has ever seen. We feel that our engineering capabilities and customer service tied with our old world craftsmanship allowed us to be successful," said Chris Rosfelder of Spring City Electrical. Over 12 years, the selected Spring City Central Park LED Luminaire could produce as much as $1.6 million in energy savings. Both replacement trials showed promise. For instance, a full scale LED replacement program for Central Park could result in significant cost savings from a return on investment in six years.
In May 2012, the City began installing the Spring City LED luminaires along Central Park's pedestrian paths. As part of this effort, Central Park will be replacing its existing 175 HID, Metal Halide lamps (210 total system wattage) with Spring City's Central Park 67 system-watts LED luminaire. Spring City's luminaire is projected to yield up to 62% in annual energy savings as well as an annual maintenance savings of $29,618 which is based on component cost and lifecycle. In addition, the LED luminaires are estimated to save 314 tons of CO2 annually by consuming less energy. "The Spring City Central Park LED luminaire system will provide NYC a perfect fit. We have a long standing vendor relationship with NYC DOT and we're pleased to continue the relationship with this LED project. The classic historical replication design matched perfectly with the traditional Central Park luminaire design yet will be providing the park with superior energy and maintenance savings," stated Tracie Wolf of Spring City Electrical.
These LED luminaires will be placed on existing nine foot tall B-9 cast iron posts mostly manufactured by Spring City Electrical and some of which date back to 1911. Alan Brink of President of Spring City Electrical commented, "A LED system that will last well over 75,000 operating hours mounted on 100 year old lamppost is sustainability at its best and not to mention an outstanding lifecycle cost!"
Take a tour of the installation here.
About Spring City: Spring City's core business consists of cast ornamental lighting standards. A large design library and advanced data processing bring you full submittal drawings and specifications in minimum time. With Spring City, you can choose from the country's widest range of traditional styles or create your own custom designs. For more information, please visit www.springcity.com
For more information about our LED luminaires, contact Tracie Wolf at 610-948-4000 x 131 or via email firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
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SpotCommander is a remote control for Spotify for Linux, optimized for mobile devices. It's based on HTML5 & PHP, works on any device with a modern browser, and it's free and open source.
SpotCommander is the most elegant, intuitive, feature-rich & universal remote control for Spotify, exclusive for Linux users!
- Reponsive & intuitive user interface
- Launch/quit Spotify
- Now playing
- Control playback
- Adjust volume
- Toggle shuffle & repeat
- Playlists
- Starred items
- Search
- Browse playlists
- Browse albums
- Recently played
- Queue
- Lyrics
- Start track radio
- Play artists
- Top lists
- Popular playlists
- New albums
- Genres
- Share to social networks
- Gestures
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Android app
- Fullscreen on iOS
- Automatic update checking
Note: This must be done as root.
Install & configure required packages
- Install required packages:
$ pacman -S apache php php-apache php-sqlite qt4 inotify-tools xautomation wmctrl wget
- Enable PHP as described in the LAMP article
- Enable required PHP modules. In
/etc/php/php.ini, uncomment these:
extension=curl.so ... extension=pdo_sqlite.so ... extension=posix.so ... extension=sqlite3.so
- As root, create the file
/etc/httpd/conf/extra/spotcommander.confand add:
AddType text/cache-manifest .appcache <Directory "/srv/http/spotcommander"> AllowOverride All ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest "access plus 0 seconds" </Directory>
Note: If you are going to install in another directory than /srv/http/spotcommander, make sure you use the correct directory above.
- In
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, add to bottom:
Include conf/extra/spotcommander.conf
- Make Apache start when system boots:
$ systemctl enable httpd.service
Give Apache access to /tmp
- Open
/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.serviceand set:
- Some of the actions above requires a reboot to take effect, so you must reboot your system before continuing
Install SpotCommander
- Go into the web server root directory:
$ cd /srv/http/
- Download the tar.bz2 file:
$ wget -N http://www.olejon.net/code/spotcommander/files/spotcommander-8.7.tar.bz2
- Extract the tar.bz2 file:
$ tar -jxvf spotcommander-8.7.tar.bz2
- Remove the tar.bz2 file:
$ rm spotcommander-8.7.tar.bz2
- Go into the spotcommander folder:
$ cd spotcommander
- Set the correct permissions:
$ chmod 755 . $ chmod 755 bin/* $ chmod 777 cache/* $ chmod -R 777 db/ $ chmod 666 run/*
- Create symlink:
$ ln -fs $(pwd)/bin/spotcommander /usr/local/bin/spotcommander
- You must now start the daemon. Open up a desktop terminal (not SSH) as the desktop user running Spotify (not root), and run this command:
$ spotcommander start
By running it in the terminal the first time, you will be able to see if there are any errors.
- You should add the daemon to your startup applications. As root, create the file
/etc/xdg/autostart/spotcommander.desktopand add:
[Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=SpotCommander Exec=spotcommander start
Try it
- You should now be able to control Spotify by going to:
- To find out your current IP address, run this command:
$ ip addr
- Android users should download the Android app, which can find your computer automatically
It is not necessary to configure anything, but in the config.php file there are some options you can change.


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NEW YORK (Reuters) - From a photograph of an Alabama cotton picker's wife to scenes of urban poverty, the photographs of Walker Evans, on display in a new exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), shaped Americans' view of the Great Depression.
The exhibit, which runs through January 26, 2014, marks the 75th anniversary of Evans' one-person photography exhibit, the first in MoMA's history.
It also coincides with the publication of an anniversary edition of his landmark book, "American Photographs."
"Evans was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century," said Sarah Meister, the exhibit's curator. "His cool, pure vision revealed photography's lyric potential and inspired generations of photographers and other visual artists."
To help illustrate his influence, near the hall featuring Evans' photographs are galleries showing works by artists Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol.
"The placement underscores the connection between prewar avant-garde practices in America and the legacy of Evans' explorations of signs and symbols, commercial culture, and the experience of ordinary Americans," Meister said.
The exhibit is comprised of about 60 prints from the museum's collection that were included in the 1938 exhibition and book.
It features "Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer's Wife, 1936," a photograph that gazes out from the history textbooks of American high school students, evoking the bleak existence of agricultural workers in places where crop prices plummeted and the soil turned to dust.
"Poverty, rural and urban poverty, indigenous architecture, the automobile culture, movies - Evans found all of these subjects very interesting and he photographed them repeatedly in different ways before 1938," Meister said.
In "Sidewalk and Shopfront, New Orleans, 1935," a woman stands in a barber shop doorway, the stripes on her dress subtly connecting with those on the traditional barber shop pole.
"Negro Barber Shop Interior, Atlanta, 1936" is absent of customers, leaving the viewer to wonder who might be about to enter the shop or to contemplate the still life of the barber's chairs and accoutrements.
"Alabama Tenant Farmer Family Singing Hymns, 1936" prompts the viewer to wonder how the individuals in the picture felt about religion.
The titles of the photos in the exhibit, all taken in the midst of the Great Depression that began in 1929 and endured until the early 1940s, are slightly separated from the pictures, giving viewers more room to interpret the photos for themselves.
"When these photographs were first put forward in 1938, many had been made in the previous two or three years. They depicted a very specific, but also very fresh, perspective on what an American photograph was and, you might argue, on what America was," Meister said.
"Now one sees them through the lens of history and yet, 75 years later, these pictures resonate with audiences."
Reporting by Ellen Freilich; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Vicki Allen


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Cost-effective holidays
House-swap holidays are an inexpensive form of holiday, where you swap your home with another family for a period of your choosing. In some cases you can also swap cars. This type of holiday will give you the chance to experience everyday Danish life, as you stay in ordinary Danish residential areas and get to know Danish neighbours.
A house-swap agency can put you in contact with a Danish family that would like to swap their house for yours. Each agency will have different pricing and regulations, so do check these on their website, before you book.


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Nathan Urban Receives Simons Foundation Grant To Study Unreliability of Neuronal Responses in Autism
By Jocelyn Duffy
PITTSBURGH—Nathan Urban, the Dr. Frederick A. Schwertz Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences and head of the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, has received a $250,000 grant from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative to study the neuronal basis of unreliable sensory evoked responses in a model of autism.
The brain, as a biological organ, is composed of nerve cells that are connected to each other by structures called synapses. Neurons and synapses are rather unreliable devices, especially when compared to the components of electronic devices, such as computers. Collectively, however, neurons in the brain normally function to enable highly reliable responses to sensory stimuli.
Recent functional MRI (fMRI) studies from the lab of Carnegie Mellon Psychology Professor Marlene Behrmann suggest that in the brains of people with autism spectrum disorders, these mechanisms fail, resulting in unreliable responses to sensory stimuli. Researchers believe that these deficits could be related to the repetitive behaviors commonly associated with people with autism. Understanding the neural circuitry and biochemical pathways that underlie these symptoms provides a promising avenue for new treatments.
Under the new grant, Urban will study the responses of neurons in the brains of genetically modified mice that have been engineered to have some of the same genetic mutations known to occur in some individuals with autism. Using three different mouse models, Urban will determine whether alterations in single neurons, synapses or neuronal circuits contribute to changes in the reliability of sensory-evoked neuronal responses.
The Simons Foundation is a private foundation based in New York City. Its mission is to advance the frontier of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. The Autism Research Initiative seeks to improve the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders by funding, catalyzing and driving innovative research of the greatest quality and relevance.


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text:
Posts Taggedboost
Ever found your Mac too quiet, even though the volume is maxed out? In fact your Mac's speakers can pump out much louder sound than the volume limit permits, and it's sometimes necessary when showing presentations, watching movies, or listening to audio to give the volume an extra boost.
Boom, from Global Delight was awarded Best Of Show at this years Macworld Expo, and is a fantastic volume booster for breaking down the restrictive default volume limit. Along with simple volume boosting, Boom also packs a solid equalizer for fine tuning the sound, and the ability to boost the volume of individual audio files.
Let's take a look at this interesting new app!


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positive eia, indeterminate wb (INDETERMINATE WESTERN BLOT)
i dear bob i am john, a 33 years old, gay man from athens greece. after i notice white patches on my left tonsill and swollen glands in left side of my neck in early may, went for hiv test in 27 of may(state hospital). three days later i was informed that was indeterminate. they told me to run again the test immidiatly,so i did it in 30 of may. this time i wait 10 days for results but the come up the same (positive elisa indeterminate wb) they told me to give sample again so i did it, in 12 of june, i had my results today june 26, and was the same. this time they look also for p24 antigens and HIV RNA but they came up as undedectamble. the people of the lab say that they just cant give an anwser they say that this results can only apply in people that know to have hiv and have very succsefull treatment with hiv drugs(and even then the wb must be positive in the mosst most cases). i had no sex activity from end of april also today i take results for syphillis test also ,and came up positive (high vdlr.all the antipodies, igm and igg,fta etc) so what hapen i am hiv negative? and i had interaction from infection to syphillis? or i am still of posible hiv+ result(today i gave my 6th sample i was also havegave sample to an other hospital and was the same) i had multiple sex parteners but always with condoms(for anal sex only) i am not afraid the hiv i know is a chronic illness that cant threat my life if i monitor it. but i hate the unceenrtainty. friendly john (soory for my poor english writting bob i just have limited understanding of en glish)
Hi John,
Based on the information you provided, the tests indicate two things:
You are HIV negative, despite repeatedly indeterminate Western Blot tests.
You have syphilis and need to be treated.
Although I personally do not feel any additional HIV testing is warranted, if you remain concerned, see an HIV specialist. He will review your history, any physical findings and all your HIV test results to date. Most likely he too will conclude you are HIV negative. If needed, he will order follow-up tests. A DNA PCR may be helpful. I'll post some information form the archives regarding indeterminate Western Blot tests. See below.
Good luck.
Dr. Bob
inconclusive western blot (INDETERMINATE WESTERN BLOT) Jun 20, 2007
Elisa was positive, so western blot was done and came back inconclusive, then the same results in a month and then in 3. What does this mean
Response from Dr. Frascino
This is not an uncommon problem. See below.
Dr. Bob
indeterminate test results (INDETERMINATE WESTERN BLOT) Feb 17, 2007
I am a 24 yrs old heterosexual male. About 5 weeks ago I experienced a burring sensation in my urine after having non protective sex with a woman who now I am dating. I went to a walk in clinic and they prescribed me bacterium. After 1 week of that not working and a pain in my left side of my groin the clinic decided to do a whole STD test. Even a culture test for gonorrhea oh what fun!!(this was 14 days after the non protective sex)...6 days later I get my results back and I get a indeterminate test results(western blot) HIV on abnormal p24 and p40 nothing else. The doctor asks me my sexual history in the past 6 months and I tell them that the only person I was with was heterosexual sex with a college student that I am dating that had a STD check back in august and was negative for everything.(she says has only been with me since then) That day after telling me I don't have a lot to worry about he tells me we can do a antigen p24 test and viral load test just to make me feel a bit better. Both of these test with a standard blood test came back normal or negative. He reassured me again not to worry and to get another test in 4-6 weeks. I am an extremely high strung person and have been feeling a bit on the low side, along with a bit of sore throat and my tongue has been slightly sore. No fever or rash that I have seen on the Internet that goes along with a new infection. I don't know if these are factors of being extremely stressed about all this or a early HIV infection. What is your thoughts on the results of the negative p24 and viral load test based on my case. Also if I am negative what can throw the western blot of like this?
Response from Dr. Frascino
You mention your indeterminate Western Blot result, but fail to mention if you had a positive ELISA test first! Western Blot tests should only be run to confirm a positive HIV-antibody screening test (ELISA or equivalent test). See below. This question unfortunately comes up far too often and reveals the fact that some clinics or physicians don't understand basic HIV testing and screening procedures!
Dr. Bob
I think I figured out the mystery Dec 12, 2006
Dear Dr. Bob... I appreciate so much, the information I have obtained from your forum...due to all of your generous responses to us worriers... I believe I may have solved the mystery of my indeterminate HIV tests. I wrote you a few days ago but have not heard back and I would love to hear your take on this situation for I am still a bit nervous. I am the female who has had two indeterminate western blot tests, the first being a weakly reactive p24 and the 2nd...two months later...being a weakly reactive p24 and p40. The day after I got my blood drawn for the 2nd test I was so anxious about waiting for the results that I went and got a unigold rapid test at a clinic, and the result was negative. So... I was baffled to hear I was indeterminate once again on the 2nd western blot and that this time, it seemed to have progressed a bit. I also had an ultra sensitive RNA test done a week after my 1st indeterminate western blot and that was negative. Yesterday, I went to see and infectious disease Dr. who is taking over my case from my OBGYN. She seemed to think I was negative but not really sure, and she drew blood for an HIV1/2 Elisa/Western blot. Well, today, I suddenly realized that my results from the two western blot results said nothing about an Elisa. Assuming the Elisa had been ran, I wanted to make sure and I called my OBGYN who had ordered the tests. She said she was pretty sure she only ordered a western blot...the lab then confirmed that I had not had elisas done.
I'm thinking...WHATTTT?? How can this happen...doesn't every Dr., especailly an OBGYN know that you have to run an elisa first? I've been distressed for 2 months!!! I'm hoping this means that I'm probably fine and that the rapid test result is more reliant?
I have to wait three weeks to get my Elisa result from the infectious disease Dr... and I'm hoping, in the meantime, you can shed some light on my situation. Do you think these reactions are HIV 1 or 2 and if not, should I be concerned about these reactions? All other STDs have been ruled out and the only person I could have gotten HIV from has tested negative on the orasure advance rapid 5 months out from his last partner and I haven't been sexual with him in almost three months. From reading your forum I learned that you must always run an Elisa first because Western Blots can yield a high amount of false positives if done without first getting a reaction from an Elisa?
Is this right? Does this mean I'm probably fine and I can breath again?
Thanks so much Dr. Bob for all you do... I will definitely make a donation when I am back to work and that's from the goodness of my heart and my true appreciation for you and your necessary services. And that is of course regardless of whether I receive a response from you. I read that someone actually accused you of only responding to those who say they're going to donate and that is a ridiculous accusation...it is appearant that you provide this service from the goodness of your heart to help those who need answers and suffering from anxiety.
Thanks Dr. Bob
Response from Dr. Frascino
Congratulations on solving your own medical mystery using clues found in the archives!
The standard HIV-screening blood test consists of an EIA (enzyme immunoassay), like an ELISA, followed by a confirmatory Western Blot (WB). EIA screening requires a "repeatedly reactive" test, which is the criterion for Western Blot testing. Western Blot tests detect antibodies to HIV-1 proteins, including core proteins (p17, p24, p55), polymerase proteins (p31, p51, p66) and envelope glyco-proteins (gp41, gp120, gp160). Western Blot testing should always be coupled with EIA screening, because alone it has a 2% rate of false-positives. A positive WB is defined as reactivity at gp120/160 plus either gp41 or p24. An indeterminate Western Blot is defined as the presence of any band pattern that does not meet the criteria for a positive result.
Bottom line: you are HIV negative.
Be well. Stay well. Happy Holidays.
Dr. Bob
Indeterminate result Apr 25, 2004
Dear Dr. Bob, I recently had a HIV 1 test, and it came back as indeterminate. The results read "Viral bands observed, weakly reactive p31, HIV-1 Western Blot - indeterminate." I have been with the same person for the last 3 years, and we have both tested negative in the past. We do not engage in risky behavior (we don't do drugs, and we are monogamous). I don't feel sick and don't have any symptoms. However, I am very scared because of the result. What is the possibility that caused this result, and does the result mean that I may be HIV positive? What are my chances? Do I have any reason to worry? Thanks.
Response from Dr. Frascino
Why did you have a Western Blot test done? Western Blots have a 2% false-positive rate. They must always be coupled with an ELISA test. "Indeterminate" Western Blot (WB) results can occur in 4% to 20% of assays. There are a variety of reasons why this occurs. Indeterminate results mean the test pattern does not meet the criteria for a positive result.
You have no identifiable risk factors for HIV. I do not believe you are HIV positive or in the process of seroconverting. (The anti-p24 is usually the first band to appear.) I do not believe you have any cause for worry. I would suggest you have an ELISA test. If negative, you can be reassured of your negative status. You should only repeat the WB if your ELISA is positive, which is highly unlikely.
Stay well.
Dr. Bob
inderminate WB test (INDETERMINATE WESTERN BLOT) Feb 9, 2007
I tested positive in teh ELISA test and have an inderminate result in the WB test. In my opinion, I am a low risk person. In the past 3 years, I have had unprotected sex with 2 different guys, one being in the military, who has tested negative and one who was married for 10+ years before me. I am unsure what bands showed up on my WB test. What is the percentage of an inderminate WB test turning into a positive HIV test? I was told I could not get tested again for 3 months and I have asked my 2 recent sex partners to get tested.
Response from Dr. Frascino
Indeterminate Western Blot tests account for 4% to 20% of Western Blot assays in various studies. The causes of indeterminate results include:
Serologic tests in the process of seroconversion; anti-p24 is usually the first antibody band to appear.
Late-stage HIV infection, usually with loss of core antibody.
Cross-reacting nonspecific antibodies, as seen with collagen-vascular disease, autoimmune diseases, lymphoma, liver disease, injection drug use, multiple sclerosis, parity or recent immunization.
Infection with O strain or HIV-2.
HIV vaccine recipients.
Technical or clerical error.
The most important factor in evaluating indeterminate Western Blot test results is risk assessment. Patients in low-risk categories with indeterminate tests are almost never infected with either HIV-1 or HIV-2; repeat testing often continues to show indeterminate results and the cause of this pattern is often not elucidated. For this reason, it's important to realize that HIV infection in situations like yours is extremely unlikely, although a follow-up test in three months is recommended to provide absolute assurance. Patients with indeterminate tests who are in the process of seroconversion usually have positive Western Blots within one month. DNA PCR may also be helpful for sorting out indeterminate serologic test results. An HIV specialist can help assess your HIV risk and interpret HIV test results if necessary.
Good luck.
Dr. Bob


text: « Return to Search Massachusetts Eye and Ear/HMS Department of Ophthalmology Awarded Grants from Research to Prevent Blindness July 01, 2013 Boston (July 2013) – Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) has awarded grants to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) to support research into the causes, treatment and prevention of blinding diseases. Mass. Eye and Ear/HMS researchers Demetrios Vavvas, M.D., Ph.D., Kip M. Connor, Ph.D., and Chunyan Qiao, M.D., Ph.D., have also been awarded grants from the organization. An RPB grant of $110,000 has been awarded to Mass. Eye and Ear/HMS Department of Ophthalmology. The grant will support research directed by Joan W. Miller, M.D., Chief of Ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. An RPB International Research Scholar Award in the amount of $3,000 was awarded to Chunyan Qiao, M.D., Ph.D. RPB's International Research Scholars Awards enable foreign scientists to collaborate with their American counterparts in eye research. Upon returning home, investigators are expected to apply their new knowledge to the prevention and treatment of eye diseases. Dr. Qiao is conducting research in the lab of Dr. Janey Wiggs. Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Institute researcher Kip M. Connor, Ph.D., was awarded the Research to Prevent Blindness Sybil B. Harrington Special Scholar Award for Macular Degeneration in the amount of $55, 000. The award, part of RPBs Special Scholar Program, is designed to support outstanding young scientists who are conducting research of unusual significance and promise. Dr. Connor is an ophthalmology researcher in the Howe Laboratory of Ophthalmology at Mass. Eye and Ear. Massachusetts Eye and Ear researcher Demetrios Vavvas, M.D., Ph.D., was awarded a $100,000 RPB Physician-Scientist Award. The award allows physicians at medical institutions in the United States to devote more time to clinical eye research activities, providing greater opportunities for specialized study with direct application to the human condition. "We are grateful for the continued support from Research to Prevent Blindness. Their funding is essential to our research programs to find cures for diseases that cause blindness and visual impairment worldwide," said Dr. Miller. About Massachusetts Eye and Ear Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. Now united with Schepens Eye Research Institute, Mass. Eye and Ear is the world's largest vision and hearing research center, developing new treatments and cures through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation. For more information about life-changing care and research, or to learn how you can help, please visit MassEyeAndEar.org. About Research to Prevent Blindness RPB is the world's leading voluntary organization supporting eye research. Since it was founded in 1960, RPB has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to medical institutions throughout the United States for research into blinding eye diseases. For information on RPB, RPB-funded research, eye disorders and the RPB Grants Program, go to www.rpbusa.org.


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The shooter came across the adjoining rooftops, wearing a soft guitar case as a backpack. Inside, there was a gun: a Century Sporter .308-caliber semi-automatic with a 20-round magazine, the same class of rifle he'd learned to use while doing his military service in Iran. It was a chilly night, November 11, 2013, and the moon was shining, half full. He made his way across the outdoor art gallery that the young men living in the building at 318 Maujer Street, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, had fashioned on their roof. One of the last things he must have seen before beginning his killing spree was the 14-foot mural, by the Iranian artists Icy and Sot, of a girl with a red-white-blue-and-yellow peace sign splashed across her accusing face.
He climbed down onto the terrace of the third floor of the building—a plain white building, once a commercial property, now home to the Yellow Dogs. They were an indie rock band from Tehran, a collection of four beautiful-looking boys, all in their 20s, with wild dark hair and inky almond-shaped eyes. Their hard-driving, psychedelic postpunk shows were drawing crowds in the Brooklyn music scene and beyond, and their house on Maujer Street was always full of friends, groupies, music, partying, full of life. They had re-created a little piece of home for themselves there, where they were always surrounded by each other, never alone; they cooked and smoked and sat and joked and spoke in Farsi to one another, just as they had been doing that night.
They had left Iran because playing their music was illegal there, not approved by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance; but the Yellow Dogs had never been political by design. "We don't want to change the world—we just want to play music," their lead singer, Siavash "Obash" Karampour, told CNN in 2009, in what was considered to be a risky interview, exposing their underground scene. That same year, they left behind their families, all of whom supported them in immigrating to the United States. "I see the humanity between him and his bandmates," Obash's mother told CNN; she wore a veil. More than a band, the Yellow Dogs were a brotherhood.
The shooter was on a mission to end all that.
Fighting for the Right to Party
The story of the Yellow Dogs is really the story of three Iranian bands: Hypernova, the Yellow Dogs, and the Free Keys. All say they're not politically minded, but it's almost impossible to talk about their origins and their journey to America without talking about conditions in Iran at the time of their coming-of-age. They were the first generation after the Iranian revolution. During the eight-year war with Iraq (1980–88), some were young children, others not yet born. By the time the boys in the first bands of the new Iranian rock movement became teens, in the mid-90s, there was a growing restless spirit among the young.
Kids—typically more secular kids who lived in cities—were now into fashion; they wanted to drink alcohol and listen to American music, like kids all over the world. Many of the things they wanted were forbidden by the Islamic republic, but there were always ways to get them, if you had the resources. The free-market policies of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president from 1989 to 1997, were growing the economy. A class of people had become quite wealthy, and their children had the funds with which to finance some fun. There was skiing at the spectacular Shemshak ski resort, about an hour north of Tehran. "We had a party with weed on a boat on the Caspian Sea," says Nima Behnoud, 37, the fashion designer.
None of this was really surprising, given Iran's level of modernization, pre-revolution, but it was all in contrast to images of the country that were being presented by the Western media. "I didn't even know Iran had pavement," says the artist Amir H. Akhavan, 33, who went back to Tehran from America with his family when he was a teen. "I was expecting to land in an oasis with camels," but instead "there were all these very cool, educated people."
And they were having parties—wild blowouts which became heightened in intensity because they were illicit, underground. Although the scene consisted of only about a thousand people, they were the type of people who knew how to work the system—many of them private-school kids from the Horace Manns and Daltons of Tehran. "We were exactly like American kids," says the filmmaker Nariman Hamed, 31. "We were on a mission to party. Our parents were revolutionaries—they had defied the Shah's regime—and now we were taking that energy and fighting the police to party." In the basements and living rooms of well-off kids there was liquor and pot and boys and girls, all dancing together. There was even a burgeoning hookup culture.
But there was not a lot of live music. There were D.J.'s who played electronic and house music; there was not much rock 'n' roll. Enter Raam Emami, a.k.a. King Raam, now 33, then an Iranian teen who had spent his childhood in America while his father, a college professor, was getting his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. While doing his mandatory military service back in Iran, Raam met Kami Babaie, who could play the drums, and—bonding over their love of illegally obtained Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin CDs—in the year 2000 they decided to form a band. "For the first few years it was basic rock covers" at the house parties of their rich friends, says Raam. "We were just having fun. And then I came to the realization, We may be onto something bigger here."
Mohammad Khatami, president from 1997 to 2005, had a reformist platform, which advocated for opening a dialogue with the West and promised a more tolerant society; his administration saw the end of the infamous Chain Murders of the 80s and 90s in which dissident political figures, intellectuals, and artists were killed. And so Raam, as front man, drummer Kami, and guitarist Poya Esghai, then known as the Untitled, were relatively unharassed as they performed live shows in clandestine studios and an underground parking lot. In 2005, when Kami and Poya went off to study abroad, Raam started looking for new musicians among the "skater punk kids" hanging out in Ghori Park, also known as "the Frog Park," for its abundance of frogs, in the northern part of Tehran.
"It was like the Haight-Ashbury of Tehran," says Obash Karampour, 24. "Kids would come out there to smoke a joint with their friends. It was the only park that had [graffiti] tags, even in the bathrooms." The future members of the Yellow Dogs all hung out there—Obash, Koroush "Koory" Mirzaei, and Soroush "Looloosh" and Arash Farazmand (they were brothers; their parents, Farzaneh Shabani and Majid Farazmand, are well-known screenwriters). Then in their mid-teens, they represented a new wave. "They were very fresh," Raam says. "They were just really cool." From among this crowd he invited Koory to be a bassist and Looloosh to be a guitarist in a new band, Hypernova. Now their two scenes had merged.
While the rich kids in Tehran had parties and designer clothes and luxury cars (Iran's second-biggest industry, after oil, is cars), the kids of Ghori Park were more middle-class, into punk rock and street art. These were kids who—with Internet access granted by a friend whose father had DSL through a government job—were listening to the Strokes, Modest Mouse, and the Clash, and watching Jackass, for which they had a special love. The rebelliousness and absurdity of the show seemed to appeal to them, kids whose days started off with chanting "Death to America" in schools where their fellow classmates could be spies for the authorities and beatings were common. Pooya Hosseini, 28, a founding member of the Free Keys, says his teachers "beat me up so bad. A huge man kicking my chest when I'm 12."
Pooya was, by his own account, "the worst kid ever," always in trouble—but his mother and father, a college professor, were tolerant and supportive, even when Pooya and his friends started to build an elaborate music studio and quasi-nightclub in the basement of their house. Friends donated money to outfit the place with soundproofing and instruments. It was a musical clubhouse with graffiti and pictures of Kurt Cobain and the Beatles on the walls. Known to kids simply as Zirzamine—"the Basement"—it became a central gathering spot for a new Iranian counterculture. Reminiscent of American hippies in the 60s—they even grew out their hair—the kids there explored alternative religions (Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Iran) and pondered the poetry of Omar Khayyám. "It was the whole thing of 'Be yourself. Do what you wanna do,' " says Anthony Azarmgin, 28, a sometime bassist for the Free Keys. "The first time I went there, I was like, What is this, a political gathering? But no, they were watching a live show on the computer, playing Xbox, getting high, jamming out."
The Yellow Dogs—who took their name from a Farsi expression meaning a troublemaker, a rascal—formed there in 2006 (then with drummer Sina Khorrami), and so did the Free Keys, with Pooya as guitarist, Arya Afshar as bassist, and Arash as drummer. The Yellow Dogs played their first live show there in 2007. "They"—the kids in the audience—"were losing their virginity to the rock 'n' roll," says Obash. "It was a macaroni salad of kids."
In the Basement, they talked about their dreams, how they would one day go to New York. And there was another kid who sometimes came, a quiet, somewhat awkward redheaded boy named Ali Akbar Rafie. The shooter.
Persia's Cool Cats
'This is what shocks me," says Anthony Azarmgin. "Arash and him"—the shooter, Ali Akbar, who went by "A.K."—"were tripping on acid together. I was on the road with my bike in India, in Goa, and I saw these two having fun, laughing their asses off. Just running around. And then how could someone do that, when they shared something like that trip? How can you be so fuckin' dark?"
People who knew A.K. then say there was never any indication that four years later he would kill Arash, 28; his brother Looloosh, 27; and an Iranian-American singer-songwriter named Ali Eskandarian, 35, who happened to be living with them at the time. Or himself, at 29. "He didn't seem aggressive," Anthony says. "Later, people said he was driving them crazy, using their belongings and stealing money. But he seemed harmless."
Between 2008 and 2009, some of the boys in the Basement scene spent time in India together—Pooya, Arash, Anthony, Koory, and a few others, including A.K., who was then the bassist for a metal band called Vandida. He came from a more conservative, religious family than the other boys, but he was part of their world, a kid who was into rock. So it wasn't unusual that he would come along on their trip—which was inspired by the desire to visit Goa, "the Burning Man of India," as well as the fear of the Iranian government's retribution for some of them having appeared in No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009), which was coming out the following year. "We were scared to stay in Iran," says Pooya.
Persian Cats was a film by Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi about the underground rock scene in Tehran (it won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes). Although fictionalized, the film depicted the way Iranian rock bands formed and played and used shadowy brokers to obtain passports to get out of the country. It showcased several actual bands, including the Yellow Dogs and the Free Keys. And some of it was filmed in the Basement. It was an explicit indictment of censorship in Iran. Ghobadi now lives in exile in Europe.
India was a way station for the boys, but they hoped, as one put it, to find a way to "get the hell out of Iran." During the conservative, hard-line regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president from 2005 to 2013, basic human rights in the country had deteriorated. Many of the kids from the Basement scene had been arrested for petty infractions; one of their friends had been charged with "Satan worship" for being in a rock band.
Meanwhile, Hypernova was finding some success in the United States. In 2007 the band had been invited to play at the SXSW (South by Southwest) Music Festival, in Austin. Such an invitation was all they needed to apply for temporary artists' visas to come to America. Since Koory and Looloosh hadn't done their military service yet, and therefore didn't have passports, Raam had re-formed the band with Kami, Kodi Najm, and Jam Goodarzi. "Being from the 'Axis of Evil,' " Raam says, "it was a nightmare for us to get visas."
But they did, in Dubai—with the help of a letter from Senator Charles Schumer, of New York, who was persuaded they were culturally relevant—and within days of landing in the United States they were being interviewed by ABC, MTV, and The New York Times, enjoying the kind of fame usually awarded a much bigger band. They had a built-in myth: they were the indie rockers who had escaped Iranian oppression. The sudden attention, Raam says, "was very dangerous for all of us. We were these exotic animals—and they can play instruments."
Within two years, they went from sleeping on friends' couches in New York to touring with the vintage British rock band Sisters of Mercy and living the high life in L.A. "We were partying with famous people every day, doing lines with famous people," Raam says. "It gets to your head, that bullshit." They had a deal with an indie label, Narnack Records. And they had a manager, an Iranian-American from Texas named Ali Salehezadeh, 32, who worked in advertising. In 2007, Ali caught a Hypernova show at a downtown venue in New York and offered to help. "He knew nothing about music at all," says Raam. "He saw our band and fell in love with this whole movement."
Ali says he learned how to manage a band by doing research online; and, because he came from a marketing background, it was his feeling that Hypernova needed a brand. Their L.A. experience was affecting their look and sound; they became darker and edgier, started dressing in modish three-piece suits. "What have we done? What have we become?" Raam sang in Hypernova's song "American Dream" (2010).
The Yellow Dogs—Obash, Looloosh, Koory, and Sina Khorrami—arrived in New York in January of 2010. In the footage Raam shot of picking them up at Kennedy Airport, they are slack with relief and joy. They had been living on and off for months in Turkey, where they had applied for their visas (also secured with an invitation from the SXSW festival). "I got choked up when I saw them for the first time," says Kodi Najm, 24, of Hypernova. "I had a guilty feeling about being here and being slightly successful while they were still back in Iran."
They moved into the apartment in Williamsburg shared by Raam and Ali, their new manager. In footage from one of their first nights in America, they are dancing around the kitchen. "It was our dream coming true," says Koory, 25, "to be in the city where our heroes lived." "We knew all these New York bands," Obash says. "The Rapture, Interpol, Blondie. We knew about the Brooklyn scene." Where they fit right in. Before coming to America, they had never heard the word "hipster." "I Googled it," Koory says, "and then I realized, I am one!" And now that they were free to play music, they just wanted to play—they didn't care where or for how much. They played their first New York show at Cameo Gallery, a Williamsburg bar. Over the next two years, they built up a following, playing their danceable punk-rock tunes at venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan—the Brooklyn Bowl, the Mercury Lounge. In footage shot by Nariman Hamed one night in Williamsburg, they are walking along when some random fans recognize them and begin shouting, "Yellow Dogs! Yellow Dogs!" The boys shout back, "Yeah!" "They were so excited to be living this life," says Pablo Douzoglou, 29, a Venezuelan who was their drummer between 2011 and 2012.
The giant loft they all moved into together on North 10th and Berry in Williamsburg, with Raam and Ali, in 2010 (it was an abandoned building in terrible shape), became a hub. Raam called it "the Sanctuary." "We always had 15 to 20 people living in that house," he says. "We had the wildest parties. It was Iranian musicians, painters, photographers. It was the same vibe we had in Iran, but without the fear." "Everybody talked about their parties," says Janelle Best, front woman for the indie band Desert Stars. "They had all-night bashes that were a lot of fun."
But more than partying, the Yellow Dogs were creating a community; they fed everyone Persian food. "You were part of a family when you were with them," says Pablo Douzoglou. "They were kids living together with this sense of brotherly love, of belonging somewhere."
And their carefree, playful attitude was giving new life to their old friends in Hypernova. "They were a reminder of what I felt before I came here," says Raam. In the summer of 2010, Hypernova and the Yellow Dogs went on tour together. They played more than 30 shows in five states and D.C., traveling across the country in vans. There was cigarette smoking and pot smoking in the Yellow Dogs' van and sometimes the consuming of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Along for the ride, and sometimes singing with the band, was Ali Eskandarian, a soulful-voiced artist and musician who grew up in Dallas; he had moved into the loft on Berry Street soon after his first visit there. He called the Yellow Dogs "the kids." They called him "Capitaine."
Eschewing their manager's nightly stipend for a hotel, the Yellow Dogs insisted on camping, as they often had in Iran. They pitched a tent in Yosemite. "Looloosh wanted to fish," Obash says affectionately. They fell in love with America. "The nature!" Koory exclaims. "I was like, Oh my God, this is not fair, 'cause America's so beautiful! We saw desert, snowy mountains, forests, and each of those are like the most beautiful one that we ever saw! I was like, This is not fair—even the desert in America is beautiful!"
And Americans they encountered fell in love with them. They played a sold-out show at the Troubadour in L.A. And in South Carolina they befriended a group of rural southerners in a bar. "I was afraid, the way they look, people were going to think they're terrorists," says Aaron Johnson, 31, then a keyboardist for Hypernova. But within minutes, he says, people were buying them drinks, playing pool with them. "They just wanted to know about them, their culture. They were, like, the best ambassadors."
The Brotherhood
'They did have that brotherhood," Anthony Azarmgin says. "And it was very hard to get into that brotherhood, and if they didn't like you, they would shut you off. They did it to me. And I did see it happening with Ali Akbar." The shooter.
He was referring to a time in 2011 when he was living with the Yellow Dogs in the loft on Berry Street (having dual citizenship, he was able to travel to the United States freely), and he made some faux pas that ruffled feathers, including dating a girl who had formerly dated one of their crowd. "So they kicked me out."
He acknowledges that the situation was his fault ("I was being a dick"), but being kicked out of the circle that had embraced him sent him into a tailspin of loneliness and self-doubt. Though he says he later "worked it out" with them, he still feels they were "treating people differently, treating them like 'You're cool enough'; 'You're not.' It wasn't like that in Iran. America changes people."
The Great Divide
In December of 2011, the Free Keys finally made it to New York. They had been on a long road, from Iran to India, back to Iran, and then to Turkey. Their artists' visas had been arranged with an invitation from the reliable SXSW festival. The band was now Pooya, Arash, and A.K. as bassist. Arya, the original Free Keys bassist, wasn't able to get a passport, as he hadn't done his military service in Iran, and since you needed to apply for the artists' visas as an entire band, A.K. was asked to join them. "He was a bass player with a passport, basically," Obash says grimly.
Ali had met with the Free Keys, including A.K., on a trip he made to Iran. He said that he would help them book gigs and obtain their visas, as he had done with the Yellow Dogs. He did not offer to be their manager. He had another reason for wanting to get the band to America: the Yellow Dogs needed a drummer. Sina, their original drummer, had moved to Canada; Pablo Douzoglou was only filling in. "At that point," says Ali, "we decided Arash"—a very talented drummer—"is going to be in the band." Arash was apparently in accord with this plan, and it was Pooya's understanding that Arash would drum for both groups. "We were waiting for Arash," says Koory.
It wasn't only the prospect of having Arash play with them that made the Yellow Dogs want the Free Keys to join them in New York. "One of the reasons we got the 318 Maujer house was it was too big for us," Obash says, "and we had it in our heads the Free Keys might come. We were always missing the community we had in Iran. So we said, Let's make this place the Shangri-la for this community to bloom in America."
But from the moment the Free Keys arrived in the United States, there were problems. The atmosphere at the Yellow Dogs' new place on Maujer Street was much like at the Berry Street loft (minus Hypernova, which temporarily disbanded when Raam moved to London); it was a freewheeling zone with music and partying. And the Free Keys were arguing.
"The first two days, they were nonstop arguing," Koory says—about whether "they should play or shouldn't play shows, if they should start practicing," says Ali, who also lived in the house. They were sleeping in the living room, in the middle of the space, and the tension between them seemed to fill the air.
In addition, A.K. was making them all uncomfortable. At first, they thought "he was an O.K. guy," Obash says, "but the chemistry he had with us wasn't like the chemistry we had with Arash and Pooya"—their friends for almost a decade, who seemed to be having issues with A.K. too: his freeloading, his habits. "Arash always said he smelled like chicken," says Pooya.
And one of the first nights he was in America, A.K. did some things that shocked them all. They were at Union Pool, a Williamsburg bar, when he walked out wearing a jacket he had stolen. Minutes later, in the subway, he jumped the turnstile. "And I was like, Man, you just came from Iran. Aren't you grateful that you are in this country?" says Koory. They were all seeking political asylum and were afraid they could be deported if arrested. "He laughed at us," Pooya says of A.K. "He said, 'You're scared'; he was telling us, 'You're pussies.' "
Also, problematically, A.K. wasn't cool. "We were having parties," Koory says, "and he was just being weird to our friends; to girls, he would be sleazy."
After less than a month, the Yellow Dogs say they asked the Free Keys to leave Maujer Street. "We told them, Go find yourself," Ali says. They moved into a short-term sublet in Brooklyn Heights, a one-bedroom for the three of them. They tried for a few months to make their band happen, playing three shows at small Brooklyn venues, but they had problems finishing a set. "Ali Akbar never wanted to practice," Pooya says, "and he wasn't good." And they had musical differences. A.K. was into metal, while the Free Keys were an alternative rock band.
In April, Arash started drumming for the Yellow Dogs; he moved back into Maujer Street, and Pooya did as well. Pooya kicked A.K. out of the Free Keys. A.K. was now living alone in an apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. It was May of 2012.
In Exile
'Tell Ali Akbar fuck him and if he doesn't pay me by August 10th [2012], I will request for additional money (for my services and delayed in payment) and even look into getting the law/police involved. I am not kidding and not afraid to cancel his visa—and yes we can do that," Ali wrote in an e-mail sent in July of 2012. He was reacting to A.K.'s having requested to see the receipt (attached to the e-mail) from Tamizdat Artist Services, the American visa broker Ali had used to help the Free Keys renew their three-month artists' visas; Ali had advanced the money. The cost was $875 per applicant, and the invoice shows that Ali wasn't overcharging anyone. But A.K. was convinced that he was being cheated; he was calling, showing up at Maujer Street, accusing. "I was frustrated," says Ali. "At that time, too, we were starting to think as a group, Wow, this guy is really out there. He was acting psycho."
When Koory showed A.K. the receipt for the visa application, he says, "he was like, No, this is fake—you did a Photoshop. He made no sense. And when I saw his face, that he believed we were making money off him, I saw this guy obviously has problems. I was like, Thank you. I had a good time with you. Let's not be friends. You don't like us—you say it yourself." "It wasn't even our problem," says Ali. They say they told him, Forget about the money—just don't come back.
For the next 15 months, A.K. lived on his own in Queens and worked as a bike messenger for Breakaway, a courier service in Manhattan. "He was really nice and easygoing," says a former fellow messenger. "He said he played bass in a band. He didn't speak a lot of English, so the job was hard for him, 'cause it involves a lot of communication," but "he never lost his cool." He was likely making around $500 a week, the average for messengers at the company.
"He had a lot of misconceptions about America," says Andrew Young, Breakaway's general manager. "He got sick and I was like, 'Well, do you have health insurance?' And he said, 'What's that? Can't I just go to the doctor?' "
A report from a deli owner in A.K.'s neighborhood said that he would often buy a 24-ounce beer on his way home. "He didn't seem to have an alcohol or drug problem," his co-worker says. He was losing weight. He kept a baseball cap on; just 29, he was almost completely bald.
And on Facebook he seemed to be developing an interest in conspiracy theories, delivering rants about the Illuminati. He was seen riding his bike around the Yellow Dogs' neighborhood. "I thought maybe he's going to see one of us in the street and hit us," says Koory. He appeared at an art show on a roof in SoHo in August of 2012 that Ali had arranged for Icy and Sot. The street-artist brothers, Saman, 28, and Sasan Sadeghpour, 23, knew the Yellow Dogs from their Ghori Park days. They had arrived in the United States in July. (Ali was now their manager, too; he'd helped them get their visas.) Ali got security guards to escort A.K. out.
When A.K. came upon Ali, Anthony, Arash, and Sot one night at Union Pool, in mid-2012, he got into a fistfight with Anthony—who was now back in the Free Keys, which had re-formed with new members Pooya had found on Craigslist. The band was playing shows, doing well. "He came up to us," Anthony says, "and he was like, What's up, Amajoon"—a nickname the Yellow Dogs had for Anthony. "I was like, Don't talk to me, man. First you gotta pay Ali your money."
Their confrontation ended in violence, outside on the street, where Anthony put his knee in A.K.'s chest and struck him on the jaw. "It was weird," Anthony says. "Every time I hit him, he would laugh."
The following night, Anthony says, A.K. "texts me on Skype and says, 'I will find you and I will fucking kill you.' " Anthony went to Maujer Street to warn the Yellow Dogs about what had happened, but he says they shrugged it off. "Koory was like, Don't worry—this is America."
Conspiracy of One
'Dude," A.K. texted one of his old friends in August of 2013. "You paid for our utilities and stuffs and I appreciate that and wanna pay it back! That's it!! But about us I don't actually remember why me and you had so much arguments and I don't care anymore . . . to me it's like I lost my best friend and that's important, and it's no good for me to be separated, it's good for you cause I'm the bad guy. . . . And I miss you too."
The person to whom he sent the text wrote back: "Ali poolesho mikhad"—"Ali wants his money."
In late October, three weeks before the shooting, A.K. quit his job. "He felt he wasn't being treated fairly by the dispatchers," says his co-worker at the courier service. "He was having an increasingly hard time. His bike got stolen. He lost his cell phone. Then he left."
With no job, no means of transportation or communication, his mental state seemed to unravel. He told people he'd left Breakaway because he had been asked to deliver a suspicious package to the World Financial Center. He was telling friends that he was going to kill himself. People didn't take him seriously; they joked around with him about it on Facebook, suggesting ways for him to do it.
"And I'm still right here!" he posted. "Did you slit your wrists?" someone joked in Farsi. "No, man," he wrote back, "it will hurt." He told friends that he had tried to kill himself by taking an overdose of pills. Again, no one seemed to believe him.
It was about a week before the shooting when someone who knew him received a call from his mother in Tehran. "His mother said, Why don't you want to see my son anymore?" says his former friend. "I said, He did some bad things. He did this and that. She said, My son is not like that at all."
The day before the shooting, A.K. posted a picture on Facebook of a Spanish-made, Century Sporter .308-caliber rifle. It was sitting in a box with a zip tie attached to the magazine spring. "In chetore," he wrote in Farsi—"How's this?"
"Who to shoot first?" he asked in comments. People still didn't take him seriously. Someone suggested he "deal with the landlord." "The people here," A.K. wrote, "they get mugged with a slap in the face."
"I've become westernized," he announced. "First I wanna kill Amo dearest"—Anthony Azarmgin. "I'm looking for his address."
"I Saw Holes in the Walls. I Saw Blood"
On the night of the shooting, November 11, the residents of Maujer Street had been sitting and talking for a long time around the table in the main living area, and now they were getting ready for bed. There were eight people in the house that night: Arash, Looloosh, Pooya, Icy, Sot, Ali Eskandarian, and an American couple in their 30s—Coast Guard members in town for Veterans Day events—who were subletting Ali Salehezadeh's bedroom. He was in Brazil, he says, "visiting my future ex-wife." Koory was working the door at the Cameo Gallery; Obash was working in a bar on the Upper West Side.
It was just after 12 A.M. Pooya and Looloosh were in their separate bedrooms, on the third and second floors, playing a pool game together on their phones. Arash was in his room on the third floor playing a video game on his PlayStation Vita.
Ali Eskandarian had been playing the guitar alone in the living room on the third floor. He had come back to New York just a few weeks before, after spending time with his family in Dallas. He'd been going through an emotional time in his life, recently quitting alcohol and drugs and making amends with people. He lay down on the couch to read before going to sleep.
Icy and Sot were in their bedroom, on the second floor, a makeshift space with a curtain for a wall. Sot was working on a piece of art on his computer; Icy was making stencils. The subletter couple was in the bathroom, taking showers.
Pooya heard the first shot. He thought it was a coconut he had bought, fallen from the top of the refrigerator. The shot had come through the window, hitting Ali Eskandarian, killing him.
Arash called, in Farsi, "What is that noise?" He ran out of his bedroom. Pooya heard another shot. He heard Arash, gagging, gasping for air.
The shooter made his way down to the second floor, kicking open doors and firing. He shot Looloosh in the chest, in his bed.
He sprayed the bathroom door with bullets, but none hit the subletters, who were crouching in the tub.
He fired down the hall and into the room where Icy and Sot were working. Shots flew around the room, one of them hitting Sot in the right arm. The bullet went through flesh, missing bone. Sot screamed and both brothers leapt back from the curtain. They never saw the gunman. "It was crazy noise," Sot says. "I saw holes in the walls. I saw blood." There was dust in the air. And then the brothers figured out what was going on, and they both screamed, "Looloosh!"
They scrambled for their cell phones and called 911. "Somebody's shooting—we got shot," they told the dispatcher. They heard the shooter continue back upstairs. They ran downstairs, out of the house. On the way, Icy saw Looloosh lying dead in his bed, his eyes turned upward.
Within minutes, there were police cars up and down Maujer Street, about 30 cops. Icy and Sot told them, "Our friends are inside there!" But the police didn't go inside. "We heard more shots," Sot says. "They didn't do anything—they were just waiting." It was presumably a safety protocol. (The N.Y.P.D. did not respond to requests for comment.)
A.K. was walking around the third floor, looking to see if anyone was left alive. He kicked open the door of Pooya's room.
"Oh, so you're here," he said in Farsi.
Pooya was on the floor, hiding behind a low clothes rack with a curtain. "Don't kill me," he pleaded in Farsi. "What did I do to your life?"
"What was your plan," A.K. asked, "to bring me here and connect me with Freemasonry group?"
"What are you talking about?" Pooya asked in horror.
"Stand up in front of me," A.K. ordered, pointing the gun at him. "I can shoot you right now."
Pooya slowly stood; he says A.K.'s face was "real calm."
"This was my task," A.K. told him. "I killed everybody. Next is you, and then I have to kill myself."
"You think if you kill yourself you're going to get satisfied?" Pooya demanded. He reminded A.K. of "all the good times we had together, even the bad times we had in America." He reminded him he "did a lot of bad things to us."
"And what did I do to you?" Pooya asked. "I just told you, Go out of my life. I just don't want to see you anymore, and you came back and you kill everybody and you wanna kill me and yourself?"
They heard sirens. A.K. turned his face to the sound of more police arriving. That's when Pooya grabbed the muzzle of the gun and pushed it away, hitting A.K. in the face with his right fist. A.K. pulled the trigger; bullets were flying around the room. "Tat-a-tat-a-tat—constant," Pooya says. Some of them must have hit A.K., because there was now blood on him and on Pooya's face and chest. "You shot me in my stomach!" Pooya screamed, hoping A.K. would believe he was already shot (he wasn't).
They struggled for the gun, stumbling into Koory's room, next door. They fell onto the bed, Pooya pushing the gun straight against A.K.'s throat while punching him in the face. He saw A.K. taking something out of his pocket—a gun clip; he was carrying five magazines containing 100 rounds of ammunition. "I was going to grab it, but he pulled my shirt and got me off him," Pooya says.
A.K. yanked Pooya off the bed, flinging him through the door and toward the stairs, where he pushed him away, running up toward the roof. Pooya locked the door to the roof behind him. Now the cops were racing into the building. They heard a single shot. A.K. had killed himself.
"You Don't Hear Stories Like That in Iran"
Since the day of the shooting, when then commissioner Ray Kelly called it the result of a "dispute . . . over money," the N.Y.P.D. has provided few details other than to say that the gun was first legally purchased in 2006 in a now closed gun store in upstate New York. Iranians who knew the victims are perplexed at how the freedom their friends sought in America was taken away by the shooter. How did Ali Akbar Rafie—jobless, poor, and an immigrant with an expired visa—get his hands on an assault rifle?, they ask. "You don't hear stories like that in Iran, people going nuts and blowing up their friends or family," says the writer Hooman Majd. The parents of Ali Eskandarian issued a statement on their son's Facebook page extending their condolences to the parents of all the victims. "To Ali Rafie," they wrote, "from the bottom of our hearts, we forgive you."
In Iran itself, the tragedy was a major story. "The Yellow Dogs are countercultural heroes there," says an Iranian musician. There was controversy when Arash and Soroush Farazmand's bodies were buried in the largest cemetery in Tehran, in a section reserved for prominent people in the arts. Some conservative religious figures in the country felt the brothers did not deserve this honor, but their funeral drew thousands. Ali Akbar Rafie's sister Saideh Rafie promoted conspiracy theories on the Iran News Network, speculating that her brother was murdered by a Zionist organization as part of a plot to muddy negotiations between Iran and America about the curtailment of Iran's nuclear-enrichment program and the lifting of sanctions.
The memorial for Arash, Looloosh, and Ali Eskandarian, in November at the Cameo Gallery, was terribly somber. Downstairs, in the performance space, which was alight with candles, people were invited to speak their memories, but for almost an hour no one managed to say anything. There was only hugging, crying.
"They were the cutest kids ever," said Poya Esghai, former guitarist for Hypernova, talking of Arash and Looloosh later, upstairs in the bar. "They were so polite; they never did anything bad to anyone. They were always smiling and good musicians." "If you had told them four years ago," said their friend Jason Shams, "You're going to go to America, play music, and have this great band, but in four years you'll be shot dead, they still would have got on the plane."
Correction: The original version of the story stated that the Free Keys were asked to leave the Yellow Dogs' Maujer Street apartment, but according to Pooya Hosseni, the band left on its own accord. The story stated that the Free Keys were unable to finish sets at more than one show, but that occurred only once. The article also said that Hosseini lived alone with Ali Akbar Rafie, in Queens. Hosseini never lived alone with Rafie. We regret the errors.


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Man Claiming to Be Whitesnake Drummer Arrested
A man claiming to be a drummer for Whitesnake was involved in a couple of incidents in Gloucester, Mass., last week. The man, whose name was not disclosed, was sent to a local hospital for evaluation.
According to the Gloucester Times, the man in question had been discovered sleeping in a doorway of an apartment building on Jan. 2. A cab was dispatched to take him home. However, he did not have a known address so, like a drifter, he was born to walk alone.
Three hours later, he was spotted again at a local business, and presumably was causing enough trouble that police were called in to intervene. At this point, he announced that he was the drummer for Whitesnake, but it was quickly determined to not be the case, and he was taken away.
Then again, Whitesnake have a history of rotating lineups -- with eight different men occupying the drum stool since 1979 -- so maybe this guy was in there for a spell too brief to make the band's Wikipedia page.


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May 04, 2013
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - Inclement weather has led the Tennessee Tech softball team to cancel Saturday's double header against Jacksonville State. The Golden Eagles and Gamecocks will play a double header on Sunday with the first contest beginning at 1 p.m. CDT.
Saturday's games, which were originally set to begin at 1 p.m. were postponed until 3 p.m. before finally being canceled due to ongoing rain resulting in poor field conditions.
Also moved to Sunday is the Golden Eagles' senior day ceremony, which will now take place on prior to the 1 p.m. start of game one.


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Syria Utilizes "Kill Switch" as Internet Freedom Debate Heats Up
WASHINGTON, June 17, 2011 - In the past year, there has been an extensive push for universal access to Internet, seen as the ultimate democratizing tool enabling two-way communication between governors and the governed. But the reality of a 'digital divide' leaves the majority of the world's population without access to the technological infrastructure to support its use. And those who do have access are sometimes more vulnerable to restriction on political basis, as seen in the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Keep Reading