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Tuesday, 17 March 2009
On bogeys, gaps, juu-juu and being told to f-off...
I recognise all these problems from when I lived and cycled in the UK. What's more, the friend with whom I rode from Land's End to John o'Groats reminded me this morning of a shop in Cornwall in the UK at which we bought refreshments. As we were loading them onto our bikes outside, the owner came to the door to tell us to "fuck off" because we were cyclists. Most people we met on that ride were reasonable human beings, but he wasn't the only unpleasant one. I've known pubs in the UK to shut their doors when cyclists arrive. They'd rather not have our money, rather than let in what they think are outlaw cyclists. It's really very sad, and of course makes no sense at all.
Anyway, the thing is... none of this happens over here. Not at all, ever. Cycling here is always a pleasure.
Take my commute today. A 63 km round trip, which as always was completely uneventful so far as drivers were concerned. As is normal, they gave way to me at the side road junctions where the law says they should. They also gave way to me at most junctions where they have priority over the cycle path and the law says they don't need to. White van man who this morning had pulled a bit too far out of a side road in order to join the road parallel with my bike path pulled back to let me past, and did so early enough that I didn't have to slow down.
Everyone smiled. No-one shouted. Lots and lots of people cycled.
Another normal day in the Netherlands.
In related news, a recent survey reveals that three quarters of Dutch cyclists sometimes sing as they ride along.
12 comments:
What doesn't help is some cyclists not bothering to thank motorists if they make an effort to slow down. I try to do that where possible, and I do get some good response from some motorists when I do. In fact it makes a big difference to my cycle rides when I get some good behaviour from them too.
I find it annoying here when there are no cycle racks round family pubs but then it is car supremascist round and I am sick of the bias in this country and the Government support it by backing the car industry.
- 18 March 2009 at 00:55
- spiderlegreen said...
Wow, that's crazy. I assume you didn't show up in your lycra space alien outfit. Not that it should matter. Don't you know that they are king of the road?
- 18 March 2009 at 03:57
- David Hembrow said...
Velochick: I'm in two minds about this thanking business. There's nothing wrong with being polite, of course, and I try to indicate my pleasure when someone gives way who needn't do so. It still amazes me every single time. However, there is no need to thank someone for simply doing as the law requires them to do.
It still amazes me every single time that someone gives way to me. Such a different experience to cycling in the UK.
There's plenty of cycle parking by pubs here. And by everything else. They need it or they'd have no customers.
Spiderleggreen: No, no "space alien" stuff. As for being "king of the road"... In this country that's us. A few years ago the Fietsersbond produced a compilation CD of cycling music, and the only English language track on it was this.
- 18 March 2009 at 07:52
- anna said...
Well, I have some unpleasant memories too. But also nice ones. I just tend to smile if I look into someones face, and most people smile back. Sometimes it's hard so, if people shout and honk at you, but I still try to. Works much better than shouting back :-).
David: "However, there is no need to thank someone for simply doing as the law requires them to do." I completely agree. I never understand pedestrians that thank car drivers for stopping at a crosswalk. If I respect the traffic law I should also be able to expect that from others. If somebody thanks me for no reason I just assume that they are not familiar with the traffic regulations.
- 18 March 2009 at 08:08
- David Hembrow said...
Anna: The number of unpleasant memories you have varies an awful lot with where you cycle. Cycling is extraordinarily pleasant in this country compared to the UK because of the complete lack of unpleasantness, either through bad design of infrastructure or bad behaviour. For me, this is truly remarkable.
I think the reason why pedestrians in some places thank drivers for obeying the law is simply that they are so used to them not obeying the law. That's the case in much of the world.
- 18 March 2009 at 08:22
- David Earl said...
I think there is more to it than this. As you know, Cambridge has levels of cycling comparable even to some Dutch cities, yet we still get abuse and threatening behaviour here, and not just from people out of town. I've had someone who pulled up outside their house threaten to kill me, and taxi drivers parked across cycle facilities swear at me.
I think a lot of British people are just plain rude and intolerant, and not just of minorities (though that brings out the worst in Daily Mail readers). I got a bag caught on the corner of the door leading into the station last week, and the person behind me was unbelievably rude because he was delayed for all of 5 seconds at most.
Also, I suspect there is a stornger dividing line between those who cycle in Cambridge and those in Assen. In Assen, I suspect (what do you think?) that even most of those driving cars probably cycle on other occasions, whereas though that's true to some extent in Cambridge, I think a lot of drivers here *never* cycle (or use the bus, or the train or walk).
- 18 March 2009 at 12:01
- David Hembrow said...
Good to hear from you Dave. The cycling rate in Cambridge is only actually comparable with the very lowest rates in Dutch cities. Rotterdam, for instance, has a rate which isn't so far removed from Cambridge.
However, you are certainly right about the way that everyone here cycles, while people in the UK typically either are "cyclists" or they are not. When I lived in Cambridge many of our neighbours never cycled. Here in Assen I've seen every single one of our neighbours cycle, even though a few of them don't do so very often.
However, I think that what makes cycling possible is the big difference in the way that society works. People are nice here. They smile. They are happy. There is very little conflict, no noticeable problem with yobbish teenagers, everywhere is neat and tidy, it's always safe for anyone to walk or cycle anywhere at any time and there is a staggeringly low crime rate by British standards.
Comparing newspapers is interesting. It's a "slow news day" every day in Assen. Our local paper rarely has anything dramatic to report. We get headlines about how species of birds have returned after the winter, how schools are putting on events. On the other hand, any time that I look at the Cambridge Evening News there is always bad news. I just looked and saw this story about people going so far as to write hate mail to the council because they are considering improving conditions for travellers at their extremely unpleasantly located site in Cambridge. This seems a step beyond normal even for the UK. What sort of person writes abusive letters to try to make someone else's life worse ? It's really not the sort of thing you could imagine here.
The traveller site in Assen is quite nice. It's in a spot next to a park, near a school and by a lot of trees. It's neat and tidy and people who live there appear not to be particularly stressed. They keep themselves largely to themselves and get on with their lives. I've not heard or read a bad word said about them by anyone.
There is a really huge difference in societal attitudes, even without mentioning cycling at all. I've referred to cyclists as pit canaries before, because in society as on the roads, they can be seen to have a similar function.
- 18 March 2009 at 12:33
- Kevin Love said...
About thanking motorists:
The government recently changed the law to require motorists to yield right of way to busses pulling out of bus stops.
So the signs on the back of the bus changed from "please yield" to "Yield."
When it is custom, you get thanked. When enough rude people don't follow the custom so it has to be the law, you don't get thanked.
- 18 March 2009 at 14:12
- David said...
I often sing while I cycle. I recommend it highly.
- 18 March 2009 at 14:18
That's about the same here: When you're cycling it'S very rare to be carved up or snarled at, even though we use the roads a lot.
I do thank people though, especially truckers who stop at crossings. I figure they can do with a smile, and tomorrow it may make them more likely to slow down for another cyclist/pedestrian.
- 18 March 2009 at 14:37
'However, I think that what makes cycling possible is the big difference in the way that society works. People are nice here. They smile. They are happy. ...'
Perhaps the causality runs in the other direction? Maybe society works better because things like cycling have been made possible? (by hundred of small policy choices).
I'm half-joking - but in the service of pointing out that explanations of culture are complicated and uncertain.
- 19 March 2009 at 12:25
- David Hembrow said...
Martin: I absolutely agree. It's impossible really to point and say that a particular aspect of what goes on here causes another aspect. They are all interdependent.
Exercise certainly makes people happier, and being outside and meeting people instead of inside a car behind a window is surely a good way of improving the relationship people have with strangers on the street.
And yes, it is the result of "hundred of small policy choices", as well as a few large ones.
- 19 March 2009 at 12:41


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This is a guest post written and contributed by Allan Chappell, a developer with Promet Source, a Rackspace partner and an interactive web development agency specializing in open source tools.
Software development work impacts business: the code quality, the time spent and the visual work shown, all affects business for our company and our clients. Continuous Integration (CI) helps developers help business by providing processes that fulfill those necessities. To understand how CI provides quality code and efficiency, and shows prowess as a development team, you must understand what CI is and how developers use these practices to make day-to-day software development for your business run smoothly.
What is Continuous Integration?
Continuous Integration is certainly a buzzword du jour in software development today, but there are many misconceptions surrounding the topic. You've probably run into this terminology in blogs, articles and internal meetings and heard about Automated Testing, Test Driven Development or Automation. While these can be parts of your CI process and can benefit your business, they don't account for the whole CI picture.
Continuous Integration is the process of literally continuously integrating the code that your developers create frequently – at least daily and often multiple times per day. The purpose is to find problems quickly, solve them and deliver more rapidly. CI is a best practice for software development and is guided by a set of key principles.
The 10 Key Principles of Continuous Integration: Ranked in Order of Priority
Each of the 10 principles complements one another, but there are some that take precedence when you are facing different project factors, including size and budget. Here they are, explained and ranked in priority. The principles are ordered from most to least beneficial for a typical project.
Revision Control
Revision Control has been the basic standard for software development teams for the last couple of decades. The purpose of revision control (also known as version control or source control) is to manage changes made to the files that make up the code for your software project, no matter whether it is a product, website or any application. Revision control allows you switch back and forth between different versions of code using a single command, provided the changes were committed. This replaces the "messy process" sans revision control: countless folders with various versions of code files from different dates. However, when you employ this outdated approach to code management, you lose the ability to have multiple people work on an item and then later merge the work together.
In short, Revision Control not only makes your code base manageable when dealing with making/moving between changes, it also makes it much easier for your developers to integrate their code. This is the root of Continuous Integration; it is the best investment (though most version control systems are free) that you can make on behalf of your developers for your business.
Revision Control allows you to easily do things like Build Automation as well.
Build Automation
Build Automation refers to the ability to either automatically trigger and/or build a clean version of your product, application or website via a single command or action from raw components. Many teams now take this further and allow their systems to be built solely from the code that is obtained from their version control. Build Automation can reduce a 30-minute task to several seconds. Establishing the patterns that your developers perform to start a clean or new system (whether this be a production, staging or development build) will save you time in the long term.
Build Automation does come with risk. There are times when the process for building must change – affecting the way your application is built. Identifying your product's building process can be a time investment that will front load the development costs. But in the end, the efficiency and ability to get new employees up and going quickly with an environment is well worth it, particularly in bigger teams and shops.
Build Automation allows you to automate the deployment of your product application as well.
Automated Deployment
Automated Deployment is the process of consistently pushing a product to various environments on a "trigger." It enables you to quickly learn what to expect every time you deploy an environment with much faster results. This combined with Build Automation can save development teams a significant amount of hours.
Automated Deployment saves clients from being extensively offline during development and allows developers to build while "touching" fewer of a clients' systems. With an automated system, human error is prevented. In the event of human error, developers are able to catch it before live deployment – saving time and headache.
You can even automate the contingency plan and make the site rollback to a working or previous state as if nothing ever happened. Clearly, this automated feature is super valuable in allowing applications and sites to continue during fixes. Additionally, contingency plans can be version-controlled, improved and even self-tested.
Self-Testing Builds
Testing can happen in many different ways using methods you have probably heard thrown around as buzzwords. Some of these involve automated testing like unit testing and interface testing. Self-Testing Builds are the next step. Once you have tests that can be automated, executing them simultaneously with a build is usually not too much more work. Your team will have more awareness on what is going on with your product. Obviously, the more you test (and the more good tests you have) the greater visibility you have into the state of your product before release. This could possibly be the difference between being a reactive or proactive company. Remember: testing is only as good as the environment in which you test it.
Testing in a Clone of Production
Making it a point to minimize the variables in which you are testing is just good planning. Every developer has that story of burning the proverbial midnight oil because their perfect build didn't work on the production environment like it did on the staging or development environments. Making sure your testing environment is as close to production as possible allows you to minimize this risk.
There are several options for configuration management when it comes to building server machines that allow you to manipulate the configuration of several machines with a single versioned file. This allows developers to see exactly what changes were made and when and by whom they were made – this increases accountability and efficiency. Note: for best results, make sure your developers frequently commit their changes.
Frequent Commits
Committing is the act of creating a new version in a revision control system. Committing marks a point in the history of the code base where you are able to switch over to that point and use the changes made. Frequently, this isn't just when a new release of the product is made. In fact, each release of your product may be made of thousands of commits – thousands of points in time where you could go back to the state of the code base as it was in that moment. This is a good thing; the more modular the commits, the easier it is for developers to merge, move, add and remove changes with other developers' work. It also gives them a point of comfort, because if something does go wrong, they can start back where they were the last time they committed work. Making this a frequent occurrence ensures that at the end of the day, everyone's code can be updated with the latest changes – making code consolidation easy.
Code Consolidation
Code Consolidation is typically best at the end of the day; this is the point when all development features are compiled and merged. Not everyone follows this methodology; some prefer to merge only full complete features, however, Code Consolidation can be quite useful.
First, developers spend less time trying to merge their changes with one another. Although this process is usually automatic, there is a case in which one developer's changes may conflict with another developer's changes. This happens when both developers end up changing the exact same line of code. Catching these early while it's still fresh on their minds will increase efficiency.
Secondly, if you established Automated Building on a test server and those builds are Self-Testing Builds, you will be able to track the performance of your product throughout production. Keep in mind, as code changes, tests need to change as well.
Lastly, it gives your other developers visibility on code that another developer is writing. This enacts a system of checks and balances, particularly if you have set up a code review process for every merge that is made into the main development branch. You can correct problems earlier and improve the quality of your code, ultimately leading to a better product.
Fast Builds
Time is money. Fast Builds give you that time. You don't want to pay your developers for watching Youtube every time they have to build a new environment. Additionally, depending on the trigger that is set up for an automated build made for testing, a build can take so long that the trigger fires more than once before an actual environment is completely built. This is bad if it happens on a daily basis. There are times where this will happen anyway if your trigger is something like "on every merge to the development branch," and it's close to a major deadline. Fast Builds allow developers to get on their feet faster, receive test results faster and see your product faster.
Build Availability
It is important to have a current development and staging build available at all times. Regardless of your Automated Testing, there are some things a computer cannot detect or it makes very little sense to try and make it do so. In these cases manual testing is required.
Additionally, you can provide a public (or pseudo-public) version of your build to your clients. Everyone loves a sneak peek into the new great features that are coming along – availability is key.
Test Result Availability
Who determines what tests passed and what tests failed? Test Result Availability gives visibility on the results to developers, managers and client stakeholders. This principle supports the continued system of checks and balances. There are many test management products that show the test results in a comprehensive graph of passes and fails. Typically, these products let you drill down into the results for in depth analysis. A reconciliation of each test error each day can be performed so everyone knows exactly why it failed and when it will be fixed.
Like Build Availability, allowing your clients to see test results can be assuring. It is important to note that you should only show them results on the builds that you show them. For instance, if you have a staging environment that is only built at every stable development cycle, then show them tests related to that build. This gives your clients confidence in your ability and your devotion to quality.
Final Thoughts
When you are getting your business started with Continuous Integration, remember you are doing three important things:
- Improving the quality of your code. You can achieve a better quality product application or website project.
- Making your developers more efficient. You can receive "more bang for your buck" and narrow down the cost of software projects.
- Showing your prowess in your market. You let everyone know that you have the best practices that produce the highest quality work.
Also remember that CI is not about a set of tools or a single process. It is a development practice that requires following the key principles and taking team responsibility to ensure the quality of the application or website that you are building.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
One of the S&P 500's big losers for Monday February 01 was Newfield Exploration Co. (NFX). The company's stock fell 3.56% to $28.04 on volume of 2.69 million shares.
The stock opened the day at 28.24 and traded between a low of $27.45 and a high of $28.83. The stock finished the day down $1.035 per share. Newfield Exploration Co. has an average daily volume of 3.61 million and a total float of 163.41 million shares. The 50-day SMA for Newfield Exploration Co. is $32.61 and its 200-day SMA is $35.16. The high for the stock over the last 52 weeks is $41.34 and the low is $22.20.
Newfield Exploration Co is a energy company. It is engaged in the exploration, development & production of crude oil, natural gas & natural gas liquids. Its areas of operation include Mid-Continent, the Rocky Mountains & onshore Gulf Coast.
Newfield Exploration Co. is centered in The Woodlands, TX, and has 1,331 employees. Today's trading day leaves the company with a market cap of $4.58 billion. The company has a P/S ratio of n/a, P/B ratio of 2.26, and a -7.9.
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All data provided by QuoteMedia and was accurate as of 4:30PM ET.
DISCLOSURE: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not represent the views of equities.com. Readers should not consider statements made by the author as formal recommendations and should consult their financial advisor before making any investment decisions. To read our full disclosure, please go to: http://www.equities.com/disclaimer
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The 2000 Plus Royalty Free Images library contains stock images that can be used for your commercial and non-commercial projects. Most of the photos are extra-high-resolution and are perfect for your documents, presentations, Web sites, printed documents, e-books, and more. Pictures are sorted into various categories, letting you browse through the photos with remarkable ease.
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What's New in 2000 Plus Royalty Free Images
- Extra images
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Requirements for 2000 Plus Royalty Free Images
- OS X 10.6 or later


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Russia is encouraging its soldiers to check each other's "sexual organs" and "buttocks" for clues on sexual orientation according to a BBC report.
From the report:
The guidelines, which cover all aspects of military life, are quoted as saying that tattoos may indicate a "low cultural and educational level" and "possible sexual deviations."
A separate report by The Moscow Times was a bit more explicit than the BBC:
The Defense Ministry is recommending that new recruits' bodies, especially their sexual organs and buttocks, be examined for tattoos indicating homosexual orientation. The recruits would also be asked to describe their sexual experience ...
Though a representative of the LGBT community in Russia said tattoos identifying sexual orientation on the genitals were rare for homosexuals. Indeed, one would think they'd be rare for any group.
The reports come from an article published in the Russian newspaper Izvestia, which cited a copy of a Defense Ministry document published in 2012.
SEE ALSO: The 25 most effective weapons in the U.S. arsenal >
SEE ALSO: The Military and Defense Facebook page for updates >


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Discussant's Response to Critical Requirements of a System of Internal Accounting Control Jay M. Smith, Jr. Brigham Young University The first time I met Bob Sack was as a participant in the 1976 Trueblood Seminar that I attended. Bob led many of the case discussions we had, and I was impressed with his forthrightness and succinct comments. Many of you have probably had similar experiences with Bob. It was not surprising, therefore, to find Bob's paper also very succinct. So succinct at times, that the transition seemed to be missing between sections. For example, in the first part of the paper, Bob stresses that there are three levels at which one can address the subject of controls: (1) accurate financial statements, (2) protection of assets, and (3) development of operating and analytical data. He seems to argue that any controls at the third level would encompass any controls at the two higher levels, and that at the third level, a lower level of materiality would be required than would be true of the other two levels. He then selects the third level for his paper, but the body of the paper never touches this point again, either to substantiate the claim of all-inclusiveness, or to indicate how his critical requirements would have differed if a higher level of objectives had been selected. I found that one must read carefully to capture all the nuances Bob is implying. In fact, filling in between the lines is somewhat risky, for one is never sure if he is filling them in the way Bob would do it. On the other hand, on a topic like internal control, I, as a discussant, must admit that brevity and succinctness is a quality to be admired. After receiving Bob's paper last week, I read through it and then decided I should do a little catching up myself on the internal control literature of the past few months, both from official sources and otherwise. I have found it increasingly difficult to keep up on accounting developments to use in the intermediate accounting text I am involved with and also keep current in auditing literature. Reading material in either one by itself is a full job. Thus, some of the incoming auditing material had been filed in that proverbial drawer marked "To Be Read Later." "Later" arrived, and I went through the pile and identified the many pamphlets, articles, research reports, exposure drafts, and statements issued on the general topic of internal control. The FCPA has triggered a flurry of activity by almost everybody even tangentially related to accounting in the general topic of internal control. Just a comment on the inevitable move to alphabetical identifiers. FCPA sounds like some special type of CPA. Perhaps it is fitting to have accountants increasingly involved in an act that almost bears the name of the profession. Most of the publications I scanned were prepared by national CPA firms and were directed to management in an attempt to help them meet their newly defined 32
Object Description
Discussant's response to critical requirements of a system of internal accounting control
Smith, Jay M.
Nichols, Donald R., ed.
Stettler, Howard, ed.
Auditing, Internal
Auditing Symposium V: Proceedings of the 1980 Touche Ross/University of Kansas Symposium on Auditing Problems, pp. 032-040
|Published by: University of Kansas, School of Business
|Contents have not been copyrighted
|PDF page image with corrected OCR scanned at 400 dpi
|Deloitte Digital Collection
|Digital Publisher
|University of Mississippi Library. Accounting Collection
|Date-Digitally Created
|symposium 5-p32


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Yay new Shining Wind figures~
Shine na Blog recently updated with nice news for Shining Wind fans as well as progress shots of three new figures to be coming out, two presumably by Kotobukiya and one from Orchid Seed. First off is that the latest Shining Wind artbook from Tony has been selling very well, and merchandise makers who have taken a look at the book have come to the producer of the series (the guy who runs Shine na Blog) asking if they can create some goods based on the artwork found within. No reason for a guy to refuse, right? So it looks like there'll be quite a bit more Shining Wind goods coming in the future.
So first good news out of the way, next comes the good stuff, the new figures. I think the latest two are based on artwork in the new book from a maker, and the other one is from the Fan Festa software for PC (one of those things that has a collection of desktop themes/wallpapers/screen savers/etc). The third figure is based off a short novel surrounding Shining Wind.
First up is most likely from the artbook, and from the goods makers. According to the site she's 90% complete and it sure looks like it. She is Celestia, Elven Queen of the Forest Kingdom of Astraea. Xecty was made in her image.
The second figure is a maid version of Clalaclan Philias which is roughly 60% complete and looks like she's based off the Fan Festa stuff.
hires version at moe imouto
They are both totally :drool: I can't wait for them to be painted! They may be the best Shining figures yet imo… I especially like Celestia's flower ornament thing in her hair…
The third figure is Shiina Kanon, and she is from Orchid Seed. The illustration she's based off of is the Tony illustrated cover of a short novel based on Shining Wind called "Another Link – Onifuuji no Kenshi" (the demon exorcist fencer or something like that, referring to Shiina).
She's rockin the twin tails for your TT lovers 😛


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Supports packing and unpacking for 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP, and WIM.
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The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds. It rose to international popularity, fueled by unprecedented sales of 33⅓ rpm long-playing record albums (LPs), and helped to alter the direction of popular music in the U.S.[1]
The Kingston Trio was one of the most prominent groups of the era's pop-folk boom that started in 1958 with the release of their first album and its hit recording of "Tom Dooley", which sold over three million copies as a single.[2] The Trio released nineteen albums that made Billboard's Top 100, fourteen of which ranked in the top 10, and five of which hit the number 1 spot. Four of the group's LPs charted among the 10 top-selling albums for five weeks in November and December 1959,[3] a record unmatched for more than 50 years,[4] and the group still ranks after half a century in the all-time lists of many of Billboard's cumulative charts, including those for most weeks with a number 1 album, most total weeks charting an album, most number 1 albums, most consecutive number 1 albums, and most top ten albums.[5]
In 1961, the Trio was described as "the most envied, the most imitated, and the most successful singing group, folk or otherwise, in all show business" and "the undisputed kings of the folksinging rage by every yardstick."[6] Music historian Richie Unterberger characterized their impact as "phenomenal popularity",[7] and the Kingston Trio's massive record sales in its early days made acoustic folk music commercially viable, paving the way for singer-songwriter, folk rock, and Americana artists who followed in their wake.[1]
Dave Guard and Bob Shane had been friends since junior high school at the Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii where both had learned to play ukulele in required music classes. They had developed an interest in and admiration for native Hawaiian slack key guitarists like Gabby Pahinui.[8] While in Punahou's secondary school, Shane taught first himself and then Guard the rudiments of the six-string guitar,[9] and the two began performing at parties and in school shows doing an eclectic mix of Tahitian, Hawaiian, and calypso songs.
After graduating from high school in 1952, Guard enrolled at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, while Shane matriculated at nearby Menlo College. At Menlo, Shane became friends with Nick Reynolds, a native San Diegan with an extensive knowledge of folk and calypso songs—in part from his guitar-playing father, a career officer in the U.S. Navy.[10] Reynolds was also able to create and sing tenor harmonies, a skill derived in part from family singalongs,[11] and could play both guitar and bongo and conga drums. Shane and Reynolds performed at fraternity parties and luaus for a time, and eventually Shane introduced Reynolds to Guard. The three began performing at campus and neighborhood hangouts, sometimes as a trio but with an aggregation of friends that could swell their ranks to as many as six or seven, according to Reynolds.[12] They usually billed themselves under the name of "Dave Guard and the Calypsonians". None of the three at that time had any serious aspirations to enter professional show business, however,[13] and Shane returned to Hawaii following his graduation in late 1956 to work in the family sporting goods business.[14]
Still in the
All rankings are from "American Album Chart Records 1955–2001"[5]
Billboard Awards
Library of Congress National Registry of Historically Significant Recordings
Hit Parade Hall of Fame
Vocal Group Hall of Fame
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award[120]
Grammy Hall of Fame Award
Grammy Awards
Satirist Tom Lehrer has acknowledged the Trio's pioneering of college concerts, observing that before the Kingstons "there was no real concert circuit...The Kingston Trio started all that,"[116] and in Time magazine, critic Richard Corliss asserted, "In my youth, they changed pop music, and me with it."[116]
...The Kingston Trio changed everything about popular music—and the entire acoustic guitar industry along with it... It was the rise of The Kingston Trio that really established Martin as "America's Guitar"...The Kingston Trio wasn't just a musical group. It was a phenomenon, as influential in its time as The Beatles would become in theirs.[115]
The C.F. Martin & Company guitar manufacturers has attributed the dramatic rise in demand for its instruments in the early 1960s in large part to the Kingston Trio's use of their guitars,[114] featured prominently and without compensation on nearly all of their album covers.[77] A Martin company press release in 2007 announcing a fourth Kingston Trio commemorative model guitar stated that
Among the many other artists who cite the Kingston Trio as a formative influence in their musical careers are comedian, actor, and banjo player Steve Martin,[84][85] Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac,[86] Timothy B. Schmit[87][88] of The Eagles, pioneering folk-rock artist Gram Parsons,[89] Stephen Stills and David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, and Nash,[90] The Beach Boys' Al Jardine,[91] Big Brother and the Holding Company founding member Peter Albin,[92] Denny Doherty of The Mamas and the Papas,[93] banjo master Tony Trischka,[94] pop groups ABBA[95] and The Bee Gees,[96] Jefferson Airplane founding members Marty Balin[97] and Paul Kantner,[98] Buffalo Springfield founding member Richie Furay,[99] Byrds co-founder Gene Clark,[100] roots musician and master mandolin player David Grisman,[101] singer-songwriters Tom Paxton,[77]Harry Chapin,[102] Jimmy Buffett,[103] Tim Buckley,[104] Steve Goodman[105] (composer of "The City Of New Orleans"), Steve Gillette,[106] Michael Smith[107] (composer of "The Dutchman"), and Shawn Colvin,[108] folk-rock group We Five co-founder Jerry Burgan,[109] folk and rock musician Jerry Yester,[110] Modern Folk Quartet musician and famed rock photographer Henry Diltz,[111] and progressive jazz vocal group Manhattan Transfer.[112][113]
Jac Holzman, co-founder of the originally folk-based Elektra Records, remarked that his formerly struggling company's new-found prosperity in the late 1950s resulted from "The Kingston Trio which has the ability to capture the interest of a large number of people who have never been conscious of folk music before. In this respect, the Kingston Trio has put us on the map."[81] Even some staunch traditionalists from both the urban and rural folk music communities had an affinity for the Kingstons' polished commercial versions of older songs. In her memoir And A Voice To Sing With, singer and activist Joan Baez recalled that "Traveling across the country with my mother and sisters, we heard the commercial songs of the budding folk boom for the first time, the Kingston Trio's 'Tom Dooley' and 'Scotch and Soda.' Before I turned into a snob and learned to look down upon all commercial folk music as bastardized and unholy, I loved the Kingston Trio. When I became one of the leading practitioners of 'pure folk,' I still loved them..."[82] Arthel "Doc" Watson of North Carolina, one of the most respected and influential musicians performing traditional music, remarked, "I'll tell you who pointed all our noses in the right direction, even the traditional performers. They got us interested in trying to put the good stuff out there—the Kingston Trio. They got me interested in it!"[83]
In his autobiography Chronicles, Dylan added: "I liked The Kingston Trio. Even though their style was polished and collegiate, I liked most of their stuff anyway."[80]
There were other folk-music records, commercial folk-music records, like those by the Kingston Trio. I never really was an elitist. Personally, I liked the Kingston Trio. I could see the picture...the Kingston Trio were probably the best commercial group going, and they seemed to know what they were doing.[65]
Discussing his earliest musical influences in a 2001 Rolling Stone interview, Bob Dylan remembered:
In the history of popular music, there are a relative handful of performers who have redefined the content of the music at critical points in history—people whose music left the landscape, and definition of popular music, altered completely. The Kingston Trio were one such group, transforming folk music into a hot commodity and creating a demand—where none had existed before—for young men (sometimes with women) strumming acoustic guitars and banjos and singing folk songs and folk-like novelty songs in harmony. On a purely commercial level, from 1957 until 1963, the Kingston Trio were the most vital and popular folk group in the world, and folk music was sufficiently popular as to make that a significant statement. Equally important, the original trio—Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds, and Bob Shane—in tandem with other, similar early acts such as the Limeliters, spearheaded a boom in the popularity of folk music that suddenly made the latter important to millions of listeners who previously had ignored it.[1]
The Kingston Trio's influence on the development of American popular music has been considerable. According to music critic Bruce Eder writing for Allmusic.com:
Further, Peter Dreier points out that "the group deserves credit for helping to launch the folk boom that brought recognition to older folkies and radicals like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and for paving the way for newcomers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, who were well known for their progressive political views and topical songs. By the time these younger folk singers arrived on the scene, the political climate had changed enough to provide a wide audience for protest music."[4] The passage of time may well have made the controversy moot. Writing in the British daily The Guardian, again in an obituary for Reynolds, Ken Hunt asserted that "[the Kingston Trio] helped to turn untold numbers of people on to folk music... [T]hey put the boom in folk boom. The Kingston Trio carried the torch overseas, most notably with their international hit of 1958, Tom Dooley. They were the greatest of the bands to emerge after the McCarthy-era blacklisting of folk musicians and breathed new air into the genre."[79]
Looking at their repertoire now, it is apparent that the Kingston Trio was far more adventurous than is generally supposed. They introduced "It Was A Very Good Year" in 1961, later a standard for Frank Sinatra, and they were one of the first to spot the potential of English language versions of Jacques Brel's songs by recording "Seasons in the Sun" in 1963. They encouraged young songwriters including Hoyt Axton ("Greenback Dollar"), Rod McKuen ("Ally Ally Oxen Free", "The World I Used to Know") and Billy Edd Wheeler ("Reverend Mr Black"). Best of all, in 1962 they introduced listeners to one of the most poignant songs ever written, the anti-war ballad "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" by Pete Seeger, formerly with the Weavers.[78]
Over the years, the Kingston Trio expanded its song selection beyond the rearranged traditional numbers, calypso songs, and Broadway show tunes that had appeared on its first several albums. In an obituary for Nick Reynolds (d. October 1, 2008), Spencer Leigh wrote in Britain's Sunday Independent:
However, Trio members never claimed to be folksingers and were never comfortable with the label. The liner notes for the group's first album featured a quotation from Dave Guard asserting that "We are not folksingers in the accepted sense of the word."[75] Guard later told journalist Richard Hadlock in Down Beat magazine: "We are not students of folk music; the basic thing for us is honest and worthwhile songs that people can pick up and become involved in."[76] Nick Reynolds added in the same article: "We don't collect old songs in the sense that the academic cats do... We get new tunes to look over every day. Each one of us has his ears open constantly to new material or old stuff that's good."[76] Bob Shane remarked years later: "To call the Kingston Trio folksingers was kind of stupid in the first place. We never called ourselves folksingers... We did folk-oriented material, but we did it amid all kinds of other stuff. But they didn't know what to call us with our instruments, so Capitol Records called us folksingers and gave us credit for starting this whole boom."[77]
Frank Proffitt, the Appalachian musician whose version of "Tom Dooley" the Trio rearranged, watched their performance of his song on a television show and wrote in reaction, "They clowned and hipswung. Then they came out with 'This time tomorrow, reckon where I'll be/If it hadn't a' been for Grayson/I'd a been in Tennessee.' I began to feel sorty sick. Like I'd lost a loved one. Tears came to my eyes. I went out and bawled on the ridge."[70] Proffitt had learned the song from his father and his grandmother, who had known Tom Dula and Laura Foster, the killer and the victim in the actual 1866 murder related in the song.[71] Both Proffitt and fellow North Carolina musician Doc Watson sang the older version of the tune, which had "a lively mocking tempo... that retained some of the ghastliness and moral squalor of an actual murder,"[72] according to folk historian Robert Cantwell, who also notes that the Kingston Trio's version of the song left out several verses from the traditional lyric.[73] The slower, harmonized Trio version of the Dooley song and other traditional numbers struck Proffitt as a betrayal of "the strange mysterious workings which has made Tom Dooly [sic] live..."[74] As recently as 2006, folk traditionalist and influential banjo master Billy Faier remarked: "I hear and see very little respect for the folk genre" in their music and described the Trio's repertoire as "a mishmash of twisted arrangements that not only obscure the true beauty of the folk songs from which they derive, but give them a meaning they never had."[70]
Almost from its inception, the Kingston Trio found itself at odds with the traditional music community. Urban folk musicians of the time (to whom Bob Dylan referred in Rolling Stone as "the left-wing puritans that seemed to have a hold on the folk-music community")[65] frequently associated folk music with leftist politics and were contemptuous of the Trio's deliberate political neutrality.[4] Peter Dreier of Occidental College observed that "Purists often derided the Kingston Trio for watering down folk songs in order to make them commercially popular and for remaining on the political sidelines during the protest movements of the 1960s."[4] A series of scathing articles appeared over several years in Sing Out! magazine, a publication that combined articles on traditional folk music with political activism.[66] Its editor Irwin Silber referred to "the sallow slickness of the Kingston Trio"[67] and in an article in the spring 1959 issue Ron Radosh said that the Trio brought "good folk music to the level of the worst in Tin Pan Alley music" and referred to them as "prostitutes of the art who gain their status as folk artists because they use guitars and banjos."[68] Following the Trio's performance at the premier Newport Folk Festival in 1959, folk music critic Mark Morris wrote: "What connection these frenetic tinselly showmen have with a folk festival eludes me... except that it is mainly folk songs that they choose to vulgarize."[69]
Both the Grove–Zorn–Haworth and Grove–Zorn–Dougherty troupes of the Kingston Trio have released original CDs and DVDs, and the latter configuration continues to tour extensively under the direction of the only surviving original member Bob Shane, now sole owner of the band. Capitol Records,[61] Decca Records,[62] Collector's Choice Music,[63] and Folk Era Records[64] have released and continue to release compilations of older albums as well as previously unreleased tapes of both studio and live recordings from the Kingston Trio's first ten years.
Following the 1985 death of Roger Gambill, Kingston Trio personnel changed several times, though Shane and Grove remained constants. Bob Haworth, a veteran folk performer who had worked as a member of The Brothers Four for many years, initially replaced Gambill from 1985 through 1988 and again from 1999 through 2005. In 1988, original member Nick Reynolds rejoined the band until his final retirement in 1999. When heart disease forced Bob Shane's retirement from touring in March 2004, he was replaced by former New Kingston Trio member Bill Zorn. A year later, following Haworth's departure, Grove and Zorn were joined by Rick Dougherty, who had performed for a time with Zorn as second-generation members of another popular folk group from the 1960s, The Limeliters.[60]
More than twenty years had passed since Dave Guard had left the group, but residual tension surfaced between Guard and Shane in an article in the Wall Street Journal that appeared in March 1982 following the national broadcast of the taped show.[58] Guard implicitly disparaged Shane's current group, and Shane asserted a distaste for performing again with Guard,[58] who had spent the intervening decades living and performing in Australia, touring sporadically as a soloist, and writing about and teaching music. Despite the unpleasantness, Shane and Guard reconciled to a large degree (even to the point of planning a possible reunion tour)[59] prior to Guard's death at age 56 from lymphoma nine years later in March 1991.
It was during this period as well that PBS producers JoAnne Young and Paul Surratt approached Shane and the other principals of the original group with the idea of arranging a reunion concert that would be taped and used as a fundraiser for the network. Agreement was reached, and on November 7, 1981, Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds, and John Stewart joined the Shane-Gambill-Grove Trio and guest performers Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, Tom Smothers of the Smothers Brothers, and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac at the Magic Mountain amusement park north of Los Angeles for a show billed as "The Kingston Trio And Friends Reunion."[57] The different configurations of the Trio took turns performing sets of the group's best-known songs with all the artists joining onstage for a finale.
The Shane-Gambill-Grove Kingston Trio existed from 1976 through 1985, when Gambill died unexpectedly from a heart ailment at the age of 45. The nine years of this configuration was to that point the longest period of time that any three musicians had worked together as the Kingston Trio, and the group released two albums of largely original material.[56]
The same year, Shane secured from Werber and Reynolds the unencumbered rights to use the band's original name of the Kingston Trio without the appended "new" in exchange for relinquishing his interest in the still-profitable corporation, whose holdings included copyrights and licensing rights to many of the original Trio's songs.[54] Since 1976, the various troupes headed and owned by Shane have performed and recorded simply as the Kingston Trio.
In 1976, Bill Zorn left the New Kingston Trio to work as a solo performer and record producer in London.[54] Shane and Gambill replaced him with George Grove, a professionally trained singer and instrumentalist from North Carolina who had been working in Nashville as a studio musician.[55]
Shane agreed and organized two troupes under the name of "The New Kingston Trio". The first consisted of guitarist Pat Horine and banjoist Jim Connor in addition to Shane and lasted from 1969 to 1973, the second including guitarist Roger Gambill and banjoist Bill Zorn from 1973 until 1976. Shane tried to create a repertoire for these groups that included both the older and expected Kingston Trio standards like "Tom Dooley" and "M.T.A." but that would also feature more contemporary songs as well, including country and novelty tunes. The attempt did not meet with any significant success. The only full-length album released by either group was The World Needs a Melody in 1973 (though 25 years later FolkEra Records issued The Lost Masters 1969–1972, a compilation of previously unreleased tracks from the Shane-Horine-Connor years), and its sales were negligible. Though both troupes of the New Kingston Trio made a limited number of other recordings and several television appearances, neither generated very much interest from fans or the public at large.[53]
Bob Shane decided to stay in entertainment, and he experimented with solo work. He recorded several singles, including a well-received but under-marketed version of the song "Honey" that later became a million-seller for Bobby Goldsboro,[50] and with different configurations with other folk-oriented performers. Though finances were not an immediate concern—the Kingston Trio partners Werber, Shane and Reynolds still owned an office building, a restaurant, other commercial real estate, and a variety of other lucrative investments[51]—Shane wanted to return to a group environment and in 1969 secured permission from his partners to use the mutually owned group name for another band, with Reynolds and Werber insisting only that Shane's group be musically as accomplished as its predecessors and that Shane append "new" to the band's title.[52]
Following the Hungry i engagement, Reynolds moved to Port Orford, Oregon and pursued interests in ranching, business, and race cars for the next twenty years.[49] Stewart commenced a long and distinguished career as a singer-songwriter, composing hit songs like "Daydream Believer" for The Monkees and "Runaway Train" for Rosanne Cash. He recorded more than 40 albums of his own, most notably the landmark California Bloodlines, and found chart success in the top forty with "Midnight Wind", "Lost Her in the Sun", and "Gold", the latter reaching number 5 in 1979.[49]
By 1966, Reynolds had grown weary of touring and Stewart wanted to strike out on his own as a singer-songwriter, so the three musicians and Werber developed an exit strategy of playing as many dates as possible for a year with an endpoint determined to be a final two-week engagement at the Hungry i in June 1967.[47] The group followed this strategy successfully, and on June 17, 1967, the Kingston Trio ceased to be an actively performing band.[48]
Beginning in 1964, however, the Kingston Trio's dominance in record sales and in concert bookings began to wane, due partly to the number and popularity of the aforementioned imitators in the pop-folk world but also to the rise of other major commercial folk groups like Peter, Paul and Mary whose music had a decidedly more political bent than the Trio's. In addition, the British Invasion spearheaded by The Beatles, who were signed by EMI/Capitol just as the Trio's seven-year contract was running out, depressed sales of acoustic folk albums significantly, and Capitol did not make a serious effort to re-sign the group. Werber secured a generous signing bonus from Decca Records, and the last four albums of the Kingston Trio's first decade were released by that label. Without the production facilities of Capitol, however, and the expertise of Voyle Gilmore and engineer Pete Abbott, the Decca releases lacked the aural brilliance of the Capitol albums,[10] and none of the four sold especially well.
According to Shane, "We did nearly as well with John as we did with Dave."[45] Six of the group's next seven albums between 1961 and 1963 continued to place in Billboard's Top Ten and several of the group's most successful singles, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and "Greenback Dollar", charted as well.[46]
The situation became intolerable for all concerned, and Dave Guard resigned from the Kingston Trio in April 1961, though pledging to fulfill group commitments through November of that year. Shane, Reynolds, and Werber bought out Guard's interest in the partnership for $300,000[32] to be paid over a number of years and moved to replace him immediately. The remaining Trio partners settled quickly on John Stewart, a 21-year-old member of the Cumberland Three, one of the myriad of groups that sprang up hoping to imitate the Kingston Trio's success. Stewart was already well-acquainted with Reynolds and Shane, having sold two of his early songwriting efforts to the Trio, and he was a proficient guitarist, banjoist, and singer who seemed to the partners to be perfectly positioned to replace Guard.[26] Stewart began rehearsing and recording with the group nearly immediately, commencing public appearances with the Trio in September 1961.
Furthermore, over $100,000 appeared to be missing from the Trio's publishing royalties (an accounting error eventually rectified)[42] and that created an additional irritant to both sides: to Guard because he regarded it as inexcusable carelessness and to Shane and Reynolds because it highlighted what they perceived as Guard's propensity to claim individual copyright for some of the group's songs,[43] including "Tom Dooley" (though Guard eventually lost a suit over copyright for that number to Alan Lomax, Frank Warner, and Frank Proffitt)[44] and "Scotch and Soda".[43]
Despite the Kingston Trio's nearly unprecedented success in record sales, by early 1961 a rift developed and deepened between Guard on one side and Shane and Reynolds on the other. Guard had been referred to in the press and on the albums' liner notes as the "acknowledged leader" of the group,[9] a description never wholly endorsed by Shane and Reynolds, who felt themselves equal contributors to the group's repertoire and success. Guard wanted Shane and Reynolds to follow his lead and learn more of the technical aspects of music and to redirect the group's song selections,[42] in part because of the withering criticism that the group had been getting from more traditional folk performers for the Trio's smoother and more commercial versions of folk songs and for the money-making copyrights that the Kingston group had secured for their arrangements of public domain songs.[1] Shane and Reynolds felt that the formula for song selection and performance that they had painstakingly developed and rehearsed still served them well.[42]
This was the beginning of a remarkable three-year run for the Trio in which their first five studio albums achieved number 1 chart status and were awarded gold records.[30] By 1961, the group had sold more than eight million records,[31] earning in excess of US$25 million for Capitol,[32] roughly US$190 million in 2014 dollars.[33] The Kingston Trio was responsible for 15 per cent of Capitol's total sales[32] when Capitol also recorded among many other popular artists Frank Sinatra[34] and Nat "King" Cole,[35] both of whom were also producing high-charting profitable albums. One indication of the Kingston Trio's popularity during this era was that for five consecutive weeks in November and December 1959, four Kingston Trio albums ranked in the top ten of Billboard's Top LPs chart,[36][37][38][39][40][41] an accomplishment unmatched by any artist before or since.[4] The Trio also charted several single records during this time, made numerous television appearances, and played upwards of 200 engagements per year.
The success of the album and the single earned the Kingston Trio a Grammy award for Best Country & Western Performance for "Tom Dooley" at the awards' inaugural ceremony in 1959. At the time, no folk music category existed in the Grammy's scheme. The next year, largely as a result of The Kingston Trio and "Tom Dooley",[29] the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences instituted a folk category and the Trio won the first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording for its second studio album At Large.
The album sold moderately well—including on-site sales at the Hungry i during the Kingston Trio's engagement there through the summer—but it was DJs Paul Colburn and Bill Terry at station KLUB in Salt Lake City whose enthusiasm for a single cut on the record spurred the next development in the group's history. Colburn began playing "Tom Dooley" extensively on his show, prompting a rush of album sales in the Salt Lake area by fans who wanted to listen to the song, as yet unavailable as a single record.[26] Colburn called other DJs around the country urging them to do the same, and national response to the song was so strong that a reluctant Capitol Records finally released the tune as a 45rpm single on August 8, 1958; it reached the number 1 spot on the Billboard chart by late November, sold a million copies by Christmas, and was awarded a gold record on January 21, 1959.[27] "Tom Dooley" also spurred the debut album to a number 1 position on the charts and helped the band earn a second gold record for the LP, which remained charted on Billboard's weekly reports for 195 weeks.[28]
The group's first album, Capitol T996 The Kingston Trio, was recorded over a three-day period in February 1958 and released in June that year, just as the Trio was beginning its engagement at the Hungry i. Gilmore had made two important supervisory decisions as producer — first, to add the same kind of "bottom" to the Trio's sound that he had heard in live performance and consequently recruiting Purple Onion house bassist Buzz Wheeler to play on the album, and second to record the group's songs without the secondary orchestral accompaniment that was nearly universal (even for folk-styled records) at the time.[24] The song selections on the first album reflected the repertoire that the musicians had been working on for two years—re-imagined traditional songs inspired by The Weavers like "Santy Anno" and "Bay of Mexico," calypso-flavored tunes reminiscent of the hugely popular Harry Belafonte recordings of the time such as "Banua" and "Sloop John B", and a mix of both foreign language and contemporary songwriter numbers, including Terry Gilkyson's "Fast Freight" and "Scotch and Soda", whose authorship remains unknown as of 2015.[25]
At the same time, Werber was attempting to leverage the Trio's popularity as a club act into a recording contract. Both Dot Records and Liberty Records expressed some interest, but each proposed to record the Trio on 45 rpm (revolutions per minute) singles only, whereas Werber and the Trio members both felt that 33⅓ rpm albums had more potential for the group's music.[23] Through Jimmy Saphier, agent for Bob Hope who had seen and liked the group at The Purple Onion, Werber contacted Capitol Records, which dispatched prominent producer Voyle Gilmore to San Francisco to evaluate the Trio's commercial potential.[20] On Gilmore's strong recommendation, Capitol signed the Kingston Trio to an exclusive seven-year deal.[20]
The first major break for The Kingston Trio came in late June 1957 when comedienne Phyllis Diller canceled a week-long engagement at The Purple Onion club in San Francisco. When Werber persuaded the club's owner to give the untested Trio a chance, Guard sent out five hundred postcards to everyone that the three musicians knew in the Bay Area[20] and Werber plastered the city with handbills announcing the engagement.[21] When the crowds came, the Trio had been well prepared by months of work, and they achieved such local popularity that the initial week's engagement stretched to six months.[22] Werber built upon this initial success, booking a national club tour in early 1958 for the Trio that included engagements at such prominent night spots as Mister Kelly's in Chicago, the Village Vanguard in New York, Storyville in Boston, and finally a return to San Francisco and its showcase nightclub, the Hungry i, in June of that year.
Werber imposed a stern training regimen on Guard, Shane, and Reynolds, rehearsing them for six to eight hours a day for several months, sending them to prominent San Francisco vocal coach Judy Davis to help them learn to preserve their voices, and working on the group's carefully prepared but apparently spontaneous banter between songs. At the same time, the group was developing a varied and eclectic repertoire of calypso, folk, and foreign language songs, suggested by all three of the musicians though usually arranged by Guard[13] with some harmonies created by Reynolds.[19]
The four drew up a contract as equal partners in Werber's office in San Francisco, deciding first on the name "Kingston Trio" because it evoked, through its association with Kingston, Jamaica, the calypso music popular at the time, and second on the uniform of three-quarter-length sleeved vertically striped shirts that the group hoped would help their target audience of college students to identify with them.[18]
[17] Shane, who had been performing part-time as a solo act at night in Honolulu, readily assented and returned to the mainland in early March 1957.[15]
Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Pop music, Singing
San Diego, The Kingston Trio, The Beach Boys, Folk music, Bob Shane


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Henrik Stenson is relishing a return to the Ryder Cup and a bid to replace Tiger Woods as World Number One after securing an historic double in stunning style with victory in the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
Stenson became the first man to win The European Tour's Race to Dubai and FedEx Cup on the US PGA Tour in the same year thanks to a commanding six-shot triumph at Jumeirah Golf Estates.
The 37 year old carded a flawless closing 64, signing off in style with a tap-in eagle on the 18th, to finish with a tournament record total of 25 under par, with money list rival Ian Poulter a valiant second following a 66.
"It took a little time to sink in when I won the FedEx and it just kept on feeling better and better as time went on, and I'm sure this will be the same," said Stenson, who won the Tour Championship in Atlanta to seal the FedEx Cup title and US$10million bonus.
"I have managed to achieve something very special here this week. To get the double-double, winning the Tour Championship on both the tours, that's going to take some beating in the future. It's been a dream year, a dream summer for me, and the season of my life."
Stenson has gone through two major career slumps, the most recent one leaving him 230th in the world rankings at the start of 2012, but solidified his position as World Number Three and closed the gap on Masters champion Adam Scott and Woods above him.
"Everyone who has won The Race to Dubai has been World Number One at some point - Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer, Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy - so it wouldn't be fair not to try," Stenson added.
"It's going to take a lot more good golf but I am certainly going to keep on trying."
Stenson was part of the record-equalling Ryder Cup victory at the K Club in 2006 and also Europe's last defeat at Valhalla in 2008.
Next year's captain Paul McGinley felt the Swede was 85 per cent certain of a place in the team for Gleneagles following his FedEx Cup triumph, so Sunday's win has surely sealed the deal.
"That was one of my big goals, to try and get some points on the board early for The Ryder Cup," added Stenson, who secured the winning point in 2006.
"Some of the greatest moments in my career were in The Ryder Cup and then I missed out twice. I was always going to try hard to make it back on the team for Gleneagles and if we are not cemented, we are pretty close to it."
Also on the agenda will be a first Major title, with Stenson looking to become the first male Swedish player to win one of the game's four biggest prizes.
"I don't know how I am going to be able to top this next year but I am going to give my best in the Majors and that would be the icing on the cake," he said.
Stenson also had the added satisfaction of winning $100 from Poulter after keeping the Englishman behind him on the money list, with Poulter also having to act as Stenson's personal waiter on a night out as part of the wager.
Poulter, who fittingly was one of the first to congratulate Stenson after waving a white towel in surrender on the 18th, said: "I have to take my hat off to him, unbelievable. I tried to run him down as hard as I could but - even with a sore wrist - he has pressed on and I just could not get close enough.
"Henrik has not made a mistake all week and I just had to make sure of second place and some valuable Ryder Cup points. I have thrown a lot at him and given him so much stick, but he is the best player on the planet right now."
|Player name
|STENSON, Henrik
|POULTER, Ian
|DUBUISSON, Victor
|LUITEN, Joost
|MCILROY, Rory
|DONALD, Luke


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Role of ICTs in the Health Sector in Developing Countries: A Critical Review of Literature
This paper explores the domain of literature on information systems or electronic health (e-health) in the rural healthcare in developing countries. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to the development informatics community literature by bridging a knowledge gap. Based on secondary data, the study analyses the key policy debates and presents previous research finding. It shows that ICTs play a marginal role in access to health information due to the health vulnerabilities and limited information resources of the poor. This paper concludes that no ICTs will work in a resource-poor setting unless livelihood-based approach is intervened.
Electronic health; Data-information-knowledge; Access to information; Millennium development goals; Information-centered ICTs; Developing countries.


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BOLIVIA—Jury selection is complete for the trial of a Supply man accused of kidnapping and raping two teenage girls in 2001.
Opening arguments are expected to begin at 2:15 today.
Forty-nine-year-old Larry Raynor is accused of kidnapping two girls, then 15-and-16-years-old, from the east end of Ocean Isle Beach, where they were vacationing in June 2001.
The Brunswick Beacon does not identify victims of sexual assault.
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HF015 – Horizontal Flow 015 – 2 Horizontal Splits
Flows are the most widely used design element/framework in presentations: steps, cause and effect, definition, process, progression, etc. Because flow applications are so broad, they need to developed in a tremendous number of variations in order to illustrate an exact message. Think carefully about the message you are attempting to convey and search for the PowerFramework that is best suited for the purpose.
Use this framework with other frameworks or on its own. Series hf003, hf015, and hf019 are designed to be used together. The width and length sizing is exactly the same for all, but the number of horizontal segments varies. The horizontal segments of the arrow make it easy to highlight or color code sections of the whole, if desired.
Key search words: flow, sequence, functions, process, steps, chevron, boat, horizontal, slice
This image is provided to show one example of how you could use this framework in a presentation.
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Subscribe To Ubisoft Experiments In Arab Culture; No Arab Specific Games Coming Yet Updates
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One of the things I always found staggering in the games space is the lack of acknowledgment of Arab culture... or at least, tossing such a recognized culture a bone and letting players take up the role of an Arab that isn't a turban-wearing terrorist. Well, we just might get that at some point thanks to Ubisoft.
Gamepolitics picked up a neat little article from The National that details Ubisoft's travels to the middle-east, where they are attempting to find ways to meet a middle ground in which some of their games can be ported to the mostly Muslim territory and Arabic markets.
This "experiment" of sorts started when the heads at Ubisoft decided to open an office in Abu Dhabi back in 2011 where 30 or so odd employees are trying to find ways to bridge the gap between the French-Canadian studio and the middle-eastern world.
Studio general manager Yannick Theler commented about their current business position, saying...
"That's what we want to break into,"... "Try to understand how the Arabic people play games and try to localize the games if we can. There is potential here. They play games and buy games already, but localizing the products will bring us closer to the people."
Localization, as some of you know, can be a real difficult undertaking for a studio depending on which language it's being localized from and which territory it's being localized to. Ubisoft understands the difficulty of the situation, which is why they're actually ramping up their office priorities in Abu Dhabi by expanding the employment pool by 100 heads between the next three to five years.
According to Ubisoft's Abu Dhabi operations manager, Vincent Douvier, he explained that...
"I noticed there was a black spot that was the Arab world, and I was intrigued by it," ... "I thought 'either there is nothing there, that's why there is a black hole, or there is something and it's a well-kept secret.'"
Ubisoft isn't the first company to note a "black spot" in the Arab world... Game Power 7 had originally jumped on the opportunity to explore localizing games for middle-east gamers in Arab and African territories since 2009, just a few years before Ubisoft opened their offices in Abu Dhabi.
However, one of the more difficult aspects of the localization process is that games have to be completely retooled from the UI to the game dialogue to support Arabic lexicography. Douvier further explains that...
"We take into account the flow of reading Arabic. My reflexes push my eyes up and left, whereas most Arabs look right to left, meaning the interface of the game should be changed."
Now that's a real job right there... trying to condense or reconfigue specific games to fit within a certain cultural demarcation.
Mover over, the obvious question that springs to mind is "Why not just make Arab-centric games with an Arab protagonist?" such an obvious question already had an obvious answer: money.
Right now it's not suitable to take a risk on a large venture in a growing market, but it's certainly not out of the question. For now, Ubisoft hopes to bring some form of saturation to the middle-east by porting Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag to the territory, and they plan on continuing to expand the Abu Dhabi offices and reach out to the middle-east gaming community with a new Arab-centric Facebook page.


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How video views are counted
YouTube video views reflect how many times a video has been watched and can be an important measure of a video's overall popularity.
We want to make sure that videos are being viewed by actual humans and not computer programs. During the first couple of hours after a video has been published, we'll only show views that our systems believe to be valid. This might not yet show all legitimate views at that time.
After quality views are counted, view count updates more frequently. The process of including all quality views can take some time depending on a video's popularity and viewership. Afterward, the view count updates more frequently, but keep in mind that we're constantly validating views, so view count can always be adjusted.
Frozen view count
On some videos, the view count might seem frozen or not show all the views that you expect. Video views are algorithmically validated to maintain fair and positive experiences for content creators, advertisers, and users. To verify that views are real and accurate, YouTube may temporarily slow down, freeze, or adjust the view count, as well as discard low-quality playbacks.
Check views with YouTube Analytics
If you're looking at a video you uploaded, you can monitor your views more closely using YouTube Analytics. However, keep in mind that the Realtime report only shows estimates of potential view activity and might not match the number you see on the watch page.


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ORIENTAL � Bright sunshine after lots of rainy days seemed to say a lot about a Friday groundbreaking for a home to be built for an injured Marine with family in Nature's Run subdivision.
ORIENTAL � Bright sunshine after lots of rainy days seemed to say a lot about a Friday groundbreaking for a home to be built for an injured Marine with family in Nature's Run subdivision.
The1,800-square-foot home with garage and screened porch is to be built to unique specifications of a yet unselected wounded Marine. The house is expected to ready by Christmas with the help of all who are willing on a lot donated by Russ and Karen Richard.
A tent set up across Nature's Run Drive fronting Kershaw Road couldn't cover all the neighbors and area leaders supporting a venture by North Carolina-based Military Missions in Action's American Heroes Home Build Project on the lot in the subdivision on Dawson Creek.
The nearly 100 people standing to hear Liz Wagley sing the national anthem and watch Cherry Point air station Marine Sgt. Rico Rose and Sgt. Nathan Zatezalo raise the U.S. flag up a pole already constructed on the vacant lot spilled into open area across street from the lot on which the home will be built.
They were challenged to make Friday the first of many trips to the site by guest speaker Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, MMIA founder Michael Dorman of Fuquay-Varina, and others including MMIA Chairman Jim Riley 2012 Chairman Jim Breece and Rep. Michael Speciale, R-Craven.
Organization founder and executive director, Dorman was recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Barack Obama for his efforts to help veterans with disabilities achieve independent living as well as supporting service men and women and their families.
He urged all those attending to remember, �the key word in MMIA's name is �action.� The mission is about fulfilling dreams and only working together can we make the dreams come true.�
Riley said that in the organization is more than five years and that it has contributed $2.5 million to better the lives of those who served and sacrificed for us �so grab a hammer.�
Sanderson said there has already been a lot of action that �makes be proud to be a Pamlico Countian� as the first such home to be built with mostly volunteer labor and donated funds for a wounded hero is built in 2013.
�By Christmas is a pretty stringent timetable,� he said, asking �where do I sign up� to contribute any effort for which he is capable and suited.
There was a sign-up sheet on a table under the tent and others can volunteer for the MMIA American Heroes Home Build at militarymissionsinaction.org or by calling 919-552-1603 or 910-603-5999.
Russ and Karen Richard are a New Jersey couple, both successful former business people, who settled in Pamlico abut 2 1/2 years ago to retire.
Russ Richard, a former mechanical contractor and a Vietnam era Navy veteran who worked in a ship boiler room, said, �We're not very good at retiring.�
Fate threw them another opportunity here and they want to make it count. They donated one of the 23 lots in the subdivision under development by Russ with contractor David Sawyer for MMIA to use in its American Heroes Home Build effort, one of six programs to those wounded military action in all branches as well as their families.
Others are Operation Building Hope, Homes For Healing, Military Child Access Assistance Program, Fill The Footlocker and Operation Warrior Golf.
MIMA solicits donations, both financial and in kind, and will help coordinate volunteer labor much like the Habitat for Humanity, for the American Heroes Home Build.
Breece, a 29-year Navy veteran, said they want this home for a wounded male or female Marine and their family because this is an area with Marine Corps bases and retirees.
Sue Book can be reached at 252-635-5665 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow her on Twitter@SueJBook.


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Preserving Mediterranean's cork
Geographical location:
Europe/Middle-East > Europe General
Europe/Middle-East > North Africa > Algeria
Europe/Middle-East > North Africa > Morocco
Europe/Middle-East > North Africa > Tunisia
Europe/Middle-East > Southern Europe > Italy
Europe/Middle-East > Southern Europe > Portugal
Europe/Middle-East > Southern Europe > Spain
Europe/Middle-East > West Central Europe > France
Mediterranean cork oak forests host a rich diversity of wildlife, including Iberian lynx, imperial eagle and Barbary Deer. They are also a vital source of income for many people who sustainably harvest the trees for wine corks. But as demand for cork products fall in favour of alternative wine stoppers, cork oak forests may be abandoned and precious habitats could be lost.
WWF is working with local communities throughout the region to protect and restore these unique forests. This involves promoting products from sustainably managed cork oak forests and publicizing, especially within the wine industry, the environmental and economic value of cork stoppers.
Extending over a surface of about 2,700,000 ha in 7 Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia and France), the cork oak forest ecosystems are typically mosaics of mixed forest habitat types and woodlands, highly diverse scrub communities and very rich species composition pastures. They are spread over large areas with low human impact and high plant and fauna diversity value. The cork oak is emblematic of the landscape, but other forest species, such as holm oak, zen oak, and pine, are also important.
Cork oak forest landscapes represent one of the best Mediterranean examples of the development of the multi-functional role of forests, maintained over thousands of years. In these landscapes high conservation value forest areas alternate with multipurpose farmland systems, which integrate extensive agriculture, forestry, grazing, hunting, and other recreational uses.
Well managed cork oak forests provide valuable ecological functions such as the conservation of soil, buffering against climate change and desertification, water table recharge and run-off control. These functions are still not fully valued and forest managers do not yet receive compensation for maintaining these services.
In Southern Europe, the population drift from rural areas has reduced the availability of labour for farming and forestry. Intensive mechanised land use, such as irrigated crops and plantations of exotic forest species, has replaced the traditional cork oak forest landscape in many areas. In the countries of North Africa, there is increasing pressure on cork oak landscapes for more intensive land use such as pasture and agriculture as well as forestry.
1. Ensure that key actors from the cork producing countries are able to address key issues in the cork oak landscapes: good practice, policy and advocacy, and the market chain.
2. Develop, endorse and test good conservation and management practices by major actors in priority cork oak forest landscapes.
3. Increase market demand for cork forest products that supports sustainable cork oak forest landscapes and economically viable local communities.
4. Adapt key national and international land use policy instruments to support good governance and funding mechanisms for cork oak forest management, protection and restoration.
WWF MedPO's previous work in the ecoregion has created conditions for drawing up the WWF network's cork land strategy and to begin its implementation by undertaking the first 5-year cork oak forest programme.
The programme is built on 3 main modules that help to address the root causes behind degradation of the cork oak landscapes:
1. Good practices (developing guidelines for good practices, demonstration models and projects).
2. Policy and advocacy (analyse the impacts of the different policies and develop recommendations to influence policy change, develop lobbying plans and implement them).
3. Markets (footprint): drive the good practices thorugh the markets chain, using the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification as a tool, lobbying the cork industry to commit to responsible purchasing.
- Public commitments from big cork industry players to FSC certiifcation.
- Pilot FSC certification projects ongoing in Portugal and Spain, and also Italy.
- Through its restoration projects in Southern Portugal, WWF built important partnerships with NGOs and the national commission for restoration in Portugal. The latter will use the forest landscape restoration (FLR) guidelines in its national plan for restoration of burned areas.


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Monday, July 5, 2010
Memory Monday: Iced Tea
"Got any tea?" This was often a greeting, or at least a response to a greeting, in my home town of Seymour, Texas. You knocked on your relative's/neighbor's/friend's door, they answered "Why, hello! Come on in!" and you asked "Got any tea?" Only it was pronounced more like "Gotneetea?"
This was the South, so we are not referring to hot tea, but iced tea ("ice tea"), the nectar of the South. And it was always sweet. However, contrary to the belief of many Northerners – who may only have experienced presweetened tea in chain restaurants or out of bottles – homemade iced tea is not icky sweet. To avoid "icky sweet" tea in restaurants, my husband the New Yorker and I always order our iced tea unsweetened and then add sugar, but it does not quite get the same effect.
Homemade iced tea had its own little ritual of preparation, and I was surprised when I later learned about Russian tea customs to see that there were actually some points of similarity – well, at least in the preparation. Two separated ingredients are prepared and then combined – the sweet water and the concentrated tea.
The sweet water does not start out cold, because the sugar will not dissolve as well as it does in hot water. Usually very hot water from the tap will be sufficient not to leave any undissolved sugar at the bottom, but you do have to stir for a good while. Ideally the proper combination of sugar and hot water is learned over time in the course of trial and error – it will result in tea that is exactly "sweet enough." We had a clear glass pitcher and an extra large spoon that were reserved solely for making iced tea.
Next comes preparation of the tea concentrate – and this is the part that is like the Russian zavarka. This is an area where most Southerners are not purists when it comes to bag vs. loose tea leaves and a strainer – you can use either. The main thing is to make sure that the tea concentrate is very strong, because you can always add water if it is too strong, but weak tea is, well … pointless.
I remember that Mom and I had a mangy little pot that we used to boil our tea in. It was made of something more sturdy than aluminum, but it was old, small, dark from repeated use, and kind of banged up. But we knew exactly the right amount of water to put in it, so we never used anything else.
While the tea was heating up, we would toss a few ice cubes (not many) into the sugar water to lower the temperature a bit. The tea concentrate was then added and stirred, and a few more ice cubes were added to bring the temperature down again. The result was not iced tea – that's what the ice cubes in the glass were for – but the temperature would be something approaching lukewarm, and that could be moved to the refrigerator without disaster or poured over ice cubes without melting them to the point of weakening the tea too much.
This was the drink over which socializing was done. By socializing I mean talking, and by talking I mean mostly gossiping. This was a small town, after all. If someone came over to visit, the TV and radio were turned off. It was a social convention that I never questioned. Visitors received our full attention, even if they were relatives whom we saw several times a week. And besides, full attention has a way of bringing out the juiciest morsels of information from the speaker.
In the course of a visit, one guest, Mom, and I could polish off a full pitcher of tea and make a significant dent in a second one. Our corner of Texas is very dry and large infusions of liquid are always a good idea.
I miss those leisurely Texas social customs. Visiting wasn't something that was crowded in between work and "activities" – it was the main entertainment and activity outside of work. And to me, "Got any tea?" will always mean "Let's talk!"
11 comments:
Great memories. What Man and I do when we want "sweet tea" at a restaurant where we know it will be almost gaggy sweet is to order half sweet/half regular. Comes out pretty nice, sweet, but not gaggy!ReplyDelete
I remember when we lived in Mass. the first time we ate out my husband let me order tea without explaining what that meant in Mass. He really enjoyed the look on my face when they brought my tea to the table. A cup and tea bag with a pot of HOT water!! He then explained if I wanted iced tea I had to ask for iced tea! What a surprise to me!ReplyDelete
There is nothing more refreshing than iced tea....great post!ReplyDelete
Great memories here too! I grew up drinking unsweetened ice tea (my parents still drink it that way) but my husband, kids and I lived for 5 years in Tampa, Florida and became addicted to sweet tea! Now that we are back in Indiana we either make our own or buy it from Chick-Fil-A. To me that is the closest to REAL sweet tea!ReplyDelete
Great post! I've been making sun tea 2-3 times a week, since the weather is just right for that.ReplyDelete
Carol - That is a great idea - blending the two would be just about right and there would be no sugar left in the bottom.ReplyDelete
Harriet - I was the same way when I went to school in Massachusetts; to me, hot tea was the "other" tea.
Dorene - Glad you enjoyed it; it's funny what strong feelings people have about tea!
Lisa - I'll have to give Chick-Fil-A a try; my husband would be thrilled to find some "good" sweet tea.
Amanda - We used to make sun tea, too; we'll have to get back to that. It really does get the concentration just right.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I have great memories of ice tea, a staple of the hot summer. I for some reason did not like sugar in my tea so my mom made it without and she added for herself.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 6, 2010 at 11:58 PM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.ReplyDelete
hummer - when the tea is really strong and tasty, I can sometimes drink it without sugar, too. With or without sugar, it's my favorite "energy drink" in the summer.ReplyDelete
As a bonified sweet tea drinker from the south-I loved this post : )ReplyDelete
I'd rather have sweet tea anytime over a softdrink. And there are actually foods that I must must have sweet tea with-or I'd just as soon not eat them : )
Me and everybody I know makes sweet tea-but I still remember how my Mamaw's tasted and wish I had some of hers.
Oh, Tipper, there is just nothing like Southern iced tea. And you're right - there are some foods that just have to have tea (fried catfish is one of mine that works that way).ReplyDelete